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Indrek would be gifted forward to the man they called the Butcher of Valkjarv, the plight to all enemies of Vakka nation, Indrek's master said. He even chuckled as he read the name in the letter they'd received from the king that relayed this message.
"You're in trouble now," his master commented lightly. "Suo won't spare the whip or the rod in his trousers, you know," he added, making a lewd gesture that made Indrek's buttocks tighten at the thought. The gesture wasn't subtle, and he recalled all too vividly what he had gone through just last night. This master liked catching him off-guard with new cruelties. Even when giving simple oral pleasure, Indrek had to occasionally flinch when he was struck on the ass or boxed around the ears.
Indrek had learned by now not to shake like a birch leaf, but a new master meant new strategies. He'd been told he cried prettily, and perhaps that would be his salvation. But a man called the Butcher might well enjoy seeing his slave in tears; impossible to tell, really, Indrek thought glumly.
In very short order he was bathed and scrubbed until his skin felt raw, and then he was brought to the military academy, where his new master resided. He was escorted to the general's chambers and asked to stand near the foot of the bed, ready for whatever his new master wanted.
When General Suo entered the room, looking huffy and angry, Indrek felt his own spine stiffen despite his effort to look soft and pliant, as he had learned that masters tended to like. The general looked him up and down, his one good eye widening, then narrowing as if in disappointment. Indrek stood still as he always did, at ease but with his back still straight like he had any dignity left. He could be quiet and unobtrusive if need be.
The name Suo was distantly familiar. Indrek had once come across a Vakka soldier on the battlefield by that same name. But Suo was a common enough name in Vakka. The man who was stood before him now was a tall figure, handsome other than the scar over one eye. He walked with a limp and assisted himself with a cane. It wasn't the same man, and as a slave, he wasn't allowed to be caught staring. If it was the same man, he idly wondered, the over decade of war between their two nations had torn chunks off him, taken his eye, affected his gait, and even drawn two distinctive lines between his eyebrows, a permanent frown that would only settle if he deemed to smile.
He lowered his head. "I am your humble servant, general," he said in his best Vakka, slowing his cadence down so he sounded more abiding, more yielding, more subservient.
"Right," General Suo said darkly. "I only have one bed. I'm tired, I'm a little drunk. All I ask is that you not touch me tonight."
Indrek lifted and then nodded his head in agreement, but his brain was working quickly. Some masters liked to punish their slaves with the element of surprise on their side. They liked to see the way that fear washed over the slave's face, catching them off-guard. Indrek settled down on the bed as ordered, away from the general, but his body remained alert in anticipation.
General Suo untied his boots and stripped down to just his trousers, before lying down on the bed, turning away from Indrek.
He listened to the sound of the general's breathing ease into light snoring, and still he couldn't move or unwind. His head remained prepared for the attack, whenever it might arrive. He slept, but in starts and stops, and he woke up disoriented at dawn with the general still sleeping next to him. He knew that the new master didn't sleep very restfully, either, for he talked in his sleep. Mumbled, garbled phrases that Indrek couldn't always decipher.
“Mud–” Suo muttered to himself. The word was Hiiu, and Indrek recognized it instantly.
His heart began racing. The enemy often used the proximity of their two languages against prisoners, and later slaves. He’d been so often reprimanded with his own language, humiliated by being called a mudbather, meaning a person who’s lower than worthless. A person who deserves poor treatment.
He waited, yet nothing happened. The man by his side remained asleep. Indrek could not let go of the tension in his muscle, stiff against the soft of the bedding beneath him. His heart slowed down.
His own war experience had been fought mainly as a strategist at the war office, so he didn't have the same hauntings as those who had gone on and off the battlefield. The waking nightmares, they called them in Hiiu. He hated that even for a moment, he felt warmth towards the new master.
Just as Indrek managed to ease again, Suo made a quick movement, which startled him. But it was the same haunting, and the master didn’t move towards him, not to punish him, not to assault him, not to touch him at all. There was plenty of bed between them; territory Indrek wasn’t going to cross, if he could avoid it.
He woke up with the sun, groggy but happy the first night was over. As usual, he got up and washed himself carefully; hands, face, and finally his body. It always shamed him to do so, but he had a routine about it. It wasn't worth getting whipped for being untidy after the next time his owner wanted something from him. He washed his mouth as well, in case this owner liked to kiss. Not many of them did, and Indrek didn't like it, either; always such a hollow-feeling thing when there was no emotion behind it, no passion or even pleasure. He missed kissing someone because he wanted to. Well, he missed doing a lot of things just because he wanted to.
