Who Carellos Reksler
What Reksler gives in to his curiosity
When Spring
Where Reksler's Room, Fort Weyr

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Fort Weyr - Reksler's Room
A simple room containing a bed, a press, a desk and chair, with some hooks along the wall for hanging things. Everything is neat and in place, the colors contained within muted and gray. This is not a cheerful space and lacks any hint of joy, but hey, at least there are plenty of books.


For reasons that he couldn’t quite put a finger on, Reksler’s level of irritation had been at maximum for the last couple of days. He’s made one of his harper pals grab him meals from the kitchen whenever possible just so he could avoid a certain someone. This had not improved his mood, if anything it only made it worse and not knowing why it was making it worse just made it even more worse. Was that even the proper way to state that? Growling, the harper tossed his inkpen aside and without waiting for the words he’s scrawled across the pages of his journal to dry, he slams it closed. Those bright blue eyes of his are cast upwards towards the ceiling of his room. Maybe he should install a punching bag or something to vent his frustrations, because he was no doubt going to be tossed out of harper hall for destroying fragile and rare literary works the way he was going. Sighing heavily, Reks folds his arms one over the other and rests his chin on top, looking but not looking at the untouched dinner that Ywellden had brought him, idly poking at the roll which was now quite stale and about as palatable as any rock you could pick up outside. Did he bake this? Poke. Poke. Sigh. Brows quickly furrow, grabbing the rock-roll and tossing it violently at the door. Screw you Ridiculously Attractive Guy.

Poor, poor Reksler. He’s been doing rather well with not seeing the baker in passing at all. Not with the temporary shift now being somewhat a lot less temporary. Carellos has been working in the kitchens where a good Senior Apprentice should be. Working with meal prep, serving, cleaning, assisting the cooks and his own duties as one of the weyr’s bakers. With the colder months comes more people eating stews and soups, hotter things that require a roll of all sorts to soak up that last little bit of broth or gravy so it’s not left to waste. Going in when the first stars come out and finally walking away at midday. As long as the harper maintains any sort of ‘regular hours’ he’ll likely never see Ridiculously Attractive Guy EVER AGAIN. Unless he tries to infiltrate the kitchens again, though he’ll have to deal with the wrath of the older folk who work there. As the hours grow later and later, Carellos finally finds a chance to get himself into the baths after working a double, one quick stop in the kitchens to pick up a late order and down the hall he ventures. Hesitantly, he reaches for the door, bag in one band, raised fist in another. Just about to knock but the loud knock from the other side startles him. “What am I doing?” he mutters, shaking his own head in disdain. One look down one hall to find it empty, another to see the same for the other end. The bag is hung on the handle of the door and with a sharp three knocks to alert Reksler of the delivery, he turns and makes his way down the hall for sleep. In the bag is a small basket with sweet spiced bread rolled in a cloth napkin, topped with steaming buttery dinner rolls. There’s a little piece of paper folded up as well: ‘I’m sorry. Good night.’

When Reks rock-roll is tossed and goes kerthunk as he expects, well, it's only satisfying for about a second. His bowl of stew so carefully brought while it was still piping hot now cold and congealed to the point that it may never be scrubbed free of its ceramic dish is eyed a moment later. Shoulders slump as ashen lashes lower and he starts to imagine that bowl of stupid cold stew as the perfect representation of his life, which quickly after that makes him mad at Carellos all over again. BUT WHY?! Growling he jams his fingers into the hair atop his head and just when he’s about to rip it out and just be done with it, there is a quick succession of knots that scares the daylights right out of him. Takes a couple quick breaths and even that isn’t enough to stop his heart from beating so quickly. What the fuck was wrong with him? Why was he getting up? Why was he rushing to the door? Why was he flinging it open like that? Before he knew it, he was looking down one end of the corridor, spotting the basket. Its contents could only be from one person considering it was all baked goods. His eyes launch upwards, spotting someone walking away. He still didn’t know Ridiculously Attractive Guy’s real name, which honestly was a little sad, “Hey!” he calls down the otherwise empty corridor, basket in one hand, note in the other. Reksler wasn’t allowing himself to do much thinking right now, other than it was wiser to use something generic to call attention to the back of that head then shout out the pet name that had been rattling around in his head. He couldn’t tell if that was Ridiculously Attractive Guy just by the back of someone’s head. Plus, shouting that out loud would probably make him die from embarrassment right on the spot. So, he was totes going with the safer bet.

