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Chapter Text

When they stumbled upon Raphael— reciting rhyming couplets into the shadowy darkness of the Reithwin cemetery like some self-indulgent student of the bardic arts— Astarion was adamant that they forge on straightaway and deal with the orthon lurking under the Thorm family mausoleum as soon as possible.  Rhune disagreed; they hadn’t even been to Moonrise Towers yet.  It was only after the spirited group debate, when Astarion pulled the sorcerer off to the side and the two conversed together in low voices, that Rhune changed his mind.  A minor miracle in itself, from Gale’s perspective.  But then again, Rhune had always gotten along better with Astarion from the start.  

Gale considered asking what the vampire spawn said that managed to sway Rhune over to his side, with the intention of possibly utilizing that tactic the next time he found himself in yet another argument with the undeniably charismatic and aggravatingly headstrong leader of their party.  Ultimately, Gale decided that it was impolite to pry into what was obviously a private conversation, left instead to fill in the gaps with his slightly envious imagination.

The Sharran temple beneath the mausoleum was a surprise, to be sure, and presented more roadblocks than initially anticipated to fulfill Astarion’s request.  After three days of cautious exploration, however, they finally found a lead, and it was decided that it would be for the best if they sent a smaller strike group out to hopefully catch the target unawares, and deal with the problem that way.

For the first time in… gods, Gale could hardly recall.  Recent memory, certainly.  In any event, for the first time in recent memory, Gale reluctantly decided to stay in camp instead of being at Rhune’s side.  Three days of nothing but steep, crumbling staircases and fending off spirit-possessed suits of armor had not served the joints in Gale’s legs any favors, and while the herbal salve that Halsin had given him for the pain helped significantly, it didn’t eliminate it altogether.  Some rest would likely do him a world of good.  

And, perhaps when Rhune returned, Gale would finally be ready to have the conversation that he’d been mulling over— more accurately, the one gnawing at him from the inside— since the first night they’d spent in the shadow-cursed lands.

So Astarion accompanied Rhune, of course, and Shadowheart with them.  She was interested in exploring more of the temple devoted to her goddess, a dark intent and restless energy that occasionally bordered on the fanatical permeating her person the longer they spent in the expansive underground ruins.  Karlach leapt at the chance to offer her formidable devil-slaying services to round out the group, but Lae’zel was keen to test the mettle of her newly-acquired greatsword and, quote, “bathe steel in infernal blood,” so the two flipped a coin to determine who would fill the remaining spot.  

Once the concept of the game was explained to Lae’zel— and once a horrified Wyll managed to talk Karlach into using mundane currency in lieu of the originally-proffered soul coin while Rhune laughed himself to tears at the macabre idea— the githyanki warrior thought long and hard with utter seriousness painted across her features, before she rolled her shoulders back and declared, “Heads.”

“Tails for me, then,” Karlach said with a grin.  She wiggled the pointed tip of her own tail a few inches from Shadowheart’s face; the cleric stood nearby, quietly observing the proceedings with great interest.

The gold piece was sent somersaulting into the air from Karlach’s thumb, and it sang out a magnificent metallic aria as it clattered against the black stone floor.  All three women leaned their heads forward to get a look at which side faced up when it settled.

“Ah, fuck,” said Karlach.

“It would appear that I am victorious,” Lae’zel said smugly.

“Best two out of three to make sure,” Shadowheart insisted, which earned her a frown and a scornful “chk” from Lae’zel.

But Lae’zel won the next one, too, and Karlach shook her horned head and laughed as she tucked the gold back into her purse.  “Can’t win against you in a bet, can’t beat you at this shit— hells, Lae.  I think you might be your own good luck charm.”

“I’ve not charmed anyone— Karlach, you would accuse me of cheating?”

“No, no.  It’s just a saying, Lae.”

“I see.  You continue to have many strange sayings.  And, this ‘luck charm’ is a favorable thing?” Lae’zel asked.

Karlach nodded before clapping a genial hand on one of Lae’zel’s wiry shoulders; now that she had the ability to touch without injuring someone, Karlach was eager to do so at every available opportunity.  “Sure is.  Gods know we need all the luck we can get,” she replied.  Karlach then withdrew her hand and turned towards Shadowheart, stooping down a tad to whisper something into one of Shadowheart’s pointed ears.  

Shadowheart smiled for a moment before she apparently caught herself, and walked back in the direction of her tent to gather her supply pack and weapon with a nod and a wave.

Soon after the four were on their way, Gale attempted to lose himself in a book: a text about the Shadar-kai that Rhune had found up on the roof of Last Light, of all places.  

Why Rhune had been on the roof to begin with, Gale had no inkling, and wasn’t entirely sure that he wanted to know.  At least Rhune’s strange behavior was a comforting return to form; he’d been in a foul mood the first time they’d visited that unexpected haven in the cursed gloom, only worsening when they had to fend off the Flaming Fist Marcus and his ghouls.  Since then, Rhune had been markedly taciturn— more so than what the perpetually oppressive nature of the shadow-curse inspired in everyone else— as well as fitfully on edge in a way Gale hadn’t seen since their first few days off the nautiloid, sporting dark circles under his red eyes that attested to a lack of restful sleep, or trance, or both.  He’d even snuck into Gale’s tent the second night they’d spent camped outside the inn, citing a particularly troubling nightmare about which he refused to elaborate.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have woken you, I’ll go,” Rhune had said, just as soon as he’d arrived and explained what happened.  He crouched uncertainly at the edge of Gale’s bedroll, wringing his hands together.  In the near-darkness, Gale could see that Rhune’s white hair hung uncharacteristically loose, freed from the normal topknot he sported near the crown of his head; the ends brushed near his jawline and obscured a majority of the burn-scarred portion of his face.

Gale reached out before he could think better of it, placing his hand over the top of both of Rhune’s, and squeezing when he found them cold and clammy.  “You might as well stay, now that you’ve done so,” Gale told him, half-asleep and bleary eyed.  He moved over and held open his blanket, feeling distinctly like he was coaxing a frightened wild animal into accepting some semblance of security.

So Rhune crawled in beside him without another word, and Gale felt the tension in Rhune’s muscles begin to ebb away when he wrapped an arm around Rhune’s middle to hold him.  Gale moved his splayed out hand back and forth over Rhune’s skin in an attempt to soothe him further, one of his fingers idly tracing a tiny section of an enormous scar that had once been made with near-surgical precision and traveled the length of Rhune’s torso.  Rhune shifted closer, so that his back was flush against Gale’s front, and as Gale curled his body more completely into the much larger man while they cuddled together, he inhaled deeply.  Gods, Rhune smelled so good: woodsmoke, soap, and leather, layered with the spice and citrus undertones of his skin, and the sweet, yet peculiarly metallic scent of the wild magic that permeated the entirety of Rhune’s being— and it wasn’t long at all before Gale promptly fell asleep again, this time with his face nestled against the bare skin of Rhune’s upper back.  

When next Gale woke, Rhune was gone, and there hadn’t been a repeat incident since, to the point where Gale had begun to question whether or not he’d imagined it.  Until Rhune gifted him the book a few days later.

“This is for you,” Rhune had declared almost shyly before presenting the book.  The pair stood along one of the side walls of the large inn building; Rhune had pulled Gale away by the hand while the rest of the group waited near the makeshift tent in which the Harper merchant displayed her wares, leaving Wyll and Shadowheart to haggle for the supplies they needed for their excursion below the mausoleum.  

“Oh!”  Gale lit up when he read the title, embossed in faded silver letters on the worn leather cover.  “This is a rare tome!  Thank you, what an absolutely marvelous gift.  Tell me, how did you get your hands on this?”

Rhune explained, much to Gale’s bemusement, then said, “It’s for the other night, when you let me stay in your tent.  I wanted to repay you somehow.”

Gale smiled, feeling the tell-tale, flustered heat creeping into his face and neck, butterflies in his stomach fluttering wildly.  “While I sincerely appreciate the gesture, that wasn’t necessary; you looked like you were in need of assistance, and I was more than happy to provide.”

In answer, Rhune pressed the book into Gale’s hands and then backed Gale up against the wall of the inn before he leaned down and kissed him with ravenous intent.  

Gale was briefly reminded of the time he and Rhune had been connected by the Weave, how startled he’d been when Rhune had pictured doing this very thing.  The two had kissed a handful of times since then, but there was something about this specific scenario, Gale’s back against a wall and Rhune’s body surrounding him on all other sides, that had seared itself into Gale’s mind and tormented him ever since.  The image and phantom sensation of the moment were both completely trivialized now that he had a taste for the real thing, and Gale’s heart thundered away in his ears as he eagerly returned the kiss while clutching at the book for dear life, knowing that if he moved either of his hands to grasp at Rhune instead, he might never let go.

