Archive of Our Own ^beta

Even the most expensive campus apartment seems cramped with this many people hanging out on Astarion’s sofa. There’s even a few milling around the chairs. Two more hovering by the pithy array of snacks.

Some of them are Gale’s, the people. So is empty space on the snack table.

And he isn’t technically late since it’s still nineish. The agreed-upon time.

How far does that ish stretch, exactly? Astarion’s not sure. Another human custom to learn.

Turns out, ish lasts at least another half-glass of wine. Which isn’t too bad.

A muffled knock, a muffled shout at the door and Astarion tries very hard not to look like he’s hurrying but there’s a clip in his gait as he breezes through the kitchen towards the petite foyer.

A half-hours’ lateness, easily forgiven.

And he wasn’t even going to have a birthday get-together until Gale suggested it, so it’s hardly started without the human.

And now there’s going to be eight people in his apartment.

He opens the door, ready with a clever sweet chiding all loaded up on his acid tongue.

He nearly drops his wine, instead.

Gale, normally, stuns. No exceptions here, with his long hair free and thick, past his shoulders, falling down onto a lavender sweater.

A sweater!

Fitted, perfectly so, with a fuzzy-soft halo that demands Astarion’s touch as much as the man wrapped up in it. It’s tight, even, around his biceps as his arms struggle and flex with an absolute load of food and strange, tiny appliances. A tote bag hangs off one shoulder.

Astarion opens his mouth to say something, to offer help, but there’s khaki trousers, too. Tighter than they ought to be everywhere they ought to be. There’s some shirt in the mix too, tucked in under the sweater. Probably a belt and gods, Astarion knows it matches those chestnut brown leather shoes.

He’s never seen Gale in so many clothes. Never even thought about what he might look like in a sweater, let alone full-length trousers.

For a second, it feels like the first time.

Feels like that sunshiney day outside by the planter where Gale caught him off guard in so many different ways. How, months later, has he done it again?

“I’m sorry,” Astarion finally manages, in a breathy rush. Gripping the door, holding his wine glass aloft haughtily. He cocks out a hip too, fully posturing while Gale and his very tall tiefling friend struggle with their arms full. “I’m sorry, I was expecting my not-quite-boyfriend who has never worn long trousers in his fucking life. Who are you and what have you done with him?”

Gale only blushes a little. Only shoots Astarion a pleading look for a second before his eyes flicker to the floor and he huffs out a soft laugh. “Astarion. I don’t look that different, do I?”

He squints, pressing his fingertips against his chest. All show, for no other reason than it’s fun and Gale looks fucking gorgeous and he needs to make a big deal over it.

Also to buy a few more seconds to stare.

A gasp, and, “Oh gods, it is you! I was going to take you to bed later anyway, no matter who you turned out to be. Here, what can I take?”

“Nothing! It’s your birthday!” Gale says, emphatically, offended, taking a step into the doorway and another to plant a kiss, quick but warm, on Astarion’s cheek. The heat lingers on his skin even as Gale brushes past and his very tall friend follows with an apologetic look.

“Hello, Gale’s very tall friend,” Astarion follows her towards the kitchen, bigger than the one in Gale’s dorm but not by much. “My, three is a crowd.”

“Happy birthday, Gale’s not-boyfriend,” the red-skinned tiefling offers, dumping some things on the counter, more on the table, and parting with a clap of his shoulder. There’s a gentle cheer of her name in the living room that immediately puts him at ease.

Gale’s already sorting things. Plugging things in. Rolling up his sleeves and folding his crisp shirt over the sweater’s cuffs.

Astarion leans against the wall and watches, greedily.

The soft lighting from overhead hits the human just right, highlighting his chestnut waves, the sparkle of his brown eyes, the forever-tan of his skin. He’s all motion, a hint of nervous energy as he props up a thick, colorful cookbook and rifles through his tote bag for something.

“Are you sure I can’t lend a hand?”

“You can be sure not to drink too much so that you can receive your penultimate gift properly, later.”

“Oh?” Astarion’s brows raise and he saunters his way over. Now that that’s on the table, that hint of filthy insinuation, he’s relieved. “Spoil it for me?”

“Your gift?”

“Mhmm. A hint?” and he’s so close now, that even among all the ingredients, the spices and vegetables and things Gale’s setting out, the only scent that catches him truly is Gale’s. Familiar, spicy, deep, drawing him even closer.

Gale backs against the counter, his eyes searching Astarion’s and blinking quickly. An apology, Astarion already sees, curving on his lips.

“Is it in here?” Astarion asks, with a tilt of his head. With a hand grasping for Gale’s belt, buttery soft leather, warm with his heat. He curls it around Gale’s khaki-clad hip and slides higher, brushing bare skin. “All wrapped up in this gorgeous beige package?”

“Well - yes, but I think you’ll be surprised still,” Gale says, in a low voice. The barest hint of a smirk touching his lips, glittering in his eyes.

Astarion leans in closer and noses his neck. There’s no cologne there. He doesn’t need it, his natural scent is like fucking catnip and Astarion some luxurious, pampered kitten.

Hmm. Maybe too much of the wine, too fast. He hasn’t had the good elven stuff in a while.

He puts the glass down and brushes his mouth over Gale’s neck instead, tasting the warm, clean skin. Staying long enough to feel his pulse pick up.

“You look so fucking gorgeous in this outfit,” Astarion tells him, brushes the words against his skin in a whisper, on the way to his mouth. His hands move just as soft, both of them skittering over Gale’s belt, tugging apart the pristine tuck of his shirt and sliding right up over his chest.

There’s a smile, there’s a faint blush, and Gale’s arms go around his waist, nearly innocent compared with the way Astarion’s digging his fingertips into all that chest hair, clutching at his skin like he might peel that off of him with these maddening layers.

Two layers.

Far more than Astarion’s ever seen him in.

“Thought I might try dressing up for this very special occasion,” Gale says, his smile widening to a beam.

“You did mention that, but I expected a tuxedo-print crop-top and your finest shortest shorts but I have to admit, something about seeing you in more clothes is really working for me. Why is that?”

“The wine, I suspect.”

Astarion blinks, gives another squeeze at Gale’s perfectly muscular pecs. It’s his birthday, and he doesn’t need to let go. But the nervous tick of Gale’s energy pings back at him and that, he cannot grope away.

“It’s very expensive wine. A whole case sent from my parents,” he explains, sliding out of the warm space under those two layers and against Gale’s skin. He tucks the shirt back in, at least, and tugs the sweater back to rights.

“I only hope it goes with the vaervren I’m about to prepare. What color is it?” Gale asks. He pats at his sweater too and catches Astarion’s hands in both of his.

Catches his eyes too, in that trap of luminous brown that Astarion never manages to look away from. He doesn’t care about wine right now. He doesn’t care about the party or the fussy elven dishes Gale’s hells-bent on preparing. He doesn’t care about anything but sinking into that gaze headfirst and staying for the rest of the night, guests be damned.

But the human’s brows raise and Astarion’s lower, a slight frown that he has to look away to actually recall the color of wine in his glass.

Worse. He has to free a hand from Gale’s to pick the glass up by the stem, letting it glitter in the kitchen’s overhead lights.

“It is ever so slightly green, see? It’s from - “

“Mushrooms! Isn’t it?” Gale finishes for him, squinting, standing taller to peer down into the held-aloft glass.

“It is. I forget you’re an elf-chaser, you probably know far more than I do about the wine.”

Gale rolls his eyes but none of the sparkle leaves the wide, lovely irises. “It’s a common field of study for any graduate student on my track. That’s all.”

“Mm. Mhmm.” A low, teasing hum. A familiar joke between them that always gets a sweet flush on the human’s cheeks, across the straight bridge of his nose.

And it’s his birthday; he’s allowed to tease as much as he wants. Allowed to obsess and creep and any other manner of slightly unseemly things he has on his mind.

Gale clears his throat, his fingers pinching the wine stem near Astarion’s. “Might I steal a glass, for the rice? I think it’ll pair nicely.”

“You can steal anything you want. I’ll bring you a bottle.”

“And call Karlach back in the kitchen, will you? She’s supposed to be my second set of hands tonight.”

The dismissal is plain and another jolt of that nervous energy rubs off on him. A quick kiss that only makes him want another, and he’s off towards the door.

He pauses though, with it half-open against his shoulder, and watches.

His birthday. He’s allowed.

Gale’s a flurry of activity already, placing a heavy pan on the stove and turning the burner ablaze. Unfolding a precious looking cookbook, placing it on a stand of all things. His bright eyes scan the recipe even while he arranges his working space with color-coordinated cutting boards and an array of utensils.

Astarion fights several impulses, watching.

To kiss Gale again. To take some creepy picture of the fantastic swell of his ass in those trousers. To shove him up against the counter. To down this glass of wine and tell everyone to go the fuck home so he can ride Gale on the couch until the sun comes up.

But a swell of laughter from the living room breaks the spell and he turns with one last lingering look to face the party again.

“Gale’s very tall friend, you’re demanded in the kitchen,” Astarion announces, airily, supplying her with a bottle of wine as she grumbles and stomps past.

How late might dinner arrive if he took her place, instead?

It’s a fun, fleeting thought.

But the party isn’t bad either. It’s only that it isn’t Gale.

He perches on the arm of the couch and slides in and out of the conversations. Jen’s on about the monthly underground goth rave by the docks again, and it’s worth it to sit here and see the expressions glaze as she attempts to describe the music in the most academic terms possible.

He doesn’t even try to understand.

Everyone seems to take a second to find Gale in the kitchen, in the ten minutes it takes before the first of the snacks come out and fill the table. Things seem to pick up, after that. A balm on their blood sugar.

Jen’s playlist picks up, too. The atmosphere turns far more jovial than any birthday party Astarion’s ever had. Even with other elves, half and otherwise, in his living room, it lacks the sedate stuffiness of all those parties his family and friends threw for him.

It’s a marvelous change.

Laughter and smoke and drinking games and no boring social rituals. No networking, no worrying about one’s standing in the eyes of others. Even the drow, one of Gale’s friends, seems capable of sharing a joke and with the familiar smells coming from the kitchen, Astarion’s heart sort of flips, pleasantly, for a few seconds as the party crests and swirls around him.

To think. He spent all these years tamping himself down to fit into an enclave. Schooling his expressions and his thoughts, fretting over hemlines and where to sit at dinner parties, when none of that matters, at all.

When he crams onto the middle of the couch, squeezing between the githyanki and the wood elf, there’s not one disapproving glare. When he laughs with all of his teeth, there’s no one to clear their throat, to roll their eyes.

The world outside of his enclave is so wild and wide and all of this, every second of enjoyment he’s wringing from this party, is down to Gale.

Astarion eats up every snatched glance when the kitchen doors swing wide. Knowing full well if he goes in there to help, dinner will be further delayed. And normally he doesn’t care about food much at all but the scent wafting out actually makes his mouth water.

He longs for it, yes, but the longing is easily soothed by the party itself, and he has no idea how long passes before Gale makes his first actual appearance in the living room, holding a steaming silver and wood tray.

