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lucianegm · 3 days ago

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HS AU Vignette - The Darkest Point

This is the worst night during John and Gale’s fights about having kids. (First drabble about their ongoing fights)

~♡~

Staying quiet has never been John's forte. When he laughs, it’s with his whole body, and the room echoes with the bright joy of it. When he's sick, he whines and sniffles and groans until Gale wakes up even from the deepest of dreams to hold him. When they're making love, he never stops talking, when he's angry, he yells. Used to such constant stimuli, nothing sounds louder to Gale than the quiet that descends on their apartment now.

This was their worst fight ever. He doesn’t know if there’s any coming back from it.

Gripping the sink in the master bathroom, he stares at his reflection, at the water splashed on his face. When John raised his voice, he didn’t let himself cry. Tears stung in his eyes but he wiped them away and turned his pain into anger. Always safer to lash out and bite back than to capitulate.

"I think the real reason why you want to be a dad is because your own left you. You want to prove that being a shitty father is not in the blood, but it is, it fucking is, it goes down from generation to generation, I know because I lived through it, but it's gonna die with me because I will never ever have a child. Not with you, not with anyone else.”

His own words now haunt him with regret.

John looked stunned. As if Gale had slapped him. Perhaps it would've hurt him less than the venom in Gale's voice. "What do you mean with anyone else?"

"What do you think?"

It was the closest they have ever come to acknowledging just how deep a trench this disagreement has been digging between them. An inflamed wound that keeps hurting worse the more they prod at it.

John closed his eyes and turned his head away for a moment before he spat, "Maybe you would be better off with someone who wants a life as bitter and joyless as you.”

The words rang in their living room the way John's laughter would on happier days. They lingered in the air long after their sound had faded. An anvil on Gale’s heart.

John stepped away from him. “I’m gonna give you your precious space and just sleep in the fucking guest room."

They've let it get too far. It just slipped out of Gale’s hands somewhere, weeks, months ago. He doesn’t know how they managed to get here. Everything used to be perfect. He thought... But it was just an illusion, wasn’t it? He was utterly blind to the fact that John wasn’t satisfied anymore with the dreams they dreamed up ten years ago. Why would he be? His career doesn’t fulfill him the way astrophysics does Gale. And he has too much love to give to only share it with one person.

Sometimes, Gale doesn’t even know if he has enough in him for one.

His arms feel robotic as he reaches for the towel and wipes his face. His reflection in the mirror is blank as an empty sheet. There's rough stubble on his chin, the lines of his cheeks hollow from not eating enough from the stress of it all. He looks like some wild thing. Blown in from the street. Perhaps this is his true core anyway.

The sound of John blowing his nose breaks the silence and pulls him out of his thoughts. There's a muffled noise too, like a sob, or maybe just him saying something to Achilles. But it's enough to tell Gale that John’s crying, and that makes the pain gather in his own chest again. He didn’t want to hurt his husband so badly. He didn’t want to hurt him at all.

No.

That’s a lie.

He did want to hurt him. But only because John hurt him too, and it bled so much anguish and poison that Gale had to make him feel it too. The betrayal. The threat that all his dreams are going to fall apart because somewhere along the way, their wants and needs stopped being aligned.

But he shouldn't have done it. Shouldn't have said all those nasty things. This is just as much Gale's fault now as it is John's, he made it so. It’s up to him to offer the olive branch too.

Taking a deep breath and wiping the wetness away from his eyes, again, Gale exits the bathroom and makes his way down the hall to the guest room, where Georgia and Neil stay when they visit. John's curled up on the right side of the bed, as if he's so used to Gale taking the left side that he didn’t even consider lying in the middle. Achilles is there too, pressed to John's socked feet, his sad puppy eyes driving the guilt ever deeper into Gale's heart.

Quietly, Gale sits down behind John's broad back and lays a hand on his shoulder. He swipes his thumb back and forth until another small sob escapes John's chest.

"Come back to our bed." Gale whispers, stroking John's arm with his whole palm. He says it as warmly as he can, with his guilt and remorse laced into his voice like a plea, but it's not the right thing to say.

"I'm tired." John says, rolling further away from him.

"Me too." Gale murmurs, scooting after him. After a moment of hesitation, he lays his head on John's shoulder, hugging him as much as he can in that awkward position.

