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“Go on,” Cynric drawled in Rune’s ear. “He’s basically asking for it.”
The Cistern was well furnished with dark corners and they were huddled in one, watching the new recruit talking to Sapphire.
“Cynric, the Thieves Guild doesn’t have an initiation.”
“We haven’t had any recruits in a long time either. When are we going to get this chance again, hm?”
Rune sighed. Okay, so the new guy was...brash, by anyone’s standards. As soon as he’d arrived he’d rummaged through all the chests, peered at the Guild Ledger, and even tried the door to the Guild Vault to see if it was locked. All without even an attempt at concealment. Mercer’s filthy look hadn’t deterred him and now he was talking to Sapphire and she was actually talking back.
On the other hand, Rune had spoken to him earlier, and he’d promised to keep an eye out for anything that might solve the mystery of Rune’s parentage. Rune thought the chances of him succeeding were slightly less likely than those of Mercer retiring to run the orphanage, but it was a nice gesture and apparently sincere.
“What did you have in mind?” He’d at least hear him out.
“We’ll take him down into the Ratway Vaults. And by we I mean you. And there will be a table with this on it.” He held out a small bottle and Rune read the label.
“Dibella’s Oil: For Greater Expressions of Love.” He felt himself flush but managed not to let on that he was quite familiar with this particular substance, “What are we going to do to him? I’m not going to hurt him.”
“Nothing! That’s the beauty of my plan. It will just make him nervous. And you, my friend are going to make him more nervous. And just when he thinks all is lost, or you run out of ideas, give me the signal, and I will appear!”
“And then what?”
“He’ll think he’s saved, but only for a moment. When he realises I too am part of the initiation, we shake him down, lighten those pockets and let him go. We get his coin, he gets a lucky escape, and the Thieves Guild gets a proper initiation rite.”
“But-”
“Initiations aren’t supposed to be nice,” Cynric pointed out.
Rune wasn’t happy about any of this, and now Cynric had planted the idea of the snake-hipped young Breton and that bottle in the same part of Rune’s mind. An odd sound caught his attention; Sapphire was actually chuckling while the recruit mimed something with that self-deprecating grin that didn’t have Rune fooled at all and irritation spiked through him. “All right, all right. But next time, get someone else to help.”
“Excellent! You get him while I set everything up in the Vaults.” Cynric was there one moment and then he was sauntering casually halfway across the room. Rune sighed; he had bad feeling about this, or butterflies, or something.
“Sapphire.” Rune put a hand on the recruit’s shoulder. “Can I borrow Dyce for a while?” The man in question looked at him with mild surprise and a friendly smile and Rune felt like such a wretch. Sapphire nodded and drifted away.
“What do you need?” he asked.
“You.” Well, that was a good start. “You’re the new blood around here, and getting Mercer to shake your hand isn’t enough. You’re down here with us, and you have to be initiated.”
“Uh huh, what does that involve?”
“You following me, and not asking any questions,” Rune said, relieved he didn’t have to persuade him. He was going to give Cynric the signal first thing, he decided, and let him deal with the difficult bits.
Dyce shrugged, “Okay. Lead on. I suppose I’ll have to swim naked in the cistern or put a spider down the back of Brynjolf’s neck.”
Rune tried not to laugh. Those ideas were much better than Cynric’s.
The Vaults were not empty. People actually lived down there; wretches who could find nowhere better, but they steered clear of the deft and dangerous Thieves Guild, and there was little danger. Rune wasn’t going to be leading him far, and he made a point of closing the door solidly behind them.
“Don’t want to be disturbed,” Rune said, gesturing him onwards.
Cynric had been as good as his word. Light was filtering down through a grate above them, illuminating a rough wooden table upon which stood the bottle of Dibella Oil. Rune glanced quickly into the shadows, but couldn’t see Cynric; not surprising.
“Well, here we are.” Rune said. Dyce pursed his lips and looked thoughtful. “It’s been a while since we’ve had a new recruit,” he continued. “Probably too long, getting out of practice.” He was trying to seem pleasantly menacing but it didn’t seem to be working. He stepped close to the Breton, and nudged him forward towards the table. “Now you don’t have to do anything, just behave and endure.”
Something like irritation flickered in Dyce’s expression and Rune found himself pinned by those blue eyes. “Rune,” he said, not unkindly. “You don’t have to do this.”
