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Aerin was a smart man. He knew that. Prided himself on it, in fact. He’d always been quick-witted, clever, his rigorous education obvious to anyone he spoke to. There wasn’t a puzzle he’d ever come up against that he couldn’t unravel with ease.
Until Dorian.
The celebrations in Riverbend had continued well into the night; beyond the confines of their tent, Aerin could still hear the light refrain of a flute, the slow, poignant swell of a fiddle, as a pair of minstrels played their longing to skies littered with stars. It wasn’t so loud that he couldn’t sleep through it; beside him, curved protectively around him, Dorian’s breath had evened out into the slow rhythm of true sleep.
Aerin felt him sigh against his skin. His body was warm with rest and the lingering heat of their lovemaking. Not for the first time, Aerin marvelled at how utterly, hopelessly stuck he was.
Not in the least because, even asleep as he was, Dorian didn’t seem as though he would deign to let him go any time soon. The man had a build borne of long years of physical labour and swordsmanship; those iron-banded arms hugged Aerin firmly against his chest, one arm looping around his waist, the other curving around his shoulders. He held him so sweetly, so securely, that it seemed that Aerin’s half-baked escape plan would fall apart at the first hurdle — namely, ever getting out of this blasted bed.
An alarmingly vocal part of him hoped that that would be the end of it.
Because that was the other thing that gave him pause. Try as he might, Aerin simply couldn’t make up his mind.
He should go.
Right?
Right. He should go.
Leaving the party, leaving Dorian —a gasp hooked in Aerin’s lungs— it was the right thing to do.
A breeze shook the walls of the tent, the burnt gold silks cracking and shuddering in the wind. How much nicer it would be, to just stay in the bed.
It was warm, inside. Next to Dorian. Everything was soft linen sheets and warm wood, the tent’s furnishings humble and plain, but comfortable. The candles burned low at the small table where they’d sat together and shared a cup of wine earlier that evening.
They’d talked for an hour or two after slipping away from Riverbend’s quaint little festival —Dorian had laughed at his own jokes, as he was wont to do, and he’d grinned at Aerin’s acerbic wit in a way that had his stomach tripping over itself— and then Dorian had kissed him like there was nothing and no one else in the world at all.
Like the answer to every question he’d ever had was as simple as that.
How easy it would be to pretend. To stay here, his head nestled on his lover’s chest, listening to the slow rise and fall of his breathing. How easy, to forget the outside world existed.
Aerin’s mouth twisted in a bitter smile. It was exactly the sort of irony he ought to have expected, he thought. All his life, he’d been trapped. Trapped by Baldur’s abuses; trapped by the minutiae of courtly decorum; trapped in a role wherein no one would ever see him as a person, merely an idea, a ghost of a farce of a mockery of what they all thought a “Prince” ought to be.
Then, when the abuses had worn him down to nothing, and he’d thought to seize some measure of independence for himself… It had been mistake after catastrophe after vainglorious disaster that had won him nothing but regret and a year-long stay in a cold cell.
Now that he finally, finally had the freedom to make decisions for himself, now that he had a chance to atone and do some good with his wretched excuse for a life, well.
How ironic that that very freedom was little but another cage.
Self-loathing was a demon that pressed him bodily into the sheets, turned the warmth around him hotter by degrees until it was suffocating.
Doing right by Dorian meant being worthy of him. And being worthy of him meant he’d have to shatter the nascent trust growing between them. He’d have to betray Dorian, again, after all the kindness he’d shown him.
They had been three days out from Riverbend when the party had set camp one night, and a whip-thin fox had darted across the edge of the clearing. It was clearly wild, its hackles raised in gnawing hunger and fear, but Dorian had simply grinned and hunkered down with a strip of dried meat in his hand.
It had taken him most of the evening, but eventually Aerin had returned from gathering kindling with Mal to find the creature eating the meat right out of his outstretched fingers. Another half-hour of gentle coaxing and it had chirruped and curled up right in Dorian’s lap.
Mal had rolled his eyes, shaking his head as if he found the whole thing laughable. Expected, even. As though he knew how little chance anything —anyone— had of resisting Dorian’s charm.