He looks deliciously disheveled. Sweater stretched and askew, hair swept up into one of those gravity defying buns. There’s a stain here and there on his khakis but, overall, he looks proud and relieved and his eyes find Astarion’s across the room, fixing him with a grin.

It nearly stops his heart, or something like that. Some quaint turn of phrase.

“Your dinner, hond ebrath,” Gale says, with a half-bow.

A smattering of applause, a toast, and even as a few stomachs grumble loudly, no one moves.

“Ah, custom dictates you take your place at the table,” Gale stage-whispers at him.

Astarion pulls a face, waves his wine glass dismissively. “We are absolutely not standing on customs at my first fun birthday party. Please, stampede to the dining table and let the gods sort the rest out.”

He gets a clap on the shoulder from both the githyanki and the enormous wood-elf who’s name he never remembers, and a nod of commiseration from Wyll.

“I’ve heard elven customs are even more strict than patriars, or even the Waterdhavian nobility” he says, with a shake of his head.

“It’s true, and I hate it, and I’ll never observe them as long as I’m here,” Astarion says, haughtily. Slowly, on purpose, making his way to the table.

Unfettered by any such social normals, Lae’zel takes the head of the table and he grins heartily at that. And wider still knowing there’s no expected reprimand.

And besides, this way, he can sit properly next to Gale.

And stare.

The human sets the steaming dish down, two potholders gripping the silver platter. The fragrant steam must hit him full in the face, until it sets it down and stands back with a contented sigh.

He looks like he spent hours in the kitchen. Rumpled and unkempt in the hottest way. Unruly strands of hair, silky and unmanageable, escaping from the high bun, a glow of sweat at his temples and a droplet sliding down his neck. It disappears but Astarion imagines the taste on his tongue, salty and fresh and better than any delicacy anyone could set in front of him.

Although….

The aroma of the vaervren floats over, sudden and warm and Astarion straightens up in his seat. His eyes stray to the dish on the table but his brain goes somewhere else entirely. Any number of banquets back at home. The fussy elven cooks even served it on the same style of platter. And he hasn’t felt homesick much past the first few days in Waterdeep but something about the scent of this does it, quick and sharp.

He misses it in a way that, maybe, he’ll always miss home. In an abstract stab of feeling right in his guts, an ache for the familiar, even as the rational part of his brain knows how godsdamned better it is, here. In the wider world.

The feeling fades as quickly as it comes. Fades as he watches Gale spread his arms and start to speak, explaining, senselessly but thoroughly, the dish they’re about to tuck into.

Astarion sighs. Head on his hand, elbow on the table, swerving in his seat to watch and try to listen. But who really cares about listening, when there’s all of Gale to stare at. He moves his hands when he speaks and the smattering of rings sparkle. Bracelets clack plasticky on his wrists, ruffling the hair on his arms. There’s a little green stain on one of his sleeves, from the wine.

The human lectures, sometimes, to packed crowds of aspiring wizards and historians. Astarion’s thought of sitting in, once or twice. Just to see more of this, more of the gestures and the easy smile. To hear more of that voice resonating, modulating for the environment perfectly. But, even better, are the gestures he knows from more intimate encounters.

He’s content treasuring those.

And staring so hard, again, that he’s missed a toast that’s clearly for him. Too late when he picks up the wine glass and gestures thanks at everyone, and Gale smooths it all over with another little lesson about the mushroom-infused wine they’re drinking.

“Enough talk,” Lae’zel hisses. Not the only one impatient but the only one brash enough to express it.

Astarion raises a glass to that and gives Gale a little wink as he clams up. “Here, here. Although it is in keeping with elven tradition to keep talking until the food cools considerably. So my thanks to the chef and orator for keeping even that alive.”

“Of course,” Gale chuckles. A showy but conciliatory nod bobbing his hair into his face. Astarion reaches up to brush that hair back, to tuck it behind Gale’s pierced ears and he can’t resist a little kiss there, against his cheek. The human’s skin is so warm against his mouth, again, probably always.

“Thank you,” Astarion says, low against his ear, and he takes his plate.

A playful snickering rolls over the table in a wave and Jen’s the one to say it, smirking behind her wine glass. “Awful familiar for being not-boyfriends or whatever made-up thing you keep calling yourself.”

“Every phrase is made up,” Astarion huffs, gesturing with his fork towards Wyll, “Ask the doctor of fine literature and he’ll tell you. And furthermore, there isn’t a single person sitting around this table that I wouldn’t offer a kiss on the cheek too. By all means, line up and we can feast on public displays of affection as a first course, if you insist.”

Satisfying, that the snickering turns to laughter, turns to a smattering of like-minded cheek-kisses at all ends of the table.

“There, you see,” and he longs to point out just how far Gale’s apt to go, when a heady waft of steam prickles at his nose and ends all of his thoughts with the most overwhelming pang of homesickness he’s ever felt.

Tears water his vision and the feeling clutches at his chest like a fist. Squeezes while he turns the rice and meat mixture over on his fork. The herbs are cut up so small, as they ought to be. Fussy little ribbons of green, dark and light, running through the faintly chartreuse grains of rice. There’s huge chunks of meat on the plate too, and perfectly trimmed medallions of vegetables.

He doesn’t need to take a bite to know it’s going to be perfect.

He spares another sidelong glance at Gale. Watches him dishing out for everyone. Sharing easy smiles, laughing. That same feeling seizes him, a grip of his heart, a pull, a twist. A very real throbbing under his skin that has nothing to do with the carefully prepared food.

It’s the thought, it’s the knowledge tickling his brain that all of this is for him and it’s all at Gale’s behest and he wants nothing more than to thank him with his entire being.

If anyone’s noticed he’s gone soft and achy, they have the good sense to keep quiet.

He’s content anyway, watching, until the plates are all filled.

It only gets worse at the first nibble.

Utter perfection. He groans, outright, and everyone else seems to join in. Even Lae’zel with her assessment that this is a perfectly balanced meal, both nutritionally and recreationally.

The pristine forests with all their secret winding paths, the clear waterfalls in hidden grottoes. Even the twisting, bustling streets of the capital of Evereska all spring to his mind as he eats, practically scraping the plate clean.

But the thought of Gale seems to override all of that.

Gale did all of this, for him.

Astounding.

Despite protests, he’s the one following Gale into the kitchen with an armful of empty plates once the main course is over.

“It’s your birthday, drop these in the sink and then leave! I promise I don’t need help with anything else,” Gale implores him, shoving his sleeves further up his elbows.

Astarion does do the first part but he can’t resist framing Gale’s face in his hands and giving him a fond gaze. “Do you really need to serve dessert?”

“It’s sort of a universal tradition,” Gale says, words a little smushed from Astarion’s grasp at his face. But through a smile anyway.

“Maybe we should begin a new tradition? Making everyone leave so I can do unspeakable things to you in the kitchen. Hmm?”

“Nothing’s unspeakable,” Gale smirks. Hands around Astarion’s wrists, gently lowering his hands from his face. “But it would distract me from my very important work here if you did speak of it.”

“Just let me help you a little bit?” Astarion asks, pouts, rests his hands on Gale’s shoulders and squeezes. “I’ll just clear a space and then rejoin the delightful company out in the living room.”

Gale’s eyes narrow. He’s too smart, every ulterior motive already picked apart. Astarion sees it shining there in his gaze.

One last volley.

“It is my birthday, and I do sort of get to do whatever I want…yes?”

“And you want to help me clean the kitchen.”

“I want,” Astarion starts, with a drawl and a smirk that he simply has no hope of hiding, “to make things a little easier for you as you selflessly prepare your not-boyfriend another stunning course of elven food. I know how annoying these recipes are.”

“I do have help.”

“Yes, and I believe she’s rolling the largest blunt I’ve ever seen on my dining room table. So.”

“Hhmph.” Gale huffs. Mouth twisting in thought until finally, a sigh. “I really only have the decorating to do. The dessert’s mostly finished, except for the admittedly fussy topping of those candied fruits.”

“Mhmm, let me open this window, it’s sweltering in here,” Astarion placates, veering off and throwing up the window. The night air rushes in in a sweet breeze. The crickets, the night birds, the soft trees rustling, reminds him even more of home.

Except, it’s better, here.

Because when he turns around, there’s the back of Gale. Muscles shifting under the sweater, under the shirt. Wisps of his soft hair brushing his collar and the back of his long neck. His ears, ringed up and down the blunt length, with all that silver and rainbow shimmering.

Astarion rushes into him and presses up against his back with a soft sigh.

“Oh - hello,” Gale huffs in a laugh, turning his head.

Astarion noses at his skin and squeezes his arms around his chest. As close as he can get, just for a second.

He dutifully veers off, gathering dishes and sodden utensils.

And if his sleek motions have him bumping into Gale again, well, he’s going to steal a kiss from his mouth, quick, and move off just as fast.

“If only this kitchen weren’t so small,” Gale drawls, the bright brown of his eyes sparkling even brighter as Astarion brushes up against him again, his hands landing square on his chest.

“Oh, if only,” Astarion sighs, smirking wider as Gale’s hands find his waist and draw him closer for a breathless second. “Imagine if we’d had this at your place.”

“I’d be on my best behavior then, too.”

They’re so close.

Gale’s so close Astarion feels every breath. In the swell against his chest, in the heat against his mouth.

It isn’t enough. He wants to feel every exhale against his tongue, wants to eat every one up, but the second he goes in for the kiss, Gale spins cleverly out of his grasp.

The chuckle says it was clearly on purpose.

“You beast,” Astarion huffs.

“Get me the bag from the freezer, will you?” is all Gale says, in response.

Gods, he wants to dunk his whole bloody head in the freezer, right now. Even with the window open, the kitchen swelters. Or maybe it’s just Gale.

A ripple of laughter outside in the living room, the sound of a window opening out there, too, and the kitchen door swings a little in the newly-made breeze.

The bag from the freezer is clearly marked, with other small bags inside of it, also clearly marked in thick black marker.

“You’re so organized,” Astarion sighs. And then laughs. And then, “I can’t believe I just used that as an endearment. Gods.”

Gale takes the bag. Grins wider for the compliment and this time, he’s the one pushing in for a kiss. Soft, sweet, too quick before he slides off again. “It’s something I strive for, so I’ll gladly accept it. Really.”

Astarion forgoes any other tidying up to lean against the counter and watch Gale unpack things. Any excuse, really, to watch his hands work. Long, tanned fingers, perfectly manicured, perfectly deft under all those pretty rings.

“I’m not sure I’d feel the same if someone complimented, I don’t know, my note-taking ability or prowess with a highlighter.”

A shared laugh.

And he slides a little closer, until his hip nudges at Gale’s, and the human blinks at him. “I do have, perhaps, one compliment to give you right now.”

“Oh?” Astarion perks up, worming ever closer. A hand on Gale’s chest, against the soft fuzz of his sweater. His heart beats hard but even, underneath, and all of that human heat radiates like a whole other sun.

“Mhmm,” Gale makes a sigh of it. Moving just-so, just to give Astarion some space to slot between his body and the counter, to press their bodies closer than before.

