Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Abdirak arrived on the doorstep of Astarion and Ereth’s home in Baldur’s Gate when the empty fountain outside Bonecloak’s Apothecary was choked with gold leaves turning to copper. The street hawkers by the docks persisted, but passersby turned up their cloaks and coat collars at the damp, cold wind seeking warmer fare—mulled wine at the Blushing Mermaid or a warm bed at the Elfsong. Abdirak arrived as the sun was setting, but if he minded the chill in his sparse leather vestments, he didn’t say. He simply stood in the open doorway with a worn leather satchel in hand, catching the eye of not a few neighbors.

“May I come in?”

“How amusing,” Astarion said in mock annoyance. “Please, do—you’re letting all the cold air in.”

Abdirak’s slight smile as Astarion welcomed him in was enough to split his cold-chapped lips, and a bright bead of blood welled; the flick of his tongue was not lost on Astarion as the two kissed cheeks.

“Teasing him already?” Ereth said in Abdirak’s embrace. He breathed in the scent of leather and blood and cheap lye soap. “How cruel.”

“Hardly, when he enjoys the show as much as the taste.”

Ereth couldn’t help himself: he kissed Abdirak on the mouth and caught Abdirak’s lip between his teeth. He was not a vampire, but the small drop of blood was irresistible all the same. “I’ve missed you.”

Ereth expected the priest to chide him for lacking the even the patience to let him cross the threshold, but Abdirak hummed in agreement.

“It’s good to be back.”

“I may be cold,” Astarion said, “but that doesn’t mean I want to be any colder.” He shut the door behind Abdirak and went to the kitchen to put the kettle on.

They kept tea especially for Abdirak: smoked caravan blacks, aged cakes that smelled of damp autumn leaves, blends with spices and peppercorn and a subtle chili pepper heat that surprised Ereth every time. When asked, Ereth would insist that he enjoyed them, but the teas remained languishing until Abdirak’s return. And when Abdirak returned, Ereth made his own, separate mug of tea with normal things like fruit milk and honey—the kinds of indulgences Abdirak was far too sophisticated for. Astarion, at more than two hundred years old, said he was too sophisticated for either. He kept it simple: fresh blood from his favorite drow, fresh coffee, and fine wine.

Ereth and Astarion kept other things for Abdirak as well. A spare room, always empty and as clean as Abdirak had left it. They called it the guest room, but of all the guests they hosted, Abdirak was the only one who nearly lived in it. Only Abdirak held the key to a small wooden cabinet that held an idol of Loviatar, incense, and beeswax candles. If Shadowheart had ever felt Selûne’s ire when she visited, she didn’t say a word. Ereth and Astarion had even hosted a clergyman of Ilmater from time to time, and he had not burst into flames yet. And if Ereth and Astarion kept other secret things of Abdirak’s, it was in their bedroom drawer, also away from prying eyes and githyanki who had no shame in rummaging through others’ belongings.

All in all, it was a home that was not always called a home, and Ereth considered that much better than a house which was home in name only.

#

Ereth did not consider himself an impatient man. He preferred the terms thirsty for adventure, eager for battle, hungry for knowledge, or ready for action. He’d even admit to brash, at times reckless. Perhaps even restless after a day of heavy rain. But impatience was the domain of those lacking discipline. On that, he agreed with both Lae’zel and Abdirak. And although he was no Loviataran priest or military officer, Ereth did not lack discipline. He had not learned his infernal magic, scoured forbidden tomes, strategized in battle, bested hags and cambions alike, studied the blade, or defeated the Netherbrain without wits as well as discipline.

He was merely a man of action; who could fault him for that? No one had before, when his quick thinking had saved lives, won battles, or charmed strangers. Karlach, Wyll, Lae’zel—they all considered him decisive. And if Halsin had occasionally cautioned him for being reckless, or Gale countered him with logic when he was headstrong, well, that’s what companions were for. No, Ereth was not impatient.

So why did Abdirak’s slowness grate him raw? Abdirak kissed with an eager, open mouth. They sat in comfortable silence on the sagging couch, with Ereth’s long legs spilling over Astarion’s thighs and his head in Abdirak’s lap while Abdirak carded his fingers through Ereth’s hair. They talked together, ate together, cleaned the dishes together, fucked together, lived together.

And even Abdirak’s practice was not closed to him. Abdirak might take his daily prayers alone, and sometimes meditate alone, but Ereth learned as much as the priest would teach. Ereth knelt as long as Abdirak asked, stayed still as long as he demanded, denied his pleasure at Abdirak’s will, took pain by Abdirak’s hand a hundred different ways and thanked him for it. Ereth ran yards of waxed rope through a candle’s needle flame. He learned to stitch wounds from Abdirak as easily as he had learned to embroider from Astarion. Ereth read Loviataran treatises, guidebooks, literature, hymnals, hermeneutics, and dialogues. He could recite maxims and scripture and turn a phrase like any devout follower worth their salt.

Still, there was something that Abdirak held back. There was some reservation he still held, some disapproval not said, some chastisement not delivered. If Ereth was unworthy of knowledge, teaching, or practice, he would understand. If there was some secret Abdirak held close to his chest in faith or wisdom or plain refusal, Ereth would understand. If there was some wrong Ereth had committed, some slight or blasphemy or disrespect he had given that was too great or small for Abdirak to say, Ereth would understand.

What Ereth did not understand, after all his discernment and learning and intuition and charm and love, was why Abdirak now held him back.

When they had first met, in a ruined temple filled with goblins, the man had asked him if he was a torturer assigned to the goblins’ prisoner. At the end of their first conversation, Abdirak had offered a first test and penance with mace or axe. Ereth, afraid to follow where his mouth had led him, stood with his back bared and let Abdirak whip him bloody with a cat o’ nine tails instead. It had still hurt like all the nine hells. After, Abdirak’s calloused, healing hand had been filled with a goddess’s blessing and a jolt that was more than divine magic.

