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A Constellation of Tears on Your Lashes (2/?)

Past chapters: Beginnings (1)

Chapter title: My Childhood Spat Back Out the Monster That You See (AO3 mirror)

Word count: ~8.5k

Summary:

In the dead of winter, Gavin “The Summer King” Free and Daniel “The Summer’s Iron Fist” Gruchy take retreat in their shared house. The kingdom’s in shambles around them, with Ryan Haywood ruling cruelly over everyone. Gavin, Dan, and their allies are looking to change that- A war is brewing between them, the resistance and Ryan’s rule, and Gavin can’t relax with Dan while disaster is on the horizon.

Meanwhile, Dan remembers and reminiscences about the past, about the quiet boy he once was, living with an abusive father. His memories take place in a different time, when Geoff Ramsey and his wife, Griffon Ramsey, ruled as benevolent equals and had just adopted Gavin Free, a troubled, mischievous kid with a liking for photography. His memories tell of the time just before Griffon and Geoff were overthrown, back when things were better and how Dan finally broke out of his shell and walked away from the shadow of his father.

This is the story of Dan and Gavin, past, present, and future, a story of how they both changed and saw both victory and defeat.

Notes: TW for child abuse it won’t be shown explicitly, but it will be talked about and discussed through the characters. Also there's smut/nsfw in this chapter

Happy Friday! Hope you guys like it <3

“How’s everyone at the camp doing?”

He watched Dan strike another match, throwing more papers into the fire after setting his phone down on the mantle again. The fire picked up again, roaring to life as Dan rekindled it and turned towards Gavin with a satisfied smirk. It almost made Gavin laugh—Dan’s personality always made Gavin laugh. He’d planned out so many winning battles and helped Gavin lead and yet, he was proud of himself for getting a fire going. He was ridiculous and Gavin absolutely loved it.

“Good. Michael said everything’s going well,” Dan sat beside him, folding his legs under him and wrapping an arm around Gavin’s back, fingers resting the exposed skin just above his hips. “He told me to tell you to ‘get some fucking sleep’.”

“His words?” Gavin guessed, a smile creeping up onto his face. Michael and his profanities were easy to identify. Michael also didn’t sugarcoat things or lie to make people feel better, which was part of the reason Gavin and Dan had left him to lead in their absence.

“He said Ryan hasn’t tried anything yet. He hasn’t contacted them, either, or mentioned that he wants our captives back,” Dan leaned in towards him, lips brushing against the nape of Gavin’s neck. He kissed him gently, soft lips against his sensitive skin, tongue flicking out for a moment, kissing against bruises Gavin had left over from recent days.

“You really should get some sleep,” Dan murmured against his neck, breath hot against him, making Gavin miss his lips on him. “It’s been three days. You have to be tired.”

Gavin didn’t say anything, knowing too well that Dan and Michael were both right. He was worried constantly now, with everything coming up and everything threatening to fall down on him. Dan had suggested that Gavin go back to the Gruchy Manor before carrying the plans out for some down time, telling him it wasn’t good for him to constantly be pouring over plans and battle tactics and maps. His small council had agreed immediately in unison and when Gavin had refused, Michael had yelled at him, dropping all formalities, until Gavin had unwillingly agreed.

He’d been here a day, having arrived in the afternoon with Dan in secrecy, and he hadn’t slept at all. It was horrible, considering the fact that Gavin wanted to do things, to talk to people, to make preparations, but in the end, he was too tired to do anything and too worried to sleep. Which had been Dan’s entire argument to get him here in the first place.

If nothing else, he liked being able to be alone with Dan. He remembered months of staying at this manor, which had become the Gruchy-Free Manor in that time, of having the place to themselves and doing whatever they wanted, whether that meant marathon sex or planning a revolt. That had been just a year ago, probably not even. It’d been a while since he’d been back here and it was about the closest place he had to home. Dan had grown up here and it was almost five years ago to the day that Dan and Gavin had taken everything from Dan’s childhood—all the furniture, all the paintings, all the old documents, right down to the wallpaper and carpeting, everything—and burnt it to the ground as they started anew.

The past no longer haunted Dan, nor did it haunt Gavin. This was the home they’d made together. The Keep had been Gavin’s home, too, but not one he’d made with Dan. That was his family’s home, the home that had been forced from him right underneath his feet when he was still too young to do anything about it.

The present was what he was focusing on. But that didn’t stop part of him from wanting to go back to living here with Dan, back to when it wasn’t stressful and back to when they weren’t about to overthrow a king.

Gavin leaned back on his hands, rolling his head back so he could let Dan get at his neck better. He obliged as soon as Gavin did, pressing into him more as his lips connected with Gavin’s throat. He sighed, curling a hand around the back of Dan’s neck, losing himself in the feeling, focusing on nothing more than Dan’s mouth on him, forgetting about the future and what was to come and what already had come.

Dan was aware he was being used.

He was a month from turning nine, and he was fully aware of the fact that he was a pawn. A day after the announcement of Gavin’s adoption, Dan was taken to the Keep and instructed by his father to make friends with Gavin. It was like every order his father had given him—devoid of emotion or sympathy and completely military-like. He didn’t tell him that he already knew Gavin, nor did his father tell him of whatever his plan was. He treated Dan as if he couldn’t understand, instead just using him without Dan knowing what he was being used for.

