Intertwined
by K. Stonham
chapter 2: Having and Holding
first released 9th March 2022
When Jim, Claire, and Douxie showed up at breakfast the next day, and sat at the same table, Toby's eyes narrowed. It wasn't that they didn't frequently sit together, but something, he felt, was different this morning.
It only took a couple minutes to figure it out.
Douxie passed Claire the hot sauce for her eggs, and as her fingers touched his on the bottle, she blushed just a little and looked up at him through her lashes.
And Jim...
Toby's glance switched to his best friend.
Jim was looking at the two mages, with a soft, sappy look on his face, and that smile he only ever got when he was truly happy.
"Holy crap," Toby breathed, even as Krel sat down across from him. The horde of half-Akiridions that had been following their uncle around like ducklings were all filling plates at the buffet station.
"What is it?" Krel asked, reaching for the ketchup to put on his own eggs.
"Jimbo and Claire and Douxie," Toby hissed at him. "Look!"
Krel did turn his head to look. "Ah, he did tell them," he said, returning his attention back to turning his breakfast into his preferred abomination.
"Wait, he told them?" Toby asked.
"Yes. Douxie has been having the crush on Jim and Claire for months now," Krel said, waving his fork around, unconcerned.
"Waitwaitwait. Douxie has been crushing on them?" Toby shook his head. "I missed that. How did I miss that?"
"What did you think it was?" asked Krel.
"Duh. Jim and Claire have had a thing for Douxie for like a decade now, dude," said Toby. "Where've you been?"
"Too busy to speculate about the love lives of married people," Krel shot back. "If I was going to do that, I would be speculating about my sister and the oaf, and ugh." His shudder of revulsion said it all. "So why did they never make a move?"
"Because Douxie's ace," said Toby sagely. His eyes widened. "Wait a minute, he's not ace? How did I miss that?"
"It is a fairly recent development," Archie said, jumping up on the seat next to Toby, who totally did not shriek and jump. The cat-dragon smirked at him. "I really should have made a bet with Douxie about his hormones catching up with him someday."
"He already gives you everything," Krel said. "What more could you want?"
"The satisfaction of being proved right," replied Archie.
Being in love and having it reciprocated... well, it changed everything. For the first time, Douxie understood many of the things he'd seen and read over the centuries, because suddenly everything seemed to have a brighter hue, a deeper meaning. And whether it was Claire's fingers lingering on his just a moment longer than usual, or the way he knew that Jim's smiles had a deeper import than before...
Twitterpated, Hisirdoux thought, choosing to find amusement in the breathless pounding of his own heart. You're absolutely twitterpated, Doux.
And he wouldn't trade it for anything.
He wasn't quite sure why kisses were nice, but he was enjoying the discovery, whether with Claire in his workshop, or with Jim in their office, or (only once so far, and thus, memorable) a three-way makeout session in the empty library.
The library where they'd gone to have a very serious discussion before getting in any deeper than they already were.
"So... what is this?" Douxie asked, sitting on one of the many beanbag chairs that were scattered around the room. There were plenty of proper chairs and tables as well (Merlin, for instance, would not be caught dead using a beanbag), but for the most part the castle's inhabitants were physically young and preferred furniture they could drape themselves over. "What are we doing?"
Jim and Claire, claiming their own beanbags, exchanged a look. "Dating?" Claire asked.
"Unless you'd like a different term," Jim said. "Courtship? Since you're as old as dirt."
"Dating is fine," Douxie told him dryly. "Just... why? I don't want to jinx it but... you've got each other."
Another exchanged glance, followed by a helpless shrug from Jim and a gesture at Claire: you explain, you're good with words.
"This... isn't a fling thing," Claire said awkwardly. "Or a, I don't know, seven year itch."
"Ninety-seven year itch," Jim put in with a grin, making both Claire and Douxie smile.
"Jim and I have talked about this, a lot, over the years. You're so good with us, and for us, Teach," Claire said, interlacing her fingers as if to illustrate how well the three of them slotted together. "But you were ace, so we didn't want to push for more."
Hisirdoux huffed a soft laugh. "I think I've been falling for the both of you for a long time," he confessed. "I just wasn't ready to look at it yet."
"We were just going to leave things like they were, but then Krel said you were in love, and you wouldn't say who, wouldn't even look at me..." Claire shrugged. "You're not hard to figure out, Douxie."
"Lovely," Douxie said, but his heart wasn't in the snark. "So... how do you two think this should work, then?" They looked blank. "Ground rules," he prompted them. "What goes, what doesn't go?"
