It wasn't even sexual.
He was sitting, naked as always, in the lap of his little brother, his legs hanging over one arm of the chair.
Anaxantis had absentmindedly felt for his member and grabbed it while looking in the distance, the Gods knew thinking about what.
It wasn't an erotic gesture. Just boredom of some kind. If he had been sitting at the table, he would have been playing with a quill, the stem of a wine glass or a rolled up scroll. As it happened, it was his brother's member that served to occupy his hand, while the warlord was thinking and making plans, no doubt.
As usual his shaft had responded and swollen. He couldn't help blushing at the thought of sitting there, so exposed, while his private parts were used as a mere toy. It was extremely demeaning, all the more so since he was no longer Tarno. He was just playing him.
Yet, he had to admit, it felt nice. The strong, calloused fingers grabbing him firmly like that, with the thumb resting lightly on his gland. He was kept in a stabilized state of excitement without ever nearing or needing release.
He felt the fingers move slowly, unthinkingly downwards and adjusted his position slightly to give his little brother obediently access to his balls. He shivered and involuntary sighed contentedly as he felt how Anaxantis gently juggled them between his fingers.
He laid his head against his little brother's chest and wondered where his thoughts were roaming. No doubt, far, far away from the big chair near the hearth. Probably they floated somewhere over the expanse of the Renuvian Plains, marking out lines that would become roads, deciding on places to build bridges over the Mirax, things like that.
As long as they could stay together like this, as long as nobody else had to see how he was treated, kept as a pet, he didn't mind too much. His love seemed content. Maybe he was even happy of some sorts. He seemed stable as well. He was nice and often invited him to spend the night. As long as he wasn't sent away, that was all that mattered.
Sent away. That was always a possibility, of course. But no, he wouldn't do that, would he? Not anymore.
The thought, once formed, wouldn't go away anymore. It was unsettling, worrying, and it burrowed itself deep into his mind, until it took over his consciousness completely. He frowned. He had to know. He had to ask. So he did.
“Master?” he asked very, very softly, almost inaudible.
Anaxantis needed several moments to reconnect his thoughts, roaming in the future, with the present.
“What is it?” he asked as of a little child.
“You won't send me away, will you?”
“
Send you away?”
Anaxantis thought. “
There was a time I planned far worse for you than just sending you
away. After all what happened, the war... it doesn't seem all that important anymore. It's just that I can't be
sure, but the one I love is there as well, and I cI can', a doan't separate you. So, I'll have to keep you both.
Like this, it shouldn't be a problem.”
With the back of the fingers of his free hand he caressed Tarno's cheek.
“I will never send you away, Tarno.”
He felt the cheek press back against his fingers and heard him sigh, while a contraction rippled through the hard member he was still firmly clasping with his other hand.
“
And neither will I let you go. I like it too much. You. Like this.”
They were lying in the big bed, Anaxantis in an uneasy slumber, Ehandar wide awake, looking worriedly at him.
Whether he wanted it or not, his mind kept searching for ways to take it back, to make it all better, to repair as much as he could.
Anaxantis woke up out of his fitful half-sleep and silently looked at him.
Ehandar stared with unseeing eyes at the ceiling, his mind suddenly made up.
“Master,” he said softly, “I think after all you should send me away.”
His brother didn't answer for a full minute.
“Why?” he asked then.
“That night, when you returned, you were not well. You dreamed,” Ehandar said in a mechanical, quivering voice. “It still bothers you. What I did. Maybe... maybe it will stop. Just you knowing that I am paying for what I did. That I can never hurt you again. Maybe finally it will stop.”
He took a deep breath. It had needed saying. It was said.
This time the pause was much longer.
“Have you thought this through?” Anaxantis asked.
“I have, Master,” he answered, knowing he hadn't, and barely able to keep from crying.
“You realize what will happen?”
“Yes,” he whispered, tears now rolling out of eyes.
Anaxantis looked impassively at him.
