Chapter Text
Do not be fooled by beauty, son. It was the reason your father was killed. It will become the reason of your death if you follow in his footsteps. When you set foot in the Kingdom of Thosian, keep your eyes planted on the Crown they have pried from your hands. Do not fall in the throes of passion.
---
“What’s a pretty thing like you doing in this island?”
Pat shuts his eyes tight enough, hoping that he would not be able to feel the sharp tip of the dagger that traces the curves of his jawline and descend the column of his neck. The breath that hits his ears smells of alcohol and raw meat. Pat only had one thing in mind; He had messed with the savages.
“Lots of gold on you too, huh?”
He turns his neck to the side, in the direction of the second voice that comes near him. “Take my gold, take everything; It will do you no good,”
When the savages laugh, their breaths mingle near Pat and he almost doubles over to vomit at the smell of pure blood. One hand snakes through his hair, gripping it tightly and yanking his head behind. Pat tries to hold back his cries albeit to no avail. He is too weak for a man.
“Oh, we know that. After all, savages like us do not want riches,” one whispers. The other hand that does not grasp his head moves to wrap around his neck, slowly gliding down through his silk tunic. Pat writhes in the firm hold and is rewarded with a bruising slap.
“We want meat,”
His eyes shoot open, encountering the cruel grimace of the man before him. He grins with yellow teeth, his knotted strands of hair coming to tickle Pat’s face. Pat holds back the growing fear in him. He couldn’t die. He was not born to die from the hands of a nameless savage.
“Please,” Pat tries to negotiate. “Let me go and I will do whatever you ask of,”
His vision is filled only by the number of savages that surround him and eye him like a tiger waiting to pounce its prey. It was a punishment for Pat who had only wished to see the beautiful island of Vanara on his rarely gifted day off.
“We only ask you of one thing, then,” the savage answers him.
Pat greedily nods, missing out on one specific detail; The hungry eyes of each savage that runs down the expanse of his body. It was too late to realise by then, what their request was.
“Give your body to us for the night,”
It was inevitable. Either die by the hands of a savage and bring his life to a meaningless end, or give them what he had always been born for. Pat closes his eyes; His whole life had been dominated by the Queen who had claimed his body for hers.
Pat inhales; He supposes that if the Queen does not know of this cruel exchange, then he would be able to resume his duties. As the royal concubine until his promise is fulfilled. He takes one look at the group of dirty, filthy men waiting to have their way with him and he almost recoils in disgust.
However, before Pat is able to give his unfortunate answer, the sound of clopping horses ring through his ears and it appears to ring through the savages’ ears too. They take a step back from where Pat is kneeling on the sandy ground and turn around in alarm, trying to seek the noises.
The galloping grows louder and half the men that had surround Pat begin to run back into the green woods of the island. Pat remains on the ground, contemplating on whether he should make a run for it or simply stay still.
“Get me my sword,”
It was the first words Pat hears amongst the thunderous gallops. A voice so thick and filled with fury that he straightens instantly. He looks up and finds the remaining savages scurrying away like cowards. One, Pat notices, is trapped by the sharpened blade of said sword.
A sharp sword, shaped like the edges of a diamond, so beautiful and elegant as Pat’s eyes trail up and up and up until he reaches the golden hilt that curves on each side; The head of a roaring tiger right in the middle. He kneels quite far away from where the sword shimmers on the throat of the savage and yet, Pat could count the golden fangs of the fierce tiger.
His eyes trail higher, to the fair hand that gripped the fierce sword with pride and fury both mingled together. Pat goes up higher, gliding over the leather cuffs that wrap around his forearm, up the curves of faint muscles that adorn his biceps. Pat gulps.
His eyes latch first onto the golden breastplate that covers his chest. The head of a tiger. Of course. Pat’s breath hitches at the back of his throat when he watches the warrior and his brigade of soldiers tower over the savages with their horses. His heart speeds up, with both excitement and fear.
The crest that decorates the armour of all the men and the warrior himself was nothing short of new to Pat. He has seen it, heard of it multiple times.
The Siridechawat Crest.
