Prayer From Nowhere
Oct. 29th, 2023 11:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seleniasTitle: Prayer From Nowhere
Fandom: FFXVI
Characters/pairing: Dion/Terence
Rating: Explicit
Word Count: 3968
Notes: For the prompt "expectations" on the Teredio Discord server. It's sappy pairing fic underneath it all. I guess Dion can have a break for once. A bit over-edited and not what I had in mind - it's been living on my hard drive for two weeks while I've side-eyed it - but w/e I'll share anyway. EDIT: posted this, then immediately and impulsively refined it further. I'm done poking at this now, scout's honor!
-
The water was fit to blister a less tempestuous soul so it was lucky that it was not drawn for himself. Terence dried his hands on a towel and straightened, considered the ache in his own neck and shoulders with irritation, and parted the curtain before stepping into the sectioned room where Dion slept. And on nights if time allowed it, himself.
“My Prince, the bath is drawn.”
“Thank you. I’ll be there momentarily.”
Terence laid the towel aside and crossed beneath banners of Bahamut and the Empire and straightened the room mindlessly as he went.
Dion wouldn’t look at him, which while not unusual in moments of rest, usually preceded the calm before a storm. His fury was cold and bolted pointedly at the source of his frustration when it revealed itself — he’d curl his fists and straighten his spine and his stride would lengthen to such that Terence would be forced to match it or be left waiting to hear apologies later. He did none of those things now. Dion sat on the bench beside his bed and neatly pulled off his boots with a hand upon the heel, silent and calm. His shoulders were terse, his movements contained, his thoughts elsewhere. Real violence flared out under Bahamut’s wings, but the confines of the garrison and the monotony of clerical tasks that lowered morale to a standstill pushed Dion closer to a blade that Terence didn’t always think he could stay.
He could, however, give it a stone to whet itself on.
The missives upon the war table were neatly organized and sorted, marked and dated with Dion’s thin and graceful scrawl. Terence scanned them quickly, saw nothing of interest, and dragged his fingers upon the edge of the desk. Dion’s feet were bare on the rugs now. He touched the clasps on his steelsilk blouse and released them to reveal the linen tunic that laid thin against his skin.
“Do you think the storm will continue into tomorrow?”
“Likely so,” Dion replied. His fingers fumbled with a clasp and he peered down at it.
“Here, allow me.”
Terence removed his gloves and stepped into Dion’s space to stop his movements, hands sliding against his own. Dion’s head tilted back to look up at him, and Terence paused. His pulse fluttered like a bird’s wings against the calloused edges of his fingers, shaky and fine. It was indeed rage that stifled him, writhing unhappily under his skin.
“Leave it,” Dion sighed. He placed a warning hand on his thigh, prepared to press him away. Momentary adrenaline ignited in Terence’s veins — he could wrestle him down before he took flight — he wouldn’t without reason, he wouldn’t trap him here. He slid a hand free and painfully withdrew.
Dion lanced out of Terence’s grasp and pitched to standing, padding barefoot across the room to draw forward to the desk. He picked up and capped the ink jar and knocked the hard covers of tomes shut with the back of his knuckles that laid bare the nature of the province. His movements were so precise and clinical that they lacked meaning at all. He pushed the books to the edge so they would dine without bureaucracy between them in the morning, and as if in slow motion, the carefully sorted missives beside them toppled and burst apart on the rugs. They scattered in a flurry of gray shadows, leaping as far as the curtains on the far side of the room before stilling to terrible silence.
Dion stood still in time, fingers lax at his sides as he took in the mess and his spent efforts.
Ah, thought Terence, so he received an answer from his father after all.
Wordlessly, Dion bent down and started to collect them. Terence knelt on the floor in a groan of armor opposite and gathered the thick stack into a pile, idly thumbing them into a quick state of reading, rotating them mechanically without seeing the words for what they were. He was more concerned with what state Dion was slipping into and not allowing him to see. All of the familiar back and forth of the long years between them had taught Terence this: Dion would break himself first before he ever confessed to unhappiness. It had to be drawn out of him slowly, like water from a spigot, pressed upon again and again until his grief would crest and falter and slough roughly between them.
Dion slid his eyes sideways before handing him his own collection. Terence took them, reached above himself to lay them on the desk, and stood. Dion took the hand extended to him and rose to his feet to step away, but Terence followed, holding tight.
“Wait — let me have a look at you,” Terence pleaded. “You’ve been evasive all evening.”
“You really want to look upon my swollen face? Will it please you?”
“No. But it would stop my wondering. Mayhap I could soothe it.”
“You would be hard pressed I’m afraid.”
Dion spun around slowly, expression blank. He rolled his shoulders and breathed. His brown eyes held him without reflecting the light of the room.
