“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” Orym jokes, as Dorian clears his throat softly.
He’s leaned against the lower rung of a wrought-iron fence encasing the rooftop balcony of the Spire by Fire. His body bows wearily, arms threaded loosely over the metal, and though his sword and shield aren’t on his person it only takes a glance to catch them resting nearby against a bench. They’re watching Orym’s back. Good . Dorian can’t see him properly, only the outlines of him lit by the candlelight spilling upwards from below, but he’d be willing to bet his eyes have slipped closed.
At this time of night, the balcony is practically deserted, the few other benches scattered about empty save for the odd ashtray or abandoned mug, potted plants sprouting from the corners that look barely tended-to. It’s not a huge space to begin with. Honestly, Dorian hadn’t even known there was a balcony until he’d gone for another round at the bar and returned to realize the halfling had absconded from Chetney’s welcoming interrogation. Dorian wishes he could have ignored it and stayed downstairs with their new potential ally - found out more about his motives, what he was doing at the theater, why on earth he uses wood-working tools instead of actual weaponry - but it’s become increasingly difficult in the last few months to leave Orym alone. To feel at ease knowing he’s somewhere outside his reach.
( He’s upstairs. Third floor, fifth door on the left. I didn’t mean to pry, but… I think he needed some space, Imogen’s message had echoed. She’d looked at him for a long second, head tilting knowingly. Maybe you should go after him. Get him to go for some rest instead of moping. We’ve got this handled, and y’all both seem like you need a break. )
Dorian doesn’t do well with the situations they find themselves in these days. He is as flighty and fickle as the elemental magic that lives in him, body taut and uncomfortable when he isn’t free to drift from place to place. Orym is Air Ashari - he should be a kindred spirit in terms of namesake alone, but Dorian sometimes wonders if he isn’t more of the earth. Constant, steady and powerful. Unassuming as the ground is before an earthquake.
He sighs, pulling his cloak tighter around himself, crossing the space to Orym’s side as easy as breathing. He leans on the railing and folds down so his chin rests on his forearms. The halfling’s eyes are closed, now that he looks. They peel open when Dorian speaks - green and bright and ever-penetrating, despite his sorry state. Dorian smiles weakly. “I’d never mind meeting you like this, you know that. What I do mind is that you’re barely standing up. It’s cold out. Not that I doubt your capabilities, but are you sure it’s wise to be by yourself right now?”
“Not by myself,” Orym shrugs like it’s obvious. “I’ve got you with me. Besides, I’m sure you can catch me if I start tipping over the edge.”
He’s been getting more reckless. Dorian can’t tell if it’s a byproduct of traveling with reckless people, some of their chaoticism sticking to him in funny places like glitter - or if it’s something else, something he’s torn between investigating and leaving alone. He’s come a long way from the chariot that first pulled them forward by the rules in Emon. Dorian doesn’t know if that man would have ridden around on automaton’s backs, abseiled down mysterious holes with snakes tied around his waist, gone following random shadowy figures into the night simply because it seemed interesting. It’s good watching him loosen up some days, smile without looking as if he has to carry the world on his shoulders; but Dorian also doesn’t know if that man would have thrown himself in the jaws of a sentient, carnivorous wall just to make sure it would be him in the line of fire instead of his friends.
Orym makes plans. It’s his thing, what he’s good at: he always has a plan, even in the heat of battle, especially when what he's about to do is dangerous. Tonight, Dorian can’t be sure he had one. That’s the worrying part.
"I could always float down after you, I suppose," he says, and Orym smiles.
Dorian sighs again, longer, fond, settling into the company. Gods, but it’s been a day . He wants to curl up in bed and not wake up for a while. He wants his friend to come with him because he really does look dead on his feet, though the sentiment will probably come across as coddling rather than concern. He wishes he could help out more but it’s going to be a little while before his healing spells come back. Taking in the view while Orym gets his thoughts in order will have to placate him for now.
