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“Your M—majesty… you should… you should head back… now…” Xiao manages to stutter, albeit half-heartedly.
It is currently the dead of night, a time when the occupants of the palace are supposed to be asleep, save for the handful of knights with their duty being ensuring the palace' and the royals' safety after dark, protecting them from what lurks within.
In line with that, Xiao, along with his companion, shouldn’t even be awake at this hour. Nor they should be cramped in the paltry bed of his quarters, limbs entangled among the sheets, bodies moving leisurely and rhythmically.
It’s a sin; one forbidden in so many ways, but Xiao’s drowned and his attempts at reaching the surface are pathetic at best.
Like what he does right now.
The lips on his neck retreats and the hips rocking slowly against his comes to a halt. Xiao has to refrain himself from chasing that warmth, to not be disappointed.
A pair of golden amber eyes stares from above him.
“Are you in the position to direct me?” his prince, Aether, asks, and Xiao’s face pales right away.
Right. Despite having the honor to be the one the prince seeks during nights like these, it’s nothing more than that, he’s still just a knight, a tool whose purpose is to serve and protect. What makes him think that it gives him a pass to order someone of the prince’ position as he pleases? Have those heated touches really got into his brain and turned it into goo?
However, before he can utter his apologies, the lips of the boy laying of top of him stretches into a hearty grin as hands pinches Xiao’s cheek, and lips plant a kiss on his nose. “Ah, my Xiao, you are awfully cute, y’know that?”
Xiao blinks. Oh. It was simply a jest.
Xiao couldn’t even count how many moments the prince had told him that, nor if any of those were genuine or plain flattery—so that Xiao wouldn’t tell a word about his sister, the princess, about his brother’s midnight escapades—but like the lovesick buffoon he is, he becomes flushed. He lives off on his prince’ praises, each one never failing to reduce him—he, Xiao, the youngest ever to snatch a title of a captain at the age of seventeen, formidable in the battlefield—to such a mess; a mess that is treasured.
He’s hopeless. Xiao is utterly, utterly, hopeless.
“I’m sorry—” a finger presses against his lips, cutting his words off. The prince then brings his head back to where it was moments ago, tucked in Xiao’s neck, where each and every puff of his breath sends a jolt down Xiao’s nerves. The prince' lips brushes against heated skin as he continues his spiel.
“Let me recharge, alright? Sir Albedo was very cruel to me today.” he feels the prince pout. At the mention of that name, Xiao frowns, feeling his prior morale crumble into dust. Regardless, the prince goes on.
“Not only he didn’t praise at today’s fencing practice, he also told me that my footwork was sloppy. I mean, it was his fault anyway. Looking as dashing as he does when holding the foil, then expecting me to focus…”
Despite his self-proclaimed devotion to the royalty, Xiao lets the rest of the words pass by, like the cool wind of the night coming from his window, only listening to the melody of his voice, not absorbing the words.
Or putting it accurately, he did not want to.
He closes his eyes.
If he only focuses on the lilt of the prince’ voice, he can pretend that everything isn’t cruel, that his prince isn’t cruel. Embracing his figure, only to speak of another man…
Xiao lets out a sigh, one that the prince doesn’t even notice, too engrossed in enumerating his fellow prince’ fine features, about how aristocratic and handsome he is, how much of a thinker he is—everything Xiao cannot be, and will never—
Xiao shakes his head, internally, and proceeds to chastise himself.
He shouldn’t even begin to think about these things; not only it’s fruitless, it’ll also burden him, thinking of what-ifs, knowing that they’ll never be. The Chalk Prince is an ultimate; one that even dreaming of coming close to is an ambition that is laughable.
It makes him feel stupid for daring to think about comparing himself.
Maybe, just maybe… that’s the reason Prince Aether only likes his physique. He’s stupid.
Xiao feels the corner of his eyes sting.
“…Xiao?”
The prince’ concerned voice pulls the knight out of his reverie. “Are you not feeling well? You’ve been spacing out several times just for this night.”
Xiao immediately shakes his head, hand sliding up to the prince’ hair, petting comfortingly. He thinks of a reason that won’t make him look more miserable than he already is.
“The regimen was tougher these days, but nothing I cannot handle. Thank you for your concern. There is nothing to worry about my well-being.”
Undeterred by his assurance, the worry marring the prince’s face doesn’t dissipate. If ever, the knit of his brows grows tighter, lips curling downwards even more “When you say it like that, you make me worry about you more.”
