Chapter 385: Safe And Secret.

Chapter 385: Chapter 385: Safe And Secret.

Before the king had come knocking, Khobi had had a pretty solid idea of what his evening would be spent doing.

​Who , rather.

​(The guards had learned pretty early on to make themselves scarce when Loac got back from training. And the ones that didn’t know figured it out pretty quickly.)

​But after the punishment its endured today his body has other, much more mundane plans for him.

It’s honestly a small miracle he even made it back to the bedroom without needing to be propped up.

And as much as he’d spent dinner pretending otherwise, Loac’s in no better shape.

When the door slams shut on the world behind them, he takes Khobi in his arms and sets his mouth on him; pulling him back towards the bed with his hands in his hair and his tongue down his throat, but the moment the backs of his legs connect with the bed they give out completely and they both tumble down onto the mattress in an exhausted, leaden heap.

​" Uggggghhhhh ," Khobi groans miserably into the crook of Loac’s neck.

He’d been trying to take off his shirt but it’s too strong, and his arms are too weak, and eventually he gives up on trying to battle his way out of it.

Having completed its objective of getting him horizontal and motioness, his body’s finally given up too.

He can’t even be bothered having a bath or getting changed. He just wants to lie there and never have to move ever again.

​And he still owes Drogger a million laps.

​He’s going to be running for the rest of his life. Possibly some of the next.

​"...Don’t tell me I finally wore you out," Loac chuckles, breathing somewhat laboured from the fact that he’s got Khobi’s dead weight sprawled out over him.

​"I’ll hit you," Khobi declares, even though it’s an empty threat and Loac knows it. He barely has enough strength left to fucking blink right now.

​"Go on then."

​Groaning is easier, so that’s what Khobi does, and when he blearly cracks one eye he finds Loac sprawled next to him, having also abandonned the futile power struggle with his clothes.

He’s done a little better than Khobi, but not by much; just barely managed to get enough of his shirt unbuttoned for him to glimpse the beginnings of some bruising that Khobi left there with a blunt blade instead of his mouth

​He figures it’s worth a lifetime of laps.

​(If he could do it over again, he still probably would.)

​Loac echoes his complaint, dragging one of his hands down his face.

The other Khobi’s got accidentally pinned where he’s fallen. He makes no attempt to move it, and Khobi doesn’t have the strength to do it himself.

Clearly they’re both far too exhausted for anything they’ve grown accustomed to over the last weeks.

​" Dammit ," Loac complains, skating his fingers down Khobi’s spine and making him shiver, "...Seeing you out there really got me in the mood to fuck you, too."

​(He’s one to talk.)

The first time he’d gotten him pinned, if it hadn’t been for the raucous five-count that struck up that had reminded him that they had an audience, Khobi probably would have kissed him right then and there.

​" –Fuck me tomorrow, then," he mumbles in counteroffer; the words coming out easily. It’s gotten easy to say; gotten awfully easy to ask.

The frankess has Loac letting out a short bark of laughter, and he sags back into the bedsheets like the fact that Khobi’s draped over him like a sweaty, dirty human-shaped blanket doesn’t bother him in the slightest.

​"Tomorrow, then," he murmurs, right in his ear and right in that tone that always makes Khobi shiver.

He groans, because he knows what he’s doing, and as much as he wants that, Drogger’s already left his body completely fucked and it does not want to go even a single round more of any kind.

His belly’s full, his heart even more so, and his mind too, still reeling from Gurdet’s revelation. It takes an awful lot to resist the lure of the pleasure he finds with Loac, but Khobi’s got an exhausted mind to match and exhausted body, so right now oblivion sounds just perfect.

​He’s been motionless for all of one minute and already he’s starting to drift off.

​He’s gonna feel so gross when he wakes up.

​"...Hey, Khobi...?" Loac hazards quietly, fingers toying idly with the dips at the base of his spine for a moment before slowly pulling away.

Khobi can’t help but feel a little disappointed as the light touches drift away; he wouldn’t have minded if he kept going. But weirdly, that’s not what bothers him the most.

​Khobi, again .

​It suddenly strikes him that he can’t remember the last time that Loac came back stinking of perfume, but on the brink of sleep his mind can’t quite place why that should mean something.

​"...Mhmm?" Khobi hums sleepily, an annoyed noise unintentionally leaving his throat as Loac gives him a light shove so that he can work his arm free and wriggle back to his side of the bed.

And while it’s hard to tell exactly what Loac says with how quickly sleep is taking his voice and Khobi’s ears, it sure sounds a lot like I’m glad you’re back .

​Me too , is what Khobi would say to that. But he doesn’t, just in case he’s wrong.

​...

​When Khobi wakes up the following morning, he half expects the events of the day before to be a dream.

But when he tries the door it isn’t locked, and when he cracks it open and peers out into the corridor the guards are nowhere to be found.

And best of all, when he reaches into his pocket, the scrap of paper and those eight little words are still there and still real and completely unscathed.

​He reads it again before he leaves for the day. First in his uncle’s voice, and then his aunt’s, and then together, like they’re speaking it aloud to him across the distance between them.

And then he stows it right at the bottom of his trunk, where it’ll be safe and secret.