“Let me tell you about Lyra,” Draco said, in the quiet moments after they’d rescued the prisoners, when they’d made their camp and set up their watches and still no one was quite willing to separate and take to sleep. At least none of the prisoners, and Draco had found Ryder, had invited him to his tent.
Ryder leaned against Draco and ran his hand through his hair. “I would like that,” he said. “More than I can say.”
“She was the best thing I ever knew,” Draco said.
Ryder smiled at him, a complicated expression that was tinged with sadness and understanding. “I saw her.” With his memories restored he knew why he’d found her so magnificent, but he’d always felt it down to his bones. He hadn’t known that she was connected to Draco, but it also made some sense. “Tell me everything, my little dragon,” Ryder said, and they stayed awake for many more hours, Ryder asking after everything he could think of, to enhance the memory he had of Lyra.
Eventually Draco and Ryder did drift off to sleep, slumped against each other and drifting sentence by sentence closer to relaxation.
—
Back in Irkalla, on the road to Emorr, there was an urgency to their steps, to the way they moved during the day. There was an urgency too, to the nights, to the way everyone scrambled to pitch their tents and get out of the cold.
Ryder slipped into Draco’s tent with the familiarity of habit, but this time he didn’t ask about Lyra, or Harry, or Draco’s home. This time Ryder drew Draco down onto the bedroll with him.
“You deserve a chance to relax,” Ryder said. “Just lay down.” Ryder ran his hands over Draco’s back until he eased the tension in him, and when Draco drifted off to sleep Ryder settled down next to him.
—
“We’re going out,” Ryder said, one night.
Draco stared at him, uncomprehending. They were in the middle of nowhere, and there was no where to go.
“I saw a cave, in our travels today.”
A moment longer, and then Draco sprang to his feet, was grabbing Ryder’s hand and pulling him out of the tent, urging them back towards the pass.
When they freed the servitor, it was Draco who cradled him, who nurtured him with his magic. It was Ryder who wrapped Draco’s wounds, and who kissed Draco fierce and bright with the rush of joy, of success.
—
The new servitor curled on the bed in the form of a small dragon, fast asleep, while Ryder and Draco watched with the besotted expression of new parents. They couldn’t say who kissed whom first, just that all of a sudden Ryder and Draco were tangled together, Draco’s hand in Ryder’s hair holding him while Draco swept his tongue into Ryder’s mouth.
“Let me,” Ryder said, kissing Draco again, hands pulling at his clothing.
“No,” Draco said. “I will.”
Draco peeled Ryder’s clothing back, and then sunk to his knees, his lips trailing down Ryder’s stomach.
Ryder combed his fingers through Draco’s hair, as Draco pressed his lips against the tip of Ryder’s cock. “Draco, gods, keep doing that.” It had been too long since Ryder had had any sort of intimacy, and this had been a long time in coming.
Draco grinned up at him, then parted his lips and started to slide over Ryder. He kept going until Ryder’s gasps echoed through the tent and until Ryder’s legs grew shaky, and then Draco held him in place and swallowed the taste of Ryder’s satisfaction.
Ryder licked the taste of himself from Draco’s mouth while his hand pumped the other man. Both of them knew that they’d be more comfortable in the bed, and yet the idea of disturbing their new charge wasn’t even the sort of thing they’d speak of, as they found new pleasure in each other.
Pryast/Symon, cw: blood, rough sex, complications of consent
“If I release your hands, then you’ll attack me,” Pryast said, eyes tracing over the collar on Symon’s throat, the chains that bound the man.
“I might,” Symon said. Pryast felt the warm shiver of desire at the look Symon gave him, and something deeper, more primal and just as wanting at the words. “Or maybe I can be convinced to play nicely,” he continued.
Pryast swallowed and met Symon’s eyes. “If you do anything I don’t want I’ll take it from the flesh of your demon,” Pryast said.
“How am I to know what you do and don’t want?” Symon’s voice was pleasant, controlled.
“I’ll tell you.”
Symon shifted suddenly to lurch towards Pryast, to strain against his chains. Pryast took a half step back, but he could feel a jolt of arousal spike through his body and down to his prick at the feral look in Symon’s eyes. “Will you?” Symon asked. “No, I think we’ll do it like this. You can say anything you want, you can tell me no, you can beg me to stop, but I only will if you say his name.”
