#everything I read sort of leads to this conclusion

[yuseirra]

Your eyes with glittering stars in them All dried up, poor thing, a lack of love? A dazzling light that saves all from loneliness Is this shadow that falls only on me because of you?

I tried REALLY hard to understand his reasoning and what he's up to... isn't this what's it? He probably needs the light from Ai's love in a literal sense. I have a feeling he CAN collect them and really feel Ai through it because it's her fragments there as a star,

Also, he must actually be a being that's unable to live without Ai. If I'm correct with my theories they ARE a godly couple that should be together at all times for all eternity. He really means what he says in the songs that he can't live without Ai & how he expresses he only felt he was alive when Ai was with him. That's how Ai and Kamiki both say they wanted to be together forever. They actually were like that. So that's why Kamiki was living in search for Ai trying to find a way to feel her and have her back ever since she's passed...

[meownotgood]

to admit everything / gale dekarios

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Several months after your adventure's conclusion, Gale invites you to visit his tower in Waterdeep — and finally, he finds the courage to admit his feelings for you.

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pairing: gale dekarios x reader

word count: 36.0k

tags: 18+, smut with feelings (and a fair bit of plot), reader is tav, reader is fem bodied (but no gendered terms are used), love confessions, fic takes place after the epilogue, "you fell first but he fell harder", mild sensory deprivation, inappropriate uses of magic, gale talks a Lot, slight angst (but there's a happy ending, don't worry), dirty talk, fingering, handjob, multiple orgasms, oral (reader receiving), tender sex, slight mentions of blasphemy, i am not immune to his wizardly charms....

read on ao3

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this work contains explicit content intended for 18+ individuals. please read the tags and do not interact if you are a minor.

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When Gale wraps his arms around you, pulling you into a warm embrace, for the first time in ages, you can finally relax. 

From your stiff shoulders, down to the ends of your toes, your weary muscles untense. It's as though he's cast a spell on you; which you know he could do, but he doesn't have to. A soft palm cradles the back of your head, and he pulls you in closer. You bury your head in his chest, the smooth velvet of his shirt rubbing your cheek. 

Slowly, deeply, you inhale. You're enveloped in the familiar scent of him: the rich smell of pine, filling your senses with something tender. Something you've missed. The breeze that wafts in from his balcony veils you in a breath of the sea. Gale always found a way to smell the same as a book's crisp pages. He'd carry the faint aroma of the scrolls he often littered his tent with, or of his library, regardless of how long you spent surrounded by nothing but wilderness. 

The intimacy of it is enough to make you dizzy. If you had things your way, you'd hug him tight like this, and you wouldn't ever think of letting him go. 

"It feels as though it's been forever since we were last acquainted," Gale says in your ear quietly. Genuinely, with the slightest exhale tacked on at the end — and still, after hearing his voice for hours, watching as he lectured his pupils on some form of magic you've barely heard of, you believe you wouldn't mind listening for a few hours more. 

"Our get-together wasn't that long ago, you know," You counter, voice slightly muffled, spoken into his chest. 

"Yes, but surely you understand." His grip on you seems to tighten as you both rock gently, back and forth, "It's rather difficult to go from spending nearly every moment you're awake with someone, to only having the pleasure of meeting them on a few select occasions. Allow me to savor this moment, please. There may not be another one like it." 

There may not be another one. 

Gods, you know he's right. Both of you are busy, now. You live in two separate cities, lead two separate lives. There's others from the party you haven't seen; not yet, anyways. The only reason you saw Gale now is because back then, you had the foresight to plan to. 

That inevitable prospect is one you aren't sure you want to think about. You don't want to imagine parting from Gale again. 

Your friends would've called you sappy. They might've gone and teased you for taking forever to meet with the damn wizard in the first place. You obviously wanted to. The hug you gave him back then was hardly a friendly one. More like a I'm glad you're here, now don't you dare leave again sort of hug. Not to mention the way Gale himself eyed you for the rest of the party — as if no-one would notice. 

Truthfully, your life has been busier than you hoped it would be, ever since your adventure's big conclusion. You did want to see Gale again. Of course you did. But simply wanting isn't good enough. The party was the first time you saw him since then, and this has been the first time after that. 

You were hoping to relax for a while. To spend time away from the stress. You definitely earned it. Unfortunately, you've wound up doing anything but. 

Make no mistake, you're unbelievably grateful to no longer be dealing with a world-ending threat, or a parasite in your brain. Helping to rebuild the city is nothing compared to the shit you've already dealt with. You're happy that you no longer have to worry over whether you'll even make it out of this alive. Whether any of you will still be alive, in the end. But you've hardly been able to settle. Not in the way you wanted to, at least. 

For as many people that revere you, that now think of you as a hero, those words seem to do nothing for you. For as big and grand of a city as Baldur's Gate still is, and for as long as you've called it your home, it's only begun to feel like the loneliest place in the world. 

And your friends — Obviously you'd wind up going your separate ways. It'd be stupid to think otherwise. You have different lives to return to, new struggles to face. You know that. It doesn't change how much you've grown to miss them. 

There won't come a time where you'll stop missing those moments, you figure. The times when things were quiet, when you worked together, grew together. That's okay. Some allegiances aren't meant to last forever. In the end, it was an idea you made peace with. Until one of your companions stubbornly refused to leave your heart. 

You peer up at him, as Gale looks down at you, before he lets go of you slowly, almost hesitantly. He pulls backward, meeting your eyes. This embrace reminds you of the one from back then. You don't fail to notice how his expression softens around the edges, how he takes your hands, gently squeezing them. Ultimately, he allows them to slip away, letting go. 

You carried your thoughts of him with you, long after you'd since parted ways. The sound of his voice, the softness it seemed to take on whenever you're the one he was speaking to. The accidental touches, the brushes of fingers. An arm placed in front of you, to usher you behind him whenever he thought you might get hurt. 

Without the ability to pry into his thoughts, you have no clue whether he fondly remembers things the same way you do. You were unmistakably close, once. In an earlier time, you brought your hands to his shoulders, you kept your eyes locked on his. Your words were shaky. Your heart was pounding, shaking against the cage of your chest. You can't lose him, you remember admitting, and Gale smiled, told you that you wouldn't. Even though you knew damn well there was more he wasn't telling you. 

Hindsight would convince you the only thing he concealed was how truly scared he was. If you did feel more for each other, if what you thought you understood wasn't a lie — No matter what ways you tried, neither of you could hide it, but you certainly couldn't talk about it either. 

It's difficult to search for the time to discuss unadmitted feelings when your lives are constantly on the line. Impossible, actually. Honestly, you weren't sure how you'd tell him, regardless of if you could. Nevermind the playful encouragement of your companions, or the listless jabs at your solitude from your undead resurrector, this sort of thing has never been your forte. Hey, I care for you more than good friends are supposed to, is that alright? 

I couldn't stand to see anything happen to you, and I hoped you might notice, might do what I'm not able to. You could look into my head with a single word, and yet nothing but distance has grown in between us. 

I'd travel it, if I was able. I want you to understand, I never hoped to part from you. I never want you to shut up whenever you're telling me about magic, or history, or any of the things you know everything about, even once you quiet down because you think I do. 

How am I supposed to tell you that? 

You can't, and you didn't. You both had the fate of the world in your hands, and the last thing either of you needed to be worrying about were your up-in-the-air feelings. 

You would ignore the elated blankness in your head whenever Gale eased the tension with a smile flashed your way. You pushed down the giddiness in your chest whenever he gave a gentle yet pragmatic comment, one you tried not to read into. Over and over, you would pretend not to be flustered by his small touches, by the glances that lasted a little longer than they should. Despite the ache of your heart in your chest, you convinced yourself that you and him were friends. Nothing more. 

Yes, friends who would sneak into one another's tents when everyone else was asleep to quietly talk, laughing together until the sun began to graze the horizon. Friends who kept each other going, who saw one another when they were weakest: torn apart by the Gods, with nothing left to do but pick up the pieces. Friends who are the only ones to know what the other is truly thinking, no spells or uncanny mind connections needed. 

You're simply mere acquaintances. Two people on the same bloody path, who just so happened to be lucky enough to meet, and managed to grow closer than acquaintances ever should be. You were pushed together by circumstance. You chose to understand each other with purpose. 

Has Gale ever yearned for more, in the way you've yearned for him? 

Gale is observant. He knows you, he'd know if there was something up with you. Likely, he already does. More so, he's ambitious; he wouldn't forget about you, everything vying to push you away be damned. You've come too far to suddenly cast each other aside. But some things are better left unspoken. 

Eventually, you expected you'd never find out the truth. You were too little, too late. The closest you ever got to a true confession was in the moments you found yourselves alone, and those are few and far between, these days. Now that you've run out of excuses, even now that everything is over, he's here and you are alive — You can't say a damn thing. 

You think it's why you haven't seen him. You've been busy, yes, leading a new life and grappling with your newfound freedoms, but given the chance, you'd put every last thing aside to make time for him. When those feelings of yours are left to build and build, they threaten to drown. And drown you did. 

It's strange, how meeting with him again can feel like finally being coaxed to breathe, and like suffocating freely, all at the same time. 

You decide to breathe in once more, and break the silence at last. 

"You're ridiculous sometimes," You scoff, shaking your head. Your tone is more fragile than you intended, as you catch yourself in your own hypocrisy. You still manage to throw him a warm glance. "I thought we were both past talking that way. We have all the time the world is generous enough to offer us. Do you really think I wouldn't plan on seeing you again?" 

Gale's lips tip upward to form his usual smile, the corners of his eyes crinkled. To a combination of your bewilderment and delight, you're already melting. 

"They say old habits die hard, I suppose," He replies, first shrugging his shoulders, and then standing up straighter. He clasps his hands together, positioning them uniformly behind his back. "And who knows? I wasn't sure how much enjoyment you drew from being an honorary professor for the day. Seemed as if you were a tad overwhelmed, actually." 

"Of course I was. Well, I was anxious, more like." You're staring off to the side while you think, crossing your arms over your chest. "I mean, you said your students think of me as a hero. I was trying not to say anything stupid." 

"In that case, I'd say you have no need to worry," Gale answers, "You sounded perfectly eloquent." 

Meeting his eyes again, you huff, "I'm glad you think so. I enjoyed today. But seriously, I came here for you, Gale. Not because I was ecstatic about teaching." 

You swear that if you were to squint, you'd see the smallest twinge of pure adoration on the normally-so-confident wizard's face. 

Gale raises a fist to his mouth and clears his throat. "I understand your qualms, but truly, you did well. No-one finds teaching to be easy- I mean, it's an unbelievably stubborn process, if anything. I've always been the recipient of lectures. Never the other way around, until my newfound position. It took me quite a while to get a good grasp of things, believe you me." 

"Really?" You raise a brow, "I, for one, thought your teaching was impeccable. I was looking forward to asking for some pointers from Professor Dekarios himself, actually." 

"Oh, come on. Your flattery is far from needed," He replies, his tone breathy and playful. You exhale a faint chuckle, and when you grin back, his own smile seems to soften at the edges. A look reserved exclusively for you. 

Gale continues, "You've seen my pupils for yourself now. You know how difficult they can be. In the face of such… stunning magic," His eyes narrow, he makes an open-palmed gesture of wonderment to illustrate his point, "Magic they themselves could learn to wield, it's rare to see them at least attempt to stay awake. I take some of the blame, of course. At certain moments, I thought you were teaching them better than I ever have." 

"Nonsense," You roll your eyes light-heartedly, placing a hand on your hip, "They do well on their tests, right? I doubt your teachings are lost on them. Besides, it's like you said. Being a teacher isn't easy." 

"True. However, I certainly think we make an impressive team." 

With one last smile, and a nod of his head, Gale turns, striding over to his small wooden desk. 

The space is surrounded by bookshelves, the desk's every surface littered in open books and scrolls of its own. He thumbs through the stack of papers he set there earlier, essays his students turned in — A paper about the history of magic was his instruction, if you remember right. Gale was less than satisfied with their results, but in his own words, he couldn't fault them. 

They are the same as I was, when I was their age. A spitting image, really. Dodging written assignments, snoozing through most lectures. They're talented, there's no denying it. Preventing them from picking up my bad habits is where matters turn difficult. 

He lifts the stack, tapping the papers against the desk to make them straight. Then, he sets them neatly aside. He clearly has a specific place for them, though you don't think you'd ever be able to make sense of the mess, yourself. 

"Either way," He starts, organizing more loose papers and scattered books while he talks. His back may be turned towards you, but you can picture his face clearly: the lightest smirk, the pinch of his brows, "I'm sure my students were pleased to hear from someone other than me for a change. Dare I say when you were speaking, they actually paid attention." 

Delicately, like the simplest of words are valuable porcelain, you mutter, "Is that so? I should come see you more often, then." 

Gale freezes for a second. His next few sentences come out much sweeter than he intended them to, but by the time he's opened his mouth, he isn't able to stop himself. 

"I'd enjoy that. I truly would," He says, and setting the books he's holding aside, he turns to face you. He swallows the lump in his throat, and when he's speaking next, he's talking with his hands as he tries — and fails, mostly — to hide his nervous cadence. 

"You don't need to come simply to help me teach," He explains, "I appreciate it, of course, but it's far from necessary. My home is always open to you. If you need to unwind someplace quiet, or if you're hoping to browse the grandest collection of tomes this side of Waterdeep, you're welcome to stay. For as long as you'd like." 

The offer means more to you than he might realize. 

"I'll keep that in mind. Thank you." 

"No, thank you," Gale retorts, "I cannot overstate how much I appreciated seeing you again. Today was a delight." 

Your glance travels away, and you try to ignore the warmth prickling over your face. From his open balcony, the sun casts shimmering rays as it falls. Light glitters over the ocean's rocky waves. The sea breeze is growing sharper; it whispers in your ears, and tickles the hair on the back of your neck. When you take a deep inhale, the air seems to catch in your lungs, holding on, unwilling to let go. 

Finally, faintly, you reply, "You'll have to show me more of Waterdeep, next time. It's a beautiful city." 

"Splendid, isn't it? I could show you around tomorrow, or even tonight, if you aren't too exhausted from today. The sights are particularly breathtaking then, when they're allowed to flourish under the cover of stars and moonlight." 

Gale takes a step closer to you, and you're left to look up at him again. At the way the light caresses his skin, at his handsome features framed by a gentle smile. 

"There's so many wonders I want you to see." He confesses. 

More than that. He's longed for more than he's admitted to, more than everything he thought mattered, before he met you. There's so much he wants to show you, so much he needs to tell you, he's begun to lose track of it all. 

Ever since you parted ways, he's felt something missing. Those adventures, your company and that of your unlikely band of companions: they're all things he's grown to miss dearly. In hopes he'd move on, he overwhelmed himself with the endeavors of his new life. He focused on teaching, on studying, on magic. No matter what, he was filled with an ache he couldn't extinguish. 

You'd tease him if he mentioned it. He can imagine your voice, mumbling playfully with a flash of teeth and a sparkle in your gaze, Something missing? A tadpole in your brain, maybe? 

Very funny, he'd answer. And he'd leave it at that, because you've given him an out, a chance not to make a fool of himself. He doesn't need everyone to hear how sentimental he's become — and especially not you. If only you knew the half of it. 

You took a piece of him with you when you left, pried from the space between his ribs, fated to burn in your embers. He hasn't stopped missing you with such ferocity. With a certain kind of hunger. It's damn near worse than when the orb once gnawed at him. 

To have you now almost feels like a dream. He keeps thinking he might wake up, that this will melt away to leave him and him alone. This shouldn't be real, you both shouldn't have made it. Gale recalls with sickening familiarity when the end of his life felt so close. He can remember even clearer the moment he found a new purpose in you. 

You've been important to him from the start; he doesn't do a very good job of hiding it, does he? Those stolen glances were easily caught. His nervousness whenever you're with him concedes enough to make him obvious. 

He could have told you. Could have admitted how you make the fragile strings of his heart strum with every fond call of his name. You could have known the way he felt between soft breaths, and close bodies. During the moment when he showed you how to wield the Weave at your fingertips. It would have been terribly simple. A single thought, and you'd not only know, but you'd feel his own emotions rushing into you — A rippling river of infatuation. Isn't it unfortunate then, that you tend to make his mind so blank? 

The heart can be so cruel. No longer can he give you what he was aspiring to grace you with. He can't give you power. He can't offer you the abundances of a God, or the beauty of a plane away from this one. Only the ordinary. 

Falling for you was never the problem. You weren't someone he believed he deserved. 

His own hesitance forms a maddening sphere to be trapped in, and he knows it's his own fault; his own fear is to blame, his edge of destruction. You gave him hope. You've given him more than he ever could have desired, and that includes ascension. Is it so wrong for him to want more? 

Many times, he's certainly thought so. He doesn't need anything else. He has already touched the heavens and beyond with the time he's spent by your side. Your dumb adventures, your talks, the uncertain closeness. It was nearly all he needed to be sated. 

Nearly. 

"Gale…" 

Your soft utterance of his name snaps him out of his thoughts. Gale examines you, and you're glancing away, an expression he can't make out on your face. The setting sun bathes you in intoxicating orange light. You seem to have your own halo, your own radiance that defies reason. You defy a lot of the things he thought he knew. 

He can only answer with a small, breathy, "Yes?" 

A little while longer, and he might be ready. One night spent looking at the sky, or another time to confide in the comfort of your voice and your presence. He'll make it perfect. He'll find the courage, or the stars will witness his failure once again. 

Crossing paths with you changed everything about himself he once thought he understood, and he finds the revelation as funny as it is delightful. To have you to miss was a privilege, in and of itself. Fate was never a concept he believed in, but evidently, the threads of his fortune had more in store for him. You became more than a wish, you were tangible. You were kind, intelligent, you were defiance incarnate. You rewrote the part of his story he thought untouchable. He watched Gods kneel at your feet, and he felt your softness latch onto him like a second home. 

And he finally has time, doesn't he? 

The time to tell you, the time to spend with you. Because he is alive, and the restlessness and nervousness he still feels inside shouldn't matter. How foolish he once was, for thinking things would turn out any other way. 

In every other life, you still would've saved him. In a life where he was better, less scared, and not so temporary, perhaps you would have known he loved you already. 

"I couldn't. I… I want to stay," You're starting; regret tugs at the edges of your voice, and Gale begins to feel his heart sink with each and every word. "Maybe I could some other time, but I can't now, I shouldn't. There's business that needs to be dealt with back home, in Baldur's Gate- I'm sorry. I should have told you sooner." 

Gale huffs an impeccably dry laugh. He grins just slightly, a smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes, and he softly responds, "Busy, aren't you? The grand savior of Baldur's Gate is needed on the field, I see. I understand. I won't hold you any longer." 

"You aren't holding me up, Gale. It's nothing important, I guess I just…" Trailing off, you inhale deeply, trying not to stumble over your own words. Your glance darts from the floor of his study to the sculptures to the trinkets — Anything to keep your eyes away from his. "I didn't want to intrude. It would feel strange if I stayed. Like I'd be taking advantage of your hospitality, I suppose." 

Gale frowns. "I promise you this, on absolutely everything left in our universe for me to promise on, you could never intrude. I meant my words, I told you that you could stay for as long as you desire, and-" 

"I know." You answer, like a frustrated plea, like a sacrificial revelation. Your hands ball up at your sides. Your voice is loud, before it goes quiet. "I know. It's my fault, alright? This doesn't have anything to do with you. I just can't stay." 

The air grows so tense it's almost suffocating. Though, for only a second or two. 

"So, becoming my honorary guest professor was that bad, was it?" Gale hums. 

Then, you're laughing weakly, you're brushing an awkward hand over the back of your neck and looking up at him, your expression now pleasantly amused. His doting gaze meets yours, framed by a few out of place strands of hair. 

"No," You mumble teasingly, stretching out the end of the word with a roll of your eyes; he always knows how to make you weak. "And I've already promised to come teach with you again. As long as you aren't worried about me showing you up, that is." 

"Oh, by all means, do show me up plenty," He eagerly replies, "I won't try to stop you." 

You huff a quick chuckle, and there it is again — Your gaze, sparkling. Gale feels the way you draw him in without trying, until his attention is fully focused on you. Until you have him right where you want him. To think of how doomed he'd be if you ever got your hands on some charming magic. 

"I've really missed you, y'know," You're admitting. Your tone is different somehow, unmistakably. "The party honestly has felt like forever ago. Back then, I thought we didn't have near enough time. Catching up was pleasant, but it felt… imperfect. And now, we spent an entire day together. You're right here in front of me, and yet, still. I miss you." 

Gale's jaw clenches, and with nothing left to stop you, you continue. 

Your throat grows tight. You expel a long, heavy sigh. "Do you want me to tell you the truth?" 

"I wouldn't shy away from it." He returns. 

"If I stay for any longer, I wouldn't have it in me to leave." Your gaze dances over his own, and he understands the uncertainty, mixed with faint emotions he doesn't. "Not ever." 

For what is probably the first time since you've met him, Gale goes completely, utterly silent. You watch him think, his expression pinching — perhaps irritated at his own loss for words — before he softens. His chest rises slowly with the deep breath he takes. Light glitters off his silver earring. Shadows form in his features, his lips part in an almost-sentence. In the end, he swallows it down, and grits his teeth together to the point of pain. 

You're standing close. So close, he can see the slight, frustrated crinkle in your brows that only seems to furrow more the longer he stays quiet. So close, he could lean in if he wanted to, and relay the depths of his longing from his hesitant lips onto yours. 

It isn't like him to be speechless this long. 

Your head tilts towards him, tender curiosity on your face. Your arm outstretches, and a hand gently begins to reach in his direction. "Gale?" 

He's about to do something foolish. Something very, very unwise. He'd attempt to stop himself, if the words weren't already forming on his tongue. He'd give up as he did before, if only the dying light wasn't so lovely on you. 

At least he knows it won't be the most nonsensical thing he's done.

Gale's gaze fills with warmth, with a devotion so resolute, you could believe you really are some form of a God. He catches your hand, and grasps it in a clumsy way; more clinging than holding, as fingers brush knuckles, folded over one another. As if you might disappear when he lets go. 

This time, there's no more room for wondering. No more hesitation, no barriers, just himself and you: his fallen star, his lovely demise. It doesn't matter what he does or doesn't do, your existence will never leave his veins, running deeper than the fear and the magic ever has. The same way the Weave crackles at his fingertips, adoring you comes naturally. You are yourself, and you, in all your love, in flesh and bone — You are worth anything, or perhaps everything. 

A little while longer. To the Hells with that. 

"I'm in love with you." 

It's easier to say those words than he expected. They just sort of happen; really, they seem natural. He's been agonizing for ages, but to hear his own voice say them aloud cements his feelings as true. He is in love with you. An honest, mortal love. 

He doesn't have the time to worry over the consequences, because you've heard him loud and clear. His heart won't stop pounding, and pounding, and pounding. 

Almost instantly, your eyes are going wide. Your own grip on his hand turns loose. Surprise washes warmly over your face, settling as a pleasant tingle in the expanse of your shoulders. For a moment, you don't speak. You take in quick, nervous breaths, feeling your lungs choked by emotion and sea salt. 

"You really- Why're you-" You sputter, stumbling back slightly and shifting your weight from one foot to the other. Your arms go slack as you expel a faint sigh, "Gale-" 

"You do not have to say anything. And you're under no obligation to stay." Gale interrupts, his tone abruptly serious. His expression reflects the same sort of solemness, his brows in a knot. He tries to hide the shake to his words, tries to chase away his worries, "You can leave, if you wish. You can leave, and we can never speak of this again. I wouldn't blame you. I couldn't blame you. I'd know better, not to chase after you and… to simply leave things as they are. Like I should have done now. If I wasn't the ass that I am." 

A brief pause. Your eyes scan him, and Gale resists the urge to let his nervousness get the better of him. 

"But I had to speak," He says. "This may be my only chance. I can't lie to you in the same way I've lied to myself." 

Your next words are spoken with conviction. You squeeze his hand, and the dizzy room around him finally begins to steady — "Then tell me, Gale. I want you to tell me everything." 

It's like the sun is shining right onto him. Heat and pure energy rushes from your hands into his, your voice a conduit for emotion. You practically give him a head rush. 

Gale swallows, steadies. Then, he speaks. 

"And what an abundance of things I could tell you." 

Grasping your hands and squeezing them back, he's smiling again, but this time, it's different. The whole moment seems different. He's wearing an excited, heartfelt sort of smile, a look you think you've never seen before. Well, perhaps you saw it once. 

You're reminded of the way he looked at you many, many nights ago. When your fates weren't assured. When you gazed upon the stars together, admiring the aurora he created — dazzling light, to pierce the sky of shadow. That memory seems so near, yet so far away. His solemness melted to gentleness back then, too. Your souls felt closer than they ever had. 

Was this what he wanted to tell you that night? 

"Let's see," Gale is continuing, and you're grinning, watching his head tilt as he puts on an air of confidence; his own form of sincerity. 

"I wonder what I should tell you first? Should I detail each intricate moment, every subtle action that made me fall so deeply for you? For your determination, your ingenuity. Your beauty. Gods, you shouldn't get me started. If you truly wanted me to describe every single thing I adore about you, well, I believe we'd be nothing but dust by the time I was finished." 

You can't help but chuckle. Gale's gaze travels over you, and you let yourself take him in. His fingertips absently run over your knuckles. His shoulders are tense with a hesitance he can't manage to hide. 

"I'll make a terribly long-winded story brief, before I bore you with my sentiments." This time, he sounds a fair bit quieter. The depths of his honeyed gaze, ever-softening, become impossible to look away from. 

"You are very special to me." He gently explains, "More than words can describe, and certainly more than anything else. I'm sorry for not telling you sooner. While the world was crumbling around us, begging to be saved, I thought myself content, if only I could spend whatever remained of my time at your side." 

Carefully, Gale reaches forwards. Between his fingers, with the slightest, most exhilarating touch, he holds your chin, he tilts your head in his direction. Your heart begins to hammer in your chest to an unsteady rhythm. 

"Love does not even begin to describe it. You are wonderful. You are the special sort of magic one might spend their entire life searching for. The most divine of desires. I've no need to search anymore." 

A brush of his thumb over your mouth, and his calloused fingers are splaying back to caress your cheek, to feel the shape of your jaw, "I have the heavens right in my hands. All the spectacles and splendors of Faerûn are jealous of you." 

You relax, and when his grasp drops from your chin, you let your hand slip away from his — only to wrap your arms around him, elbows resting on his shoulders. He admires you intently, gauging your reaction, his heart skipping at your touch and the subtle flash of shyness behind your eyes. A sort of analysis you've seen him use when he was examining an artifact, or mulling over a game of lanceboard. The tender focus his face takes on makes you huff in amusement. 

With a teasing raise of your brow, you manage to ask, "How many times have you practiced saying that to me?" 

"A hundred times. A thousand times." Gale keeps his arms at his sides, despite the way you embrace him tighter. In the corner of your vision, you catch him starting to reach out. His hands hover inches away from your waist, he flexes them in thought. 

"No, I often went back and forth on the precise method I would use to confess, given I actually had the gall to do it, but," He explains, a slight playful air to his tone, "Those words were from the heart. Just a few specs of fondness from my vast nebula of love for you. If you can believe that." 

"They're very… you. In a good way." Your smile is bright. He thinks it might continue to warm him, long after the point of the sun's imminent descent. "It's a shame, though. I wasn't expecting you to beat me to it. I've been practicing how I would tell you I'm in love with you since we met." 

If there's one thing you've come to know about the wizard, it's that he's collected. 

Calm, mostly. But unperturbed always. He's optimistic to a fault, and he's never been the type to seem nervous or timid, even if he might be feeling that way. He's an honest man, but also controlled — You have to exercise a certain amount of control to wield magic. Or to keep your own body from exploding to bits, you figure. With the orb posing much less of a threat, he's clearly more relaxed, but his emotions still don't show so easily. 

You've seen him scared. But nervous? Shy? Those sorts of feelings were never in his repertoire. He's never once stumbled over his words, never been red-faced, never faltered from his confidence and his verbosity. Until now. 

"You- You have?" Gale sounds so in disbelief, you swear his voice nearly cracks. He clears his throat awfully loudly, he glances between you and something in the distance. Which proves to be difficult, considering how close you are. Has the skin underneath his collar always felt so hot? "I had no idea. I mean, clearly, but- But still." 

"I wasn't sure if you knew. You're more charming than you give yourself credit for," You clarify softly, "I thought for sure you'd make a move at that little tiefling party. Started planning what I might say and everything. Apparently, you failed to realize I was flirting with you." 

"I wasn't even trying to woo you then," Gale mumbles, thinking to himself. "Well, that's- Hah, quite the discovery, now isn't it? Care to- uhm, enlighten me on what it was you planned to say, exactly?" 

"Mmm, possibly. You seem flustered. Should I show you, instead?" 

"Show me?" 

"Yes," You stand up straighter, making his heart race faster as you move impossibly closer to him, "I'll show you what I really wanted to do back then." 

"Whatever you wish would be fine with me- Er, wrong choice of words." The breeze drifting through his study is cold enough to form goosebumps, and yet he can't seem to quit burning up. He runs a quick hand through his hair, feeling the heat from his forehead underneath his palm, "Whatever you wish is perfect, I should say. If you want to- or, well, perhaps I could…" 

Gale doesn't get the chance to say anything more. 

He expects you to lean in. Sharply, he takes in a hurried, nervous breath. Uncertain palms hover over the curve of your waist, before settling with the slightest touch. His eyes grow heavy, his head begins to tilt opposite yours. What he doesn't expect is for you to stop, your lips almost pressed to his, but not quite, leaving the distance not yet closed. 

You suspend there, for a moment. Your low breathing tickles his skin. Gale's hand finds your cheek, holding, and nothing more. 

"Are you going to kiss me?" 

There's only a half-second longer of hesitance. He closes the gap, and you fist the front of his shirt to pull him in along with you. Your eyes flutter shut. Fallen stars and glowing warmth shimmer through every inch of you. At last, your lips connect in a quaint, subtle kiss. Smooth, simple, and utterly him. 

Shoulders slumping, your pulse thrums like the unsteady flicker of a candle flame. Your head begins to spin, your heart throbs with fiery longing. This is what you were waiting for. When you burned from the inside-out, wanting nothing more than to forget reason and your lives and his cruel Goddess, you only longed to just kiss him, regardless of the consequences. Everything else melts away: the setting sun, his warmly-lit tower, and your own feet from under you. 

He's hardly done anything, and you're already overwhelmed. To your dismay, the kiss is over almost as soon as it begins. The both of you draw a breath's length apart. Gentle hands give your waist the smallest squeeze. You exhale, and Gale takes in a deeper breath along with you. Kissing him made the rest of the world fall away, or perhaps fall into place, and all you can think of is how desperately you need another. 

Maybe he can read your mind, or maybe he's thinking the exact same thing. Delicately, Gale murmurs against your lips, "Forgive me for being greedy, but… I'm not sure that'll be enough for me. Could I kiss you again?" 

As if he even has to ask. 

With urgency, you're surging forwards, you're kissing him again and he can't manage to think — The only thing running through every inch of him is you. You, kissing him the way he's wanted you to for months upon months. Pressing your lips against his over and over, stealing his breath until he's feeling dizzy, but he doesn't care. You, lovely in a way he's never deserved, with a soul entwined by his own. You told him you love him; he can hardly stand to believe it. 

Lips locked, you twist together, until Gale is guiding you by your waist. Until he's pressing your back against the edge of the nearest surface — his desk — to keep you both stable, while your hands are grabbing at his shoulders for leverage. You let a hand glide up, you tangle your fingers in soft brown hair. You grip and tug, dragging him close, and he sighs, mouth parting, allowing the kiss to turn deep. Enough to mark the point of no return. 

This is everything he's ever wanted, you are the only thing he's ever needed. He could die happy, if this was his end. What a sweet, lovely end it would be. He can't describe how otherworldly it is, to know the desire he's had to kiss you won't die along with him. To know you have plenty of kisses left. 

He could love you like this until the true end of the world. He's tempted actually, to slow down time, and savor you for as long as you will allow. You were well worth dying for, but you are priceless to live for. You and your touch, your love. Love — Gods, none of this will feel real, no matter how many times he reminds himself. 

When his tongue slides against yours, a slow, apprehensive show of tenderness, you feel a shiver careen down your spine. He hears your breath get caught in your lungs, feels you tug him closer and arch into his touch once a palm drifts to the small of your back. 

This kiss hopes to pour his devotion into you, so that you might understand. You'll know love, know the things he's always wanted to tell you, as familiar as you know yourself. He'll make sure this moment won't be forgotten. 

You reach behind you, gripping the edge of the desk when his body presses into yours. Your mind is a mess, reeling so fast you might go woozy; another smooth kiss makes you pull him in further, ushering from him a meager gasp in surprise. You're lost, losing control. The both of you are trapped in a dance of vying for more, pressing closer, kissing harder. His knee slots between your legs — unintended encouragement, you're sure — and you jolt, your thoughts now occupied with things they really, really shouldn't be. 

The smallest space between you fills with hot breath, as you pull apart just enough to get a word out. "Gale-"

"I've missed you," He murmurs, breathless and hurried, as though he doesn't wish to waste a single second, "I have missed you more than anything." 

He leans close once more, his hand moves to hold the back of your neck and cradle you like you're precious. You kiss again, and any reservations you still have remaining fly away on the breeze, to be swallowed by the depths of the sea. 

You don't want to stop. No, you know where this is leading, and still, you can't stop. You wouldn't dream of it. How long have you wanted to kiss him, wanted to have him to yourself? Wanted for him to lose his composure, and finally show you exactly how he felt? How long have you been waiting for more? 

Since you met him, surely. Since you dragged him from that portal. Since he first shook your hand, and you felt your foolish heart spark to life. Piece by tender piece, you connected in secret. Fought through darkness to emerge onto the dawn, hoped the newfound day might bring you both together. Truly, you've waited too long to let a moment like this go to waste. 

You pull apart for barely a second, you catch your breath while Gale mutters something against your mouth that sounds like your own name — And at once, you're closing the distance again. Your lips continue to learn the shape of each other, bodies shaky, rocking close. When a particularly desperate kiss causes his hips to drive into yours, you're the one left sighing. Your nerves prickle with excitement, your limbs feel weak. And a hardness, his hardness, shoves against you unmistakably, grinding into where you're terribly weak. 

Oh, you won't be stopping now. Not any time soon. 

Gale stiffens immediately, at the same moment you do. He peels himself apart from you so quickly you're left slumping, gasping into open air. You would have stumbled, if it wasn't for his hand on your waist gripping excessively tight, helping to hold you up. Faltering, he slowly lets go. Before he does, you think you can feel a slight tremble in his fingers. 

"Ah, I'm- I'm sorry, genuinely," He stutters, practically panting as he tries to establish composure, a frail waver in his voice. You grip the desk tighter, staggering to your feet. The last traces of sunlight shimmer over his face, his earring, his eyes. Strands of his hair have fallen out of place, and he reaches up to briefly push them backward. 

"You make it far too easy to get carried away." He says, sounding rough and short-winded, "That being said, it would be wise not to take things too far, that was- Well, you are-" 

"That was perfect," You gasp out, cutting him off, or perhaps taking the words right out of his mouth. You bring a hand to his shoulder, an unspoken plea for him not to move away, "You don't have to stop, Gale. Please, don't." 

Gale takes a long, slow breath. Hesitantly, he brings both hands back to rest on your waist — barely touching, his gaze scanning yours for any sign of discomfort. "Are you sure? Positively sure? Maybe it'd help if you, er, clarified, in a way." 

"I'm clarifying that I want you to keep going. You don't have to hesitate, I want this," You retort, speaking softly, squeezing his shoulder in turn. Your eyes flicker over him, up and then down. "I showed you how I felt. It's only fair for you to return the favor, no?" 

"Oh, of course. Fairness is one of the most crucial qualities to hone, in terms of forming a long-lasting bond. So says literature, anyways. But I think I'd prefer to mesh the showing with the telling, if that sounds at all pleasurable to you." 

You're smirking. "As long as your sweet voice isn't the only pleasure in store for me." 

He exhales a small huff, the faintest form of a laugh. A smile crosses his features, and he holds your chin between his thumb and forefinger, admiring you like you're the prettiest sight this world has to offer. You very well might be. 

His gaze comes to rest on yours: warm, complex, loving. For once, he doesn't speak. He demonstrates. 

A small kiss is pressed to your cheek, innocent yet tender. Then, a kiss to the other side. His kisses travel; one he graces to the corner of your mouth, the next he places on the angle of your jaw. Your head tilts up in obedience, and he trails wet kisses down your neck, making you sigh weakly in response. 

