"Your sandal strap’s loose," Lysander grunted, wiping sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. Dust clung to his skin, gritty and warm from the afternoon sun.
Across the packed-earth training ground, Demetrios adjusted his footing, muscles shifting like coiled ropes beneath olive-toned flesh. "Won’t matter once I pin you," he shot back, a grin flashing white against his beard.
The two men circled each other, naked as custom demanded, feet scraping the dry soil. Lysander’s gaze flickered — just for a heartbeat — over Demetrios’ shoulder, down the taut line of his spine. A familiar ache tightened in his chest. Seventeen years of shared drills, stolen figs from the agora, and smuggled wine after defeats. All those moments choked with words Lysander swallowed daily. He feinted left, driving forward to grip Demetrios’ thigh, calloused palms sliding on sweat-slick skin.
Demetrios twisted free with a laugh, breath hot near Lysander’s ear. "Distracted again?" Their bodies collided, chest to chest, the impact shuddering through both.
Lysander smelled salt and sunbaked earth, felt the hammering pulse where Demetrios’ wrist pressed against his throat. He didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Truth sat like a stone behind his teeth — I love you. I’ve always loved you. Instead, he hooked a leg behind Demetrios’ knee, dumping him onto the dirt with a thud that punched dust into the air.
Demetrios rolled, pinning Lysander’s arms above his head, knees bracketing his hips. Sunlight caught the sweat beading along his collarbone. For a stretched silence, Lysander stared upward, throat dry. Demetrios’ expression shifted — confusion, then a slow, dawning clarity. His grip loosened. "Lysander …" The name hung, heavy as summer humidity.
Lysander braced for ridicule, shame, the ruin of everything. But Demetrios’ thumb brushed a smudge of earth from Lysander’s cheekbone. "All this time," he murmured, voice rough as unfinished stone. "You never said."
The training ground’s sounds faded — distant shouts from other wrestlers, the scrape of a rake smoothing dirt. Only Demetrios’ breath mattered, warm and uneven against Lysander’s collarbone.
"I couldn’t risk losing you," Lysander whispered, the confession tearing free like splintered wood. Beneath him, the packed earth dug into his shoulder blades, grounding him to this impossible moment.
Demetrios’ gaze traced Lysander’s face — the scar bisecting his brow from a boyhood fall, the curve of his lower lip bitten raw during drills. His own knuckles whitened where they still pinned Lysander’s wrists. Slowly, deliberately, he lowered his weight until their sweat-slicked chests pressed flush, heartbeat thundering against heartbeat. The scent of crushed thyme and exertion mingled thickly between them.
"Fool," Demetrios breathed, not unkindly. His beard scraped Lysander’s jawline as he leaned closer. "Do you think I’d cast aside seventeen years? Or this?"
A stray olive leaf drifted down, landing softly on Lysander’s ribs. He watched Demetrios’ eyes — hazel flecked with gold, like sunlight through river water — and saw no hesitation, only a fierce tenderness that stole his breath. Demetrios shifted his knee, bumping Lysander’s thigh. The contact felt electric, deliberate. Around them, Athens simmered: cicadas screamed in the cypress trees, and hawkers cried from the street beyond the courtyard wall. Yet here, in this square of dust, silence roared louder than any crowd.
Demetrios’ lips hovered a thumb’s width away. "The Games begin in a fortnight," he murmured, the words feathering Lysander’s skin. "What do we do with this?" His hips pressed down, answering his own question with an undeniable heat. Lysander felt laughter bubble up — wild, disbelieving — as Demetrios finally closed the distance.
The kiss tasted of salt and iron, fierce and clumsy with decades of restraint shattering at once. Demetrios’ hands slid from wrists to tangle in Lysander’s hair, pulling him deeper as the sun blazed overhead, baking their bare shoulders crimson.
"Olympus," Lysander gasped when they broke apart, trembling beneath Demetrios’ weight. His knuckles brushed the hollow of Demetrios’ throat, tracing the frantic pulse there. "The priests —"
"Care nothing for what happens beyond festival sacrifices," Demetrios interrupted, thumb smoothing the furrow between Lysander’s brows. His knee nudged Lysander’s thigh again, deliberate and possessive. Dust coated their lips, gritty on the tongue. Beyond the courtyard wall, the clatter of chariot wheels faded beneath the cicadas’ drone.
Lysander shifted, rolling them sideways into the sparse shade of an olive tree. Pebbles bit into his hip. "And Corinth? The competition?" His voice rasped raw. He imagined the judges’ stares, the roar of thousands watching their every grapple.
Demetrios’ laughter vibrated against Lysander’s chest. "Let them watch." His calloused palm slid down Lysander’s flank, lingering on the old crescent scar from a Spartan’s fingernail. "We fight cleaner than half those Spartan brutes." He nipped Lysander’s earlobe, drawing a shudder. "But tomorrow …" Demetrios breathed against the shell of Lysander’s ear, "… we train differently."