“What were you animals doing to that man?” he speaks like the ocean, waves after waves washing over Pat’s heated body and cooling it down. He visibly shivers despite being under the scorching sun of Thailand.
The savage gulps under the point of the golden sword. The warrior cocks his head up, nose in the sky as he looks down on the men that kneel before his horse. “Has he done anything wrong to you and your tribe?”
The savage turns his head to each side with desperation in his eyes. “No, Prince, we found him in our islands and we simply invited him for a ni-
“Those who fall in the throes of passion,” the warrior raises his voice, eyebrows creased with much more fury that Pat had seen in any man. “Are as good as dead,”
Pat watches how the savages were not given any room to speak or defend themselves before the warrior swings his sword and slices the head of one and it flies all the way to the blue shore, turning the water a deep red. The soldiers around him follow suit, each stabbing the remaining savages.
The cries of pain should not have triggered the relief inside of Pat, but he finds himself slumping and landing on the heated sand with a huff. Through the sand in his eyes and the glare of the sunlight, Pat watches the warrior dismiss his men to various places all over the remote island.
The warrior’s horse, however, makes a move to jog over to where Pat lies on the sand until it stands before his flushed face. Pat’s head turns upward, looking at the warrior above him. There is a dissatisfied look on his face, lips turn downwards in a grimace and jaw clenched. Pat wonders why the warrior above him holds so much fury.
He understands soon enough; no warrior would be staying calm and collected after watching his whole empire burn down in flames because of his very own, gluttonous sister. The very Queen whom Pat was married to.
“You,” he begins. “Who are you?”
But Pat in his life could never answer that question. Who was he? A slave, a servant, a boy who loved his father to the point of only dying for his promise. Pat does not know. What he does know, is the boy above him, with fury so beautiful like a God.
He scrambles back to his knees, eyes wide and mindless of the sand that scratches painfully against his cheeks and chest. “You are the eldest of the Siridechawat Kingdom,”
The warrior’s eyebrows furrow in a fleeting look of confusion before hardening back to the stoic look. Pat watches him. “How do you know me?”
“Any soul would recall the crest on your chest; The Siridechawat Crest,” he continues speaking. “I have heard so much of your tales from the people. You are a warrior to them,”
“I am a King to them,” the warrior speaks with a newfound calmness, as if touched that someone had regarded him with something other than fear in his eyes.
“You are injured,” he motions for Pat to stand up and he obliges, only then realising the small scratches along the expanse of his collarbone where the savages had ripped his clothes. “Come with me, this is my fort; I shall tend to your wounds,”
Pat wonders if the warrior knew, who he was, who his body belonged to. If he were to tell the man who sits on the horse of the torture Pat endures every day, Pat knew that he would be beheaded just like the savage before. And he could not dare to risk the validity of the promise.
So he merely ducks his head in gratitude and allows the strong warrior pull him up onto his horse. Pat lands behind the strong warrior, gripping at his upper arms out of reflex for falling down. Pat hears the soft chuckle that vibrates through his shoulder and Pat feels it on the tips of his fingers.
He yanks his hands away from him, as if it has burned his touch. “My apologies,”
“Have you never ridden on a horse before?” there is a hint of amusement in his voice and Pat would feed to it, but the warrior was right; Pat have never ridden on a horse before.
“I have not, Prince,”
He halts the movement of his horse, turning his head to the side, enough for Pat to see a small scar right under his left ear lobe, long until it reaches the bend of his jaw. Silence ensues between the prince and the slave.
“You look like you come from a very noble family,” he begins. “My apologies for assuming then,”
“The only thing noble about the family I live with,” Pat smiles, a sad one even if the warrior before him does not see it. “Is the amount of gold they adorn my body with to hide the despair in me,”
“Then, allow me to take the privilege of your first horse ride,” the warrior whips his horse lightly, enough to get him jogging again.
Pat grips on his clothed thigh to prevent himself from touching the young prince again. However, the warrior seems to have read his mind and the soft chuckle fills the salty breeze between them again.
