The training session went better than any before it. Ren felt it almost immediately once they started, the thread of silver-white light along his arm rising steadier this time, less like something dragged unwillingly to the surface and more like something that simply answered when called, holding shape through three full minutes of sustained focus before Reven finally signaled him to release it.
"Better," Reven said, watching the light fade clean with none of the earlier flickering instability. "You’re learning to trust it instead of fighting it. That’s most of the battle, with a rank like yours."
"Feels less like trust and more like exhaustion beating my panic into submission," Ren said, rolling his shoulder where the effort of holding containment had left a dull ache settling in, "but I’ll take it. Progress is progress."
Reven’s mouth curved, something almost fond in it despite the usual sharp edge underneath, and he was in the middle of saying something about tomorrow’s session when his gaze shifted past Ren’s shoulder toward the entrance of the training yard, and whatever he’d been about to say died on his tongue entirely.
Ren turned to follow his line of sight and felt his stomach drop.
Yegard was crossing the yard toward them, composed as ever, and beside him, arm looped through his with that same proprietary grip she’d worn on the landing pad, walked Lyra, her expression already lit with something that looked distinctly like anticipation, like she’d come here specifically expecting to enjoy whatever she found.
’Fantastic,’ Ren thought, watching them approach, exhaustion from training already curdling into a fresh wave of dread. ’Absolutely fantastic timing. Truly the exact moment I needed an audience for.’
He didn’t get more than half a second to brace for it before Reven moved, closing the distance between them in one smooth, unhurried step, one hand settling back at Ren’s waist with the same firm, possessive weight from the corridor the day before, and the other rising to cradle the back of Ren’s head, fingers threading gently into his hair.
"Stay still," Reven murmured, low enough that it barely carried past the two of them, already leaning in.
"What are you—" Ren started, and then Reven’s face was close enough that the rest of the sentence died somewhere in his throat, breath catching as the angle brought them close, close enough that from any distance at all it would read as exactly what it was clearly designed to look like.
He didn’t actually kiss him. Ren registered that a half second later, the realization landing somewhere underneath the pounding of his own pulse, Reven’s mouth angled just enough to the side that his lips brushed instead against the corner of Ren’s jaw, the illusion of the moment doing all the actual work while nothing technically happened at all. It was, Ren thought distantly, an infuriatingly precise piece of theater, close enough to devastate an audience from across a training yard while leaving Ren himself with nothing solid to actually object to.
Reven pulled back just enough to glance sideways, and Ren followed his gaze on pure reflex, catching Yegard and Lyra now standing at the edge of the yard, both of them frozen mid-step.
Lyra’s mouth had fallen open slightly, some mixture of shock and delight warring across her face like she couldn’t decide which reaction to commit to first. Yegard, by contrast, had gone utterly, completely still, the kind of stillness Ren was learning to recognize as the most dangerous version of his composure, jaw locked tight, eyes fixed on the two of them with an intensity that felt like it might physically burn a hole through the space between them.
Reven’s face angled back toward Ren, and the look he wore made the whole calculation behind it plain, sharp satisfaction curling at the edges of his mouth, eyes glinting with something that read unmistakably as ’good, look, keep looking’ aimed directly past Ren’s shoulder at the man standing frozen across the yard. Then, without missing a beat, he pressed his lips lightly to the corner of Ren’s jaw again, lingering there deliberately this time, and murmured, just loud enough for Ren alone to hear, "keep still a moment longer, sweetheart, we’re not quite finished putting on a show."
"You could have warned me," Ren hissed under his breath, torn between the urge to shove him off entirely and the reluctant awareness that pulling away now would only make the whole staged moment look worse, more suspicious, less convincing.
"Where’s the fun in that," Reven murmured back, finally straightening, though his hand didn’t leave Ren’s waist, thumb tracing an idle, absent line against his hip that felt entirely too deliberate to actually be idle at all. "Besides. I told you already. I don’t share well. Consider this a public clarification."
Across the yard, Lyra recovered first, tugging insistently at Yegard’s sleeve, saying something Ren couldn’t quite make out from this distance, though the delighted, scandalized pitch of her voice carried well enough on its own. Yegard didn’t respond to her at all. He just stood there, gaze locked on the space where Reven’s hand still rested against Ren’s waist, something raw and unguarded flickering across his face for one brief, unmistakable second before the mask slammed back down over it, cold and flat and utterly unreadable once more.