The general woke up an hour after Indrek had so fastidiously cleaned himself. He got up and went to the bathroom, then opened the door to wheel in the breakfast cart the cadets in the kitchen had made him: eggs, sausages, potato pie, and a sleek, copper pot of coffee.
"What's the routine? Who feeds you?" General Suo asked him as he settled on the edge of the chair to eat.
"You do, master," Indrek answered. "When you think I'm allowed."
"Thunder," the general swore. "You'll be fed three times a day, same as anyone else in this stupid academy." He broke off a piece of the potato pie and slid it onto the plate where his coffee cup had been. He then took two sausages and two eggs. It was more food than Indrek necessarily needed or wanted, but he accepted it. Sometimes owners did this routine: sweet one moment, cruel the next. His stomach wasn't where he stored his pride, though, and he was hungry.
"How long have you been captive?" Suo asked him before taking a sip of coffee. He then pushed the empty cup towards Indrek's side of the table and filled it with fresh coffee.
"Three years," Indrek answered.
"Three years," Suo repeated. "When you took me, it ended up being three days, didn't it?"
Indrek swallowed, not saying anything. The words sink in like salt stinging a wound. General Suo was him after all.
The same name, the same man. We reach Emajogi tomorrow, Indrek had promised him, two days in a row. A hopeful lie.
Was this his penance? Three years for three days, seven years ago. Every kindness paid tenfold in agony. And what indeed had come of the man whom he had taken? Now a monster protected by the title of general, a war hero to his people, given gifts by the cruel king of Vakka.
He dropped his gaze to the black coffee in his cup. "I beg for your forgiveness," he said, his voice rough.
"No," Suo told him gravely. "There is no forgiveness to be had here."
Indrek felt the panic rise in his throat, so certain the first punishment would come soon. He stiffened and braced for it, heart hammering in his ears, blood rushing, but nothing happened. The silent wait stretched on.
Maybe this master would be different, he'd so foolishly thought. Suo was just enjoying the wait, the way that fear made Indrek's cheeks flush, the way terror made his eyes big and alert.
The man they called a butcher surely couldn't be any different from the others.
Juhani didn't even notice when he was lifted from the field or carried into the woods until he was propped to sit against the tree. He felt careful fingers touching him as someone stripped his jacket and his shirt off his back and arms, tended to his wounds. He came to properly with every wound tied, his shirt half off, breathing steadily like he'd been asleep for days.
The face that stared back at him was pretty, but the moss green of his uniform meant he was an enemy. "I'm fading," Juhani said, voice creaking like it had gone unused. He spoke what little he knew of Hiiu, which was so closely related to his native Vakka that there was some mutual intelligibility.
"You're not," the Hiiu soldier replied. "You were in shock and starving. The Vakka cadre was two days without food. Delirious, is what you were. But you seem better now. I fed you sap from the trees, gave you water, so you should have some energy."
"Where are you taking me?" Juhani asked.
"To the martial court in Emajogi, where else?" the soldier asked.
There were a number of options. An encampment near the border where they kept prisoners in poor conditions. A more secluded place for a wartime execution. Or even to an unmarked grave, so he could be easily disposed of.
Juhani nodded, still unsure whether to trust that he'd be handled in accordance to law. Yet he did feel better, and the enemy soldier's delicate care of him felt jarring.
They had settled down for the evening, the bright summer sun burning its way down the horizon. There was a small fire going, a pot bubbling with soup. The Hiiu soldier followed the line of Juhani's gaze at the meal.
"Do you want some? If you feel strong enough to eat more, that's a good sign." He offered a small smile, one side of his face dimpling. His cheeks still had the same roundness of youth that Juhani recognized in his own reflection. They were the same age.
"Sure," Juhani replied. He did need strength for whatever was to come next. "Where is your horse?"
"Wouldn't take two men on it, so I left it with my brothers at Kitsasoru." The soldier bit into his lip. "It means our journey will take an additional night."
"Aye." Juhani did not argue. An extra day, even one spent walking, would give him more time to think and assess the stranger who had taken him captive.
He slept with his ankles and wrists tied, rope thrown around both one hand of his captor and the tree he slept under. If he took off without releasing himself from the rope, he wouldn't get far. So instead he allowed the bed of moss, the rustling of the forest to guide him to sleep. He'd consider his strategy tomorrow.
