Chapter 373: Feels Nice.

Chapter 373: Chapter 373: Feels Nice.

Warm .

​That’s the first word that comes to Khobi’s mind.

Still hazy with slumber and not yet capable of coherent thought, he instinctively gravitates towards it; burrowing his face in deep and letting out a heavy, contented sigh as he makes himself comfortable.

It’s quite the treat; the blankets are pretty good at keeping out the winter chills, but they aren’t usually this warm.

​Even in his sleep-addled state, something about that rings as... odd . And maybe it’s nothing to be concerned about –and Khobi really, really doesn’t want to be concerned about it because he’s so comfortable and he wants to stay like this just a little bit longer –but once that little thought sparks, it nags .

Just sits there around the edges of his foggy consciousness like something he should look into a little deeper.

​He doesn’t want to. Khobi wants to go back to sleep; back to whatever dream he was having that has left him feeling pleasantly warm and disappointed to wake.

​That’s when it hits him that his pillow isn’t usually this firm, either.

And that’s when that nagging thought turns to a deep, creeping sense of unease. Once upon a time, a bad feeling like this would have had Khobi awake and rearing for a fight in seconds.

It’s probably a bad sign that it barely even rouses him this time. But rouse him it does, and with eyes bleary and his brow furrowing, he stirs.

​It’s already getting bright for some reason, and it takes a moment for his vision to adjust to the sudden glare.

But when he does, it’s immediately clear that his instincts haven’t led him astray, because something’s definitely not right.

​Something is in fact, very, very wrong .

Because this morning there’s skin where there would usually be a pillow, and with a flash of alarm Khobi comes to realise that the heat he’s so greedily tried to bury himself in belongs to Loac.

​More specifically, Loac’s bare chest.

​Thoughts abruptly drawing to a creaking, grinding halt, Khobi stares down at his hand splayed out against the defined ridges of Loac’s abdomen; watches it rise and fall with the steady ebb and flow as he breathes, barely disturbing the bedsheets pooling around their waists below.

​Well this is new. After all the nights they’ve shared this bed, they’ve never ended up like this –not wrapped up in or wound around each other. Not even once.

​As if his thoughts have been loud enough to disturb him, Loac shifts in his sleep. Khobi hurriedly freezes, swallowing thickly – Why does he freeze –but Loac just sighs in his sleep and curls his arm around him a little tighter; bringing him in against his body and holding him there, skin pressed flush on skin.

Gods, he’s like a furnace ; how he’s not freezing with his skin laid bare to the morning air Khobi has no idea.

And despite himself, Khobi can’t help but want to press closer, if that were even possible.

This close; tucked neatly against his chest like this, he could probably hear his heart if he were to listen. He’s not sure exactly where that thought comes from, or what possesses him to close his eyes and listen.

​It...sounds like a heartbeat; steady and slow –slower than Khobi’s feels right now –but strong. Or what Khobi would assume a strong heart to sound like.

​It’s...kind of soothing. Kind of nice.

​So nice in fact that as Loac’s fingers lightly shift against his skin he starts to feel a familiar, sluggish weightlessness sink into him as the slow creep of slumber starts to set in.

He shouldn’t let it, though; shouldn’t let it lure him back in. He should pull back, move away; before Loac wakes up and finds them tangled up all intimate like this.

​But he doesn’t. Instead, he lets his eyes stay closed, and leaves his body and his hand and his cheek right where they are.

When was the last time he woke up in someone’s arms? Maybe never? There had been nothing soft about the nights he had spent with men in Briyagi, and no time or desire for this sort of thing.

That had been rough and fleeting by design; the escape of a warm body in a cold world. A way to diffuse static when tensions ran high.

​And in a way that’s how it started with Loac, he supposes. How it’s been .

​Except for last night.

​Last night...wasn’t like that at all.

​It’s never been like that before. With Loac, or with anyone else.

​On Loac’s skin, Khobi’s fingers slowly start to curl, absent-mindedly tracing one of the marks slowly fading there.

It’s nothing he hasn’t seen or touched before but for some reason like this; in the morning quiet with Loac’s breath light and pulse thrumming slow, it feels... different .

Like something he isn’t supposed to be doing.

The muscle beneath twitches at his touch and Khobi abruptly snatches his hand away, but when he shoots an alarmed look up at Loac’s face he finds him still fast asleep; expression relaxed and one arm lazily tucked behind his head.

The other –as Khobi has already become acutely aware of –still draped around him. It’s strange; Khobi’s so used to Loac’s hard lines and scowls, but asleep like this he looks so...soft.

​Soft .

Unconsciously, his fingers drift to his lips, where if he closes his eyes he can still feel the way Loac’s lips brushed against his last night.

​You’re doing it again.

​Looking like you wanna be kissed.

​Khobi gets what Loac meant by that, now.

​Is this fine ? He remembers wondering, even as Loac’s nose brushed against his.

And it must have been, because Loac had kissed him. Or maybe it had been Khobi that had kissed him first this time; he’s still really not all that sure, and at this point it doesn’t feel like it matters.

​(He likes kissing Loac. Really does, even.)

​The harder pill to swallow is that he kind of likes this, too. Whatever... this is.

​It’s dangerously self indulgent, but he wants Loac to keep sleeping so that he can stay like this just a little while longer.

​Luck isn’t on his side today, because before Khobi can quite drift back off Loac starts to stir again; more insistently this time.

He can feel the telltale shifting of his body as he starts to come to from sleep; his arm starting to slip down his body.

It’s then that he realises, too late, that he’s been lying here far too long. In a couple of seconds Loac’s gonna open his eyes, see Khobi curled up against his chest, and realise the exact same thing he did a few minutes ago.

​What should he do? Pretend to wake up?

Play it off like an accident?

​...Do nothing?

​"...Khobi...?" he hums aloud, and Khobi freezes up again. He sounds confused, which honestly, makes two of them.

​( Khobi , huh?)

​(Maybe he’d imagined it, after all.)

​In the end he hesitates too long and the decision is made for him.

​And then Loac does something strange.

​He...does nothing, too.

Keeping his breathing steady, Khobi feels something brush along his spine, and with a sudden, unfamiliar hammering in his chest he realises that the sensation is Loac’s fingers, idly trailing along his back, then up and into his hair.

​What ?

​The tempo in his chest ratchets higher.

​Feels nice .