Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
Seven stories about love and kisses; first kisses, long-awaited kisses, impulse kisses, premeditated kisses. Art by @friesian
In this one Elf and I came back to Johnny and Marwyd's little ranch in Harvest Den, their post-Dragon saga relationship, and what's gonna be of them in the future.
Read&Comment on Ao3!
--
The one true way to make sure spring had finally arrived to Harvest Den was the town coming alive with dance and song. The market was, finally, lively with chatty Kodan sharing the news of their hibernation; how the provisions had lasted, who was the first to awaken, what had been the first songbird to pierce the drowsiness and call them all back home, to the surface. And, especially, who had found their way to who's room in the meantime.
Johnny didn't understand hibernating — the idea of napping for days was tempting, but being unable to move, to walk around the forest on his now elder raptor Slow Dancer, to chop wood and to have a comfy stew in front of the fire after a day of scampering around was terrifying to him. But he did understand a thing or two about sneaking inside someone's bed, hoping for warmth, for companionship, and maybe something else.
Stoic and Poky had been clear; Harvest Den was changing, and so were the Lowland Kodan. Opening up to strangers in times of war was one thing, and opening up the doors of their homes to some faraway heroes who found themselves their neighbors was something completely different. And yet, Johnny and Marwyd had made both, and the Kodan found that they fit with each other better than they might've expected.
"It is a sight to behold," Stoic had said, glancing at Late Spring and Contemplative Dusk walk arm in arm across the market, with the seemingly permanent band playing at the center of town as a backdrop. "The winds of change arrive every season, but never seemed to touch bearkin's hearts the way they did with mountain and forest, with river and cloud. But now, some eternal frost has melted. The seasons are changing."
Johnny had met Contemplative Dusk before he had met Late Spring. A large black bear with a scarred maw, terrifying with a lance and, honestly, also without it. They had sparred on the arena a couple of times, finishing up on a technical draw before someone could get hurt forreal. They had hunted on the backs of journeykin shortly after (sorry, warclaws for the foreign people), and had become fast friends upon realizing they had a taste for fire, meat, and riding.
And then there was Late Spring. A singer, kinda like the skaalds of the Norn, delivering news and regaling congregations with her tales and her voice, deep as the thunder over the mountains. Johnny found her performances relaxing, and found himself drifting away, remembering lazy evenings beside Lake Doric, at the tavern over a jar of honebrew.
But not Contemplative Dusk. Her brown eyes lit up like embers upon gazing over the brunette fur of the bear-skaald, as her ears wiggled with delight at every melody, every note.
He should've seen it coming, them spending the winter together. But somehow it had caught him fully by surprise.
"The elders told me once that people like Spring and Dusk used to hide, they told me," Poky said, as they tended to the baby journeykin at the stable to give their mommas a rest. "I don't know why. Just seems silly to drive our best fighters away just because of whom they decide to knit their marital bedspread with."
Stoic chuckled with a deep nod, satisfied. Poky was a good kid, and a sign of things to come. Good things.
"Which is why I am not surprised you have been requested," he rumbled, quirking a brow at Johnny as he whipped his head around towards him.
"Who? Me? Ow!" he said; too bewildered to avoid a journeykin kitten's bite on his finger. "Fer what?"
"Marriage speech!" Poky explained — a smirk showing more fang than intended, earning him a hiss and a swipe by a troublemaking journeykin. "Ow! Hey."
"Marriage ceremonies occur on spring," Stoic Adler explained, snorting softly at their struggle with a bunch of unruly kittens with knifes strapped to their soft, cuddly mittens. "And it is custom that the community decides who should give a rousing speech to celebrate the happy couple. And your name has come up very often."
"Why me? Ow. Stop."
Johnny missed the complicit glance Poky and Stoic gave each other, too busy flicking a kitten on the nose.
"You arrived with the fallen star," Stoic explained, evading the dolyak in the room more gracefully than Poky, who glanced directly at Marwyd from across the market at a veggies stall — always so distinct to the different colors of toasted fur with his sylvari features. "You drove the shadow from our lands for good. This long suffering people has accepted you and your partner into our fold; not because you had power, like those so-called wizards. But because, like our dear Sorrow, you decided to embrace us first. There is no other way for the bearkin. And so, you would do good to prepare. Not to disappoint them."
