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The first thing Tom's eyes do as they adjust to the dim light around him are cast themselves up, up further past leaves and branches, and into a muted, grey-green sky. A breeze brushes past the trees, ruffles his coat. Winking back at him are a dozen stars, two, three, nine, twelve dozen, filling up every grey-green space left behind, a sky without a moon to fill it, to block the light. Who's systems were these, who's stars? Who was looking up at him, on a planet in the middle of a different dimension, or in this pocket world, with a projection of stars. They were certainly not his stars, not the ones he knew or memorized in patterns long ago. They were unfamiliar to him now, as much was the spongy grass under his feet, or the sweetness of the air, or the hum of cicadas.
After a moment, Tom trains his eyes down to watch Ben and Harry. Harry blinks, his wide, dark eyes reflecting the light of fireflies as he turns, slowly, away from Tom and to the forest around them. Something else lingers in his slight smile that Tom can't place, but it weasels in something curious and soft in his chest. Harry stares off into the distance, mouthing words he doesn't say out loud. Curses, most likely, hard, breathy sounds that don't form. He can see the furrow of his eyebrows as he glances around and the shake of his shoulders when he laughs (audible, this time, whispering out a wow that Tom nearly misses).
Unlike him, Ben is gone in an instant, peeling away from the portal, with a child-like energy buzzing around him. He stumbles down the incline ahead, shoes making scuff-marks in the grassy slope, hitting the water's edge before Tom can even blink. He wades shin deep into the river with a splash, a laugh bubbling up out of his chest and into the dusk, startling crickets and frogs out of the reeds at the riverbank. He turns to look at Tom, eyes bright and blue and hinted with something curious. The water soaks the legs of his pants up the knee, darkening the fabric as he steps back and forth, swaying as he laughs. Tom feels the sound repeated in his chest, something just under his ribcage, as he smiles back, and his eyes crinkle, and he just misses the way Ben darts into the water, and emerges, soaking wet, on the other side.
He almost shouts after him, half-glee and half-confusion in his chest, but it dies as Harry brushes past him, quick to follow in his partner’s footsteps. They make contact long enough for Harry to grab at his sleeve, as if trying to string him along, as if Tom hadn’t already managed to pull himself forward. He wades through the waist deep water, surprised to find it cool, rather than cold, in the dry, woody air. Harry scrambles up the bank, the damp clinging to his overcoat and his pants, waiting for Tom on the bank with expectant eyes. Tom loses him as he climbs through the reeds, and hears, instead, the mooing of some sort of animal as Harry and Ben chatter in soft voices. A herd of sharply antlered deer stand grazing a few meters out, not yet startled as the trio observe them. Ben grapples for Tom, pulling him over until they’re all standing in a huddle, observing as something startles the herd, and they scatter. They laugh again, bumping shoulders as they wander further across the bank, into the underbrush. Ben’s hand finds his, warm and river-damp, and Ben brushes hair from his own face with his other hand, flicks water from it as he starts to dry off.
Pulling away from them, Harry wanders backwards, craning his neck around to take in the trees and sky above him. That soft, wondering look worms back onto his face, mouth slightly open, eyes wide and flecked with the lights around them. Lights that Tom tries to catch, flickering like his own pricks of light do, reaching out to grab the light only for it to disappear and reappear somewhere else. Ben detaches from him, wandering off to his left. He watches Harry trace part of the tree trunk he’s climbed up to, balanced on the root with both boots firmly planted. His fingers and eyes map the whorled surface with a precision not unlike someone reading a book, or looking at a picture of themselves when they were younger, or recalling a memory that’s just on the fringes of being known. He watches Harry swallow.
“Huh,” Harry says, some of the first words he’s said since they’ve arrived. “Interesting.”
Tom tilts his head a bit. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Ben, reaching down to watch a flower in the still air.
“What?” he asks. Harry turns to him a bit, hand still pressed to the trunk of the twilight tree.
“Somethin’ familiar about it,” he says. “I dunno.”
Tom snorts, which turns into a small laugh, which echoes as he says:
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
But Harry shrugs, and he wears a soft, almost gentle smile, something that warms in Tom’s chest when Harry looks away, when the edges of his mouth tug up as he looks toward Ben (who’s letting fireflies land on his fingers, watching them flit away). Ben, who, as soon as Tom and Harry look over at him, is already beckoning them forward, passing Tom a large, glass jar.
