#oftachancer writes

“‘ Enchanting’ he says,” Dorian’s smile widened, eyes glinting with amusement. “Professor, if I didn’t know any better, I might think you were flirting with me.”

Emmrich saw himself suddenly from Dorian’s perspective. On his knees, fondling the man’s leg and admiring him. What outrageous behavior. What untoward advantage-taking of someone so young and recently wounded, physically and emotionally. He felt his ears flame as he sat back. “My apologies. I… It was not my intention to put you at any unease.”

“Is that what I am?” Dorian wondered. “Uneasy?”

Aran groaned, lapping the sour dust from Loranil’s upturned arse in the moonlight. Hours, they’d been fucking and fingering and fondling on the forest floor- at least it felt like hours. The mushrooms and herbs muddled time, made Aran feel electric and the taste of skin something akin to ambrosia. The feel of it beneath his lips. He spread Nil’s cheeks and lapped at him, drawing deep groans from the man before him.

Loranil’s tiger mask was askew, his long sunset hair braided back from his face to trail down his spine, the glitter and color on his face and shoulders streaked with sweat and other fluids as he bobbed on another man’s cock, sharing it with the woman he was furiously fucking, while Aran feasted on his arse.

He tasted like sweat and fresh baked bread and mushroom dust. Open and soft and practically begging to be fucked. Everything about Nil begged to be fucked. The bend of his spine. The shiver of his lips. The arc of his elbows.

The trees bent away to allow the moonshine through. The grove was filled with starlit bodies in motion, rambling music wafting over them from speakers set about the trees. Protected torches and sizzling rods of incense cast flickering lights and shimmering smoke.

Aran caught his breath as a firm cock brushed his cheek. A wolf mask above him. A line of musky powder on the darkened head of his dick. Aran lapped at the powder, feeling it soak into his tongue along with the taste of sweat and musk and weeping precome. Gods, he was aching. He sat up, taking the stranger’s cock into his palm and his mouth, rubbing himself at Nil’s prepared entrance.

“Fuck me-“

He wasn’t sure who said it and it didn’t really matter. It was a gathering of the willing and the wanton. Birch-shadowed and moss-mattressed, writhing with abandon in the fairy circle of the grove and the gentle slopes around it. Aran moaned, allowing his head to be dragged forward onto the wolf’s cock as he pumped into Loranil beat by beat, the drums circling them all, the rhythms driving every body in the moon’s light into a slow motion frenzy.

The woman beneath Loranil was wearing a feathered mask, like an owl, her flaxen hair poured out across the blanket on the ground like spilled corn silk. Powerful; undulating like waves, moaning like the earth herself. She rose up in his arms, her hands flexing at Aran’s hips, and they held each other’s gaze as Loranil rocked between them. Filling her, filled by him.

Aran kissed her lips: wine and root, cock and come, salt, brine, slick- She moaned, drawing them both in to the movement of her hips. Drowning them. The wolf had fallen on a woman in a panther mask, rutting splendidly a few feet away. The mongoose poured himself into Loranil’s mouth, come dripping over his lip, and Aran and the owl lapped it from his chin and lip and tongue as they fucked him. As the mongoose knelt beside them, hands sliding over their skin like wind. Like branches in a breeze.

Weren’t they all? Reeds in a storm, whipping each other into frenzies and fading into soft relief. The moans of wind and wonder becoming the music around them as they in turn unraveled and became sound and earth, moss and leaves, touching the sky and each other as they became what life could be...

He woke pillowed on a set of broad, hairy shoulders with a very soft, very warm woman curled against his back. The scent of the bonfire still wafted around the grove. Aran eased up, padding naked but for his boots through the woods, following the sound of wheels on gravel and distant music. Loranil was perched atop the van, headphones on, guitar in his lap, scribbling into a notebook. Aran tied a sarong around his waist and drank juice from a carton, laying out in the back of Loranil’s van. His knees were scuffed. His jaw was sore. His arse-

“How’s the head?”

