{image above by rupeewallet <3 <3} | bc I guess I care enough about this au to make a full thing about it. and so I don't clutter what's originally supposed to be other people's OW stuff | will contain ocs! | If you're on desktop, Treekeeper links will be listed below, and other important tags will be listed under the search bar to the right!
Sup. I'm Scooter or Abyssal, whichever floats your boat. I guess this is a side blog for a side blog? I initially created @outer-abyssal-wilds to just be Outer Wilds appreciation and such, but then I wound up writing more than I thought I would. And then I got attached to my au. Oops.
But instead of cluttering up my main OW blog (and feeling bad about it, bc y'know), I figured I'd pull the trigger on making something more solely dedicated to my writing and ocs.
I'll still reblog/post WIPs and full pieces to abyssal-OW, but this really will be just a bunch of rambling. And trivia I suppose. Gonna put some links in here with some admin. Oh, and feel free to ask any questions about anything! There may be some NSFW stuff at some point, idk. If it happens, it'll be Zoisite's fault.
Treekeeper Setup/Background (newly done; not the one from abyssal-outer-wilds!):
Treekeeper Current Situation
Treekeeper Cast (pulled from abyssal-outer-wilds, since not much here has changed)
Treekeeper writing entries!
WIPs
OCs (check THIS post out if you just want a master list of my ocs for some reason)
As I have very little faith in my own ability to carry a longstanding narrative, it's very likely I'll be doing a lot of interconnected one-shots (maybe some two-shots) set in this universe at large. So if it seems like I wind up doing a lot of infodumps in posts, that may be why! I want to share what I've created, but, well...my track record with ongoing writing isn't very good, and I don't want to burn myself out T_T
Tags to search!
my writing: actual writing pieces (likely brought over from ao3)
worldbuilding: general Treekeeper housekeeping stuff; ideas and the like, or just chatting
ocs: Exactly What It Says On The Tin. Most likely to do with Outer Wilds ocs, but some of my other ones may slip in
wips: also Exactly What It Says On The Tin, tbh
rambling: more on the personal side, rather than having to do with anything above
other: not strictly Outer Wilds related, but probably writing related or something
I have Goofed and forgot I need to be a Daywalker on Monday. Up by 10:30am, just woke up an hour ago. T_T At the very least, I'll try to get caught up on tumblr and get my queue all situated.
Sucks cause I really wanted to game and write tonight ;_;
Spent all night reading actual, physical books (gasp). Not only is it something I've been needing to do for a long time, but I actively wrote better when I read more.
And, uh, the fact that there's a healthy dose of smut means nothing, of course not.
(I'm so amused at how the side-by-side images crop the second one tbh)(also!! Both pics above were drawn by the amazingly talented kirtini I love her forever for bringing Jirea to life like this <3)
Jirea flaunting his new outfit (the right pic above!) {NSFW}
This one's fairly long, so I think a read more is in order. The D&D characters have a bit more meat to them than the Outer Wilds OCs (since I've had some of them for 6+ years already).
As much as I’d like to start with all the fun stuff (his hedonism, his accidental and low-key racism toward anyone not of the Elemental Planes, his thanatophobia, his mannerisms, etc.), there’s too much of that that’s tied in with his backstory. So, unfortunately, that’s gotta come first. The fun bits are going to be under the cut, though! :>
* for reference, the D&D campaign I played in was predominantly homebrewed. It drew a lot of races/subclasses from places like World of Warcraft, the Souls series, & Elden Ring.
Jirea M Arondite began as a DM-controlled NPC named Medivh, who was a mortal human. Medivh was a college professor who specialized in classes pertaining to the Elemental Planes and elemental magics. This is where he met Ian McAlister and Daien, who were both in Romalia by sheer accident (through time shenanigans that I won’t go into here).
After disaster struck his home country of Romalia, essentially razing it out of existence, he fled and was one of the few to escape alive.
Terrified of death, Medivh did many things to elongate his life until he ran out of the resources to do so. He still feared death but conceded he had no other options. No other paths to take. Taking comfort in the life he’d made for himself since the destruction of his home, he died happily among a small family he’d made for himself.
Control of his character shifted over to me when he was reincarnated (mechanically using some of the “Reborn” traits). Using a homebrewed dracthyr class (which was deemed to be a quarter dragon in this universe), Medivh was reborn as “Jirea Arondite”. Erebos (the God of Death we ran for our campaign, from the third-party Mythic Odysseys of Theros) Was Not Amused.
Jirea is a sorcerer with multiple Origins (since we were allowed to double up). I ran him with a homebrewed Astral Origin and a third-party Reincarnated Hero Origin. He had almost every stat dumped except for Charisma and Constitution (with a little bit of Dexterity).
Yay, The Fun Stuff! (& potentially some controversial stuff tbh...)
Jirea’s an assistant dean, and professor, at Strixhaven (roughly similar to D&D’s incarnation; a prestigious magical college), where he teaches similar classes as he used to in his previous life. Jirea is intimately tied to the Elemental Planes and is a master of portals (which has the side effect of making him highly allergic to doors). Specifically, his portals take him through the Planes.
Throughout both of his lives, Jirea has fostered many connections with different elementals and djinn, to the point where one could theorize that he prefers them to those not born of the Planes. That theory is actually 100% correct. He sympathizes with elementals and djinn far more than he does with practically any other race, inclined to side with them first and foremost unless there’s overwhelming/decisive evidence otherwise.
Jirea views many of those from the Planes as his children/family and is fiercely protective of them and their homes. He has zero qualms about killing to preserve what he views as a balance between the mortal realm and the Planes.
Jirea’s lived a disgustingly long time and therefore doesn’t entirely care about others’ opinions of him.
What I’m assuming people may already know is that Jirea is incredibly hedonistic. He luxuriates in pleasure of any sort—whether it’s of a carnal nature, or of the simple pleasure of experiencing the elements against his body. Good food and good drink. A comfortable bed adorned with plush pillows. He’s horny more often than not but has a restraint that’s missing in most other characters I’ve got (whether it comes with age or an awareness of his own hunger, who knows).
Speaking of indulgence, he dabbles around with drugs, enjoying mixing and matching different substances to various effects. That being said, he favors aphrodisiacs to simply getting high.
Jirea’s got more than several spouses, but only a few of them are likely to be mentioned here. Some of his closer ones may not make appearances at all; it’ll entirely depend on what I wind up writing for him. Names that I know will crop up are Faeryn, Ian, and Perkonos.
