Dorian had grown somewhat accustomed to sleeping in the open with the Crown Keepers. It was typical for them to wear as many clothes as possible to stay safe from the elements.
He was not prepared for how that would change with the safety of a roof over their heads. In fact, it was not until the skyship that sharing a bedroom with Fearne and Orym became a point of concern.
Dorian, meticulous as he was, had been carrying a pair of silk pyjamas since he left home, the left breast monogrammed with the first initial of his old name. Fearne sometimes slept in her dress, or naked, but the unpredictability was expected from her. Ironic.
Orym slept shirtless. This was a problem, because his lithe dancer’s build was unfairly attractive. He was also far too casual about it, his trained pragmatism butting up against Dorian’s general fear of everything.
Dorian had made out with Dariax a few times before their parting, and Orym had somewhat casually mentioned he found Dariax attractive himself. But there was something untouchable about Orym. He held himself a little apart from the others, always on watch, always observing and rarely intervening unless asked for his opinion, or if he deemed action of vital importance to their wellbeing.
Now they were on a skyship headed to Marquet (or back to Marquet in Dorian’s case), and there was only so far Dorian could go to clear his head when his thoughts turned a little too lustful to bear being in the same room. Fearne was good at sniffing him out, but at least that meant she wasn’t pickpocketing someone.
“Are you still upset that Orym is attractive?” she said, leaning against the ship’s railing beside him.
Dorian choked on his own spit. “Fearne!”
“What? Am I wrong?”
It was difficult to lie to Fearne when she had chosen to be blunt. He gazed up at the clouds, close as they were, instead of making eye contact. “It’s… complicated.”
“It wasn’t complicated with Dariax.”
“Fearne, with all respect to Dariax, he is not a complicated guy.” Dorian liked that about him, and it had certainly helped him resist the Spider Queen far more effectively than Dorian had. “Orym… gah. We have a job to do, and I don’t wanna mess it up for him.” Dorian didn’t tell her that he sometimes felt unworthy. Of anyone. Dariax included. And Orym had been such a strong guiding hand for the Crown Keepers, especially when Fy’rah wasn’t around. And Dorian’s weakness had almost caused them to come to blows. It had taken guts for Orym to call him on his shit like that, fully understanding there had been a chance Dorian would resent him for it.
He used to resent Orym. Not anymore. Orym, however much he rejected the label, was a strong leader. He made decisions (sometimes reluctantly) and kept the people around him on track. He was also frightening and assertive and unflinching on a battlefield, when his general mild demeanour fell away and he simply got the job done. Oh, and he was painfully good-looking even before Dorian had discovered what he looked like shirtless.
“You know what I think?” said Fearne.
“Fearne, I can tell you with 100% honesty that I never know what you’re thinking.”
“I think you’re both feeling a bit lonely and maybe if you made out a bit, you’d both feel better. It worked with Dariax, right?”
“That tends to only work when both parties want the same thing.”
Fearne cupped his chin. “Dorian, you are a very pretty boy.” She kissed his forehead. “I would kiss you.”
This conversation had already embarrassed Dorian past the point of no return. “I don’t think he’s into pretty, Fearne.”
“You’re also very strong,” she said, squeezing his bicep.
“Uh, thank… you?” Dorian, as usual, wasn’t sure what to make of her. But she was being sweet, in her slightly unhinged way. “Look, I don’t want to make things weird. Even if I ask and he’s into it, I’m going to make it weird. I have no chill. I have never been chill in my life. Oh, god, it’d be so weird. And if it goes badly, we still have to work together.”
“It won’t go badly.” Fearne plucked one of the non-poisonous flowers from her hair and tucked it behind Dorian’s ear. “He was a little worried when you left. You seemed mad.”
Dorian sighed. “See? I’ve already made it weird.”
“Then more weird won’t hurt, will it?” She shoved him in the direction of the sleeping cabins. “Have fun. I’ll give you space for a bit.”
“Don’t steal anything, please.”
Fearne smiled, turned and walked in the opposition direction. That wasn’t a no. Oh gods, that wasn’t a no.
Orym finished checking his equipment for signs of wear and tear. There wasn’t much to do with them today, aside from basic cleaning to keep everything in good condition. The comforting thing about an airship was the constant flow of air, even indoors. The rooms were all slightly chilly because of it, but he preferred it over the stuffy alternative.
If he held his sword and closed his eyes, he could pretend he was on the cliffs of Zephrah, running his drills. He let his breath sink deeply into his body as he worked through his forms, trying to erase the stress-tension he held in his neck and shoulders before retiring to bed. He missed home already. Keyleth had her reasons for sending him away so soon after his return. He had a job to do, and he would do it.
