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Chapter Text

The first big snow came over a weekend in late October, a freak storm that swept in from Canada and dumped more than two feet on their little speck of land in the North Atlantic. By Monday morning, every tree bowed under the weight of heavy snow and every driveway featured a bundled-up resident digging their way to the street. At least the students didn’t seem to mind. Daphne stopped at the red light next to the student union and watched an excited mass of college kids stream across the intersection, skittering over mounds of fresh-plowed snow higher than her car in their rush to 9am classes. She glanced down at her car’s console and checked the temperature: 22 degrees. They’d had three whole weeks of autumn this year, but winter had come to claim Icepeak Island and its namesake college once again.

She turned to drive past the college green, its plush blanket of snow pristine in the morning light, and thought idly about asking Karlach and Dammon to go skiing around the golf course that weekend. Her skis needed waxing, but she could do that tonight. If the snow wasn’t too high, maybe they could bring Scratch, their Samoyed, along too. It was nice to have someone to keep her company when her annoyingly athletic and beautiful friends raced ahead.

The library loomed large and welcoming at the end of the green, its red bricks and copper eaves radiant where they peeked through the white. The bell tower chimed nine times. Shit, she was running late. Hopefully Lae’zel and Jen— Shadowheart, she corrected herself mentally—had opened up the studio without her.

Goths. Always so much melodrama, even by art student standards. Still, she was one half of the best team of graduate assistants Daphne had ever managed, so “Shadowheart” it was.

She turned behind the library and gingerly navigated her station wagon past the towering mounds of plowed snow flanking the entrance to the faculty parking lot. That’s a lazy asshole way to plow, she thought. What if one toppled over onto a car? Or worse, a pedestrian?

Whipping into her parking spot, she bundled up in her hat, scarf, and mittens and raced inside before the wind could penetrate her jacket. Pale sunlight streamed through the high windows of the library lobby, throwing long beams over the black and white marble floor, as she hurried to the staircase and down into the basement. To her relief, the book arts workshop already had its lights on and its doors propped open. The fast-paced jabber of Quebecois radio spilled into the hallway; Lae’zel must have won the daily tussle over music selection this morning.

“Good morning, squad!” Daphne called as she yanked open the door to her cramped office and tossed her winter clothes inside. “Thanks for opening up!”

“How’re the roads?” Shadowheart’s clear, bored voice from around the corner cut through the noise of the radio. 

“Not as bad as they could be,” Daphne hedged. “Whoever plowed did a pretty shit job.” She crossed the threshold into the spacious studio of long tables and letterpresses and shelves stuffed with endpapers that was her domain. She’d been Icepeak’s Book Arts Workshop program manager for a little more than six years now, but the thrill of walking into this bright, airy room full of all her favorite things never wore off. A new cart of damaged library books waited for her by the door, ready to have their spines reglued or their covers replaced. She wheeled it over to her workbench while Shadowheart, in her usual all-black ensemble, and Lae’zel, in her usual button-up and Doc Martens, bickered over an enormous tray of metal type. 

“Saint-viarge d’esti, you cannot spell for shit. I do not believe you can even spell the word shit,” Lae’zel hissed, plucking two pieces of type from the frame and switching them with forceful clacks. She flicked her short, auburn hair around like an agitated horse. An agitated horse in a flannel shirt. God, Daphne needed coffee.

Shadowheart sighed through gritted teeth, switching them back. “That’s how you spell ‘charity.’ If you’re so desperate for a task, why don’t you go, I don’t know, sniff the glue to see if it’s still good?”

“Why would I sniff the glue when your inane spelling mistakes already take points off of my IQ?”

“There’s a cart of law journals over here that I’ve been saving for one of you to bind into hardbacks,” Daphne interrupted, leveling a critical look at the pair of them. “They’re all yours, Lae’zel.”

Lae’zel nodded to Daphne with a noise from the back of her throat that could have either been acknowledgement or derision. Either was fine, honestly. Her work was so efficient that Daphne usually just chalked her attitude up to cultural differences and moved on. Lae’zel pushed the cart of soft-bound law journals over to her workstation and settled into her chair. Out of the corner of her eye, Daphne saw Shadowheart wrinkle her forehead, then quietly swap two letters around. 

It just didn’t make sense that the two of them had the highest productivity of any team the workshop had ever seen. Last year, the three of them had even been able to expand operations into taking on bespoke letterpress jobs, and the Book Arts Workshop began operating in the black for the first time in college history.