The slam of a wooden gate echoed nearby. Lysander flinched, instinctively curling towards Demetrios’ warmth. Footsteps approached – slow, rhythmic raking of the practice pit’s dirt. Demetrios pressed a kiss to Lysander’s sweat-damp temple before rising fluidly, hauling Lysander up with him. Their fingers lingered, knuckles brushing like a promise.
"Tomorrow’s dawn," Demetrios murmured, eyes dark with intent. "Meet me at the quarry pool." He snatched his chiton from a pile of gear, tossing Lysander’s own tunic straight at his chest. The rough linen smelled of sun and cedar oil, familiar and suddenly charged.
Lysander watched Demetrios stride towards the gate, muscles flexing beneath dust-streaked skin, and felt the ghost of that kiss sear deeper than any Corinthian medal. The sun dipped low, painting the courtyard in long, tawny shadows where the olive leaf still lay crushed into the earth.
At home, Lysander paced his narrow courtyard. Cicadas pulsed in the orange trees as he traced the scar Demetrios’ thumb had brushed earlier. Every scrape of sandal on stone outside his gate sent his pulse hammering – not from fear, but the wild, unmoored thrill of what if. He splashed water over his face, the coolness doing nothing to douse the memory of Demetrios’ hips pressing down, the possessive rasp of "Let them watch." Sleep was impossible. He oiled his wrestling strigil instead, the rhythmic scrape against bronze a grounding chant.
*****
Demetrios arrived at the quarry pool before dawn, moonlight silvering the water’s still surface. He’d already stripped, the chill air prickling gooseflesh across his powerful shoulders. Below the ledge, Athens slept, a tapestry of darkened rooftops breathing softly. He dove in, the icy water a shock that couldn’t numb the anticipation humming beneath his skin.
Lysander’s footsteps echoed on stone – hesitant, then deliberate. He paused at the pool’s edge. Demetrios surfaced, water sheeting down his beard, his eyes holding a challenge hotter than the forge. No words. Lysander shed his chiton, the linen pooling at his feet like discarded armor. He plunged into the frigid embrace, gasping as the cold bit deep. Demetrios was already moving, closing the distance with powerful strokes. Their bodies collided mid-pool, not grappling, but seeking. Calloused hands slid over wet ribs, tracing familiar ridges of muscle made new by daylight. Demetrios’ thigh bumped Lysander’s, deliberate as yesterday’s knee.
Demetrios’ mouth found Lysander’s throat, his lips sucking the tendon, claiming, not wounding. Lysander arched, fingers sinking into Demetrios’ wet hair. He tasted like quarry stone and cold water as Lysander kissed him, deeper this time, tongues meeting without hesitation. Demetrios groaned, the sound swallowed by the water’s surface. His hands slid down, rough palms gripping Lysander’s buttocks, lifting him effortlessly until his legs wrapped around Demetrios’ waist. Water lapped at Lysander’s collarbones, Demetrios’ strength anchoring him.
Fingers slick with pond water slid lower, tracing between Lysander’s butt cheeks, finding the tight pucker between them. Demetrios’ thumb pressed, circled, insistent, while his other hand cradled Lysander against him. Lysander gasped, shuddering, stifling a pained yelp against Demetrios’ shoulder as the probing digit breached him – a sharp, stunning invasion that melted into a thick ache of fullness.
Demetrios worked slowly, stretching him, his breath ragged against Lysander’s ear. "Like this," he rasped, the words raw against skin. "All I thought about." His thick finger crooked, dragging a choked cry from Lysander’s chest.
Water sloshed around them as Demetrios withdrew, lowering Lysander until his feet found slick rock beneath. Lysander trembled, gripping Demetrios’ shoulders for balance. Before he could speak, Demetrios spun him, pressing Lysander’s chest against the cold, moss-slicked quarry wall. Demetrios’ calloused hand pinned him there, while the other guided his own rigid cock, blunt and hot, to where Lysander was stretched and wet.
Lysander gasped as Demetrios breached him, inch by searing inch. The moss cushioned his cheek, the chill air sharp against his wet back, while Demetrios’ heat filled him impossibly deep. Demetrios groaned as he seated himself fully, hips flush against Lysander’s buttocks.
"Hold," Demetrios commanded, voice thick and ragged. Lysander braced, knuckles white on stone, the fullness a sweet ache radiating through his core. Demetrios’ groan vibrated through his back teeth.
