CW: Sexual references, mentions of scars/wounds, nudity.
Thank you to Funny2333 for your generous Inksgiving donations and for suggesting the prompts for this short extra! Sorry for the delay! I hope you enjoy ^3^
This extra canonically takes place before Chapter 41: Blue Plains.
“Rinnie!”
He’s panting, gasping, sweat drenched and shaking. Eleven faces linger as if they’d been burnt into his retina. A sob erupts, pathetic and desperate, and he can’t tell if the damp on his cheeks is from sweat or tears.
“...m’sorry,” he cries deliriously, still trapped between realities. “Sorry…didn’t know…I didn’t mean to…”
“Rinnie, it’s only a dream. Wake up.”
A gentle voice reaches him through the gloam, pulling him from the rankled depths of his nightmare. He struggles to fight against the constrictive weight of sleep and opens his eye.
His vision blurs. There’s something there. A face, perhaps. And a smudge of gold.
“...I didn’t want this,” he sobs, reaching out with unsteady hands. For what, he’s unsure. “I’m sorry.”
Large hands scoop up his trembling form, pulling him flush against a broad chest. He slumps against his little lord, panting and trying to chase away the remnants of his terror. His fingers twist into the fabric of his shirt, clinging on with desperation.
Jun is his comfort, his salvation. Golden eyes, the light to help him travers the treacherous seas of his trauma.
The lord shushes and holds him securely. His warmth penetrates the chill encasing Rin’s core and, over time, he calms his breath and his heart. When the last face leaves his mind, he’s leant dazed in Jun’s embrace, already exhausted despite only waking.
“Are you alright?” Jun’s voice rumbles in his chest like rolling thunder. It’s a comforting sound for the raven.
“Mn.” Rin raises his flushed and clammy face, a hazy hellebore meeting those worried goldens. “Sorry. It was just a stupid dream.”
“There is no need to apologise.” The lord frowns, unwinding one of his arms to cup Rin’s cheek with the palm of his hand. His touch is warm and dry. “Bad dreams haunt the best of us.”
The raven leans into his lover’s touch and lets out a soft sigh. “Do you get bad dreams?”
“Very often, yes.”
“How can you bear to sleep?” A flicker of emotion crosses his visage. “It feels like I’m dying. Like it’s draining the life out of me every night.”
“What do you dream about?”
Rin grimaces. “...It’s nothing. Really.” He buries his face into Jun’s chest as if to hide his expression. Eventually, he says in a muffled voice. “Why can’t I just dream about you?”
The lord smiles, a tad helplessly, and strokes the back of his lover’s head. Even his hair is damp with sweat. If he stays this way, surely he would fall sick. “You are soaked through. You will need a hot bath and a fresh change of clothes.”
“Dun’ wanna.”
“Are you not uncomfortable?”
“...Nuh.”
“Rinnie.”
The raven pulls away, lips pressed tightly together. He tugs at his sodden sleep robes, at once feeling sticky and uncomfortable. “...Will you wash my hair?”
Jun huffs a laugh and slides out of bed. “Of course, I will. You enjoy the floral soap that Mira gave you, do you not?”
“Yes. And I want a scrub.”
“Very well.”
So Fifth Lord Hwan Jun found himself relegated to bath maid, and he and his master quietly steal their way to the bathing room.
It’s a particularly large area with a small pool of perpetually heated water. The water itself is drawn out of a running stream from White Lotus Lake, so not only is it clean enough to drink, but it also has a modicum of healing and revitalising properties.
Jun strips down to his underrobe, which he pulls down and ties off at his waist. Of course, Rin finds himself openly staring at his lover’s defined torso as it’s bared to him. He stifles the urge to touch the goods and quickly turns his back to strip himself.
It’s a relief to peel those sticky robes from his body. His underrobe goes next and he’s left entirely nude.
He pauses as he glances down at his scars and he runs his fingers over his chest, waist and leg. Sometimes, he feels pain, as if they hadn’t healed over at all. Other times, the puckered skin feels numb and not his own.
“Are they hurting?” Jun’s voice echoes from the pool, in which he’d slid into. The water reaches only his waist and his underrobe billows around him like the head of a jellyfish.