Archons. Just how can he stop wanting, craving more than what he’s given, when his prince makes it truly difficult?
Not aware of Xiao’s emotional haywire, the prince’ face lights up, the motion of him pulling back from Xiao’s chest catching the knight’s attention, and more so when he sits himself on top of Xiao’s thighs, palms placed dangerously close to his crotch that it makes Xiao gulp.
With the new position, the pale light of the moon gently overlays the prince’s features, making his disheveled locks and those eyes looking down at him slyly appear almost white, unearthly. The grin on his lips appears again, this time with a different emotion that makes thrill and anticipation bubble inside Xiao’s guts, replacing his heartbreak, transiently.
“Want me to make you feel better?”
Xiao can feel the heat creeping up to his face, and somewhere else. Having you inside my arms already makes me feel better and regarded.
The prince’ eyes widens. “I-Is that so?”
He must’ve said that out loud, Xiao realizes belatedly. Although he doesn’t get the chance to let the embarrassment settle it as the prince pulls him forward, towards the edge of the bed, and kneels beneath him. As his nightshirt was pulled away, Prince Aether swallows Xiao wholly.
“Ah—f-fuck…” Xiao curses, head tilting upwards. As he felt that familiar heat engulfing him, he finds his other hand clasping the sheets, so rigid they might break, as he resists the urge to jerk his hips. The other one’s on the prince’ hair, brushing the golden strands away from his face, giving Xiao a clear view of those closed eyes, lips wrapped around him eagerly.
And when those eyes look up at him, paired with the tongue that laps at his tip, Xiao blames it on his prince' ethereal beauty that he cants his hips boldly and steadily.
“Aether…” Xiao pants, mind hazy with euphoria, occupied with the heady sensation of his prince, amber eyes meeting golden ones, that he doesn’t realize his mistake. “So good…you are doing g-great—”
“Xiao?” a voice calls, and Xiao is certain that it didn’t come from the boy below him. Both him and the prince freeze in their movements. “Are you awake, Xiao?” the voice comes from behind his door, soft and feminine, and Xiao know exactly just to whom it belongs. “If you are, have you seen my brother?”
The prince is the one that moves first, letting go of him with a quiet pop, tongue darting out to lick his lips. Just when Xiao thought that he’d finally leave—lest they both get discovered—through the window beside the bed, usually, the prince straddles Xiao, wraps his arms around Xiao’s lean shoulders, and abates the distance between their faces, lips touching each others.
By the time the both of them pulled away from each other, lips swollen and breathing erratic, the voice calls Xiao’s name once again. His prince, unpredictable as ever, times it and grabs their lengths, rubbing it together.
If it weren’t the mouth swallowing his moan, Xiao was sure, they would’ve been busted, together in a compromising position. Xiao wanted to complain, scold his prince for such trick amidst the risk of being exposed, but when that hand around him flicks deftly, he turns into putty, pliant against the one holding him.
“Just.. ignore her for long enough… and she’ll think y-you’re asleep…” the prince breathes, hand unfaltering in their movement and it makes Xiao gasp for air, the arm wrapped around the prince going lower, grabbing him by his rear and pressing him closer to Xiao. “Her Highness must be looking for—s-shit, ah—!” When Xiao feels teeth biting roughly on the column of his throat, the hand that keeps the two of them upright quivers, sending them lying on the bed. All the thoughts of the princess on the other side of the door flies out of Xiao’s mind, and all he could think of is how good the prince’ hand is, the mouth that ravishes his jaw, and the coil that threatens to unfurl in his stomach.
“Xiao, xiao… xiao…” his prince murmurs. Gone was the rhythm of their movements, all that’s left are the ungraceful meetings of their body, seeking nothing but the release of their pleasure. “I’m coming…” a whisper in his ear, and then a pair of eyes looking at him. “Let’s come together…o-okay?”
And who is Xiao, a mere knight at his prince’ disposal, to deny him of such request?
Wrapping both arms around the prince, Xiao brings their lips together so suddenly, it becomes nothing but a viscous clash of lips and intertwining of breaths. But Xiao doesn’t care; he relinquishes his finesse, ignores the salty taste of sweat, the awful feeling of their cooling release as it seeps within their clothes. He ignores them all, and surrounds himself with the feeling of his prince. Then he smiles. He cards his fingers through long, golden hair. He’s happy.
Because at the end of the day, Aether still chooses to be with him; what else could he ask for?