“For fireflies,” he says plainly, tapping on the glass to the few already there. They glow faintly, in and out, as Tom holds the jar (a jar that will later sit on his desk in the workshop, of whose contents will flit around a small enclosure he builds out of mesh and wood and wire). And he bravely does not (yet) mention his penchant for snacking on such creatures. It’s a half truth—he wouldn’t really, but he most definitely could.
Ben gestures to greater beyond them, to a stone wall etched with runes Tom doesn’t know. They stop dead in their tracks at the edge of the clearing, staring at the massive, meters high stone surface, inlaid with cracks and moss and strange, spiraling patterns. Tom traces the patterns with his eyes. The jar of fireflies goes into his bag.
“Naga pen,” Ben says. “I think.”
“It’s massive,” Harry notes. He pulls away from the group for a second, just as Tom steps forward to reach to brush a hand over the spiraling rockface. The ground shudders for a moment, indicative of the massive creature held back by only crumbling stone, and he jolts back with a startled yelp. A massive eye flashes in the small gap between the stones.
“Nope!” he says, rushing the short distance back to the relative safety of Ben and Harry beside him. His voice peters into a laugh. “None of that, no thank you.”
Ben, from beside him, laughs, too, but he’s too busy following Harry as they scope a relatively safe fixture of rock to scale. He watches Ben trace out the rock with his hands, each crack outlined across the wall that Tom isn’t quite sure is really holding the Naga inside, rather than just deterring it from rushing out. Tom’s heart still thuds a bit quickly in his chest, in his ears, as he trails behind the fast moving figures of Ben and Harry.
At some point, Ben takes the lead, navigating around a rather rectangular outcrop of the so-called “pen”. There, the stones fallen away from the side create a divot to step up to a larger broken chunk, and further up to the edge of the pen, outlined in a shallow wall, no higher than Tom’s ankle. Ben scrambles up, brushing his hands off as he rises to a stand, surveying the pen. Harry climbs up next, taking Ben’s hand as he struggles to pull over the lip. Tom takes help from them both, suddenly a bit more scared of falling from the edge than he normally would be.
Inside, the Naga has long since retreated to the center of the pen, its body curled into a large clearing. Ben makes a small, almost amused, surprised sound. Harry copies him, folding his arms. Tom watches for a moment, the expanse of green scales that shift and shimmer.
“Next time,” Tom says, a bit out of breath.
Harry hums, echoing him. "We'll do a murder next time. Do a little murdering later.”
“Awuh,” Ben sighs. He turns back, ushering the group off the stone wall.
“What?” Harry asks as he hops down part of the rock face, holding out a hand to help Ben down. Tom waits at the bottom, arms folded. “D’you not want to kill ‘im?”
Ben slips down the rock wall, holding tight to Harry’s hand. He pointedly does not let go as he makes it to the bottom, instead, gesturing with Harry’s hand in his. Harry lets his arm go seemingly limp, letting Ben wave it back and forth. Tom snorts.
“Oh no, I want to kill it now ,” he says, a frown coming to his face. “That’s all.”
“Well that’s just too bad , Ben,” Harry continues, marching forward. Ben strings himself along, by force of being dragged more than anything else. He still clings to Harry’s hand, leaning heavily into them as they walk, as if trying to tip him over. Harry stumbles back and forth, pushing him back. “You’ll just have to wait .”
“It’ll kill poor Ben,” Tom adds, looping around to Harry’s other side. Harry shoots him a look, rolling his eyes.
“That’s true,” Ben agrees, but before he can fully finish the thought, Harry stops, pointing to a spot on the edge of a murky, dark forest. Tom squints, trying to peer through the black shroud of fog that covers it.
“Look!” he says, waving his hand. “There’s a little…dude, there, in the water.”
Tom hums, mouth twisting in a frown as he watches the small creature, thing, blue smudge, paddle through the water with serious intent. It's almost cute . Ben startles with a small sound, pulling away from Harry, dropping his hand, and rushing toward the riverbank. He hops down the slope, pushing aside wiregrass and cattails, almost cooing as he goes.
"Look at this little guy!" He says, wading into the water.
"Oh!" Harry says. He, too, steps from Tom, but not nearly as close as Ben does. He makes it down to the edge of the bank, shoes sinking in the dirt-mud-silt that had settled at the river edge. It kicks up as Ben wades deeper in, shin deep, watching the creature scrabble to meet them. "It's a Kobold."