One more kiss is graced to your neck, then your nape, then just above your collarbone. They're weighted, in a way; heavy with an infatuation you can feel beneath his touch, and deep in your bones. His facial hair tickles your skin. His warm breath on your pulse is stifling, and it only begins to thump faster, fully at the mercy of his scattered kisses. 

Meshing the showing, with the telling — It isn't long before he's babbling again. 

"You hold so much of my heart," He mumbles; the words on your neck are a steady vibration. His palm caresses your side, his lips brush over your cheek, and then move to speak against the shell of your ear. The new depth to his voice is delightful. "Falling for you was… effortless. As effortless as one breathes. I have no regrets. Absolutely none." 

The final kiss he places on your ear has shudders running through you. He's painstakingly slow once he starts to pull back, and he shifts just far enough to meet your eyes, your foreheads almost touching. That warm gaze on yours has your heart leaping all over again. 

Strung through his tone is a thread of infatuation, a sweetness on his tongue you find oh-so endearing. 

"You begged to be admired, but that hardly scratches the surface." He squeezes your side for emphasis. "You made me feel as though I meant something. Like I was alive. I'd forgotten how it felt, just as I'd forgotten what it could mean to fight for one's future." He pauses, thinking, reminiscing, "More so, I could say you brought me back to life." 

Your mouth parts, forming the edge of a word. But Gale chooses to interrupt, tugging you in with a palm settled gingerly on your jaw, muddling your mind with a kiss. And you melt. You allow your head to tilt opposite his own, and your arm to snake between your bodies. Your hand presses flat to the center of his chest. He kisses you deeper, his heart thumps. Lingering magic strong enough to sense thrums beneath his robes, his skin. 

"There's a line of poetry I once read," He's mumbling against your lips as he leaves them. His touch slides up slowly, supporting you, holding your back. "As of late, you've made it stick in my mind. Amidst the wealth of stories I've finished, the tales of truth and fiction, when I think of you, this singular line utterly refuses to part from me. And if one moment spent lost in contemplation equates to the faintest drop of rainwater, I've thought of you enough to flood the entirety of Faerûn." 

Your eyes seem heavy. You're smiling, but your head is swirled in a dreamy fog. It's plain unfair to have to decide between hearing more, or asking him to kiss you again. 

You decide on the former. "And what might that line be?" 

Gale brushes your cheek with his thumb, "I do love nothing in the world so well as you." 

He's completely genuine, he sounds so syrupy-sweet you can barely hold back your grin. You breathe a quiet, playful tsk, and you lean back, wrapping your arms around his shoulders. 

In the course of your adventures together, you weren't sure how Gale felt about you. 

It's rather stupid, thinking back on it now. Obviously, you had your suspicions. He was certainly warmer with you, compared to the rest of your allies. Despite knowing you could clearly take care of yourself, he regularly fussed over your safety, to the point of insisting you stick close to him whenever a fight broke out. He'd make a rash excuse, Powerful spells mean nil if you are not in the proper range for me to cover you! — or something like that. You always figured it was an exaggeration. Regardless, you weren't about to turn him down. 

You were attached at the hip for safety's sake, that's all. Your remaining companions never seemed to buy it, nor could they hold their comments about the wizard's clearly defined soft spot. The thoughtful way he spoke to you had to mean more; or so they tried to convince you, anyway. You weren't easily influenced. 

But it didn't matter. Without the courage and the time to ask, you couldn't be sure. You presumed he might like you, not love you. 

This side to Gale is making you reevaluate. You've never seen him so enamored, never thought he'd be this smitten — with you, no less. In his eyes, you're a living beacon of radiance, a miracle meant to be adored. A bright, pale moon to light his way through the darkness, shimmering on jet-black waters. And adore you he will. 

You were wrong, so very wrong. While you were busy falling for him, he was already plummeting harder. 

"That's from a romance, isn't it?" You muse, tilting your head and eyeing him teasingly, "You're reciting romance lines to me?" 

"Not just any romance, mind you. One of the greats. It's charming, very influential. Actually, the story is rather lighthearted- I'd be glad to introduce it to you, I have a feeling you'd enjoy it. But yes, in fact. I am." 

"Somehow, you didn't seem like the romance type. I'm surprised. Pleasantly, though." 

"A fine assumption. For quite some time, stories of a softer nature became subjects I rarely dabbled in." His index finger comes to rest under your chin, and your head is tilted in his direction. "But falling in love causes one to take interest." 

Warmth swells in your veins, untamed. You picture Gale, retreating into his tomes and books when you had a moment of reprieve on the road, struggling to hide his infatuation with you. He'd often read to you, when he was able. His calm voice would narrate biographies and old history novels, until you were trying not to fall asleep. Romances were never a part of it. Perhaps they weren't a part of his personal collection, either. Yet the more you contemplate, the more they seem to suit him. 

Did he read such stories to be reminded of you, to grapple with your absence? You can picture him getting lost in them, memorizing the scenes and the verses, in hopes your own tale might play out more like those novels, and different from what destiny threatened upon you. He yearned for things to be lighter, less somber. In the end, there was no world where you stopped longing for each other. 

"Besides," Gale is continuing in his usual upbeat tone, giving you little time to think as he cups your cheek in his palm, "There's nothing wrong with choosing to be well-versed in everything. Fantasy, poetry, romance. Erotica, perhaps. I'm sure I could recall some more… exciting quotes, if you preferred it?" 

"Please, there's no need," You tease, with the smallest roll of your eyes; although, your heart can't help but patter at the imagery. Gale, reading erotica, of all ridiculous things. "You're sweet. Even now, you're telling me about books. Could you be any more perfect?" 

"Possibly," He confesses. "Where you're concerned, mere perfection is far from good enough." Swallowing the dryness in his throat, his eyes mist over with a saccharine seriousness, "My intentions were always to cherish you, to give you my utmost devotion, and then some. You deserve the world. I only wish I could give it to you." 

"But you are enough for me. More than enough. I was lucky. So lucky, to have been fortunate enough to meet you. I'm not sure where I would be if I hadn't." Your fingertips drum against his shoulders, and gradually, he relaxes at your touch, from your tone. He exhales steadily, nice and slowly. 

"Do you mean it?" 

"Gale, I've never meant anything more. I want you so much. Just the way you are." 

To have crossed paths with one another, to have met you — No, he is the one who must be fortunate beyond compare. 

For a while, he stalls, deciding what to say. Each alternative comes up blank. Your fingers wrap around the neckline of his shirt, then. You feel the embroidered fabric with your thumb, the intricate pattern of swirls. You tug slightly, but Gale — still speechless, oddly enough — doesn't get the hint. 

"Your shirt." When he opens his mouth to reply, you're swiftly interrupting. "Take it off." 

He seems to freeze for a second, thinking. Then, the slightest form of a grin dawns on his face, a look of nervous contentment. He's reaching down to grasp the bottom of his velvet shirt, tugging it over his head. A messy happy trail litters from his stomach to disappear beneath his pants; it catches your attention, but not for long. Gale is pressing his palms to the surface of the desk, on either side of you, caging you in. You drift forward, and the kiss you share is a momentary distraction. 

Effortlessly languid, he kisses you as though you have infinite time, and this is the only way he wishes to spend it. His hand moves to cradle the back of your head, you hold him tight between the soft presses of lips connecting. You exhale in unison once you've both pulled away. 

Foggy breath mixes with your own. It warms your skin as he sighs slightly, leaning forward until his forehead is rested against yours. You watch him visibly swallow. He nervously brings a hand to your waist; just holding, with no intention quite yet. The faintest touch makes you melt, until you feel woven into him, soft beyond repair. 

"Do you have the slightest idea how long I've dreamt of this?" He starts, his voice quiet, shaky, "How much I've thought of you, how badly I've needed you? How long I've sought to… Gods…" 

Your palm grazes his chest, and he trails off into a shuddery sigh — eyes closing, shoulders slumping. Delicate fingertips feel the shape of the Netherese brand engraved in his skin. You trace and retrace the circular indentation. You press your palm flat to his chest, feeling the silent hum of dormant magic, measuring each fluttery beat of his heart. His chest aches, his veins sear with all the heat they can muster. 

That's right. He'd almost begun to forget the effect you have on him. 

You've never been afraid. After learning the truth, you didn't look at him differently. You refused to cast him aside, in the face of his own insistence. A miasma of blinding purple light shone from underneath your palm, pain ripped through him as he relived his self-made tragedy in one single breath — and somehow, you understood. You only pressed your palm closer, expression unwavering, and swore a gracious promise to help. 

You've helped him more than you know. He shouldn't feel this way. So sated. It hardly makes sense, from any perspective. There's many things he failed to do. He has much to learn: about himself, about this damned orb, and still, about you. 

But right now, his heart is a battering ram against the constructed walls of his chest, and your fingertips are traveling up — They're grazing the wretched mark as it twists up his nape, his cheek. Your knuckles brush the tangle of dark lines underneath his eye, you cup his face in your hand. And the orb is quiet. It should be screaming with the rest of him. Instead, it chooses silence. 

Magic works in such strange, indecipherable ways. If someone were to tell him long ago that this is how it could work — as though in your presence, it too, is comforted — he doesn't think any part of him would ever believe them. 

His mistake will forever be a part of him. But so will you. 

Gale finds your hand, and settles his on top of your own. He places a kiss onto the bridge of your nose, his palm slides from your hip until his thumb is edging underneath your top, just barely brushing your bare skin underneath. He hesitates, but a kiss of your own placed onto his jaw has him gasping, poised to pull your shirt over your head in the same way his was discarded. 

"May I?" Gale hums, and you swiftly nod in approval. 

"Yes," You reply, "Please." 

The anticipation that settles in your gut is damn near agonizing. You were expecting him to move carefully, but not this slow. 

Gale continues at an apprehensive pace. He stops to collide his lips with yours, when the edge of your top reaches the center of your stomach. With another smooth kiss, mouths parted, breath ragged, he tugs it higher still. You only break apart to bring your arms over your head, and give him a chance to pull it off the rest of the way. 

A kiss onto your ear, and your chest is tight. His lips trail down your nape, and you're reaching up to grab a hold of his hair, your teeth gritting as you choke back a desperate noise. 

Between sighs, your voice is weak, but you still manage, "How long you've sought to what?" 

Gale mumbles a hm into your nape, he squeezes your waist and brushes his thumb over your skin. You know he's coaxing you to continue, but with his mouth on your neck, peppering kisses that wash over you like waves, it's rather hard to follow through. 

Nonetheless, you grip a fistful of brown hair to give yourself leverage. You force yourself to take a deep, steadying breath. "You were saying something before. How long have you sought to do what, exactly?" 

One last kiss, and Gale is drawing back to meet your eyes. He holds your chin between two of his fingers. There's a glint in the back of his gaze, causing heat to rush over you, your limbs suddenly growing weak. 

"To take you," He admits, "To not just tell you what wondrous things you've made me feel, but to show you." 

You're sure the wild look in his eyes is mirrored in your own. "Then what are you waiting for? Show me." 

Gale smiles. He gestures with a crooked finger, and instructs with a tone that borders on smug, "Make yourself comfortable. If you could do the honor of hopping up on the desk for me, I'd be glad to get started." 

When you press your palms flat to the solid wood, pushing to lift yourself, his hands maneuver under your thighs, and he helps to plop you on top of his messy wooden desk. He makes room for you, pushing stacks of books to the edge, giving you the space you need to scooch back. His brows are furrowed slightly as he's gathering half-opened scrolls to toss on the floor — from nervousness? Concentration? You aren't entirely sure, but you think he lingers somewhere in between. 

Turning back to you, he innocently allows his palms to feel the shape of your bare sides. He smooths them over the curve of your waist, he caresses the faint indentations of the scars your journey and your previous path left. Then, not so innocently, his fingers are toying with the front of your pants. His thumb is rubbing over the button, while his gaze never leaves yours, his collected expression never once wavering. 

Sitting atop Gale's desk is far from luxurious. You're already shifting, doing your best to relax and meet his eyes, but you tense when he gives you a full once-over. You stifle your nerves. By now, you don't care where he has you, as long as he doesn't make you wait for much longer. 

Your impatience must reflect in your reaction. Gale brings his gaze back to yours, and it somehow seems much softer. 

"I thought you couldn't get any more gorgeous," He whispers, his fingertips drawing shapes you can't recognize into your skin, "But before my eyes, you've so effortlessly proved me wrong. What a fool I am." 

"A very loveable fool, at least," You counter, placing your hands on his shoulders as he glides his gentle palm up your side. The breeze still fluttering through his study tickles your skin, intensifying each faint, terribly warm touch. 

"You're too sweet. I doubt you'd be as composed if you knew the true depth to my foolishness. There is a great deal to address. Too much to fit into one short night, I'm sure." Gale's eyes narrow, adoration at the forefront of his expression, "It's arduous to simply try and think around you, you know. Well, unless one finds themselves thinking about you. You're such an unrelenting plague on my every thought- A good plague, I should add, not the, erm. Sickly sort." 

"Right. A good plague," You repeat. "Go on." 

"You are… impossible not to think of," Gale corrects, "My mind was made to study the intricacies of yours. I often found myself lost, absorbed in the fierceness of my adoration for you. Even at times where I perhaps shouldn't." 

Your eyebrow raises. "Is that so?" 

After staring at you blankly for more than a few moments, he awkwardly clears his throat and continues, "I suppose you're waiting for me to explain? If you asked our unlikely band of companions, I'm sure someone would tell you. They certainly remember how immensely I embarrassed myself with my obviousness, at our reunion and when we were still merely surviving together. But you never knew. I assumed you never knew. You failed to notice when I couldn't stop… staring at you, for lack of a better term." 

"I didn't notice that much." Briefly, your lips press into a line. "I had my suspicions, sure, but I wasn't entirely confident you felt… more, for me. More than the friendship we had already. Or maybe I found the reality of it hard to believe." 

"More barely describes it. My heart would begin to pound each and every time I saw you. Damn thing would tear into my chest like it wanted to come free, especially in the moments where we finished another battle victorious, barely making it out with lives and limbs intact. I'd watch you dust your hands. Wipe the mess of dirt, and some unlucky soul's blood from your face. Your jaw set, your eyes darkened. And I could only think of how much I wanted you." 

Apparently, he's not yet out of surprises. For a man who says so much, he picks the strangest times to keep his mouth shut, because you guarantee if you knew that then, you wouldn't have wasted this much time. No, you would've let him have you then and there, amongst the danger and against your judgment. Perhaps that's exactly what he was picturing. 

You swallow, eyeing him softly, curiously. "Were you just thinking? Or did you do something about those thoughts of me?" 

"Do something?" Gale huffs, letting go of you to return to his familiar habit of speaking with his hands, "As you know, those ideas, no matter how thrilling, could never be permitted to happen- They were forced to be kept in here, exclusively to myself. Lest they prove an unnecessary distraction. Many times, I dreamt of what it might be like to admit the truth. What I would say to you, if my feelings were returned. But I could allow these perspectives to haunt only me, and myself alone." 

He averts his eyes in fleeting nervousness. Tentatively, he mumbles, "When you, when those thoughts threatened to swallow me into their waiting jaws, and I couldn't stop thinking- Dwelling on your voice, your touch. Your beauty. I would… Hold on. Oh." 

You watch realization dawn on his face like the sun rising over the horizon. His eyes go wide and his face goes warm, he pushes away any uncertainty by breathing a small, light chuckle. He holds your side once more, and the anxiousness of his tense hand, fingers flexing, contradicts his supposed self-assurance. 

"Naughty." Gale teases, "Correct me if I've somehow veered onto the path of the mistaken, but I do believe I've discerned what it is you're getting at." 

Seems you can't hide your smirk anymore. Leaning back, your gaze locks with his, and the look on your face proves him right without the need for you to speak. Like the tressym who caught the canary, if he could describe it. 

Still, your head tilts, and you murmur, "Judging by your reaction, I doubt you need to be corrected." 

"Quite the risqué mind you have, don't you? And I thought I was the immodest one." His palm glides from your side, down to your waist, to your hip, "Though, I cannot lie, I am thrilled to indulge you. It's quite an… inappropriate matter to admit. But considering where we were already planning on taking this- Yes. I have done what you are thinking of. Shall I elaborate?" 

"I'd love it if you would." 

As you grasp his hand boldly, your fingers brush his. You guide him to the front of your pants again, until he's clutching the button, fiddling with it, feeling the shape while he tries to find his next words. 

"I was always head over heels for you," Gale explains, popping the button before pulling on the zipper, "It would be pointless to claim otherwise. You were far more than a passing fancy, and I knew I could never forget, nor forgo you. You were my sanctum, my love. I worshiped you. And so I defied my Goddess." 

You lift up when Gale begins to slide your pants from your thighs, until they're left in a pile on the hardwood floor. The surface of his desk feels cool against your bare legs. 

"Of course, you already know that much. My point- Which don't fret, we are getting to," He says, a palm nonchalantly finding your thigh. He caresses your skin, and your heart is in your throat, because his fingers are drifting ever-so slightly closer, "Is that I was restless. There's an explanation as to why I would often avoid you, why I'd slip away once dusk became night. I pushed every potent feeling down, as to not affect our mission, nor our companionship. But you- You are enthralling." 

Careful fingertips skate the inside of your thigh. And as you swallow down fragile gasps, he's only continuing, "Once I was alone, I could no longer stifle the longing I felt. Rest hardly reprieved me. I'd only dream of what we did not have the time to say, nor do. I imagined showing you everything I could give to you, the places I could take you, the marvels I wished for you to see. A snap of my fingers, and we could connect in ways you could not even envisage. We would forget our misfortunes. Our deities. Gods, it was worse when I had to watch someone else chat you up. That night, I'd be practically insatiable." 

Your head is whirling. 

His manner of speaking leaves more up to interpretation than you would have liked, but you know him well enough by now to be more than skilled at reading between the lines. And those words of his can only paint the most addictive picture. 

Gale, trying his best to impress you, to make you smile and keep you safe, only to grow a slight bit jealous when you basked in the attention of someone other than him. Gale, slipping away and "going to bed early" the first chance he got. Holing up in his tent, while you had no idea why. Trying to sleep, only to be awakened over and over again by his enticing dreams of you. Your visage overwhelming his mind, the practiced, straight-laced wizard would finally give into his vices. 

With a palm over his mouth, and a hand down his pants, his noises would be muffled as he works his deft hand over his stiff length. He'd close his eyes, silently scolding himself; he's ridiculous, moronic, pathetic. He should be able to stifle his foolish desires, and yet he couldn't stop, his jaw clenched as he visualizes what he wants, needs to do to you — For once, he'd let his hunger for you consume him. 

Perhaps he isn't as principled as you once thought him to be. 

"I- I felt the same way," You stammer, your throat tightening, making it harder to speak. His fingertips move upward to carefully graze your stomach; his gaze stays on yours, yet you're struggling to maintain eye contact. "It was hard not to daydream about you, whenever we had a moment to rest. My focus was… all over the place. I wanted you to myself. Wanted you to do whatever you wished to me." 

"It seems we are one in the same. You could ask anything of me, and I would consider it done." Gale's thumb hooks around your underwear, but freezes there, not yet moving. His volume drops to barely above a whisper; smooth, and intoxicating, "But I did not always think of you in such sentimental terms. With you as… tempting as you are, and with a wealth of unspoken affections between us, my musings would often wander elsewhere." 

A shudder racks your spine. "Elsewhere?" 

Leaning closer, Gale allows his free hand to steady on your waist. 

You've always thought him and yourself to be equal in prowess. You have fought beside him enough to respect his skill, but also to understand his weaknesses. Yet, in this moment, with his voice echoing against the shell of your ear as a low, sultry hum — If this were a fight, you would've already, most certainly lost. 

"Yes, to the comforts we hadn't yet explored. To the way your voice might sound when it strains. I pictured your hands, purely natural when they are joined with mine. Or perhaps your arms, your legs, tightly wrapped around my shoulders, and my back." 

You feel his palm, caressing your side in slow, simple circles. Your eyelids flutter, your body tremors in the wake of a pleasurable tide. Through his tone, you can practically hear the smile on his lips, "I'm sure you get the idea. I confess, I was not as grounded around you as I may have appeared to be. For saving-the-world's sake, my focus could not wane. Yet, my foolish heart only wanted to hear how you might plead to be given every last inch of me- And I would entrust it all to you. My mind, my body. My soul, if you had any use for it." 

His words have you so distracted, you almost fail to notice he currently has your underwear half-way down your thighs. 

Your gaze meets his. Something you can't read reflected in the back of his eyes, he gazes at you silently, but questioningly. As if he's waiting for your word to continue. Sighing, you force yourself to relax. You ignore the budding warmth that gnaws at your core. You shift, before you lift once more, and with a sly grin, he takes the hint to pull the garment off the rest of the way. 

"I might," You reply, shivering when his palm returns to your thigh, allowing your legs to part slightly when his touch begins to drift, "Maybe I'm a devil in disguise." 

"The sweetest devil in all of the Hells," Gale purrs. He presses a quick kiss to your cheek, and his fingers gravitate away; dizzy, your breath hitches. You can't figure out if he's teasing you on purpose, but whatever the bastard is trying, he's certainly succeeding. You tense from your shoulders to your legs, only for his lips on your nape to make you crumble again. 

"Gale-" 

He kisses the column of your neck, and your grip tightens on the desk's edge, nails practically digging into the wooden surface. Gale's fingertips achingly draw circles on the inside of your thigh, his touch coaxing them further apart. Your lungs are overwhelmed. By the lack of air, by the scent of dusk, and his books, and him. 

"Please," You plead; the sound is a sweet melody to his ears, "Touch me." 

You're more than enthralling — You are simply irresistible. 

Gale sighs, and as the held breath leaves him, he swears he feels the center of his chest thrum with such staggering tenderness. 

"You very well may be my demise." 

Bracing a hand on your waist, he hesitates. His brows pinch slightly. His palm feels clammy, almost, and you can feel the heat like untamed fire, radiating from his skin, shining through every pore. Cast upon him is a sheet of silken, fading light. You breathe, in and then out. How can he be so damn handsome? 

"It's been a while since I have done anything of this sort. I do not wish to overstep." Gale brings his fingers to rest underneath your chin — index and middle, tilting your head ever-so gently towards him. "You'll tell me if it gets to be too much? If I ever do something that you have, erm. A less than savory reaction towards?" 

"Of course," You reply simply, but the simplest of words are all he needs to be put at ease. "Do as you like. I trust you." 

And so, he does. His eyes soften, they remind you of dripping, warm honey. Yet, the palm that begins to glide over your chest, softly caressing, is somehow even warmer. 

You're nearly nose to nose, as Gale touches every curve and dip from your chest to your collarbones, admiring the lovely details. It's tender — analytical, in a way — as though he's studying exactly what forms your shape, so he may never forget. The sound of his breathing, along with your own echoes faintly in your ears. You feel revered, like the statue of some sacred God; and from study or by memory, he will learn to sculpt you. 

"Beautiful," Gale murmurs quietly, "You are made of splendor and stardust." 

Your heart intends to deny those words. You once thought differently, you believed ruin and rot were all to compose you. But if he presumes otherwise, if Gale is the one to insist you're so much greater, there isn't a single part of you left to challenge him. You are beautiful. 

At once, your veins buzz, exhilaration rippling through your system at his voice, his touch. His fingertips trail the length of your shoulder. They teasingly trace downward, only to move back up again, despite the twitch of your thighs and the purse of your lips. 

"That night," He breathes, his hand studying the column of your throat, the curve of your jaw, "Where I created the sky for you, I came right to the precipice of confessing. You were beautiful then. As you always are. I felt this… fondness, dwell within me while I looked at you. I wondered if your lips were as plush as they looked. Gods, I wanted to kiss you. Our enemies should have tore a page from your book. You know better than anyone how to reduce a former chosen to such weakness." 

Those addictive fingertips reach back, tracing up your spine, causing your whole body to tingle. From the smallest of touches, from his touch, you're rife with anticipation. You've wanted and waited so much and so long to feel this. Gale's other hand tightens on your side, reassuring while holding you still, and you wouldn't be surprised if he could tell. If he knew what he was doing to you. 

He's missed you, loved you, with every fiber of his doomed being. Now, fondness is more than within him; it's engulfing him whole. 

He swallows thickly. "It would have been delightful to pull you close. To cast aside my misgivings, and instead have you right then and there. Underneath the shimmering lights, while whispering blades of grass tickled our skin. The sight of you laid out underneath me would have been more exquisite than any flourish I am capable of creating, I'm sure. Or, the sight of you above, perhaps? I didn't mind either which way." 

"Gale." 

You mumble his name, in some cross between a hiss, a pout, and a plea. He catches your eyes with a smile. 

More than you might think, he has you figured out. The look you give him whenever he speaks: warm and soft-eyed, breath hitched, expression blissfully entranced. You've mentioned your not-so subtle weakness for his voice before. You love hearing him talk like this, don't you? 

"You're sweet, but sometimes-" You choke on a gasp, shuddering once his hand is roaming down, down. This time, brushing your stomach, your hip, your thigh. "Sometimes, I really just want you to kiss me." 

Perhaps you could listen to him forever, but he's no fool. Any request of yours he'd be happy to oblige. Especially this one. 

"Come here, then," He says, already closing the distance, "You merely have to ask." 

A hand holding your jaw, Gale pulls you in, his head tilting until you collide in a soft mess of lips and tongue. He blindly finds your thigh, gently pushing them apart; he squeezes your plush flesh, before he kisses you harder. 

Together, when you both pull apart to breathe, he meets your gaze: a question, and permission. You don't look away. Your gasps grow sharper as his touch moves closer, your nerves strung tight, your bottom lip drawn between your teeth. 

The ends of his fingers brush your slick, waiting entrance, and you whine. 

"Oh, you're… Wow," Gale sighs out. You swear with the way he sounds, he's practically in disbelief. He drags the digits up, getting them drenched and filthy in your mess of arousal, his fingertips applying slight pressure when they reach your swollen clit. You tense, swallowing down a whimper. His fingers glisten in the dying light, you watch him very obviously glance down once he drags them away. Pulling them apart, he admires the string of glossy slickness that clings in between them. 

"And I've barely just begun." He looks back to you, breathing the slightest huff, "I knew you- Well, I thought you felt strongly about me. As strongly as I feel about you. If I knew I was capable of doing this to you, of compelling you to be this… desperate, I would have divulged how I felt a great deal sooner." 

Like he's one to talk. Your affections go both ways — He made that clear when he was a stiff mess in his pants, just from you kissing him. 

Your chest heaves with your gasps, but only heaves harder once his touch leaves. His knuckles tense, his hand hovering inches away from you, and he looks over your face with brief apprehension. Right now, you can't have any of it. 

"What do you need?" Gale asks, tone smooth, low. 

"Your… Your fingers-" 

"And you need them where, to be exact? They are capable of bringing a great number of things into fruition. To have them inside of you, filling you- Is that what you're after?"

"Yes," Your voice wobbles to the edge of cracking, and you follow along, forcing yourself to get more specific, "Need them inside. Please, don't make me wait." 

He's never heard you beg before. Never thought you could get so needy, so flushed. For him, you're begging for him. 

During the path of your previous journey, your polite requests of him here and there were more than enough to get him ecstatic. This, though? He thinks he might crave to hear you plead your lovely desires for the rest of his existence. 

The same hand you've watched cast spells drifts back to you, between your legs. Gale's fingers, dexterous as they handle a fragile flicker of light in between them, masterful as they form the shape for another incantation. Delicately holding a thin quill pen, turning the pages of a worn book, crooking up to summon a hidden tome, or a detailed projection — His fingers begin to ease inside you, and all you can do is bite your tongue, and grip the edge of his desk like your life depends on it. 

They feel thicker than they look. You weren't expecting to be so full, even when they aren't entirely in, nor were you thinking he'd go this slowly. With how soaked you are, with how much you've needed him, you know his fingers — ring, and middle — would press inside you so simply, if that's what he was aiming for. They'd slide all the way in, fill you down to his knuckles, until your needy cunt is fluttering around him; you're filthy, and yet, despite the thoughts you have bouncing around in your brain, you hardly feel an ounce of shame. 

Instead though, different from what you were imagining, he takes his time. He savors this, savors you, delighting in your pretty expression, and the delicious moan you let go of as his fingers fill you just half-way. Half-way, not sinking fully in. The damn wizard is teasing you. He's dragging both digits out before they've truly given you what you wanted, leaving you disappointed once they slip away. 

As a small mercy, his fingertips move to circle your clit with the faintest touch. Right then, the entirety of you burns red-hot, impossibly sensitive. It's so much, and not enough at the same time. If he doesn't continue, you think you might cry. 

"I was intending to take things patiently, but I am more than willing to compromise," Gale suddenly murmurs, out of breath, his gasps betraying the levelness he tries to keep to his words. Clearly, this is affecting him just as much as it may be affecting you. His free hand tenses on your waist, and he drawls, "Tell me if it becomes too much. Or if you're in need of more." 

Like clockwork, you don't even wait for him to take another breath in. "More, Gale." 

He chuckles. Actually chuckles, in spite of any nervousness — and when the sound alone makes you shiver, a soft gasp in pleasure leaving your lips, you know you're absolutely done for. 

"Eager little thing." There's enough adoration in his words to devour and get drunk off of, "No matter, I'd already planned to give you everything." 

Your hand on the desk's edge clenches, and as though he knows without the need to see, Gale moves to place his palm over yours. His touch brushes your knuckles, his hand is effortlessly warm. His fingertips press to your waiting entrance; you breathe a sigh of approval, before he's working to slide them back inside you. 

They ease into your warm cunt deeper, nice and easy. As far as they'll go, until you're sufficiently full, with his palm lightly pressing against your pelvis, his knuckles barely grazing you. Gale's expression turns soft, washed over in utter lust. He mumbles the slightest swear under his breath that you almost don't catch, paired with a tender, low, That's it. 

And fuck, you're already struggling to handle this, but to hear him praise you? 

When he'd do so before, you were affected quite the same. He'd give you an earnest Excellent job! whenever you cracked another lock, or a Well done, when you downed a rather difficult foe. It was impossible not to dwell on his words, as ridiculous as you often felt. He would affectionately pat your shoulder, or place a hand on the small of your back when he was especially proud of you. You'd feel a chill run up your spine, just from that. A particularly shameful chill. 

Now though, like this? When his voice is a whole octave lower, and noticeably sultrier; when he's got two of his fingers nestled deep inside you, and his pretty gaze on yours, hair out of place as it gets stuck to his sweaty forehead — Gods help you, if he decides to say anything more. Knowing him, he will. 

He's still smiling while he stares at you, a look that speaks in pure adoration. And no matter how overwhelming, no matter the shivers that surge through your veins at the thought, or the intense pounding of your heart, you want him to speak. He's fucking right, his voice is your weakness. You want to hear all he's longed to tell you, no details spared. 

He's lucky you haven't melted into a puddle by now. Your limbs are weak, you feel like you might have. His poor scrolls. There's no doubt you're making a mess, but puddle-you would have left his desk and its important contents in shambles. 

Gale languidly pumps his fingers into you, in and then out, and your teeth grit at the sloppy noise they create. The pace he sets is slow, true to his earlier word. Ecstasy buds in your core at every draw back, and firm press in. Yet, the devotion, the listlessness to it — You're put on a pedestal right between needing less, and wanting more. It's perfectly agonizing. 

It isn't enough, you need just a sliver more of what he's not providing. But his slow, meticulous movement has you reeling. His thick fingers fuck you methodically, working you up to right where he wants you, and not an inch more. It feels like you might shatter in his arms, his hands, and he would be the one to put you back together. 

"Please," You're murmuring, your back arching, your eyes deep and hazy, utterly enchanting, "I need you- need you not to stop, fucking please." 

You make his focus shift in a mere instant. Holding onto you tighter, his fingers curl on the next press in, nudging oh-so perfectly against where you're oh-so sensitive. You're a mess, but he loves it; he relishes in admiring this lovely, desperate side to you. You practically cry out, your body tensing beneath his touch, your eyes screwing shut. And Gale, ever attentive, perpetually ambitious, crooks his dexterous fingers inside you again in a draw for more, until you're a gasping, trembling mess.

"You sound wonderful. Just perfect. Believe me, I want to stop as much as you may want to. Which, with regards to your greedy form of begging, would surely be not at all," Gale whispers, in a delicate hum. His words fill your head like clouds. "I have waited too long for this. I have wanted you far too greatly to stop now, and I do not plan to." 

You have his fingers soaked, his palm and his wrist filthy, practically dripping with your messy arousal. Between stifled whines and struggles for air, you utter his name. He falters for a moment. Ignoring his slacks growing tight and uncomfortable around him, he takes in an overly controlled breath. 

"Don't try to silence yourself," He says, "I want to hear everything." 

Your thighs quiver. They threaten to close around his arm, while precise fingers bully your sweet spot; you couldn't hold your moans for him back, not even if you were trying to. 

You toss your head back with a whine, loud and unabashed, and Gale offers your hand a gentle squeeze. His breathing is sharp, loud enough to hear, to feel as a fan of warmth against your chest and neck. The heat between you builds to something unbearable. Each thrust of his fingers is relentless: they draw gasps from you that echo in the walls of his study, your lungs aching raw. You are wet and warm and impossibly soft around both digits, you'll feel much softer and wetter around him. And you're simply stunning, from the top of your head, to the ends of your toes. Gorgeous, in a way he'll try his damndest to deserve. 

To hold you until the stars give out, to never have to let you go would be a dream made real. 

Engrossed in giving you what you need, he admires the softness present on your features when you prop yourself back up. Your chest heaves, your bottom lip trembling. He's been so focused on you, he hardly notices you've already shifted. 

You reach forward, your arm is shaky, faint gasps still slipping past your lips as his fingers massage that addictive spot deep within you. Your palm presses to his chest. Only then does he realize how quick his heart's been beating, and how strongly you've been affecting him. 

If you were a drug, or a form of charming magic perhaps, you'd be the most potent there is. Your hand glides down, gaze stuck on his — gazes locked on each other — and he lets you. He lets you move your palm down to a near dangerous degree; he shifts forward and closer, in fact, to simplify your reach. 

Impulsive, you allow your palm to travel between his legs before you've given it a second thought. You feel the firm outline of his cock, shamelessly tenting his pants, and Gale's brows pinch. He shudders, sighing softly, but he doesn't hold back from leaning into your touch. A small movement has his clothed length grinding against your palm; pure, exquisite friction. Fortunately, swarmed by your own desperations, you are wasting no time giving him more. 

For the first time since he began, or maybe for the first time ever, Gale's resolve crumbles. Your hand slips into his pants, wrapping around his hard, silky length, and he groans, the sound sweet enough to incite a heady pulse between your legs. He braces his free hand on the desk to keep steady, and his pace turns frantic as his head dips, strands of hair in his face, his fingers clumsily pistoning into you. 

He's warm in your palm, slick with dripping precum that dirties the smooth fabric of his briefs; so distinctly heavy, you start to feel dizzy, overwhelmed by a rush of blood to your head. 

"Shit," Gale swears under his breath when you grip him, then pump him, his eyelids heavy like he's woozy. Your reaction is immediate and visceral, pleasure blazing in your core, your chest heaving with quickened whines. 

His jaw clenches instinctually, your palm hurriedly swiping over his sensitive, weeping tip. It sends flurries of pleasure over him, and makes every touch much slicker, much wetter. The damp squelch made by the twists of your hand is nearly as filthy as the echo of his fingers plunging into you. 

He chokes on a moan, and he hurriedly murmurs, "Your touch is… It is unlike anything I have ever felt before, it's- oh- indescribable…" 

You're panting, your hand slowing down, the fragility and newfound pitch to his voice pooling heat in your gut, "Should I stop?" 

"No, for the love of every God still left watching over us," Gale reaches up, shakily tucking a stray strand of hair behind your ear. His fingertips brush your skin with potent electricity, before he sets his palm back down on the desk, close enough to have your thumbs touch. "Absolutely do not stop." 

There's conviction in his voice; it makes your heart pound, and subsequently tremble. 

The way you stroke him is messy and quick, frantic to make up for the lack of space the confines of his slacks provide. Your brain is scrambled from his voice, his fingers: easing inside you, and then crooking, punching whines from you each time they perfectly nudge your sweet spot. You feel known, loved, as he studies what you need — to give it to you here, and countless times over. 

Between your sins and his, the room is drowned in the echoes of gasps, whines. In wet noises that sound disgustingly lewd when they reach your ears, sending sparks twisting up your back. Gale falls forward, his forehead rests softly against yours. He finds the curve of your waist, gripping you tight; a touch that brands, that makes you pliable. His warm hand on your bare skin is a wave of molten comfort, washing deep into your bones. 

