Tienpo takes a moment outside the door to his room to collect himself. He doesn't want to enter the room angry.
He's been taught to respect the council, and so he does his best to hold his tongue when he speaks with them, but sometimes it seems they are intentionally trying to make him angry. They still treat him like a novice despite his recent—albeit sudden—promotion. They don't understand him or his situation at all, but they clearly still think themselves qualified to make major decisions about his life. And not just his—they actually wanted to kill-
No. Tienpo takes another deep breath and reaches for calm. This is his major weakness as a monk, and everyone knows it; he's too ruled by his emotions, too empathic for his own good. He can't always see what must be done past his feelings of what should be done. But he can't go into the room angry. He has to focus.
A few moments and an equal number of deep breaths later, he turns the handle on the door and steps softly into the dark room.
He closes the door just as softly behind him and waits, patient and still, until his eyes adjust to the soft moonlight. When shapes begin to emerge from the background darkness he can make out the small, curled figure of Noah in the center of his bed. The young man is huddled in on himself, shaking, skin shivering and twitching over the surface of his muscles like a skittish horse. Tienpo pads silently over to the bed, slipping under the thin sheet, and lines himself up behind Noah, curving his body around Noah like a shell.
With a soft, exhaling sigh, he slips his member into Noah's ever-ready passage, stroking the soft skin of his lover's arm as he does so. Noah's trembling finally stops as Tienpo enters him, the final few shudders racing from his shoulders down to his hips, arcing his body before subsiding. Noah takes a few soft, even breaths before his eyes flutter open.
"'Po?" he murmurs sleepily.
"Sorry," says Tienpo quietly. "I didn't mean to wake you."
"It's fine." Noah's voice is stilled muffled and stumbling with sleep. "Let me just suck you off real quick..."
Tienpo pets his lover's hair back from his face in a tender gesture, feeling his heart break a little as it always does when Noah offers these things so offhand, as though it is expected of him. As though it's something he wants to be doing, when Tienpo knows he doesn't, can hear it in every empty syllable of Noah's voice. He's still astonished that the other monks can't tell the difference, can't tell how unwilling he actually is, despite his words. He leans in to place a gentle kiss on the warm skin behind Noah's ear. "No, Love," he says. "I'm fine. Really. Just go back to sleep."
Noah does so with little more than a murmured sigh. Tienpo thrusts his hips slightly to seat himself as deep as he can inside Noah and then, nestled firmly in the embracing warmth of his lover's body, follows him down into sleep.
Tienpo wakes before Noah the next morning, still hard inside his lover with the easy stamina that years as a Kama Sutra monk have instilled in him. He yawns, reaches his hand around Noah's hips, and firmly grasps the young man's member. Noah huffs slightly in his sleep, but doesn't wake. Tienpo begins leisurely to pull and stroke him.
It takes Noah a long time to get hard—it always does. He can't even get hard at all unless something's inside him, but Tienpo is patient. He stays very still inside Noah while his hand works. Many of the other monks made the mistake of trying to fuck Noah while they pleasured him, thinking that their pleasure might give him pleasure, as was the case with so many who came to the temple with a naturally submissive attitude. But the necessity of being filled is a physical one for Noah, not an emotional one. What he lacks, what he craves, is someone dedicated to his pleasure, and his alone, who understands why he needs this and will not grudge it, any of it. He needs the tenderness and affection that comes with this dedication far more than he needs the physical release. That was why none of the other monks could fulfill him; none of them had the emotional bleeding left to understand and share Noah's pain.
Noah wakes up gradually as Tienpo continues his strokes. He whines and murmurs, writhing a bit on Tienpo's cock. He's finally starting to grow hard, but he makes no move to pleasure himself in any way, letting Tienpo do it for him. He never interferes with the process of lovemaking unless given a command; even if told to just do what he wants, he always seems to be working from some internal script designed to given as much pleasure as possible to his partners and leave none at all for himself. It is Tienpo's fondest wish that some day Noah will heal to the point where he can simply masturbate, by himself, without being asked or told to do so.
