If you want me to call you ‘sir’, all you really need to do is ask. Doefreckle couldn’t hold back his sheepish grin, all the momentary authority shattering as he ducked his head and dropped his eyes. He was just about to say something about liking bratty toms when Hywel suddenly swept closer. Doe stuttered out a breath, head tucked in closer to his chest as the other tom stared into his eyes, their muzzles a breath apart. Then Hywel’s claw was against his whiskers, the sensitivity of them sending a shiver up Doe’s spine, and he had to bite down on some treacherous sound. There it was, the hint of something else, the hint of danger hidden so prettily behind those baby blue eyes. That old part of him thrilled at it; he could hurt you, it said, he might do it, if you asked. Or maybe if you made him mad… But he didn’t, he couldn’t, he wouldn’t; he wasn’t going to let himself be like that again, even as the warmth of Hywel’s mouth a heartbeat away and the sharpness of his teeth made his stomach clench desperately.

“Both,” he replied weakly, eyes darting down to Hywel’s teeth and back up, his voice just a shaky breath. Their shared breath was making him dizzy. “But I’m not good with self control.” It sounded like an apology, like he was distancing himself again. It was a lie, too, partly - he wasn’t good at self control when it came to his impulses, but if some tom ordered him to do something, he couldn’t say no, would fall over himself to obey; now, this time round, resisting those impulses was the most difficult thing he’d ever done. He drew a little away from Hywel, letting out a deeper breath, eyes on the mess of their fur pressed together, white and silver and calico. “But I think if I ever did decide to end you, I’d miss you.” His eyes crept back up, uncertain, tentative. He smiled, small and teasing in the softest way. “Just a little.”

Without another word, he hooked his good paw, soft and delicate as an apprentice’s, around Hywel’s neck and rolled to the side, drawing the silver tom on top of him. His thick fur was soft against him; it tickled his nose and he let out a quiet sneeze, followed by a shy smile. Doe blinked up at him from the soft grass and spattering of bluebells that cradled his head. He was silent for a long while, just feeling Hywel’s warmth and the weight of his body pressing down above him. Despite the heat under his skin, he shivered from the cold. Finally, earnestly, he murmured, “do you know how beautiful you are? I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone so beautiful in my life.” A part of him wondered if the appeal of Hywel might have come simply from his otherness, from the wonder of his birthplace; but if it had started that way, it had now crept into something a little more.

He didn’t want to think about it, didn’t want to acknowledge it - Hywel was just a fling, a fun night, a friend with benefits even if it would, admittedly, be light on the friend part - but he wanted him. Was starting to teeter dangerously close to crush territory, much as he tried to make himself cold and imperious and crassly dismiss Hywel as a meaningless jaunt. The old Doefreckle would have thrown himself in head first, would have been calling it love by the second meeting, and would have meant it - he didn’t love by halves, didn’t know how, didn’t want to; now, older and more bitter and a whole lot more afraid, he found himself doing the opposite, high-handedly dismissing Hywel like a king waving away a one-night-stand when it got boring and tedious, for no reason other than he was terrified, and that terror made him mean. It always had. He was mean. He was a narcissist. He was self-absorbed and cruel and nasty, truly nasty. But he wasn’t. He told himself he was, but he wasn’t - he was the soft tom with the soul made of sunshine and laughter he now tried to dismiss as a false pipe dream. And he wasn’t being mean now. He wanted to be, wanted to snap something at Hywel, wanted to take from him what he wanted and send him on his way, wanted to feel that familiar self-loathing and grief and sick vindication that came of denying himself the good things and lapping up the bad. But he couldn’t. Doe felt like crying again. He was so confused.

He could fall in love with this tom. That was the most terrifying, most awful part of it. Even when he was longing for Chim, even when he was grieving for Shadedsun, he could still fall in love with him. Doe was so weak, so spineless, so unscrupulous - no honour, no loyalty, he berated himself now, though it couldn’t have been further from the truth. So stupid. So cowardly. He hated it. Hated himself, much as he tried to teach himself self-love and gentleness with his own heart nowadays. Doefreckle had no idea how to be kind to himself.

He hoped Hywel didn’t see any of the inner turmoil on his face, hoped all he saw was the pretty tom with the kind eyes and the gentle smile. Hoped Hywel wouldn’t see the truth one day and turn away from him in disgust. Doe leaned up and touched his nose to Hywel’s, eyes slipping shut as he turned his head slightly to brush their muzzles together. “I’m glad you came to visit me tonight,” he breathed, eyes still closed. “Maybe next time I’ll get to hear you mewling and pleading. Or screaming, like you said.” He opened his eyes, close to Hywel’s. There were all sorts of daring promises there. He broke the moment a second later with a big, soft grin.

