It was a bad hit.
There’s a categorical difference between the hits that look bad and the ones that actually are bad. They aren’t always the same. Orym has shaken off hits that frightened his trainers, and then spent a week with the healers after a bad fall. It was the sort of thing he’d heard all about afterward, when he was forced to stay in bed and rest, for once, by the gods.
So, he knows as he goes down that this is one of the latter. The one-two slash that still caught him across the middle, just under the place his breastplate ends, followed by the heavy blow of the goliath’s hand that knocked him right out of the air. The last strike came when he was already insensible. He never even had the chance to dodge it, just watched as the stabbing end of the goliath’s glaive came down and planted straight into his middle.
And like so many times lately, he comes to with the sensation of a cool breeze in his hair, like the first fresh wind of spring that blows away the frigid dark of winter. Watchful blue eyes, eyebrows pulled together with concentration. Dorian, as always, being the first one to reach him.
“Welcome back,” says Dorian lightly, but Orym can feel his pulse hammering through the places where he’s holding him up.
Nausea rises abruptly and Orym pushes himself out of Dorian’s arms to retch into the dirt. Unfazed, Dorian rubs his back from the base of his neck to the base of his spine until Orym stops heaving.
“I hate head wounds,” he grits out, wiping the corner of his mouth with one hand. His other hand feels too shaky to hold himself up, but he doesn’t need to. Dorian is already pulling him up from the ground and into his arms.
“You should take fewer of them,” suggests Dorian, adjusting the Orym’s unburdensome weight in his arms so that he doesn’t jostle him much. “Maybe a few less stab wounds, too.”
Orym remembers very suddenly that he’s been nearly disemboweled, that Dorian must have already healed the worst of those wounds. He’s more or less doomed himself to another few days confined to bed, unless Fresh Cut Grass can do something more. It’s not fair of him to rely so heavily on Dorian’s healing magic, not when he gets hurt so badly and Dorian’s magic is so limited.
“I’m joking,” Dorian tells him, dropping his head so Orym can see the softening of his expression under the curtain of his hair. He still looks worried, his mouth turned downward as he scans Orym one more time.
“Except you aren’t,” Orym suggests, dropping his head back to rest against the hard muscle of Dorian’s chest. “No one likes being carried home.”
“Speak for yourself.” This time, Dorian’s smile is sincere and Orym laughs, then chokes a little on the fresh wave of pain.
Letters does their best with Orym’s wounds, but Ashton needs mending just as badly as Orym. Dorian stays next to the bed until Orym kicks him out to get some sleep, but not before Dorian checks his temperature one last time.
“I’m going to catch Fearne up,” he says as he straightens. “She didn’t want to crowd you in here, but she’s–”
“Worried,” Orym finishes for him with a stab of guilt almost as painful as his actual wounds. “Go on. I’ll sleep, I promise.”
“You had better.”
Incredibly, Orym does. His dreams are a mismatched tangle of past and present, things that he remembers true and things that exist only in might-have-been. The sound of music thrumming around him, as if stitching together the little parts of himself, the sweet smell of fresh flowers in bloom, and a hand stroking his hair the way he knows no one has since he was a child.
He wakes to find that it’s all real.
“Shh,” Fearne soothes from her place next to him on the bed, her skirts hiked up so she’s curled up near his head. Orym gives a softly encouraging groan, not far from a whimper, and the music stops abruptly.
The last note trails off slowly, the string still vibrating against the fingerboard of Dorian’s lute when he sets it aside, crossing the room in long strides. “You’re awake.”
“Your song did its job,” Fearne praises kindly and, from his somewhat insensible, disoriented place on the bed, Orym thinks he sees Dorian’s ears color.
“Wish it had lasted longer,” Dorian says, sitting on the bed with them. One hand reaches for Orym’s loose tunic, lifting it to check his stomach wounds. “These are looking better, though.”
“I’m fine,” Orym says, pulling in a sharp, sudden breath of air that makes his lungs ache. He’s been hurt worse, and these wounds are already near healed. They’ll be naught more than reddened scar tissue within a day.
Fearne hums. “Mm, I don’t think you are.” But she doesn’t stop petting his head, pausing only to graze the sensitive points of his ears. “Dorian and I were both worried for you.”
“Are worried,” Dorian adds, holding out a hand in protest when Orym reluctantly pushes himself up. “We know you’re going to take the hit, but I – we both think–”
“Maybe you should let us take care of you for a little while,” Fearne cuts in, adjusting her seat and holding her arm open for him. And though he’s feeling better, he is, he’s still exhausted on a near spiritual level. For once, maybe just this once, he doesn’t mind the idea of just letting his friends bear him up.
