A/N: Written for '50 reasons to have sex' #26: Celebrating the joy of life after a near death experience. Er, sort of. (The list is from an episode of HIMYM.) The rating is for violence as well as language and smut.

Let Go

Back to back with Gwaine, Leon surveys the bandits surrounding them. Five, by his count, in ragged clothes and equipped with rusty swords. He's cursing himself for letting them catch him off-guard but it could be much worse.

"Only five?" Gwaine murmurs behind him. "Hardly a challenge."

"Challenge enough," Leon says as the men rush them and then there is no time for talking.

Two come at him at once and Leon sidesteps the first to raise his sword in time to block a swing from a boy who looks like he can't be more than sixteen. He's green, fighting with nerve more than skill, telegraphing each thrust of his sword before he makes it. Leon knocks him back and swings his sword low in an arc, catching the boy across his thighs. He cries out and falls to a knee, dropping his weapon.

Leon is only barely able to parry a strike from his other attacker and kicks out, foot connecting with his chest to push him back. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Gwaine take out one man with a vicious downward stroke before bringing his elbow back straight into another bandit's face.

Focusing fully on his own man, Leon trades blows back and forth. This man is certainly no child and he has a weight advantage on Leon, but he is also considerably slower. Leon jumps back to avoid a powerful swing that leaves his foe off-balance. He presses his advantage and cuts across the man's arm and then cleanly parts his head from the rest of his body.

Turning swiftly, Leon locates Gwaine and the fifth man. The bandit has Gwaine on the defensive and Leon uses the advantage of surprise to approach from behind. He drives his sword through the man's back and twists before pulling it out, the man crumpling to the ground.

Gwaine looks down at him and then up at Leon. "Thanks, but I was only waiting for the right moment. I would've had him."

Leon rolls his eyes and wipes the blood off of his sword. "Of course you would have." With the men dispatched, he searches the surrounding area for the kid he had left still alive. He finds him cowering not far from where Leon had left him, staring at the headless man as if he can't tear his gaze away.

Leon kneels in front of him until the boy looks at him, eyes big and terrified. "Are there more of you? I will know if you lie."

After attempting to stammer a reply, the boy gives up and simply shakes his head.

"Leave here," Leon directs him in a tone that brooks no argument. "If you bring further trouble to the people of Camelot I will be forced to deal with you as I have the rest of your companions."

The boy manages a nod before he scurries off, limping, not even bothering to retrieve his sword.

That taken care of, Leon returns to Gwaine. The other knight is dirty and sweaty, blood splattered across the side of his face and more dripping down his mail. Leon supposes that he likely doesn't look much better.

Gwaine does, however, look a good deal happier than Leon feels. He shakes his hair away from his face with a toss of his head, grinning wide as anything, and Leon doesn't think he's ever known anyone who takes such pure, unabashed pleasure out of a good fight. It's... insane, but Leon envies him a little.

But Leon wipes his mind free of that thought immediately because, really, Gwaine? Leon will never admit to envying anything about Gwaine.

"Are you hurt?" he asks, gaze dropping to a rip in Gwaine's breeches, yet more blood seeping through the cloth.

"What, this? A scratch, I promise you."

Leon crouches down to take a better look anyway. The last thing he needs is Gwaine getting an infection because he's too stubborn to take care of himself. He carefully pulls apart the edges of the ripped material to discover that fortunately, Gwaine was being truthful. The wound isn't deep and it has ceased bleeding already, so Leon says only, "When we return to our camp, we'll need to wash it."

"As you wish," Gwaine says and pats Leon on the head.

Leon scowls and stands back up, walking in a slow circle. "We should be on our way. We need to return to the castle as soon as possible, let Arthur know we've taken care of it."

"What's your rush?" Gwaine asks and there's a strange expression on his face that Leon really doesn't want to consider further.

He resists the urge to back away. "Arthur may have need of us."

"And what of our needs? You feel it, don't you? You're not half so proper as you'd like everyone to think."

"You're speaking in riddles, Gwaine. Speak plainly or not at all."

Gwaine has been slowly edging forward and he is now close enough to touch. Leon fights against another urge to back away. "I always feel it after a fight. That... exhilaration, that heady feeling that you're alive. Heart pounding, blood rushing, like your whole body is singing. All that blood just... pumping."

Leon feels flushed and he drags his tongue over his lips, wetting them, flushing deeper when he sees how Gwaine tracks the movement with his eyes. All rational thought seems to have fled his mind and all he can think about is how hot Gwaine feels, this close, and how tight his breeches have become. His blood is certainly pumping, in one direction only.

"We'd only be two friends helping each other out, that's all. It won't mean anything you don't want it to." Gwaine slides his hand down Leon's chest and up under the edge of his mail, resting his fingers on the inside of the waistband of Leon's breeches.

It's crazy, it's insane, it's the sort of foolish idea that only Gwaine would have. Leon doesn't do this, he doesn't let other men, a man he isn't even sure he likes yet, seduce him in the middle of a ring of dead bodies, blood not even dried on his face. It's ridiculous, it's unthinkable.

So why does he want to?

"Leon," Gwaine says coaxingly, with that same stupid smile that he uses to charm the barmaids.

Leon is not a barmaid. He is Sir Leon of Camelot. And yet… yet… Damn it, that stupid fucking smile does not work on him! It doesn't, right?

He barely even realises that he's agreeing before Gwaine has his hand down the front of Leon's breeches, gripping him, and that... oh, fuck, that's good, that's perfect. Leon groans and thinks, yes, all right, he can go with this.

"That's it, just relax, let go," Gwaine is saying, rough and low and husky and Leon would probably be disturbed by how much he's liking the sound of Gwaine's voice if he had any working brain cells at the moment.

Gwaine kisses and bites Leon's neck, the coarse hair of his beard scratching the tender skin, and Leon curses, letting himself fall forward just a bit so that Gwaine takes some of his weight, their mail clanking together. Gwaine twists his wrist and with a flick of his thumb across the head of Leon's cock, Leon is coming, biting down on his tongue so hard his mouth fills with the sharp tang of blood.

He tries to get his breathing back under control, breeches uncomfortably wet, but he feels undeniably better. He feels amazing. He is hesitant to give Gwaine so much credit, but he has to acknowledge that yes, he did need that. Gwaine has taken a small step backwards and is now licking his hand clean, sucking at his fingers one by one, making an obscene popping sound as each pulls free of his mouth.

That's disgusting, Leon wants to say but he can't seem to form the words. Instead he simply stands there, watching. Leon wishes he knew the proper etiquette for this sort of situation.

Fortunately (if anything about this whole thing can be considered fortunate), Gwaine saves him. He grabs Leon's hand (yes, with the same hand that was just in Gwaine's mouth) and presses it to the bulge in his breeches. "Not to push, but feel free to return the favour anytime."

Leon finds a slow smile spreading across his face at the prospect of wiping that smirk off Gwaine's face, of having him completely at Leon's mercy. He gives Gwaine's cock a squeeze, relishing the gasp he earns.

Oh yes, he'll return the favour all right. After all, Leon prides himself on his manners.

End