Perhaps it was due to this indecent fixation of Gale’s, rendering him far more excited to kiss Rhune than he’d previously ever been.  But for whatever reason, the orb interrupted them that time, the soft glow of it from the mark on Gale’s chest drawing Rhune’s gaze as he broke the kiss with a startled intake of breath and a frown.

“You’re safe?” Rhune asked.  A few of his fingers brushed along Gale’s jawline.

Gale melted even further into the rough stone at his back, helpless in the face of Rhune’s unbridled concern for him.  For them all, of course, but there was something about the way he worded it, the way that he spoke, and the way that Rhune touched him that made Gale feel… cherished.  

It was dizzying, propelling him to extraordinarily dangerous emotional heights; like he was a firework sent to float amongst a sea of starlight, momentarily untethered, absolved of everything that had burdened him for well over a year now.

He quietly dreaded the inevitable crash and burn, the return of the weighty responsibility that rested on his shoulders alone, the literal detonation that still awaited him— even as an increasingly outspoken part of himself clamored and hoped to delay all of that for as long as he was able to do so.

Gale nodded, words eluding him for the moment as he struggled to catch his breath.  “Yes, I believe I’m fine.  No risk of explosion, at any rate.  It feels… different.  Than any previous time that it’s illuminated, as far as I can recall.”

“Good different?”

“I’m not quite sure.  Just different.  Certainly not as volatile; perhaps it’s still capable of reacting to internal stimuli, but without the imminent threat of destruction to go along with it.”

“So, you’re saying that was a really good kiss?” Rhune said with a wicked smile.  

He leaned in for another and the light of the orb flared brighter in concert with the uptick of Gale’s heartbeat, enough of an answer for them both.

Rhune chuckled, pleased with himself, and when he spoke his lips brushed against Gale’s once more.  “I think it likes me.”

“That makes two of us,” Gale whispered.  The words tumbled out, and he wasn’t sure if at this point he would have even bothered trying to stop them.  “Rhune, I— I think, perhaps, one evening soon, we should find some time to… to talk.  Privately.  Er, in a more private locale than this, I mean.  Considerably so.”  

Rhune’s eyes widened, sparkling with both mischief and desire in the ambient silver-blue light of the moonshield.  He reluctantly pulled away, considering Gale for a moment while he bit at his bottom lip, before he drew in a deep breath and straightened up his posture.  “I think you’re right,” Rhune said with a contemplative sigh, rubbing at the back of his neck with one of his hands.  He looked over in the direction of where they’d left the others as he spoke again.  “Maybe there’ll be time after that orthon’s dead.  Shouldn’t take too long.  How deep could that mausoleum really go?”

Now, it was four days later, and Gale sat in his tent with the gifted text open on his lap, though he quickly found he was unable to focus on actually reading it.  He hoped that the excursion wasn’t too taxing, and he hoped that Rhune remembered what they’d agreed upon, as well as when, because Gale needed to say something, couldn’t deny it any longer: he was hopelessly in love with Rhune.  And he needed Rhune to know it— unequivocally, without any room for misinterpretation.

And then, after that conversation, if Rhune was willing, perhaps they could… they could finally…  Well, suffice it to say that Gale quietly anticipated putting his tongue to good use in more ways than one.

After attempting and then reattempting to read the same page three times in a row, Gale eventually had no choice but to concede defeat, and instead offered to help Wyll and Karlach with the task of taking inventory of their collective store of provisions.

“Sooo,” Karlach said, almost as soon as Gale settled beside her.  She swayed, and bumped her battle-scarred and vent-covered shoulder up against his good-naturedly.  “How are things going with you and Mister Tall-Drow-and-Handsome?”

Gale felt immediate heat in his face that he knew had nothing to do with his proximity to Karlach’s infernal engine, and was of more than half a mind to stand right back up and return to his tent to try reading that page for a fourth time, or maybe see if Halsin wanted non-animal company while he fretted over his research and the sparse lead they’d received regarding Thaniel’s whereabouts.

But before Gale could say anything in response, Wyll chuckled, and said, “Come on, Karlach, he just sat down, leave the poor man be.”

“But they’re talking to each other again!” Karlach said, an excited glint in her amber eyes, as if that explained everything— and the stubborn, privately guarded part of Gale resented how much it actually did.  “Besides, it’s a valid fucking question, bookworm,” she continued, addressing Gale once more.  “Gods know you’ve both been moonin’ over each other for ages now.”

“And what about you and Shadowheart?” Wyll asked her with a sly grin.  “That’s been nearly as long, if not longer.”

“Oi!”  Karlach gasped and smacked the back of her hand against Wyll’s knee, making him laugh.  Her tail whipped back and forth behind her, agitated.  “Wyllyam with two y’s Ravengard, I never figured you for a dirty rotten scoundrel.”

“You know what they say about stones and glass houses, my friend.”

“You and Shadowheart?” repeated Gale, surprised.  “As in, the two of you in a relationship?”  That development had certainly escaped his notice.

“Yeah,” Karlach said, bashful, extraordinarily happy, and a smidgen annoyed all at once.  “Well, not officially, we’re still working some shit out— and I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone yet— ooh, Wyll, she’s gonna be pissed you figured it out.”

“I won’t tell her if you don’t,” Wyll said with another laugh.

Gale held up one of his hands, placing the other over his heart.  “Upon my solemn vow.”

“Yeah, all right, all right, at ease.”  Karlach swayed in her seat again, wearing an enormous grin; it was a delight to see her so incandescent with happiness, instead of simply incandescent.  “Buncha gossips in this group.  Let’s talk about something else, yeah?”  She reached over to grab a frayed burlap sack from the nearby pile of supplies and dropped it into Gale’s lap.  “Here, bookworm.  Do you mind checking if these carrots are still eatable?”

“Of course, it would be my pleasure.  And I do believe the word as you’re using it would be ‘edible,’” said Gale automatically.  “Though I would be delighted to discuss the difference with you, if you’re truly in search of another topic of conversation.”  He shot Wyll a small smile, too, grateful for the warlock’s prior intervention.

Time passed quickly and comfortably after that, all things considered.  But the other half of their party wasn’t expected back to the base camp for another couple of hours yet, so when Gale spied Lae’zel, Shadowheart, and Astarion trudging tiredly up the cracked stone stairs with Rhune slung between the two women on some sort of makeshift litter, the wizard immediately feared the worst.

He dropped what he was in the middle of prepping for their evening meal with a horrified, strangled sort of gasp and ran over to meet them, faster than Gale could ever remember doing so.  From further behind him, he heard Karlach and Wyll both calling for Halsin to come and assist.  

“What happened?” Gale demanded, anxiously wringing his hands in front of him, trying to get a good look at Rhune.  

“Your boyfriend’s an idiot, is what happened,” Astarion said sourly.

Gale didn’t even bother correcting him— the nature of his feelings for Rhune were not exactly a secret anymore.  Perhaps Karlach was right all along, and they never truly had been.  

“What happened?” he repeated, trying his utmost not to panic or impede Shadowheart and Lae’zel as they carried Rhune closer to the campfire.  “Did you find the orthon—?”

“We found it, all right,” Shadowheart said.  With a grunt, she and Lae’zel lowered Rhune onto the ground.  “That wasn’t the problem.”

“Then what’s the problem?  Out with it,” Gale said impatiently, and he crouched down to inspect Rhune for himself.  He seemed to be sleeping— or unconscious.  Definitely breathing.  There appeared to be little wrong with him, aside from splotches of grime and blood that were no doubt accrued during the thick of battle, marring his face and clothes to varying degrees.  Rather curiously, however, Rhune had his hands tied behind his back, with both of his feet bound by the same length of rope.

“ Chk ,” Lae’zel clicked her tongue in distaste.  “He ate something off the ground, and began to act irrationally.  We had no choice but to knock him out and tie him up.”

“‘Ate something’?  Lae’zel, you give the imbecile far too much credit,” Astarion said, rolling his eyes before looking at Gale.  “Rhune ate a piece of a huge, disgusting dead spider— and before you ask, no, I have no idea why.  Gods only know why he does anything.”

Spiders, again.  Why was it always bloody spiders?   At least Gale hadn’t been there to witness it; he felt slightly ill at the very thought.

“Did you bring a piece of it back with you?” Halsin inquired, hurrying over to join them.

“I have it here,” Shadowheart said.  From within her pack, she produced a small glass specimen jar containing an oozing piece of flesh, before passing it over to Halsin.  “I think it’s… dosed with something, but I didn’t have a chance to investigate too thoroughly.”  She glanced in Gale’s direction, a peculiar glimmer of something— humor, perhaps?— alighting in her green eyes.  “Rhune’s quite the handful, isn’t he?”

Gale wasn’t entirely sure what to make of that, so he instead focused on Halsin, watching as the druid uncorked the glass vessel and inhaled a cautious whiff of the contents, only to immediately make a face.  

“I believe you’re right, Shadowheart,” Halsin said.  “It does smell… off.  Hmm.”  He gingerly replaced the cork on the jar and cast a worried, contemplative look over at Rhune’s unconscious form.  “And when you say Rhune was acting irrationally…?”