As Aerin had stroked disbelieving fingers through the creature’s flame-red pelt, he’d finally understood that the gut-deep pull he’d been feeling since their first kiss by the lake was some combination of a deep, pervasive sadness… and a potent yearning.
An unabating ache.
Teeth, and claws, and snarling wildness; none of it seemed to bother Dorian. A deep-rooted instinct to lash out in self-defence, stemming from a life of fear and pain, it was simply no match for his easy smiles and slow coaxing. Once Dorian Silvertongue set his sights on something —on someone— they were all but his. Aerin yearned for Dorian to tame him, as patiently and painlessly as he had the fox.
When they’d packed up camp the following morning, the fox was gone, but the feeling lingered.
And when they’d happened upon a particularly tricky patch of forest trail not long after they’d left the clearing, Aerin hadn’t been able to resist taking Dorian’s outstretched hand.
***
For a fleeting moment, Aerin let himself imagine he could stay.
That the pair of them weren’t tangled up in a mess of his own making; that the hand Dorian had held so gently wasn’t covered in blood he couldn’t wash clean.
That maybe they’d lace their fingers through one another’s to stroll along the piers of Port Parnassus, taking in the markets and the brisk night air. That they could be just a pair of travellers, unremarkable, unburdened save for the kiss of salt upon their skin as ocean mist sprayed up from the docks.
Laughter on their lips as an unexpected swell left them drenched.
Perhaps he’d get the chance to get back at Dorian for those godsawful sausages he’d had them all eat at the festival tonight — they could taste the fare from various street vendors, feed each other unfamiliar fruits and spiced wine of dubious vintage.
…He’d buy Dorian a handcrafted ring to replace the one he still wore on a chain around his neck. One that wasn’t a mark of Whitetower, of the Valleros family, but just him.
Just Aerin.
An honest gift from one beating heart to another, both of whom had known far too much pain and burden. A mark of a new beginning.
Dorian’s skin was hot beneath Aerin’s cheek; stifling a gasp, Aerin pulled back, blotting away the few errant tears that had begun to pool on his chest.
He stared long and hard at Dorian’s sleeping face. The way his hair fell in his eyes. The bruised shadows beneath them. The rasp of stubble at Dorian’s jaw that even now he could feel burning against the delicate skin of his thighs, his neck.
Dorian shifted slightly in his sleep, his fingers spasming on Aerin’s skin, clutching at him in a way that had a flurry of butterflies alighting in his stomach.
Frozen, Aerin caught his lip between his teeth, scared to move.
Hoping Dorian wouldn’t wake.
Praying he would.
It would be selfish of him to stay, he should go. He was a smart man; he knew he should do what needed to be done. It was the right thing to do.
Never mind that even thinking of walking away from the one good thing he’d ever had in his accursed life felt akin to shoving a knife into his own chest.
He’d done that, once.
The Nerada stone hadn’t wanted to budge, the rituals he’d undertaken to free himself of Shadow corruption were long, and laboured, and exhaustingly brutal, but he’d taken that pain as penance.
Somehow, it hurt less than the thought of Dorian waking to find that Aerin had betrayed him yet again.
***
Sand hurtled through the hourglass as Aerin let his looming choices fall by the wayside.
He knew he was running out of time.
But right now, all he wanted to do was memorise exactly how it felt to be held.
***
It was with a slow reluctance that Aerin drew his unworthy hands away from the only person he’d ever loved. Easing out of Dorian’s grasp, he slipped from the bed. Located his smallclothes in the jumbled pile of leather and linens and weaponry on the floor. Pulled those on. His trousers and boots, those too.
The heat of Dorian’s skin still warmed his palms; an echo that he knew would fade all too soon. He tugged his tunic on over his head, hopeful the clinking music of buckles and straps might rouse him from his slumber, dreading whatever excuse he’d make if it did.
Aerin knew Dorian hadn’t been sleeping well since his escape from the Ash Empire. Most nights he’d wake with a scream catching in his throat, a skittering panic in his eyes that Aerin knew well himself. More cruel then, that the fates would have him sleeping so peacefully tonight, the marks Aerin had left on his throat a brand, a traitor’s kiss, a ghost edge of a knife wound.
Aerin finished dressing.
Dorian slept.