“It will be humiliating. Extremely so. Being hauled naked through the streets, jeered at, worse maybe. The caning, for all to see. Being thrown upon a cart. After all these months, you still blush when I look you over.
There will be hundreds gazing at you. At... at all of you. At you, you, once a prince.”
“I know, I know,” Ehandar cried.
“And that is only the beginning. You'll be chained to a work gang. Like a common criminal. At the mercy of your supervisors. Of anybody who is stronger than you. For years. For decades. For as long as you live. You realize, don't you, that every so often I will visit the Royal Farms? You will see me, riding by, with my friends. We, we will only see some chained, dirty animals, drudging in the heavy soil. It will be torture.”
“I know, I know.” It had become a wail.
Anaxantis remained silent.
“Shall I wait here for the guards to come and get me, or do you want me to follow you?” Ehandar asked with a broken voice, after he had more or less composed himself.
Again it took a while before the answer came.
“Neither. I already said I wouldn't send you away, and I have but one word.�have but��worht=��
Anaxantis smiled in the dark when he heard the barely audible sigh of relief.
“
What do you know?”
he thought. “
He passed the test after all. With flying colors, no less. These were not
just empty, idle words, no cheap protestations of love. He laid his life, all he is on the line. The other one
must be gone. He isn't there anymore. It's impossible. He would never have allowed him to make this offer.
He would have tried to stay, to survive at all costs.”
He moved closer to Ehandar, and laid his head in the crook of his shoulder.
Still something deep inside him held him back. He would lose control of the situation. Faintly he heard the monsters grumble. Equally vague he saw the grave face of his mother.
“
My oaths. My precious, unholy oaths. How can I go on knowing... But haven't I kept them? He, he isn't
there anymore, is he? I have, in a way, destroyed him, haven't I? I have taken everything, just like I swore I
would do, and nothing remains of him.”
It was Anaxantis himself who willed himself as if out of a thick mist. Once he had set himself on this course, he felt lighter. Moment by moment he grew more sure of himself. He could hold onto his rancor — because, as he suddenly realized, there was no hate anymore, not since a long time. There only was a strong, obstinate grudge. He could hold on to that. Or, he could reach out to his love.
“
Can I be sure? Can I ever be sure? Maybe not. Maybe it is impossible. Maybe there is no absolute certainty
to be had.”
Yet, Ehandar had been prepared to give everything, sacrifice it all, just to make him feel a little better. To make him feel just that little bit safer. Ehandar had offered to give all he had left, which wasn't much to begin with, for the small chance that it would bring him a modicum of comfort. What more could his brother do?
What more could anybody do? What more could he ask for?
After a few minutes Ehandar, his arm becoming sore, moved slightly.
“Are you lying comfortable, Master?” he asked.
Anaxantis felt as if a dam broke, and as by a tidal wave whatever remained of his resentment and the last vestiges of bitterness were swept away.
“Very comfortable. Thank you, love,” he said softly.
It took a while to sink in.
“What did you say, Master?”
“I said I was lying very comfortable, love. Oh, my friends call me Anaxantis, Ehandar, and so should my love.”
His brother let out a tortured, half suppressed groan and started crying.
“No, no,” Anaxantis said, turning around to him, caressing his hair, “that wasn't supposed to make you weep.”
Ehandar looked at him through his tears.
“I must have called you my love, dozens, no hundreds of times. You never, never, not once, said it back. It...
It hurt so much and I didn't even dare ask why. But I knew of course.”
Anaxantis, moved very close beside him, pressing their naked bodies together, and kissed him lightly on the cheeks, tasting the salt of his tears.
“I know, my love, and I'm sorry. That's why I'll be saying it a lot from now on.”
He laid his head on his love's chest. He heard the frantic beating of his heart.
“Is it... is it over?” Ehandar asked.
“It is,” his brother said, taking him in his arms.
“How? Why?”
“He's gone.”
Ehandar looked at him, tears in his eyes.
“So long. It took so long.”
“Almost eight months,” Anaxantis said very softly. “Double the time you kept me in iron chains. I'm sorry, love. I truly am sorry.”