“He kept looking for this one,” Lae’zel said, jabbing two of her clawed fingers directly into Gale’s upper arm.  

“Ow.  What?  Me?” Gale said, perplexed, and he rubbed at the spot where she’d poked him.  “Why?”

“Because whatever was on that thing,” Astarion said, pointing over at the jar in Halsin’s hands, “whatever it was that he ate, it turned him on.”

“What?” Gale repeated, uncomprehending.

“You know…”  Astarion smirked at him.  “It turned him on?  Got him in the mood?  For sex, darling.”

Gale’s face blazed scarlet like the plucky maiden protagonist of nearly every tawdry romance novel he had ever read, and his gaze darted over to Rhune, searching for answers, yet finding none.

Halsin, however, somehow arrived at a definitive conclusion drawn from all of these disparate, enigmatic details.  He hummed again, re-opened the jar, and took another sniff at it before he nodded and said, “I believe there’s succubus spittle on this.”

“Succubus spit?  That shit’s no joke,” Karlach said.  Beside her, Wyll nodded, his eyes wide.

“Will he be all right?” asked Gale, voice weak and beleaguered in his ears.  “I mean, is it poisonous, or—”

“No, it shouldn’t have any adverse effects,” Halsin said.  He tucked the jar away into his healer’s kit as he spoke.

“Would a lesser restoration help?  Surely you or Shadowheart could—?”

“Do you honestly think I didn’t try that already?” Shadowheart interrupted, clearly offended.  She frowned at Gale, her fine, dark brows knitted together.

Halsin sighed, and he crouched down to examine Rhune for himself.  He placed both hands on either side of Rhune’s head and gently rotated until it rested on the other side, revealing a large, already-dried patch of blood that soaked through the drow’s white hair.  

“I didn’t want to heal it too much, otherwise he would have woken up,” Shadowheart explained, even as the bottom dropped out of Gale’s stomach at the sight.  He was aware head wounds had a tendency to bleed profusely, but that seemed like a lot of blood.

Halsin nodded again.  “I can heal this fully, and he’ll be fine.  No lasting cranial trauma— additional, I should say.”  He chuckled to himself before his gaze fell on Gale.  “But, it’s as Shadowheart said, he’ll wake up.  How would you like to proceed, Gale?”

“I…” Gale began, and then faltered, his eyes darting between the faces of everyone suddenly peering at him as if he were that lump of flesh in the specimen jar.  “I confess, I still don’t fully grasp the complexity of what’s happening here, or why that decision should fall to me.”

“Succubus spittle is a powerful aphrodisiac,” Halsin explained; Gale felt his eyes widen, and an exhale of shock and understanding fled from his mouth.  “Extremely powerful.  And there’s no telling how much Rhune ingested.  I don’t know how long it will be in his system.  Hours.  Days, perhaps.”

Days?   Good gods.  “Is there nothing we can do?”

Halsin smiled then, an upwards quirk of the scarred side of his mouth.  “There are ways to help speed along the process, yes.”

Gale looked uncertainly around when no explanation was immediately given, until finally Karlach sighed and said, “He’s gotta fuck it out of his system, soldier.”

“Oh!”  Of course.  He felt decidedly foolish for not putting two and two together sooner.  Gale’s face burned when he addressed Halsin again, and he couldn’t quite meet him eye to eye.  “That’s… why you asked how I wanted to proceed, I take it?”

Astarion and Shadowheart both snickered quietly, and Lae’zel didn’t even bother to hide her, “Tas’ki,” of annoyance.  

Halsin merely nodded, his face utterly serious— though perhaps there was a bit more of a sparkle of amusement in his eyes than before.  “Indeed.  Judging from the account of Rhune’s behavior earlier, I think it’s safe to assume that he’s made his preference of partner abundantly clear.”

Wyll coughed, a poor attempt at concealing a laugh, and Karlach spoke up once more in her no-punches-pulled, quintessentially Karlach way, “No shit.”

“He can wait it out, of course, no harm will come to him.”  Halsin valiantly continued on as if there were no interruptions, and Gale silently thanked the healer for his excellent bedside manner.  “But if he wakes up while still under the influence, there is a chance that it might be rather painful for him.  Uncomfortable, at the very least.”

Gale looked ruefully over in Rhune’s direction: peacefully lying there, unaware how much of a ruckus he’d caused.  Gale very nearly envied him.  Though, now that it’d been brought to his attention, Gale did notice that a certain area of Rhune’s trousers under his sorcerer’s robes seemed to be more… pronounced than usual.  

He gulped, feeling exponentially more self-conscious as the faintest traitorous stirrings of his own pent-up arousal began to course through his bloodstream at the sight of it, at the idea that Rhune had been so desperately searching for him that the others had no choice but to knock him out and restrain him.  Gods above and below.  

“I don’t want him to be in pain,” said Gale.  Which was true.  But he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t also excited at the prospect of this frankly ludicrous scenario, no matter how mortifying it currently was.

“Then pleasure it is,” said Halsin mildly.  The comment made Astarion laugh outright before he clapped a hand over his mouth and walked away from the assembled group, his shoulders shaking with uninhibited glee.  “If that is what you want, Gale,” Halsin continued.  “No one is coercing you into doing anything you don’t wish to.”

Well, he definitely didn’t want to be discussing this in front of everyone , especially when Rhune wasn’t even the one with whom he was discussing.  And, admittedly, it wasn’t what he’d prepared for at all, wasn’t anything remotely akin to how he’d pictured their first time together going— but Gale supposed he should have known better by now.  There was really no accounting for or predicting anything in regards to Rhune.  

“I can take care of him— I-I mean, I can handle—”  Gale pressed a couple fingers to his temple, closed his eyes, and inhaled a steadying breath, attempting to ignore how what felt like his entire body flushed bright red from the top of his head to the tips of his toes as he tripped ungainly over his words like a newborn rothé, as well as the sound of Astarion’s additional peals of laughter in response to them.  “Oh, confound it all.  Just wake him up.”

Halsin nodded.  “Very well.”

“Hang on, hang on,” Wyll interjected.  He sounded the faintest bit alarmed when he stepped forward, making a point of not looking directly at Gale.  Obvious embarrassment emanated from him in waves as he spoke.  “Before you do that, Halsin.  Let’s… well.  How about we all relocate first?  Give them some space.”

“That’s the first sane thing I’ve heard all day,” muttered Shadowheart.

There was a flurry of activity then, as everyone packed up and broke camp as rapidly as they could, with the exception of Gale’s tent and belongings, as well as Rhune’s.  It was decided that Halsin and Lae’zel would leave the immediate area but stay in the general vicinity on watch, since they seemed the least bothered by the notion of potentially overhearing anything untoward— much as Gale felt like he might disintegrate into ashes at the thought of one of his friends knowing what he sounded like in such a state.  The rest would hike further up into the temple to the spot they’d made camp in two days ago— a simple task, since they’d disarmed the traps and knew the layout of most of this section now— and would wait there until the four rejoined them.

Gale felt his shoulders slump as he watched everyone except Halsin leave.  Obviously it wasn’t Gale’s fault that this was happening, but it was difficult to describe why this felt like some strange sort of punishment— and why the idea of that was more than a little exciting.

“Ready?” Halsin asked him.  In the interim, the druid had cleaned away most of the blood and dirt from Rhune’s face as well as out of his hair near the wound.  He looked up at Gale with his kind hazel eyes while he crouched down beside Rhune, once more cradling Rhune’s injured head in both hands.

“As I’ll ever be, I suppose,” said Gale.

Halsin chuckled.  “I’m sure you’ll do just fine,” he said.  Somehow, the remark struck Gale as encouraging without also being awkward, or patronizing, or lasciviously suggestive at all.  It was almost comforting, really.  “Rhune is lucky to have you looking out for him.”

Gale flushed at the compliment, staring down at Rhune’s peaceful face for another moment before saying, “Wait, I neglected to ask.  Will he be— you know.  Reasonable?  Or rather, will I be able to reason with him?”

“If my personal experiences with succubus spittle are anything to go by, it will be intense, but he’ll be lucid enough.”

“‘Experiences’?  Plural?”  At least it was heartening to know that Rhune would remember whatever was about to transpire between them.

He chuckled again.  “Stories for another time.  Best told near a campfire, with a full bowl of tobacco and a bottle of mead,” Halsin said with a wistful sigh.  “I promise, you’ll both be fine, Gale.  If something does happen, however, call out for me or Lae’zel, and we’ll come to your aid.”

Gale gulped as he remembered the gutted tiefling woman they’d all woken up to in camp nearly two months ago, flecks of her blood dried on Rhune’s hands and beneath his fingernails from the sorcerer slaughtering her in his sleep.  Would Gale even have time to say anything if something went awry?  Had Alfira?