The sensation that the last remnants of winter lived inside his belly now didn't left Johnny for the rest of the evening. And no matter how many times Marwyd had asked what was wrong —and he did so quite often; when they rode back home on their journeykin Princess and Ajee, on the kitchen counter while they made dinner, at the table while they ate, and late at night while they snuggled up to beat the cold and nothing else under that marital spread that Johnny had ordered on a whim—, all he could come up was a kinda unconvincing I don't know, man.
And now, as the sun began to set the day before Spring and Dusk's big day, panic bubbled inside of Johnny's gut as he stared at a horribly blank page. It had been almost 20 years since he had left school at the demand of his father, and he was still just as bad at completing assignments on time.
He had asked everyone; Caithe had sent a whole ass speech prepared, but it seemed a bit too impassioned and personal for Johnny's taste. Taimi, Rama, Waiting Sorrow and even Frode had said something similar to follow your heart, but Johnny seldom knew what his heart could tell him about two other people's relationship. Above all, his heart was simple, uncomplicated, if a bit superficial. Not the most adequate for when it came to capture the flash of Dusk's eyes when she saw Spring sing, but rather to sing a dirty tavern song when everyone is already too drunk to care. Everyone except Marwyd, of course, with his booze allergy and all.
Marriage wasn't for him, for fuck's sake. He had sworn it off one fateful dinner back in Doric, back when he still had the farm and his father wasn't a dragon magic-bound popsicle. When George had made an off-hand comment about his future descendants, and Johnny had decided that the perfect punishment for him would be for him to have none. No blonde country girl with flowers on her braids walking to the altar of the Six, nor 2.5 brats running around a dilapidated house while they pretended to be happy under his father's still disapproving gaze. He would have nothing, Johnny would have nothing, and they could both stare at each other with hatred until one dropped dead.
But now George was in the Priory halls, with Braham working on reverting Jormag's curse. None of them had died. And Johnny still had a blank page in front of him, trying to imagine how it would feel to want this so bad not even the frozen winter could stop love from blooming inside a damp cave.
Thing is, he had lied to himself. He hadn't asked everyone. There was one person, one who composed songs in that rumbling language of the dunes and secret oasis in the sands, he hadn't consulted about his predicament.
Johnny turned on his chair, looking at Marwyd preparing coffee in the kitchen, across the woven divider separating their living space. Feeling more than listening to his rumbling voice as he hummed a little melody to himself, as relaxed as he could be, which wasn't much but was miles and miles from where they had started.
It just felt wrong to ask for some reason.
But the sun hurried to hide as if it knew Johnny had a deadline to meet, and the fire burned brighter than anything, except Marwyd's eyes when he glanced up his cup of coffee, frowning like he was wondering where the day had run out to. He looked beautiful in the shadows. He looked beautiful in most places and light conditions, actually.
"Hey Mar," he found himself saying, unable to stop himself. And those eyes met his, and it was like the first time; feeling a bit nervous, a bit willing to puff up and meet him head on, and a bit flustered all at the same time.
"Hmm?"
"I need help," he said, glancing away from a moment before whipping his head back up once more. "And don't tell me to follow my heart or some bullshit or I'll bite ya."
The wrongness felt even worse when trying to put his issue into words. It was cheesy. It was vulnerable. It was a lot of responsibility. And he wasn't a good public speaker. And what did he know about love, anyway.
Marwyd cut his diatribe with a huff. A frustrated one.
"What!" Johnny protested, pouting ever so slightly.
"Y'ain't bad at speakin' in public, Johnny," Marwyd said with a scowl. "Yer just convinced you are."
And just to flex his might as a scholar, Marwyd proceeded to cite Johnny's multiple stirring speeches. Ever since they had started, way back when, when they weren't even friends and Johnny was 17 and everything was messy and complicated about them both. When the people of Elona needed hope, and when Taimi needed a shoulder to cry on, and when Kasmeer needed reassurance after their God rampaged and the Five had left, and when Braham mourned so hard they went from a fistfight to understanding each other, out beyond the end of the world.