Terence appraised him. He was, undeniably, half-crazed with exhaustion; darkness under and in his eyes, shirt wrinkled where he’d worn it two too many days in a row, a streak of mud against his neck from a hard spring rain and wet countryside. The entire garrison had flooded that morning and the soldiers rode or walked with wet boots and carts through boggy fields to higher ground. Terence raised his hand and thumbed it away. Dion watched him and then his hands, which resumed the path Dion’s had wrought. The cool metal clasp separated between his fingers and revealed a strip of his skin underneath. Terence slid his hands to the hem and dragged the back of his knuckles over the tense cords of his stomach, then carefully pulled the rest of his shirt free his trousers. Old scars and gray marks of the curse curled like silver strips of ribbon up his ribs. Dion was still under his hands, but when Terence stroked a finger along his side, his mouth alone twitched.
“Do you like what you see, Sir Terence?”
“How is that a question,” he murmured. “Always.” Dion tilted forward.
“Answer it.”
“Do I like the weeping Prince before me? Do I like the proud and conscientious man you try to be? I like this sliver of flesh, here, and I see that it’s attached to all the rest. So yes. I do. I adore it.”
Dion closed his eyes. “You need not be kind to me. I know I have been difficult recently.”
“Forgive me if I see that only as more reason to do so.”
Terence fell back into the familiar routine of the evening. He slid the left side of Dion’s shirt over his shoulder and it fell prettily along the flare of his arms, the muscles warm and built to kill. Those same hands sent lesser men to early graves. On better nights, they climbed steadily within him and set him aflame. The blouse fell over his right. Dion raised his arm and Terence pulled it free and laid the material on the closest chair to breathe. His thin tunic revealed the wraps on his arm and where Terence may tighten them later.
He leaned on his heels, resting his back against the desk. “It’s too much for any one man, what’s asked of you. You know that, deep down.”
“Yes,” Dion relented. “But that does not mean I should not rise to meet it.”
“Of course, My Prince. I only mean to remind you not to punish yourself.”
He looked up under his bowed head. “You don’t think I’m capable?”
“Not at all,” Terence admitted, soft. “You are. It’s the reasons you push yourself that concern me.”
“I see.” Dion crossed his arms and looked at him. “Do I look like my father, like you fear?” he asked. And then, lashes growing alarmingly wet and wrecking Terence to stillness at their violent appearance, “—and am I inheriting his growing madness?” He blew air out hard through his mouth and looked away. Shame collared him, Terence thought, but anger made him bright. And his grief that he’d become undesirable in the face of expectations he’d fail to meet set a stone in his stomach he did not know how to dislodge.
What request Dion had penned for aid for the upcoming skirmish had been denied; where Dion would send him and his command tomorrow in place of those he needed to lift the name of the Holy Knight Dragoons above his own set him fit to boil. Bahamut would take the field for a mediocre reason after all. Terence knew plenty of that comeuppance, had watched it unfold meticulously upon every stone glance Dion donned to protect himself and those beneath him. And in doing so, endangered himself to fall back into painful familiarities of saying nothing at all, temper reflected back on himself, harsh and furious for reasons out of his control.
A lesser man would have cracked years ago at the flagrant demand of obedience.
Terence marched forward and pulled him into a rough embrace, fingers fisting in the back of his loose shirt. Dion’s breath flit along his collar, where the bridge of his nose pressed hard against the line of his jaw, and wetness soaked his neck. “Shh, it doesn’t become you. I’ve never seen it and I never will. You are good, Dion. I know no other who cares as much as you.”
“Now you have,” Dion said sullenly. He laughed, short and low. Then sighed, grasping at him in return, fingers sliding into his hair and pressing; Terence leaned his head against the warmth of his shoulder and the thin cloth underneath. What anxieties plagued him Terence knew in full; the extent of their reach did not rattle him, only emboldened him.
“I can only speak for myself — but is that not what parents want — for their children to leave and stand on their own? You are a fine example. You’re a heroic ward. You’re a dutiful son and you watch out for all.” Terence kissed his mouth. “I’m infatuated, but not blind.” Dion snorted so Terence pressed a kiss to his wet cheek in further protest.
“I do not think that came from him,” Dion murmured. “And we know my arrival here was not so I may be afield by my own graces, but the extension of his own.” He drew back, arms falling back to his sides, eyes soft. “I know you mean what you say, Terence. And I treasure you for it.”
“You know you are not to blame for this. You’ve done all you can.”
“Yes, but someone must take responsibility regardless. At least your presence makes this easier.”
Dion sloughed out of his shirt and hung it upon a hook where he also draped his trousers. Terence collected them, parted the curtain to where Dion had dunked himself into the bath and now dug the heels of his palms into his eyes. Bahamut was lauded only because the dominant who housed him was equally lovely. Nothing could convince him otherwise, even Greagor. If the Council and His Radiance saw fit to undermine his post at their convenience, then Dion would simply need to be elevated beyond their reach.
