WHAT: Like many, Dorian reunites with Orym, and explains his Thrall past and current(ish) marriage WHERE: The Outpost WHEN: After the arrival battle, 2033 WARNINGS: None, just sads STATUS: Complete
Fear was a baseline, a buzz in the back of his mind for longer than Dorian could remember. Sadness had followed, a deep unrelenting grief that never seemed easier to deal with, only that the weight of it was another constant. Wake up, pick up the grief, and continue about his day. FCG had often said that it would help to talk about it, and sometimes Dorian did, but did it help? Was he actually better? Did knowing Orym was out there, now his enemy, make the loss simpler? More palatable than those who people would never target back?
Dorian didn't know, but it scared him every day. Orym, with so many others, was against him. And there was no stopping the onslaught the Thralls brought with them. There was nothing defining or moments of lucidness that could give people moments of hesitation. It was kill or be killed, and Dorian feared every day that he might be the one who was cornered with his husband and forced to make the unthinkable decision.
But until then he could pretend that he was gone, permanently. Never coming back. A death of sorts in its own right. And for all that pretending, it should have been a welcome reprieve to know he was coming back. To see him again, clear headed and of sound mind. But the oceans between them—mentally, physically, emotionally—was wider than the continental gap they had in Exandria.
And now, their reunion fell awkwardly stunted. Dorian knew he looked different to Orym, visible scars littered his hands and arms, his facial features sharper from age and small rations. He felt like a shade of his former self, dark and melancholy, but Orym was staring at him like Dorian had still given him the world.
Dorian didn't know if he could bear it. How was he going to live with this for the next 10 days? What had gone through his mind when they were sorting our sleeping arrangements in the already cramped Outpost and Dorian volunteered himself? He knew he had been in shock, not fully processing what he was agreeing to. Not fully understanding that Orym was coming back.
The tension of the day and the close calls from the arriving battle seemed to fade into the background of his mind. And all Dorian could manage to say was, "Your bed is there."
Their bed. It had been their bed for so long, then it was just Dorian's—empty and alone—and now it was plainly made for Orym. Just Orym.
After following Dorian inside, Orym looked around the room in curiosity, then at the bed in question. He could just feel the nervous energy rolling off of him and just knew that Dorian had to sense it, too--unless that had changed. Had that changed? Had they been separated so long for this Dorian that their connection had been severed? Or was he just not the right version of himself?
Orym swallowed hard, trying not to fall down that particular spiral. There was too much going on to lose himself to such thinking.
His goodbyes with Dorian and the rest of the Hells that morning had quickly turned into fighting for his life on arrival to the future. In all honesty, Orym had barely had time to appreciate the fact that such magic was possible and that he actually was in the future, as the events had just moved so quickly. This moment, where he was alone with this Dorian of the future, was the first one that he'd had a chance to actually take a breath--and even then, that was easier said than done.
Satisfied for now with his sweep of the room, Orym looked over at Dorian. Fingers seemed to squeeze around his heart as he noticed the difference between this man and the one he had shared a long, fierce kiss with before leaving only hours before. He had been through so much, both physically and mentally, and it hurt to know that he not only didn't know what those things were, but he undoubtedly couldn't fix them.
Letting out a soft breath, Orym moved to unstrap his shield and sword. "I don't want to take your bed, Dorian," he murmured, assuming that it was the only one given the state of the rest of the Outpost. "I'm little, so... the floor is fine."
It was absolutely not what Orym wanted to say, but he was unsure of his footing.
"The floor is hard packed earth from the interior of a cave system," Dorian said, as if somehow that would be worse for Orym to sleep on and not Dorian. He had often pushed aside his own comfort for the comfort of others; that seemed to be the only thing that didn't change for him in these ten years since. But knowing Orym would balk at the suggestion again—right? Dorian could still make those assumptions even after being four years apart?—Dorian added, "I've slept on worse, and it's only for a little while."
