This is a companion piece to "There and Back Again", set to happen in Denerim after Redcliffe, the Circle, Haven, and the Brecilian Forest, before Orzammar and the Landsmeet. It was written for the characters from There and Back Again, but doesn't require that story to be enjoyable.
M/M, M/M/F, cons.
***************
Afterwards, I couldn't have said exactly how it happened.
One moment I was sitting with
mi amore
, and his companions - dare I call them my friends? - laughing at his red face and enjoying his discomfort at being flirted with so brashly, and the next, I was following the pirate queen's shapely behind up the stairs and into the room I shared with my stunning Warden.
Sure, the bar fight that stumbling incompetent accidentally started was part of it, as was the crafty mind of
mia sorella
, who rescued the Chantry-raised prude from Isabela's advances at my Warden's expense, but truly, they hadn't done it on purpose. In fact, if either of them figured out the result, I was sure they would both spontaneously combust from acute embarrassment. No, I couldn't blame either of them, if I was being honest.
That left me with Isabela, or Aedan himself, to blame. And as beautiful and seductive as Isabela is, my Warden had never shown signs of being weak towards the manipulation of a beautiful woman.
No, really, I could only blame Aedan, I eventually decided, as I sat on an uncomfortable chair in the corner of my inn room and watched someone else share the bed with my lover.
I wasn't jealous, for a certainty; I regularly shared lovers with others, my usual pairings being the definition of an 'open relationship'. Only once in the past had I been this emotionally involved with someone else, and I never had difficulty sharing Rinna with Taliesen. In many ways, in fact, sharing made it better - there was nothing more exquisite than watching your lover being driven completely senseless with pleasure.
But somehow, despite that, this wasn't working out the way I'd imagined.
My
Warden was lying on
our
bed, tongue tangling with Isabela's while she carded her fingers through his hair. Both of them were half-undressed, offering tantalising glimpses of soft, bronze skin pressing up against the hard, pale lines of my lover, and I could barely restrain myself from walking out of the room.
I forced myself to be still, furiously trying to convince myself that Aedan didn't care for me less because he received pleasure from someone else, but for the first time since I was a young Crow in training, I couldn't help feeling...insecure.
Aedan had managed to finish undressing the both of them while I was preoccupied with my own issues, and Isabela was on her back underneath the nobleman, legs spread, quim glistening, guiding Aedan's hard length towards her core with a hungry, feral expression I could completely sympathise with. My lover was inexperienced, when we'd met, but he was gorgeous, well-endowed, and insatiable. Even I could barely keep up with him. I knew exactly how Isabela felt.