That being said, despite being quite happily married, said marriage is open, and he sleeps around as he pleases. His only true limit on partner selection is age, as he won’t lay a finger either on those underage, or on those he does not consider an adult. He’s notorious throughout Strixhaven for sleeping around amongst faculty…and yes, even some of the student body, though those trysts only come about if he’s come onto, not vice-versa (and keep in mind, please, that he’s very careful about age).
Given his proclivities, Jirea is INCREDIBLY careful about consent, and takes “no’s” and anything that could be deemed a negative very seriously. He does not pressure or push partners unless it is something they specifically request. He doesn’t take rejection personally. And being rejected solidly is apt to end any future (sexual) pursuit, though he’s happy enough to be friends with people.
Considering how fast and hard he fled from death in his first life, it’s unsurprising that Jirea has thanatophobia. That hasn’t stopped him from wedding and bedding Erebos’s son and daughter.
Despite his terror of death and dying, he’s very unafraid when it comes to combat, entirely willing to blast himself with his own spells if it gets the job done. As severe as his phobia is, it’s overshadowed by his sheer confidence in his own capabilities and power.
He’s very fascinated with anatomy, especially the skeletal system. Which I don’t really have anything else to say about, honestly. Jirea is weird and will body worship/bang a skeleton if they’re sentient, of age, and give consent.
If you’ve somehow, for some reason, made it this far, then holy crap congratulations! Have some odds-and-ends trivia about Jirea that I didn’t know how to fit in anything above!
Jirea’s a switch & doesn’t care if he’s giving or receiving, as long as he and his partner(s) feel good
He gesticulates a lot, and sounds quite pompous when I voice him (I used Simon Fairchild from The Magnus Archives as inspiration for how he speaks)
He’s got a tendency to say “my dear”/”dear [name]” to just about anybody, and “my love” to those he’s romantically attached to
By the end of our first campaign, he ended up becoming a God of Planes, effectively putting the Elemental Planes under his jurisdiction & protection
He will trade sex for any grade (minus finals) at Strixhaven; oftentimes, students that take advantage of this wind up failing his finals anyway because they don’t actually know the material
At the end of the day, Jirea exists as a way for me to have practically an infinite number of scenarios in terms of relationships/pairing types/types of NSFW, because I love trying to write outside of my comfort zone!
MAN. I was gonna reply to people and post Jirea's character intro when I got home, but I wound up talking to the Big Work Boss for about an hour instead about the dumpster fire that is now my precious graveyard shift. :/
Now my brain's fried and I don't wanna do anything but eat and sleep. T_T
I left my notes on the Other Work Computer, but I'm craving writing some nonAU!Refuge!Gabbro agonizing over whether or not to ask Brook to see Feldspar.
They made that promise to them after all!! I think that Gabbro is terrified to visit them. I think they'd sit on it and wait, wait, wait, wait. Put it off—because of course there's time, there's infinite time—until Brook finally admits through tears that they plan to end the loops.
Moved from Jirea's commission post, because I decided, hours later, when I should be sleeping for work tonight, that I should've gone with my original plan of making two posts anyway :/ So now his comm post is JUST the pics, as it should be tbh, and has a link directing here, if anyone was interested!
It's roughly half SFW and half NSFW, so enter at your own risk, I suppose. Nothing super filthy, but apologies in advance because I'm trying to also remember how to write smut in the first place T_T
Jirea wouldn't let me make this SFW; I swear I tried
Dwyer’s back office was small but serviceable, evoking the sense of a deep forest with the browns and greens that decorated the room. It was furnished with a simple desk made of dark wood, and a chair that had no business being as comfortable as it was. The pine green loveseat was new, a recent gift from Jirea, that reminded Dwyer of home. Every time Dwyer’s equally green eyes shifted in its direction, his heart beat faster and butterflies tickled his stomach.
It was a very new loveseat. Quite unused.
The muffled, merry chime of the front room’s bell sounded through the closed door that Dwyer’s back was currently pressed up against, and his entire body twitched in response. He gasped into Jirea’s mouth, and felt the man laugh, whisper-soft, against his lips.
“A bit jumpy, aren’t we, my dear?” Jirea asked against Dwyer’s mouth, voice low and conspiratorial.
A hand on his hip so warm that Dwyer forgot he still had at least one remaining layer of clothing separating him from Jirea’s direct touch. His dark skin flushed deeper.
“It could be a customer—”
“In which case Colin, the fine lad, will be able to handle them just fine. That is why I recommended him to you in the first place, dear Dwyer. A remarkable aptitude for tailoring; remarkably less so for magic, poor thing.”
True enough, Dwyer’s keen hearing effortlessly picked out Colin’s excitable voice from the front room, and the muted answer of whoever had entered the shop.
“Mm. You only recommended him because you were tired of being interrupted,” Dwyer pointed out in as steady a voice as he could muster.
The accusation was insistent but lacked heat, and Jirea chuckled in response. He wasn’t forthcoming with a denial, instead leaning back into Dwyer’s wooden, earthy scent and kissing the shell of one pointed ear. Dwyer shivered and lifted hands that felt all too useless to rest against Jirea’s clothed chest.
“I have absolutely zero compunctions about being discovered mid-coitus,” Jirea chuckled, “You, my dear—” warm fingers teased the waistband of Dwyer’s dark slacks, “—more enjoy the thrill of potential discovery, hmm?”
Dwyer couldn’t even refute it. He used to, of course; he’d sputtered flimsy denials the first time he’d been so accused, but Jirea had silenced those with a kiss so thorough it had left Dwyer quite literally gasping for air.
Jirea enjoyed Dwyer’s very specific exhibitionist tendencies that were so different from Ian’s. He enjoyed Dwyer’s willingness—eagerness, even—to fool around in his own shop, but the sorcerer knew full-well that he wouldn’t be offered the same allowances should he attempt any lascivious actions elsewhere. Not that the two of them met up outside of Dwyer’s shop in the first place. Gods forbid someone actually catch them in the act.
The elf abhorred the idea of his own work being sullied, but he never minded if Jirea’s clothes from anywhere else became ruined. That was a game Jirea enjoyed indulging in: how far he could push Dwyer while wearing one of his own designs. Once, Jirea had pointed out that any damage could be repaired through magic. He did not make the suggestion again (although the quite bewitching flash of defiance in Dwyer’s expression was a high the sorcerer had been eyeing ever since).
The susurrations from the front room continued.
Crooking a finger under Dwyer’s chin, Jirea tilted the elf’s head up. The sorcerer’s almost too-warm lips back on Dwyer’s own was enough to fully return his attention to the body pressed insistently against him. Dwyer’s fingers quivered against Jirea’s chest, then ran down the man’s front.
