Each night, for a week, Fray lays awake long after retiring. Come morning he is ill-rested and sluggish, and no less preoccupied. The root of this torment is no secret to him, indeed, it is not even unfamiliar. Fray knows the inner body moves in cycles and phases. Even his, touched by the gift of the Revealer, is no exception. Were he at home it would not be an issue; he has methods and friends available to him there.
But he is not at home, and the heat that lingers between his thighs is not easily ignored.
It’s not that this is the first time it has happened since he was made host to the parasite, either. It was this same hunger that saw him make his stupidest mistake yet: allowing Astarion to bite him. It had been a moment of weakness, one that now mortifies him, but the thought of being touched—even by a vampire—had become so powerful a craving that he slipped. Worse, it had been wonderful. Even with the pain of the bite, even with the rancid shame that sat in his stomach, the weight and warmth of another body atop him was so soothing that he had allowed it to go much, much too far.
On the upside, when he awoke with a gasp and the telltale tingling nausea that is the signature of being pulled back from the brink of oblivion, the urge had been gone. For a while, at least.
But it’s returned, and with a vengeance. Fray spends most of his nights distracting himself however possible, and ensuring he is never left alone with certain of his companions for too long.
He knows, too, that when Right quietly produces a pouch of pipeleaf one evening, he should not indulge. Leaf makes him unwise, and usually intensifies the need for release. A bad combination.
But it has been a long, trying day, full of bad weather and negotiations with goblins. He is too tightly wound. Fray helps himself to a little of the leaf, and resolves that no mistakes will be made.
And, mostly, he manages. His self-control does slip, as he thought it might. Rather than letting himself focus on the easy way Karlach exists in her body, sprawled happily on her back by the edge of camp and chattering with Shadowheart about constellations, he seeks more acceptable distraction.
Gale has a kind face and the sort of body Fray sees so rarely, soft with good living. He’s cheerful and friendly (and human), complimentary and good-humored (and bigger than Fray). Fray does not dislike him, though some of his overtures have been a bit strong. Still. Fray can find no moral, ethical quandary in being near him.
Both a bit fuzzy and clumsy with the leaf, Gale nevertheless tries to teach him to command the Weave. Fray, who has known magic only through the Revealer’s blessing, finds it difficult: hand motions and word cadence, keeping the right mindset, focusing on a manifestation. It’s nothing like the easy-as-breathing magic he can call on through the Revealer’s power. He tells Gale as much when they’ve decided to give it a rest.
“Far be it from me to judge,” Gale says, smiling, “but I don’t think magic should be easy, if you understand me. It can do beautiful, wonderful, terrible things. Even the simplest spell can change a life, forever. It’s a sort of power that needs—mm—one must have respect for it. Are you comfortable?”
Fray is quite comfortable, having allowed himself to lean against Gale and watch as the wizard twists lines of magic in his hands. The hazy outlines shift to support his meaning, though they are abstract enough Fray only ever gets the sense of what they might represent. “Mm-hmm. I respect magic.”
“Do you?”
“’Course. As you s, say. Dangerous. Needs meted carefully.”
Gale hums in answer, and his little handheld spell shifts. It takes the shape of a sword; Fray’s sword, he realizes. “It may be my own biases showing,” says Gale, “but I have never trusted beings that bestow power in return for service. If they have such power, why are they not doing their own work? Why use it as a bribe?”
Under the fuzzy comfort of the leaf, Fray feels something in his mind shift uncomfortably. “My patron,” he says, concentrating on getting the words out without stumbling, “didn’t bribe me.”
“Ah, well, I meant no offense. It would be most rude of me to assume the nature of your relationship. Perhaps bribe is not the word. Bargaining chip? Payment for services rendered? What is it your patron requires of you in exchange for your power?”
“Nothing,” Fray says, appeased for now. “Only that I accept Their gift. All else I do, I do out of love for Them and Their commands.”
“Hmm. So if you were to stop your … work, let’s call it, you would keep your magic? Your patron would not repossess it, as it were?”
“I—”
“And you mention commands? You may accept this gift, as you call it, and not adhere to them? Do all acolytes of your church wield such power?”
A defensive prickling skates down the back of Fray’s neck. He pushes himself off Gale’s shoulder, the sleepy, uncouth ideas he has been entertaining sliding away with the motion. His head isn’t as clear as he’d like for this conversation, and he’s nearly out of words for the day. “No,” he says, answering only the last question. “Can follow without taking the gift. It—it empowers you so you can do Their work. Wouldn’t accept it if you didn’t want to already.”
Gale has shifted, and to Fray’s eye watches him with a studious interest. It makes Fray feel like a butterfly pinned to a board. “So there are conditions to it? You are given power, but only if you are already a willing servant?” A simplification, but Fray nods. “So, then, would you not say that itself is the price?”