The circumstances weren’t the same, Gale knew, but gods— was it really wise, to continue with this?  To be left alone with Rhune like this?  He hadn’t done anything remotely resembling that terrible murder since, but if Rhune’s consciousness was addled in any way by the substance he’d ingested, as seemed to be the case, would that render him more susceptible to those urges?

…And why was the quietly looming threat of that also deeply, distressingly, arousing?

Gale almost wanted to laugh.  He played the part of the fool admirably, either way.

“I don’t believe he’ll hurt you,” Halsin said softly, startling Gale out of his thoughts.  “I— well, I’ve met my fair share of drow, even before all of this.  Rhune seems… different, somehow.  And I know I haven’t been around as long as the others, but I’ve seen how he looks at you, how he treats you— as well as the rest of us.  There’s a gentle soul lurking in there, I think.”

Gale nodded his agreement, gulping again.  Halsin’s presence was calming, his words more so; but Gale’s anxiety and, if he was being completely honest with himself, his anticipation were both starting to reach a fever pitch, his heart pounding fast in his ears, his palms beginning to sweat.  Thank the gods the orb had been stabilized before now, otherwise Gale felt like he might combust on the spot.

“I’m ready,” he told Halsin, though his voice quavered as he said it.

“Good man,” Halsin said.  With another whispered word his hands glowed gold and green with healing magic, mending the fresh wound on poor Rhune’s already-battered skull.  He withdrew immediately after the spell ran its course, retreating as Rhune began to stir.

Chapter Text

Gale watched with baited breath as Rhune’s eyes moved rapidly back and forth under his eyelids before he opened them.  

It was another long moment before the sorcerer apparently processed what he saw, but once he did, he looked up at Gale with a ridiculously enchanting, soft, drowsy smile.

“Gale…”  Rhune breathed Gale’s name as if he were uttering a prayer of adoration, as if it were the only name he’d ever spoken, as if it were the virginal dark of the horizon greeting the first whispered light of dawn.  And something within Gale stirred in response, like some long-slumbering beast lifting its head and perking up its ears in interest.

“I heard you were looking for me,” Gale said gently.  He knelt down on the ground beside the litter to be closer to Rhune, ignoring the twinge in his left knee as he moved.

“Mhm.”  Rhune’s head lolled in an approximation of a nod, and his eyes closed again.  He appeared to be somewhat disoriented, though it remained to be seen whether his current sluggishness was a result of the hells-tinged substance in his system, or the blow to the head he’d taken earlier.  Gale realized that he’d never inquired which of the three had knocked Rhune out to begin with— but he supposed the detail was a trivial one, now.

All things considered, however, Rhune was remarkably calm.  Gale had been envisioning some rabid creature wearing Rhune’s skin that he’d have to immediately contend with, so this was a welcome alternative.  Perhaps Halsin had even been mistaken, and the effects of the aphrodisiac that Rhune had ingested were already beginning to wear off.

“Rhune?  How are you feeling?” Gale asked him.

Rhune’s eyes fluttered open in response to his name, but this time Gale could barely make out the normal red of his irises; his pupils were incredibly dilated, eye color nearly burgundy as a result.  “Hot,” Rhune whispered, in reply to Gale’s question.  “So, so, hot…”

Gale reached out a tentative hand to rest it against Rhune’s forehead.  Rhune initially hissed at the contact, but pressed his head up into Gale’s palm all the same, like a feral cat still suspicious of, yet acclimating to, human touch.  Rhune’s deep indigo skin was indeed hot, nearly feverish, and a fine sheen of sweat beaded across the surface of it.

“Touch— me.  Touch more,” Rhune said.  His voice was a sandpaper rasp, near-incoherent with primal need.  So much for the theory that the effects of the succubus spittle were subsiding.  Rhune’s breathing sounded ragged, and he rolled his head back and forth where he lay on the ground in an attempt to sway Gale’s hand from its resting place.  “Gale, please—”

“All right, all right, just a moment.  Can you stand?” said Gale.  He intended to relocate this entire interaction over to his tent as quickly as possible— then belatedly realized that no one had untied Rhune.  Blast it all.

“Can’t— move.”  Rhune struggled against his restraints, wriggling in place and letting out a soft groan when he managed to stimulate his now very obvious erection with his movements.  “I can’t— touch.  Need…”  Rhune trailed off with a broken whine when Gale removed his hand from him and stood.

Gods, he was rather pitiful like this; Gale felt awful about his inadvertent teasing, too, considering Rhune was already in such a state, and Gale was supposed to be taking care of him.  “Hold on, hold on, I’ll be back in a tick,” he said.  

Rhune whined again when Gale rushed over to his pack in search of a utility knife to free Rhune from the length of rope that bound him.  Once he’d returned, knife in hand, Gale examined the bonds for a moment, trying to decide where best to sever them so as to be rid of this mess as quickly and efficiently as possible.  Ever determined to make things difficult for Gale, albeit unknowingly, Rhune continued to squirm about fruitlessly in place, the muscles of his arms bulging under the sleeves of his robes as he tested his strength against the rope.

“Rhune, I need you to hold still,” Gale told him.  He crouched down and unsheathed the knife with lightly trembling hands, anxiety riding high in his chest.  “I said hold still,” he repeated, far more harshly than he normally would have when the first time had no obvious effect; he didn’t want to accidentally cut Rhune while he was attempting to free him, and create even more of a problem.

Gale was a few seconds away from using a spell to keep Rhune in place if he didn’t listen this time, but luckily Rhune inhaled sharply at his non-magical command and froze, yet another low whine escaping him.  The sound of it— along with the unexpected rush of telling him what to do and Rhune actually obeying— struck Gale like a thunderwave, his own anticipatory desire for the drow currently tied up before him roaring to the forefront with a swift and sudden vengeance.

Later.  They would explore that later.  Right now, he had to focus on the task at hand: cutting Rhune free so the two could retreat to the shelter of Gale’s tent.

“Do not move,” Gale instructed; not as harsh as before, but still firm.  “Not until I tell you otherwise.  Understood?”

Rhune nodded his head up ever so slightly then froze again, looking back at Gale with wide eyes once he realized his error.  “Y-yes,” he said.

“Good.”

His knife made short work of the rope; Gale sawed through a point along the lengthwise section that connected Rhune’s bound arms and legs first, then moved on to freeing the legs themselves.  He paused for a moment, weighing whether or not he should also free Rhune’s hands from where they were tied behind his back, but ultimately decided that he didn’t want to worry about it later, and took care to position and maneuver the blade such that it wouldn’t catch on Rhune’s clothes, or possibly nick his skin while Gale worked.

Gale also did his utmost not to touch Rhune while he was cutting him loose up until this point, but he needed to grab one of Rhune’s arms to keep them steady.  Rhune’s hand twitched and he sucked in another sharp breath when Gale touched him, but to his immense credit, that was all the movement he made.  With one final flick of the knife, the rope fell slack, and Gale gently uncoiled it from around Rhune’s wrists, as he’d done with his ankles before.

Work finished, Gale stood and took a step back, sheathing the knife before he spoke.  “All right, Rhune, you can move now.  Easy does it.”

Rhune flexed his hands first, then slowly sat up, rolling his shoulders forward and backward to stretch.  The entire time, he affixed Gale with a positively hungry stare, the pure, undiluted want in his eyes and his expression more than enough to knock the breath from Gale’s lungs.

The stale, underground air around them seemed charged with a force far more potent than electricity as they looked at each other for a tense, heart-pounding moment.  Weave spare him, if Gale didn’t move now, it felt like Rhune would simply pounce on him right here, out in the open.

And, in all honesty, Gale would most certainly let him.

“Can you stand?” Gale asked him again.  Hopefully it would distract Rhune long enough to get him where Gale wanted him.

Rhune nodded, and his chest heaved as he methodically rose to his feet.  Whether that was due to the effort of moving after being knocked unconscious, the effects of the aphrodisiac, or both, Gale was unsure.

“You’re doing wonderfully for me, Rhune.  Will you walk with me?”  Gale pointed at the open flap of his tent, about thirty paces away from where they currently stood.  “We’ll be more comfortable in there.”

“Gale…”  He’d never heard his name spoken quite like that before, breathless and pleading for him, dancing on the cusp of agony— and he immediately decided that he needed to hear it again, and again, and again.  “Please… I need—”

“Walk with me,” Gale told him.  Without waiting for a response, he headed over to the tent, the slight scuffle of Rhune’s footsteps following along behind.

Gale stowed the knife he carried back where it belonged, and ducked inside the tent just as Rhune approached.  He quickly surveyed the interior, and frowned when he noticed the bright green glass of a small, foreign bottle full of some unknown liquid, placed deliberately on the middle of Gale’s pillow at the head of his bedroll in a spot where it wouldn’t be missed.

He didn’t have time to investigate any further, however, before Rhune was right beside him, both hands on Gale’s upper arms, tugging him close for a fierce, almost bruising kiss.  

