Hi everyone, I'm sorry to ask for this again but my cat likely has another bladder blockage. He is genuinely my everything, without him I'd probably succumb to a broken heart. Please help me pay for the vet bills, have not received yet still waiting, I will keep updating.
Relationship: Lord Arum/Sir Damien, Lord Arum/Sir Damien/Rilla, Sir Damien/Rilla
Characters: Lord Arum, Sir Damien, Rilla
Additional Tags: Second Citadel, Lizard Kissin’ Tuesday, Enemies to Lovers, Rivals to Lovers, Dueling, Sexual Tension, (because they’re IDIOTS), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Mutual Pining, mutual IDIOTS, canon typical Arum ignoring feelings, Polyamory, (eventually lmao), Polyamory Negotiations
Fic Summary: Damien won yesterday, Arum won today, and now all that’s left is to break the tie. The only issue, however, is that neither of them are willing to do so, not until they are both satisfied that they have fought fairly, and honorably, and one of them has truly won.
Chapter Summary: It's a date.
Chapter Notes: SURPRISE! the epilogue chapter i said would "probably happen next week," literally last year. Weekly reminder: do not ffucking trust me, i'm UNRELIABLE. Anyway. I love you. I hope you enjoy this. I hope it's a nice little dessert at the tail of this fic. Thank you for reading.
~
They begin to see the glow through the trees through the moonless night a long while before they arrive properly at the grove.
They do not rush, though Amaryllis nearly glows herself, overflowing with excitement. She bounces on her heels, pointing out the light perhaps five minutes after Arum spies it himself (human eyesight, Arum thinks fondly), and her grip on his hand tightens as they walk together through the darkness, their voices hushed even in their eagerness.
Damien makes a noise when they push through the heavy leaves and into the grove itself, a little oh of an exhale, almost desperate with wonder.
The flowers of the newmoonvine are beautiful, of course. Of course they are beautiful. They glow in all the shades of the moon in her absence, cream yellow and coin grey and pure white, very very rarely a mellow eclipse red, subtle low-flying orange. The illumination is enough to set the whole grove alight, painting swaths of gentle pastel like a particularly ambitious pre-dawn.
But...
Arum has seen beautiful flowers before, though, and more interesting to him by far is...
The way Amaryllis and Damien reflect that beauty. Their faces, their eyes. The way their breathing catches, shallow gasps and stuttering inhales. Amaryllis lifting her hands to cover her mouth, ineffectively hiding the way her smile widens. Damien spinning in a slow, wondering circle, breathing another soft, slow oh as he drinks in the whole of the grove around him.
(The way they both, eventually, catch their eyes on Arum in turn, with further gasps, with a softening of eyes and smiles, as if he looks even half as beautiful to them as they do to him.)
Arum murmurs gentle instruction to the roots, providing a flat enough place for Amaryllis to spread out the thick blanket, and Damien sets down the baskets just beside it. Amaryllis pulls out her father's instrument with a sly smile, and Arum pretends to scowl as Damien tugs him into his arms, and Amaryllis sings gentle and sweet and clear in the night, and Damien teaches him a more... earnest dance, rather than the metaphorical one they used to step to. The movements are easy enough, and Arum rather enjoys the way Damien feels, pressed against him, hands on his scales. He enjoys the feeling of Damien humming to Amaryllis' song, enjoys the flush across the poet's cheeks, enjoys the way his breath hitches in a soft noise when Arum decides to abandon the planned steps, and lifts Damien in a sudden spin.
He kisses Arum's snout as he lowers the poet back to his feet, and Arum enjoys that, as well. He enjoys it very, very much.
And the feeling in his chest-
He has been nurturing that seedling since- since before he acknowledged it, truly. He knows what it is. He is taking his time, or- he was. As Damien tugs him to sit beside a playfully applauding Amaryllis, her mouth curved in a smug little smile, he feels it swelling again. Damien pours some mead for them, and Arum starts arranging the fruit and bread and cheese to pick at while they watch the flowers and Rilla takes her requisite "quick notes" into her recorder. Arum is unsurprised, that she was not being facetious about doing so, even on what she and Damien insisted on calling a "date."
And then they sit. Together. Quiet, and calm. Leaning against each other, touching without active intent.