Familiar fabric under his fingertips. Familiar patterns delicately sewn into Jirea’s most recent commission from him. The royal purple suited Jirea perfectly—even beautifully. The corset alone was soft enough that Jirea could wear it without anything underneath, and it revealed a tantalizing glimpse of the glimmering purple scales that adorned his shoulders and ran down his arms in patches.
A heady rush thrilled up every notch of Dwyer’s spine; he would be a liar if he said he hadn’t come up with the design partially for himself.
Jirea slowly withdrew from the kiss with a chuckle, admiring his work. Dwyer’s lips were already slightly swollen with a flush high in his cheeks, which softened the somewhat untouchable, almost sharp image the elf projected to the public. Jirea traced Dwyer’s lower lip with his thumb and grinned when the tip of Dwyer’s tongue darted out against the digit.
The blonde’s free hand deftly untucked the tailor’s dress shirt on one side. Smooth, warm skin against his fingertips. Skin Jirea knew was perfectly sensitive and which marked so gorgeously well.
Five sudden pinpricks of cold and heat skimmed across the sensitive skin just above Dwyer’s hip. He hissed and shuddered pleasantly while the temperatures melted into one another. Jirea’s fingers traced designs—nonsensical? Sigils? Letters? Dwyer had no clue, only knew how good it felt to have the dual temperatures harmonizing on his skin.
Colin’s and the customer’s voices continued in the background, loud enough for Dwyer to register speaking, and muffled enough for him to derive the exact amount of thrill he got from being so safely close to discovery.
The elf’s hands slid to Jirea’s sides, then to his hips where the royal purple corset ended and the black, slim, fitted pants began. With unabashed decisiveness, Dwyer circled his questing hands to Jirea’s rear. His paramour leaned forward hungrily as soon as he felt Dwyer’s eager touch, and recaptured the elf’s mouth.
This time, the kiss was long and deep. Dwyer eagerly accepted each playful nip to his tongue and lips, returning what he received with just as much enthusiasm. Dwyer gripped Jirea’s ass, and the blonde readily fed a moan into Dwyer’s mouth. When the need for oxygen became urgent, Dwyer broke away with a gasp. He tilted his head back against the door with a dull thump, and Jirea immediately moved in with a flurry of biting kisses along the vulnerable column of Dwyer’s throat.
Dwyer gasped. Muffled a moan by biting the back of his hand.
The in between of the Water and Earth Planes was one of Jirea’s favorite locations, primarily for the smells it produced. He would linger where the boundaries blurred for undetermined bouts of time and bask in the scents that covered him like a shroud when he left.
“You smell like petrichor, my dear,” Jirea whispered against the shell of Dwyer’s ear, “And that is one of my favorite aromas to bring back from the planes.”
Dwyer knew this. He knew that Jirea was attracted to his natural scent. It was a compliment Dwyer had received many, many times over the course of his life.
Jirea was pleased to see Dwyer’s deep green eyes hazy with lust when he pulled back from the kiss. The deep flush had crept down Dwyer’s kiss-bitten throat, and Jirea knew it spread as far as the man’s shoulders. His kiss-swollen lips were parted and soft, panting breaths feathered against Jirea up until Dwyer turned his head just the slightest bit. Jirea followed the man’s line of sight and—
Ah.
Jirea chuckled and slid one leg in between Dwyer’s, grinding his knee against the visible tent in the fabric which drew a gasp the sorcerer allowed to ring freely throughout the room. Colin and the potential customer went about their conversing, none the wiser to the debauchery merely a single door away.
“I see you approve of the loveseat, my dear,” Jirea said. He dropped more biting kisses to the other side of Dwyer’s throat, “And oh I do wish to see you against it.”
A particularly rough nip drew a sound astonishingly close to a mewl from Dwyer’s throat.
“But, as we are both aware, you do so detest anything dirtying your handiwork.”
Jirea took hold of one of Dwyer’s hands in his own and led it slowly down the front of the immaculately tailored corset. Despite Dwyer’s hands having made the journey once before, Jirea felt the aching need in every quiver of the elf’s fingertips. A delicious thrill shivered down Jirea’s spine. It wasn’t posturing; Jirea did wish to have Dwyer on that loveseat. He would look so pretty, ravished and disheveled against the dusty green fabric.
Riding Dwyer into the plush cushion was another idea, of course.
Perhaps they could do both.
But alas, not today. Holding back now would only give Jirea another reason to call upon the tailor.
However, that didn’t mean Jirea had to give up on all his fun for the day.
“Your…” Dwyer panted, rocking against Jirea’s knee. He was achingly hard already, brought about by Jirea’s masterful use of tongue and teeth—as well as his own eagerness. He’d finally torn his gaze from the loveseat and instead trailed his eyes down Jirea’s impeccable attire, down to the black, buckled shoes that he wore so well despite them not being his regular style.
Jirea hummed curiously against Dwyer’s collarbone, having worked the top button of the elf’s shirt open without the man noticing (or properly caring as his inhibitions continued to slip away into the pleasurable haze).
“Your mouth would leave…the outfit untarnished.”
“Ahahaha, my dear, you are such a delight!” Jirea chortled, “I must not be doing my job well enough if you are still able to use words like ‘untarnished’. I suppose I’ll have to remedy that.”
Dwyer’s shirt came unbuttoned with an unhurried pace. They both knew there were no time constraints.
As Jirea traveled lower, Dwyer’s gaze fixed to the purple and gold bands that adorned Jirea’s horns and glinted in the soft, warm light. He’d had to outsource them, but Dwyer had a whole host of acquaintances in a myriad of professions to assist him in creating the perfect ensemble for any client. Dwyer admired how the horn bands perfectly complemented Jirea’s complexion, his hair and scales, and of course, the perfectly-tailored cloth—
“Mmmn…!”
It was only pure will that kept Dwyer’s full voice from filling the room when Jirea’s hot mouth dropped over his cock. His head thumped once more against the door (just as the same merry chime sounded, even more distant through the pleasure). One hand sank into soft, gold-spun hair that always smelled of wind or ocean, of earth or soot, while the other gripped one of those sturdy horns that fit so perfectly in his grasp. Dwyer’s eyes fluttered shut.
With his eyes closed, Dwyer’s only instinct was for more. Hips canting forward, he pushed deeper into the heat of Jirea’s mouth with a whispered curse that sounded far too much like a prayer.