It wasn’t a rejection, even if it felt a little bit like one.
Exercise made him feel better. It always had.
The door hinges squeaked. Orym clocked it in the back of his mind, and kept working through his forms, intending to reach a logical end point before he spoke to whoever it was. Fearne had gone out to find Dorian. So either she was back with news, or had gently bullied Dorian into returning on his own. Either way, they wouldn’t be mad if he took a moment longer to finish before speaking to them.
As he finished out the last form, feeling the cool air meet the sweat on his back, he lowered his sword and checked over his shoulder. Dorian stood in the doorway, snapping his gaze away the instant Orym met his eyes. His cheeks were flushed, the red of his blood tinting the blue skin purple.
“Hey.” Orym sheathed his sword and set it alongside his shield. “You all right?”
Dorian jumped, looking anywhere but Orym like a child who had been caught stealing an extra helping of dessert. “Uh, yeah! Yeah, I’m good. Are you… are you good?”
“I’m… good?”
“Good!” He still wasn’t making eye contact. Dorian had stormed out of here earlier, and Orym couldn’t shake the feeling he had unknowingly upset him. Living on top of each other as they were, it was bound to happen eventually. Orym, however, couldn’t for the life of him figure out what he had done to set Dorian off. They had to get it sorted out before it became a problem. A bigger problem than it already was.
Orym crossed his arms over his chest. “Dorian.”
Dorian groaned, slumping against the doorframe. “Oh gods, don’t use the dad voice on me.”
Orym was not going to unpack that. “You seemed upset earlier. Have I done something?”
“No, no. It’s… stupid.”
“If it’s bothering you…”
Dorian grumbled under his breath, smushing his face in his hands. It was endearing. “It’s no big deal. A personal thing.”
“Is there something you would like me to do differently?”
“Can you stop being hot? Oh my gods I really just… fuck .” Dorian wasn’t emerging from behind his hands any time soon.
Orym, as usual, was not entirely sure what to make of the twists and turns that tended to happen with any of the Crown Keepers. Dorian was normally the easiest to follow, but he was still steeped in his own layers of (panicked and frequently blatant) deception at all times that it could sometimes be hard to grasp what he was actually saying.
“That’s, uh, flattering, Dorian. Thank you.”
Dorian muttered something mostly too soft to hear, though Orym made out fuck and Fearne and made (something) weird . It was endearing, in that awkward way Dorian had that somehow still worked out very well for him. Orym had always found it charming.
There was some compulsion in Orym that, whenever he grasped the thread of a mystery, drove him to unspool the whole thing until he figured it out. He was no genius by any means, but he was clever enough to pull on a secret if necessary.
“So, let me get this straight,” Orym said, trying to find a good balance between kind and serious so that Dorian would feel neither mollycoddled nor threatened. “You’re mad because you think I’m attractive?”
“I’m not mad at you,” Dorian muttered into his hands.
“Are you mad at yourself?”
“I guess.”
“You don’t have to be. I’m not uncomfortable, if you were worried about that.” Orym made a rapid calculation, and then just fucking went for it. “The feeling’s mutual, if that helps.”
“I don’t know if it does,” Dorian… lamented? Gods. He had really gotten into his head about this.
Orym approached and reached up to tug on Dorian’s sleeve, until he lowered that arm. “Come on. Let’s sit down.” Still holding his sleeve, Orym pulled Dorian to the nearest bed and waited until he sat down. “Good.” He hopped onto the mattress, tucking his knees under him to get a little closer to Dorian’s height. It didn’t help much.
Dorian let out a long breath and fixed his gaze on the wall in front of him. And Orym remembered he was shirtless. Ah.
“Would you like me to…?” He gestured towards his pack, where his shirt lay folded on top.
“I mean…” Dorian flushed a deeper purple. “I… don’t mind? It’s a little distracting, but...” A sheepish little grin. “Free tickets to the gun show.”
“Have you ever seen a gun?”
Dorian did not answer the question. “Have you?”
“Heard of them.” Orym did not elaborate, and neither did Dorian. “You can look if you want. I really don’t mind.”
A soft, awkward laugh. “There won’t be much talking if I do that.” He cleared his throat. “Um. I don’t know what there is to talk about. I’ve been a little distracted and didn’t handle it well.” He looked at Orym out of the corner of his eye and visibly swallowed. His hands flexed on his knees, which drew Orym’s attention downward. Ah. Yes. It was indeed hard to think when all your blood rushed south. Orym, being the height that he was, typically tuned out things like that out of habit. He had saved a lot of people a lot of embarrassment over the years.