“You can hold onto me,” he muses. “I will not harm someone who is not in my path,”
Hesitantly, Pat obeys; opting to shyly touch the clothed part of his broad back. It is warm to his touch, he does not know if it is from the heat of the sun against the gold, or the boiling blood that courses through his veins. Pat remains quiet.
When they ride through the wind, into the dim woods, Pat is unable to resist his urge to strike up a conversation with the man he has only ever heard of. “People talk; They say you have 23 battle scars on your body at such a young age,”
The warrior hums, eyes focused on the direction to his fort. “Must I count each and every one for you, then?”
“Never, my prince,” Pat gasps. “The story behind your scars are what I hear each night,”
“Have you?” he hums. “Am I your prince?”
“You are the prince for your people, are you not? Then, you are also my prince,”
The warrior laughs, soft like music and Pat grows gleeful. “You have not told me your name,”
“I am Napat,” he answers.
The warrior waits, and then Pat feels his body freeze under his finger. “Of..?”
“I do not have a family,”
“I see,” Pat knew that the warrior is cracking his head on ways to change the direction of the conversation. “I have travelled the world and there are so many meaning behind those names. What meaning do you go by?”
Pat shuffles a little closer to the strong warrior, arms tightening on his shoulders, hoping that he could feel Pat’s smile. “I am not so sure, my prince; What meaning do you think suits my being?”
“Hm,” the warrior hums. “Let me see; There is one with good knowledge,”
Pat grimaces. “I am far from being knowledgeable,”
“There is also the light in the dark,”
Pat shakes his head this time. “I do not like being in the dark; How could I ever bring light there?”
He laughs again at that. “Very well, then. There is my favourite meaning of your name and I believe you will like it too,” he tells Pat. “Sky,”
He doesn’t bother to even think when his lips curve upwards against his own accord. “I like that very much,”
“Why?”
“What is your name?”
“Pran,”
“No wonder,” Pat chortles. “Pran, air, Prana; To breathe. And when I need to breathe, I look up to the sky,”
“So the sky has air that you breathe?” Pran muses. “Pat has Pran?”
He did not expect the warrior to be so straightforward and placing their names side by side. Pat hides his burning face despite him not being able to see it. But Pran, clever as ever, could feel the shyness that radiated from the man behind him.
---
The fort, Pran had told Pat, was merely a house, made of polished wood with beautiful carvings along the walls. Pran steps down from his horse, and opens his arms for Pat to jump down.
He does not hide the bashfulness in him when he lands in the bracket of the warrior’s arms. They walk side by side with Pran guiding Pat to the patio where he stores his herbs.
“How did you find yourself here?”
Pat stands by the doorway, unsure of where to sit when Pran stands square in the middle of the wooden patio, unbuckling his thick armour. Pat watches, unsure whether with awe or something else.
He looks away shyly when Pat realises that the warrior was indeed bare underneath the armour he shed and when he turns back, Pran is already wrapping the strings of his cotton tunic around his waist.
“I.. I was lost,” Pat answers. It was half truth and a lie. He was indeed lost, but mostly, he had been abandoned by the palace guards who the Queen had half-heartedly assigned. Nobody cared about the useless concubine; Nobody would even notice his absence until a few days past.
“Very well,” Pran sits on the black cushion that covers the large wooden floor and motions for Pat to sit before him. “I will bring you back home first thing in the morning,”
“No!”
He spoke too quickly. Pran’s hand that had been suspended in the air, hovering over his chest retreats. He watches Pat, waiting patiently for an explanation.
“I..” Pat closes his eyes in shame, looking down to his blood-stained tunic. “I am slave there. Even being lost here for a few days.. is better that being detained there,”
When he opens his eyes, Pran is watching him with something other than stoicism. His eyes held a sort of pity in them. Pat has never been looked with pitiful eyes. He had only ever been regarded with lust, shame and anger. Never pity.
“Let them find me. It will take them days to even notice I am gone, prince,” he laughs quietly to himself. “At least I can enjoy the peacefulness here, with you,”
“If you seem to hate your place so much,” Pran speaks. “Why do you wish to return?”
“I have made a promise to my father,” Pat answers. “And I must fulfil that, prince,”
“What promise?”