Jirea took his time, moving just slow enough to draw a breathy growl from Dwyer. With more of the elf’s skin exposed, the sorcerer’s hands had free rein. In contrast to the blazing heat of Jirea’s mouth and tongue, the sorcerer’s fingers left icy trails along Dwyer’s lower back and ass.
Jirea had discovered early on in his trysts with Dwyer that the elf enjoyed being warm, even hot. He thrived in the heat, came vibrantly to life whenever the summer months rolled around. It wasn’t as if Dwyer disliked the cold by any stretch—not if the desperate arching back against his cold fingers was anything to go by, warring with Dwyer’s instinct to thrust deeper into Jirea’s mouth.
They weren’t lovers and it wasn’t lovemaking, but it wasn’t ruthlessly rough either.
Thrusting into the wet heat of Jirea’s mouth wasn’t an act of love but desire, a needy seeking of pleasure. Jirea, for his part, enjoyed the sensations just as much, deriving just as much pleasure with the knowledge he was reducing the well put-together tailor to more primal, animalistic instincts. The hand gripped in Jirea’s hair felt just as divine as the hand tightly gripping one of his horns.
Jirea’s moan was louder than Dwyer’s, and infinitely filthier. With one hand on Dwyer’s ass and another on the small of his back, Jirea pulled the elf closer—deeper, harder—into his mouth. There was a time and a place for teasing licks and nips, for a slow methodical undoing of himself and his partner. This was not the time nor the place, and so Jirea pulled Dwyer’s cock into his mouth, until the tip slid against the back of his tongue and his nose pressed against his partner’s {pelvis}.
Panting harshly, Dwyer’s eyes screwed shut. Colorful, euphoric sparks crackled behind his eyelids, emanating from the frigid pinpricks on his ass and back, and the sweltering wet heat of Jirea’s mouth and devilish tongue. The blonde’s lips pursed, exerting an intoxicating pressure that drove Dwyer to tighten his grip and move Jirea’s head on his own.
The first time was by mistake, driven entirely by frantic need, but when Jirea made a wetly muffled, encouraging sound in the back of his throat, Dwyer did it again. And again.
It didn’t take long for the rhythm that Dwyer began with to deteriorate into frantic, desperate thrusts that only sought to plunge as deep as possible into Jirea’s mouth. For his part, Jirea eagerly welcomed the rough treatment, even assisting Dwyer when his movements faltered by pressing forward himself.
The blonde’s throat worked, his tongue slicked and curled around Dwyer’s cock. His taste reminded Jirea of the planes, of forests and rain-soaked earth. Not an inherently arousing scent or taste, but one that Jirea luxuriated in all the same. Dwyer’s moans and panting, desperate gasps for air as he chased the pleasure was a sensual addition Jirea wholeheartedly enjoyed drawing out.
“J-Ji…aahh…Jirea…!”
The man in question hummed in response, then moaned when Dwyer gasped and thrust as deep as he could as the vibrations ran along the sensitive flesh of his cock.
Knock-knock.
“Mr. Byrnes?”
Dwyer’s eyes shot open.
A kaleidoscope of sensations and images flashed through Dwyer’s fuzzy mind in an instant.
The sound of someone just inches out of sight, on the other side of a single wooden door.
Pinpricks of ice digging ruthlessly into his ass and back—hard enough to leave a chilly reminder later.
All-consuming heat that suffused his entire body with every needy thrust into Jirea’s overly scorching mouth.
Jirea, lips swollen from kissing and cock-sucking, hair mussed from Dwyer’s fingers gripping tight.
The deep purple of the corset and how it fit the blonde’s body perfectly, the way the purple of his scales glinted in the warm light. How he looked exquisite on his knees, wearing an outfit Dwyer’s hands knew every millimeter of—and with Dwyer’s dick down his throat. Jirea moved like he was starving and sounded just as ravenous.
Everything coalesced into a single point of euphoric heat that was far too much for Dwyer to withstand. That brief moment felt entirely like eternity, to the point that Dwyer didn’t even have the wherewithal to give Jirea a proper warning.
Not that Jirea entirely needed—or wanted—said warning, of course; he knew he’d be swallowing every drop or run the risk of never getting to indulge in Dwyer again (the man was so particular about the cleanliness of his work).
Without a single conscious thought in his head, Dwyer moved on instinct. Fingers tight in Jirea’s gold hair and around one of his horns, the elf buried as deep as he could in Jirea’s mouth. Dwyer bent over Jirea with a stifled cry as orgasm at last broke that suspended, infinite moment in the tailor’s mind.
Dwyer shuddered, and the little gasps that eked from his throat drew another filthy sound from Jirea. The sorcerer remained in place, swallowing diligently—even hungrily—until Dwyer’s death grip on his hair and horn gradually relaxed.
Jirea drew back slowly, playfully overcautious, and when he rose to his feet, he allowed the now boneless, softly panting Dwyer to lean against him. Without needing to look, Jirea redid Dwyer’s slacks and made the elf presentable once more. He dropped a kiss onto Dwyer’s lips—a shockingly chaste thing, given the act Jirea’s mouth had just been performing—and led his partner over to the loveseat.
“Shall I tell Colin that you will be indisposed for the rest of the day, my dear?”
Jirea’s voice was softly teasing and Dwyer grumbled at him as he relaxed into the loveseat’s cushy embrace.
It was very nice.
It was also probably one of the few times Dwyer would use it for actual rest.
“I take that to be a ‘yes’,” Jirea leaned down and kissed Dwyer’s temple, an affectionate act rather than an amorous one, and chuckled when the elf tried pushing him away with another wordless mumble.
Jirea had slept with Dwyer enough times by this point to understand what the man needed and wanted afterwards. He wasn’t the cuddliest elf Jirea had ever slept with, but that was largely in part to Dwyer’s almost immediate drowsiness. So Jirea conjured a light blanket for him and draped it over the man’s shorter form, then swept silently from the room after dimming the lights.
Colin looked at Jirea as the man swept like a shadow from Dwyer’s office, and raised his eyebrows, smiling politely—knowingly. Jirea returned the expression, grinning broadly, and put a finger to his lips. Dwyer’s apprentice glanced at the office door, then back to Jirea, and nodded.
“Mark me down for sometime about a month from now, Colin, my dear. Whenever you two are not normally so busy, because I intend for Dwyer to be entirely indisposed all day. You know how to reach me.”
The student-turned-apprentice looked openly amused as he flipped through the calendar on the desk for a suitable date for his former teacher. When Colin looked up, a date and time already selected, Jirea had already gone.
