Archive of Our Own

“ Could you, um—”

“Better if we don’t respect you, right?” Murdina had asked, raising one eyebrow.

“Yeah,” Nikhil had said, breathless .

The block of time since that discussion has been something of a blur. Nikhil remembers the establishment of a safeword, upon Sestia and Murdina’s insistence. Being pinned down, at some point. A very frank discussion on how, exactly, they planned to use him. Murdina, mumbling something about how desperate he looked, which, yeah, he is, that’s kind of his whole thing, though from her mouth it felt—weird. 

A hand tightens around his wrists, and Nikhil’s mind begins the final slide away from his body, buoyant and empty. His stomach feels like it’s been dunked in ice water. It’s not the first time he’s felt like this in bed, but it’s the first time he has the urge to actually examine the feeling. And while he shouldn’t be surprised, given the pattern of the rest of his bouts of radical self-awareness, it hurts to hate what he sees—a self-destructive kid who wants to be treated badly because it means that he’s right about the world, and about what people want him for. Who, deep down inside, believes he deserves it.

But that’s not who Nikhil is. Not anymore.

“Nikhil,” Sestia says, impatient in the way that tells him she’s already tried to get his attention, rubbing a thumb over his temple, sharp nail scratching lightly at the place where horn meets skin. It sends a buzz shooting down his spine, something that would be usually pleasant, but only serves to deepen the sick, tugging feeling on his sternum. “Use your words.”

Right. Words. Nikhil scrambles for control of his mouth. “RajMedan,” he gasps out.

Immediately, the hands pinning him down soften, not disappearing but no longer restraining. Murdina helps him turn over, sit up, and Sestia reaches a hand out towards his cheek, pauses halfway there. Her eyes are wide, brows furrowed in concern. “What do you need, baby?”

Nikhil swallows around the boulder-sized lump in his throat, guilty for wasting their time, mad at himself for feeling that way. He gives an aborted head shake, before remembering he’s supposed to speak. “Don’t know,” he manages, blinking rapidly, gaze fixed firmly on his hands, folded in his lap. “Just—um.”

“Are you okay to be touched?” Murdina asks, soft as sand. 

“Yeah,” Nikhil says, nodding shortly. There’s a part of him that despises the relief filling his chest, that he won’t have to stoop so low as to ask to be handled gently. The rest of him is just… tired.

A slight whistle, as Murdina lets a slow breath out. “Alright, Red, come here.”

By the time his brain registers the request and he glances up, Murdina is sitting against the headboard, arms held out. Nikhil shuffles over, tucking his face into the crook of her neck. He’d be embarrassed at how easily he melts into her hold if he hadn’t already exhausted that particular resource, cheeks burning with a spiraling, recursive shame. “Fuck, I’m sorry,” he murmurs into her shoulder. His heart is still beating too fast, skipping like a stone over ice.

“You’ve nothing to be sorry for,” Murdina says, firmly, wrapping him in a hug that settles his brain back into his body with the decisive click of puzzle pieces fitting together. He feels everything, with sharp clarity—the cool touch of her skin to his, the brush of Sestia’s arm against the tips of his wings as she reaches up to run a hand through his hair. She takes care not to scratch him, just running the pads of her fingers along his scalp, so careful he could cry.

It seems like ages before Sestia speaks. “You don’t have to talk about it right now, if you don’t want to,” she says, slowly, like she’s choosing her words with the same care and focus she applies to her studies. There’s no follow-up, but the question hangs in the air. He doesn’t have to talk about it right now, but—he’s already here , shivering and raw and still on the edge of tears, for some reason, even after the adrenaline has settled. 

Nikhil clears his throat, scooting back just slightly, so he can at least attempt to make eye contact with both Sestia and Murdina. He feels a tear slip down the side of his nose, and stoically ignores it. “I think that, um.” Breathing in, sharp, more of a sniffle than anything. Murdina threads their fingers together. Nikhil continues, sounding the syllables out. “I think that wanting to be treated like shit might have actually been, um, part of the whole, me being a piece of shit, thing. And now that I’m trying, it feels… bad.”

Sestia hums a contemplative note, swiping a thumb across his cheekbone with such genuine affection that he has to close his eyes, take three deep, even breaths. “Thank you for telling us,” she says, warm voice settling over his shoulders like a heavy blanket. “In the interest of honesty, being that— callous , is not usually my cup of tea, either.”

“So—” Nikhil pauses, gaze flickering between her and Murdina. “You were, what, that was just for… just for me, or?”

Murdina and Sestia share a look, and Nikhil is kind of terrible at reading looks on a regular day, so he doesn’t even try to parse this one, sitting back on his hooves and ducking his chin down. 

“What I think Sestia means,” Murdina intones, quietly, raising his chin with a cool finger, “is that we’d much rather take care of you.”

“We just want you to feel good, baby,” Sestia adds.

For some reason, this simple sentence renders Nikhil absolutely unintelligible. He garbles some nonsense, probably, before burying his face in his hands, vaguely grateful his skin is pretty much as red as it gets. It’s a long moment before he recollects himself, but when he looks up, Murdina and Sestia are still there, waiting patiently. “We could try that,” he hears himself say.