“Shadow,” Pryast breathed out, voice more reverent than that word deserved.
“Exactly that,” Symon said, and then, “So?”
Pryast didn’t answer with words, but he went to Symon’s side and unchained him from the wall, freed his hands and left it so there was nothing but the collar around Symon’s neck (the tiny bit opened to let him have his mana) to show his bondage.
Symon didn’t hesitate, he raised his fist and threw a punch, hard and furious at the other man’s nose, then followed to grip the man by the collar of his shirt, trying to get as many blows in as he could before Pryast could open his mouth and call this to a stop. Pryast’s blood dripped from his nose and coated Symon’s hand, but when Pryast opened his mouth it was only to laugh at Symon, to lunge for him and plant his lips on the other man’s.
Symon lifted, brought raw strength in to shove Pryast back against the wall. Pryast felt the rough stone bite into his clothing, and then Symon was stripping him, shoving his clothes off and dumping them on the ground to leave Pryast bare. Pryast fought him, nails scrabbling to draw blood where they bit in, but he didn’t reach for his magic, and Symon wasn’t gentle at all.
Symon fisted his hand in Pryast's hair, bore him down while Pryast closed his hands over Symon's throat, kept himself on his feet.
“Want to suck my prick?” Symon asked. He shoved a finger into Pryast's mouth.
Pryast bit down hard and Symon pulled his finger out. “I’ll bite it off.”
Symon laughed, challenge bright in his eyes. He brought his hand tight around Pryast's prick, felt the hardness of him.
“I’ll fuck you,” Symon said.
Pryast shivered against his touch. “No,” he said, because he wanted to see how Symon reacted.
Symon’s knee pushed hard into Pryast’s stomach and Pryast crumbled a little, a fact Symon took advantage of to grab hold of both of Pryast’s wrists. “How are you going to explain to the guards that you let a prisoner get the better of you?” Symon asked.
Pryast moaned, and Symon spun him around to slam his face against the wall. Pryast was rather more worried about how he was going to explain it to his wife, if he couldn’t get healed up before he went home. If he got out of this in one piece, because there was a part of him that thought that might not be a guarantee.
Pryast kicked his leg back, heel of his foot hitting hard into Symon’s knee.
Symon grunted, but he took a finger slick with blood and shoved it up Pryast’s ass. Pryast gasped and fought harder against him, and Symon slid his other hand between Pryast and the wall and wrapped it around Pryast’s prick, stroking him back to full hardness. A second finger slid into Pryast, and this time Symon pressed his fingers deeper, explored Pryast until the elf made an involuntary shudder, let out another moan.
“You like this,” Symon said, and it stung like an accusation even as he pulled his fingers out of Pryast, lined up and started to press his cock into Pryast’s body. Pryast wriggled forward and scraped his own body against the wall before he stilled, felt Symon entering him. Pryast felt himself held until Symon was all the way in, and then Symon yanked them both away from the wall, Symon still in Pryast.
“Ride me,” Symon said, tugging them down.
“No,” Pryast replied, certain that he had control of this, that Symon only had so much influence over the actions of Pryast’s own body.
“Ride me,” Symon said, running his fingers over Pryast’s nose, where it had stopped bleeding, “Or I break your nose.”
Pryast felt the rush of adrenaline run through him, with few enough places to go. “Shadow,” he said, half-terrified it wouldn’t work, that Symon would break his nose anyway.
Symon laughed, low, and started to move his hips, pressing into Pryast again. It felt amazing in a way that Pryast knew he’d never be able to admit to anyone. “Can’t hurt your pretty face,” Symon purred. “That’s your line?”
“Shut up,” Pryast said.
Symon flipped them over, Pryast braced on his hands and knees, while Symon’s hand found Pryast’s prick. “I know it’s nothing else, because we’re going to paint the floor white with your seed.”
Pryast groaned, low and half-strained, but he didn’t say anything else. They fucked in silence, making it so Pryast could hear as well as feel each thrust of Symon into him. He spilled before Symon did, felt the way that Symon didn’t still, just kept fucking into his oversensitive body.
“You want me to come, right?” Symon asked, Pryast’s ear in his teeth.
“You have to,” Pryast said, or he wouldn’t be able to see if the mana had worked, or there would have been no point to all of this. Or little enough point, at least.
