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Jester Lavorre was, currently, Dorian’s favorite person and greatest enemy.
Jester Lavorre had given Orym a small ocarina. Dorian had only ever seen the full sized ones, the ones with sixteen holes that barely fit in two of his hands, and he was well aware that they grew higher in pitch as they shrank in size, but the small, white clay whistle in the shape of a heart that Orym, whiskey flush high on his cheeks and a bright grin on his face, was playing, was nothing like Dorian had ever seen. In his hands, it would’ve been almost impossible to play. Difficult to hold with two hands, annoying in every way. But it made for a wonderful, perfect handhold for Orym, who was playing it horribly, to the irritation of everyone in the tavern.
Orym seemed to be delighting in this, in a rare show of disregard, the high pitched whistle notes ringing out loud and clear. Dorian couldn’t take his eyes off of him.
It took all of ten minutes for Orym to figure out the whistle.
Dorian was jealous. Ten minutes! To figure out an entire instrument! It was preposterous, but Orym, drunk enough to disregard the glares, somehow memorized the finger arrangements for the scale on the whistle and had begun playing… oh gods. Orym was playing Hot Cross Buns in this crowded tavern on a high pitched clay whistle with his entire chest and then some.
The little furrow deepened in his brow until a crinkle had formed there, only letting up when he raised his head from the whistle to look at Dorian, looking for all the world like the only thing that mattered to him was Dorian himself. Dorian felt the flush he’d been trying to tamp down watching Orym’s lips purse around the whistle spread to his ears, and he watched Orym clock it lazily, his eyes drifting over Dorian’s face as though cataloging it. Then he winked.
Orym began to play a lilting melody, his fingers moving rapidly across the four small holes in a way so natural that it must’ve been well practiced. Surprisingly, the person in their little corner that looked up in surprised recognition was Beau. She cleared her throat, and, after glancing briefly at Yasha, began to sing.
Let the record show that Beauregard Lyonette would not be winning any awards for her singing.
All the same, her voice melted with the ocarina, and with Orym’s liquor softened smile, in a language Dorian didn’t understand. Orym’s eyes crinkled in fondness at her as the song continued, his tail swishing behind him in broad, round curves.
To see him being so expressive was a treat for Dorian. His tail was usually wrapped around his waist or tightly around his thigh, typically in a place that he could twirl the tuft between his fingers when lost in thought.
He had admitted to Dorian one night, wine drunk under the stars, that he hated how easily it showcased his emotions when it wasn’t curled around one of his limbs. Dorian hadn’t even really noticed that it moved in any particular way when it wasn’t busy being a belt, but he had started paying closer attention after that night.
Orym and Beauregard’s song ended with Beau’s voice reaching low and the ocarina going impossibly high with a trill. There were a few beats of silence, before a smattering of claps was heard through the crowded tavern.
Orym’s eyes, Dorian noticed very suddenly, were shining, and Beau had been singing quietly while looking at her accompanist. Orym sprang in a (to Dorian) well-practiced maneuver to grab onto the monk, who was very clearly not practiced in halflings jumping at her because she barely caught him. Orym’s tail twined around her upper arm, tightly, as he threw his arms around her neck and squeezed.
From this angle, Dorian could just make out the squinched expression on Orym’s face, and the shocked expression on Beau’s was very clear and, quite honestly, very entertaining. She held him awkwardly, like she would a small child, but wrapped her arms around him and started stepping towards Dorian when she realized he had been looking at the two of them. Her mouth had started moving, and when Orym pulled away, there were twin furrows in their brows.
Without breaking eye contact in whatever conversation they were having that Dorian could barely make out, Orym stretched a long arm out towards Dorian, and, unexpectedly, his tail, and both wrapped tightly around him and quite suddenly he found himself with an armful of distracted halfling man, smelling like sweat and alcohol and earth.
“No I- I totally get that like, you hadn’t heard it in awhile, I really only know it by chance—” Beau was saying, her arms now crossed and body bowed in a self-conscious manner. “I actually. I learned it for Yasha.”
Orym stilled at that, his twitching and fidgeting muscles not freezing but just stilling in the acknowledgment of whatever that meant to him. Dorian couldn’t see his face because of how his head was tucked back against his shoulder pauldron, but his tone was delicate and gentle, even if his words were slower and slightly more slurred than normal, when he replied.
“I’m so sorry, then, for her loss.” He said, and the hand that wasn’t wrapped securely around Dorian’s neck reached out to grip Beau’s upper arm.
“I appreciate it, little one,” said the woman herself. Dorian jumped two feet straight in the air and let out a horrible squawking noise, not having had even the barest inkling that Yasha had been approaching. Orym went with him, and turned his face to Dorian to nuzzle his jaw with a smile briefly once they’d reached the ground again before his attention turned to the aasimar.
“I did not realize you would be familiar with such a song of great tragedy. Maybe I should have guessed, because of how serious you are, it is a bit like how I am, but still. I’m sorry you have to know it,” she said. Orym nodded, his head now tucked squarely into the junction between Dorian’s neck and shoulder, where Dorian knew his ear was pressed up against his pulse, and knew just how loudly his blood was thundering in Orym’s ear. The tuft of Orym’s tail was dragging back and forth soothingly along the inside of his arm, catching every so often on the buckles of his boots where his feet were braces on Dorian’s hip.
