Chapter 412: Lovestruck Prince.

Chapter 412: Chapter 412: Lovestruck Prince.

The full gravity of his realisation doesn’t set in until the morning, when Loac wakes to find that the reason he can’t breathe properly is because Khobi’s sprawled almost completely on top of him; crushing the wind out of his lungs.

As he watches, rubbing blearily at an eye, Khobi lets out a stupidly obnoxious snore and a bit of the drool pooling in the corner of his lips spills into the dip of Loac’s collarbone. It’s so gross and Loac doesn’t give a damn.

​Ah shit , he can’t help but think, letting himself run a hand back through the long red locks worrying the tip of Khobi’s nose.

His hair’s a little on the coarse side, and still kinda damp even though it’s had all night to dry. I’m so fucked.

​It’s weird, but the revelation hadn’t taken him by surprise. Ma used to talk about falling in love like it was something that just kind of happened, and when it did, you knew .

So maybe on some level he’s known for a while –just hasn’t had a word for it. Because, well...

​He’s never been in love before.

​And now that he has, he’s not sure what he’s supposed to do.

Telling Khobi is the most obvious thing that springs to mind, but the thought makes his stomach twist, and the possibility that Khobi might not feel the same way about him fills him with a dread so deep and suffocating that it makes him want to vomit.

Ma never talked about that . Although what would she know; the only man she’d fallen in love with had loved her back. Khobi fights him, goes to bed with him, but doesn’t even seem to like him a lot of the time.

​Which Loac gets. He hadn’t liked him either, in the beginning.

​And now look at him.

​Distractedly, Loac lets his fingers drift out of Khobi’s hair and down towards the scars knotting across his back.

​How does he look so peaceful ?

​Ma loved songs and stories. She was a great singer and a great storyteller, and when he and Xena were little she’d sit with them by the fireside past their bedtimes and tell them all sorts of stories and sing them songs.

Loac’s favourites were the ones about heroes vanquishing monsters and triumphing over evil, but Ma’s favourites were always the ones about love so he kinda liked them, too.

And even though some of them were sad, Ma had never warned them about how much it could hurt.

​Loving someone, and hurting for them because you do.

He hasn’t suffered the way Khobi has suffered; can’t even begin to imagine it, but just hearing about what he’d endured makes him hurt like he’s never hurt and filled him with a fury like he’s never felt in his life.

He’d been seething in that bath, livid and hurting from wounds that weren’t his, and he’d decided that one way or another, Silas Luminus was going to pay for what he’d done.

Given how violently the rage had been boiling within him, he’d thought he’d never sleep again –he’s surprised Khobi can sleep at night at all –but the moment Khobi had called him over; something about the unexpected vulnerability in his voice had quelled the beast rattling at its cage within him, whispering that this was not the time for rage.

There’d be a time for it; Loac was certain of that much, but the moment Khobi’s fingers had curled around his wrist, he’d understood that that was not what Khobi wanted or needed from him in that moment.

​(Khobi doesn’t need protecting; he’s already proven that. But Loac’s going to, regardless.)

​It was a closeness that Loac had come to deeply yearn for.

For some time now all he’s been wanting to do once the candles have been snuffed and they’re laying in bed waiting for sleep to come to them is pull Khobi into his arms and hold him close and feel his heart beat like it’s only for him.

But every night Loac lets him be. As he’s been careful to let him be since that first night they’d shared a bed when Khobi had set one boundary for him that he’d made clear he would not tolerate being crossed –an invisible line between them that represented a fragile, precarious shred of trust.

Trust that would shatter irreparably should Loac try to lay a hand on him while he slept.

​And Loac liked pushing Khobi’s limits –and for the most part Khobi seemed plenty happy to let him try –but this was one that he instinctively knew better than to cross.

At the time Loac didn’t know a lot about Briyagi other than what the rumours said, but he gets it now.

Understands how much he must’ve come to trust him to fall asleep beside him as easily as he now does.

​(Men are vulnerable when they sleep, after all.)

​For whatever reason, even back then that little grain of trust had felt important, and he hadn’t wanted to risk squandering it. Maybe that should’ve been his first clue.

Or if not the first, then at the very least a clue.

​And despite all the ways Khobi had let him touch him, he still hadn’t been sure whether it was okay to cross that invisible line.

That one morning had been an exception –a moment of weakness where he’d told himself that since Khobi initiated it, it was fine, because the last thing he wanted was for Khobi to flinch away from him, call him a monster, and cut off his fingers for trying.

But last night Khobi had said it was fine.

He hopes that means that it’s fine tonight, too. And the night after that.

​Although there’s something to be said for staying here like this forever.

​But they have training to get to, so he pokes him in the forehead. Khobi’s brow pinches in his sleep. Snickering, Loac does it again; harder this time.

​"Hmmm?" Khobi hums against his skin, and his brow starts to furrow as he tries to bury his face down into his chest before realising where exactly he is. "Oh," he tries again, blinking blearily up at him; red eyes foggy and soft, "...G’mornin’..."

​"Mornin’," Loac murmurs back, and flicks him on the nose, because he can. The wrinkle that appears rivals that of his forehead as he glares at him.

​"What’re you doin’ that for?"

​"Can’t breathe."

​"Then just say so ," Khobi grumbles crossly, then bites him.

And not some flirtatious little nip –a hard, hefty chomp. Right on his left pec. " –That’s what you get," he huffs, when Loac ( understandably ) lets out a sound of protest.

​"For what ?"

​"For waking me up," he sniffs, doing exactly what Loac hadn’t wanted him to do and sluggishly beginning the arduous process of extricating himself from their tangle of limbs.

Khobi must’ve been laying there on him for ages before he woke because when his lungs inflate back to full it’s kinda painful, like they’ve forgotten how. "I was having a nice dream, too."

​"About me?" Loac teases easily, (it’s always so easy) stretching out and making himself nice and comfortable.

​"You wish," Khobi scoffs back just as easily, throwing the blankets off then immediately barking at Loac to get his ass up as he stomps around looking for his shoes.

Loac rolls to prop himself up on an elbow; making absolutely no move to do as he’s told, so now Khobi ’s annoyed at being woken up, annoyed at being late, and now also annoyed that Loac’s just laying there in bed not getting up when he was the one who woke him in the first place.

​You have no idea .