That got a better reaction. "No jealousy," Jim said almost instantly. "Sometimes it's going to be any two of us together, doing things, sometimes it'll be all three. But none of us get to get jealous. We talk it out."
Claire nodded. "It would be stupid," she said, "to wreck our relationships or our friendships just because we don't talk to each other about what's going wrong."
"Right," said Douxie, nodding as his mind whirled. He could see disaster scenarios popping up all too easily, from himself especially. He'd never been in a romantic relationship before, and he was entering into one with a long-married couple. It would be all too easy to become jealous of their ease with one another, when he felt little to none himself.
"And... we can't tell people about this," Hisirdoux told the both of them, having to be the voice of reason and politics. "If people found out that the king and queen of Camelot were messing about with their wizard..." His grimace, he hoped, illustrated his concern. Polyamory was becoming more acceptable to the world at large than it had been in a long time, but it was still an outlier relationship. And so many people already discounted Jim and Claire because they were eternally young and lived in a flying castle. Hisirdoux would not give their opponents another arrow in their quiver.
"No one?" asked Jim.
"Kindly remember that most people still think Lancelot having an affair with Guinevere was the cause of Camelot's first downfall, and extrapolate from there," Douxie told him.
"Not even our friends?" asked Claire.
"They'd probably be all right?" he guessed.
Archie, lounging on top of a bookshelf, coughed. "Toby and Krel have long since figured you three out," he informed them.
"You might have mentioned that sooner," Douxie told his familiar.
Archie sniffed. "They have a betting pool about when you'll all 'come out' to them. I intend to win."
"What's the stakes?" asked Jim.
The dragon named a respectable sum.
"And what part of that do we get if we set you up to win?" Claire asked.
"Nothing. Save my continued silence on the matter, and absence from your bedchamber whenever you entice Douxie to share it."
"Archie!" the wizard cried, blushing to the roots of his hair. "Anyway," he said, resolutely ignoring his familiar and his familiar's insinuations, "I am perfectly fine with being your dirty little secret." Better that, than all the things people might say about wizards and their morals, or, worse, about Jim and Claire and their morals.
"You're not," said Jim fiercely.
"But I am," Douxie corrected. "If it helps, think of this as something that's not for the world at large. It's something that's just for us."
Months on, the butterflies had settled into something less frantic, something warmer. An ember glowing in his chest, perhaps, sparking brighter when Claire or Jim looked at him with a bit more than platonic interest in their eyes.
He was theirs. And they were his. Douxie got to have this.
In the end, the three of them had decided to not bother announcing their relationship to their friends and family. Archie had been peeved about their sabotaging his plan to win the betting pool. It had taken three weeks solid of roasted salmon dinners before Douxie had been allowed back into his familiar's good graces.
Inevitably, however, those around them began to figure it out.
Claire stalked into Douxie's workshop and plopped down on one of the armchairs with a huff.
He raised an eyebrow at her, but didn't turn away from where he was counting drops of Black Mamba venom. "Problem?" he asked. Then, under his breath, "fifty-three... fifty-four...fifty-five. Done." He pulled his pipette away, then picked up the beaker and swirled it. The potion within turned spring green, which was the right color, so he hadn't screwed it up yet.
"Morgana," Claire said, like the name was a swear word. Which, to be fair, it sometimes was.
"Oh?" Douxie set the beaker over his modified Bunsen burner, and set a low flame going. Reduce by half, he repeated the next step in his head, like the remedial alchemist he still was. Reduce by half.
"She told me, and I quote," Claire said, "'So how goes it with your lovers? If your bedroom ever grows stale, I could give you a few ideas'."
Douxie's attention shattered. "What?" he demanded, wide-eyed. "No, wait wait wait wait," he cried, scrambling to take the potion off the burner and shut off the flame before anything exploded. He was on a hot streak for days without magical accidents, and he wanted to keep it going. "Okay," he said when that was done, taking the seat nearest Claire's. "She said that?"
"Yes," groused Claire, crossing her arms and slouching. "And what that says about her morals and sex life-"
"Ah-ah-ah," Douxie said, waving fingers in the air in admonishment. "Remember, we do not shame anyone for their sex lives."
"We just gossip about them avidly," Claire finished, cracking a small smile.
"Quite so."
Claire blew her bangs upward. "I guess I don't mind her knowing," she admitted. "She's definitely not judging us for it, at least."
"But?" Douxie prompted.
"But it's kind of annoying that she thinks we're all having sex when we're not," Claire said.
Douxie sat still for a minute, thinking about that. It was true that he hadn't shared Jim and Claire's bed. And it was equally true that the two of them were still very much sharing it with one another. They were both intensely physical people, and he'd no sooner ask them to not engage in lovemaking than he would ask them to stop kissing him. And they were both very lovely when, bright-eyed and languid with pleasure, they'd found him a time or three afterward and made long kissing and cuddling sessions tip over into something exquisite.