He gestured again at the bed for Orym to sit or lay down—Dorian's space was his space, always—as he turned to disarm himself. Sword and sheath were carefully placed next to the shield-double that Orym had brought with him. Of course, he did.
The one Dorian now was in possession of had been an in-the-moment battle decision to take. He remembered his hand curling around the interior band, lifting it up where it had slipped out of Orym's hand in that agonizing stretch of time with Interitus took his mind and Dorian hadn't known, couldn't pick up on the shifting of the tides fast enough. He remembered holding it up against the barrage of attacks from Orym. Dorian had already been bleeding, the wound in his arm deep and painful, and losing feeling quickly. The shield that had protected Orym was now protecting Dorian from Orym, as he had looked up into the dark terrifying eyes of his husband and—
Dorian took in a small sharp gasp, too easily lost in the horrifying memories. His attention glanced off Orym quickly to see if he noticed—of course he noticed, he always noticed—and Dorian turned away, to finish removing his tattered cloak and hanging it on a rudimentary hook. Orym had, before everything, jammed into the wall because he hadn't wanted Dorian to leave his cloak folded up on the ground, in some semblance of preserving normalcy. This place had been the best stand-in for a home, once.
Tossing his messy braid over his shoulder and out of the way, he turned to look at Orym again. "Are you hungry? Thirsty? I can show you the quickest way to get water. And if you need to clean up, there's a basin—" He pointed with his left hand to a crate behind Orym, where he stored his things. "You can bring it with you to fill up and bring back in here."
"I'm all right for now, I think." Which wasn't necessarily true; was anything all right about this situation? Orym saw that reaction from Dorian, the gasp that had done nothing but twist the already squeezing hands around his heart, but had no idea where it was stemming from.
No, that wasn't entirely true, either. Orym had a few ideas as to where it might have come from, especially when his eyes lingered on the very same shield that he was holding. There were a few unfamiliar scuff marks thanks to added years of use that Orym hadn't yet--and hopefully never would, if this wild plan worked--lived, but it felt surreal to see the shield that Derrig had given him here, under Dorian's care, because he wasn't there to use it himself.
Orym's gaze dropped, avoiding the shield and Dorian himself for the moment. He could only imagine what this felt like for Dorian, to have him suddenly reappear in his life. The only comparison he had was to think of how he might feel or react if Will walked back into his life, but it was hardly the same, either.
Hesitating, Orym looked back in Dorian's direction, opened his mouth once, twice, and then finally asked, "Are you sure you're okay with me being here with you? I don't want to, um--I'm sure this is a lot and I just don't want you to be... uncomfortable."
"Where else would you go?" Dorian asked, maybe too quickly. There were plenty of Outlanders that would have bunked with Orym, but the thought seemed unbearable and selfish. The situation would not have been made any better by Dorian being alone, knowing a younger version of his husband was within the Outpost, worried and scared. He couldn't turn him away. It would be unfair for Orym to suffer the consequences of the actions his other self made. And those actions weren't even his fault. If anyone was suffering in all of this, it was the version of Orym standing right there.
Dorian shuffled a few feet closer to Orym, next to the bed that was a makeshift collection of crates and a threadbare mattress. His hand brushed against the quilt that had been folded at the end in Dorian's own effort to clean up. He seemed to find the stitching more interesting because looking at Orym, despite what Dorian tried to convince himself of, was difficult.
"It is just a lot all at once," Dorian said softly, trying to explain. "But I would feel more uncomfortable if you weren't here, if that makes sense. I don't know. I feel like I don't make a lot of sense these days, I never know what I want or what would be better." There was guilt behind his solemn expression. There were too many days where Dorian blamed Orym's Thralling on himself; he was meant to be a twisted version of Interitus's army, not Orym. Not the person who had been actually helpful to the resistance up until that point.
"But the thought of you being somewhere else instead of here, would feel like I'm wasting an opportunity to be with you. Because you're—" Dorian frowned, and now he looked visibly distressed. "Did they tell you why? Why it had to be you and the others?"