In the morning, his captor took off the binding from around his ankles. "So that you can walk more easily," he said and stood up, standing in front of Juhani.
"Thank you," Juhani said, sincerely. He knew too many cases of war captives hobbling on uneven legs after their binding kept them from moving appropriately, just so they wouldn't escape.
He studied his captor. The freckled face, the curling hair colored like warm sand beneath the moss-green cap, the blue eyes shockingly vivid in the morning light. Juhani didn't mean to notice such things, but he was only human, even on the battlefield facing an enemy. The name stitched onto the soldier's uniform was TAMMEPUU, the word for oak tree in Hiiu.
Tammepuu had gone beyond his duty to look after his captive, it could not be denied. Juhani had had his wounds tended to, his thirst quenched, and his hunger sated.
Then, the moment broke. Tammepuu looked away, his cheeks pinking beneath the freckles. Juhani felt his own face warm in return; he'd been caught staring.
They walked mostly in silence, Juhani four steps ahead, with Tammepuu setting the direction by giving soft-spoken orders if they had to turn at this rock or follow that gravel path. For the most part, they walked through the forest. Tammepuu had to be local, for he did not consult a map at any point. Perhaps that was why he had been given this task to haul an enemy captive to the court.
They rested and walked, rested and walked, ending the evening at a secluded spot.
He had to escape, Juhani thought. Yet his head still hurt and his arm remained too weak to fight back or even lift a gun. He could sneak out during the night, but the soldier who had captured him was also smart enough to tie him up thoroughly each night that they had slept under the cover of the forest. Juhani had complained about his ankles getting sore, and so he was spared the knot around his ankles and instead tied at the wrists and around the waist to a nearby pine tree. It kept him firmly secure throughout the night.
The Hiiu soldier was a kind captor, Juhani thought, but even a kind captor is a captor. They went at a pace that didn't leave him pained, even if he had to walk ahead of Tammepuu with his hands tied. He was never cajoled or insulted, spat at or beaten. He was spoken to with respect and left alone when he remained quiet, Tammepuu humming songs at night time while preparing their dinner. The Hiiu soldier was leaving his punishment to the martial court, should they ever get there.
He had to escape.
"How long have you been enlisted?" the soldier asked him, splitting his rations carefully next to the fire he had made for the night. His knife carved the dried meat in half, and he gave the side of the bread that was less dried out to his captive.
Juhani accepted the bread and focused on the glint of the knife blade. It now lay abandoned near the flat, mossy rock that Tammepuu would place his head down on tonight. If Juhani could crawl towards it, grab the blade, and slowly saw the knot open between his wrists, it wouldn't be too difficult to wiggle out of his waist binding. If they were near Emajogi, he could follow the river to some evacuated house with a radio, make the call. His own battalion was gone, but there were others within Hiiu borders who could rescue him.
He could do it.
Tammepuu was still watching him, awaiting an answer. He found his words, half of them his native Vakka and some he'd learned from listening to the Hiiu soldier. "Since I was eighteen, so five years or so." He shrugged. "I planned to get into the academy, get a proper military education after the initial training that everyone in Vakka goes through. Then the war broke out, and a decree went round that all capable were to enlist immediately."
"Your king started it," Tammepuu said. "The lascivious, corrupt king that he is."
"That he is." Juhani was in no mood to defend his king, but his country, he just might. "There have always been border disputes."
"The war still began—" Tammepuu started.
"I beg you not to say more." Juhani breathed out. More than him being an agreeable captive, he'd had his doubts about the king's justifications for the opening shot of the war. But those thoughts were not for the enemy to hear, and even in his native home, they might be thoughts never to be spoken out loud. "I think debating this is pointless."
"Indeed it is," Tammepuu agreed gravely. "The entire war—when I get out, I should hope to do something to end all wars."
Juhani found himself nodding, even if it was a foolish notion. "Do you smoke, officer Tammepuu?" he asked.
"No." The soldier shook his head. "And call me Indrek. We're the same rank."
The Hiiu people were always more casual with given names, Juhani remembered reading. "Indrek," he repeated, raising his tied wrists. "I'd shake your hand, but—" He let out a hollow laugh. "I'm Juhani. My brothers called me Juha for short."
"I'm not your brother," Indrek said, with a note of amusement to his voice.
"Well, you'll call me whatever you wish," Juhani said. There was a third category of people, one he was reminded of when Indrek looked at him studiously from beneath his light-colored brows. His lovers in the past had called him Juha, too.