For a few seconds, they breathe together, and it feels like it’s going to be okay. At least until the next day. But then, so suddenly that Gale startles, John pushes himself up to sit back against the headboard and gives him a raw look, his eyes red-rimmed.

"I can’t sleep until we resolve this."

Gale sighs, frustration drawing his brows together. He looks at the wall, his arms crossing on his chest. His fingers dig into his sides. "John, I'm not cut out to be a father."

"Why not?"

"You know." Gale tone is flat, final. He shouldn't have to go into it. He shouldn't have to explain it to John of all people. He was there to see it firsthand. Gale’s too fucked up. Subjecting a child to that would be a mistake.

John sneers, angry again. "You’re almost fucking thirty, Gale. You can’t excuse everything with your childhood."

That catches Gale so blindsided that his breath gets trapped in his throat. It feels like a bandage torn off an unhealed cut. Blood floods to the surface immediately, stinging and messy. He almost chokes on the pain of it. No one has ever said such a thing to Gale about it.

"You’re such a hypocrite."

"I'm the hypocrite?" John barks a laugh, but there’s no joy in it. "You were the one who kept telling me to let my dad go. To have more boundaries. To tell you if I want something. Then I told you what I wanted and you flipped your shit."

The room feels too small.

Gale just wanted to make up, but all he got is more hurt. He stands up, his emotions so all over the place that his mind feels blank. His blood rushes in his ears. He makes a dismissive gesture. "I'm not listening to this."

"Right, you go run away again."

I'm not your father, Gale wants to hiss, but he holds himself back. "I'm going to sleep. See you in the morning."

He doesn’t know what sort of trigger his words set off in John, but when he leaves the room, the door slams shut behind him. He hears Achilles barking in confusion, but he doesn’t wait to listen to what John tells him. He goes back to their bedroom and climbs under the covers.

The sheets feel cold in the winter night, without John's furnace of a body to warm him.

He sniffs, wipes his eyes again and goes to sleep. He tries to stir his thoughts to nicer memories, but his dreams flow dark and empty. Nothing works out in their jumbled space. He’s drowning, then crushed, then chased. There's no escape. He's chained in place on a cliff and the sea rises around him until he wakes up gasping.

It has only been an hour since he fell asleep.

A few feet away from him, John's taking clothes out of the wardrobe and getting dressed in a pair of jeans. His bag zips up.

"Where are you going?" Gale asks quietly. His heart pounds in fear. This has never happened to him before.

"Curt’s."

Don't go, please, he should plead.

But he doesn’t say anything.

John leaves. It's too dark to see his face before the door closes with a soft click.

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lucianegm · 3 days ago

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Here's that new barbarian/concubine bit I was teasing in the last WIP game! It's another explicit soulmate one.

General CW apply, discussion and implications of sexual violence and dubious consent.

John’s not born with a soul mark but it comes in young enough that he doesn't really remember not having one. He's not yet an orphan so it’s his mother who notices it on his little toddler knee and gasps.

It's not rare to have an outsider as a soulmate but the name carefully written on soft young skin is in the language of the others– the kingdom across the mountains and their strange, cruel king and his crueler son– and that must be a sign of something. They have already been mulling the problem of what to do about them, and now to have a child who will find his soul there, that can’t be an accident.

She brings John to the elders who look the baby over and talk and consider. They decide after a while it's a good thing, a blessing. That this child will find what's his in the heart of foreign lands. A fighter, John is pronounced, a conqueror.

He’s still small when his mother dies of fever and his father never comes back from a hunting party so the clan raises him together, kindly and carefully, the way they do with orphans. Everyone's child and no one's. Friend to all the boys, favorite of all the girls, but they all know he’s been given somewhere else and that holds him apart. They love him, but he's marked.

When he's twenty-three they make him war leader for many reasons, but that's one. He's excited about it, that he will win his soulmate, his own person, the one that will choose him over everyone and anyone else.

He's excited until he isn't. They don't fight well, these people. They have numbers and equipment but they don't use them. Charging uphill into archer fire. Fighting in the churning mud with heavy, tired horses. The men are men like any one but the officers are cowards and cruel in ways he'd thought were just stories that men couldn't really be. He and his boys have seen the results of their punishments of their own, often worse than what they do to anyone unfortunate enough to be their prisoner. Men whipped and stripped naked, bound in the sun, left to rot alive. Men impaled, stoned to death. The results of rape, careless and obvious, sometimes alive, mostly not.