The boy before him does not hold an ounce of fury in his eyes as what Pat had seen earlier. He looked younger now, wide eyes filled with curiosity, pink lips parted, waiting. Pat smiles, eyes crinkling after a long time.
“We have barely been acquainted; How can I tell you?” Pat teases. The frown and sulky pout would be the last thing Pat had expected from the glorified warrior. He laughs again. “When we become closer, I promise. I promise I will tell you of the promise I made to my father,”
“Very well then,” Pran shuffles to where Pat sits, a banana leaf on his palm, holding the contents of a balm. “For us to be closer, you must address me as Pran,”
He does not give Pat the space to talk before shocking him yet again by touching the collar of his tunic and pulling it off his bruised body. Pat gasps, trying to block the moves of the confused warrior.
“Why are you resisting my touches?” Pran questions. “I am merely trying to-
“Prince,” Pat cuts him off. “If you touch me, your hands will be stained,”
What surprises Pran is not the cruel words that Pat utters, but more so the calmness of it. Pat spoke like he was not the slightest affected by those words. It infuriates Pran further.
“Why?” Pran asks, calmly at first. He needed to understand the reason behind Pat’s words.
“Because I am scum. I am a slave, my prince,”
“It does not bother me,” Pran answers. “In here, with me, no one is of higher than Buddha himself and everyone who regards you as scum, are the very scum themselves,”
Pat bites his tongue, unable to reciprocate with words, after hearing such fierceness in his voice. Instead, he watches the rough hands fold his clothes by his side and begin his procedure. Rough hands touch the cuts on his chest, rubbing the balm over his heart with utmost focus.
The eyes that follow his own hands are fierce, determined with the aim of seeing Pat healed and healthy. Pat could not handle the weight of them, so he breaks his gaze, opting to land on the statue of Buddha sitting calmly behind Pran.
“That is a very beautiful idol, prince,”
Pran looks up with an evident frown and Pat doesn’t understand at first. Until Pran urges him to drop the honorifics. Pat sighs, closing his eyes and repeating his question again, this time, by calling him Pran.
“I carved it in one sitting,” Pran says as a matter of fact. Pat does not hide the surprise.
“Does that mean-
He looks around the beautiful carvings around the house, the floral veranda, the mandalas, the abstract and concrete shapes that cover it. His eyes widen.
Pran smiles at Pat. His eyes latch on the small pits that form on his cheek. Pat has never seen those before. Without thinking, his hand raises to the pits and presses one thumb on each side. “What are there?” Pat whispers in awe.
They pop back on his cheeks when Pran laughs, prominent than ever. It curves around the bend of Pat’s thumb. “I am unsure myself,” Pran speaks. “My father called me the Laughing Buddha. Have you heard of him?”
Pat shakes his head.
“I will draw him for you then; One day,”
He is unable to hide the excitement in his eyes when Pran offers. Pat nods vigorously.
All of a sudden, the smile in Pran’s face fades and the same clenched jaw and stoic look appears. He coughs and clears his throat before standing up and taking a few steps back. Pat’s smiling fades too.
“I will go take a bath by the waterfall,” Pran announces, his voice firm and emotionless. Pat wonders if he had said anything wrong. “Do not go anywhere from this fort; There are savages here and it is dangerous,”
Pran is able to take only two more steps to the door when Pat stands. “Then let me come with you,”
Pat notices the tension in Pran’s shoulders. He frowns. What was it that he had said so badly? “I do not wish to be alone,” he reasons. “And I would like a bath too,”
---
They take different sides of the waterfall to clean themselves up. Pat is mindful enough to cover the wounds on his chest as he bathes, to prevent water from contaminating it. The crashing sounds of the waterfall overpowers the soft splashes of water that Pran makes as he cleans himself up.
The water is cooling and very refreshing for his heated body, yet Pat does not completely bask in it. Instead, his mind wanders to the man behind him, searching for answers inside as to why Pran was back to square one with him. Pat dares to sneak a glance behind him.