For all Abdirak’s careful mask of patience, the interest in his eyes—no, lust—had been clear from the start. That interest had not yet waned, either. For all the promises Abdirak would never make and all the vows he would never say, Ereth knew the man’s heart. Even more, Ereth had a thief’s quick touch and a conman’s easy smile—above all, he knew how to tell and spot a lie. Abdirak was not feigning his affections; Ereth would stake his life and soul in an infernal contract on it.

But Abdirak did not deal in infernal contracts. Many times, he did not even deal in words. He dealt in actions, or silence, and unlike Ereth or Astarion, when Abdirak spoke he meant every word. And unfortunately for Ereth, telling the answers to questions he didn’t know was easier than asking the questions in the first place.

#

“Dear One,” Abdirak said levelly, “you’re sulking.” Abdirak looked up from his cup of tea, and Ereth stopped in his tracks.

“I’m not sulking.” Ereth opened a kitchen cabinet, forgot what he had opened it for, and closed it again. “Why would you possibly—no, I’m not going to even ask. I’m not sulking.”

Astarion did not glance up from the Baldur’s Mouth Gazette.

“Don’t make that face.” Ereth frowned at Abdirak. “I made you breakfast, remember? You said it was delicious.”

“It was, and I am grateful, Dear One. And this is my face. I have told you before—false cheer is not for me wear. It does not mean I do enjoy your presence. But that is not the point. You are deflecting again.”

Ereth clenched his teeth and didn’t say a word. Anything he said now would sound petulant. It was an eternal pain in the ass when one lived with a haughty 200-year-old elf and an insufferably experienced, annoyingly grounded priest. One was old enough to be his ancestor (it didn’t do thinking about, really), and the other acted like he was. When Ereth had admitted to a slight priest kink and an interest in the title “Father Abdirak,” this was not what he had had in mind.

For something to do, Ereth put the cezve on the stove and watched it. After the coffee had sunk and turned into foam, he felt rather than saw Abdirak looking at him. Ereth held his tongue. The coffee rose once, twice, three times. Now he had to drink it. Ereth poured it into two painted demitasse and set one in front of Astarion.

Abdirak opened his mouth—

“Tell him I’m not sulking, Astarion.”

Astarion didn’t look over his newspaper. “Hmm? What was that, darling?”

Ereth made that satisfying, angry little sound Lae’zel always did. “I know you were listening. Drink the coffee or it’ll get cold.”

Astarion did. “You were wearing a hole in the floorboards. Like one of those displacer beasts at the zoo in—”

“I made you coffee.” Ereth glared.

“You did.” Astarion went back to reading. “It’s very nice, dear.”

Ereth met Abdirak’s eyes over his coffee. “Why am I sulking, then?”

“You tell me, Dear One.”

“I can’t, because I’m not.”

There was the slightest twist of Abdirak’s mouth like the beginning of a smile or a snag of his scar. Either Abdirak was amused, or he was furious. Abdirak finished the rest of his tea and took his dishes to the sink. He washed and dried them, and put them in the cabinets exactly where they belonged. Astarion turned the sheet of his broadside. If Ereth had asked him what the front had said, he’d bet his entire purse Astarion wouldn’t have been able to tell him.

“Ereth,” Abdirak said in the kitchen doorway. “Come.”

Astarion gave Ereth a sly, shit-eating grin and took a sip of his coffee. Ereth thought about putting sand in his cup and waited a good, full minute before following Abdirak down the hall to the guest room.

#

Abdirak sat in his desk chair where he usually did. On the altar to Loviatar in the corner of the room, a skin of blood lay drying in a shallow bowl of hammered silver. Next to the bowl, a few grains of frankincense still winked. Ereth had never told Abdirak that the smell still reminded him of Ilmateran cathedrals and smoking censures. There was little else to fix his gaze—not the bed made tight as a soldier’s, nor the blank walls left unpainted. Only Abdirak sitting at his desk, facing the doorway. There was a stool near the washbasin in the other corner, but it was not pulled out.

Ereth knelt.

Abdirak waited a full minute before he spoke.

“This is not a punishment; it is a conversation.”

“I didn’t ‘ask’ for a punishment.”

Abdirak laughed like the dry rasp of late-summer corn. “Oh, Dear One, you’ve been begging for one.”

“Oh? And here I thought you said you wouldn’t suffer my disrespect.” An edge of a hiss crept into Ereth’s voice, but he refrained from imitating the cadence of Abdirak’s voice. I suffer much for my goddess, but I will not suffer disrespect from a professor of her teachings.

“I do not suffer fools, either.”

“If I speak, I am impertinent, and if I do not, I am willful. And yet you punish neither.”

“Contrary to popular belief, pain is not the only tool we Loviatarans use in teaching.” Abdirak’s thumb pressed against the handle of the whip that hung by his side. “Not the first, at least. But it will certainly be the last.”

Ereth laughed. “Already threatening me? I thought you wanted a dialogue, teacher.”

“It was you who refused my request. I merely wanted an answer.”

“Perhaps you should have been a Sharran, then.”

Ereth caught himself on the floor. Abdirak’s slaps always left a stinging, hot shimmer of pain, but this one gave him a matching split lip. Ereth let the blood trickle from his lips while he composed himself. He took a deep breath, then knelt again. Before he could speak, Abdirak cut him off.

“That was not a punishment, that was a reminder that while you kneel for me you will know your place. If it were a punishment, you would know it.” Abdirak gave Ereth a hard look. “Do not leave a mess on purpose, child. It isn’t seemly.”

Ereth did his best to ignore his own arousal. He drew the back of his hand against his mouth, but left the smear of blood before resting his palms on his thighs. However, fastidious or not, it wasn’t so easy to rile Abdirak.

“Why do you seek punishment from me when I give you pain freely? There is nothing I have that is not yours, Dear One.”

“That’s—” Not true. “That’s not it.”