Orym finally looked back at Dorian as he spoke, his gaze lingering as though trying to see any cracks in the words. It wasn't malicious, at least he wasn't meaning to be; he just knew Dorian. Even now, with this older and more world-weary Dorian that he did feel some degree of uncertainty with, Orym thought that their connection had to be strong enough to cut through to the core of the other.
In the end, he nodded and finished the movement of releasing his shield and placing it and his sword on an empty bit of floor. He swung his pack off of his shoulder next, setting it next to the other items. There would likely be a lingering tension the entire time that Orym was here in this Dorian's present, but that didn't change much. Orym was here to keep his peaceful hope of a future secure in 2023, but also make a better one for the versions of his friends that were living the opposite of his hopes in 2033. He could push through some awkward feelings if it meant being there for the man that he loved--because this was the man that he loved, regardless of gaps in time.
"Sort of," Orym said, looking back to Dorian after feeling satisfied that his things were in an okay, out-of-the-way place. "They said that we were able to come because we weren't here, in some way." At that, his gaze lingered beyond Dorian to where the twin of his own shield sat. "I just assumed the worst."
Dorian followed Orym's line of sight, sighed a little sadly, and then back to him. He should have hidden the shield, stashed it under the bed where he often thought about shoving the rest of Orym's things so that Dorian didn't have to see them. But that thought felt cruel and painful, to tuck his husband away because he wasn't here. Keeping them out meant he had hoped that one day Orym would come back and still need them. He just hadn't expected it to be in this way.
"I'm not sure you could," Dorian said, smiling in a bitter way. "That's not—not that you couldn't. I'm sure you could have eventually, just when it happened no one thought, we didn't—" Dorian felt like he had forgotten how to speak. The sorrow of losing Orym to Interitus's magic was a constant open wound for four years. There was always the chance too that Orym, as a Thrall, would put himself into the front line of battle, and Dorian didn't know if he was strong enough to fight him or if that anyone could differentiate between friend or foe. Dorian could lose him all over again.
He twisted his hands together, clutching at the ring there, and hiding it in his other palm. There was so much to say, and Dorian regretted being the person to explain it. So he took a deep breath and started moving around the room, organizing the meager objects that he had held on to, before going to his barely filled bowl to eventually wash up.
Busy, just be busy, while so close to Orym. "We were trying to take the Quarry, we thought if we had the space we could set up another Outpost and be—nevermind, it doesn't matter. It didn't happen."
Pushing up his sleeves, he continued to scrub up his arms. He wasn't dirty, but there was a grime that just never seemed to come off. "Interitus claimed the minds of so many Outlanders that day, and continues to do so. You—" He dropped the sliver of soap, his weakened grip failing him for the first time in days. "You were one of them. You're one of his now."
When the soap slipped from Dorian's grasp, Orym was there with his quick reflexes to snatch it from the air before it fell. Though his intention had been to give Dorian his space, Orym had nevertheless been unconsciously drawn toward him, meandering through the small space as he listened to the story and drew conclusions on his own as to the implications of what had happened.
Orym knew battles and he knew the loss that could come from them, but what Dorian described was altogether different. He wasn't dead, as he had assumed. That would have been easier, in a terrible sort of way. Death was final, something he was intimately familiar with after years apart from his late husband. Dorian hadn't been given such finality; Orym was still out there somewhere, mind addled and loyalties changed due to it.
It made a lot of things make a bit more sense, chiefly Dorian's reaction to Orym's presence there--and, now that he thought about it, the spectre of someone who had looked an awful lot like Laudna in her tree-like form at the battle upon their arrival. A mix of emotions built up with Orym at the thought of what the last several years must have been like for the other man, particularly an anger that he wasn't used to feeling--not at Dorian, but at the malevelant asshole that had put him through such a thing. After all they had been through together, did they not deserve a happy ending?
