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Mark never knew how to feel about this. This, their dirty little fucked up secret hiding between the war raging around them. He wished he had never done it. Wished he had never started a dalliance with the man who stood at the front of the armies on the other side of his own, the masthead for the civil war that was tearing this country apart.
And yet, there was nothing he could do to resist Sebastian.
He couldn’t have known, not in the beginning, not ever. When Sebastian walked into the castle, he was barely out of boyhood, fresh out of army training, someone with just a spark of talent that could hopefully become one of the knights. Mark wouldn’t have thought it was possible of Sebastian, who stumbled over his words and peered through his long hair up at him with wrists so tiny, Mark wondered how they would ever hold up a sword, much less fight with it. He didn’t have to worry for long because Sebastian was more than capable of holding his sword and his own in battle, raging and fierce, carving an arc through the front lines and killing Mark’s men.
Yet every night when the commander of the Cavallino army walked up to the gates of the Toros castle to present another treaty, another treaty that everyone knew would be torn and thrown into the fireplace, Mark couldn’t resist him. Old habits die hard, and Sebastian was one he never knew how to quit.
It was the same story tonight, as it had been for every night the war had waged and nights before. Sebastian had entered the castle, white flag bared, with the scroll of the treaty tied to his arms, a sole emissary.
The gates swung open for him as they did every night. The guards scowled, but it didn't faze Sebastian. It never did. His betrayal had stung the palace the most because how could Sebastian, the prized child of the castle, the apple of Toros’ eye, ever ever defect? It had moved many to hysterics when the news first broke out, and the warm smiles he had always elicited turned to frowns and snarls, but Sebastian always acted like nothing had changed.
He smiled at the guards as he made his way inside and winked at the maids who had gathered in the hollows of the passages to catch a glimpse of the unrepentant prodigal son. Mark watched him, unimpressed.
Sebastian was always a flirt, always too bold and too big for the roles he had to play. He winked at maids and sized up princesses from other kingdoms and taunted the nobility's wives, and yet no one had cared because his charm was just so all-encompassing.
That is, no one but Mark.
Mark hadn't hated him in the beginning. Hadn't hated his stupid grin and the way his hair fell down on his face and his thick accent that had mellowed out over time. But he had grown sick of it. Sebastian, who always thought he knew best, Sebastian who had curried favour all over the castle and was on his way to usurping him as the head knight. He would've throttled him to death if he could have back then. Yet now, when he would be showered in riches, Mark just couldn’t bring himself to do it.
When Sebastian walked into the throne room, the hall was quiet. His boots, iron-tipped with clearly new leather, knocked against the marble floors, a noise that made Mark grit his teeth from where he stood at the foot of the throne. It was a slight movement, but Sebastian noticed. Of course, he did. He tilted his head ever so slightly and smirked at Mark, like the asshole he was. If anyone ever found out about their after-dark shenanigans, it would be Mark's head that would be neatly separated from his body. But Sebastian couldn't be fucked with tiny, unimportant things like that.
He walked over to the foot of the throne and climbed the last three steps to the top, knowing exactly how blasphemous it was to do so, and laid the scroll around his wrist on the lap of the prince. The throne room was now quiet, though it had broken into harsh exclaims and frantic whispers of calling the guards the first time he had done this all those nights ago, but everyone knew it was of no use. Sebastian would listen to no man, no prince, and no army would stop him, and the closest thing he had to an equal was Mark - who everyone knew was not good enough to stop him. It was a thought that still rankled, that still stung inside his mouth when he spat out the blood from the brutal battle of the day.
It had stung in a different way before the war, when it was just him and Sebastian in competition over the coveted place at the foot of the throne, and Sebastian had kissed him after one of their duels in the empty barn under the light of the moon. He was betraying himself and all he had fought for to get where he was back then, but now he was betraying his people and his kingdom, all because he couldn't stay away.