“How’s all the attention?” He asked Gavin once they were alone in his room. He’d laughed at Gavin the minute he saw him, since it was the first time he’d seen him wear anything other than his usual informal clothes. Actually—it was one of the first times he’s seen Gavin actually wear shoes.

Gavin groaned dramatically, “Horrible. There’s people everywhere and it sucks.” He kicked off his shoes, pulling off his jacket and button-up shirt and putting on his regular clothes, letting down his hair and finally looking like the Gavin Dan was used to. “God, those people filming me yesterday could barely hold a camera right.”

“I bet,” Dan stifled laughter, amused that that, of all things, was what Gavin was concerned about. He was just glad that the attention didn’t seem to have much of an effect on him other than annoyance. Gavin had been extremely shy the first time they’d met, but over the months, he’d started to talk more and had somehow formulated into a person that could make anyone like him.

Gavin threw himself down on the bed beside Dan, Dan rolling over to give him some room. Gavin didn’t seem to care much about personal space, never really keeping his distance from Dan or purposefully avoiding touching him. Dan didn’t care, either. The contact was nice, a definite change from at home.

“My dad was weird last night,” Dan commented quietly as Gavin played with the digital camera he had on the bedside table. “After the announcement. We watched it on TV.”

It caught Gavin’s attention, making him look up from what he was doing, glancing over at Dan. He didn’t talk much about his home life, since it worried Gavin whenever he mentioned anything bad, keeping it mostly to himself.

“What’d he do?”

Dan hesitated, shrugging, “He—it was weird. He had a bunch of people over and they stayed for hours. Dunno what they were talking about, but they stayed in my dad’s study and talked really quietly. I fell asleep in the living room and woke up when they were leaving.”

Gavin had forgotten about the digital camera he was still holding in his hands, instead looking right at Dan, eyes narrowed slightly and his mouth half-open, telling Dan he was thinking. He pursed his lips, shifting himself a little closer and propping himself up on his elbow facing Dan, “Did they say anything? To you—I mean.”

“No, but—” He thought of what had happened the previous night, the way his father had acted when he thought Dan was asleep, pointing at him with Gavin’s names on his lips and the way he’d immediately sent Dan off to make friends with Gavin. His father, who never let him play with other kids, who forbade him to even speak to people his age, who kept Dan under his lock and key, his order and response. He controlled Dan in every way, using him to his advantage and essentially training him to be a copy of himself.

It’d been that way his entire life and now—now suddenly Dan had the upper hand. His father didn’t know he’d known Gavin beforehand. To his knowledge, Gavin had been recently adopted and Dan was just as clueless as he was about the entire thing. Before this, he’d always tell his dad anything and everything, never keeping anything from him or really even having his own independent thoughts. He’d suffocated his own childlike instincts, instead doing everything he was told and never straying. But since he’d met Gavin—since he’d met Gavin, things had been different.

“When he thought I was asleep, he pointed at me and said something about you. I couldn’t hear it, but today he took me here and told me to make friends with you. I didn’t tell him I knew anything about you.”

He half expected Gavin to make some joke to lighten the mood or to suggest they drop it until Dan was less nervous about it all, but it took a long moment for it to sink in what Dan had just told Gavin. He’d told him the truth, keeping the truth from his father. It was serious, not just some joke or an offhanded comment about his home life. He didn’t know what he was being used for, but now they both knew he was being used and that it wasn’t for something good.

“Is it okay if I tell Geoff?” Gavin’s voice was oddly serious, matching the mood, though Dan wasn’t used to hearing him be so serious. “I won’t if you don’t want me to, promise.”

He trusted Gavin. If Gavin made a promise to him, he’d keep it, even if it was a joking promise. This was no exception. Gavin could keep a secret, no matter how big that secret was. Still, he nodded, fully understanding what he was doing. It was in that moment that Dan made his choice, a choice he’d never been given before, and he knew what he was agreeing to.

A week later, he was allowed to stay over at the Keep. It was his first time staying over at the castle, his father firmly laying down rules beforehand. Don’t talk to the king and queen, don’t talk unless he was spoken to, don’t make noise, do whatever Gavin asked of him, and every single one of those rules was thrown out the moment his father left and Gavin tackled him as soon as the servant led him out, throwing his arms around him and wrapping his body around him as Dan yelped and laughed and tried to get out from under him.

Geoff and Griffon greeted him with hugs, Geoff full on picking him up and spinning him around, commenting on how light he was and threatening to throw him in the lake next time they went for the weekend. Dan and Gavin had raced around the Keep, Geoff timing them as they slid down bannisters and made a racket running down hallways. Dinner had been a complete disaster, Griffon’s cooking exploding in the oven and ending up with one of her personal servants laughing and ordering out, instead.

Later, when Gavin was showing him footage he’d shot on his new camera, Geoff called Dan out of the room, asking to talk to him.