Terence wordlessly undid the buckles of his chest piece, swinging stained leather and steel to lay in a careful heap and away from the danger of puncturing their feet. He pulled his garments away from his skin and heaped them in a corner with Dion’s small-clothes, unconcerned. Laundering would be done on the morrow, when the garrison could take the warm stench of each other no longer.
“Make room, love,” Terence muttered and stepped swiftly over the side of the tub. The heat stung his legs and his toes curled. Where Dion’s arms rose out of the water to receive him the flesh was a heavy pink.
Dion grinned impishly at his legs, raw eyes traveling the width of him. Terence sunk down across from him and noticed at once where small cuts grew furious with him, stinging across the fabric of his skin. The salts rubbed coarse at his heels and the herbal oil shined slick across the bobbing surface. It also felt marvelous. He had not been impulsive in some time.
“Well,” Dion said, gesturing. “Turn around then. Let me have at your hair. You’ve dirt in it.”
“No no, I’ll get it after. You first.”
“Terence,” Dion said, voice calm with a warning. He raised his brows.
“My Prince.”
Dion pretended to glower at him, then flicked a spray of water from his fingers. They both grinned stupidly, anticipation spurring them, then a burst of adrenaline. Terence hooked his hands around his thighs to pull him under the soapy water, laughing, then breathless and grunting, as Dion’s foot found purchase against his sternum and pressed him flat against the tub’s wooden borders instead. Water slopped over the side like a sheet of glass. The wood groaned.
“Careful,” Terence murmured, patting his knee. “Or we will be sleeping in a flood plain with no explanation this time.”
“I would join you,” Dion said, voice soft. He kissed him chaste and simple, then combed his wet fingers through his lanky threads to lay them mussed against his forehead. He pushed his weight into Terence to take the soap from the stool behind him and slicked his hands until they were frothy. “Consider this my first service. Careful grounds keeping and assistance.” He massaged the blunt ends of his fingers into his scalp. Terence closed his eyes at the obvious turn of events and couldn’t stop his smile.
“That I should feel so spoiled by My Lord. However will I measure up?”
“I believe it is the Lord who must match the grace of his knight.”
“What nonsense,” Terence whispered. Dion traced the soap behind his ears, breath falling across his crown. Terence held him at the low of his back and let the warmth wash over them both.
Tilting his head back, Terence watched Dion take a pitcher of water and rinse the suds from his hair into the angled bucket below, and with it, his worries followed. Dion’s face was soft and focused in the low light, all of his attention concentrated on himself — closing his eyes again, he let that light wash over him that Dion was so desperate to share with all he held dear.
This would be a momentary respite, Terence knew. Tomorrow, or the next, Dion would grow tired and agitated, and apologize for the choleric behavior he shamed himself for not entirely withholding.
They rose from the bath water and shared a towel. Between them, Terence knew Dion was better practiced at self-restraint. But Terence knew too that he could take a staggering blow or two, or three, and endure; someday, Dion would snap because the burden had always been too great.
The response of grief was equal to that in fury and all those emotions ran the race to win. He’d seen it in the hollowed eyed looks of men unluckier than him. Dion’s was scaled perfectly to the violence inside him that was both feared and honored across the Empire. But if anyone were to ask after the man, they would be told the Prince was a gentle soul. Dion was still the same boy Terence had waited on all his life, a sparkle of light in his warm eyes, graceful and kind, his own gentle brilliance enriching the lives of everyone who’s paths he crossed.
When he laid himself bare and Dion rose up to match him, it seemed there were no lines he could not tread without a blessing and trust both. So he did. So he would. He was a careful confidant, like those days of their youth, brushing elbows at their desks and later trading blows in a courtyard under a balmy noonday sun without fear of cutting skin. Dion would whisper about books from the library, wyrms asleep in their beds, and the politicking of men lost in the circular imbalance of an Empire running from one enemy to the next. And later, other things. Bahamut rose to meet all of them, inhuman and immortalized beyond understanding, where he remained, pinned in place by history and his father both. Dion was, as always, somewhere in the wings — and it was so convenient that Terence found himself there as well, where they may meet as close to equals in work as in love.
Terence looped the strings of the curtain together, and shivering with the first wafting of cool air under it biting at his ankles, quickly sprawled upon the open side of the bed. It dipped beneath him pleasantly and the sheets were still starchy from seldom use.
Dion received him with a tired smile. The candles burned comfortably to see by, so Terence’s eyes followed the lay of the land, which showed a growing urgency between them, not yet acknowledged or seen to. Neither of them had seen fit to dress. The days were busy, and nights saw them both nodding off with only weary whispers between them.
Terence took his hand and pressed a kiss to the wrist, then the blunt and calloused ends of his fingers. Dion’s eyes were impossibly fond and lured him closer. “Come here,” he murmured. “Let me hold you.”
