The snake soup, as it turned out, was a rather disappointingly bland affair. However, it was still hot and filling and so Hani devoured it gratefully.

After they had eaten, Levi announced that he was going to go check out the gambling parlour he had seen next door.

"With our money?" Hani asked, narrowing his eyes upon being informed of Levi's dubious intentions.

"Yes Hani, with the money I stole," Levi huffed back, but his plump lips were twisted into a strangely fond smile that served to unnerve Hani slightly and make his stomach twist with them.

"What if you lose it all?" Hani pouted. Whilst normally he might be grateful for a break from Levi, for some reason this entire place just set his teeth on edge and it might be good to have someone familiar around.

"Well that's very easily avoided Hani," Levi sighed, "I just won't gamble it all. Also it's wonderful to hear you've got so much faith in my card playing abilities."

"You can't do a poker face," Hani replied as Levi pulled a mock offended expression.

"Well then I'll just shape shift into someone who can," Levi snorted lightly, getting to his feet and picking up their empty soup bowls. "I'll take these down to the kitchen on my way," Levi told him before nodding at the hunk of uneaten bread that Hani was still clutching possessively. "You want that?"

"I'll eat it later," Hani nodded, knowing full well he would probably end up taking it to Ethelred after Levi had gone.

"Be a good boy and stay in the room okay?" Levi instructed, looking so suddenly stern that Hani almost laughed with the shock to try and cover the shiver going down his spine.

"I'm serious Hani," Levi continued, as if sensing the younger man's amusement. "I can't have you going and starting any bar fights like the raucous hooligan you are."

Hani rolled his eyes as Levi's own pale eyes flashed with a dangerous humour.

"Don't worry," Hani sighed, "I promise to not let the scars set you alight tonight. It would probably be detrimental to your poker skills right?"

Levi looked surprised for a moment, "That's not why I - oh look forget it. Just stay in the damn room. I should be back in a couple of hours."

"Whatever," Hani shrugged, suddenly feeling slightly sour for some reason.

Sure enough, twenty minutes after Levi had departed; Hani went to grab a warmer shawl wrap and quickly left the room. He locked the door behind him, figuring that if Levi came back earlier than him then he would just have to wait. Although that seemed unlikely judging from the look of the packed and thriving gambling parlour as Hani passed it on the street on his way back to the stables.

He managed to find Ethelred with ease. Although the stables were locked up, it was easy for someone as slender as Hani to heave himself up and over the top of the doors and through the gap.

He landed with a gentle thud on the other side and smiled as Ethelred let out a whinny of recognition.

"You've got loads of room in here huh?" Hani commented as he checked around the cosy, straw-filled space. "I reckon I should have roomed with you instead of Levi. You probably snore less," Hani grinned as he went to stroke the camel's bristly nose and drew the hunk of bread out from his pocket. Ethelred let out another pleased noise as he started to chew, showering Hani in a hailstorm of stale crumbs.

"Watch it!" Hani laughed, shaking himself off and taking a step back, "God your table manners are as bad as Levi's."

Ethelred gave a dismissive huff at the suggestion before continuing to eat his bread. Hani sat down on the straw, a couple of feet away from the now reclining camel. He closed his eyes with a contented sigh.

“He orders me about like I’m a kid you know?” Hani murmured, rubbing his palms up his fabric covered thighs to warm himself up. The night air was starting to chill as the desert’s temperature predictably dropped. The inky sky sapping it greedily back up from the heated sand.

“And sometimes, he gets all serious,” Hani continued, “his eyes go dark and he thinks he can boss me around. Like he’s my master or something dumb.” Hani shook his head, his mouth was feeling dry, but the nearby trough of camel water looked rancid enough to put him off drinking from it.

“He’s a lot stronger than I am,” Hani dropped his voice down low as he whispered across to Ethelred. “I don’t think he realises sometimes, he grips my arms or pushes me about and the next day I have bruises. He doesn’t mean to do it I don’t think…”

Hani reached gingerly to the frayed hem of his shirt and pulled it up to stare at a map of fading purpled blotches. Imprints of Levi’s fingers that had gripped him too tightly on one of the camel rides.

“He’s a scoundrel too…” Hani breathed out softly. Ethelred had finished the bread and was now lying down, flicking the odd fly away with long eyelashes. “You’d know just by looking at him that he’s a criminal, with a silver tongue and shifty eyes.”

Hani laughed to himself, continuing to stroke gently down his torso, pressing in slightly when he reached each bruise, his lips parting slightly at the smarting sensation.

“He’s a good for nothing rogue who – ah!” Hani gasped as he shifted to sit further up the hay bale and realised the fabric across his crotch was stretched taut.