“Gav told me about your dad,” He said as soon as Dan stepped out of the room and shut the door behind him. He had that same serious tone Gavin had when Dan had talked to him a week previous, though his blue eyes were soft, assuring Dan he wasn’t angry. “Dan—I just want you to know that while I’m proud of you for telling Gav, I need you to understand what the consequences could be for telling him. If you want, I can act like I heard nothing.”

Dan just nodded. His position hadn’t changed after all the thought he’d given it. It was the right thing to do, but that hadn’t been the reason he did it.

Geoff paused a moment before speaking again, talking to Dan in a quiet voice, presumably so that Gavin wouldn’t hear, “Dan, if your father’s doing something he’s not supposed to, a lot of bad things could happen. He could be imprisoned and taken off the council. If he knows you’re telling me things, he could hurt you a lot.”

“I know,” Dan’s expression didn’t change. He’d already gone over this again and again. He understood. “Can I still see Gavin if Dad’s imprisoned?”

He saw the unmistakable upturn of Geoff’s lips, “Dan, if your dad goes to prison, I’ve already made arrangements that you can stay here with us and Gavin. You won’t be punished for anything your father does or anything he makes you do. You’re a kid. It’s not your fault.”

“Thank you—” Dan said immediately, his voice quivering and threatening to break. “Thank you so much.”

“No, it’s alright. You mean a lot to Griffon and I. You’re like a son to us. Don’t cry, kid.”

Dan wiped his eyes, no tears falling even as they swelled up in his eyes. He’d stopped crying a long time ago and this was the first time in a while that he’d almost broke. Geoff hugged him, pulling him close until Dan calmed down and then patted him on the shoulder, telling him Gavin was probably wondering where he was.

Geoff started to walk away, but Dan jumped, catching the sleeve of his leather jacket and pulling him back, brown eyes wide and feeling like he was choking on his own words again. He had to ask—just this once. He needed to know.

His voice came out as nothing more than a strained whisper, but that was all he needed, “Do you trust him?”

Geoff looked him right in the eyes, blue suddenly piercing, “I’ve never trusted your father. But I trust you.”

“Do you think they’ll call again tonight?”

Gavin’s voice was soft, his fingers threaded through Dan’s soft dark brown hair. He sighed softly, Dan kissing up his throat, teeth biting gently into his skin, making new marks next to old bruises, marking up Gavin just the way he liked it.

“Probably not,” Dan told him, pulling away for a moment and looking at Gavin with half-lidded eyes. “Gav, they’ll call if something happens. If not, Michael said he’d call in the morning. It’s alright; try not to worry about it.”

He leaned in, Gavin letting his eyes fall shut as his lips brushed against his forehead, deft fingers brushing his sandy bangs from his face. He made his way down again, pressing kisses to Gavin’s nose and cheeks and corners of his mouth until Dan’s tongue was running against his lips. He let him in, his mouth fitting easily against Dan’s, kissing him like he had a thousand million times before, the feeling of it never getting any less exhilarating.

It was times like these when he wanted to tell Dan over and over how much he loved him, how much he needed him by his side, how much he appreciated him being here. Dan’s loyalty wasn’t just loyalty. He didn’t serve Gavin and he wasn’t a subject or an advisor. He was Gavin’s equal, had always been and always would be. They led together and Dan wasn’t with him just because he was loyal to Gavin. They’d been over it a hundred times in the bad nights when all Gavin could do was panic and Dan would stick around, assuring Gavin that nothing would ever make a difference in their relationship, whether they led the kingdom or were outcast from it, until Gavin calmed down and realized that Dan loved him just as much as Gavin did.

His arms wrapped around Dan’s neck and he could feel Dan’s fingers under his shirt again, tracing the rest of the sigil onto his back, leaving a burning trail as he drew on him. His tongue was hot in Gavin’s mouth, teeth biting softly at his bottom lip.

“Dan—” He exhaled his name when he pulled away from him. He moved his hands down, sliding them around and under the folded collar of his shirt. “Dan.”

“We should go to the bedroom,” Dan suggested, making no motion to move. Gavin started working at the buttons on his shirt, struggling to undo them as tiredness dragged at his hands. “It’ll be more comfortable for you, especially if you fall asleep.”

Gavin frowned, sticking out his bottom lip in a fake-pout, “I’m not gonna fall asleep while we’re banging.”

“You sure about that?” Dan gently took Gavin’s hands from where he was still trying to get the buttons on his shirt undone. He rubbed his thumbs over Gavin’s knuckles before gently kissing the insides of his wrists. “Look at you, can’t even get my shirt undone. You gonna stay awake if I lay you down on the floor?”

“Asshole, it’s pretty hard to fall asleep if I have your cock in me,” Gavin shot back, pouting and insistent on getting Dan to give into him. Really, he just didn’t want to move. The study was one of his favorite places to be. He’d sit in here with Dan for hours and hours, neither of them saying much, both of them doing their own things in each other’s presence, the room cozy and warm and filled with memories of reading in the afternoons while Dan napped with his head in Gavin’s lap.