Astarion’s gaze flickers over Gale’s. He’s caught up with nowhere else he could ever want to go and even better, eagerly awaiting a compliment.

“Well?” he prompts, low and breathless. His other hand, the left, winding around the tight nip of Gale’s waist.

“I only want to make sure I say it right.” And Gale’s thick lashes flutter and his heart speeds up under Astarion’s touch. His eyes turn down, swoop up again. He pushes in closer and glides a hand over Astarion’s shoulder, letting the other one fall to his waistband.

Oh, gods, there isn’t anything Astarion wouldn’t let him do, right now. A prickle of heat churns in his guts and his chest clenches too and what sort of mix up is all of that, really? Insane. Something to unpack later. Far, far later.

“Astarion,” and a sigh of his name too. In that beautiful, rich Waterdhavian accent. Lips against the corner of his mouth, a rustle as Gale thumbs at the button of his fly, threatening to pop it, slick and easy.

It isn’t even the wine that spins his head, it’s this. It’s looking into Gale’s big brown eyes and standing on the edge of a cliff, held back only by his lithely muscled arms.

“Astarion, never has anyone dared to be so bloody in the way in my kitchen before.”

It’s a few seconds, before it lands.

Astarion huffs and looks away and all of that tension snaps hard.

“Oh, you prick,” he mutters, twisting out of the grasp, twisting away. Not particularly hurt but running awful on adrenaline and something else, some shattered expectations.

“No, no, come here,” Gale tries to apologize, grasping back at him even as he’s turned away towards the window.

“Here, take your stupid dishes,” Astarion picks up speed, this time, cleaning in a flurry until everything’s piled in the kitchen.

Every turn, he’s met by Gale, and every time, he brushes off his hands while the human laughs and laughs. He spurns Gale, every time, through sheer force of will.

Until he can’t, until a skittering touch across his lower back sends shivers down his spine and he turns in a rush, blind, desperate, crashing against Gale’s mouth.

There’s no resistance. There’s no sweetness, either.

He pushes Gale’s mouth open with his tongue and sinks in and relishes all of those familiar tastes, far more than the elaborate elven food. It makes him groan, desperate and hot and he shivers again when Gale;’s tongue slides against his.

Finally. Finally.

Gale’s hands find his trousers again, deftly popping the button and Astarion groans into his mouth and stops him from moving ahead.

“Gods know how much I want that, but…please, let me - “ he starts and hurriedly finds Gale’s belt, giving it a tug. “Let me thank you, properly.”

“Oh - you needn’t. A gift is freely given, Astarion, and - “

“Alright, let me give you a gift, then.”

“It’s your birthday!”

“Yes, and for my birthday, I want to suck your cock.”

It never fails to short circuit Gale.

Astarion feels the inhale collide their chests. Watches those gorgeous eyes blinking. He shouldn’t bring it up so much. He knows he shouldn’t push the issue but gods, it’s so worth it.

“It’s - today, of all days, Astarion - “

“Yes, today,” Astarion grins, forehead against Gale’s, his hands busy with his soft leather belt. “Today is a perfect day for it. Besides, do you know how many times you’ve - “

“Thirty -“

“ - two, gods, you too?”

They finish together, a perfect count. A sweet shared laugh.

“Today’s going to be thirty-three.”

“And tomorrow morning thirty-four if I play my cards right, and none of that precludes me getting down on my knees right here and now,” Astarion tells him, plain, simple, direct. Punched up by his hand skittering into Gale’s trousers. Fingers perfectly slender to squeeze between waistband and skin.

And, surprisingly, underwear.

Astarion stops for a second, his fingers just wriggling through Gale’s perfectly trimmed bush. A bite at his lip sends a deep shiver through the human’s body.

“Is that…underwear? I never dreamed you owned such a thing.”

It’s as exotic as the whole outfit, somehow.

Astarion considers sending everyone home, immediately. He could feign a headache or feign anger at any number of things happening in that living room without him. Just to have Gale all to himself, to strip away these foreign layers by slow degrees and treat the man to the receiving end of his very first blow job.

But there’s time for all that.

“Of course I own - what do you think I wear when I’m lecturing?” Gale says, with the softest laugh, the sweetest twinkle in his eyes.

“Do you dress like this to stand up in front of those lucky undergrads?”

“Mhmm.”

“The sweater?”

“I have three, actually.”

“These chinos?”

“Only the one pair. In rotation with some gray slacks. Tweed, I think you call them? I’m not great with all of that.”

Astarion mostly watches his mouth while he talks and even then, part of his brain’s stuck playing dress up with Gale.

“If I take you somewhere fancy then? You’d dress up for me?”

Skirting the line three or four ways, there, Astarion tempers it with his restless hand wriggling lower, his clever fingers sliding over Gale’s half-mast erection, sliding and curling until he’s got a loose grip to tug him up.

Gale shudders in a breath. His bright beautiful eyes flutter half-closed, his mouth parting, exhaling hot breath close enough Astarion takes it for himself.

“I - I suppose if the venue dictates it, I will.”

“You will? A yes on the fancy date?”

Mean to ask for that kind of clarification with his hand gently stroking Gale’s cock but he can’t imagine the action would influence him too much. Not Gale. Not this man who knows, always, what he wants and has never shied away from a no.

Gale nods and a smile touches his mouth slow. He presses it up to Astarion’s lips and reiterates with a breathy, “Yes. Take me out somewhere fancy sometime?”

“And…can I…?” the trail off, the harder squeeze around Gale’s cock, the firmer stroke. The stroke of his tongue along Gale’s lips and the dip inside until Gale’s hands - both - fist into his curls and he nods and groans at the same time.

Astarion’s stomach swoops. Not nerves. Never nerves but something else entirely while he kisses Gale hard and deep and hot.

Maybe, sinking down to his knees on the kitchen floor, it’s a little bit of nerves fluttering around his chest. He’s seen and felt Gale’s unmatched prowess. Even learned a few tricks. He can’t help wanting to impress him, a little.

But from the deep flush on Gale’s cheeks, from the hard throb of his shaft still in Astarion’s fist, it doesn’t seem like it’s going to be too difficult a task.

No lock on the door. Not even a knob, it swings to and fro and sometimes with the breeze so in the interest of all of that, he only lets Gale’s trousers sag, a little. Top button and a few others down. Everything sort of bunched up and crinkled between them but it hardly matters.

Gale’s cock is fat and fucking beautiful in his fist. A slow stroke down, to tug his foreskin back and up close, Astarion watches precome splurt from the slit, perfectly in time with Gale’s ragged breathing.

No resisting, anymore. It might tear him apart if he does.

Astarion glances up, has to know that Gale’s watching and he is, he is. Astarion sticks out his tongue, as far as it goes, and brings Gale’s cock down to meet it. Smears the thick head over it. Curls it around every ridge, licks at him like some fantastical dessert and when he flickers his tongue over the slit again, Gale swears and jerks and rewards him with another sweet, salty spurt.

He wants to go slow but he also wants to see how far down his throat Gale will fit before he bursts. Wants to make this last until someone comes looking for them but he wants Gale to absolutely lose his find and fuck his face and bust messy on his tongue in thirty seconds.

Too many things.

Too many choices.

Finally, he settles on asking, in between swipes of his tongue, covering more and more territory with each second.

“You’re the expert, darling, how do you want me to do this?”

“It’s your birthday,” Gale sighs out. A fond touch over his cheek, his chin, a thumb over his bottom lip and Astarion chases it with his tongue for a second.

“It is,” and he grins wicked and he knows this won’t take long and he’s never been more glad for it.

Astarion finally sinks his mouth down around Gale’s fat head, engulfing the dark red heat with his own. He sucks, gentle to hard in a handful of seconds, moaning at the throb under his fingertips, at the taste on his tongue.

Everything about this man is built to tempt him somehow, he’s sure. From the first time they met, out in the sunshine on the quad, to the first time Gale shoved desperate inside of him. Experiences unrivaled.

And this, too.

The hitches in Gale’s hips, under the curl of Astarion’s other hand. The ragged pace of his breath. The fiery light of his gaze, unblinking on Astarion.

Gods, he can’t look away either. He needs to see every second of reaction, as he hollows his cheeks and sucks his way down Gale’s rigid cock.

A strangled noise makes it out of the human’s mouth. And another and his hands tangle in Astarion’s hair again. Havoc on the artful curls after he’d perfected them in the mirror this evening but worth it.

He sinks forward as slow as he can, pushing through the prickle in his eyes, the blunt scrape against his throat, until his nose nestles in Gale’s trim.

Dirty. Swallowing, drooling, trying for a moan that vibrates that stiff dick in his mouth, halfway down his throat.

His gaze goes watery and he blinks away hot tears of effort just so he can see Gale better, so he doesn’t miss a beat on that handsome face.

Gale’s mouth falls open mindlessly and there’s a look, like he wants to say something but he can’t manage it. Which is truly something, Astarion knows. He keeps him on the edge of speechless as long as he can, as long as a few big breaths in through his nose will allow him.

The earthy, deep distillation of Gale’s body, here, after sweat and hard work in the kitchen, prickles a primal shiver up Astarion’s spine. He loves - loves - being on his knees, finally, for the human but that heady, earthy scent, gods, he wants to get on his hands and knees on the fucking kitchen floor and get fucked all across the tiles.

It’s too good a thought, too potent an image, and he backs off in a whirl of spit and tongue, stroking his own saliva over Gale’s shaft as he sits back to huff in a few breaths.

“Later,“ he starts, panting, “later when we’re alone, you’’re going to fuck me stupid on this cock, yes? Is that my gift?” he asks, tapping it against his lips, against his tongue too once he’s done speaking.

A few long seconds of silence feel like a victory. Like a special win, until something beautiful unfurls on Gale’s face. A cocky honest smirk, a new dance of light in his eyes.

“I won’t ruin it. Not until after dessert. Or I’m afraid you’ll kick everyone out before the party’s natural conclusion.”

“I would, too. A hint?” he asks, sweetly, eyebrows raising. All that sugar and lovely blinking while he nuzzles at Gale’s cock, feeling the heat hard against his jaw, trailing his lips, his tongue, over every vein.

“I - ah! - I will need to triangulate a certain position with your full-length mirror,” Gale supplies, halting but there it is again, in his eyes. That dance, that spark of mischief.

“Cheeky,” Astarion mutters. Whatever it is, whatever he’s saving for later feels too far away even now, even with a few supposed hours left.

This, at least, might speed things along.

He sinks his mouth down Gale’s cock again, halfway, and finds a slow path back. It’s good enough for a gasp, good enough to repeat while he gets his free hand on Gale’s balls and squeezes the heavy sac.

Gale sputters, jerks his hips forward without any kind of regard and Astarion hums, happily, around the shaft, around the sudden motion. Easy to eat it and turn it back, to turn it into his rhythm and his pace. To encourage Gale’s hips too, with a pleading moan, with that look up.

He chases the rhythm, lives in it for as long as he can until Gale’s a mess. Until Gale’s dangerously loud and the door creaks open and Astarion’s so far past caring.