A subtle buzz of magic hummed in the air—too faint for Colin to properly pick up on—though he did detect the scent of campfire smoke and soot in Jirea’s wake.
(if anyone’s curious about Colin, all I can say is that he used to attend the school Jirea is assistant dean at. He knows about Jirea’s hedonistic proclivities and is 100% aware that whenever Jirea shows up at the shop, there’s gonna be freaky time. Colin’s just glad to have such an in-depth apprenticeship to a tailor he’s admired for a very long time lmao)
Commission from @kirtini of one of my D&D characters, Jirea Arondite! He's a sorcerer & is Old As Dirt.
I'm in active LOVE with how she drew him!! <3 She gave me a few pose ideas, and I couldn't decide, so I chose both! Both encapsulate two sides of his personality that are so important to him (and to meeeee). He has no right to be this hot (pun unintended, maybe), but Teeny allowed him to be so :'> I could seriously gush forever about how perfect she made him, down to expanding my mind on his wardrobe!
Thank you so, so much, Teeny, I will never stop showing him off to people!! <3 <3 <3
I have a small fic I wrote to go along with the purple, flirty outfit, but that's in a separate post (right here) for anyone interested! :>
Okay okay last bit of self-indulgence before I keep a lid on this one until The Time Is Right. Definitely under a read more. Definitely more suggestive. Jirea is definitely a slut.
-
Ah.
Jirea chuckled and slid one leg in between Dwyer’s, grinding his knee against the visible tent in the fabric which drew a gasp the sorcerer allowed to ring freely throughout the room. Colin and the potential customer went about their conversing, none the wiser to the debauchery merely a single door away.
“I see you approve of the loveseat, my dear,” Jirea said. He dropped more biting kisses to the other side of Dwyer’s throat, “And oh I do wish to see you against it.”
A particularly rough nip drew a sound astonishingly close to a mewl from Dwyer’s throat.
“But, as we are both aware, you do so detest anything dirtying your handiwork.”
Jirea took hold of one of Dwyer’s hands in his own and led it slowly down the front of the immaculately tailored corset. Despite Dwyer’s hands having made the journey once before, Jirea felt the aching need in every quiver of the elf’s fingertips. A delicious thrill shivered down Jirea’s spine. It wasn’t posturing; Jirea did wish to have Dwyer on that loveseat. He would look so pretty, ravished and disheveled against the dusky green fabric.
Riding Dwyer into the plush cushion was another idea, of course.
Perhaps they could do both.
But alas, not this time. Holding back now would only give Jirea another reason to call upon the tailor.
However, that didn’t mean Jirea had to give up on all his fun for the day.
Cause I need a bit of self-indulgence. A small piece of a larger one I'm working on (& can't fully reveal for a bit yet). Not long, but under a read more because it's mildly suggestive I guess.
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Dwyer’s back office was small but serviceable, evoking the sense of a deep forest with the browns and greens that decorated the room. It was furnished with a simple desk made of dark wood, and a chair that had no business being as comfortable as it was. The pine green loveseat was new, a recent gift from Jirea, that reminded Dwyer of home. Every time Dwyer’s equally green eyes shifted in its direction, his heart beat faster and butterflies tickled his stomach.
It was a very new loveseat. Practically unused.
The muffled, merry chime of the front room’s bell sounded through the closed door that Dwyer’s back was currently pressed up against, and his entire body twitched in response. He gasped into Jirea’s mouth, and felt the man laugh, whisper-soft, against his lips.
“A bit jumpy, aren’t we, my dear?” Jirea asked against Dwyer’s mouth, voice low and conspiratorial.
A hand on his hip so warm that Dwyer forgot he still had at least one remaining layer of clothing separating him from Jirea’s direct touch. His dark skin flushed deeper.
“It could be a customer—”
“In which case Colin, the fine lad, will be able to handle them just fine. That is why I recommended him to you in the first place, dear Dwyer. A remarkable aptitude for tailoring; considerably less so for magic, poor thing.”
True enough, Dwyer’s keen hearing effortlessly picked out Colin’s excitable voice from the front room, and the muted answer of whoever had entered the shop.
“Mm. You only recommended him because you were tired of being interrupted,” Dwyer pointed out in as steady a voice as he could muster.
The accusation was insistent but lacked heat, and Jirea chuckled in response. He wasn’t forthcoming with a denial, instead leaning back into Dwyer’s wooden, earthy scent and kissing the shell of one pointed ear. Dwyer shivered and lifted hands that felt all too useless to rest against Jirea’s clothed chest.
The urge to write suggestive, not quite nsfw, has been foiled by being forced to work next to a supervisor who's burned every bridge on graveyard shift (and is perpetually confused as to why people don't enjoy speaking with her).
Irritation and anger isn't the emotion I want to write playful/soft flirting with T_T
Not me realizing that the reason I've stalled on Treekeeper is because I've been using the incorrect 3rd person pov. T_T Omniscient 3rd used to be my precious baby and now I am so out of practice with it!
{Faeryn's part's here, if anyone's interested!} But here's @rupeewallet's Lith!! <3 <3 Putting them into a blender is always so delightful! It's a lot of fun digging into their head and seeing how they'd react to things :> One of my favorite things about the Faelith dynamic is that I can make it all 100% canonical to Faeryn without touching Lith's canon, emotional, gut-wrenching story!! Anyway, I'm sleepy and resisting hibernation to post these, but here. Have Lith Being Sad! As a treat. ((Spoilers for the endgame are below, btw, so be warned!))
The Zero-G Cave makes sense. Of all the things that Faeryn had been excited about during their travels together, he’d more than once dragged Lith to the black, star-like expanse. They had to sneak in every time, of course, but the brief periods of peace had been worth it.
Well. Relative peace.
Faeryn would tell Lith stories in the starry dark—disjointed and distracted as they were. Lith could always tell how animated Faeryn was when he spoke, even if they couldn’t necessarily see the man; it was all in his tone of voice.
Other times the two would discuss the nuances of the Hearthian language, with Faeryn peppering Lith with questions. They’d amuse themselves with the difference between words and what they meant. Oftentimes both Faeryn and Lith would know the same object but by entirely different words. Faeryn was fascinated by it, and Lith just as much.
So, truly, the Zero-G Cave isn’t very surprising to Lith. Their signalscope no longer registers the smooth violin notes, and Lith can’t hear anything in the starry, twinkling black. They look around, toggling their flashlight several times. The beam doesn’t reach far, almost as if the darkness itself consumes the light.
A flash of deep purple and brilliant gold.
Lith turns quickly, seeing the color out of the corner of their eyes.
