#anyway i present. my brainrot since Dec.

[witchfall]

warm bright eyes [e]

[Jullus pyr Norbanus/Warrior of Light/Alphinaud Leveilleur] [~3200 words] [explicit - MMF threesome]

Tension pools in Izzie's body, right alongside confusion. Somehow, despite all her years on the road, she'd never run into this question before, of…a tent’s suitability for…things. [read it here or on ao3]

---

The setting sun glitters yellow-gold over the salt flats of the Lochs.

What had turned into a visit over Starlight became a whirlwind of activity requiring Jullus to stay longer than he expected. After some issue involving the actual fucking Twelve — one of them had nearly stolen Alphinaud from them all — Jullus received command from his superiors (such as they are) to remain until the threat was resolved. And to keep their favorite twins safe, besides.

Jullus watches Izzie tease Alphinaud about setting up the tent — the Elezen’s too-long arms flying into the air in frustration over it — and a smile alights across Jullus’s face.

While the time away from home pings him with guilt, he cannot say it upsets him overmuch. All the more time to imbue memories upon his heart of the two people who cleave him to the very earth.

---

Luckily, for now, they have a moment of quiet. The (former) Scions’ camaraderie zips about the campfire with ease, dipping into shocks of teasing as Izzie finds herself comfortably ensconced between her chosen two. Her legs stretch into Alphinaud’s lap while her body curves into Jullus’s side, ears lowering over his shoulder like little dust mops.

“The marshmallows aren’t as good without the chocolate. Don’t waste them by throwing them,” Noel demands of Izzie, blue eyes winking with joy in the firelight. “Throw something comparatively useless. Like Jullus’s shirt.”

But that particular brand of teasing is…still new. Even Izzie tenses like a burr to it, snapping with easily triggered embarrassment in response, regardless of the fact Noel teases her like that constantly.

Jullus says nothing. Izzie catches the offered bag of decadent chocolate, pouting. "Stop flirting with him for me," she says, popping a chocolate in her mouth. "It’s too cold for that."

“Yes, do remember that our tents are not soundproof,” Thancred mutters.

“Shut your damn mouth,” Izzie hisses.

The conversation moves on, spiraling outward and inward like one of those loop-de-loop kites Jullus saw in a shop once upon a time during the warm season.

His arm tightens around Izzie’s waist as he slips into thinking. He watches Alphinaud’s fingers draw patterns into her bare thighs.

Tonight, they will get to hold her close under the stars. Not much privacy to be found here, true, as Thancred had made quite clear, but wouldn't they need to figure out how to be quiet in the first place? When they come to visit him in Garlemald, there’s a low chance he will be able to keep either of them in any kind of fine house.

He ignores the shame of that in favor of…the wondering. He thinks of her in his small office-slash-bedroom made out of an old train operator office, sprawled in comfort upon the actual mattress he’d obtained recently, her naked body buried beneath piles of woolen blankets.

He can’t pretend. At least with Alphinaud, their connection is the type that makes him feel safe and curious and cherished; they are of one mind split in half, able to while away the hours talking about any number of things. They’ve kissed no few times. They enjoy the ways their bodies slip together, like touching cool water and emerging clean.

And they are united in how Izzie drives them both to utter distraction.

Jullus is deeply aware that Izzie and Alphinaud are connected by the very soul in a way unique to the Viera. Their hearts, their very past lives yearned to join together, or so the stories have said.

But Noel has commented that some strange connection exists between himself and Izzie, too, formed by Izzie’s sheer force of will that he survive. He can feel no such thing. He hasn’t a lick of context for what any of that could possibly mean for someone aetherblind as he.

He does know, however, that touching Izzie is like fire to ceruleum.

The moment she comes to visit him, he won’t be able to think about anything else. There will be no considerations of decency outside of the bare minimum, which is that they are out of sight and as much out of earshot as they can manage.

Much like tonight. If she is willing.

At some point, the teasing starts back up again. He misses the catalyst for it, but he senses Izzie’s hackles rise like static building under his arm.