He sits on his heels, holds his mouth open and tight and perfect and there’s a murmur in the doorway, a muttered apology and a chuckle and the door must swing shut again.

Nothing said.

Surely everyone knew.

They might not have much more time. Or, rather, they might, but wouldn't it be better, easier, to speed everything back up again?

“Fuck my face?” Astarion asks, pleads, practically, looking up at Gale. Stroking him, squeezing, running his mouth all over that sweetly throbbing length, burning hot against his skin. “Fuck my face and shoot down my throat? Will you? Please, I want to feel - “

Gale grips his hair and slams into his mouth and cuts him off in a gargle that turns to a moan that turns into a deep, strong suck.

It’s how he used Gale the first time. He’s seen the video, he’s watched it sat between the human’s legs, he’s watched it getting railed from behind. Felt Gale fill him up in time to the grainy, dark movie.

There’s nothing of ego about it. It’s the act, for Gale, he supposes.

Thinking on it brings up that itch in his brain again, thinking about whatever Gale’s going to do with that mirror, later.

Truthfully, he’d watch Gale do anything. Let him do just about anything, too. Watching him through watery eyes again feels like a privilege. Getting his face fucked by those restless, reckless hips truly the best gift he could ask for.

A cry, too loud for the kitchen, and Gale gasps, tugs his hair, sputters, “I can’t, I’m - “ and he gasps again, throwing his head back so fast it hits the cabinets.

He stops moving so Astarion picks it up. Bobbing up and down the length, twisting at the base. Moaning and huffing and coaxing from his knees until there it is, he knows it. The throb, a shudder that shakes the human’s whole body.

And Gale looks down again, finally, his eyes narrowed halfway but still glowing with such a beautiful light. His mouth all slacked open, breath rattling in his chest as he shakes out a moan and shoves deep into Astarion’s mouth.

He comes, like that and Astarion swallows immediately, swallows nonstop. Gale keeps humping his mouth in adorable, desperate little hitches and he lets him, lets him chase his end while he watches and tugs and strokes and sucks and encourages him every way he can manage from his knees.

And then, “oh, oh gods,” in a ragged breath from above. With a weak little laugh that sounds like its own kind of music.

Astarion doesn’t want to move.

Ideally ever, but specifically immediately.

Gale tastes too good. Every drop sliding down his throat and into his guts, every drop wrung fresh and cleaned up with his tongue, until Gale tugs at his hair and shudders deeply and he’s never not understood why Gale loves giving head so godsdamned much but a few more pieces slot into place.

He loves it too.

He loves it even more when it’s Gale.

“Please,” the human hisses, slides shaking fingers over his jaw and cups his cheek and runs his thumb through the watery streaks of effort staining Astarion’s face with tears. “I-I might combust if you keep going, I think,” with a weaker laugh than before, but still so beautiful.

In a rush he’s on his feet again. Two hands grasping Gale’s face, diving in for a filthy kiss. Gale still shakes, a little, a sweet tremor in his fingers against Astarion’s face.

“No regrets?” Astarion asks. Stupid, but he has to. Too long talking it up and he needs to know it was worth it, for Gale.

“Never. Never, Astarion,” in a frown and breathlessly and Astarion has to kiss him again to will the lump out of his throat.

Whatever that means.

“Good. Good.”

“Oh, let me - “ and Gale’s hand tugs his waistband and Astarion huffs and squirms away, even though, very suddenly, he’s intensely aware of his own needs.

His hands still Gale’s and he smiles at him, blurry-close. “I’m going to wait for this surprise gift you’ve been setting up, actually. Although I could probably melt in your hands in about twenty seconds.”

“Oh, what’s twenty seconds then? Ten, in my mouth. Here, I’ll just - “

“Gods, how could I say no? Well, I’m not, I’m simply saying, wait.”

“Wait,” Gale repeats, and sighs, and nods, and kisses him again. “It’s your birthday, after all.”

“That’s right.” And he grins against Gale’s mouth.

They spend a few minutes, while making themselves less obvious, cleaning, arranging. Each other, the kitchen. And then, finally, Gale pushes him gently by the shoulders, admonishing, “go, I’ll be ten minutes. Enjoy yourself,” and there’s nothing else for it.

He rejoins the party. A wine glass slides back into his hand easy at the behest of Jen’s statuesque friend Aylin, and his lips ache a little, pulling on Karlach’s novelty-sized blunt.

Worth it, he smiles to himself, watching the smoke drift out the window and into the beautiful night.

Everyone surely knows what transpired in the kitchen. Or at least, that something did. But, since it’s his birthday, and since everyone knows Gale anyway, there’s only a few smirks, and the massive wood elf throws him a wink.

He must’ve been the one in the doorway for a moment. Big enough, Astarion thinks, that he might’ve blocked any view from anyone else. And he has the good sense to keep it to himself.

Ten minutes, as promised, and he might as well use Gale as a timer in the future because he’s nearly exact, even if he did show up late initially.

The cake is a marvel. Oohs and aahs and Astarion can only stare at the thing with that lump, again, in his throat.

Too much wine, too much weed, too much casual camaraderie. He can’t keep up with the world outside the enclaves, sometimes. It feels so, at least. The colorful swirls of emotions threaten to sweep him away.

Even worse, there’s even some kind of song everyone sings, as Gale sets the candle-lit cake down in front of him.

How achingly mortal it all is.

These celebrations of such fleeting lives, a chorus against finality.

When the little song finishes, he’s sat there with the candles flaming and everyone looking expectantly and not a single clue what comes next.

“Ah…thank you?” he offers.

“We blow the candles out here, traditionally,” Gale tells him, in a stage whisper with all the tact of an anthropologist explaining some novel foreign concept.

Which it is.

“Why?” Astarion sputters a laugh.

“Why bother lighting them at all?” Lae’zel asks, similarly confused.

“Ah - no one truly knows, I believe,” is Halsin’s answer, “perhaps there’s some magical component?” he speculates, with a nod to Gale.

“Not that I know of,” he answers, with a shrug.

The candles drip wax by the second and with no answer in sight, Astarion blows them out anyway to a smattering of applause, and to a knife immediately pressed into his palm.

“And you get the first cut,” Gale informs him.

“Another tradition.”

“Yes!”

“Even though you were the one toiling away in the kitchen?”

“Yes.”

“Hmmph. Well.”

“Just cut the damn thing! We can laugh at silly human traditions later,” Jen implores him, sounding as tired as she usually does.

It’s enough of a push to do it, slicing easy through the sugary fruit layered on top, balanced delicately on pure white frosting. Inside, the same. A deliciously swirled mix of berries in the two icing layers, with a perfectly white cake springing under his knife.

“The traditions may be mortal, but the cake is an old elven recipe, among the first ever shared with the kitchens of Waterdeep.”

And Gale has more to say, as he takes over the cutting and the doling out of thick, creamy slices.

It, too, tastes familiar enough to knot his stomach for a moment. Florid and light, the kind of delicate thing served at the most lavish of weddings and other such ceremonies.

It puts Astarion in mind of being achingly bored and stuffily dressed and he catches his posture - rigid and arrow-straight - and has to will himself to relax.

It’s easy, at least. In the good company, with the delicious sugary tastes filling his mouth. Fruits they don’t have in Evereska.

And jubilance, too. Rarely seen.

“It’s incredible,” he tells Gale, once the human’s finally seated. Mouth-half-full and he doesn’t care. “Truly delicious. If this whole grad student thing doesn’t work out, I’ll happily find you a job in any kitchen back in Evereska.”

“I’d be exhausted, trying to pull this off every day! Once a year suits me just fine,” Gale tells him, nudging him with his shoulder as he digs into his own slice.

“Once a year?” Astarion asks. Everyone else forgotten, under Gale’s sweet gaze, and not for the first time. “You think…in a year, we’ll still be…”

“I hope so,” is all Gale says, a delicate blush flaring in his cheeks, his brown eyes ducking away.

“Me too,” Astarion sighs back.

It isn’t such a long time anyway. A year.

“Maybe in a year, we can come up with a better term than ‘not-boyfriends’,” Jen suggests, with a characteristic acid that among friends, only draws a laugh.

“There’s always lovers,” Halsin suggests, “that’s typically been my preferred term.”

“I like to think I have entanglements,” Karlach says, through a mouthful of icing.

“Isobel is all I need to say,” Aylin chimes in with a sigh, her angular face pointed, as ever, to her girlfriend sitting close beside her. She rolls her eyes, but takes Aylin’s hand anyway, pressing a kiss into the knuckles.

“I’d rather everyone mind their own business,” the drow rolls her ruby-red eyes, her voice like a hiss.

“I fuck,” is Lae’zel’s answer, with a shrug and a side-eye, particularly towards Wyll, as if she anticipated him chiming in with his poet’s soul.

“I wish there was a stronger word than lovers or the whole boyfriend/girlfriend/partner paradigm. Even, sometimes, husband or wife or spouse doesn’t seem like enough when describing a particularly close relationship. What do you call it when someone’s soul calls to yours?”

“Soulmates,” Jen says, with a shrug. “That’s what the wolf-elves call it, anyway, when they mate for life. They join in their animal forms too, for all of eternity.”

“How romantic!” Wyll sighs, clutching his chest with typical ardor.

“Labels aren’t always necessary,” Gale chimes in. Astarion can’t drag his eyes away from the man now, not for a second as he speaks. That flush still high in his cheeks, the light in his eyes. "Although I suppose even not-boyfriend is a kind of label even as we’re desperately trying to eschew labels. Hmm.”

The knit of his brow as he thinks. Astarion wants to kiss him there and just about everywhere. No use looking anywhere else. He doesn’t care how he appears doing all this staring, either.

It’s his birthday.

“What would we call it behind the fabled forests of Evereska?” Gale asks, and it really takes a good long handful of seconds to compute.

“Oh!” Astarion perks up, straightens his posture and really thinks it over. “There’s a lot of different ways to describe relationships. Especially given the climate of political intrigue and favor-grubbing that the whole blasted place runs on. Some elven kings have a formal wife called one thing, and a lover with another title. And on and on down through the ranks. Even in a family, there’s variations on relationships. It’s all really too much.”

“So…what would your favored term be?”

“If we could cross lovers with Lae’zel’s simple but brilliant statement,” he admits, with a brisk wave of the wine glass. “Somewhere between lovers and fucking. But with, you know, room to grow and change.”

“And we’re right back where we began with not-boyfriends,” Jen sums up the conversation.

“So let’s not mess with perfection,” Astarion shrugs. The ice of her glare cuts across the table, but it’s endearing and playful, now that he has a better sense of her character.

Maybe the party was a good idea.

He tries to help with the dessert plates, once everyone’s groaning and full, but Gale puts his hands on his shoulders and pushes him back down into the chair with a stern look.

Hard to argue with that.

Hard to not want to go back into the kitchen with him, though, as he hears the clattering of plates and running water, and laughing conversation of Gale and his very tall tiefling friend. But there’s laughter and conversation out here, too, easy and even a little fun.

Fun enough, at least, that he doesn’t once check the time or reach for his phone.

Maybe he’ll even do this again, sometime.