Daphne pulled the first volume from her cart, a heavy psychology textbook with a chunk of loose pages, when her phone buzzed on the desk. 

Dr. Astarion Ancunín, PhD, Local Genius : Don’t forget, stupid staff meeting at 9:30

Dr. Astarion Ancunín, PhD, Local Genius : Bring coffee so you don’t fall asleep again? I thought Aylin was going to smite you where you sat.

Fuck. She’d completely forgotten about the all-staff today. She wasn’t even a librarian, why did she always get dragged into these?

Thanks, she typed. I’ll take the hint and get your usual too.

She pushed her chair back and hurried out the door, yelling “Staff meeting, back at 11, be nice,” over her shoulder as she went. She bounded up the stairs two at a time and hustled across the lobby to the library’s cafe. Thankfully, since classes were already underway, there wasn’t a line—just one other person lingered at the front, perusing the glass case of pastries and breakfast sandwiches with his hands clasped behind his back. 

She passed him and greeted the young cashier with a familiar wave. “Morning. A large cafe au lait with oat milk, please, and a medium—”

“And a medium eggnog latte with marshmallows,” the cashier finished, fighting to keep his face straight. “For Doctor Ancunín, right?”

“Bang on. Make it extra hot, if you can, he watched a YouTube video and now he’s gotten into this whole thing about how coffee is meant to be enjoyed at 180 degrees.” She paid and slipped a couple bucks into the tip jar, when a soft noise to her left made her turn her head. The other patron was trying, and failing, to stifle a laugh. When he realized he’d been caught, he looked at her and—

Every self-indulgent daydream Daphne had ever entertained about hot professors had taken human form, and he was standing in front of her holding a croissant. Tailored tweed pants clung to his long legs; his tired eyes widened behind horn-rimmed glasses. The silver streaks peppering his long, brown hair shone in the fluorescent glow of the bakery case, tousled waves curling around his broad shoulders. People just didn’t look like this on Icepeak—he was even wearing a fucking vest under his sport coat. A pink flush of embarrassment crept up underneath his stubble and colored his cheekbones appealingly. 

“It’s okay,” Daphne stammered, laying a hand on the counter for support. “It’s a stupid thing to order. You can say it.”

Hot Professor chuckled, relief sagging his shoulders. He raked nervous fingers through his hair, and she couldn’t stop herself from noticing how big his hands were. And no wedding ring, her brain unhelpfully supplied. Her heart slammed against her ribs in a panicked frenzy.

“It’s not that it’s a stupid drink, per se,” he said, and Jesus Christ, he was British. A fancy part of England, if she had to guess. She was so screwed. “It’s just the… the nearly postmodern absurdity of insisting upon 180 degree coffee, only to put marshmallows in it. It’s performance art.”

She laughed. “Do not give him so much credit. I won’t be able to cope if he starts assigning symbolic meaning to his wretched little drinks.”

He chuckled again, a rich, gravelly sound, and gave her a lopsided half-smile that made her knees wobble. His corrugated forehead and the gleam in his eyes telegraphed not interest, necessarily, but a pleasant kind of shock as he regarded her.

If he was actually a professor, where had this man been hiding all semester?

“The coffee, you see, is capitalism, simultaneously vital to productivity and scalding to the tongue,” he mock-lectured, leaning forward ever so slightly, “and the marshmallows are a commentary on the frivolities the common man must engage in to sweeten such a bitter—“

“Don’t you dare,” she grinned. He ducked his head and raised his palms to her in apology while they both giggled. Daphne hadn’t felt this giddy in months. 

When he looked up again, his eyes met hers. Dark; luminous. Her breath caught in her chest.

“But, really,” he added, voice dropping into a low, wistful sincerity that went straight to her head. “I don’t mean to mock. Knowing one another’s coffee order, no matter how unconventional, is a lovely, everyday intimacy. This Doctor Ancunín is a lucky man.”

“Oh god, he’s not—it isn’t—“ Now it was Daphne’s turn to blush as she floundered to get her bearings again. “He’s a college friend. And a coworker. I’m single.”

I’m single? You literally just said, “I’m single?” She screamed at herself internally. She might throw up.

“Oh,” he said, surprised. He shifted the croissant in his hands, showering pastry flakes onto his brown leather Oxfords. Moment ruined, Daphne. “Apologies, that’s, ah, good to know?”

Mercifully, the cashier set the coffees down on the countertop. Daphne grabbed them and checked the wall clock. 9:29.

