Estinien leaned forward, forearms on his thighs and breathing heavily, lance abandoned on the ground next to him. Sweat dripped from his hair into his eyes and he squeezed them shut, ignoring the stinging and trying to focus on the grounding pain from his arm, letting it bring him back to the present.
“Are you well, Ser Estinien? You took quite a blow back there.” Gaius crouched down in front of Estinien, peering up into his downturned face.
“I am fine,” Estinien ground out, “stop your thrice-damned fussing before I stab you.”
Gaius laughed. “Fine, is it? I’m not sure that’s the word I would use, were it me with blood running down my sleeve.” He reached out and plucked at Estinien’s right sleeve, which was torn to the elbow, revealing bloodied skin beneath.
Estinien yanked his arm away from Gaius. “Get your hands off me, Wolf,” he snarled. “If I needed your ministrations, I would ask for them!”
Gaius rolled his eyes. “Yes of course you would, you’re always so quick to communicate.” He turned away for a moment, rummaging in one of the many bags and pouches he carried about his person before coming up with bandages and his hip flask. “Now are you going to sit there and behave while I clean up this wound, or are you going to bite me like a rabid beast? I do not want to hold you down, Ser, but I will if you force me to.”
Another snarl. Estinien bared his teeth, but bit off a response and turned his head to the side sharply. “Get on with it, then.” He held out his arm.
“Stand up for a moment, if you can manage it.” Gaius stood too and helped Estinien up with a firm hand under his left armpit. Between them, they managed to get him out of his ragged coat, now even more ragged than before, and seated back down on the hefty fallen tree.
Thankfully the light was still good, though he would have to work fast before he lost it to nightfall. He tore off a strip of Estinien’s coat sleeve and unscrewed the hipflask with his teeth, upending it to soak the fabric through with alcohol. It wasn’t so clean, but it would have to do since they were somewhat lacking in clean dressings in the arse end of Garlemald’s forests.
“Shall I get you a stick for your teeth, or can you manage to not savage me while I clean this? It will sting like buggery.”
Estinien gritted his teeth and took firm hold of Gaius’ wrist, guiding it to his bleeding arm. “Get. On. With. It.”
“As you wish.” Gaius set to it, wiping away the worst of the free-running blood and applying more pressure to dissolve the clots of dirt and blood.
That done, he fumbled for the lantern at his back and lit it, holding the thing up to get a better look at the wound. “Hm, well it’s not looking so bad. No infection, and now the dirt’s out of there it should heal up fine.” He ran the fingers of his free hand across Estinien’s forearm, probing gently for more wounds but found nothing but gnarled scar tissue further above the new wound.
“Looks like you may be receiving another one to match this set, though.” The pads of his fingers outlined the older scar, showing pale in the yellow lantern light.
“Aye, that is… a reminder of the past, let’s just say.” Estinien turned his face away from the light, jaw set and eyes distant.
“No doubt. We both have plenty of those reminders, ‘tis true.” Gaius ran his thumb across the concave middle of the scar, noting how it seemed a little crater, or the setting for a gory jewel, perhaps.
“T’was his eye,” Estinien continued, voice quieter now, in the slowly darkening forest. “One of them, anyway. The other was up here.” He shrugged his opposite shoulder to articulate the point.
“Delightful,” Gaius replied, and tore off yet another strip of fabric from Estinien’s coat sleeve. He wrapped the wound tightly and then set aside the supplies, going to his knees in the dirt before Estinien and pulling his arm out and down, cradling it with both hands.
He stroked around the rough, raised edges of the scar with his thumbs, eyes flicking upwards to note the tensing of Estinien’s jaw, the miniscule widening of his eyes. Gaius smiled to himself, and then bent, ghosting the lightest of kisses to the centre of the scar, eyes fluttering closed as he gave himself over to sensation; the brush of his lips against gnarled tissue, the feel of it against his nose as he nuzzled the edges, the stifled gasp from Estinien and the way his arm tensed under his ministrations, then relaxed as he realised Gaius was no threat.
“What’s your game, Wolf?” Estinien gasped, voice raw, “I had not taken you for a cruel man, and yet…” he broke off, face twisting in some unknown combination of emotion, and Gaius just smiled against his arm.
“Is this cruelty, I wonder?” A flicker of tongue, just the tip, and it had Estinien’s hips a’twitch; when Gaius traced the circle of it with the flat of his tongue, though, that drew a low moan from Estinien’s lips that surprised them both. “Or perhaps ‘tis simply pleasure. I am not one to talk of scars, but you need not be ashamed of them on my behalf, though I know that’s easier for the saying than the doing.” His breath ghosted across Estinien’s arm, drawing gooseflesh in its wake.
Estinien shuddered under his touch, finally bringing himself to look down on Gaius’ bent, greying head. He reached out with his free hand, hesitating at first, then plunging it into Gaius’ hair. It was surprisingly soft, and he smiled at the startled groan it pulled from Gaius’ lips, halting him in his attention.
“Don’t stop on my behalf,” Estinien murmured, watching with hooded eyes as Gaius obliged. He kissed and licked, breathed and nuzzled his way across the totality of Estinien’s scarred arm, caressing his skin with calloused fingertips as they explored upwards to the shoulder and then Gaius was straddling Estinien on his log and taking his mouth in a fierce, needy kiss.
Their teeth clashed as Estinien startled, but he relaxed into it. He twined both arms around Gaius’ waist, one hand straying down to finally get a feel of that prodigious arse he’d been eyeing for some time, grinning into the kiss as Gaius’ muscles tensed above him.
“So ‘tis not just me, then,” Gaius murmured as they broke apart, “seeing some spark that does not exist.”
Estinien’s eyes slid to the side, focusing on Gaius’ ear and beyond. “Nay,” he said, finally, a blush spreading across his cheeks and to the tips of his ears. “Nay, ‘tis not just you. Although what I’m seeing in a swiving Garlean villain such as you is beyond me.”
Gaius laughed. “Clearly what you’re seeing is my arse, if your hands are anything to go by.”
Estinien squeezed to prove the point, and then winced as the movement pulled on his wound. “Halone’s frosted tits!” he hissed.
“You’ll open the wound again if you’re not careful.” Gaius squinted down at Estinien. “And you’re rapidly running out of coat to use for bandages, too. Perhaps now is not the best time after all.”
A groan, but Estinien knew he spoke the truth. “Perhaps next time you’ll think twice before getting my blood up like that and then denying me, Wolf.”
“Next time, is it?” Gaius detached himself from Estinien, with no small amount of reluctance.
“Aye, and don’t think I’ll be forgetting.” Estinien looked at him sidelong, glance sliding appraisingly up and down the length of Gaius’ body. “I’ve a mind to see your arse out of those clothes and under me, if your Legatus pride will allow it.”
Gaius huffed out a laugh. “Well, I shall be holding you to that Ser.” And it didn’t escape his notice, the way Estinien suppressed a shiver at this last. What an interesting thought to file away for later, indeed. Something to keep them both warm through yet another cold night.