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‘You want to leave me,’ Gwyn said, swallowing the end of the sentence so that it came out strangled.
‘No, you daft idiot,’ Augus said, sounding exasperated. ‘I don’t. That’s why I want you to treat me with more respect.’
‘But we’ll go back to the palace in…a few hours, a day maybe, and I have to- With everything I have to do, I’ll forget. I’ll…’
‘Oh,’ Augus said, smoothing thumbs across his creased brow, ‘trust me, if it’s punishment you’re looking for, if it’s wanting to make things even, you don’t have to worry. I won’t forget.’
There was a promise in Augus’ voice which was dark, frightening, rich, and if Gwyn wasn’t so spent, his cock would have attempted to rise to hardness once more. To anyone else, it might have sounded like a threat, but to Gwyn it sounded like…things were far better than they had been, recently. He shifted, breathed out a shaky exhale and wrapped a careful hand around Augus’ lower back.
He didn’t want to let go.
Augus’ skin was warm. Far warmer than usual. Gwyn squinted and pressed his hand down a little harder, realising that Augus was just as lukewarm as always, and that he was just remarkably slow to warm up. He ducked the side of his head against Augus’ face, wanting to hide, not liking the way that Augus was looking at him. But all of it was daring. His hand around Augus’ back, pressing his face into Augus’ when he didn’t have the clamour of arousal to hide his awkwardness.
Perhaps Augus sensed his fear, and perhaps he was tired of digging, since Augus simply pressed back slightly, cheek against forehead, damp hair wetting his own.
His lungs were still sore, body still healing. The battle had felt good at the time, too good, he realised how much he missed it, needed it. It had never sat well with him, how much he enjoyed killing once he got started.
And there was Augus, apparently getting aroused watching him, knowing of his death-wish the entire time.
‘My first battle,’ Gwyn said quietly, and Augus hummed softly, reached up with a hand and started stroking through Gwyn’s half-dry hair.
‘You said you tried to get killed.’
‘I also tried to win,’ he murmured. ‘I wanted to win. I wanted to die. I thought…I could help them win, and then die. No one would notice. But everyone was worried, because I was…young. A young soldier.’
‘You were a child the first time you were fucked, it would make entirely too much sense if you were also a child the first time you fought.’
A pause, as Gwyn tried not to think about Mafydd. It was easier than usual to cast the uncomfortable thoughts aside. Augus was so warm, and the bed was comfortable. Did Augus pick the bed for himself, or did Ash pick it out for him? Gwyn had combed the purchases and expenses of the Unseelie Court as much as he could, but Ash hadn’t counted this lake, its land, or any of the furniture within as an Unseelie expense, even when he’d been King and would have been justified.
He must have paid for it all out of pocket.
He wished Augus could find a way to spend more time here.
You have to find a way.
A grimace, and to distract himself, he flattened his hand where it was lightly curled over Augus’ back, and started stroking lines down the leanness of him. Augus tensed absently and then relaxed into the touch, sighing, hand going lax in Gwyn’s hair and resting his whole weight – always heavier than Gwyn expected – on Gwyn’s body.
‘What was it like?’ Augus said. ‘That first battle?’
‘Violent,’ Gwyn said.
Augus laughed and his fingers stirred to life, combing through Gwyn’s hair once more. It was like being petted, or perhaps caressed, and it sent tingles through his scalp, down one side of his neck. He bit the inside of his lip, wanting to desperately to push back into the movement.
But Augus liked that, didn’t he?
Gwyn tentatively shifted – only millimetres – into Augus’ touch. Augus responded by rubbing his thumb sensually behind Gwyn’s ear, then lifting up and pressing a soft, lingering kiss to the bridge of his cheek. Gwyn’s eyes closed, his fingers had accidentally dug into Augus’ back, and he forced them to loosen, to start stroking again.
‘Violent, and…?’ Augus prompted.
Gwyn cast his thoughts back to that first battle.