“I’m running late. It was nice to meet you,” she said apologetically, sparing one last glance at Hot Professor. 

“The pleasure is mine—” he replied, which was extremely kind of him, but she was already halfway to the door and away from this trainwreck of an interaction. Astarion would never let her live this down. She still couldn’t wait to tell him about it.

Daphne slunk into the empty seat next to Astarion, whose coiffed silver hair and pressed white shirt looked annoyingly put-together for a Monday morning, in the third row of the unusually crowded lecture hall. Whatever the hell this meeting was about, at least it hadn’t started yet. She slid him his cup and he took it without looking at her, but she saw a smile quirk the corner of his mouth all the same.

“I met a gorgeous man in the cafe,” she murmured to him. “He thought your drink was stupid.”

He scoffed. “Daphne. Since when do you meet gorgeous men in cafes, and since when do I accept feedback?” He took a quick sip and winced. “ Ah. Hot. You know, they say coffee is actually best enjoyed at 180 degrees.”

“I have heard that,” she smiled into her drink. 

“Anyway. Dish. Who’s come to rival me for the title of most eligible bachelor on Icepeak?” 

Daphne told an abridged version of the story, pausing for dramatic effect after “Doctor Ancunín is a lucky man” and “I’m single.” As predicted, Astarion cackled. 

“You shameless little freak,” he crowed. “And all over such a dweeb ! What happened next, did you give him a lap dance? Propose?”

“I hustled down here to deliver my beloved colleague his beverage,” she said indignantly, knocking her boot against his shin. “I knew you’d eat this up. You love two things, and they’re schadenfreude and gossip.”

“No one subjects me to the mortifying ordeal of being known quite like you, my dear,” he drawled in his poshest boarding-school delivery, still practically glowing with delight. “What did you say his name was?”

“I didn’t. We never introduced ourselves.”

“Because you sprinted away from him, right.” Astarion lifted a delicate hand to his forehead, as if to swoon. “Ah, like a ship finding a lighthouse in the cold and lonely Atlantic, Daphne sighted hope of true love, only to—“

“Good morning,” boomed an authoritative voice from the front of the lecture hall. President Ulder Ravengard stood behind the lectern, his suit and pocket square somehow immaculate even with the weather. The entire room immediately fell silent. If Ravengard was here, and he’d assembled at least two whole departments and the library for this, something huge had to be happening.

“He’s smiling,” whispered Daphne.

“I would say that means it’s not layoffs, but people who go into leadership are sick in the head,” he muttered.

“You’re in leadership!”

“Oh, sure, over all three people in the Russo-Slavic division,” he hissed back. “Prepare the guillotine.”

President Ravengard paused whatever he was saying and cleared his throat, pinning the two of them with a meaningful look. Daphne sunk in her chair, hiding behind her coffee. Astarion just grinned.

“I suppose you’re wondering why I’ve called the Classics Department, the English Department, and the library here today,” he began. “I have very exciting news for all three. In Icepeak’s first ever interdisciplinary visiting scholar program—“ 

A mutter broke out among the crowd. No one had mentioned anything like a visiting scholar. And across two academic departments and the library?

“Yes, it’s an initiative that Dean Aylin and I have had in mind informally for some time,” he added, his politician’s voice smoothing over the rabble. “And now, thanks to the generous financial support of our Board of Trustees, I can finally share that we have recruited one of the world’s foremost talents in classics and antiquity studies to spend a year with us here at Icepeak.”

“His credits include two doctorates from Cambridge and a Masters of Library and Museum Studies from University College London, as well as countless papers published in the world’s preeminent journals in his primary area of study: Roman Empire-era Britain.”

Daphne’s brain spiked with—Realization? Anticipation? Panic?—as the pieces fell together. No wonder she hasn’t seen Hot Professor around campus before this morning.

“He comes to us after six years on the faculty at St. Blackstaff’s University in Waterdeep, England. He has also just let me know that this is his first time not just in the great state of Maine, but in America,” Ravengard exclaimed. “I think I speak for us all when I say that we are honored to be his introduction to this side of the pond, so please, everyone give a warm welcome to the newest member of our community: Doctor Gale Dekarios.”

The door at the front of the lecture hall opened, and her beautiful stranger from the cafe strode in with an easy gait, brown hair now tucked out of his face in a neat half-bun. The room erupted into murmurs and polite applause, which he waved off with the same embarrassed flush she’d elicited just minutes earlier. Daphne hid her face behind her coffee cup again, taking a much bigger gulp than she’d meant to and burning her tongue. 