He drops into Fearne’s arms, hears Dorian’s soft, relieved exhale as he rests against her rather abundant bosom. It shouldn’t even be possible to get hard, not for anything, not after what he’s just been through, but he realizes that he is at about the same time he recognizes that the lingering effect of Dorian’s song is magical.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” he sighs, reaching out for Dorian’s hand. “You must be as tired as I am.”
“I’m not.” Dorian scoots closer, pulling his feet up onto the mattress so he can lean over Fearne and press his forehead to Orym’s. “I’m really, really not.”
He glances between them with exhausted suspicion. “What did you two talk about?”
“Try and let go,” Fearne whispers to him, and Orym feels the vibrato of her voice all the way down his spine. The scrape of her fingernails along his scalp doesn’t hurt, either, as she cradles his face in both hands, drawing him up into a lush kiss that Orym doesn’t resist.
“You do enough.” Dorian’s hand follows the curve of his spine, down to the sash at his waist, and Orym can hear the smile in his voice: “Let go. Let us take this one.”
And – well, letting go isn’t something that Orym is all that good at. He’s always going, constantly thinking about what he’s doing, what’s happened, what may happen, what he must prepare for. He dragged these two across the world to Marquet, they’re his responsibility.
Somewhere deep in his chest, he hears a voice remind him that he can’t be responsible for anyone if he’s dead. That Dorian and Fearne chose to come on their own. The familiar warmth of a wry voice he hasn’t heard in a long time. Too long.
Fearne draws her mouth from his, her brown eyes softening as she searches his face. “You think too loud. Do you think we can stop that, Dorian?”
“He won’t make it easy.”
Orym looks toward Dorian to try and make light of it, but he’s already waiting, already leaning in for a kiss of his own. Dorian is slower, more deliberate than the wild impulse of Fearne’s kiss. She tastes of spice and he of sweetness. Orym finds he can’t do without either, opening his mouth for an involuntary groan that Dorian swallows down, one hand rising to hold Orym’s head in the palm. Behind him, Fearne lowers her mouth to the bare column of his neck, lips mouthing along the lines of his tattoo until she finds the place that sends a shiver down to his toes.
“I’ll make it easy enough if you keep doing that,” he mumbles against Dorian’s mouth, allowing Fearne to pull his shirt over his head and leaning back into her chest.
“Promise me that?” Dorian asks, looping his unbound sash around his hand before dropping it off the side of the bed. The two of them make short work of the rest of his clothes. Orym twitches with the urge to touch, to climb one of them or both of them and seize control of things. He could make them feel good, both of them, and he’s already thinking of all the ways he could when Fearne pitches her dress over the side of the bed with a serenely wicked smile.
“I thought you were going to make it easy,” she teases, drawing one sharpened fingernail down his stomach. His stomach clenches in response, but it doesn’t hurt like it had before.
Orym reaches for her hand and Dorian catches it with his own, drawing it up to his mouth with his eyes locked on Orym’s when he kisses the calloused tip of each finger. Releasing it, he passes Orym back to Fearne, who leans back against the headboard and brings him to rest his cheek against her bare breasts. His hard cock presses into the softness of her belly, and Orym swallows a gasp to keep from grinding down into her. Anything for the smallest amount of friction, just a shred of relief.
Fearne gives a merry laugh, pulling him in closer and bending over to whisper into his ear: “They are majestic. Do you want to rest here while Dorian fucks you?”
The immediacy of Orym’s answer surprises him, the intensity with which he wants – needs both of them now. “Yes,” he gasps, losing himself into the abundance of the moment. “Please.”
She lifts her face up toward Dorian, adjusting his weight against her. “You heard him.”
“But you–” Orym hears himself say, thinking how he’s meant to please her like this.
Her voice is a song when she whispers, “Don’t worry about that,” into his ear. “You’ll get another chance, I think.”
Fearne lifts him effortlessly, turning him onto his back and keeping his head on her breasts. He feels exposed like this, his cock rising hard and red up against his belly, the opalescent smear of precome at the tip gleaming in the dim light from the fire. Orym turns his reddened face into the swell of one breast and shudders with want, allows her to bring his face up to hers for another kiss. His mouth parts to welcome her in, forgetting all the rest in the moment.
“Hey," says Dorian, standing by the bed with his clothes folded over one arm. "Don't get too far without me."
