Chapter 466 - 467: A Stagnant Feeling.

Chapter 466: Chapter 467: A Stagnant Feeling.

The home he once knew might no longer be there but it’s the home he’s longed for all this time. Because since the day it was taken from him, he’s never had another place that really felt like his .

(Never let himself, maybe.)

He swore –in Briyagi and here, he’d swore –that he would find his way back; that no matter what, one day he would leave the walls that caged him and shrug off the chains that bound him, and make his way back home. But if he tells Loac how he feels about him; if Loac looks at him the way he looks at him and says it back, then Khobi’s worried that it might just be enough to change his mind. Might be enough to make him forsake the vows he made to himself, and keep him here, behind those very walls.

And for someone who has been so, unwaveringly sure of what he wanted and where his heart lay, that’s a terrifying thought.

...

That night while the rest of the castle sleeps, Loac lies awake, staring wistfully at the empty space where Khobi would normally sleep. He never used to care who filled that space; used to sleep soundly without someone on the other side of the bed. Preferred it that way, even.

But things are different now, and he never realised just how lonely it would feel without him. And if just these past nights have left him aching to have him lying there beside him again, he can hardly fathom how much it might hurt to go without for the rest of his life.

...

It’s no better when he wakes up. Even without looking Loac knows that the other side of the bed hasn’t been slept in. Again. He hadn’t realised quite how attuned to Khobi’s presence he’d grown until it was no longer there. How accustomed he’d grown to having it beside him. Taking for granted that it always would be.

If he was gonna leave he would’ve done it already .

That’s what Montrel said, wasn’t it? And Loac knows that much, at least. Because Khobi’s already had plenty of opportunities to leave this place. Loac’s shown him the way himself. He could’ve left that night they went down to the tavern –could have let the soldiers drink themselves stupid and slipped away while they were passed out over each other. He could have refused to follow Loac back to the castle that morning, or left any night after. He could have run when they went off into the hills. Gurdet probably wouldn’t have believed him if Loac had told him he’d gotten away –Loac’s chased down bandits through worse mountains and in worse weather –but it’s probably what he would have said, if he’d tried.

(At least, that’s what Loac thinks he would have said. Maybe he would’ve said something else; something, anything else to make him stay. But he hadn’t needed to, because he had stayed anyways.)

He’s often wondered why that was.

But the thing is; what Montrel hadn’t seemed to get is that he didn’t have anywhere to go, then. He wanted his home and he wanted his family, but those were things that seemed almost hopelessly lost to the wilderness. And Loac had been happy to see them reunited, honest he had been –so happy at seeing Khobi so fucking happy it had made his head swim –but a dirtier, more selfish thought had turned his stomach when he’d realised that if they’re no longer lost –and that dream of his of returning home to Scargga with its mountains and its forests and its hot springs is within reach, what is there left to hold him here ?

He hadn’t wanted to hope, but then Montrel had gone and opened his fat, fucking mouth.

The guy’s obviously crazy about you . That’s what he’d had said. Right to his face. Obviously , too. Like it was something he was supposed to know already.

Like it was just a simple truth of the world that Khobi Frost felt the same way about Loac, as Loac feels about him.

And it could’ve easily been a lie, but even if they’ve never gotten along Montrel’s never been that kind of person. The kind to punch him or cuss him out, sure, but not the type to be spiteful in the way a lot of the castle can be spiteful, and as turned in circles and how tightly the knots in his stomach had been pulling, the moment Montrel’s hand had come down onto his head, Loac had gotten the weirdest sense that somehow, everything was gonna be all right.

Just think about it , he’d told him, as if it hadn’t been consuming his every waking thought since the moment he first realised how he felt about Khobi.

All he can fucking think about these days is Khobi. His stupid face and his dumb grin and how when he laughs for real it’s with his whole body and how giddy it makes Loac feel when he’s the one that gets him to laugh like that. How he wants to keep fighting with him; keep pushing, see what heights he can reach and how long and how far he’ll chase him. There are places even deeper in the mountains that he’d probably really like, more places he and Ma used to go to escape the monotony of the city and some he found once Ma was gone. There are even a couple of spots where for a little time his old man had even felt like his Pa for real. It’s been a long time since he’s last visited some of them –it hadn’t felt right, not without Ma –but he thinks it might be all right if he took Khobi there with him.

And because of what Montrel said, he thinks too, about how Khobi had reached out that night and asked him to hold him close. How he told him about being submerged in the darkness of Briyagi and how he’d come to sleep soundly beside him. How he kissed him goodnight in front of his uncle and aunt, and how he’d held his hand, and not pulled away. And the more he thinks, about the sparks that burst forth in Khobi’s eyes not just in the sparring ring but whenever they lock with his, the way could throw him off but always lets him barge in close and the furtive little looks he gives him; across the kitchen bench, across the dinner table, from under lowered lashes as he pulls him in for a kiss, the more a strange sense starts to creep over him.