Doe smiled softly at Hywel as he talked about waiting for him by the border, purring quietly in his throat. An image of a marigold at the small gathering place, of tucking a flower behind Chim’s ear, of all that love pooling in his chest, flashed behind his eyes like a warm, wistful dream; it still made his heart ache, and as he began to sink into the memory of lying with Chim in the barn a few nights ago, he blinked it away before it could drown him in grief. He’d made peace with losing Chim, or he was trying to, or he would. Hywel was here now, and the way he was talking, the softness in his voice, the warmth in his eyes, the kindness of him… It was everything he’d never let himself have. Another memory flashed in his mind, this one of the same blind, trusting love in Shadedsun’s amber eyes. His heart broke all over again. Painful frustration warmed his pelt. Could he have nothing without being haunted by loves that were gone?

And yet, lying there now with Hywel, he found it heartbreakingly easy to breathe through the pain, to ground himself in his blue eyes and heal each wound as it cracked open. His purring didn’t stop, even as his gentle eyes dimmed with each memory’s blow. He felt warm. Comforted. Safe.

Safe…

He’d had trysts beyond counting, had met tom after tom at border after border, had probably plucked half a meadow bare with all the flowers he’d brought them; but this felt different. This felt gentler, more sincere - a question, a promise, like Hywel was asking for permission to see him again. Doe had never taken anything slow before; now, lying close to Hywel, he felt warmth settling over him, like he could. This wasn’t love. It probably wouldn’t ever be, not like he’d had before. But it felt young. It felt easy. Simple. Sunshine and sweet pollen and gentle touches. Nothing serious. Nothing forever. Just something kind. For himself, for Hywel. Eyes brightening with excited joy like a kit, Doe suddenly sat bolt upright, looking down at Hywel with a grin flooded with eagerness and delight. All his tiredness was gone; for the first time since coming back to life, he felt filled with life.

“I have one last thing to show you!” he told him in a rush of excitement. “Get up, c’mon.” He nosed around Hywel with joyful impatience, trying to get him to his paws. “You lazy sod. Then you can go home and charm a dozen she-cats out of their fur.” His eyes glittered with boyish energy. Turning, he trot-limped in the vague direction of camp, his gait uneven and clumsy on his right side; he didn’t seem to mind, just pranced his way unbothered through the thinning birches and patches of flowers that glowed white in the moonlight with his tail sweeping this way and that like a kittypet out of his twoleg den for the first time. Once the birches petered away, Doefreckle trotted cheerfully across the open ground beyond the Deep Lands; out beneath the moon, his pelt shone. He breathed in the sweet air happily, lifting his head to look up at the night sky with a smile.

Finally, a little way from where he’d met Chim a few days earlier, Doefreckle’s destination emerged: the sea. Black, starry night was just beginning to give way to a peachy pink sunrise over the sparkling ocean, the water near the horizon washed a fairy floss blush by the sun still hidden beyond. Milky stars were disappearing far out. Doe stopped at the top of the cliff, smiling out at the sea for a moment and breathing in big lungfuls of the salty air through his nose - he looked at Hywel with a bright smile - before letting out a contended hum and trotting down the narrow sandstone path that clung close to the cliff face and wound its way down to the sand. At the bottom, he dropped lightly onto the sand, still cool with night, and limped along the beach. He’d never been down here before; Hywel was the cat he wanted to share it with for the first time.

Beneath the towering cliffs, Doefreckle finally sat down, the sand soft and pure beneath his paws. He gazed out at the tangerine-coloured water with bright, happy eyes, the white of his fur turned pink by the rising sun and all his features softened. It was a special feeling, watching the world wake up before anyone else - peaceful, calm, silent except for the froth and hiss of the waves. The first sea birds careened down from the cliffs - Doe watched them, head slowly lowering as his eyes followed them through the pink, chilly air - and glided over the rise and fall of the sea, white against the sky, letting out drowsy squawks. The tide lapped at the sand a little way in front of them, the waves frothing to white not far from their paws and darkening the sand; it glistened in the slowly rising pre-dawn sunlight. The first patrols would be out soon, but they had a while. Purring by now, his eyes happy and young and full of life, he looked at Hywel. “I’ve never been down here. Very first-datey. I always wanted to be a pirate when I was a kit. And an apprentice. And a warrior. And a leader.” He broke into a sheepish grin, his purring dissolving into a messy little laugh.

