Detrich and Kirschen negotiate their relationship (mid-revolution)

[guardiansverse]

“I’m only a man,” Detrich said, quiet and soft — for once, soft — when Ander went to his knees before him.

Glancing up, seeing his lover’s face cast in a mosaic of light and shadow, Ander might have laughed. Of all times for Festus Detrich — general, mutineer, firebrand of the revolution — to remember all the things that passed like water smoothing down stone over his hard, proud features. That he was human, never mind. That he was all of thirty, near half Ander’s age. That he was flesh and blood — and Great Sun knew he was, as Ander bowed his head in reverence to kiss his palm, the tender inside of his wrist.

Now of all times — when Ander had burned under his eyes for months, was made raw by the thunder of his voice, the glory of his rage on the field and his smile in victory. When Ander had thrown away name and title, lands and home, honour and service, to be the right-hand sword of Detrich’s justice. When there had been no greater joy than to offer his body as well, and to have the gift accepted with love…

When they were bare before each other, alone together, and the focused flame that was reshaping a nation was set to consume him and only him. “I know it,” Ander whispered against the hard muscle and thin skin of Detrich’s inner thigh. “But I know no greater man.”

Detrich raised an uneasy eyebrow. “That’s quite the thing to tell a fellow at cock-height, Kirschen.” The lightness of his tone made it strange. His cock didn’t appear as opposed to the praise, though if anything that seemed to made him warier, more uncharacteristically uncertain. “Get up. We’ve a perfectly serviceable bed.” A moment, taut as a held breath, and, “Please.”

That made Ander glance up again to properly meet his eyes. Of all the words that he was a great master of stringing together, Please was not one often at Detrich’s lips. “You have been taking me at your pleasure for weeks. Is this so different?”

“I haven’t taken you. Our tastes in the act happen to coincide.”

Ander couldn’t help a chuckle; the breath of it against his groin made Detrich shudder, and the shudder made Ander’s own arousal tingle sharply in turn. “Your commitment to equality runs ahead of you, Festus.”

“Damn you, it’s just so. You aren’t my plaything. I am not —” he hesitated, gestured vaguely. Face fallen, boyish. His grand voice almost cracked. “I am not a lord. No one is my servant.”

Ah. There it was, of course, laid as bare as his body. It occurred to Ander that he should’ve guessed. General, mutineer, man of half a hundred talents — but Ander knelt now before the farmer boy from the backwater Southwest, who had never known submission but under a cruel boot.

He was no orator himself; he could not begin to explain. Really, he could do little but persist in kissing his way down Detrich’s body. Knees, calves, ankles, until his brow lay against the arch of Detrich’s feet and all of him was curled in supplicant yearning. Name and title, lands and home, honour and service — they had given him nothing but emptiness. This man had given him everything.

“Please, Ander,” Detrich breathed out. Frozen in place, desperately hard, eyes shut and burning face averted.

“You are not taking me,” Ander murmured, not raising his head. “I give freely.”

“Is this truly what you want?”

“Would you deny me, if it is?”

“I cannot deny you. Not anything.” And his self-denial was fraying as well, with every inch that Ander raised himself back up to retrace the hot trail his mouth had left. As Ander put his lips to the tip of his cock, half teasing with his tongue, half whispering no greater, no worthier, at last Detrich’s hand moved and twined into his hair. His fingers twisted, strong, rough from labour, from the sword. He drew Ander closer, and closer yet, pulled Ander’s mouth down along his length. Stiffly gentle, then surer, then demanding, commanding, bucking on a marvelous edge of control. His own voice going from low murmurs to an echo of the drumfire that Ander knew from the barricades, the battlefield. Yes — well done - my officer, my loyal man —

Ander leaned into the demand, a thrumming song running down from Detrich’s hand against the skin of his scalp, through his head, his back, his bent knees. The words flowed down onto him like rain after drought, like the answer to a benediction.