I carved out a place in this world for two [c]

The sun had already begun to rise, twilight coloring the marsh a purple hue as the sky began to lighten. Hawkmist and Silverhawk should be heading back to their nests soon, but in the last dwindling hour of the night, they’re here instead. The bed of pines and fallen leaves coating the ground is disturbed by the weight of the two of them rolling about in the dirt. It had started as proper spar training, then devolved into their usual intensity, the spar turning into a fight. Then, it had mellowed again, and now they were here, more play fighting than anything else.

It was a necessary release of energy. Hawkmist, at the very least, was grateful for the way that at least for the past several minutes, he really wasn’t thinking. He couldn’t obsess over the change of Bubblebeam officially in Shadowclan and what it’d mean for all of them, or stew in anger over Leopardstar punishing both him and Silverhawk (his anger is more on Silverhawk’s behalf then his own. He thinks it was a foolish decision to remove Silverhawk from the council.), or fret about anything else if he was too busy dodging snapping teeth. He suspects Silverhawk needed it too.

Silverhawk had won their last unofficial “round”, but this time Hawkmist ended up on top during their tussle. With his paws squarely on Silverhawk’s shoulders, breathing hard, fur disheveled and eyes blazing, Hawkmist stared at Silverhawk below him. He was beautiful. He always was, but especially now. He loved how Silverhawk looked at him with his complete attention during fights like this. For a moment, Hawkmist is lost in the deep pine green of Silverhawk’s eyes. His eyes wander to take in every detail of Silverhawk’s face he already knows by heart, from his quivering whiskers to the way black and silver fur mixes in his cheeks. The longer fur on top of his head was messed up, long strands of fur slightly obscuring his eyes.

One paw lifted up off of Silverhawk, then slowly, delicately, moved his claws to push the fur back up and out of Silverhawk’s face. Then to his own surprise, when his eyes met Silverhawk’s again, he grinned, lopsided and boyish. With no small degree of smugness, Hawkmist matter of factly informs Silverhawk, “I win.” He rolls off of him, flopping down onto the marsh floor with a heavy breath.

Physical exhaustion catches up all at once, in the worn feeling of his muscles and the heavy gulps of air he still takes. It feels good, like what he needed, but he feels spent too, so he takes a moment, rolling onto his side so he can watch Silverhawk as he straightens out. He studies him all over again. Bubblebeam’s acceptance into the clan was nothing short of a wonder, and Hawkmist was grateful for it. Happy, even, to have her here, even with the punishments. And yet still, still there was the fear. Fear of losing Silverhawk to Bubblebeam, and, a concern that still rang as strange, the fear of losing Bubblebeam to Silverhawk. They hadn’t talked about it, the two of them. Of course they hadn’t. They didn’t talk about that sort of thing, and Hawkmist wouldn’t know how without turning it into a fight. Instead of trying, he just admitted softly, “That was fun.”

If there was nothing else in the world that Silverhawk could depend on, there was Hawkmist.

He had more than that, he knew. Pineblossom, his siblings (though he couldn’t exactly depend on them; it was meant to be the other way around), and especially now that she had come on as an official member of ShadowClan, he had Bubblebeam. But while any of those cats may follow him into the marshy woods and entertain him until the light of dawn filtered into the sky, none of them would busy his mind in the way he needed. Not with a spar that devolved into properly flexing claws, spots of blood shed; teeth snapping shut close to his face; his weight tossed around, Hawkmist’s thrown into him. This was a release only Hawkmist could provide, and for that Silverhawk loved him. There was no room for sour rumination in this space. All Silverhawk’s attention was devoted to the relatively simple acts of moving, of bearing down on another; to Hawkmist, always Hawkmist.

(There was a thought, somewhere in the back of Silverhawk’s mind where he’d pushed his consciousness aside while they wrestled, that it was shameful, bringing Bubblebeam to ShadowClan while he still belonged to Hawkmist first and foremost. But, like the rest of the frustrations and concerns that had built over the last several days, it was pushed out by the heavy collision of a head into his chest, paws bearing down on his shoulders to roll him down.)

There’s a grunt as Silverhawk’s back hits the ground, knocking half of the wind from his lungs. Green eyes blink slowly, clearing the murkiness of a dizzying knockdown out of them before refocusing. Silverhawk’s chest had been rising and falling heavily, trying to keep up with the rate at which he spent his air supply, but for a moment, it stilled. His lungs constricted, unmoving, and all he could do for several beats was stare up at Hawkmist. There was a fleck of red smeared through the white of his cheek; his body was darkened with mud and stuck with needles from rolling around the piney floor; his eyes, like always, were gorgeous and intense. They roamed back and forth over Silverhawk’s features, mirroring his own stare, and he almost couldn’t take it. The weight of Hawkmist’s gaze, the sheen of what could have been affection if Silverhawk liked to delude himself--it was too much.

But if a quiet moment of exchanged stares was too much for him--oh, stars, the next beat should have killed him. Hawkmist’s weight shifted atop him, and he brought a paw up to gently push back the lengths of fur that had fallen across Silverhawk’s face, and Silverhawk can’t command his composure fast enough to keep him from angling his head into the gesture, relishing in the gentle scrape of claws across his face. Then--the caught air rushed out of Silverhawk’s lungs in a shivery sigh. It was Hawkmist’s smile that did him in. Soft at the edges, just a touch cocky, earnest; an incredibly rare prize to earn; one of the most stunning things Silverhawk had ever seen. He can’t help but smile, too, under the warmth of it. And in return for the expression Hawkmist shares with him, Silverhawk’s own is more open than his usual: far different from the usual smooth, placid smiles, instead displaying a grin just wide enough to show the points of his teeth, full of fondness.

”You got lucky,” Silverhawk counters, but even to his own ears, his voice is unbearably soft. He rolls onto his side as Hawkmist does the same, propping himself upright while his friend settles. Again, his eyes rake across the broad, well-muscled body opposite him, watching the way his flanks rise and fall with his labored breaths. With no more playful tussling to keep him occupied, Silverhawk’s thoughts filter back into presence in his mind. There is, of course, the expected: rage, hurt, sensitivity over his demotion and the public nature of it, and a buoying gratitude for Bubblebeam’s acceptance into his home. But underneath it, the memory of a conversation with Pineblossom; a thought that has lived passively in the back of his head for moons, which he could never bring himself to act upon.

With Hawkmist’s simple admission--perhaps the first time he’d ever expressed any joy to be in Silverhawk’s company--Silverhawk’s mouth fell open and he almost returned with an admission of his own, I love you sitting frank and light on his tongue, before he pressed his teeth together again. Even here, under the lurid dawn, he couldn’t choke out the words. There was too much that needed to be said before he could share them, so many things neither of them knew how to discuss. Instead, Silverhawk just rolled over to lay a little closer to Hawkmist, resting his angled head on his paws and blinking up at those beautiful, beautiful eyes. ”It was,” he agreed quietly. He hesitates a beat, swallows down a little more air, then adds, ”It’s always fun when we’re together, don’t you think?”