As long as Gale’s involved.

Before too long, he sees Gale leaving the kitchen, quiet and clearly trying to be sneaky. Part of his gift, perhaps? Astarion leans back in his chair and watches, watches Gale slip into the bathroom and then, with an armful of towels, into his bedroom. The urge to sneak right after him wins out and he doesn’t care who notices.

He reaches for the knob just as it turns and Gale comes out, jumping in fright.

“Ah, I can explain, of course - “ and he exits, standing with his back to the door, a fantastically alluring look of guilt on his face.

“Arranging things for later, I assume?” Astarion asks, a leading question but he’s not in court.

“A little,” Gale admits. Half a smile tugging at his mouth, drawing Astarion’s immediate attention.

Instead of a kiss, he rests his hands onto Gale’s soft sweater, onto his pecs. “Well now you have to give me another hint, since I’ve caught you red-handed.”

Gale blinks those full minky lashes, his hands reaching for Astarion’s waist and tugging him closer. Close enough the elf’s arms collapse between them and he lets out a soft gasp of surprise.

Humans are so warm. All of that heat wraps Astarion up so pleasantly, he forgets everything else but this. This embrace.

Until, at least, Gale leans in close, his warm breath brushing Astarion’s cheek, and then his neck, and then worst, best of all, the delicate scroll of his ear. A dirty trick that sends shivers down his spine, that churns up all that heat just waiting in his guts.

“I want you to fuck me, tonight,” Gale says. Nothing at all unsure about his words. It’s a statement, it’s a demand.

It makes Astarion’s head spin and his breath catch in his throat.

Blinking, he pulls back, searching Gale’s eyes for any hint of doubt or trepidation but there’s nothing. There’s only confidence and light and the gleam of excitement and Astarion lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

He moves fast.

Spins around and takes two big steps into the living room, clapping his hands once. “Thank you everyone for coming, thank you for the company and the gifts but oh gods, would you look at the time?”

“Eleven-fifty?” Lae’zel says, shrugging, “do elven parties really end so early?”

“This one does! Take a slab of cake on your way out, don’t stand on ceremony, let’s just get everyone out the door in an orderly fashion - “ Astarion bustles around, handing off phones and coats and purses, not particularly caring who’s is who’s.

He has so many easy pleasantries at the ready, always, and strangely he finds he actually means many of them as he herds the guests towards the door and accepts a few more handshakes and cheek-kisses.

And Gale is there with him as the door shuts on the very last guest, waving and saying his goodbyes and laughing, too, as Astarion locks the door and leans against it with a huff and a smirk.

“You didn’t need to do that. I could’ve partied on a while longer.”

“I couldn’t,” Astarion admits, with no shame at all. “Especially after you told me that.”

“I shouldn't have spoiled the surprise.”

“Not at all what I’m saying,” Astarion shakes his head, closing the distance fast, sinking both hands into Gale’s messy, barely held up hair. He presses his whole body against Gale’s too, presses his chest hard until he feels the human’s heart, and tilts his hips and his legs just so, so they slot together perfectly.

“Do you remember the first time you really got your hands on me? The first time we kissed?” Astarion asks. A slow little grind hitching his breath and Gale’s alike.

“At the party.”

“You said you wanted to dance,” Astarion reminisces, nuzzling his nose along Gale’s, humming softly. “Only you meant ‘do you want to dry-hump in front of an entire party’, and I would absolutely say yes again, if you asked. Every single time. Almost a shame our soirée tonight was so intimate.”

Gale laughs, soft and lovely, the gleam of delight still shining in his eyes, even brighter up close. “And yet we still managed some debauchery.”

“You are the expert, after all.”

“I am. So…let me take the reins once more, yes?”

“Even though…”

“Mhmm. Even though.”

Gale has a plan. Astarion sees it in his face, feels it in that intoxicating ooze of confidence. He’s probably had a plan for long weeks at his point and far be it from Astarion to get in the way of that.

“You’re stunning,” Astarion tells him. He has to tell him or he’ll explode, even as Gale detangles their bodies and grasps his hand and leads him the short trip to the bedroom. “You’re amazing.”

Gale turns back and grins and it’s like the godsdamned sun itself.

“Incredible. I think you’re the most singular person I’ve ever met. I feel like…I know you so well and it’s still not enough. I want to know everything there is but I simply adore the enigma at the same time.”

“Sort of feels like it’s my birthday, from how you’re carrying on,” Gale grins back at him, pushing the door to Astarion’s bedroom open.

The lighting is dimmer than usual. Did he change the bulbs? Oh whatever it is, it’s truly lovelier than ever. And the mirror, the full length one trimmed in ornate teak, is indeed moved. Specifically, it seems, positioned towards the bed.

Astarion feels a rush of blood immediately reach his cock at the sight, at the thought of whatever Gale’s got planned. “Well then, lavish some praise on me,” he demands, simply, with a shrug of one shoulder. Both his hands wrap around one of Gale’s and it strikes him, finally, how blissfully alone they are.

“I did, all night. And I’m about to continue. Maybe not in so many words, but…”

“Oh, your love language is service, isn’t it? Isn’t that one of them?” Astarion asks, swaying playfully, trying to reel Gale in with his hands.

“Everyone has their own. Yours is obviously your well-honed tongue.”

“For words and blow jobs alike, yes. Until tonight, I thought we had that in common. But I rather enjoyed getting catered to, all night. By you, specifically,” he adds. An important distinction when he’s spent so much of his life in the lap of luxury.

“So the party was a success?”

“Well…there’s one thing left. And it’s make or break.”

Still nothing but light in his beautiful brown eyes but there’s the faintest shimmer of nerves for barely a second that’s as breathtaking as any other look on Gale’s face. A confident ease replaces it and Gale whirls him in close, effortlessly capturing his lips in a kiss.

Nothing, past this, could possibly go wrong.

There’s no twist the night could take that Astarion wouldn’t be delighted with.

But his blood absolutely pounds, knowing the bare minimum of what Gale has planned.

“So,” he breaths against the human’s mouth, “you want to get fucked.”

A soft laugh spills out against his lips and Gale twists them and gently pushes him towards the bed. “I want you to fuck me. Specifically.”

And Astarion lets himself fall flat onto the bed. Lets the weight of the night’s fun sink into his bones in a pleasant hum. The elven wine lights everything up even more, shimmers a sweet halo around Gale as he strips that adorable sweater off and crawls on top of him.

Like in the hall, Astarion’s head spins for a moment at the notion.

“Me, specifically,” he sighs, grins, reaches for Gale’s face in one hand and his belt with the other. The beard scratches at his palm, light but itchy, and it scratches his cheek just the same as he nuzzles Gale’s neck. “I don’t think I’ll ever forget this birthday. You really are a fantastic gift-giver.”

“I haven’t truly given it, yet.”

“Mm,” Astarion hums, lips across Gale’s neck, his deft fingers tugging at the belt and the buttons of his fly, already-trod territory tonight but he’s happy as anything to be back here. “Let’s hurry it up, then. I cannot wait to squeeze inside of you.”

“Gods,” Gale shudders. His whole body moving on top of Astarion’s. “Here - lay back, against the headboard. I’ve got the angle all worked out, I think.”

Astarion simply does it. No point in joking, in anything but moving swift into position, propped up against his sturdy headboard. Gale kneels over him and Astarion leans in, quickly working buttons down while the human whirls his hair up into another loose, messy bun.

“I could hardly take my eyes off you in this ensemble, you know.”

“You already told me that,” Gale laughs, softly. But once the shirt’s brushed off his shoulders, he shakes a little, like a dog just un-collared, and seems to relax on his lap just a little more. “You looked good too, you know.”

“Of course I did! I had to live up to being the center of everyone’s rapt attention, didn’t I?” Astarion grins, watching Gale’s every movement as he unbuttons his shirt-sleeved button-down. Black and white with large pink and red flowers in a chaotic pattern, the perfect antidote for the sedate black suit he’d paired with it.

Oh, the ire it’d draw, back in Evereska.

Here, everything he puts on seems effortlessly stylish. Elven privilege, maybe, but it’s a fantastic advantage.

He’s got nothing on Gale, though.

No one on the whole campus does, he’s sure.

“You did. And then-some,” and Astarion’s shirt, soft silk, falls from his shoulders and Gale spends a few moments brushing his fingertips over his skin. So warm and deft, Astarion arches into every touch. “I can’t tell you how often I saw you catch the light just perfectly, or cock your hips just right, and my whole body nearly caught fire in anticipation. I couldn’t stop wondering how good you’d feel inside of me.”

Astarion’s already breathless about it. Especially as Gale leans back and skims his trousers off, and then does the same with his own.

Better than just being alone, now.

Alone, naked, in bed.

Astarion surges forward and grabs at Gale’s waist, pulling him down and closer all at once, until they crash together. He squeezes half of Gale’s ass with the other hand. Firm and perky and ruggedly hairy and just for tonight, all his.

“I’m going to go so slow. I’m going to make sure you feel every inch, and love it. I’m - “

“Oh - well - the thing is, I’ve…here, it’s easier, I think, if I show you.” Gale rambles a little, but nods towards the mirror and Astarion understands something of the plan, at least.

It’s angled for a perfect view of Gale’s ass, from his vantage point.

And when Gale pushes him back, he goes with it again. Impossible to know where to look. The mirror or the flesh-and-blood Gale in front of him. Both are stunning views.

“I’ve been…practicing,” Gale tells him. With a breathtaking flutter of his lashes and a series of busy hand movements while he reaches for what has to be lube, carefully cradled on a stack of towels Astarion’s only just noticing.

“Practicing.”

“Yes. I wanted to be good,” Gale explains. A shuffle forward, his knees brush Astarion’s hips and he finds his heart racing already. He lays a hand on Gale’s thigh, feeling the muscle, the thick hair, the soft warmth of his skin. “So I started…practicing.”

Astarion blinks a few times. The meaning is so close, likely easily grasped but something’s got his brain stuck in the mud and he just stares. Which might be part of Gale’s plan, anyway, from the smug flash in his eyes as he drizzles the shiny lube over two fingers.

Two of his own fingers.

Astarion heaves out a breath, his other hand fitting around Gale’s hip, finding the bone with his thumb and stroking.

“You mean…you’ve been fucking yourself.”

“Ah - fingering, to be more precise. I haven’t been properly fucked, yet.” The heat in his eyes flares and calls out bold to Astarion.

His heart races and throbs right down into his dick, springing from half-mast to fully engorged in a dizzying few seconds. He swallows hard, slower with words than he’s been in a long godsdamned time.

“The mirror. You want me to watch.”

“Mhmm,” Gale smiles, too sweetly, and nods. Another shuffle forward, a tilt of his hips, still in Astarion’s grasp, and he spreads his knees wider on the bed.

The room’s too dark to see much, even with his blessed elven sight, and Gale’s generous pelt provides even more cover but there’s no mistaking the slick shine of his two fingers finding a particular spot and rubbing.

Gale sucks in a breath and Astarion does, too.

His eyes dart from the mirror to Gale, to the burgeoning flush in his cheeks, the sweet bliss in his eyes.

