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mirrortouchedsea · 5 months

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The arrow whizzed past them, a lock of Leo’s hair drifting slowly to the ground where it had passed through. The next shot wouldn’t miss, Madara knew as much as he pulled Leo off his horse and shoved him off the path.

“Don’t come out until I tell you to!” Madara yelled at him, drawing his throwing knives and chasing into the woods where the arrow had come from.

Not more than a few minutes later, Madara came back out to the road, arm bleeding and bandaged with his shirt sleeve and Leo… still standing in plain sight. Or more accurately, Leo covered in leaves and twigs but looking none the worse for wear, but still out of hiding before Madara had come to get him.

He wasn’t sure what came over him as he tackled Leo to the ground. That was his King, his charge, his employer, something like this shouldn’t have even crossed his mind, and yet there he was. His bloody hand gripped at Leo’s shirt, pulling him close to Madara’s face.

“Why didn’t you wait?”

“I heard you coming back! I thought that meant it was safe to come out?” Leo’s eyes were painfully innocent.

“How did you know it was me and not another assassin attempting to kill you?” Blood continued to soak into Leo’s shirt from his hand. Leo’s own hand came up to wipe away the blood from a small scrape on Madara’s face.

“It sounded like you.”

The blood was starting to drip onto Leo’s skin and Madara’s brain felt like static. He couldn’t even protect the innocent king from trouble. How was he supposed to--

“Let’s find somewhere to rest for the night.” Leo’s voice was surprisingly calm. “You need to rest.”

Madara didn’t even realize he was shaking until Leo sat up, pushing him to do the same. It was rich for Leo to say that when he was the one who was very nearly assassinated due to Madara’s carelessness.

His arm throbbed in agreement, that he needed to find somewhere to sit and wash up and rest.

“Alright.” He couldn’t exactly go against the King on something like this. He did need to sit down and properly clean the wound before it got infected.

The two of them got up and Leo helped Madara back onto his horse.

---

It didn’t take long for them to find a spot to rest up for the night. Leo pushed Madara to the river to wash up and told him he’d set up their tents. Madara obliged, thinking to himself that he’d probably still have to set up the tents and get the fire going anyway, but went down to the riverbank anyway.

Madara struggled to pull his shirt off so he could wash the blood from it as well as the blood from his arm. The stream turned red as he dipped his arm into the water and gently scrubbed at the wound until the dried blood was gone, and while his shirt wouldn’t be white again any time soon, it was at least cleaner than it was. He pulled a roll of cloth from his pack and tied it up as best as he could. It felt a little too loose, but it would do.

He made his way back to camp and sighed as Leo was struggling to pull the cloth over the tent frame and keep it tight. He took the fabric from Leo and tied them to the frame before sitting down next to the attempt at a fire. It wasn’t dark enough yet that he could wait to get it going and take a moment to rest. Leo had… tried which was all that counted.

“I could’ve gotten that if you had just given me another minute,” Leo whined as he sat next to Madara on the log.

“Your leg was tangled up in the rope you should have tied it with.”

“W-well, I was just holding it down!”

Madara chuckled at that and the two fell into silence just like they had on their first few nights together.

“Uh, your bandage is falling off.” Leo spoke up again, tugging at the piece of cloth which by now had been stained with blood, though significantly less than his shirt had been.

It took a moment before Madara realized he was still not wearing a shirt and his torso was completely exposed to Leo’s wandering eyes. He felt Leo’s hand hovering over Madara’s arm, picking at the knot he had made in the cloth as Leo’s eyes wandered over Madara’s scarred chest. He suddenly wished he could just wrap himself in his cloak and go to sleep for the night.

Leo’s fingers danced over a smaller scar on his arm as he redid the bandage and tightened it up. All too quickly the feeling was gone and Leo had gone back to trying to start the fire and chatter away about something nonsensical. Madara tried to pay attention but he couldn’t help but wonder if he had let himself get too close to the King instead.

#shay writes #madaleo #IS THIS GOOD? ABSOLUTELY NOT BUT I DID WANT TO LIKE. GET THIS OUT THERE #i have more ideas for a broader story discussed with lis transactinides that i may or may not get to but #i wanted to write this. and then kept getting distracted while writing it. im so fucking tired #and then i played umineko for 2 hours. finished ep2 finally btw #that was brutal jfc #anyway this was uhhhh inspired by that one merc x royal au someone posted. i sent it to lis #who was it by. cas-paradox #if i post a fuller story which i want to. eventually. i'll tag them idk #anyway this is kinda like. early on in the story at least in how i am envisioning it so they havent had their like. fallen in love moment #leo definitely thinks madara is interesting but madara is just there to do a job #leo is getting to him though smile :)#anywhey time to fuck around til i have to go to sleep

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