Monday Flash Fic – Motivation is Everything

I’m coming in just at the last minute today, but the flash fiction group, Monday Flash Fics had a picture I couldn’t resist that reminded me of my heroes from Light. This one definitely, however, invokes a spoiler warning. If you haven’t read Light, you’ll want to skip, but since Light came out four years ago now, I feel safe returning to the characters.

Motivation is Everything

“I am never going to get this right.” Sebastien’s voice dropped to a growl.

Kieran, sitting cross legged on the floor, looked up at him and grinned. “You’re doing fine.”

Sebastien crossed his arms, and given he was currently wearing thick socks, a black jockstrap, and a leather harness, Kieran got to enjoy all the many things the crossing of Sebastien’s arms did to his chest and shoulders.

“I’m not doing fine.” When he got frustrated, his French Canadian accent got stronger.

“Try again. I’ll help.”

Sebastien exhaled. “Fine.”

Behind those lovely, muscular, hairy legs—seriously, Sebastien’s thighs alone inspired very many thoughts—Sebastien’s left boot tipped itself up.

So far, so good.

After that, though, it just sat there, upright.

“It’s not lifting,” Sebastien said.

Kieran leaned forward, and reached out with his mind. A moment later, he could feel Sebastien’s frustration like a hum in his own brain. Also there was a stream of thoughts in French that were going by too fast for him to even try translating. And beneath that, he could feel the teke Sebastien had formed.

It was fuzzy, and unlike the man in front of him, not very strong. Normally, Sebastien’s teke was decent, but today he was trying to teke something he wasn’t looking at, which was a new challenge.

Kieran reached out with his own teke, and it snapped into being with a speed he wasn’t used to. He dialed it way back, and did his best to help Sebastien tighten the mental hand he was wielding behind him. His own teke nudged the one Sebastien had tried to make.

“I can’t do this when I can’t see what I’m looking at.”

“It takes practice.”

“It’s impossible.”

“Says the man who held an entire float above our heads.”

“You did that.”

“No,” Kieran held up his hand. “Nope. That was you. You were the one handling the weight.”

Sebastien sighed in frustration again, frowned, and concentrated.

Kieran nudged his teke, just a little.

The boot rose an inch of the ground. Thanks to Kieran’s help, it also glowed a pale yellow.

Kieran grinned.

Sebastien’s eyes widened. “It worked, didn’t it?”

“It did.”

Sebastien raised his fists in the air. That also did amazing things to the muscles on display.

The boot thudded back onto the ground.

“I dropped it,” Sebastien said, annoyed. He lowered his hands.

“Hey, relax,” Kieran said. “It took me years to teke something behind my back. Years. You’re almost there and it’s been, what, three weeks? You’ve got something I didn’t have.”

Sebastien raised an eyebrow. “I do?”

“Me,” Kieran said. “You have me to show you the way.”

Sebastien’s smile turned wicked. “This is not how I’d like to have you.”

“We talked about this,” Kieran said, and took the opportunity to stretch his legs where he sat on the bedroom floor. “Once you can get both boots in the air, you get to decide what we do next.”

Sebastien closed his eyes to try again.