The conversation continued over the next few minutes and Dorian was able to glean, with enough context, that the song was an homage to a dead love, sung by the surviving spouse, as they gazed into the eyes of someone new.
“It’s not- it’s not a replacement, you know?” Beau was looking at Dorian. Dorian did not realize, at first, that he was being addressed.
“Oh, oh! Yes, of, of course, I know that. Please. Nobody can ever take the place of a dead spouse, I’m certain of that,” and he laughed nervously, not exactly understanding what he had to contribute to this conversation. Beau looked at him dryly. Yasha, with one raised eyebrow. His arm around Orym tightened and he knew Orym heard the uptick in his heart rate as his nerves grew the longer silence stretched. “I wouldn’t- I don’t know anything about that. Orym’s the one who’s been married, not me. I can’t imagine the pain you both must’ve gone through, I’m sorry, Yasha,” he said, turning sorrowful grey eyes towards her, confused where his misstep had been. Yasha squinted her eyes at him, and Dorian felt like he was missing something important. He felt Orym’s tail wrap slowly, fully around his arm, and his fist tighten in the sheer metal fabric of his shirt.
After a moment, Yasha looked just as lost as he was.
“I think I have lost the thread of this conversation,” she said, turning to Beau, who rolled her eyes and whispered something to Yasha. Dorian definitely couldn’t make it out, but it didn’t matter, because Orym probably did, and Orym would absolutely tell him later when he asked. Orym was wonderful like that. Yasha’s mouth formed a little ‘o’ shape and she smiled kindly at Dorian, whose head was swimming, just a bit. He knew he shouldn’t have had that last drink but Imogen had talked it up so much—
“Don’t worry about it, Yasha, it’s not a big deal—“ Orym said, clearly interrupting what Yasha had been about to say. She, then, rolled her eyes, but smiled graciously at them when Beau had not. Her mismatched gaze turned to lock with Dorian’s, and her hand landed on his arm, half on Orym’s tail. Dorian felt the sudden urge to twitch away, and shoved it down, but couldn’t help but feel justified when Orym’s grip on him tightened just a bit.
“It takes awhile. Adjusting is hard. There is nothing to live up to, no shoes to fill. Just be yourself,” Yasha told him. Dorian looked at her blankly.
“I…know?”
Beau groaned loudly at this.
“I swear to god we were not this bad, why are gay men so—“
“Beau, we have talked about this. Caleb and Essek have told us that grouping any sort of people together like that is not correct—“
“Babe, we’re lesbians. The whole thing is literally that lesbians are the useless ones when it comes to this. I’m allowed to make fun of them. Caleb and Es literally took years to have anything happen between them. That’s what I call, a trend,” she said, and swayed into Yasha’s arms.
“Beau, I love you, but I have never heard anyone call you a useless lesbian, and I have heard you call many gay man idiots, and I really think that—“
“For the record, I don’t think I qualify as a gay man, so if you are including me in that statement, your data is off, though Beauregard calls me an idiot quite often. On that note, Beauregard, you need more than just two points of data to form a trend. You are not too far gone to know this, but it does nothing to assure me of your continued—” Beau groaned loudly at the zemnian accent that had appeared over her shoulder.
Dorian lost the thread of whatever squabble had begun when Orym abruptly shifted in his arms, planting the balls of his feet just below his navel and crouching on his torso, swinging his other arm around Dorian’s neck to look him in the eye. The ocarina whistle that was hanging around his neck swung around with that motion, but Dorian hardly noticed it banging into his ear, the shifting body in his arms taking all of his attention.
He had to stifle a genuine whimper as the pressure below his navel was just the right side of painful and what the fuck was that feeling, actually, but he managed to look Orym in the eye. Orym’s face was open. So rarely was it, but it was, and he was beautiful and gods but Dorian wanted to kiss him. Something must’ve shown on his face because Orym leaned and fit his lips to the corner of Dorian’s mouth. When he pulled back, his eyes were wide and gods, his face, it was broken clean open with feeling. It was usually locked up so tight, his brow furrowed, that the sight of so many emotions playing across his eyes and the unfamiliar movements of Orym’s tail were entirely foreign to him but so, so beautiful. He leaned his forehead against Orym’s, keeping their eyes locked. Orym’s lips were slightly parted and his breath was warm. They breathed together for a wonderful, quiet moment before Orym swallowed and closed his eyes tightly.
“I’m too. I’ve had too much whiskey for this conversation. Tomorrow. Night. You’ll play me something and I’ll play you that song and we’ll stay in your room while the rest of our friends get drunk again and- ha.”
The huff of breath was hot. Dorian searched Orym’s face, and when his eyes opened again, they met Dorian’s immediately. Dorian smiled at him.
“I love you,” he told him. Orym’s eyes brightened again with emotion, and he let out a breathless chuckle.
“I love you too, Blueberry,” he said, his voice ragged. Dorian was missing something. It didn’t matter right now, in the raucous of the bar. They had tomorrow, when whiskey wasn’t splashing flush across Orym’s cheeks and wine and spirits weren’t fuzzing Dorian’s mind.
“You never told me you knew how to play an ocarina,” Dorian said. The first thing that came to his mind. Orym startled at this, and threw his head back to laugh. Dorian smiled at him. It was the best, warmest thing he’d heard in weeks.