And what a view it is. Dorian never exactly stopped and smelled the roses while he was in Jrusar previously, focused as he was on getting from one gig to the next without any friends of House Wyvernwind picking up on his trail, but it’s gorgeous. They’re high up enough that the coloured lights of the Core Spire spill out all around them, and the other spires after that: the smokestacks ever-billowing from the dull glow of the Smolder Spire; the decadent twinkle of the Lucent Spire; how it juts into the boisterous hustle-and-bustle of the Lantern Spire, despite the late hour. Even the parts that should most remind him of home don’t , somehow. Everything is too close together, too energized, climbing upwards in the sky to progress rather than sticking near the ground in the roots of tradition.
It’s times like this that make him really, really glad he left home, that wash away the guilt and the fear a little bit. Other times it comes back tenfold, but he can live with that. Cyrus… Cyrus never did find him after the show, busy as they all were with the investigation and the fight. But if he found them at the theater, Dorian doesn’t doubt that he’ll get to him soon enough.
Cyrus has always known him more than anyone. For better or for worse.
It takes a light touch at his hip for him to realize that Orym is speaking again. “Hm? S-sorry, what were you saying?”
The halfling furrows his brow imperceptibly. “You sure I’m the one that shouldn’t be alone right now?”
“Just got a little lost in my own head. You know how it is. We’re all tired,”
It’s clear the lie doesn’t go unnoticed, but Orym seems to let it go. He turns back to the cityscape, keeping his hand where it is, warm through Dorian’s clothes. Dorian tries not to lean into it. He manages, barely.
“I was just saying that I wanted to thank you. For saving me out there– and no, don’t try to deny it, because you did. That thing staring down at me. It was gearing up to bite and I was stuck. If you hadn’t killed it when you had…” he stops, and then shudders. Dorian can’t help but shudder too, at the thought. “Well, I think you and FCG would’ve had a harder time reviving a bunch of bones,”
He chuckles lightly but the joke still falls flat. Dorian doesn’t know how to explain the terror that had shot through him in the alley. The rage had been itching and clawing at his insides, his only thought fixed on protecting Orym like Orym had protected him so many times before. It was probably luck that it went as well as it had. The feeling, though. That desperation is not something he’s likely to forget any time soon.
“There’s no debts between us. I told you that. It hasn’t changed, and it won’t as far as I’m concerned.”
“Yet somehow, I get the feeling you don’t really believe it,” Orym says. He tugs at Dorian’s long jacket again, moving backwards with a heavy exhale, and Dorian knows he couldn’t pull away if he wanted to. “Come on. Sit with me a second. My ass still feels like it’s melting from all that green goop,”
Dorian does. His knees start to jiggle involuntarily with restless energy he didn’t know he still had. Looking at Orym is usually so easy. Now, it feels like the hardest thing in the world.
“You- you understand. That I don’t like it when you throw yourself in the path of danger like that. I– I want to be mad at you for it again, to be honest, but it won’t stick. I end up more frustrated that I didn’t do anything. Not until there was no other choice,” Dorian confesses, cheeks burning. He feels like he might throw up. “Yes, you were reckless, and stupid, and you and Laudna and Ashton were all running around down there like you were racing to see who could die the fastest. But... at least you were doing something. ”
Orym’s eyes feel like needlepoints on the side of his face. He seems to consider his words carefully before asking, voice low, “This isn’t just about the fight, is it?”
The laugh Dorian lets out in response isn’t a pleasant sound. He feels awful for it, but now the words have started pouring, the sluice is too powerful to control. He can’t stop himself. “I keep trying to be brave about this whole thing, you know. This adventurer’s life. I’m not built for it the way that you or Fearne are. I know Opal couldn’t have come, but sometimes I wonder whether you should’ve taken Dariax with you instead. Fy’ra. One of your Ashari friends. Anyone other than me,”
There’s the wound, the bandage ripped off. One of them, anyway. A heavy silence follows, in which Orym’s eyes won’t leave him. Dorian wants to run. He wants to hop the fence and float all the way down to the ground just so he doesn’t have to sit here, pinned in stasis, held under the weight of Orym’s scrutiny. This is the part where he realizes that Dorian’s words have some merit after all. This is where Dorian inadvertently plants the seed of his own ousting, orchestrating another of those acts of self-sabotage he has become all too skilled at.