“Not really.” Rin pads his way over to the pool and sinks into the delicious heat. He wades his way to Jun and eagerly pats and prods his firm chest. “Why aren’t you naked? It’s not like I haven’t seen your little lord before.”
Jun flushes and picks up the cake of soap, trying his best to ignore those prodding hands. “I believe it would be wise to keep something on.”
“Why’s that?” Rin relieves the lord of his touch to fiddle with his eyepatch instead. He’d have to be careful not to get his wooden eye wet. “You don’t have anything to be embarrassed about. Trust me.”
The lord encourages Rin to turn around, but he can’t hide the pleased smile tugging at his lips. “If I were to undress completely, I might give into temptation.”
“Oh…” The raven smirks, turning around obediently. “There’s nothing wrong with that, is there?”
“I should like us both to get our rest tonight. We have a long journey to the Blue Plains tomorrow.”
“Eurgh. Just a quick one–”
“Rinnie.”
The raven sighs and gathers his hair over his shoulder. “Fine. Be a killjoy, then.”
His bad mood dissipates rather quickly however, when Jun starts lathering his body with the soap. The lord’s hands are extremely careful and thorough, and it’s not very long before Rin finds himself with a particularly hard problem.
Regardless, he behaves, even acts docile as his dedicated lover cleans the sweat from his skin. When Jun traverses his scars, those from burns and sword alike, his motions slow and he buffers as if he were handling the most delicate material.
“You are healing well,” Jun comments, running his fingers lightly over Rin’s scarred chest.
The latter hums and drowses, eye heavy lidded as he’s pet and caressed. “Still don’t look any better though.”
“It looks beautiful, like the rest of you.”
Rin pushes out a breathy laugh, but his heart palpitates. “Stupid.”
His drowsiness only increases when the little lord starts massaging soap into his scalp, thoroughly cleaning his hair from root to tip. Unable to hold his own weight up, he sits along the bench at the edge of the pool and turns sideways, giving his bath maid better access to his hair.
Bubbles float upon the pool surface and Rin captures them idly as he tries to fight off sleep.
“I hope these scars will be the last you receive,” Jun murmurs, nudging Rin’s head back. He uses a wooden bath ladle to pour water over his lathered hair, washing the soap away. “It hurts to see you so injured.”
“Eh. I’m a Slummer. It’s a given that I’d end up with these.”
“You should not hold such morbid expectations.”
“As long as you’re here to pamper me, I don’t really mind.”
“I do.”
The last of the soap is washed away. Those two syllables ring like solemn tolls of a bell.
Rin turns to see his little lord frowning, brows furrowed and goldens troubled. His heart clenches in regret.
“When Healer Wu and I treated your burns, you were in an immense amount of pain,” Jun says, glumly. “You screamed until your voice gave out. And then you suffered for days afterwards. No amount of numbing herbs or medicines could take away your pain. All I could do was sit at your bedside and hold your hand.” He tightens his jaw, frustration etched into his face in deep, jagged lines. “I felt so utterly helpless. And that was the second time I had ever felt that way. I could not bear it for a third time.”
Rin rings his arms around Jun’s neck, tugging him close until their bodies are pressed together. He kisses the poor man tenderly, unable to express his sorrow or his gratitude verbally. Jun’s strong arms wrap around him in turn, securing their embrace.
Their lips burn as their kiss deepens. Flicking tongues to taste the other’s mouths. A soft hum of pleasure. A rumble of want. When they part, they are breathless. Both soothed and restless.
Goldens glimmer with affection as they gaze down at Rin, like molten honey poured over his visage. The raven loves the way his little lord looks upon him. He feels so…loved.
“I’ll be careful,” he says, tilting his head to peck Jun’s jaw. “I won’t let there be a third time. Promise.”
The tension in Jun’s face melts away. He returns with a kiss on the corner of those plush lips. “Good. If you break your promise, I shall have to punish you.”
“Oh?” Rin lilts, raising a brow. “Don’t tempt me, little lord.”
“How am I tempting you?” Jun asks, momentarily confused.
“...Just shut up and kiss me again, you big idiot.”
When they return to bed, clean and relaxed, they both fall into an easy sleep. There are no more bad dreams for the Rat tonight. Just his little lord and his light, guiding his way to the safety of dawn.