The wanting was the easy part. Watching Dion cut himself open on the Empire’s messes and staying himself with impossible soothes — Terence would rather be ground to ashes.
Dion licked into his mouth and against the back of his teeth. Terence folded over him carefully, unraveling the damp threads of his hair on the pillow, curling his fingers along the jumping pulse against his jaw. Dion’s brilliance was such that he felt privileged just to stand in the shadow he cast. That was what made a dominant, he realized, their human wants in the face of a simple and brutal world. And if Dion’s father only chose the superlative — if the council only ever saw him as a shortcut in their wars — Terence had never doubted where he wanted to be or who he wanted to lift beyond his means.
“Relax. Lay back,” Terence murmured, and kissed at his cheek. His cock pressed against the underside of his own. “Will you allow me this?”
“Heavens yes.” Dion traced his arm from bicep to shoulder. “Do you have other wishes?”
“Mm, not tonight,” he considered. “Maybe later.”
“As you are then, sir. Take what you like.”
“I shall.”
Dion grinned into his mouth and dragged him down by the hips to grind their cocks together. Terence grunted in surprise at the bruising strength in his hands, the muscles rippling beneath the thick roundness of his thighs, and stuttered with pleasure at the force of his want. A low laugh bubbled out of Dion’s throat, light and small and free of care. Terence swallowed it down to feel it swell in his chest instead. Dion’s body mirrored his own, shaped by war with pieces carved in and out of him, and as Terence traced him with his eyes and hands Dion did the same.
They warmed oil in their palms and stroked each other to painful hardness. Dion kissed at his mouth sloppily while his fingers traced between his cheeks. Terence bowed his head to press murmurings against his throat that Dion leaned into, eyes nearly shut from the warmth in his face. The want cored him like a split fruit and he could wait no longer. Dion’s eyes slammed open when Terence pressed his hand away and took his thickening length harshly to the base with untempered and greedy strength.
“Terence,” he hissed. Light pooled in Terence’s belly. If his smile was stupid and pleased, or his voice was guttural and wretched as he stretched him open, Dion should know it was for him.
Terence centered his weight across him and leaned back to brace his arm along a rigid thigh, breathing deeply. This moment was his favorite. Dion’s eyes grew heavy with pleasure and his soft hair spread about him like a halo. The back of his hand traced along the soft skin of Terence’s inner thighs to sooth the jumping muscles. But there was nothing angelic about the needy way Dion pressed into him, or the harsh grunt that burst from his chest when Terence began to move and his prick rose weeping between them. His breathing was fast already, and he imagined he’d be gasping breathless beside him when they both arrived together.
Nothing was more pleasurable than his hands on his skin, constantly pulling him closer as if he hoped to disappear inside, the better for Terence to keep him safe.
Terence contested the madness of the Empire and their pitiable charity with a union that left him weak kneed and cursing. He folded his hands beside Dion’s golden crown until he painted his insides with his earthly light, head tilted back in soundless pleasure, and his seed slipped gracelessly down his trembling legs like celebratory ribbons. Dion’s hands on him left him pressing violently into his arms for relief, his groans rattled by a final punctuation of rough strokes, and Dion’s mouth pressing soft words of wonder against the hollow of his throat as he jerked him to completion. It made Terence feel lazy and relieved to be embraced. Some things would always stay the same.
Following their separation, Dion stroked along the planes of his body and repeated the same saccharine words that Terence rained upon him earlier. He smiled, sweat in his eyes, and hooked his hip over Dion’s to press their softening lengths together. His mouth was dry from tears. His skin tasted like the salts from the bath. He was also warm and boneless, and Terence was glad he could bring him back to himself with the gift of his body over his.
“You are simply too good to me,” Dion murmured. He curled his fingers along the back of his scalp, pressing; Terence closed the last few inches and pressed his face against the cords in his neck. They vibrated against his cheek when he spoke again. “But I would not be well without you.”
“You would have other allies.”
“But I would not have you,” he said pointedly.
Terence pressed his palm flat against his back to soothe him. “Then you should be as greedy with me as you please.”
“Careful. If you give me permission I may take advantage.”
“I might be greedier and worse by far,” Terence murmured, “and would not take offense at all if you did.” Dion huffed a breath, then traced a familiar path over the shell of his ear, where his hand always rested in these close moments. His palm was warm against his skin, and Terence didn’t care where it was so long as they were touching.
“I won’t forget that you still haven’t answered my question.” They laid idly until their bodies grew to coolness and their hearts slowed.
“What else could I want,” Terence breathed. He blinked sleepily. The candles had burned low. Dion’s eyes still watched him in the dark, but he said no more.
Dion shuffled and pulled the blanket up with his feet, then cocooned them both. Terence stayed awake until Dion’s hand stilled against his jaw. His dead weight emanated heat not unlike Bahamut’s flares, rending armies to ash and making the land blister in his wake. Wherever Bahamut was needed, Dion would follow, and wherever he lead, Terence would go to meet him and see him safely through.