Sestia kisses him, then, a soft, closed-mouth press of her lips to his. When she pulls back, there’s a soft, understanding smile on her face. “Maybe not tonight, if that’s alright?”

Nikhil chuckles, and something loosens in his chest, like clearing a blockage in his lungs. “Yeah, no, the mood is, um, kinda dead.”

“Another time,” Murdina says, like a promise, tugging Nikhil back into her arms, pressing kisses to his forehead, his cheeks, his nose, until he’s laughing for real, so grateful for them he feels it like a physical ache, a gem worn smooth, tucked safely between his heart and his ribs.

It’s a couple days before Nikhil works up the courage to bring it up again. 

He’s pressed against the headboard with Sestia in his lap, Murdina a weight along his side, somehow simultaneously cool to the touch and sharply hot. Sestia sucks a wet mark into the soft skin beneath his jaw, and he groans, arching up into the hand Murdina has splayed across his chest. “So—um—“ he starts, faltering. 

Sestia leans back, admiring her handiwork. “Yeah, baby?”

Nikhil swallows. “So, that—the thing you mentioned, about, like, taking care of me.” It’s pulling teeth, and he wants nothing more than to curl up into himself, but if they’re going to give this to him, the least he can do is ask for it like a normal fucking person. “I’d like that, if we—if you still wanted to.”

Murdina and Sestia share another quick glance, but Nikhil is too busy trying not to light himself on fire from sheer embarrassment to bother worrying about it. Besides, not a second later, Murdina cups both hands around his face, drawing him into a heavy, molasses-slow kiss. “Aye,” she says, “we would.”

“And thank you for asking,” Sestia adds, swooping in to kiss him, too. “Same rules as before, do you remember?”

Pulling them back to the forefront isn’t anything that would give him a nosebleed—they were pretty simple. “RajMedan to stop, snap twice if I can’t speak,” Nikhil recites, noting the increase in the pace of his heart rate, that they’re actually doing this, the way his entire body seems to thrum with anticipation. 

“ Good boy,” Sestia says, warm in his lap, voice like spun sugar. There’s a strangled whine, and it takes a moment for Nikhil to realize the sound is coming from him. Sestia smirks, then, running a hand through his hair. “You’re gonna be good for us, aren’t you, baby?”

“Yeah,” Nikhil gasps, and then clicks his jaw shut, uncertain if that was one of those questions you aren’t supposed to answer. 

“Gods, look at you,” Murdina says, low, awed. She lifts herself into a sitting position, runs a finger down the center of his chest, watching the muscles jump. Her hand settles around his navel. “Beautiful.”

Nikhil feels his cheeks flush impossibly hotter, shuts his eyes against the sheer sensory load of it, only blinking them back open when Sestia runs a thumb across his eyelids. “None of that, now,” she requests, leaning down to slot their lips together. This, he can do—Nikhil licks into her mouth, head raising slightly off the pillow in his enthusiasm, sucking gently on her bottom lip. When she pulls away, her eyes are bright, two twin stars. “Hands above your head, please?” He complies, raising his arms, fingers wrapping around the top of the headboard, for good measure. Sestia lets out a slow breath, the constellations on her cheeks blushing pink. “Perfect, baby.”

The words tug at something in his sternum, but instead of pulling him away, out of his body, it’s as though he’s finally settled in, that heavy-warm feeling sinking through his veins, from horn to hoof. He’s hard, or at least getting there, but it doesn’t feel urgent. Everything is slow and saturated, sunlight settling on everything from the stray frizz on top of Murdina’s hair to the few dust particles in the air. Murdina’s hand presses down to hold him in place as Sestia grinds her hips in a small circle, and the world comes into clean focus, breath catching in his chest. 

They take their time with him, attentive and patient and near-painfully thorough, praise spilling from their lips like water. It makes Nikhil flush hot every time, physically if not visually, though they seem to realize either way. Sestia especially appears to enjoy the way his nose wrinkles as he tries not to close his eyes against the onslaught of sweet words. Murdina brings him off once with her mouth before Sestia sinks down on him, and the whole time his brain is blissfully full, like all the rough edges have been padded with soft fabric. He returns the favor, admittedly a little overeager but certainly experienced enough to make up for it, and it’s good , good like he can be for them, good like they deserve. Good like they all deserve. 

Afterwards, they collapse and wriggle and rearrange themselves, until he’s pressed up against Sestia’s front, Murdina spooning her from behind. Nikhil stretches his wings out, lets them settle across all three of them—playfully at first, but when Murdina softly kisses the feathers, he lets the wing lie there. 

It’s strange, but he’d almost forgotten how different sleeping with someone (or someones ) is when you really care about them. Discovering what makes Sestia and Murdina tick, and gasp, and squirm—he gets how Sestia can spend hours just staring up at the sky, studying. He wants to know everything, to have everything. The crazy thing is, he thinks they might let him. 

“So,” Sestia whispers into the little cocoon they’ve formed, “better?” Over her shoulder, Murdina wiggles her eyebrows. 

Nikhil laughs, safe and warm and happy and good , kisses the crook of Sestia’s neck. “Yeah,” he says, muffled by warm skin. “Better.”