Kissing Rhune was still very much a novelty, and all prior instances paled in comparison to this.  Rhune kissed like he was starving, and Gale the only meal for miles and miles; it took a few passes for their lips to fall into a sympathetic rhythm, and it was difficult to keep pace with him, but Gale did his best.  Gale let out a moan when he opened his mouth wider for Rhune’s insistent tongue, and Rhune’s hands roved greedily over Gale’s body, grabbing and squeezing full, possessive handfuls of Gale’s buttocks to pull him even closer, Rhune grinding his crotch up against Gale’s where they connected.

It felt so intensely good, but it was also too much for Gale to handle at once.  He pulled back to breathe, in an attempt to ground himself before he was entirely swept away by Rhune’s overwhelming need.  

Rhune made to follow him, keeping his face close.  But Gale shoved one of his hands up against Rhune’s chest, which gave him pause.

“Gale?”  Through the murky haze of his lust, there shone a glimmer of concern, and Gale clung to the surety of that tiny beacon in Rhune’s eyes even as he felt awash in a veritable sea of self-doubt.

“Apologies, I just— I need a moment,” Gale panted into the tight space between them.  Part of him already regretted the lapse in their frantic kissing, but another loud, and extremely outspoken voice from within the unceasing chorus of his internal monologue had taken this opportunity to pipe up and remind Gale that he had never been intimate with a man before.  

How was he supposed to— and did he even truly want to, now that it’d come to this?

Yes!   Yes, yes, yes, a thousand times yes, he did.  Gale knew that he wanted this.  Wanted Rhune.  Gods, how Gale wanted him.  But he was nervous.  Anxious.  Excited, uneasy, skittish.  Aflutter.  Several other synonyms in a handful of other languages for the blasted, terrible emotion.

How he hated it.

Calm.  Calm.  Think.  Breathe.

He wanted to continue, though this wasn’t what he’d prepared for at all— his plan to actually discuss the depth of his feelings for Rhune this evening having been drastically upended, and improvisation not one of Gale’s stronger attributes.  Gale wasn’t sure if there was a way to decelerate the current progression of things enough to silence his anxieties, while also satisfying Rhune’s dramatically increased libido.

Oh, how he missed Rhune speaking directly into his mind like the night of the Grove celebration: telling Gale what to do, showing Gale what he wanted.

Hang on a minute.  Would— would that work now, what with Rhune under the influence of the aphrodisiac?  It wasn’t as if his brain were completely incapacitated, after all.

Gale decided that it would be worth a try, and moved the hand that rested against Rhune’s chest up to tenderly cup his burn-scarred cheek.  Rhune’s brows furrowed together and he closed his eyes like he was experiencing a state of rapture, fully leaning into Gale’s touch.

Focusing on the illithid parasite in his head, Gale reached out with it, and the now-familiar sensation of the psionic cords vibrating in harmony flooded his consciousness.  Rhune gasped, opening his eyes again to stare at Gale; but the tadpole in Rhune’s head answered instead of rebuffed him, their frequencies falling into sync, yielding to him.

Just as soon as the connection occurred, however, Gale severed it and took a hurried step backwards, reeling as if he’d blindly walked into someone else’s wall of fire and been burnt.

Rhune’s mind was a mess: like the fundamental concept of lust had been distilled and then funneled into him indiscriminately to run rampant.  Gale had barely brushed against the roaring inferno of Rhune’s want in the incredibly brief second they were linked, but his senses scrambled even as they were heightened, longing, aching, and Rhune was in front of him, staring at him with that hungry glint in his eyes, the one that drove Gale absolutely insane, and dear sweet gods what was he doing, they were finally alone, why were they still clothed, why weren’t they touching—

The remainder of his previous inhibitions now entirely cast aside, Gale reached out with both hands even as Rhune did the same, and they grabbed at each other, eager and determined to get their lips on one another again.  Gale had used the tadpole as a means of getting out of his own way, of circumventing his own insecurity— and while it hadn’t worked as initially intended, at least it worked.   He was able to enjoy this now, enjoy it fully, without his thoughts nagging at him in the background the entire time, and as Rhune’s tongue swiped against Gale’s lips, and Gale opened his mouth to grant Rhune further access, the only thing he could focus on was how right it felt.

Well, that was a lie.  He was also interested in how good it felt, too.  And, gods, did it feel good.

Rhune yanked at the fabric of Gale’s tucked-in shirt before he slid both hands up underneath the hem of it, to get at the bare skin of Gale’s midsection.  He pulled Gale even closer to him while they kissed, rolling his hips and grinding against Gale’s front again, and Gale whimpered from the sheer overwhelming onslaught of their combined arousal, and at the feeling of being roughly handled.

“This— all of this needs to come off,” Gale gasped in between urgent bouts of kissing, pulling at the front of Rhune’s robes.  “Let me see you, let me touch you.”

Rhune nodded, and backed away long enough to tug the offending garment up and over his head, tossing it off to the side before his lips crashed against Gale’s like they belonged there.

Gale ran his hands all over Rhune’s chest and back and arms while they continued to positively devour each other, greedy for the sensation of Rhune’s skin beneath his searching touch, drunk on the feeling of it being bared for him at his not-quite-command, even as he reeled, hardly daring to believe that this was really happening.  He flicked one of his fingers back and forth over the hardened peak of one of Rhune’s nipples, playing with the silver ball studs of the piercing there, while Gale’s other hand dipped down between their flush bodies to rub at Rhune’s still-clothed erection, as he’d done once before— and perhaps it was tempting fate, but Gale touched Rhune with no small amount of satisfaction, knowing that this time they wouldn’t be interrupted.

Rhune’s hips bucked forward and he groaned into Gale’s mouth, so much so that Gale thought for a moment that he might have orgasmed merely from Gale’s hand on him through his clothes.  But before Gale had a chance to look, Rhune tugged down the waistband of his trousers just enough to allow his cock to spring free, and Gale felt the press of it up against his palm, unhindered by any further barrier.

After only a split second’s hesitation, Gale finally wrapped his hand around Rhune’s cock while they continued to kiss, swallowing the needy noise Rhune made when he did so, and answering it with one of his own.  Gale hadn’t realized quite how big Rhune really was before now, and part of him tried to make sense of the notable difference in circumference and length than what he was accustomed to in regards to his own proportions, while the rest of Gale savored the feel of him, at once familiar and yet thrillingly distinct from any of his previous experience.  Rhune was hot and hard under Gale’s hand, the exposed tip of him slick with precum that practically dripped down the velvet-soft skin, and gods, how it all excited him; desire smoldered low in Gale’s belly, and Gale’s already-hard cock hardened even further, straining against his underwear, impatient to be touched.  

“Fuck— yes,” Rhune growled into Gale’s mouth, before he bit down and sucked on Gale’s bottom lip when Gale moved his hand to begin pleasuring Rhune in earnest.

It didn’t take much.  Rhune’s knees buckled and he came hard after a few quick strokes, spilling all over their clothes and on Gale’s hand that touched him.  For a moment, they simply breathed together in the space between, and Rhune looked rather dazed from the afterglow of his release.

Gale noticed when Rhune’s eyes locked onto him again though, how they tracked his movement when, overcome with curiosity, Gale removed his hand from around Rhune’s cock to bring it up to his lips, and lightly licked at the other man’s spend on his fingers.  It tasted, for the most part, bitter, though it was far from unpleasant.

However, the aspect that Gale liked the most about the whole thing was the utterly transfixed, thoroughly debauched way Rhune watched him do this, alongside the wild groan of longing that tore itself from Rhune’s throat.

“Again,” Rhune gasped out, like he was utterly at Gale’s mercy.  Both of his hands rested on Gale’s backside, and he tightened his hold, squeezing at him.  “I need you again.”

Gods above, even though he’d climaxed so intensely, Rhune’s cock remained impressively hard, twitching for attention, cum dripping all over it.

“All right, all right, I’ve got you.”  Gale couldn’t help the smug, self-satisfied smirk that alighted on his lips as he wriggled a little to break Rhune’s hold on him, couldn’t help the sparking flurry of warmth and desire at the way Rhune’s eyes widened when Gale quickly yet carefully sank to his knees before him, nor could Gale help the way his mouth watered at the prospect of finally, finally, pleasuring Rhune like he was about to.

Gale grasped at the waistband of Rhune’s trousers and tugged them all the way down, letting them pool around his ankles.  He ran both hands up Rhune’s legs reverently, memorizing the feel of the muscle and skin beneath his fingers before he settled them on the outside of Rhune’s thighs.  He brought his face close to press a series of lingering kisses against one of Rhune’s hips, dragging the tip of his tongue along his skin to taste the salty tang of his sweat before he moved to kiss the base of Rhune’s cock, burying his nose in the small patch of fine, white hair that adorned Rhune’s groin, breathing in the combined scent of his exertion and arousal.  Gale moved one of his hands to grab at the base, steadying it as he licked a line up the length of him before he lapped experimentally at the slit, and then swirled his tongue around the head, like he was sampling a sweet.

