5. Dreams.

ENTIN

CHAPTER 5

The stone tool, reminiscent of those used by his own tribe, felt heavy in Entin's hand. A battle raged within him—one side thirsting for revenge against the man who had abducted him, the other acknowledging the unexpected kindness Cascade had shown him in the jumbled moments since they'd met. His intuition that there was more to Cascade than he yet knew won out, and he wordlessly handed the blade back to his captor. Violence wasn't in his nature, anyway.

Entin attempted to rise but found he was weaker and stiffer than expected. He groaned as he thumped back onto the sled, massaging his calves.

"Here, let me help you," Cascade said absently.

Entin noticed tears in his eyes. "What is it? Are the others alright?"

"Aiel and the others are safe. It's… my father. Harlak, the man who struck you in the village, he just… he just murdered him in cold blood…" Cascade trailed off.

He pulled Entin to his feet, and the two peered out at the chasm that had opened up between them and their destination. As glassy as Cascade's eyes had become, he hadn't yet spilled a tear. Entin recognized the same brand of stoicism in him that directed the behavior of the men in his own tribe.

"I can take you back to your village if you like. Then I must return to Mountainhome to warn the others of my uncle's betrayal," Cascade said.

Entin considered his offer for a moment. The selfish, fearful part of him wished to be returned to the relative safety of the grasslands. But then he thought of Aiel—of the way she'd pleaded with him to save her—and he found he was unable to ask his captor to set him free, even when offered. He wanted to be a man who did what he needed to protect those he cared about. He just wasn't sure if he could be.

"I will accompany you to Mountainhome," Entin decided.

Cascade remained silent, and Entin searched his face in an attempt to understand him. The sun was almost gone, and it cast a gold light across his chiseled visage. Dark freckles splashed over the bridge of his sharp nose and spilled onto his cheeks. Cascade was handsome, strikingly so, and even now, as a tear finally broke through his stoicism and trickled down his smooth cheek, he remained dignified and restrained. The softness of the emotion, coupled with his masculine nature, blended into an odd and compelling sort of beauty that Entin had seldom witnessed in the world.

He didn't know what drove him to do it, but Entin reached out and placed his hand uncertainly on the man's broad shoulder. It was bare, and his tanned skin was warm and soft where their flesh made contact. To his surprise, at his touch, Cascade began to sob openly. And it wasn't like the tears Entin had quietly wept in the privacy of the mask. No, these tears spilled out hot and wild. For whatever reason, Cascade collapsed into Entin's arms as he loosed them. The weight of his emotions seemed to overcome him, and Entin grunted as they gently slid to the ground together.

Over time, his sobbing became a hoarse wail, and Entin felt at once uncomfortable with the wet warmth of Cascade's breath against his neck and instinctively compelled to balm his pain. The tall man seemed more like a boy at that moment—a boy who had just lost his father. The raw, childlike nature of his uncorked emotions was a jarring contrast to the sinewy stranger revealing them.

Entin held Cascade until long after the sun slipped behind the mountains. The air grew cold, and still. Even though his crying stopped, his captor still clung to Entin's leathers and remained with his head buried in his chest. At some point, not knowing what else to do, Entin wrapped his arms around him and rested his chin on his head.

Cascade's hair was short and soft. To Entin's surprise, he discovered he didn't mind holding him. This was the closest he'd ever been—physically or otherwise—to another person since he could remember. And even though he had reason to hate the man, he also understood loss. He felt Cascade's sorrow as though it were his own. As he held him in the silver-blue of the moonlight, he understood that their fates had just been inextricably bound. An owl hooted nearby, and then the cracking of a branch startled Entin from his ruminations.

"We should get moving. We need to find shelter or make a fire," he said gently.

Cascade, at long last, pulled away from him. Entin could see that his eyes were bloodshot even in the dim light. He looked nothing like he had before the pass. He seemed broken. Exhausted. The haunted soul staring back at Entin now stirred something in him: an urge to heal.

"I'm so sorry for all of this," Cascade said.

"Don't be," Entin replied.

He gingerly helped Cascade to his feet.

"Let's head back down the trail a ways—I noticed a fork in the path when we stopped to break earlier. It probably leads down to the valley. We can follow it to bypass the slide," Entin said.

"It's as good a plan as any," Cascade agreed. "Thank you. You have shown me kindness I did not deserve."

"Everyone deserves kindness."

The silence settled between them once more as they made their way back down the trail. Entin was glad to be walking again. His legs ached from having been immobilized, and his wrists were sore from where he'd fought so hard against his restraints. He couldn't believe he was helping the man—that he was willingly returning with him to Mountainhome to participate in whatever upcoming conflict his people seemed to anticipate. But here they were, voyaging off together in the moonlit woodland. Cascade walked beside him. His head was slung low, and his posture was no longer as rigid and upright as it had been.

"Your father seemed like a just man," Entin offered. "I am sorry for your loss. Your tribe will miss him."

"Thank you. He was a good chief and a better father. Just and fair. I wish he'd lived to see me live up to his ideals," Cascade replied.

"You seem like a son a father would be proud of," Entin encouraged.