Two of the brilliantly shining glints of white are definitely purple and gold. They look like eyes, Lith thinks. They’re slightly narrowed and angled, not unkindly, but curiously, and Lith stares at them fixedly.
Another twinkle in the corner of their vision. Lith’s primary eyes shift to catch the color—a vibrant ruby, open and friendly, blinking back at them.
And so it went. Lith walks because they’re certain this cave has no exit. Everywhere they turn, more and more of the white star-like glimmers fill with color that blinks at them.
Round eyes, angled ones. Some with slitted vertical pupils, others with horizontal pupils. Even several with no pupils at all but just a single, solid color.
It’s weird, even a bit creepy, but none of the eyes that follow Lith’s movements hold any hostility. Lith reaches out a couple of times, when they feel like they’re close enough to touch. Their hand always passes through whatever eye they’d focused on, and it will vanish only to appear elsewhere, twinkling and narrowed as if amused.
Lith isn’t sure how long they walk; they aren’t sure how long they spend there. But they know their journey is at an end when they run across a single pair of achingly familiar cobalt blues that light up at the sight of them.
This time, when Lith reaches out, their hand comes into contact with smooth, familiar wood, and their fingers close around the neck of the violin.
When Lith turns around, they find themself back at the campfire.
Everyone sits, waiting patiently for Lith. Lith’s heart rabbits in their chest and their eyes scan for that familiar white.
A flick of ears, the twitch of a tail.
Faeryn looks up from where he’s sat between Esker and Riebeck and flashes Lith a broad, sunny smile. His soft white ears flicker and swivel in Lith’s direction. Everyone else remains around the campfire, but Faeryn stands and the violin in Lith’s hand bears a sudden weight that they don’t recall it ever having.
He approaches Lith, smiles down at them, and reaches for the hand holding the violin. Faeryn slides his hand gently down Lith’s arm, and his touch tingles along Lith’s skin. Faeryn gently squeezes the hand holding the violin, then gently takes it from Lith. Within the same movement, Faeryn slides his other hand into Lith’s own, interlacing their fingers like they’d done so many times before, and leads them to the campfire.
Faeryn returns to his spot between Esker and Riebeck, and Lith sits down beside them, thigh to thigh, shoulder to shoulder.
When at last the music begins to play—with the Prisoner’s mournful, yet somehow hopeful and peaceful, strings leading the ensemble—much of the remaining tension in Lith’s shoulders dissipates. The beginning of the music is the beginning of the end, and they know that with visceral certainty. It’s less scary now, less unfair, with the familiar warmth against their side.
Faeryn’s tail drapes over Lith’s lap, and they toy with the appendage absently. The fur is soft, smooth, and they can feel Faeryn’s vibrating purrs through it.
“You gotta sing with me, Lith,” Faeryn says.
Lith doesn’t have any intentions of joining in the melody taking place—the melody painting a picture up above the campfire, using its smoke as a paintbrush—but Faeryn’s gentle words pull Lith into the song.
The song lasts for as long as it needs to. The notes and measures form the smoke that culminates in the spherical shape above them. It’s a song that has never been played, never been practiced, and yet every musician knows exactly when to crescendo or decrescendo. They all know when their part ends.
Lith doesn’t believe in fate, but they like the fact that they wind up in a duet with Faeryn’s violin at the end. It’s right to them, and by the small smile etched onto Faeryn’s face, he feels the same.
“Hey, Lith?”
Lith looks from the smoky brushstrokes created by all of them to the man beside them. The violin rests in Faeryn’s lap, warm from his playing. What remains of the universe narrows to the two of them the very instant Faeryn’s warm hand cups Lith’s cheek.
Lith knows it’s all just pulled from their mind; they know that everyone here is conjured by their ties to them. There is no free will and everyone is already dead, incinerated by the dying of their sun.
They know this, and yet there’s a subtle shift in the immediate atmosphere around Faeryn that marks him as other. Incongruous with everything else.
Everything since they punched in the coordinates to the Eye of the universe has been a manifestation of Lith’s own consciousness, and yet Faeryn’s warm hand on their cheek feels distinctly different.
“Thank you.” Faeryn says, and Lith hears so much more in those two words.
Thank you.
(a muted popping sound; a sharp crack; their spacesuit yielding)
I love you.
(an incandescent searing of light and heat; the briefest flash of agony; nothingness)
I dithered for about 24 hours on whether I should split this into two parts or not. I totally am gonna do that, and link to the second part (Lith's chapter!) right here! :> I had a ton of fun writing this! Faeryn is so special to me, and he's loving/loved (the) Outer Wilds just as much as I thought he would! I'll be putting this on AO3 when I finally figure out what I want to tag things, and it'll be a single, solid chapter there (with my precious formatting intact T_T)
Ian knew something was wrong the second he opened the door. Faeryn, standing in the center of the small, comfortably furnished gold and red room, looked as lost as Ian had ever seen him. Not only that, but he wore clothes that were definitely not in his usual wardrobe: obviously homemade with patches sewn in to mend tears, but comfortable-looking and easy to move in. Curiously, confusingly, there was a jetpack on the floor by Faeryn’s feet.
Faeryn hadn’t heard Ian’s entrance; he didn’t react in any way other than to turn in place slightly. It was Faeryn’s expression that had Ian locking the door quietly behind him.
The simic knew that expression, that specific sort of haunted look that sat in the strong profile. Even with just one eye visible—not counting the several others interspersed down Faeryn’s throat and arms—Ian recognized the expression he himself had worn when he returned from a thirty-six year long foray into the distant past.
Approaching with measured steps, Ian cleared his throat. Faeryn gasped and whirled around, tail poofing up and his ears swiveling in Ian’s direction. There was zero recognition in Faeryn’s cobalt blues for a solid five seconds, and then they filled with a grief so palpable and recognizable to Ian that he had to take a breath to steady himself.
A jetpack by his feet. A simple necklace with a single blue-green crystal around his throat where his collar usually rested. A violin and its bow held protectively in his arms.
“…Ian?” The word was heavy with disbelief, and colored lightly with an accent that Ian knew Faeryn hadn’t sported a mere hour ago.
The immediate next words were complete gibberish to Ian, and the two men threw mutually confused looks at one another. That was not a language Ian knew, and he knew it wasn’t one Faeryn had learned recently—if just because Faeryn tended to crow about anything new he learned. The four tentacles draped loosely at Ian’s side crackled softly, equally confused.
Faeryn didn’t flinch when Ian closed the remaining distance, only silently watched with those vaguely shellshocked, grieving eyes.