Fandom: FFXVI
Characters/pairing: Dion/Terence
Rating: Explicit
Word Count: 3968
Notes: For the prompt "expectations" on the Teredio Discord server. It's sappy pairing fic underneath it all. I guess Dion can have a break for once. A bit over-edited and not what I had in mind - it's been living on my hard drive for two weeks while I've side-eyed it - but w/e I'll share anyway. EDIT: posted this, then immediately and impulsively refined it further. I'm done poking at this now, scout's honor!
-
The water was fit to blister a less tempestuous soul so it was lucky that it was not drawn for himself. Terence dried his hands on a towel and straightened, considered the ache in his own neck and shoulders with irritation, and parted the curtain before stepping into the sectioned room where Dion slept. And on nights if time allowed it, himself.
“My Prince, the bath is drawn.”
“Thank you. I’ll be there momentarily.”
Terence laid the towel aside and crossed beneath banners of Bahamut and the Empire and straightened the room mindlessly as he went.
Dion wouldn’t look at him, which while not unusual in moments of rest, usually preceded the calm before a storm. His fury was cold and bolted pointedly at the source of his frustration when it revealed itself — he’d curl his fists and straighten his spine and his stride would lengthen to such that Terence would be forced to match it or be left waiting to hear apologies later. He did none of those things now. Dion sat on the bench beside his bed and neatly pulled off his boots with a hand upon the heel, silent and calm. His shoulders were terse, his movements contained, his thoughts elsewhere. Real violence flared out under Bahamut’s wings, but the confines of the garrison and the monotony of clerical tasks that lowered morale to a standstill pushed Dion closer to a blade that Terence didn’t always think he could stay.
He could, however, give it a stone to whet itself on.
The missives upon the war table were neatly organized and sorted, marked and dated with Dion’s thin and graceful scrawl. Terence scanned them quickly, saw nothing of interest, and dragged his fingers upon the edge of the desk. Dion’s feet were bare on the rugs now. He touched the clasps on his steelsilk blouse and released them to reveal the linen tunic that laid thin against his skin.
“Do you think the storm will continue into tomorrow?”
“Likely so,” Dion replied. His fingers fumbled with a clasp and he peered down at it.
“Here, allow me.”
Terence removed his gloves and stepped into Dion’s space to stop his movements, hands sliding against his own. Dion’s head tilted back to look up at him, and Terence paused. His pulse fluttered like a bird’s wings against the calloused edges of his fingers, shaky and fine. It was indeed rage that stifled him, writhing unhappily under his skin.
“Leave it,” Dion sighed. He placed a warning hand on his thigh, prepared to press him away. Momentary adrenaline ignited in Terence’s veins — he could wrestle him down before he took flight — he wouldn’t without reason, he wouldn’t trap him here. He slid a hand free and painfully withdrew.
Dion lanced out of Terence’s grasp and pitched to standing, padding barefoot across the room to draw forward to the desk. He picked up and capped the ink jar and knocked the hard covers of tomes shut with the back of his knuckles that laid bare the nature of the province. His movements were so precise and clinical that they lacked meaning at all. He pushed the books to the edge so they would dine without bureaucracy between them in the morning, and as if in slow motion, the carefully sorted missives beside them toppled and burst apart on the rugs. They scattered in a flurry of gray shadows, leaping as far as the curtains on the far side of the room before stilling to terrible silence.
Dion stood still in time, fingers lax at his sides as he took in the mess and his spent efforts.
Ah, thought Terence, so he received an answer from his father after all.
Wordlessly, Dion bent down and started to collect them. Terence knelt on the floor in a groan of armor opposite and gathered the thick stack into a pile, idly thumbing them into a quick state of reading, rotating them mechanically without seeing the words for what they were. He was more concerned with what state Dion was slipping into and not allowing him to see. All of the familiar back and forth of the long years between them had taught Terence this: Dion would break himself first before he ever confessed to unhappiness. It had to be drawn out of him slowly, like water from a spigot, pressed upon again and again until his grief would crest and falter and slough roughly between them.
Dion slid his eyes sideways before handing him his own collection. Terence took them, reached above himself to lay them on the desk, and stood. Dion took the hand extended to him and rose to his feet to step away, but Terence followed, holding tight.
“Wait — let me have a look at you,” Terence pleaded. “You’ve been evasive all evening.”
“You really want to look upon my swollen face? Will it please you?”
“No. But it would stop my wondering. Mayhap I could soothe it.”
“You would be hard pressed I’m afraid.”
Dion spun around slowly, expression blank. He rolled his shoulders and breathed. His brown eyes held him without reflecting the light of the room.