When a demon had wanted to make a prey of Marwyd, and he had said, without saying, that they'd be together no matter what. He had said, without saying it, that their love was stronger than whatever shameful secrets they kept from each other.
And none of them mentioned the night at the big bridge over Harvest Den, where Johnny had announced he'd sold the farm in Doric, because his home was here, amongst the bearkin. Here, beside Marwyd. Because they both had to give something up for each other, and they had done it. Even if Marwyd was the banjo player, Johnny had plucked at his heartstrings like a master musician, weaving the story of them both.
"This ain't about no hearts speakin'," Marwyd insisted, lighting up a candle over the coffee table, beside Johnny's blank page. "Is about doin' what you know. And you know plenty 'bout joinin' people together."
He then gave Johnny a glance; a glance that maybe underlined that night at the bridge, where they had touched foreheads first, leaning on each other, before finally, finally kissing in what felt like the culmination of a lifetime. So natural, yet so earth-shattering, like the seasons passing by, relentless. Or maybe it didn't mean anything, and Marwyd was just being stoic and practical, as usual.
Johnny sighed, maybe enchanted, maybe desperate. And Marwyd simply ruffled his hair, big, warm, calloused hand sliding down the nape of his neck, claws drawing the lines of his shoulder, and leaving with a soft, almost reluctant snag on his shirt before lighting a candle and leaving it beside him.
Their contact was electric. Johnny needed to kiss him again, badly.
He jumped with a start. Of course.
Leaning over the page, he started writing. About a lifetime of searching and one thousand findings, followed by more searching. About the joys of a warm home and a warm dinner and a warm bed, followed by a warm embrace. Of silly intimacies, of knowing the sound of one's breathing and replying with a soft all good, darlin'? upon hearing a discordant note. About staring at each other until being able to evoke each other's face from memory, and being just as taken aback about being so dang lucky to be able to hold their hand.
"Guess I never really paid much mind to forever, y'know?" Johnny said, looking slightly haggard for a night's last minute work, but still a complicit smile flustered his cheeks ever so slightly. "People often don't. 'Till forever stares back to their face, sometimes in someone else's eyes. And then it hits ya: you got gotten, pardner!"
Chuckles replied to his joke, as Spring and Dusk held hands and grinned and stole glances from each other. Johnny smiled at them, nodding as Spring gave him a wink, before glancing back at her beloved; ursine joy on every flash of fangs and glint of eyes.
"And now y'all give us all one more reason to be happy, and to celebrate and keep the Den safe," Johnny continued, some deep emotion seeping into his words. Like a flowery taste on honeymead. "Spring ain't comin' early, but rather came just when it was supposed to. Life's like that — we just ride through it. And sometimes—…"
His eyes left the happy couple for a second, meeting a silhouette that was as tall as the Kodan beside him, and yet so different from all of them. Arms crossed and hat casting a shadow over his eyes, glowing softly in yellow and green, Marwyd observed him with his usual frown, eyes perking up upon meeting his gaze so suddenly. Johnny hesitated, once again a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
"Sometimes you find someone who's itchin' to ride beside you."
"The words have been spoken," Stoic Adler, the officiant, intervened, as Johnny meekly looked away and played with a strand of golden, curly hair. "Do they ring true?"
Spring and Dusk exchanged one last glance.
"They do."
"So be it. We welcome a new family into Harvest Den."
Lances pounded at the ground, as the Kodan roared and, as if they needed to kiss each other, badly, Spring and Dusk bumped foreheads, then noses, then maws as they kissed and held each other; a promise to never let go.
And as Johnny nodded and raised his honeymead cup, eager to take a sip, it dawned on him. It wasn't casual what had inspired him to write about eternity, and love, and marriage like that. He managed to mask his choking with a firm clearing of his throat, but still his eyes met Marwyd's, still frowning at him as he clapped for the happy couple.
He wasn't ready to explain. He had sworn it off. But with nothing to prove, no one to impress, and no one to spite, Johnny realize he had been gotten, pardner!
Seven stories about love and kisses; first kisses, long-awaited kisses, impulse kisses, premeditated kisses. Art by @friesian
This is the reason why this work has the "mature" tag. I love writing Elf's Marwyd's complex relationship with desire so much. Me too man, the fuck.