Astarion tapped her knee. “That’s him, isn’t it?”

She spluttered a cough. “Yep.”

“You must have made quite an impression. He’s looking right at you.”

Chapter Text

Dr. Gale Dekarios gave a detailed introductory PowerPoint and explained that he would be floating in the English and Classics departments, as well as serving as rare books librarian to pilot a “history of the book” curriculum he’d designed specifically for Icepeak College’s collections.

Dr. Gale Dekarios, as part of this presentation, provided his office number and encouraged anyone with questions or ideas to stop by. Don’t worry, he joked—although it was in the basement, he had been assured it wasn’t a dungeon. As Daphne read the room number, her fingers clamped onto her coffee cup hard enough to dent the cardboard.

Dr. Gale Dekarios’s new address, room LB-52, was the book storage room next to her workshop. Directly across from her own office.

The meeting finally adjourned and people began to stream out of the lecture hall. Daphne took her sweet time gathering her bag, casting a performatively casual glance to where Dr. Dekarios was nodding along to something Ravengard was saying. He took off his glasses and polished them with an honest-to-god linen handkerchief he pulled from inside his blazer, and she let herself linger a little while longer to watch his quick, gentle fingers work. His eyes flicked her way for a split second, then again as he slid his glasses back into place, a ghost of something tugging at the corner of his mouth. She exhaled on a small, bewildered smile. Her skin prickled embarrassingly hot under her wool fisherman’s sweater.

The moment ended, however, as a horde of professors descended on their new colleague, eager to suss him out or to ingratiate themselves. She shuddered as she caught up to Astarion and descended the stairs back to the library lobby. Her job was labor-intensive and underpaid, sure, and sometimes she worried that her graduate students would commit mutually assured destruction on each other if she turned her back for too long, but at least she didn’t feel compelled to network. 

“Did that whole thing seem, I don’t know,” Astarion asked, oblivious to the way her heart was crashing around in her ribs, “contrived? As in, not planned in the slightest?”

Daphne shrugged. “I don’t know much about how fellowships work. It seems like this visiting scholar thing is pretty new, maybe that’s it?”

“Maybe.” Astarion’s brow furrowed. “But, maybe not. Granted, my fellowship was in Romania, but even post-Soviet Europe was more organized than whatever… improv exercise we just saw. There’s definitely something funny going on with your new soulmate.”

“Well, his new office is practically inside my fucking workshop,” Daphne sighed, pointedly refusing to rise to the bait. “After I’m done cleaning out several decades of junk so he can move in, as I’m sure I will be volun-told to do momentarily, you can Nancy Drew this shit to your heart’s content.”

Astarion stopped dead at the foot of the stairs, making the person behind him stumble. He didn’t apologize. “Are you serious? Daphne . How delicious .” 

She rolled her eyes and tugged him out of the way of foot traffic, onto the stairs to the basement. “Yeah. LB-52? It’s across the hall from my office. The library has been hoarding old books in there for longer than I’ve been alive. Jaheira calls it the Shadow Realm because nothing ever—”

“Who gives a shit about the books, darling, you’re about to spend a long, cold winter cooped up with a man you just told me had kind eyes ,” he smirked. “You haven’t gotten laid in what, eight months?”

She opened her mouth to argue, but she knew from experience that it just wasn’t worth it. “Ten?” she admitted. He winced theatrically. 

Several thuds followed by a heavy clatter echoed up the stairs. An angry voice shouted, “ Sacrament!”

Daphne took the opportunity to say a hurried goodbye to Astarion and his machinations, however well-intentioned they might (or might not) be. She shook out her limbs and rolled her neck, releasing the tension that had crept into her shoulders. In the crowded attic of her mind, she took all of her new, sugary, frantic thoughts about craggy brown eyes and handkerchiefs and stuffed them into a box for later.

The intrigue and mystery of Dr. Dekarios had monopolized her morning, but she was still just Daphne. She was the master of her own tiny universe of chaos, and it still had to be wrangled.

After the three of them cleaned up the drawer full of type that someone , apparently neither Lae’zel nor Shadowheart, had dropped, Daphne caught them up on the events of the faculty meeting. Lae’zel took the news of their new neighbor with a sneer, and Shadowheart with indifference. As expected. Daphne spent the rest of the day working her way through the cart of damaged books, making sure to call the girls over to see what she was doing whenever a repair got interesting. She let them both take a shot at re-sewing the text block of an old, battered copy of Tess of the D’Urbervilles , and praised them heartily when their stitches came out even. Honestly, she was going to be devastated when they finished their MFAs at the end of the year. For two vastly different people, they were equally promising as book artists. 