Doe beamed at Hywel, joyous with the sea and with him and feeling lighter than he had in… ever. It was just the sleep-deprivation getting to his head; everything felt soft, harmless, happy. It’s beautiful here. “You’re beautiful,” Doe said stupidly, leaning in closer to Hywel with a messy, giggling smile on his face, bright and unrestrained. He sat back on his haunches and listened with a dimple in his cheek and a purr in his throat. Be partners in crime and all that. “We still can!”

The quickly rising sun and the impending patrols lending a fun urgency to everything, Doe grinned at Hywel, all boyish and innocent, and bounded across the stretch of sand into the sea. He’d never been in the ocean before and he let out a bubbling, delighted laugh when the white froth of the waves washed over his legs and soaked his belly and chest fur. Forgetting Hywel for a moment, just lost in the moment, he simply stood there, rocking slightly as the cold waves crashed around his paws and splashed against his chin and his paws sank deeper and deeper into the sand; he squeezed an eye shut every time the waves hit, face all scrunched up in a big, breathless smile. Finally, he turned around to face Hywel, his eyes twinkling in the rosy dawn light, his fur water-dark and sticking to his sides, and his expression young and open and in love with the world. “C’mon, League boy!” he laughed.

In the water, he was weightless; his paw didn’t ache with that terrible pain, and he could move like it had never been broken at all. He backed a little deeper into the sea, gaze locked with Hywel’s playfully, before turning back to the pink horizon and springing through the water like a hunting fox, pushing off the sand, purring and splashing all the while. Taking a breath, he dove down, disappearing beneath the glistening raspberry water, before bursting back up a moment later, now drenched from head to toe and wearing an even bigger smile. Sea water dripped from his fur as he waited for Hywel.

“You think I do?” Doe laughed, voice raised over the rush of the waves. He’d shifted onto his back, floating for a second before rolling himself into a backwards somersault, tail over head so that for a heartbeat his back paws were in the air; he disappeared for a second underwater before popping back up, spitting out sea water with a joyful smile on his face. “Which one of us has the broken paw and which one is the insanely handsome, fearless traveler with the hot accent? Hot accents make you swim better,” he nodded sagely at Hywel, “it’s a well known fact.” Boyish grin back on his face a heartbeat later, he splashed towards the silver tom, not so much swimming as bouncing in and out of the water. When he reached Hywel, Doe jumped clean over his back from one side to the other, vanished with a splash under the pink water, swam neatly under his belly, squeezed for a moment between the creamy sand against his fur and Hywel’s body - it was beautiful under the waves, everything muffled and pastel blue against the white of his paws - and reappeared beside him, having done a full loop. He shook water from his head, beaming proudly at the other tom with his eyes twinkling in the rosy dawn light. “Don’t be jealous,” he teased, “I’m just naturally gifted.”

He stepped closer to Hywel, legs lost beneath the fizzing water, and lightly touched their noses together. Then, a second later, he pushed off with his back paws and caught the other tom around the neck, bowling him over so they rolled over together beneath the water. When they resurfaced, now both drenched, Doe met Hywel’s eyes with a purr that was so loud he couldn’t speak for a few moments. Finally clamping down on it, he managed to get out breathlessly, “was that an okay swimming lesson? Or is it grounds for charges of endangerment of life? I can never tell.” He grinned, open and brilliant. Free. Unself-conscious.

Doe scrunched his face up in a smile when Hywel splashed water at him, turning his head away and shielding it with his good paw. “Yeah, you’re a sea cat,” he growled back, words laced with the edge of a purr. Blinking sea water out of his eyes, he lowered his paw back into the orange-pink sea and looked at Hywel; he was soaked, and his fluffy fur was a mess, and his eyes were bright and blue and beautiful, and Doe felt something he had been chasing for a long time: young. Hywel made him feel all the things he wanted to feel about himself, almost more than he made Doe feel for him; he made him feel young, and free, and like there was no end to the world, only sky and more sky, sunsets and sunrises and everything he’d given up dreaming for. He made him feel like he could survive, like he could be more, like he could do it all for himself instead of leaning on someone else like he always had before. All those feelings would terrify him soon, but wading there at that moment in the cold water, with the waves fizzing over his legs and making all the unknown scratches under his fur sting, with the sun lighting up the sandstone cliffs and making the pale yellow sand glow, all he felt was joy. That night, or maybe the next, when Hywel’s scent had faded from his own fur and the magic of the date had filtered out into reality, his heart would sink and he’d lie awake consumed by fear and guilt and anger and grief; he’d slink out to Shadedsun’s grave and rest his forehead on the flower-sweet earth and weep guiltily; he’d glare out at the horizon and curse Pygmyprawn; he’d turn on Hywel and dismiss him as some fanciful folly. But looking at him then, there was only the terrifying possibility, less terrifying in the peachy dawn light: he could fall for him.