"I hope you're comfortable, Juha," Indrek told him before settling in for the night, head resting on the stone he'd thrown a sleeve of his jacket over.
So many little gestures, so much heart in one man, who did not belong here in the battlefield. Juhani hated it, the way it made his own heart shift. He needed to focus on staying awake and getting to that knife.
Two weeks went by, and Suo had not touched him. Only once had their fingers brushed when he handed Indrek a slice of apple from his own plate. Every night Indrek stayed on his own side of the massive bed, huddled in the corner, and every night Suo failed to reach over and grab him, strip him, fuck him like he was meant to be fucked.
The anxiety tore at him, little by little. He just needed to know when the other shoe would drop, when the tension would be cut.
He fell to his knees one evening; not many men could resist the offer of a blowjob. Even the masters who had hated him the most had told him he was good with his mouth. Maybe he could make it better with Suo, before he’d become the monster he was deep down. Indrek wasn’t a fool; he knew he couldn’t stave off the inevitable. He gazed up at Suo, and he masked apprehension with happy pretense, which he knew could shield him from the worst of it. He wouldn't ever like it, he didn't think, but he might endure it, and that had become enough.
He smiled up at his master, made his voice as sweet as his pretense. "It's been a long day for you, general. Let me suck you off, make you feel better."
Suo recoiled from him. "Get up, I beg of you." His tone was harsh, but Indrek was just trying to be good, to do his best, like he'd learned how to behave. The rejection felt like a slap on the cheek.
"I'm sorry," he mumbled as he got up, and that was when Suo touched him properly for the first time, a hand tightening firmly around his shoulder.
"No, I should have said—" He cleared his throat. " I should tell you something. I am currently seeking counsel on how to proceed with manumission. The king is a vindictive man, and you were a gift from him, so I want to do it as quietly and as undisruptively as possible. I hope you will understand if the process takes a while."
Indrek wasn't sure what to say, so he simply dropped his head in a nod.
It didn't make much sense to him. Household slaves got freed, he'd heard of that. If they found a new position in a city, or ceased to be useful, they could be easily let go of. But pleasure slaves, especially enemy captives? It simply didn't happen. The way they were disposed of was a quiet dispatching to a brothel somewhere, or transitioned into housework if their bodies could still bear it.
Such were the endings he had written in his head for his own suffering.
"Don't cry," Suo told him, cupping his face in his hands. "Or cry, if you wish. I won't tell you what to do anymore."
Indrek was crying, he only now noticed, wetting Suo's hands with his own misery. He then composed himself and breathed in slowly through his nose again, trying to hold back more tears. There was still a strong possibility that this, too, was all a ruse to see his pain double. The cruelty of foreign masters had no ceiling. The feathery gentleness could precede the harshness of the whip. He didn't know this man, even if he could for a moment pretend he did, because they'd shared a meal over fire, because Indrek had once cleaned his battle wounds.
"Juha," he whispered, the same as that night in the forest, and Suo dropped his hands from Indrek's face. Maybe it was a step too far, an intimacy that was manipulation at heart, but he felt it in that moment. It had felt like the right thing to say.
The general evidently did not agree, turning away and leaving the room. Indrek felt a dull ache where his heart was supposed to be, and he felt untethered to the world. He could not trust his new master, especially to do what he had so openly promised. Yet every part of him wanted to believe, and it was a nice fantasy, the thought of a kind master, the thought of actual freedom.
It was the sort of dream that sent him to restful sleep for the first time in years the following night, even if he slept alone.
He got the knife. He got the rope off his wrists, working slowly in the dead of night. Summer was on their side when it came to sleeping outdoors, but it posed a significant disadvantage for his escape; the sun would come up in less than an hour, and when it did, his captor could all too easily yank on the rope and find Juhani missing. The forest bed was warm, and sweat beaded on his forehead.
He was free.
There was only one more task to do, and it was one he knew he would hesitate at. He had the knife in his hand, and he was two steps from the sleeping Indrek Tammepuu. Juhani could shove the knife in the side of his throat and show how mercilessly the Vakka treated their enemies.
At that moment, the dim light of the sun that was neither setting nor rising showed him the face of his captor, sleeping easily with his gun tucked under one arm. Juhani's heart dropped. It was not simply that this was a pretty man, a man whom he wished to know in any other circumstance; it was also that this was a man who had shown him that innate goodness his higher-ups had taught Juhani to abandon. Indrek still had it, shown it in the way he had taken an enemy, not to torture or bully, but to care for and deliver to due process.