Read&Comment on Ao3!
--
Heels bumping on the counter below, sunny hair and even sunnier smile bouncing in the waves of his conversation, Johnny was busy recounting this and that in one of his endless diatribes, changing topics just as fast as Marwyd swapped ingredients beside him. The first pieces of what would become a stew bubbled already over the fire, with only the ingredients that needed less cooking time being chopped under a recently sharp knife, and Johnny had declared that he wanted to help.
Marwyd knew that "help" from Johnny in the kitchen would mean his endless stream of thought being delivered directly into his ears, making them perk up every so often. And that was, in all honesty, all Marwyd would ever ask from Johnny.
Sunny locks, sunny smile, and even sunnier conversation up in the crown of the world, where days were sometimes short and warmth was in demand.
"Green Bean ain't bein' too nice to me I tell ya," Johnny said, the thud, thud, thud of his heels against the counter harmonizing with the chop, chop, chop of Marwyd's knife.
"Augur," his voice rumbled, as he moved to toss some northern tubers into the boiling concoction of slow-cooking meat.
"Whah— yeah! S'what I said!" Johnny replied, the constant thud pausing for a moment.
"Ain't what you said."
"Whatever, man." Johnny waved his hand in the air, blowing such concerns away. "What I'm sayin' is he tried to bite me, the mean bastard!"
"Maybe cuz yer callin' him Green Bean," Marwyd then pointed out, grabbing a Canthan cabbage and roughly chopping it. "He don't like it. And it ain't his name."
Johnny simply blew a raspberry at him. Marwyd rolled his eyes, biting down a smile but chuffing all the same as he grabbed some mushrooms to stir-fry.
It took but a moment of sizzling and the smell of caramelizing butter for Marwyd to realize Johnny was suddenly quiet. Way too quiet, even — never a good sign. He whipped his head around, nubby braids swinging as he caught Johnny sticking his grubby little finger inside the sugar. Not the sugar flask, no, of course not. The sugar sitting in a bowl on the counter, ready to be assembled into banana bread as soon as he was done with the stew.
"Hey!" he barked. Johnny jumped, still quickly putting his finger inside his mouth.
"Yeah?"
"Stop that."
"What! What did I do now!" Johnny said; licking his lips despite his big, pleading eyes. Marwyd grumbled.
"Stop eatin' my ingredients, boy," he warned, before taking the mushrooms out of the pan and tossing them in the pot over the fire.
When he turned around, Johnny was eating— no. He was swallowing a whole banana. One of the five small bananas he managed to scrounge from the market, in a place where no banana trees could hope to grow. He was swallowing with the gusto of a cat escaping with a fish from a fisherman's bucket, stealing his bounty from the pile of ingredients he had no business getting into, across from the cutting board and the pile of vegetables Marwyd knew all-too well he found not appetizing at all.
"Johnny!" he barked once more, making Johnny choke slightly on the banana (full, intact) inside his throat.
"Whah!" he struggled to spell out, hitting his chest as Marwyd gave him a hearty pat on the back, spraying banana in front of him.
"Told ya to cut it off!" he said, claw stabbing Johnny's chest and knife on the other hand.
"I'm hungry!" Johnny protested, holding his gaze even if he had to crane up to do so.
"I'm makin' dinner right now!" Marwyd pointed at the boiling pot, happily bubbling on the fire. Johnny groaned.
"S'takin' too long!"
Johnny pouted — that youthful face of his looking soft under the lights of the kitchen. Marwyd sighed.
"Be patient."
He chopped more veggies, evaluating the quantities and flavors as he went, as his ears wiggled at every rustle of clothes, at every creak of the counter. Huffing, Marwyd closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose, and suddenly caught Johnny by the scruff of the neck, pulling him away from the second banana he was, still, trying to grasp at.
"Aw, c'mon!"
"They're for banana bread!" Marwyd said, sitting Johnny back down at the counter and leaning over him with a scowl.
"I'm so hungry and yer bein' mean!"
"Yer bored," Marwyd grumbled, leaning even closer. "Cuz yer idle. And when yer idle, you eat. Stop that or I'm kickin' you out."