“No, no, it's me who should be sorry. I always was, you know. Almost immediately. I just didn't know how...”
“It doesn't matter. Not anymore.”
Anaxantis reached over his brother and felt between the mattress and the side board. He retrieved the dagger that was hidden there and handed it to him.
Ehandar startled.
“You knew that was there?”
Anaxantis nodded with a wan smile.
“I've known for months you kept it there.”
“And you said nothing? You just left it there?”
Again Anaxantis nodded. He leaned back against Ehandar.
“I thought it should be your decision. If ever you felt it became too much.”
His brother looked quizzically at him.
“It still is your decision. You decide for us. Or for me,” Anaxantis added.
He closed his eyes.
Almost immediately he heard the dry sound of the dagger planting itself deep into the sideboard of the great oaken wardrobe.
For a long, long time Ehandar held Anaxantis in his arms.
“I really am sorry, you know? I just wish I could undo it. I would give anything—”
“It wasn't you, my love. Never you. The one who... It doesn't matter anymore.”
He looked up at Ehandar.
“In a way you killed him for me. There is nothing for you to apologize or feel guilty for. Not anymore. Not after what I did to you. It was worse, one could say. I was after him. I needed to control him or be sure he was gone.”
Ehandar thought for a while.
“Was that why you did... all that?”
Anaxantis colored red.
“
If only. But I have to tell him the truth. I owe him that much.”
“I wish that was it. And I am so tempted to say that was all it was.”
He looked away, ashamed.
“It was real. I... it... it... I found it exciting. I'm not proud of it, but I liked it.”
He looked at Ehandar with a pained look.
“I don't know. I call them my monsters. But, don't you see” he added in a frantic, pleading voice, “in a way, in a strange, warped way that's good. If it had been fake, it would still have been a gift from me to you.
Something to mt woulhina sake you feel better. Something to allow you to feel as if you had payed back some debt. But it wouldn't have been. Not really. I would still be the innocent one, graciously forgiving you, and you the one who needed forgiveness and got it. It would always have stood between us. You would always have sought for ways to pay me back. It would never have ended, because you would never have known if you had paid enough. We would never have been even. Never again equals.”
Ehandar looked at him silently. Anaxantis forced himself to look in his brother's eyes. He had never felt more mortified in his life. He took a deep breath.
“But it wasn't. It wasn't just revenge. Something you might think you deserved. It was none of those things.
Some of them yes. Maybe it begun like that. But, eventually, it was real. I couldn't control them anymore.
The monsters broke out. I violated you for my own pleasure. Because I could. Because I had the power to do so. And I abused it.”
Ehandar took his head in his arms and pressed it against his chest, as if to hide his brother's shame.
“
But it was me after all, little brother. I awoke your monsters. If it hadn't been for what I did to you, they
might have never woken up. I see what you're trying to do. You couldn't take my guilt away and to even the
balance you became guilty yourself. You came down to my level. Even if it is not that, even if it is, as you
keep saying, real it is still me who started everything, who set the circle in motion, and I can never escape
that responsibility.”
He kissed Anaxantis on the head. His brother looked up, still blushing.
“There is one more thing,” he said hesitatingly. “That name I gave you. It was bad. Nasty—”
“You needn't explain.”
“Yes, I do. I want to—”
“Woof.”
This time Anaxantis startled. He became even redder.
“You knew?”
“I may not be as smart as you, but you're not the only one who knows things,” Ehandar said, with an indulgent smile.
“
What now?”
he thought.
“We're quite a pair, aren't we?” he said.
Anaxantis looked up and saw him smile.
“Yes, I suppose so,” he answered, smiling back, lopsided. “You know, in my own, twisted, sick way, I love you. I love you so, so very much.”
“I know you do.”
They remained, holding each other, quite for a long time.
“If you don't mind,” Ehandar asked hesitatingly, “what would have happened if... if you hadn't come back? If anything had gone wrong? What would have happened to me?”