He barely feels it when a hand lands over his own, but he does feel the way it jitters like the bones want to jump out of his skin. Orym’s eyes go wide. His mouth opens like the lifting of the executioner’s axe. That’s it. Dorian can’t be here anymore.
“Dorian–”
“I– I’m going to bed, I think. I apologize for disturbing you, friend,” He smiles, fake. He’s off the balcony and towards their room before he can turn and see the hurt look in Orym’s eyes, the worried set of his sharp-angled jaw, and be pulled back in for good.
In retrospect, trying to sleep was a terrible idea, but it’s not like Dorian had been of a calm mind. The other side of the bed ( Orym’s side, his brain unhelpfully supplies, because Fearne is too tall and needs the room’s second narrow bed to herself) lies empty like a promise and a death sentence all at once. Dorian knows that Orym wouldn’t force him to talk about it - not if he truly insisted that he didn’t want to - but things will only become strained if they try to ignore it forever. Then, that might distract them. That might lead to people getting more hurt.
And- and he likes Orym. Really likes him. Even if he’s just signed his own eviction notice, the thought of continuing to cultivate a space between them on purpose makes him feel as much of a fool he fears he must be.
Dorian huffs, rolling over under the covers and wincing when a silver ear cuff he’s forgotten to remove catches on the blankets. It’s just another reminder. What kind of adventurer wears silken clothes and fine, silver jewelry and stays so clean and well-put together? Nearly everyone they’ve met has pointed it out at one time or another. Ashton definitely still refuses to let it go. He knows the teasing about his background is just that: teasing, and they don’t mean it to hurt him, but it’s indicative of how he is the puzzle piece that doesn’t fit anywhere. Not here, not at home. Disruptive enough to force Cyrus to follow in his footsteps. To leave Father without an heir. Gods, to leave Mother all alone. He wonders distantly what will happen there now.
The candle has nearly burned down by the time the door opens, and just by the absence of noise he knows it’s not Fearne. Orym patters in, then stops. Dorian can hear him breathe for a moment. He puts all his effort into schooling his own breathing, too cowardly to turn over and let him know he’s still awake.
The footsteps continue, slower. Then, the hissing of leather as buckles are undone and laces untied. Dorian doesn’t have to look to imagine exactly the way Orym is undressing himself. He is a creature of habit. He does it the same every night. Pauldron first, then chestplate, then sash, shin guards, sandals, gauntlets. He could probably do it with his eyes closed, or maybe Dorian could, just the way he likes.
His breath hitches without meaning to. He freezes. Orym seems to as well for an unbearable second - finally, a bottle clinks, and Dorian feels a gust of relief in the knowledge he’s moved on to oiling his leathers.
He listens as Orym gets himself ready for bed, body strained with the effort not to sit up and help him at every pained grunt or quiet groan. It’s a particularly cruel form of self-induced torture. By the time a weight sinks down on the mattress, Dorian almost feels like he’s going to shatter again, albeit for about two-hundred different reasons.
Orym sighs. “Dorian?”
Dorian blanches. He’s asleep. He is still asleep.
“Dorian, I know you’re awake. You’re a wonderful musician, but your acting could use some work,”
All at once, the tension bleeds from his shoulders. Dorian still feels that sense of dread. Now he’s just tired.
“If it changes anything, I really was aiming to be out like a light by the time you came back. My brain is apparently not great at doing what it’s told. Let’s, well. Can we just pretend I’m comatose and talk about it in the morning?”
It goes quiet again. Orym doesn’t say a word as he slips under the covers. Dorian would think it a permission if it weren’t for the way he pointedly leaves the candle lit.