Symon pulled out, cupped his fingers over Pryast’s chin as he drew him up to his knees. “Then suck my prick,” he said. “Be a good boy.”
Pryast moaned and he shifted how Symon wanted him, licked the other man clean before he took him into his mouth. Symon settled a hand around Pryast’s throat, held it tight while Pryast choked on his prick. When Symon came it was done quietly, with a certain dignity of a kind that Pryast had long given up.
Pryast looked up at his prisoner from his position on the floor, felt the threading of mana increased in them both, and smiled.
Ryder had been hailed as a hero among the elves, after his successful completion of the godhood trials. It was complicated for him, a man without a memory of who he'd been, and Ryder tried to act the way the elves expected him to, to have a certain dignity and grace in the position.
He knew, too, that elven society was monogamous and that as an unwed man he was expected to be looking for a spouse (a woman, too), nothing else. That part wasn’t easy for Ryder, but surviving the trials hadn’t been either, and yet here he was, trying hard to fit into a society that didn’t match his slowly returning memories. At least he was kept busy, at least he didn’t have much chance for a distraction.
His steps through the castle brought him face-to-face now with the most beautiful elf he’d ever seen, someone who seemed to belong more among the epics of old than in their current castle.
“Can I help you?” he asked.
The other elf seemed to hold his breath for a moment, and then nodded. “I was hoping for directions,” he said.
Ryder smiled, slow and careful, and then he leaned in, pressing the elven stranger back towards the wall. He inhaled deeply the scent of old book pages and sage. “I can give you some of those. Were you headed anywhere in particular?”
“I—,” the elf started, but Ryder cut him off with a finger laid across his lips.
“I was planning on giving you directions to my bedchamber,” he said.
The elf didn’t object, and Ryder was sure to accompany him, to make sure he didn’t get lost.
—
Inside Ryder’s chamber, Ryder pushed the elf again against the wall, but this time he didn’t plan to let him go again so easily. “I want to know your name,” he said.
“Zexion,” the elf said.
That was enough for Ryder to draw back a little, to study him for a while before he went, “Huh.” But that didn’t feel very important at the moment, and he didn’t change his approach, nibbling lightly at Zexion’s neck. Then he drew back to release Zexion, to watch him with half-lidded eyes.
“Strip for me,” he said.
Zexion did, and Ryder kept his eyes on the man, drank in the sight of him like a man who’d spent weeks parched in the desert.
Ryder stripped himself, quickly and efficiently, as soon as Zexion was done with his show, and then he returned to the man, ran his fingers over bare skin. “I think you’re the sort to be had in a proper bed,” Ryder said, and Zexion followed when Ryder led.
Ryder found lamp oil to slick his fingers, to slide one gently into Zexion and open him up. He worked slowly and carefully, covering Zexion’s skin in kisses while he opened him up, worshipping his body with his mouth.
“Are you ready?” he asked, eventually, when Zexion was panting and three of Ryder’s fingers slipped easily into him.
“Yes, Ryder, please,” Zexion said.
Ryder grinned at him like a cat with the cream and licked a stripe down Zexion’s neck, even as he rearranged the man beneath him, lined him up to take Ryder’s slicked-up cock. “Tell me if it’s too much,” he murmured as he started to slide in. “I’m going to make sure you can feel me, that you know we’re meant to be together like this.”
“I can feel you,” Zexion said, with his own smile.
“Good,” Ryder answered, pressing deeper into him. He sealed his lips over Zexion’s, cutting off both their words for a long moment, until he was all the way inside of Zexion. Then Ryder started, slowly, to move, to draw out and then press back in.
There was no way Zexion couldn’t feel him, but he seemed easy against the contact. Ryder wrapped his fingers around Zexion’s cock, jacking him off slowly in contrast to the faster pace that Ryder set up with his own hips.
Ryder came first, muffling his moan in a bruising kiss, and then he finally gave Zexion a little more, let his hand bring the younger man to completion.
“There,” Ryder said, with all the satisfaction that he thought the moment deserved. Then he pinned Zexion lazily to the bed, licked at Zexion’s wrist while he brought his fingers to still him. “Now tell me what you’re doing here.”
Dominic moved to roll out of bed when the sun rose, but Eiridan grumbled at him and Arran’s arm reached out, held Dominic where he was. Dominic leaned over to press his lips against Arran’s mouth, and then he murmured, to remind the other two why they should let him go, “I should check on the children.”