"Back then," You mumble breathlessly, beginning a tangent of your own, "I wanted so badly to tell you how I felt. I w-wanted, needed you, I would have given up anything to be close to you. I thought of… of trying to stay quiet in your little tent, trying to make sure no-one else would hear us. You'd whisper in my ear that we have to be quiet, and cover my mouth with your palm while you rocked into me…" 

Gale stutters. He throbs, underneath your touch, and lets go of a long, shaking breath. He rolls his hips into your grip just barely, chasing another ray of pleasure. 

"Even a rudimentary spell could've… hah, solved that problem easily," He grits out, the bridge of his nose in a focused knot, "But I'm glad we weren't so hasty. This moment we have now, it is kept solely to ourselves. If we-" A groan, a sigh, "Had to account for unnecessary company, I would never have known how lovely you sound when you're pleading my name."  

"Fuck- Gale…" 

You moan in unison, syncing your breathing and the skip of your heartbeats. In the midst of your own pulse in your ears — your head swirling, drunk on him — you are freeing his cock from his slacks, making him inhale a hiss as the room's cold air hits his length. Your palm strokes all of him, from base to head: tenderly, slowly, agonizingly. He trembles, and his thumb brushes your clit while his fingers stay sheathed inside. Desire takes over what remains of you, as though his touch itself is made from magic. 

"I wanted to- I-" It's difficult to talk now; his thumb rubs slow circles onto your sensitive clit, and tension grips you tight, taut as deep in your core as his fingers reach. "I wanted to kiss you, feel you, taste you. Sometimes, I wished we could just forget everything and- Oh, Gods, I needed you, Gale. I knew I was foolish and greedy, but I couldn't lose you. I didn't want anything to ever happen to you, I love you. Just you, just as you are." 

Just as you are. 

More than anything he's once known, stronger than everything he's ever felt, those words send him spiraling into a hopeless, tender oblivion. 

You won't have to fear losing him. Not ever again. 

Despite the slight parting of his lips, he can't say anything more; he can only exhale in warm, heady pleasure, and sway forward to collapse into you. Your palm, working over his cock with soft, steady strokes, has him hurtling close to the edge with no reprieve in sight. His forehead leans into the curve of your nape, breath hot on your skin, and he can barely manage to think, let alone control the unsteady pace of his fingers; fucking into you desperately and clumsily, sending pleasure spiraling through your system. 

But your voice — Chiming in his ears, echoing with the earnestness of bells, you bring every devoted component of his attention right back to you. 

"Please," You beg, your tone quiet, on the verge of shattering like glass. Gale moves his palm to hold the small of your back as a slight comforting gesture, a silent reminder that he has you, and you feel the petals of your heart unfurl, and unwind. 

"I'm right there," You're gasping, "I'm- ah, please…" 

He can't contain himself, sweat beading at his chest and forehead as he sloppily thrusts into your now-loose grip. Every slow, choppy buck of his hips leaves him more overwhelmed. You have your head tipped back, as you jerk him off hurriedly, choking on your own moans. Euphoric flames lap at your gut, your limbs — Gale peppers your nape in haphazard kisses, and all it takes is one more touch, three more words. 

"I love you," His murmur rolls in vibrations against your kiss-sensitive nape; you melt, your back slumps. There's an intensity to his tone, a thickness to his accent and a slur between the syllables. You nearly drown him out with your own chants of his name. 

"My sweetheart," He falters, "My love- You feel perfect, and I- I'm so close- I've got you, let go, let go with me-" 

You flutter around his fingers, and he stammers with words left unsaid, murmuring faint recitations of your name as you both reach the crescendo. Frantic jerks of your palm and feverish swipes of his thumb on your clit, his touch palpable with so much love you can practically feel it — and you're slamming over the edge together. 

Gale's breathing comes from weary, bruised lungs. You feel him twitch, then pulse, and messes of moans and gasps resound onto your neck as he spills into your hand. The mess drips over your palm, coating your fingers. Your heart pounds against your chest like a drum, and the pleasant disaster of your release washes over your body — making you tense and cry out, your legs quivering as you cum for him — before setting you down, shakily and slowly. 

You can hardly think by the end of it. The aftershocks that grip you are unlike anything you've ever felt before. Finding your high while thinking of him pales in comparison to cumming for him, on his fingers. 

Neither you, nor him can speak. When Gale finally pulls apart from you, dragging his fingers from your warmth and stumbling to his feet, what makes up your tangled thoughts is still very much fuzzy. You're both panting hard; him, more than you are, perhaps. Your thighs are tense and sore, you have to force them to relax to ease some of the strain. 

Through heavy eyelids, you watch him run a palm over his face. He massages his temple, and lets go of a deep, weighted breath. The way he looks at you then, gaze settled on yours, could be enough to entrance you, all on its own. 

"Beautiful." He hums simply. His voice is still rough at the edges, quiet and strained. You aren't sure if it's a description, or a term of endearment; maybe both, you figure, so you can enjoy a taste of each. 

He reaches up to hold your jaw, his touch ever soft. You're lost for a moment. You catch your breath along with him, and feel what remains of the world around you fade away. 

"I believe I was meant to love you," He says, so earnest, his faith itself makes you shake. "You are an irrevocable destiny. My destiny." 

You offer him a smile that roots into him from the inside-out. And when he drifts forwards to kiss you at last, pulled in your direction like a fish on a line — Your lips press to his, and in his chest, arises a glow. 

This shared kiss is long, deep, and effortless. It is a waltz you both know how to follow, and yet, you lose your footing just the same. He pulls you close with an arm around your back, and you curl into his familiar touch. In turn, you clutch him tighter, kiss him harder, with your palm on his shoulder and a hand tangled in messy locks of brown hair. 

You both breathe a sigh once you've slowly pulled apart. Gale holds your chin, and speaks softly, the words akin to a secret prayer. 

"I am yours. Now, and for the eternities of lifetimes that might await us after this one." His expression deepens, and his thumb brushes your lips, carefully but simply, "I truly do love you." 

I love you. Those words still feel as soft as they are strange. They're all you've ever wanted though, natural on the tongue, despite how unrelentingly they shake you. 

Perhaps you really were meant for this, just as he believes. In this life, and in the lifetimes to follow, you will find and embrace one another. 

Standing up straight, he stretches, fixing his slacks before rolling his shoulders back. Your gaze flickers over his shape, and then down. Tenderness makes way to bristles of embarrassment, and it's hard to continue biting your tongue. Between the both of you, you've made quite the mess. Reminders of what transpired hit you like a bucket of bricks. Your heartbeat particularly spikes at the droplets of milky white that dirty the desk's smooth surface, and the flesh of your thighs. 

Gale seems to notice your staring. 

"Apologies," He clears his throat so loud the sound practically bounces around the room. His tone carries a weight of lightheartedness, and you can't explain how nice it is to hear. It lightens the load on your own shoulders, in some way. "I did not suspect I was… so pent-up. Are you alright?" 

"I'm alright," You resound, inhaling slowly, and feeling the buzz in your chest begin to settle as a result. "I feel great, honestly. How about you? Tired yet?" 

"Oh, I am anything but. Feels like I pissed off some impudent mage, and as punishment they set my nerves aflame," Gale shakes out his sweaty palms, then idly flexes his fingers, "Not any sort of punishment I've ever heard of, but I would certainly commend their creativity. It will take more than that to tire me out, I assure you. Unless you, yourself are tired, of course. In which case, I would be glad to assist in your relaxation." 

"Thank you, but there's no need. I'm not tired yet either." You shuffle closer so you can wrap your arms around him, and your hand promptly tangles in his hair, while the other brushes the back of his neck, fingertips tracing down to the space between his shoulder blades. You swear you feel him shiver. "C'mere. I haven't had near enough of you." 

"Is that so?" Gale smiles. He closes the fraction of distance between you, and steadies a hand on your jaw. "I'm pleased to say the feeling is mutual." 

This time, the kiss he plants to your lips reminds you of falling. Falling, with no worry of hitting the ground. Just infinitely drifting through a cloudless sky, while you helplessly listen to the race of your pulse in your eardrums. And as quickly as he sends you careening towards the earth, he's grounding you, with a kiss to your throat that sets your senses alight. 

His lips hover there for longer than they need to, breathing warmth onto your neck, until you reward his efforts with the sweetest of sighs. Then, his mouth trails kisses from your collarbone to your shoulder. His hand holds your side when you sway, helping to keep you steady. 

It's as though your soul is helplessly detached from your own body. The growing shadows in his quaint study envelop your vision, and cradle you in their looming embrace. You imagine the pale moon, the shimmering stars, soon to bathe you in their faint light. But for now, it's just the two of you, pleasantly alone, in the center of his universe. Truthfully, your soul is bound to him. Gale's hands, and beating heart. 

Warmly, he mutters against your shoulder, a squeeze of your side blended with slightly muffled words, "Are you comfortable?" 

"Mhmm," You nod, and you tilt your head opposite as he moves to press kisses to the other side of your nape, "We can move- If that's what you want." 

"What I want is to have you wherever it is you prefer." Placing a final small kiss to the side of your neck, he then pulls back, meeting your pretty gaze with an expression that sparkles. "My bedroom is always an option. Traditional, yes, but surely comfortable. Continuing here would be most pleasant as well. Most exciting. The choice is left up to you, although," He breathes a slight laugh, "I suppose I may picture this the next few times I am sitting here working. Might pose a slight problem to my future productivity." 

You huff, half-rolling your eyes. You playfully squeeze his shoulders, teasing palms caressing his warm skin, "In that case, I want you nowhere else but here." 

Gale smirks, his expression enveloped in unmistakable tenderness, but this time, he holds his tongue. He grasps your wrists, and when your palms follow his lead to slip from his shoulders, he is taking your hands into his. He's shifting, kneeling, sinking down in front of you until your heart is left a shaken and stuck mess inside your throat. 

"Look at me." 

Oh. You didn't notice you were starting to glance away, avoiding his eyes while you attempt to ignore the warmth burning over your face. You tear one of your hands away from his to grip the edge of the desk, steadying yourself. Hesitantly, your gaze flickers back to his own — just in time to watch Gale press a kiss to your knuckles. 

He looks at you as though you are devastation, devotion, in the softest, mortal form. Twilight shimmers in the details of his silhouette: the features of his face, the silver in his hair, and his shiny, metal earring. You once thought the symbol hanging from his ear to be some solemn, self-imposed reminder. Instead, you've grown to realize it is spite, pure and fierce. Because after everything, he is still tenderly, maddeningly alive. 

"You will not lose me, not ever, not for a moment," He says gently, squeezing your hand, resoluteness in the back of his gaze. "I promise you. I want for nothing, when you are at my side. Nothing but the privilege of seeing you smile, which I will try my very hardest to earn. No matter what we may face, perils or strife, anything that is left to try and stand in our way, we will brave it- We will defy it. And we will do so together. Just as we once did." 

Gale allows his thumb to brush over your knuckles before he lets your hand go. You eye him silently, awestricken, your chest tight and your mouth useless. Perhaps it is your silence that prompts him to gaze at you smugly, place his palms on your thighs, and shift closer until his head is inches away from dipping between your legs. 

"Now, let me have you." Voice low, he breathes the words loud enough for only you to hear, "Let me cherish you, as I have always longed to, and as you have always deserved." 

So foolish. He does have you, he has held every part of you from the moment you and him collided. 

You take a breath, deep and slow. "Then have me." 

Reaching forward, you knot a hand in his hair as encouragement. Gale holds your waist, smirking slightly, and he waits, lingering, or perhaps teasing you. When your fingers tighten on his hair and you let go of a quickened, impatient huff, the desperate look on your face causing his heart to skip, only then does he finally move. He leans close, pressing a kiss to your stomach that brims with tingling electricity. 

"Gale-" And you sigh, you melt, "I love you, I love you so much-" 

His brows knot, softness in his expression, and he begins to adore your skin with his lips. He plants messy kisses from your navel, down. When he moves from your hips to your legs, tenderness turns to hunger. His kisses are warmer, blessed onto your inner thighs as he leaves faint bites, along with soft brushes of the tongue; not enough to mark, just enough to feel. Enough to make you tremble at the subtle nip of teeth, and shake from the heat of his steady breaths on your skin. 

Both palms find your thighs to gently coax them apart. Nervousness prickles up your spine, heightened by the warmth in your gut, and by the heaviness in Gale's eyes as he looks up at you. But when he leans close, at the first swipe of his tongue over your waiting cunt — Everything melts away to nothing but sharp, pure pleasure. 

Your fingers grip his hair so tight you think you might yank some strands out. You're panting, and he isn't stopping; each little lap of his tongue makes you shake, already a whining mess, echoing the sweetest noises for him. You only make him want to hear more. 

He wants you crying happy tears for him, wants you to forget your hardships as you fall to pieces on his mouth; but for now, he'll have patience. Slight, teasing flicks of his tongue are enough to start with. Judging by the intensity of your grip on his hair, and the way your chest heaves from the force of loud, labored breathing, he isn't sure you can handle much more, despite how terribly you make him want to give it to you. You deserve all you could ever need. 

You deserve to be happy, safe, loved. He won't let you be marked by more scars. You're precious to him, more precious than anything he has once held, and simultaneously, you are damn near impossible to resist. 

From between both your thighs, he can't tear his gaze away from you above him: your pretty face, consumed by ecstasy and impatience. You, on the other hand, can barely take the way he looks at you with such tenderness, and yet, confidence. Like he knows exactly what he's doing to you. 

Gale swipes the flat length of his tongue over your entrance, then flicks the tip against your clit, and the moan you let fall from your lips captivates the entirety of his muddled mind. He huffs something of a laugh, and pulls back to give you a small chance to breathe. 

"Remarkably sweet, and ravishingly sensitive." The sultry hum to his tone settles a decadent sensation between your ribs: pleasure, and an encompassing anticipation. His lips are already wet and glistening. "You were just meant to be devoured." 

Your heart shudders, and your breath hitches. Gale grips you by your sides, his gentle touch smoothing over your skin. His hair in his face is a mess you've made. You shakily push the strands back, and as your fingers brush close to his scalp, the only signs he's affected are the shuddery inhale he takes, and the devotion that shines in the back of his pupils. 

"Spread your legs apart a little further, for me," He mumbles. When you oblige, he hums the smallest form of praise, the faintest, Very good. Then, his mouth is giving you no room for respite. 

You whimper, watching his honeyed gaze on yours go soft, before his eyes flutter shut. His hands on your sides grip you tighter, and with swipes of his tongue, he thoroughly tastes your entrance. He was right; you are sensitive. Especially when he buries his face in your cunt, every sickeningly slow lap of his tongue feeling charged, ripe with exhilarating arousal. 

When you tense, panting harder with a swallow, he squeezes your side, and he stops. He huffs in short breaths centimeters away from you. Your shoulders slowly go slack. You press both hands to the edge of the desk and hold on tight, trying to remain steady. He only dives in again once your sighs have settled, and this time, he's licking, then sucking. The sound is sloppy, terribly lewd, as he presses his lips to you and sucks softly on your clit. Infatuation surges through your veins so fast, you begin to feel yourself go numb. 

He licks a steady stripe, groaning quietly. His facial hair scratches the inside of your thighs with such bitter sweetness. He's moving one palm down to your thigh, caressing before lifting. Your leg settles comfortably onto his shoulder, and he's pressing closer, he's ever-so carefully easing his tongue inside you. It's warm, meticulous; the attention there, the sensation of being so barely filled, stretched around the end of his tongue — It makes your head spin with ferocity. 

Those sensations melt to expectancy, to a dwindling heat as he draws back; for only a moment, thankfully. He swallows, his words muffled when he mutters against your eager cunt, "You taste divine." 

On his tongue, he's sure you're the sweetest thing he's ever known. Saccharine like the stars, akin to the smooth velvet wine he remembers sampling in Calimshan. But perhaps, it's even sweeter to have you like this, to know he's the only one who can do this to you. Your limbs are trembling for him. It's his tongue you're a mess on, his voice and his touch to make you this way. 

He should never have doubted himself. If he could rewind the clock just once, it wouldn't be to change past wrongs, nor would it be to rid his chest from the orb, or abandon it entirely. He would have gone without meeting you then, still just a reckless wizard in the cold palm of his Goddesses hand. 

Rather, he would go back and tell you how he felt, he'd tell you everything — He'd have you accompany him to Waterdeep well before his proposition at your reunion, and he wouldn't have held back the words on his tongue. He doesn't want to leave you, he loves you; he'd watch your expression change, your hands squeezing his when he grabs them tight. And he knows he would kiss you right then, in the same way he already has. 

I've fallen for you he was waiting to whisper, when this universe seemed to contain just the two of you. He wanted to kiss you so softly when you smiled at him during your late-night talks, closing the inches of distance between you to feel your smile on his lips instead. He'd kiss you so desperately when you found yourselves on the edge of death, both hands cupping your cheeks, thumbs smearing blood onto your skin, because even then, all he could fathom was how deeply he adored you. 

As long as he kept you safe, he didn't need more. He no longer wished for godhood. He could greet the end with no regret — but to have lived, to be able to persist in this life at your side means the world itself to him. 

It will take a long while to make up for lost time. Though maybe, he can start here. His mouth can do more than recite poems and confessions. Much more. 

In demonstration, Gale leans into you. He relishes in the way you shake under his hold, once the practiced end of his tongue flicks against your swollen clit. He has to hold you steady, gripping tight while he kisses your clit, your thighs, and then devours you with sloppy kisses to your cunt: open-mouthed, a mess of soft sucks and rich groans into you. His lips brush every sensitive inch, shaping you as you dissolve to pliancy, like soft clay in his careful hands. 

"Feels good-" You try to mumble, biting the words; you've never felt anything this addicting. Your voice carries a noticeable shake, one you just can't swallow down, "Feels so fucking good…" 

"Not good enough to render you speechless," Gale hums against you, lust weaving through his tone. You'd almost think he was talking to himself, if it wasn't for the way he briefly looks at you, eyelids heavy, pupils blown-out. "Suppose I ought to continue." 

His mouth lavishes your cunt once more, firm sucks on your clit paired with swipes of his tongue that gently tease your needy entrance — You grip the desk tight, moving your hand to grab a fistful of his hair instead. You bite down so hard on your lip you think it might bleed. 

You can't focus, you feel weightless, his words won't leave you as much as his mouth continues to devour you. His sultry voice, his soft expressions of love; how long has he waited for this? How fiercely has he wanted you, wanted to tell you the fondness he kept captive inside? How long has he imagined pleasuring you on his tongue, until all you can manage to plead is his name? 

For longer than you were first picturing, surely. There's desperation to the new pace he's set, a wild yearning, as Gale allows his composure to slip and pleasures you with every single breath. His palm runs over the warm underside of your thigh when it twitches on his shoulder. He's relentless, even when you grip his hair so tightly it must hurt, whimpering for him and his mouth in unintelligible murmurs. 

He gives you more without the need for you to ask. He's moaning into you in turn, his tongue pressing in to taste you. And your taste is electrifying. The whine you give him is one he wishes to memorize. He feels he may yearn for this — to taste you, to have you — until the universe converges to a collapse, with all Nine Hells finally frozen over. 

Speechless, that's how he wants you, and if he continues like this, he might make good on such an objective. Ironic. For as much as he's spoken, you're the one asked to stay voiceless. You doubt he truly wants you quiet. Every moan you make at the lap of his tongue, or the brush of his lips, draws a staggered sigh from him in response. 

At least, considering how much the bastard spends talking, of course he's good with his mouth. 

He mumbles something inaudible against you, a mess where your name is the only thing you make out. His voice echoes in vibrations right onto your clit, and you're gasping, your thighs trembling. They practically close around his head, but he pushes them back apart to make room; his one hand on your thigh, the other on your waist. 

The moment you've relaxed, legs spread wide for him, he's grabbing your sides so tight it makes you go stiff in surprise. He's pulling you in, he's giving you more of his mouth, and you're rocking. You're grinding onto his tongue without forethought, focused only on the bliss that rips through your body and intensifies in your core. 

You barely catch the way his eyes flutter when you roll into him. He begins to guide your movements with his grip on your waist, pulling you closer while twirling his tongue, allowing you to use his mouth as you desire. 

And you do. You fuck yourself on his mouth and tongue between his hurried kisses, his muffled groans muttered against you. Until your high is frantically splintering towards you, your fingers flexing in his hair, your throat sore and muscles even tenser. 

"Gale," You can't get out anything but his name, lungs overtaken by gasps, the edge of your voice sore from cries of pleasure, "I-" 

You don't tell him you're there. You couldn't manage the words, but with the way he hums in approval against you, squeezing your waist in silent persuasion, his tongue focusing on your clit with tender precision — You suspect he knows, and he wants, needs you to cum for him. With your heart beating fast in your chest and your ears, the rope snaps, and you're cumming on his mouth, while his name is a stuttered mantra on your lips. 

Your thighs can't help but tense, brushing his face and smothering him; you pulse on his tongue, your grinds against him growing erratic, desperate. Everything in your body is swallowed by rocky waves, a sense of pleasure in your chest and your head and your core imploding with blistering heat. Your voice breaks. You only settle when you've fully succumbed, drowning in the aftershocks. 

After your eyes have slowly opened, and your fuzzy vision has returned, you notice you're not the only one struggling to breathe. You feel it first: the brief tickle of his warm breath on your thighs, his lips barely brushing against your skin. You hear him exhale, long but shaky: a perfectly enticing sound. 

Gale pulls apart from you while he huffs, he wipes sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. His face is flushed, lips parted, chest heaving. But fuck, he's smiling, grinning like you've never seen before, earnestly and so in love. Your heartbeat practically skips. 

You shouldn't be surprised that the first thing he does upon rising to unsteady feet is brace a hand on the desk, grasp your chin between his fingers, and kiss you. Your shoulders slump, and as you're kissing him back, you're breathing a soft exhale into his mouth. He drags you in as close as he can get you, leaving you practically smushed against his chest. Still, your heart begins to sing. Familiar feelings burn to life once more as his mouth parts, allowing you to taste yourself on his tongue. 

When you separate, it's agonizingly slowly. It's just enough for him to gaze into your eyes, to see you melt, simply from the way he looks at you. Together, you remain deadlocked for a moment, catching your breath without a word. His warm eyes and soft lips are effortlessly enticing; it takes every ounce of your remaining strength to resist kissing him again, surely crumbling the composure you've worked so hard to restore. He drifts back, a complacent look on his face. His fingers stay delicately grasping your chin. 

You're going to break the silence before he can, and you'll get straight to the point. 

"I need-" You swallow, resisting the urge to glance away from him no matter how flustered you've become. He can have your composure, he can have every damn part of you — "I need more. I need you. Please." 

Gale's spine tingles with an almost-shudder. He can't resist guiding you forward by your jaw, until his lips are able to kiss the top of your head. A kiss that drips with meaningful, aching adoration. Your heart stirs, and you let go of the breath you were holding. 

"Dearest," He coos quietly, a tender edge to his voice, like a knife that twists and caresses your ribs, "You will be given all you need. Perhaps even more." 

His fingertips skate your shoulders, before his palm presses to your chest. He kisses your cheek, and against your ear, he gives the faintest muttered instruction: Lay back. You were already doing so before the command, but his words lead you to follow the slight push of his palm, until you're settling with your back hitting the desk. 

The hardwood is cool against your skin, and he shoves some books aside to give you space to rest your head. He's leaning down with you, pressing a final kiss to your nape once you're stable. As Gale pulls back, coming into view above you, heat surges through your veins. Your nerves thrum with something more than love. Something more like sanctity. 

Sweat coats both your bodies in a glimmering sheen. Gale's hair is out of place, shadows flicker over his features but pay special attention to the grooved, dark scar on his chest. The sun has long since finished its descent, the last flecks of light vanishing to nothingness. You don't notice how dark it has truly become until Gale provides a solution with words under his breath, and a snap of his fingers. 

Effortlessly, light dances in your vision, the candles that decorate his study coming to life. His lips twitch into a smirk. His hand finds your side, feeling your shape. 

It's just the two of you, now and hopefully always, in his favorite corner of the world. On his damn desk, to make matters more tantalizing. The same desk he'd spend hours alone at, reading or planning lessons, trying not to let his mind wander to you instead. And you, speaking of. You, bathed in faint light, sprawled out beneath him like poetry on a page — Without a doubt, you are gorgeous. To the point of addiction. 

"There you are," He murmurs at last, while his thumb draws circles on your side. The lighting is still dim and moody, but this feels as though it is the first time he's truly been able to see you. To see all of you. He drinks you in, admiring your shape, your marks, your scars. The details that define you, everything he loves. 

He allows his gaze to drag down, and then up, back to your eyes. You're shuffling out of nervousness, but his warm touch on your skin encourages you to relax. 

"Beautiful, aren't you? Each time I look at you, I feel my love burn ever brighter. You are the sun. A warm, incandescent sun. Most worthy of worship. Basking in the heat of my affections, I would gladly allow you to reduce me to cinders." Reaching out to you, Gale's fingers brush your cheek, before he stops. He suddenly lets go of a sigh so heavy it makes his shoulders turn slack. "My apologies. I'm chattering on again. Such a habit is proving challenging to break." 

"Don't apologize," You counter, and you bring your hand to his own. Your fingertips brush his, you press his palm to your cheek and keep it there. The soft smile you flash him begs to be lost in. "If you haven't noticed, I quite like hearing your voice. You're sweet. And you always have the sweetest things to say." 

Gale grins, "Do I? Hm, I'd hate to have to call you mistaken, especially after the kindness you've imparted to me. But I believe you're the sweet one. In a multitude of ways, for that matter. I would certainly know." 

He only smiles wider when you pout, before playfully pushing at his shoulder. As you lean backward once more, getting comfortable, he is quick to close the distance in between you. 

Your arms sprawl above your head, wrists crossed over; as much as they can manage, anyways, accounting for the limited space his desk provides. Your elbows knock against carefully placed stacks of books, legs hanging over the desk's edge. Cool air fills and settles in your lungs, and he moves closer, a knee between your thighs, a hand pressed to the desk to rest himself over you. Throat dry, you swallow thickly. 

"But your thirst has not yet been quenched, now has it?" He murmurs, eyes narrowed, his voice noticeably lower than before. The palm he's kept to your cheek holds you delicately, and his thumb just barely brushes your plush bottom lip. 

"With you as delightful as you are," Gale is continuing, "To claim you deserve everything I could offer would be… plainer than insisting the midday sky to be blue, so to speak. I am eager to satisfy you, to give you the adoration you have most definitely warranted. I'd like to make this as pleasant as it will inevitably be unforgettable." He tilts your head towards him slightly, and you feel choked by breathlessness. "I could never express the whole of my love for you. But allow me to try." 

Your hands clam up, balling into sweaty fists as you try to maintain your gaze on his. Candle flames waver in the background of your vision, flickering to their own tune. His eyes travel from yours, to your lips, and back up again. 

"I love you," You whisper, because it's all you can think of, devotion is the only force running rampant in your mind, "I truly, earnestly do. We have time. We have nothing to fear anymore. You can take me in every way you wish. I'm yours, I always have been." 

Gale's brows pinch in thought, and his gaze brims with tenderness. "Then let us make up for the time we have lost." 

His palm moves. From your cheek, his touch patiently drifts to tickle the side of your neck. Your shoulder next, and you shudder when you feel his knuckles brush your chest. His touch is home, familiar and grounding, dragging the ruin from within you amid each subtle stroke. In the same instant, your heart is heavy, and set ablaze. 

"We can drown in each other. There is nothing I have wished for more, not a soul I have wanted greater than you." Gale divulges, "I've dreamt of this. Of making love to you, as we breathe one another's names. Of hearing you confess precisely what you've just told me, that you are mine." 

He inhales slowly, shakily. His palm gently feels your stomach, your hip, the curve of your side, while his resolute gaze never departs from your own — "I love you. You deserve perfection. And although I cannot promise such a thing, I swear to give you all of me." 

Gale watches your expression start to soften; reminiscent of the same sun he has always seen in you, when it first dawns from the steady, sea-bound horizon. You shift, your legs repositioning to either side of his waist, caging him in. You're smiling, and he keeps his eyes on your hazy form. 

"I don't need perfection," You answer simply, earnestly. "I just need you." 

You. 

There's so much hidden in such a short and basic word. I need you. You've longed for more than just to stand at his side as an ally, an assistant, a friend. Now, he can see that. How foolish he was to ever believe otherwise. At last, with no more perils to stand in your way, you're together. You have time. Your hearts can finally indulge in the magnetism they have to each other, no longer ruled by uncertainty. 

Without hesitation, you need him — as you have since the start, and for all that he is. 

For his softness, his intelligence, for the change in his voice when he's rambling about something he enjoys, and for the way he looks at you when he thinks you aren't paying attention. You found yourself wishing he knew. You've grown entranced with every part of him, including flaws coalesced with ambition, regardless of your possible destruction. Falling for him was natural. Mistakes and magic and mortality in all. 

Perhaps there is time to be made up for. But falling in love, entwining your fates together until they were at last pulled back as one, was purely inevitable. 

Gale exhales. He runs his fingers through his hair, his shoulders taut, hoping to relieve some of the tension. It only helps marginally. Both hands then maneuver to grip your waist. His thumbs brush your hips, the faintest touch alighting your skin in goosebumps. 

"You are… Gods, you fill me with such potent emotions, you know?" He murmurs; your arms are locking around his shoulders, keeping him close, and as he notices the heaviness to your eyes, his breath slowly grows more ragged, "I have always loved you, I've wanted this so terribly. And yet, now that it's happening, now that you are here, and not a lifetime apart like we both once were, I don't- I cannot think. My mind refuses to allow it." 

His hands tense on your waist, his brows furrowing, fingertips pressing ever-so forcefully into your skin. When you smile in response, and drag him in to interrupt with a tender, long kiss to his lips — this time, while eyes flutter shut in unison, heads tilting, a soft groan uttered against your mouth — thinking is left to become irrelevant. 

The focused expression he was wearing melts to a warm grin once you've pulled apart from him, exhaling heated breaths against his lips. His gaze on yours glints with affection, and his mind is a beautiful mess: thoughts not finding a beginning, nor an end. Smoothly and softly, Gale cups your cheek, and as you lean into his touch, the rest of his head weakens with blooms of love. 

For you, he has always been weak. You could best him, you could threaten to destroy him. You could pull him apart at the seams with tender, blood-soaked hands, and as long as you kissed him while cleaving his heart out, he would unravel for you with a smile. 

He murmurs quietly, "So I won't. I will cast any and all thoughts of mine to the wind. Doubt has long since had its fill of me, I refuse to provide it with more satisfaction. I've never loved anyone as intensely as I love you. Nothing could sate me as you do. With fate now ours to command… I hope I won't be made to let go of you." 

"Don't, don't ever let go of me," You answer, your tone a gentle coo, your hands tensed on his shoulders, "And don't you dare pull away." 

Gale laughs, huffing slightly. Then, he surges forward, along with pulling you in, until his lips are crashing like lulling waves against your own. 

You kiss, again and again, pressed together with purpose, burning with intensity. Blindly, his grip finds your wrist when your hands slip from his shoulders. An arm falls beside you, and he adjusts the other. Fingertips drift over your palm, he presses your hand beside your head, and he laces his fingers with your own. His hand and yours fit together like lock and key; naturally, just as he'd described. Your heart must resist the desire to never let go. 

As he slowly drags apart from your lips, he's moving to kiss your jaw, your neck. Warm, soft kisses, his tongue lightly tasting your skin, guiding you to curl into him. The slightest attention has a way of feeling so intoxicating, whenever he is the one to provide it. 

Anticipation envelops you. Desire links between him and yourself, and settles deep in the pit of your stomach. It gnaws at you, wanting more, wanting what you've needed since you first found each other. His touch is so irresistible because you've been waiting to feel it. You've dreamt and imagined, hoped and fought so you both could survive, and now, he is finally yours. 

"What do you need from me?" Gale hums into your nape, his palm caressing your side while he squeezes your hand. Sultry voice muffled, his messy hair tickles your skin, and his lips brush your collarbone. "I want to hear your voice speak the words." 

So, you answer. You let his voice wrap around you, his kisses to your neck embrace you, and allow yourself to melt underneath the weight of your longing. 

"I need you," You stammer into the open air, your grip on his hand growing tight. When he hums against your throat, faint kisses twisted with heady vibrations, you know what he wants, and you'll give him much more than that: "Fuck me, please…" 

The brazenness to your own words makes your head pool with poignant visions, daydreams of Gale pinning you to his desk and taking you like you've both been craving; a hand in yours, his thumb in your mouth. Slowly, intensely, amidst hitches of breath and skin against skin. With a tenderness so acute and raw, that the press of him inside you would be divine enough to make the Gods take notice. 

Some senseless part of you almost hopes they do. 

A terribly soft kiss is placed on your cheek, and you're shivering, listening to his breath pick up and his sighs get heavier. Your ankles are locking around him, they're pulling him closer. Now, he's moving, he kisses your lips fervently as your hand grips his, and your free palm settles onto the center of his chest; as it has done many times before, as though it was meant to be there. His heart pounds, his hips shove into yours. The stiff weight of his length, confined in his slacks, grinds between your legs — and you give up on whatever shreds of sense you were still holding onto. 

After a slow drag away from your lips, your chin now held between his fingers, Gale takes a deep breath. An intense, steadying breath. Through heavy eyes, the way he looks at you earns a shiver that traverses down the length of your spine. 

His brow cocks, his lips form a tell-tale smirk; and you should know from the way he looks at you that you've lost. Still, it takes his words to truly hammer it home, while your heart hammers in your chest alongside them. 

"You're quite exhilarating. Nevertheless, I suspect you are well aware of the powerful effects your coy words often have on me. With much proficiency, you know my weaknesses." Gale draws his fingertips over your jaw, his head tilted in subtle concentration. His voice is kept level, in the same gentle tone you've come to know, but there's no doubt he has you right where he wants you. You can tell, you could always tell. His gaze darkens with familiar ambition, and he draws a slow, shaky inhale. 

Yes, you may know his weaknesses. But he knows yours. 

"Need is but a dire, hungry word. Though, I must admit, I find it terribly sweet to hear you pleading for me." Gale teases, "Brings to mind our adventures together, your small implores of please when you wanted my help. Generally with some sort of riddle. Or a particularly well-locked door, perhaps. Of course, I could never say no to you." 

"Mhmm," You hum in reply, speaking slowly to force your growing nerves to calm. You've watched Gale master spell after spell, triumph over puzzle after puzzle. You can only imagine this is what it's like to be on the receiving end. Briefly, you clear your throat, "Let me guess, it's even sweeter to hear it from me now?" 

"Oh, yes. It certainly is. But a plea must be accompanied by an acknowledgement. I'd be cruel to keep you waiting any longer." 

Your fingers tense from the absence once his hand releases yours, but the way his touch glides down, from the shape of your hips to the back of your thighs, quickly has your nails digging into your own palm. You draw your bottom lip between your teeth. He tugs you closer, close enough to have your bodies rock together again — Shuddering, he sucks in a sharp breath, freezing up completely. It takes everything he has to resist grinding against you once more, to disregard the way his cock throbs at the thought alone. 

He's teased you quite enough. You are going to have what you want, and you're going to get it properly. 

Your eyelids flutter, your voice weak, desperate, "Gale-" 

Abruptly, you cut yourself off when he smooths his palms up your sides and leans in. Distances close, his lips brush the shell of your ear and his body presses closer to your own. Feeling him against you, the weight in his slacks nudging your entrance and brushing your clit, worn fabric growing messy and glossy with your arousal — It's merely a taste, when what you truly want is to feel him inside you. 

Every inch of your skin seems to burn with flushed heat. You were hoping to get him going a little. On that front, you seem to have succeeded. But you couldn't have expected him to turn the tides right back on you. 

His voice comes out right next to your ear, reverberating through you, pulling you under to drown in fervent waters. 

"You need me, yes?" Gale murmurs, and as his lips brush your lobe, you swear you can hear his stupid smile through his tone alone, "If you are begging for me to take you, to fuck you, what sort of lover would I be if I denied you what you've been desiring?" 

Your throat aches with a high-pitched whine; the building warmth within you blisters, and all your yearning culminates to this.

To your chest heaving between his kisses to your jaw and your face, your palm snaking between your bodies, arm reaching downward as far as it can manage. You're practically panting, as you allow your fingers to graze his waistband and fumble for a better grip. He indulges you, propping above you for a moment, and then discarding his pants in a rush, pushing them down just enough to let his cock come free. 

The dusting of brown hair leading from his chest to his stomach trails all the way down, but you aren't given much of a chance to stare; his hands grab your hips, he guides you while surging forwards to place a desperate kiss to your mouth. The tip of his cock, flushed and pearled with precum, ever-so slightly brushes your waiting entrance. 