“What, then? I have said that I will forgive you a mistake once. After that, it is not a mistake but a choice. I have also told you before that you need not test me to earn pain from my hand. Is it words you want, then? Do you wish me to degrade you? Humiliate you? Do you provoke me for the performance of my ire? My disapproval?” Abdirak raised an eyebrow. “Well? Speak.”

“I—I don’t know.” The tips of Ereth’s ears flushed. “I don’t want anything from you.”

“If you cannot think clearly, then we will wait. Let us meditate.” Abdirak made to rise from his chair.

“Wait! Please, just—just give me a moment. Please.”

Abdirak waited until Ereth’s heartbeat slowed and his tense shoulders slid downwards. He waited until the pins and needles in Ereth’s calves grew to burning and his knees began to ache. Ereth had knelt longer. He tried to think, but his mind spun in slow circles, coming to rest on Abdirak’s scarred hands, clean, short nails, the littlest still half grown back. Ereth had promised to go to Sorcerous Sundries today. Before long, Astarion would leave without him and tell Rolan all sorts of scandalous gossip. Who knows what he would infer about Ereth and Abdirak in Ereth’s absence. Ereth half enjoyed the jests, as Astarion knew he did, but if Abdirak ever heard a word of it, he would have Astarion’s hide.

“Understand that I am not cross with you, Dear One.”

Ereth’s mind paddled to shore from deep waters.

“Do you know why we are having this conversation?”

Ereth shook his head.

“Answer me, Ereth.”

"No, Paingiver.”

Abdirak sighed. He reached out and Ereth did not flinch. Abdirak’s thumb smoothed over his cheek and torn lip.

“Know this—I may play a role, but I will never perform an act for you. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, Paingiver.”

Abdirak’s thumb pressed against Ereth’s split lip. Ereth’s eyes fluttered closed.

“Look at me.”

Ereth opened his eyes. He wanted very much to kiss Abdirak’s mouth.

“Look me in the eyes.”

Ereth did. They were stark and very blue. Abdirak withdrew his hand.

“Can I trust you, Ereth?”

Ereth swallowed. His mouth was dry. “Yes, Paingiver. Of course.”

“Very well. You may go.”

Ereth blinked. “Paingiver?”

“You heard me.” Abdirak turned towards his desk. “Stretch your legs and go.”

Ereth got up to obey. Even through the slight glaze—Loviatar’s touch, Abdirak called it—Ereth saw the exact moment when Abdirak’s expression shuttered into something hard and distant. He left the guest room, gathered his gloves and hat, and met Astarion at the door. Astarion glanced at him, then glanced again.

“Are you all right, darling?”

“Of course.” Ereth’s voice came clear and strong, polished smooth as sea glass. “It was nothing.”

“Are you sure? It was awfully quiet in there.”

“I silenced the room, remember? Complaints from the neighbors? Stop trying to eavesdrop, anyway. Abdirak would pitch a fit if he knew.”

“Well it’s a good thing he isn’t going to, isn’t it?” Astarion pecked Ereth on the cheek. “Come on, dear. I told Rolan we would meet him for tea.”

#

After a bracing tea with Rolan, Ereth arrived home with several books on how the nature of the Weave could be theorized through a combined framework of Dualism and applied metaphysics. Once he finished them, he would send Gale a letter before he visited Rolan again. Astarion had stayed in the city to run errands in the early winter darkness with Shovel to keep him company. Although the two never ceased to complain and bicker, their nightly walks around the city had become something of a routine. And really, Abdirak was the only one in the house who didn’t complain and bicker to varnish over the softness of their love. Astarion, who had picked up knitting, had even made Shovel a small, Shovel-sized scarf (a failed sock, he had said). Shovel, despite calling it a barf instead of a scarf, always wore it anyway.

It was quiet in the house, and even despite his keen eyesight, Ereth didn’t notice Abdirak sitting next to the hearth-fire until he had sat on the couch to read. Abdirak was wearing his vestments in the house. He didn’t do so unless he intended to perform rites in his Maiden’s name. His oiled pauldrons shone in the firelight, and the rich, plum cloth at his waist had been freshly laundered. Ereth did not know how he kept his vestments free of bloodstains, although Shadowheart had once told him that cold water works wonders, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Ereth preferred prestidigitation to laundering any day. Abdirak did not.

Although Abdirak did not turn from the fire, Ereth set his book aside. Abdirak had not taught him any lessons of the flesh for more than a week, now, and despite Ereth’s poor attempts to wait with patience, he knew that Abdirak had been right over breakfast. Before ever seeing an ilithid, Ereth had been a conman, a small-time illusionist, a short-time circus performer, and a professional liar. However, he had never had to perform for very long. Eventually, the ruse always came down and the knives came out. Whether it was beside the Blade of Frontiers or next to Astarion, Ereth had always been able to stick a knife in the problems he faced sooner or later.

Until now.

“I apologize for becoming impatient with your teachings, Paingiver. I will do better to control myself in the future.”

It felt strange saying the words on the couch instead of on his knees, but Abdirak commanded the room while kneeling. Even if Ereth had stood, it would not have made any difference.

“I do not ask you to accept rigid dogma or to agree with my methods of teaching,” Abdirak said. “Nor do I ask you to accept what you cannot bear. The Maiden of Pain does not ask more than what we may give, child. But is your duty to know how much you are capable of giving in her service.”

“I know, Paingiver.” Abdirak had told him again and again. “‘The yielding is the reverence.’”

“Anyone may quote the maxims, Dear One. It is another thing to know their truth, mind and body.”

“Then test me,” Ereth said. “Test what I know, and what I still have to learn. Perhaps I will surprise you.”

Abdirak turned, his face as hard as granite. “If I teach the basics of my faith still, it is because you have yet to learn them. There is only one test that truly matters to me; it will be as easy or as difficult as you make it, but its answer will determine our path together in the Maiden’s embrace. Fail, and I have nothing left to teach you.”

“I have either learned your teachings, or I have not,” Ereth said, but his heart was in his throat.