"Oh my gods!" Izzie hisses, throwing a chocolate right for Noel's head. "Stop it! Come on! And you," Izzie says, turning pointedly to Thancred, "are one to fucking talk! You and Urianger have been doing it under our noses for years at this point. Lay off!"

Alphinaud looks down at her with a knowing smile, his dark eyes shining like ghosts in the firelight. Jullus is caught by the expression; how the man’s face so easily takes on the qualities of the paintings he so loves.

Izzie frowns. "What?"

"Nothing, beloved," Alphinaud says — and he means it. His palm smooths out some of the knots in her leg. "They are just teasing you."

"I know that," she mutters, petulant.

So Jullus takes his opportunity.

His arm tightens around her waist and his mouth comes close to her ear so no one else will hear. This close, even for a half second, the heat of her skin curls toward him; her lemony scent sends his mouth watering. His body’s reaction to her is primal. He wonders if that will ever ease. He doubts it fully. He hopes not. "Don't worry about it, mea vita. It won’t matter."

He’s so deeply predisposed to the sense of her movements, like his body has accepted her as an extension he must watch, that he nearly sighs aloud to feel her coil just slightly in response.

He will take her problems and snap them in half over his knee. If she wants him — wants them both — tonight, it will be done, regardless of teasing.

And he knows her well enough to know…to hope…that when given the opportunity, she will jump rather than think too hard about it.

---

Izzie, Alphinaud and Jullus retire with casual ease to their tent once the campfire is down to red-gold embers — even if one look inside them would reveal the simmering beneath their skin. They won't be able to resist close quarters for long.

Not when every moment together is preciously hoarded like gold.

Jullus zips the tent closed. Within, their three bedrolls are pushed together, making one large mat with various warm quilts. A heater whirs pleasantly in the corner (all of the tents are provided with one) — creating a nice blanket of sound both within and...hopefully...without...

Tension pools in Izzie's body, right alongside confusion. Somehow, despite all her years on the road, she'd never run into this question before, of...a tent’s suitability for…things. She peels off her coat and her outer layers with rote speed, her back to the boys as if to get it over with so no one would have to be concerned about her wanting or her worries.

She's down to her smalls — for that split second of a moment! — when Alphinaud whispers: "Izzie, come here."

She freezes at the tone in his voice, her long-sleeved sleep clothes in her hands. His soul hooks into hers, pulling. "Um," she whispers, utterly at a loss. "Do you...shouldn't I...are you sure this is a good idea..."

"Hush. Come here."

Well, her willpower was already weak. She has secretly always liked it when he was commandeering, especially now that she knows it is all for her sake.

She turns on her bare heel to see Alphinaud lying upon the bedroll, down to his last layers of his Sage gear — that forever weirdly tempting set of white tunic and loose pants — with his hair down and arms outstretched toward her. Jullus kneels beside him like a knight in waiting, face unreadable.

Unreadable by choice, because if she interprets it, she will combust in a loud explosion of wanting and Thancred will be very mad.

So Izzie burrows into Alphinaud's arms, finding immediate comfort in the scent of him, the feel of his body around hers. She leans her ear into the sound of his heartbeat, of his quiet sigh of relief. There is no need to doubt. There is never need to doubt when he is around her like this...she could do anything he asks of her...

Jullus's careful, callused hands turn her slightly. He kneels down between her legs, his body hovering over hers, gaze the intense sort of blue upon her. "We have to practice, don't we?" he whispers, so quiet, so fucking incendiary. One of his hands smooths her hair out of her face. His thumb lingers on her lips "There's not much privacy back in Garlemald just yet..."

Izzie swallows, dry. Alphinaud hums gently in her ear.

"And I will not be able to keep my hands off you when you visit the first time," Jullus says, leaning just over her mouth. "There's a chance I might just abscond with you to the nearest alcove."

"You wouldn't," Izzie says, half-teasing, almost scared. He's far too serious for such shenanigans. And she wouldn't ruin his reputation like that.

"You don't know what I would do for the chance to hold you, my life."

He pauses for a single moment more over her lips. As if to give her a chance to say no, to say she's truly uncomfortable with this, to say she doesn't want to risk it. She could not say that and be truthful. She already feels herself sinking into that beautiful pastel where she doesn't have to think anymore.