Arran didn’t release him, and Eiridan reached out, pressed against Dominic’s shoulder. "I'm going to check on them today," Eiridan said. "I'll be back, so let Arran warm you up."
Dominic blinked sleepily at both of them, but he felt the bed shift as Eiridan climbed out of it, and felt Arran's weight as he rolled above Dominic, pressed him down in another kiss. "We took the morning off," Arran said.
It had been a while since they'd done that, and Dominic smiled up at Arran, wrapped his legs around the man. "That sounds lovely." He didn't see why that meant Eiridan was the one to check on the children, though, unless maybe he'd wanted to take the opportunity on a day when he could.
Arran kissed Dominic again and then started to slowly kiss his way down Dominic's body, nibbling at his neck and biting down over the mark he'd made two nights ago. Dominic shifted his hips, feeling his prick start to harden.
Arran was most of the way down Dominic's body when Dominic heard Eiridan return. Eiridan pulled the blanket aside and kissed the back of Arran’s neck then lay to the side while Arran shifted Dominic, rolling so Arran had his back against the bed and Dominic was braced. Arran’s tongue lapped out at the tip of Dominic’s prick while Eiridan ran his fingers through Dominic’s hair, kissed his shoulder.
“I want to prepare you for Arran’s prick, so he can thrust into you and press you into me,” Eiridan murmured in Dominic’s ear.
“Yes,” Dominic moaned, as Arran took the first few inches of his prick into his mouth.
“Happy birthday darling,” Eiridan said, sliding a slicked up finger into him.
Dominic tried to shift, to try to get a look at either of his lovers’ faces. “Is it?” he asked. He’d lost track of the days again, and this one had never felt very important, back before he’d had people to celebrate it with.
Arran laughed, drew off of Dominic so he could kiss him. “Happy birthday, my love.”
Dominic drew back from the hug enough to meet Draco’s eyes. His expression was serious, but with a slight hint of teasing. “Something that requires less thinking.”
“Well, I'm quite good at that,” Draco replied with a similar tone, expression largely mild but with a faint twinkle in his eye. “Need some company?”
Dominic smiled softly at him. He could have company with Arran, he figured that was true. But it wasn't quite either or, and Draco... Draco was kind, too. Dominic could have no doubt of that right now. Dominic lifted his hand and ran his fingers along Draco’s jawline. “I want your company,” he said.
Draco leaned in, and then they were kissing, Dominic’s hands tangled up in Draco’s hair. Dominic was a man who tended towards seriousness and earnestness, and they were both on display even now, as he leaned in and pulled Draco towards him, as he kissed Draco like it was a solemn duty.
“You’re still thinking too much,” Draco said.
“I suppose I am.” Dominic sighed, drew back from the kiss, but then he nibbled at Draco’s neck, stubble brushing against Draco’s collarbone. “I don’t think I really know how to stop.” He could stop, with Arran, but he didn’t attribute that to anything he was doing. He thought being with Draco would help. He wasn’t sure how to truly start down that path.
Draco lifted a hand to Dominic’s tunic and hesitated. “How many knives do you have?” he asked. “Perhaps you should undress yourself.”
“Most likely,” Dominic said, instead of answering the question about his knives. He was still too paranoid for that. He did start to shed them though, with his clothing, keeping some of his clothing near him. He didn’t expected attack from Draco’s direction, not after what he’d already permitted, but this camp wasn’t well-defended and he couldn’t afford to be caught unaware. He didn’t know if Draco would understand that, so he didn’t bother to try to explain it. Instead he kept his weapons close at hand and reached for Draco once he was wholly naked.
Draco ran his fingers over Dominic’s muscles, and Dominic smiled to feel the admiration in them. It was a surprise, even with the flirtation. Draco still wore too many layers, and Dominic peeled them from him slowly, traced warm fingers over bared skin when he had the chance.
When they were both naked, Dominic kissed Draco again. “How do you want to do this?” he murmured. “What do you want to do?”
Draco laughed, a light noise that Dominic hadn’t expected and found himself charmed by. “You’re thinking again,” he said.
Dominic didn’t argue, because Draco was right. He just kissed the younger man, tried to forget his thoughts and the burdens they were under, tried instead to make his own peace. Draco’s mouth was warm and wet, and he moaned when Dominic licked into his mouth.