Terence appraised him. He was, undeniably, half-crazed with exhaustion; darkness under and in his eyes, shirt wrinkled where he’d worn it two too many days in a row, a streak of mud against his neck from a hard spring rain and wet countryside. The entire garrison had flooded that morning and the soldiers rode or walked with wet boots and carts through boggy fields to higher ground. Terence raised his hand and thumbed it away. Dion watched him and then his hands, which resumed the path Dion’s had wrought. The cool metal clasp separated between his fingers and revealed a strip of his skin underneath. Terence slid his hands to the hem and dragged the back of his knuckles over the tense cords of his stomach, then carefully pulled the rest of his shirt free his trousers. Old scars and gray marks of the curse curled like silver strips of ribbon up his ribs. Dion was still under his hands, but when Terence stroked a finger along his side, his mouth alone twitched.
“Do you like what you see, Sir Terence?”
“How is that a question,” he murmured. “Always.” Dion tilted forward.
“Answer it.”
“Do I like the weeping Prince before me? Do I like the proud and conscientious man you try to be? I like this sliver of flesh, here, and I see that it’s attached to all the rest. So yes. I do. I adore it.”
Dion closed his eyes. “You need not be kind to me. I know I have been difficult recently.”
“Forgive me if I see that only as more reason to do so.”
Terence fell back into the familiar routine of the evening. He slid the left side of Dion’s shirt over his shoulder and it fell prettily along the flare of his arms, the muscles warm and built to kill. Those same hands sent lesser men to early graves. On better nights, they climbed steadily within him and set him aflame. The blouse fell over his right. Dion raised his arm and Terence pulled it free and laid the material on the closest chair to breathe. His thin tunic revealed the wraps on his arm and where Terence may tighten them later.
He leaned on his heels, resting his back against the desk. “It’s too much for any one man, what’s asked of you. You know that, deep down.”
“Yes,” Dion relented. “But that does not mean I should not rise to meet it.”
“Of course, My Prince. I only mean to remind you not to punish yourself.”
He looked up under his bowed head. “You don’t think I’m capable?”
“Not at all,” Terence admitted, soft. “You are. It’s the reasons you push yourself that concern me.”
“I see.” Dion crossed his arms and looked at him. “Do I look like my father, like you fear?” he asked. And then, lashes growing alarmingly wet and wrecking Terence to stillness at their violent appearance, “—and am I inheriting his growing madness?” He blew air out hard through his mouth and looked away. Shame collared him, Terence thought, but anger made him bright. And his grief that he’d become undesirable in the face of expectations he’d fail to meet set a stone in his stomach he did not know how to dislodge.
What request Dion had penned for aid for the upcoming skirmish had been denied; where Dion would send him and his command tomorrow in place of those he needed to lift the name of the Holy Knight Dragoons above his own set him fit to boil. Bahamut would take the field for a mediocre reason after all. Terence knew plenty of that comeuppance, had watched it unfold meticulously upon every stone glance Dion donned to protect himself and those beneath him. And in doing so, endangered himself to fall back into painful familiarities of saying nothing at all, temper reflected back on himself, harsh and furious for reasons out of his control.
A lesser man would have cracked years ago at the flagrant demand of obedience.
Terence marched forward and pulled him into a rough embrace, fingers fisting in the back of his loose shirt. Dion’s breath flit along his collar, where the bridge of his nose pressed hard against the line of his jaw, and wetness soaked his neck. “Shh, it doesn’t become you. I’ve never seen it and I never will. You are good, Dion. I know no other who cares as much as you.”
“Now you have,” Dion said sullenly. He laughed, short and low. Then sighed, grasping at him in return, fingers sliding into his hair and pressing; Terence leaned his head against the warmth of his shoulder and the thin cloth underneath. What anxieties plagued him Terence knew in full; the extent of their reach did not rattle him, only emboldened him.
“I can only speak for myself — but is that not what parents want — for their children to leave and stand on their own? You are a fine example. You’re a heroic ward. You’re a dutiful son and you watch out for all.” Terence kissed his mouth. “I’m infatuated, but not blind.” Dion snorted so Terence pressed a kiss to his wet cheek in further protest.
“I do not think that came from him,” Dion murmured. “And we know my arrival here was not so I may be afield by my own graces, but the extension of his own.” He drew back, arms falling back to his sides, eyes soft. “I know you mean what you say, Terence. And I treasure you for it.”
“You know you are not to blame for this. You’ve done all you can.”
“Yes, but someone must take responsibility regardless. At least your presence makes this easier.”
Dion sloughed out of his shirt and hung it upon a hook where he also draped his trousers. Terence collected them, parted the curtain to where Dion had dunked himself into the bath and now dug the heels of his palms into his eyes. Bahamut was lauded only because the dominant who housed him was equally lovely. Nothing could convince him otherwise, even Greagor. If the Council and His Radiance saw fit to undermine his post at their convenience, then Dion would simply need to be elevated beyond their reach.
