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Blake was shivery and quiet and breathing not quite evenly; he whimpered when Cam went to move. Cam mentally shook his head at himself, reinforced, “You’re all right, love, we’ve got you, you were so good, so very good,” and eased out of him, and went and got a cloth and water, for some clean-up. Ashley gathered Blake up and petted him, touched him, talked to him: anchors, grounding, more important than the words themselves.
Blake woke up enough to promise, “I’m all right,” and he seemed to be, at least on the way to it. He was over-sensitive and plainly exhausted, but his eyes were clear, serene, fulfilled. Cam told him, “You are, and we’re here, we love you, that was lovely, exactly what we needed, all of us; let me see, for a moment,” and checked him over.
He’d been a bit rough, earlier—not so much at the end, but he’d asked a lot of Blake’s brave and beautiful body. That hole was pink and used, but nothing worse, as far as he could tell; his hands, his fingers, had left a bruise or two. Those should fade, but he put salve on them anyway, cooling as herbs in snow.
He told Ash to keep petting Blake, and grabbed the dressing gown and ran downstairs; he came back with food, and now-cool tea, for recovery. He made sure Ash ate something as well, and himself, for that matter.
He looked at his lovers, the other pieces of his soul, here in the big bed with the palimpsest curtains. Sunlight, on an afternoon. Warmth. The contentment in his body, well satisfied, knowing he’d done that for them as well.
He steadied the teacup for Blake to take small sips. The steadying felt like a revelation. Not a big shouted-from-on-high type. No, an uncovering, a stripping-away, a showing. Himself, and what he wanted.
Because this, this, was what he wanted: himself with them, his Blake and his Ashley. Sharing a bed, yes; sharing more. Trust, right there for the giving, the having. All of them noticing, if one of them might not be well; each of them being honest about it, about want and safety and pleasure. The way they all had, from the start.
He thought of half-packed trunks, and a sketchbook, and a future. They’d given him that.
Because they did that, the three of them. Giving each other what they needed; leaning on each other, when necessary. No debts, no obligations: not what he’d wondered, in the carriage. No owing. Only choice, and the joy of it.
He and Ash had Blake cuddled up between them, amid the remaining pillows. A loop of golden cord decorated one bedpost. The heavy bed-hangings hung down. They were built for the cold, up here.
He still liked the color, the emerald hue. Perhaps they could pick out something similar, but lighter. For London.
Ashley reached over to touch his arm. “You’re being quiet.”
“I’m not, really,” Cam said, truthfully. His heart was beating fast. Picturing that future. “Just thinking.”
“You are so.” Blake yawned. “I’m awake. I can hear you fretting.”
“No, not so much.” He kissed the top of Blake’s head. “Only happy. How’re you? Both of you.”
“Sticky,” Ash said. “Also happy. Thinking about Shakespearean characters. Viola, you said, Blake. I’d meant to ask earlier. Unless you meant something else, but I did wonder. It’s a bit modern for me, and yes, classical arrogance, I know how that sounds.”
“Patience,” Cam said quietly, “and disguise, lad?” He’d wondered, too, the first time. The Earl of Thorns, and a character full of concealed longing. He hadn’t asked; not his business, then. After, once he’d known Blake even better, he’d thought he’d guessed correctly.
“Oh, both your faces.” Blake yawned again. “I feel like I did after a day navigating wild rapids in the Canadian mountains…no, in a good way. Wrung out. Triumphant. Also wet. And, yes, what you said, but also…it’s a happy ending, that one. She’s rewarded for it. It’s a comedy—I mean it ends well.”
“Romantic,” Ash said.
“Optimistic,” Cam said.
“Something like that. I just like happy endings. I like believing in them.” His smile was a story, a tale, a promise, shared between them. “And you’re mine. A happy ending.”
Ash made a pleased sound, and burrowed in closer, head on Blake’s shoulder. “Yes.”
“Both of you get some rest,” Cam said. “I’ll wake you in a minute. And…yes. But also…not endings. Beginnings, might be. New stories. Together.”
They both beamed at him for that. Blake said, “You should get some rest, as well; taking care of us, and everything.”
“I will. I’m here with you.” He would—he was also tired—but he waited until they’d both fallen asleep, in a satisfied heap of limbs and hair and love. He gazed at them, in the floating amber of the day.
His loves, yes. His new beginning. Losing nothing, giving up nothing; building, instead. The life he could have now, and it’d not be the same as his life before, no; it wouldn’t be that.
But it was a life he wanted, because he did, oh, he did.
Adventures, and novels, and poetry. And a great big bed.
He caught himself yawning, too, and tipped his head against Blake’s, and made sure his arm was thrown all the way over to find Ash’s hip. He told himself to wake in an hour or so; he held them, drowsing.
He woke with the sense that it’d been longer than he’d planned; the sun had nearly gone. Both sets of eyes, hazel and ink, were open and studying him. Ash’s hand was lying on Cam’s chest; Blake had made all the muscles small and tucked-in, a comfortable cuddle in the loop of Cam’s arm.