“Guess we’ll see,” Dan gave in, drawing a grin from Gavin. That was part of Dan’s charm—he could make Gavin grin like an idiot even when he was stressed, anxious, and hadn’t slept in three days. He could always make him smile, and he could always make Dan smile.

Their relationship always worked both ways and always would work both ways.

On his ninth birthday, Gavin gave Dan a book of photographs he’d taken of them and a home-made movie where Gavin had edited and spliced together all the footage he had involving Dan. He’d wrapped both things by himself, resulting in him presenting Dan with a lumpy, overly-taped two packages that were almost impossible to open without the aid of scissors.

It was the best gift he’d ever received. That weekend, Geoff and Griffon had taken he and Gavin to the lake again and true to his promises, Geoff had picked Dan up and thrown him in the water. He’d resurfaced to Gavin giggling, to which Geoff had responded by picking Gavin up and throwing him in after Dan.

Gavin shot a lot of footage that weekend, focusing a lot on Dan. When he’d later asked him why, Gavin just shrugged and told him he liked filming Dan without giving any particular reason why. Dan had been satisfied enough with the answer and Gavin had gotten comfortable enough to let Dan handle the camera sometimes, which allowed him to capture some of Gavin’s energy on film.

He didn’t want to go home when the weekend trip was over, but he didn’t mention anything about it. His father didn’t greet him when he’d walked into the estate, Dan’s formal ‘hello’ falling flat on his ears as one of servants took him in. He asked Dan the usual round of questions, scolding him when he didn’t stand up straight, Dan lying through his teeth as he claimed to have obeyed the set of rules his father had given him.

That night, the same group of men came over to the estate, gathering again in Dan’s father’s study and talking in hushed voices he couldn’t hear. Dan tried to stay up this time, barely keeping his eyes open as the lull of the murmur coming from the study drew him in towards sleep. He ended up staying awake enough to see them leave, each of them glancing at him as they passed, Dan recognizing none of them. None of them were part of Geoff and Griffon’s small council, though he could tell they were all wealthy and important from the way they carried themselves and with how well groomed they were.

He told Geoff the next day and Geoff asked him about the identities of the men, Dan apologizing and replying that he hadn’t known any of them. He had, however, seen them, and that day he’d asked Gavin if he had any drawing paper and had spent the next few hours sketching out the ten faces he’d seen from memory as Gavin sat close to him and watched. He’d commented that Dan was good at it and Dan had let him lean his head on his shoulder as he watched.

Towards the end of the day, later than any other day Dan’s father had left him there, he gave the portraits to Geoff and he’d looked through them, somehow astounded at Dan’s memory, and recognized every one of the people instantly. He thanked Dan and sent him back to Gavin and Dan’s father had never come to get him that night.

He spent the night at the Keep, Gavin ecstatic that he was sleeping over, bouncing around him and grinning ear to ear. Dan, for once, couldn’t share his excitement, and Gavin soon picked up on the reason Dan was quiet and kept wringing his hands together—he was absolutely terrified that his father wouldn’t come back for him. After all, he could’ve found out Dan had told on him. He could’ve found out about Dan’s secret of how he’d known Gavin long before his father had arranged for them to ‘meet’. He even could’ve found out that Dan hadn’t been following the rules he’d laid out for him. He couldn’t imagine which of the three had set his father off, but it made him nervous.

Gavin picked up on it almost instantaneously, quieting down and assuring Dan that it’d be okay. He did everything he could to try to soothe his worries, which included getting Griffon to try to help, as well. It took hours, but Dan gradually relaxed enough to pull him out of his anxious silence and he confided in Gavin about how afraid he was of making his father angry. He fell asleep with Gavin that night, and the next morning his father was back, apologizing extensively to Geoff for Dan ‘causing trouble’.

He saw Geoff cast a glance towards Dan and then speak to his father in a low, angry voice and before he knew it, Dan was being grabbed by the wrist and dragged out of the Keep as he struggled desperately to even wave to Gavin.

When Dan had the nerve to ask him why he’d left Dan at the Keep overnight without even a phone call to him, his father had struck him across the face so hard that it had sent Dan stumbling across the room and with tears welling in his eyes. He never asked about it again, not even daring to speak another word to his father that week.

The meetings continued. It got to the point where they were happening almost every night. Some nights, Dan’s father left him at the Keep or at a tutor’s house or some other place for the entire day and night, seemingly forgetting about him, and then apologizing for his behavior once he returned.

He looked forward to seeing Gavin and as the months past, Dan was slowly able to become a somewhat normal nine year-old through him. He spent as much time as possible with Gavin, his father surprisingly never having much of an issue with it. He reported the meetings to Geoff every time they happened and told him each time the gathering grew, each time there was someone new at the nightly meetings at the manor.

Gavin turned ten and Dan tried his hand again at baking him a cake, which turned out to be a disaster, though less of a disaster than the previous year. He gave him a sketchbook he’d hidden from his father filled with drawings Dan had done, many of them being of Gavin himself, and Gavin had absolutely loved it. Dan would still come across it in his bedside table over ten years later. It was one of the only things Gavin had saved from the blaze.

A week before Dan’s tenth birthday, his father was removed from his position as the high commander of the military.