“Gods, yes…” Rhune hissed.  Gale felt the fingers of one of Rhune’s hands dig through his long hair before they settled on the back of Gale’s head, trying to pull Gale closer and get more of his cock into Gale’s mouth.  “Gale, please…”

Every time Rhune begged him, there was an answering jolt in Gale’s cock, his core tightening in anticipation, in the simple power that he wielded in this moment; though it was difficult to deny Rhune what he wanted for long, because Gale wanted it, too.  He licked down the other side of the long, slightly curved shaft, tasting the salt and bitterness of Rhune’s cum again, and it was entirely worth it just for the broken noise of pleasure that tumbled out of Rhune’s mouth, as well as the way he rhythmically bucked his hips, trying to get more friction and sensation against his beautiful cock.

Gale hummed, his lips vibrating against Rhune’s sensitive skin, and he was rewarded with another delicious noise in response.  It was positively divine, and Gale felt like he was floating, completely enthralled; he’d wanted to use his mouth to explore Rhune for so long, and now that he finally had, he never wanted to stop.  With one of his hands, Gale cupped and stroked and played with Rhune’s balls while he licked and he licked and he licked, laving his tongue around as much of Rhune’s cock as he possibly could, cleaning up most of the mess from before.

Above him, Rhune was panting again, frantic, both of his hands fisting tightly in Gale’s hair, and he whined when Gale pulled his mouth away for a moment to gaze adoringly up at the shuddering, heaving plane of Rhune’s scarred torso through his lashes.  

When Rhune’s eyes met his, Gale licked at his lips a bit theatrically while they stared at each other, and Rhune groaned in pure longing, louder than any noise he’d made thus far.  Pleased with himself, Gale grinned, and gently pressed his lips to the tip of Rhune’s cock, kissing him before he opened his mouth to try taking Rhune like this.

Unfortunately, Rhune was already so worked up from both the substance in his system, as well as Gale’s very thorough attentions, that Gale only made it about halfway down Rhune’s cock with his mouth before Rhune came unexpectedly with a gasp and a moan, his hands keeping Gale in place as he flooded into Gale’s mouth.

Gale did his best to handle taking it; at first he tried to swallow it all, but he lost confidence halfway through, and when Rhune released his hold on him, Gale pulled himself off of Rhune’s cock and spat the rest out onto the floor of his tent, more than a touch embarrassed as he coughed from the sensation of it.

“Sorry,” Rhune said.  “I… I meant to warn you, but…”  He was breathing hard in the wake of his orgasm, a small smile of apology flittering across his face.  He sounded more lucid now, more in control of his faculties; he kicked his shoes off, along with his trousers and underwear away from where they were caught around his ankles, then knelt down beside Gale, reaching to touch a few fingers to Gale’s chin.  

“You’re forgiven,” Gale told him.  In truth, it was hard to stay annoyed about it, because the knowledge that his mouth and tongue had been responsible for getting Rhune off like that was insanely erotic.  Though when Gale chanced another look at Rhune’s length, glistening in the low light and wet from Gale’s mouth on him, he saw that it was already— still?— hard again.

Before Gale could say or do anything about that, though, Rhune said with a low growl, “My turn.”  He surged forward, grabbed Gale by the front of his shirt to close the rest of the distance between them, and kissed him passionately.  

Knocked slightly off-kilter by the force of the movement, Gale thrust both of his hands out in front of him to steady himself against the solid bulk of Rhune’s thighs.  Now essentially on all fours, Gale tried not to rest his weight on him, but his fingers dug tighter into the flesh of Rhune’s legs when Rhune broke the kiss to bring his lips to the shell of Gale’s ear and said, “Why do you still have all your fucking clothes on?”

It was an excellent question, honestly.  

“I have no idea,” Gale said.  He scrambled to sit back on his heels and pulled his shirt up and over his head faster than he definitely ever had before in his life, and Rhune grinned, his features sharp and predatory, like a cat watching the scurrying of a mouse from the shadows of an alleyway.  Trying not to feel self-conscious, Gale shivered at the touch of Rhune’s hands on his revealed skin, exploring him.

“Lie down,” said Rhune.  “I need my mouth on you.”

Gale nodded and complied immediately, breathless, positively dizzy with the attention and anticipation.  He wasn’t even fully situated on his bedroll before Rhune was at his lips again, hovering over him, and Gale let out a stuttery little sigh as Rhune proceeded to kiss him everywhere.   At his neck, down to his chest, brushing his lips against the very center of the orb’s mark before he continued downwards, pressing searing kisses against the fleshy part of Gale’s pectorals before he sucked one of Gale’s nipples into his mouth, drawing a surprised gasp from him.

Rhune’s fingers fumbled with the laces that kept Gale’s trousers closed, and Gale reached down to swat impatiently at Rhune’s hands before he untied them himself, and let Rhune finish tugging them and his underwear down to his thighs.  Rhune did so with apparent relish and absolutely no finesse; but where his hands weren’t being particularly gentle, his mouth was a different story.  He kissed a trail along the soft curve of Gale’s belly before he licked at the line of dark hair that led from Gale’s bellybutton to the thick tangle of it at his groin.  Rhune kissed there, too, once, before he wrapped a firm hand around the base of Gale’s cock such that his thumb rested just behind Gale’s balls, and then took him in one fell, fluid motion into his mouth.

Gale cried out at the feel of it, his hips jerking up instinctively, seeking even more of that glorious wet heat.  Rhune’s mouth on and around him was like the heavens and hells and everything in between, it was everything that Gale had dreamed it would be, and yet not enough, never enough.  He needed more, needed to be closer, needed, needed, needed—

Rhune choked on Gale’s cock when he thrust up further into Rhune’s mouth, and Gale could feel something within himself snap, like a cage door unceremoniously flung wide open to let the beast inside leap free.  He put both hands on the back of Rhune’s head, the close-cropped hair of his undercut prickling against Gale’s palms, and proceeded to fuck upwards into Rhune’s mouth, faster and more savagely than he’d initially intended, drawing a series of extremely lewd noises from out of Rhune’s throat around his cock.

Rhune’s hand remained wrapped around Gale, though he didn’t make any move to stop him from using Rhune’s mouth like this.  And while it felt ridiculously good, Gale couldn’t keep this pace up himself for too long, and he settled back against the bedroll for a moment— which is when Rhune took over again.  He shifted his hold on Gale’s cock so he could move his hand up and down in tandem with his mouth, and Gale felt his climax sneaking up on him with blinding speed, the tension in his core and in his quivering thighs nigh unbearable.

“Rhune,” Gale gasped out, trying to get his attention, a trembling hand tapping urgently at Rhune’s shoulder.  Instead, Rhune moaned at the sound of his name, the vibration alone almost enough to send Gale tumbling over the edge.  He felt the fingers of Rhune’s other hand running along his perineum, seemingly searching for something, but he couldn’t make any sense of it, was practically drowning in pleasure with just enough presence of mind to say, “Rhune, wait, you shouldn’t—”

Gale didn’t have a chance to finish his sentence as the tidal wave of his climax crashed over him due to one blinding spike of sensation from Rhune’s finger pressing unerringly up against Gale’s prostate from the outside, and Gale came so hard he swore that stars burst into being behind his eyelids.

As Gale came down from the high, breathing hard, Rhune pulled his mouth off of Gale’s cock and swallowed, the entire time wearing an expression that could only be described as aghast.   And when he looked down at Gale this time, there remained little of the frantic, lustful tinge to his eyes, as if the experience had completely sobered him.

“Gale,” Rhune began, his voice gravelly and uneven, and he shook his head and cleared his throat before trying again.  “Gale, don’t take this the wrong way, but you taste foul.”

“I’m so sorry, I tried to warn you.”  Gale sat up with a groan, trying to catch his breath.  “My condition— the orb— it makes my blood poisonous, but while I know for a fact that, um, that particular fluid you’ve now sampled is safe, I’ve never ingested as much as you just have all at once— Rhune, are you all right?  Do you feel ill?  Any stranger now than before, perhaps I should say.”

Rhune wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand and stared at Gale, confused, alarmed, intrigued.  “Your blood’s— poisonous?   What the fuck?”  

Gale laughed and shook his head, his heartbeat beginning to settle.  “It is rather ridiculous when you say it aloud like that,” he said.  He looked down at himself as an afterthought, but there was no ominous glow to greet him.  “Here, let me get you some water.”

Gale stood and did as Rhune had done earlier, removing his shoes and fully shedding the rest of his clothes.  It only took a moment to locate a half-empty jug of water; Gale offered it to Rhune before he sat down next to him, and they passed it between them, drinking directly from the jug in relative, surprisingly comfortable silence until Rhune spoke up again.