"No y'ain't," Johnny retorted, puffing up slightly. "I'm literally helpin'."
Marwyd quirked a brow.
"Stop eatin'."
"Make me."
They stared deep into each other's eyes for a moment, with only the happy boiling of the stew in the background. Then, Marwyd rolled his eyes, and shoved Johnny against the wall with a hand flat on his chest.
Johnny's eyes got big as he loomed closer, then softly lidded as he felt Marwyd's breath on his face. He even parted his lips in anticipation, wondering how, or when, or if he had brushed his teeth that day, or if he could smell the sweet feed and cologne seeping into his clothes.
But the knife in Marwyd's hand was cumbersome. He needed somewhere to drop it— no, too dangerous. It needed to stay put for what was about to happen (it could get a little rackety with them both pushing and pulling and struggling). So he simply stabbed it deep against the wall, sinking its metal point firmly into the wooden beams, a bit too close to Johnny's face, probably, as he gasped and jumped slightly.
"Whuh—"
No more words. His lips and Marwyd's clashed, and everything else was superfluous.
Huming and gasping, overwhelmed by Marwyd's size, newly impressed by Johnny's eagerness, tugging at his clothes and all, they kissed. Merely lip against lip, gliding over each other, before Johnny sighed and pulled him in deeper, which Marwyd found surprisingly easy to comply to. Johnny's quiet gasps were curious— no, not curious. They were warm, deeper than his usual nasally voice, coming from somewhere deeper, perhaps. Somewhere he could feel rumbling under his hand, still pushing against his chest before sliding down somewhere more comfortable, like his narrow waist. Was it the knife? Was he really into that?
No time to formulate questions when Johnny's tongue threatened to drink his breath away. He needed to pull back for a moment, catching a split-second of hazy blue eyes, flushed cheeks, and plump lips as he readjusted, hand squeezing at that waist, feeling muscles contracting and tensing under his fingers, and—
"Ah, Mar…"
His ears twitched. Some liquid weight pooled inside his stomach, feeling at the same time too full and completely empty. Some sort of vertigo, perhaps, like walking a narrow trail overlooking a cliff. He should stop. Too dangerous. The stew was boiling. His hand strained holding onto Johnny's wrists.
Johnny gave him a wanton lick, inviting him back in. And Marwyd was too stupid, reckless, stunned, pick one, to deny him.
"C'mon," Johnny whispered on his lips — that same surprisingly deep, rough voice again. Manly, maybe, reminding Marwyd that he was but flesh and sap and a beating heart.
Their kiss took a turn. All strategy melted in blissful confusion; Johnny's soft struggle to touch him, his small, frustrated groans, his deep —why were they so deep— sighs of content. His smell of hay left in the sun, sweet and earthy, reminding him of golden fields and his smile from across the grasslands. A beast stirred inside his chest; a hungry beast too often neglected, as his grip tightened, and he drew closer, and Johnny locked his legs behind his back, offering himself whole because whatever happens, happens, and he would welcome it joyfully if it was Marwyd giving it to him.
His closeness was maddening. His voice made Marwyd's ears twitch and perk up. He could pick him up, with one arm, even, and he could keep squeezing his waist with the other one. He could keep squeezing him, pushing into him, making him sigh deeper, more throaty —was that a moan?— and push his hips up against him.
He could do so again, he could make Johnny break the kiss for a second to sigh his name out into nothing, before trapping him back in a turbulent kiss with no ending in sight.
He could. He could feel something awakening inside of Johnny's pants, too, almost in response to the beast stirring up inside of himself. Wanting to meet it, to clash with it, to lay in a heap after their struggle had ended.
The perspective was exhilarating.
Enough to make him break the kiss and walk away.
Johnny blinked, pinned against the wall as if he was still struggling against Marwyd's grip.
"Um," he hummed, blinking and sitting up. "The hell you think yer goin'?"
"I'm cookin'," Marwyd reminded him, tossing the veggies into the pot without a glance. Johnny stammered, gesturing wildly in the air.
"The hell you mean yer cookin'?!" He glanced down at his crotch, where a bulge strained against the stiff fabric of his jeans. "I'm hard as fuck!"
"Better take care of that."