Terence wordlessly undid the buckles of his chest piece, swinging stained leather and steel to lay in a careful heap and away from the danger of puncturing their feet. He pulled his garments away from his skin and heaped them in a corner with Dion’s small-clothes, unconcerned. Laundering would be done on the morrow, when the garrison could take the warm stench of each other no longer.
“Make room, love,” Terence muttered and stepped swiftly over the side of the tub. The heat stung his legs and his toes curled. Where Dion’s arms rose out of the water to receive him the flesh was a heavy pink.
Dion grinned impishly at his legs, raw eyes traveling the width of him. Terence sunk down across from him and noticed at once where small cuts grew furious with him, stinging across the fabric of his skin. The salts rubbed coarse at his heels and the herbal oil shined slick across the bobbing surface. It also felt marvelous. He had not been impulsive in some time.
“Well,” Dion said, gesturing. “Turn around then. Let me have at your hair. You’ve dirt in it.”
“No no, I’ll get it after. You first.”
“Terence,” Dion said, voice calm with a warning. He raised his brows.
“My Prince.”
Dion pretended to glower at him, then flicked a spray of water from his fingers. They both grinned stupidly, anticipation spurring them, then a burst of adrenaline. Terence hooked his hands around his thighs to pull him under the soapy water, laughing, then breathless and grunting, as Dion’s foot found purchase against his sternum and pressed him flat against the tub’s wooden borders instead. Water slopped over the side like a sheet of glass. The wood groaned.
“Careful,” Terence murmured, patting his knee. “Or we will be sleeping in a flood plain with no explanation this time.”
“I would join you,” Dion said, voice soft. He kissed him chaste and simple, then combed his wet fingers through his lanky threads to lay them mussed against his forehead. He pushed his weight into Terence to take the soap from the stool behind him and slicked his hands until they were frothy. “Consider this my first service. Careful grounds keeping and assistance.” He massaged the blunt ends of his fingers into his scalp. Terence closed his eyes at the obvious turn of events and couldn’t stop his smile.
“That I should feel so spoiled by My Lord. However will I measure up?”
“I believe it is the Lord who must match the grace of his knight.”
“What nonsense,” Terence whispered. Dion traced the soap behind his ears, breath falling across his crown. Terence held him at the low of his back and let the warmth wash over them both.
Tilting his head back, Terence watched Dion take a pitcher of water and rinse the suds from his hair into the angled bucket below, and with it, his worries followed. Dion’s face was soft and focused in the low light, all of his attention concentrated on himself — closing his eyes again, he let that light wash over him that Dion was so desperate to share with all he held dear.
This would be a momentary respite, Terence knew. Tomorrow, or the next, Dion would grow tired and agitated, and apologize for the choleric behavior he shamed himself for not entirely withholding.
They rose from the bath water and shared a towel. Between them, Terence knew Dion was better practiced at self-restraint. But Terence knew too that he could take a staggering blow or two, or three, and endure; someday, Dion would snap because the burden had always been too great.
The response of grief was equal to that in fury and all those emotions ran the race to win. He’d seen it in the hollowed eyed looks of men unluckier than him. Dion’s was scaled perfectly to the violence inside him that was both feared and honored across the Empire. But if anyone were to ask after the man, they would be told the Prince was a gentle soul. Dion was still the same boy Terence had waited on all his life, a sparkle of light in his warm eyes, graceful and kind, his own gentle brilliance enriching the lives of everyone who’s paths he crossed.
When he laid himself bare and Dion rose up to match him, it seemed there were no lines he could not tread without a blessing and trust both. So he did. So he would. He was a careful confidant, like those days of their youth, brushing elbows at their desks and later trading blows in a courtyard under a balmy noonday sun without fear of cutting skin. Dion would whisper about books from the library, wyrms asleep in their beds, and the politicking of men lost in the circular imbalance of an Empire running from one enemy to the next. And later, other things. Bahamut rose to meet all of them, inhuman and immortalized beyond understanding, where he remained, pinned in place by history and his father both. Dion was, as always, somewhere in the wings — and it was so convenient that Terence found himself there as well, where they may meet as close to equals in work as in love.
Terence looped the strings of the curtain together, and shivering with the first wafting of cool air under it biting at his ankles, quickly sprawled upon the open side of the bed. It dipped beneath him pleasantly and the sheets were still starchy from seldom use.
Dion received him with a tired smile. The candles burned comfortably to see by, so Terence’s eyes followed the lay of the land, which showed a growing urgency between them, not yet acknowledged or seen to. Neither of them had seen fit to dress. The days were busy, and nights saw them both nodding off with only weary whispers between them.
Terence took his hand and pressed a kiss to the wrist, then the blunt and calloused ends of his fingers. Dion’s eyes were impossibly fond and lured him closer. “Come here,” he murmured. “Let me hold you.”
The wanting was the easy part. Watching Dion cut himself open on the Empire’s messes and staying himself with impossible soothes — Terence would rather be ground to ashes.