From there it became easier to forget his thoughts, to focus on Draco’s body and the pleasure that spiraled through his own. Dominic came with Draco’s hand on his prick, and Draco came somewhat later, finished with Dominic’s hand but with his prick coated in Dominic’s spit.
“Stay the night?” Draco asked, but there was a resignation in his tone, like he knew Dominic would say no.
Dominic kissed his forehead. “Another time,” he promised. And then, “Thank you.”
Draco/Ryder, good end, dragons
Ryder leaned against Draco and ran his hand through his hair. “I would like that,” he said. “More than I can say.”
“She was the best thing I ever knew,” Draco said.
Ryder smiled at him, a complicated expression that was tinged with sadness and understanding. “I saw her.” With his memories restored he knew why he’d found her so magnificent, but he’d always felt it down to his bones. He hadn’t known that she was connected to Draco, but it also made some sense. “Tell me everything, my little dragon,” Ryder said, and they stayed awake for many more hours, Ryder asking after everything he could think of, to enhance the memory he had of Lyra.
Eventually Draco and Ryder did drift off to sleep, slumped against each other and drifting sentence by sentence closer to relaxation.
—
Back in Irkalla, on the road to Emorr, there was an urgency to their steps, to the way they moved during the day. There was an urgency too, to the nights, to the way everyone scrambled to pitch their tents and get out of the cold.
Ryder slipped into Draco’s tent with the familiarity of habit, but this time he didn’t ask about Lyra, or Harry, or Draco’s home. This time Ryder drew Draco down onto the bedroll with him.
“You deserve a chance to relax,” Ryder said. “Just lay down.” Ryder ran his hands over Draco’s back until he eased the tension in him, and when Draco drifted off to sleep Ryder settled down next to him.
—
“We’re going out,” Ryder said, one night.
Draco stared at him, uncomprehending. They were in the middle of nowhere, and there was no where to go.
“I saw a cave, in our travels today.”
A moment longer, and then Draco sprang to his feet, was grabbing Ryder’s hand and pulling him out of the tent, urging them back towards the pass.
When they freed the servitor, it was Draco who cradled him, who nurtured him with his magic. It was Ryder who wrapped Draco’s wounds, and who kissed Draco fierce and bright with the rush of joy, of success.
—
The new servitor curled on the bed in the form of a small dragon, fast asleep, while Ryder and Draco watched with the besotted expression of new parents. They couldn’t say who kissed whom first, just that all of a sudden Ryder and Draco were tangled together, Draco’s hand in Ryder’s hair holding him while Draco swept his tongue into Ryder’s mouth.
“Let me,” Ryder said, kissing Draco again, hands pulling at his clothing.
“No,” Draco said. “I will.”
Draco peeled Ryder’s clothing back, and then sunk to his knees, his lips trailing down Ryder’s stomach.
Ryder combed his fingers through Draco’s hair, as Draco pressed his lips against the tip of Ryder’s cock. “Draco, gods, keep doing that.” It had been too long since Ryder had had any sort of intimacy, and this had been a long time in coming.
Draco grinned up at him, then parted his lips and started to slide over Ryder. He kept going until Ryder’s gasps echoed through the tent and until Ryder’s legs grew shaky, and then Draco held him in place and swallowed the taste of Ryder’s satisfaction.
Ryder licked the taste of himself from Draco’s mouth while his hand pumped the other man. Both of them knew that they’d be more comfortable in the bed, and yet the idea of disturbing their new charge wasn’t even the sort of thing they’d speak of, as they found new pleasure in each other.
Pryast/Symon, cw: blood, rough sex, complications of consent
“I might,” Symon said. Pryast felt the warm shiver of desire at the look Symon gave him, and something deeper, more primal and just as wanting at the words. “Or maybe I can be convinced to play nicely,” he continued.
Pryast swallowed and met Symon’s eyes. “If you do anything I don’t want I’ll take it from the flesh of your demon,” Pryast said.
“How am I to know what you do and don’t want?” Symon’s voice was pleasant, controlled.
“I’ll tell you.”
Symon shifted suddenly to lurch towards Pryast, to strain against his chains. Pryast took a half step back, but he could feel a jolt of arousal spike through his body and down to his prick at the feral look in Symon’s eyes. “Will you?” Symon asked. “No, I think we’ll do it like this. You can say anything you want, you can tell me no, you can beg me to stop, but I only will if you say his name.”