“We would never.” Fearne reaches around to stroke Orym’s cock and sucks the tip of one ear between her lips. Orym gives a sharp thrust up into the welcome friction of her hand and is caught surprised by the dry warmth of Dorian’s lips pressed to his.
The anachronism of Dorian’s chaste kiss and whatever Fearne is doing with her hand, tugging gently at his foreskin before smearing his own slick down the shaft, nearly breaks him. It’s all so much, so fast, and all at once Orym reaches out one hand to catch Dorian on the shoulder and slow him down.
“I’m not going to last like that,” he gasps against his mouth, trying to remember how to breathe when his lung capacity isn’t what it ordinarily is. “I want to enjoy this.”
“I could use magic,” Fearne offers, turning Orym’s face back to hers for another kiss like a dancer cutting in. “If you want to keep going.”
Dorian arranges himself between Fearne’s legs, slicking his fingers with oil from a vial Orym hadn’t seen before. It smells a little like Fearne smells, a gentle warming spice that’s viscerally comforting. “Why don’t we see if we need that a little later?”
There’s the slightest edge of power in Fearne’s voice when she instructs Dorian over Orym’s head: “Fuck him slow, then.”
And, well, whatever it is about that, it sends a bolt down Orym’s spine that makes his cock twitch again. A quick look at Dorian’s face tells him that he’s had much the same reaction, an indigo blush trailing down his neck and chest, then at the darkened tip of his cock, rising proudly out of a trimmed thatch of black hair.
“Yes, ma’am,” Dorian says, his cock brushing up against Orym’s when he bends forward to kiss Fearne, sandwiching him between his two most beautiful friends.
Orym feels the moment Fearne nips at Dorian’s bottom lip, because his body shudders and he grinds down against Orym. Although they groan at the same time, Orym’s comes out a low, hoarse thing and Dorian’s sounds musical and lovely.
“You two are so beautiful together,” Fearne praises warmly, squirming beneath their combined weight. Her hand reaches between, fitting neatly around both of them with a delighted sigh, as though she’s only just satisfied her personal curiosity. “Dorian, would you mind…?”
“With pleasure.”
Orym feels his trembling fingertips against his hole, but it isn’t until he gently works one past the tight ring of muscle that his body spasms against his own self-will. What he wants is to be a more eager participant in this, to grab Dorian by his ears and drag him in for a hard, filthy kiss, with teeth and tongue, finding out all the ways to draw out that musical whimpering. He wants Fearne to fuck him while he fucks Dorian, to solve all the impossible configurations the three of them could make.
He wants all of it, but he’ll take this for now.
“Relax,” Dorian instructs, his shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter that travels through all the points of connection. He twists his finger around, testing his range of motion. “I can feel you thinking.”
“Shut me up, then,” Orym suggests, tilting his chin up with a hint of defiance.
“Gladly.” Dorian’s laugh travels all the way through him like a shot of whisky when he adds a second finger and Orym bucks, trapped between the two of them.
“You promised,” Fearne’s voice comes again into his ear before dragging him up into a long kiss that tastes of spice and honey. “I won’t ask you again.”
“I wouldn’t test her.” Despite the casual air Dorian is putting on, Orym can hear the tremble in his voice. He’s never heard him on the edge, like desire has shaken him through and through. A heavy bead of precome sets on the tip of his cock, a temptation to Orym’s promise to let them take care of him for once.
“Next time,” he says meaningfully when he catches Dorian’s eyes again. “I’m going to suck your cock dry. I’m going to fuck you until you forget about that breath trick of yours. I’m–”
Dorian kisses him again, filthy and deep to cover his moan, while Fearne laughs around them, plucking gently at Orym’s nipples like a string on her dulcimer. Dorian’s thumb stroking his cheek is incongruently soft compared to the riot of sensation from his kiss, his fingers stretching him slowly to minimize the burn.
“Orym,” says Fearne in an approximation of sternness, adjusting so that his head is perfectly pillowed between her breasts again, positioned just so he can reach one of her nipples without disrupting what Dorian is doing. “I know you’re eager, and the challenge of seeing if he can come without being touched is exciting, but Dorian has wanted to fuck you for so long, and it would be a shame if he didn’t have the chance when he’s so close.”
“Gods, Fearne,” Dorian chokes, his fingers stuttering in place when he breaks their kiss to shoot her a panicked look over Orym’s head.
“Well, it’s true. You do and he should know it.”
“Later,” Orym grits out, because thinking about what that means – to him, to Dorian, in general – requires a higher plane of thinking that he’s simply not capable of with Dorian’s cock hard against his thigh and his fingers stretching his ass.