The prince looked tired as he read the scroll. Every day, the demands from Cavallino stayed the same, yet the Toros army dwindled in numbers as the prince didn't accept it. First, it had been his father, the king, who wouldn't give in, adamant in his ways. After he had been gravely injured in one of the first battles of the war, a cowardly wound from a foot soldier, the prince had taken the stead of his slowly dying father, ruling from the comfort of his throne room and not the battlefield. On one hand, Mark was glad. The last thing he needed was a teenager who could barely hold his own in a duel against the weapons master trying to boss him around when it was a matter of life or death. On the other hand, he was now explicitly responsible for the troops. And every day that Sebastian fought like the devil incarnate and led his army to more wins, it felt like a hopeless situation, with more men falling daily, in death or in injury.
He blamed the king, and he blamed the prince, but deep down, he also blamed himself. He knew how easy a knife in the side of the ribs was, knew how easy it would be to slip it into Sebastian's smooth, unmarked skin, right in between the ribs he silently counted as he caressed the man's sides every night. He didn't do it, no matter how many of his men died. Because Mark was a coward. A huge fucking coward when it came to Sebastian.
Sebastian waited, hands on his hips, his feet tapping an insistent rhythm on the floor back at the foot of the dais, inches away from where Mark stood. He could never, ever stay still, even when he was young, and it still drove Mark up the wall with how purposefully annoying he tried to be. Mark even knew that the tunic he wore, a thick sturdy material in a meadow green shade, had been his, once upon a time, when Sebastian had been small enough that the fabric had drowned him. Now that he had grown into himself even more, the tunic just seemed the right amount of big, like it was made for him and not something he had snatched from Mark’s bed the first time they had both tumbled on there, long before the war was even a thought in either of their heads.
Or maybe it had been. Sebastian never spoke about it, and Mark never asked. He should have. He still should. He never does.
The prince sighed, his face free of the deep lines wrought by war that had snatched youth away from his men, “You know we will not accept this. Toros will fight to the last man before surrendering our kingdom to the whims of Cavallino. I don’t know how this nightly charade changes things. It is the same demands you brought us before the war and it will continue to get the same response my father gave in the beginning - not while a single soldier still stands.”
Sebastian answered, his expression noncommittal. “Not a lot of men left still, sire. When I first brought you this proposal, you had a whole army, a full granary, and the full support of your people. Now?” He shrugged. “Now you barely have a living father.”
Mark gasped, the sound echoed by the other courtiers gathered around, the inner war council, by everyone but the prince. His eyes hardened instead and his lips settled into a grim line, “Whether my father lives or dies, I will continue this war for him. Leave, traitor. It is only the code of warfare and that white flag tied to your wrist that saves you from the most gruesome death I can think of.”
A chilling threat. Toros was known for their torture and their careless displays of wanton cruelty towards anyone who even remotely slighted the crown, the prince known for the callousness that flowed in his royal blood, and Sebastian had committed the highest act of treason, the biggest slight in the history of the kingdom, and the punishments if not for the battle would have been ruthless and drawn out. It would scare any normal man, but Sebastian, Sebastian simply winked at the prince. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Your Majesty.” He lifted a singular finger in mock salute at the War Council before fixing his eyes on Mark and smiling, walking away before the courtiers could gasp and heave platitudes again.
The little shit. Mark could strangle him with the amount of rage that was coursing through his veins. Mark had wanted to lay his hands on Sebastian for ages, ever since he had started besting him in their duels after beating every one of the palace knights, his face filled with pride and ego. His screwed up little face that made sure to sabotage everything that had ever gone right for Mark, cozying up to the king and every higher official he could ever find, just to make sure it was him before Mark for every assignment and every task. With every day, Mark had felt the job he now reluctantly held slip out of his hands. He’d wanted to end the little bastard– who was he to come running into the castle on the back of the old knight Michael’s recommendation and take the place Mark had fought for right under his nose, while pressing Mark with feelings and emotions he couldn’t comprehend?