“Faeryn,” Ian said firmly and clearly in Common. When there was no response, one of Ian’s tentacles reached out and secured itself around one of Faeryn’s hands, careful of the violin. It crackled with electricity, conveying Faeryn’s name through something more physical than auditory.
“Ian…what…?”
There was something more familiar, though the faint otherness of the accent Ian couldn’t place echoed in the two words.
“How long were you gone, Faeryn?”
To Ian, it had been less than an hour. He’d last seen Faeryn in passing in the dining room. The nyxtouched had been vibrating with excitement, and his eyes—all of them—had been brightly alert. Ian had recognized the expression as one of Faeryn’s “there’s somewhere new to explore!” expressions.
Ian would bet quite a lot of gold that Faeryn hadn’t ever reached his original destination.
Faeryn’s fingers gripped the tentacle wrapped around his wrist and squeezed. The sinuous limb gave a final crackle before unwinding and returning to Ian’s side. The simic stepped into Faeryn’s space a moment later and put a bracing hand on Faeryn’s shoulder. Ian was faintly relieved it was he who discovered Faeryn. Many others loved Faeryn but not all of them knew how to handle the man like Ian could—even if it wasn’t something he did all too often outside the bedroom.
“Come. Sit.”
Commands. Faeryn could work with commands. They made it easy, made much of the cacophonous deliberation in his head quiet to whispers—or sometimes become completely nonexistent. Faeryn liked commands. He liked not needing to think when his instinct was to scream and sob and retreat into himself.
Faeryn moved immediately, going along with Ian over to one of the soft sofas and sitting on one end. Ian knew that Gareth and Dantalion—and several others—were uneasy using commands with Faeryn outside of the bedroom, when the man was obviously distressed. Ian also knew, however, that they didn’t have the same talent that he did. Ian knew how to keep his own emotions walled off so he could pay full attention to Faeryn.
Faeryn’s fingers gently moved over the violin that now sat in his lap with the bow resting against his leg. He froze and all of his visible eyes shot to the jetpack still resting in the middle of the room. A firm grip at the back of Faeryn’s neck stilled him, preventing him from leaping toward it and keeping it close. With a few muttered words and a flick of his free hand, Ian levitated the equipment over, nestled it against Faeryn’s far side.
The man settled. Ian pulled his hand away.
“Faeryn.”
Dazed and distant eyes—and oh, if that distance and daze wasn’t the only thing preventing what Ian knew was a torrent of tears—turned to face him.
“Tell me. How long were you gone?”
Faeryn’s lips moved silently for a few seconds, and his eyebrows furrowed. When he answered Ian, it was in that same, unknown language that sounded eerily similar to Aquatic. He halted mid-sentence at last, cleared his throat, and spoke in a language Ian recognized.
“A few months…I think?”
‘It doesn’t look like just a few months.’
And it truly didn’t. Faeryn looked as Ian had when he returned from his accidental thirty-six year long escapade not thirty-six minutes later from his vanishing. If it truly had been only a few months, then those months held the weight of eons.
When Faeryn turned those expressive blues to Ian, the man saw clarity beginning to resurface. Faeryn’s face tightened with pain and his ears flattened on his head. Ian recognized that as well, and his heart broke for the man beside him.
“You want to go back.”
Faeryn’s lips pressed together into a thin line. He nodded, and Ian nodded in turn.
“Yes. I wanted to go back as well. To Romalia. I ached for it,” Ian hesitated, then spoke a secret very few outside his twin and Jirea knew, “I still ache for it.”
The words had an almost physical impact on Faeryn, and he rocked a bit to the side. His gaze slowly going desperate, he tried and failed to speak a few times before managing to bite the words out.
“’m always gonna want to go back, aren’t I?”
“Yes.”
If Ian’s other half, his twin, were here, Ethan would be able to tell him if Faeryn had traveled through time or just to another place. Unfortunately, time didn’t sing to Ian the way it sang to his brother, so Ian would have to ask questions instead.
“Faeryn, what era did you travel to?”
One of Ian’s eyebrows arched when Faeryn shook his head. His tail curled around the jetpack and bow against his side while he held the violin tight to his chest.
“You were going to use Aperture to travel somewhere. Do you remember that?”
Faeryn’s expression scrunched. The memory sounded familiar, but he had trouble pulling the image to the forefront of his mind. It sounded like something he would do. It took several too-long seconds, but a hazy image of pulling a card from the holster that was always on his hip fuzzily formed in his mind.
A familiar door of solid black oak with an equally familiar blue butterfly etched into the center, and a handle of burnished gold.
The excitement Faeryn felt at the time felt hollow and stale now, as he recalled opening Aperture’s door into—
—into somewhere he hadn’t expected.
Into somewhere and somewhen so far beyond the realm of imagination, where a strange universe’s final vestiges of breath were put on a permanent loop.
Faeryn had been lost as soon as he’d crossed Aperture’s threshold. He’d fallen through a miniscule crack in his own universe, and into an entirely new universe that was simultaneously right next door and infinitely far away.
“I went…somewhere else.” Faeryn said, fingers tightening on the instrument clutched to his chest.
“Can Aperture not take you back?”
Faeryn barked a laugh. The sound was at last choked thick with tears.
“It can’t.”
“Are you sure?”
Faeryn wasn’t, Ian could see it in the set of his jaw and the way his blue eyes kept darting to the center of the room. It was obvious that Faeryn was terrified of even attempting to try to reenter where he’d just left. If he left it alone, he’d never have to know.
“You need to try. Faeryn. You need to know.”
Faeryn wiped his eyes. Several of the eyes dotting along his wrists and forearms trickled stardust.
A small blue butterfly fluttered from the card holster that rarely ever left his side. It hadn’t even left him when he’d arrived in the Outer Wilds, though its form had morphed into a simple deck of basic playing cards—of blue and black, however, rather than red and black. Its delicate wings whispered against first one cheek and then the other.
An apology.
For letting Faeryn slip through that crack and into the Outer Wilds in the first place?
For being unable to bring him back?
It wasn’t their fault. Faeryn could never blame them. They’d been crafted by mortal hands, and mortal hands were fallible, a fact Faeryn knew intimately. The Deck of Many Fates had not purposely allowed Faeryn to slip into somewhere new, but how could Faeryn be upset at what had been one of the most terrifyingly beautiful experiences of his entire long life?
The horrific loneliness. The lack of Purphoros’s warmth coursing through his veins, leaving him freezing and empty until a new warmth took its place.