‘There was a soldier who wanted to fuck me after the battle,’ Gwyn said, trying to ignore the way Augus tensed again. ‘It was fine. He let me fuck him instead. He hadn’t realised how old I was, I think, because I didn’t really…behave the way I was supposed to.’
‘I wonder how long you actually behaved as a child, in that household?’
Gwyn smiled grimly.
‘Not long.’
‘Two hundred years of childhood ahead of you, and young master Gwyn, already knowing more about how to be an adult than so many.’
‘Your childhood. Did you have…the proper extended childhood?’
‘Yes, actually,’ Augus said, a smile in his voice. ‘With Ash. Those first two hundred years, two hundred and fifty really, we did whatever we wanted. And we wanted to float and swim in the lake. We wanted to lounge in the sun and hide away in each other’s warmth in winter. We did what we pleased. There were hard times, there are always hard times when you’re underfae, but by and large, they just taught us how to prepare for the future while making the most of the present.’
‘Sounds pleasant,’ Gwyn said, telling himself that he wasn’t jealous.
‘It was,’ Augus said, lifting up and kissing Gwyn’s cheek once more. ‘Very. But we weren’t talking about me, sweetness. We were talking about you.’
Gwyn’s sigh was laboured, and Augus chuckled, the sound vibrating straight into Gwyn’s chest. Unthinking, Gwyn pressed Augus closer, his other hand came up and found the curve of Augus’ shoulder and rested over a coil of hair that was black, but sheened green in the light. Gwyn petted it. A mane. He always thought of it as hair, but Augus frequently described it as a mane.
He loved its thickness. The way it had only the faintest waves in it, and that those waves were often only visible once his hair stuck to his skin. The waterweed was different to the kelp found on the waterhorse shifters of the sea. It had little circular leaves at regular intervals, surprisingly tough. Gwyn’s fingers eased towards a strand of waterweed and he stroked the leaves, feeling them run rhythmically under his fingers – glossy and almost rubbery.
Augus made a faint, pleased sound, moved his own head into Gwyn’s fingers, and the trust of it made something fragile in Gwyn’s heart hurt.
Augus always seemed so strong, but he-
‘That first battle…’ Augus said, cutting across his thoughts. Gwyn’s brow furrowed and he shook his head. ‘Why not? You won. You were triumphant. I want to know.’
‘It was…frightening,’ Gwyn said, shaking his head.
‘Why?’ Augus said, his voice becoming even softer.
‘I don’t remember exactly, now. All the things that I think may have frightened me then are things I like about it now. The noise. The smell of it. That there are threats coming not from just…a tutor in a controlled environment, but everywhere. There were other soldiers – Seelie – older than me. Older and more experienced. They were injured badly, killed. But after the first…hour, perhaps. Sooner maybe. You get taken up in the bloodlust of it.’
‘Did you know you had that potential for bloodlust?’
‘I did,’ Gwyn said, smiling wryly. ‘There were a few times – in sword training especially – where I would lose sight of myself. Does that sound stupid? I would forget who I was. I craved it. The first time that happened I was also frightened…’
Gwyn’s hands stilled on Augus, and Augus touched him with fingertips so tender that Gwyn didn’t know if he liked it or loathed it.
‘Were you scared that you’d unleashed your light?’
‘How? How do you know that?’ Gwyn said, frustrated.
‘I’m afraid, sweetness, this part of you is rather easy to understand. Once someone knows about your light, how terrifying it was for you, how you were forced to keep it a secret…’
‘I was,’ Gwyn said, hiding his face in Augus’ mane. ‘I was scared. That first time. The sword master was proud, applauding me. That I had kept up my form during the bloodlust. He said I would be a beast on the battlefield.’
‘You just shivered. Is it such a bad thing to be a beast?’
‘It confirmed…something that Crielle always said.’
Gwyn paused after saying that much. He wasn’t sure how okay things were between them about Crielle. He felt, finally, some measure of closure over Augus’ actions. The way Augus had offered something of himself – not exactly an apology, but far more concession than he ever expected Augus to offer.
I shouldn’t have done it.