He only found out when his father came home and immediately dismissed all the servants in the manor for the night. That night was the first night he cried since he could remember, and it only made things worse for him. Gavin only found out when Dan called him in a panic after his father was done, guessing what had happened when Geoff arrived with Dan in tow, bruises on his face and a broken nose and an unusable right arm.

Geoff immediately rushed him to the private hospital in the Landing and they’d treated his nose and where he’d broken his arm in multiple places. Nobody believed his lie of falling down the stairs, but Dan was still shaking and nervous when they took him back to the Keep, refusing to say anything other than his lie.

Gavin sat beside him while Dan lay in his bed and gently touched his face and dark hair as he told him stories in a soft voice of what things had been like before he was adopted by the royal family. He stayed at the Keep for two weeks, unable to do much with his head constantly hurting and his dominant arm broken. He felt useless, unable to write or draw or play games with Gavin, but Gavin didn’t seem to care, instead telling Dan all the stories he wanted to hear. He learned a lot about Gavin in that time, learning that he’d once been in a violent situation, too, but had been rescued by a foundation the Ramseys had set up specifically for children like him. Geoff and Griffon had taken interest in him, even though he was a shy, quiet kid who panicked anytime anyone got too close to him, and had eventually ended up taking him home.

He explained that he’d been there a month before he met Dan and how he’d had trouble trusting his new parents at first. Dan listened intently as Gavin laid out the entire story for him, curious since Gavin had never told him anything about his life before the Keep. Late one night, Dan had finally felt comfortable enough to tell him that this wasn’t the first time his father had been violent and it wouldn’t be the last time.

He celebrated his birthday at the Keep, Gavin begging him to stay up until midnight the day before his birthday so he could tell him happy birthday on the exact second the clock turned. Apparently, that was Gavin’s way of assuring that he’d be the first person to say it.

That night stuck in his memory for years to come for some reason. Gavin hadn’t waited at all, shoving another badly-wrapped package into his hands and waiting anxiously for him to open it, uncovering a photo in an obviously hand-made, hand-painted frame, one Gavin had took and one of the only photos that actually had Gavin in it. It was of their most recent trip to the lake when Gavin had turned the camera around and pulled Dan close to him and snapped a photo of the two of the grinning together at the camera.

It was that night that he really came to appreciate Gavin’s friendship. Behind the frame was another disk Gavin had made for him and watching it, Dan had come under the knowledge that while Gavin couldn’t draw or paint or write all that well, he had a talent for cinematography and video editing. He told Gavin of such and when Gavin left the room to retrieve something it was there in the dead of night in Geoff’s study, surrounded by poetry books and kingdom documents, that he realized he’d somehow stumbled across gold.

He’d never been allowed to play with kids his age beforehand. He’d never had any friends or anyone to talk to other than the housemaids or other servants. He’d read books dealing with friendship and had watched the occasional movie about it and had come under the impression that friendship was unnecessary and friends who were children just argued all the time and, for some reason, needed either an entire movie or a book to solve their friendship problems.

So either he’d stuck gold or he’d been wrong about friendship. He was beginning to think it was probably a mixture of both. They were just—compatible. Friendship with Gavin was easy. It didn’t really require any trying. It was fun, the most fun he’d had since he could remember, and everything came naturally. They were alike enough, both of them starting off as shy kids who were comfortable in each other’s presence, but different enough that it kept things interesting. And unlike every other example of friendship, he never fought with Gavin. They had their little mock-arguments which usually ended with Gavin diving onto him and running his fingers up and down his sides until Dan nearly cried from laughing, but nothing serious.

It was easy and fun. Gavin put just as much into the relationship as Dan did, both of them pulling their own weight equally. There was no power imbalance—despite the fact that Gavin was a prince, which Dan only pointed out when he was teasing him—or feelings of superiority and jealousy between them. They were equals and always had been and always would be.

He stared at the photo in his hands and the handmade disk case for the movie he’d made Dan, suddenly more grateful than he’d ever been that Gavin was with him. He had little messages and doodles from Gavin covering the cast on his arm and the sling it rested in, mixing in with the ones from Geoff and Griffon and some of the always kind workers at the Keep. The message from today had hearts drawn all around it, as most of them typically did, Gavin usually writing them on his arm just before he woke up in the morning and whenever he thought Dan wouldn’t notice.

“Hey, Dan!” Gavin called out to him, coming back into the room without Dan hearing him walk back in, obviously too absorbed in his own thoughts to take notice. His head snapped up and he grinned at Gavin, causing Gavin to cock an eyebrow and give him a questioning look. “Your arm okay?”

Dan nodded, “Yeah, it’s all good. What’d you get?”

His response was a mischievous smirk and a second later, they were in the dark, pitch black surrounding them with a click as Gavin shut off the lights without warning. Darkness had fallen outside long ago and it was just after midnight, when Gavin had yelled ‘happy birthday!’ as loud as he could and wrapped Dan in a crushing hug. The study was purposefully kept sectioned off from the rest of the tower where they family lived, built in a connecting section between two wings of the castle and slightly hidden from anyone who didn’t know exactly where it was. It was isolated so anyone in it wouldn’t be bothered unless it was by family, who knew how to get to the study.

