Indiscretion

A/N: Well, school's finally over for the semester, so maybe I'll get better about updating more frequently. As a peace offering, I present this. There is sex. Enjoy.

A Swirl of Leaves in the Distance

Chorus: O verdant joy not long withstanding, that fleet-felt reminiscence of halcyon days past—Bring unto weary travelers long-desired and longer-sought rest. Lead them to lie in life-filled fields by meandering streams; guide them along the true and righteous path and keep them safe from those who would harm them—For they are your chosen ones: the keepers of the light which must not go out. Though not easily extinguished, already it wavers on the border of death and darkness.

Be unto them as a lamp in the dark woods, and reveal the path before them. . .

A lake, a lark, a long, alight—bright sparks and a sheen announced vicariously their arrival near the tail-shaped river. It babbled and gushed and rushed, this river, this stream, and the sound of it—water hitting rock, hitting itself—was not unpleasant to them. They stood for a moment in confusion as to where they were, but apathy soon dismantled any former curiosity. They wouldn't be there for long, they figured, so why bother? The grass below was soft and pliant, perfect for sitting, for rest. Lucien discovered this, tentatively, carefully, distrustfully. His hands sifted through thick clumps a small radius away from his person.

Aiden was not so welcoming. He sat, initially, on a rock. Its surface was covered in a dark, damp moss, and no part of it indicated that it had ever moved. A slight concavity extended along the side, and Aiden's hand played fitfully with the moss there dangling. On his face he wore an expression of forced nonchalance, which, overall, brought even more attention to his stress than he would have liked.

“You okay?” Lucien asked, plaintively, cautiously, hesitantly, with the intimation of motion, of rising in his companion's direction.

“Hmm?” he said in reply. “Yeah, I'm fine.” He sighed. “Just tired.”

Lucien rose gently in one motion both fluid and fervent. “What's wrong?” he said as he walked, but he was over where Aiden was before he even had time to finish it, stood behind him as the last sound left his lips and reached Aiden's ears, placed a hand, an arm, in a light embrace around his neck, moved his head down next to Aiden's, leaning temple to temple.

Above them sat a benign moon. Rays of moonlight danced with the tide in a glistening, if brief, ballet. Pale light surrounded them, engulfed them wholly and cast a serene shadow over the scene.

“I guess the loss is just now hitting me,” Aiden said at long last, though his tone revealed he hadn't wanted to. “Everyone either of us has ever known is dead. We'll never see them again. It's just. . .” He wasn't even sure how to finish.

“That's no excuse to go all emo on me, though. C'mon,” Lucien said, “there're better ways to deal with grief than just moping around.”

“Here,” he continued, “get up.”

Aiden stood. Lucien led him to the river's edge, where in the distance they could see the deep, growing foliage on the other side. An inscrutable green spread for miles away from them, and Lucien sat the both of them down to gaze at it.

“See that?” He indicated the forest. “That wasn't always there. Before, there was probably just a field, and before that a bunch of rocks. But it's become the forest we see now, and in the future it'll be something else. The trees'll die along with the animals, and they'll all be replaced by something else, and it'll keep on doing that until something happens. A fire, maybe, or a storm. It'll stop being, the forest or whatever else it's become by then. But that just starts the cycle over again. Or something.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“That's the best I've got. I'm only fifteen, remember?”

Aiden nodded with nary a sound or a grunt in response, lest his voice betray the deeper workings of his mind any more than it already had.

“You know,” Lucien said with the forbearance of apprehension apparent in his intonation, “I don't think I ever said this before, but, you know, I really did enjoy. . . you know. . .” He dared not utter the word, that confluence of vocal permutations encapsulating within a single syllable the basest nature of the human condition—a condition which, it must be said, elicits embarrassment from most.

“I still think that was a waste,” Aiden said. “You should never just throw a thing like that away. I'm sorry for what I've put you through.”

“That was my fault, remember? I was the one—”

“You had no idea what the hell you were getting in to. I did. It was my responsibility as the adult.”

“I'm not a child,” he said, defiantly. “I don't need someone to look after me everywhere I go.”

They were looking at each other now, had been for some time, eyes never leaving the other.

“I could have said no at any time, but I didn't. I wanted it, and you wanted it too, as I recall.”

“I guess we'll just have to disagree on that, then.”

“You just don't get it, do you?”

“Get what?”

What immediately followed was not said; rather, it was done. Lucien moved, closed the distance between the two and pressed his lips against Aiden's. The boy was on top of Aiden now, straddling him and holding him and kissing him all at once in a show of force and power and control heretofore unknown from him.

A parting of lips to allow for breath, for words.

“You're pretty clueless to be the experienced one,” Lucien said. A hand to the left—Aiden's left—felt along Aiden's ribs through his shirt, rubbed enticingly and knowingly down a path heading ever downwards, till a sudden break to the right—Aiden's, again—and up, this time underneath and skin on skin. “You know, I never really ascribed to the whole top or bottom thing. I prefer to mix it up. At least, that's what I've done in my mind until now. I'd like to test this, if possible. You game?”

“Not that I'm really giving you much choice, though,” he added almost as an afterthought. “You could at least pretend to struggle.”

But Aiden had given up any thought of refusing, could never say no again to him out of obligation and myriad other things that made no logical sense. He tried not to think about it too much, though, tried to occupy his mind elsewise and elsewhere the while, though such a notion never works in practice. Their shirts were both off and on the ground when Aiden wondered how this all was going to work; he didn't much care for the thought of—

Never mind—the boy seemed to be skilled enough with his tongue.

And where the hell did he learn that?

Now pantsless both, and Aiden submissive on top. The boy's back lay flat against the earth much the same as the last time, with Aiden taking over the lead where the boy was less familiar with the learned intricacies of intercourse. His face was pure ecstasy upon first penetrating, and Aiden guided and moved himself as best he knew how. His own skin burrowed into the grass's softness as he moved up and down and up again.

Lucien went first, of course, and Aiden followed not a minute later, collapsed in a heap atop his lover.

“That was fun,” Lucien almost said, but he refrained for fear of spoiling the moment—for Aiden now lay atop his chest with hair disheveled and eyes closed, and he looked peaceful, a look not worn often enough, Lucien thought. A hint, ever so subtle, of a smile played at the edges of his mouth. What he said, with much more seriousness than he would have the other, was this: “Goodnight, my love. Sweet dreams.”

Though whether Aiden was awake and heard he didn't know. He fell asleep to the sight of Aiden's contented face and dreamt of fine, happy things.