“G-great, so we’re not doing that. Okay. Look, I don’t know what came over me back there. Just a silly moment of insecurity, probably, you know I get those. But it won’t affect my ability to help you or Fearne or the rest of the group. I swear. I do trust you with my life, and I’ll make it so that you can trust me with yours,” he says all in one exhale, voice not trembling, not at all, not in the slightest.
Orym makes a noise, then, pained, uncharacteristically emotional, and suddenly, Dorian is being grabbed by the shoulder and rolled . Orym stares at him - close, he’s so close he could count the freckles sprinkled over his nose by the Marquesian sun - like he’s the most heartbreaking, pathetic little thing he’s ever seen.
“I don’t have any friends in Zephrah,” he replies. This is important somehow. Dorian can’t figure out why.
“W-what? What about the Voice of the Tempest? People you worked with?”
“Keyleth is kind, but she is my leader, not my friend,” Orym shakes his head dismissively. “And I never really had them otherwise. Acquaintances. Colleagues, maybe. Only one was close, and then I isolated myself for a while anyway. I imagine I was pretty hard to be around after… Well, after ,”
Dorian feels that to look away now would be to sever something that cannot ever be fixed. He had guessed Orym lost someone. He carries his grief on his back with his sword and his shield, this big, amorphous sadness that can’t really be ignored. But never has he brought it up so directly before. He rarely ever speaks about personal matters - if he does, it’s clinical, not in full sentences. Dorian doesn’t make a sound. He waits for Orym to compose himself.
“The only people I knew were Ashari. Good people, sure. But we are raised a certain way. Past a certain point, it’s all we know. When I went traveling– when I came to Emon and met all of you, that might have been the most uncertain time in my life because you were all so different. You dragged me along by the ankles until I realized how good you were, all of you. You made me be your friend. You’ve done a lot more for me than you’ll probably ever realize, and you don’t need to prove yourself to me for it,”
Orym takes a breath, shaky. Dorian wants to reach out with his intrinsic magic just to feel the way the air stutters down his throat. He can’t help the way he edges closer on the pillow. He looks so open. Dorian doesn’t deserve the earnestness in Orym’s eyes, but he drinks it down like a parched man, hanging on his every word, the most he’s ever heard Orym speak at once.
“You– I know you don’t expect anything of me,” he says quietly, like a prayer. “But I expect things of myself. And if I fall short of that, if it leads to you getting hurt, to anyone else coming into harm’s way, how am I meant to live with those consequences? You are one of my closest friends in the world, Orym, but there’s nothing wrong with putting the needle away when what you need is a hammer. I wouldn’t,” he chokes on nothing, “I wouldn’t begrudge you for doing what you have to. There is a job to finish, after all,”
Orym’s hand finds his cheek, propped up over him now with his other elbow. Dorian’s heart is going to beat right out of his chest. “I could have brought Dariax, or Fy’ra. But they wanted to stay with Opal. That was their choice. It was your choice to come with me. I don’t need you by my side because you hit every shot without fail, or never let me cut it close to the edge. I don’t need you here because you’re– Bronté, or were , not because of where you grew up or how much money is in your pockets," He is unblinking, targeted, Dorian's eyes wide as his words sail directly for his chest. "I want you because you’re Dorian Storm and there’s nobody else like you on the planet. Even if there was, it wouldn’t matter. They still wouldn’t be you.”
Dorian works in subtlety. It’s the life of a poet, and he’s good at reading between the lines. This isn’t subtle. This is Orym placing his battered heart on the mattress and yelling at him to look at it, to understand there’s weight behind the things he is saying, and Dorian could never ignore him. Not like this.
He doesn’t. Dorian reaches for him, a little wild, a little desperate, and brings their lips together. A poet’s response.
The effect is instantaneous. Both of Orym’s hands find their way tightly around his shoulders as he kisses him back, crowding in as close as he can get, and Dorian answers in turn, getting an arm over his body and a hand in the spikes of his short-cropped hair. His lips aren’t soft - chapped, he bites them - but it makes it better, somehow, the drag of them against his own a feeling that could never come from anybody else. Dorian doesn’t think he’d ever want it to be from anyone else, not while Orym is still here. He’s lithe and firm under his hands, slight like he always forgets he is without his armor, but like this he seems to fill the whole room.