He turns his head slowly, enough until his chin digs on his right shoulder and he manages to catch a glimpse of Pran from his peripheral. Pran has his back facing Pat as he washes the soot and blood off his body. The long scar across his back is hard to miss. The very first scar Pran had borne, Pat has heard. From the Queen herself. Pat exhales harshly; he finds his breath cold.
Pat does not notice his feet moving on its own accord, until the scar becomes more prominent to his vision. Pink, prominent and very much painful to his eyes. He finds himself touching the end of the scar, on Pran’s lower back, feeling the rise of pink skin against his thumb.
Pran flinches and turns his head around. His shoulders had been tensed up, but they soon relax when he realises that it was just Pat. The faint fingers on his lower back advance across the scar, experimenting with each curve and bump. Pran remains still.
“Does it hurt?” Pat whispered.
It was when Pran realised, how close the man was to him. His breath fans on the nape of Pran’s neck, cold mixing with the flush of his skin. Pran bites back a shiver and pretends to wash off non-existent dirt off his body.
“Not as much as watching her wear my Crown,” Pran answers.
He turns around as a silent request for Pat to stop this conversation, but the heart of stone that resides within Pran begins to form cracks when he locks his eyes with the beauty before him. The eyes that gaze back at him resembled a pure and innocent doe. The eyebrows that are creased with concern, held droplets of water that fall beautifully down the sharp bridge of his nose.
Pran’s eyes follow the droplet that wets the dip of his Cupid’s bow, down to the pink lips, pale with cold. The tongue that darts out to lick it involuntarily makes Pran’s knees buckle under the water. He finds himself forgetting to talk, unable to remember what he had been planning to say.
Pran stops his eyes from wandering lower, knowing that his brain will act rashly. It was the last thing Pran would want in his pursuit.
Do not be fooled by beauty.
Beauty is a sin.
“Your beauty,” he whispers. “Is a very dangerous weapon,”
The lips that Pran has his eyes trained on, turns upward into a small smile. “I am hardly a weapon, Pran,”
Pran closes his eyes at the sound of his name from those lips. Everything that he remembers shutting down, tying up with ropes inside his body begins to unravel slowly. Slowly, slowly until the humane desires begin creeping up his skin. He shuts them down again.
“You,” Pran chokes, then clears his throat. “You are; Your beauty is a weapon,”
“Use me then,” Pat retorts. “You are a warrior, are you not?”
The warrior seals his lips shut, afraid that if he ever opens them, not a single word would come out. Pat’s hands begin wandering again, hesitantly pressing along the scars that he is able to see.
One by his throat, a cross shaped one by the curve of his shoulder, a hair length’s scar right down his sternum and another one that begins at the underside of his chest, going down until it is hidden by the clear water.
“All these scars.. yet no one to tend to them?” Pat whispers to himself, pain in his eyes.
Pran wants to laugh, to ask Pat why he is being concerned for a boy he has met for only a sunset’s period. But he becomes too occupied by the soft hands that touch his scars with fascination.
“Pain has shaped me into the warrior I am today,” Pran encloses the hand that dances over his heart with his own. He holds it there in place even as Pat’s eyes widen with surprise. “I do not need anyone,”
“Surely you would feel cold on the lonely nights in the month of Pyatho, when the newlyweds spend their first night together,”
The stoned heart in him cracks a little harder, debris falling along the lengths of his ribcage, a small thump that makes Pran flinch. The man before him was doing an unspeakable thing, and he does not even notice it.
“Are you not married?
Pran does not give Pat the joy of hearing his answer. He looks up to the sky and finds the sun hidden among the tall trees. Pran takes two steps back and walks out of the cool water. He feels the eyes of the boy burn into his bare body, but Pran in the life of him does not turn back.
“It is getting late,” Pran speaks once he has covered his body with a fresh linen shirt. “Do not get bitten by the mosquitoes,” They may bruise your beautiful body.
---
Later that night, Pran offers Pat to sleep on his teak wood bed much to his resistance. Pran had told him that he would be getting very little sleep as he was planning a meeting with the other people of his rebellion.