Dion licked into his mouth and against the back of his teeth. Terence folded over him carefully, unraveling the damp threads of his hair on the pillow, curling his fingers along the jumping pulse against his jaw. Dion’s brilliance was such that he felt privileged just to stand in the shadow he cast. That was what made a dominant, he realized, their human wants in the face of a simple and brutal world. And if Dion’s father only chose the superlative — if the council only ever saw him as a shortcut in their wars — Terence had never doubted where he wanted to be or who he wanted to lift beyond his means.
“Relax. Lay back,” Terence murmured, and kissed at his cheek. His cock pressed against the underside of his own. “Will you allow me this?”
“Heavens yes.” Dion traced his arm from bicep to shoulder. “Do you have other wishes?”
“Mm, not tonight,” he considered. “Maybe later.”
“As you are then, sir. Take what you like.”
“I shall.”
Dion grinned into his mouth and dragged him down by the hips to grind their cocks together. Terence grunted in surprise at the bruising strength in his hands, the muscles rippling beneath the thick roundness of his thighs, and stuttered with pleasure at the force of his want. A low laugh bubbled out of Dion’s throat, light and small and free of care. Terence swallowed it down to feel it swell in his chest instead. Dion’s body mirrored his own, shaped by war with pieces carved in and out of him, and as Terence traced him with his eyes and hands Dion did the same.
They warmed oil in their palms and stroked each other to painful hardness. Dion kissed at his mouth sloppily while his fingers traced between his cheeks. Terence bowed his head to press murmurings against his throat that Dion leaned into, eyes nearly shut from the warmth in his face. The want cored him like a split fruit and he could wait no longer. Dion’s eyes slammed open when Terence pressed his hand away and took his thickening length harshly to the base with untempered and greedy strength.
“Terence,” he hissed. Light pooled in Terence’s belly. If his smile was stupid and pleased, or his voice was guttural and wretched as he stretched him open, Dion should know it was for him.
Terence centered his weight across him and leaned back to brace his arm along a rigid thigh, breathing deeply. This moment was his favorite. Dion’s eyes grew heavy with pleasure and his soft hair spread about him like a halo. The back of his hand traced along the soft skin of Terence’s inner thighs to sooth the jumping muscles. But there was nothing angelic about the needy way Dion pressed into him, or the harsh grunt that burst from his chest when Terence began to move and his prick rose weeping between them. His breathing was fast already, and he imagined he’d be gasping breathless beside him when they both arrived together.
Nothing was more pleasurable than his hands on his skin, constantly pulling him closer as if he hoped to disappear inside, the better for Terence to keep him safe.
Terence contested the madness of the Empire and their pitiable charity with a union that left him weak kneed and cursing. He folded his hands beside Dion’s golden crown until he painted his insides with his earthly light, head tilted back in soundless pleasure, and his seed slipped gracelessly down his trembling legs like celebratory ribbons. Dion’s hands on him left him pressing violently into his arms for relief, his groans rattled by a final punctuation of rough strokes, and Dion’s mouth pressing soft words of wonder against the hollow of his throat as he jerked him to completion. It made Terence feel lazy and relieved to be embraced. Some things would always stay the same.
Following their separation, Dion stroked along the planes of his body and repeated the same saccharine words that Terence rained upon him earlier. He smiled, sweat in his eyes, and hooked his hip over Dion’s to press their softening lengths together. His mouth was dry from tears. His skin tasted like the salts from the bath. He was also warm and boneless, and Terence was glad he could bring him back to himself with the gift of his body over his.
“You are simply too good to me,” Dion murmured. He curled his fingers along the back of his scalp, pressing; Terence closed the last few inches and pressed his face against the cords in his neck. They vibrated against his cheek when he spoke again. “But I would not be well without you.”
“You would have other allies.”
“But I would not have you,” he said pointedly.
Terence pressed his palm flat against his back to soothe him. “Then you should be as greedy with me as you please.”
“Careful. If you give me permission I may take advantage.”
“I might be greedier and worse by far,” Terence murmured, “and would not take offense at all if you did.” Dion huffed a breath, then traced a familiar path over the shell of his ear, where his hand always rested in these close moments. His palm was warm against his skin, and Terence didn’t care where it was so long as they were touching.
“I won’t forget that you still haven’t answered my question.” They laid idly until their bodies grew to coolness and their hearts slowed.
“What else could I want,” Terence breathed. He blinked sleepily. The candles had burned low. Dion’s eyes still watched him in the dark, but he said no more.
Dion shuffled and pulled the blanket up with his feet, then cocooned them both. Terence stayed awake until Dion’s hand stilled against his jaw. His dead weight emanated heat not unlike Bahamut’s flares, rending armies to ash and making the land blister in his wake. Wherever Bahamut was needed, Dion would follow, and wherever he lead, Terence would go to meet him and see him safely through.