“I thought you liked me,” Rhune muttered.  Gale’s eyes widened in panic for a split second as Rhune poked an accusing finger at the middle of the orb’s mark on Gale’s chest.  “Making Gale taste bad like that…”

Gale laughed again, startled, when he realized to whom— or what, rather— Rhune was actually speaking.  “What am I to do with you?” he sighed, the panic and insecurity ebbing away almost as quickly as it’d arrived, leaving Gale feeling completely, utterly smitten with the strange, beautiful, wondrous man sitting naked beside him.

Rhune set the water jug aside and leaned over to kiss Gale’s neck, licking a stripe up to his earlobe, making Gale shiver.  “You could fuck me, finally…” Rhune whispered, low and wanting.  One of his hands stroked along the inside of Gale’s thigh, back and forth, playing with some of the hair there.

“I’d love to,” Gale said, breathless and eager, his heartbeat picking up speed, and the outline of the orb seemed to shimmer a faint, light purple before it faded, as if in agreement with him.  “But I’ll first need some time to recover.”

“That’s fine,” Rhune murmured.  He’d resumed kissing the side of Gale’s neck, only stopping to speak after he’d sucked a mark into Gale’s skin, and Rhune’s hand now guided one of Gale’s over to touch his cock again.  “Just don’t stop touching me.”

Gale didn’t have to be told twice— gods, he couldn’t imagine ever tiring of touching Rhune like this, now that he finally had.  In between bouts of kissing and fondling they slowly moved, repositioning so that they were lying next to each other atop Gale’s bedroll.  The mysterious glass bottle sitting on Gale’s pillow was knocked inadvertently onto the floor and rolled, drawing Rhune’s attention.  Rhune propped himself up on an elbow before he reached over to snatch it up, and uncorked it, the pads of his fingers now shining with a clear fluid that Gale realized was some sort of oil right as Rhune looked at him, his crimson eyes bright, at once playful and positively feral.

“Were you already planning to fuck me today?”  While he spoke, Rhune poured a few drops of the oil onto one of his hands, barely visible against the stark white of the vitiligo on his palms.  Then he set the bottle off to the side and touched himself, the slick, wet slide of the oil along his skin as he stroked his cock the most sinful sound that Gale had ever heard.

“N-nothing so crass as that!” Gale stammered, embarrassed, yet unable to take his eyes off what Rhune was doing.  He licked his lips before continuing, “I— what I mean to say is that I’d hoped, but only after we’d talked, and I wasn’t planning for this to happen, how could I have possibly— and if you must know, it’s not even mine, I have no idea where it came from, it only appeared sometime after you returned from hunting the orthon, and it definitely wasn’t in here earlier when—”

Rhune shushed Gale up with another long, hungry kiss.  “I love making you flustered,” he sighed, then grabbed at Gale’s rear, pulling him closer.  “C’mere.  Spread your legs a little, there’s a good boy.”

“Oh— gods, Rhune…”

It took more effort to get Rhune to come a third time.  Rhune rutted up against and in between the furrow of Gale’s thighs at first, while they both bit and kissed and sucked on each other, along any and every stretch of skin they could reach.  Eventually Gale straddled him and reached behind to take Rhune in hand again, the other stimulating Rhune’s pierced nipples, alternating between them.  He could feel Rhune’s cock throb in his grip every time Gale pinched or tugged at one of the sensitive peaks, along with a distinct sense of accomplishment whenever he was able to coax a particularly loud and forceful moaned vulgarity out of him.

Meanwhile, Rhune’s hands had creeped to Gale’s backside again, squeezing and kneading intently at the soft mounds of flesh and muscle before he snuck one of his fingers in between them.  Gale gasped and whimpered at the feel of it, the oiled pad of Rhune’s finger circling and teasing against his entrance, occasionally pressing further to test how tight and resistant this part of Gale’s body was to being opened up.

Rhune finally came when Gale bit down and sucked one of the extraordinarily sensitive tips of Rhune’s ears into his mouth, spurting hot all over Gale’s hand once more, though his spend was noticeably thinner this time.  Gale pumped his hand and worked him through it, then rolled off of him in an attempt to give him some space; Rhune looked exhausted, out of breath and covered in sweat like he’d been continuously running over a long distance.  While he lay on his side next to Rhune, Gale let out a small, needy sigh as he smeared some of the cum on his fingers along his own cock and stroked himself, near-completely erect as a result of their previous activities.  

“You look so good like that,” Rhune said, his chest heaving as he watched with half-lidded eyes.  “You’re incredible, Gale.”

The praise washed over him, flooding him with warmth and further arousal, and something about the attention instilled in him both a shyness, and a contradictory need to show off and earn more of it.  However, though Gale was now ready and more than willing to indulge in another round of carnal pleasure, he paused, and first asked Rhune whether he was satisfied, or if he wanted to continue.

In answer, Rhune shook his head and sat up, then repositioned himself so that he was on his hands and knees in front of Gale, his back arched, offering his spectacular backside to him.  “You still haven’t fucked me yet,” he said, looking at Gale over his shoulder.  He sounded vaguely annoyed about it, as if the statement were obvious, and Gale’s questioning absurd.

“Very well,” said Gale.  “If you’re sure.”

“Quit stalling and fuck me, wizard.”

Gale chuckled as he moved and located the bottle of oil, wondering idly if Rhune’s remarkable stamina was due solely to the aphrodisiac, or instead amplified as a result.  A theory to test another time, perhaps.  He shuffled closer on his knees to be right beside Rhune again— Gale’s legs were not going to appreciate any of this tomorrow, but at the moment he could give less of a damn.  

As he poured out some of the oil to pool into one of his palms, Gale said, “I must admit, I’m not especially well-versed in, er, congress of this particular fashion…  I’ll use my fingers first?”

“Don’t bother, just get inside me, I need it.”

“But—”  That didn’t seem right.  Gale wanted him, certainly, but he could be patient a while longer.  “I’m not interested in hurting you, Rhune.”  So Gale coated a few of the fingers of his dominant hand in oil anyway, then ran the other appreciatively over the perfect curve of one of Rhune’s cheeks— it truly was as if Rhune had been crafted by the gods themselves, with the express purpose of driving Gale to madness.

Rhune whipped his head around to glare at Gale over his shoulder again, and snarled more than said, “Godsdammit man, do you have any idea how long I’ve wanted— ohh, fuck…”

Gale smirked, pleased with his decision as he pressed his index finger inside Rhune, the sensation of it clearly overwhelming enough to stop Rhune’s sentence dead in its tracks, nearly all of the fight evaporating.  He leaned forward to press his lips to the angular shell of Rhune’s ear and murmured, “I must say, your impatience is as endearing as it is intoxicating.”

“Feels— so good…  Don’t stop…”  Rhune gasped and shuddered when Gale licked along the outside edge of Rhune’s ear to nibble at the pierced lobe, and he dropped to support some of his weight on his forearms instead of his hands, jolting his hips back so Gale’s finger was practically buried in him.

Rhune pulsed hot and tight around him, like his body was trying to draw Gale even deeper.  Gale slid his finger out and then back in, slowly at first, then faster and faster, reveling in the way Rhune’s breath caught every time Gale pressed in to fill him.   

“Can you come again just from this, I wonder?” said Gale, fascinated, and he wiggled his finger experimentally.  He was now intimately familiar with the knowledge that there was a pleasure center in here, if only he could find it…

“I— don’t know,” Rhune panted.  The low, guttural moan that escaped him when Gale added another finger alongside the first shook Gale to his foundations and made his cock jump from sheer anticipation.

By the time Gale tried for three fingers inside him, Rhune was very close to coming completely undone.  He moaned Gale’s name and rocked his hips backwards repeatedly, trying to get Gale’s fingers even deeper.

Gale slid his unoccupied hand from where it rested against the small of Rhune’s back to grab and squeeze at him again, digging his nails slightly into the flesh and muscle of his rear, and that additional stimulation made Rhune groan with obvious want again, his cock leaking precum from where it hung half-hard between his trembling legs.  

“Yes?” said Gale.  He was enjoying this immensely; possibly too much.  “What can I do for you?”

“Gale, if— if you don’t get your dick in me soon, I feel like I might die.”

“Well, we can’t have that, now, can we?”

Gale twisted and shoved his fingers a little further inside with an impishness he didn’t realize he possessed before he withdrew them, delighting in the drawn out and distinctly frayed way Rhune said, “Fuck!”

Excited, nervous, but trying his best not to feel overwhelmed again, Gale rushed to coat his cock with oil, then positioned himself so that he was right behind where Rhune waited for him.  His eyes fluttered closed when the tip of his cock kissed at the skin of Rhune’s entrance, and he inhaled and held it, basking in Rhune’s long, loud, positively ecstatic moan that seemed to reverberate throughout the both of them as he slowly sank inside.

