"At least I tried," Kana sniggered, hair tickling Elstrin's chest as he settled down comfortably in the dark. "Between you and me, I think…"
"What?"
Kana was quiet for a long while, but the steady tickling sweep of his eyelashes on Elstrin's skin told him he wasn't asleep. Finally, he murmured, "Never mind."
"No, tell me. Why are there ghosts in an army base?"
"What I said before, about backbone. Applies to other things too, you know. Like… it's been three months—"
"Kana. Just answer me for once. Please."
"Nah. It'll get you into trouble. Your lieutenant is too smart for his own good. Reads people like books. He'll know I told you."
Elstrin heaved a frustrated sigh. "Are you a criminal, Kana?"
"What? No! Well… actually, kind of. I've stolen, assaulted and bribed. Does underage sex count? Consensual and safe but still—"
"No, all that is petty stuff. If you're not wanted by the police for any seriously illegal shit, if
you're not dangerous, then why are you so… so cagey? We're friends, aren't we? Why can't you trust me?"
"Friends," Kana snorted, pulling back, and the pale gleam of his eyes flicked away as he stared at the blanket stretched over them. "Sure. We're friends."
"That's what you said after the party. Only I don't think you're doing a very good job of it. I know nothing about you. Your family, your friends, your home—you never talk about them."
Kana didn't reply for a few moments. "I'm trying to be responsible," he mumbled at last. "I used
to not care, believe me. If you'd somehow met me two years ago I'd have probably started bragging about sixteen different ways you can nab a guy's wallet, taken you downtown to poke at one-o-clocks, taught you little black magic tricks that will get you sentenced without parole if a cop saw you doing them. Taught you how to get out of handcuffs and hide when you did get arrested. Used to. But in here… I'm sure you understand the feeling. That wonderful feeling of having your slate wiped clean, coming in here where nobody knows you and you're just another dude trying to become a soldier. Fresh start. I'm trying to do that, Elstrin."
"You're overdoing it," Elstrin said flatly.
"How would you know?" Kana demanded, flipping the blanket back so light rushed in, propping himself up on an elbow to glare down at him, expression suddenly harsh and bitter. Masks down for a second, and seeing it made Elstrin feel privileged, of all things. "Maybe your fresh start is something as simple as training until your arms fall off. You're just a good little city kid. All the shit I've been through and enjoyed, destructive as it was—that's not easy to kick. So excuse me if I don't tell you more about spirits and magic. I'm being careful. Maybe too careful, but if it won't get you into jail, then being 'cagey' around you is worth it."
Elstrin opened his mouth to argue, but then Kana's words sank in and he paused. He was tense
and still, watching Elstrin closely for his reaction, but despite his anger he hadn't moved away as
Elstrin expected him to. Hell, they were still under the same blanket, on the same bed. Nervous.
Kana was nervous. The realisation almost made Elstrin laugh. Oh, it was so simple now that he saw
the big picture. All those months ago when Snow had broken his rib and Kana had muttered yes
sir like he didn't even hear him, then the very next day Elstrin had fought him without even needing
to dodge a single fist. And after that, an unprompted willingness to share several pieces of
knowledge about spirits, not enough to completely satisfy Elstrin's curiosity, but living up to his
promise anyhow. And after that—nothing. Not a single mention of all those secrets he obviously
held, no more casual stories of his adventures in the slums or in Lupalia, clammed up behind his
easygoing demeanour. Just to stop Elstrin from asking questions. For all Elstrin knew there could be
ten more spirits anchored to him (though he sure hoped not) and Kana wasn't saying anything—
because the dismissal down at the city had hurt him, and Kana clearly didn't want it to happen again.
Overdoing it, but doing it for him.
That kiss from last week's party, and what happened afterwards. Elstrin had done nothing in return, and now he felt like crap. God, he was daft. He tried to blame it on never dating anyone before, and failed. Three months. Kana was right—he'd been too focused on training to even notice the obvious.
