Not overnight. Over days, over visits, over the accumulated weight of Lethe showing up and talking and humming and being, stubbornly and persistently, unafraid. Zazyrus relaxes when he sees that Lethe is not scared. And then he does something he has never done before.
He responds.
Not in words. Not consistently. But in a language that Lethe learns to read with the same attentiveness he brings to wounds and vital signs. Sounds: the low rumble of acknowledgment, the rough almost-laugh, a new sound that Lethe catalogues as disapproval, a short exhale through his nose that happens when Lethe mentions the guards or the pit lord. Gestures: a tilt of the head when he's listening, a shift of his weight when he's uncomfortable, a slow blink that Lethe thinks might be agreement or might be the beast equivalent of a nod.
And the tail.
Lethe has paid attention to the tail since his first visit. It's long and dark and muscular, tipped with a ridge of hard cartilage, and it moves with an expressiveness that Zazyrus's face doesn't permit. It lashes when he's agitated. It curls tight against his thigh when he's tense. It goes still, completely still, when he's angry, which is the signal Lethe watches for most closely.
Now it does new things.
It nudges Lethe when he hesitates. A light press against his knee, his ankle, his wrist.Go on,the nudge says.I'm listening.It flicks toward the satchel when Lethe reaches for the wrong supply, a correction so casual it takes Lethe a moment to realize Zazyrus is helping him. It brushes against his hand when Lethe falls quiet, a touch so brief and light it could be accidental, except nothing Zazyrus does is accidental.
Lethe begins to respond to the tail the way he responds to words. A brush against his wrist becomes a question, and he answers it. A nudge against his knee becomes encouragement, and he continues. The tail becomes a second conversation running alongside the first, silent and tactile, and Lethe finds himself orienting to it, aware of its position at all times, registering each movement with a sensitivity that is entirely out of proportion to its significance.
Beneath all of it, beneath the sounds and the gestures and the tail, there is an undercurrent.
Lethe feels it on his skin. A hum in the air, a charge, a warmth that has nothing to do with temperature. It's there when their eyes meet and hold a beat too long. It's there when Lethe's fingers brush Zazyrus's skin and the muscle contracts beneath his touch. It's there in the quality of the silence between words, which is no longer awkward or empty or stiff but full. Dense. Waiting.
Lethe catches himself watching Zazyrus's mouth.
He's doing it now, while checking the stitches on his forearm, and his eyes drift up from the wound to Zazyrus's jaw and then to his mouth, which is set in its usual firm line but softer today, less clenched, and Lethe stares at the shape of it and wonders what it would feel like and the wondering is so vivid that his face heats and he drops his gaze back to the stitches and doesn't look up again for several minutes.
He notices Zazyrus's eyes on him. Not new. Zazyrus has been watching him since the beginning. But the quality of the watching has changed. Before, it was assessment. Cataloging. The predatory patience of a creature analyzing a potential threat. Now it's something else. Zazyrus's eyes drop to Lethe's throat, his collarbones, his hands, and the gaze lingers there with an attention that is not clinical and not casual and makes Lethe's pulse pick up.
Then, slowly, so slowly, the gaze moves away. Deliberate. Controlled. As though Zazyrus is allowing himself to look and then making himself stop, the same careful discipline he applies to everything, and the effort it costs him is visible in the tightening of his jaw.
The undercurrent grows.
***
Lethe is treating a wound on Zazyrus's chest.
A new gash, shallow, from a training bout the guards organized to keep the fighters sharp between main events. It runs across Zazyrus's left pectoral, slicing through one of the dark markings that traces the muscle. Lethe cleans it and stitches it and and he can smell him, warm skin and the faint metallic tang of blood and that particular scent underneath that is just Zazyrus, and his hands are steady and his breathing is even and he is fine.
He finishes the stitches. Applies salve. And then his finger follows the marking without his permission.
Not the wound. The marking. The dark pattern that curls over Zazyrus's pectoral, tracing the contour of the muscle in a line that Lethe has been looking at for weeks. His finger finds it at the edge of the bandage and follows it, as though checkingthe boundary of the wound, as though ensuring the salve has covered the full area.
Except his finger follows the line lower than necessary.
Over the ridge of the pectoral. Down the slope of it, where the muscle meets the sternum. Onto the flat plane of Zazyrus's stomach, where the marking continues in a narrowing line that traces the center of his abdomen. Lethe's finger follows it over the ridge of muscle, feeling each defined segment contract under his touch, and the contraction is hard and immediate, the abdominal wall clenching with a force that makes the skin go taut and Lethe's finger dip into the valley between the muscles.
Zazyrus's breath comes out in a rush.
The sound fills the cage. Not a growl. Not the warning sound from before. This is something else, something pushed out of him by the touch, involuntary and rough and deep, and Lethe feels it vibrate through his fingertip and up his arm and into his chest.
He pulls back.
"Sorry." The word comes out thin. Automatic. He pulls his hand away and places it on his own knee and the ghost of the contact burns on his fingertip, the texture of Zazyrus's skin, the heat, the way the muscle moved beneath his touch.
He's suddenly, acutely aware of how close they are. Of the heat pouring off Zazyrus's body, radiating into the narrow space between them. Of the rise and fall of the chest he just touched, the breathing that hasn't evened out. Of the scent of him, intensified by proximity and the flush of blood beneath the skin. Of how easy it would be to lean forward. To close the distance. To press his mouth to the place where that marking disappears below Zazyrus's ribs and feel the breath rush out of him again.
His own breathing is not even.
He packs his satchel. His hands aren't quite steady. He rolls the leftover bandage too loosely and has to redo it and his faceis hot and his stomach is tight and the undercurrent is not an undercurrent anymore. It's a current. It's a riptide. It's pulling at him with a force that makes his hands clumsy and his thoughts scatter and his body lean, involuntarily, toward the body beside him.
I have to stop this,he thinks.