Dan yelped, unable to see a thing in the darkness. He pulled the throe blanket tighter around him, pressing into its warmth as the room seemed to grow a million times colder around him. He started to say something, opening his mouth and stuttering out the beginning sound of Gavin’s name, trying to ask what he was doing and why, wondering when the fear of the darkness had returned to him after his father had trained it out of him.

“It’s okay, shhh,” Gavin soothed him, his voice calm and warm in the darkness and chill. Dan felt his muscles relax, unwinding at the sound of Gavin’s voice, trusting him enough that if Gavin said it was going to be okay, it would be. “Just let me—”

He didn’t finish the sentence, letting out a frustrated noise as Dan heard something scrape against something else. Gavin cursed under his breath, something Dan didn’t hear him do very often. The sound of his voice was enough to keep him calm. He heard the noise again, louder and more forceful this time and then there was a light, small and burning at the end of the match Gavin held up to his face as he grinned ear to ear.

“Got it!” Gavin exclaimed loudly, nearly blowing the match out in his excitement. It flickered for a moment, threatening to go out, and then stayed lit, prompting Gavin to lower it to a candle in a dish, neither of which Dan had seen before he brought them in. The candle caught, the wicker getting a strong burn as the match went out and suddenly, there was more light.

He could see Gavin’s face and a small radius around him, at least. There was some sort of light and it wasn’t nearly as frightening now with something on. Though, he still had no idea what was going on. Gavin was a lover of weird and almost always badly ending science experiments, but Dan thought he had more sense than to set anything on fire. Or he thought he had more sense than to set something on fire inside.

(They’d set fire to things plenty of times outside. Gavin was a very convincing person.)

“What are you doing, Gav?” He asked almost cautiously, all the previous panic gone in an instant, replaced by curiosity and the dull knowledge that Gavin was going to do something dangerous and Dan was going to take part in it because of his own curiosity.

Gavin picked the candle up, holding it by the plate it rested on as hot wax dripped down the actual candle itself. He stepped towards Dan, looking down at him and answering him, “I’m just lighting the fireplace.”

“I’m not that dumb, idiot!”

He could see the laugh Gavin had to hold back as he stepped past Dan and towards the back wall, where there actually was a fireplace. Maybe he really was going to light it.

Seconds later, Gavin had the fireplace going ablaze, skillfully lighting it with the flame on the candle as he lowered it to the pile of dry firewood and newspaper. He’d definitely already prepared for this and Dan found himself crawling over to the fire and settling in front of it, blanket still wrapped loosely around his body. Gavin knelt beside him and Dan held out part of it with his good hand, offering it to Gavin. He took it, fitting easily under it with Dan and close enough to his side that he could feel his heat.

For a few moments, they just sat and watched the fire together. It was calming with all the stress this past week had been about, with not knowing how long he’d stay at the Keep or how angry his father was. He could sit in the quiet with Gavin all night if he wanted to and he was intent on doing that until Gavin broke the quiet, not with his speech, but instead with a movement.

He reached out suddenly, leaning in towards the fire and it took a second for Dan to process things and because of that, a second before the panic actually reached him.

“Stop!” He shouted, his voice high and shrill. “Stop! Stop—what are you doing?!” He screamed every word, trying to grab Gavin, his panic causing him to try with his broken arm, making pain shoot through his entire body. He pulled back instantly, whining in pain.

“It’s okay, Dan,” Gavin assured him in that calming voice, nodding towards the fireplace. “Look.”

Gavin, who seemed to be the very incarnation of summer, whose skin seemed to glow and was constantly sunkissed, and who seemed to enrapture the energy the sun gave off and release it in the form of that child-like grin of his, had his hand wrist-deep in the blazing fireplace, his face an epitome of calm, his skin remaining uncharred as the flames licked at it, lapping at his fingers and dancing at his body.

Maybe that was where Gavin had stopped seeming like summer and had become summer itself.

“You warm enough without a blanket or anything?”

Gavin pushed himself up onto his elbows, giving Dan the most incredulous, disbelieving look he could manage. He raised an eyebrow, his upper lip in a half-scowl, meeting Dan’s innocent eyes as he gave him the ‘are you seriously asking me that?’ look. Dan froze, brown eyes huge, his belt hanging halfway undone, his hands still in the process of getting it off.

Dan went from surprise at Gavin’s expression to defensive quicker than Gavin had ever seen him change gears, “—What?”

God, Dan was ridiculous. Fortunately, it wasn’t an ‘I’m-gonna-to-strangle-him’ kind of ridiculous. Dan was ridiculous, and it made Gavin laugh and he loved it and it was just a fact of life. It never failed to surprise him when Dan asked things like that, though, especially when Gavin was laying on the floor in front of the fireplace, waiting for Dan to take his belt off so they wouldn’t have to struggle with it later while they had sex.