Pran sits at the patio, exactly where they both had sat when he treated Pat’s wounds. From the enormous bed and the sandalwood sheets that envelope his body, Pat could see the familiar clenched jaw, creased eyebrows and faint murmur of his voice that sounded like the ocean.
Pran’s bed is surrounded by a mosquito net. He had fastened it on for Pat just before leaving the boy on his own, in his bed, in his room. But Pat could not sleep despite lying on the softest bed, most extravagant wood carvings and untouched by pesky mosquitoes. No, he could not sleep when all his eyes could see was the boy sitting right before the beautiful Buddha, giving out orders and planning to attack the kingdom Pat lives as a slave in.
Pat presses one hand under his head, pillowing it on his shoulder as he watches. He wonders if a man like that, so strong, so powerful, so beautiful, has been claimed by anyone. It was the only answer to Pat’s question. The only answer to Pran’s silence when Pat had asked him.
Pat finds himself chuckling from his idiocrasy; Surely someone like that would be cuffed with the burden of marriage. Nobody would be able to resist a man like that. Not even Pat himself, despite being married to a Queen.
“But at what cost?” he murmurs out loud. Yes, at what cost? He was wedded to the Queen as nothing but a vessel to store the deranged fantasies and pleasure she stored in that mind of hers. She has a King for herself, yet here Pat lays, giving his life for her just for a promise he made his father.
Every night, Pat goes to sleep with the knowledge that he belonged to the Queen, not as her King, but as a plaything, a broken toy that somehow still manages to serve his purposes. Right now, the faint whimper that escapes his lips brings Pat back to the present times, where he remembers lying on a soft pillow that smelled like sandalwood, clothed head to toe; Something he has never been granted the comfort of before.
“She will search the lands to find the head of this tiger,”
“And she will scream with the pain of not being able to crack my plans,”
“And then, we strike,”
“When will that be, Your Highness?”
“Soon enough; I will give her exactly one fortnight before we attack. It should be enough for that dull mind of hers,”
---
“Pat..”
“Pat,”
The soft waves of that ocean voice awaken Pat from his deep slumber. He would fall back asleep from how beautiful and soft the voice sounded against his ears, but something about the cold hands on his shoulder forces his eyes open.
Pran is hovering over him with a thin sheet of sweat over his forehead. The small scar on his left temple catches Pat’s attention. It was the scar that pushes him deep out of his slumber. “Yes,” Pat speaks albeit groggily.
“Your clothes,” Pran speaks, eyes casted downwards the length of Pat’s exposed body, now only covered by the waist with the white silk sheets that smelled like sandalwood. “What happened to your clothes,”
Pat looks down, following Pran and finds himself naked, covered only by the sheets. His arms involuntarily go in front of his chest to cover his naked body. It was funny how he wanted to cover himself despite always being bare for the Queen to use him and let the people of kingdom know just exactly how easy and loose Pat was.
“They must have slipped off,” Pat finds himself explaining. “I tend to.. move around while I sleep. My apologies if this has brought discomfort to you,”
“No, no,” Pran corrects his tone. Suddenly, the hand over his thigh, covered only by the thin piece of silk becomes prominent. Pat feels each and every finger press over his heated skin, and it follows through his body and pushes him into a jolt, a shiver. “I was concerned, that is all,”
Pat pulls the cover up higher and holds it against his chest when Pran steps down from the bed. His eyes follow the quiet and agile footsteps of the warrior who opens his wooden wardrobe to retrieve a glass vial, filled with clear liquid that Pat could not come to recognise. It was too dark in the room, his eyes only had the dim fire torch hanging by the wall to aid to his vision.
Pran sits on the edge of the bed, right next to Pat as he opens the vial and pours the content into his palm. “This is chamomile oil,” he whispers to Pat. “It helps me sleep.. especially on those lonely nights you spoke to me about,”
Pat exhales audibly; he doesn’t know why he is relieved at the thought of Pran being just as lonely as he was. But he does not let his mind wander, there were more pressing matters at hand. Especially when Pran has his oil-coated fingers hovering next to his temples.
“May I?” Pran asks.