Suddenly, Alphinaud's hand goes to her forehead and pulls her face back, exposing her neck. "We will keep you quiet, my love," he whispers.

Her eyes flutter shut. Jullus's lips descend to her neck just as Alphinaud kisses her half-open mouth. Levin skates down her spine. A sharp breath comes in through her nose as their hands slide through her hair, over her breasts, down the divots of her ribs, her waist, her hips. She vaguely recognizes Jullus scooting down her body, lips leaving a trail of wanting, tongue slipping over the curves of her bones, across her scars.

Then he yanks aside her smalls and presses his mouth to her cunt.

Her reaction is immediate. Her hips jerk into his mouth and he half-growls with delirious need, hands slipping under her thighs to lift her toward him. He throws her legs over his shoulders, pressing himself closer. Izzie forgets, sometimes, how strong he is.

She finds herself unable to cry out, instead moaning into Alphinaud's mouth as he holds her tightly to him, arm about her neck. She is truly trapped, barely able to writhe against them.

And then Alphinaud replaces his mouth with his fingers. Those long delicate things, tasting still of dusted cinnamon somehow against her tongue — right as Jullus presses his own fingers into her, tongue still against her apex.

Izzie's whole body spasms, eyes squeezed shut so tightly against the instinct to call out their names. "Shh, shh, you're doing so well," Alphinaud whispers into her ear, breathless. "Gods, to see you like this..."

She nearly bites his fingers but she does not — instead swirling her tongue about them in a way that makes him tense hard behind her.

She is not entirely helpless in this game.

She comes apart not much longer after that. Jullus moans into her as her body flutters around his tongue, desperate for the very essence of her. But she, too, can scheme on the fly...and the moment he finally releases his bruising hold on her hips, the moment she can move her body of her own accord, she sits up to seize Jullus about the jaw.

She tastes herself on him first, claiming him in a kiss so total that his body nearly collapses into her dominion. She is half in his lap, kissing him until they can’t breathe, her fingers nearly pulling on his hair. She is intent upon devouring him right there. He would let her, she knows. He would let her bury him within her very being, kept all to herself forever.

It’s only fair, isn’t it? If Alphinaud is in her soul…then someone else must infuse her body.

She whispers, so quietly against his mouth: "Do you think you could be quiet while coming inside me?"

Jullus takes in a breath through his teeth; his whole body jolts to painful attention. But he has no time to say anything before she's spinning herself about until her tail is wiggling at him and her nose is at Alphinaud's stomach, pushing aside the fabric there.

Jullus sees where this is going, and a cuss falls out of him. "Fuck."

"Are—are you sure, beloved?" Alphinaud whispers, his face so dark a pink to be a dangerous red now.

"Oh, very," Izzie whispers back — before pulling down his waistband and taking him in full with her mouth.

The sight is so agonizingly perfect — her hair spilling in red sheets across her strong, freckled back onto Alphinaud’s snowy skin, her spine curved just so — that Jullus can do little but follow his instinct in this regard. He leans over her back, lips to the nape of her neck, one palm to the valley of her spine, and he presses himself inside of her.

He silences himself by fastening his mouth over her skin. Every single neuron in his body lights up with pleasure and wanting, hearing her squeak around Alphinaud's cock when he takes her, the full softness of her surrounding him so completely.

Alphinaud throws his head back. One of his hands goes to his mouth, squeezing to smother his cry, while the other threads into Izzie's hair between her ears, half-pulling.

Neither of them can last long like this. Jullus can scarcely believe the beauty of her muffled cries against Alphinaud — and while he would prefer her able to sing out loud for him, for them both, there is something so deeply lovely in how she has to smother herself or be found out. How she wants to save it just for them.

His fingers dig into her waist. He tries to keep his pace controlled, something akin to quiet, but the sight of her so taken between them is intoxicating, heady, everything he could ever dream of. He leans down again, hand rough in her hair, yanking it aside to nearly bite down on the meat of her shoulder as he comes hard inside of her — an insane part of him wanting to leave a mark that would never fade.