Now, Sebastian was on the other end of the battlefield. Fair game, but it was too late and Sebastian was too good, far too good for Mark to even reach.
Except during their little trysts.
When the throne room filtered out, the prince leaving with his entourage of helpers, servants and knights, followed by the courtiers and the war council, it was just Mark left in the dim light of the fireplace where the remains of the newest treaty crackled and burnt into ash. The last traces of Sebastian in the castle being struck out, save for the long lines of nail marks that ran down Mark’s back that got him hoots and hollers from his men who asked for the lucky scullery maid, never imagining they were from the man who would later pierce them to death with his sword that day, or the next, or after that, but inevitably would.
As Mark walked to their rendezvous, eyes shifting to note whether the halls were as empty as they seemed, he wondered if Sebastian would ever kill him. It seemed possible. He had not hesitated to kill old friends, or mock the king who had given him everything he had ever wanted, or betray the kingdom that cradled and fed him. Why would Mark be different? Because he fucked Sebastian? Because a long time ago, Sebastian used to pull out flowers from the ground and leave them inside his scabbard while Mark dueled the other knights just so he could see Mark smile before his final duel against Sebastian himself? Because Mark had whispered an I love you into the sleeping rhythms of Sebastian’s skin mere days before the civil war had started and Mark had found the other knight’s quarters empty with a note announcing his intentions? None of it had ever meant a lick to Sebastian, who had not even warned Mark of his betrayal, so why would he warrant anything special on the battlefield?
He clenched his fists. If Mark had more self-respect, it would've ended with that clinical note to the king and no one else and would have stopped at the battlefield. But something about Sebastian stripped Mark of everything that he felt made him him - his loyalty, his strength, his intelligence, his patience - everything and anything, until he was left bereft and wanting like an animal that never knew the tender touch of civilization.
When he reached the lone unguarded block of the castle’s fortified walls, covered in brambles and leaves, considered a dead end into the forest that bordered them, he knew to expect Sebastian. It had been his secret, someone who had never seen a castle from his tiny town and had wanted to know every inch of it, and it was a secret he had gently let Mark into during better times when they needed to get away. They weren’t even good times back then when Mark used to kiss Sebastian in secluded corners and then silently hate him as Sebastian took everything that was meant to be Mark’s. It was hard, but at least there was something, a semblance of caring and affection that Mark could taste in the back of his throat when Sebastian held him at night like the only warmth in the world was inside his chest. Now they were strangers. Strangers who fucked and nothing more. It left Mark feeling like he could throw up the meagre rations they were allotted, every time.
Sebastian emerged from the brambles, his iron-tipped boots already replaced with worn rubber-soled ones. Mark sighed in relief. It was late and the palace was silent, and there was no way the annoying tip-tap of Sebastian’s old boots wouldn’t have woken up the guards, all of who were trained by Mark to be the best of the best, second only to the troops who were trained by Sebastian and had followed him when his betrayal became public.
“Took you long enough,” Sebastian grinned.
Mark scowled. No matter how old and talented Sebastian was, he continued to be an annoying brat who got under his skin with the most innocuous of comments. As Mark walked silently alongside Sebastian to the always-abandoned chamber they frequented, considered dusty and rat-ridden and utterly unfit for usage by any member of the Toros elite, he couldn’t help but take him in.
Sebastian seemed like he was thriving. He always did, even in peacetime, but being on the battlefield– the scent of blood still vaguely present around him because no amount of scrubbing ever takes that away, and the sun-bleached blond of his hair– it all suited him. His hair was shorter today than it was yesterday and his stubble was growing, like he had made the choice to only keep his hair short - a farce of a man of war. He looked older, a gulf away from the boy Mark had first met.
Maybe he should’ve stayed away then, and he wouldn’t be here committing treason.