Carellos quietly padded down the hall but really was in no rush. His assigned sleeping area was in the general resident dorms for those who don’t have rooms just yet. Usually at this hour, people are still awake and socializing there rather than in the living caverns or other public places to do so. If he was going to get sleep, well… The baker better suck it up. Grudgingly. The shout at the end of the hall does sound familiar in his sleepy haze. He blinks those tired eyes and he slowly turns, sparing a drowsy glance over his shoulders. It takes a moment for his brain to make the connection on what it’s seeing and interpreting the face to a name and when the lag finally catches up, those emerald eyes grow wide. The baker wasn’t expecting to get any sort of response back at all with the way things were going these days. He sighs, shoulders slumped, and he quietly shuffles his tired self right back down the hall over to Reksler. The gap is closed but there’s still more than an arm’s reach between them, Carellos takes to leaning on the wall across from the harper’s door. He opens his mouth to speak but instead comes out a heavy and long body trembling yawn, the kind that tears your eyes up. After a vigorous rub to the face, Carellos dares to look into those cornflower blue eyes. “Hey,” he rasps, shoving his hands back into the pockets of his coat.

All of Reksler stiffens as the head turns to reveal none other than Ridiculously Attractive Guy. It was a long shot really, calling out to him and have the back of some random head turn to be revealed as none other than the one he’s been searching for. What? The harper flushes furiously at his own stupid thoughts and then deeper still for the blushing. He’s so all up in his head that he’s completely missed the fact that Ridiculously Attractive Guy had started making his way back his way. So, when he looks back up to find the baker right there? Well…his mouth opens ready to shred him automatically with all sorts of nasty comments because that’s what Reksler does. Destroys all that stand before him when he’s thrown off his game. However, there is a distinct pause here, which is followed by a rapid succession of blinking for those cornflower blue eyes when he gets a good look at Carellos. A defeated and exhausted young man who looked much older than the seventeen or eighteen he’d guessed him for. “Ugh.” he groans, rolling his eyes and tossing that note back into the basket. Grabbing a handful of whatever was covering the front of the baker’s chest, he drags him inside his room and kicks the door closed with a stockinged foot. Wordless and determined, he leaves Care just as long as it takes to set the basket down, and then returns to remove that coat. “Take off your stupid shoes.” he growls, heading away again to hang the coat up beside his on one of the hooks on an otherwise naked wall. Pointedly, he was not looking at Ridiculously Attractive Guy’s face during all this. If shoes are removed, he will then point at the bed. “Get in it, and sleep.” Yes, right now, Reks was the boss of him. He knew which direction the communal sleeping area was, and there was not going to be any sleeping at this time of day.

Why is he moving? He doesn’t remember pushing away from the wall or moving his- Right, he’s being dragged by an angry harper. Carellos did feel a little bad, bothering him at all when he knew since they spoken last that the distance between them was no accident. Silently, he berates himself for even thinking of bringing anything down to Reksler once the meals were picked up earlier in the day. He just knew the rolls Reks was given was never supposed to have gone out. They were supposed to have been made into food for the livestock since it already was too well on it’s way for staleness. When the baker caught wind of this, the first rolls that came out of the oven, still piping hot, were gathered and delivered with a quickness though fatigue completely fucked up his getaway. The closing of the door and removal of his coat wakes him up a little bit, and while drowsy as all fuck from working twenty hours in a day, he still looks over at Reksler with a little bit of concern at the order to remove his shoes and get into bed. “I’m sorry,” be begins quietly, glancing over to his coat. Sugar is asleep in there still… Though it’s hung so she won’t be too distressed when she wakes up to find her hoomins coat in a strange place. “I… I shouldn’t put you out like this. Should go.”