But Cascade fell silent. The wind had picked back up, and the trees towering above them filtered the light into moonbeams. Entin realized he'd grown quite cold as they'd walked but was thankful it wasn't raining anymore. The raiders had removed his moccasins when they'd strapped him to the sled, and his bare feet ached with each step. After a time, they reached the fork he'd seen before. It trailed down a steep slope, switchbacking to and fro before leveling near the valley floor. They were both panting from exertion by the time they reached the bottom.

"What of you? Do you have parents back in your village?" Cascade asked.

"They're with the spirits. We had a famine when I was a boy. They didn't make it."

Ahead, a series of small waterfalls cascaded down the mountainside before merging into a sizable stream. Entin crossed to it thirstily, then bent down and drank from it, only to find the water curiously warm. No, not warm… it was hot! Entin realized that the entire pool was steaming. He'd never seen anything like it. It was as though the whole creek were atop a vast, subterranean cookfire. Entin began to giggle.

"What is it?" Cascade asked from behind him.

But Entin was already stripping off his leathers.

"Entin, what are you doing?" Cascade asked.

But Entin ignored him and slid naked into the stream. The warmth that enveloped him in those waters was nothing short of magical. The stream was hot to the very brink of what he could tolerate. It lapped and swirled against his flesh, rinsing away the ache and grime and stress that had been mounting so crushingly the past few days.

"Remarkable," Cascade said.

He was bending down and testing the water with his hand. Entin splashed him, and to his relief, Cascade grinned at his antics. His smile nearly displaced the sadness in his eyes. Cascade stood and began to strip off his leathers. Entin didn't know if he should look away or not. The natural thing felt to act like all of this was familiar to him, even though it was far from that. But he found the more flesh Cascade revealed, the more unable he was to pry his eyes from the man. He was toned and a bit hairy, his body bound by muscle and veins that bulged with elegant strength. As he stripped completely, Entin couldn't help but feel a twinge of fascination—or perhaps shameful lust—at the sight of his impressively girthy manhood. Cascade gracefully slipped into the water and let out a sigh.

"Thank you for sharing about your parents. It is comforting to know that you understand loss as I now must learn to," Cascade said.

"This world is loss," Entin said. "To live is to lose."

"That's a bit dark. Surely you don't believe that?"

"What else is there? If there's more to life than that, I haven't seen it."

"There's this," Cascade said, gesturing around them. "There's here. Now. Me and you."

Cascade closed the distance between them. For whatever reason, Entin felt a flutter in his throat as the tall man neared. His chest was impressive, and even in the moonlight, his sizable nipples were hijacking a primitive part of Entin's brain that seemed exceptionally responsive to Cascade for some reason. He'd never had feelings like this before, and his face burned even hotter than the water as the handsome stranger towered over him. Cascade looked down at him, and Entin found he couldn't look away.

"May I wash you?" Cascade asked.

The request was so odd and unexpected that Entin replied almost immediately.

"Yes."

Cascade took one more step toward him, so close now that their bodies were almost touching, and Entin dared not look down because he could feel his manhood had become rock hard and was terrified of what might happen if Cascade noticed.

Cascade put one hand on Entin's chest, then gently dipped his head into the water. He ran his hand through Entin's long hair. It was still crusted with blood and sweat, and at first, the tangles and dirt pulled and snagged somewhat painfully as they worked themselves out. But over time, the stranger gently rinsed that all away. Entin's eyes grew heavy at his touch. Cascade gently led him to the bank of the stream, where they sat in the hot shallows.

Cascade hummed as he straddled Entin from behind. Then, to Entin's disbelief, he began massaging the back of his neck. At first, Entin grew rigid at the vulnerability of being touched by another in this way —especially a man. But Cascade seemed to ignore his awkwardness. He rubbed his hands down his shoulders and arms, squeezing out the pockets of tension that had lived there all his life. His huge fingers pressed and pushed all of it out and away, and before long, Entin was leaning back into him, only half awake. The man who had kidnapped him and dragged him from his home worked his hands down the thick of his back, going lower and lower until Entin began to tremble despite the warmth all around him.

"Easy," Cascade murmured.

His lips were at Entin's neck. They were warm and wet—and Entin shuddered as Cascade began to massage the top of his ass cheeks with his bony knuckles. He'd never been touched like this. The feeling of having another man enveloping him in this way was at once everything he'd ever wanted and the most terrifying thing in the world.

He groaned as Cascade bit at his ear.

And then Cascade's huge hand enveloped Entin's cock.

Entin gasped in surprise and pleasure. He was shocked to find instinct taking over—and he began to thrust against the grip almost immediately. Cascade licked his neck, then tightened his grasp, and the friction of his hand, coupled with the realization that Cascade's massive cock was now pressed hot and swollen against Entin's back, caused him to orgasm almost immediately.

He'd rarely done so, except in the moments he'd woken from dreams in which some version of what was happening to him now occurred to him in the spirit realm. As he loosed himself into the hot spring, a white-hot ecstasy swept across him, and he threw back his head in pleasure, thudding it against Cascade's bare chest. Cascade was stroking himself behind him, and before long, Entin felt his grasp tighten as he, too, came.

He collapsed into Entin for the second time that day, never letting go of either of their manhoods. The pair began to giggle. The sound, mixed with the babbling of the brook, was the first moment of levity either had known in quite some time. They stayed like that, wrapped in the surety of one another, until long after the spring did its part to cleanse them.

Eventually, Entin looked up at the moon and, for once, wondered if perhaps the gods hadn't abandoned him after all.