Johnny groaned —a genuine, frustrated, flustered groan this time— before jumping off the counter and stomping to the bathroom, murmuring insults all the way.
Marwyd sipped on the soup, beating the beast back into submission. It was missing salt and spice. But it was most definitely not lacking in warmth.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
Seven stories about love and kisses; first kisses, long-awaited kisses, impulse kisses, premeditated kisses. Art by @friesian
Second one goes to the Outlaws. Get lassoe'd boy.
Read&Comment in Ao3!
--
There was much to do at their ranch, and yet as the day lazily drifted to an end, Marwyd found himself contemplating the fields lashed by the wind, pastures dancing as Saint Elmo, his bull, stomped around looking for fresh buds and sweet feed. His eyes scanned the fields with a squint, trying to identify whatever task was left undone, awaiting his undivided attention.
Thief. Bastard. Traitor. Murderer.
Beside him, with a huff and leaning against the fence as if he was born to lean on mundane things and look good doing it, Johnny glanced at him with vague curiosity. Even if Marwyd refused to look at him directly, he could feel those baby blues piercing into him as if he could see everything and didn't particularly care about it.
Ruthless. Dangerous. Bloodthirsty. Murderer.
"Copper fer your thoughts?" Johnny asked, tilting his head, blonde curls swaying gracefully, like the overgrowth waving carelessly in the wind.
"Mmmhm." Frowning slightly, Marwyd's eyes ran out of places to hide from Johnny's attentive gaze. "Just keepin' an eye out. Might be missin' somethin'."
Something to keep the endless machinations of his tortured mind at bay. Something to occupy his hands, calloused by rotten work.
Violent. Terrifying. Ruthless. Murderer!
"Mmmmmmmnah," Johnny said — a stem of sweetgrass slowly being crushed between his eager teeth. "I think we got it all fer the day."
He shrugged, as Marwyd's lips pressed together in a line.
"All of it?"
"Yuppers."
"Hmm."
Some days, when it was especially bad, it felt like a chant on the back of his head. As if the ghosts of all those people he saw depart would not stop following. Scorning him. Hating him for every single one of his sins.
Murderer. Murderer. Murderer! MURDERER!
"Soooo," Johnny said, leaning even closer, arching himself towards him and giving him a wide-eyed look. "We got a bit of time fer ourselves, ain't it?"
Fiddling with some thingamabob inside his pocket, turning on a loose screw —tight. Loose. Tight. Loose. Tight. Loose—, Marwyd shot him a suspicious glare.
"The hell does that mean?" he questioned, ever so slightly defensive. Johnny grinned, pulling himself upright again.
"We could play somethin'!"
The chanting grew angrier. Look at you. The fearsome outlaw, tending to a little ranch, spoiling a sweet, young thing. How dare you. How dare you.
MURDERER! MURDERER! MURDERER!
"Better put some oil on the door before it gets cold," he mumbled, for his work was never done, and that was okay.
There was always something or other to fix. The chanting continued, but mellowed. It hit the spot, and Marwyd was satisfied.
"Aw, c'mon!" Johnny protested, perching onto his arm with a pout. "Ever since we took care of them Titans we been workin' and workin' and workin'."
Marwyd's eyes met Johnny's head on, for how could he even begin to explain what happened to his brain when sloth took over and added to the tally of his sins. But, ah, there was the trap set out by his own damn fragile heart.
The chanting stopped in a single question that broke on his lips like the waves before he could stop it.
"The hell you wanna do, then?"
Johnny's imagination was boundless. Strip poker was a strict no from Marwyd, but regular poker was too stacked to his advantage. Skinny dipping on the hot springs faced similar barriers than strip poker, and riding around the property was too close to working, which Johnny had done the whole day and refused to come back to and let Marwyd win. Marwyd also banned beach day so late in the day —was Johnny trying to catch a cold on purpose now?—, and fishing was tempting, but ultimately discarded for Johnny's need to do something, please.
A different type of self-deprecating thought bursted on Marwyd's head as he realized they bickered like an old, married couple.
"Got it!" Johnny suddenly said, snapping his fingers and making Marwyd whip his head around from the fields once more.
"W—"
Johnny tried to snatch Marwyd's lasso, getting his arm grabbed and and shoved behind his back, clashing with Marwyd's belly instead.