“Shadow,” Pryast breathed out, voice more reverent than that word deserved.
“Exactly that,” Symon said, and then, “So?”
Pryast didn’t answer with words, but he went to Symon’s side and unchained him from the wall, freed his hands and left it so there was nothing but the collar around Symon’s neck (the tiny bit opened to let him have his mana) to show his bondage.
Symon didn’t hesitate, he raised his fist and threw a punch, hard and furious at the other man’s nose, then followed to grip the man by the collar of his shirt, trying to get as many blows in as he could before Pryast could open his mouth and call this to a stop. Pryast’s blood dripped from his nose and coated Symon’s hand, but when Pryast opened his mouth it was only to laugh at Symon, to lunge for him and plant his lips on the other man’s.
Symon lifted, brought raw strength in to shove Pryast back against the wall. Pryast felt the rough stone bite into his clothing, and then Symon was stripping him, shoving his clothes off and dumping them on the ground to leave Pryast bare. Pryast fought him, nails scrabbling to draw blood where they bit in, but he didn’t reach for his magic, and Symon wasn’t gentle at all.
Symon fisted his hand in Pryast's hair, bore him down while Pryast closed his hands over Symon's throat, kept himself on his feet.
“Want to suck my prick?” Symon asked. He shoved a finger into Pryast's mouth.
Pryast bit down hard and Symon pulled his finger out. “I’ll bite it off.”
Symon laughed, challenge bright in his eyes. He brought his hand tight around Pryast's prick, felt the hardness of him.
“I’ll fuck you,” Symon said.
Pryast shivered against his touch. “No,” he said, because he wanted to see how Symon reacted.
Symon’s knee pushed hard into Pryast’s stomach and Pryast crumbled a little, a fact Symon took advantage of to grab hold of both of Pryast’s wrists. “How are you going to explain to the guards that you let a prisoner get the better of you?” Symon asked.
Pryast moaned, and Symon spun him around to slam his face against the wall. Pryast was rather more worried about how he was going to explain it to his wife, if he couldn’t get healed up before he went home. If he got out of this in one piece, because there was a part of him that thought that might not be a guarantee.
Pryast kicked his leg back, heel of his foot hitting hard into Symon’s knee.
Symon grunted, but he took a finger slick with blood and shoved it up Pryast’s ass. Pryast gasped and fought harder against him, and Symon slid his other hand between Pryast and the wall and wrapped it around Pryast’s prick, stroking him back to full hardness. A second finger slid into Pryast, and this time Symon pressed his fingers deeper, explored Pryast until the elf made an involuntary shudder, let out another moan.
“You like this,” Symon said, and it stung like an accusation even as he pulled his fingers out of Pryast, lined up and started to press his cock into Pryast’s body. Pryast wriggled forward and scraped his own body against the wall before he stilled, felt Symon entering him. Pryast felt himself held until Symon was all the way in, and then Symon yanked them both away from the wall, Symon still in Pryast.
“Ride me,” Symon said, tugging them down.
“No,” Pryast replied, certain that he had control of this, that Symon only had so much influence over the actions of Pryast’s own body.
“Ride me,” Symon said, running his fingers over Pryast’s nose, where it had stopped bleeding, “Or I break your nose.”
Pryast felt the rush of adrenaline run through him, with few enough places to go. “Shadow,” he said, half-terrified it wouldn’t work, that Symon would break his nose anyway.
Symon laughed, low, and started to move his hips, pressing into Pryast again. It felt amazing in a way that Pryast knew he’d never be able to admit to anyone. “Can’t hurt your pretty face,” Symon purred. “That’s your line?”
“Shut up,” Pryast said.
Symon flipped them over, Pryast braced on his hands and knees, while Symon’s hand found Pryast’s prick. “I know it’s nothing else, because we’re going to paint the floor white with your seed.”
Pryast groaned, low and half-strained, but he didn’t say anything else. They fucked in silence, making it so Pryast could hear as well as feel each thrust of Symon into him. He spilled before Symon did, felt the way that Symon didn’t still, just kept fucking into his oversensitive body.
“You want me to come, right?” Symon asked, Pryast’s ear in his teeth.
“You have to,” Pryast said, or he wouldn’t be able to see if the mana had worked, or there would have been no point to all of this. Or little enough point, at least.
