Now, this is an unusual pairing, (Dom/Lerant?!), and I appreciate many people may not like it and I will most likely be shot down in flames for it. However, it's my story, and I like investigating these things. It's also my first go at slash. Don't read it if you think you'll hate it.
"In the spirit of investigation"
"By the Black God, if you don't move over I will take my sword and cut out a comfortable space to sleep. If that means removing your arm, so be it." said Sergeant Domitan of the King's Own, his tone too light, just not quite joking. He was quite out of sorts, and a long, cold, damp night of reconnaissance in a scape with a rookie was doing nothing to ease his temper.
"Yes, Sarge. What ever you say." Young Lerant of Eldorne was having a hard time settling in to the King's Own as standard bearer. Sir Raoul's protection could only do so much. Lerant's quick temper would usually rise in the face of such abuse, but he was, though he could scarcely even admit it to himself, bone tired of it all. He was also just a little hurt that Dom was taking out his temper on him; Lerant thought he had made a good impression on the usually friendly, easy going man. The camp gossip whispered at a love affair gone wrong, of a girl who had left him. Lerant wondered how true that was; women usually loved Dom. Still, what ever the truth, the Sergeant had been a bear lately.
"What? No proud Eldorne retort?" Dom needled. He didn't mean to be cruel, but he felt he had lost his self control as well as his temper recently.
"No, sir." Lerant sighed. "Really, I can't be bothered." He felt Dom's body convulse as he snorted with amazement. The two men were crushed together in the hollow scraped in the hillside, under a construction of pine branches. They watched the valley below for signs of Scanrans.
"Well, I think, as your commanding officer, for that insolence, I need some more room." Dom leaned into Lerant with whole body, pushing him into the cold earth.
"Oh, for Mithros' sake." Lerant hissed, half to himself. "You don't have to take it out on me."
"Take what out on you?"
"We all know some girl dumped you, and not surprising, with these lovely manners."
"Some spark, at last," Dom grunted. Lerant felt him relax, felt the tension go out of his muscles as Dom took a deep breath. "I'm off women for a while now. Waste of time. Waste of emotion."
"Well, that's easy to keep to. Scouting after Scanrans in northern forests. Some sacrifice. We all know what you'll be like the moment you're back in Corus."
"No need to sound jealous." Dom sounded slightly more cheerful - the boys still thought of him as a ladies' man - "All the more ladies for you guys if I'm sworn off them for a while."
"Oh, come on. Like you could stop flirting with with Court ladies." Lerant shifted, Dom could feel his slim body move.
"I can stop flirting any time."
"Go on then. Stop now." Lerant stared out at the still nightscape in front of him. He wondered why he had said it.
"I am stopped." Dom's voice was a little quieter. "Off ladies. And romance. Love." There was silence for a few moments. The two men listened to each other's breath, felt, and tried not to feel, the movement of each other's bodies with that breathing, as they lay in the tiny hollow. Dom spoke again. "Shall I stay stopped?"
Lerant turned and looked at him for a moment, brown eyes boring into blue. "I don't know. You're the Sergeant. Do what you like."
Dom broke the eye contact, looked at the moon, at the constellations of stars shining above them. He glanced back down at Lerant's bright eyes. "In the spirit of investigation, I think I should find out."
Lerant bit his strongly arched lips, but held the eye contact. "In a spirit of investigation, you say."
"Yes. And I think you should help me."
"Is that an order, Sergeant?" Lerant asked, softly.
"Not if you don't want to help me find out." Dom's eyes were very bright, and the stars reflected in them. Lerant didn't really feel he could refuse.
They found out, and slept warm in the hollow in the hillside under the pine branches.