If he failed now, Abdirak would no longer teach him Loviatar’s ways. There would be no more meditations or late-night discussions. No bruising reminders, no kiss of hot wax, no guidance of rough hands and terribly simple commands. Without the bond of Abdirak’s faith, Ereth did not know what held them together. The tea in the cabinet would grow stale. The guest room would become a guest room again. Tears sparked in his eyes at the thought. Ereth had lost enough already; he was not prepared to lose Abdirak to his own weakness now. Whatever Abdirak wanted from him, he would get. Whatever glaring mistake Ereth had made, he would fix. He had to.

“I am ready, Paingiver,”

“Then come to my room, and let us begin.”

Chapter Text

Abdirak’s bed was covered with an old sheet pressed taut over the quilt. On his desk stood a skin of water and a small bottle of spirits, his leather case of potions (and poisons, Ereth knew), a bowl of fruit and nuts and the tools of his trade. There was the faint hum of magic over the walls like a finger had plucked on the Weave’s harp-strings. Abdirak had made sure that they would not disturb, and they would not be disturbed for a long while. Ereth swallowed hard and took a drink of water from the wineskin. He took a drink of wine, too, but only a drink—Abdirak had told him well enough that he expected Ereth’s mind to be clear while under Abdirak’s ministrations.

Ereth shivered in the frigid room. The butter-yellow magelight he had cast above them gave off no heat, although there was no chance of fire from knocked over candles, either. Naked and covered in nothing but gooseflesh, Ereth waited for Abdirak’s instructions. He couldn’t help the nervous, singing thrill that stung in his blood at the thought of this evening’s stakes. It was a feeling stronger than wine, and he craved it more than a circus performer with the terazul jitters looking for another hit. He wondered if this was what Astarion felt when he sunk into Ereth’s neck for the first time.

Abdirak folded an old towel, and Ereth had a feeling it was not because he particularly liked doing laundry. Then he picked up a loop-strap—such a cruel invention it would put the Dark Justiciars to shame. It was a simple loop of braided leather with a thin, wire core. At the end of the loop was a handle. The whole thing was about the size of a hairbrush, but there was nothing Ereth dreaded more—not even the cane. It was nearly silent, too, with the exception of how much noise Ereth made under its lash.

“What is your safeword?” Although Abdirak knew all of his instruments like the palm of his hand, he tested it across his forearm with a quick snap that made Ereth jump.

“Lolth.” Ereth shivered. He would know it charmed or sleeping or dead.

“And your sign?”

Ereth rapped three times on the wall.

“Remember that this is not a punishment. It is a test that you may stop at any time. Do not worry about its importance—Loviatar calls to her own, Dear One. If you are hers, she will know.”

“Yes, Paingiver.”

Ereth bowed his head, but he steeled himself as he had done before battles with murderers, dragons, and cambions alike. He had not failed Abdirak yet, and he would not do so now. When he looked up through a lowered gaze, Abdirak’s expression had hardened. There was no desire, no lust, no curiosity, no softness, not even a hint of his calm, endless patience. Ereth had made his living by reading faces for years, but he would not bet a single copper on knowing what was behind those sharp, pale eyes and cut of Abdirak’s tight mouth.

“We begin now. Bend over the bed with your legs together.”

Ereth obeyed, stilling his mind and relaxing his muscles. He tried not to think about the old sheet beneath his nose or the cold in his bones or the tap of Abdirak’s boots on the wooden floor behind him or the wicked loop-strap that could split flesh with its bite just as surely as a cane. Abdirak had always stopped before then, even when Ereth begged him to continue. The folded towel pressed firmly against Ereth’s lower back, protecting it.

“Stay in this position with your arms outstretched in front of you. Do not move. If the towel falls, we will start again. Do you understand me?”

Ereth took a deep breath. “Yes, Paingiver.”

Then he shouted as the loop slashed across his thighs and ass, thin and stinging like the cut of a sword. He set his tongue behind the cage of his teeth so he would not bite through it and add to his misery. He had no doubt this would be a miserable experience. Ereth had wanted more pain, and Abdirak was finally going to—

“Fuck!” Ereth’s fists dragged into the sheets of their own accord, and his knees threatened to fold. The pain shattered bright and high, flashing like fireworks behind his closed eyes.

“Hold your tongue,” Abdirak snapped, and another lash came just as hard. “You will speak when spoken to. I should not have to repeat myself.”

“Yes, P—” Ereth screamed high into the sheets as the fourth lash came down across the third. He breathed raggedly into his fists and did not speak again.

“Is this how you want to learn? Under the lash? You are such a dull-witted student that I would whip you bloody before the lesson began. How long do you think your sharp tongue would last then, if I punished you properly for your impudence? Perhaps if you had learned to listen, we would not be here today.”

Abdirak punctuated each sentence with another blow. Ereth cried out at each one, so loud he thought the neighbors would be able to hear, ward of silence be damned. He desperately hoped that Astarion did not come home early. Ereth did not want Astarion to hear his screams.

“And you wished to visit the Maiden of Pain’s high temple? You would disgrace me with your very presence. You wish for a collar around your neck like a whining bitch before you have even learned to heel.”

A small, choked sound came from Ereth’s throat as his tight fists nearly dragged the sheets off the bed. He wanted to protest, but he could not. He could not even think past the swirl of hot shame and the knife cut of the loop-strap coming down faster than he had thought possible, until the strokes blended into one white-hot, blinding pain in his mind’s eye. His skin split under the lash. Blood trickled down the back of his thigh, and still the loop came crashing down just as hard as when Abdirak had begun.

Ereth screamed and writhed like a rabbit caught in a trap. The sheet below him was damp with tears. Words came out of his mouth from far away, quick and fleeting between the cries.