Juhani couldn't kill him, or he would kill something in himself with the same strike of the knife.
As the turmoil subsided in his mind, his enemy stirred. His eyes still closed, Indrek whispered, "Juha?"
"We can keep sleeping, the sun isn't up yet," Juhani whispered back. Miraculously, this was enough to have Indrek settled again, his breathing evening back to sleep within moments.
Juhani allowed his own breathing to calm before he took slow steps towards the densest part of the forest, to hide among the spruce and the thicket of berry bushes. From there, he started running until he reached the river and saw the gentle light of dawn glittering against its surface. He washed his face, washed off his nerves, trying to steel himself for the journey that was ahead of him.
The next enemy he would kill, because if he didn't, he'd be killed himself. Not every man on the other side had a heart like Indrek Tammepuu.
His new master asked him a difficult question one evening. "How many before me?"
Indrek's hands slowed on the puzzle he was putting together. It was a simple yet engaging activity, one that they had opted for since Suo did not want him to just stand in a corner, nor could he read any books in Vakka language without his brain growing tired from trying to decipher the script. "Three before you, general," he said plainly.
"Thunder," Suo swore, running a hand through his hair, leaving it to stick out into an odd direction. Indrek focused on the hair, rather than the question that logically followed next. "What did they do to you?"
He didn't know how to navigate this. The options stretched out ahead of him, both dealt with considerable pain. The recalling was painful in itself, but he could see a different pain as well, if Indrek accidentally revealed that he had been a bad servant, one that needed punishment. He'd wanted to believe Suo was different, but masters were all the same. They only varied in their style of cruelty. Some did not fuck him, some did; some beat him, some simply slashed him with words. One had done everything under the sun in the process of breaking Indrek, to make sure he stayed pliant and docile for the others who would come after.
"They took what they needed from me, general," Indrek said, trying to keep his face as passive as possible. "Whenever they needed it."
"I know, I shouldn't have asked." Suo looked down at his hands. "To make you remember, when I wish you never had to—the thing is, I—" He then reached for something, a newspaper cutting to lay over the puzzle pieces. "Oh, crock, you can't read the script well. Well, it says I spoke to parliament to sway the king in the matter of foreign captives and their release." He fell quiet for a beat. "As well as their mistreatment."
"I see," Indrek replied. Another lie, or a lie couched in truth? How was he to know?
"I meant it when I said I would see that you got manumitted." Suo sighed. "I would do it whoever you were, but the fact you were—I mean, you saved me. When war turned us all into monsters, the memory of you was there to remind me that I shouldn't become one."
"The Butcher of Valkjarv." He knew he shouldn't say it, but the words fell out of him. His master was one of the monsters, wasn't he?
"Stuff of legend, propaganda," Suo said, looking displeased. "The people had abandoned the city by the time we got there. The king's marshall thought it a cute trick to spill the blood of the animals onto the streets, to make the enemy think we'd made mince out of the entire place."
"I understand," Indrek said, his heartbeat picking up. If he believed that, then maybe the man he'd first met on the battlefield so many years ago still lived. Maybe his own kindness wouldn't be repaid in pain, but more kindness instead.
"Now I've made an enemy of the king, and thus, he delivered me a gift with a point to prove." Suo nodded at Indrek. "I'm doing my best, but my best might not be good enough to best a king, if you understand my meaning."
"What do you mean, that I saved you?" Indrek asks.
"You did, tending to my wounds with more care than any enemy should. But more than that, you showed me how a man with a heart acts at the time of war. If I hadn't learned that, I would stand here covered in blood that never washes off, shaken awake by more nightmares than I already am." Juhani Suo let out a breath. "Never mind, what's it to you? You just did your duty, and I am attempting to do my own. Good night, Indrek."
Indrek's heart swelled. He knew now—he understood. He had done so much to steel himself from the pain, to not trust anyone, but he wanted to. This man was different from the ones that had come before him.
"Wait." Without fully understanding why, his hand reached out to hold onto Suo's wrist. The warmth of his skin was a pleasant shock. "Do you really mean it? Because I've been tortured enough, and this promise—"
"I can't make it a promise," Suo interrupted, his voice becoming frayed at the edges, his eyes darkening with emotion. "But I will do my everything, that I can promise. I'm sorry you've been tortured."
"You can touch me," Indrek said, surprising himself. He would have thought the last thing he wanted was another man's touch. The respite from it had been all too welcome these past many weeks, but now things felt different. The situation had shifted between them, a new honesty, a fledgeling trust. He was taking a risk, but it was one he wanted to take.