“If you could do anything you wanted right now,” said Orym, “what would you do?”
Dorian set his gaze on him fully, the full force of that smoulder that frequently had half the people in a given tavern putty in his hands. “Do you really have to ask?”
Orym cleared his throat, painfully aware of the heat in his own cheeks. And elsewhere. “What’s stopping you?”
Dorian looked away, giving Orym a moment to breathe. “I didn’t think you were interested, for starters. I didn’t know you were into Dariax, either, until you said something.”
Orym had gotten pretty good at keeping things like that to himself, especially of late. “Sorry. Force of habit.” He hadn’t even known he could still find people attractive until he’d run into this group of… chaotic individuals, to put it mildly. “It’s… been a while.”
“I suspected,” Dorian said quietly. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”
“Thank you.” Orym’s chest ached with memories he wasn’t quite ready to share. Not yet. “I… apologise for any distress I have caused you.”
“Gods,” muttered Dorian. “You don’t need to apologise for being comfortable. It’s… a lot less stressful now that you know, honestly.” He was still visibly hard. “I just…” An awkward giggle. “Gotta get comfortable with this whole… situation, I guess.”
“Or you could ask for help with that,” Orym said flatly, because Dorian was being oblivious. Endearing as it was, it was unhelpful.
“I don’t want to put you in a situation you’re not ready to… handle.” Dorian visibly winced at his word choice.
“Dorian, we’re both adults. I’ll tell you if I can’t handle it.”
“Will you?” There was an edge to his voice. Orym didn’t need to ask what he was referring to.
“Your dick isn’t a battlefield, Dorian.”
“I… okay?” His voice was small. Startled? “I mean… what?”
They had danced around this long enough; it was time for Orym to be a little more direct. “I’m offering to suck your dick.”
“Oh! Right! Yes, please.” Dorian squinted into space for a long moment, the flush rising in his cheeks once again. “Please don’t tell anyone I said that.”
Orym slid off the bed. “I can keep a secret.”
“So, uh, what should I…?”
Orym was struck by a wave of affection at this awkward man. “Lean back a little.” He stepped between Dorian’s legs. At this angle, he would have to bend down a bit, but not so much that it would be uncomfortable. Dorian was strong enough that Orym could brace an arm against his leg without an issue.
“Um, yes, okay. Sure.” Dorian leaned back on his hands, his right leg jiggling as it took him a second to make eye contact.
Orym unlaced the front of Dorian’s trousers. “You good?” Dorian seemed into it, but his overexcited awkwardness was throwing off Orym’s read just enough that he had to check. He had to.
Dorian took a deep breath. “Yes. I’m good.” He sounded calmer. “Sorry. I didn’t think you’d… I was surprised. But I’m into it.”
“Tell me if that changes, okay?” Orym reached in and extracted Dorian’s cock from his undergarments. He was still hard, and lay thick and heavy in Orym’s hand, the tip flushed a deep purple. Orym made it a habit to stop and take note of beauty when he saw it. And Dorian’s cock was lovely. He did not say that aloud; Dorian knew he was pretty, and it would probably make things weirder than they already were.
So he leaned down and loosely closed his lips around the tip, darting his tongue out to lightly flick against the opening, already slick with his arousal. Dorian’s thighs twitched on either side of his head. He had very nice thighs.
There was no way Orym could physically take all of this in his mouth (and it had been a while since he’d pushed the limits of his gag reflex), so he pulled back, licked his palm and wrapped a hand around the base of Dorian’s cock. He chanced a look upward; Dorian watched him, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth. His fingers flexed in the blanket behind him.
Orym gently twisted his hand, watching Dorian swallow hard. “Good?”
“Yeah.” His voice came out husky. He cleared his throat. “Good.”
Orym ducked back down, taking Dorian more deeply into his mouth. A hand found its way into his hair, fingernails gently grazing his scalp.
“This okay?”
Orym hummed in assent, noting the way Dorian quivered in and around him. The taste of him grew more intense as Orym slowly worked his way to a rhythm, occasionally pulling up to swirl his tongue around the head of Dorian’s cock. Small noises gradually fell from Dorian’s lips, soft moans and whispered yeses when Orym found a good spot. Fingers curled in his hair but didn’t pull. Orym wouldn’t have minded if they had. Something to talk about later, maybe.