And this — The sigh that racks through you, the expression on his face when he pulls back to look at you, to admire you, lips parted as he gasps. Your bodies tremor with the same longing, the same wavelength. Love drips over your heart and your ribs, melting like long crystallized amber, warm and rich and effortlessly palpable. 

You couldn't ask for anything else. In his presence, in his comfortable tower in Waterdeep, with his hands on your skin and his heart beating to the rhythm of your own, you've found your home. This moment is more than lovely. It is perfect, and as your soul begs to be known, to be understood, he instills you with a promise of worship. 

Worship. The adoration one might give to the Gods is still not divine enough for what you deserve, Gale believes. 

Perhaps it's your sense of contentment that causes your heart to stir. When your mind starts to wander, envisioning what the future may hold as Gale is squeezing your hips and peppering sweet kisses down your neck — You'd move in with him, the moment he asked. His tower has plenty of space for the both of you. Not that you have many belongings. His tressym has practically begged you to stay, citing herself that Gale wants you to, that he'd likely ask you, if he had the courage. He's much happier whenever you're around dear, he is simply too proud to admit it. 

Hells, you'd marry him if he were to propose, you've already dreamt of how he might do it. What he'd say, as he gets down on one knee and takes your hands into his. You wouldn't even think twice before you'd be resounding with a yes, followed by those three special words. 

He wouldn't have to simply show you the spectacles of his home, you could live through them. You could enjoy thousands of days just like this one, relaxing, teaching together, and then arriving home, indulging in each other's company until the sun rises back into the sky. It would be a nice life. The calm, simple life you both have earned. 

Your thoughts grow stuck on this morning, in particular. When the both of you had no idea what would transpire, still just friends, greeting each other politely as Gale ushered you into his home. Your lungs filled with the familiar smell of books, and the fresh new scent of the sea. 

The pitter patter of your heart in your chest grew frantic when he hugged you, and once he pulled back, he flashed you a smile that could melt a long, harsh winter. You cleared your throat, you kept your musings to yourself when he began to go over your plans at Blackstaff Academy for the day. 

It seems obvious now, but in the moment, you hardly thought anything of the soft way he looked at you. With such admiration, such devotion, a gaze on yours that promised, you can have me, I would allow it. And as Gale went over various spells, some you recognized and others you didn't, you could only pay attention to the tenderness in his voice, the focus on his face, and the dexterous movement of his hands. 

You felt foolish for imagining what else his pretty hands might be capable of. If only you knew. 

A deep breath in brings you back to the present. Gale leaves one last kiss to your nape, propping over you to reach up, pushing stray strands of hair from his face. You exhale, momentarily growing lost in his gaze. You've seen the love in his eyes countless times before, but his expression this time is different. It's brutally pleading, hopelessly tender. Nervous, almost. 

His hips shift tentatively, his gaze on yours, the fat head of his cock nudging against you — Pleasure surges through him like lightning, making his jaw clench as he swallows a groan. You both breathe a set of stuttery sighs, and your fingers tremor, before your hands clench tight. 

Reaching up, you settle with holding his shoulders once more. You feel the roaring heat under his skin, the dampness of sweat when you grip them for leverage. Muttering, you start, breaking into a whimper when a rock of his hips clumsily grinds his length against your cunt without pressing inside, "Gale, oh, fuck- I'd… I'd like you to try something. Can you?" 

Moving his palm from where it was covering his mouth, helping to muffle any slight noises, you notice Gale's lips are forming a smile. Although, the sweat beading at his pinched brows gives his desperation away. 

"Funny," He replies, his voice breathless and husky, "I was just about to fling a proposal on you. Nothing too terribly important, don't," He swallows, "Don't worry. I'm most interested in fulfilling your request. Go on, what is it?" 

You can't resist gnawing on your bottom lip before you speak, your gaze shifting from his, to somewhere in the distance. Now, you're the nervous one, "The… illusion magic, the spells you showed to me earlier. This morning, if you remember, when we were going over your syllabus? I thought magic of that nature might have some… other uses, is that right?" 

Magic is no stranger to you. But the illusion magic Gale has grown well versed in since he began his teachings, the complicated spells that hinge on nothing more than the limits of one's imagination — Outside of what he has already taught you, those are a mystery. You can't decide if your interest is because of their inherent perplexity, or if you're merely entranced because Gale has taken a liking to them. 

When he was showing you a couple basic spells, you once again found yourself enamored with the wonder on his face, the awe in his voice as he explained the spell's inner workings. This one you could master quite easily, he murmured, sparkling gaze on yours as he held a projection in his hands with relative ease. A projection of a small bloom, your favorite flower. You hardly recall when you must have told him it was your favorite, nor were you expecting him to remember. As you reached out, you swore you could feel the bud's smooth phantom petals underneath your fingertips. 

His voice, speaking quiet incantations, his fingers, easily forming the shapes necessary to bring the spells to life — It was mesmerizing, as captivating as you remembered it to be, way back when. 

This wasn't back then, though. The moment itself felt newly intimate. Sparks filled the air and your lungs, flecks of lingering Weave, pleasant energy working through your body from the ends of your toes to the top of your head. His energy, Gale's magic. The spells he casts have a way of seeming like him, unique and defining, down to the very way they feel. 

You were reminded of your journey together. Of the ashes in the air on the heels of a fiery incantation, of the zeal in your veins from a protective shield, or a hastening touch. Your heart twinged with a stronger ache, held down by how much you've missed him. 

You want to be enveloped in that familiar sensation again. In his magic. In the comforting way it settles around you, the feeling it alights in your chest, and in the way it reminds you that he's here. 

Your words cause Gale to pause. His expression carries the gentlest hint of surprise. He opens his mouth to speak, before stopping. Instead, he smiles, he cocks a brow, and the only thing to betray his newfound confidence is the heavy heave of his chest. 

Unfortunately, you can't hear the way his heart is pounding. You can't sense the brilliant adoration, the foolish excitement that burns into him, affection lapping at his chest with persistent flames. But he can show you. 

"How clever. Extraordinarily clever, really. And you're only," Gale makes a small pinching gesture, "A slight bit off from what I was hoping to suggest, as a matter of fact." 

He reaches for your side then, gently caressing your skin under his palm; you relax at his touch, but stay focused on him as he speaks, "Gods, you know me all too well. Perhaps better than I know myself. Illusory magic lends itself excellently to various creative uses, I think a fair few spells could prove useful, given our current… position. As it happens, I have just the spell in mind." 

"Do you?" You shuffle, your breath hitching slightly in your lungs, while his palm continues to run over your skin, clearly relishing in the way you shiver. "I didn't know if, you know- I wasn't sure if it was something you wanted. You're really okay with this?" 

"Love," Gale hums, interrupting with a quiet instruction, "Close your eyes." 

Panting softly, you allow your arms to rest above you on the desk, and you adjust a bit to get more comfortable. You match your gaze with his for a moment, your heart only beating faster at the honeyed reverence in his eyes. Then, slowly, you take a deep breath, and let the world disappear. 

There's silence, darkness. You feel his hand squeeze your side in gentle reassurance. He shifts, pressing closer. When you hear his voice next, your nervousness is put at ease, calmness flooding through your body. Warm and especially addicting, his words are all you have to focus on. 

"You are precious. As perfect as the alluring beauty of the moon. As lovely as the sparkling sanctity of the Heavens stars," He murmurs, at a volume barely above a whisper. His breath is steady on your skin, and his fingertips trail up your side, to leave barely-there touches over your chest. "If you do not like this, tell me. We'll waste no time stopping." 

"I will," You answer, your own voice seeming to echo in your eardrums, "But it's okay. I trust you." 

This time, his breathing in your ear runs slow. You dwell in a few seconds of hesitation, wrapped in budding anticipation, before you assume you feel him pulling away. He utters a soft word laced with power, his fingers snap, and your head goes hazy. 

"Praestigium."

The invocation breathes a plea, calling upon a source, and the magic responds in turn: sharp, wild, divine. 

You can feel the comforting veins of magic flowing through you, settling around you, cradling your mind in a warm embrace almost instantly. Your eyes flutter open — Or do they? For a moment, it's difficult to tell, as your dizzy vision refocuses, and the pleasant illusion becomes part of you. 

It feels like your head is shrouded in clouds. You're soaring, floating on air, no longer able to feel the hardness of his firm wooden desk beneath you. The room melts; everything is there, but at the same time, it isn't. Shadows speckle your vision, blurry shrouds that slowly begin to melt to pure white. Gale comes into focus above you. His form is perfectly clear, his warm smile effortlessly charming. 

Energy surrounds you: satin and strength, sweetness and intelligence. The smell of sandalwood wafts through the air, flooding your lungs, then slowly starting to fade. Just like that, you are grounded. You are balanced, your mind clearer than ever, and the moment veils you, it embraces you, it is you. 

It's far from what you were expecting, but the surprise is more than welcome. You thought having illusion magic cast on yourself would be more floaty. More akin to a dream, or a living foggy memory. 

Yet, this feels real, wonderfully real, as though he's carved out a space in reality for him and yourself to call your own. Here, with him, nothing else matters. Nothing but your longing, your love, and the infinite future that stretches ahead of you. 

When he leans in to kiss your cheek, you feel his lips, his breath, and his fingertips on your jaw, with a vivid touch that shines — rolling through you like the spark of constellations, an aurora of shivering pleasure and brilliant closeness. Both hands grab your hips, and you feel them strongly, comfortingly, the intensity as he shifts them nearly too much to bear. He guides your legs to wrap around his waist again, locked at the ankles, holding him close. 

He is the only thing you can perceive, your senses are heightened, and every sensation to grip you is positively electric. This magic does more than spawn an illusion or clear your mind; it's intensifying your grip on mortality. 

You can hear his breathing as easily as it were your own. You can feel his heart, can measure each quick beat when he collides his lips with yours, his chest pressing against you. Thump, thump, thump, in your ears, in your own ribs, then the heavy thrum of his shadowy blight — so raw and intense, it nearly threatens to swallow you. 

His presence entwines yours, his magic sears through you. He pulls you closer with his palm holding the back of your head, and he kisses you like this time could be the last. Your core burns red-hot. You're enveloped in dizzying feelings you can't quite place. As he pulls away, you lean back, and you let your head sink into the clouds. His palm stays to cup your face, slightly tilting your head towards him. 

You both catch your breath, chests heaving. Gale admires you underneath him, brushing your cheek with his thumb. He places a kiss to your forehead that glimmers over you like an untamed ray of sunlight. 

Slowly, as your head grows used to the spell, you calm, becoming more relaxed. Your mind is a clear, still lake, your thoughts as crisp as cool water. When you hear him speak once more, his head tilted to breathe the words against your ear, it's as though his voice is everywhere, ebbing and flowing through your brain as an encircling echo. 

"Comfortable?" He murmurs, simply and softly. 

"Yes, very," You answer with a nod of your head. Your own voice appears muffled, reminiscent of being underwater, "This is… lovely. It's amazing. You're amazing." 

"Excellent. I'm glad to hear you aren't too overwhelmed," Gale continues. His smooth tone bounces around the walls of your skull, while his fingertips drift down, drawing shapes you can't recognize onto your nape. "Remember, what you are experiencing is merely an altered form of reality. Do not push yourself. This old desk isn't exactly a bed of roses, but I hope I've succeeded in making it a mite more comfortable for you." 

Grinning to yourself, you allow your arms to relax beside you, and you promptly shudder, growing lost in the feeling of weightlessness beneath you. Gale straightens. He props himself above your form, his gaze indulging in you. 

Although his study is mostly a blur, details meshed in flowery fog, telltale light from the candles still dances across his features. You reach up, trailing your fingers over his earring, the metal cold on your skin. Then, your fingertips brush his cheek, they caress the faded trail of dark lines burned into his skin. He smiles, and he brings a hand to settle over your own. 

His touch is warm. It is a crisp morning breeze drifting through you; his eyes flutter shut when he kisses the heel of your palm, and every inch of you flushes with tangible radiance. He pulls your wrist away, only to bring you palm to palm, fingertips to fingertips for a few moments. His hand lies flat against yours, before your fingers tightly, naturally lace. 

"In all sincerity, I must admit," He begins, shyly glancing away from you, muttering through a laugh that seems to jostle your entire system, "The spell I've cast on you is… clearly not meant to be harnessed in such a way. Or perhaps, more so, it is not often used while such, erm, satisfactions… are taking place. Even for a wizard of my caliber, it may prove difficult to control- If the spell ever snaps, so to speak, just know you have no reason to be alarmed." 

Head still heavy from the incantation's lingering effects, you were so lost in his ramblings — resounding through your mind like they never have before — you almost failed to notice he's begun to lean in. He softly guides your hand to press down, against the surface of what you can only assume is his desk. At first, you can feel the resistance, but soon softness overlaps. Clouds envelop the sensation, and you're left suspended in air once more. 

Your heart skips when he kisses you, slowly and smoothly. Innocently, at first, devotion carrying you on soft wings. And then, deeper, while his hand squeezes yours, and his tongue explores your mouth with a languid lack of urgency. 

You melt, your chest encompassed in a floating feeling. He murmurs soft groans into your mouth; every part of him yearns to pull you closer, to have you, to hold you. Gods, he loves you, and he curses himself for ever trying to push those feelings down. He won't let you go now, no matter how the world tries to pry you from each other's grasp. 

When he shifts, pressing closer, kissing you harder, the flushed and needy tip of his cock nudges your cunt — Instantly, a blistering sense of ecstasy flutters through your every pore, and you whine into him, your body going slack. 

And that was simply from a touch. Just a small press of him against you, brushing close to where you're deliciously sensitive, and you're fucking breathless. Your core is wound with preemptive pleasure; just a tease, and your mind is swimming with how badly you need to feel him inside you. You aren't sure what you'll experience once you're given more, once you're actually taking him. 

That damned spell. You should be a mess by now. Perhaps you are, and the calm cradle of the illusion is what's tethering you to the earth. Tether or not, you hardly care about keeping your composure. You don't care for your imminent disarray. In fact, more than anything, you need to have him ruin you. 

It's hard to speak. Your lungs are aching, but as he draws backward from your lips, you manage to huff, "You aren't going to hold back, right?" 

Gale smirks, exhaling in short pants. He pushes up, putting his familiar silhouette — messy hair, broad shoulders tensed, branded chest slightly heaving — back in the forefront of your vision. 

"Oh, I'm afraid I am far past the threshold of being able to do so. For you, for everything you have long awaited, my desires will remain unhindered," He replies calmly, brows slightly furrowed. "Besides, I've been sharpening my concentration as of late. This could prove an opportune time to assess the extent of my exercises. I think we're both wondering how much pressure my focus can take." 

His words ripple through you, comforting and lighthearted in their tone. They do the trick. You're sparked with delight, your mind set at ease. Briefly, you wonder if the incantation connects you together, because when you relax, he seems to as well: his breathing becoming calmer, his expression softening, and his grip on your hand relaxing. 

If you truly wanted to, you'd find escaping from the spell he's placed on you to be rather simple. You've faced much more enthralling spells than this. Magic more complex, much more wicked. You know the feeling of having a spell muddle your mind, down to your very bones; you have your little journey to thank for that. And you know how to break them, as simply as putting one foot in front of the other. 

This spell is different. It is warm and soothing, it carries none of the malice that would weigh down the charms you've felt before. It's effortlessly him, magic which caresses you as though his very arms were there to hold you. Magic that roots into you, a breath of life, a ray of moonlight. Thoughtful as always, Gale has made this particular spell weak, and you can determine so without trying. Likely to make snapping it simple, if you decided to. 

You could break the illusion. But you choose to let go. 

You breathe in, slowly and deeply, and you allow the spell to swallow every last aspect of your being. The clouds wane briefly, before you're surrounded, melting slowly into pleasure and froth. The moment feels raw, alive. You are here, you both are, finally able to love, to be loved. And love him you will. Without any regret. 

Gale, appearing clear and pure above you, pushes his hair from his face, and looks at you like you are worth dying for. Living for. His expression is painfully soft. He steadies a hand on your side, he dotes on your dips and curves and marble-carved features; every part of you was meant to be adored, akin to the statues one might bow before. He sighs slowly, inhales even slower. 

"The spell," He begins, palm caressing your side with gentle motions, "You could break it yourself, yes?" 

You nod, tone soft, "Yes, absolutely." 

"Very good." Gale's voice echoes. It splinters through your mind, it knits into your heartbeat, "Not that I had a shred of doubt. You're doing quite well." 

A squeeze of your hand, a grip on your side pulling you ever-so carefully closer, and heightened surges of intensity are shooting through you much stronger than before. Your eyes shut, your back arches, your muscles ache, but pleasure takes over to drown you, his cock brushing your entrance. Lips parted, he exhales a trembling breath, one that seems to travel through you in turn.  

"Focus, and breathe slowly. Deep breaths in, and then finally, out. I'm here with you. I won't be going anywhere." 

Your heart is pounding, but at the sound of his voice, at the feeling of his smooth tone bouncing around you, your thoughts become still. Your pulse slows, your chest gently rises, and then falls. The only thing left rushing through your veins is a wild, unfiltered need. 

"Stay with me, please," Gale breathes, words cracking at the edges. He presses closer, his eyes close and his forehead comes to rest against yours, your bodies held on the loving cusp of almost-connection. "Stay, and let me be tender for you, my dearest love." 

"Gale-" You murmur, your voice sweet in his ears like dripping syrup, as you strum the familiar notes of his name. "I love you, I need you." 

Of course, and you will have him. 

Gale gives your hand one more squeeze, reassuring you, preparing you. He swallows down the growing thickness in his throat. His head is buried in the nape of your neck as he finally gives himself to you, carefully easing into you — Everything slow, heat rushing through you in the form of a wildfire, the clouds holding you in their ethereal embrace. Pleasure pulls your every nerve taught in a tight, delightful string, and for once, your soul within you feels alive. 

His fingers go shaky, his grip tightens on your side in response. You're just barely fit around the head of him, and you feel him mutter a half-sigh, half-moan into your nape that shakes your body with the potent vibrations. 

It's like you can feel the spell itself shudder. 

"I love you," He's pressing into your warmth, his jaw clenched, hips gently rolling, filling you with more of him until you are stretching to his shape, "Could I give you more? Can you take all of me?" 

"Yes," Your throat is unmistakably sore, but still, you speak without thinking. You need more, need to feel the friction become part of your body as he fills you. Your back arches to meet him, and pleasure hums in your veins with intoxicating strength. Every one of his gasps echoes against you, then through you. The thrum of his warm cock inside you is so deliciously, impossibly perfect. 

"F-Fuck," You swear, biting down your quickened gasps, fighting through the incessant pound of your heart; lest your languor succeeds in devouring you, "Please, yes…" 

The whine that overtakes the edge of your voice makes him shiver. Gale groans softly, his shoulders growing tense. His hips lazily buck into you — until his pelvis is shoved deft against your body, sweat-soaked skin pressed to softer skin, burying him inside you down to the hilt. 

His breath on your nape is loud, hurried, and at the mercy of his weary limbs, he tries his hardest not to collapse. Silently, he must thank you for getting one high out of him earlier. With how good you feel, with how badly he's needed you, if you hadn't, he isn't sure if he'd last much longer. 

Not like you are faring any better. 

Your heart isn't just beating, but battering at your chest, tearing through your body and knocking into your ribs as though it needs to come free. You wouldn't be surprised if your gasps are resounding just as loudly as his. Thighs shaking, you struggle to keep your legs wrapped around his waist, your ankles almost slipping before he grabs your legs to readjust you. He shifts close, still sheathed inside you. The gentle movement sends small ripples of ecstasy through your core that, in the wake of his spell, instead feel like large, thundering waves. Crashing over you, swallowing you. 

You feel full, so fucking full. The depth to where you can feel him — all of him, so deep inside you — practically has your head whirling. Gale blinks, his vision blurred, causing his lashes to tickle your skin in a faint butterfly kiss. You're wobbling and teetering like a spinning top. Your eyes flutter closed, trying to steady some of your own dizziness. 

This time, he presses a real kiss to your nape. Then, he's working a palm underneath you, supporting your back, holding you close. His other hand finds its perfect place in your own again, your fingers lacing with his. Around him, you feel irresistible, so wet and warm and lovely. You are everything he has ever wanted, you are his love; the world, in the palms of his hands. 

He wants to let his hips rock, wants to hear your voice strained with lust while you're pleading in pants of his name. He needs to feel the electrifying friction blazing through him, as he fucks wave after wave of pleasure into you — Though, despite those desires, despite the way they fall into him, gripping him at his very core, he stops. He calms, and he savors you. 

You're given a chance to catch your breath, thankfully. To drift among the endless sky underneath you, and the river of magic surrounding you. In this reality, on this bed of stars and sea, his presence and yours are all to exist. Pulse still racing, you indulge in the stretch of him inside you. He feels utterly exhilarating, even without movement. For a few fleeting moments, you simply bask in each other, and nothing more. 

"You feel so good… So stunningly perfect," Gale is gasping, every word breathless, "Ah- Just this alone could sate me, drowning in your warmth around me while our bodies connect- Your soul and mine are truly one. Nothing else compares." 

Nothing in this universe compares to you. 

You are his beginning, and you will be his end. You've captured him in warmth, in an embrace that breathes velvet promises, until every part of you is left racing through his mind. 

Gale remembers the faint smiles you'd flash him whenever he caught your eyes, your nose scrunching so delightfully, your head turning away as his words made you chuckle. It's the same smile each time. The same expression, the same dance of adoration in your gaze when yours and his happen to meet. 

A love reserved only for him. His own form of love is engraved with your name. 

You float between every thought, making him think you might've become part of him. He fondly dotes on his memories of the sparkling stars in your eyes, the way you looked as you gazed up at them, admiring the constellations that have always watched over you. He can put a name to them all, because you were his reason to remember. At any time, in any place, those woven stars shone overhead, writing the twists and turns of destinies. And now, after tonight, they'll give you the privilege of viewing them together once more. 

He could never forget you. It wasn't a possibility, not when he still revels in all of your details that make him oh-so weak. His missing piece returned to him, you are his love, his home. 

Perhaps you were meant to be connected. Body and soul, with separate lifetimes worth of familiarity. You're two halves of the very same whole. To have known one another, is to be the sun and sunflower, the rain and the soil, the grand mountains, and the edge of the clouds. You'll find yourselves in everything, ultimately. 

The orb could take him, and if he became nothing but dust, taking his city of Waterdeep with him in a storm of decimation — What remains of his devotion would find its way home to you. 

But he wouldn't allow it. Not anymore. He is going to live, against everything, along with you, and beside you. No matter what it may cost him. 

With a small shift, his hips grind into you faintly, he presses into you impossibly deeper. Your bottom lip quivers, before you take it between your teeth. As you feel him throb inside you, you're sighing together in delightful unison. 

"You are…" His words are shaky, they wobble through your mind. For once, to your elation, he can hardly seem to speak, "Sweetheart, my dearest… I just- I love-" 

His sentence stays unfinished; Gale stutters into a shuddery whine when you pull him in, your legs wrapped around him, dragging him just a bit closer, but enough to enthrall both of you in powerful sparks. The pleasure that overtakes him, that overtakes the both of you, is so vibrant and love struck, so unlike anything else — You're sure neither of you will be able to hold back, not anymore. 

Good. 

"More, please," You plead, your voice needy to the point of babbling, "Fuck me, I need you, I'm- ah, please, Gale…" 

Shuddering, Gale takes an overly long breath. His grip tenses on your hand, and he softly rubs his thumb over your calloused knuckles. Cool air enters his lungs, calming his mind, steadying his heart. And when he finally begins to move, you've never felt anything more divine. 

You were made for one another, you're sure of it. You must be, when every sensation to encompass you does so with such endlessness. With tenderness that has the very forming of his name on your tongue completely intrinsic. 

His hips rock into you shallowly, careful and passionate thrusts hardly separating you. Pleasure melds within your veins so sinfully, until your heart can only believe in the inevitable bond between your two shapes. 

As he keeps up a steady pace, driving his cock inside you, you're murmuring gasps between every whine of his name. His secluded study is filled with noise. With the melody of skin against skin, and the echoes of your breathing and his. The wet sound of your arousal squelches around his length each time you take him. He keeps his head buried in the nape of your neck, his quickened breath fanning over your skin. Easing into you, he then pulls out only half-way, just to thrust in again with a slow, languid press of his hips. 

Gale has experienced wonders most mortals could only dream of. And yet, he's never felt anything quite like this. 

It's been a while. A very, very long time, in fact, since he has connected with anyone in this sort of way. So long, he's forgotten what it could feel like — Bodies pressed together in a perfect, tangled mess. Hands entwined and lungs strained. 

But he has never loved anyone quite the same as his love for you. This is different. Warm beams of intimacy fill him more and more with every buck of his hips into you, with every whimper from your lips for him. And those delicate feelings swelling in his chest — They are entirely, utterly new. 

This moment feels sweet. Carnal. There's something so filthy, yet so, impossibly loving about feeling you in such a way. Back then, against his composure and his better judgment, he imagined this. He dreamt of taking you, and hopelessly wondered if you wanted the same. Now, the ecstasy of feeling you around him practically burns. You are addicting, everything he could want in the best possible way. Intoxicatingly his, just as he's always yearned for. 

You have thousands more days and nights ahead of you, there will be countless times to come. Time for him to love you, to hold you, to show you what magic lies on his lips. That is what truly gets him. This moment will last. It won't be a dream, or a passing fantasy. Your gentle future is only just beginning. 

Gale's movement comes to steady as he pushes up, breathing one last sigh against your nape before he props over you. Your entrancing eyes are half-lidded, your lips are parted as you pant. You're pretty enough to destroy him. He already knows he would let you. 

His palm cups your cheek. You tilt into his touch, leaning back against his desk and the foggy pillows underneath you. Beneath his fingertips, the thrum of his magic clings to your skin like a flower's soft petal caught in a spider's web. He knows he must be the only figure in your vision, just as you are the center of his world. He can picture the way his voice and his touch are shining through you. His gasps are echoing in your ears, his palm drifts from your cheek to your neck to the curve of your shoulder, and surely brands light wherever it brushes. 

When his hand comes to settle on your side, holding tight while he rocks into you, he can't seem to help himself from glancing down. Gale watches as his steady movement has his cock nestling inside you, disappearing to fill you to the tune of you moaning for him, the shaft glistening in the low light once he starts to pull back. 

Gods. The thoughts that begin to race though his head are so terribly, deliciously filthy — Overwhelmed, his pace starts to falter, he's growing clumsy. His grip on your hand turns so tight it nearly hurts, his brows furrowed into a knot, as he pistons into you with newfound desperation. 

Waning sensitivity still clings to him, leftover from his previous high. In a fluttery contradiction, the intensity surging through him only seems to make him want you more. 

"I don't deserve how good you are to me," Gale hums, slightly shaking his head — Every sigh, each word bounces around your skull and glows within you from the inside out. His steady presses inside you don't relent, his skin slapping yours; they just force his words to shake, and his hand to clench much harder on your waist. 

"This… possessiveness I have for you, it's- Ah, Gods… It is damn near agonizing," He's murmuring, speaking those last few words through an almost-chuckle, "My heart has never yearned for anything more. You made me feel alive, love. Tonight, and always. And you feel-" His jaw tightens, teeth gritting, "Utterly amazing… Tell me, if you can find the strength within you to speak. Tell me how this feels." 

Right now, your mind is swimming. Stardust glitters in your veins, and your core is wound nice and tight, overwhelmed by ripples of pleasure. For a moment, words won't come to you. Instead, you reach up to press a palm to the back of his head, and you drag him close, quick enough to make him utter a faint noise of surprise against your soft lips. You kiss, slowly and deeply. You're both sighing heavily once you've pulled away to breathe. 

"S-So good, it's perfect, you're perfect," There's a desperate edge to your voice. You can feel the rawness in your throat, can make out the high tones even through the fog in your head, "Gale, don't stop- Gale-" 

Gale shudders. Your palm slips from his cheek to fall above you in a heap, and you're whining, back arching, head tossed back. You are simply beautiful. 

"I love the way you say my name. The sound is quite lovely when it is- Shit-" He chokes, breaking into a gasp when his body rocks against yours, "When it is your lips to sculpt the word, your darling voice to utter the syllables…" 

You tremble, your eyes fluttering shut, your heart thumping so fast you can hear it in your eardrums. In the wake of his hips rolling into yours, you can feel each press with inexplicable sensitivity. His cock pumps in and out of you so tenderly, and every throb of his length pulses through you. 

Softly and carefully, he kisses your forehead. Then, he's leaning back. He pulls you closer in tandem with pressing inside you, filling you. You've never been this sensitive, never felt this loved. You are melting into him, your chest heaving from your heavy sighs, your lips quivering with whines of pleasure: pretty moans breathed all for him. 

Once you feel his fingers grasp your chin, thumb briefly brushing your lips, your eyes begin to flutter. Shadows masquerade as clouds, your vision hazed by blurred edges and flickering lights. The ardent fangs of magic sink into you, trapping you in their whirlwind. Your heart pounds quickly, unrelentingly, thudding hard against the cage of your chest. 

Gale's smile is clear as day, though. Trying your best to gaze at him above you, you feel that rapid heartbeat instead begin to sing. He tilts your head a bit, guiding you towards him. And gently, breathlessly, he murmurs, "Can you look at me, my love?" 

The fuzziness in your field of view starts to fade, and your breath begins to catch. Buried deep inside you, he stops, keeping his hips still while panting hard. Sweat glistens on his skin, his hair is brushing his shoulders, and he reaches to push some strands from his face. He swallows thickly. He squeezes your hand one last time before he lets it go. 

"This," A purple thread of magical light begins to dance between his fingertips, illuminating his face in an amethyst glow, "Is what I wished to show you." 

Adoring and unwavering, his gaze stays on yours, even as he's illustrating shapes with his fingers; movements so quick and effortless, you're barely able to make them out. Swirls here, a triangle there — With one final shape, the magic hums to life. It shimmers through the air with radiance almost palpable, glowing ever brighter, reflecting lavender rays in his eyes. All it takes is an incantation to truly set it ablaze. 

"Ad astra." 

The previous spell loses concentration, and in its place, a new one takes form. 

You hadn't noticed your eyes were closed until the spell had fully finished settling upon you. A new sensation prickles at the surface of your skin, familiar and star-filled. Finally, your gaze focuses above you, after Gale's soft instruction of: Open your eyes. 

You still feel floaty, your senses less acute, your head washed over with warmth. This time though, the illusion is different. You are resting in calm grass and whispering meadows, and when colorful stars fill your vision until you're drowning in their light, the view above you seems completely real. 

Gale is atop you still, but his study remains melted away. Small flickers of candlelight have transformed into brilliant illuminations, leaving him in a backdrop of twinkling starlight and a beautiful aurora. You're gently swept through the makeshift sky. Hues of purple and green and blue wash over you, like how waves might flow over the shore. Light surrounds you, but at the same time, it shines within you. 

In a way, it reminds you of the sight he once made a long time ago, the aurora he created to shimmer through the Shadowlands. Back then, when tensions were high and words were left unspoken, you admired the stars in comfortable silence. So close — You could have reached for his hand next to yours, or closed the distance in mere moments to learn what his lips felt like on your own. But you didn't. The familiarity makes your pulse run wild. 

A canopy of beauty. This is what he once planned to admire on his last night alive, and yet, now he has an abundance of nights to spend by your side. Sprawled out beneath him, you are far more beautiful than anything in the countless shimmering skies. 

"Wonderful," You murmur, speaking under your breath. Your voice is just loud enough for him to hear. You're smiling, your gaze flickering between the messes of stars above you, lights that twinkle steadily with a gentle glow. "Reminds me of the stars from ages ago. This is gorgeous, Gale." 

"Not as gorgeous as you, of course," He replies, the slightest hint of a smirk tugging at his features. His words are smooth, they no longer flicker endlessly through your mind. Rather, when he speaks, his familiar voice captures your heart in the same way it always has. "If only you knew how truly breathtaking you are." 

His heart aches with desire, because as you look up at him — at him, not the illusion, your gaze is on his while the loveliest smile crosses your lips — in your eyes, he sees that same lovely sparkle. 

You're lost in him, for a moment. Gale's expression grows soft as he continues to admire you. When you feel gentle fingertips travel the length of your arm, leaving goosebumps in their wake, you tremble. A sigh leaves your mouth, his fingers lacing with yours once more. He holds your hand tightly, safely. Gale can't resist, he tips forwards to kiss you; your lips connect, with crackling electricity and still-lingering traces of magic sparking from his mouth to yours. 

Devotion is palpable in the way he kisses you. It quickly turns eager, becoming a tender mess of soft moans and tongue. And at last, everything to remain falls away. 

Heat surges through both your bodies until you're consumed by wildfire. With one more kiss, Gale grips you hard, his hips begin to move. You whine against his mouth as he slowly rocks into you, you're mumbling his name in the form of a plea — The sound only serves to make him more desperate. 

He mutters your name in turn: a low, affectionate utterance. His thrusts take on a deeper pace, as he fucks into you hard enough to make his desk shake — fervent enough to have your heart trembling, love drowning you in heavy depths. 

Your arousal and his drip down your thighs, dirtying the hardwood. It's making a mess, echoing lewd, wet noises with each clumsy movement, the slap of skin against skin sounding particularly soaked each time he pistons into you. Every echo fills his ears, curling through his mind oh-so pleasantly. It would be the most addicting melody he's ever heard, if it weren't for how sweet you sound when you're moaning for him. 

And you're loud, you're mumbling a mess of words he can't quite make out. Your sighs mix with whines, turning sharp each time he eases his cock into you. Gale breathes a shaky breath, fanning warmth over your face, before he's moving to place quick kisses to the corner of your mouth, and then, your jaw. 

His lips brush the column of your neck, where your pulse is racing for him; when his hips rut into yours, you're cooing soft pleas, quietly murmuring, Don't stop. Your back arches, and he adorns you with his tongue and teeth, sucking gently at your supple skin. 

He shouldn't. What would your confidants say, if you crossed paths with them? When you return to Baldur's Gate, what would the guild leaders who respect you, and the fancy patriars who need you think when they happened to see it? They would know he was there, know you are his. Foolishly, dizzyingly, he allows his lips and his mouth to leave a deep mark, an imprint of himself. He doesn't pull back until he's sure the bruise will take. 

You shudder, feeling the ghost of his mouth even once he's pulled away, cold air brushing the saliva he left on your neck and making your nerves twinge. Slow rolls of his body into yours have you shaking, but you're squeezing his hand tightly, your other palm is balling into a fist and you're begging, "Please, faster… Fucking Hells… Give me more." 

Gale sighs. His brows knot, he falls forwards and leans his forehead softly against yours. "For you, I would give the world."

He swallows, he steadies. Then, he places all the world's pleasures in the palms of your hands. 

The weight behind his thrusts, newly desperate and hurried, have him gripping you for leverage: a palm tensed on your waist, fingertips digging into your hip. He grasps your thigh to push it up and apart. His desk is knocking against the wall, the wooden legs squeaking and scraping the floor. 

Your body tenses with building intensity — Building and building and building, threatening to overwhelm you between every movement, until you aren't sure where your high begins, nor where it ends. All you know is you're close. And if he keeps fucking into you like this, filling you nice and deep, nudging against your sweetest spots only he can reach, it won't be long before you're falling apart for him. 

With one last quick kiss to your forehead, your thighs spread apart wider, Gale is propping over you; and Gods, does he look like a mess. Pools of glowing magic paint him in the most vivid hues. His hair is out of place, honey brown strands askew, the faintest pretty streaks of silver reflecting in the starlight. His skin shines with dripping beads of sweat, his chest is heaving, jaw clenched — You can't help but feel he might crumble at the smallest touch. 

So, you unclench your hand. You let your fingertips drift up, and you brush them over his cheek. As you're cupping his face, his shoulders tense, and he doesn't just crumble, he collapses. 

Gale falls into you, leaning his head into your nape. His palm fits between the desk and the arch of your back to hold you even closer to himself. His breathing is rapid, his hand takes on a distinct tremble when another rock of his body against yours has you moaning ragged gasps of his name. 

His name, you're pleading for him to take you — Grinding his teeth together until his jaw hurts, he bucks into you hard, enough to have you fluttering around him, squeezing him like a vice. He chokes back broken gasps of his own, and exhales hot fans of breath over your sensitive skin. You are going to be the death of him. 

"I have always-" Gale starts; he struggles to speak, his voice sounds close to breaking, yet his words drip with an earnestness you find enthralling, "I have always loved you. My sweetheart… Every beat of my heart is yours…" 

Yours. 

Eyes fluttering between open and closed, the aurora around you spins incessantly. You respond in turn, mumbling through fragile gasps for breath, as he works you up to a growing, intensifying peak. 

