There was no question that his beloved Lord’s request was a great honour, a gift to him so precious that had anyone actually suggested he say ‘no’ to his face Zhuge Dan would have lost his temper. This was his! A reward for his service, a demonstration of trust from their leader and… and… something so overwhelmingly close to a dream come true that he barely knew how to handle that it was happening to him. At his back lay Sima Shi, gone quiet and breathing even with the peace of sleep, and Zhuge Dan could do nothing but lay stiff and rigid and so hyperaware of everything around him that there was no chance he’d be getting any peace at all anytime soon.
Sharing a tent, a bed. As company, as warmth, as extra protection. Normal when on maneuvers and training. He’d done it with his peers and members of his own unit. But never with Lord Sima Shi.
He prided himself on his loyalty to this man; so many other things he professed to having pride in were not, he would admit to himself when alone, legitimate, but this? It was, surely, something to grasp onto. So the fact that he was failing to perform tonight’s longed for job well was a horrifying shame upon his head that he could not shake. And the reason for it? He couldn’t think about that, he couldn’t, except it wouldn’t stop assaulting him, a barrage on his senses. Zhuge Dan could feel the heat of his Lord’s body, hear him breathe, sense every minute little movement he made as he no doubt dreamed. It fed into that thing that had always been there, bubbling beneath the surface, something Zhuge Dan often pretended wasn’t obvious to many of those around him but was whispered about so much that he’d even heard Sima Zhao talking about it before being thankfully hushed up by Wang Yuanji.
“Eh, I just worry that he worships Brother too much… loyalty is good but I sometimes wonder if he wants to—”
It was politer than some put it, at least (though Zhuge Dan always felt his hackles rise particularly powerfully when Sima Zhao pointed out the truth). Talk of a dog curling up as his master’s feet, begging for scraps, were not at all uncommon. Did he want his master to call him a good boy? To pat his head as a reward? Zhuge Dan hated how so many perceived it. He was loyal and that should be all anyone cared about! It didn’t matter if he sometimes brought Lord Sima Shi’s laughter with him to his bed and thought very hard about the sound of that commanding voice loosened by delight, less rare than many outside of the Sima’s inner circle thought it was.
Tonight he absolutely shouldn’t have carried it to, to their bed, but his treacherous mind had betrayed him once again and proven all the whispers right.