Before Rune could respond, his face was cupped by lightly calloused fingers and Dyce’s lips were covering his own. Dyce had the wrong idea, he realised, he thought this was an exceptionally clumsy seduction attempt and normally Rune would have been embarrassed by the very idea only it had worked. Somehow.
Rune didn’t question it. He wrapped his arms around Dyce and kissed him back, their teeth clicking together as he was seized by a sudden hunger for the other man. Dyce did not back down; he kissed him back just as fiercely, tangling his fingers in his long hair and nipping almost painfully at his lower lip. Rune groaned, flattered and aroused and completely lost in the moment.
It was only when he felt the edge of the table against the back of his thighs that he remembered Cynric. Dyce must have felt his start of alarm - of course he did, they were pressed against each other like they’d been glued - and pulled away slightly.
“Second thoughts?” he asked.
Rune looked at him; he was so windburned and eager and kind, and Rune already missed the feel of his stubble against his chin, and why the hell was he hesitating? Cynric was more than capable of sneaking out of here when it was clear his plan had failed. Which it had. Spectacularly.
“Nothing,” he said, making himself relax.
Dyce quirked a smile and shook his head, “You know, you’re far more likely to get a positive reaction out of me if you just ask.” Rune didn’t get a chance to reply to that because Dyce tilted his head and started worrying the underside of Rune’s jaw with his teeth. Rune shuddered and exposed his throat further. And then he forgot entirely about Cynric.
When they started undoing each other’s armour, Rune was obscurely proud of the fact that Dyce hadn’t even acquired his official Thieves Guild set yet. His leathers were as well-worn and patched as any bandit’s, but they came off gratifyingly fast. It was chilly down here and they wasted no time pressing skin to heated skin.
Rune was returning the earlier favour, scraping his teeth down Dyce’s neck and tasting leather and salt and smelling the dust of the road that still clung to his hair when he felt the Breton chuckle. He’d picked up the bottle.
“You got the fancy stuff,” he said. He didn’t just say it, he purred it, and Rune felt like someone had struck him with a lightning-bolt, ever nerve alight with anticipation.
“Oh, please,” his voice sounded stretched and needy. He hitched himself up onto the table and leaned back, propping himself up with his arms.
Dyce had a fine cock; handsome if not unusually large, and Rune was disappointed to see it disappear from view as Dyce knelt before him. At his gentle insistence Rune spread his legs further. Their new recruit turned out to be as skilled as Brynjolf had promised, although not quite in the way he’d expected. He was quick and thorough with his preparations and except for the fact he couldn’t seem to stop himself pausing to touch Rune’s cock. It was right in front of him, and Rune didn’t really mind, but by the time Dyce stood up again, Rune was close to begging.
Rune flopped back on the table, feeling the scarred wood against his back, and he reached up and curled his fingers around the edge above his head as he felt Dyce press against his entrance. He hadn’t done this for a while. Dyce was slow but insistent, and dozen breaths and a hundred heartbeats later he was inside. He ran his hand up Rune’s chest, pinching at a nipple, waiting for him to adjust.
Rune didn’t want to wait any longer. He had Dyce wanting to fuck him, and he desperately wanted to be fucked.
“I’m ready,” he said.
No further communication needed. Dyce put a hand on Rune’s hip and started moving his hips with a slow, steady pace that had Rune’s head lolling back against the table. Rune wanted Dyce to touch him, his cock dripping on his stomach, but at the same time he wanted this to last, so he said nothing, and suffered delightful neglect.
“So,” Dyce said eventually. Rune raised his head and saw that Dyce wasn’t looking at him, but at something off to the side. “Does your friend want to join in or would he prefer to watch?”
Rune turned his head and felt his face heat with embarrassment as he made out the familiar figure of Cynric, leaning against the wall, watching them. He didn’t seem horrified or even surprised by the sight of Rune on his back getting reamed by another man. Rune couldn’t read his expression, but his left hand was at his mouth as he gnawed on a knuckle, and his right was was on his cock, which was jutting out of his open fly. As Rune watched, the jailbreaker’s long fingers squeezed the head.
“You knew he was there?” Rune whispered.