His head ached, too, Aran squinted over the top of the orange juice carton, though none of it was bad, per se. Only… used. Well used. Thoroughly. It was a good feeling, though he wouldn’t have said no to a toothbrush. Loranil offered him a half-smoked blunt instead; he looked like a peacock on fire. Lean and lithe, thick dark violet hair caught up into a braid like a twisting mohawk, streaks of orange, blue, yellow, and red poured through his mane, his mask resting above his brows. His eyes - one speckled red, one deep blue - gleamed as he climbed down to straddle Aran’s lap. “I feel like I ate a dead raccoon while it’s kin fucked me.”

Loranil laughed, lilting and light. “Deep mushrooms are an acquired taste.” He pressed a kiss to his forehead, “Did you take the willowbark last night?”

“Aye.”

“Good, that’ll sort you out. I promised Cole I’d return you in good order.” He smiled slyly, sitting back. “Am I? Returning you in good order?”

Aran slid his hands up Loranil’s sides. Fennec fur, Cole always said. And he was right. Fuck, he was right. Aran felt stretched and raw and used- and soft and warm as fur on the inside. “Aye. Well enough,” he murmured.

“Good.” Loranil nudged him back, setting the carton to the side. “I’ll check for good measure, shall I, oinun ?”

“Hm,” Aran sighed beneath him, grinning as the elf lifted his sarong and stroked him, heedless of the couples and groups milling about the campsite. “I didn’t- with a woman- did I?”

“I don’t think so.” Loranil kissed his collarbone, the scrape of his unshaven chin juxtaposed with the softness of his lips. “Would it be terrible if you had?”

Would it? he wondered, stretching beneath the Dale’s roaming hands. He’d been in several situations where he’d watched Loranil rolling around with women in various states of undress. Anders, as well.

“If you enjoy it-“ And, Maker’s breath, did he enjoy Loranil’s lips and his tongue and the dexterity of his fingers stroking him in the morning sun- His deep red robe sliding off of his shoulders, revealing the intricacies of his vallaslin down his chest and arms- The flint of the morning sun on his piercings, his pale skin, his nipples hard with morning chill and want- “Does it matter who it’s with? What they’re shaped like? We’re all the same on the inside.”

“Not- Not exactly the same-“ Aran breathed. “Ah, Nil-“

“Did you have an awakening, though?”

“Transcendental,” Aran thrust into his grip, groaning as Loranil lapped at his nipple. “Really, really bloody brilliant.”

“As did I,” the elf sighed. “So many thoughts, so many songs drifting from the trees and the night-“

“Brilliant,” Aran repeated, sighing as Loranil shifted forward and began circling his hips down- down- tight- fuck-

“Ah, oinun , you are,” the man moaned, posting Aran deeper with every roll of his hips. “You are, you are.” His head fell back as his fingers traced up Aran’s chest, his neck, stroking his ears as he rode him.

Shivers beneath his skin. Relaxing and winding him up at once. Beads of sweat glistening down Loranil’s chest. Aran was vaguely aware of the people who’d paused to watch them, but it didn’t matter. Not like they hadn’t seen them like this only hours before. Not like he hadn’t seen them. All one, he thought, losing himself to the rhythm of Loranil’s heart and hips. All of them were one, part of the same whole, part of- “Nil-“

“Aran-“ He squeezed Aran’s earlobes, sinking all the way down onto him. “We’re going to stay here a while longer before we return to the city. Alright?”

“Fuck, yes,” Aran laughed, thrusting up into him to draw a rough shudder from the man.

“Down and to the left,” Loranil murmured, shifting his hips to match his instructions, then sighed log and loud and low. “There. Just- Ah, just there.”

“What a day!” she gasped, settling in on the bench behind him.

“Yeah.” He winced as his voice cracked halfway through the word. He cleared his throat. “Yes. It was.” She wasn’t laughing; she was a good friend. He glanced up to see her offering her cup of punch and smiled gratefully, gulping and passing it back. “Thanks.”

“The candles are pretty,” she said, leaning against the rail to watch them. “Like stars.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” he grinned and listened to her giggle in reply.

“We’re alike, I think. Don’t you?”

He thought about her penchant for ruffles and things that glittered. How they could set each other off laughing with absolutely no reason. The time the summer before when he’d found her crying under the eaves. “Yeah, ish.”

“Would you…” she began, sounding suddenly breathless, “would you want to go out?”

