Chapter 231 - 229: Back Home?

Chapter 231: Chapter 229: Back Home?

Later that day, they make the same wager.

​This time, Khobi wins.

After such a good night’s sleep he’d been full of energy and fired up.

He never fights badly , but today feels like the crispest he’s fought in quite some time, and it shows.

​True to his word, Loac doesn’t come back to the room that night, and Khobi finally gets the opportunity to bask in the bliss of an enormous bed all to himself.

With Loac on the other side he hadn’t really gotten the chance to take it all in.

It’s big enough and wide enough that he can stretch out to his full height and not have his ankles dangling over any of the edges, and when he flops down into it just after Binny’s finished making it, the blankets are so plush that he just sinks right into them.

​It’s amazing, and as soon as he lets himself relax into it he starts drifting right off.

​(When he gets back home, he’s going to get one just like this. Maybe even bigger, if that’s even possible.)

​Despite another solid night’s sleep he loses the next day, but when night falls and he starts agitatedly shuffling his sad pile of blankets back together into some semblance of a bed, Loac throws a pillow at him.

It hits him in the back of head, but when he whips around to yell at him, he finds Loac already rolled off to one side of the bed, one blue eye trained on him.

​"Don’t be a dumbass," is all he says to him, and flicks the blankets –not enough to be an invitation , exactly –but enough to get his meaning across.

​And Khobi likes that bed. And he likes a good night’s sleep and feeling rested and refreshed after a day being smacked around and smacking other people around.

He likes being warm when he falls asleep and warm if he wakes up in the middle of the night, and waking up without a sore neck and back and shoulders from being frozen to the stone floor.

​It’s been too many years since he had anything that comes close to that.

​So for the sake of his body and his sanity, he sucks it up and gets in the damn bed.

​After that, it stops being a part of their wager.

(Khobi starts asking for the best piece of Loac’s dinner instead.) And after a week and a half, Khobi’s pile of blankets mysteriously disappears from the floor.

Which is funny because while he doesn’t specifically tell Binny about their arrangement and Binny doesn’t ask , it’s clear that he knows .

​And their new, tentative arrangement is...fine.

Not ideal by any means, but better than the alternative.

Khobi stays warm. He sleeps better.

He fights better. Some nights Loac doesn’t even sleep there.

And the nights that he does are...also fine .

For all his thinly veiled innuendos, he keeps to his side and keeps his hands to himself, and if Khobi couldn’t hear him breathing on the other side of the bed he’d barely know he was there at all.

It’s the nights where he disappears after dinner and comes back in the early hours of the morning that Khobi’s not so fond of.

Those are the nights that he comes back in a cold sweat and stinking of perfume, leaving no confusion as to where where he’s been and what –or who, rather –he’s spent his evening doing.

He gets it, to some extent; blowing off some steam with a stranger every now and again.

The soldiers talk quite candidly about it, and he’s been guilty of it in the past too, where he could.

​(He’d quite like to do it again, if he’s being honest.)

​It’s the perfume he can’t get his head around.

His nose can be sensitive, sure, but this stuff is potent ; the heavy kind that makes Khobi’s eyes water and his nose itch and makes his head swim like he’s been drinking, and he doesn’t know how Loac can stand the stuff, or how he can bear reeking of it.

It had always made his stomach turn when he caught a whiff of it from across the room but now that he’s sleeping next to it, it sticks in the blankets and makes him feel like he’s been the one out at a brothel.

​And he tries to be thankful that at least Loac had the decency –if it can be called that –to not bring someone back here –really, he tries –but even he has his limits.

​The third night in a row that Loac comes sneaking back in at an indecent hour, he’s about ready to hit him.

​" Hey ," he complains, just as Loac peels back the blankets, looking generally like he’s been up to no good.

He freezes, clearly not having expected to find him awake.

It’s his own damned fault; for someone so agile he sure can be loud when it comes to creeping around at night.

It’s still dark out but there’s just enough moonlight sneaking in that Khobi can still make out the dark, telltale lipstick smears on his shirt and on his throat.

"You stink," he grumbles, rolling over and trying to bury his face into his pillow to blot out the worst of the smell.

"If you’re gonna come back here you could at least have a bath first."

​"What are you talking about?" Loac growls, not bothering to keep his voice down, "S’not that bad."

As if to prove his point he tugs on his shirt and inhales deeply. It must backfire, because he makes a face as if to say well I’ll be .

​"Are you fucking kidding me? You smell like a brothel."

​"Funny that," Loac deadpans, adding as an afterthought, "Wanna come with next time?"

Khobi’s really not in the mood.

​"I’m good, thanks," he snorts.

​"...Is that right?"

​(It’s not, but Khobi’s never gonna admit that. Not to him.)

​He throws a pillow at him instead.

​"Go to sleep," Khobi grizzles, "If you wake me up tomorrow night I’ll hit you."