Chapter 230 - 228: Subtle Drool.

Chapter 230: Chapter 228: Subtle Drool.

​"...Huh, looks like you are that easy after all," Loac snickers, and Khobi’s flickering temper abruptly flares white hot.

​" That’s it – " Khobi explodes hotly, because not even the warmest, comfiest, best night sleep in the world is worth taking crap from this guy.

But before he can fling the blankets off in disgust and go marching back to his cold, shitty corner of the room, one of Loac’s hand lands on the blankets beside him and stops him.

​He doesn’t touch him, though.

​(Khobi notices, and dimly wonders if he’d just miscalculated, or if he’d deliberately avoided doing so.)

​" Hey, Hey–" Loac complains, but there’s something different in his voice again –something that almost sounds like he’s laughing.

Which is impossible. Not to mention strange.

Outside of a fight, or when he’s looking down on him, Khobi’s not sure he’s ever heard this guy laugh before. " –I’m just playing."

He retreats, pulling his hands back nice and slowly so that Khobi can see exactly what he’s doing with them.

Khobi is too fucking tired for this sort of shit, and in the end, the lure of a good night’s sleep wins out over his desire to storm off.

"What’s with you?" he drawls lowly, as he settles back down, "...Always so serious."

​"What’s with you , acting all nice," Khobi growls irritably, flinging himself into his pillow and tugging the blankets up nice and high so that they can best swallow him.

"...It’s not like you at all." He feels the other side of the mattress shift as Loac rolls away from him and adjusts the blankets to his liking.

For some reason it makes the distance between them feel suddenly enormous, and at the same time, not nearly far enough.

​" Tsk ," he huffs dryly, "...What do you know about me?"

​Well.

​He’s got him there.

​Khobi just yanks the blankets up to his nose and doesn’t respond.

​He can’t quite explain it, but things seemed much simpler when Loac just felt cold.

...

It’s the best sleep Khobi’s had in weeks. Maybe even years.

The bed is comfortable and the blankets warm, and he wakes with his body loose and fresh, and feeling better than it has in days.

​It’s a real shame about the wakeup itself.

​A sliver of the dawn falls across his face –bright but without heat –and he blinks lazily, one eye opening and the other buried in the depths of a soft pillow.

Senses hazy with sleep, he can just make out the sound of breathing, just out of time with his own, and as his vision begins to come into focus he can vaguely make out the rough lines of a face, only inches from him.

​Too close .

​One of Loac’s eyes cracks open just enough for Khobi to get a glimpse of deep, brilliant blue before his reflexes get the better of him.

​With an horrified yelp, he shoves him away with all his might.

​Loac must be right on the edge of the bed because he immediately goes tumbling straight off, taking half of the blankets with him.

He hits the floor an instant later with an aggrieved grunt and a muted thud.

​Jolted fully awake, Khobi abruptly comes to in the dead middle of the bed –strange, because he distinctly remembers falling asleep as far from Loac as humanly possible –and when he peers over the edge he finds Loac in a crumpled tangle of blankets, glaring up at him through rumpled hair.

​" Hey , what was that for?" he grizzles, letting the blankets fall away as he rubs his head; looking about as pleased to have been bodily shoved out of his own bed as one would expect.

​Khobi hadn’t noticed last night, but he’s not wearing a shirt.

​And now that he has noticed, it’s really difficult not to.

​(It’s no secret that he’s in good shape. Great shape, even. Khobi’s secure enough –and has seen him naked or thereabouts enough times –to attest to that.)

​He still averts his gaze, and makes sure to scoot to an appropriate distance when Loac clambers back onto the bed and makes himself good and comfortable.

Now that it’s morning and Khobi’s fully awake it feels like it would be weird to just get back into bed with Loac, no matter how comfortable it might be, so he opts to start on with his day.

​"You not coming for breakfast?" he finds himself asking, when Loac makes no indication that he’s going to follow.

Come to think of it, he’s never seen Loac at breakfast before. Or lunch.

​"At this time?" Loac yawns, his abdomen pulling taut as he stretches. Not that Khobi notices, of course, "Too early."

​"Suit yourself," Khobi shrugs, pulling off his sleeping shirt and exchanging it for one of the least ruined ones he likes to wear to training.

"But can you put some clothes on?" he gripes, "You’re making me cold just looking at you."

​(Oddly, it’s almost exactly the opposite.)

​"Then don’t look at me," Loac snorts lazily, tucking his hands behind his head so that his bare chest is fully on display, every dark inch of it.

Scars marr it here and there; some older and knotted, and some fresh and still healing; brushed with red. Some Khobi’s pretty sure were made by him, "Easy."

​Tsk, easy for you to say.

​Wait, what?

​Khobi pushes away the strange stray thought and redirects his efforts into hurling a shirt at Loac.

He catches it without even blinking.

So Khobi throws another at him.

​Which, to Khobi’s annoyance, he also catches.

The third doesn’t fly through the air quite the way he’d intended, and they both watch it fall embarrassingly short.

Loac just quirks an eyebrow at him.

​"...Weren’t you going to breakfast?" he remarks with a snicker, with that same odd undertone of laughter that he’d caught Khobi off guard with the night before.

​It gets him again. And he’s not sure what to make of that.

​"I –ugh, see you at training," Khobi grinds out irritably, grabbing the warmest and least dirty furs he has as he lets the door slam behind him.