"I'm yours, Gale," Your fingers tangle in soft hair, gripping and tugging until he's groaning. Pleasure floods your every nerve, and you're a mess around his cock, tumbling through the sea of stars and alluring lights — "I'm yours, I'm yours-" 

"Oh, love-" 

All at once, the spell abruptly snaps, your focus and your senses melding into one in a dizzying, sparkling rush. You're brought back to reality. The heart of his quiet study comes into view again, his walls of books and shelves of artifacts, the colorful lights fading into nothingness. Your form is bathed in warm candlelight, the night sky treading in from his balcony. Cool air dances over you, while the pale moon is hung high in the darkness. 

Ecstasy slams through you, blissfully unfiltered. Everything is messy, perfect, and hopelessly desperate; you grip his hair tight, and his hand harder. Gale pants, his breath sharp and his lungs aching as he fucks you into the desk, pushing you closer and closer to your edge — until even without the aid of magic, you're left seeing stars. 

He is so terribly, utterly in love with you. Every one of those nights where he pushed you away, those moments where he almost left you, when he was possibly the most foolish he's ever been in his entire life — 

A slow, tender press inside you, and you're muttering his name softly once more, adoring it, pleading it. He wants to hear your voice strumming his name over and over, teasing him after his half-hearted attempts to make you laugh, begging for him to give you what you need, because he is the only one who can. Answering with, Yes, Gale, I will, when he asks you to marry him. He can't change the mistakes he's already made, but he can earn your love, and your softness. He can promise to never let you go. Not ever again. 

"I'm here, I have you," Gale mumbles in a shaky tone. He presses a soft kiss onto your nape, he squeezes your hand when your breath begins to hitch. His words are smooth and comforting, they send tingles up your spine, and they have you melting in a way you never have before. 

The edge to your high is right within reach, he's only bringing you closer. Your head won't stop spinning. As he trails kisses from your neck to your jaw, his lips are a touch from the sun, beams of warmth that shudder through you to shine over the surface of your skin. 

"Gale-" You whimper, "Fuck, I'm-" 

He presses into you deeply, gripping your hand, filling you with a thickness you'll never quite get enough of, and you can't help but stutter into a whine. His pelvis shoves against yours, skin against skin, arousal messy and wet and dripping out of you — Your thighs are shaking, and you only need one more breath before you're finding that zenith of pleasure. Warm and perfect against your nape, his words have you taking the final tumble. 

"Come undone for me." 

Your high shatters through you, you're tensing around his sloppy thrusts, your legs are slipping from around him. Your body curls into his, your eyes shutting tight. Desire drowns you, it burns from within you; throat sore, you cry out in loud, desperate moans, and everything melts around you as you let go, cumming for him. 

And Gale, normally so confident, so eloquent, a wizard prodigy, a Goddess' chosen — He buries himself deep inside you, choking down stutters and groans. With a mess of barely coherent pleas of your name, your sweet voice and the feeling of you squeezing him, fluttering in the pleasant aftershocks of your release, has him falling to pieces right there beside you. 

"Please, please, please…" Gale begs, even though he hardly knows what he's begging for. His clumsy hips roll into you with reckless abandon, echoing the sloppiest noises. His voice is broken and fragile, tender in a way you've never heard before: "I love you, I love you…" 

I love you. In this life, and every life to follow. Only to fall in love once more, all over again. 

Gasping, shaking, his body tenses, and when he falls into you, you're left to hopelessly clutch onto his hand and his hair. Pleasure racks through him, his breath getting caught in his lungs. The candles in his study flicker, the branded orb-shaped marking imprinted onto his chest glows. His hips shudder, before they still. His length pulses inside you so hard you can feel it in your core, and heat pools within your body as he fills you, giving you what's left of him. 

It takes a handful of moments for you both to come down. Gale is limp and heavy, pressing against you, his weight pinning you between him and the desk. His palm, resting on the small of your back, runs over your skin in slow, careful circles. Your heart thumps loud in your ears, hard in your chest, so forceful it nearly hurts. His gentle touch makes it slow, until gradually, your composure begins to return. 

I've got you, he's murmuring, the words barely audible in your ringing eardrums, but comforting just the same. Breathe for me, just breathe. 

In, and then out, you inhale, exhale. Gale props above you after a minute or two, and as you blink to chase away the remnants of fuzz in your vision, he comes into your view. He's smiling, because of course he is, strands of his hair sticking out every which way. The sight makes you grin, and you have to hold back your chuckle. Yet, the way he looks at you softens every last shred of your soul. 

His skin is flushed, still sweaty and warm. His gaze is so terribly, persistently gentle, coveting you with endless devotion. It wouldn't be the first time tonight, but you feel revered, like you can almost taste swelling blossoms of love — sweet on the tongue, growing untamed to flourish through your chest. 

Letting go of a sigh, he brushes his thumb over your cheek. You didn't think he could get any softer. But here he is, with a smile that entrances you, and an expression beaming with light itself. When he grasps your chin, pulling you in as he leans forwards, on his gentle lips, you feel the heat of the sun, and taste the calmness of a crisp summer breeze. 

Your heart skips. A sharp spark of electricity — traces of magic, surely — crackles on your mouth when yours brushes his. It zaps you like static, before flowing into you as a steady, dizzying wave. 

Your eyes stay shut. Gale pulls back for a moment. He breathes a small huff, a barely-there laugh. You swear you can feel the smile on his lips when he kisses you again — This time, much deeper, while his fingertips trace the curve of your jaw, and his mouth outlines the depths of his devotion onto yours. 

When he pulls away, he's moving to guide a quick hand behind your head. He supports you, before resting you back against the desk ever-so gently. He hisses slightly as he pulls out of you, adjusting you both. He's sighing with contentment while he grasps your thighs, changing your position to let them hang over the desk's edge more comfortably. 

At last, he props up over you. Still catching his breath, he tries to control the weighted heave of his chest as best he can manage. 

"I love you," Gale admits, his voice noticeably hoarse, but with a clear hint of fondness to it, "Are you alright?" 

"Please, I'm more than alright," You answer. You clear your throat, alleviating some of the dryness, and you roll your shoulders back. The hardwood surface of his desk beneath you suddenly feels a hundred times firmer than before. "You're okay too, aren't you?" 

Gale scoffs playfully, smirking, "Apart from a bit of present exhaustion and a mild ache in the knees, I am definitely, most positively fine. No, better than fine. Fantastic." 

Your eyes narrow, your head tilts curiously, gaze flickering down, and then back up. "And the orb?" 

"The orb? Oh," He huffs, placing a palm over his chest in realization. "Ha, it's behaving alright. Until now, I don't think it has ever felt so… comfortable, if that serves well to describe it. Swear I could almost feel the damn thing purring." 

You breathe a slight chuckle, and with a roll of your eyes, you press your palms to the desk and push yourself up. Gale hurries to wrap a hand around your wrist, placing the other on your back. He helps to pull you, until you're sitting up with your arms stretched to the ceiling. You stretch your back next, arching it forwards, feeling your muscles loosen and your bones pop. 

Gale's brows are suddenly knotted. His lips press into a line, his expression turns conflicted. When your gaze locks with his, you're giving him a slight, pretty smile. 

"What's wrong?" 

You watch as he looks away for a second, snapping his fingers, muttering a string of words under his breath you don't quite catch. He seems pouty, almost guilty; the fireplace in the room's adjacent corner hums to life, breathing much-needed warmth into his study. Your limbs relax, your shoulders untensing. 

"Nothing is wrong, sweetheart. Don't you worry," He reassures, offering you a warm look once his gaze returns to yours. His hand comes to steady on your side, and he squeezes you slightly, "I just… supposed I should offer you an apology. Perhaps it was rude of me not to provide you with more comfort. I promise you, next time, you will be as cushy and cozy as your heart could possibly desire. You'll find my bedroom to be rather pleasant, I'm sure. Have you ever slept on Glamerweave sheets? Hm, actually, I think I'll keep from spoiling the surprise." 

Next time? 

"Come on. It was my idea, you don't have to apologize," You reply through a slight laugh, shifting a bit on his desk, crossing one leg over the other. "Besides, I'm fine, I swear. I've dealt with much more than a little soreness, and I was perfectly comfortable, I'll have you know." Swallowing, you pause for a moment to think. "That was perfect. Truly." 

"Was it? Well, that is… quite lovely to hear, quite lovely indeed. I'm… I'm glad." Gale takes in a slow breath, before letting go of a deep, heavy sigh. Your words make his heart pound. "Gods above. I knew I was doomed, but I think I've only fallen even more in love with you." 

Arms wrapping around his shoulders, your head cocked teasingly, you murmur, "Do you know how hard it is to resist kissing you when you're this terribly sweet?" 

"Really?" His brow crooks. "I wonder how many kisses I could earn if I proposed more than mere sweet words. Sweet touches, perhaps? I could lend you a hand or two, you know. I'm more than willing to offer shoulder rubs, back massages- It wouldn't be right to leave my dearest with tired limbs and such sore muscles, now would it?" 

"On second thought, maybe my back is hurting. A massage sounds lovely." 

Gale grins. He reaches up, brushing his thumb over your cheek, before he pulls you in for a quick, precious kiss. 

"Then your wish is my command, love." His hand continues to hold your cheek tenderly, even once he's pulled back. Forehead close enough to almost rest against yours, he murmurs quietly, smoothly, "Once you are ready, I'll run you a warm, comfortable bath. With bubbles and lavender- Hm, I'm sure I have something around here you can wear, as far as clean clothes are concerned. You may have to make do with a few magically infused robes and garments… but nothing with any lasting effects, I assure you. And if you've worked up an appetite, then-" 

Biting his tongue, abruptly, he stops. His eyes narrow, gaze glancing between you and the floor. 

"I… My apologies," Gale mumbles, his tone weighed down by newfound disappointment, "How impolite. I shouldn't form assumptions, especially when your plans have already been reiterated. I won't keep you. As a matter of fact, I believe the side roads to Baldur's Gate are likely still open, if you'd prefer me to escort you there." 

"Gale, are you kidding?" 

You scoff, squeezing his shoulders and tilting your head; instantly, he feels himself begin to relax, his heart stirring, his nerves settling. You always look at him with such radiant warmth. 

"Running errands back and forth for greedy townspeople can wait," You're continuing, gazing at him through fluttery lashes. "I took care of everything urgent well before I got here. You wouldn't believe the nerves I had leading up to this- I was remarkably tense, but at least it had me working hard to distract myself. Listen, if you're so keen on going back, you're coming with me. Otherwise, I'm staying, okay? For as long as you'll have me." 

Gale swallows. His jaw clenches, his gaze goes soft. His pulse thrums in his throat and runs a mile per minute within his chest, heels pushing off the ground as he chases a burning sense of devotion — 

"You- Are you sure?" He questions, opening his mouth to speak once more, only to have you quickly interrupt him. 

"Of course I'm sure, I've never been more sure of anything. I can't begin to explain how much I've missed you, just- I don't want to be apart from you yet, that's all. Is… is that alright?" 

"Oh, yes, most definitely- You can stay. I would love for you to stay," Gale breathes in response, brushing his palm over the small of your back, holding you gently. Warmth and longing sear through him, echoing the start of something new. "To savor a new wealth of treasured moments with you… To awake, and see you still resting beside me, content and weary-eyed… I'm not sure I deserve to find myself so lucky." 

Holding your chin between his thumb and forefinger, Gale breathes in deeply. "Nevertheless, the night is young. But as for tomorrow, alas, I doubt the academy would approve, in the event of my neglection of scheduled lessons. Best to be up bright and early, you see. We should rest. You, especially." He counts with his fingers, pointing to each one, "You need the aforenamed bath, massage, and to get some much needed sleep. Doubly so, if you are to- uhm, ehem-" 

Gale clears his throat, and as you meet his eyes, you raise a curious brow. Seemingly nervous, he softly mutters, "You wouldn't mind attending the lesson tomorrow to assist me for a second time, would you?" 

All at once, you're grinning. You're laughing slightly to yourself, and you're staring at him cheerfully, with a look he finds impossible not to adore. 

"I'd love to. I had fun today, and I'm sure you have much more to teach. The depths to illusion magic are rather grand. Or so a charming wizard has told me." 

"Yes, and you have merely scratched the proverbial surface. Though, in all likelihood, illusion magic should come rather naturally to you. After all, you have no shortage of firsthand experience," He explains jovially. "But still, do not discredit yourself. You are a wonderful teacher, skilled and proficient in your own right. I'm sure my students would reflect the same sentiment. You are most captivating to them. You're the hero that kept the famous city of Baldur's Gate from falling into ruin. The one who saved my life. My closest, most beloved friend. Perhaps more than that, now." 

"Definitely more," You answer, smirking a bit to hide the warmth to your cheeks. 

"In that case," Gale hums, "I will be sure to introduce you as my partner, from here on out." 

Candles flicker, shimmering like makeshift stars in his quiet study. From the view outside his balcony, the moon glimmers, beaming faint light, as though it was made just to watch over you both. Intimacy ripples between you. Echoing in your ears, you can hear the calm rhythm of waves, the familiar lull of the sea. It's a sound you've grown comfortable with. A moment you wished to dwell in until the inevitable end of time. Perhaps now, that future will be yours. 

You decide to break the brief layer of silence: "Gale?" 

Gale brushes his fingertips from your jaw to your nape, homesickness gnawing at his chest the longer he admires you. His tower was never important to him, Waterdeep couldn't compare. You were always his home. 

"Yes, love?" 

"I'm glad you're here with me." 

Silent for a few moments, he's briefly unsure of what to say. Finally, he breathes a long, thankful sigh, and smiles wide, a sparkle in his gaze. Adoration roots into him, promising to forever grow. 

"I love you. I love you so very much," He admits, cooing, his fingertips caressing your skin; his thumb trails over the faint mark he left on you while he speaks. The imprint of himself. "I will not leave you, that I can most undoubtedly promise. There are a great deal of things I want us to experience. Thousands of moments to live for. You would grace me with the privilege of dying a happy man, if I were to combust right now, in some unfortunate, bittersweet blaze of glory. But I give you my word, I am not planning on letting it happen." 

His gaze goes resolute. Gale presses a palm to his chest, feeling magic thrum steadily, and his heart pound wildly. Still beating, despite everything. Every defiant thump has your name written into it. "This affliction will not take me. We have won against greater evils, and I won't let anything pry us apart. Not when I finally have you." 

Night may have descended, cold air bitter on your skin, but in your chest, you feel the warmth of summer: growing heat, and an exquisite softness. You can't help but let go of a quiet sigh in satisfaction. 

"Now," He's murmuring, standing up straight and taking your hand. He helps you to slide off of his desk, until you're wobbling to unsteady feet, holding onto his arm for balance. "I do believe I've yammered on quite enough. I won't exhaust you with more lengthy pillow talk. You should be given the relaxation you are owed, correct? A bath will only take a few moments to run." 

"Mhm," You reply, gazing up at him, seeming amused. He finds it damn near impossible not to get lost in your eyes. "As long as you're planning on joining me." 

"Joining? Oh, sweetheart. I would be delighted." Gale squeezes your hand, still held in his. He brings it up to his lips, he runs his thumb over your knuckles. He presses an all-too gentle kiss to them, before his fingers lace between the crooks of your own. 

"Come. What remains of tonight is ours." 

You'll smell of lavender and his soap when you crawl into his bed. You'll feel the warmth of his body pressed to yours, his arms around you, your head buried in his chest, and your dreams will be as tender as they are familiar. Your future drawn out, past lifetimes upon lifetimes. 

And once the night bleeds into morning, you will fall for him all over again. 

— 

Waterdeep becomes your new home. 

It isn't long before Gale's tower is strewn with your belongings as well as his. Your old weapons and special artifacts find themselves scattered among tomes, scrolls, and poetry collections. You do manage to return to Baldur's Gate for a while, just to collect your things from the Elfsong and say a couple of goodbyes. You've landed a job as a professor's assistant in Waterdeep, you explain, and you can't be late for your first official day. 

You grow accustomed to the sea salt in your hair, and the way the smell of the ocean soaks into your skin. Gale provides you with your own set of rooms in a secluded corner of his tower. You can watch the waves from your bedroom window, and look out over the city from the view in his library. The days are slow, a calming change of pace from the previous adventures you shared together. Your other companions come to visit you both occasionally, making for a tender reunion. Months go by, but every day is new. A new chance to fall in love. Your new form of a delicate beginning. 

Deep in his bones, Gale still remembers how to cover your weak points. The signs you show when you're closer to crumbling than you're letting on, the feeling of your spells bleeding into his when they combine on the battlefield. He believes those times, those hardships, those perils, will be ones he could never forget — and yet, why would he want to? 

They're reminders of all he has to be grateful for. Mementos of when he first fell for you. You're both safe, you no longer have to fret over dark histories, or worry about protecting one another. For once, you can indulge in a life more tender, and much more forgiving. 

Gale learns what you prefer to have for breakfast, what seasonings you favor for supper, and how you like your coffee when he prepares it for you at sunrise. Between days spent at the academy and endless lesson planning, practicing spells and grading assignments, he makes what free moments you have seem special. There's dates, picnics. Quiet, simple moments that mean the entire world. 

Your head tends to rest in his lap when he's reading; sometimes aloud, his smooth voice lulling you into enveloping comfort. When you fall asleep, limbs tangled, resting on his chest, you relish in every potent thrum of his heartbeat. 

He leaves you love notes on shared grocery lists. Poems he's written for you are left on your bedside table, folded neatly, sealed with wax. You wind up keeping each one. 

Eventually, he's able to take you to all his favorite places in Waterdeep, the extravagant, and the plain. You've no need to introduce yourself, when everyone already seems to know you. 

The wizard is star-struck every time he drones on about you, the regulars at The Yawning Portal explain. Especially once he's had far too much to drink. 

I shouldn't tell you he's planning to propose, he's quite excited about the whole thing, the elderly owner of his favorite bookstore tells you. Be sure to act surprised. 

On the days where you don't accompany him, when he returns from a long afternoon spent at the academy, he's rushing upstairs to greet you. He pulls you into a long, tender hug, one you wish would last forever. His touch breathes new life into your scars, his voice becomes your favorite daily melody. In the wake of every night you spend entwined, you find yourself melting into him, further becoming one another's fatal weakness. When he holds you for a little too long, squeezing you tight and hiding faint tears in the crook of your neck, you feel loved, like you never have before. 

Soft and perfect, you are home. 

Mornings meld into tendays which bleed into months. You treasure it all, with unending adoration. The Gods didn't bless you with this, you carved your own path. You forged your own temple to be made holy in. Before you know it, your heart and soul are undoubtedly his, and on a day no different than the others, Gale is taking you somewhere you've never been before. 

Hands clasped, fingers entwined, he's bringing you to a height above the city, a cliff between the grand mountain and the edge of the sea. Wind runs through your hair. You rest your arms on the stone railing, and sink into the beauty of the sparkling ocean, sunlight glittering on white, foamy waves. He shows you the view of the city below, your city, and his, as the sun dips into the horizon — Although, it seems the only thing he can keep his eyes on is you. 

You're turning just in time to catch him staring. Gale laughs awkwardly in the beat of awkward silence. He mumbles a quick response when you ask if he's alright, offering you an utterance of, Nothing, you're just beautiful. He smiles wider as you offer him a genuine grin and a playful roll of your eyes. Soon, it becomes quiet enough to hear your own heartbeat, prancing loudly through your eardrums. The soft sound of the ocean echoes within you. 

Gale takes a slow, steady breath, catching your attention with a call of your name. This time, when you turn towards him, it's to watch him slowly lower down onto one knee. 

The silver ring he pulls from his jacket pocket was his mother's. It sparkles off of the sun's fading rays, a poem engraved on the inside in elegant script, the surface adorned in sapphire and sunstone. Your heart skips a few beats in your chest. 

You can hardly focus on his words, his vows and his confessions. But you do notice the tenderness to his expression as he glances up at you, misty-eyed, the breeze drifting through his ash-dappled hair; in this moment, everything feels right. And as he asks you to marry him, you're kneeling down as well and you're throwing your arms around his shoulders. You lean your head into his nape, you hold him as tight as you can manage, and you utter just the words he was hoping to hear. 

He is perfectly, endlessly yours. 

You say yes. 

[makishimu]

Just some observations I made about Megane's latest Rota Fortunae crumbs after going back to it over and over again (if you haven't read it yet, go check it out first). Maybe you'll already have noticed most of it, but hopefully not everything. Either way, I really just feel like rambling.

First of all, this is clearly set before their trip to Sunday's shelter. In fact, it's most likely the earliest part of the timeline we've had so far. It's noticeable through the fact Aven just got the glasses and doesn't appear to have the earring he has on his ref sheet and during the animation.

About the earring, if you look at this panel:

You'll notice that Human!Aven (let's call him that for now) has a peacock feathers earrings. It's not exactly the same Android!Aven has, but it's a similar style. Now, there's two conclusions you can make of that: either Android!Aven bought it himself because it fits his style and he most likely subconsciously remembers his past to an extent, or Ratio gave it to him because it reminded him of the one Human!Aven used to wear.

Now, onto this Human!Aven if you will, because how do I know he's human? It's somewhat easy to guess, but there are still some signs: first, his eyes. As an android, Aven's eyes become magenta and cyan when behind glasses, but here it's a reflection. It would seem his human appearance naturally had the Avgin eyes (if Avgins even exist in the Rota Fortunae lore). But there is a second sign that this Aven is human: his wrist.

If you look at this panel, you'll notice Aven's wrist has a joint (weirdly enough, there doesn't seem to be any joints on his elbow, but it's hard to see so maybe Megane just didn't feel like drawing it?) that isn't here on Human!Aven. Now, how did he go from being a human to being an android? We can only speculate on that, but the general guess seems to be that Aven died and Ratio transferred his consciousness in an android body. I love that theory, but only time (and Megane) can tell how right it is.

But I'm not done with my observations! Let's talk about Ratio! Though, I'll keep aside all the speculations about why he refuses to repair Aven himself. It's most likely out of guilt, but we can't know more than that for sure.

Just a silly little thing I noticed about him is that his hair curls when wet. It's such a small detail, but it's really adorable.

But what I mostly wanted to talk about is his tattoo (or whatever it is) because there's something really interesting about it. Let's take these two panels:

If you look closely at how far the tattoo reaches up his neck in the second image, you'll most likely notice that it doesn't appear to be there on the first image. Of course, maybe he just had it tattooed later, and it's a plausible explanation. But there's just something odd about the way Ratio uncovers that specific shoulder in that scene:

Maybe I'm just over interpreting. It's entirely possible. But the way he uncovers his tattooed shoulder like that kind of makes me think that it might be uncomfortable to keep covered. Kind of like when you have a healing scar and you don't like the sensation of the fabric rubbing against sensitive skin. In that case, maybe it's more than just a tattoo? Maybe it holds more meanings in relation to the Android rebellion? After all, there are some laurel symbols on the walls of wherever they are in that scene:

It's most likely linked to a faction such as the Intelligentsia Guild or the Genius Society (I'd lean more towards the former) as Megane suggested in the comments of that thread, but it's still interesting to note that tattoo wasn't there before the rebellion.

Now, a final observation about Aven and his eyes and it's that the brightness of his pupils seems to change depending on the situation:

Funnily enough, it appears to always brighten whenever he looks at Ratio (smitten much) at the exception of that one panel where he plays with Numby. This leads me to believe it might be some sort of emotional response (bright red eyes mean positive emotion and dark red eyes mean negative emotions. If I recall, the androids in the Rota Fortunae animation had dark red pupils) and it's just kind of cute to see how differently he looks at his Doctor.

Anyway, that's enough rambling for now (if only I could come up with that many words when I write my essays). I was supposed to be writing my fanfic's next chapter but I guess that won't be for tonight lmao. Of course, credit for all the images used in that small analysis goes to Megane. Go check out their work if you haven't already, it's definitely worth it.

Thanks for reading!

[softlypaintedseafoam]

you are love itself (君は愛そのものだ)

synopsis. his skin is dotted in stardust.

pairing. portgas d. ace x f!reader

word count. 1.3k | masterlist

content warning. reader is coded black (written ambiguously. anyone can read), established relationship, childhood friends, love as worship, love as a choice, reader has established devil fruit powers

reblogs & interactions appreciated.

a repost from another account and a sort of filler post for anybody who wants something not event-related. i love this fic so much i wanted it to be on this blog too. may you get a kick out of reading it if you haven't before!

Everything is made of stardust; the stars that made Ace are simply visible to the eye.

They couldn’t be contained in the depths of his body like the rest of the world’s inhabitants. It’s scattered all across his skin in a beautiful display, matching the skies they fell from. Isn’t that something? You brush a hand against warm skin in awe. It’s all right there. The stars themselves rest upon his skin, how beautiful is that? How could anyone want someone like that dead?

When you were children, Ace told you he would bring you the moon.

What do you need the moon for when you’ve been touching the stars since you were 10?

Straddling his lap, you can’t help laughing as you think you’d been fighting a losing battle from the start. From the beginning, you’d been drawn to Ace and his stars and you wanted to follow where they’d go for the rest of your life.

“What’s so funny?” Ace murmurs into your shoulder.

“I think I was born to love you.” It is the only plausible conclusion for you to reach after 10 years of loving the same person. For the half of your life you’ve known him, you’ve chosen Ace from day one. You will continue to choose him for the rest of the life you have. You chose to chase him all around Mt. Corvo, you chose to be his friend, you chose to join his crew and your heart chose him even if your head had been slow to realize. “We don’t need to find the One Piece,” you murmur as you lead a trail of kisses from his shoulder to Ace’s cheek. “I already have everything the world has to offer right here.”

You feel Ace stiffen beneath you before he laughs sheepishly, “I think you need to have your eyes checked if you think that.”

“Hey,” you lean back so you can see his face. Your brows are furrowed sternly but your eyes sparkle with mischief and your lips stretch into a challenging grin. “I have better eyes than you, I can see the soul.”

Ace snorts but his voice is light and as warm as the smile painting his face, “souls of the dead, yeah.” Smiles suit Ace more than the frowns that were once commonplace when you were younger.

“That still counts,” you protest with a chuckle. He doesn’t have to believe he’s worthy of it, you’ll tell Ace all the same. You cup his face in your hands and enjoy the vibration of his mellifluous laughter under your fingers tips as you squeeze his cheeks. “There’s a lot you can learn about this sort of stuff when you can see the dead.” How the soul carries its wounds even after death. How the soul carries the essence of everything that makes something itself. How love can carry on beyond the grave.

You’ve seen it countless times by now in your truthfully short time of being a power holder.

The spirit of a man who wanted a few berries to leave as a surprise his husband could stumble upon to brighten his day.

An elderly woman dancing in the town square, seemingly alone following the steps she took with her lost love long ago. Unbeknownst to her, however, her love danced with all the same as they did once a long time ago.

Pods of orcas full of members past and present, refusing to part from their birth pod even in death.

How beautiful it is, a love like that.

Even while deceased, they choose to remain by their beloved all the same.

Whenever it is Ace’s time, he’ll take his stars with him and they will rest on his skin just as they did when he was alive. But I’ll make sure you’re so happy you won’t want to stay, you vowed when you partook of the sea’s cursed fruit. You carry this vow even now. Ace will die a happy death but more importantly, he will live a long and mirthful life.

(You can tell for as sure as your eyes are dry; the urge to cry and scream in mourning and warning nonexistent. Still it’s your heart’s desire that you go first so you don’t ever have to risk the day you know death will come for Portgas D. Ace.)

“You know what I think,” you cease your pinching, letting your lax thumbs stroke his face. Dark eyes look up at you like you’re a dream and gold like sunlight rests in your chest. It’s light yet heavy and even if your heart is calm, its rhythmic beating tells you something precious. And he’s so, so precious. “I think that when people move on, they’re reborn as someone else. Then they get to live life all over again. And one day, that’s gonna happen to us.”

Then you’ll cease to be the 'you’ you have been and so will he.

Maybe that time, you’ll be raised in separate seas and there will be no trio of brothers you’ll latch onto. Maybe he’ll be born somewhere in Paradise but I’ll be from the West Blue. Or maybe he’ll be a fishman. Or a giant!

Maybe next time, Ace will be a short girl with firey auburn hair and chocolate brown eyes with the disposition to match. Or he’ll be a scarred and gruff dragon moray eel fishman who is an overt romantic.

Maybe next time his stars will follow him as the marker that ties him to his previous life. Then you’ll recognize him the moment you see him. But even if I don’t, I’ll love you then too. You don’t need reminders of who he was to make you want him again.

Whatever the outcome may be, you will embrace it wholly.

“Whenever that happens, I’m gonna find you and I’m going to love you all over again. You can be a girl or a giant or a fishman.” Or maybe he’ll be the tiny human and you’ll be the giant. It will be nice being taller than Ace for once, you tell him as much with a laugh. There’s a spot of wetness at the corner of his eyes that you wipe away instinctively. “Or… maybe this world runs in one big loop and we get to be us again but that time we get to make different choices. Do the stuff we didn’t do last time. But regardless of all the different things I might end up doing, the one thing that is gonna stay the same is that I’ll choose you all over again.”

There’s a pause before Ace ducks from your gaze with a wet laugh, forehead pressed against your shoulder again. The unmistakeable feel of warm droplets subsequently follow. “Thatch must be cutting onions,” he chuckles weakly. “Sorry.”

“Dummy,” you wrap your arms around his shoulders and inhale his scent. There’s a natural sweetness to it you can’t explain; it’s sweet but there is a peppery kick. It’s been that way since the first day you met him. I love him, I love him, I love him. The sentiment echoes throughout your entire being. “it’s okay to cry.”

“Would you really want me again?” His voice is soft and unsure like a young bird who doesn’t know if it can trust its wings.

Who else would I want?

Why would I want anyone else?

I’ve known you for 10 years, Ace. There’s nothing about you I don’t want.

“Over and over again,” you kiss his temple once, twice and then a third time before you lift his head and kiss the corners of his eyes. “It’s you and no one else.”

A noise of surprise escapes you when Ace’s lips press against your own but you relax a beat later, humming tenderly. You relish every sensation, how his arms wrap around you tight and how his fingers gently dig into your back. The taste of salt on your lips is akin to the ocean and your heartbeat reverberates throughout your chest.

Yes, it’s telling you something precious.

[highhhfiveee]

the legend of fwb!sae itoshi continues! happy thursday! 🫶🏽

cw. angst (violence, arguments), smut (small mentions of previous encounters), fluff (y/n + karasu being cute and nervous).

wc. around 4k

an. sae itoshi, you will pay for your crimes.

previously: 1 | 2 | 2.5 | 3

your current location: the somewhat stuffy living room of rensuke kunigami, joining team blue lock and their legion of fans in celebrating their win against the U20s. it’d been a week or so since the actual game, but the intoxicating spirit of victory had yet to die out.

that notification on your phone all that time ago had been a complete blindside, leading you to this moment. a dm from a friend of yours, reading, the soccer players love you, huh?

under the message was a screenshot of her conversation with tabito karasu, who you’d seen play (and lose) against sae a few times. you’d recalled his physical features: spiky hair tinged purple, piercing blue eyes with a cute mole right below the left one. you’d also conjured a memory of his assertiveness on the field, how smoothly he led and took control…

yo

i can't stop thinking about your friend from the bar

what friend?

the pretty one you were with a few days ago who drank nothing but whiskey and coke

i need her

lmao RELAX!

if you need her so bad, why didn't you talk to her?

idk i got nervous

plus you didn't even introduce us

rude

tabito you could have anyone you want and you were nervous to talk to her????

plus you're a grown man!!! introduce yourself motherfucker!!

leave me alone this time okay, her beauty intimidated me…a lot

do you know if she's seeing anyone?

i'll give her your number and you can ask her yourself, how about that?

yes yes yes please oh thank you god

you were quick to reply, if he’s anything like sae, keep him away from me!

your thumbnail felt the rage of your teeth as you watched the three dots flicker over your screen.

it hadn't even been a full day since sae's rejection; the freshness of it all had you cynical towards talking to anyone, let alone another soccer player that was in his orbit. birds of a feather flock together and all that, and the prospect had you unnerved as your friend sent, he’s a good guy, give him a shot if you wanna xxx-xxx-xxxx.

you'd thought about giving it time, letting yourself refresh your mind with some sleep and a sae-free day, but karasu's adamance towards you had fascinated.

hi hi

i heard you needed me? (:

you and karasu hit it off immediately, talking about any and everything until the tangerine sunrise began spilling through your bedroom curtains. you felt like a teenager again, kicking your feet and giggling at how effortless your conversation was.

karasu had been so considerate and attentive through text, replying fairly quickly despite the time of day, and talking more about you than himself among other things.

even the unwanted inevitable conclusion of your exchange was filled to the brim with want and compassion, leaving you with a thwacking heartbeat and flimsy limbs.

you need your rest, beautiful. i’m sorry i kept you up

i didn't want it to seem like a booty call, i was just so lost in thought about you

i couldn't sleep, which is embarrassing

booty call was a thought i had, yes, but you've proven otherwise

plus, i chose to stay up and talk to you. i'm glad i did

i don’t usually do this sort of thing so you must be special

special enough to take you out soon? (:

hmmmm

does soon mean...later today after i’m done with work, all dolled up and ready to tear into some seafood?

if that's your definition, absolutely (: i’ll see you tonight darling

you were an absentminded mess on the clock that day, lost in thought regarding your newfound spontaneity. never had things fallen into place like this, so uncomplicated that you were committed to moving quickly; even more shockingly, you'd already begun to heal the wound that sae had left in your chest.

karasu was nothing short of a gentleman, if not the most chivalrous man you'd ever met in your entire life. he'd greeted you at your front door with a polite knock, slanted grin, and a large bouquet of your favorite flowers, and you'd nearly passed away from his gestures in combination with his lean, fit physique outfitted in a fitted navy blue polo and black jeans. he'd gawked too, although he tried to keep it respectful. how could he keep his eyes from sweeping all over, holding still in certain places…especially when every one of your curves was accentuated by your lace shawl and leopard-print dress.

oi.

you were the first to speak after a shared fit of nervous chuckles, twirling one of your curls around your finger and murmuring, "uh...hi."

"hey," karasu returned, shaking his head. "i'm sorry, i'm just...takin' ya in, i guess…the pictures of ya are one thing but…god, yer so beautiful." his accent made your heart lurch, and you worked quick to try and move past the butterflies of it all, waving him off.

"ah…you’re making me blush…thank you though, and ditto. it's really nice to meet you.”

"you too, darlin'. thank you for letting me take you out. i didn’t know [friend’s name] was gonna out me like she did…i looked desperate as fuck.”

“well, she’s notoriously shady…but it didn’t look desperate in my eyes. you just seemed set on what you wanted, and i liked that. a lot.”

“well, that’s a relief. i thought i’d killed my chance before i got one…” you shook your head “no” as karasu remembered the bouquet being suffocated in his hand.

“uh, these are for you," he passed the flowers off to you and you thanked him, giving them a sniff (mostly to hide your feverish face). "[friend’s name] said you loved tulips so…i ran around town looking for the best florist earlier.”

“oh my god, you didn’t have to do that…they’re beautiful, karasu. thank you.”

“gah, my surname’s too formal. call me tabito. were you ready to go? i made reservations at this seafood spot downtown. it’s kinda like those all-ya-can-eat steakhouses, but somehow more pretentious? anyway, they’ll feed us to the lobsters if we’re late.” karasu held his hand out to you.

he helped you down your stairs. he opened his passenger door for you. he buckled your seatbelt (after asking if it was okay!)

sae would never. sae could never.

you'd felt foolish for sweating over him the entire day before, but no longer. the next three months and counting with karasu had entirely eclipsed that one moment of hell that you’d lived in with sae, and you feel so thankful for your resilience as you plunge deeper into one of kunigami's shitty, weed-perfumed couches, karasu's lips sliding against yours in perfect sync.

he hadn't been off you for much of the night, giving his hand residence on your hip under the waistband of your skirt. karasu (or tab, as you'd come to call him) was beyond handsy, and though he backed off when you told him to, he loved all the sounds you made when you felt his skin connect with yours and make its claim.

the other blue lock boys had never seen him so enraptured by someone, but karasu swore he would never let you go. you were a gem, and from that night he’d seen you hanging off your friend at the bar, mouthing off to a rude security guard, he knew he would do anything to get and keep you.

his hands find the small of your back now, pressing you closer into him with a guttural moan. you’re throwing a leg over his lap in a heartbeat, gripping the neckline of his shirt in your fingers and pulling until you're basically swallowing each other. you'd both drank a lot little of this, smoked a bunch bit of that, and nothing existed outside of the steamy, trashed bubble that you two had forged. nothing at all!

nothing but the abrupt and inconvenient appearance of a certain itoshi brother.

one moment, you're lightheaded from having karasu’s tongue down your throat, and the next, you're blinking to clear your vision, choking out, "sae! what the fuck!?" at the top of your lungs.

you'd felt the stillness in the air once he'd arrived, but why would you pay attention to something like that? it didn't matter to you that people had started to go silent, or that rin had roared, "the hell are you doing here?"

you were rapt in your debauchery until it was wrenched from your grasp, translated into a frenzy of airborne fists and graphic curses.

sae doesn't stop throwing punches. even as he feels karasu's hands reach up, fingertips in his cheek and palm against his nose, he keeps throwing hit after hit after hit. he doesn't care if he can't see. he doesn't care if everyone is watching, gasping, whispering.

he doesn't care that this idiot is your everything now. he doesn't care that you're screeching for him to stop. he’s on a mission, and it wouldn't be complete until tabito karasu was a gory, unrecognizable corpse.

sae's assault is finally halted once kunigami irritably wrangles him into full nelson, forcing his hands into the nape of his neck in an attempt to tranquillize his anger.

hiori and otoya have already carried karasu off somewhere, working hastily in the heat of the moment, and all you can do is frantically follow kunigami as he makes his way towards the front door, disappointedly watching sae flail and spit vulgarities into the air.

he tosses sae to the concrete walkway once the door's opened, causing him to trip over his feet and fall face first onto the rock-solid ground.