"He's got a book," Tom says. His curiosity quickly gets the better of him, tugging at his heart, pulling him alongside the other two who stand in the weeds, watching. Once the kobold gets within range of them, or Ben, it snarls, bearing a row of pointed teeth, ears flattening back against its head. Tom yelps, rushing forward. The kobold lunges forward too, teeth bared at Ben. But, as soon as it does, it dissipates into a dusty, glittering cloud, like a blink before an image leaves to afterimage.
Tom blinks. He drops his hands from where he had reached for his first arrow. Ben, with his hand halfway to the sword at his hip, looks to him, then to Harry, his recurve bow half hoisted in the air. The dark wood glints with blue runes for a moment, like the dark blue shuddering through it. He looks back at Tom, then to Ben, shrugging weakly, the blue shine of his armor glinting in the dusk. He looks almost bemused, alongside it looking unreadable. Tom snorts, the sound bubbling up in his chest until he’s half suppressing a laugh.
“They’re hostile, then,” he says, a bit obviously.
Instead of laughing, Ben wades through the water and further into the blue-grey water. Tom notices his shiver, as if he’s suppressing some urge. Or as if he, too, can see the tendrils of dark air shifting through the water as he reaches to scoop a partially soggy book out of the water. He makes a face as he turns back, like a deep-set frown, uncharacteristic for his face.
“I had it well under control,” he says, looking at Harry. Harry shrugs again, but the movement doesn’t seem enough to give it that name.
“I know you did,” he says cooly, but that smile weasels back onto his face, and just watching it, Ben fights back his own smile. It fails, the corners of his mouth lifting, until he’s rolling his eyes and shaking his head, scoffing as Harry smiles, clearly pleased with himself.
“Here, then,” Ben says. He passes the book to Harry as Harry slings his bow back over his shoulder. Harry grimaces, trying to shake the dripping water from the pages.
“Eugh,” he says out-loud, shaking off his hand. Tom lowers himself to a sit on the curve of the hill, watching Ben pull from the water’s edge, and watching Harry clamber back up the side, trying to dry the river-damp pages. Tom sees Ben make a face as he wanders over—his socks must be wet. He doesn’t wonder why.
“What’s it say?” Tom asks, leaning over into Harry’s space. Ben sits to Harry’s other side, leaning over with raised eyebrows. Harry hums. He clears his throat, and after a beat, says:
“Deep in the ruins, I have found a pedestal. The pedestal seems to be of a type that knights would place trophies on to prove their strength. Killing a powerful creature would seem to weaken the curse on the dark forest, and placing a trophy associated with the creature on the pedestal would likely grant access into the main part of the stronghold,” he pauses for a moment, frowning to himself. The cadence of his voice shifts a bit as he continues, much like how the smile had faded from his face.
“The only creature I have seen so far of sufficient power is the many-headed beast in the fire swamp,” he hums, clearly amused, or interested, by the book’s statement. “How vexing…”
Harry goes quiet after that. Tom watches him trace the page with one hand, like he were taking the words in, silent. There are more entries, likely, earlier on, but the pages are too damp to peel apart.
“Huh…” Ben says. Tom resists the urge to repeat the sound and fails, humming out his own, questioning note. He leans back on his hands, the dry, cool grass against his palms and wrists. He studies, for a moment, the curve of Harry’s back as he hunches over the book, and the twist of Ben’s mouth as he reads for himself, fingers tracing over the damp edge Harry isn’t holding. “D’you reckon we’ll have to come back and check this out?”
“Oh, yeah,” Tom agrees, nodding his head. “We’ll be back.”
Harry hums. He passes the book to Tom as Ben leans away from him. Tom’s eyes skim over the words as he studies the still damp book, peeling the pages apart from each other. They stick together, but none of the words blur, like the ink has long since dried to the page and refused to smudge. The book, also, miraculously, has not fallen apart. He shuts it with a dull thump.
From beside him, Harry’s risen to a stand, dusting his hands off from the grass. Ben follows him as Tom does, with his eyes, tracking his movements as he sweeps his arms above his head, as he stretches, fixes his coat around his shoulders. Ben smiles, and Tom catches the curve of his mouth, and he can’t stop himself from smiling. It only takes a second for Ben to look at him, and his heart squeezes, and Ben sticks his tongue out at him.
Tom stands. In the same moment, Ben lunges after him, grabbing his hand and knocking into him sideways. Ben’s shoulder collides with his chest. He laughs, and Harry turns back to look at them, something incredibly fond passing over his face. Harry snorts, wrinkling his nose, the edges of his lips curling up, like a laugh was trying to weasel its way out of his chest but couldn’t quite make it, became visible instead. Tom thinks the glint in his eye is a little more than purely the fireflies trying to make their home in his hat. He reaches out as he and Ben wander over, catches his wrist, his hand, laces them together. Harry squeezes, warmth seeping through his palm and each place his fingers rest.