Not listening to the boss of you? Dangerous. Especially if that boss of you happened to be this particular angry harper. “Did I stutter?” Reksler asks, a single brow quirking upwards but the displeasure saturating his every other feature remaining quite static. “Or do your ears flap?” His mother had used this phrase a lot when he and Vossrik were growing up, but only when she was at the end of her rope. Which was often. Reks? About at the end of his and it was only to the scraggly frayed ends to which he clung. “I said take off your shoes and get into the bed.” That was not a tone that should be argued with, and as if to stress this point, the harper growl-ughs and grabs the front of Carellos’ tunic this time dragging him over that way and then physically pushing him down once close enough onto the bed. He has little care which part of him landed on it as long as it was in the region of his pelvis. He’ll crouch then and start removing the baker’s shoes, grumbling to himself the entire time between mutterings of the endearing term ‘idiot’ tossed in for flavor.

The boss has a different voice in the kitchens, something a little more husky, a little more gravelly, and most definitely feminine. This wasn’t his boss, but the tone and the questioning way things were laid out was enough of a clue for the baker to stop resisting. Still, to Carellos, it did feel very wrong to take up space in Reksler’s bed when he did have a space to his own. Even if it’s practically party central at this time of the day, much to his dismay. Though, the tone in the harper’s voice is clear and his exhaustion won’t let him be in the mind to argue too much. Carellos keeps his mouth shut as he’s abruptly shoved over to the bed and his shoes are stripped from his feet. He manages to lift one at a time to give Reks an easier time of it, Even if his head is feeling heavy and slowly lowering down to his chest. He jerks awake, awake from that sudden feeling of falling that often startles people when they are in fact asleep. Those tired emerald eyes are forced open and he peers down at the harper. He opens his mouth to say something but the words don’t find him.

Grump harper is still grumpy, though as he set about picking up the footwear he’d just stripped from the somewhat reluctant baker, Reksler glances up at him and then quickly down, blushing from collarbone to his hairline. “Just close your stupidly green eyes and sleep.” he snaps in irritation, catching the Ridiculously Attractive Guy peeking at him instead of sleeping. That flailing jerking awake thing was cute the first time, but repeated experiences would definitely get on his nerves. Snorting, Reks gets up and places the shoes beside his own, dropping into the chair at his desk and selecting a book from the pile there. Crossing his legs at the knee, he leans back with his back mostly to the baker, selecting one of the still warm buttery rolls from his basket and nibbling on it while he reads.

Not of the mind to argue, Carellos finally gives up and lifts his legs up onto the bed after scooting back a little. Where was Reksler going to sleep? He frowns, scooting the closest to the wall he possibly could and he simply lays there, arms crossed over his chest and his nose literally an inch from the wall. That leaves a good portion of bed for the harper since it is his, after all. Though, in hindsight, he should sleep at the edge so he can roll off, quietly gather his things and go home. After moments pass and he rolls over, just enough to look over his shoulder to see what’s going on. He shouldn’t, sleep should be the only thing going on right now but it’s still awkward to sleep in someone else's bed when they’re sitting in a chair right beside it. True, the hours are still early for everyone else and only late for the baker, but there’s enough wrong in it to unsettle him. He watches, through tired eyes, as the harper settles down with his stack of precious books, watching him partake of the rolls. That should’ve been enough, he should’ve rolled over and gone to sleep but he couldn’t look away from the way the light played off of the harper as he sits there. Movements mundane, but might as well been a dream with the soft glow of light on his skin, shifting and moving while chews. The way his head tilts to scan the words and fingertips to move one page to the next. It’s not a perfect profile, but those tiniest of hints he manages to catch while Reksler has his back to him, they were worth the cramp building in his neck. Carellos turns back over, curling his arms up and he tucks them under his chest while he faces the wall once more. Blankets or not, it’s just warmer to sleep this way in his head. “I’ll try not to stay too long,” he murmurs, his words slurring as he finally lets the weight of his eyelids close and with a breath, he drowses off to sleep.

