Chapter Text
If Lloyd had known what the kissing would lead to, he wouldn't have started it.
Not that, in all technicality, he had started it. Sure, he'd been the one to bury his hand in Javier's stupidly fluffy and shining hair and reel him in, so he couldn't exactly deny his active part in their first lip-to-lip contact; but that had only been at the tail end of a fifteen minute conversation about dry wall during which Javier's gaze had not wavered from Lloyd's mouth for even a second. He hadn't even blinked. Really, what Lloyd had done - after fifteen minutes! Fifteen! He'd held out valiantly! - had been a reasonable and justified response to Javier's blatant and shameless provocations.
(Javier would later remember the situation very differently, naturally. By his reckoning, he had been minding his own business - and if his business mainly happened to be summarised under "my Master Lloyd/Suho", what of it - when Master Suho had seen fit to suddenly initiate a kiss right there in the market square. Understandably, under such scandalous circumstances, it had been really rather magnanimous of Javier that he had not shoved Suho away and called him an indecent wastrel, but instead politely kissed him back in order to protect the good name of House Frontera.
With tongue.
Everyone at the market had clapped.)
Lloyd pulled back first, and met Javier's eyes. Javier looked at him the way one might gaze at a miracle - and, coincidentally, the way eligible young maidens gazed at Javier himself. It was a little weird to see it coming from him, and even more weird to have it directed at him, Lloyd. People didn't really look at Lloyd Frontera that way - unless they were his parents, who regarded him with a sort of soppy-proud fondness and enduring love that sometimes made it a little hard for Lloyd to meet their eyes in return.
"Huh," Lloyd said, blinking once, twice. "Javier.. don't tell me...."
His face distorted into one of the expressions that came to him very naturally when a pen nib first touched the paper of a contract.
"D'you have a crush on me?"
([Oh my god,] the messenger pinged in his peripheral vision. [Seriously!? Okay. Wow. You're on your own with this one. I'd offer you a Better Flirting Lv. 1 skill, but I don't think it'd help at all. Goodness. I can't even laugh, it's so sad.]
[...anyway, you get bonus RP from all these applauding people who are touched by your love. Not that you deserve it.]
[+150 RP]
[You also get bonus RP from Javier. You deserve THAT even less.]
[+810 RP])
Javier's eyes narrowed. This was more like how eligible young maidens usually looked at Lloyd. If they ever did.
"No, my Lord," Javier said, in that long-suffering half-helpless way he had, which made him sound like he was earnestly asking a higher power what he'd ever done to anger them. "I do not have a 'crush' on you."
"Awww, you doooooo~," Lloyd cooed, ruffling Javier's hair. Mostly because his hand had still been entangled in it - one of Javier's hands was still resting on his waist, coincidentally - and it was just objectively nice hair. "Li'l Javi has a cruuuuush! On me! Hah! How embarrassing for you!"
"My Lord, you are currently indirectly insulting yourself." A pause. "Please, do go on."
"Don't be like that. It's alright, Javier," Lloyd stepped back, only to grab ahold of Javier's arm and link his own with it. "I know I'm stunningly attractive."
"You're really not."
"Everyone wants me!"
"Nobody wants you."
"It's only natural that you would fall for me eventually."
"There is empirical evidence that you are the least desirable man on this continent. There is a scholar at the capital who has recently published a very well-researched tract on it. Her bibliography was frighteningly comprehensive."
"I'm just that irresistible," Lloyd concluded smugly, grinning and waving to the friendly townspeople who were still cheering for them. He wasn't entirely sure why they were doing that, but one did not put one's nose up at 150 RP. "Now come on, let's see how the gypsum refinement process is going before we get some dinner."
"Yes, my Lord," Javier sighed, and let Lloyd pull him along; and really, that could have been the matter concluded very much to Lloyd's satisfaction. It had been a nice kiss, he'd gotten nearly a thousand extra RP, and unflappable protagonist hero Javier having a crush on him was pretty much the ego boost of the century.
(And maybe a little cute, too.)
If only it had ended there.
If only.
For one, the kissing continued.
Though, in fairness, Lloyd did not mind that part too much. Poor crush-stricken Javier obviously could not hold himself back - irresistible, remember? - and if Lloyd was honest with himself, then he could admit that Javier's lips were plush and soft and as perfectly heroically kissable as all the rest of him.
(M-meaning that the rest of him was all perfect and heroic, obviously, not kissable.
.....though, on second thought, there was Much to be said about Javier's collarbones, or the palm of his strong hand, or the delicate skin just at the corner of his eye, or the dip just where his pelvis-
Damnit.
Of course he was kissable everywhere on his body. He was Javier Fucking Asrahan. How Lloyd hated him sometimes.)
It was no chore to be kissed by Javier, or to kiss him. It was really kind of nice, in fact. Very nice. Incredibly nice. The sort of nice that made Lloyd worry a bit about the original Lloyd Frontera's drinking problem, and a biochemical disposition towards addiction. He certainly didn't think he'd be able to stop kissing Javier, now he'd started.
So perhaps it was good that they weren't stopping. That they didn't have to stop. That Lloyd could just step up to where Javier was standing guard and lick his cheek - he'd done that once to wind him up and gross him out, but Javier had been weirdly into it - or Javier could pull him into a shadowed alley and press him against the wall to settle/disrupt an argument they'd been having, or they could hold up a blueprint at a construction site and steal a kiss behind it, or-
It was happening a lot, was the thing. In a variety of situations. But, hey, why deny yourself from indulging in a good thing? Lorasia was, to Lloyd's pleasant surprise, relatively free from societal homophobia - the hack author of Knight of Blood and Iron mostly hadn't bothered to mention any relationships beyond straight background marriages and select beautiful maidens or Silurias that Javier could gallantly enchant and then tragically lose, but apparently the complete authorial non-acknowledgment of queerness just translated into nobody giving a shit what gender you preferred - and accordingly everybody seemed to just accept that the young Frontera heir and his knight were swapping spit at a rate that rivalled Julien and Scheherazade's tooth-rotting newlywed bliss.