The feeling in Arum's chest again. Swooping, soaring.
At first, it felt... dangerous. Like trusting these humans was tantamount to tossing himself off the edge of a cliff- the edge of the world, and simply hoping, believing that he would somehow, somehow survive the plunge. When he thinks about putting his life in their hands- sleeping beside them, resting his head on their shoulders-
(putting his blade in Damien's hand)
(sitting at Amaryllis' table)
Trusting them. He could not feel safe in it, for a long while. He still chose to do so, he still... took the leap, as it were. Still threw himself from that edge, hoping. He started falling, he thinks, the first time Damien took his hand to help him to his feet. Not believing that he would survive the fall did not matter, then, even if it does, now. If only for their sakes.
And-
Sitting here, Damien's hair tucked beneath his chin, Amaryllis' fingers netted with his own, her cheek on his shoulder, his body settling warm between them in the cool night air, flowers everywhere around them... he knows that he would fall again. He will decide, over and over, to fall, so long as they are the ones who could catch him.
He even believes... he believes, he does, that they are falling too. Right along with him. Hand in hand.
He swallows, the flowers blurring slightly as his eyes go, for a moment, hot, but he breathes slowly and composes himself, and he squeezes Amaryllis' hand in his own, and he reaches to take Damien's hand on the other side.
He leans back, enough that the humans stir, and look towards him. They blink, moon-tinted flower-light painting their faces, and Arum-
Arum doesn't even think. It slips from him. He has wanted to say it so many times.
"I love you," he says, the words so easy and true that they seem more a part of his breath than any words ever have before.
Damien's eyes fill with tears in an instant, which Arum decides to take as a good sign. Amaryllis, however, blinks as her mouth drops open into a little o, and then she curses under her breath.
"Oh you absolute- I can't believe that you'd-" she snaps her jaw shut, apparently seeing the way that Arum's heart has fallen through to his stomach, and she quickly shakes her head. "No no no wait no not like that I didn't mean- you stop laughing at me!" she says, reaching across Arum's broad chest to smack Damien in the arm as he laughs - still through his tears - before she squeezes Arum's hand in a fierce grip. "I knew this trip was coming up and I had this whole plan I brought the whole thing- blanket for the picnic and a basket of your favorite fruits and plenty of wine and I was going to do this whole thing, because the idea of this whole trip scared you so bad the first time I talked about it that you ran away and- and I wanted to show you how different things are, how different we are, and I just-"
"You should never expect to execute plans without amendment where our particular monster is concerned, my flower," Damien says warmly.
"I don't..." Arum glances between them, still uncertain, his mind still reeling. "I don't underst-"
She cuts him off with a kiss, and when she leans back away again, her arms draped across his shoulders, Arum's heart seems to have decided to nestle there between them, warm against her chest.
"I love you," she says emphatically, leaning into him, letting his arms hold her up, and Arum exhales all the air in his lungs in one breath. "I love you. You brat. Undercutting my whole- plans and- ugh- I love you. Even if you drive me crazy." She pauses. "Especially because you drive me crazy," she mutters against his lips before another small kiss.
Damien leans close on his other side, pressing his lips tenderly to the edge of his frill, and then he whispers, "I think you likely know, my lily, that my heart lives in you precisely as it lives in my Rilla." He smiles, hand on Arum's chin as he feels his throat whir in relieved pleasure. Damien's entire face is soft, glowing, gentle. "I think you know, Arum, how I love you. I have, in fact, for quite some time."
"Brat," Amaryllis mutters again, and Arum barks an unexpected laugh.
It breaks the spell, the seriousness, the way Arum's chest felt tight with tears. Damien laughs as well, and then Amaryllis rolls her eyes and presses her head against his cheek, kissing his jaw and laughing lightly in her own right. They snuggle closer, Damien mouthing kisses along his neck, and Arum realizes-
The swooping feeling, the falling-
It hasn't gone away with his confession, as he expected it to. He still feels- midair, wild and windswept and caressed by clouds.
Arum smiles, nuzzles them back, loves them.
It's alright, falling for them. Falling with them. It's alright. It's... safe. They are safe, with him, as he is with them, even midair, and wild, and windswept.
Arum has been falling, now, for long enough that it has begun to feel like flight.