If he cannot touch her soul like Alphinaud, by every star, he would mark her body with proof of his conviction. Fill her, paint her, kiss every last jut of bone and muscle.

Alphinaud comes not long after that, back bowing, eyes squeezed shut from the effort of not calling her name aloud. He yanks her up by the head into a long, searing kiss, leaving Jullus, suddenly boneless from exhaustion, to kiss a trail across her hips, arms still circled about her waist.

They collapse then into their shared bedrolls, a tangled mess of limbs and sweat, ears buzzing, fingers numb. Izzie is pressed between them on her back. Jullus sprawls possessively over her, face buried in her neck, while Alphinaud pulls her half onto his body, her head lolling into his chest, where her ears can align with his heartbeat.

Alphinaud's arms encircle them all.

Let the gods march in, Jullus thinks, sleep tearing him down into the void. Not even they could pull me from this.

---

They are a little more sane by the time the blue light of morning pools in.

And in an unusual twist — one perhaps inspired by Izzie recalling her old life — Alphinaud still sleeps while Jullus and Izzie wake.

Jullus leans over her body, propped up by an elbow. He stares down at her, his muscles sleepy and honey-like as he takes in her bare, morning-lit body, a silken sort of pink beneath him. His fingers slip her hair from her face and out of her mouth. He rumbles with quiet laughter. Nothing about her is ever truly peaceful.

Her hands come up to touch his chest as she curls into him. One palm spreads over his beating heart.

“Is it very strange for you?” she asks, voice so quiet. “That we…that this is how we…connect?”

He searches her face, so wide open. A nightblossom moments before moonset. “What do you mean?”

“I…” Her gaze goes to that middle distance, like she could physically summon the words in front of her to sort them out. “I find myself…shocked by it, sometimes, how badly I…want you like this.” Her fingers stretch up toward his collarbones. “Because for a long time I…worried such things were just…surface level because that’s how people around me…talked about it.”

He curls a finger in one smooth lock of fire red hair. “I know it’s not surface level, sweetling,” he whispers gently. It hits him slowly, molasses pouring out. “Are you worried it makes it seem like you love me less?”

Izzie’s shoulders loosen. She nods, a little jerky motion. “I know it has to be different, from Alphinaud, or else…there’s no beauty in that, if it was all the same…” Her eyes flutter shut for a moment. “...and you do complete me in a wholly different way than he does. I need you to know that. That it matters to me, so much.”

He leans down and kisses her gently on the lips — slow and gentle as the light outside, quiet and intent. His hands cradle her head, fingers in her hair. “I do,” he says against her skin. “Of course I do.” He noses her jaw aside and presses a kiss to her heart’s vein in her neck. She gives the softest, tiniest sigh.

They had both been raised by societies that wielded sex as a strange double-edged weapon, with rules as impossible to pin down as the people who lived in those worlds. A dark vein of shame haunted them both. You’re being frivolous, you’re hedonists, you’re corrupted and too voracious and selfish. You’ve ruined her; she’s supposed to be nothing to you, a notch. You are dirtied by the power of how much you want the other — to say nothing of the presence of another man, which makes you not only frivolous but deviant.

“I love you,” she says, relieved.

Looking down into her sea glass eyes — glancing at Alphinaud, a snow prince in the morning light — he does not know how any of that could have ever been true.

“And I love you,” he says back, because it is the easiest thing in the world to do so. He grins, all teeth, down at her. “Now come here. Our time together is always so limited, you know.”

Alphinaud, poor sweet Alphinaud, wakes to the sight of Izzie’s back pulled in tight against Jullus’s chest, one hand around her mouth and the other two fingers deep inside of her, her whole body lit up like fireworks.

“Well, aren’t you audacious,” Alphinaud half-growls at Jullus, the cat having caught the mice at play. He leans in to steal the man’s mouth in a kiss of his own, hand tight and possessive about his jaw. The other goes to Izzie’s waist. “The nerve.”

Jullus chokes down a laugh, quite at the taller man’s mercy as he pushes them over, smothering them both.

They are, the three of them, quite distracted for long moments after that.