"go home and cool the fuck off, itoshi," kunigami snaps, and you slip past him, crossing your arms over your chest as you look down upon sae with a deep-set frown. "beating the shit out of karasu isn't gonna change the fact that you lost."

"it's not about that," sae grits out, still face-first against the concrete. you wave kunigami and all the other worried onlookers off, assuring them that you'll handle it. "let tab know that i'll check on him in a second, please? thanks.''

you and sae are left alone to each other, the warm spring breeze operating as a temporary filler for the silence that stretches between you. this is your first time seeing him in months, and it's like this; disheartening isn't a strong enough word.

sae flips himself onto his back, and it's the first time that you make eye contact in forever. he buzzes with a foreign current, emotional and irrational and impulsive. you don't recognize him beyond his physical features, yet he sees you in totality.

you haven’t changed. it’s like no time has passed at all and he’s seeing you after practice, eager to take you home. it’s a film over his eyes, finished with how angelic you look under the halo of kunigami’s porch light.

he makes note of your hair being thrown up, a rarity for you, and how short your skirt is…how your bra peeks over the top of your camisole, and how it's not for him, but for him.

"tab…does he make you call him that?" sae rasps, his mouth desertic and numb. he's the winner in this.

"how did you find out where i was, sae? ” you ignore his jab, your voice a curt slice through the air. you knew he watched your story; he’d been watching and liking them the entire time, yet you never engaged. he’d even sent you a message once; a plain, boring hey y/n are we okay?. you’d been so unimpressed by his lack of awareness that you didn’t even open it. “no one in there knows about us, so you do look like a sore loser coming here to fight karasu.”

“if i was a sore fucking loser, i would’ve gone after isagi or rin," he barks, still splayed out on the ground. "karasu is nothing to me, nothing but a fucking prick trying to take you away from me—“

"oh, fuck you, sae! i’m not yours and i never was!" you try to stifle back the tremor that coats your words, and sae uses that brief pause in your momentum to cut in.

"so what? you're all his now?" he still hasn't looked away from you, and his hard glare squashes you against the front door, a force that constrains your chest. “have you fucked him?”

you refuse to tell sae that you let karasu eat your pussy on your couch after your first date, his middle and index fingers curling up to coax more come out of you as he glided his tongue over your clit, or that he’d fingered you in the back of his car with you pressed up against his chest after your second one, leaving you blissfully teary-eyed and begging for him to actually fuck you.

“not in the car…ya deserve so much more than that, princess. we’ll get there soon, 'kay? right now, i just want ya to come on my fingers.”

“even though it’s none of your fucking business, i didn’t let you fuck me for six months. you think i let him do it in three? is that really what you think of me?” you snap, bringing yourself back to earth and ignoring the ache between your thighs.

“you were…you’re my friend, y/n." sae despises the way that his eyes get tight with sentimentality. it sets in that this is most likely the way you felt when he'd brushed you off, called you needy...sent you home alone. it was a pit in his stomach, hollow and excruciating. “i miss my friend.”

“friends don’t do what you did to me that day, sae,” you state solemnly, shifting your eyes to the sky beyond the neighborhood. you’re not sure what you’ll do if you look at him…scream or explode or die. “what if something had happened to me? you didn't even ask if i made it home, and you never got me that plan b, so you owe me, like, $60.”

sae huffs out a laugh, the corner of his mouth ticking up at your words. he missed your attitude; the one that always made his laughs turn into smiles. his reaction makes you want to dig the stiletto heel of your boot into his throat.

“i’m not fucking laughing, sae! you have a lot of work to do if you wanna get back on my good side…if i made you feel weird by asking you to come in me that night, you should’ve said something. we could’ve talked about the whole thing. i would’ve told you that i was just caught up in the moment and that i didn’t mean it.”

sae blinks. “i figured you’d be pissed at me, so i gave you space. that’s what i thought you wanted.”

“that’s what you thought i wanted. you didn’t even ask, you just…left me.”

sae finally sits up, resting his elbows over his bent knees and flexing the stinging ache out of his fingers. the physical repercussions of his actions have settled in now, and the soreness he feels all over, accompanied by a throbbing headache and the burn of your vehement scolding, has him dropping his head between his legs like a disobedient puppy. "i'm sorry, y/n."

"you need to prove it," you're unsympathetic with your statement. "not now, but in time. i sure as hell don't believe you after what you just pulled. have a good night, sae. get home safe."

after a ride from otoya and a few hours of unremarkable sleep, it’s 8 am and you're sitting with your knees tucked to your chest, helping karasu hold ice up to his swollen cheekbone. he’d been able to think quickly despite his inebriation, blocking sae's efforts and minimizing the damage taken. still, the punches sae did get in left his face hammering with pain, constant discomfort temporarily inhabiting his muscles.

it registers to karasu that his condition has nothing to do with soccer, and you seem to read his mind, sighing out, "i'm sorry."

"hey, what're you apologizin' for? you didn’t do anything.”

you'd told karasu an abridged version of your history with sae when you first texted, letting him know that it ended poorly. he couldn't believe that he'd never noticed you at one of their games, but that didn't matter anymore.

"i know...i just feel so bad that he lashed out at you. he probably thinks that you’d been planning to get with me all this time so he’s even more pissed but…it's his fault that things ended the way they did. hell, when i tried to talk to him outside, all he gave me was this bullshit apology. he didn't even look me in the eye." you rest your chin on your knees, bringing your hand down from karasu's face to pick at a thread on the hem of the shirt you're wearing. "just 'i'm sorry, y/n', as if that truly means anything. no mention of what he’s sorry for, or an explanation for how he feels…just…meaningless ‘sorry’.”

your eyes are completely free of tears as you ramble on, the acidic sensation of irritation peppered throughout. you hadn’t been sad about the situation in such a long time; after last night, the apathy that you’d paid sae had been replaced with a bitter comprehension that this was what your relationship had become. no longer was he just your friend and frequent hook-up; now, he was an aggravating thorn in your side and a bitch to deal with.

"yer not responsible for that asshole's feelings, y/n. if he's not man enough to accept a loss by his own hands, he needs to do some more maturin'. a lot more, frankly. what happened, then and now, has everything to do with him and nothin’ to do with you.”

you shoot a small, toothless smile karasu’s way, rearranging yourself so that you’re laying on your side next to him under his heavy blanket. “mmmm...you’re right.”

you’re both stilled into a comfortable silence, interrupted once karasu clears his throat.

“can i ask you somethin’?” the question is a rumble in his chest, and you hum, raising a finger to trace over his collarbones. “if i’m crossin’ a line, let me know…i’m just curious…did ya like havin’ sex with him?” you can’t stop the blush that creeps its way onto your face, snuggling closer to karasu in order to hide in his neck.

he chuckles at the tingle of your breath spreading across his sensitive skin and reaches up to stroke your hand, disarming you a bit with his touch. “just a question, doll. i’m not gonna get mad at whatever yer answer is. shit, you don’t have to answer if ya don’t….”

“no, tab, it’s okay.”

you’d come to know sae as a selfish lover; he got you off every time, but it was always by his own MO. his main priority was his pleasure, and you’d felt that in the way he’d maneuvered and handled you, molding you into the sex doll he wanted in the moment.

karasu, on the other hand, never hesitated to put you before himself. you always came first, no exceptions, and sometimes, he’d make you come three times before he even came once. he always let you take the lead as far as comfort went, letting you choose the positions and adjust them to your liking. even when he was rough, his gentlemanly spirit radiated behind his actions, making you come 10x harder than you had before.

still, your times with karasu didn't fully negate the good times you'd had with sae. they'd become your memories, and sometimes recollection had you huffing at what had been.

sae knew how to use his dick, and even though he’d never taken the time to learn your body like karasu, you hadn’t minded being free-use adjacent to him back then.

karasu’s curiosity has you lost in thought, and it's not long til he breaks up your overthinking with a hearty laugh. “i’m gonna take that as a yes.”

"i did. i did like having sex with him,” you confirm with a defeated sigh. “but...it was complicated. it was different from what we have."

“different how?”

"you care more--a lot more. sae never even asked me what i was into," you snort, and karasu hoists himself to his elbows in disbelief, wincing with the effort. his ice pack slips to the ground with a clack, and you pout at him. "hey...lay back down."

he obeys, wide-eyed and repulsed. "i'm sorry, i just can't...never? not one time?"

"not once, tab. that's why it's complicated. in the moment, i didn't even think about that. i'd just let him take the lead because it made him feel good... i got to feel good too, so the idea of us not being equals didn't really click for me. it was...mindless, and i liked that until i didn't."

karasu brings one of his arms up, signaling for you to snuggle closer. he clutches you in a warm, protective grip, tenderly pressing his lips to your forehead. "i'm sorry. you don't deserve to be treated like that, ever. next time i see his ass, i’ll have him beggin’ for mercy.”

you chuckle, caressing his cheek with the back of your hand. "listen, there will be no more ass-kickings, okay? my heart can't take another one,” karasu playfully rolls his eyes at you, grumbling, “fineeee.”

“what makes you so curious? feeling a little jealous?”

“absolutely not. i just never thought him…capable of doin’ somethin’ for someone else. lo n behold, my suspicions are confirmed. mediocre as always.”

“mediocre for sure,” you bring karasu’s lips to yours, giving him a few smooches before continuing. “you kick his ass in sex and soccer and many other things, tab. i got what i deserved. he will too, and it'll kill him."

been sizzling this one for a few days 🫶🏽 i hope you enjoyed!

[lo1k-diamonds]

Be as it must 💜 Part 6 (end)

“If you let me claim you, I'll never let you leave.”

PAIRING: Alpha!Jungkook x Omega(f)reader

SUMMARY: It's time to make a decision about the future; Jungkook chose you, but what about you?

WORD COUNT:  6.4k

GENRE: ABO, strangers to lovers, fated lovers, smut

RATING: R (explicit)

WARNINGS: arguing, anger, teasing, brat!reader, explicit unprotected sex, oral (both), he struggles to reach the bedroom 👀, a vase is broken, marking and knotting

A.N. A huge thank you to @moonleeai for the beta read💜 Here we have it-- the conclusion! This was super fun to write, I hope you all enjoy it! 💜

Masterlist | Masterpost | AO3 | Wattpad | < Previous Chapter

Time was a funny thing — one second, you were standing before seven alphas, the next, you were inside Jungkook’s car again, going home.

You glanced at his chest since you couldn’t look at him. He kept you pressed to his side, enveloped in his arm, his nose firmly to your head. Perhaps he had dozed off, but his embrace was just as firm as before. You wanted to see him, but you let out a small sigh and got more comfy instead.

You had no idea what was happening or what you were doing. There was the fact that the seven of them decided that barring Sunhwa from marrying any of them was not enough to cause social stigma, thus adding plenty of prohibitive deals and sanctions to punish her family’s business and wealth. Then there was the way you didn’t contest that you and Jungkook were made for each other. On top of that, there were all the jokes about him being lucky to have found the one omega probably still out in the world, and it just so happens to be his. Or all the suggestions about contacting his father and elders as a council to inform them of this ban taking effect immediately, which forbade their engagement. You didn’t know where to start unraveling the problem, but you knew it was coming because you were in his arms on your way to his apartment. The apartment you already referred to as home. 

What did Hoseok say? Alphas were very protective. Shit.

You let Jungkook take your hand and lead you home, where a familiar view greeted you. In the car, he had made arrangements for Sunhwa to be fired and barred access everywhere immediately, and he personally stopped to change the apartment’s code.

“It’s the day we first met,” he told you, rolling your luggage inside at his insistence.

“You mean the day I was kidnapped and brought to you in zip ties?”

You frowned, and he shook his head, following you into the living room, “No, the day before. Year month day.”

He was serious as he got rid of his coat to throw it over the couch, and you straightened up as well. You had to take the hold of things while you still had it.

“So, here we are,” you started, clearing your voice. “As you might have guessed, I was on my way here when… Right, so I meant to let you talk. Before I leave.”

He only looked at you as he rolled up his sleeves, then he scoffed and headed to the dining room, “Want a drink?”

“No, I’d rather do this sober.”

He stopped and glanced at you, “You want to do this now? Aren’t you exhausted?”

“I don’t go to bed angry.” Your eyebrows jumped; you spoke without thinking. “I mean, yes, but I can’t leave if things aren’t sorted out.”

His jaw twitched as he thought your words over, then he turned to you, “Alright. I think you heard everything you needed to tonight.” His lips twitched, and he pressed them before continuing, “I didn’t have a choice in that marriage contract, and I was doing everything I could to have it annulled. I didn’t mean to lead you on, and in fact, that was not what I was doing.”

Your eyebrow quirked, “It wasn’t?” 

“No,” he insisted sternly. “It didn’t mean anything to me.”

“Well, it’s not just about what it means to you, is it?” Your tone hardened as you faced him head-on, “An agreement involves two parts, first of all. Second, it apparently involves even more than two if your whole Family has to establish compensation for cutting it off. Third, it surely does not involve me. I don’t want to be dragged into shit I have nothing to do with.”

“You’re saying this is my fault.”

“That’s not what I said,” you said calmly.

“It’s what you’re implying,” he accused, but you shook your head.

“You didn’t force them to drug me and kidnap me. Don’t put words in my mouth. What I am saying is that you did lead me on.”

“No,” he kept shaking his head, even when faced with your skepticism. “No, because leading on means I meant to deceive you.”

“And you did deceive me,” your voice lost strength, but he kept shaking his head.

“No, I withheld information that wasn’t relevant for the time being because you kept insisting you would fucking leave, and I needed you to—” He stopped, staring at you with equally glistening eyes. Why didn’t it feel like he was saying it right? “I thought that if you felt it, you wouldn’t leave. That you’d be willing to wait for me.”

His eyes watered, but he wanted to say it, even if it sounded like he was weak.

“For me, it was real,” he rushed to add, looking at you. “Every second of us together is real, and it’s all I want. I’m a free man now.”

Your features were still hard, “You still didn’t tell me—”

“Well, I’m sorry!” He threw his hands up, unable to handle the hurt, “You would have never let me near you, but I guess I should have told you!”

“Yes! Yes, you should have!” You shouted back, stepping towards him. “Because if we’re meant to be, do you think that would matter? Do you think a stupid contract that doesn’t represent anyone’s wants would matter?!” He gaped at you, with wide, red eyes locked with yours. “It’s the principle, Jungkook,” you sounded defeated now, regretting shouting. “I mean, we already met in person for the first time when I was taken against my will! I was tied to a fucking chair!” 

Your voice wavered as your eyes watered; was he even listening to you?!

He instantly raised his hands to touch your shoulders, but you continued, “This doesn’t work unless there’s trust and honesty, so what the fuck happens now?”

“I apologize, that’s all I can do,” he said, though his anxiety was beaming out of him in waves. “It should have never happened like this. I should have gone to Busan or— If you just had come that day to Seoul like you planned, or— Fuck, there were so many ways to find you, and it still happened in the worst way.”

You pursed your lips, looking at his chest, staying quiet, and he could swear he was seeing his life crumbling down.

“But most of all, you’re right. I should have told you the truth instantly. Even if you left and decided it wasn’t worth it, that would be your decision, which I’d have to respect.”

You finally looked up at him, and the spark in his heart sizzled and died out with the hurt.

“But I fucked it up. I know. You probably can’t trust me; I get it.” He closed his eyes for a second, swallowed, and faced you again. His fated love with such disappointment in your eyes. “I can only explain my thought process, as selfish as it was, and promise you I had no malice. I never meant to hurt you, but I did, and I’m sorry. It would never happen again, ever. I want to spend the rest of my life with you,” his eyes filled with tears, then he shook his head. “But I understand if you don’t want that.”

Your lips twitched, ready to speak your mind, but a sound behind you made you both frown and turn to look.

Someone was trying to type in the code, and the beep indicated an error. Jungkook’s features twisted in fury when a second beep sounded, and he circled you, storming across the room to open the door.

He was so furious the door almost flew out of its hinges when he opened it. He just knew he’d find Sunhwa on the other side, and although she tried looking small, he was enraged, “How dare you try to barge in here again?!”

His roar was powerful, so it was no wonder she shook before him. You tried calling him but to no avail, even as you stepped closer to try to calm him.

“Fucking speak your business before I destroy your life!”

“Please,” Sunhwa started, such a moving plea you pursed your lips from the entry of the living room. “You have to help me. Please, Jungkook!” He let go of the door, and you thought he might actually do something, but he only turned and stepped away toward you. You could see the anger distorting his features, and knew he hated hearing his name on her mouth. “The Families’ decree just passed not even an hour ago, and it’s lethal,” she continued, daring to take one step past the door threshold. “Already, I’ve become a pariah, and my family’s worth is plummeting. Please, I— It was my brother’s idea, I had nothing to do with it!”

“You really think that will work?!” He roared, turning back with such a glare, Sunhwa started shaking on the spot. “The badmouthing, the stalking, the scenes; you really think anyone would believe you? And even if it’s true, you knew about it! You knew what he had planned, and you pretended you didn't! You’re fucking lucky it was only a few penalties! If it was up to me, your whole family would have been kicked out of the country!”

“Jungkook!”

Her call was disheartening, and you stepped in, getting closer to him. He still shouted back, “Don’t fucking say my name! I never gave you permission to; you and I don’t have that kind of relationship!”

You tried drawing his attention without getting in the way when Sunhwa’s tears ran down her cheeks, “But I— I love you, I’ve been in love with you for years—”

Her sobs along with her distress really bothered you, but they were empty to Jungkook, “What the hell are you saying? You work for me, and we had a contract. How the hell did you—”

You finally stepped in, grabbing his hand so he’d look at you, and shook your head, “There’s no point. No point,” you whispered, looking into his eyes. “Let it go.”

You could see his anger simmer down behind his dark eyes, and it relieved you. He had every right to be angry and to feel betrayed by someone he worked closely with. But there was no gain in hurting her, especially since she was already down. He didn’t have to get even more upset, he could be the bigger person and just let it go.

He finally tore his eyes off you to address her calmly, “There’s nothing else to say. Don’t show your face to me ever again. Leave.”

You looked at her too, and saw the moment it dawned on her who you were. Jungkook wasn’t bottling his anger down, he truly listened to you and decided she wasn’t worth it. You could see the hurt in her eyes, but also the thin line of her lips as she turned around and left. She accepted it, you were pretty certain, that you were an omega, and she had been fighting fate.

The door closed softly behind her, and he turned to you. Perhaps he didn’t expect your hug, but you held him to you strongly. That day was overwhelming to you, but it surely was to him as well. Unfortunately, it wasn’t over yet.

He held onto you so strongly, and when you pulled away to face him, you could read the anguish in his face.

“I’m sorry, but we’re not done yet.”

He nodded sadly, and you reached to brush his cheek.

“Hear me out. I came here to talk to you, didn’t I?” He blinked, his sadness disappearing as he looked at you, confused. “I feel it too, Jungkook. Everything you’ve said, I feel it, too. But I just can’t let it go without talking about it. I want to be with you, but I don’t want a life in which I can’t trust my partner, mate or not. Do you understand?”

“I do,” he nodded frantically, pressing his hands around your waist. “I do, and you can trust me. I will never hide anything from you, you’ll have my full heart.”

Your lips twitched into a small smile, “I want to try… Though, are you sure? I have a propensity for trouble, I’m definitely a perfectionist at work, and all your whites will have to go,” you scrunched up your nose playfully, tousling his hair for good measure.

He smirked, closing his watering eyes because of the hair falling over his eyes, “I’d love to, I can sacrifice the whites if the beer can stay.”

“I’ll have to taste it first,” you chuckled, then brushed the hair away from his eyes. “Should I stay for a bit then?”

“As long as you want to,” he whispered, with eyes fixed on your lips.

“Good,” you whispered back, then you grinned because all he did was stare. “You can if you want to, you know?” His doe eyes raised to yours, and you chuckled, “So many times, I thought you’d just kiss me on impulse, and now that I say you can, you don’t?”

He laughed, “Is it because you expect it? It didn’t feel right in those moments. When I lost myself, I… I’m happy I didn’t kiss you then. You were hurt, and it would just make everything harder.”

You nodded with a smile, “My thoughts exactly.”

“Now, I just…” He looked down again, “I want to, but I know what will happen next and…”

“What will happen next?” You pressed teasingly when he didn’t finish, and he pursed his lips.

“I’ll likely give in.”

“Ohhh…” You hummed, “And what does that mean?”

He huffed, looking at you with a raised eyebrow, and you couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Thought you wanted to show me,” you whispered, looking at his lips. “Make me yours.” His tongue wetted his lips. “Give me everything I ever wanted,” you nuzzled him. “Make me feel good—”

He closed the distance between you like a lightning bolt, supporting your jawline. He held nothing back, deepening the kiss as if he wanted to consume you and show you everything you were asking. It didn’t take long for your hands to grab his hair, your tongue licking and fighting his while he squeezed you to him and kept your mouth right there for the taking.

You thought his passionate kiss was the best thing you ever tasted, but you recognized it wasn’t just that. There was electricity sparking between you with every hard breath and daring touch, to the point you acknowledged nothing had ever felt as intense. You were like two clashing celestial bodies heating up to fuse into something better, and the more he touched you and you breathed him in, the more you wanted to merge completely.

His lips traced down to your neck, giving you a moment to suck in breaths brimming with his lustful spicy scent, and you shuddered. You gripped his hair and let out a sigh as you breathed hard near his ear, “Fuck—” His tongue down your neck stole your thoughts and made you sink your nails into his scalp. “Can’t really fight it, can I—”

His protest came in the form of his lips, shutting you up for a moment before he attempted to kiss your neck instead.

“You know, I wanted to go back to Busan,” you said in something that resembled a whine. “Even if just to see if you'd come after me and claim me.”

You gripped his hair to whisper the last words into his ear, and he growled, biting down your neck, making you squeak and start shaking.

But he withdrew, licking the spot, and you chuckled; he could be such a tease, too.

“But I changed my mind,” you continued, seemingly ignoring the way he was suckling, or his hands were exploring your curves, from your shoulders to your ass. It melted you, and you were certain he knew it. “I can’t wait.”

He squeezed you to him, letting you feel his excitement through both your thin slacks, and you chuckled.

“I’m lucky.”

“Lucky?”

“That you can’t think about anything else,” you whispered, and he finally snapped his head back to face you, grabbing your head in place by the hair at the back of your head. “I can only imagine how much fun it would be if you could bring yourself to punish me for teasing you so much… maybe after you make me yours.”

He was so close to you, you intentionally made your tongue brush his lips as you talked. His grip tightened, “Do you hear what you're saying? Do you realize— How am I supposed to hold back?”

“You’re not,” you grinned, wishing with everything you had he’d take you. “I don’t want you to.”

He finally let his mouth crash to yours again, sweeping you with a new wave of raw need. His mouth was demanding, ravishing, melting you in every instance until you were nothing but a puddle wanting to be his.

To the point that when he pulled back again, you whimpered, “Take me. Come on,” your grip on his hair kept him in place. “Take me. I want you, please.”

His lips almost touched yours, but he screwed his eyes shut for a moment before facing you again, “If you let me claim you, I'll never let you leave.”

It sounded like a desperate confession, yet you just whispered, “No?”

“No, I won't let you leave my bed.”

You smirked, “That’s fine, I can work from bed.”

“No work,” he pressed himself to you, pushing you into the entryway wall, and the shivers up and down your spine made you smile again.

“Then no big American consortium agreement.”

“I don't care,” his lips latched to your jawline, and nothing could stop your euphoric glee.

You laughed, “How will you even keep me in bed? Let me guess,” you chuckled. “Does it involve some zip ties?”

He pulled back with eyebrows knitted with befuddlement, “You— You’re crazy!”

You chuckled and used your foot on the wall to gain leverage, pushing yourself against him so that after a twist, it was you pushing him against the wall.

“I am crazy,” you nuzzled him, a second away from jumping into this. “Are you sure you want this?”

His lips fell on yours, moving against yours desperately before you withdrew for an answer, “I wanted your crazy from the moment I first saw you in that video call.” His gaze was red and glinted, fully inebriated on you, “I could have wiped the floor of my drool.”

You couldn’t hold back a laugh, “Well, aren’t you in luck.”

You would have liked to tease him more, but his patience was wearing thin. His hand pressed the back of your nape, forcing you to fall into him as he switched places and pushed you to the wall again, and you sighed. You kissed him just as hard as he did, flush to his chest while you pulled his shirt up to try to finally touch him, but he beat you to it, and you had to close your eyes and bite your lip.

Your blouse cleavage offered no resistance when he decided to rip it so his mouth could trail down between your breasts. It covered you with goosebumps, and you weren’t certain if it was the sound, the force, or his plum lips with a curious tongue along with it, but it didn’t matter. You grabbed his hair, trying to breathlessly keep up with the way his tongue traced intricate patterns on your breast, just above the edge of your bra cup neckline as his hands squeezed your ass to him, so you’d have no way to outrun every shudder.

“What are you—”

You were breathless when he started fumbling with your bra, and squealed when he pulled it so hard the apex hooks broke off. He bit on your soft flesh, nuzzling his way closer until he freed one hand to pull the torn bra away, letting it fall to the floor. You didn’t have a mind to complain because in a second he was pressing his face between your breasts and squeezing them to his cheeks. You bit your lip, unwilling to admit how hot it was that your alpha wanted to breathe you in, but then he started licking and you lost sight of reality.

His thumbs pressed, squeezed, and pinched both your nipples and your supple flesh as his tongue and teeth ravished from one side to the other in a seemingly endless and frantic dance. Whenever you thought he’d give you a breather, he pinched harder, and when you thought he’d move and kiss you again, he jumped to the other nipple, taking you by surprise. You couldn’t tell up from down, your hazy mind overwhelmed and barely getting enough oxygen, but then he made it worse.

He kept your breasts squeezed tightly in his hands while kissing down your stomach, nipping the flesh softly until he reached your slacks. You were pinned in place, holding his hands to your chest while he rubbed his nose down on the fabric over your mound, but then he took a deep breath.

You groaned in desperation, melting straight onto your panties, close to his sensitive nose and mouth. His response was a deep growl and a stronger press of his mouth to your core, which drove you wild. You squirmed and writhed, unable to stop how much you wanted to feel him, even with his hands holding your chest firmly right above your racing heart.

But in a second, they were gone, stripped from under your hands, and you whimpered. You looked down with a pout, about to complain, but it all happened too fast.

He pulled the slacks and underwear down your legs, roughly grabbing your shoes and throwing them aside, and before you could think, he pressed his face the same as before, only this time there was no barrier to protect you.

You squealed and squirmed again, instantly needing to grab onto something as your jaw fell open. Your hand landed on his hair, and your head fell back to the wall, completely lost and overwhelmed. His mouth was in a fury, latched to your folds as he rubbed his face to your core, only stopping to lick every drop of slick you released. You couldn’t help it; everything he did, from the way he breathed to the way he grabbed you, absolutely liquified you until you were sure there was no stopping it.

Worse, his head pushing up pressed on your core hard, making your feet lose traction. You couldn’t stop moaning; even opening your eyes involved too much thinking, but your free hand darted to the side for support.

It slammed into a vase on the foyer table. The shatter on the floor didn’t phase either of you; if anything, his hands gripped your hips rougher, and you squeaked when he sucked your clit a bit harder.

He seemed to be exactly where he wanted to be because as you tried your best to stay afloat, breathing but not drifting away, he kept drinking, suckling, and groaning into your cunt. And in your haze, you forced your eyes open and pouted. It wasn’t like you wanted him to stop, but you wanted to learn all about him, too.

“Jungkook,” you called under your breath, trying your best to stop moaning, but you closed your eyes. Fuck, he made it hard. “Jungkook, stop.”

He instantly pulled away, looking up at you with dark, thundering eyes, but you smirked. His mouth and chin were red and shiny; he was a whole damn view.

“I need to lay down,” you breathed, reaching your hands to him, and he instantly got up and grabbed them, kissed them, and then you.

It was just a peck; it made you pout, but his pulling you in the direction of the couch kept you quiet.

He motioned for you to sit down and went to kneel in front of you, but you pulled on his hand to stop him and said, "Lay down."

“I thought you said—”

“Lay down,” you simply repeated, pulling the leftovers of your blouse from your shoulders.

It seemed to hit him then that you were fully naked in front of him, and he probably needed to sit down, judging by the way he eyed you from head to toe. It put a mischievous smile on your face, only you didn’t forget that he was fully clothed, and that simply wasn’t fair.

You kneeled next to him and reached for the first button on his shirt, starting what you guessed was a gruesome process, if only judging by the way he groaned.

“Let me just—”

“No,” you stopped him from pulling the shirt over his head and kept going. 

You could tell how the imposed reprieve drove him crazy. His fingers were impatiently touching your sides while his eyes kept jumping between your heaving chest, your slicked core, and your playful smile.

“I don’t need to be naked to eat you out,” he finally said, and you chuckled. That was how long it took for him to gather a coherent thought.

“That’s true, but it’s not fair, is it?”

Your tone was sweet as you leaned to pull the shirt over his shoulders, and he swallowed, overwhelmed. “I guess not. But you told me to lay down.”

He was thinking out loud while you hummed, moving onto his slacks.

“I don’t want to lay down,” he argued with knitted eyebrows, and you chuckled as you pulled his boxers and pants down, pulling off his shoes so he’d be naked, same as you. “Let me keep going.”

You sat back on the couch with your heart in your throat, momentarily so hot and speechless your tongue became slack. Jungkook was absolutely stunning, the embodiment of a god from head to toe. You knew his shoulders were wide and safe, his arms powerful, and his hands reliable, but now his firm chest and chiseled abs gave a new definition to the word hot. Your mate was just as handsome as he was mouthwatering, and his only sin was not entering your life sooner.

“What a dream…” You spoke so quietly you doubted he heard you. You were entranced, so perhaps your actions showed better than your words.

You got on his lap, finally dropping your eyes to the appetizing shaft aiming right at you. Your hand wrapped around him firmly before you could even think; after all, there was nothing like touching to truly know, and oh boy. He groaned and let his head drop, and it made your guts burn with want. Your hand had a will of its own as you jerked him, playing with the intensity of your grip. He eyed you when it became too soft, and the absolutely fucked out look on his face made you want him a thousand times more, and you squeezed harder.

He groaned again, knitting his eyebrows in such a way you knew you had him.

But you stopped and pushed him by the shoulders to get him to lay back, making him open his eyes and look at you with a question in his eyes.

“You told me to let you,” you told him, unaware of the way your glistening eyes and dark long hair framed you like a goddess in his eyes.

So he mumbled something and fell back, unable to displease you in any way. Fortunately, you had his interest in mind because you shifted on top of him with your hands near his hips and your knees on each side of his head, and he sighed. The view of your wet cunt was an oasis, so when you dropped to his mouth, he latched on.

You arched your back instantly, barely keeping yourself in check. Fuck, was the way he licked you maddening, but you had other priorities. You kept your ass up but lowered your chest to his stomach, finally drawing near to your prize. Your tongue peeked instantly between your lips, but you held back, taking the view of his excitement for the treat it was. Until he groaned between your legs, a translucid drop of precome escaping his slit, and you couldn’t hold back anymore.

You lounged forward to take his cock into your mouth, and his desperate groan ran a shudder down your spine. You didn’t know if it was because you had moved away from his mouth or because of the way you took him, but the latter was most likely. 

Because his hands gripped your ass to pull you back on him, but not before he grunted a Fuck— like he’d bust his nut right then and there.

It made you even more hungry, and his taste didn’t help. It matched his strong, perfect self to a T; it razed your mind and changed your brain chemistry. You knew he’d claim you very soon, but even if he didn’t, nothing would ever taste the same, and you wanted it.

Your thoughts were clouded as you took him more and more, letting the tip of his cock hit the back of your throat like it was nothing. The hunger was dizzying, the flavors invading your mouth addictive, and you wanted more and more and—

Your world was overturned so quickly it became a blur. Suddenly, you were pushed against the back of the couch and forced to let go of the candy in your mouth, only to fall on your back between the cushions and have your legs spread as a heavy body fell between them.

“What the hell are you doing?”

He was nearly growling near your face, pinning your hands to each side of your head, and you grinned, “What?”

“What?” He was in disbelief at the way you kept smiling so gleefully, “You want me to burst too soon?”

You let your head fall back to giggle euphorically, but then you bit your lip and tried sobering up, “We have the whole night.”

“No, not to claim you, I don’t,” his reply was instant. “No way I’m waiting, not even one night.”

Your lip was still seductively between your teeth, “You could, though… We could have fun in other ways… You could just make me feel good while you recover.”

Your smile was almost endearing; a proposition covered in honey, but he wouldn’t fall for it. He raised his hips and brought them close so that his cock aligned with your slit and slid, rubbing your clit.

You moaned with a flutter of your eyelashes, blushing and trembling so sweetly just for him, and he smiled, “Don't you have everything figured out? Aren't you a fucking tease?”

“What do you mea—”

Your laugh died in your throat when he pushed in, invading your warmth, unable to control the way he stretched you to accommodate his size. His groan was deep and vanished as he raised his head, showing you the veins on his neck, and you whimpered even harder. Your jaw slacked as he pushed to tuck himself in fully, and your whole body burned with the fit.

You had to suck for breaths, feeling so hot that sweat was inevitable. You closed your legs behind him, pushing him into you, and he groaned, finally looking down at you like you were his whole world.

He meant to come closer to you, but you placed your hands on his shoulders to stop him, glancing down between your bodies as your legs guided his hips. It was mind-blowing, almost unbelievable, but it was right there — his thick, hard cock disappearing inside you, pushing moans out of you, coming out covered in your slick just to push into you again. It was so delicious you melted into the couch, wrapping your hands around his neck to bring him to your lips. He was incredible, unbelievable, beyond your wildest dreams, and only getting better as he quickened his thrusts.

They weren’t remotely fast, but the sensory overload was almost a reality. You weren’t just burning for him; you were combusting for you both — establishing a bond that couldn’t be forged with anyone else. Your logical mind would have stopped to analyze what you were doing, weighing the pros and cons, but there was no rationale behind how you felt about him. Only raw instinct telling you and making you sure with every fiber of your being that it was right. You belonged in his arms, in that moment with him, and you were ready.

But his hips started slowing down, and your brow furrowed, confused but also hurt. You were ready, and he was stopping — were you in dissonance?

But a kiss on your lips, along with a sigh, made you realize that was not what was going on. He nuzzled you, with soft eyes on yours as he let your foreheads touch, and you knew it wasn’t that. He was ready, too.

“Hold on,” he rasped, placing his hands between your ass cheeks and the couch, and you wrapped your arms around his neck firmly.

He pulled you up with a grunt, holding you to him as he stood, still inside you while your legs closed around him. You clenched in your effort, making him grunt a second time, which put a smile on your lips as you bit his earlobe.

Despite your torture, he was resilient; he still turned and left the room, going up the stairs. It was hard, though, and he was weak. Your touches, kisses, nibbling his earlobe, and clenching around his cock were dizzying. He thought he’d make it to the first floor, but he succumbed over the last few steps. Your ass landed on the last step softly while he stumbled to his knees, and it was uncontrollable.

Your legs pulled him to you while your arms held him; your eyes and expression showed how much you yearned for him, which were his kryptonite. He couldn’t help but eagerly get on his knees and bury himself inside you again, letting your heat clench around him like a vice.