They walk together, shuffling through the tall grass, pushing past flowers, toward the portal. Ben detaches after a moment, stepping down through. Harry follows shortly after, though he casts a wayward glance toward the large, sweeping trees of the forest around them.
For a moment, Tom stands in the underbrush alone, with a warm breeze and fireflies around him. When he looks up again, the stars are just as bright above him, and the sky is just as clear, even as he can see wisps of clouds on the horizon, just out of view of the trees around him. He watches the gold, the red, the slight blue tint, flicker in and out, wondering, for a moment, who might be there, looking up, looking down. What might be out there, and what they might see, like he is, now, glancing up into a grey-green-blue sky, and smiling to himself. Then, he steps into the swirling purple face of the portal, and the feeling of the damp-twinged air leaves him all at once.
The air at the top of the mountain at home, in between the old-growth spruce, is sharp and cold. He breathes in a lungful as he hoists himself from the portal, into the hands of Harry squinting down at him, against the bright white of the snow. He doesn’t let go of Harry’s hand until Ben nods them toward the house, wiping snow from his pants.
They wander together down the mountain, Ben in the lead. Tom’s eyes adjust to the bright white of the snow, focusing on the dark, woven pattern of Harry’s hat in front of him and the way his hair spills over his shoulders. He walks with a hunch to his shoulders, like he’s holding them still. The jar of fireflies clinks in Tom’s bag. As they reach the front door, and as Tom props it open for Ben and Harry who linger back, he fishes it from his bag. He sets the jar on the shelf in the living area as he enters, watching for a moment flickering with the light from the bugs inside. It makes a very warm thing curl up in Tom’s chest, and it would be a shame to keep that from growing.
Harry spends the evening quietly, retreating upstairs to sit at the fireplace. Tom watches him slip up the stairs as he passes Ben a dish towel, but doesn’t say anything. He can see something to the slope of his shoulders that he understands, even if he can’t really place it, even if he doesn’t really know . Instead, he helps Ben clear dishes, fills the kettle with water and sets it on the stove. He makes three cups of tea, and lets Ben carry one up to Harry, and soon the small space where he sips tea is full of the smell of assam and honey.
Ben returns empty handed, and makes his home beside Tom, cradling his tea in his hands. They sit hip to hip, letting silence be silence, letting words be felt, rather than spoken. After a long moment, Ben leaning into his side, Tom trying to memorize the soft pattern of breathing for the millionth time, Ben presses his face into his shoulder, nosing him, sighing pleasantly. The sparkle of sparse freckles glitter up Tom’s arm. He leans to press his cheek against the top of his head as soon as Ben says:
“Maybe you should go check in on him,” and Tom hums. “Just in case. It’s late.”
“That’s true,” Tom mumbles, turning his face further into Ben’s hair.
“Tom—” Ben whines. He tries to worm away, squirm from Tom’s embrace, and does make it, most of the way, before he leans back in for a moment. He knocks their foreheads together, smiling to himself. “I’ll see you upstairs, alright?”
“Gotcha,” Tom replies, and can’t keep the same smile off his face.
Tom finds himself wandering up the stairs with a certain sort of quiet stillness, not an invasive kind, but the settling type, something warm as he makes it up the spiral stairs and to the loft. On the table, sitting next to his tea cup, open to a new page, is the book, seemingly drying in the heat.
The warmth from the fire permeates the room, filling it with a dull heat and the smell of crisp wood. It’s embers, now, but the heat remains, and Harry does, too, curled into the chair closest to the fire. His legs are tucked to his chest, head lolling onto his shoulder. Tom watches the slow rise and fall for a moment, before he wanders over, announcing himself with a small, light sound.
Harry hums as he does, lifting his head, leaning it back over the back of the chair. Tom pauses behind it, hands coming to cradle the sides of his head, one hand tracing the shell of his ear. His eyes look sleepy, far away as they flick over Tom’s face. A gentle smile worms onto Tom’s face, and he leans, unable to help himself, to kiss the bridge of his nose, to hear Harry snort as he does, his own hands coming up to cup over Tom’s.
“You ready to get some sleep?” Tom asks. Harry hums, pulling away from Tom’s hands.
“Fuckin’ fell asleep in the chair,” Harry says, unraveling from the loveseat. His legs stretch out as he does.