Even Lloyd's parents had formally given him their blessings - and told him not to break Javier's heart, which was of course ridiculous, and also, hey, why was he getting the shovel talk and not Javier!? - as well as repeated reassurances that all they wanted for Lloyd was his happiness with the one he loved, and there was no pressure whatsoever to get married soon and start adopting heirs.
(In fact, these reassurances were repeated so often and with such pointed fervour that it was quite clear to Lloyd that there was in fact some pressure, and the Count and Countess were gunning for an autumn engagement, a spring wedding, and grandchildren by the end of next year.)
Lloyd considered explaining to them that it wasn't Like That with him and Javier; but that would require explaining what it was like, and he hadn't actually gotten that far yet himself.
It wasn't that it meant nothing - to imply so would be an insult to them both, what with Javier's super embarrassing puppy crush and Lloyd's... er... - but also it wasn't the marrying sort of affair, Lloyd was pretty sure. At least not yet. Javier would have said.
(Javier had said. At least, he didn't know how else Suho could have interpreted all those earnest vows of fealty and devotion, and the promise to stay by his side forever, regardless of Suho's non-Lloyd-ness or the fact that he was technically Lord Arcos's knight.
The way Javier understood it, marriage was merely a vassal by another name.)
Lloyd was determined not to think about it too hard. Figuring out relationships - beyond manipulating them - was hard and exhausting, while Javier's lips were warm and soft and inviting, and Lloyd just wanted to go on kissing them without complicating their friendship over it.
It was fine. It was very generous and public-spirited, even, for Lloyd to indulge Javier's little crush this way. And it was fun. That was what Lloyd had always wanted, right? A fun retirement full of simple pleasures. Watching Javier train while shirtless and kissing his sweat-salty neck after was one such pleasure.
Simple as that.
One nice thing about publicly kissing one's knight was that Lloyd was now finally also receiving impassioned correspondence from the various eligible maidens (and some very married women who were uncommonly bold) who had previously been sending Javier love letters.
Sure, most of those letters Lloyd now got were death threats, but if you had a face like a caricaturist set loose upon a potato, you took what you could get.
"These concern me," Javier said, scanning a page with a delicate frown adding character to his stunningly handsome face. "Lady Murderine is getting more graphic by the day. We really should put a stop to this."
"You're just jealous that I finally get letters sprayed with perfume, too," Lloyd scoffed, chewing at the end of his quill while deciding how to best convey the attitude of a mob boss about to order someone to shatter your kneecaps in this gentle reminder of the promised delivery dates to one of their suppliers. "You're utterly green with jealousy. Because of your crush on me."
"I don't have a crush on you, Lord Suho," Javier lied stiffly. He kept doing this. It really was pretty cute. "Also, that wasn't perfume, it was pepper spray."
"I like spice?"
"My Lord, these women intend to kill you."
"Some of them only want me to regret being born, there's a difference."
"I cannot allow them to harm you!"
"They won't," Lloyd rolled his eyes. "They're upset that you're seemingly off the market, and are venting that frustration. In, uh, graphic and creative fashion. But these esteemed gentleladies don't actually wish harm to me."
(Or at least most of them didn't, though Lloyd would still swear that the Lady Ides of Marchia had merely tripped while holding that carving knife... twenty-three consecutive times.
It was fine. Lloyd had dodged most of those, and the rest was healing well.)
"If you say so," Javier said, his ice-cold blue gaze loudly communicating that he disagreed on the matter and thought all Lloyd was saying was utter bullshit.
"And anyway, I have you." Lloyd pulled another of the loathe letters over to him, read it, winced, and decided to incorporate some of the more colourful descriptors of what the madame intended to do to him to his own threatening letter. He was a science major, he would never be able to come up with a more vivid and horrible metaphor than that. "You'll keep me safe."
"Always," Javier agreed, in a voice altogether too soft and emotional for such a basic fact of both their existences.
Lloyd hummed, and continued writing. Javier really was being ridiculous about this. If nothing else, previous experiences indicated that he could stand in front of most of these women with a sign reading "I AM LLOYD FRONTERA AND THE CRUSH OF YOUR CRUSH, SUCK ON THAT" around his neck, and they'd still fail to recognise him as anything other than a lowly servant.
When Lloyd was done with his letter, he spent some time simply watching Javier open more of his correspondence, checking the envelopes for dangerous curses, explosive devices, or a lot of glitter - the carpet in Lloyd's room still sparkled - which Javier of course did while looking stunningly and unfairly handsome.
And a little green. Though Lloyd suspected this was less rooted in jealousy and more because some of these maidens clearly had composed their missives with an anatomy textbook and a torture manual open on their writing desk.
When it looked like Javier was mere seconds away from needing a lie-down or taking up a carving knife and tripping two dozen times around select young ladies, Lloyd sighed, got up, straddled Javier's chair, and kissed him back to a more reasonable hue.
The things one did to keep one's knight in good health. If Lloyd ever again heard anyone muttering about how that dreadful Frontera brat was taking advantage of gallant and valiant Sir Asrahan, he expected Javier to vehemently deny it.
...or at least to not snort out poorly disguised laughter. That was not too much to ask, was it.