No, the problem was Douxie's. For all that his heart had one day woken up, turned over, and decided it was ready to be in love, anything below the belt was still snoozing.
And Jim and Claire had made it clear they were okay with that. That they'd wait until the day he was ready. "And if that day's never," Jim had said with a shrug, "then that's fine too."
"Sex is nice," Claire, leaning against Douxie's other side, had said. "Okay, sex is fantastic," she had amended with a laugh after a pouty glare from her husband, "but it's not the most important part of a relationship."
Now, though...
"We could try?" Douxie asked awkwardly.
Claire's head snapped up and she stared at him.
"We've been dating for months?" Douxie offered. "I mean, how long was it between when you and Jim started dating and when you...?"
"Months," Claire answered, still staring. She blinked a few times. "Douxie, you know you don't have to."
"I know," he told her honestly. "That's not a concern. But how will I know I don't like it if I don't try it?" Archie's frequent argument to him over the centuries. Though Archie's admonishments had mostly been about vegetables. Not sex.
Claire sighed and shifted over to his chair, knees on either side of Douxie's hips as she sat astride his lap.
He liked this positioning. She fit so well there, her eyes now on level with his. "You don't have to," Claire repeated herself. "Especially not to shut up Morgana."
He smiled. "The idea of shutting up Morgana holds its own appeal," he said. "But, no. This isn't about her, my fair lady Claire. It's about you and me and Jim and seeing if I can fit in with you two another way or not."
Claire's lips were warm and soft and scented with honey as she kissed him. Douxie made a happy sound because he liked this, he really did.
"All right," Claire said as she pulled back, one arm wrapped around his neck. Her other hand dropped to his lap, her thumb rubbing circles on the front of his hip. "If you really want to try and see how it goes, we can."
"I do," Douxie told her earnestly, his own hands splayed on her waist, fingers nearly touching at her spine. She was warm and lovely and liked kissing him. Which was all kinds of marvelous, and he wouldn't trade it for anything. But now he was curious. Was there something better still?
It was a disaster.
Douxie ended up retreating to his own room after Jim and Claire had fallen asleep, taking a hot shower to try to scrub every inch of his skin, attempting get rid of the shuddering feeling of wrongness that lay underneath.
It didn't work, and he ended up sitting up in an armchair because he couldn't so much as look at his bed right now. His hair was still wet, dripping onto his pajama top, and he'd swathed himself in a blanket because he didn't trust himself not to try and claw his skin off.
The problem was, he thought miserably, that he didn't /know/ what the problem was. It had all felt good at the time, and Jim and Claire had each had so much love in their eyes as they'd introduced him to something new. The touch of Claire's magic against his bare skin had flared his own magic to life, and he knew, knew, that he'd helped make them feel as good as he himself had felt.
But somewhere between those first kisses and the blinding white flare of pleasure that had shocked and deafened him, pinned between their bodies, deep inside Claire, Jim hot and hard pressed against his back, there had been something growing that didn't fit, that screamed at him to get away.
And he didn't want that. He wanted things to be simple and easy, like they were with kisses. He wanted to be able to touch, and be touched, without this feeling of revulsion. Without dry heaves and ants marching trails under his skin.
I love them, he thought, and knew it was completely true. I do. And hot tears of shame, that he couldn't even be normal about this, burned cold down his face and soaked into the blanket.
He woke in the morning, warm gold light spilling through the windows, illuminating the dragon curled up on his lap, and his two lovers, fast asleep in armchairs of their own.
He stared.
"They came in early this morning," Archie said very quietly, "quite distraught, looking for you."
Douxie felt horrible. "I should've said where I was going," he said. "Arch, I couldn't... it wasn't right," he whispered, feeling tears pricking at his eyes again. "It was wonderful, and they were perfect, but it doesn't feel right."
"Then don't do it again," the dragon advised, cutting everything down to simple, obvious basics. "Do what you do like, and stop there."
"But don't they deserve more?" asked Douxie. "Shouldn't I...?"
"They deserve to have someone who is happy with them," Archie replied, stretching and sitting up so he was looking Douxie in the eye. "And you deserve not to be having breakdowns over a relationship that should be making you happy."
"But I want to be with them," Douxie protested. "I just... don't want to."
"You're mistaking sex for love, and the body for the heart," said Archie. He touched his forehead against Douxie's. "Tell me you know which is more important."
"I do," Douxie whispered, closing his eyes. "I do, I swear. But I want to give them everything."