I’m sorry I’ll do better I promise please, please, Paingiver I can’t I’m weak have mercy you were right I’m sorry forgive me please stop it hurts I can’t take it I can’t please mercy you were right I’ll be good I’ll be quiet I’ll obey I’ll listen I’ll suck your dick I’ll do anything you want I’ll do anything please—

Abdirak grabbed Ereth by the hair and wrenched him back into place. “Hold. Your. Tongue.”

Ereth sobbed. He couldn’t stop the words from coming out of his mouth with his own cracked voice, high and strained to breaking. He said things he’d never said before. Filthy things he’d heard in bars and brothels, novels and theaters, things he’d promised Gortash and Raphael with sugar-spun lies, whispered low or on his knees, when he was high on the tight, shining secret laughter in his chest that he’d share with Astarion later. With Abdirak they were not empty promises. Ereth said things that tasted familiar and foreign all the same: whining pleas from somewhere far away like a well of deep, dark, still water—the kinds of things Astarion whimpered in the early morning hours of his trance, the kinds of things that burst from Ereth when he no longer had the luxury of shame.

Everything but the one word that would make it stop.

Abdirak flung the loop-strap on the bed, right in front of Ereth’s gaze. The tightly-woven leather was matte with blood. Ereth took shuddering, hiccupping breaths; Abdirak let Ereth recover a moment despite himself. The drow’s ass and thighs were a mess of red and purple welts, white where the skin wore thin. Blood trickled down his thighs where the skin had broken. Another time, Abdirak might have licked it from Ereth’s unmarked skin to see him shiver.

“Get up.”

Ereth didn’t move. His legs trembled like a newborn colt’s, and his shoulders heaved with uncontrollable sobs.

“I said get up. Now.”

Ereth obeyed like he was compelled, but his legs gave out from under him as soon as he took a step. He sank to his knees still babbling apologies and promising that he would do better next time. Abdirak didn’t need to punish his speech with the whip—he simply looked at the man so coldly that Loviatar surely rejoiced at his breaking heart.

“There won’t be a next time,” Abdirak said. “Get up.”

Ereth pleaded incoherently again, still crying. That would have to be fixed. Abdirak’s mind flicked to suitable gags for such a lesson before he pulled himself back to the present. Ereth was not the only one who needed to work on his self-control, it seemed.

Ereth’s eyes were red-rimmed, the lids smudged with glittering green powder. Streaks of black kohl ran down his cheeks in stark rivers against the pale lavender of his skin and its constellation of dark freckles. He was beautiful in his disarray, despite the snot and tears and the twist of his mouth. What a decadent offering to the Maiden of Pain he made—Abdirak sent silent thanks to his goddess for drawing this man into his life.

“You’ve failed me,” Abdirak said. “Now fix your face and leave.”

Ereth prostrated himself at Abdirak’s feet with his head against the floorboards. “Please, Paingiver, let me continue. Let me atone for my faults. I beg for your mercy—try me and find me willing, please.”

Abdirak yanked him up by the hair so hard he pulled strands out by the roots and backhanded him across the face.

“Know your place. You will be silent unless spoken to, or I will pierce your tongue and see how much you prattle then.” Ereth sobbed silently, but Abdirak did not let go of his hair. “You’re pitiful. I have known children who understand the Maiden of Pain’s tenants better than you.” Abdirak let go of Ereth’s hair and he fell like a puppet with its strings cut.

He held up three fingers. “How many fingers am I holding up? Speak.”

“Three, P-paingiver.”

“Fix your posture.”

Ereth straightened his back and set his shaking hands palms up on his thighs. He winced as his heels touched the welts on his ass.

“Recite the last three verses of the Willing Whip’s Creed.”

Ereth did, perfectly. “Pain tests all, but gives strength of spirit to the hardy and the true. There is no true punishment if the punisher knows no discipline. Wherever a whip is, there am I. Fear me—and yet long for me.”

Ereth’s voice wavered at the last line, catching as his eyes swept up to meet Abdirak’s own. He was bold, even now. Even in his submission. Long for me. Abdirak does not allow himself dwell outside the moment. The test must continue, whatever the result may be.

“I will give you one more chance, Ereth. Only one. That is all the mercy I will show you today. Do you understand me?”

“Y-yes, Paingiver. Thank you, Paingiver.”

Abdirak left the room and came back with a baking tray scattered with rice. He set it on the floor near the wall opposite his desk. Ereth, still kneeling next to the bed, glanced at it with a look of dawning dread. The man feared boredom more than the lash—but Abdirak remembered when that was true for him as well. Still, Abdirak backhanded him again, hard enough to leave a weal.

“Did I tell you to look up?”

Ereth started to speak, but another slap sent him reeling.

“Maiden preserve me, how many times must I tell you to hold your tongue?”

Abdirak silently cursed himself for threatening the man with pain he did not intend to give. Now, he would have to follow through. He went to the tools he kept in a leather bundle in his desk drawer. Although Abdirak used them frequently, Ereth had not seen them before. His eyes widened at the gleam of tweezers, pincers, screws, scalpels, needles, and awls. Ereth had shuddered even at the sight of his tiefling companion’s red, scarred skin crowned with metal. Abdirak even caught Ereth looking away from his half-grown nails over tea.

Even so, Ereth was still as Abdirak lit a taper and plucked a long needle from its place. He heated it to glowing before he blew the taper out. Then he took the clean metal pincers and knelt on one knee in front of Ereth. Tears welled in Ereth’s eyes again, but Abdirak ignored them. He did not let himself offer any encouragement, either.

“I told you what would happen if you could not hold your tongue, did I not?”

“Yes, Paingiver,” Ereth said in a small voice.

“Then you know what will happen now.” Abdirak held up the pincers. “This is not a punishment, Ereth. It is merely a result of your actions. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, Paingiver.”

Ereth looked away, his hands in a fist. Three taps, and this would end. A single word, and it would end. Abdirak waited, but there was only silence.

“Look me in the eyes. Do not look away.”

