Levi woke up begrudgingly from his sleep. He had been having a wonderful dream of an extravagant banquet being held in his honour. There had been topless serving girls and roasted desert deer, along with dishes of sweet cherry and rosewater desserts. He wasn’t sure if he was remembering it totally right, but he could vaguely recall that Hani had been there too, only he had been Levi's personal server.

He had been very polite and coy towards Levi, not like the real Hani at all.

Levi felt slightly guilty about scaring Hani in the camel stables the day before. Levi had been tired and sticky and his patience had snapped. He had also taken a chance on something he had seen in Hani’s dark eyes, the chance that the stubborn, stroppy young man might respond to a certain kind of discipline.

Hani hadn’t seemed to take the scolding much to heart though, mere moments later he had been all cocky grins and petulant pouts. There had been none of that misbehaviour in Levi’s dream. In fact dream Hani had even offered Levi a back rub at one point. But then, alas, that had been the moment Ethel had decided to bend down and lick a sticky, heavy stripe up Levi's left cheek.

"Fucking hell, Ethel!" Levi cried, spitting the camel taste out of his mouth and reaching quickly for a rag to mop himself up with.

"Are you sure that mutual understanding isn't actually a mutual attraction?" Hani called out gleefully, followed by several splashing sounds.

Levi rolled his eyes before heaving himself into a sitting position to look down towards the small oasis they had managed to stumble upon the evening before. Pockets of clean water weren't that rare in these outer western parts of the desert, although they were spaced out enough to have given Levi quite a surprise when Hani had yelled out that he could see water.

Levi had been all to ready to laugh at Hani for being tricked by a mirage. But no, sure enough they were soon setting up camp by a water filled dent in the desert's surface. A tiny but luscious amount of greenery had sprung up along the edge of the pool and Hani and Levi had already stripped the trees bare of all fruit that they had to offer.

Levi looked over to where Hani was evidently having his morning bathe. The younger man's bare chest was visible above the sparkling turquoise water, and he was laughing as his own camel bent down over the edge to lap up giant gulps of liquid.

"Not a bad view to wake up to," Levi murmured, smirking to himself as he stretched his hands behind his head and leant against a reclining Ethel to continue watching Hani.

The kid was beautiful; Levi had already fully recognized that. And out here at an oasis in the desert, he certainly looked the part of some mythological sand nymph enjoying a cool dip.

Hani's skin was evenly tanned and for the most part, hairless. He was relatively young, so there was still that slightly lanky look about him, but there was also evidence of faint musculature. After all, the kid had grown up on the streets, not that you would ever know it from his pompous, judgemental attitude towards Levi's career and lifestyle choices.

Levi couldn't help but feel that Hani would look quite at home in some marble palace being fanned by servants. It was Hani's face, there was just something delicate and dignified about his features, even the way he hooked those awfully pointed canines over his lower lip and glanced curiously back at Levi from under thick dark lashes.

"Levi?"

"Mm, yeah?" Levi called back, still studying the gentle curve of Hani's eyes in detail. He wondered absently how many lucky jerks had enjoyed the privilege of touching Hani’s supple dark skin? Pressing their fingers around his small waist, manhandling him between sweaty sheets. He wondered how Hani would sound in their ears – would he gasp and pant or would he let himself cry out, unfettered by any sense of shame or propriety?

Judging by the way Hani had blushed so furiously at Levi’s bare chest, perhaps he was more shy than his tempestuous, snappy nature would suggest? Maybe Hani would bite his small pink lips, willing himself not to make noise, unless he was told to.

Now that would be something. Telling a wild desert creature like Hani what to do and him actually listening, obeying.

Levi would tell him to open his mouth. Hani had a small mouth; his lips would surely bruise and stretch if anything was ever forced in there. Levi would have to start with fingers, a few of them perhaps, hooked over sharp teeth and pressing against the inside of a cheek. Levi let out a slow exhale as he imagined how Hani’s cheeks would look, bulged and puffed out with the weight of something inside, stretching the skin taut.

Maybe Levi would be nice, tell the younger man how well he was doing. A little encouragement could go a long way after all. Next, he would pull at Hani’s mop of curled black hair, forcing him to tip his head back, exposing a delicate column of throat. He would tell the boy to suck, make caverns of those blushing cheeks, hollow them out and pulse around his digits, spit dribbling from the gaps and down his chin.

Levi imagined being able to mark and bruise that gulping throat, how it would quiver under his firm touch, squeezing lightly to test Hani’s limits. The younger man’s gaze would go glazed and spaced out as he relinquished control to Levi, let himself be guided, moved, wrecked.

Who wouldn’t want to try and fuck that mouth? To watch as tears formed in Hani’s ink pool eyes, streaming down his pretty face. Levi wouldn’t hurt Hani like most men out here would. No, he could appreciate art when he saw it and there was no point in breaking something so beautiful. But the idea of being able to take his pleasure from the young man, to see his own arousal reflected back at him as Hani whined for more, begged to be told what to do, surely that would be its own oasis in the desert?

For all his bluster and smugness, Levi guessed Hani might not be aware of quite how to use his body to gain true ecstasy from it. He would have to listen to Levi, who would gladly show him how to move, how to suck, how to open himself so slowly that the wait itself was a delightful prickle of pain.

Fuck anyone else who had ever laid hands on the boy, Levi would show him something new…