“You’re so gorgeous already, gods, you’re going to look so good bouncing on it. Is that what you want? What you thought of?”

“Part of it,” Gale admits, that soft smile tugging at his wide, thin mouth. “I admit, these last weeks while I’ve been - ah! - learning, I’ve thought of so many different ways I want you to fuck me. So many.”

“But this first, yes?” Astarion asks, fighting to stay leaning back. He wants to rush in, to press his chest to Gale’s and kiss him senseless and jam their cocks together but he’ll wait. He’ll let Gale lead as long as he can.

“Yes,” Gale nods. His hair spills out already, a few soft tendrils to frame his face, gleaming chestnut brown in the dim. “I’m going to ride you first.”

“Perfect.”

“You say that but…”

“How can it be anything but perfect? Gods, look at you. I can’t decide which view is better.”

“Hmm…mirror,” Gale smirks a second, and gasps and Astarion’s attention falls to the reflection at once.

Those deft fingers, sinking in slow.

“I need more light,” Astarion hisses.

A soft laugh and a softer word and the dim lights flare.

He’s never seen Gale use magic before. Never felt it. But his brown eyes flare too, a buttery yellow. Something crackles too. Like electricity against his skin.

Magic isn’t unfamiliar but Astarion’s never been more than a clever novice. A party tricks only sort of attitude that serious users hate. What might Gale have thought, he wonders absently, as the sting fades, if he’d conjured those sweet dancing lights in time to some of Jen’s underground-underground dance music?

It’s a fleeting thought.

As soon as the magic dissipates fully and he manages to drag his gaze away from Gale’s lidded eyes, he finds the carefully set up mirror again and his breath catches.

The angle’s perfect. Stunning and beautiful, the light sparkling in the lubey mess that slicks the little collection of hairs around Gale’s hole. His index finger disappears to the first knuckle, and the other bunch up claw-like, waiting their turn.

“How many can you fit, Gale?” Astarion asks.

Supposed to stay still, he knows, but Gale huffs out a moan at the question and Astarion’s thighs twitch. He needs to get closer, without ruining this perfect view. He scoots, and Gale doesn’t chide him. He squeezes Gale’s thigh with one hand and reaches for a handful of his ass with the other, pulling gently so he can see better.

Another fluttery moan and Gale presses deeper and his free hand finds Astarion’s shoulder, gripping it.

“Let me show you?”

“No, no. I want to hear it.”

“I-I can barely think when I’m…let alone talk.”

“Oh, bullshit. You could talk your way around a hurricane without losing your train of thought.” His right hand slides up to Gale’s stomach, thumbing at the bar through his navel, ruffling at that wiry pelt of hair he adores so fucking much. “I can guess, if you’d like.”

A breathless laugh, a crinkled smile. Gale nods and Astarion watches his finger sink deeper, feeling his warm skin jump with the motion, his cock practically leaping in anticipation.

“I think…your goal was two. Very respectable.”

Like some kind of echo, that single finger twists out and he tries to push back in with a second. But gods, he’s so tight. Astarion bites his lip, watching. Watching Gale switch tactics and rub at his rim again, with the pads of both fingers. He grabs the other globe of his ass, firm flesh, firm grip, and pulls.

Helping, surely. Not just for greed of the view, in the interest of speed. He’s helping.

Gale moans first when the second digit squeezes in. His hips chase it, moving back and forward, and again and again until he’s slowly but surely fucking himself.

Astarion hangs on, tempted by the bobbing cock, just inches away. So easy to pull Gale down further, to slot against him. Or even get a hand on him, to spread that copious precome.

And, after earlier, he knows he could get his mouth around it, too. Swallow Gale’s cock down while the human fucks himself open and gods, he nearly does it.

But he manages not to. Manages to drag his eyes back to the mirror, to Gale’s slow measured fingering.

“Was I right?”

“What?”

“You started with two fingers, as your goal,” Astarion reminds him, with a playful swat that bounces his ass and pistons his hips forward, haltingly. “But I’m sure you tried three, didn’t you? Once you knew how good it felt?”

Gale’s mouth hangs open. The end of his tongue pokes out, catching between his teeth for a second, shiny-wet before it retracts.

And eventually, after a few more seconds of panting, of slick noise and increasingly ragged breaths, Gale nods.

“Spot on. I don’t know if I can hang on for…for three tonight, though.”

“No?” Astarion breathes the word soft, sitting up straighter, closer. He pulls Gale closer, too, wants to feel his skin against his own, wants the scratch of that hair as Gale writhes and fucks himself open. “I’m okay with that. This is already…I mean, gods, you must know how hot you look.”

“Hence the mirror, yes,” Gale agrees, and he doesn’t stop Astarion from moving him, from pressing against his body and biting at his neck.

He tastes like pure clean skin, like fresh sweat, like a little sweetness from the cake earlier, somehow.

“I wanted you to see everything. To enjoy all of me.”

Astarion hums, low, against Gale’s skin, and that’s as good a sign as any. He curls his hand - the right - around Gale’s dark red cock and the throb against his palm is immediate.

“Like this?” he asks and Gale nods. More of his hair flies out and his head bows so it curtains over them, soft and silky, their own sweet little world.

“Or - this,” Gale gasps at his own motions, pushing at Astarion’s shoulder until he sinks back against all the cushions. The view changes, in the mirror. No less alluring as Gale straddles him and practically lays on top.

Astarion’s hand finds the small of his back and the other brings their cocks together. He hisses, Gale gasps again and chases both sensations.

His hips saw between them and gods, every inch of him is perfect and taut, lithely muscled and built to fuck. His ass bounces with every thrust, the backs of his thighs tight, muscles flexing.

“Fuck,” he huffs, and the word sinks right into Astarion’s mouth, right before his tongue finds it. The metal bar clacks against his teeth on the way in, scrapes against his tongue and chases down every inch of him, it seems. Astarion sucks at it then, hard until Gale groans and bucks at him and pulls back, drooling.

“You’re going to do that while you ride me, aren’t you? Buck like some feral beast? Let me see how deep you are,” Astarion teases, licking at the thin line of spit dripping from Gale’s slack mouth.

His own hips buck unruly against Gale, his fist tightening around their cocks when he sees Gale’s two fingers buried all the way. His back arches so perfectly and his hand twists, changes the angle and Astarion feels it change everything.

Gale leans for his mouth again, tongue-first, sucking at Astarion’s this time. And his obscenely hard cock throbs harder against Astarion’s, against his gently squeezing palm. A hot spurt of his precome drips onto Astarion’s head and he moans into the human’s mouth, mashing it around with his thumb.

Gale’s erratic for a handful of seconds. Reckless and wild and he pulls his mouth off to raise his head and moan with such deep abandon, Astarion’s sure he’ll remember the motion forever.

“Gods,” he gasps, his hips crashing against Gale’s, trying to match that irresponsible pace, “Gods, I can’t wait to make you moan like that. Can’t wait to squeeze all the way into you and make you see fucking stars, darling.”

“Yes, fuck, yes, do it, I can’t - “ another moan cuts Gale off, at his own hands as Astarion watches him press and twist.

Oh, how many nights did Gale spend practicing? He’s almost jealous of his four bedroom walls, in a way he’s never been jealous of any of the people he’s seen Gale with. Never, ever, but if he could slide in place and secretly watch Gale fuck himself open for how many weeks, now? Two? Three?

Insane.

Astarion moves fast, after that.

The lube’s nearby and he drizzles some over Gale’s still-moving fingers, and yet more over the hot press of their cocks together, already slick from Gale’s copious precome. Slick and molten and throbbing in time like twin heartbeats, he’s sure of it.

“Sure you don’t need another minute or two? Or another finger? Cause I will gladly squeeze one in here,” Astarion offers, low against Gale’s mouth, his eyes darting away to watch in the mirror.

To watch his hand slide over Gale’s ass and find his fingers, to run his own over the taut stretch of his hole. It clenches in the reflection and Gale gasps, sucks in all Astarion’s oxygen and pushes back against his gently exploring finger. He’s so slick, it’s not easy pushing his index finger, but it isn’t as hard as it would’ve been ten minutes ago.

Astarion sucks Gale’s lip into his mouth, sucks his moan into his lungs at the same time. He can’t get past his first knuckle and his chest fucking clenches over how tight Gale is.

“Scissor your fingers for me, will you?” he asks.

And there’s nothing but ragged breathing, but Gale’s tight rim squeezing and fluttering. His hips stop. It’s just Astarion sliding up against him, pressing their cocks together again, still.

“Pretty please?” Astarion asks again. Asks it digging his thumb into Gale’s slit to get his attention and it fucking works; the human hisses and jerks and a second later, his fingers part inside and Astarion pushes into that space too.

Gale’s hand trembles against the bed, clutching the sheets. A fist and a forearm holding himself up, the rest of his weight on Astarion or on his knees and every muscle in him seems to tremble and tighten at once.

“I-I,” he pants, starts and stops against Astarion’s mouth. In the corner of his eyes, he catches Gale’s own lids fluttering shut and he pulls his focus from the alluring sight in the mirror to Gale’s beautiful, flushed face.

“You won’t last, like this,” Astarion finishes what Gale can even start to say. Knows that’s what it is from the scrunch of his brow, from the desperate huffing. “You’re so sweet. You’re so beautiful and sweet and I’m absolutely going to let you ride me right now. You’re already doing so, so good,” and it always works and Astarion delights in watching it.

The praise unclenches Gale’s brow, fills his chest proudly. His eyes open and his mouth relaxes into an easy smile. He’s still taut with desperation, Astarion feels that everywhere they touch, but he moves again too, testing a few deep grinds against the tangle of their fingers.

“Feel good? It feels good for me,” Astarion huffs, slipping his one finger in and out, along the path Gale’s make. The human’s hips chase his rhythm and find it easy and gods, that’s absolutely the last straw, the last thing Astarion can take. His cock throbs against Gale’s and he’s so, so past ready.

“Here, move just a little,” he moves, too, arranging himself under Gale as he climbs higher up on Astarion’s torso.

It’s so smooth and easy, it’s like they’ve done this before. Astarion’s dick slides over Gale’s perineum and bumps against their fingers. A murmured word and Astarion slides his out, grabs Gale’s digits and does the same, and kisses that just-empty still-clenching rim with his slick head. The matted hairs tickle, the heat of the human is absurd as his rim flutters.

Gale arches back, presses his palm against Astarion's shaft and holds him still, closer, upright.

Here, the view is impossible to choose between. Gale’s face, the profile of it turned as he stares into the mirror. His mouth open and shining, so much color in his tan skin. His hair’s a tangled mop, half spilling onto his shoulders, half swirled at the nape of his long neck. Still more of it falls around his face and sticks to his forehead and Astarion watches a bead of sweat trail all the way down, skimming over his collarbone and disappearing onto his heaving chest.

After a quick swipe of the towel, Astarion fits his hands on Gale’s waist and takes in this scene, too. His cock is deepest red, angry hard. Visibly throbbing and so slick, it nearly drips as it rolls down his shaft. His wild hair’s trimmed here, sparser on his balls but still there, dusting the tight orbs that flex with every desperate beat of his heart, thrumming through his cock.