Symon pulled out, cupped his fingers over Pryast’s chin as he drew him up to his knees. “Then suck my prick,” he said. “Be a good boy.”
Pryast moaned and he shifted how Symon wanted him, licked the other man clean before he took him into his mouth. Symon settled a hand around Pryast’s throat, held it tight while Pryast choked on his prick. When Symon came it was done quietly, with a certain dignity of a kind that Pryast had long given up.
Pryast looked up at his prisoner from his position on the floor, felt the threading of mana increased in them both, and smiled.
Zexion/Ryder, Zexion’s elven disguise
He knew, too, that elven society was monogamous and that as an unwed man he was expected to be looking for a spouse (a woman, too), nothing else. That part wasn’t easy for Ryder, but surviving the trials hadn’t been either, and yet here he was, trying hard to fit into a society that didn’t match his slowly returning memories. At least he was kept busy, at least he didn’t have much chance for a distraction.
His steps through the castle brought him face-to-face now with the most beautiful elf he’d ever seen, someone who seemed to belong more among the epics of old than in their current castle.
“Can I help you?” he asked.
The other elf seemed to hold his breath for a moment, and then nodded. “I was hoping for directions,” he said.
Ryder smiled, slow and careful, and then he leaned in, pressing the elven stranger back towards the wall. He inhaled deeply the scent of old book pages and sage. “I can give you some of those. Were you headed anywhere in particular?”
“I—,” the elf started, but Ryder cut him off with a finger laid across his lips.
“I was planning on giving you directions to my bedchamber,” he said.
The elf didn’t object, and Ryder was sure to accompany him, to make sure he didn’t get lost.
—
Inside Ryder’s chamber, Ryder pushed the elf again against the wall, but this time he didn’t plan to let him go again so easily. “I want to know your name,” he said.
“Zexion,” the elf said.
That was enough for Ryder to draw back a little, to study him for a while before he went, “Huh.” But that didn’t feel very important at the moment, and he didn’t change his approach, nibbling lightly at Zexion’s neck. Then he drew back to release Zexion, to watch him with half-lidded eyes.
“Strip for me,” he said.
Zexion did, and Ryder kept his eyes on the man, drank in the sight of him like a man who’d spent weeks parched in the desert.
Ryder stripped himself, quickly and efficiently, as soon as Zexion was done with his show, and then he returned to the man, ran his fingers over bare skin. “I think you’re the sort to be had in a proper bed,” Ryder said, and Zexion followed when Ryder led.
Ryder found lamp oil to slick his fingers, to slide one gently into Zexion and open him up. He worked slowly and carefully, covering Zexion’s skin in kisses while he opened him up, worshipping his body with his mouth.
“Are you ready?” he asked, eventually, when Zexion was panting and three of Ryder’s fingers slipped easily into him.
“Yes, Ryder, please,” Zexion said.
Ryder grinned at him like a cat with the cream and licked a stripe down Zexion’s neck, even as he rearranged the man beneath him, lined him up to take Ryder’s slicked-up cock. “Tell me if it’s too much,” he murmured as he started to slide in. “I’m going to make sure you can feel me, that you know we’re meant to be together like this.”
“I can feel you,” Zexion said, with his own smile.
“Good,” Ryder answered, pressing deeper into him. He sealed his lips over Zexion’s, cutting off both their words for a long moment, until he was all the way inside of Zexion. Then Ryder started, slowly, to move, to draw out and then press back in.
There was no way Zexion couldn’t feel him, but he seemed easy against the contact. Ryder wrapped his fingers around Zexion’s cock, jacking him off slowly in contrast to the faster pace that Ryder set up with his own hips.
Ryder came first, muffling his moan in a bruising kiss, and then he finally gave Zexion a little more, let his hand bring the younger man to completion.
“There,” Ryder said, with all the satisfaction that he thought the moment deserved. Then he pinned Zexion lazily to the bed, licked at Zexion’s wrist while he brought his fingers to still him. “Now tell me what you’re doing here.”
Dominic/Eiridan/Arran, 10 years later
Arran didn’t release him, and Eiridan reached out, pressed against Dominic’s shoulder. "I'm going to check on them today," Eiridan said. "I'll be back, so let Arran warm you up."
Dominic blinked sleepily at both of them, but he felt the bed shift as Eiridan climbed out of it, and felt Arran's weight as he rolled above Dominic, pressed him down in another kiss. "We took the morning off," Arran said.