Entering the chamber always felt like a death sentence. When Sebastian locked the heavy wooden door with the rusting chain that lay next to it, it fell into place like the sound of a sword finding its way back home in his heart. Sebastian’s sword. Mark knew it was a ticking time bomb - this, their kingdom, the battle, everything. One day the devil that haunted his mind and the battlefield would find him because Mark knew, when he died, it would be Sebastian who did it and he felt himself accepting the inevitable with grudging reluctance, the acceptance sending a horrid wave of calm rushing through his body . He would never win this with Sebastian, and he was too proud to walk away from it all, and too much of a coward, so all he had was the rotten teenage hope within himself that maybe once he killed him, Sebastian would miss him. Five years of whatever the fuck this was had to count for something, right?
When Sebastian flung himself against Mark, he wasn’t expecting it. He stumbled, back hitting the wall as his arms were taken up with a whole lot of Sebastian. His mouth was ferocious on Mark’s - take, take, take - he licked into the inside of him like he wanted to consume him and Mark allowed it. It was messy, it always was, like Sebastian was still that fumbling kid Mark had first gotten to know and not a fully grown man who regularly inflicted Mark with wounds that bled deeper than the physical on a regular basis.
It didn’t matter, because in this room they were everything and nothing, young and old, free from everything outside yet so singularly made up of every grievance they ever harboured against each other that it filled them up till it spilt out.
Sebastian was frenzied, his hands grabbing at the collar of Mark’s tunic, his body moving like it wanted to escape from his skin, mouth biting and wet against Mark, who felt like an immovable object next to him. Sebastian was always too much, more than anyone could sanely handle, but today there was an aching finality and Mark didn’t know if it was his lingering morosity or if he was actually noticing things, a first for their twisted relationship.
As Mark pulled off Sebastian’s tunic– his old tunic– he could feel the beat of his heart, loud and frantic against Mark’s hands. The long years of knighthood and then war had taken away the waifish slenderness of Sebastian’s body, replacing it with muscle and strength in every sinew, yet when Mark held him in his arms, he still felt like he was the same tender person who could barely look Mark in the eyes the first time they slept together. Mark wanted to scream, but he didn’t, busying himself by burrowing his head into the crook of his neck, biting.
“I hope it draws blood,” he thought, absent-mindedly. He probably wouldn’t, but it was a refreshing thought, the idea of marking Sebastian, of hurting Sebastian, of touching him in a way he never could on the battlefield but could right now.
Sebastian dragged him, arms tearing at Mark’s arm braces and every other bit of fabric his fingers twisted into as he did, towards the decrepit mattress that took up a corner of the room, dusty and horrible for his back. But it felt like a trove of Mark’s shame and his secrets that he couldn’t bear spilling into his own mattress, in his chamber surrounded by those of the men he was supposed to lead into battle and let die, one by one. As he lay down on it, his lap was filled with a writhing Sebastian who was kissing down his throat and down his body.
“You’re being silent,” Sebastian murmured, his breath ghosting over Mark’s bare chest.
Mark tried to reply, his voice embarrassingly hoarse like he was a teenager. “I’m trying to not get killed. You could maybe try to stay quieter yourself, to save your own skin.”
Sebastian pulled off Mark’s pants, with impatient tugs, eyes glinting at the very obvious bulge in his underclothes that was slowly revealed to him. “I may be loud, but I’m sure as hell not as affected as you.” He lay down, his mostly naked body pressing against Mark’s, the lie in his previous sentence evident by the insistent press of his hardened body against his, the feeling sending electric volts down his spine.
No matter how many times they did this, it never got less mesmerizing, never less intense and intoxicating. Mark let out a groan, grabbing Sebastian’s hair and yanking, just to make sure he wasn’t alone in this and he smiled as he heard a breathy whine as Sebastian moved his hands to touch Mark exactly where he needed it.
Mark’s breath got more laborious as Sebastian’s hands sped up, a practiced motion, from the turn of his wrist to the little mewls he made, a show he knew would get Mark closer to the edge. Mark didn’t care, half of being with Sebastian was always a performance, from his tears that miraculously stopped when he got what he wanted to the cloyingly sweet smiles and smirks that delighted everyone around him. What an asshole.