"Which is commendable," Archie murmured. "But you can't give this, Douxie, not yet, not without destroying yourself. And you know they wouldn't want that."
"I... you really think I'll want to, eventually?"
Archie purred, brushed against one cheek then the other. "Likely, yes. It may take a while, but time is one thing you've all got in abundance, isn't it?"
"It is," Douxie said, feeling something unknot inside himself. Archie had been right when he'd said Douxie would eventually want romantic love. He would take it on faith that Archie was right about this too. However long it took.
"Good. Then I'm off to find some breakfast," Archie said. "I recommend you make it up with Jim and Claire, and then the three of you come get some too."
"Yes, Archie," Douxie said, momentarily feeling like the small child who'd trusted and followed wherever the dragon had led.
Archie bumped their foreheads together again, then jumped down from the chair and went out the door.
He ended up sitting on the floor between their chairs, watching as the shifting morning light painted Claire and Jim in ever-brightening gold.
Jim woke first, eyes opening slowly.
"Hi," Douxie murmured, reaching out to take Jim's hand. Jim smiled sleepily, fingers curling around his, then started to stretch. At some point mid-stretch, though, he seemed to realize he wasn't in a bed, and things came back to him, because he suddenly stopped moving and worry crossed his face as he looked at Douxie.
"Hey, it's okay," Douxie said softly. He shifted up, kneeling, and dropped a kiss on the corner of Jim's mouth. "It's okay, love, I promise. We're okay."
"Why'd you leave?" Jim asked, voice rough with sleep.
And Douxie wasn't going to tell him about the anxiety, the nausea, the wanting to claw off his own skin with his bare nails. But he also wasn't going to lie. "I couldn't handle it," he said instead. "Which we need to talk about, I know. But Claire's still asleep."
Jim's gaze shifted to his wife. "She was really worried," he said. "So was I."
"I'm sorry," Douxie replied. "But can we wait to talk about it until she's awake?"
"Sure," said Jim. "Come here, though?" He held out his arms like he wanted Douxie to sit with him.
He had to smile. "You're mad if you think we'll both fit on that chair."
"And you're a wizard. Fix it," said Jim.
Douxie rolled his eyes and obeyed, casting a quick spell that stretched the chair out into a loveseat. Which he promptly sat on. Jim snuggled up against him, leaning on his shoulder, half-dozing.
He must have fallen back asleep himself at some point, because the next thing Douxie knew was Claire shoving her way onto his other side, waking him. He blinked. "Claire...?"
"Shut up, I'm still mad at you," she said, and kissed him.
Douxie had to smile. "Sorry," he apologized again. She couldn't be that mad, not if she was kissing him.
...Probably.
She sighed, laying her head on his other shoulder, fingers combing through his hair. "Should we talk about it?"
"Yeah, but we should wait for Jim-"
"I'm awake," the head on his other shoulder mumbled.
"That's debatable," Claire said, but her gaze drifted back to Douxie. "So what happened?" she asked softly.
"I couldn't breathe," Douxie replied, equally softly. "And... I don't think I can do that again."
Horror stretched across her face. "Did we- we didn't force you, did-"
"You absolutely did not force me," he cut her off before she could finish the damning question. "I wanted to try, and it felt very good at the time. But I..." He trailed off, not knowing how to describe his own reaction after.
"You had another panic attack?" Jim asked softly.
Douxie shrugged. "Something kin to one, certainly." His hands fisted on his pajama legs, fingers curling in so his nails wouldn't try to rip into his skin. Because the crawling feeling of revulsion was still there, even with the warmth on either side of him trying to assuage it.
The movement didn't go unnoticed. Claire's hand came to cover one fist; Jim's, the other. And he could practically feel their sadness, their worry. "Are you going to be okay?" Claire whispered.
"Eventually," he said, looking at their hands. Not looking up. "It'll fade." Faster, if he could keep himself from thinking of the heat, the touches against his skin. The being trapped as his body betrayed him with the white-hot lightning of pleasure-
He breathed against the nausea.
He'd need to keep himself busy.
"And... us?" Jim asked, thumb whispering along Douxie's.
"Kisses and cuddles?" Douxie asked. "Can we just go back to that and stay there?"
"Definitely." Claire shifted so that she was suddenly sitting bright-eyed astride one of his thighs. "Making out with the hot wizard, yes. Having sex with the hot wizard, no. We can do that."
Douxie blinked. "Hot wizard?" he asked Jim.
Jim shrugged. "You should hear what she's called me. And, hey, it is accurate."
"Incorrigible," Douxie sighed. But the three of them were all right, and that was worth everything.