Her computer pinged a little before 5pm, when she was closing up shop by herself. It was an email from the President’s office, with her entire chain of command CC’d. Fuck.

Urgent: LB-52 reclamation project

Miss Tavian,

It was good to see you at Dr. Dekarios’s welcome this morning. Per his introduction, you are already aware that LB-52 has been made available for his use as an office during his time at Icepeak. 

Please have all stored Library property or furniture cleared from this space by COB Wednesday. Off-site storage crates will be delivered early tomorrow morning for your use. On Thursday, please ensure the hallway remains clear and all doors unlocked for Facilities to collect the crates and furnish the office.

Your cooperation in clearing this valuable space for Dr. Dekarios’s use will be vital to the success of this exciting new program. 

Thank you,

President Ulder Ravengard

Daphne thudded her head against the workbench. If Facilities was already involved, couldn’t they clean out the stupid room? Then, with a lurch, she remembered one time she’d seen a custodian pick up a fallen book by its front cover and try to fling it back onto a high shelf. She’d had to go out for a beer at lunch just to cope.

Ugh. Fine, she’d do it. 

She composed a concertedly non-confrontational email agreeing with Ravengard’s terms, then texted the workshop group chat instructing Lae’zel and Shadowheart not to come in until Friday. The hallway would be too full of junk to use for the next couple days anyway. Frankly, a part of her was looking forward to the solitude.

Tuesday morning dawned clear and cold, and Daphne showed up to the studio armed with an enormous thermos of cold brew with oat milk, her sturdiest thermal-overalls-work boots combo, and an audiobook about the Donner Party queued up on her phone. All of the essentials. She squeezed between the bathtub-sized plywood crates now packing the hallway and wrestled with the lock to LB-52 until the door finally creaked open on disused hinges. A wave of musty air sent her into a coughing fit as she fumbled for the light switch in the dim light from the basement windows. The fluorescents hummed to life with the acrid smell of burning dust.

Well, she didn’t know what she’d expected. No furniture, thankfully, only stacks of books filling library carts and spilling off of high built-in shelves. Some volumes’ leather covers were badly desiccated, crumbling into piles of red dust that sprinkled every flat surface. She’d have to wrap those up before she could move them. Others didn’t even have Icepeak labels on the spine, as though a librarian overwhelmed with new material had just tossed them in here and forgotten about them. And now, they would still be forgotten—just somewhere else. With a sigh, she scraped her thick hair into two shoulder-length french braids and tied a floral scarf over them. This was going to get gross.

She popped in her headphones and pressed play on The Indifferent Stars Above , which had come highly recommended from Shadowheart, then wheeled the first dust-covered cart of books out into the hallway. 

By lunchtime, she began to feel like she was maybe making a dent in things. She’d even found a few delightful surprises, like a set of Scientology literature and a glossy volume titled Practical Sex Magic . That one, she set aside for her own bookshelf. More importantly, her audiobook was ramping up to the climax: the ill-fated Donners had survived a brutal trek across the high desert, only to discover that the mountain pass that would someday bear their name was already filled with ten feet of snow. As she sat at her desk and ate the turkey sandwich and chocolate-covered almonds she’d packed, she was suddenly relieved that she’d decided to have lunch before the cannibalism started.

The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur, the repetitive motions of carrying books from shelf to crate merely background noise as horror after horror befell the dwindling members of the Donner Party. The travelers’ bare feet blackened and froze off after people boiled and ate their shoes, party members began to turn on each other as hunger drove them to insanity—more than once, she caught herself breathing hard from the intensity of what was happening in her headphones. It was a fantastic book, true, but any further recommendations from Shadowheart would need to be thoroughly reviewed before she just blasted them into her brain. Daphne knew, she knew that she’d have nightmares about campfires and pioneers for weeks after this.

Finally, the clock struck five. Thoroughly heebie-jeebied, she threw on her coat and hat and bolted through the dim basement, flinging the door open and taking deep, calming lungfuls of snow-chilled air. 

She half-jogged to her car, cold fingers fumbling with the key fob, and whipped down the driveway out of the parking lot to the street—only to slam on her brakes and gasp, because the ever-higher mound of plowed snow teetering at the foot of the drive now featured a kicking pair of legs. 