John can't imagine his soul being bound to a man who could do a thing like that, stand by for it, be like that, what that says about him if he is. But there are a few commanders he starts to see are different, worth fighting. He knows them by their banners before he has names for them. An eight pointed star. A howling wolf. Two eagles facing each other.

Mostly, when he fights, he wins. Always if they're not there, those commanders. Wins and takes prizes, reaps death and it’s not hard. And this gets him overtures, messages, spies. A spy gives him the names that go with the banners. Gale Cleven is the name on his knee, in neat, careful script and it belongs to the eagle banner. House Cleven, a minor house, only the too obvious military talents of its standard bearer give it any standing at all. He's never seen his face, just his bright, fair hair across the field like its own banner. Heard a voice, loud and rough, calling attention and getting it.

John rethinks every encounter, every battle once he knows who it is. Cleven fights like a man at war with his own shadow, all doomed, stubborn grace, but he doesn’t spend life like it’s free, not of his men.

Gale Cleven who almost certainly has a matching mark and if he does will know exactly who he's fighting, must have known from the beginning and didn’t come to find him. Gale Cleven, who he needs to meet, to know. “You won't have to worry about Cleven,” a spy promises him. “If he's lucky he'll die in battle and if he's not… well, man's made a lot of enemies and they all want a piece.”

And John thinks about how these people treat each other and he does more than worry. They don't know who has Cleven's name on his skin, do they? Or do they know, are they waiting to use it and him? His soulmate is no monster like these others, there are no stories of horrors, mutilations or abuses that follow him, just that same nervous whispers, minor nobility, talented and beautiful, desired and doomed. They’re afraid to love him.

“He won’t have anyone, I’d say he was saving himself for the king, but rumor is that he denied the king too.” And a whistle and a headshake.

Me, John thinks, touching his knee where his mark is inscribed, tapping it with restless fingers. He’s for me. But how to get him?

Gale Cleven comes to him instead. On the eve of a battle, a quiet cloaked figure under a truce flag. He comes alone, guards letting him through as they'd been ordered to. Comes to John's tent and waits there by the flap.

He's as beautiful as they said. More than they said, even visibly exhausted, blue eyes rimmed in red, bruised eyelids and a swollen mouth. John has never seen him up close before but feels like he’s known him since he was born. His mouth waters at the sight.

“John Egan, I think maybe you have my name,” he says, shrugging as if he's not actually sure and he’s tense with the uncertainty of it. “I've got yours.” His voice is a honey rumble, lower than on the battlefield and tired.

“Yeah well,” John says back. “seems like I do. Better come in, sweetheart.”

There's a curl to his mouth, fight in it, but maybe he looks a little less unsure. “Sweetheart,” he repeats and shakes his head. He comes in anyhow.

Waits, though, once he’s inside, stands at something like attention and watches John's face. He's tall, near as tall as John, but without the same bulk to him.

John, like a proper host, pours out a drink and gestures to a camp chair. He's practically vibrating, the feel of his soulmate so close like static under his skin. There's a smile on his own face he can't stop. Gale’s mouth twitches in return though it doesn’t really widen. He shifts on the balls of his feet like he might run away, but then thinks better of it and sits down too carefully instead.

The way his body moves is wrong, John can see it now, too slow and deliberate, like he's trying not to let a wound show. John thinks about what to say but nothing sounds like it’s enough. He’s here. “What do you need?” he finally asks.

Gale looks at him and twitches. His hands are gloved but there's a strip of visible skin right above his wrists, enough to show fine golden hairs. He opens his mouth, shuts it. His eyes are blue, blue, blue, clear and empty as a wax doll’s. Finally he says, ”do you know the story of Edmond and Elaine? Soulmates on the opposite side of a war?”

John shrugs and shakes his head. “That's not one we tell where I’m from. Tell me.”

“There's versions but it's always the same story in the end. Elaine comes to the enemy’s tent, just like this.” Gale gestures with a careful hand. “They make lo– they fuck. When he's asleep, after, she kills him. His people kill her when they catch her. But they're buried together.”

John breathes out with a whistle. “That why you're here? Gonna kill me?”

Gale’s soft mouth twitches and his hands go still in his lap. “There's always reasons. Why she does it. Depends on the story. Sometimes she's just that loyal to her nation. Sometimes her king has her brothers hostage and she's got no choice. It’s not always a choice.”

