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“I really like your pants,” Aether murmurs, voice low enough to disappear under the noise of the docks.
His hand is already there, trapped between the wall and Lohen’s hips, working at the buttons with a patience that does not match the rest of him. Talk about a rock and a hard place, he jokes in his mind.
The port is loud—too loud. Sailors laughing, ropes dragging, gulls screaming overhead—but it only seems to sharpen everything instead of covering it. Every sound lands somewhere behind Aether’s ribs, quickening his pulse instead of hiding it.
He presses in closer anyway, chest to Lohen’s back, turning proximity into something that could almost pass for coincidence. A narrow angle. A partial shield. Not enough to be safe, just enough to be reckless.
The fabric gives under his fingers—coarse, worn, old-fashioned in a way that feels almost purposeful. Practical. Accessible.
Aether exhales, a quiet, pleased sound. “Who designed these,” he adds, softer now, “and why don’t more people thank them properly?”
Lohen huffs—short, surprised into existence, like the reaction got there before he decided whether to have it. “Well,” he says after a beat, voice lighter than it should be, edged with interest, “that’s not the version of you they tell stories about.”
He doesn’t move away. If anything, he shifts his weight back just enough to make the contact unavoidable—intentional now, not incidental.
“Honorary knight,” he goes on, almost thoughtful. “Polite. Reliable.” A pause, brief but pointed. “Hands to yourself.”
His hand comes back without hurry, closing around Aether’s wrist where it’s pinned between them. Not to stop him. The opposite.
“Should I revise that,” Lohen asks, tone turning sharper at the edges, “or is this a special case?”
Aether doesn’t miss a beat. “It’s a natural side effect,” he says, breath brushing the back of Lohen’s neck, “of knowing how to treat people accordingly.”
“Accordingly,” Lohen repeats, quieter, like he’s turning the word over and finding it fits too well.
The drop-front flap gives way with alarming ease, the metal buttons cool against Aether’s knuckles before his hand slides into the heat beneath. The contrast—rough wool, bare skin—pulls a sharp breath from him, one he barely contains.
A cart rattles past, wheels clattering over stone loud enough to cover a multitude of sins. Lohen feels it anyway.
His spine goes taut for a fraction of a second—not rigid, not frozen, just a clean line of tension that he registers and does nothing to hide. He holds Aether’s wrist like a vise, not to pull him out, but to hold him exactly where he is.
“Mm,” Lohen breathes, low, more felt than heard. Almost calmly, he shifts, turning just enough to press Aether harder into the wall and claim the angle back for himself. “Careful,” he says, but there’s no real warning left in it now. “You’re going to start a pattern.”
Aether confirms by biting lightly at the skin just above the choker.
The sound Lohen makes is immediate—cut short, caught halfway between approval and something sharper—and this time he doesn’t bother disguising it. His thumb presses hard once against Aether’s pulse.
“Right,” Lohen murmurs, almost to himself. “That’s consistent.”
A pair of knights passes by, their voices raised in a heated debate over tariffs, and Aether feels the rush of air from their movement. It’s a close call—too close.
He reacts on instinct, pulling Lohen firmly back against his chest, angling his shoulders to block the line of sight from the walkway. His heart is hammering now, loud enough it feels like it should give them away.
The risk only sharpens it.
His grip tightens on Lohen's cock, grounding and reckless at once, and he feels the answer immediately—heat, tension, readiness that had been building long before he touched it.
Aether exhales, slower this time, the realization settling into something darker. “Already?” he murmurs, unable to keep the note of satisfaction out of it.
Lohen doesn’t answer, but the hand curled at the small of Aether’s back digs in—sharp enough to mark, purposeful enough to mean it. Nails against skin, a brief, controlled drag that is far too precise to be accidental.
Aether hisses under his breath. It's not like it hurts. Well, rather, it's not like it doesn't hurt nicely. The sound he makes is closer to approval, edged just enough to sound like a challenge.
“How rude,” he teases, voice gone thin with it, like the complaint is more invitation than protest.
Lohen’s breath shifts. “Mm,” he hums, low, considering.
Aether wants him louder.
His fingers dig into the curve of Lohen’s hips, ten points of pressure hard enough to leave blooming violet marks through layers of clothing, claiming Lohen's body as his own territory. With a rough, jerky motion, he spins Lohen around, shoving him flat against the weathered stone.