Yet, he couldn’t not mutter out, “Seb, fuck, Seb, yeah just like that,” as he got closer to finishing, and Sebastian, the devil he was, smiled wider, leaned down and grabbed at Mark’s neck, a vice-like one-handed grip that had Mark choking on his own spit. The adrenaline coursing through his veins felt white-hot and his vision blanked into blissful nothingness, before he came to his own, vaguely aware of what had happened.
He opened his eyes to see Sebastian toying with his stained undercloth, a coy smile on his face like the cat that had got the cream, and he wanted to kill him. “You little bitch, I could have died,” he whispered, his mouth dry like the air had gotten choked out of his body and found purchase somewhere else.
Sebastian didn’t respond, pulling himself out of his pants, so hard it looked painful, starting to jerk himself off over Mark’s chest. It was always a mesmerizing sight, Sebastian in all his glory, bathed in the faint moonlight, all unblemished skin except for the bruise forming under his clavicle, a remnant of tonight, and his rapid breathing and the weight of him on Mark’s chest, the smell of lust unmistakeable in the air. “You liked it, you always like it,” Sebastian breathed out, his face flushed all the way to his hair, which stuck to his forehead in a sweaty mess and down his chest, the splotches hiding away the faint line of fair hair down his chest, down to where his hand was speeding up.
“What?” Mark, who had been drifting in between various thoughts and urges to tackle the man onto the ground and ravish him so he couldn't walk the next day and fighting the urge to see Sebastian do all the work, couldn’t keep up with the conversations Sebastian was trying to start.
Between long breaths, Sebastian said, “Killing you by choking you. I wouldn’t have, but you liked it even when you thought I was going to. You liked it. You like me.”
Mark felt a hand squeeze his heart, the same one that had just been around his neck. He didn’t know what to answer, his face probably contorting into expressions running amok with unbidden emotions, emotions he couldn't keep away.
“You should see your face. You want me dead and yet, you like me so much,” Sebastian sighed out, his head thrown back with his eyes tightly shut like his words did not affect the delicate relationship that they had built before the war, tender and wounded but real, and the warm simmering anger of the aftermath of his betrayal, coated in lust Mark couldn’t shake off when Sebastian had propositioned him the first day he had arrived as a Cavallino emissary, right there by the barn they had first kissed.
When Sebastian finished on Mark’s chest, a desperate sound making its way out of his mouth as he did, Mark couldn’t find the usual complaint he would probably make, pissed off and mad about the drying come that would be a pain to remove from his hair in the morning. But it didn’t matter now. Sebastian was clearly in a better state of emotion than Mark was, kissing Mark's chest and licking up his own release while trying to meet his eyes, a separate show that did send a jolt of lust coursing through Mark but felt so overpowered by the rush of blood in his ears.
He felt exposed and vulnerable, despite his usual state of nakedness with Sebastian. He had played his cards close to his chest, every single time, and now here was Sebastian claiming that Mark liked him, a fact that he had tried to bury underneath every bit of gruff aggression he possessed. Mark felt his eyes burn and his cheeks throb, an unfamiliar feeling since way back in his youth. God, if he cried now, Sebastian would never let him live it down.
Sebastian, for once, had realized that his little performance was having little impact on Mark, a first for him. He rolled off Mark’s body, plopping himself on the other side of the mattress with a low groan as his bones hit the sparse cushioning of the mattress. He didn’t speak for a while, instead choosing to stroke his hands down Mark’s neck and hair, like he would pet a petulant child, or a dog. It didn’t help the panic rising with every inhale Mark did, his chest feeling like it might burst.
“I need to leave,” he thought frantically, his eyes darting towards the sole exit and then towards the window, streaming faint moonlight inside the dim room. He logically knew how to get out of the room, years of military training drilled into his brain from a young age, yet he felt trapped, like the weight of Sebastian’s words were chains upon his body
Sebastian stopped his stroking, a temporary respite before he opened his mouth. “What’s wrong?”