Tom laughs.
“Go on, off to a real bed,” he says, but his tone is too affectionate to be anything close to annoyance, or malice, or anything of the sort. Harry rolls his eyes, but the reaction is fond and sweet and Tom boxes his shoulder as he follows him down the steps.
It takes a long moment for Tom to settle comfortably. He watches Harry and Ben absently as he does, as Harry changes into more comfortable clothes, avoiding Ben’s prodding as he finally pulls a shirt over his head. Ben sits on the side of the bed, legs stretched out in front of him, a warm, playful look across his cheeks.
Tom pads over to Harry’s side of the bed, wading over the soft, mismatched quilts and lopsided pillows until he finds a comfortable median, Ben already turning his body toward him. Harry lingers still at Ben’s side for a moment, until Ben’s hand searches for his, gracing his wrist, up his arm, until he’s tugging him down. Harry leans into him, curving down to meet him. Tom doesn’t miss the quick kiss, or the extra one Ben adds to the space between Harry’s eyes, or the way Harry holds fast to the hand that holds his head still, thin fingers curling over his wrist.
He beckons Harry over. It’s only a moment before Harry makes his home on his side of the bed, lying down on his stomach. His sigh is profound and deep and warm as he pillows his head on his arms. Ben nestles himself close to Tom’s side, already pressing his face to his shoulder.
There’s a moment of silence, just a beat, where they lie still, in the dark, until Harry sighs.
"Can we switch—"
And the three shuffle until they settle on the new order—Harry sandwiched between Ben and Tom, lying, for now, flat on his back. Harry swipes the long, dark hair from his face, puffing a breath of air out as he goes. Tom turns toward him, squinting in the low light, eyesight blurred on the edges without his glasses. It softens every rough and sharp edge of the room around him, dampens any light, mutes any harsh sound. Harry sighs, something soft, but with a note that almost feels expectant, or fragile, or some hybrid of the two, as he folds his hands over his chest.
From over the gentle slope of his chest, Ben is pressing into his side, resting his cheek against the sharp high of Harry's shoulder, arm already curling, almost protective, over his sternum. Ben's hand smooths over his solar plexus, dragging a small line against the fabric of his shirt. He pulls it back after a second, shifting his body until he’s curled into the space around Harry’s left arm. Tom feels Harry shift, hears him mumble something to Ben, and Ben giggles.
Harry wriggles around, clearly moving onto his side, shifting closer to Tom as Ben sits up a fraction. Tom turns more to him, pressing his side a little further into the mattress, cheek to the cold side of what is normally Harry’s pillow. After a beat, Harry presses into his side, pressing his face to Tom’s collarbone.
He lies there for a moment, as if he’s unsure, as if he’s contemplating moving away entirely until the moment that Tom weaves his arm around him. With his arm under his neck, he cradles the back of Harry’s head, palm slotting around the base of his skull. Harry sinks into him, sighing out a tired, drawn out breath. Tom’s other arm comes to rest over Harry’s elbow, thumbing the small divot and the expanse of his bare arm.
It’s then that Harry draws himself impossibly close, and impossibly small, arms and legs tucking up, knocking into Tom’s knees and his hip. He fits himself neatly in the empty space between the mattress and Tom’s abdomen and chest, tightly bunched. There’s another sigh, smaller this time, shorter, quicker, even as Tom leans to press his face to Harry’s hair, fingers drawing a small, smooth line down his neck.
As he finally settles in Tom’s arms, Ben follows suit. He tugs the quilt over Harry as he wraps himself around him, arm curling over his ribcage and finding the side of Tom’s arm from where it rests over Harry. Tom watches him press his face to the curve of Harry’s shoulder blades, eyes falling shut in the low light. The quilt’s edge falls over Tom’s shoulder—he rearranges it to fit over them, and soon there is no space between anyone, no inch, no molecule.
Tom, quietly, softly, kisses the top of Harry’s head. Harry breathes into the side of Tom’s neck. He doesn’t say anything, but he smushes his face a little harder into Tom’s neck, as if trying to make himself smaller. Instead, the silence remains the silence of night, and Tom thinks up his soothing remarks and lets it be known in how he combs through Harry’s hair and traces out the highest notch of his spine. He lets it be known in the way Ben’s hand curls around his forearm, and how Harry remains cradled in their arms, warm, and safe, and protected. The room is quiet, aside from the crickets and the running water and the fish outside.
Downstairs, fireflies take their rest. And so does Tom.