Ereth raised his head and blinked away his tears. He was stubborn, willful, prideful, wanting—all things that had been beaten out of Abdirak long ago. Abdirak prayed to his goddess that Ereth would learn the one lesson Abdirak required of him. Then he could wait no longer.

“Stick out your tongue.”

Oh, the quick flash of anger in those blue eyes before Ereth’s body yielded. Abdirak had never before been a jealous teacher, but Maiden help him, he wanted Ereth all to himself. He wanted to teach Ereth the way he wished he had been taught. Not dogma and service and cruelty without purpose—not the relentless pain that ground fine glass into coarse sand, but the molten, delicious, delightful pain that served Loviatar best.

Abdirak clamped the drow’s tongue firmly and placed the needle below his tongue. He held Ereth’s gaze for a moment before he pierced the middle cleanly through. Oh, Loviatar, the cry he made! Abdirak wanted to thread his tongue to hear him whimper. He wanted to adorn Ereth with silver. As much as Ereth trembled, Abdirak saw a small flicker of something sweeter in his gaze. Ever a curious one, even to the point of no return.

Abdirak placed the pincers and needle beside him, and Ereth’s eyes fluttered closed. Abdirak only had to tip up his head for him to open them again. They were clear and beautiful, and hardened with resolve. It would be a while yet until they were done.

“Get up.”

Ereth stood shakily. Abdirak did not help him. Instead, he cleaned and put away his tools, then took up the bowl by his bedside.

“Bend over the bed.”

Ereth whimpered in anticipation, but he obeyed. Abdirak dipped a clean cloth into the mixture of warm water, salt, and vinegar. When he pressed it against Ereth’s welted ass without warning, Ereth howled, but he kept silent and still enough as Abdirak washed the drying blood from his skin. Abdirak cleaned his wounds without regard to how Ereth’s hips canted to escape the hard press of the cloth, or how his thighs jerked at the sting of salt and vinegar against his cuts. When Abdirak had cleaned him thoroughly, he snapped his fingers and pointed to the tray of rice.

“Kneel.”

Ereth obeyed, raising up on his knees in an effort to avoid pain.

“Down.”

Ereth knew exactly what Abdirak wanted. He whimpered and lowered himself until the clean welts of his ass and thighs touched his heels and calves. In front of him was a blank wall, and below him was the rice.

“Stay and don’t move.”

Then Abdirak sat at his desk. In truth, there was little he needed to do besides write a few letters of correspondence. Once he was done, he slipped a missal from his shelf and began preparing his next lesson, from routine if nothing else. If not for Ereth, then for some other willing Kneeling One. Abdirak did not allow himself to wonder whether Ereth would pass the one true test Abdirak would ever have to give him. He reminded himself that he was a vessel—his Maiden’s instrument, and nothing more. There were no plans in Baldur’s Gate that Abdirak could not cancel. He could be gone before tomorrow’s dawn. The thought caused a tight, iron pang in his chest, and he did his best to commend the pain to his Mistress.

One hour passed before Abdirak rose. “Have you had enough?”

Ereth looked at the wall and didn’t speak until Abdirak commanded it.

“No, Paingiver.”

“Do you really think that you can pass this test?” Abdirak laughed coldly, glad that Ereth did not need to see his face. “Answer me.”

“I-I don’t know, Paingiver.”

Abdirak took his scourge from his belt. Ereth flinched at the soft hush of the nine falls unfurling, their tips twisted with small shards of metal. Abdirak had been careful in its application—Ereth had not felt its full, terrible rake before, but he would now.
“What fresh pain, in your great wisdom, do you wish me to grant you now? Shall I brand you? Burn you? Shall I pluck your nails with pliers? Shall I crush your fingers beneath the stocks? Would you like that, Ereth?”

“N-no, Paingiver.” Ereth shuddered.

“No,” Abdirak agreed. “I will not. These are advanced devotions that you have not yet earned the right to, and yet you wish to try them when you have not even mastered the whip. After the Kneeling Ones at the temple fashion their own scourge, they taste the Maiden’s kiss morning, noon, and night for a year before they are allowed to hold another instrument in Her name. Do you think yourself better than them?”

Abdirak struck Ereth’s back nearly as hard as he would strike his own. The metal tips scored Ereth’s flesh—they were still new to the drow, and terrible. Ereth screamed, his voice dry.

“Tell me. Are you better than them?”

“No, Paingiver,” Ereth cried.

Ereth did not justify his answer; he was learning to shut his mouth at last. Perhaps Abdirak should have given him a firmer hand in the beginning after all. But the rigors of the temple were not for everyone, and Abdirak would rather have a clever, sometimes insolent student than a dull, fearful one. And in a small, secret part of himself, he conceeded that he would rather have a curious, open lover than a devoted admirer who loved him all the more for his cruelty.

“This whip is the Maiden’s caress. Have you felt it before?”

Abdirak swung with his hip and arm, with leather and metal. He made each strike count.

“Yes, Paingiver.” Ereth gasped. His shoulders heaved and rolled.

“On your back?”

Another vicious strike.

“Y-yes, Paingiver.”

Again.

“Your ass?”

Ereth flinched in anticipation. “Yes, Paingiver.”

“Raise up.”

Ereth did, and the whip came down across all the welts, tearing them all. Ereth screamed high and bit off his curses.

“Control yourself,” Abdirak said. “Have you felt the whip on your thighs?”

“Y-yes, Paingiver.” Ereth shook, his thighs sinking back onto his calves despite himself.

“I said raise up.”

Ereth obeyed. He howled as the whip tore across his weals and the strands licked his tender, inner thighs.

“Your calves?”

Ereth’s breath hitched. He was crying again, but he kept his posture as best he could. Abdirak stepped closer to him and watched his face crumple.

“Yes, Paingiver.”

Abdirak cracked the scourge across Ereth’s calves. Fresh, sweet sobs wrenched from his chest, and his legs shook so much he steadied himself with a hand against the wall before Abdirak scolded him.

“Stay in position,” Abdirak snapped. “Have you felt my whip against your balls?”