It was maddening, and the way your scent called to him was only the cherry on top of an otherworldly desert. Nothing had ever felt like you did; his nerves were on fire with every thrust, only to have him obsessing over sinking into you again and again.

You had fallen down the same spiral because you kept moaning and scratching his shoulders to keep him close, helping by pushing against his ass so he’d fuck you deep. He knew you’d drive him crazy, but fuck. He was about to claim you on top of the stairs.

“Wait wait wait,” he mumbled, hoping you’d help him fight himself. 

You did, stopping the sway of your legs and kissing the sweaty side of his face endearingly to let him breathe. He did breathe, but his heart was melting — you were perfect and just for him. He couldn’t wait any longer.

With one final effort, he held you back up and carried you to his bed. He was able to lay you down gently, but that was the last of his ability. His lips pressed to yours, and in seconds, his hunger flared, devastatingly, completely overwhelming you.

Your chin had permanently dropped as he grunted to your cheek in tune with your moans. Everything shook: the bed, your limbs, your soul. The heat pooling between your legs as he fucked you wild, without an ounce of control, helped him slide even better and bottom out every time. The way he touched every sweet spot, flooding every sense with his groans, his scent and salty taste brought you pleasurable dimensions you didn’t even know existed. All you knew was that it was raw and crazy and everything you ever wanted.

He pulled away enough to face you, “Are you sure?”

You almost wanted to cry; how could he even think right now?

But in your heart, that was the last piece of the puzzle. You smiled with tears in your eyes, “Yes.”

You had barely noticed his pounding slowing, but you surely noticed when the rhythm became maddening again. Your moans pitched unbelievably as you sank your nails into his shoulders, begging him with your eyes. You needed him to come with you.

He waited a second longer, then crashed to your neck, and reality spun. The pressure inside your walls from his knot would have made you squeal, but it was his bite that made you scream. And as if that wasn’t overwhelming enough, your orgasms snapped and mixed, allowing you to squeeze him between your walls as the pleasure devastated you, making sure to milk every drop of his climax.

His cock kept twitching inside you, even after he had stopped grunting into your neck, and it made you sensitive. Still, you loved his weight on top of you and his licks over your mark. You brushed your fingers over his powerful arms and shoulders, sighing with contentment as he took care of you. Inside you, as your heart calmed down, something strong and unbreakable embraced it protectively. You wrapped your arms around him and closed your eyes, holding back the tears — you were part of each other now. Fated to meet, fated to love; you were connected now.

“Did I hurt you?”

His voice was a warm whisper to your ear, and you shook your head, “No.”

He held you for as long as you kept your arms firm around him. Then, he pulled back to face you, your red cheeks, wild long hair, and glistening eyes. He sighed, “Is this how it will always be?”

You hummed and blinked up at him lazily.

“Are you always going to be such a fucking tease?”

Your eyebrows jumped in surprise, but then you started laughing. Finally, you bit your lip to hide a smirk, “I hope so.”

[snailsgoingdowntown]

Help, I Reincarnated as the Female Lead's Sister-in-Law!

 Story Masterlist

Chapter 13

‘Slight’ Yandere! Dion Agriche x Fem! Reader

Arranged marriage AU

Interact with this post to be on tag list. The DNI is on it so read that before anything.

UPDATED NOTE: I HAVE EDITED THIS STUPID THING HAHA. Also, I forgot how many people I tagged for this chapter originally and I deleted everything, including the tag list without realizing it... so I just sort of... tagged everyone. Again. Should I retag everyone in the remaining chapters as I edit them? Or no since technically speaking you guys already read the original chapter(s). Let me know in the comments/anon or however.

NOTE: I gave up on looking for computer error codes (I do not understand what they stand for in full detail, I’m just a silly little guy), so sorry if I used the wrong one.

WARNINGS: general yandere themes, obsessive and possessive themes/possible actions/behavior, themes of imprisonment (probably), blood, blood drinking (kinda? Not really, but JUST in case), blood, self-harm (biting thumb hard enough that it’s implies the wound reopened), violence (kicking Dion in the chest), thoughts of violence (thinking of kicking Dion’s face), vomit, panic attack, mention of suicide but Reader is NOT suicidal, one or two suggestive lines, kinda implied future violence (not towards Reader OR her family for plot reasons). Please tell me if I missed any.

Reader is NOT having a good time as usual. Pray for her.

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT CONDONE ANY OF THE HARMFUL AND/OR DANGEROUS ACTIONS THAT MAY TAKE PLACE IN THIS PIECE OF FICTION. THESE ACTIONS AND/OR BEHAVIORS SHOULD NOT BE NORMALIZED NOR ROMANIZED AS THEY ARE BOTH EXTREMELY DANGEROUS AND TOXIC.

MINORS/BLANK BLOGS/BLOGS THAT DO NOT INTERACT WITH FANDOM RELATED THINGS (REBLOG/COMMENT ON FICS/ART, ETC.) DNI.

= = =

You ruined your own life.

That is the conclusion you come to when you wake up with an awful hangover, head throbbing, mouth dry, nausea kicking at your stomach as your mouth waters with acid. Your entire body aches, fatigue and dizziness making themselves right at home - the room swirls whenever you move.

When you dry heave, it feels like something is punching your lungs and gut, hot tears rolling down your cheeks from the pressure. Your stomach twists, becoming a knot, and you’re both cold and hot - covered in a cold sweat that’s worse than running in the heat. 

You gag again. Your mouth opens wide just like a snake’s and yet nothing comes out - not until you gently squeeze your throat, adding just enough pressure that brings forth the bitter and sour vomit that burns your throat. But it doesn’t stop there, not until you’re grabbing your stomach, praying that this will end.

Why did I fucking drink so fucking much?

The answer is simple - you wanted a distraction before you could become a hysterical mess during the dinner last night. Still, regret is a thing, and oh boy, are you feeling it in full.

Retching, your lungs painfully take in air, upset stomach getting in the way as every breath feels sharp. Sweat dribbles down your temples and face, eyes wide as your body rejects everything from last night. Your entire body trembles violently, holding your stomach like it would decrease the pressure, the urge. Hands clammy, you almost start to think that having a panic attack would be better than this. 

It still hurts when it finally ends.

“Urk! F-fuck…,” wiping away some of the vomit that clung to your chin, your body allows you to have a moment of recovery, muscles relaxing as you pant, lungs finally taking in the air that you desperately need. Heavy eyes struggle to stay open, a small dizzy spell falling over you. Your headache only worsens.

It feels like you’ve been through hell.

Tears stop rolling down your face as your breathing becomes steady. Everything still awfully aches, though. Your throat still burns, the sour taste of vomit doesn’t die on your tongue. It doesn’t go away even when you smack your lips and swallow.

Finally becoming aware of your surroundings, you notice a gentle pat against your back as someone also holds your hair back. So gentle and comforting, and automatically assuming it’s Hana, you accept the help without a word of complaint. Your eyes flutter close, grateful that the older woman is doing her best to comfort you in spite of yourself.

Well, that is until cold shivers run down your spine, as a oh so familiar low and sleepy voice speaks, only now noticing how large the hand that was patting your back was. Your eyes snap open immediately.

“Better?” 

Freaking out was an understatement. 

Violently scampering away, definitely not missing the touch of Dion Agriche, a terrified and horrified expression paints your face, heart running and beating fast enough it could win first place at a race. Nausea fills your entire being, but for a completely different reason now. 

A worse reason. 

Opening your mouth, words fail to leave your dry lips. You lick them, mind racing on what to say and do. In the end you spewed out nonsense that doesn’t even make sense to you.

“O-oh, u-um, Agriche, good - fuck - good day? Weather?” 

The slight twitch of his dead tired eye that resembles blood doesn’t help your anxiety. Had you offended him? If so, how - because he witnessed an unsightly sight? One that he decided to stay for?

Quick pants and shaky legs, you search and search and search for any type of exit - failing to remember that the heavy double doors were literally right behind you. No, instead you eye the terrace behind him and consider jumping off. 

Your legs almost beg you for it. 

How quick can you run? Would he stop you? No, rather would he get the wrong impression and think you were trying to commit suicide?

What then? Hand you over to his mental father or mother to use as a damaged toy? Burn your face and stitch up wounds that they created? 

“S-sorry, but -,” scooting away until your back hits something sturdy and hard, the only thing you’re capable of is stare at your arranged husband like a deer in headlights. Dion doesn’t crawl closer, still kneeling, an unreadable expression across his facial features. Like a predator staying still so as to not scare off their prey.

“I - I, um, didn’t mean to make a mess -” On the verge of crying from stress, you blink rapidly, unable to decide if you should look at him or close your eyes. Tears kept at bay, by reflex you bring your thumb up and -

CHOMP

It hurts more than usual, teeth tearing into injured flesh. It’s raw, desperate, a need to ground yourself. Your tongue swipes over the healing bite mark, crimson blood that resembles his eyes drawn as the metallic taste all but makes itself at home on your tastebuds. Hysterical, you cower, hoping, praying that Dion would look the other way and ignore you.

He does anything but. 

He crawls, fucking crawls like a bug, like he wasn’t Dion Agriche, the man whose pride exceeds the skies - or so you heard, the spoilers hazy. He rests on his knees again once he reaches you, long fingers forcing your thumb out and proceed to wrap around your wrist right after. You hiccup as he stares at it, unable to tell what he’s thinking. Maybe it’s better if you don’t.

“That’s a horrible habit you have there,” he states like it’s the morning news before he, like the creep he is, takes the injured digit into his mouth.

You’re too flabbergasted to react. 

Your brain fries, error code 43. 

It doesn’t reboot until moments later when his disgusting and slimy tongue runs over the wound, his saliva unfortunately soothing it just the slightest bit.

The urge to puke returns.

You jerk your hand back and he lets you. You think your expression is one of disgust, but it’s hard to tell when Dion blinks oh so calmly. Like he didn’t just shove your thumb into his mouth like the pervert he is.

But fear overrides the disgust, helplessly watching as your horrible husband comes even closer. You feel trapped between the wall - doors, actually - and his towering, intimidating figure. Without a care in the world, he wordlessly places a hand on the door slightly above your head. It wasn’t romantic, it was a way to keep you trapped, you’re sure. He resembles more of a creature than a human the longer you look at him - those eyes, so bloody, so bright, are inhumane. 

Because there’s a ‘light’ you can’t recognize, a ‘light’ that wasn’t in the manhwa. Here, he feels more sadistic - he’s only here to study you, to torture you and - 

You flinch when he oh so gently grabs your right wrist again, inspecting your bloodied thumb. You become boneless as he licks it, all the while keeping eye contact with you.

The shivers that run down your back aren’t pleasurable. 

“You should stop this,” he says as his head tilts, like he was curious about your reaction to everything. “You’re just making it worse.”

His genuine concern sounds like nothing but threats to you. Your flight-or-fight response kicks in when the hand planted against the wall - doors - goes to  your cold and sweaty cheek. His fingers are cold.

 As any sane person would, you kick him straight in the chest.

And somehow, someway, it hurts you more than him. It almost feels like a brick wall, wincing while he only fucking blinks. As if finally understanding the situation, he lets go and backs off, but stays in front of you. You’re on the verge of throwing up, of running past him to jump off the terrace, laughing as a fear response.

The only reason you don’t do any of it is because your body is boneless, barely able to breathe. Barely able to think. 

Neither of you talk nor move, the distant sound of footsteps and chirping birds filling the silence. He’s treating you like a scared animal while you’re treating him like a predator. Two people unable to understand the actions of the other. Two people on the opposite sides of the spectrum, their definitions of ‘loving’ completely different.

Regardless, he still tries, and maybe if you were into the possessive and obsessive type, you would have praised him. Assuming you notice and realize he didn’t plan on hurting you and was in ‘love’ with you, of course.

That he tries his best to be a gentle giant.

“D-D-Dion.” You stutter after slightly recovering from the fright, the throbbing of your thumb forgotten in the background. You can’t feel anything, really, even the cold tiles you sit on.

“Wife.” His response does little to soothe your nerves - no, rather, they freeze at his voice. 

“W-what… were you doing? I think-think I’m still half asleep, haha…” Nervously forcing out a small laugh, you truly hope that this is nothing more than a nightmare. You’d rather wake up to the sound of loud and annoying construction going on outside your apartment.

Ah, but, you weren’t in your old world, were you? The world that you foolishly abandoned - 

“Soothing it.” It’s uncharacteristic of him - he should either be mocking or ignoring you. Not whatever… this is.

Your stomach drops the longer you look at him. Words feel like mush in your mouth as you force them out. The air you breathe in feels tainted. 

“O-oh… um, you do realize you essentially drank my blood…?” It’s a miracle you’re holding a conversation without fainting. Still, the idea of jumping off the terrace doesn’t leave your head. It was a reckless plan, but there was a chance you wouldn’t die or break something, and at least would get a minute or two to yourself without him. If you weren’t caught by the guards immediately afterwards, that is. 

“And?” His head tilts, observing your reactions, like you were a science project. Scarlet eyes leave your terrified face to travel to your right thumb. A very, very small part of you want to bite it again, to bite it harder out of spite. The thought leaves when he makes eye contact with you again. 

You look away.

“That’s-that’s really unhygienic…” A whisper is all you can manage, eyes swirling as a dizzy spell falls over you again. How are you able to talk to this perverted brute?

Maybe you were only able to talk to instinctively smooth out the situation as much as you could. Or maybe your mouth was just running on its own, hoping this is what he wanted. Why else would he do such a thing? Aside from satisfying his sadistic and perverted urges.

All you want is to go home.

“So?” His head tilts, unkempt midnight hair falling into his scarlet eyes. There’s a very small expectation in his eyes - like he expected you to accept this ‘treatment’, to at least some degree. 

“I-I mean, it’s rather-rather…disgusting, is it not?” Holding your right hand close to your chest, left one wrapped around your wrist, you hold your breath. You can’t think straight, unable to decide on staying or running away. To keep talking or go silent as a mouse. 

He blinks before saying, “Not if it’s you.” 

Error code 43. 

Error code 43.

Request for maintenance. 

Maintenance needed to continue functions. 

Ever so slightly, a grin tugs at his lips at your flabbergasted expression. Little do you know that your husband doesn’t like seeing you scared, but he enjoys making you speechless, mind blank. Now, if only he could do that to you in other ways…

No. This isn’t the time to think about such things, he chides himself. He shouldn’t have these urges, innocent or not - he should be on the battlefield, soaked in red as corpses lay about, scattered like autumn leaves. He sees the fear in your eyes and something ugly twists and turns - this isn’t like him.

A part of him wants to stab the pang of dim guilt, to get rid of these useless things. But when he sees you, all he wants to do is hold you. And it’s disgusting, but he chooses to accept it, far too late and gone to deny himself any longer. 

It seems that you still haven’t realized you hold his leash.

“Is that so hard to believe?” He questions after a bit, once your mind is working again.

“H-huh? Wait - this - don’t play with me, please…,” you beg while shaking your head. Your breathing speeds up again, heavier than it was moments ago. Your feet firmly plant themselves flat on the floor. 

You think about kicking his face this time, giving you some time to run before the shock wears off. 

“I’m not,” carefully and slowly, he leans in closer, gently holding the back of your neck like it’s his favorite thing to do. He pulls you closer and closer until he’s able to whisper in your ear, hot breath hitting it. He whispers, almost possessively like he was confessing a grave yet delicious sin.  

“I mean it, really. You should stop assuming I’ll eventually throw you away.”

If the circumstances were different, if this was a healthy marriage, if this was a loving marriage, it would have been romantic. But because you’re married into the Agriche family, because your husband is Dion Agriche, it sounds like he’s trapping you in a cage, throwing away the key.

And in a way, he is, not wanting to let his pretty, lovely wife to part ways with him. 

Really, he’s not sure of how much longer he can keep himself in check - you drive him crazy and you don’t even know it. He wants nothing more than to keep you locked up in this room, your eyes reflecting his figure, your attention on him and him alone. His grip on your neck tightens the slightest bit - you’re practically in his arms. 

You fit perfectly against him - and yet, his mere existence makes you bleed. Dion shudders when you weakly push him away, hands pressed against his chest. Reluctantly he backs away, fingers grazing against your tear stained cheek as he lets go of the back of your neck. You don’t make eye contact, instead focusing on your feet - the cold tile reminding you that you’re not dreaming.

He hums while you bite your lower lip. This room is a cage, one that you can’t break out of. No. This marriage was a cage, heavy shackles on your ankles - not to the Agriche family but to him.

An obsessive and possessive husband with a scared wife, who will  one day, realize she has him tied around her pretty little finger. At the cost of her own loose leash in his hand, two people unable to escape the other. 

It’s awful, it’s insane, but who could blame him?

You’re just too lovely, too addicting to pass and give up. 

May God bless the poor soul who’s stupid enough to try.

“You’re starting to hurt my feelings by doing so, (Name).” = = =

@tiny-mimi @corpseri @queenofspades403 @pix-stuff @manitscold @darkumbreon92 @s-ajia @disappointment-san @louissatturi @cjafjatkstke @rainofcrime @danae-misfortune @kokomi2 @elvinapandra @labryel @rentaldarling @ishamyshaylaaa @semi-wife @rosedellamorte @puggyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

[cloooudmilk]

cleaning duty

mini series: the four of us

Gojo has cleaning duty. Of course, he does everything but clean.

does not need to be read in any specific order x x x

It’s Gojo’s turn to clean the classroom today. Usually, he considers it hell and does everything in his power to get out of cleaning duty. Today, however, he considers it a blessing.

Today, you had been called upon for a last minute mission. And in your haste, you had left your school bag at your desk. Gojo thought it was ridiculous that you carried the thing around when your bedroom was a five minute walk from the classrooms, and there really was no need for any school materials when most curricula were on-the-field training.

But now, he chuckled, he realized exactly why you brought a school bag with you. It was for this very moment, clearly.

Gojo snatched your school bag from the hook on your desk and brought it to his own. He unzipped it, noting the two keychains dangling from the zipper, as he opened Pandora’s box. Peering into the open bag, he was a bit disappointed.

You had a couple of notebooks. They were labeled with different subjects. He really didn’t get that, since standard math and science were probably taught one time in the entire time the both of you had been in Jujutsu Tech.

Gojo was anything but deterred, however, as he dug deeper into your bag. He fished out a pencil case with a character similar to one of the keychains on your bag’s zipper. At the very bottom of your school bag was something most interesting.

A romance manga.

He took it out as if it was some sort of prize. It probably was to you, seeing as it was in pristine condition. Not a single yellow page or crease in sight. It was nothing compared to your notebooks, that somehow faced wear and tear.

Gojo inspected the manga from front to back. It didn’t look that special. If anything, it made him cringe a bit. He wasn’t surprised you were into it, but it definitely was not for him. Once he was done looking at the cover and the synopsis, he opened it. There was a bookmark in between the pages, indicating where you’d left off.

He opened it, letting the bookmark fall onto the floor. He’d pick it up later. After all, he was on cleaning duty.

Looking at the open book, he was surprised to see a double spread of who he assumed were the main characters.

His eyes narrowed. The male lead totally looked like him. From his white hair -though that might be because the manga lacked color- to his thick glasses -and that was probably because the characters were at the beach- the male lead was, without a doubt, a carbon copy of Gojo Satoru.

Gojo grinned. “So I am your type, after all,” he said to himself.

That was the conclusion Gojo came up with. Because girls always imagine their crushes in the romance manga they were consuming. He knew that for a fact.

Gojo laughed to himself. He decided to pocket the book, keeping it for later research on you and your interests. He zipped your bag up and placed it back on the hook on your desk. With that, his work was done.

He headed towards the classroom door when it slid open.

Gojo was greeted with you, in all your glory. It seems your mission had just ended, evident in the way your hair was disheveled and there was a scratch on your chin. You still looked so cute.

“What are you doing?” You asked, clearly exasperated. Gojo remained still, staring at you. “Could you move?”

“Oh, yeah.” He moved to the side, allowing for you to enter the classroom. His eyes watched as you went for your school bag.

When you lifted it up, your brows furrowed. You shook it, and Gojo thought you would find him out. Luckily, you didn’t as you instead slid it onto your shoulder and prepared to leave the room once again.

You looked around the classroom before your eyes darted towards Gojo. He smiled, “You look as if you’ve been blessed by my—”

“Didn’t class end an hour ago? Why is the classroom still so messy?” was all you said before you left the classroom, sliding the door shut.

Gojo’s mouth was agape. In his time looking through your belongings, he completely forgot to clean the classroom. And, you totally interrupted his pickup line. He was ready to make you swoon, and you couldn’t even give him the chance to do that.

He sighed, leaning against the blackboard.

Gojo pulled out his phone to text Geto.

Maybe his friend can clean the classroom for him. He’s got a book to read.

likes, comments, reblogs are appreciated!<3

[karniss-bg3]

The Tragedy of Faith

So between tumblr and twitter I've read various takes on Kar'niss and what draws people to him. For some it's the monster fucking appeal, for others it's the desire to fix a clearly broken individual. There are in-betweens and of course this is subjective and depends on the person. Act 2 spoilers ahead. Where my personal interest comes from is how good Larian communicated the tragedy of faith and what a cult can do to a person. Kar'niss is a creature that has been broken by not one God, but two. Lolth broke him physically, the Absolute broke him mentally. His entire identity has been lost to a deity to the point he raises her in his speech. Referring to her as "Majesty" and "Queen", two terms you don't really hear anyone else address her as, he has elevated her to his final savior and leader. He also often refers to himself as "we" and "us", cementing him as part of the hive mind rather than holding any individuality of his own. When he does refer to himself as "I", it's mostly to show further loyalty to the Absolute, to maintain a position of importance in his fractured mind. Cults are notorious for targeting the most vulnerable in society as they are the easiest to mold and manipulate to their doctrine. The fact that goblins are one of the main races that fall to the Absolute's influence is telling in that regard, as they are often dismissed by the other races. Kar'niss was ripe for the picking, an easy target to lure into her arms. No doubt he was found shortly after Lolth twisted him into a drider and banished him, he didn't stand a chance.

Not even taking those elements into account, Kar'niss came from a society that is infamous for cruelty and violence, especially toward males of their species. Drow greatest hits include, but are not limited to: -Killing their young if they are not aesthetically pleasing enough. In other words, ugly. -Sacrificing every third born son to Lolth.

-If a male finds the favor of two competing females, it often doesn't end well for the male. The rival woman will kill the male and chuck his dead body into his opponents bedchambers, just for the sake of being petty.

-Love and emotions of any sort are in short supply, if not outright unseen as a general rule. The nature of drow to backstab and seek to rise in the ranks makes it near impossible to be anything other than fierce and domineering.

With these things in mind, it's easy to assume that Kar'niss had a turbulent upbringing and likely suffered untold abuse from many around him. It's not to say that good or reasonable drow don't exist, it's just not commonplace in a Lolthite society. Unfortunately, the game doesn't give us a great deal to go on as far as his past. What little he reveals only happens after he's dead, and even then its really a cliffs notes version. What we do know is that his devotion is intense and unwavering. He's willing to die for the Absolute because in his mind the Absolute are the only ones who care about him. We even see fellow followers talk down to him, dismiss him, and verbally eye-roll the guy. To them, his fanaticism is over the top and they follow the same God he does.

All told, this leads me to the conclusion that Kar'niss has never, or rarely, known true compassion in his entire life. He's been used as a puppet for one deity or another, and likely mocked or cast aside even when he did everything right. It doesn't surprise me that there are folks who desire a romance option, or barring that a side venture to break him free of the Absolute's hold. We don't know if Kar'niss did terrible things in his past, or where his moral compass sits as his entire personality revolves around God. But I'd love to know, and I crave more background on him in one form or another.

I've spent too much time thinking about different paths that could happen in-game. I also understand it's incredibly unlikely he'll ever become a companion. The sheer amount of time and resources needed to give a character a satisfying arc is likely more than Larian can do with other constraints, but maybe we'll be pleasantly surprised. So Kar'niss lovers, platonic, romantic, or everything in-between...I gotchu fam. We stan the spooder bby. Someone get that man a blanket and a nice mug of hot cocoa. And a cult de-programming kit, one of those would be good.

[changbinsboobs]

Since you’re going out of order can you pls do Hyunjin next? Love the readings! ❤️❤️

Skz Husband Series: Hyunjin

He'd be loyal and devoted, i see him being really committed and truly all in, to the point where he goes above and beyond and sacrifices himself, or others for the sake of love. I also see there being huge potential for things growing really toxic just out of spite and stubbornness of not giving up on love.

He can get heartbroken really easily and i think marriage with him will have many heartbreaks along the way, mainly from his side and dealing with his "fragile" heart and turbulent emotions, him jumping to conclusions etc and mostly him hurting himself - will be something constant. What im also seeing tho is that as "fragile" as his heart might be or look at first glance he's actually really really tough, maybe even too much. And can take much "abuse" before he finally can't handle more. He doesn't let go easily and can and WILL endure a lot before he does.

He's a rich bitch and likes spending lavishly, he'll spoil his partner to no end, not only cuz of affection (of course that as well) but also because he likes to uphold a certain status/standard for himself and his partner has to match that so i see him spending quite the buck on his s/o, but also on himself and on lavish stuff and luxury altogether. Spending and luxury's gonna be a big theme in their married life.

He might get starved very easily tho, for attention, for confirmation, for security, i think he'll be constantly needing some sort of validation and confirmation because he naturally seems like a very devoted, die together type of vibe and i think in general in his relationships, when he loves, he always loves harder and i think he has gotten pretty paranoid when it comes to that so in the marriage he'll have those phases every once in a while where he feels gloomy and almost in a victim mentality, keeping himself in a state of mind and false beliefs that don't really equal his reality. So emotional labor on his partners side will be needed quite often, a readiness for that and a talent innit as well. I feel like his partner will have to have a eep understanding of psychology or just good intuition and people knowledge, to know well whats going on inside of him and be able to do and say all the right things, the right way at the right time to actually be able to calm him down and take him out of that spiral - cuz otherwise the outcome could be the absolute opposite and blow up in their face.

I see marriage with him would have two kinda contradicting sides. One light and one dark. And i think Hyunjin will definitely be the leading role. He's gonna be the hand and the voice of the relationship. His feelings, his moods will lead the way. And his partner will just have to follow. I don't think they have any power to steer in another direction. Hyunjin doesn't either. He has such a powerful inner world that i don't think he himself can control it all that well. So they're both kinda left at the mercy of his own...depths(?)

The rest of the reading isn't very reality focused, like talking about how he would be as a husband but rather just repeating the same energy over and over again, despite me drawing quite a few cards...so i think the takeaway from that is that having him as a husband will be very luxurious and really elevate ur standard of life, but it would also be very tricky and emotionally draining - tho the reward after is really really worth it as he is a deeply devoted guy that loves very hard and is ready to do everything for love, doesn't give up easily and you can count on him and know he'll always be there and love and accept u the way you are with all ur imperfections and flaws. He might even love you strongly for them sometimes depending on what kind of imperfections we're talking about. Once he accepts and loves you he does! Although doubts, fears etc will constantly creep up - u have to have the gist to deal with them and resolve them for him.

[literary-illuminati]

2024 Book Review #52 – The Mercy of Gods by James S. A. Corey

Introduction

I have never technically read any of Corey’s work before, but I really loved all the seasons of the Expanse I’ve seen. So, as it would be months and months before I could actually get a copy from the library, this is the rare book I actually bought off the strength of the blurb. Even rarer, this actually worked out! This is genuinely quite good, meaty, even fairly original space opera!

On the world of Anjiin, a human civilization has developed from the ruins of some prehistoric colonization mission that ended in atomic fire, their origins a matter of theology and myth. Through blatant nepotism (his aunt is a very important administrator whose made his career her way of honoring her dead sister), Dafyd Alkhor is a research assistant on the most prestigious and celebrated lab/project on the planet – a successful attempt to bridge the gap between the native plant life of the planet and the earth-descended life humanity brought with it. But even as everyone’s enjoying their moment in the limelight, the project is in danger of being split up, the credit and prestige a juicy enough prize for the academic politics to get vicious. And then there’s Dafyd’s rather poorly hidden crush on Else, a much more senior scientist and also the Team Lead’s girlfriend. Everything begins to come to a head, and then-

Well, and then aliens invade. The Carryx and their servitor-species more-or-less effortlessly destroy every human attempt to resist, and then execute one eighth of the population where they stand. Like some massive, chitinous, latter-day Assyrian Empire, they then sort through and abduct a few hundreds or thousands of humanity’s administrative and intellectual elites. Hostages to bring to one of their world-palaces to live at their pleasure and prove their worth as subjects until a place in imperial society can be decided for them – with ‘mass grave’ being an entirely plausibly option if they fail to please. Dafyd, honestly a pretty shit scientist but a natural courtier and schemer, then finds himself desperately trying to understand the Carryx actually want from humanity, and why they refuse to communicate any of it.

Complicity and Collaboration

So this is overwhelmingly a novel about how to react to subjugation – of different emotional and trauma responses to seeing your loved ones killed to make a point, to seeing everything you know destroyed in the space of an afternoon, to being forced into an overcrowded ship and sent to a terrifying new world where your life is valued exactly in proportion to your captors' whims. As the novel reaches its climax, it becomes increasingly about the morality of fawning, servile collaboration and nobly suicidal resistance – of whether it’s better to live kneeling or die standing, essentially.

This is one of very few books I can ever remember reading that make a big dramatic point of that question, and then come down on the side of ‘live kneeling, bide your time until you’ve earned their trust and know enough to stab the knife somewhere vital’. Partially just because every other genre story in the world does stack the deck towards resistance (making victory an almost foregone conclusion if people just have the courage to fight) and this does in the opposite direction (‘resistance’ would be at best a few spectacular terrorist attacks before they’re all hunted down and executed, the first thing the rest of humanity would know of their noble fight is when the retaliatory genocide starts), but still.

I found the start of chapter epigraphs a greater flaw, honestly – they’re quotations from an imprisoned Carryx after some future fall of the empire, who lays the blame squarely on humanity. I’m sure this is building up to some lovely dramatic irony in future books (and is a fun window to Carryx state ideology), but the constant reassurance that the plan works and isn’t just a rationalization for surrender really does drain some of the moral stakes out of the question, you know? From a dilemma with genuinely unclear outcome to just a particularly cruel and slimy trolley problem. Which I mean, still juicy character drama! I did enjoy it.

As Space Opera

There are many works of SFF which are, frankly, setting bibles with an excuse of a story stapled on out of obligation. This isn’t one of them, but it is a book written by people who clearly enjoyed the worldbuilding for its own sake and were always looking for little excuses to show off a bit of it. This is probably clearest with Anjiin – from a plotting perspective, they could have sketched out the basics of the world in a paragraph, assuming they didn’t just use some vague future Earth or Mars instead. But Anjiin actually feels like a fully realized world with its own politics and hypocrisies, its own culture and theology, and (especially) its own beautiful and profoundly alien landscapes and architectures. The last thing makes the book’s job much harder, really – the sense of shock and alienation (as well as a guilty sort of curious wonder) at the Carryx world-palace is vital to the book, making the home the cast is stolen away from so strange and unfamiliar as well can only make it harder to evoke in the reader.

The book spends something like the first fifty pages on Anjiin before the Carryx arrive – before (almost) anyone have the slightest idea they exist – introducing the main cast and their dynamics, sketching out their daily lives, and grounding Anjiin a real, vibrant place that it’s possible to get properly attached to. Vitally, it’s not a world without conflict – Dafyd et al spend the entire time embroiled in high stakes academic intrigues and interpersonal dramas, of a kind that could easily sustain a book on their own. This was a big part of why the book worked so well for me, I think – the loss of Anjiin felt like a loss, the cutting off of possibilities I wanted to see play out, the execution of characters I enjoyed seeing on the page. Given how often these sorts of stories can (unintentionally or no) read ‘and then they were whisked from boring mundanity with dramatic fireworks accompanying them’, I’m glad the book spent the wordcount on it.

The Carryx needed to really overawe and impress, which I think the book mostly manages. Their society seems both plausible and viscerally alien. The book does a neat job of obscuring the exact border between their (weird and fascinating) biology and their obsessively eugenic imperial ideology, in a way that seems very fitting given that both the characters we spend any time with at all are middle/lower-middle ranking strategists and overseers in the imperial project.

This is very much an empire which starts with the iron fist and only bothers mentioning the existence of carrots after a new subject population is brutalized and terrified into full submission. Their ideology is a half-step short of pure power worship, and makes no excuses butchering and exterminating to make the world more convenient for them – none of them ever refer to other species as anything but ‘animals’. This isn’t an empire that tries to convert and persuade – but then, it’s not one that needs to.

The world-palace and assembled ranks of other species gathered in it does an excellent job of being genuinely awe-inspiring even for the characters who hate every solitary thing about it. One great advantage of written science fiction over more visual media is that there’s no real need to make your aliens humanoid or relatable-looking, and Corey takes full advantage of it to fill the prison camp with dozens of memorable, different species – absolute none of which could be played by an actor in makeup.

Of course, those aliens are mostly just set dressing – with the exception of one species of primates that humanity is placed into competition with that ends up in a mutually escalating and quite bloody vendetta – the only alien species represented by actual characters with names and points of view are the Carryx and the infiltration-swarm sent by their great enemy to get scooped up along with humanity and gather information about their inner workings. It does this by consuming and possessing one of the main cast, and the book has great fun keeping coy about who for half the book while still using it as a secondary Point of View. Even more than the Carryx, it does a good job of coming across as both genuinely alien (probably because it is an alien-ness in conversation with the humanity of the two hosts it has assimilated) while still being an incredibly compelling character.

Characterization

Dafyd has a habit/nervous tic of looking for people’s ‘pathological behavior’ – the habits and tendencies they default onto in situations of high stress or while they feel in danger or powerless. This is, then, the lens the book invites as far as its characters go. Every one one of them spends the vast majority of the book cycling from one trauma response to another, and each is probably mostly characterized by the way they respond and the things they fixate on as their world is destroyed and they reckon with their own powerlessness. Fixate on the research the Carryx want and at to try and pretend life is still recognizable, or get angrier and angrier and jump at the first chance to justify beating some other inmates to death to feel a bit of agency and control. Plot out a nobly suicidal strike back against your oppressors, or try desperately to understand what they want so you can manipulate them and ensure the survival of you and yours. Or just constantly make off-color and mostly unfunny jokes.

None of it is exactly subtle, but it all rings pretty true, and does a good job making (almost) every cast member compelling and memorable. It helps, I suppose, that we end up spending at least a chapter or two in the head of half the main human cast, and get plenty of careful observation or intimate conversation with the rest. I’m aware some people really despise this sort of POV-hopping in a story (especially when it’s mostly just different perspectives on the same broad events/circumstances) but personally I rather adore it when it’s done well and they each seem both plausible and distinct, which this book easily manages.

In Conversation with the Wider Genre

I am at this point a bit of of a connoisseur of the hyper-specific subgenre of ‘space opera/spec fic more generally deeply concerned imperialism, colonialism, the experience of subjugation, and the internal logics of complicity and collaboration’ – a shelf which its always great to add new works to. I don’t particularly think Mercy was written in direct response to or is actively commenting on any similar works, but it is fascinating to do a bit of a compare/contrast. Well, it is for me, anyway.

Compared to your Memory Called Empire’s and your Imperial Radch’s the most salient really thing is how uncomplicatedly awful the Carryx are. Not that the empires in those books ostensibly aren’t, but they’re simultaneously also cultured, elegant, rich – in a word, alluring. We spend as much or more time on the intricacies of Radachi tea ceremonies and soap operas as we do on their atrocities, and even that makes the messy brutality of imperialism far more foregrounded relative to the seductive beauty of salon poetry and monumental architecture than it is in Memory. Mercy, in contrast, mostly shows the awe-inspiring beauty of the Carryx world palaces through the windows of a prison-camp. It’s there – we even meet the subject-species who were enslaved instead of exterminated because they can architect such wonders – but only really incidentally. The glory of the Carryx is their vastness and their overwhelming might, all the elegance and beauty they have is the fruit of conquest – and more often than not, different subject-species are introduced with hints or notes of how much more they were, before they were crushed and carved into something the empire could use. (This is almost certainly related to the fact that the only point of view we get whose at all a native or wiling agent of the empire is very minor, and clearly a villain without much in the day of redeeming or morally interesting features).