"I see," Orym said, holding out the soap to Dorian. His eyes caught on the scars on Dorian's hands, not for the first time; his perception and keen eye when it came to all things Dorian Storm had noticed his hands immediately, but only now had the chance to see them close up. That kicked a whole new slew of feelings up within his chest. "I had figured I was dead, but that's--well. It's fucked up. I'm sorry, Dorian."
"It is fucked up," Dorian agreed, but then shook his head. "But don't apologize. You did it saving me, and while I have my own, well, feelings to deal with about it, you shouldn't. Not while you're here." There was a plea trapped in his voice; he hadn't said it in order for Orym to take on the guilt. "Even if I wanted it to be me, even if it should have been me, you—I should have known you would have done whatever you could to protect me, and if you apologize for it I'm not sure if I could handle it."
He reached for the soap, grateful for the small help that he had missed since Orym had been gone. For a brutal moment, he lingered there, his left hand—still ringed with a tiny flowered ring—holding steady, before taking it back. His attention focused on washing up, scrubbing at his hands as if he could make the old injuries disappear. Orym might have been more observant than the two of them, but Dorian had grown into his perception and didn't miss the way Orym's expression changed at seeing his hands..
"They're not so bad," Dorian said. And maybe he was downplaying his scars in the face of this Orym, but Dorian had lived with them so long now that he was past trying to navigate his everyday life with them. They were, in theory and honestly, not so bad anymore.
"These are, maybe five, almost six years old. Right in the beginning, as things started to get worse. And this one—" Dorian pulled at the collar of his shirt exposing a clean scar that ran along his clavicle. "There was an incident at the Cloud Recesses, the wraiths are more tangible than they seem." Dorian seemed lost in the easy, superficial conversation of discussing his injuries. It was something that could be factual, not require emotions.
But as he went to point at the other larger, jagged scar along his forearm, he hesitated. "There is nothing you can do about these things now, okay? It's not why they brought you."
There was a helplessness that Orym hadn't expected to feel that he very much did as he listened to Dorian and watched as he revealed the different injuries that he had sustained during this darker timeline. To say that Orym was protective of his loved ones was an understatement, especially when that loved one in question was Dorian. His self awareness of just how deep that protectiveness ran meant that he wasn't all too surprised to hear that he had been taken to become a shade of himself, all because he had tried to save Dorian from the same fate.
Other observations, though, did surprise him. The ring of flowers on Dorian's left hand, sitting on a familiar finger, for one. The scar on Dorian's forearm that he didn't explain, for another.
An injury from a blade tended to look the same, at least to an untrained eye. But Orym knew his own style of swordplay. He knew from battles both in Exandria and Vallo alike what it looked like when he struck a target, when the curve of his blade acted as an extension to his arm. Dread filled Orym as he did the math, his breath coming just a bit quicker as the realization set in.
"I hurt you, didn't I?" There wasn't anything that Orym could do now about what had happened to Dorian, that much was true. This, however, was something that he had to know, his voice quiet as he struggled to not reach out and touch Dorian's forearm.
Dorian knew the moment Orym understood. He fucked up, he fucked up so bad. And some small voice inside of Dorian's mind told him that it was only a matter of time—hiding it from Orym would have been worse, right? He was peeling back and uncovering every horror from the past ten years for this Orym, and he wilted immediately that he might make things worse.
"It wasn't you, it wasn't you," Dorian said quickly. Because even if the blade had been Orym's, and wielded by Orym, the shadow of a person taking hold of Orym's mind wasn't him, and that was all that mattered. He would have never turned his blade on him, this Dorian was irrevocably certain. But was that distinction enough to Orym, who was being told this horrifying information in rapid succession?
Panic seized Dorian, faster than he was used to, and he was at his knees in front of Orym, taking his face in his hands. He had been so careful not to touch Orym in a way that might usher discomfort or confusion to the already hectic commotion time-traveling brought, but sometimes words weren't enough. Sometimes it was the simple act of touch and contact that could express what his words couldn't.