But for now Noah at least lets himself be pleasured, lets the feeling of Tienpo's love wash across him. He leans his head back against the juncture between Tienpo's neck and shoulder, his breath light and gasping. This is the wondrous thing about Noah: when he does receive pleasure from a sexual act—truly achieve pleasure instead of merely being a vessel for the pleasure of others—it seems always to come as a miraculous surprise to him. It sweeps his entire body in stunning waves, like something magnificent. Noah feels pleasure more acutely than anyone Tienpo's ever seen—he seems paralyzed by the sensations, completely at their mercy. Even now his hand scrabbles blindly at the flesh of Tienpo's thigh as though searching for purchase. He seems adrift, lost in the ocean of his of stimulation.
After nearly an hour of patient stroking, Noah comes messily over Tienpo's hand. He's awake now, and lifts the hand to his lips to lick it clean, almost apologetically. His tongue delicately traces the rough outline of the digits, and he groans wantonly at the taste of his own cum. This is the deceptive nature of Noah—that he gives such strong indications of pleasure from actions and sensations that in fact leave him only empty and grasping, touching him not at all. Tienpo has told Noah that he doesn't need to do this, but there are only so many concessions he can get the young man to make. It took so long for Noah to understand that he need not bring Tienpo to orgasm in reciprocation that Tienpo has left small battles like the cleanup alone, at least for now.
Tienpo allows his erection to flag, sliding out of Noah. He knows Noah will feel less comfortable without it, will find him later in the day to deal with the feeling of withdrawal and absence from lack of penetration. But they are slowly trying to wean Noah away from the constant need to have something inside him. Tienpo hopes that for a small while at least, the feeling of his presence will simply be enough.
"How did the council meeting go last night?" Noah asks him as he settles back into Tienpo's embrace.
"Not as well as I'd hoped," Tienpo admits. "You're a supplicant. You came here looking for pleasure and you found it, finally. They should be satisfied."
Noah chuckles. "Their egos are bruised. They don't like that a mere novice could do something that they couldn't."
"They're not supposed to have egos. I expected more from the high council, I must say." Tienpo huffs, his arms tightening around Noah. "Anyway, they're afraid of you. They think you're dangerous. I don't know why. I guess they think you'll go and wreak havoc on the world or something."
Noah turns in his arms to gaze into his eyes. There's a bit of wonder in them, as there often is when he looks at Tienpo. Like he can't quite believe what's in front of him. "What," he asks dryly, "when I have you to keep me in check?"
"They think I won't be able to," says Tienpo. "And that's all stupid, anyway. You wouldn't hurt anyone, even without me. That's not who you are."
"Maybe it is." Noah buries his face against Tienpo's chest to avoid looking him in the eye. But Tienpo can feel his pain, his fear, shivering up through his body language as clear as if it were spoken. "Maybe you don't know me as well as you think you do. Maybe I've fooled you."
Tienpo smiles ruefully and pets the head of soft, dark hair. He kisses the top of Noah's head, feels the silky strands against his lips. "Nonsense," he murmurs. "Complete nonsense."
After a moment of silence, Tienpo says, "I'll leave with you, if you want to go."
This startles Noah into pulling back a few inches, looking up into his face. "Leave the monastery? But it's been your life. You can't just abandon everything you've known."
Tienpo shrugs. "I'm starting to think that maybe the life of a Kama Sutra Monk is not for me. I was never all that good at it anyway, to be honest. I'd much rather be with you, and if it's better for us to be away from here, then that's where we should go."
Noah says nothing, merely buries his face in Tienpo's chest once more. Tienpo doesn't know what decision Noah will make—he can't predict everything about his lover—but he isn't worried. He's found his calling, after so long, and it's the broken, tattered soul in his arms. He will protect this fragile thing by whatever means necessary. Even the harsh, mysterious outside world holds no fear for him now. He has found his destiny, and everything else is for the rest of the world to decide.