The better comparison is really Exordia. Or maybe I’m only saying that because it’s the one I read this year, and thus the one whose interesting little complications are at least somewhat clear in my head. Better put, Mercy is exactly the story Clayton from Exordia thought he was in. In both the empire is both alien and undisguised in its malice (two things that are probably related, really), in both the empire doesn’t feel any need to understand or integrate humanity, when overwhelming superiority in technology, scale, and availability of coercive force allow it to just threaten and brutalize until it gets what it wants. The humans in Exordia are just both more and less lucky. Less, because their alien invaders are even more monomaniacally (indeed, metaphysically) malevolent to the point that even being their willing accomplice only buys hours to days of life. More, because they have an ancient relic of a plot device buried in the mountains to give a bit of cause for actual hope in violent resistance (and so a final act of the story concerned with an entirely different suite of messy trolley problems).

It’s an interesting addition to the subgenre anyway – I really can’t recall any other books that have a protagonist collaborating with the empire while not at any point being seduced by it. Well no, that’s a lie – Machinaries of Empire does hit the same beat, just in extraordinarily different ways.

Should Your Read This Book?

The answer is at least partially conditional on how the rest of the series turns out – the narrative absolutely requires sequels, and oh how they could retroactively absolutely ruin it. But with just the one book and a bit of optimism? If the premise seems even slightly intriguing, then absolutely.

[ccswife]

Oh No..

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part 4: is it working?

previous

pairing๛: kate martin x iowau!reader

synopsis๛: kate catches you watching your saved edits of her

warnings: slight angst (barely)

not a lot of dialogue in this one, but low-key proof read :D

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It's sunday morning, and you wake up to a bright ray of sun in your face, peeking through the barely-shut curtains. turning over in your very, very warm bed, you notice the time on your phone.

as well as some notifications..

9:23AM

notification center

3 messages from bear🐻

[goodmorning star sunshine!]

[hows the hangover?]

[r u alive]

you reply to her texts and chat for a little bit. she admits halfway through your in-depth conversation about what you drank and what color your throwup was, that she didnt remember anything from last night. ANYTHING. your head was already reeling from the raging hangover you had aquired, and this made it ten times worse. you begin to play a game of eenie-minie-moe with yourself. "do i tell her? do i say nothing? do i ruin it? do i protect my own feelings?" after at least 7 minutes, you come to the conclusion to not say anything. hey, you know what they say! ignorance is bliss!

you climb out of bed and grab some clothes to go take a hot bath. bathes are very good on tense muscles, and aroma-therapy helps to ease anxiety, reduce inflammation and sooth headaches. it was about 10 when you hopped in, and you planned to stay there till the water got cold. after the fact, you showered quickly to wash the grime off and get the hairspray out of your hair. finally getting dressed into a comfy pair of sweats and a oversized shirt, you go to cook some breakfast. cooking breakfast always was a good thinking time for you, as it wasnt super busy in the mornings and you could stand there and watch the eggs or pancakes cook whilst contemplating every decision you have ever made leading up to that moment. todays topic was " what the hell did i do to get into this position with the girl i love!" and it did not dissapoint! feeling that the topic was actually taking years off your life, you decide to give yourself a kate break and call out of work for monday. you used the "im sick *cough cough* and i never take days off!" excuse and it worked surprisingly well!

after a calm morning and breakfast, you chilled on the couch and put on a random show for some backround noise. it was now about 11ish, nearning 12. scrolling through instagram reels, you get a notification that kate posted on her story. (yes, you have her story notifs on.) clicking on the notif, it brings you to her story.

you nearly dropped your phone.

another woman....hiding her face..... LUNCH DATE?!?!?!?!? so shes seeing someone? you've never seen this woman in your life, so obviously a secret. even from you, her best friend. honestly, it took some life out of you. with everything going on between you two, you didn't exactly know how to feel. did you deserve to feel like this, like you had been "betrayed"? part of you knew that that was a little dramatic, but nevertheless still very valid. if there was one thing that Kate and the girls had taught you, its that your feelings will always be valid, whether they change or stay the same. these specific feelings made you lose your appetite, and frankly the will to live. aggressively turning your phone off, you get out of the deep crevice you were shoved in on your couch and make your way back to the bedroom.

"and here, I shall lay"

you dramatically say as you fall onto the bed, draping a hand on your forehead as you do so. you opt to watch "Crazy Rich Asians", just to believe-in some sort of love, and cuddle up in between the sheets. half-way through the movie, you feel multiple buzzes from your phone. opening it up, you see a bunch of texts from a very worried gabbie and caitlin. they know what happened last night, so the story she posted as alarming to them as well.

shhhh🤫

gabbie babbie wabbie

y/n are you alive

sos

hello

caity baby

we saw kates story

obviously its not u cuz ur not tagged

r u ok

gabbie babbie wabbie

lil harsh there cait...

caity baby

whoops sorry

but r u alive

get out of bed

gabbie babbie wabbie

y/n🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

hello🥺🥺🥺

answer pls we miss you and wanna know ur alive

caity baby

y/nnnnnnnnnnn

after scrolling through the messages, you liked a few and explained you were ok, and that you took tomorrow off and are gonna lay in bed for a while. they remind you to eat and be good to yourself and you reluctantly agree and promise to them that you'll comply. finally finishing your heart-wrenching movie, you fall into a light sleep. periodically you respond to your texts, as kate had been texting you quite normally. this includes all the regular nicknames and stupid jokes she always made. you'd be lying if you didn't love the normalcy she was exuding, and that it didn't bring you comfort in your relationship. it just solidified your decision to not tell her about last night, in order to keep what you two have now. you were sure that you could shove all the feelings down and support your long time best-friend in her romantic endeavors (not with you). at about 7 o'clock, kate asked if she could 'stop by' and obviously you agreed.

IF you were being 100% honest with yourself, you were seriously nervous. you hoped that you wouldn't slip about what happened and how you felt about the insta story. at exactly 7:16pm, kate knocked on the door of your apartment and you graciously let her in, immediately being engulfed into a bear hug. she had the biggest smile on her face as she pulled back to look at you.

"hello beautiful" she tucks a piece of hair behind your earn, rubbing her thumb against your blushed cheek. "I missed you today! it feels like its been forever" she pouts at you, doing her signature puppy eyes.

you giggle at her and reply in a blissful tone. "ive missed you too katie bear, how was your day?" pulling away from you, she starts to walk to your bed room, you following close behind. " it was actually really good! I had a really good lunch today. you would've died at how good it was. it was some Italian place downtown." she draws out the emphasis on 'really', and continues to talk as she plops on to your bed. " I went out with my friend nancy, she graduated last year and is interning at a dental place by school" you join her on the bed. "oh yea? is she a new friend?" curiosity killed the cat, but you tried to be as discrete as you could with the tone of your voice. obviously since she was talking about it, she is open to the subject. kate goes on to rant about how she's her new friend, how they met at a coffee place, blah blah blah. then she gets to the surprising part.

"-and then after we talked about edits, she mentioned how she has a whole folder of them! I dont think ive met anyone with a folder of women's ball edits! it was so funny, and then she mentioned how there were a few of me in it! I laughed so hard I-" after she said that you stopped listening and internally crashed out. never met anyone with that?????? does she not remember catching you???? it genuinely boggled you how one of the only people that remembers every single detail about you could forget that. deciding again not to say anything, you mentally join back into the conversation and give her 'mm's and 'ohh yea's to let her know you were acknowledging her rant. the conversation slowly turned into showing each other stupid tiktoks and reels. both of your eyes began to droop, and whilst laying on each other, the two of you fell asleep.

and together you peacefully slept, blissfully unaware of anything else happening in the world

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a/n ◕‿↼ : wooooo finally chapter 4!!!! I finally got a laptop so this is way more fun and wayyy easier to do so im a tad bit more motivated. I know this one wasn't the most exciting and didn't hav much dialogue but there's a lot to come guys dont worry I'm cooking up some good chapters. love you pookies! enjoy pls🤗

[f4llingtoyou]

what a shame part II (min ho x reader)

“What if I told you I’ve been wanting to kiss you for months now?” 

read part I here!

wc: ~1.8k an: part 2 is finally here!! i don’t love how this turned out but i did have them kiss so. hope you all enjoy :)

Objectively, you know you’re overthinking this.

He had literally stated, out loud, that he was willing to kiss you. For Min Ho, that was basically a confession of undying love. You know that his interest tends to be fleeting, and you’d be stupid to not act on it when you’ve been presented with the opportunity. 

(It doesn’t help that you’ve been thinking about kissing him for as long as you can remember. It definitely doesn’t help that he’s strolling around his party looking like everything you’ve ever dreamed of.)

You’d like to think maybe he meant it genuinely - that his attraction isn’t just surface level. You’d like to think the flickering warmth that starts up in your stomach every time your eyes meet is a mutual experience. 

But instead of the elation you’d expected to feel at the idea of it all, something like dread settles in the slump of your shoulders.

After all, he’s a flirt. And as much as you’d like to think you’re special, part of you wonders how many girls he’s told that to tonight. You’d value yourself as more than a distraction even if you wonder if he could say the same. It’s all too easy to lose yourself in comparisons and you hate that you’re discrediting him in the process, especially when you’ve gotten to know him in a way that feels far more intimate than his public facade. 

If his intention was to leave you dazed and confused, he can certainly rest easy tonight. But you know you can’t - that you’ll be thinking about him for quite possibly the rest of your life.

You’ll be thinking about his lips on yours, his hands on your back, your back against a wall. 

Something inside you shifts.

Your inner monologue comes to a conclusion. Carpe diem, or whatever.

You down the rest of your drink (some sort of cherry concoction that leaves a saccharine afterthought lingering on your tongue) and leave your bar stool for the second time this evening. You’re embarrassed to admit you know exactly where he is, but you haven’t been able to keep your eyes off of him. He’s seated next to Dae on one of the couches, the spread of his shoulders filling out his suit jacket a little too perfectly. 

You swallow down your nerves and tap him on the shoulder.

The way he turns and looks up at you has your knees going weak. You’re suddenly all too aware of Dae’s eyes on you.

You clear your throat. Your feelings for him lodge in your throat like an aftertaste that won’t go down easy.

“About… your offer,” you begin, and the way he raises his eyebrows has the rest of the sentence wilting on the tip of your tongue. It’s like your thoughts are turning to honey - thick and sweet and slow. It’s all-consuming, the way you lose yourself in him.

He smirks.

 “Oh? You changed your mind?” 

It’s moments like these where you think it’s more than unfair that he knows how attractive he is. 

“Don’t flatter yourself. You’re just… the best available option,” you protest, narrowing your eyes in a false display of confidence. You both know he’s more than the best option. 

“The best available option? There’s no need to lie to yourself like that,” he scoffs, but it’s lighthearted in a way you weren’t expecting. Your friendship has never crossed this line before, and it’s undeniable that you’ve been wondering how this is going to change it. You don’t think you’d mind if he broke your heart, not if you got to have him like this just for a night.

He gets up from the couch, patting a somewhat despondent Dae on the shoulder, and extends a hand to you. “Let’s get out of here, hm?”

You bite back a smile.

“Lead the way.”

And he does.

Of all the things you’re thinking right now, you’re definitely not thinking about the way he slides his fingers between yours like it’s an old habit. It’s absolutely the last thing on your mind. (You’re lying.)

He leads you through the crowds of people with effortless ease. The situation has something equivalent to adrenaline running through your veins. It has you bursting into unabashed laughter - the glittering lights, the music, the people, the way you’re being pulled into a dark hallway to kiss the guy you’re in love with.

Min Ho glances over his shoulder at the sound and you think you could live off the way he smiles for the rest of your life.

“Sorry,” you mouth over the noise between peals of laughter, even if you don’t know why you’re apologizing.

He huffs out a laugh of his own and cocks his head. “There’s nothing to apologize for, darling.”

And even though he says the it somewhat teasingly, the word has your chest erupting in fireworks. You don’t think you’d mind it at all if he called you that more often.

You’ve reached an alcove in one of the hallways, awash in warm buttery light spilling from delicate chandeliers. He tugs you into it with a grin like it’s second nature, and it almost feels like fate the way you fit perfectly in his arms.

Maybe you are special, if he pulled you all the way over here just to kiss you. Maybe you’re not just another face in the crowd.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” you prompt, bracing yourself for the potential disappointment.

He smirks again. 

“What if I told you I’ve been wanting to kiss you for months now?”

Well. In that case.

Your reply comes out as a whisper. 

“So kiss me.”

And he does.

You know that kissing Min Ho will do nothing to help your repressed feelings - but the way he’s tilting his head to make the kiss deeper has your mind going deliciously blank. There’s nothing to overthink when he’s sliding his tongue across your lips like he’s tasting you for the first and last time.

You hope to god it’s not the last.

You test the waters ever so slightly by sinking your teeth gently into his bottom lip, and you’re rewarded with a drawn out groan, his hands tightening on your waist. It’s like electricity bleeding from where his fingers press into your skin, gasps spilling out of your mouth that he swallows down one after the other. You’re practically melting in his embrace as he pushes you gently until your back hits the wall with an audible thump.

Emboldened by his behavior, you thread one hand into the hair just above his neck and tug ever so slightly. 

“Fuck,” he hisses against your lips, and he pulls back just enough that you can catch your breath.

“You sure this is your first kiss?” he mumbles, pressing his mouth to yours one more time before you can respond. Honestly, your head is miles above the clouds right now, but you pull yourself together enough to reply.

“Yeah. Pretty sure,” you whisper back, wincing at how out-of-breath you sound. But then your head is falling back against the wall when his mouth moves to that spot on your jawline just below your ear. 

The whine that tears from your throat when he detaches himself from your neck is far too audible for your liking, and you shut your eyes on instinct out of embarrassment.

It takes you by surprise when you feel his finger nudging your chin up toward him again, and when you open your eyes he’s grinning so brightly at you that you’re suddenly forgetting how to breathe.

“You’re so cute,” he mutters, before diving back in to kiss you again. It almost sounds like affection, and that realization has everything suddenly feeling off-kilter. You had grounded yourself on the idea that this was something Min Ho would just forget by the time the sun rose, and having him potentially care about you has your entire world shifting drastically. 

You’ve never been touched, let alone kissed, like this - like you mean something. 

It has you on the verge of confessing it all. 

He pulls back once more, briefly, and your eyes trail down the curve of his neck as he swallows. It’s easy to see why so many people are in love with him - you’re already addicted to the feeling of him devouring every breath you exhale. His grip on your waist has fire sparking in the pit of your stomach and you’re so close to falling apart in his arms that even his delicate touch feels bruising. (Although you think that if you were to peel back the layers of your outfit, you’d find his name tattooed in deep reds and purples like the marks he’s left on you neck right above your heart, where your feelings have been beating out of your chest.)

“You taste like cherries,” he murmurs. 

A self-conscious smile spreads slowly across your face. “Blame your mocktails.”

Laughter spills from him. The sound has an inexplicable warmth trickling through your chest. “I’d like to thank the bartender, actually. I could kiss you until the sun rises.”

“Please do,” you respond simply, and you’re not even ashamed to say it because he’s leaning back in before you can finish saying it.

This time his ferocity catches you by surprise and he uses it to his advantage, licking into your mouth without any hesitation. It’s absolutely dizzying, the way he occupies your every sense and every thought. The only word you can remember is his name, and when you breathe it out you’re met with a low groan in response. 

And then there’s a cacophony of shouts in the distance - he tilts his head back with a frustrated huff. There’s a particularly loud yell, something about shutting the music off, and you and Min Ho immediately meet each other’s eyes with mirrored expressions of concern.

You swallow. “Is that… Professor Lee?”

Min Ho curses.

“It’s okay. You should go,” you rush to tell him, leaving an unspoken question in the air about what this whole situation means for the two of you. You’d ask it out loud but the words stick in your chest and refuse to come out, so you duck your head instead. You’re still trying to regain your bearings like you hadn’t just been kissed senseless.

He runs a hand through his hair, glancing between you and the sounds of the party agitatedly.  “Yeah. I-” he pauses. 

Fuck it.

You gently squeeze his arm. “Do you maybe wanna go out sometime?”

He doesn’t give you any time to second guess yourself because he starts smiling so widely you’re sure it must hurt. His gaze is unbearably soft, so soft that a chill ghosts down your back. The things you’d give to have him like this every day - like he’s in love with you too.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’d like that.”

He pulls you back into him one more time, lips lingering on yours until he’s stolen all the breath from your lungs.

And then he’s slipping back into the party, leaving you giddy and absolutely breathless once more.

[gildedneon]

That Which I Cannot See - Part 3 (Final) - Missing Pieces

Respectfully, you may not use my work, but you are welcome to share it. My work is only intended for those 18 and older as it contains explicit adult themes.

Summary: In this conclusion to our story, things take a more intimate turn and masks may finally come off.

Pairing: Vessel x Fem!Reader 

Tags: Mask play, concealed identity play, exhibitionism (sorta), PDA in public spaces, the shock of this being far more vanilla yet still as spicy as the others.

Word Count: 3.1k

A/N: I ran out of steam with this one. It took a lot of exploration as a writer to find a way to end it and it was a lot of positive growth for me. It might be a little rough around the edges because I really just needed to get it done and not be a perfectionist. Thank you to the concept of Vessel for being such a fun inspiration. Thank you to my real life Kallie for the beta reads and support. Thank you to everyone who has read this, to everyone who has left feedback, it's been so fun.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 2.5 (Bonus Scene) - Complete

Read on Ao3

Another masquerade ball and this time I am not dressed in gold. My dress is velvet, with a simple mask to match. We are at a New Year’s Eve ball, not an avant garde costume party. It’s for charity, I think. Not sure of the specifics. It was much closer to my home than our last excursion. Of course I accepted his invitation. Kallie went on her “casual” rant again. I know she’s probably right, but I'll burn that bridge when I get to it.

He was waiting for me in the hotel lobby, wearing a simple venetian mask, pale skin, no paint, sleek suit, no cloak. Our eyes met for the first time and I… I thought I would be more nervous. Calm washed over me, as he took my hand in his and led me to the waiting car. Just two regular people going to a party. Without games, without pretenses. And wasn’t that a little frightening. That maybe this has turned into something more than just temporary fun. 

Maybe it’s been that way from the start.

I stare out over the railing, looking down at the dance floor below. Vessel returns to my side, stirring me from my thoughts, as he passes me a drink. We gently tap our glasses and I turn to face him. I take a sip. Staring. At everything I haven’t seen before. Like his hair, how weird is it that I didn’t realize I had never seen it? It wasn’t quite what I expected but not in an undesirable way. Just picturing running my hands through it, grabbing it, turns me on. His eyes. There’s a spark of constant curiosity. The planes of his face are no longer hidden. For once he looks… human.

“I’m not used to seeing this much of you. The top of your head to be specific. It’s a good thing… I like it.” He cracks a grin, eyes twinkling.

“Also eye contact. That’s new.” Heat creeps up into my face. His head tilts, his body shifting towards mine.

“Having my eyes bared to you is that arousing?” He teases.

“That’s not it.” I say, rolling my eyes. “It makes me realize everything you’ve seen. The different ways you’ve seen… me.” I try to put it politely, taking a nervous sip. 

“I have seen you many ways.” He rumbles and my face grows hotter. 

“I know you were obviously there with me but it sort of felt like no one was watching and now…”

“Now you can clearly see just who else was watching?”

I nod and take another sip, my mouth suddenly dry. 

“I’ll remind you I did a lot more than just watch.” My eyes widen and I smack at his arm. Laughing, he catches my hand, holding it in his.

“But I understand. It feels different.” His eyes rake down my gown before returning to meet my gaze. Our fingers twine without a thought. 

“There is something now that wasn’t there before.” He says softly. I inhale, forcing the tightness in my chest to loosen. Taking a bigger sip of what is definitely just lemonade with far too much sugar in it, I break our stare to look down at the people dancing. 

“Would you like to dance?” I nod and he leads the way. 

Time flies by as we dance to typical party songs. Never imagined I would be doing the Cha Cha Slide with Vessel. That was not on my bingo card. But boy was it fun to just be normal. The music slows and he pulls me in. With my arms around his neck, we sway along to the song. The tension in my chest returns as his stare turns serious. The way he’s looking at me is… too scary to fully acknowledge. 

Just enjoy the moment.

Turning my head, I rest it against him. But the knot in my chest grows until I can no longer ignore it.

What did he mean by things being different? Why am I so afraid that this isn’t real? Maybe resisting the way I’m feeling is the real thing to be scared of. Maybe talking to myself in my head is the problem and I could just talk to him?

”I believe I am all danced out for the night.” Our swaying comes to a stop.

”Shall we see if we can find someplace quieter?” He asks and I untwine my arms from around his neck. Curling my hand around his offered arm, we set out to explore.

—-----------

He has me giggling like a schoolgirl when we finally turn down an empty hallway. The laughter trails off and his voice takes a more serious tone.

“I enjoy our time together.” His words elicit a little thrill through my chest that I do my best to ignore.

“We’ve certainly had some memorable adventures.” Flashes of me running through a dark garden flit through my memory.

“We have indeed.” I swear I can see his eyebrows wiggle from under his mask. “But it’s more than that. This started as a simple conversation online. It’s grown. I truly enjoy talking with you. Getting to know you. Spending time with you. I’d like to do more of that.”

Holy fuck this is exactly what Kallie was trying to prepare me for. 

“Well I enjoy getting to know you as well. But what do you have in mind exactly?”

”What I have in mind is to make my intentions clear. I would like for our relationship to not just continue, but grow.” Oh okay that’s not so bad. “I would like to pursue something more serious. What are your thoughts?” Shit.

My thoughts freeze along with my body. Focusing on my breathing, I stare at our reflection in the floor length mirror before us. He is looking at me so intently and I am just… standing, silent. 

“Is this not something you would want?” His head tilts expectantly, I can tell his brow is furrowed behind his mask. But I can’t even begin to get my thoughts to form words to respond to him. I’m still just staring. Say something. Start somewhere. Just be honest.

“No I would. I would want it.” I manage to get out.

“Would?”

“I do. I do want it… it’s not that I don’t I just… I’m scared.” I admit. The words come easier when I’m not searching for the perfect way to say something. What a concept. I should try this more often.

“Of what?” He asks in a soft voice. 

“Of admitting that I want this. But what I am more terrified of is losing the opportunity.”

“So what will you choose?”

“Both. I would like that very much and I don’t want to miss the opportunity with you” He presses a kiss to the top of my head and all of the fluttering in my stomach settles into something much more pleasant. “I can do scary things.”

”Well I’m certainly living proof of that.” He says with a wink. “This will just be another form of doing.” That gets a nice laugh out of me. Without the usual getup, he is still an imposing figure  against my smaller frame.

“I did wish we had more time to enjoy that mirror in your hotel bathroom when I last saw you.” His words get my mind turning.

“Well we have this one now…”

“That we do.”

I watch the reflection as his hands run down the sides of my velvet gown, catching at my hips. His nose nudges my ear.

“Are you looking?” Through the mirror, my eyes flicker to his, before darting to where his hands are slowly running down my thighs. The smooth velvet easing his movement. Hooking his fingers, he applies a slight pressure as he drags his hands back up toward the apex of my thighs. The sounds of the distant party sends a thrill running through me, as I am mesmerized, watching and feeling his touch. My body thrums at the sensation, heat pooling in his trail. 

Weary of his slow teasing, I place a hand over his, dragging it up to my breast. His hand flexes under my hold, and my lips part as his touch grows bolder. The cool nose of his mask scrapes against my neck as his lips trail gentle kisses. It’s just the two of us and I want more of it. 

“What do you desire this evening?” My question stops his movement.

“To ensure you have a wonderful time.” 

“Hmm” I can tell his brow is raised from behind his mask as he stares at me intently in the mirror. “You know what sounds like a wonderful time? What if we get out of here? Go back to the hotel. Just us.” A smile graces his face.

“Is that what you would like?” I nod in answer.

“Back to the hotel it is”

With one last kiss pressed against my skin, he wraps an arm around me, pulling me tight against him. His free hand taps against his phone. I feel like I’m floating, and only slightly panicking, as we make our way to the lobby. My best friend Kallie’s voice rings through my head telling me to just fucking let yourself enjoy something for once and I focus on that. Dismissing the ‘what if’s’ as he sits on a plush loveseat, and I sit myself right on his lap. He seems slightly surprised by my choice, but his arms come around me and I melt into his embrace. I enjoy being close to him, maybe that’s something I should share instead of keeping it like some weird secret. God forbid this man knows that I enjoy him. Mentally rolling my eyes at my own convoluted patterns, I pull at the thread, unraveling this habit.

“I like being close to you.” My eyes widen at my honesty as I stare out into the lobby, for just a moment fear of rejection flashes through my chest.

His face comes beside mine. “Being with you is like stepping into sunlight after spending far too long in the shadows.” Hearing the smile in his voice immediately soothes my nerves.

We both turn, making eye contact. Giving in to my whims, I close the distance between us, skating my lips over his. But he doesn’t let me retreat, he follows, chasing my lips in a gentle claim.

—---

We can’t keep our hands off each other on the ride back to the hotel. But to our credit, we did keep our mouths to ourselves. For the most part. 

Hand in hand, we hasten through the lobby, to the elevators. 

Ding!

His arm hooks around my waist, dragging me into the small space. The second the doors close, he takes my face in his hands. Our eyes meet and hold in a heated stare. Brushing through my hair, his fingers find the ribbon of my mask, pulling it free. His eyes track across my face. Here it is. The final piece of my facade, stripped away. And it feels like acceptance as his mouth finds mine again. Exhilarated, I take hold of his lapels and press him back against the elevator wall. There’s a soft clank of my mask hitting the floor. My legs part as he grabs my leg and hitches it across his thigh. He rocks my hips against him. My mind flutters to the hallway at the Halloween ball. The memory causes a flare of heat through my body. Every inch of myself that is pressed against him is begging for friction. His slow, tender kisses are in time with the way he is rocking me against his thigh. But just as that familiar tension builds in my belly, the car comes to a stop. 

Ding!

The doors slide open and I feel like I’m walking on air as he leads me by the hand to his hotel room. Wow this room is a bit of an upgrade from mine. 

“Please no big light!” I plead just as he reaches for the light switch. 

“As you wish.” He laughs. Taking a page from my book, he flips on the bathroom light and cracks the door. I wander over to turn on a lamp in the sitting area. Tossing his suit coat onto a chair, he closes the distance between us and clasps my face in his hands. 

I can hear my heart beating as he stares, taking in my bare face. My heart flutters and the corners of my lips turn up. How did we get here? It feels so right to be sharing myself with him finally. 

“Hi.” I say with a smile.

“Hi” he smiles back, placing a light kiss on my lips. Taking my hand, he leads me to stand in front of large mirrored closet doors. The way he towers over me sends a bolt of arousal through my core. 

Reverently, he strips me of my dress. Left in my lingerie, he sits on the bed, legs splayed. Patting his lap, he then begins to undo the buttons on his dress shirt. Nestled between his legs, I am mesmerized by our reflection in the mirror. Myself in my heels and lacey underwear and him full dressed, mask and all. I decide to put on another show for him. I cup my breasts through the fabric and tease myself. His eyes watch my every move even as his shirt falls open and is thrown to the floor. I remove my shoes and then struggle to reach around him to remove my bra.

“A little help?” A pause and then his hands make quick work of the clasp, my bra falling free to join his shirt. 

Feeling bold I stand, moving to kneel in front of him. Undoing the laces of his shoes, I slip them off. The fabric of his pants is a little scratchy as I run my hands up his legs. Working together we remove those until all that remains is his mask. Standing, I hook the sides of my thong with my thumbs, and make a show of removing them. I settle onto his lap, straddling him. Reaching up, I pause as I grasp the tie for his mask. Our gazes catch and hold with an intensity that tightens my chest.  The nod he gives me is almost imperceivable. But it’s there. Taking a deep breath, I pull the ribbon, discarding the last thing that lies between us. 

Nothing surprises me as I look upon his face. I’ve never seen it before, but it feels like remembering something I once knew. Like Another piece of a puzzle falling into place. 

I cradle his face in my hands and place a kiss on his forehead. His eyes flutter shut. I place another on his nose, and then his lips. The hand on my neck drags me back down. Our mouths clash together in a kiss full of need. His hands slide down to my ass, pulling me flush against him. He swallows my moan at the feel of him hard against me. In a feat of strength, he slides us back on the bed. Pulling me down on top of him as he falls back on his elbows. My body feels like it’s on fire and he is the only salvation. Reaching down I grip his hardness and waste no time lining him up with my entrance. His hand wraps around my wrist, halting my movement. 

“While I cannot wait to be inside you again, I’m afraid I need you to sit on my face.”

“What?”

“Yes you see I’ve always had a mask in the way and now I simply cannot pass on the opportunity.” I’m still somewhat stunned in my lustful haze as his arms hook under my legs and slide me forward. I yelp and throw my arms out, catching myself on the bed. His hands wrap up around my thighs, pulling me down onto him as his tongue swipes against me. At that I am lost. He devours me so slowly that I’m trembling by the time his tongue finally delves inside of me. My moan comes out like a sob. Reaching under me, I tangle my hand in his hair, gripping for leverage as I rock against him. As mind blowing as he’s making me feel, there’s a frustration building inside of me. A want for more. So that is what I ask for. 

“More. Ves please! More!” My prayers are immediately answered. 

Maneuvering me like I’m light as a feather he slides me down his body. He’s propped up on his elbows. Face to face with his cock is pressing into me, teasing. Seizing the opportunity, I rock down against him, taking him until I am fully seated. Our moans mingle in the limited space between our lips. I grab the back of his neck and his chest for purchase as I begin to move. His hands on my hips flex and squeeze before assisting me with my movement. But my slow and steady rocking builds into a greedy pace. With every thrust, he’s striking a spot inside of me that has me chasing bliss. Though it seems as if we’ve just gotten started, I’m racing closer to the edge. I slip my hand between us, giving myself the additional stimulation I so desperately need. His hand slides into my hair, tilting my head until I’m staring into his eyes. The frenzied pleasure is making my head swim and this added eye contact amplifies those feelings. My thighs tremble around his and my pace falters. The tightness built inside of me starts to slip and as if he senses it, he takes control.

Shifting his body, he turns us at an angle. The hand in my hair turns my head to face the mirror that’s now alongside us. 

Where I now watch his hips lift, sliding himself inside of me. God if that image doesn’t make me weak. I practically collapse on top of him and he is more than willing to support me. His arm hooks under my knee, lifting the leg closest to the mirror, hitting a new spot inside of me as he thrusts inside me. It takes everything in me to stay upright as I quiver from the pleasure. My moans are outside of my control. 

“Fuck this is my favorite song. I could hear you sing it all day.” The grit in his voice winds me tighter.

“Ves!” His lips are quick to whisper a different name in my ear. So I oblige, crying out his true name instead. 

My head swims with dizzying pleasure as I come down from my climax. His pace picks up and it’s too much. My body is torn between begging for mercy and begging for more. But his hips thrust once, twice, and then a third time as he shudders his release. Even with my head still dizzy from the pleasure, I can feel that something new has just begun.

[pikahlua]

What are your thoughts on Deku's whole arc about wanting to save Shigaraki? I am a little confused on what his goal was, as it seems he was okay with killing him if he was left with no choice. What exactly did he mean by 'save'?

This is actually a big piece I've been pondering over for a while, and I've got a sort of work-in-progress reading on it.

The person that triggered Izuku's instinct to save was Tenko crying inside one of Tomura's memories. Tenko is the one he wants to save. The thing is, Tenko doesn't exist anymore. Izuku is too late to save him, whether it be in that traumatic moment where he killed his family, or the person he has grown into by the time Izuku comes to this conclusion. AFO has already fused with Tomura. The entity into which they are fused is no longer Tenko, and thus no longer savable (or at least not 100% savable).

It's like the piece of Shirakumo inside Kurogiri. Shirakumo has been used as an "ingredient" in a sense and merged into Kurogiri. There's no separating the spliced people that went into Kurogiri. There's no undoing the programming. BUT there is a small, unfused sliver of Shirakumo that can "muddy the waters" when you poke it hard enough.

Still, Izuku wants to save Tenko, even though he's too late. The only thing he can do to save that memory of a crying child IS to go after the memory. Consider: before MVA, Tomura didn't have that memory of killing his family. He blocked it out. His ascension into a "monster," the "greatest villain," at the end of MVA was a process triggered by the resurfacing of that memory. As Tomura regained that memory, he framed it as a piece of his identity. He didn't want to face the tragedy of his past and the hurt he experienced because it was too great, so instead he justified the memory by believing it was always in his nature to destroy. He believes he is a destroyer, which is rooted in that traumatic memory, and that explains everything he has gone through. It justifies the destruction he wants to wreak as well. This internalized framing is core to his motivation.

The only chance Izuku has of stopping Tomura's destruction is to reframe that core memory. So he goes into the memory and does that. He tries to save Tenko, he tries to hold his hand and be there for him as he cries, and in doing so rejects this idea that Tenko's very nature is just to destroy. Izuku unearths the other feelings that were core to Tenko before his trauma--his desire to help others. This is the proof that Tenko was never a destroyer by nature, and it frays the existence that is Tomura Shigaraki.

Izuku cannot ACTUALLY go back in time and undo all that happened to Tenko, but he CAN change Tomura, who was birthed from Tenko's suffering. He does so by changing the way Tomura perceives that core memory of Tenko's. This is the way in which "Tenko" is saved. Tomura acknowledges Tenko was just a child who was hurt and needed help. This is likely what All Might was referring to when he told Izuku he saved Tomura's heart (or soul or whatever).

HOWEVER, Tomura himself is not undone by this revelation. The Tomura we see in the end that destroys AFO and bids Izuku farewell is one that has regressed back to his unfused state. This is the Tomura who sought to lead the League of Villains--or in other words, this is the Tomura who destroyed to save people. This is the Tomura who wished to be a hero for the villains, and he refuses to be "saved" from being that person. If left alive, he would go on destroying to save those people all the same. He would just do it for a different reason than to justify his identity. Tomura himself has never professed any interest in what happens after he destroys everything, so his ending was always one of instability. He wouldn't build anything upon the ruins of what he destroys, he would likely end up destroyed himself and leave the rebuilding to others to do. Because he is committed to this path, he destroys AFO, the source of everything about his life he hated and always professed he wanted to destroy, and in doing so destroys himself as well.

That last bit is where things get hazy for me. AFO's "trump card" is the piece I haven't fully integrated into this reading, and I know I need to...[long-suffering sigh] go back and reread the Overhaul arc before I come close to finalizing anything. But it's been long enough that I feel I can start to share some of these readings I've been stewing on.

[chicasgeneralgoods]

yeah im ngl? like i totally get a lot of people can understand that curly is just as responsible as jimmy for what happened to the crew while at the same time being invested in him as a character... but it's kind of really weird how curly gets more of a pass by a lot of mouthwashing fans? like a lot of people will refuse to draw jimmy as a way to denounce him and deem him unworthy of any "fan" work, but then given how the two are so like parasitically unified, shouldn't that extend to curly too? is the fact that he is a "well-meaning" person whose inaction (as well as certian actions) directly lead to the violence against anya and the crew who didnt directly do the violence himself somehow absolve him from the kind of vindication that makes jimmy unworthy of fan-like portrayal and engagement? does that keep him from crossing that line? is that rooted in a desire to separate curly from the man horrible man he enabled? does this align him more with the victims as the rest of the crew are rather than the perpetrator? is curly both a victim and a perpetrator? is he neither?

this is all not so much to declare one conclusion one way or another but rather to muse on the different fan-engagements and portrayals between jimmy and curly.

as horror media, mouthwashing is expected to have a metaphorical "monster" who causes disgust and fear to the audience. I can only think of three characters that could fit this role: jimmy, polle, and curly himself. jimmy is the most blatantly monstrous in that his actions are reprehensible and this is what has earned him his sort of exiled position from fan-representation/engagement, and polle chases the player (as jimmy) in the way a horror game character might in certain gameplay sections, but could curly not count as well? upon closer examination, most people realize that curly is complicit in the violence that happened at the ship which can incite the same kind of repulsion as a "monster" is meant to do. the game also uses his permanently open eye in promotional material to kind of symbolize the horror of the game itself. polle is only really a monster when you see his role from the perspective of jimmy (especially when you read him as a voice for anya) or when hes read as a metaphor for capitalism and the company that enabled this before any personal level even applies (which i think is a role he can exist in simultaneously). curly's post-crash body is similarly used as a source of horror from his ever-present gaze and also from kind of drawing on the history of disabilities to be seen as "monstrous" and repulsive ("monstrosity" of course is a very loaded concept that often hosts a lot of racist, ableist, transphobic, and overall just the variety of repulsions against "the other" that is encountered in media orientations within it). if you asked me what the true "horror" of mouthwashing was, i'd probably say it's the horror of witnessing, enabling, and abiding of abusers (also considering that the ending of the game is curly witnessing everything but being unable to act or communicate anything of what he saw and if hes found presumably taking the blame for it)... which i think would place curly as the "true" monster of this game within such an interpretation.

so then, why doesn't he cross the line?