He crossed to the nightstand, poured himself a glass of water from the decanter. Tried to swallow past the tightness in his throat.
Still, Dorian slept.
Would he think of him, Aerin wondered? Would Dorian ache for him the next time he bedded down alone?
…would he even be alone?
Aerin clamped his jaw shut against a swell of sudden nausea. He knew Dorian was open with his affections, and he’d thought he didn’t begrudge him that —what he shared with Mal was strictly physical, at least on Dorian’s part, though his blossoming relationship with Nia hadn’t survived their confrontation with the Dreadlord— but for a moment, bitter, ugly jealousy made him feel ill.
Would this second betrayal be enough to carve Aerin’s name out of his heart for good? Push him back into Nia’s arms?
Aerin swallowed.
Perhaps it was better that Dorian hate him. He didn’t deserve his kindness, much less his love. Not after everything he’d done.
Dorian was a blazing comet streaking through the night sky; Aerin the empty void he lit with his passing. He didn’t regret the night they’d shared together; far from it, he couldn’t remember ever being happier. Just this once, Aerin had longed to blaze up alongside him, lost in his fire, in his light.
Just this once, he’d wanted to cling to him as he burned.
It had been better than anything he’d ever dreamed.
Aerin set the glass down, his hands shaking around the decanter as he poured himself a second glass of water.
Of course he had to leave. How could he kid himself that he could have a place amongst the great heroes of Morella? Him — a hero? Who was he trying to fool?
Jaw clenching, Aerin took a seat at the table, drawing some papers and ink from his satchel. He laid them out with slow precision, hating himself, hating the world, hating everything he had to do.
Behind him, Dorian gasped in his sleep; it was an agonised shock of sound that cut Aerin to the quick. He leapt to his feet, crossing the tent to perch on the bedside as Dorian jolted himself awake.
‘P-please!’ Dorian gasped. ‘Don’t. Don’t!’
‘It’s alright,’ Aerin said.
One of Aerin’s hands came up to cradle Dorian’s face; the other rubbed soothing circles against his chest. Dorian’s hand flew up to clutch at his wrist.
‘Aerin?’
‘I’m here, it’s okay,’ Aerin murmured. His heart clenched painfully as Dorian’s sleep-addled gaze locked onto his and immediately grew less panicked. ‘You’re safe, Dorian. I’m right beside you.’
Almost before he’d finished speaking, Dorian’s eyes drifted closed — but not before he’d slid his hand higher to lace their fingers together where Aerin’s hand still cradled his face.
It was almost too much.
It would be so easy to sink back into that bed, sink back into a sense of belonging he didn’t deserve.
Aerin sucked a strained breath against the tightness in his lungs, gently extricating himself from Dorian’s grasp. He didn’t know if it was some ill-begotten vestige of Shadow, lingering in his chest even now, or if breathing was simply beyond him where Dorian was concerned.
Every time they met each other’s eyes, the air in Aerin’s lungs turned to pitch.
Perhaps… he could stay? Dorian’s love would alight him, and the pitch in his lungs would blaze and burn, every breath between their kisses turned golden and glowing with light and fire.
Perhaps he should leave.
Let it cool and harden. Let his lungs solidify. Let him never draw a joyous breath again.
He should leave.
He should leave.
He sat at the table, his pen poised above the crisp parchment. He stayed frozen in place for so long the ink dripped from the nib, pooling into a dense, black blot on the page. It soaked into the paper, the sight eerily reminiscent of tendrils of shadow bleeding into smooth, pale skin.
Aerin choked down the tears, the bile threatening to rise, and scribbled down the only useless words he could muster.
Dear Dorian,
I apologize for leaving so abruptly, especially without saying goodbye...
...what a Gods-forsaken joke.
Drying his eyes, Aerin stole one last look, not knowing if he would ever see Dorian again. He wanted to kiss him goodbye. Wanted it so desperately it burned. He wanted Dorian’s eyes to flutter open at the first touch of his lips; for his hand to snap out one more time to clutch at Aerin’s own; for him to whisper please.
Please, Aerin. Don’t go. Stay with me.
Dropping the folded parchment on the table, his fingers trembling, Aerin turned to leave, knowing he was a jester, he was a fool, he was the realm’s most miserable joke.