Page 84 of Xerxes Ascendant
Bad kitty. Akira would lose the use of his naughty paws next time Kyle took him to bed, and then he could mewl and hiss all he wanted.
But not now. They had neither the time nor the energy to indulge, and Kyle trailed tiredly at his Master’s heels as Akira peered at signs and through doorways, navigating slowly and uncertainly through the monotonous concrete maze of the waste processing plant. The sound of a heavy door banging behind them, one Kyle remembered from only a couple of corridors back, had them glancing at each other and wordlessly hastening into a run.
“Doesn’t...he ever...give up?” Kyle asked amid breathless pants. It had been alongnight.
“We don’t know it’s Mackenroth’s men,” said Akira. But from his sombre expression, he did. It was why they wasted no more effort on talking, and why the only time they slowed from their frantic sprint was to push over something in that direction here or leave an incriminating wet footprint there, hoping their pursuers were dumb enough to fall for the false trails.
By the time they shoved open a particularly stiff door and found themselves back outside, Kyle was too exhausted to properly enjoy the fresh air. He helped Akira heave a block of fallen, munched up stonework against the door to prevent it from opening again, before glancing around at the tiny slab of concrete balcony they stood upon.
“Oh,” he said. “This is cozy.”
“If you’re referring to the fact that there appears to be no way forward but for that narrow bridge over there,” drawled Akira, “then you and I may have different interpretations of the word.”
Kyle considered it. “I think we may also have different interpretations of ‘bridge’,” he pointed out. “I would call that a bent strut hanging over a void down to the Earth below, one which is narrower than Mish’s waist during one of his diets.”
“It spans where we are, to where we want to go. Hence, bridge.” Akira pointed at Lower Xerxes, spread out in front of them in all its sagging, burnished, dilapidated glory. Unfortunately, they still stood on its Upper counterpart, and even if the two parts of the city had looked like they were touching when viewed from a distance, now they were up close...they did not. There was at least a hundred metres of death-defying space before them.
“Is this an attempt to get out of the punishment you earned for all that backtalk before?” Kyle asked suspiciously. “Because even if you die, you should know I’ll be hauling your ass back to the House for a rigorous beating.”
“My plan has been indubitably foiled.” Akira’s voice was dry. “Getyourass up onto that wide, sturdy bridge,Sir, before I boot it over there.”
“You just want the view from behind,” Kyle accused.
“Guilty.”
Kyle lifted a foot and planted it on the strut. The long piece of metal that had perhaps once been vertical, a pylon or a support beam maybe, before being shook free to span the two cities, creaked with menace but didn’t fall.
“Ah,” he declared happily. “It’s likeyou, Akira. It likes to growl and threaten, but it’s reliable at its core. It won’t let us down.”
Akira looked dubiously at the strip of metal, and Kyle was reminded of the man’s fear following their Dive earlier. He did not like things he couldn’t control. Gravity counted among that list.
Kyle turned and captured Akira’s hands in his. “Look at me.”
Brown eyes met his, weary but trusting.
“We’ve got this, sweetheart,” Kyle assured. “You and me, we’ve made it this far, haven’t we? This time yesterday, we were held captive by the Carrion. Three hours ago, we were in a freaking spaceship-”
“Aircraft,” corrected Akira.
“-aircraft,” he repeated. “And not that long ago, we were facing the impossible odds of getting out of the Rise alive, but we’rehere.”
As if on cue, the door they’d blocked began to rattle and slam repeatedly into the lump of concrete as the men behind pounded on it.
“Naturally,” said Kyle.
Those damn stars had a lot to answer for: couldn’t they give Akira a moment of peace? He’d had an incredibly hard life – Kyle still felt sick thinking of how he’d been forced into the sextrade as a child and subsequently taken advantage of by nearly everyone he’d ever met – and undisputedly deserved nothing but happiness, Kyle-snuggles, and that brand of whiskey he liked.
His boyfriend let out a long, shaky breath.
It held such vulnerability, such truth of his fear, that Kyle felt blessed by the enormity of the trust placed in him. Akira hid all but the shallowest of his emotions from everyone else, but withKylehe could be his genuine self.
“One step at a time,” he coaxed, guiding Akira up onto the strut ahead of him. He wanted to be able to catch him if he slipped, and if their pursuers broke through the door, Kyle had the broader body to take any bullets and give his man a precious few extra seconds to escape.
“Left foot in front. Keep your arms out for balance. Good. Now your right foot. Left. Right.”
Akira obeyed each instruction with the kind of unthinking devotion he gave Kyle in their scenes, and for the first time Kyle truly appreciated the power of their dynamic within the intricacies of real life. He’d never been interested in Domming his submissive outside of the bedroom, but this: being able to gift Akira quiet certainty in a stressful situation, keeping his mind and body calm despite standing thousands of metres above a deadly fall, felt transcendently potent.
“Eyes front,” he barked when the noises behind them indicated the men had broken through the door. Akira complied, stiffening but obediently not turning around, and Kyle took the opportunity to slyly glance backwards himself. There were three of Mackenroth’s thugs standing on the small patch of concrete that was all that was left of the space beyond the plant’s outer door, but thankfully no sign of any guns, and they seemed to be arguing about whether to pursue them onto the...bridge.