Then, without a single word, he turned and walked away, cutting back across the yard in the direction he’d come from, leaving Lyra scrambling to catch up behind him.
Reven watched him go with open satisfaction, finally releasing Ren’s waist now that the performance had apparently served its purpose. "There," he said, tone deeply, insufferably pleased with himself. "That should clarify a few things nicely."
"Clarify what, exactly," Ren said, stepping back and dragging a hand down his face, equal parts furious and, if he was being brutally honest with himself, still faintly reeling from how close that near-kiss had actually felt despite technically not being one at all. "That you’re apparently willing to stage an entire fake romantic moment purely to mess with a man I already told you I’m not interested in dealing with? What exactly does that accomplish, besides giving Lyra an incredible new piece of gossip to spread across this entire outpost by dinner."
"It accomplishes exactly what I wanted it to accomplish," Reven said, entirely unbothered by the accusation, tucking his hands back into his pockets with that same maddening calm. "You said you didn’t want to be his problem anymore. I simply made sure he understood, in a language he clearly responds to, that you’re no longer his to be jealous over in the first place."
"That’s not the same as making it your business either," Ren said, frustration bleeding into every word now. "I didn’t ask you to fight some invisible battle with him on my behalf. I’ve been very clear, from the first day I met either of you, that I’m not interested in being claimed by anyone, and staging fake almost-kisses in the middle of a training yard doesn’t exactly reinforce that message."
Something in Reven’s expression shifted at that, the satisfaction cooling slightly into something more considering, and he studied Ren for a long moment before answering, his voice dropping into something quieter, less performative than anything he’d said in front of Yegard moments ago. "You’re right," he said finally, surprising Ren with the ease of the concession. "That was for my benefit, not yours. I won’t pretend otherwise." He paused, something almost thoughtful crossing his face. "But I’d be lying if I said I regretted watching his face when he realized someone else had gotten there first."
Ren stared at him, unsure whether to be more frustrated by the honesty or unsettled by how genuine it actually sounded. "Gotten where first," he said slowly. "There’s no ’there’ to get to. I told you, I’m not interested in being anyone’s anything right now, not his, not yours, not anyone’s. I have an off-the-charts rank I can barely control, a family crisis apparently on the way in the form of a terrifying father, and honestly more sitting on my plate right now than I know what to do with. I don’t exactly have room left over for whatever competition you two seem to be running."
Reven’s mouth curved again, softer this time, something almost gentle threading through the usual sharpness. "Noted," he said, though nothing in his tone suggested he actually intended to stop. "For what it’s worth, sweetheart, I’m not in any particular hurry. I can wait." He glanced toward the direction Yegard had disappeared in, something colder flickering briefly behind his eyes before it smoothed back over. "He, on the other hand, doesn’t strike me as a man used to losing. I’d be careful assuming today changes nothing, on his end especially."
Ren opened his mouth to argue, found nothing useful to say to that, and closed it again, the earlier ache in his shoulder suddenly feeling considerably less significant than the fresh, tangled knot forming in his chest instead. ’Great,’ he thought, watching Reven finally turn to leave the training yard, that same unhurried confidence carrying him away like none of this had cost him anything at all. ’Fantastic. So now I’ve got a possessive, classified instructor staging fake kisses for an audience, a Grand Marshal whose composure apparently has actual limits after all, and an old plan that’s falling apart faster every single day I stay on this outpost.’
He sank down onto the training yard’s edge, dropping his head into his hands, and let himself sit there in the quiet for a long moment, turning over the image of Yegard’s face right before the mask slid back into place, that brief flash of something raw and unguarded that Ren hadn’t expected to see, hadn’t wanted to see, and now couldn’t quite stop replaying against his will. ’Stay away from Yegard,’ he reminded himself, the words sounding thinner every time he repeated them. ’That was the plan. That’s still the plan.’ He stared out at the empty yard, exhaustion pressing in from every direction at once. ’Nobody said the plan would actually work, though. Nobody promised me that.’