“You’re good at this,” Dorian breathed, voice a little strangled. “ Gods , you’re good at this. Why haven’t we done this before? Fuck , I’ve wasted so much time being foolish about this. It’s--Gods--I can’t--” He was babbling and didn’t really require a response from Orym right now. He half-listened to it in case that changed, but mostly just let the words flow. Dorian did like to talk. The sound was nice.
Orym picked up the pace and Dorian grew louder, sentences bitten in half with moans. The smell of his arousal made Orym’s brain go a little fuzzy. That was nice. It was good to not overthink this, like he did everything else.
Soon enough, though: “Orym. I’m gonna--” Dorian was beyond full sentences.
Orym gently squeezed the base and pulled back to focus more attention on the weeping head of Dorian’s cock. Dorian’s fingers closed around a few strands of his hair and tugged, just a little. And Dorian came, thighs clenched against Orym’s ears. A new, stronger taste filled his mouth and he swallowed each warm pulse.
In the moments after, as Dorian unlocked himself from having curled around Orym, he whispered his name. Soft and sweet.
Orym slowly pulled off and straightened, cracking his neck to one side. “How are you feeling?”
Dorian smiled down at him, one part dazed and one part affectionate. “Can I kiss you?”
Orym climbed onto the bed, standing on the mattress so he could lean down and join their lips together. Dorian pressed a hand to the small of his back. Grounding. The tenderness of it sent a pang through Orym’s heart.
Dorian pulled back, just enough to speak. “Shall I return the favour?”
Orym considered, but between the speed with which that had all happened and the way his heart was aching, decided against it. “Not tonight.”
“Are you sure? I mean, fair’s fair.”
Orym patted his cheek. “Another time, maybe.”
This close, the instant Dorian’s gaze shifted to concern was easy to spot. “Was this too fast? I’m sorry.”
“No, I wanted to do it. I just… another time.”
“Okay.” Dorian kissed him one last time and let him go. “Go get some sleep. Fearne will probably be back soon, if she’s not too busy stealing.”
Orym sighed. “If she’s not back in the next ten minutes, we should probably go find her.”
Dorian groaned, flopping onto his back with his dick still out. “Fiiiiine.”
Orym took a moment to appreciate the full, sweetly contradictory experience that was Dorian Storm. Painfully self-conscious one moment, frighteningly collected the next. Maybe it was a thing common to performers, not that Orym would know. But it made sense, he supposed. He had seen Dorian fail and succeed in equal measure in front of an audience. That kind of thing had to knock his self-esteem, not to mention whatever bullshit had happened with his family before he’d met the Crown Keepers. At a certain point, he must’ve embraced the swinging pendulum between humiliation and adoration. His pout when he failed was endearing enough that people tended not to be too harsh on him.
Dorian squinted up at him. “You good?”
Orym smiled and squeezed his knee. “I’m good. Put your dick away and go to sleep.”
“Right.” He chuckled. “That’s a thing. Goodnight, Orym.”
“Goodnight, Dorian.”
Orym climbed into his own bed, curling away from Dorian until his erection had subsided. He didn’t regret it. That was a good thing. He listened to Dorian rustle around as he got ready for bed. Fearne returned just as Orym was thinking about moving from the warm blankets to go find her.
“Don’t worry,” she said sweetly. “I didn’t steal anything… this time. Did you two have a good time?”
Dorian groaned quietly. “Yes?”
“That’s good.”
Orym rolled over just in time to watch her pitch facefirst onto her bed, already snoring. He looked up at Dorian, reclined in bed with a purple flush to his cheeks once again. Orym could put two and two together about whatever they must have spoken about when she had gone to find him. He let out a soft laugh and directed a few carefully aimed gusts of air at the candles around the room. Dorian, despite his embarrassment, laughed with him.
With a final goodnight, Orym burrowed beneath his covers. He felt good. No regret. A bit of nostalgia, but he hadn’t pushed himself far enough to step on a memory rake. Maybe it was time.
He wondered if Keyleth had sensed it when she sent him on this mission. Being at home was hard. Being away from home was hard. But he had already grown since he first left.
And Dorian… he was an intensely loyal man. He would do anything for someone he cared about, as would Orym. If they didn’t get themselves killed, maybe…
Regardless, now was not the time to rush. Dorian respected his boundaries, and Orym owed it to the both of them to take care with their hearts. Tonight was good. A first step of many, he hoped.
He curled up into a warm ball and fell asleep to the sounds of his friends’ breathing and the soft rocking of the airship.