Ereth could not speak for crying. “No, Paingiver,” he whispered.

“Speak up.” Abdirak stepped back and whipped him across the back again.

“No, Paingiver!”

“Say it.”

“I haven’t felt your whip on my balls, Paingiver,” Ereth choked.

“Do you want to?”

Ereth trembled for a long, silent moment. “No, Paingiver.”

Another lash across Ereth’s back. He screamed.

“Ask me for it. Ask me to whip your balls and your small, pathetic dick.”

“P-please, can you—” At another lash across Ereth’s thighs, a high, keening wail like an Ilmateran funeral lament shook him.

“Of course I can. Ask me if I will.”

“Please, Paingiver,” Ereth cried in a small voice. “Please, will you whip my balls and my small, pathetic dick?”

Another lash across his calves.

“I don’t believe that you want it. Beg me for it.”

“I—I can’t!” Ereth cried, flinching from a lash that didn’t come. Abdirak was already striding across the room.

“You will,” Abdirak growled. “Face me. Get on your hands and knees. Crawl.”

Ereth crawled slowly, dripping tears, scattering rice, and smearing blood across the clean wood floor. He knelt in front of Abdirak. There was no anger left in him, only a trembling like a plucked harp-string.

“Beg.”

“P-please, Paingiver, sir,” Ereth cried. “Please, whip my… please whip my small balls and limp, pathetic, worthless dick. Please, Paingiver, I want it.” He bent forward on his hands and knees to kiss Abdirak’s boot, and Abdirak kicked him away.

“Get up. Open your legs.”

“I can’t!”

Abdirak put all his authority into one command. “Do it.”

Ereth opened his legs, shaking. He did not cover himself, but his head was bowed in shame and fear.

“You asked for this,” Abdirak said. He raised his arm.

“Lolth!”

Abdirak dropped to his knees to catch Ereth as he swayed, heedless of the impact. His scourge fell to the floor. He was panting with exertion and nearly giddy with relief—that would not do. He took a deep breath and calmed himself before speaking. “You did so well, Dear One. It is over. I have you.”

“But I failed!” Ereth’s shoulders heaved in dry, silent sobs.

Abdirak traced his hand gently over the weal on Ereth’s cheek. “No, Ereth. You didn’t fail. You passed.” Abdirak smoothed a hand across Ereth’s hair. “Don’t worry, I have you now. I am proud of you, Dear One, I promise you.”

Abdirak held Ereth until his arms ached and the drow’s hitching breaths smoothed into small sighs. Ereth whimpered when Abdirak pulled away for a brief moment; Abdirak should not have found it as endearing as he did. Abdirak had made archdukes and kings need him, only to dedicate their heartbreak to Loviatar. It felt very long ago. Now, to be needed felt like a gift. There were so many other ways to glorify Loviatar than this man’s heartbreak—surely the Maiden of Pain would not miss it.

Ereth’s submission tasted like the cobwebbed barrels of rich dessert wine in Ilmateran cellars—all the sweeter after a little blood. How much sweeter were his cries then to the Maiden of Pain? A single heartbreak, even two, should be nothing compared to the dedication of an entire life in the Mistress’s service.

That would be enough.

Chapter Text

When Abdirak pressed a cup of water against Ereth's lips, he hesitated.

“Water. Drink—you need it, Dear One.”

And Abdirak was right. All of a sudden, Ereth felt the roughness of his throat and the dryness of his mouth. He drank in greedy gulps and ate dates covered in nuts and honey with sticky fingers. If Abdirak thought him uncouth, he did not say it.

“That’s it, Dear One.” Abdirak brushed off bits of rice stuck to Ereth’s knees. “Now, stay still and let me heal your wounds.”

The words took Ereth by surprise. Abdirak himself very rarely used magic for healing—he would rather let his body do its own, slow work and dedicate the pain to his goddess. And for Ereth, he had rarely needed more than a potion after their sessions.

The pain had dropped Ereth into a haze long ago. Ereth was swimming in it, warm and syrupy. It did not seem so bad in Abdirak’s arms. The stinging and burning of the lash felt very far away, and if he did not move, he could stand the awful ache of his knees on the hardwood floor.

“But you said they… they are a gift.” Ereth slurred only a little.

“The yielding is the reverence, Dear One, not your wounds. Loviatar has heard your cries. Now, you must heal your body.”

“If I were truly your student, would you say the same?” Ereth whispered.

Abdirak tipped up Ereth’s chin to look him in the eyes. “You are my student, and you may remain so as long as you respect what it means to yield. And yes, Dear One. The Kneeling Ones at the temple heal themselves often—how else could they perform their penances with due diligence? If I do not do the same, it is because there are as many ways to glorify the Maiden of Pain as there are followers of her ways.”

“But I did not yield,” Ereth said. “I failed you.”

Abdirak pressed a thumb to Ereth’s eyes to wipe away the tears. “No, you did not fail me by listening to your own limits, Dear One. That is what it means to respect both yourself, and me. This is the one lesson you must learn perfectly: you must know your own limits and respect them. Only then may I trust you to share in the Maiden’s embrace. Now, there will be a time for lessons later. Right now you must rest. I will heal your wounds.”

“Yes, Abdirak.”

Ereth rested his head on Abdirak’s shoulder, too tired to do more than hiss as Abdirak’s hand pressed against his bloody back. Ereth’s skin burned and itched as it knit back together under Abdirak’s healing words. Ereth didn’t know whether it was Abdirak’s skill or his proclivity for discomfort, and frankly, he wasn’t inclined to ask. All he knew was that Shadowheart’s healing had never felt like a colony of fire ants biting their way across his skin. When Abdirak’s hand brushed the split welts of his thighs, Ereth cried out softly; he did not miss Abdirak’s answering hardness pressing against his thigh.

“Don’t heal it all,” Ereth murmured. “Let me feel it still, tomorrow.”