Dorian has kissed many people, but not many who did it because they cared about him. Care is in everything Orym does. It's in the pads of his fingers against the top of his spine. It's in his eyelashes, how they tickle his cheek. It's in the firm push and pull of their lips together, the noise he makes when he licks into Dorian's mouth and Dorian lets him easily, the way he kisses like he's stuck between melting into Dorian completely or devouring him whole.
He pulls away from Orym's mouth, breathing hard, to nose at his neck, his jaw, sealing his lips over the hard ridge of his Adam's apple and relishing the feeling of it shifting as he swallows. He can feel the vibrations of a low moan as he drags his teeth just a little, and then Orym is pulling him back up by the hair, fierce. This time, the kiss feels like a release, deep and slow, heads tilting. Dorian lets out a word he knows he won't remember. He shifts upwards. Orym freezes suddenly and pulls away with a pained grunt.
"S-sorry," he mumbles. He looks dazed and his lips are shiny with Dorian's spit. "Those burns still kinda smart. Not your fault,"
It is, technically, in a roundabout way, Dorian thinks, the last tendrils of his shame-spiral tugging at him along with his guilt. Orym gives him a hard glance, like he can hear it, and thoughts cease altogether.
He leans in and kisses him once more, soft and close-mouthed. It's easy. They will have to talk about this too, but Dorian hopes he gets to keep doing this - kissing Orym, touching him, being close to him without worrying if he's worthy of it. "You need to sleep, then. At least until I get my spells back, and I can heal you properly,"
Orym hums an approval but doesn't move off his chest. He simply shuffles down until his head is resting in the crook of Dorian's neck and flaps an arm to the left, a burst of druidcraft blowing out the candle.
Dorian leans back into the pillows. He draws the blankets up around their bodies, pressing a kiss to the crown of the halfling's head. Orym reaches up, unseeing, and drags a thumb sleepily across his cheekbone.
"I meant what I said," he says into Dorian's skin. He shivers. "Nobody wants you as some battle-hardened survivalist. We want you to be you . That's what we love you for,"
He blinks. Love. That's a rare thing. Dorian considers what space it can take up in his heart before he realizes Orym was already there, blooming from his chest with the rest of them. It seems silly, now. How could the sun not rise every day? How could he not love them?
"Orym, I…"
He's already fast asleep, the hand on his face going lax. Dorian puffs a laugh, keeps his mouth shut. There'll be time for that in the morning.
Imogen won't even look at him the next day for a good hour. For a while, it makes Dorian panicky, scared she's had another of her prophetic dreams and his name is next on the list. It's only when Laudna slithers up beside him that he gets an explanation.
"Quite a performance last night, wasn't it?"
"The Flying Lauders? They were good, yes. Shame about the injury," Dorian agrees, unphased by Laudna's giddy closeness. He knows it's not meant to be creepy now. It's just one of her… Laudna-isms . He'd probably be a bit strange too if he'd been dead for days and then come back to life.
"Oh, yes, yes, the Otters were wonderful. I'm talking about the other one. You and our little mutual friend? I heard there was a whole story progression. Poor Imogen was trying so hard to keep her brain shut, but you two were thinking so loud ,"
Dorian feels confusion crawl up his spine - then realization. It's followed by a wave of red-hot embarrassment. He hazards a glance at Orym, deep in bewildered conversation with Chetney and Fearne. Then at Imogen, who is already looking right back at him. She jolts, eyes wide, and turns away.
Sorry! Oh lord, I swear I really wasn't meanin' to pry!
The urge to put his head in his hands grows ever stronger.
"I-er. I see. She saw this performance from beginning to end, did she?"
"It was very riveting, dear. And her control just becomes impossible to maintain when she's tired. And drunk,"
"Right. A-and by chance, did you receive a play-by-play review?"
Laudna grins with all her teeth.