Gale knew that the only reason he didn’t instantly come once he was inside Rhune was due to the fact that he’d already orgasmed once before then.  He’d almost forgotten what this felt like: the passion, and physical sensation, and the all-consuming hunger for more, more, more, more movement, more heat, more closeness.  And Gale’s vague recollections of the last time he’d made love with his body (instead of solely his mind and spirit) paled in comparison to how he felt whilst buried to the hilt inside Rhune, the person whom all of Gale currently craved more than anything else in the entire cosmos.

The slow, exploratory rhythm that Gale set at first didn’t remotely satisfy the fiery, raging need inside him, but he hadn’t been lying when he’d said that he had no interest in hurting Rhune like this.  Yet, after what felt like only a few moments, Rhune begged him to go faster, to fuck him harder, and all of Gale’s previous inclinations to tease gave way to something deeper, a far more pressing desire to serve, to please, to give Rhune everything he wanted and then some.

So Gale moved harder, faster, pulling himself out and ramming back in as consistently as he could, watching the way Rhune opened and took every inch of Gale’s cock like it was the most riveting, arousing thing he’d ever witnessed, because it was.   Gale savored the feel and the sight of Rhune’s dusk-colored skin under his fingers as he clutched onto Rhune’s hips, tugging him closer with each urgent, solid thrust inside; but he also noticed a series of thin, raised scars along Rhune’s right side that nearly aligned with each of the spread digits on Gale’s hand— like someone had once severely scratched Rhune here, permanently marking him, possibly while performing this very act.

Before Gale had a chance to fully parse the information his hand had gathered, however, Rhune was coming, again, with a hoarse, muffled, exhausted cry.  Gale immediately stilled his movement, biting back his own noise of pleasure as Rhune tightened and spasmed all around him.  He wanted to keep going, it felt so incredibly good but…

“Rhune?  Are you holding up all right?”

At some point along the way, Rhune had slumped forward and buried his face into both forearms where they rested against the bedroll in front of him, and his legs shook from exertion.  His breath came in short gasps, and he mumbled something that Gale couldn’t decipher.

“I couldn’t hear you,” Gale said, and he rubbed one of his hands in soothing circles along the sweaty skin of Rhune’s back.

Slowly, Rhune propped himself up again, and turned to look back at Gale with a wicked little smile.  “I want more,” he said.  He rocked his hips to punctuate his sentence, and Gale’s eyes widened as he gasped at the unexpected sensation of movement, cock twitching where it was still completely surrounded by Rhune.

Gods.   “You’re quite certain?”

Rhune sucked in a breath and nodded.  “Yes,” he answered.  Though Gale had a suspicion that Rhune had nearly worn himself out— honestly, Gale didn’t know if he’d be able to continue, if that weren’t the case.  “Just, can I lie down?  I want to see you.”

“Yes, of course.”

This position took more maneuvering to get right than the first, Rhune’s legs spread with one of his knees bent at an odd angle to accommodate him, but once Gale sank back inside Rhune’s waiting heat, all complaints were immediately forgotten.  Gale moved his hips in small increments only for the first few thrusts, but the encouragingly greedy slide of Rhune’s body around and beneath him, as well as Rhune’s beautiful red eyes on him, staring at him, his lower lip caught between his teeth— gods, yes, this, this was exactly what Gale had wanted, what he had been fantasizing about since the night of the prideful little magic lesson, since the moment Rhune took the lonely spark of Gale’s trepidatious longing into his sorcerous hands, Weaving it into something more, fanning the flame into a forest fire.  The eye contact and attention spurred Gale onward, emboldening him, and he thrust inside harder, faster, already chasing satisfaction for the two of them instead of merely revelling in the feeling.

“Kiss me,” Rhune demanded, both hands reaching out for him.  He placed his palms against Gale’s chest as high up as he could reach from his position lying down, and dragged them down the length of Gale’s torso, his gaze following the movement, clearly admiring him through both sight and sense of touch.

He didn’t know what, specifically, there was to admire about his middle— Gale was no sculpted specimen of masculinity in the way that Rhune was, had nothing to offer except soft pudge that he was extremely self-conscious about, and refused to go away no matter how many miles he walked, or how heavy a pack he carried.  But he wasn’t about to contest the clear, immutable fact that Rhune wanted it anyway, wanted him entire; nor could Gale deny him anything right now.

So Gale acquiesced, and bent forward to kiss Rhune, and both men groaned at the absolutely delicious change in angle it offered.  Rhune’s hands scrambled to get an actual grip on him, fingers tightening against Gale’s waist as their lips met in a frantic dance.  

Gale moved as hard and fast as he possibly could while pressed up almost entirely against Rhune’s body, his arms on either side of where Rhune lay now supporting the brunt of his weight.  Rhune wrapped both legs around Gale to keep him there; he was taut as a bowstring beneath him, and moaned obscenely into Gale’s mouth with each deep stroke inside.  Gale felt reduced to little more than a bright, hot pulse of unwavering need, a wild knot of limbs and lips as the two clawed desperately at one another, trying to crawl into each other’s separate, thundering heartbeats in a primal, euphoric attempt to become one, and gods, yes, yes, yes, right there, this was perfect, this was everything—

“I love you,” said Gale, unable to stop himself, meaning it wholeheartedly, with every single doomed and tangled fiber of his being.  “Rhune, I love you.”

“Mine,” Rhune breathed against his lips, a hair’s breadth away from tumbling into the void of his release.

“I am,” Gale panted, hips stuttering as his rhythm became increasingly erratic— he was close, too.  “I’m yours, I— I have been since the moment you pulled me out of that portal—”

Rhune gasped and shuddered, his hands on Gale tightening their grip, and he came again with another loud groan, his hole clenching repeatedly all around him, cock barely spilling anything from where it was pressed between their bodies.

Gale fucked Rhune all the way through his orgasm this time.  The drow beneath him looked utterly wrecked: eyes screwed shut, mouth left open as he let out a hoarse cry every time Gale rammed his cock into him, long, white tendrils of his hair that had escaped the topknot he wore it in and now clung to his face, damp with sweat.  He was absolutely drenched— they both were— and Gale buried his face in the crook of Rhune’s tattooed neck to breathe in the scent and musk of him, enjoying the slide of Rhune’s skin against his as Gale continued to chase his own climax.

“I’m close, ah, gods, I’m so close.  Sh-should I—?”

“Inside,” Rhune told him, anticipating Gale’s question before he could finish asking it.  His deep voice rumbled throughout Gale’s body, and he slid his hands down Gale’s back and sides possessively.  “Inside me, I need it.”

Hells.  He could definitely do that.

Gale thrust his hips even faster now, barely registering the sounds they were both making, feverish grunts and gasps and the wet slap of flesh against flesh, felt like his goal was dangling, mere fingertips out of reach—

“Ruin me, Gale, please, claim me, fill me—”

Oh!

Gale reached his peak violently, his orgasm tearing through him, rocketing down his spine, through his core, and out through his pulsing, throbbing cock to fill Rhune like he’d wanted.  

Rhune held him when Gale’s arms gave way and he collapsed, resting the majority of his weight on the man beneath him— the man for whom Gale would do just about anything, if Rhune asked it of him.

They lay tangled together for a long, long, moment, sweaty and struggling to breathe, before Gale moved with a ragged groan, withdrawing himself and flopping over onto his back, staring with bleary eyes up at the ceiling of his tent.

By all the gods— that had really just happened, hadn’t it.

With a shaking, tired hand, Gale swept some of the long strands of his hair away from where they were stuck to his face and looked over to his right at Rhune.  If he’d been exhausted before, Rhune was now completely spent and still winded, his face flushed, eyelids drooping as he looked back at Gale with a sleepy, content smile.

“Should eat weird spider more often, if that’s what it gets me,” he said.

Gale laughed, flinging one of his forearms up to cover his eyes.  “You’re completely mad.”

“You like it.”

“A cutting accusation that is both true and unfortunate,” he teased.  Gale rolled over onto his side, and reached out to tenderly caress the waxy, mottled skin of Rhune’s cheek.  “Is that enough?  Are you sated?”

Rhune nodded.  “So tired…” 

Gale chuckled, and leaned over to kiss Rhune’s forehead.  “Sleep, then.  Gods know that you need it.  I suppose I can go let the others know that—”

“Don’t leave,” Rhune said.  He could barely keep his eyes open, but his hand snaked up to cling tight to Gale’s arm.  “Don’t leave me yet.”

“I’m here,” said Gale.  “I’ve got you.”

He watched as Rhune relaxed, completely trusting under Gale’s touch; as Rhune finally surrendered to his fatigue and fell asleep, breathing softly in Gale’s bedroll.

Gale felt like he was transported to that metaphorical shimmering sea of starlight again, floating, weightless and unburdened, his heart fit to burst with emotion.

Gods.  Gods.   He loved this man— for better or worse, Gale loved him.

“I won’t leave you, Rhune.  I promise, I won’t.”

And Rhune was right.  The others, everyone, everything— could wait for just a few moments longer.