“You do not have to ask,”
“But I do,” Pran has a soft smile when he touches Pat, rubbing the oil over his throbbing temples in a gentle manner. Pat’s eyelids grow heavy with the euphoric feeling, but he fights them to stay open, afraid that he would miss the beauty of the boy so close to him.
“Someone as gentle, kind, brave and strong as you..” Pat murmurs. “Surely you must be wedded,”
He half expected a snap, a shout as to why his personal affairs would concern Pat, but Pran merely chortles, eyes focused on massaging his temples. “It is not of my greatest concerns; Marriage, love, the throes of passion. I pay no heed to them,”
A soft press at one specific kink on Pat’s temple jolts his whole body with heat. He elicits a soft moan, eyes slamming shut at the feel of it. “Oh,” Pat gasps. “Oh, that feels very nice,”
Pran resists the way his abdomen squelched at the sound of that; he ignores the way the sheets fall off Pat’s hands, exposing his body that writhes. Pran continues his movements. “That must have been a knot,” he whispers to himself.
“My prince, you have magical hands,” Pat laughs, half exhausted, half euphoric from the pleasure of it all. His eyes roll back and Pat attempts to ground himself down, to not let the beautiful sight of Pran fall through his grasp like sand.
“I have been told about my hands. How cruel they are. Never magical,” Pran smiles, experimenting yet again. He presses on the specific spot of Pat’s temple.
Again, the boy under him twists, the sheets fall lower until Pran is able to see the prominent bones of his pelvic, shaped perfectly like the slope of a hill. Pran finds his breath hitching when he catches glimpses of soft tufts of hair that dusted his groin. He swallows and raises his head up where he can see Pat.
It does him no good even then. Pat’s lips are red from being bitten, parted with soft puffs of air condensing against Pran’s hands. His eyes are shut and from where Pran sits, he can count the number of long lashes that trace the curve of his cheek.
“Cruel hands often do not have control,” Pat gasped. “They often give you the peaks of pleasure with just a touch,”
One of Pat’s hands move to press against Pran’s bare upper arm, squeezing them occasionally as he ran his fingers through Pat’s scalp, massaging his head too. The noises never stop, and the sheets go lower. The cracks in Pran’s heart become prominent, until solid piece fall down instead of debris.
Pran exhales harshly against the oiled hair that grazed his lips. Pat’s hands are rubbing up and down the column of his muscles. Pran finds his lips dancing just at his temple, the smell of camomile overpowering the sandalwood of the bed. He is only a man after all.
Do not make the same mistakes your father did.
Do not give into lust.
Do not fall into the throes of passion.
Pran, listen to me.
Pran, you must listen.
Pran.
PRAN.
“Hngh, Pran,” a soft moan, a whisper, a whimper, a whine, right along his ear. The grip on his arm becomes tighter. Pran’s jaw is set, and for the first, not with anger. But with something else. Something much more dangerous, something he was warned about since his ripe age of thirteen. Something he had locked up deep down in his body and thrown the key far, far away.
And yet, here Pat lays, whining so beautifully along the column of his neck, saying his name like a chant and handing him the lost key to his lock as if Pat has been the one holding it this whole time. He squeezed his eyes shut and allowed himself a meagre whisper of a moan.
“Do you know what you are doing to me?” a small twist of his fingers in the clumped strands of Pat’s oiled hair is enough for the boy to arch his back, hold Pran tighter and pull him over the expanse of his body.
“Those who fall into the throes of passion,” Pat raises his head enough for Pran to hear his faint words. “Do not deserve death, my prince,”
Under the fire that perched on the torch, Pat watches his eyes sparkle with a thin sheet of tears. Tears he knew very well that came from the unresolved tension Pran holds deep within him for years. He uses his free hand to trace up the curves of the warrior’s back, push up his luscious hair and pull Pran close enough until their foreheads touched.
“What do they deserve then?”
All Pat does is smile. His hips sway slow enough for Pran to feel the thin sheets on his thighs fall off until nothing covers his body. Pran does not dare to look, afraid that he would lose the very last, thin thread of control he has over his heart.
“You will know the answer to that soon enough, my warrior,”