“I can’t believe you’re worried about whether or not I’m warm when your cock is hard as a goddamn rock. Get down here already, idiot,” He huffed loudly to show his point, tempted to do anything to tease Dan and get him to hurry up. Dan was easy to tease—essentially still a bloody geek who just happened to be really attractive and really good at sex. It was exceptionally easy to get him hard. All it’d take to get him to hurry up was Gavin teasing himself with his hand, running his hand over his own aching erection and Dan would probably be on him and roughly rutting up against him in an instant.

He didn’t, though, still waiting for Dan and satisfied with the tinge of red on his cheeks he got from Gavin pointing out his arousal, still frowning and refusing to take defeat as an option, “Yeah, well it’s winter and the heat’s not on. I’m just worried about your well-being.”

Gavin snorted, eyeing Dan as he finished undoing the buckle on his belt and started pulling it through the loops, “Next you’ll be asking me if I want a pillow for my back.”

“Do you?”

“No!”

Dan grinned a shit-eating smirk at him and discarded his belt onto the floor. Gavin’s own smile widened the instant Dan settled between his legs, grabbing the belt loops of Gavin’s jeans and pulling him closer, bringing his hips against Dan’s and pushing forward, rubbing the bulge in his pants against Gavin’s clothed cock. Any more teasing he had was lost on his lips, the only noise coming from him being a happy sigh.

“Good?” Dan asked him, already sounding a little breathless himself, pushing his hips forward again. He lifted Gavin’s to meet him halfway, working him without much input from Gavin’s own body. He was fine with it this way, anyways—his body was exhausted.

“Yeah,” He swallowed another noise, refusing for it to come out. There was no more amusement in his tone, seriousness taking over as heat rushed over him, crashing into him like waves as Dan started a back-forth motion, rocking into Gavin as he brought him up to meet each thrusts.

Dan paused for a moment after a few thrusts, rubbing his thumbs over Gavin’s hips gently as he caught his breath and looked at Gavin, voice breathy and thick with his own arousal, “You okay with me doing this?”

Gavin glanced away, embarrassed of how tired he was and how quickly Dan had picked up on his exhaustion, “I feel bad that you’re doing all the work.”

Dan laughed, lips stretching into a smile and Gavin felt better somehow, even though he hadn’t said a word in response yet. Dan spoke to him softly, Gavin hanging on his every word, “B. You’re fucking dead tired. You’re tired and stressed out and goddamn horny. You’re not gonna be able to do much. Just let me work you and maybe you’ll finally be able to sleep afterwards.”

It was reasonable enough and as long as Dan was alright with it, Gavin was, too. Dan knew how to get him off. He knew how to please Gavin and Gavin knew how to please him. They’d been together long enough and they were still young and both of them had sex drives that would probably bewilder anyone else. He was perfectly fine with letting Dan do whatever he wanted with him, wanting nothing more than to feel his lips against him and his strong hands on him.

Dan was pulling at him again, starting the slow push and pull motion again, eliciting another sigh from Gavin and a noise he held in that resulted in a squeak. His eyes had fallen half-shut as Dan picked up the pace, both of them still fully clothed.

Dan was kissing his neck again, lower than he was before as he mouthed at the base, lips and tongue hot on him. He was gentle enough with his teeth, hard enough to leave marks on him, though not the deep purple and blue ones he sometimes left on Gavin during their rougher fucking. That was how Gavin liked it most of the time and Dan had the talent of being able to make the usually-quiet-in-bed Gavin scream. Not now, though. He liked it rough a lot of the time, but it was their first night back at the estate, and Gavin didn’t want Dan to fuck him senseless. He wanted it softer and gentler and Dan was going at a pace he liked, a pace he could keep up with in his tired state of mind.

Dan stopped rutting against him, his breath coming in short, hot gasps against Gavin’s neck, Gavin in a similar state, his cock throbbing in his pants and he missed the pressure of having Dan thrusting and rubbing his erection against him. Soon enough, though, Dan was pulling Gavin’s hips up until he could guide his legs around him, Gavin getting the idea and wrapping them around his waist.

Dan pushed his shirt up, running his thumbs up Gavin’s skin as he did. He didn’t bother to take it off, pushing it up enough so that he could kiss down Gavin’s chest, marking here and there with his teeth and kissing along the edges of other bruises he’d left in the recent past.

It wasn’t often that he got to experience this. Or, at least, he hadn’t recently. He and Dan were both overly stressed and overworked, with the realization closing in on them fast that the only thing left to do was overthrow The Mad King himself, leaving them to take out their frustrations with rough sex whenever they could find the time for it, wherever they could find the time for it. Despite the reputation Gavin had for turning into ‘a whining, begging, screaming bottom whenever Dan shoved him up against a wall and drove into him’—Michael’s words, of course; not his own—Gavin liked times like these just as much, when Dan would kiss him gently and when they had time for all the foreplay they wanted.

It was nice to finally have time for this again, nice to have Dan all to himself again and not have to focus on everything else that was going on. All he thought about was Dan kissing down his stomach, nosing against the start of his coarse pubic hair, slowly making his way further and further down. The trail he’d kissed already burned, the fire on his skin sending sparks through his body, adding to his pleasure.

A sound escaped him, sneaking past his lips and out of his throat as Dan palmed him through his jeans, rubbing his hand along the outline of his dick. He squirmed a bit, untangling his legs from Dan and spreading them almost instinctually.