"Um," Kana said, clearly misinterpreting his silence, some sort of bewildered, desperate panic worming into his gaze. "I'm sorry for ranting like that. It's just—I don't want—"
"I know. Shut up," Elstrin told him, grabbing the back of his neck to yank him down, swallowing Kana's surprised exclamation as he sealed their mouths together. Kissing him while sober was even better than how Elstrin remembered. He felt it all—his taste, that perfect soft-firm strength of his lips, the large hands that fell automatically over his shoulders as Kana shifted close, bearing down upon him. Elstrin put a hand on his chest so they broke apart, just a centimetre. A foolish grin threatened to surface and Elstrin battled it down, remembering he was supposed to be kicking himself for being so obtuse. "I'm sorry too," he said. "We're even."
Kana stared, eyes wide and flustered and hopeful. "You mean—"
"Yeah. Took me three months, but I finally got it through my good little city kid's head."
He laughed, a small relieved burst, and leaned their foreheads together, noses touching. "I meant that in a nice way, really."
"Mm. I hope you don't think I'm too good for you or something. I missed dinners too, you know, back home."
"That bad, huh," Kana breathed, lowering his body so his chest pressed onto Elstrin's sternum. "Ever not eat for two days straight? Three? Four?"
"Four? No, of course not. Did you—oh," Elstrin uttered, abruptly losing his concerned train of thought when Kana's leg slipped between his thighs and rolled forwards.
"I've gone six days. A couple packets of crackers in between don't count," he whispered, lips brushing Elstrin's with every tiny movement, sliding down with just the right pressure. His voice had lost that fearful, tenuous edge, becoming coy and teasing in a matter of seconds. "Still a city kid. But no, I don't think that. Do you?"
"Ah—course not," Elstrin managed, fingers resting motionless over Kana's muscled back, afraid to stop the measured grinding of his leg on his crotch. "Um, I—"
"Never done this before?"
"No—never had a—a boyfriend."
Kana smiled slowly like a lazy cat. "Neither have I."
"Really?" That at least stunned him enough for him to form a more coherent sentence. "I find that hard to believe. How'd you get so good?" Elstrin snapped his mouth shut immediately after blurting the question, face heating up. Kana laughed low in his throat.
"Thank you, darling. Oh, I practice a lot. Lots and lots and lots. Just never found the right person to go out with."
"Oh. And am… am I—"
"We'll have to see, won't we?" Kana murmured, finally closing that tiny, maddening distance between them, lips locking onto his in a scorching kiss. Elstrin responded in kind, sliding his palms down Kana's side, around his hips. When he forced a hand between them and squeezed lightly, Kana groaned, moving on to suck on his neck, under his chin, and Elstrin craned his head back to make room, steadily kneading the bulge in his palm. He enjoyed the new, breathy sounds Kana was making, the sensation of moist lips kissing their way over his collar and chest. Teeth teased at his nipple and he arched up with a gasp, toes curling. Fuck, that was good.
"More," Elstrin said automatically, tangling his hands in thick black hair. Kana chuckled against him and flicked his tongue, sending electric racing through Elstrin's groin.
Hands rubbing wide circles over Elstrin's hips, Kana asked, "What d'you wanna do?"
"Oh, ah… this—this is fine." He gulped when Kana smirked and moved down to nibble on the waistband of his boxers, fingers hooking ar
ound it to pull it slowly down. "Or I could… you know. Or you could—oh, fuck."
Kana hummed agreement, mouth hot as a furnace around Elstrin, lips and tongue sliding over
him in a steady, rhythmic pattern, his hand grasping and pumping where he couldn't reach. Like last time, Elstrin couldn't think. There just wasn't room in his brain anymore. All he could do was gasp and feel and somehow resist the overwhelming urge to thrust his hips up, because that was rude, though Kana probably wouldn't mind because soon he was halfway down his fucking throat— Elstrin made an embarrassing noise and forced his fingers to relax before he could rip out Kana's hair.
Quietly, Kana pulled back, coughed a little and crawled up to kiss Elstrin again, lips stretching into a grin. "What were you saying?" he mumbled.
Elstrin really didn't want to stop kissing, but Kana seemed adamant on getting an answer, turning his face away with a smirk. "God dammit, come back here," Elstrin commanded. He took advantage of the reprieve anyway to dip his palms into Kana's boxers, feeling the smooth skin there.