John nods slowly, turning this around in his head, the idea of it. Gale is watching his face like he's waiting for something to happen. John watches him back, seeing the tension build. Finally he breathes out. “Cleven. Gale. You’ve really gotta tell me what you need. Spit it out.”

This earns him a nod, tight and slow. “I need you to say you caught me trying? And you stopped me. Could you do that?” His hand moves then, real slow. There's a knife in it, pulled from somewhere, but it’s not aimed, no threat to it. Instead he hands it to John, hilt first. John takes it just as carefully. The feel of Gale’s fingers makes him twitch even through the leather of his gloves.

This close he can smell blood and salt on Gale’s skin. You're hurt, he wants to say. But he thinks about it, what he's supposed to do, what he's being told. “I could but, you could have more. Weapons,” he says instead.

Gale swallows. “Please,” he says. “And you stopped me.” He looks at the knife in John's careful hands, hopeful and exhausted.

“I will,” John says, lying and not. He will stop Gale, but not the way he seems to mean. “First, show me you don't have more weapons. Show me.”

There’s a resigned half nod. Resigned to what? But John knows, he knows what these people are, the things they do to their own. Why wouldn't Gale think he was the same if that's what he knew?

Gale unlaces his boots. The movements are still slow, slow and John almost gets up to do it for him but thinks better of it. He's wearing thick darned socks under them. There's a sheath for a knife but it's empty. Gale hands it over as if to demonstrate. Under the socks his feet are pale and well made but blistered. There are wide red marks and thick black bruises around his ankles. Those are not battle injuries. They both wait, quiet.

Then Gale swallows, almost soundlessly, and stands up slow, just enough to shrug off his cloak. He's in leather and linen underneath, no armor. His exposed throat is bruised just like his ankles, and no fight would do that, not mark him so perfectly. It's another injury that couldn't be a battle wound. Maybe a rope around his neck. The brownish gray fabric of his shirt looks wet. There's a sheath for a sword around his too narrow waist, but that’s empty as all the others, not like any assassin worth his salt.

Gale winces when he pulls the shirt over his head and then blinks, surprised. There’s a bandage packed around his side and it’s blood soaked, the source of the stink. John frowns at him and he shrugs, as if this injury he can acknowledge he has. “S’a scratch,” he says, quiet. “Sometimes they bleed, you know that, doesn’t matter now.”

His hands are pale gold, fine fingered. The knuckles are bruised and there’s blood in his fingernails, thick and crusted over. He’d gone down fighting.

His mark– John’s mark– is inside his elbow. Small, in the crease. John wants to touch it, put his mouth there. Wants to press a kiss to his palms, his battered knuckles, to the scabs and ruin on ankles and wrists. His soul is sitting across from him, stripped to the waist and watching him with painfully worn down resignation.

“Who made you come here?” John asks, though he’s not sure he’ll get an answer. He’s so angry he can feel his backteeth clench.

Gale’s shoulders tighten, like he can feel the waves of outrage hitting him. He straightens up, gritting his own teeth against something. “What difference does it make?”

“You’re my soul, Gale Cleven. Of course it makes a difference.”

Gale’s mouth thins out. “Ain't that just a way for us to get close enough to make it hurt?”

John whistles in disbelief. “Sure, you’re doing a great job hurting me, sweetheart. Seems to me you're the one hurt and I'd like to know who did it.”

“I came here to kill you.” Like that's an answer. “Do you think I couldn’t?”

And now John barks a sound that feels like a laugh. “Pretty sure you could have made a go of it if you put in any effort at all. Seems more like you came here to die.” And he thinks John will be taking care of that for him. John would be offended if Gale weren't so obviously at the end of his own rope.

“If you won't-” and there he sees the fight spark in him, eyes gone narrow, commanding. “If you won't, just say it.”

“You came to me. I'll take care of you,” he promises easily. “Don’t mean I’m sticking a knife in you.” He thinks about pressing further, getting Gale out of his pants, but he doesn’t want to see what he’s pretty sure he knows he will. He’s angry enough already, would be spitting if he didn’t have his soulmate to look after.

“If you won’t–” Gale begins again. He colors a little, and raises his chin. “You can fuck me first if you want.”

John’s teeth clench. “Tell me why you’re here like this and I will,” he manages.

This earns him an exhausted exhale and clenched fists. It makes the bruises stand out, darker and more painful looking. “I’m a messenger from our king. This is supposed to make a point.”

