—
“Oh, hey, hey, stop.”
Pax looked up, to where the son of the farmer was approaching him with an aura of great worry, obviously mistaking Pax for someone who needed to be worried over and was capable of being hurt, which was an easy enough mistake to make on account of the swollen ankle he had. “I’m sorry?” he asked. “I didn’t realize I wasn’t allowed to touch this pillar. I’ll stop in a moment.”
He had his hand on the pillar to aid the act of standing up, that was all.
“No, you shouldn’t stand,” Grant said, hurrying over to him. He was a very nice boy. “Especially not by yourself, what are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking I need to pee and I’d rather not do it in here,” Pax explained, because as much as he didn’t feel it necessary to share that information, he also needed to pee and had for quite a while now.
“Oh, well,” Grant was Pax’s age and not as skinny as most people, strong from working on a farm, Pax assumed. He came over and put his arm under Pax’s, pulling Pax to lean on him. “I’ll help you, come on.”
Pax made a face, but there was the fact that he couldn’t technically walk. “You don’t have to help,” he told Grant, just in case he wasn’t sure. “I’ll be okay.”
“I know, but you’re hurt,” Grant said, walking with Pax to the door. “I don’t want you to get more hurt.”
“Because then I’ll stay in your barn for longer?” Pax would probably be fine to leave in the morning once he’d rested. He’d always healed fast.
“No,” Grant said with a sigh as they stepped outside. It was raining lightly. “Because then you’d be hurt.”
Pax smiled, trying not to wince at the pain in his legs. “That’s very nice of you.”
“I’m just doing what anyone would do.”
“I think you’d be very surprised,” Pax told him, “what anyone would do. You might well have tried to knife me, steal my kidneys and sell them to flying penguins, which are different from regular penguins on account of they can’t swim, which makes them all the more frightening, and then they’d owe you a favour and you could use them to destroy your enemies at a time that seems convenient to you, such as when you…”
“What’s a penguin?”
Pax blinked. “It’s a kind of malevolent god that feeds on human suffering.”
“Oh,” Grant said, taking Pax out behind the barn. He giggled. “You’re funny.”
“Most people say I talk too much.”
“I think it’s funny,” Grant disagreed, stopping Pax at a tree near the barn. “Here we go.”
“Thank you.” Pax put out his hand to stand against the tree on his own, but Grant didn’t let go. “I can do this part on my own.” It would probably hurt, but he could do it on his own.
“Don’t be silly,” Grant said. He was undoing his own pants with one hand. “I have to pee too anyway. I’ll help you stand.”
Pax frowned. “I’m okay,” he said, moving away, and then nearly falling as he put too much weight on his ankle.
“You’re going to hurt yourself. Here.” Grant opened his pants for him and stood Pax straight. “Come on.”
Pax might have complained more, and indeed later would retroactively complain, but currently he had to pee very badly, so instead he just stood there in awkward silence that was really very awkward as far as awkward silences went, and it just felt like really a very long time before his bladder was empty and he could dress again and Grant could quietly take him back to the barn. “Thank you,” Pax said as they stepped out of the rain.
Grant nodded, and helped Pax sit where he’d been. “Sorry you got all wet,” he said. He sat with Pax. Probably his mom thought he was in bed.
“It’s hardly your fault it’s raining,” Pax told him. “Unless you’re a cloud demon, in which case I regret to inform you that even your brief contact with me will cause you to evaporate within a day because of the contract I made with the goddess who lives inside the sun when she told me I had to become her avatar in the world of clams.”
Grant was grinning. “I like your stories.”
“They’re true stories. I’ve lived a long and detailed life.”
“You’re the same age as me.”
“I know, but that’s hardly the point.”
Grant nodded, worrying his lip suddenly. He looked like he wanted to say something. “You look like you want to say something,” said Pax, who was a paragon of directness.
“Your dick’s a lot bigger than mine,” Grant blurted, looking away in embarrassment. “I was looking at it.”
Oh. Well, that was a silly thing to be worried about. Pax wished he’d been a little more respectful of privacy, but no use crying over dropped pants, or something. “I wouldn’t worry overly about that,” he said, placating. “Human growth is somewhat mysterious, but it’s probably controlled by a set of complex variables that differ from person to person, which is why they’re called variables, so it would stand to reason that development would happen at different paces in different environments, the environments in this case being bodies, so…”
“Huh?”
Pax tried not to sigh. “People grow a different speeds. Don’t worry about it.”
Grant nodded. He did sigh. “Okay. Can I see yours again? It was dark out and I didn’t get to see it properly.”
Pax tried not to make a face, thinking that there was no reason to see it at all. “Why?”
“Cause I want to? I’ll show you mine again.”
“I never looked at yours the first time.”
“Even better,” Grant said, standing up and pulling down his pants before Pax could protest. Pax could see him full well with his eyes that were very attuned to the dark, and also thanks to the lantern in the room. “There, now you have to show me yours, that’s the rules.”
Pax could argue the validity of those rules or argue that Grant had already seen his, but he supposed there was no harm, and just carefully pushed his pants down to show Grant. “Happy?” Honestly, they were the same age, Grant could show some maturity.
Grant nodded, getting in very close to take a look at Pax. “Can I touch it?” he asked, touching it before Pax could ask him not to, holding it in his hand. “It’s so big.” He pouted a little.
“People grow differently and yours is a perfectly good size,” Pax said. Grant was a bit small, but that was mean to say when he was clearly self-conscious about it.
Grant smiled at that, still touching Pax, and Pax was having a very reasonable physical reaction to being touched, which made Grant smile more. “You’re getting hard.”
“That’s because you’re touching it.”
Grant giggled, and touched it more. “Me too, though.”
“Well, I don’t have an explanation for that…”
Grant had transitioned from just touching to intentionally stroking Pax, and Pax gave himself a second to get used to this idea. Okay. Pax was enjoying this. He reached down and pulled Grant up a little. “H-hey!”
“Let me touch yours too,” Pax said, pulling Grant just far enough up that he could reach. And they touched each other, quiet, Grant moved up more and more until their dicks were almost touching, and they were jerking each other off, watching each other.
Pax used some of his not at all famous sleight of hand (which was how one knew it was good, nobody had ever seen it before), to move a few things around, and soon he had their dicks pressed together, both their hands wrapped around them. “Here, this is better,” he told Grant, who just nodded and kept going.
Pax could theoretically have done this all night, of course, but eventually he was about to have an orgasm, and if Grant’s face was any indication that was true of him too. And Grant came first, stopping his hand movements as he did, making a very cute face that Pax would have liked to see again. Pax managed not to shoot until that face had passed, and then he added to the mess they were making.
Grant sat down beside Pax, pants still around his ankles. “Wow.”
Pax smiled at him. “Yeah. That was fun.” He was a little self-conscious, though, so he pulled up his pants. There was a mess on his shirt now.
“Can we do that again?”
“I suppose so. It’s not like I’m going anywhere.” Grant was a very nice boy.
Grant grinned, and he kissed Pax on the cheek. “Thanks, Pax. Then…I’ll come back in the morning! With breakfast! And to help you pee again! And…so we can do that again.”
Pax was sure he’d be perfectly recovered in the morning, but he nodded. It couldn’t hurt. He had a few days before he was expected anywhere. “Okay. That sounds nice, Grant.”
Grant nodded, but he didn’t leave just yet. He sat with Pax for another hour just chatting until he nearly fell asleep and had to be ordered to bed.
It was nice.
—
How Best to Use a Sword 