"But what d'you want to do?" Kana asked, letting Elstrin carefully ease his boxers away. Elstrin stared. From his limited angle, he was almost certain Kana hadn't ever been exaggerating. His cock looked huge. It rubbed a little against Elstrin's thigh as he kicked the boxers off, hot and hard, and Elstrin licked his lips unconsciously at the sensation. Kana's voice interrupted him. "Sixty-nine?"
The blatant suggestion wasn't quite innocent enough to hide the obvious want behind it. Wordlessly, Elstrin nodded. He'd never done it before, but he had a feeling he wouldn't be disappointed.
He wasn't, of course. Whatever awkwardness, hesitation, nervousness or self-consciousness he felt was quickly erased when it became clear Kana didn't really appear to care about technique. Elstrin knew he wasn't absolute crap, but he was very out of practice, though he seemed more than adequate for Kana, who moaned softly around his cock when Elstrin tentatively went down on him. He picked up the pace easily enough. He enjoyed it, enjoyed the hot, silky glide and faintest taste of rainwater and salt—though perhaps not as much as Kana, who moved at such a balanced, deep pace that he could only be described as hungry. The observation sent a bolt of liquid electric through Elstrin's spine, and suddenly he was gasping, hips jerking as his arousal spiked to an unbearable point. He disengaged his mouth as fast as he could, gripped desperately at Kana's thighs as he choked out half a warning before he came, so intensely that white noise drowned out his cry in his own ears.
He flopped down over his pillow, panting, and forced his eyes back open. Kana was sitting up, wiping an arm over his closed lips, chin and neck dripping. The sight was strongly erotic and a little gross at the same time, and sent a final, lingering pulse down Elstrin's cock. He plucked a random piece of clothing off the bed and offered it to Kana. "Sorry."
"Mm." Kana wiped his face clean, leaned down to kiss him softly. "Good?"
"Fuck yeah," Elstrin murmured, playing with the ends of his dark hair, fingers wandering down to scratch lightly at his chest. Almost automatically, he lowered one hand and started stroking Kana. It just seemed like the right thing to do. Kana half-grinned, eyes heavy-lidded, mumbled something appreciative and nuzzled Elstrin's ear and neck, grinding into his hand lightly. Elstrin leaned his head back to make room, licked his other palm and brought it down as well. Kana exhaled, bit at his throat once, and moved his hips with renewed urgency.
It didn't take long to push him over the edge too. He was a bit more vocal than Elstrin, moaning deliciously and shuddering in his arms, coating his hand and abdomen in stickiness. Elstrin made a face, kissed him and located the boxers from earlier to wipe them off. Then they lay together in silence, cleaned-up but still damp with sweat, Kana smiling for seemingly no real reason, too tired to talk. It was only when Elstrin was drifting off that he noticed the noise of the thunderstorm outside, deafening and wet.
"Fuck," Kana grumbled after a few minutes. It wasn't the happy, astounded kind of 'fuck' that Elstrin had muttered; this one was grouchy.
"What?" Elstrin said, almost unconscious, head resting somewhere beside Kana's chest. "The lights."
Elstrin laughed without opening his eyes. He drifted in that pleasant not-quite-sleep state until Kana nudged him in the knee. Oh. He was on the outside. Groaning, he staggered upright, took the few steps to the front of the room and flipped off the light switch. Dove back into bed, dragged the blanket up and rearranged his limbs as best as could. Thunder crashed loudly right outside their window, making the glass rattle, and he didn't even move. Maybe he'd grown that backbone already. Immensely satisfied by the thought and the warm body folded around his, he fell asleep easily.