A point to whom? That Gale could get this close? Of course he could. That John's soulmate could be a weapon against him? Well he was doing a terrible job of that. “And it’s your king that did this to you?”

Gale makes a face, bare arms twisting around his own stomach. He stops when he seems to notice it himself, that he’s rocking a little. He’s still bleeding and watching him hurts. “You know it was,” he says. “Come on, what difference does it make? You don’t even know me.”

This is laughably insane, the elders always said these people were tainted with madness and there was nothing he’d seen since that's made him doubt it. John looks at his name again, hidden in the space of a well made elbow. There are bruises there too, sickly purples and yellows.

“What I know is that you have a soulmate with an army at your king’s throat, sweetheart,” he says. “Maybe you should take advantage of it.”

Gale blinks at him, blue and gold, red and black and blue. “Why?”

“Why? Listen –fine,” John says, throwing up his hands. He stands up and goes to pour another drink and adds something to it, a little vial of medicinal stuff. It will have a strong taste. “You want me to– just drink this,” John says quietly, pushing the liquid into Gale’s bare hands. The touch of skin on skin makes them both shiver. “It won't hurt, I promise.”

Gale’s eyes are clear with a strange hunger, like he hasn't known what it means to be given things. Like he thinks the answer to ‘what do you need?’ is this. “It won't?”

“I promise,” he repeats. “You'll just go to sleep.” And he smiles and hates the tentative way that Gale finally smiles back, like, of course his soulmate, his fucking soulmate, who he came to for help, who he'd chosen not to hurt when he could have, would give him poison, or whatever it is he thinks is happening here. But there's time, John will make sure there's time to show him that won't happen. “Drink,” he says.

And Gale does, takes careful swallows and doesn't wince at the taste. John's not lying, it's a sedative and a strong one. He can see the effect within minutes on an already exhausted, wounded body. The physicker will be able to work on him easier, John figures.

“It's alright,” John whispers into Gale’s ear, brushing fingers over soft hair. “I've got you now and we'll figure it out.” Gale nods, eyelids clearly heavy. His pretty mouth curves and he yawns.

John half guides and half carries him to his own sleeping space and kneels down next to him until he's well passed out. Waits a few minutes longer and then gets up to get the physicker, to think about what to do next.

Gale thinks he needs to be dead so John will let him play dead while he decides what to do about it. Right now, they’ve got time and a war to win.

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lucianegm · 3 days ago

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My cat decided that the cooler weather meant it was time to wake me up by climbing all over me so you get this random barbarian/concubine thing. Though it's more Anne Boylen inspired, kind of. It all makes sense in my head, I promise.

A last minute attempt to avoid war, leads to a banquet, leads to John meeting a harried Gale who decides John can help him. In bed.

Lighter than most of these. Still cw of implied harassment/dub con. Romance novel bullshit. Loss of virginity.

There is a young man holding up the corner, one of the handsomest John has ever seen. Wheat fair hair and blue eyes, fair, freckled skin and sharp bones. Cheeks flush. Gold and blue, but too much strength in the shoulders to be compared to a flower. Maybe a river or the sea at sunset. Everything but his face and the sharp line of his throat is covered in fabric, even his hands are gloved, it makes whatever skin you can see more tempting. He looks like he would rather be anywhere but here.

If there is no last minute solution, they'll be a war soon. John and this man will be on opposite sides of it. He thinks they will be. Maybe they'll be killing each other soon.

Tonight, though, there is music and drinks and dancing, as if it could all still be averted. Tonight, John meets sea blue eyes across a floor, winks broadly and lifts a glass to beauty. Beauty visibly smoothers an answering grin and doesn't look away, nods at him. This is all the encouragement John needs to approach.

"Bucky Egan," he says, holding out a hand. Beauty raises a single fair eyebrow at him and twitches a corner of a pretty, pink and soft looking mouth. He doesn't take the offered hand. John puts it away, still grinning. "What's your name?"

Beauty shrugs. "Shouldn't you be talking to someone important? Might be a princess with your name on her."

"You look like someone that should have my name on them," John tells him.

A raised eyebrow and his mouth curves down. "I can promise you I don't. Can't even bribe you to take your men off somewhere else, don't have the cash."

John smirks, "I wouldn't count on that, there's more than cash out there." This earns him a flush-- annoyance, anger, embarrassment, all of those-- pink and gold. He keeps grinning. “Wanna try it?”

“Some other time.” Beauty turns on his heels and stalks away. John sighs and shrugs his shoulders again.