“You want me to fuck you tonight?” Dan asked him, circling the ball of his hand over Gavin, making him pant and fight to hold back a whine. While he didn’t like making much noise during sex, his body did, trying to moan and whine and yell when Gavin didn’t want to hear the sound of his own voice. “We don’t have to. You’re tired and I could just blow you here and we could do a round two in the morning if you’re up for it.

Gavin pushed himself up onto his elbows again, looking up at Dan, shaking his head frantically, “No, I want you tonight. Tonight, Dan. Please.”

Dan really did have that weird way of turning him into a begging mess. It was embarrassing, but there was nothing to be ashamed about around Dan, not when they’d been together for so long.

“Relax, B,” Dan rubbed small circles into his thigh, obviously trying to get him to calm down. “I was just worried it’d be too much for you. That’s all.”

And that was the end of that discussion, Dan laying him back down on the floor as he wrapped an arm around Gavin and kissed him hard, his other hand finally dipping into his jeans and stroking him from base to head, making Gavin shudder and moan into his mouth. There was no more teasing, no more beating around the bush, Dan’s fingers undoing Gavin’s pants between them as he kissed him, tongue in Gavin’s mouth and running against his. His hips pressed up, searching for some kind of friction and Dan ground down on him, rubbing himself against Gavin’s thinner and smaller body.

Gavin was halfway between telling Dan to hurry up and telling him to slow down, deciding on hurrying up once he realized they had time and about a week of it. Right now, Gavin was desperate, wanting to finally fuck in a place no one would barge in on them and when they could go at it for as long as they wanted and sleep and cuddle together for as long as they wanted after. There were no obligations here, nowhere to be or schedules to keep in mind.

Dan pulled away to work Gavin’s jeans off of him, getting them off with a bit of difficulty and cursing Gavin’s affinity for tight pants, leaving him half-naked and exposed while Dan was still fully clothed.

“Take—Take your shirt off,” Gavin stuttered, shivering as the cool air hit his body. He wanted Dan back on him, wanted the fire of his skin against him, the heat he provided. But Dan was a goddamn asshole who always dressed nicer than he should’ve and was taking his goddamn time with the buttons on his shirt. He didn’t even get it all the way off before Gavin was sitting up and kissing him again, tired of waiting for him and tempted to just sit himself in Dan’s lap. He knew Dan would object to that, though, as part of his whole get-Gavin-to-relax thing, and true to Gavin’s predictions, he soon had Gavin back laying down on the ground.

“See?” Dan raised his eyebrows when Gavin shivered again. “Told you you’d be cold.”

“You bloody—” Dan really didn’t waste time, Gavin’s words lost when he leaned forward and mouthed at Gavin’s cock, getting him back to full hardness. He kissed the tip of it, that satisfied smirk staying on his face the entire time, even as he took the head into his mouth and wrapped his tongue around it, sucking in a way that almost had Gavin climaxing then and there.

Dan pulled off of him entirely too soon, “What was that? I think you were about to call me some name.”

He was working at his own pants, unbuttoning them and unzipping them and taking entirely too long, which was nothing less than what Gavin expected. When Dan could be, he was a shitty tease. He liked to see Gavin whine and he liked to spend time getting Gavin to the edge and then cutting him off. Gavin had his ways of getting Dan to hurry up, though.

He caught Dan’s eyes, holding his gaze strong as he finally did something, dragging his fingers down his own body until he found his hole, pushing the tip of his middle finger in as gentle as he could. He was stretched enough from the few times they’d had sex in the past couple days, and was met with nothing more than the uncomfortableness of the dry intrusion.

Dan wasn’t looking him in the eyes anymore, kneeling between Gavin’s legs with his pants halfway down and his cock hanging out, watching him push his fingers into himself. Gavin took the moment to feel satisfied with himself for the first time that night, after all the worrying over whether or not people back at camp were alright and if it was a good idea to leave. He pushed all that to the back of his head, appreciating the fact, instead, that he had the high commander of the biggest military in the kingdom drooling over the sight of Gavin fingering himself.

“You done pissing around now?” Gavin almost laughed saying the words, unsure if it was because he was just so exhausted that everything seemed funny or if it was because the sight of Dan so obviously dumbstruck was just too ridiculous to handle seriously.

Dan snapped out of it, slowly looking back up at Gavin as he drew back his fingers with a shudder that wracked through his whole body. He saw Dan swallow hard and regain his composure, “You ready?”

Gavin nodded, doing his best to relax, his back flat against the floor of the study, his eyes falling shut as he felt Dan’s hands at his hips again, holding him steady and pushing the head of his cock at Gavin’s entrance. It went easily, Dan having rubbed some sort of lubricant on beforehand, the head slipping in smoothly and making Gavin groan loudly as he filled him.

Dan leaned down close to him, lips brushing against his neck again and it was only a moment before Gavin whispered that he could go and lost himself in the feeling, Dan making sparks fly through him and waves of pleasure rip him apart at the seams as he murmured phrases of endearment into Gavin’s ears and set a rhythm Gavin disappeared into.

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