Chapter 17
A knife went flying at his face and Vel dodged it easily, darting forwards fast as a snake to bring his own dagger around in a short, quick thrust aimed at Andrew's stomach. His blade was swiped aside at the last moment with a block that jarred his hand, but he'd already smashed the hilt of his other knife down hard on Andrew's shoulder, knocking him back. Andrew ducked his next attack with a curse, shifting back two long strides, and Vel followed relentlessly, slicing his daggers across the air, always a frustrating hair's breadth away from their targets. He was grinning his head off. He couldn't help it. He got to spar with Andrew so rarely that the novelty was invigorating and refreshing. Their instructors hardly ever put them together, probably because they always ended up fooling around right in the middle of the field since neither of them gave a fuck, and because they were evenly matched enough for a spar to potentially rival the infamously gruelling duels that Lieutenant Snow forced Elstrin into most days.
Also because their little rule was that whoever won got to fuck the other senseless that night, no matter how tired they both were. And their instructors most likely had an inkling about that too, since they'd emerge the next morning sporting suspicious bruises and maybe a wince with every step. So Vel usually sparred with other students or lieutenants, people who were vastly less or more skilled than him. Nobody was really level with him apart from Andrew, Kana—who was also banned, because the one time they fought they'd almost killed each other—and Elstrin, who was never available due to his strict training schedule with Snow.
So today, when he was unexpectedly told he'd be training with Andrew for the morning, it had put him in a very good mood. He suspected his lieutenant allowed it as some kind of reward for his—not to be boastful or anything—excellent performance on the field. He'd passed every test spotlessly, and with knives he was sometimes almost able to outmatch a lieutenant wielding a clumsier weapon. Almost. In four months he'd pulled noticeably ahead of most other cadets, and he supposed the instructors liked that. He wasn't doing it intentionally, wasn't pushing himself particularly hard to improve like Elstrin was; he just did what felt best to him. He'd always liked being fast and agile. If that landed him at the top of the class, well, that was an added bonus.
He was spending his time trying to cut his boyfriend into ribbons and not get the same done to him, but that was what made it so fun. Regular training wasn't bad, but sometimes it got a little tedious, and the unfamiliar experiment of sparring with Andrew was just what he needed. They were already an hour in and he still couldn't get himself to stop smiling so much. Vel struck out with both daggers and managed to nick Andrew on the forearm. Andrew retaliated by kicking him in the shin at nearly the exact same moment, and they each staggered back half a step for half a second to recover. Vel laughed a little, panting, and licked the sweat from his top lip in a slow, obvious motion. Andrew's smirk was wide and dangerous. His eyes raked up and down Vel's body once; he raised an eyebrow in unspoken challenge. They paused for a heartbeat longer, then dove back into the fight with renewed frenzy.
It took an hour more for that adrenaline-filled purity of the spar to wear off, until they ceased greedily exploring and exploiting everything new they found about one another, until Vel had revealed and memorised every single one of the tricks Andrew had learnt since they
last duelled, and developed some of his own to counter them. Noon was drawing near when Vel found himself starting to get distracted by the sight of Andrew sweaty and dusty and holding knives, the afternoon sun turning his hazel eyes green and his copper hair golden. When he had to force his legs to propel him back every time they locked blades, instead of stepping up and pressing their bodies together like he wanted to. When he had to resist the urge to stumble a little too close, lower his gaze a little too long, tug his shirt a little too open—anything that suggested something else. The challenge was an entirely different one now—to see who could hold out the longest and pretend it was all still an innocent training session not totally charged with sexual energy.
And Vel was on the edge of giving in because damn Andrew looked absolutely hot right now, when their lieutenants announced the lunch break. Vel snarled and ignored them, lunging for Andrew's neck and missing because he was too mesmerised by the contours of his throat to bother trying to put a knife into it. Andrew shimmied aside, dropped a dagger, grabbed a handful of Vel's hair and yanked his head back roughly.
Vel gasped. His first instinct was to kick and stab and struggle, but before he could do any of those he was being kissed, slick and salty and hard enough to mark. The painful tug on his scalp became a sharp, erotic sting, and the cold scrape of a dagger against his chin only made him moan. He couldn't really breathe and didn't want to, and when Andrew's mouth left his several long seconds later he gulped in a huge lungful of air, light-headed and feeling flushed from head to foot. He stood there, dazed. The knife on his skin pressed down lightly, making him shiver, before lifting away along with the hand in his hair.
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