Dyce grinned, “Only since I kissed you. He couldn’t quite hide his surprise; I heard him.” He raised his voice slightly, “Well, how about it?” All this time, he hadn’t stopped moving, each rock of his hips an invitation.
Rune had to laugh at Cynric’s hesitation, even if he barely had the breath for it. His chuckle must have made up the man’s mind because he abandoned his shadow and walked over to them, his gaze trying to take in everything at once.
“Go on then,” Dyce said. “The bottle’s on the floor. Still half-full.”
Rune raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Just who are you?” he asked.
“The meat in the sandwich, apparently,” Dyce grinned. He stopped moving then, and bent over to place kisses on Rune’s chest. Cynric was not patient. Rune felt Dyce drive into him deeper as Cynric added his weight to the pile. Dyce gritted his teeth, and Rune could feel Cynric’s movements through him, faster and more insistent.
The two Breton’s tried to move in synch, but Rune could feel them bucking and shifting against each other. Dyce seemed overwhelmed; little gasps were escaping his lips and his eyes were squeezed shut in concentration.
“Wait for me, dammit,” Cynric growled. Even so, he reached around Dyce and wrapped his fingers around Rune’s cock. Rune was getting an idea of how Dyce was feeling; two different people, slightly at odds, working on him was going to drive him over the edge faster than he’d expected.
The table was rocking with them, now, two legs tilting off the ground and then thumping back onto the stone with every thrust. At least it didn’t seem in any danger of breaking, but Rune wondered if those in the Flagon could hear them. At least it was helping to drown out the sound of his own increasingly desperate groans and Cynric’s growls; Cynric had always had a nice voice and soaking it in lust had only improved it.
He kept talking too, telling them to wait, hold off, he was getting there. Which had the opposite effect, because hearing his companion begging for release was not exactly a turn-off for Rune. Dyce raised his head, and looked into Rune’s eyes. He opened his mouth, maybe to say something, and then his jaw dropped and his fingers dug into Rune’s hip hard and he was lost, bucking and gasping and Rune could feel his heat unwinding inside him and Cynric could fuck himself because Rune was coming too, up along Dyce’s stomach and Cynric’s hand. He thought he was going to tear a chunk of the table off as every muscle in his frame tensed like a bowstring and then released.
Cynric continued to fuck them both, swearing like a sailor for a while and then he forgot the words and Rune watched him over Dyce’s shoulder as he threw his head back and snarled as he came.
“Whoa.” Dyce flopped forward onto Rune as he relaxed. Rune’s fingers protested as he released the edge of the table and un-kinked them. He wrapped his arms around Dyce; he always liked being affectionate, and with Cynric on the other side he couldn’t go anywhere for now. Dyce didn’t seem to mind, however. He lay there until Cynric stepped back and the three of them disentangled themselves.
“Fine initiation, boys,” Dyce said. Stretching his back. Still naked, he held his hand out to Cynric, “I don’t believe we’ve met.” Rune laughed at the expression on Cynric’s face. You’ve been so very outplayed, he thought.
Cynric met Rune’s eyes. “Well,” he said, shaking Dyce’s hand. “I suppose.”
Dyce looked from one to the other. “This seems to be getting a bit awkward,” he said. “I need a bath and a nap, in that order, so I’ll leave you to it.” He grinned at them both and collected his clothing before walking out, whistling. Rune wondered if he was really going to walk into the Flagon naked (as he found out later, yes he did - but somehow no one saw him until he was halfway through his bath, and thus had every reason to be naked.)
Rune and Cynric avoided looking at each other.
“You and your brilliant ideas,” Rune said eventually.
“We are not going to talk about this,” Cynric said. “Ever.” Still mostly dressed, he buttoned himself up and left Rune alone.
When Rune returned to the Cistern Cynric was nowhere to be found, and Dyce was apparently asleep on one of the beds. Rune looked around, kicked his boots off, and crawled in behind him, his heart beating fast.
“Muh?” Dyce said sleepily.
“Shh. It’s just me. Want a cuddle?”
“Mm.” Dyce shifted slightly and relaxed against him.
Rune wound and arm around his waist and settled in to sleep, Dyce curled against the curve of his body, his head under Rune’s chin. “So, I guess you’re the little spoon?” he asked the Breton, who huffed in response and then went back to sleep. Rune rather liked his new brother in crime. Quite a bit.