Abdirak laughed lowly. “You want to see what a mess I have made of you.”

“Always,” Ereth said with a grin.

Astarion, too, liked to rake his nails across the traces of Ereth’s sessions with Abdirak to feel him squirm. Often, Astarion would add his own marks, delighted at how effortless it was to make Ereth dance and plead when he had already been under Abdirak’s care.

“May I pick you up, Dear One? I have a bath waiting, and you are… filthy.”

Abdirak’s low words sent a warm, unhurried thrum through Ereth’s languid limbs. “Only because of you,” he said with a grin, and laid his head against Abdirak’s chest.

The bath was steaming, but only as hot as Ereth could bear. Despite Abdirak’s healing, it stung. Ereth was partly convinced that the priest had put salt in it, just to be a terrible sadist, but he didn’t dare accuse Abdirak now. Besides, the steam smelled of lavender and medicine. So he would be smelling like mothballs later—how romantic. Abdirak gave him a potion to drink, and this time, Ereth didn’t protest. Then Abdirak knelt near the tub to wash the blood from Ereth’s skin and hair and check for any damage he did not intend. Just when Ereth was nearly falling asleep from the warm, gentle touch, Abdirak stopped.

“Dear One, I—” Abdirak clears his throat. “Ereth… may I hold you?”

Ereth opened his eyes in surprise. Abdirak always provided aftercare—even more than Ereth would think necessary, sometimes—but he did not tend towards sentimentality. “You’ll get wet.”

“It does not matter.” Abdirak said, quicker than Ereth would have thought. “I wish to hold you.”

Ereth nodded, and he was folded in strong, scarred arms. There was blood on Abdirak’s clothing and on his pale forearms. Ereth’s blood. Ereth’s hands feathered across the broad, hard expanse of Abdirak’s back. He traced his hands over the grooves of the scourge that had not quite healed and the scars from countless sessions past. Ereth wondered if one day he would ask Abdirak to leave scars behind himself. The thought made a rush of anxiety cut through the warm, languorous feeling of the bath, so he pushed it aside. For now, this was enough. Abdirak’s arms were around him, solid and real. Abdirak smelled of metal, leather, the tang of blood, and lavender soap.

“I’m sorry for being a stubborn fool,” Ereth said. “I wanted to be… to be worthy of you. To prove myself.”

“Loviatar does not love only those who take the most pain, Dear One, and neither do I. From the first moment I met you, I saw a spark in your eyes that said: this is one who knows pain, and who loves its sting all the same. But as beautiful as you are under the lash, that is not the only reason I love you.”

“Is it difficult to love me?” Ereth asked drowsily, and then a shock of cold horror came over him at his lack of inhibition.

Abdirak laughed as he drew away, but his tone held a somber edge. “Oh, Dear One, it is difficult to love anyone. The fault is not yours; I assure you. I am a difficult man—there is a reason Loviatar chose me to walk her path.” Abdirak sighed. “Love and loss are a coinflip away—if I had not found my goddess’s embrace, I might have turned to Shar’s lies long ago.”

Ereth filed that piece of information away for later and kept Abdirak’s silence. So, he had judged Abdirak correctly after all when he had goaded him earlier about becoming a Sharran inquisitor. For how right his intuition was and how stinging the barb, Ereth was half surprised that a slap was all he had received in return. Well, he supposed he had more than paid for his insolence by now, if only by his own stubbornness.

“It is difficult to be loved,” Abdirak said finally, “but that is what makes it all the more precious. Come up, and let me dry you. Let us have a cup of tea—it will settle your thoughts. If I let you say such sweet things now, I might never hear the end of it when Loviatar has drawn her touch away.”

That, Ereth could agree to. He put a cushion on one of the hard, wooden chairs around the kitchen table, and the scar across Abdirak’s mouth lifted as he smiled. The candles were burning low, but Ereth didn’t need to read. He just sat there, watching the moonlight filter through the kitchen window as Abdirak made tea. When Abdirak gave Ereth his cup it was full of milk and honey, and when Abdirak leaned down to kiss him his lips tasted like blackcurrant and pine smoke.

“I don’t find it difficult to love you, you know,” Ereth said.

Abdirak’s pale eyes were like chips of quartz in the moonlight. They widened just a fraction before Ereth took the mug from his hand and drank the black tea brimming with dark mulberry and blackcurrant and the taste of wood smoke as strong as if he had stood over a campfire. Perhaps, Ereth thought, it was a taste he was acquiring.

Abdirak opened his mouth to speak, but the front door came open with a rush of snow, and before they could part, Shovel was scampering across the table, gouging her claws into the wood, just to shake the snow from her quills all over them.

“Oi, Spell-shite! Piss-face! Shovel wants a hot drink. Shovel wants WHISKEY~.”

“Off the table, darling,” Astarion said in a high, strained, sing-song voice. “And whiskey is a cold drink, not a hot one.”

“Fine. Shovel wants cold whiskey.”

“No,” Ereth said.

“Shovel wants wine.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Awwww, but Shovel loves wine. Arkhen Hoard is the best—not Esmeltar Red or Ithbank. Ithbank tastes like ‘piss and vinegar.’ This is why Shovel likes Astarion better than you, Spell-shite. Astarion gives Shovel wine. Good wine, not that piddling shit!”

Ereth managed not to laugh until after Shovel had been coerced away by the promise of hot chocolate on her own, small pallet. Then, Ereth raised his eyebrow at Astarion.

“It was grape juice,” Astarion said with his hands raised, “so you can stop looking at me like I’m in for a lecture. I may have said I wasn’t ready to be a father, but I’m not that horrid. The nasty little thing’s still a quasit, after all.”

Abdirak, watching the chaos from the kitchen, made an undignified sound into his tea. “What a family you’ve made for yourself.”

Astarion shot him a smug look. “I don’t know why you’re laughing, priest. You’re part of it too, you know.”

“What can I say,” Ereth said with a shrug, “I’m partial to a group of weirdos.”