Chapter 257 - 255: Get You Back.

Chapter 257: Chapter 255: Get You Back.

Before he gets the chance, a servant materialises at his side with a damp towel for him to clean his hands.

Somehow they’re dirty, in spite of the gloves.

Loac gives the servant an unimpressed look, but takes the towel and uses it to wipe his hands, and then his face.

Even once he’s done there are still several dark streaks of mud left on his face. What he’s been doing to get quite so filthy, Xena can only imagine.

​"You didn’t have time to have a bath?" she queries, and has to scold herself for sounding just like her father.

​"...Was just gonna get dirty again," Loac shrugs, helping himself to one of the breads from his plate and stretching out in his chair with his ale.

Xena takes a moment to process this statement; wonders if that means what she thinks he means.

​"...You’re going back to the training grounds," she hazards; more statement than question, and the sidelong look she gets from her cousin seems to question, What of it ?

​"You’ve been spending a lot of time there, haven’t you?" she says; another statement.

​"--Haven’t you?" he points out, mouth full and eyebrow raised, and while it’s just a comment and shouldn’t make her cheeks warm, because her being there is entirely innocent, entirely , she still feels a flush start to rise.

But if Loac notices, he doesn’t press further.

​"...That’s not-- What is that?" she redirects, taking a sip of her tea to cover the warmth in her cheeks and nodding towards the bread that he’s messily chomping his way through with gusto.

​"Hmm? Dunno if they’ve got a name," he shrugs nonchalantly, "Khobi makes em a lot."

​Well, Xena already knew that when Khobi wasn’t at the training grounds he liked to hang around the kitchens, but she hadn’t quite realised just quite how much.

Or what he did there.

​"Khobi makes them?" she queries, and then extrapolates one step further, "...For you?"

​" Mhmm ," is the only, cryptic answer that she gets, but he holds out the plate to her so casually that it catches Xena entirely off guard, "...You want one? They’re good."

​She shouldn’t. They look terribly messy, and she has her own little tray of treats to pick at, but it’s been so long that she and her cousin have sat like this –talked like this, even –that she decides to make an exception. And they are good.

As delicious as they smell, even, and Xena hums in sheer delight, immediately wanting a second one even though she hasn’t even finished her first.

Loac doesn’t look in the least bit surprised by her reaction, merely taking a swig of his ale and licking the saucy filling off his hands.

​Xena draws the line at that, and signals her servants for a towel.

​She has to wonder, though...

​"...Have you been...spending a lot of time with Khobi?" she inquires, washing down the rich filling with a sip of tea.

She’d been so looking forward to her sweets, but now she’s kind of disappointed.

At her question Loac looks at her like she’s suddenly sprouted antlers.

​"Not really?" He frowns, chewing slowing as he considers her question, and her heart swells as he amends after a moment, "...I mean...a bit I guess? Why?"

​"Oh, it’s nothing," she says, more to her tea than to him, so he can’t see just how happy she is to hear him say such a thing.

She’s spent years aching to see her cousin smiling again, and while Khobi Frost might have a scary face, he’s a lot kinder than he looks, and it can be no coincidence that ever since her cousin suffered defeat at his hands at the tournament, she’s been catching glimpses of the person he used to be.

And more, every day. Somehow, Loac feels warmer, now; like a fresh spring thaw has finally chanced upon some of those walls of ice he’s kept her behind all these years.

She wonders if her father sees, too. If he even looks. "...He’s just not what I expected, is all."

Loac doesn’t say it, but from the way his expression turns almost contemplative as he raises his mug to his lips and takes a long, deep sip, Xena would hazard a guess that Khobi isn’t quite what he’d expected, either.

​He doesn’t stay long; just long enough to finish his drink and scoff his snacks and a few of hers, but it’s more time than he’s given her in years and it makes Xena’s heart warm to see him and truly believe that he’s doing okay.

If she asked she’s sure his answer would be the same as it always was, but she can tell that something’s shifted.

In his eyes where for years she had seen only glass, there’s now light peeking through, and although he’s yawning when she walks him to her door, there’s an old, familiar impatience to the way his fingers drum on the hilt of his blade like there’s something he’d much rather be doing.

​"Thanks for the tea, I guess," he drawls, even though he didn’t even have any tea.

​"No, I should be the one thanking you ," she says after a long moment, and he looks away, the way he always used to when he was embarrassed, or sulking. It definitely feels like the former.

"...So, thank you. For the honeycakes," she elaborates, even though they both know that’s what she was referring to. "...They made me really happy."

​She means it with all her heart, and she hopes he hears it and knows how glad it had made her to know that he still thinks about her, even fleetingly.

That on some level this distance between them that has endured these years like a gaping wound has pained him in the same way it’s pained her.

​Today, that distance feels just that much smaller, and Xena finds herself wondering, if she were to reach out into the darkness for him as she’s so tried over the years, if this will be the time he might reach back.

​On impulse, she hugs him. He stiffens at her touch, clearly caught off guard, but he doesn’t push her away, so she doesn’t let go.

​Stupid, she thinks to herself, eyes squeezed tight so that they don’t well up, how can this be all it takes to surprise you? He’s much taller than he was the last time they were like this, and smells like sweat and blood, and some of the filth on his armour gets on her face and dress as she wraps her arms around him, but when a hand comes down on the top of her head, gentle and real, nothing else matters.

​"...Maybe we could have some together, next time," he hums, after a beat, and Xena isn’t sure whether she wants to laugh or cry with joy.

​Next time.

​"I’d like that," she smiles into his chest on a whisper, "...I’ve missed you, Loac."