It was the moan that started it all. The beginning of the end.
Looking back, the subtle foreshadowing of his doom came a little sooner than that. Sol turning a corner that morning to find Ky's little subordinate negotiating with one of the supply runners, a rather small box going under his arm for the surprisingly large amount of money that went to the courier. Interest piqued, and with nothing else worth doing, Sol strolled up as the courier walked away, attention fixed on flipping through the bills in his hand, a mongrel wad of currency from half a dozen allied nations.
Quinn saw him coming, but kept his attention on the box in his hands. Nondescript, blue and tied up like any normal parcel, he held it as if it were terribly fragile, carefully slipping the twine free to peek inside. It didn't look like a weapon, or any sort of contraband that might tarnish Ky's reputation by proxy, but Sol couldn't think of anything else that might require such a gentle touch.
"Good morning." He said, the light, Irish brogue sounding inordinately pleased with itself.
"Not unless there's a girl in that box." Sol replied, but he was ignored, Quinn cracking the box open with a pleased sigh. Sol didn't care, really didn't care, but he leaned forward anyway. "What is it?"
A raised eyebrow, but the other man flipped the lid back without comment, revealing six perfect pastries carefully tucked in a bit of parchment paper.
"Chocolate-covered eclairs. All the way from Paris."
Sol reached forward, but the box snapped shut before he could ever get close.
"What?" He frowned. "You're not giving those to Sir Stickass, are you? He'll just end up throwing them to orphans, you know he will."
The kid's magnanimous gestures were starting to get on Sol's nerves. Ky's concern for the poor and downtrodden - of which there were always plenty to spare - was obviously for show, currying favor, something. Just because Sol couldn't see the angle yet didn't mean it wasn't there. Quinn didn't say anything, just a little knowing smirk that Sol also found irritating, the hint that there was anything about the kid that might be mysterious.
Kiske was a shallow river, no matter if Kliff vouched for his skills. So what if he was competent? It was just an unexpected bonus. He said nice things that offended no one, he was pretty enough to be trotted out when necessary. So what? This was still a war that had long since eaten all its heroes, it was hardly a surprise when everyone just scrambled for whoever might be left, and rallied around them as hard as they could.
The discussion of Ky's potential 'preferences' had started about five seconds after his arrival. The only things to do in camp most days were gossip and wait to get attacked, so it had been a fairly popular topic of conversation, with a certain eager competitiveness. The commander himself was a potential prize for whoever figured out the answer. As time passed, and Ky had made no move toward anyone, no back-room offers or quiet trysts, not even a suggestion of a second glance or a raised eyebrow, the conversation had only grown as a topic of interest, and speculation, and disbelief.
"He looked me in the eye the entire time. I was out of uniform. You could have lost spelunkers in my top." One of the soldiers complained. Now back in uniform, but in Sol's opinion she was still able to inspire considerably more than eye contact.
"He's for the other team. All the cute ones always are," the girl sitting next to her sighed, running a whetstone down a short dagger in a melancholy sort of way.
"What? Sodomites in the Holy Order? But surely that would never happen, that's a mortal sin." Spoken in serious, earnest tones from a soldier Sol had seen tent-hopping on more than one occasion, treating that particular rule like a personal challenge. The fact that this was a religious army changed nothing but the rhetoric. Always the difference between what everyone pretended things were like, and the way they actually were.
Nothing new under the sun. That was right from the book.
The soldier shook his head, what was almost disappointment. "No, I'm afraid this one, pretty as he is, has those pants welded on. He's a right and proper little saint."
"Farm animals?" Sol finally offered, musingly. "Farm equipment?" He said a moment later, amidst the laughter.
The one and only rumor to surface in the end was of the one poor bastard who did attempt to proposition Ky, and the resulting icy glare that pretty much cut his balls off. The overwhelming, if disappointing, conclusion was that Kiske was one of those unfortunate neophytes the Church managed to build now and then, a competent fighter and surprisingly flexible - just not in any of the fun ways. Judging by most of the conversations Sol overheard afterward, asexual, frigid Kiske ass was still considered prime wank material. Just because the kid didn't want to take advantage of what he'd had, didn't mean it would go unappreciated.
So hearing a deep, pleased moan of satisfaction as he passed the Commander's tent stopped Sol dead in his tracks. No one else was nearby, and Sol's hearing was pretty well above any normal person's, but it was still a surprise that Kiske hadn't shut his tent flap for his little tryst. He couldn't possibly be that ignorant of the gossip - and Sol had his bets, frankly, on the Irishman - although as he peeked around the side he was willing to accept seeing practically anyone, man or woman, or perhaps an obliging plow.
At first - okay, so Ky was fucking his paperwork, not all that astonishing, really - but Sol couldn't see that anything exciting was going on. The workaholic was just sitting there like he always did, filling out forms from a pile that never seemed to get any smaller, and just about the time Sol thought he must have imagined it, Ky reached over and picked up an eclair. Took a long, slow bite, eyes fluttering shut as he let out a whimper as downright pornographic as anything Sol had ever heard, a slight dart of pink tongue catching a crumb at the corner of his mouth.
He was a multi-tasker, more than capable of making reports while thoroughly debauching himself with a box of french pastry, and that absurd fastidiousness that Sol usually found so annoying took on an entirely different aspect as Ky sucked each of his fingertips clean, letting out a soft, near-ecstatic sigh.
Sol, in comparison, wasn't doing much single-tasking, unless managing to breathe while gaping like a strung trout counted. Thankfully, Ky never looked up, and Sol finally understood the look Quinn gave him, that none of the pastries were going to make it half an hour, let alone into anyone else's hands . Sol was dumbfounded, the simple pleasure and satisfaction on Ky's face the closest he'd seen to anything 'carnal' - a satisfied Ky Kiske was officially, for the record, hot as all hell.
His mind, always there to make things worse, was happy to provide him with the singularly unhelpful image of Ky in his lap, licking his fingers as Sol tempted him with another bite - but in the world of sanity Ky suddenly cursed, a pastry proving structurally unsound, and he was quickly left licking white cream off his wrist and his thumb and slowly off the back of his hand. Sol finally managed to tear his gaze away, staggering off, hot and uncomfortable and entirely too interested in cataloging every second he'd just witnessed, alternately cursing and thanking the genius who invented cream filling.
Author's Notes -
1. Ky wasn't actually angry at the man who'd propositioned him. He was busy trying to compose a letter in his head for a request that might gain them another two battalions, and by the time he realized what the man had said and that it actually concerned him, the poor bastard had fled in terror.