Stepping closer, the sea foaming against his side, Doe closed his eyes and bowed his head, pressing his forehead against Hywel’s. It was the most barefacedly tender gesture he’d done that night - no insult, no sarcastic deflection, no hollow flirtation. Just weakness. Just a confession. “Would it be too forward of me to say I want to see you again?”

It could be a joke - of all the things he’d done that night, this was the least forward - but the sincerity in Doe’s voice, the faint fear in it, said it wasn’t. Doefreckle opened his eyes and draw back a little to look into Hywel’s eyes. A trio of seagulls cast off from the cliffs and soared over their heads, their caws fading quickly over the gentle crash of the waves. Where everything else that night had just been physical, this was something deeper, something vulnerable. It was the opposite to how he’d fallen in love with the two toms before Hywel - Shadedsun had been a fumbling love rooted in emotions; Chim had been an affair of both in equal measure. But even after their first brief date, when Doe had learned of the loch, his interest in Hywel had gone little beyond the superficial, influenced mainly by the other tom’s foreignness and how easy he’d make a fling. Doe didn’t have a shallow bone in his body, surprisingly, but even he had regarded Hywel as little more than a pretty face. Now… Now, this crush was starting to teeter dangerously close to emotional. He’d seen something darker in Hywel, some story, some mystery, and he wanted to unravel it.

He didn’t want a crush; he didn’t even particularly want the semi-permanence of a friend with benefits. All he’d wanted was a fling. But from the very beginning, like Hywel contained all the warmth in the world, he’d been drawn to him. And he’d never been strong enough to resist something like that.

Doefreckle felt a messy rush of emotions when he saw that momentary flash of unchecked feeling on Hywel's face - giddy, wistful joy, and triumph, and something dangerously close to the breathless sort of affection that comes at the beginning of a crush. It was so easy for Doe to feel better than someone, to treat them with all the sweetness in the world and all the while feel himself to be doing them a favour; his vanity didn't line up with his self-disgust, with his insecurity, with his pitiful, insecure desperation to be loved. But all of that, all that ugliness... Standing there in the cold morning air with Hywel looking so heartbreakingly gentle, he didn't feel any of it. He felt kind, as kind as he'd always been but never let himself believe. Soft. Good. He was so used to thinking of himself as a cruel little liar who'd fooled his way into being seen as someone compassionate and generous and patient. Now, for almost the first time, he felt like that was closer to the truth than any of the hurtful lies he'd fed himself for years. He almost burst into tears right then and there, almost sobbed like a child who'd hurt himself over and over and over, finally being told that softness in your heart is genuine; you can stop being afraid.

Doe met Hywel's smile with an unrestrained little grin; it was still on his face when he bowed his head to let Hywel nuzzle him, still on his face when he realised he was purring. "Yeah," he replied quietly, too giddy to say anything else. He gazed at the silver tom for a moment longer, expression as open as it had ever been - nothing was hidden, nothing was a lie. Finally, he tipped his head back towards the beach and, with a small smile, led the way to the sand. At first, he walked slowly through the water; then, suddenly swept up in the knowledge he only had a few more seconds left to play, he started bounding through the foam and sea spray like an excited kitten, splashing up water with his messy leaps. When he got to the beach, he planted his three good paws firmly on the sand, resting only a little weight on his broken one, and shook his fur out. The force of the movement - and the sudden cold of the air - unbalanced him and a second later, he staggered and fell on his side. Letting out a little purring laugh, he rolled over and dragged himself back to his paws, his wet fur all sandy. "My elegance is one of my many charms," he giggled, sitting down a little further up on the dry, fluffy sand and setting his forepaws neatly in front of him - but it wasn't the sort of artificial, contrived joke that came of a first date; it was just a thoughtless, easy throwaway line, all comfortable and genuine.

Doe's eyes drifted up to the sky, beginning to melt from pink to pale blue. "The morning patrols will be out soon," he said quietly - there was no sadness there; the certainty of seeing Hywel again left him nothing but happy, and sleepy, and calm. "You should go before our little romance starts a war." He lowered his eyes and smiled at the other tom, eyes all crinkled up.