The third finger stretches and stings, but it’s better for him to feel it now than to slow things down because he isn’t ready for Dorian’s cock. Fearne reaches the vial, pouring it into her palm and stroking along Dorian’s full length, eliciting a long, throaty moan from him that slows them down a few more seconds as Dorian tries to recover.
“Now,” she says brightly, giving Orym a few test strokes for good measure. “Remember, Dorian, he’s just–”
“I’ll go slow,” he promises, locking eyes with Orym and visibly swallowing. He touches the edges of Orym’s tattoos with fingertips, tracing them from his bicep to the spot they end with a flourish on his chest. That dark purple-blue flush staining his cheeks is a stark contrast to his fever-bright eyes. His black pupils are blown wide enough that Orym can almost see himself reflected there: wantonly spreadeagle on Fearne’s chest, his cock hard as rock, waiting for him.
“Dorian, please.”
The difference between the width of Dorian’s cock and his fingers isn’t far, but Orym shivers when he pushes in. He nearly turns into Fearne’s breast, overwhelmed by the sensation of his cockhead rubbing against the soft hair of Dorian’s taut stomach, but she gently holds his head still so he can see Dorian’s face change when he finally, finally bottoms out. It’s intense, more than he’s taken in a long time, but Dorian’s eyes flutter closed, his lashes dark on his cheek, his cock throbbing so deep inside him that Orym’s heart skips a beat.
Fearne drops a gentle kiss on Orym’s neck, allowing him to hide his face into her breast when Dorian draws back slowly, his breath hissing through his teeth when he does. “Isn’t he lovely, Orym?”
“Yes,” he gasps insensibly, thrashing one arm out to catch Fearne’s hand with his own. Her mouth is warm and soft when she draws it close, presses a kiss into his palm and rests her cheek against it. With her other hand, she reaches around for his cock again, adjusting her grip until she feels Orym shiver at just the right pressure.
Dorian works him so slow that his thighs are trembling with the effort of holding back, until Orym swings one foot around and hooks it behind his knees and urges him closer. “I’m just a little bruised,” he reminds him, trying for steady and ending on a breathy gasp when Dorian thrusts hard, rolls backward and experiments with a tempo that’s fast enough to lean into, not so hard that he’s likely to aggravate his wounds. “That’s it – that’s – like that.”
“This is whatever you want,” Dorian tells him, pushing the words out between the steady, unbroken rhythm of his thrusts.
Fearne twists her hand and smiles into his hair, a soft huff of breath blowing through the strands. “If you want something else, you tell us.”
“Next time,” Orym vows, bucking into her hand and hearing Dorian’s fingernails scrape against the sheets when he closes his hand into a fist.
Perspiration gleams at Dorian’s temple, catching the same lamplight that makes his earring glitter with every thrust. Despite her cheerfully unflappable demeanor, Fearne’s heart races beneath his back and her breathing comes just a little faster. The sharply clean smell Orym knows Dorian by mingles with Fearne’s earthier musk, then with the more carnal smells of sweat and arousal. If he’d thought he was going to go off too soon before, this is like running a long race that he wasn’t prepared for. His cock twitches painfully, balls tightening against him with every thrust, every pull of Fearne’s hand.
Orym has enough time to memorize this moment: his friends surrounding him, devoted entirely to him because they were worried, because they love him, because they wanted him. Then he slams his eyes closed, turning his face to muffle his scream into Fearne, the moment folding up around him and then releasing like wildfire that engulfs the three of them.
When he comes back to himself, Orym is only dimly aware that Dorian must have finished somewhere in the moments before because Dorian pauses to clean himself from the wash basin before carrying it over to the bed. Fearne gently shifts Orym onto the pillows with a sweet kiss on his mouth, then helps Dorian wash him carefully.
“Next time,” he murmurs, a smile forming quietly under Dorian’s mouth when he takes his turn to kiss him. “Both of you just wait.”
“Oh, I can’t wait,” Fearne assures him brightly, curling her body around his on one side. “I know you’ll be marvelous.”
“But sometimes…” Dorian doesn’t finish, forming the other half of a circle around Orym with his body, his back to the window and his face resting on the pillow beside Orym’s. There’s a tight wariness to him that Orym will deal with tomorrow, the sense that they opened the door to something neither of them had quite prepared for.
But that’s tomorrow’s problem, Orym decides, pulling Dorian in for another kiss with a hand tangled in the hair at the nape of his neck, slow and exploratory this time.
“I can try and let go, too,” he promises them. “Sometimes.”