It had been a while since they'd done that, and Dominic smiled up at Arran, wrapped his legs around the man. "That sounds lovely." He didn't see why that meant Eiridan was the one to check on the children, though, unless maybe he'd wanted to take the opportunity on a day when he could.
Arran kissed Dominic again and then started to slowly kiss his way down Dominic's body, nibbling at his neck and biting down over the mark he'd made two nights ago. Dominic shifted his hips, feeling his prick start to harden.
Arran was most of the way down Dominic's body when Dominic heard Eiridan return. Eiridan pulled the blanket aside and kissed the back of Arran’s neck then lay to the side while Arran shifted Dominic, rolling so Arran had his back against the bed and Dominic was braced. Arran’s tongue lapped out at the tip of Dominic’s prick while Eiridan ran his fingers through Dominic’s hair, kissed his shoulder.
“I want to prepare you for Arran’s prick, so he can thrust into you and press you into me,” Eiridan murmured in Dominic’s ear.
“Yes,” Dominic moaned, as Arran took the first few inches of his prick into his mouth.
“Happy birthday darling,” Eiridan said, sliding a slicked up finger into him.
Dominic tried to shift, to try to get a look at either of his lovers’ faces. “Is it?” he asked. He’d lost track of the days again, and this one had never felt very important, back before he’d had people to celebrate it with.
Arran laughed, drew off of Dominic so he could kiss him. “Happy birthday, my love.”
Dominic/Draco, a different conversation
“Well, I'm quite good at that,” Draco replied with a similar tone, expression largely mild but with a faint twinkle in his eye. “Need some company?”
Dominic smiled softly at him. He could have company with Arran, he figured that was true. But it wasn't quite either or, and Draco... Draco was kind, too. Dominic could have no doubt of that right now. Dominic lifted his hand and ran his fingers along Draco’s jawline. “I want your company,” he said.
Draco leaned in, and then they were kissing, Dominic’s hands tangled up in Draco’s hair. Dominic was a man who tended towards seriousness and earnestness, and they were both on display even now, as he leaned in and pulled Draco towards him, as he kissed Draco like it was a solemn duty.
“You’re still thinking too much,” Draco said.
“I suppose I am.” Dominic sighed, drew back from the kiss, but then he nibbled at Draco’s neck, stubble brushing against Draco’s collarbone. “I don’t think I really know how to stop.” He could stop, with Arran, but he didn’t attribute that to anything he was doing. He thought being with Draco would help. He wasn’t sure how to truly start down that path.
Draco lifted a hand to Dominic’s tunic and hesitated. “How many knives do you have?” he asked. “Perhaps you should undress yourself.”
“Most likely,” Dominic said, instead of answering the question about his knives. He was still too paranoid for that. He did start to shed them though, with his clothing, keeping some of his clothing near him. He didn’t expected attack from Draco’s direction, not after what he’d already permitted, but this camp wasn’t well-defended and he couldn’t afford to be caught unaware. He didn’t know if Draco would understand that, so he didn’t bother to try to explain it. Instead he kept his weapons close at hand and reached for Draco once he was wholly naked.
Draco ran his fingers over Dominic’s muscles, and Dominic smiled to feel the admiration in them. It was a surprise, even with the flirtation. Draco still wore too many layers, and Dominic peeled them from him slowly, traced warm fingers over bared skin when he had the chance.
When they were both naked, Dominic kissed Draco again. “How do you want to do this?” he murmured. “What do you want to do?”
Draco laughed, a light noise that Dominic hadn’t expected and found himself charmed by. “You’re thinking again,” he said.
Dominic didn’t argue, because Draco was right. He just kissed the younger man, tried to forget his thoughts and the burdens they were under, tried instead to make his own peace. Draco’s mouth was warm and wet, and he moaned when Dominic licked into his mouth.
From there it became easier to forget his thoughts, to focus on Draco’s body and the pleasure that spiraled through his own. Dominic came with Draco’s hand on his prick, and Draco came somewhat later, finished with Dominic’s hand but with his prick coated in Dominic’s spit.
“Stay the night?” Draco asked, but there was a resignation in his tone, like he knew Dominic would say no.
Dominic kissed his forehead. “Another time,” he promised. And then, “Thank you.”