The euphoric joy of being known—and appreciated—by nothing but his mundane skills and personality. Faeryn could not ignore the possibility, however small that possibility might be, of seeing them again.
Faeryn rose without Ian’s permission, but that was fine. Enough steadiness had returned to the man’s posture that Ian felt comfortable letting him move on his own. It was a faster recovery than he’d expected; perhaps Faeryn had grown in ways that were impossible for him here.
With shaking fingers, Faeryn reached out toward the shimmering blue butterfly. The insect perched delicately on the back of his hand, then fluttered a few feet away.
The room was silent. Ian didn’t speak, barely breathed, only watched with a quiet curiosity.
A pulse of powerful magic filled the air and a sturdy door several inches taller than Faeryn himself manifested on the soft carpet. Instead of the usual black oaken form it took whenever Faeryn used Aperture, the door was made of light-colored, sturdy wood that he immediately recognized as coming from Timber Hearth. It even gave off a faint woodsy, earthy aroma that was heartachingly familiar. In place of its usual burnished gold, the handle was a deep purple riddled with black. It harkened back to the Quantum Grove that Lith had shown Faeryn.
(Faeryn spent an entire loop in the Quantum Grove puzzling over the mysterious sign and its ever-changing poem. He delighted in the shifting quantum shard. He felt bad for taking Lith from their job—their duty—but Lith didn’t seem to mind. Lith would tell Faeryn if they minded.
Faeryn only had two eyes in the Outer Wilds, and it added a sense of delighted mystery to the quantum shards, because he had to blink. Not being able to “cheat” by having multiple eyes keep watch over the fascinating rock was exhilarating.)
Faeryn’s hand hovered, shaking, over the doorknob. He didn’t touch; he was too frightened. Instead, he lifted his hand to the door’s solid body. It was simple wood, regardless of how much it reminded him of time on Timber Hearth, and warm under his touch.
(in the sun, by Lith’s side, fingers laced together, Lith’s mouth warm and gently insistent against his own)
Music filled Faeryn’s head as soon as his fingertips brushed the wood and he gasped. The solid structure vibrated minutely as the music played, audible only to Faeryn.
He pressed his forehead to the wood that smelled so familiar (sunlight through the canopy, rushing water, Lith) and allowed the now well-known instruments and melody to wash through him. The achingly familiar song that flowed into his mind as soon as his forehead touched the solid, Timber Hearthian wood told Faeryn everything he needed to know.
That the universe he’d spent so much time—hours, days, weeks, months, years?—in was gone.
Ian knew what Faeryn did, though not because he could hear any sort of melody. He saw it in the way Faeryn’s body pressed close to the door and slid down, fingertips quivering and pressing against the sturdy surface. Heat burned in Faeryn's eyes and stung his nose.
Faeryn didn’t register the dull thud of his knees hitting the carpeted floor. He leaned heavily into the door as if willing himself to slide through it to the other side, though he knew full-well that there wouldn’t be anything left for him.
The weighty, crystal clear certainty of that seared him.
It was similar to what Faeryn had heard through the signalscope multiple times, at the edge of the solar system. Riebeck’s banjo, Chert’s drums. Feldspar’s harmonica and Esker’s whistling. Yes, even Gabbro’s flute was required to make the melody whole. The piano and what Faeryn swore was a theremin (or something that sounded similar to one at least) were new.
Solanum and the Prisoner, maybe?
Had to be.
There was nobody else.
Faeryn broke when he recognized his own playing, because it was in tandem with a voice he knew down to his core. Tears streaked hot down his cheeks and stardust trickled from many of the eyes sitting in his starry skin. He wept.
He wept for the Outer Wilds.
He wept for the Prisoner, who had lost everything trying to convey the Eye’s signal to anybody who would or could listen.
He wept for Escall’s clan, who had been drawn by something older than the universe itself.
He wept for the Nomai who had perished all at once in a cloud of Ghost Matter.
He wept for the Hearthians, who had survived Ghost Matter sweeping the solar system only to wind up on the cusp of the end of their universe—and being entirely unaware of that fact.
He wept for Lith. Sweet, beautiful Lith who’d had the weight of everything on their shoulders. Lith, who was anxious and messy, but also curious and adorable. They were true to themself, even if it caused them agony, and Faeryn could not help but love them for it.
A jagged laugh ripped from his throat; it was both triumphant and agonized, and Faeryn felt he knew exactly how the Prisoner had felt after witnessing Lith’s memories.
Because the music could only mean that Lith had succeeded in whatever it was they had to do. Faeryn wouldn’t accept any other outcome; he needed to believe that or he felt he would shatter entirely. Everything Lith had experienced, everything they had lost, suffered, gained, agonized over, grieved for—
Faeryn needed it all to have meant something.
Life thrummed underneath his fingertips, but it wasn’t a life or a universe or people he knows—knew. Warm music spread from his forehead and palms. It channeled into him, filled him with ecstatic elation and overwhelming grief.
Faeryn grieved the brief, explosive life he’d lived in the Outer Wilds. He grieved the friendship kindled and extinguished in what felt like far too short a time. His elation at falling in love at the end of an entire universe was only matched by the crushing anguish of knowing he would never see Lith again.
Never hear their voice as they sang along with Faeryn’s “borrowed” violin.
Never see their eyes light up with delight or flash with rage.
Faeryn broke, as Ian knew he would—because hadn’t Ian broken in the same way all those years ago? Ian brushed some hair back behind his ear, pushed his glasses back up, and rose from the sofa. He crossed the floor in measured steps, stopping right behind Faeryn and dropping a hand into his hair. Ian sank his fingers into the soft white and gripped just enough to pull gently.
A sob dropped from Faeryn’s mouth and his shoulders shuddered. It was a grief only Ian and Daien understood, but even then, Daien hadn’t been as attached to Romalia as Ian had been.
“Come to me when you need to talk about it,” Ian said. It was not a suggestion.
In between hiccupping breaths, Ian felt Faeryn nod against his fingers. Faeryn went to pieces in front of the door and Ian stood behind him, carding his fingers through the man’s hair.
When Faeryn was calmer, when he at last heeded Ian’s command and went to him, Ian would ask Faeryn about the new yellow eyes—a set of four, with blue pupils and the lower pair being slightly smaller—that had manifested on his right upper arm.
The urge to write suggestive, not quite nsfw, has been foiled by being forced to work next to a supervisor who's burned every bridge on graveyard shift (and is perpetually confused as to why people don't enjoy speaking with her).
Irritation and anger isn't the emotion I want to write playful/soft flirting with T_T