The impact jars a gasp out of Lohen, swallowed instantly by the din of the harbor, but Aether doesn’t give him a second to adjust.
Aether drops to his knees on the dusty cobblestones, the rough grit biting through his trousers, ignored in favor of the singular, consuming need roaring in his ears. What kind of traveler would care about the dirt, anyway?
There are passersby mere feet away, separated only by the desperate angle of their bodies and a sliver of shadow.
Not that Aether would complain if they saw them.
Lohen seems to have a similar idea. “My,” he says, voice light with it, edged in something sharper, “if you’re that eager to start gossip, we could take this inside. Desk. Door open.”
Aether glances up at him, unbothered, something bright and reckless flickering through his expression. “You don't have a problem with that?”
Lohen considers it—actually considers it, like it’s a real logistical question. “I’d probably get fired for indecency,” he says, almost thoughtfully. “But everyone would know exactly what’s happening.” His hand slides through Aether's fringes. “So,” he finishes, quieter now, “statistically speaking… worth it.”
Aether doesn’t give him time to revisit the calculation. He leans forward, closing the last remaining distance, and takes Lohen into his mouth in one smooth motion. The taste of salt and skin hits his tongue—earthy and impossibly intimate against the backdrop of salt air and fish oil.
Above him, Lohen’s breath hitches violently, a sharp intake of air that he tries to stifle by biting his lip, his head thumping back against the stone. His fingers instinctively tangles in the gold strands not to push him away, but to anchor himself, to ground the overwhelming sensation that threatens to buckle his knees right there on the public walkway.
“—right,” Lohen exhales, voice thinner now, though the edge of it remains. “That’s… not subtle.”
A pause, shorter than it should be.
Then, lower, more focused: “Keep going.”
Aether doesn't need to be told twice. Lohen is still too sane and silent, anyway. He needs more than what Lohen is giving him.
He doubles down, hollowing his cheeks and taking him deep until his nose brushes the coarse wool of Lohen's trousers, reveling in the way the knight’s composure fractures in real-time. The pace is anything but gentle; a wet, suction-heavy rhythm that he knows will drag those little betraying sounds right out of Lohen’s throat.
A breath, sharper than the last. A pause that comes a fraction too late.
"Fuck, Traveler," Lohen exhales, the title catching slightly on its way out, like it cost him more than he intended. “I do wonder,” he says, voice unsteady in a way he doesn’t bother to fully correct, “how quickly word would travel.”
His hand tightens in Aether’s hair, grounding himself in it.
“The cavalry captain,” he continues, tone threading back toward that familiar, analytical cadence, even as it strains at the edges, “the librarian…”
A breath that doesn’t quite settle.
“Mm. The captain of the investigation team, especially.”
Aether can't help but agree with the sentiment.
That doesn't change the fact that Lohen remains too coherent.
Aether pulls back just to surge forward again, his tongue tracing the vein beneath the head before swallowing him down in one practiced glide that is just desperate enough.
Lohen keens, a lot louder now.
Better. Not perfect.
Aether presses his thumbs into the hollows of Lohen’s hips, using the leverage to take him deeper, ignoring the ache in his knees, the way the stone grit digs into his skin. All of it is just fuel, sharp and electric, driving the rhythm faster, messier.
“Traveler—” This time it comes out sharper, pitched wrong, closer to a plea than anything he’s said so far, and he exhales a quiet, disbelieving huff right after, like he heard it too.
Aether pulls off only to speak, his voice wrecked and low, barely carrying past the rough stone wall. “Then let them look, Lohen. Let every knight in this barracks see exactly how you fall apart for me.”
Before Lohen can scramble together a response, Aether dives back in, swallowing him down with a ruthless, wet heat that tears a ragged groan from the knight’s throat. He doesn't ease up, using every trick he knows—tongue swirling tight, suction pulling hard—to reduce the composed soldier to a trembling mess of gasps. He can feel the heavy thud of Lohen’s pulse against his lips, a frantic drumbeat that matches the roar of blood in his own ears, making the crowded dock feel miles away.
“Mm—careful,” Lohen manages, and there’s no real warning in it, just heat and a kind of delighted threat. “If you keep that up, I’m going to stop being reasonable about this.”
Joke's on him, that's precisely what Aether wants.