Just below, there’s the sight of his own cock, sliding up against Gale’s hole. Warm, sticky. Gale presses himself against it and rocks and watches and his own reflection and it’s clear which is the winning view.

The mirror. Even Gale’s glued to it, now. Watching Astarion’s cock shove between the globes of his ass. Watching his slick, stretched open rim clench and try to squeeze around nothing.

And then, not nothing.

Gale squirms against the blunt head. Astarion grips his hips hard when he feels it, that impossibly tight heat opening up around him. Oh, it felt good on his finger but Gale feels like a fucking heavenly dream around him. Taking him in slow.

He sees it, he feels it.

Gale shudders and stays there for a long moment. His eyes blinking slow and then falling shut, his thick lashes twin fans against his flushed cheeks.

“That’s it,” Astarion sighs, somehow willing himself to speak, to be still, even though he wants to shove his hips up hard against the bruising tightness. “You feel so good inside. Take all the time you need.”

But Gale shakes his head and braces on his thighs as he sinks down further, his head thrown back.

No time to adjust.

Gale swivels when he sinks down. Takes his time, yes, but it’s so dynamic. The clench of his abs, the flex of his thighs. Even the muscles in his arms stand out sharply with every move.

Astarion’s transfixed. He drags a hand up Gale’s torso, up his chest. Thumbs at a pierced nipple and watches Gale’s cock drool almost ceaselessly.

He’s so easy. So eager.

Astarion loves it.

“Don’t hold back,” he tells Gale. Ill-advised, he skims his hand back down and wraps it around Gale’s cock. He squeezes and Gale bucks into it, his eyes flaring wide.

“I’m too close for that! Gods, I don’t want to tell you to stop though, I don’t want to stop, it’s so good,” babbles out of Gale’s mouth. His hips stutter a few times more and then he truly sinks down and clenches and Astarion’s head flies back too.

“Don’t stop, then, hey? Even if it’s just for a minute? I’ll see to you after that too, I know you won’t be done. I’ll fuck you straight through the mattress but first? First let me see it, all that practice, all those long nights fucking yourself and thinking about my cock, show me what it was all for?”

It’s a lot to get out when Gale’s squeezing his cock like a velvet vise but he manages.

A shudder and Gale nods, more hair spilling artfully out. A smile then, dazzling and gorgeous and the handsomest Astarion’s ever seen in his life and, “Happy birthday, Astarion,” before he truly lets go.

Astarion knew he’d be good. There was no doubt even for a second. There’s a natural athleticism that combines with his all-consuming love of cock to make him every iota as fantastic as Astarion imagined.

Gods, how much he’s imagined it.

Hours and countless loads spilled over it. A dream, barely thought achievable.

And now, right in his lap.

Gale grips his thighs and bounces his hips and he starts off slow and quickens almost immediately.

The motion slides his cock in Astarion’s fist with every lift of his hips, compounding the issue of stamina.

Or, rather, non-issue.

The first time Gale fucked him, he blew his load inches from Astarion’s hole and he’d loved that, those eager still-coming hips slamming into him, taking him fast and deep. Even the first time they’d fucked around, when Gale spilled on his chest after a few strokes.

There’s something so intoxicating about it. That enthusiasm, that appetite. Like a starter course because the subsequent orgasms Astarion wrings out of him after that touchy, reckless first pass, those are long luxurious main courses.

He watches it build. Watches Gale find his pace and then push past it. The mirror-view is still fantastic but Gale’s face, his body, that’s even better.

When his pace falters, Astarion picks it up for him. Squeezes his hip, his cock, and pushes inside of him until they’re meeting every time, until Gale starts to pitch forward and Astarion pulls that sweaty human body against his. Everywhere he can. Foreheads, mouths, chests.

He dives into his mouth with his tongue and then with a sweet smattering of encouragement that drives Gale’s breath even more ragged. A low, steady hum of how tight his ass is, how perfect he looks. How hot he feels, inside. How tight. His breath hitches just as much as Gale’s does, though.

One long, tight trip down Gale’s cock and back up is enough to wring a long, low moan from the human, that clips at the end into something higher, something desperate. He pants and he pushes himself faster, erratic but still so good at it.

And, “there, there,” trips out of Gale’s mouth, the words heated with his breath.

And, “yes, let me feel it,” Astarion coaxes him as much as he can however he can and Gale holds himself down on a thrust and presses even deeper somehow. He rolls his hips like he’s done it a hundred times before and chases something, some spark some feeling, all the way to the end.

Gale starts a moan and a gasp interrupts it and Astarion strokes him again and squeezes and Gale fucking erupts. His tight insides clench sudden and so sharp, Astarion sees stars for a second. For a second, he can think of nothing but shoving deeper inside all of that slick hot tightness and his hips lift into it, unbidden.

Gale’s arms wrap around his shoulders and he buries himself against him, still moving, grinding, throbbing and coming and oh, it’s simply a symphony.

Astarion masters himself, somehow.

Although.

He’s never been dizzy from being inside someone before. Never wanted to pound someone so thoroughly and recklessly like some fucking compulsion clawing inside of him. It speeds his heart up, beads sweat on his temples. Gale sucks in air and shudders and practically sobs against his neck and Astarion turns, noses his way into the hiding space to kiss him, long and deep. To stroke every last noise out of him, every drop from his balls, too.

Astarion kisses him until he’s sure they’re breathing through each other’s lungs. Fully synced. Fully in tune. Completely together in this moment, inside and out.

His lungs, of course, say otherwise.

They’re both panting when they break apart. Gale whines, soft, and shudders, flinching away from Astarion’s grasp on his spent cock, still hard somehow. As usual. Astarion loosens his fingers and presses his smile into the corner of Gale’s mouth.

“That was pure bliss,” he tells Gale and he kisses him again and he really never wants to stop doing that, especially with Gale so sweetly stunned and breathless. “What a gift. You know, I’ll never forget any of this, but especially that. Good?”

Gale huffs and he can feel the look on his face. Incredulous, weary, but ecstatic too. “Gods, I can’t even express…I don’t know what to say.”

“Hmm, so very very good. I’ll take it. You’re so cute when you’re speechless.”

Another huff but this one’s a laugh too and Gale sags against him, nuzzling sweaty into his shoulder.

The little aftershocks still grip Astarion’s cock, sweet little reminders of round two on the horizon.

“Here, lay down and we’ll clean you up a little. And then, I’m going to fold you up into a sweet little package and fuck the life out of you all over again.”

And he starts to move his hips back, to pull out, but Gale, damn him, chases the motion with his own, with a breathless, “wait, wait,” and Astarion stops.

“Alright?” he frowns, plants a sweet little kiss on Gale’s lips, sliding a hand over his face too.

“Yes, yes, I’m just…not quite ready to be empty of you yet. Not even for a second,” Gale says, barely a whisper of it rushing against Astarion’s mouth.

Paired with another fluttery clench around his dick, Astarion heaves a shaky sigh. Still frowning, staring at Gale like he’s the most incredible thing there is and certainly he’s the most incredible person that’s ever been sat on Astarion’s cock.

“Here, I’ll just - “ and all of the human’s limbs wrap around him, easy as that. Warm and soft and hard and it is easy, to grab him and lay him down on his back and by necessity, Astarion thrusts in a little deeper, slow, to close the gap.

Gale gasps and moans and his head tosses back so suddenly, he barely misses the headboard. A pant and, “oh, gods, why does that feel so…different?”

Astarion drapes over him, the edges of a plan already fraying away pleasantly, replaced with this. One hand in Gale’s hair, in the silken mess of it, and a knee down on the bed and he can easily, lazily, sink into Gale.

“A different angle. Deeper,” he explains, his eyes fixed, trained on Gale’s face, on every crinkle of his brow, every flutter of his thick lashes. And a long, deep thrust in to underscore his point.

Gale swears, this time, broken and so loud it’s nearly a shout.

“I was going to give you a rest, you know,” Astarion tells him. And he doesn’t stop moving, slow and controlled, even against all that tight heat. “Lay you down and spend an age making my way back up your body. Kissing every inch, very romantic stuff. A leisurely stroll through the, I don’t know, fertile flowering garden that is your body? I was going to watch you squirm and pant and beg for my cock again but gods, this is so much better. Look at you.”

Gale’s chest heaves against his. It takes him an age to open his eyes again. And they’re big and wet and so luminously brown, Astarion knows he’d give him anything he asked for in an instant. Not just now, no, but anytime.

“You’re my real gift this year, I think. Not just this,” a thrust, of course, for the point, and only a little to watch Gale moan with his eyes wide open and his mouth slacked. “But all of you. All these things you did for me? The party, the dinner, I don’t deserve - “

“You do,” Gale says, in a huff, a hand practically slapping Astarion’s cheek he clings to it so fast, so hard. “I adore you. I relish every minute we spend together.”

What is there to say to that? To the wide open honestly in Gale’s eyes?

He isn’t used to emotions in the first place and then there’s all of this and Gale feels so fucking incredible under him, around him. So, so stupidly good.

He wants to take Gale back home, in a sudden rush. Pictures the human artfully draped over expensive fur rugs and cushions. Waiting like some spoiled second wife for Astarion to get home from all of his very important duties.

Oh, it’s playing with fire and he won’t ever tell. He’ll keep that one to himself, for now.

There’s no point anyway, in trying to get a grasp on such a creature as Gale. He’d slip through Astarion’s fingers like water, like silk, if he tried to hang on so hard as all that.

“I - I don’t know what to say,” he admits, half a laugh hissing out of his nose.

“Nothing. Just fuck me? You don’t need to say another word.”

“Well…well, I’d like to say I adore you too, if that’s the vernacular we’re going with now.”

“Alright, yes, good. Now you’ll fuck me?”

“Insatiable,” Astarion mutters, nothing of an epithet in it at all. He goes in for a kiss about it, long and lingering, while he tests a few more rolls of his hips up against Gale’s. He grinds in slow and deep until Gale gasps and pulls his mouth away, a moan melting into another swear.

Gods, he’s so perfect.

“Can I…sort of bend you?” Astarion asks. Already smoothing a hand up the back of Gale’s thigh, still clinging onto his hips.

“Oh, any way you’d like, please,” comes the breathless answer. “I’m decently flexible but I’ve never really tried…well, I know there’s all sorts of - “

Astarion silences that sweet babbling with another kiss. “You’ll tell me if it’s too much?”

An eager nod, and the spill of his chestnut hair falls around the silky pillow.

Astarion squeezes the back of his thigh, feeling that hard muscle, all that delightful hair against his palm. A push and Gale goes with it, letting Astarion fold his thigh up against his body with a starry-eyed huff.

Astarion gathers himself up, on his knees, and tests the give of Gale’s leg. Turns out, he’s quite flexible. One day, he’s going to explore all of that for hours. One day hes going to have Gale put him to shame with all the contortions he manages, Astarion can just tell.

“Even deeper, like this,” he mutters, dragging another inch inside and watching Gale arch over it as much as he can.