Slowly, Demetrios withdrew until only the swollen head remained lodged within Lysander’s resisting heat. Lysander whimpered at the loss, pushing back instinctively. "Demetri —"
"Patience," Demetrios growled, his free hand clamping Lysander’s hipbone. He surged forward again, harder this time, burying himself completely. The thick slide punched the breath from Lysander’s lungs. Each thrust carved a path of fire and bliss – the scrape of moss against Lysander’s cheek, the slap of wet skin echoing off quarry walls, Demetrios’ ragged breaths hot on his neck. Lysander’s cock throbbed against cold stone, untouched.
Demetrios shifted angle, hips snapping sharp and deep. Lysander cried out as Demetrios’ cock struck that hidden place inside him, pleasure detonating like wildfire along his spine. Behind him, Demetrios swore, fingers digging into Lysander’s hips as his rhythm fractured. He pistoned faster, driving Lysander harder against the wall, each collision forcing grunts from both. Lysander arched back, meeting every punishing thrust.
Water sloshed violently around Demetrios’ thighs, soaking Lysander’s legs. Demetrios’ free hand slid around Lysander’s waist, blunt fingers closing around his leaking cock. Lysander shuddered, vision blurring as Demetrios pumped him in rough counterpoint to his thrusts. The double assault — relentless invasion inside, ruthless friction outside — wrecked Lysander’s control. He bit down on his forearm to muffle the ragged groan tearing from his throat.
Above them, the quarry rim bled dawn’s first copper light. It caught the sweat-slicked hollow of Demetrios’ spine where he bent over Lysander, muscles corded with strain. Lysander’s knuckles scraped raw against the mossy rock as Demetrios slammed home once, twice more, impossibly deep. The stretch burned, transformed now into molten gold radiating through Lysander’s belly. Demetrios’ hips stuttered. A guttural curse ripped from his lips as he shoved Lysander flush against the wall and held, shuddering, his cock pulsing sperm thickly inside him.
Lysander choked on his own breath, torn between the heat flooding his ass and the rough drag of Demetrios’ fist on his cock. Pleasure seized him, lightning-bright and brutal. His release hit like a chariot charge – thick ropes of sperm splattering against cold stone as his legs buckled. Demetrios caught him, hauling him upright, still buried deep. They slumped against the quarry wall, shuddering, breaths ragged in the sudden quiet. Water lapped at their thighs, pink-tinged by the rising sun.
Demetrios pressed his forehead to Lysander’s shoulder blade, beard scraping skin. "Olympus," he rasped. His softening cock slipped free, leaving Lysander feeling hollowed out and tender. He turned, facing Demetrios. The rising sun painted gold across Demetrios’ sweat-streaked chest, highlighting the old scar from a Spartan dagger. Lysander traced it with trembling fingers, then leaned in, kissing him softly – a counterpoint to the raw ferocity moments before. Demetrios tasted of quarry water and exhaustion, his arms tightening around Lysander’s waist.
The distant bleat of goats carried on the chill air, mingling with the scent of baking bread drifting up from the city. Demetrios shivered, gooseflesh rising anew. "The forge fires will be lit," he murmured against Lysander’s temple. His thumb brushed the smear of sperm drying on Lysander’s thigh.
"We stink of stone and sex." Lysander chuckled, the sound rough. He dipped a handful of water, letting it sluice over Demetrios’ back, watching rivulets chase dust down the valleys of muscle.
Demetrios caught his wrist, turning it to kiss Lysander’s scraped knuckles. "Better than Spartan blood." His lips lingered, warm against the broken skin. "And truer than temple incense."
Below, Athens unfurled. Chimney smoke smudged the dawn sky; the rhythmic clang of a bronze-smith’s hammer began its morning song.
Lysander leaned into Demetrios’ solidity, the quarry wall cold at his spine, Demetrios’ heat a shield against the chill. His thighs still trembled from the brutal claiming, his ass throbbed where Demetrios had filled him, but a profound stillness settled in his chest. Seventeen years of silence, shattered against mossy rock.
“The priests,” Lysander murmured again, fingers tracing the Spartan scar he knew better than his own face. The fear tasted metallic, sharp against the lingering taste of Demetrios on his tongue.
Demetrios’ thumb caught Lysander’s chin, forcing his gaze upward. “Priests dream of gold statues and fat bulls, not sweat-and-stone love.” His voice turned low, dangerous — the rasp he used before pinning an opponent senseless. “But if you fear Corinth’s eyes …” He stepped back, scooping water to rinse Lysander’s thigh where his sperm gleamed, sticky in the dawn light. The intimacy of it, fingers sliding over skin, stole Lysander’s breath more than the claiming had. “Then we fight harder.” He flung the water aside. “Win. And let victory be our shield.”
They dressed in silence punctuated by distant goat bells. Lysander winced pulling his chiton over raw skin, the linen scraping his bruised hip. Demetrios watched, eyes tracing every flinch. “Meet me at the palaestra at noon,” he commanded, knotting his belt. No softness now — just the drillmaster’s edge. “We spar blindfolded. Train the body to know its mate by touch alone.”
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