"I have never, never blamed you for it," Dorian said, his voice harsh, but fiercely determined. Light, which had often been a dull glow behind Dorian's eyes, burned with the veracity he was trying to convey. "I didn't want to tell you because I didn't want you to blame yourself for something that was out of your control. Please, Orym, things are complicated and they hurt and they don't make sense most of the time, but this is not one of those things."
It had been some time since Orym had felt that pull toward the private bouts of panic that he had grown used to hiding, largely through compartmentalizing his emotions until he was alone. He had felt himself hurtling toward that precipice, right up until Dorian was there, kneeling in front of him and holding his face in those hands he knew so well. Different hands, with scars and new calluses that spoke more of, he suspected, handling a sword than a lute, but still the hands of the person who knew him best.
Orym felt himself calm as he nodded along to Dorian's words, understanding and acceptance doing its best to push the horror of what this enthralled version of himself had done--what he might have done, had Dorian not gotten away. He closed his eyes, drawing in a deep breath as he lifted his hands and let them rest gently on Dorian's. His right thumb made a small, comforting sweep over that flower ring on Dorian's left hand and he released the breath all at once.
"Okay," Orym said, voice barely over a whisper. His eyes fluttered open and he looked up to Dorian, not bothering to try to hide the conflicting emotions on his face. Why would he? Dorian would see through them, after all, and anything else would feel like a lie. Orym didn't like this situation, he didn't like knowing what his future self had done and could still do, but there was nothing to be done for it in this moment but cling to the hope that his being here now could fix this.
"I'm sorry for pushing," Orym continued, even though he knew that it probably wasn't something he necessarily had to apologize for. He still wanted to say it. "But thank you for telling me. I know I can't fix anything that happened, but I'm here to do what I can to maybe make things better for you going forward."
However strong the urge that came over him, Dorian couldn't kiss him. It had been years and Orym had been gone for so long, but the need had overcome him as swiftly as it had when his Orym was around. But this was his Orym too, wasn't it? Another version, a past duplicate of the man he still endlessly loved. Dorian hated how much the lines between them became so convoluted. He knew having these past forms of their people wouldn't be easy, but this was not something anyone could have predicted or planned for. Dorian was out of his element.
Even in this dim light, Dorian searched Orym's face, to make sure it really was okay. Lying was impossible with this thin distance between them, but protecting Dorian—physically and emotionally—was something Orym always did, Dorian knew. Even now he suspected that Orym's worry was not gone, and it was pushed to the side because what he was here for was far more important.
Of course it was, their future and every future, was dependent on the next few days. There was a duty to attend to, a goal to be had. And they could focus on that.
Dorian's brows furrowed together, sympathetic and apologetic in return, before his hands slipped away from Orym's face. He had crossed a line, he was sure of it, but it didn't make touching his husband anymore of an inherent need. Dorian would have to be more careful about his affectionate habits that seemed to return with unrelenting force just being in Orym's orbit.
"I know you are, and I know you will," Dorian said, bowing his head grimly, before continuing. "And if everything doesn't go as planned, if it really does become the worst case scenario, I'm glad I will get to spend it with you."
Where before each word from Dorian made it feel as though his heart was squeezing in his chest, that admission left Orym feeling as though a crack went straight through it, instead. There were layers to the sensation. The simple reminder that he was not the Orym that should be here comforting Dorian. The knowledge that if this did go south, it meant that he would be in 2033, rather than with his Dorian in 2023, the one that he had to assume was pacing the house and wearing grooves into the floors in worry. The lack of Dorian's unique brand of awkward optimism that Orym had come to appreciate so thoroughly.
Even the way Dorian had backed away from him, even though Orym logically knew it was a smart boundary to set for the both of them, only helped that sinking feeling.
"I'll be here with you, if it comes to it." Maybe it wasn't a fair promise to make, especially given what they had both now been through, the situations different but oh so painfully similar. One couldn't just promise to be there, when there was no guarantee that it would happen. Still, Orym would fight tooth and nail to make sure he kept this particular promise. He owed it to Dorian, even if he knew that Dorian would never agree with him on that.
