#lycus

"But you'd also tell me that my name doesn't suit me!" It wasn't what Lycus meant to say, especially not the first thing. "You hold a rank above my head- one you'll lose anyway if you don't betray us first to get yet another name."

"I would do no such thing." He sounded less than firm when he denied it. Ursus sounded ten years younger, back when he was first renamed Gallus. When they both were promised to the frumentarii, to Vulpes, and turned into clay to be shaped into different people whenever necessary. "I made the pact with you first, and then to Vespa. When we see those stars together… the four of us will run together."

"And this is how you prove that loyalty?"

Ursus folded over Lycus' prone form. He still held his arm behind his back, wedged between them. Ursus wasn't fully hard, but the weight and shape of him pressed into the crease between Lycus' ass and thigh was impossible to ignore. His breath was likewise hot against the cheek, but his face wasn't visible out of the corner of Lycus' eye.