It still surprised him, even now, that Augus could act outside of his own control. He had – for so long – always seemed so mastered, so disciplined. Gwyn still sometimes forgot that Augus didn’t pull all the strings, including all of his own. His thoughts drifted back to Augus’ terror of the castle after the Triumphal Entry. The way he’d gasped against the wall. The exhaustion in his eyes.
Gwyn grunted to himself and pressed his hands down tighter on Augus’ lower back, his shoulder. Held him close.
Augus, for a minute, said nothing at all. And then he exhaled slowly and Gwyn swore that Augus was soothing nerves, the way he stroked Gwyn’s chin, his cheek, the curve of his ear.
‘Does the bloodlust scare you now?’
‘No,’ Gwyn said, closing his eyes and thinking of it. ‘It’s kept me alive for thousands of years. Even when I didn’t want it to. And my military- Ah, no, the Seelie military knew to stay out of my way when I became like that. Apparently it’s quite easy to tell, my dra’ocht changes. The Unseelie seem to have a fair idea too, I suppose because they have spent so long trying to stay out of its way too.’
‘They? How long will it take you, do you think? When will it become ‘we,’ and the Seelie a ‘them?’’
‘I don’t know,’ Gwyn said honestly. ‘I only hope I don’t slip before everyone.’
‘Yes. That won’t go down well, will it? Have you thought what you will do if you say that?’
‘I will tell them that some lies are hard to shake, once they’ve clung to you for thousands of years.’
‘And we know the truth, don’t we?’
‘What truth?’ Gwyn said. Because – though he lived in dread of ever saying ‘we’ to his Generals, when referring to their enemies – he’d at least liked that it was the truth, or a version of it.
‘That you aren’t as Unseelie as you think. It took me some time to realise, myself. Because you do have so many Unseelie traits – ones you had even while fighting for them. You corrupt the Kingdom’s values for your own, for a start.’
‘Everyone does that. I know it’s considered a quintessential Unseelie trait, but look at Albion.’
‘Perhaps he has an aithwick,’ Augus joked, a smile in his voice. Gwyn smirked.
‘Perhaps he is just a very arrogant almost-god, with a very tiny ant that he wishes to crush underfoot.’
‘You are not as tiny as you think,’ Augus said, voice deep, soft, winding its way inside him. ‘I’ve been fucked by you, remember?’
Gwyn laughed then, one of his legs bending up to lean into Augus’ legs. Once he’d started touching Augus, it was easy enough to continue. Augus never pushed him away. It was strange. Though Augus went still as he laughed, and Gwyn cut himself off, because perhaps it wasn’t funny. He’d hurt people after all, he’d hurt-
‘You don’t often laugh like that,’ Augus said, something muted in his voice.
‘No?’ Gwyn whispered.
‘It’s pleasant.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Dolt,’ Augus said, sliding his hand underneath Gwyn’s neck, the other underneath his scalp, and leaning into him, holding him far closer than he usually did.
A true, lazy warmth was finding him now, and Augus’ skin was warming too beneath the heat of Gwyn’s blood. Here, in Augus’ home, he wished he could find a way to stay longer. He didn’t let himself think of the future often – not a pleasant future; since he so rarely had them.
But sometimes a tiny dream found him. A dream of having months with Augus somewhere like this. No responsibilities of the Court, and – if Augus would have him – he would stay wherever Augus wanted him. In ropes or chains, kneeling by his feet, in his bed. He would learn how to better understand Augus, and how to better understand how the bond they had worked.
Would Augus ever want that? He didn’t think it was likely. So he preserved it as a tiny, glass-bubble dream. But here, he could pretend that was what they had together. He could pretend that they’d been here for weeks and they would be here for weeks longer.
Recovering together. Close enough that Gwyn no longer cared about the dull, grating ache in his shoulder that never seemed to leave. Augus’ skin warming beneath his hands and turning to gooseflesh beneath his stroking fingers, even as a palm cradled his head with far more care than Gwyn knew people could show one another.