#tebali

Teba shut his eyes and unbuckled his cuirass as delicately as he could with one functional wing. The other one, charred with ash and explosive powder, had been rendered effectively immobile thanks to a bomb barrel he tactfully used to his advantage. He’d been through much worse, and besides, feathers do just fine to shield from damage.

It didn’t stop the sting when he submerged himself into the cold waters of a nearby lake. Teba begrudgingly held back a flinch, and out of the corner of his eye he could tell Revali was watching him critically while undoing his mussed braids.

He expected to get a beakful, as usual. Even if they managed to wipe out a horde of stubborn Moblins with his last-ditch performance, it was clear their fighting styles were starkly different in some respects. But that was a discussion for another time; now, their only concern was washing off the worst of the grime before touching base with the Princess and the others.

Not that there was much he could do. Saki would be the one to tend to him in his sorry state after battle, and in her absence, he'd have to make do for himself.

Tilting his head to one side, Teba rinsed some water onto his weakened shoulder and loosened the dirt with careful movements. It'd only been a minute of enjoying his meditative solitude before Revali waded up the waters behind him.

“Hold still,” came the familiar, disgruntled voice.

“What--,”

Without warning, the champion himself began to lather Teba’s shoulders with soap-sudded fingers. Startled, Teba immediately leapt to his feet and made to whirl around.

“I said,” Revali hastily gripped his shoulders and pulled him back into the water with a splash, Teba’s balance thrown off-kilter with his injured arm. “At the rate you’re going, it’ll be dark by the time we fly back to camp.

Teba hissed through his beak, the movement bringing an agonizing throb to his wing. "Wait," he protested, suddenly embarrassed for reasons he won't think about. "I'll manage just fine on my own, I refuse to be an inconvenience to you--!"

"A little too late for that, don't you think?"

The harshness behind his words left no room for argument. Teba floated in stunned silence for several seconds before settling down in acquiescence. “...thank you,” he carefully relents, choosing not to think of it any more than a kind act of consideration.

“Not like you leave me any choice. What kind of impression would we be setting for the Rito if we showed up like Hylian retrievers just having rolled around in dirt?”

Revali pours another dab of a special oil-based soap into the palm of his wing. Rito feathers did well enough on their own to stay clean, and so such soap was typically reserved for heavy duty scenarios. It was popular with Rito warriors for this very reason.

Teba wasn't surprised Revali carried such a thing with him, and despite his sour attitude, he was considerable more gentle on the tangles knotting Teba’s hair. The latter allowed himself to relax into his touch, eyes becoming lidded.

But Revali, as always, was nothing but practical, and it was too soon that he abandoned his hair to tend to the stains on Teba's arms-the one thing he certainly wouldn’t have been able to get to himself.

To his credit, Teba tolerated the treatment without protest-aside from the beak-gritting and grunts as the bloodstains were cleaned off his wounds. Teba's shoulders relaxed heavily once that was done and over with, and he didn’t miss the way Revali rubbed at his deltoids at the end. A sign of apology, perhaps.

One day, he’d have to think of a way to repay him. In spite of his rougher edges, the Champion had already done so much, and so selflessly.

His quiet reverence was interrupted when Revali’s hands suddenly wrapped over his breast.

“I--,” Teba’s eyes widened comically, his voice hitting a pitch he hoped the other would immediately forget.

“Be still.” The demand was sharp. “I’m done when I say I’m done.”

Teba clamped his beak shut and forced himself to stay completely rigid, not unlike a rabbit trying to ward off a predator. Revali casually began to massage his his pectoral muscles, the movements hardly passing off as “cleaning”. Teba's nape feathers puffed in embarrassment. No, he wasn’t going to make himself a damn fool in front of the Rito legend if this was actually an innocuous act. Teba turned his concentration toward a darner skimming the nearby waters, his gaze on it so intense he wouldn’t have been surprised if it combusted.

“Breathe,” Revali tsked from behind. Teba instinctively let loose a large whoosh of air from his lungs he didn’t know he was holding. Revali continued lathering the soap into his chest feathers, his fingers openly admiring the definition where the muscle protruded from his ribcage.

Now there was no doubt about it. The champion was toying with him. Neither of them were this naive, and Revali was rarely one to be forward. As his skin pricked with humiliation, Teba decided this was some cruel payback for his stunt at the battleground. Goddess knows Revali had berated him enough times for acts of self-recklessness.

Teba had half a mind to put an end to it right now. He’s not a warrior to be teased like some fledgling entering adulthood.

And yet….

Revali’s brazen movements continued down Teba’s abs, half-massaging the soap and half-fondling, tracing the well-built muscle earned from his intense training regimen. Teba heard a soft, yearning exhale from behind him. He and Revali had been….close before, but he never quite explored him like this, had he?

He tilted his head to peek at the other. To his surprise, Revali wore an almost nervous expression, even as his wings wandered up and down his sides to feel the ripple over his tips.

Teba barely suppressed a shudder. “Revali....,”

“It must be a pain keeping yourself presentable with your feathers,” he interrupted, clearly refusing to indulge him.

A weary sigh. “What do you mean?”

“White is such an inconvenient color for a warrior.”

Without further preamble, Reval’s wings dove towards the large muscles of Teba’s thighs, gifting the sensitive flesh there with a grope. Teba lurched forward like he’d been punched in the gut, wings smacking against the water before the sudden pain shooting from his wound had him curling in on himself.

None of this deterred Revali.

“I can't imagine having to preen the filth off myself constantly.” Revali rests his beak on Teba’s shoulder, his thumbs running up and down the grooves of his inner thighs, nearly making them tremble. “As such, it’d make sense to be extra vigilant when it comes to fighting your battles. Am I right, Teba?”

“Y-yes.” Teba wheezed pathetically. The pain wracking his arm was masked entirely by the burning in his face and from pit of his stomach. If there was ever a definition for sexual confusion, Teba was sure he was the picture-definition of it.

Revali hummed in satisfaction, charade long gone. His wings roamed towards Teba’s backside, and whatever action he made down there had Teba taking a sharp inhale through his nostrils.

"I'm glad we’re in agreement. And you’re welcome.”

Revali then waded away, leaving Teba floating helplessly in the waters and aching in more ways than one. Nursing his arm, he turned to give a horrified look at the Rito champion, who was already rinsing water through his hair in a considerably chipper mood than minutes before.