Lohen's head tips back again, a sharper inhale following, and when he speaks next it’s lower, but unsteady in a way that gives him away.“Actually—” a pause, breath catching, “—no. Don’t.”
That's more like it.
Aether hums low in his throat, the vibration buzzing through the heated flesh filling his mouth, and pulls back just enough to catch the spit-slick head with his tongue, teasing the slit with a maddening flick. He looks up, locking eyes with Lohen, and sees the red in his eyes blown into something insane, composure fracturing into pure, unadulterated need.
The sight sends a jolt of electricity straight down Aether's spine; he redoubles his efforts, his hand pumping what his mouth can’t take in a twisting, corkscrew motion that leaves Lohen gasping for air that just won't come.
Behind them, a group of merchants bursts into raucous laughter, the sound booming off the stone walls and washing over them like a physical wave, but neither of them cares anymore.
Lohen’s hips jerk forward, a helpless, instinctive thrust that drives him deeper into the wet heat of Aether’s mouth, his hand clamping down over Aether's scalp to hold him there. His head falls back against the wall with a dull thud, his eyes squeezing shut as he finally surrenders to the rhythm, the thrill of the situation warping into a desperate, burning urgency that demands release.
“Gods, Traveler, do you have any idea—" Lohen hisses, the words ragged and torn from his throat, no longer caring if they’re overheard. His thighs tremble against Aether’s shoulders, Aether knows in that instant: he will not be done with Lohen with just one orgasm. “Mm—there it is, yes, just like that."
The shout of a dock foreman cuts through the air, ordering men to heave a heavy net, and Lohen flinches violently at the sudden surge in volume. Aether, on the other hand, takes Lohen to the hilt and makes him stay there, looking up calmly in a manner he knows will drive Lohen insane.
Lohen's grip in Aether’s hair spasms, white-knuckled and desperate, as his hips stutter in a rhythm that’s gone completely off the rails. “Careful,” he manages, and it’s ruined—thin, uneven, completely unserious as a warning. “Or don’t. I’m past caring.”
As he should be.
Aether can feel the throb of Lohen’s heartbeat against his tongue, a rapid, frantic flutter that signals the end of his control. In response, Aether digs his nails directly where the sensitive skin of Lohen's v-line hides beneath the trousers, a silent command to let go, with a side of just enough pain for Lohen to do so.
With a muffled whine that vibrates straight through Aether’s lips, Lohen goes rigid, his back arching off the rough stone as he spills over, hot and bitter, flooding Aether’s mouth in a way that feels like a surrender.
Aether swallows him down with a greedy urgency, the rhythm of his throat matching the frantic throb of Lohen’s release. He doesn't pull away until the last aftershock ripples through the knight’s body, keeping him pinned there, impaled and trembling, while the docks carry on oblivious just a few feet away.
Lohen tastes sharp and delicious, a tangible proof of the ruin Aether’s wrought, and when he finally leans back, the wet, obscene sound of Lohen slipping from his lips is swallowed instantly by the cry of a passing gull.
For a moment, Lohen doesn’t move at all. The tension drains out of him in increments—shoulders first, then the rigid line of his spine—until he settles back against the stone with a quiet, uneven exhale. His grip in Aether’s hair lingers, fingers flexing once like he’s testing whether he still needs the anchor.
A soft, wrecked huff escapes him—half a laugh, half disbelief—before he drags himself back together by degrees, composure reassembling in visible layers. His head tips forward again, chin lowering as his eyes find Aether, focus sharpening with effort rather than ease.
“Mm,” Lohen hums, voice roughened but edging back toward its usual shape. “That was—”
He pauses, like he’s about to say something precise, something clever.
Doesn’t.
Instead, he exhales again, quieter this time, and shakes his head once, faintly amused at himself.
“Right,” Lohen settles on, tone steadier now, if still worn thin in places. “We’re going to pretend that didn’t just reset my priorities.”
His hand finally loosens, sliding out of Aether’s hair with a last, absent-minded drag—less release than reluctant disengagement.
“Or,” Aether says, licking his lips, “you could take me to that desk you've been bragging about and we'll see how long you last when I don’t go easy on you.”
Lohen lets out a quiet, breathless laugh, something sharp returning at the edges. “Mm. That’s a threat, is it?”
A beat.
“Perfect.”