“Two things can be true at once. You did what you felt you needed to do. And you betrayed Johan. That is for the two of you to figure out. I know these two things to be true, and I am not picking a side. Just don’t be so stubborn that you make it worseinstead of better. Johan is not like us, his heart is soft and his bruises last longer.”
Henrik kissed Elias lightly on the lips, but he couldn’t enjoy it. Henrik’s words had flayed him open, leaving him exposed and vulnerable in a way that left his brain screaming at him to run and hide, but he had nowhere to go. Nowhere to run to. Elias suddenly felt quite sick.
He wasn’t crying. Not really. Just a little sniffle.
Johan passed him the water skin, and Elias was grateful just to have something to do with his hands. He trembled as he lifted it to his lips, but they were kind enough not to acknowledge it.
Elias should have been glad that the two of them appeared to be putting a pin in the matter of his transgressions, but it just made his skin itch. He wanted to know what the consequences were. Need to know where he stood with them both, individually and together. The not knowing ate at him for most of the day.
Later that night, and despite a bone-deep exhaustion, Elias remained wide awake. Henrik slept in the middle, and Elias felt the gap of an ice-cold fjord between him and Johan.
This relationship the three of them were building was the most precious yet fragile thing that Elias had ever had, and he could feel it crumbling under his hands.
Fear clawed up through his stomach and had a vise grip around his throat at the thought of losing the only good thing he’d ever had. Elias’ heart pounded as he clambered over Henrik and climbed on top of Johan.
“Johan, are you awake?” he whispered.
“Hmm?”
Elias tugged the blanket down and tried to reach into Johan’s pyjama bottoms, but a large hand gripped his wrist and stopped him.
“What are you doing?” Johan rasped.
“Can I… use my mouth on you?” Elias knew he sounded desperate, but he felt desperate and this was the only way he knew how to get someone to be close to him, and wasn’t that bleak.
Johan shook his head, and Elias almost threw up before he tried to scramble away.
Johan didn’t let him. “Come here.”
Large arms tugged Elias down until his head was resting on a warm, wide chest. Johan wrapped Elias up tightly in his embrace and locked a leg around one of Elias’, keeping him firmly held flush against Johan’s body.
Elias cried. He cried because he was embarrassed, and he cried because this was what he’d wanted and yet he’d tried to use sex to get it. He cried because when he’d woken, he’d been so sure that he had no regrets about what he’d done, and now he was worried that he didn’t know anything for sure at all.
What if I can’t fix the mess I have made?
Twenty-One
Henrik
H
enrik wasn’t sure what it said about him that he took more discomfort from Elias and Johan being in conflict than when he himself was directly in conflict with Elias. Maybe it was because he and Elias were naturally more antagonistic to one another.
Johan wasn’t like them, and so seeing him hurt and betrayed was difficult to watch. Equally, Elias couldn’t snark his way through his own discomfort, and the way he begged with his eyes for Johan to forgive him every second of the day broke Henrik’s heart.
It had been a fortnight since Elias had woken up from his burn-out. Magic had slowly returned to him, and he was almost back to his full strength, which was a relief. Henrik couldn’t even imagine what it would have done to Elias if magic had left him for good.
Johan had had fewer words than usual and worked from sunup until sundown, building their new home. The elves had helped, too, of course, Henrik and Elias having designed most of it and Henrik adding magic where he could, but most ofthe physical labour had been down to Johan. He didn’t seem to mind, though. If anything, Henrik had the feeling that the process of making something and wearing himself out each day was helping Johan work through some things, so Henrik tried to leave him to it.
It was close to dark outside now, and they were sitting at a small table that he and Elias had built as they ate their dinner. Johan hadn’t said a word, and Henrik could see the silence eating Elias alive.
Henrik saw the moment that Elias couldn’t contain it anymore, and it started playing out almost in slow motion, Elias blurting the words out. “So, are just none of us going to have sex again because Johan is angry with me? The two of you don’t need to become monks on my account. I can always… read a book or something.”
Henrik’s mouth hung open while Johan choked on the dried meat he’d been chewing.
After a sip of water to clear his throat, Johan glared at Elias. “I… I will not have sex with you when I-I-I’m angry with you.”
“Then don’t. I’m not asking you to have sex with me, I’m saying that you two can!” Elias snapped.