He watches the man out of the corner of his eye, only half paying attention to the proceedings. Beauty lurks at the sidelines, but he gets approached, multiple times. He doesn't like it either, not in the half amused, half embarrassed way he'd left John. He looks increasingly strained by whatever is whispered in his ear, a furrow between his eyes, the same, unreplenished glass in his hands. He doesn't dance and seems to be trying his hardest to avoid company.

Of course John's attention is also noticed. A pretty, unveiled girl wearing not very much grins and siddles closer, "Lord Cleven won't fuck you. The king himself wants him, you know, and he's playing very hard to get for whatever that’s earning him."

John grins back at her, "Is that his name? The king has good taste."

Her mouth puckers into a half kiss, "He does, I've had him," she says, airly, "the king, not Gale Cleven. Though not for want of trying. Too late now."

“Why’s it too late?” John asks, eyebrows tilting.

“I told you, the king wants him. Though,” she giggled. “I suppose you wouldn’t care about that.”

John dances with the girl, then another and another, drinks wine, eats cake and talks about politics and money. He had no real hope of avoiding war when he started and less as the night got later, less convinced he even wants to. The beautiful Gale Cleven, though, he's still thinking maybe about.

He doesn't expect to have the man himself tap on his shoulder a little after midnight. The strain in his blue eyes is more visible by lamplight and he isn't smiling. His shoulders are stiff. He looks at John, straight-shouldered, like a soldier on parade ground, controlling his breathing with deliberate care.

"Alright," he says.

"Alright, what, sweetheart?" John teases a little. "Gonna dance with me, maybe? Tell me your name?" There's no blush this time, just that mouth firming up into an even line.

"I will, but I'm sure you know it by now, got all the gossip," Gale tells him. "But we can skip all that, if you want."

"Skip all what?" John quizzes, smile still plastered on.

"You want to take me to bed," Gale tells him, like he might be telling him that John wants to stick a knife in heart. "Let's do that. I have a place to go."

If this is an assasination attempt, they have absolutely picked the wrong person to run a seduction game, John thinks, vaguely, mouth open a little. The only reason this is going to work, because it is going to work, is because Gale is the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. And there's something about him, or had been, a glint of humor, the sense of solidity. "I usually do like a dance first," John says, grinning a little once he closes his mouth. "A conversation, some moonlight, some flirting."

Gale blinks at him. "If you're not interested–." He's already turning around to leave again when John puts a hand on his arm. The flinch he gets at the light touch is all out of proportion. Gale is reaching for a weapon he isn't wearing. Flinches again when his hands close on nothing and stares at John, blue eyes fringed in wheat gold, anger, misery and terror mixed into a froth and vivid right under the surface. His breathing is more spooked horse than soldier.

John holds up both of his hands where Gale can see them, taking a careful step back. "It's alright," John says, gentler now. "Hey, now, you're alright."

Gale blinks at him, and takes in a slow, long breath. His eyes go blank. "I apologize for imposing myself on you," he says. "I'll let you be, General."

If this is a seduction or assasination then it's more convoluted than anything he'd ever heard of. More likely, Gale's in trouble, and it's bad, John thinks. He gives a careful smile, "Now, I never said you needed to do that, sweetheart. Never said no."

There's another breath, flutter of lashes, a motion of mouth. He half thinks Gale is going to run for it, but he doesn't. Instead he gives a tight, forceful nod, gestures with his chin and walks off like he expects John to follow him. John does, going careful, hands hovering over his own weapon and eyes to his sides while Gale strides straight ahead. Just because it's a bad trap doesn't mean it can't possibly be one.

They end up in a very small room in a deserted hallway. There's a bed and a cupboard and a door that bolts from the inside. A window wide enough for a man to climb out of if he had to. Into maybe too, but Gale closes the shutters and bars those too. He turns to look at John, that mix of frustrated anger and desperation still in his eyes. Shifts and sways on his feet. John watches as he takes another deep, bracing breath. Like he's waiting on John to do something.

John thinks about it, thinks about kissing that pretty, soft looking mouth. Nods to himself and goes and does it. There's a faint breath out, not quite a gasp. Surprise, stiffness. Gale's mouth is warm and dry, not even the hint of alcohol. He's rigid, just for a moment, breath hot against John's mouth, lips sealed. John lets his hand come to rest on Gale's shoulders, light, light gentle.