“We are out,” he wrinkled his nose, confused.

“Oh, yes, I suppose we are.” She rested her chin on her hands, “I meant… Would you like to go out, sometime, with me?”

He ran his tongue over his teeth; they still felt too strange, too smooth, without his braces. “I don’t know; it’s supposed to rain the next few days. Where did you want to go?”

“Ottilie said you know your way through the maze.”

He chewed his lip, “Yeah.”

“Maybe you can take me through it?”

Aran nodded. “Sure.”

She flushed, happy in an instant. “Great.” She touched his shoulder. “Let’s go now.”

“ Now- now?” he asked, very aware of the still uncomfortable level of alert inside his hand-me-down slacks. They were far too long for him, benefit of having been Sam’s before they were his. His mother had pinned the legs up and every movement set the safety pins rubbing against his ankles. The waist was too wide, too, held up by suspenders beneath his jacket. Maybe she wouldn’t notice? No, it was Josie. She noticed everything. “It’s… the candles, though.”

“They’ll still be here.”

He hugged his knees, swallowing nervously. “Uh… no, thank you.”

“Please! It’s an adventure! Don’t you like adventures?”

“Sure.”

“So let’s go!”

“To the maze?”

“Yes. I’ve heard it’s a-maze-ing.”

Aran snorted, grinning, and the pun was almost enough to convince him. But the last time he’d been in there only a few days before, he’d become transfixed with Tristan’s back. With his sweat, like wings, dampening his shirt in the summer heat. He bit his tongue hard as his body tightened further. Stop, stop, stop. No, he was not getting up any time soon. “I’d rather just sit here.”

“May I join you then?”

Aran stared at her. “Uh…” But she was already climbing carefully over the railing to sit beside him on the gazebo’s ledge. They were of a height. Too close. He hugged his knees tighter. “Sure,” he answered belatedly. Not much choice now. “How’s the party?”

“Oh, the music is so wonderful!” she enthused. “And there are those little shrimp cakes again this year. Lady Trevelyan really knows how to throw a ball.”

“Aye.” His voice dropped inexplicably into his toes on the syllable. And he saw her lips twitch. “No laughing. Gazebo rules.”

“It’s sweet. You’re growing up.”

“Piss off.”

She smiled, turning to him. “We’re all growing up. It’s good. It’s normal.”

“Right. You get prettier and my throat develops a mind of its own.” His throat and the rest of him as well. It was like trying to govern a sea of cats, just moving through his day.

“You think I’m pretty?” she asked softly.

He frowned. “What? Of course you are.” It was dark, but he was pretty sure her cheeks were darkening. “Not that that’s all that matters,” he added hastily, remembering Winnie’s angst over their father calling her just that word. Demeaning, she’d snarled, fingers snapping. “You’re smart. Really clever. Sorry.”

She leaned towards him and he could smell the soap on her skin and the perfume waves that she’d walked through in the house that had attached themselves to her. Then her lips were on his and Aran froze, blinking. What? Why? Was all he could think for a long series of ineffable seconds. He’d never felt anyone’s lips on his own, except his mother’s and his sisters’, and this… wasn’t that different. Soft and pleasant.

He squinted when she ducked back. Was he supposed to do something? Say something? “Uh… thank you?”

She beamed at him. “I really like you.”

“Good?” He itched the side of his nose. “I like you, too.” Maybe she wanted to be his sister, too. She could have just asked.

“Maybe, if we go to the maze, you can show me how much.”

Did he not already? “Jo-“

Then her lips were on his again and he sat there, hugging his knees, trying to figure out why this was happening. She made a kind of sighing sound and her fingers touched his hair lightly. That was nice. He liked when she played with his hair. And when Tilly did. And Miranda and Winnie. It was soothing. Not like Tristan’s fingers when they barely brushed his ear and sent heat shuttling down his spine. He frowned, and she drew back.

“You’re right,” she breathed. Was he? he wondered. Right about what? “Let me know when you want to go to the maze? I’ll be in the ballroom, okay?” she whispered and then fled up into the gazebo and across the lawn. He watched her go, her skirt flapping in the evening breeze.

What the actual Void?