Mark said nothing, he didn’t know how to phrase his feelings even if he wanted to speak, and he decidedly did not want to.
“Is it because of what I did?” He pushed, before adding, “Or was it what I said?”
Mark couldn’t look at Sebastian’s face, his large insistent eyes and the look of earnestness on his face like he wasn’t the worst of the worst demons of hell sent to personally ruin his life, like he knew nothing and was the fucking paragon of innocence, like he hadn’t already messed up Mark’s mind and feelings multiple times, like this wasn’t the last thing he needed before the battle tomorrow, like that wasn’t also Sebastian’s fault. He managed, “Why did you say that?”
Sebastian’s face scrunched, like the bastard was actually confused before realization hit him. He smiled, a full one with teeth and gums, and Mark felt the need to lick across his teeth before the absurdity of his thoughts caught up with him, an unfortunate side effect of being around the other. Sebastian smiled, though his tone stayed confused, “What’s the big deal? I said you liked me? Why are you refusing to talk to me because of that? I like you too, it’s nothing.”
Mark felt the blood rushing in his ears return, his heart feeling like it would burst out of his chest as he sat up. This was the fucking problem with Sebastian. He always said things and he had no care for what they meant and how it affected the people he said that to. His flirting and leading on had left a string of broken hearts across the castle grounds, not that the prick noticed because he was too self-centred to care about the effect his ways had on the people around him, and not that he had noticed that he and Mark could barely have a civil conversation without resorting to barbs or sex, like Mark not talking to him was an anomaly and not the fucking norm of their fucked-up nightly jaunts.
Mark growled, his voice low, “What the fuck is your problem, Vettel? You can’t just say things to people just because it means nothing to you and nothing in your life is sacred and holy doesn’t mean that it isn’t to others.”
Sebastian got up from the bed, his hands finding the tunic discarded on the edge of the mattress like it was a talisman he was holding for support rather than the washed-out and faded piece of cloth it was. “You’re not even making sense. You said it first. You said it to me first,” he cried, his voice hitting a pitch that Mark associated so closely with the first few weeks of knight training he gave Sebastian that it felt like he was transported back in time.
“What the fuck do you mean I said it first?” He couldn’t know. He was asleep when Mark had whispered it. Mark had made sure of that.
“You said you loved me, Mark. Whispered it into my neck. Do you think I would be here if that meant nothing? Risking my neck every day to be with you?” Sebastian jabbed a finger at Mark’s chest, his face flushed with annoyance.
He knew. It meant something. He knew. It meant something.
“It means nothing,” Mark snarled out. “It means fucking nothing when you leave in the middle of the night to join a gnat of a civil uprising that wouldn’t be the war it is without you. It means nothing when you betrayed everything you ever knew, when you betrayed me, and left without a word and just a note to the fucking king of all people.”
Sebastian shook his head in disbelief. “Would you have left if I had told you what I wanted to do?”
Mark floundered. He wouldn’t have. He would have tried to convince Sebastian to stop. He had told Sebastian he loved him, told it to an awake Sebastian apparently, but it wasn’t strong enough for Mark to leave everything, everything he ever wanted when it was so close to him, to leave and abandon the life he had.
Sebastian continued, his mouth twisted into an unattractive scowl, “Yeah, you wouldn’t have left. You owed everything to this kingdom, like they didn’t throw you under the carriage the second someone shinier came along. I left when I did because I wanted to leave with happy memories of us. I did not think we would be here again, I did not think you would want me again,” Sebastian’s lip quivered, as if he was about to cry and Mark couldn’t bear it, the self-pity that he managed to pull out of him in endless buckets.