Rigid just long enough that John almost lets him go, almost tells him he isn't doing whatever this is. He's not looking for something unwilling, stiff and miserable, still doesn't understand why he's even being offered it. But there's a low, startled noise and then Gale relaxes and lets him in. A flash of insight, and he thinks, damn, this is someone who has never kissed anyone before, and he doesn't think too hard about why not or why now. Instead he takes it as a goad, kisses better, tender, careful, slow with reassurance. Gives it to him.

Gale's mouth is wet, after, lips still parted, glistening. He blinks, a gloved hand rising up to his own mouth. Then to John's, just brushing over it. It's steady and John snakes his tongue out, brushing against leather. Soft, well worn and supple, body warm.

"Sweetheart," John breathes, slow, slow, gentle as he knows how to be, cupping the hinge of his jaw in a palm, just for a moment. "You gotta help me out here, what are you looking for out of all this?"

The softness tightens up in Gale's pretty face and his eyes get hard again, fingers clench. "I want you to fuck me, you expressed an interest. You need an engraved invitation?"

"Not that I ain't entirely flattered," John begins, interrupting before Gale has a chance to open his mouth. "And I have no intention of refusing you. But I get the impression you haven't done this kind of thing before. I seem like an odd choice."

Gale's face flushes red, anger, annoyance, disgust, something else that isn't quite hopeful, and he shakes his head. Mouth works like he's trying to find words. "You're a choice," he says. "I'm choosing you, ain't you experienced enough to-- to. Are you going to or not?"

John's pretty sure if he demands a further explanation he's going to be put out on his ear. And that might be the absolute smartest choice he could make, rather than tangling with an enemy soldier and whatever mess he was in. He's not going to make it.

He smiles, “Alright, sweetheart. I'll try to make it worth it.”

And what he gets back is a twist of a return smile, an almost curious warmth. Hope again. “Well, you’d better. Unless you’re all talk.”

“I hear you, no more talking.”

And when John leans in and kisses him again Gale isn't passive about it, angling in. He’s figured out fast what you do with your mouth and how you angle it and he’s got the physicality and grace to twist into it. He breathes out, lips parting, shoulders leaning in and John can almost feel the way his body relaxes, slow and deliberate.

Undressing him comes after that, layers of fabric, leather and linen, mostly unadorned but soft, something expensive. The skin under it is warm, gold and pale. Smooth muscle and golden hair, scattered scars, sword and knife callouses on his hands, rough and elegant without his ever present gloves. And Gale strips him right back, falling into the rhythm of give and take like he can understand and make his body bend to the physicality of it. Whatever he sees makes him hum in satisfaction, or something like it, blue eyes narrow and cautious but not repulsed.

Surprised a little, continually, by the careful exploratory touch, down the bare length of his spine, taut skin stretched over bone and ropey muscle of collar and shoulder, roundness of his ass, flat belly and the narrow line of waist widening to pelvis. His cock is pretty too, in its nest of wiry golden curls, generous soft and responsive to touch. Responsive to being kissed there.

And John can’t really help talking, running his mouth, licking and murmuring to the beauty under his hands, promising it will be good, he won’t regret it, telling him he tastes like salt and honey, sweet like the promise of dawn. Hips as narrow as an arrow, knees bent. John likes the blushes he gets, the groans, the parted lips and parted thighs. Likes getting him hard and making him come with hands and mouth, slick and slippery between his legs, wet, wet, wet enough to spill over John’s fingers and palms. Takes all he has not to come himself, not until Gale is done with him.

Gale doesn’t talk back, not at first, but he touches just as eagerly, knees between John’s legs, teeth on his collarbone, hands on his wrists, in his curls. Demands with his own hands and his knees and his mouth, pulls John between his thighs, puts his hands on the cleft of his ass, and looks at him, storm eyed and fierce when John wants to tell him it’s maybe too far, more than they need to do.

“Come on,” he says, finally, in that low voice, rocks and water, “Come on. Give it to me, Bucky Egan. John.” He has some kind of oil, scented and rich, greasy on John’s hands. The smell of it will linger in his nostrils, this room, the feel of this bed, the narrow space and barred windows. This boy, burning under his skin.

So John gives it to him, tender as he’s allowed, with slick fingers and his tongue. Opening him up as slow as he can, as Gale will let him. He’s new and tight and pink and John can’t remember what it felt like to want so much, to be this hard without spilling. He’s going to be good, he’s going to make it good, good enough for this man with his sea storm eyes. Tight around his cock, like a first taste of paradise.