"…Sorry," he grumbled — not a fan of sudden movements towards him like that.
"Lasso!" Johnny replied in one of his usual nonsequiturs, chin pressed against the top of Marwyd's ample belly with a grin. Letting bygones be bygones. "Bet I can outrun ya if you try to lasso me."
Marwyd quirked a brow.
"You can't," he simply stated.
He wasn't proud of many things he had done. But he was very proud of his abilities with the lasso. And the pistol. And engineering. And cooking. He knew his strengths.
"Well," Johnny's grin turned mischievous, like a cat edging on touching a delicious dish without actually doing it. "Bet I can. Got an offer you can't refuse."
Marwyd frowned.
"Go on."
"I'll do the dishes fer a week."
Was he really so fundamentally bored with a life of leisure and work that he was willing to do one of his least favorite activities just to sway him?
"That'll be fun to look at," Marwyd finally replied, unfurling his lasso. "Deal."
The challenge was deceptively easy, and yet, as Marwyd spun the lasso —flat loop first, rope spinning and twirling at the right distance not to hit his leg, just to get a feel for its weight and flexibility—, he knew he could do better.
Johnny jumped off the fence, slapping the side of his thigh — a mechanic whirl humming from his belt. Marwyd gave him a brie glance; the green jade lights betraying his powered-up running aids as he prepared to run. So that was the game Johnny wanted to play.
Marwyd spun the lasso vertically this time, squinting through the corner of his eye to Johnny's smirk.
"Think fast, old man!" he suddenly said, taking off with a rush of dust and hay—
—Only to immediately trip on the lasso encroaching on his right leg, pulling him backwards like an unruly dolyak calf.
The loud thud on the floor didn't stop him as he kicked and cursed and tried to shove away, but the loop fastened around the joint, hugging him as if it never wanted to let go.
"Fuck you!" Johnny spat with a grin, kicking at Marwyd's boot as he approached. Methodical, mechanical in his movements.
"Yeah, yeah."
A twitch on his lip betrayed his mood, as he wrestled Johnny back to the floor. Something about his golden locks bouncing on the air for a glorious moment before eating dirt. Running free like raptors in the desert, joyous in his carelessness. Something made his chest feel tight, and his stomach warm. A hearty stew of knots and curses and hands clasping hands, pinning, shoving down and tying up.
"Y'all wanna behave like a stubborn godsdamn dolyak?" Marwyd grumbled, fingers evading Johnny's teeth for the fifth time. "That's what you get, pretty boy."
Hands behind his back, the lasso dexterously joined them together, and neutralized those kicks with equal embrace of rope and hands.
And just like in the ring, where the rodeo crowd cheered and hooted and hollered, Johnny gave up with a sigh. But unlike then, and very much like now, he also chuffed.
"Fuck off, man," he laughed, spitting and huffing dirt.
"You sure 'bout that?"
Marwyd's hand picked Johnny up from the back of his shirt, more like a misbehaving kitten, if he continued with the animal metaphors. But ah—
There they were. Those baby blues. Looking at him with an unholy mix of frustration, amusement, and something else. Something bold, brash, and warm. His shirt was unbuttoned all the way to his navel, escaping the half-hearted attempt at tucking it inside his pants by sheer force of the rope, and a generous chest that refused to remain confined.
He was beautiful, the voices reminded him. And that was a bad thing.
He could've tossed him to the floor, not betraying his airs of dangerous outlaw. He could've cursed his name and the path that led him here, all the way up the north of the world, instead of dying the death of a criminal in the unforgiving sands of the south. The path that led him to get lost in those eyes that looked at him sometimes with annoyance, but never with fear.
He could've. Maybe he should've.
He kissed him instead. Sudden, forceful, lips clashing against mouth, teeth with fangs, tongue with the fleshy inside of a cheek.
Only then he let go.
"Whuh— hey!" Johnny protested from inside a cloud of dust.
"S'almost dinner time," Marwyd announced. "Dishes are on you."
"C'MON, MAN!"
Johnny squirmed, crawled, cursed behind him. And Marwyd chuffed, unaware that the voices were, for once, quiet.
