coatcharmer
It was natural for comrades to be this close, wasn’t it? After surviving so much together. That was what Locke might tell himself, when he was feeling delusional. But he knew better– he’d spent a long time in the trenches with a number of men and women, and they didn’t share this type of closeness with one another.
The ease with which he spoke to Faris, touched him, was unlike anything he’d shared with… almost anyone before. And he didn’t even care to put a name to it, when Faris responded so easily in kind. Better to just enjoy it for now, when they were alone with one another, miles, days, weeks away from ‘home,’ or whatever passed for it. Then things would change, he was sure. He’d become a wanderer again. Alone.
“It might be a rough hike,” Locke, who was in no hurry, replied. “Will your men miss you too badly if you take the safer route?”
“I shouldn’t think so?” It was a lie of course, and something small in Faris’s gut twinged at speaking it. Rouke would be in fits by now, though they trusted him to keep the others placated. Even if they were searching, Rouke would keep every one calm, working together.
Idly they stroked his wrist, their thumb smoothing back and forth over that tender skin with no concious thought. Locke simply felt right beneath their hands. If they concentrated they could almost feel the flutter of his pulse against their finger tips.
With a small sigh, they looked over the map, a tiny furrow to their brows.
This, with him, shouldn’t come so easily, and yet there they were, touching and feeling and comfortable. It should have disturbed them, should have risen flags within their mind, but they felt light, free. They almost felt content.
“Th’ hike worries me, aye, but it might be another chance t’ throw off any tail we have.”