“Why don’t you stay with me, beautiful?” John whispers into his ear while he grinds into him, hard and slow, so tight it burns. “I’ll give you an army, I’ll give you gold, I’ll make you feel so good, anything you want.”

“Are,” Gale hisses, nails digging into muscle and leaving marks as they drag. “Feels good.”

It’s only after, when he’s going soft and Gale is wet and loose and panting in his arms that he can feel any of the tension come back, but it's a shadow of what he’d felt before.

“Thanks,” Gale mumbles, and looks at him in a way that’s clearly deliberate.

“Was it what you were hoping for?” John can’t help but preen at that tangle of limbs and sweetness.

“You know it was.” There’s a flush on those cheeks and he looks alive and young without the stiff anger and fear that had been holding him in their grip at least in this moment.

“Gonna thank me by letting me keep you?” John teases, slipping in to steal a quick, soft kiss.

“Wouldn't count on that,” Gale says but he's nearly smiling, lips a little parted.

“Can I win you in war? Keep you that way?” John murmurs. That earns him a strange tight look, Gale’s body stiffening all at once.

“You saying I'd lose?” he says, sharp about it, all snapping white teeth.

“Dunno. Never fought you,” John murmurs, tone almost a coaxing croon. “But if you win, you'd be the first to beat me. What would you do then?”

Gale stops, pretty mouth still pink from kissing, cheeks burned from stubble. His eyes are endless. He is frowning. John can’t stop looking at him. “You don't want that. No one could want that.”

And John has heard the stories. These are cruel in their triumphs, destruction and waste. He's seen the results. It's, in the end, why he's here. That he can't ever let his own people be defeated like that. But– “What will you do then, Gale Cleven? Can't stand to lose, terrified to win.”

“It's a dilemma.” Gale sighs and scrubs a hand over his face, brushing back a sweaty strand of pale hair. John tucks back another strand, smiling when he’s allowed to do it.

“But you thought inviting an enemy stranger to your bed would help?” Curious again.

This actually draws a short, dry laugh, a bitten lip. “My options are extremely limited. Maybe I'll be sorry for it later, if you make me regret it.” But he wasn't now, that much was obvious.

“I was told the king himself had an interest, seems like you'd have your pick of anyone you'd want.”

The startled look was all sharp again. His palms are open and he doesn't look anything other than surprised. “The king picks. Would be pretty stupid to look too hard at what's caught his eye. Take someone like you not to care about all of that.”

And John is hit with understanding all at once of what he's in the middle of, why he's here, in this bed where no one else has ever been. Like a board to the head and it makes him sick. “That,” he starts. Swallows. “The woman said you refused the king.”

Gale makes a face, something bitter and tired. “Yeah,” he says. “Maybe now he'll lose interest. You were very public in your pursuit. No more maidenhead, you know.” There's a tilt of awful amusement. “Plunder to the barbarians and who’d want what they left?”

“What if–”

“General,” Gale says, that bitterness tinged with gentleness. “It's alright. I've played a political game without knowing it and played it badly. This is mine to handle.”

John shakes his head. “You must have a clan to call on. You're a Lord they said.”

Gale shrugs, “no one is going to put themselves on the line because I was stupid.”

“Your family,” John begins again, but stops at the quelling shrug, like Gale is saying he doesn’t understand without a word being said. He knows he doesn’t. “What will happen if he's still interested?”

“Could refuse again,” Gale’s jaw tightens. “Or accept and hope it's a passing fancy. It's not as bad as I thought it would be, all this.” He gestures to John and the bed they'd ruined between them.

John can’t help the smirk that grows on his face. “I can do better than not bad if you let me,” he teases, licking his lips. “Get to know more of what you like.”

Gale’s expression is something like fond, John can tell. Something a little less brittle, not quite hopeful. “You’ll have to fight me first.”

“Fight for you,” John replies, light, not quite agreeing. And Gale’s body shifts against his again and John thinks, you don’t know it yet, you might think you’ve got no clan to back you, but you picked me. Means you’re already mine.

Then Gale relaxes and gives him a wild, white smile, apple cheeked and languid in a way that wasn't there before, that maybe he'd put there. “Guess I'll see.”

In the morning they'll go to war but John knows how it will end. He kisses Gale’s forehead and grins.

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