“These were the price,” Fray says irately, pulling down the collar of his shirt. The lines of careful scar tissue stand out against his pale skin. “Willingly taken, to make myself a mu, more perfect vessel.”
Gale considers this. He lets the little cantrip in his palm dissipate. “Fascinating,” he says at last. “There is no price for the gift of your patron, but in order to receive it you must rend your own flesh. I like you a great deal, Fray, but I find these sorts of philosophical logic puzzles to not really be my forté.”
“Drop it, then,” Fray says, and Gale does. They find other topics of conversation, but the comfortable camaraderie never returns for Fray. Gale’s flirting falls flat as Fray chases the dogma he is supposed to know by heart round and round in his head. Why didn’t he have an answer to that?
He can’t find one, and he can’t bear to think about why not, so he doesn’t. He puts the whole exchange into a box in his mind and shoves it into the shadows.
He extracts himself at last, much to Gale’s obvious disappointment. Fray is not much happier about it. Gale was more or less his only option. Wyll seems too straight-laced to approach, one of those types that wants a whole relationship first; Astarion is not to be trusted; neither Shadowheart nor Lae’zel interest him; and the tieflings …
This is how Fray finds himself alone in his tent, The moment the tent flap is tied down he’s fighting the buttons on his trousers. He works them down his hips, and then drags his hand down his stomach and beneath his smallclothes.
The first touch is heavenly. He bites back a sound as he slides his fingertips over and around his cunt, and fails to stay quiet at the sensation of spreading himself open. He lets his thoughts stray where they will, too focused on his body to command his mind. They go to Gale first, but linger only briefly over the appealing curves Fray has spied on him in the evenings. They quickly move to Astarion, and the memory that comes with him: the gratifying pressure of being held down; silky white hair in his fingers; even, to some degree, the light-headed, absent euphoria that had set in just before the end. He’s since realized it was probably due to blood loss, but there was something calming about it.
He crooks a finger inside himself and bites his lip. He imagines it’s not his teeth. He imagines them sharper, lined with breath that almost smokes with heat. He rifles through his memories of pleasurable nights at home, the best of them exhausting and a little scary, a little humiliating—these before he was refined for the gift, of course. No one at home would dare suggest playing such games with a saint.
But what might Karlach do to him if given his reins, he wonders? Her intoxicating personality, cheerful and deadly and kind, sends him tripping over ideas, sends a second finger into him. His spine curls. His thighs clench with sensation and fantasy: Karlach’s hands on his hips, her mouth on his neck, claws-teeth-tongue. He wants to know how it feels to be under her, for someone to handle him with that commanding, careful touch he misses.
His breath catches and seethes. He’s pulled back his hand to focus on his cock, now hard and full under its hood; he has to slow down. He forces himself to do so by rolling over and contorting himself so he has his face in the pillow and his hips lifted enough for access. When he drops them again it’s to grind heavy and slow against his own hand. It’s not the most comfortable position, but the pleasure is worthwhile.
He returns to his imagination, greeted by the thought of red hands fisted in his hair, keeping him firmly in place between thighs that could probably crush him. In his fantasy she tastes sharp and smoky. He swallows slick that is not really there and shudders, reveling in the feeling of having fulfilled his function as she casts him aside.
And, tentatively, his thoughts introduce another player. He’s always found multiple partners to be more comfortable, perhaps because they are never more than friends; three is less intimate. It should not be a surprise, then, when the scene morphs, turning one tiefling into two.
It would never happen, of course. None of this will, ever, and even if it were not strictly forbidden to him he’s pretty sure Right would sooner gut him than fuck him. But that’s why it’s fantasy; and he likes Right, if he’s being open with himself. He’s just letting off steam. This is why he decides to not let little things like reality bother him. In his head, his prior position between Karlach’s thighs is filled by Right. In his head he can put himself behind them and drape himself over their back, feel their warmth, cup their breasts in his hands and knead until they moan into Karlach’s cunt. Their hair smells clean and lightly of some kind of tinker’s oil. Their tail is the perfect height and give to use as a toy, grinding so hard against it that in real life his hand threatens to go numb. That tail! Fray has never been with someone who has a tail. He follows the thread, the Karlach in his mind’s eye flipping Right over and holding their wrists together in one hand. Their thighs pull together, tail lifting to protect their modesty. Go on, then, the imaginary Karlach tells him, and Right allows him to gently press their legs apart.
A dozen ideas flash through his mind, each more degenerate than the last. Horns as handles, tail as toy, teasing out sound after sound from Right as Karlach dictates his movements. Fray whimpers into the pillow, aching, hungry, for the moment forgetting how terribly lonely he feels here. For the moment he needs only dwell in this fantasy. Please, he mouths at nothing, at his body, at his shameful lusts, please, please, please—
He thinks of lying between the two of them, and comes undone.