A muscle shifted beneath the stubble on Suo's jaw. "Thank you, but I couldn't. Not like this."
Indrek stepped closer, brazen in his intentions. His eyes met Suo's, and he stared openly, like no slave should at his master.
But this was no longer his master. "Juhani," he said softly.
"Don't," Juhani said, but it was a weak denial of what they both wanted. "Not until you hold the papers in your hand, that I did what I needed to do."
"You will keep your promise." Indrek's voice held more certainty than he himself did. He leaned in and pressed his mouth against the side of Juhani's lips, a chaste touch that was barely there but an invitation for more. Indrek's mind indulged in the fantasy of Juhani's rough hands holding him by the waist, claiming his mouth in a real kiss, with real feeling.
But then he retreated, safe in the knowledge that if he wanted to do more, he could. He had not had such liberty in a very long time.
Indrek was now allowed to touch him at night. He would wrap a limb or two around Juhani's aching form, and they would stay like that until sleep took over. It was a nice thing that occasionally inflamed desire in Juhani's belly. He felt terrible about it, always turning away before the problem got any worse, but Indrek regarded it with amusement. It was good that they were now relaxed around one another. Juhani began spending his evenings learning more Hiiu, listening to Indrek's tales of his youth growing up in the countryside, the songs they would sing about Hiiu spirits and folk gods. It was entertaining.
His lawyer kept up with his feverish correspondence, which ended in triumph: a letter of manumission that he only had to sign to release Indrek from his slavery and captivity. His lawyer warned of repercussions, however; the authorities could capture Indrek again on phony war crimes, invent that he took clothes or papers from the military academy and charge them as theft during wartime.
To ensure Indrek's freedom, Juhani went out and bought him new clothes, a train ticket to get him over the border as quickly as possible, and even a new woolen hat and gloves for the winter cold.
He presented everything to Indrek after dark, for he knew that the best opportunity to sneak out of the academy was during night.
Instead of happiness, he saw Indrek's face fall. "All of this for me," he said, struggling for words. "But you would stay here, and face the king's wrath?"
"He won't know until you're with your own people again," Juhani assured him. "It will take at least three days before he finds out his prized general has thrown away his gift. Don't worry about me, my lawyer has prepared everything in my defence."
"The Vakka king won't care." Indrek ducked his head, looking at the documents and the carefully folded clothes. "He will make something up, say you've insulted him—"
"We have some freedoms in this nation, and I've taken full advantage of them before."
"But if he wants you to feel his vengeance, he won't hesitate." Indrek's fingers dug into his new linen shirt. "Will you not come with me?"
Juhani took a step back, stunned. He hadn't thought of it, for all his questions about the king's morality and cruelty, the senseless prolonged war and all the rest of it. He was Vakka, even if his house had burned down and his brothers were now gone. He did not leave this land.
"The Hiiu would not embrace me with open arms." This, too, was true, and made Indrek's expression darken.
"But the Fjall people might," Indrek said quickly. "They've never fought with Vakka, nor Hiiu."
"The Fjall is—"
"A nation of migrants, with no place to go." Indrek smiled at him. "Is that not us? But it's a beautiful nation, too, with long days in the summer and short ones in the winter, just like our own."
"Leave me, and save yourself. Your own people—" Juhani tried, but Indrek had already let go of his new clothes and taken Juhani's hands into his own.
"You are my people now," Indrek argued.
"I'm old and half-blind, limping where you can still run—"
"This matters not." Indrek met every resistance with a fond smile, drawing them closer to each other. His hands were brazen, wrapping around Juhani's hips. The warm touch was electric, the first real intimacy he'd felt in years. He thought about the way he could have done this for nights and nights before tonight: grabbed hold of Indrek like he owned him when he did, no matter how unwanted and unasked for. His soul was better for not having done it, and now the potential for more of that touch was so overwhelming he felt lightheaded. He wanted to kiss Indrek, hold their bodies together, and press him into the comforting softness of the bed.
He realized in that moment he would do anything for this man; that Indrek had saved not only him once upon a time, but saved him now as well.
"If you so wish, I will flee with you," Juhani started, as Indrek leaned in closer. He observed the star pattern of freckles on Indrek's face, and he thought it was the most beautiful sight in the world. "I'll go anywhere you ask."
"I do wish. I do ask," Indrek said, and kissed him at last; a real, deep kiss that tasted of the summer forest.