“Yes, like that, fuck me like that,” he pants and there is no saying no to any of that.

Astarion’s slow for as long as he can manage, but from how Gale grabs at his back and clutches his muscles, from how his other leg clenches around his waist and, gods, his tight hot insides, slow can only last so long.

He starts fucking Gale properly, in a way that sends a noise unbidden from the human’s mouth with every thrust. A delight to hear, to hear him go from deep to strained and high in a handful of minutes.

It was supposed to be a rest but apparently, Gale doesn’t need it. He never went soft, his dick still sandwiched between them, and when Astarion pushes the angle more, tilts Gale’s hips up higher, he watches the head drip and slick up Gale’s stomach-hair with a lewd sheen.

“This alright?” Astarion asks, sitting back in the new position just to marvel, for a few moments, at how good Gale looks. He’s spent half his night at least on the pursuit and he still can’t get enough. There’s no getting enough when he looks so good. So flushed and folded, his handsome face relaxed in pure bliss.

“So alright,” Gale echoes, his eyes fluttering open, sinking closed. “So good, Astarion, don’t stop?”

“Just checking in,” he murmurs, and bends and he’s off again but an even deeper angle this time. Searching restlessly for just the right spot to make Gale shout again and ultimately, to get him off again. “Can I - “

“Yes, anything,” Gale huffs, laughs, and finds Astarion’s hands, the one on his own leg, the other clutching the sheets. “I trust you, or this wouldn't even be happening. I trust you all the way.”

So earnest, again, with those huge brown eyes. Astarion caught on them the first time they ever spoke and every time after that, too. Sometimes he’s been lucky enough to wake up to them, to fall asleep under their gaze. Always so beautiful and expressive and the chocolate depths echo every word he’s said. Without question or trepidation.

So Astarion flashes him a grin, his most wicked, and watches the expression glaze in lust again.

And easy as anything, he folds Gale’s long, svelte body nearly over in two, holding a hip, a thigh in place high so his dick dangles nearly to his chest. Astarion helps him balance but he barely needs it. Some second nature, another sign that he was absolutely born for this kind of sin.

He gives Gale a second. A handful of seconds. And then, “move, please,” huffs out of the human and Astarion gathers himself up higher. Practically lording over him, shouldering those long, lovely legs and driving.

No noise for a few thrusts, except the slick sliding into Gale’s stretched but still blessedly tight hole, and their ragged breathing. And then a gasp and Astarion bends deeper, finding the perfect leverage on the bed, the perfect angle at last.

He knows it. He watches Gale’s angry-red cock spurt a splash of precome and another, landing right between his tits. Watches the human’s mouth slack open and his eyes widen. Gale’s hands scramble to find his, anywhere he can touch and he grips his arms, settles for that, while his face creases in pleasure.

“Oh, there, don’t stop, you can’t stop!”

And he doesn’t mean to, not now, not now that he’s found everything he ever wanted.

“Touch yourself, brown-eyes, get yourself off for me,” that old nickname, evocative, back from when he didn’t even know Gale’s name after two blow jobs.

It melts something in Gale’s expression but he shakes his head at the instructions, his hair flying.

“Don’t need to - I can feel it - just keep going!” rushed and hurried and it makes Astarion rush and pick up the pace, if only to see this, to help Gale chase this feeling.

And, less importantly, to chase it for himself. Completely secondary to watching Gale add to the mess on his stomach and his chest. Less important than feeling Gale squeeze around him again.

Gods, he wants to push the tenuous balance and fist at Gale’s cock himself. Wants to feel it all now instead of in a few minutes.

But he’s good. He’s got this.

And it seems like an achievement, anyway, what he’s chasing. What they’re chasing together.

Sweat beads at his brow, heats up his body. Flushes him pink in spots, the same as Gale beneath him. With his tanned skin, the flush comes up darker, but it’s there, on his face, on his chest, and especially dark and prominent against the throb of his cock, bouncing with every thrust.

Astarion feels it starting and chases it further, harder. Feels the first flutterings of Gale’s tight, molten insides just starting to grip him. He stays deep, thrusts shallow. Stares, rapt at Gale’s face, watching him relax and tighten and then, gods, he smiles. He fucking beams and his eyes flare and his head tips back and his whole gorgeous body shudders and twitches and his insides grip Astarion tight.

“Fuck!” Astarion swears, and again when Gale gasps ragged and spills all over himself, gravity splashing it against the pelt covering his tits, adding shiny white to the twinkles of the silver bars through his nipples.

Gale grabs for him again, loops his arms around his neck and tugs him closer, testing that flexibility himself but it’s worth it for this kiss. Deep and hot, Gale sucks at his mouth at his tongue, the same way his body tries to suck him deeper and deeper, to milk him and there is absolutely no reason to hold back, to stall any longer.

A deep shove and Gale shouts again his tongue. A deeper twist and Gale slides off with a wet pant, with a sob of, “deep, deep, fill me up deep!”

And he does.

He doesn’t wait.

Gale’s words have him emptying his balls in a second into his hot clutching grip. His whole body pulses with the sharp, hard release, buzzing hot and wild.

It’s so human. This closeness, this clutching. This intimacy, his forehead laying against Gale’s while he spills. Their eyes lock and he can’t hope to break the spell of that gaze. Hazy, lust-soaked, Gale’s eyes glow with it, with bare joy as he stares and pants and smiles through it all.

His heart races dangerously, even as his body slows.

There’s nothing in his mind left but soft, fluffy clouds and they all look like Gale. How could he ever look away? What’s the use in looking at anything, at anyone else?

Gale kisses him again and he feels that barely held back laugh, that bubbling joy in the tension of his mouth.

Then, it erupts, and Gale lays a flushed hand on his equally flushed face. “Ah - will you - just gently let me ah, unfold? I’ve got this cramp - “

“Oh! Gods, yes, of course, here,” babbling and rushed and Astarion slowly unfolds them, careful not to tug himself out too sharply and somehow ending up still halfway inside, softening in that sticky heat.

“Yes, stay,” Gale sighs, and he reaches for him again and Astarion’s lost count of all the times he’s done that tonight. It buoys him up every time but this time, he goes with it to lay himself out flat on top of Gale, heedless of the mess. He’s seen worse. Hells, he’s helped Gale clean up worse, usually with his mouth.

He noses along Gale’s neck and lets his head fall there, turning to look at the blurry image of him close as he can get.

“Good?” he asks, simply. He can’t think of anything else. Can barely think of any more words, honestly. He wants to sink into Gale and let his body buzz out the last of all that fucking adrenaline.

“Amazing. Incredible. Still very good, having you inside me. Even, you know, not hard.”

“Oh, give me five minutes and - “

“Oh, five? So much for the legendary elven stamina,” Gale jokes, caps it with a kiss against the sharp point of his nose.

“Two then, start a timer and start saying something filthy, I’ll be fucking you again in no time,” but he laughs, saying it. It’s a half-truth anyway. He’s capable, for sure, but how could it be better than what they just had?

“That’s a very lovely notion, but I think…I’m happy, just like this. I’d be happy falling asleep like this, if not for the mess.”

“The mess,” Astarion sighs. He feels it, cooling between them, matting them together like their sweat but infinitely stickier.

“A minute or two and we’ll shower. Deal?”

“We? I fear if we shower together…”

“Yes?” Gale prompts him, a smirk in his words even if Astarion can’t see.

“Oh, I see. You’re happy, like this, until we get in the shower. And then - “

“And then I’ll be happy in the shower, whatever that entails.”

“Soap, water…”

“That fancy shampoo you’ve got from Evereska. With the hand-written label. It must cost a fortune.”

“D’you like it? I can get you a crate.”

Gale laughs, the sound reverberating so pleasantly inside his body and out. What a sweet sound, what lovely music. “A whole grate! Gods, what’s the exchange rate of gold to the Evereskan dollar these days? No, I rather like smelling it on you. It’s like…blackberries. Candied blackberries and juniper.”

Astarion nuzzles closer, right into the silky nest of Gale’s hair, and inhales deep to try and match that scent to something he knows. But it simply smells like Gale. Like so many memories laying nearly like this, memories of it slipping soft through his hands while Gale’s on his knees.

But this memory, the one he’s committing to his brain now, that’s the best of all.

“You smell like the seaside - in a good way, mind you. Like hot sand and salt. Like…well, most of all like yourself. I don’t mind saying I adore it.”

That word.

Is there some chart, some graph? To mark how they’ve gone from like to really like to adore? What does it all mean?

Oh, it hardly matters.

He stays there, shrouded in Gale’s hair, and he truly doesn’t wonder what any of it means anymore. They’re in each other's arms, and they will be again if the world spins on just right.

And, “this was the most fantastic birthday I’ve ever had. I’m sure you already know that, but really, thank you. Elven birthday traditions are far more sedate. Especially with my social circle. And I never end up balls-deep in anyone at the end.”

“What a pity. For all that I admire Evereska, I think I’d visit as a tourist only. Not to stay.”

“I’ll take you sometime,” Astarion tells him, without truly thinking about the can of worms that would open. But maybe he doesn’t care, either. Maybe he should swan through the city gates with a human glowing on his arm.

A shuffle and Gale moves so he can look at him, so he can kiss him sweetly on the mouth and whisper, “I’d like that.”

Logistically, a nightmare. Optimistically? He’d crawl over broken glass to see Gale wrapped up in expensive elven fineries. To see the look on his parents’ faces when he presents an entire court with the human he’s been fucking on the regular, with no plans for the future at all.

It’s too much to say. It’s too much to spring on Gale all at once, so he merely kisses him back and thumbs at his bottom lip and tells him, “it’s a date then. Someday. For now, will you accompany me to the storied halls of my shower?”

“A quick rinse is just what I need.”

“Not too quick…” Astarion chides him, to laughter.

Slow, under the spray of the water, unplanned, Astarion fucks him again against the heated tiles, against the slippery wall. Nothing’s ever felt better. Nothing’s tasted better than kissing the gasps off of Gale’s tongue while he spills as deep as he can inside of him.

The sun’s kissing the windows when they finally get to sleep. Wet hair against the pillow and he knows it’s going to dry horribly, going to need a total curl pattern refresh in the morning but it’s so worth it. It’s all really, truly been worth it.

He wakes with a smile, still tangled in Gale everywhere that it’s possible. Their limbs, their hands entwined. The softly dimmed letters on his clock read mid-morning, nearly eleven, but Gale’s still asleep.

Humans sleep differently, he’s noticed. Interesting, watching it up close. The flutters of his eyes, the rise and fall of his hairy chest. There’s more activity in his face, in his body, than elves at rest.

It’s so charming.

It’s so different.

Astarion doesn’t grasp at him. At this. No desperate clawing at each moment, demanding time stop. He merely lays and listens and watches every breath and stir and snore and enjoys it for what it is.

And when Gale finally wakes, finally blinks his eyes open in slow motion, the first thing he does is smile at Astarion and there’s no need to hold onto that moment, either. It’s enough for him.

Whatever this is, whatever it might be, it’s enough right now.

He doesn’t need anything more.