"I'm going to remain cautiously hopeful, though. I'd rather you get to spend happier times with your husband, instead." At that, he looked meaningfully down at Dorian's hand, then back to his face with a small, sad smile.
"We didn't have to be married for me to have happier times with him," Dorian said. He hadn't stood up yet, still kneeling at Orym's eye level. But he looked down at his ring too, the only saving grace that Dorian had when it came to knowing. Knowing if Orym was still alive after years, knowing that there was still a chance that they could be together, knowing that he didn't have to mourn a second loss of him yet. Dorian feared the day the small druidcraft band withered on his finger. And so some days, he tried not to look at it at all.
But now it was impossible not to, when that was the biggest elephant in the cramped room. Dorian bit his lip, considering his next words. It was an old anxious habit when it came to making a decision, and instead of immediately trying to hide his ring behind his hand like he had so poorly done earlier, he stretched out his hand, and more or less showed it off.
"It was a small ceremony. FCG did it, right outside the Outpost," Dorian said, pointing with his other hand in a seemingly random direction behind him. "Our friends were there, the ones that still could be. Not so much anymore." He almost let himself be lost in the dark thought, but he pushed past it. He was telling Orym something happy, something beautiful, something he looked forward to again when all of this was over, whatever that ending might be.
"About four years ago, now. It was simple, elegant. You looked—you looked lovely." Dorian smiled, tight lipped, as though he was on the verge of crying. Emotions were difficult and overwhelming. "I want you to experience this, not just hear it from me. I promise to get you home to him." There was no guarantee in his promise either, but much like Orym, Dorian would do everything he could to keep it.
Though he may not have been there, Orym felt as though he could imagine it clearly, his mind filling in the details between Dorian's retelling. There would have been flowers, he imagined, both those scavenged from the places between rocks that allowed hardy foliage to sprout in the mountain area of the Outpost and those that he would have carefully created with Druidcraft, calculating the risk and not pushing the meager bit of magic Orym had. They and their friends would have dressed as finely as they could manage, given the situation and resources--and though he didn't know the timing, it wasn't hard to imagine all of their friends there, before things went to even more shit. FCG would have made a few jokes, used some incorrect turns of phrase. Vows would have been exchanged, as would rings made of Orym's magic and then--
It was something that Orym knew he would someday like to have with Dorian. Their relationship was still very young in the grand scheme of time, just shy of six months together on top of the added year or so of friendship, but he knew his heart and he trusted Dorian with it enough to believe in their longevity. He had been married before and had thought Will had been his one shot at that sort of happiness, but that had been before Dorian. Will had been a very good, very happy series of chapters in the early part of Orym's life, but he had to hope that Dorian would fill out many, many more in the time to come.
So, no. This wedding that Dorian described wasn't hard to imagine. Orym had to agree with him, though: he would happily hear about it, but he really wanted to experience it someday, too.
After a few quiet moments passed as Orym's mind took everything in, he finally murmured, "I know." There may not have been any more guarantee to this promise than Orym's own moments before, but there was no one that he trusted more than Dorian. They would both fight tooth and nail to see this through and make things right, not only for one another but for their counterparts, too. As much as it hurt Orym to know how much this Dorian had lost and the pain that he had to manage, physically and emotionally every day, he would use it to fix this.
Gaze still on Dorian, Orym seemed to wrestle with a few thoughts before making a final decision. The process played out plainly on his face before Orym took a half step forward, closing a bit of the distance between them. "I don't want to make you uncomfortable," he started, hesitant, "but can I--is it all right if I hug you?"
Dorian was not a mind reader, but he could see what Orym was piecing together in his head. Dorian attempted another smile, encouraging the thought of their marriage. Their wedding, as modest and half-formed in this post apocalypse world as it was, was still good. When Dorian was feeling not so self-defeatist and miserable at night, he would allow himself to remember the day to give himself a much needed boost of happiness he craved.