Reksler can feel the baker’s eyes on him back there, able to hear every twist and turn he makes on the bed behind him, only because he was so used to being alone in this room. Sure, he hadn’t been in the resident caverns long, but this space was no different than the one he’d had over at Harper Hall. Stiffly, he tries to act all cool and natural, as if he wasn’t aware of the gaze that was sweeping the edge of his seated much how he’d imagined the caress of a lover would be. He hated that word. Lover. It was just so, ugh. The harper shoves the rest of that roll into his mouth, angrily chewing at it like a determined feline when it's dead avian gift is rejected by its pet. He wasn’t fond of girlfriend either, what was that all about? Another roll jammed past his lips, barely able to focus on the words on the page before him. What with Ridiculously Attractive Guy behind him, and crumbs suddenly everywhere. Interrupting his life. HIs perfectly arranged life. So, in reflection, he probably shouldn’t be too keen with the moniker of boyfriend either. Just that word sends the color of his face as well as the heat it was producing to nuclear. What the fuck was he thinking? Hearing the bed shift and the bedding rustle, he glances over his shoulder back towards Carellos, quietly observing what little he could see of him past the thickness of his lashes. Why did he force Ridiculously Attractive Guy onto his room, strip him down to appropriate sleeping attire and then toss him into his bed? Groaning softly, Reks turns back around and his forehead meets his desk, rolling it back and forth in the world’s longest head shake before lightly banging it over and over again. Huffing, chin to desk, he slides his gaze to the glow hanging from the ceiling, a frown pulling the corner of his lips downwards. The deep and steady breathing of the baker signals to Reks that he’d given up the ghost and finally gone to sleep. Fingers twitch, crumbs sent scattering, and soon he’s devouring that sweet spiced bread as well. It was like this guy was driving him to drink, but with food. Cautiously he peeks over there, almost wishing he was tired so he could use all that empty space. Spine straightening, he slaps his cheeks lightly a few times. What is wrong with him? Why did that thought even creep across his consciousness? That there, is a dude. A dudey dude, not even a girly dude. Vibrating with barely contained rage he thrusts himself to his feet and stands over the bed, eyes narrowing. “Why the fuck is he sleeping so close to the wall?” he asks himself, out loud of course, but at least in a whisper. Heaving a very quiet sigh, he puts a knee onto the bed and hesitantly on Care’s shoulder and hip. Lightly at first, and then with increasing pressure until finally he had enough leverage to guide him onto his back. Carefully. Immediately he steps back, waaaaaay back, and oh so naturally peeeeeeeks over. Sleeping?

Sleeping in the same position only remains comfortable for so long when you're in bed. It's less time when you're in someone else's. The mattress or whatever cushions that might line it will be worn out differently. Different spots in the bed, different shapes and depths. The outer edges? Not worn in at the least. Carellos, still deep asleep manages to shift just a little with the help of Reksler's leverage, rolling him onto his back but his face is still turned towards the wall. His arms are crossed over his chest. With the glows in the room still lit, the heavy shadows taking place over the baker's face is more apparent. Those lines that shouldn't show up in someone so young and fit as he is but work tends to toss those rules out the window. Especially when Carellos doesn't sleep between shifts for one night because he can't get his mind off of Reksler. The extra work suited him for a little while, occupying every last bit of attention as the baker continued making batch of dough after another, moving it to rise, some to knead again. Others to go in the oven, out of it and to the tables where it's carefully cut for the serving platters. While things have a little bit of a longer gap in time between movements, sweet butters of various types are quickly whipped up and chilled so a back stock was always available. When the hours creeped on, the elders decided to put boot to ass and allowing only the concession of his order before reluctantly leaving. Leaving him looking… Well. Dead. Exhausted. The corner of his eye twitches just a little, and his breathing quickens for a moment, fingertips clutching his own arms and sleeves tightly before quieting down and relaxing once more. Not without the quietest of whimpers escaping from his lips.