He sneered, “Yes, happy memories. Happy memories of me having to deal with dead comrades and injured friends and having to talk to widows and mothers and trying to tell them that the man I’ve been sleeping with for the better part of five years is also the man who’s responsible for the death of the people they love. Happy fucking memories, like just the thought of you, doesn’t repulse me like it doesn’t make me nauseous to think of the person I’ve become to be sleeping with you.”
“That’s different, Mark. That’s my duty. I’m here as a person. It’s different, and you know it,” Sebastian’s voice was rising, indignant and loud, loud enough that it would wake the lighter sleeping of the guards and the whole farce would be up immediately.
Mark shushed him, his hand grabbing Sebastian’s neck and pulling him closer before whispering, “Shut up. Do you have a death wish?”
Sebastian stared at him, his eyes wide and welling with tears, like it wasn’t him who was hurting Mark again and again. Yet there was a side of Mark that twinged when he saw it, a side that Sebastian had carved into him, through the years of sleeping by his side through the night and digging his bony elbows into the skin of his body.
Mark kissed him.
Mark was rarely the one to initiate kisses, leaving that to Sebastian. It always felt too open, too much of an admission to lower himself down and capture the shorter man’s lips, but he felt moved by some being greater than him to lean down at that moment.
He felt a shaky arm snake its way into his hair, tugging him back down to the mattress. He felt Sebastian’s, Seb’s soft lips move against his. God, this was all such a mess.
Whatever was left of the once hard man that Mark used to be had been whittled into a coward that disgusted even himself whenever he saw into a looking glass. The softness he felt in his heart when it was Sebastian who was next to him always managed to overpower the guilt he felt, guilt drilled into his heart from a young age at the knee of the priests of the castle when he was growing up. It didn’t matter how much he wanted to kill him and exact revenge for the misery he was consistently under due to Sebastian, it didn’t matter. He had turned soft and weather-worn, like Sebastian’s annoying voice and his lithe body was the water to the rock of his heart.
When Sebastian pulled away, he left his hand in Mark’s hair, brushing the rough edges of the irregularly cut locks. He whispered, his face mere inches away from Mark’s, “I didn’t want to leave, Mark. Trust me, I didn’t. But I couldn’t have it on me to know everything I knew back then and do absolutely nothing. I was the one who was being sent on the tasks and missions all over the kingdom and I knew how bad it was, and I couldn’t tell you because you already half-hated me for basically taking over your job. And you were just starting to like me, and I just didn’t know how to tell you I was leaving. But it was the right thing to do, for the people, the people from the villages like the one I was from. This kingdom is rotten.”
Mark sighed. “Sure, Toros is rotten, but what kingdom isn’t? And all the death and the suffering you have brought down on the kingdom? The years it'll take you to recover from this even if you win? The blood on your hands - is that for the greater good too?”
“I don’t know, Mark. I don’t know. It has to be worth it. It will be,” he replied, his voice lacking the conviction it so badly needed, as he burrowed his head into Mark’s shoulder, a cocoon next to the heat of Mark’s body.
As Mark drifted into sleep, his mind cottony in the realm between dream and reality, he felt a soft murmur– “I love you too.”
Dream or real, it didn’t matter. Mark would take it however he got it and would bury it within himself, in the side of his body softened by the man next to him.
When Mark woke up, Sebastian was gone. The light of dawn hadn’t started filtering inside the room and yet, the old mattress didn’t even have the lingering warmth of his body. Mark knew it was what always happened, yet there was a bit of him that had hoped it would be different this morning. It would not have, of course, and Mark was a sentimental old fool for hoping.
The battlefield was fresh with the scent of blood. Mark’s men were trying to hold down the phalanx position they had heard of from the farthest colonies, but it was no match against Cavallino’s cavalry. Sebastian led the charge, eyes glinting and lips drawn into a gleeful smile as he cut down man after man. Mark tried his best to rally the men closest to him, unfruitfully.
“Curse that devil,” a soldier next to Mark spat, his teeth stained red from some wound deep within.
Mark nodded silently, his eyes meeting Sebastian’s. Curse that devil.