Free In the Darkness by Charles Edward

so.” He looked back into Gareth’s eyes. “You’re going to ask me for something tonight. Whatever you want, right?”
    Gareth’s cheeks burned. “Y-yes. Yes.”
    Evin grinned. “Ask me now.”
    “Wait, it’s too soon. There’s a place. I want to show you it, okay?”
    “What place?”
    “It’s up on the mountain. Where we can look at stars. I like it. I want you to see, and we can do stuff there. Okay?”
    Evin stepped closer to embrace Gareth and kissed the hair on his chin. “That sounds perfect. Show me.”
    Gareth led Evin to a trail, up toward the mountain.
    * * *
    As Evin followed Gareth up the mountain, the forest of densely leaved oak trees gave way to balder varieties and moonlight shone through more often. Whenever the trail led through a wash of moonlight, Evin made it a point to look up from the path to watch Gareth move through the soft glow. Evin loved the way the light painted him. The way the muscles moved across his broad back. And the shapes of his flexing thighs and rear end…
    With his gaze on Gareth’s body, he took a wrong step and lost his footing. His knee came down on a stone with a jarring impact that made him gasp.
    Gareth whirled. “What—”
    Evin stood. “I’m okay. I just slipped. Should have been looking where I was going, but I couldn’t stop watching your backside.”
    Surprise and pleasure crossed Gareth’s face before shame chased them away. “You’re wrong in the head.”
    “Yes, and aren’t you lucky.”
    Gareth’s eyebrows scrunched in a look of concern as he took two quick sniffs of air. “You’re bleeding!”
    “What? No, I’m all right.”
    “No, let me see.” Gareth helped Evin sit on a rock and carefully rolled up the leg of his breeches. They had torn a little on the knee. Evin had a bleeding scrape but nothing to worry about. The moonlight was bright enough for Evin to see that it was just mostly dirty from the loose earth and decomposing leaves that had been ground into it by the impact. He must have cut himself on a rock.
    “You gotta be careful, Evin! You get hurt so easily.”
    What ! Evin bit back a sharp reply and said instead, “I can clean it in the next stream we find. Don’t worry about it.”
    “I should have carried you. I’m sorry.”
    “No. It makes me think, though. If I’m going to wander around in the night looking for you, I should have a bag of remedies in case stuff like this happens.”
    “Animals lick their wounds, but people don’t,” Gareth said.
    “Uh…yes. Very true.” Evin brushed dirt away from his wound. “I certainly won’t be licking dirt out of my wound.”
    “No. Of course, no. But I can clean it off better right now with your spit.”
    Strange as it was, the thought didn’t disgust Evin. Gareth could see, so he’d be better able to clean the scrape. “Go ahead.”
    Gareth held out his fingers. Evin drooled and spat on them, and Gareth began to gently wash Evin’s scrape. Evin tried not to react when it hurt.
    What might it mean that Gareth thought first of cleaning wounds by licking them? The only things Gareth knew about people came from his bastard parents and what little he could observe of the villagers from the darkness. Maybe most of what he knew about the world came from watching the creatures that were active at night.
    When Gareth finished, Evin rolled his breeches back down and asked, “What else have you learned from animals?”
    “You think I’m a fool, don’t you?” His voice was low.
    Evin leaned forward and took Gareth’s hands. “No, I think you’re smart. I think you watch everything and learn. Even when people didn’t care enough to teach you, you learned.”
    Gareth looked at him for a moment as if trying to decide whether Evin was serious or mocking. Evin pulled one of Gareth’s big hands to his face and rubbed the fingernails against his lips.
    “You really want to know about the animals?”
    “Yes. Do they do any of the same things people do?”
    “They groom