Reksler’s eye twitches too, from stress. Carellos was not the first good looking guy he’s ever seen in his life. So what made Ridiculously Attractive Guy so fucking special? He’d had tons of conversations with guys much like him, even some who were younger, or older; smarter even. Smarter, because whatever the baker had been up to was taking the edge off his stupidly good looks and left him resembling hell barely warmed up. A scowl later, he’s rummaging in the press he kept at the foot of his bed, pulling out a warm down-filled duvet and spreading it out over the baker so exhausted he couldn’t even crawl under the covers. Though, as he’s leaning over that last couple of inches to pull the blanket up over his chest, Reks catches himself leaning over perhaps a bit too far in order to get a nice long look at Ridiculously Attractive Guy’s face. Ugh, he really needed to find out what this dude’s name was. Unable to see it properly given the glows and whole facing the wall thing, the harper braves another knee to the bed and leans over to very gingerly place the pad of a single finger against the side of his head and rotate it on the pivot of his neck in order to turn it his way. Second that happens, he’s back off like a startled feline, watching and observing. Still sleeping? Up onto his tiptoes now, peeeeeeking over. How the fuck was he going to make this whole situation and what he’s been up to look casual if Carellos decided he’d had enough being messed with while he was trying to sleep? Reksler hadn’t a clue, he was playing this entirely by ear, by the seat of his pants.

The only thing Carellos does when that fingertip moves his head towards the light was exhale softly after his soft lips part. Still deep in the grips of sleep, the baker doesn't even try to readjust when his head finds a different position to be in. Thankfully, it's not one so cramped or awkward that forces the baker to wake up. Dead to the world, one shallow breath after another, peacefully asleep. With his arms crossed loosely over his chest, one manages to slip down his side, tugging lightly on his shirt to look the slightest bit snug on his features. There could only be one thing, it's not the baker, but the glows playing tricks on Reksler's mind. Making him believe in that dim light that the ripped apps and strong chest are real and not elaborately placed ripples in the material of his shirt. The shirt that managed to get untucked at his stomach, likely when he was rolled over. Only the tiniest slivers of skin is bared, but the rest is perfectly hidden for the harper's sanity. At one point, he does lick his lips slowly, then the man grows still. Legitimately asleep.

The harper was just starting to come to grips with the whole, there is a man in my bed and I put him there freely, part of this. Whether or not he had rippling abs and big muscles was not very high on his pro list at the moment. Those lips though. Eyes dart to them as they part, stay with them as tongue emerges to swath over them and then disappear then back into the darkness within. Reksler finds himself staring and instantly his mind whirls backwards in time to when they were pressed softly against his own. FWOOSH! Instant blush, just add Ridiculously Attractive Guy’s mouth. So what if he was leaning over the bed on his tiptoes, trying to get a better look. Eventually, that knee of his finds that spot again and he’s edging closer and closer. Swallowing thickly, there is more leaning, and Reks can hear his own heart whooshing in his ears. Carefully, quietly, little by little he leans, gaze flickering between those lips and the lids that covered those green eyes. Carefully. Caaaaaarefully. Touchdown! It's just a light pressure really, the softest of contacts from his relatively thinner lips to Carellos’ considerably fuller set, and it lingers as he gently breathes in the scent of sweets and the man who makes them. It makes his head swim and his brows furrow then knit before he allows himself to give in, just this once, just in this moment. Just with Ridiculously Attractive Guy.


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