He was hard. All he had been doing was thinking about Levi. The good for nothing thief who insisted on being topless out in the desert, plastering himself against Hani’s back with hard planes of muscle. Broad shoulders caging Hani’s smaller frame and making him feel…feel what?

“No, no,” Hani groaned, pressed the heel of his hand forcefully down on his hard on and willing it to listen to reason. “Not Levi.”

There was no way in hell Hani was going to be like the undoubted hoards of easily enchanted young maidens Levi had left heartbroken in his wake. Levi was a jerk, a self serving rascal who only cared about saving his own skin and bossing Hani about.

So why did Hani like being bossed about?

“Fuck,” Hani bit out when he realised his problem was not going to listen to reason or go away of its own accord.

He pushed his hand under the fabric of his pants, shucking them down so they pooled around his bony knees.

“Don’t look!” he exclaimed at Ethelred’s apathetic expression. Hani grunted in embarrassment and shame as he manoeuvred himself to the other side of the straw, away from the sight of the camel.

He took his cock firmly in hand and closed his eyes. For some reason his mind flashed back to the first time he had been in a camel stables with Levi. The other man had been telling him off, Hani had misbehaved and Levi had looked so stern, so dominating.

Hani bit his lip in a moan as his cock swelled larger and harder, the memorised ghost of Levi’s fingers digging into his arms, hot breath in his ear telling him to ‘be good’.

Hani didn’t want to be good, at least not right away. He wanted to get Levi to look at him like that again, dark grey eyes boring into his soul, exposing him, vulnerable, open and raw. Hani wanted Levi to tell him he had a smart mouth and then show him what else he could do with it.

Hani had seen things down dark alleyways or in the private rooms of inns he and Muna had bartered beds at. He had seen men and women on their knees, giving others pleasure with their mouths. He had never done it himself, but oh how he longed for strong hands to push him down and show him how it should be done.

Hani whimpered as he drew his other hand up to press his fingertips against his dry lips. Maybe he didn’t want to be good because he loved the look Levi gave him when he was scolding him. The heat and intensity of the other man’s gaze, all of it fixed on Hani as if everyone, everything, else was insignificant.

Hani licked his hand, pooling all the salvia his dehydrated tongue could muster onto the skin before he pushed it down to his cock, slicking the way for faster strokes. He could hear the noise of the town outside the stables, laughter and shouting, the noise of barrels scraping against the streets. Hani tossed his head back with a soft thump against the hay bale, his back was arching and straining as his hips canted up off the floor.

He jerked himself off rough and fast, imagining it was someone else’s hand. He used his other hand to flatten it against his exposed stomach, pressing himself back down. Levi would do that; he would use his strength, his large biceps tensing as he pushed Hani back into the cold floor. He wouldn’t let Hani move his hips. Levi would pin Hani down and make him take the rhythm and pace that Levi decided upon.

“Please…” Hani whined, his eyes so tightly shut that he could see stars across his vision. Sparkling, multi-coloured pin pricks of dizziness. He didn’t know what he was begging for but Levi would know. His lips would curl into that arrogant smirk of his, he might even chuckle as he looked assessingly down at Hani’s strung out body.

A flush of humiliation coupled with arousal flooded Hani’s veins. The idea of him being so vulnerable and exposed for the older man to see and touch made him hot all over. Maybe Levi would palm himself through his trousers, the bulge of his cock filling out the space beneath the fabric. Hani would be the one making him hard. Levi’s eyes wouldn’t leave Hani’s body, nearly vibrating out of his own skin.

Hani whimpered as his own cock spurted out a glistening glob of precome. The pressure in his balls was starting to ache and he knew he needed to release. What he didn’t know was if Levi would let him? Or would the other man try to boss Hani around with this too?

Hani could imagine it, the laugh Levi would let out. The shit eating smirk as he would run his fingers through Hani’s sweat damp hair.

Oh kitten, look at you. Shh, it’s alright, I know what you need.

“Give it to me then,” Hani panted, his feet slipping on the stone floor of the stables as he slid down the hay bale and scrabbled for purchase.

Are you going to be a good boy and take it?

“M-“ Hani gasped and stammered as his hand sped up, jerking himself frantically now like a crescendo speeding up to erratic heights and leaving rhythm behind, “make me.”

Hani slapped his free hand to his mouth as he came, smothering a scream. His cock pulsed hotly, spraying come across the straw strewn floor in a thick splatter. Hani hissed from the oversensitivity as he rubbed himself through the last vestiges of his orgasm. The tip of his cock was angry and red as it started to soften between his damp thighs.

“Oh god,” Hani croaked hoarsely into the chilled, stale air of the stable. “Why Levi?”