But then Orym was stepping forward, closing an incremental space, and Dorian immediately floundered. Alarm, confusion, worry, and need, unabashed need, tangled for control. He had already touched Orym's face—a moment of weakness, and inability to contain himself—but the offer of a hug seemed too good, too much. The fact that Orym had to ask at all only dug the trench between them deeper, and after everything? Dorian didn't think it was worth it to keep digging.
They had either ten days before the end of the world or ten days before the start of a new one.
He nodded, and then didn't wait. He gathered Orym up in his arms. It was not just a hug. This was Dorian's emotions, his whole heart, laid bare after holding onto four years worth of affection to share with the man he loved. Embracing him was like homecoming, and Dorian's hands pressed roughly and eagerly into Orym's back. His face buried into Orym's neck. And his breath shuddered once, broken and rough, with the oncoming of tears he hadn't wanted to shed; they were inevitable.
He inhaled against Orym again and was flooded with the lovely, wonderful warmth he had missed. It had been too long. "It's good to hold you again, even for a little bit."
Orym didn't hesitate in returning the embrace, moving easily into Dorian's space as he was pulled into it. His own arms wrapped tightly around Dorian, fingers curling into the messy braid of his hair while the other made slow circles against his back in some attempt at comfort as he first sensed, then felt Dorian's mask crack.
This, Orym thought, was what he should have done the moment that they had stepped into this room and had been afforded some privacy. The questions were important, the context had been necessary, but he had known from the first moment his eyes fell on this Dorian, the one who had lived ten more years than him and through harrowing times, was hurting. He was surviving, yes, and he was undoubtedly alive, strung along by whatever hope he and the others could muster, but he wasn't okay. And maybe a hug wouldn't fix anything or erase the years of mourning he'd been going through, but it could help--and all Orym ever wanted to do, especially with Dorian, was help.
Maybe it should have been the first step, but they had reached the moment regardless and that's all that mattered, really.
"I get it. Halflings give the best hugs. It's what we're known for." It was a terrible joke and Orym knew it, but this was all very fraught and heavy for obvious and very understandable reasons. A little levity, he hoped, might be welcome to cut through the tension, even as he vowed internally to hold Dorian for as long as he wanted and needed him to.
Dorian laughed, once, short lived but there none the less. He missed these jokes, this easy conversation. Even if this was Orym from the past, it was still his Orym, the one he would grow if into given the right circumstances and time. It felt like holding onto a dream, preserving the person who might one day be touched by the darkness of their future and Dorian couldn't stand the thought. He squeezed Orym harder, almost painfully so, before slowly releasing and pulling back so he could see his face.
His hands remained at his back, keeping him close. Now that he had him, giving Orym space seemed an insurmountable thought to Dorian. "There are not that many halflings around here that I could compare it to, but I trust your judgment," Dorian said, his own gentle tease back. And he didn't say anything else, not at first. He simply took a few deep breaths, and searched Orym's face like he was committing it to memory. He wanted to remember this version of him too.
"Are you sure you're not hungry?" Dorian asked again, because fussing over Orym seemed uncomplicated in the face of the tangled emotions that still were crawling through him. "I could at least show you around, give you a better lay of the structure, so that you feel more grounded? I don't know. You may have already figured it out on the way over here."
As someone whose primary motivator in life was taking care of others, Orym could recognize when someone else had that same need--and who was he to deny Dorian of anything, ever? He still needed to do an official check in with his friends back in 2023, but he had a feeling they might understand his priorities, given the very unique situation he was in.
Giving Dorian a small smile, he admitted, "I was sort of mapping it out a bit in my head, but I'd like it if you wouldn't mind showing me around. It would be nice to see it through your eyes. And maybe after, we'll have worked up an appetite."
They had ten more days together, one way or another. He didn't know what that would bring, but this, Orym thought, was a good first step.