She positioned her car so that the headlights could illuminate the scene and threw the car into park, leaping out without bothering with a hat or gloves.  Gory images of gangrenous toe stumps and skin black with frostbite flashed vividly in her mind. Her adrenaline spiked. No one on Icepeak was getting Donner Pass-ed tonight, goddamn it. 

“I’m here! I’m here to get you out!” she yelled as she skidded to her knees on the icy, grit-rough pavement next to where some poor soul had fallen halfway into the wall of powder. A leather satchel, now thoroughly wet and patched with salt stains, lay slouched on the sidewalk nearby.

“A hand? Anyone?” A muffled voice called from inside the deep rift in the snowbank. A muffled, clipped, distinctly English voice. Daphne’s speeding heart shuddered like she’d skipped a gear on the highway. She didn’t need to see past the thick winter darkness to know who she was rescuing. Dr. Dekarios, some fucking how, had fallen backwards and gotten his upper half thoroughly embedded in the mass of soft, unstable snow, with nowhere to grab for purchase.

Fingertips, blue with cold, emerged from the snow and bobbed into the light of her headlights. Daphne seized his hand, dug the heels of her boots into the frozen tarmac, and pulled. The heavy snow and his dead weight felt immovable, but the desperate way his fingers clutched at her wrist made her blood surge in her veins. With some shuffling and grunting and one last almighty heave, the snow-caked form of Icepeak’s newest professor—and, seemingly, newest fixture in Daphne’s life—erupted out of the snow and careened into her arms. 

She staggered under his weight as she caught him. He gasped for breath, his freezing nose buried in her neck while he leaned into her for balance. 

His hair smelled incredible. Like sun-warmed roses and freshly cut wood. Focus, Daphne.

“Dr. Dekarios? Jesus Christ,” she panted. She adjusted her grip to support his weight under his arms. It was a little, or a lot, like a hug. “Are you all right? How long were you in there?”

“What time is it?” he asked, his lips brushing her neck. She gritted her teeth to keep from shuddering. He really couldn’t be doing that; she’d collapse and take him down with her.

“About 5:15.”

“Ah, then. Fifteen minutes, give or take?” To her simultaneous relief and sorrow, he straightened and let her arms fall away. They stood facing each other, pink-cheeked and flustered, in the beam from the headlights. She could practically feel his bright, intense eyes as they roamed over her face.

“I, ah, slipped on a patch of ice and found myself in a predicament. I’m quite all right now, thanks to you. Nothing tea and toast won’t fix,” he said.

“Don’t mention it,” she demurred, running a nervous hand over her hair. The struggle had knocked her bandana loose, and she was sure she looked totally bedraggled.

“Oh, but I shall. And,” he added with an uncertain, bashful smile. “Finally, hello. I’m Gale.” 

 “Gale.” The tips of Daphne’s ears went hot as she called him by his first name. “I’m Daphne. A pleasure.”

“Yes,” he said, emphatic. He rubbed his frozen hands together and then stuffed them in his coat pockets. 

His gaze flicked away from her, and he shook his head. “Sorry, I’m usually better at this.”

“What, at introductions?” she joked. 

He smiled at her again, stronger this time. “Well… yes. This is our third meeting, isn’t it? And I’ve only now had the good grace to catch your name. Daphne.” The softness in how he hit the consonants in her name, the subtle difference in his vowels, sent a thrill up her spine. Their eyes met again. In the concentrated light of the headlights, surrounded on all sides by the thick, icy darkness of New England winter, she felt for a moment like they were the only two people in the universe. 

A large clump of snow still clung to the front of his wool coat, and automatically, her feet brought her closer. “Sorry, you’ve got—” she breathed, extending her hand and brushing it down his lapels. The snow crumbled away, but her fingertips soon met skin as he took her hand in both of his.  

“Good lady, don’t freeze yourself to warm me,” he pleaded, rubbing her hand between his palms. He breathed warm air over them, and Daphne’s heartbeat thundered in her ears as she struggled to process what was happening. “Thank you, again. Please get home safely.”

“But wait,” she stammered. “I don’t see a new car in the lot. You’re not walking home, are you? After all that?”

“It’s only a short walk, a few miles.” Her mouth opened wordlessly, then shut again. Icepeak, true to its name, was icy and covered in treacherous hills. She didn’t want to offend his pride, but god, walking after dark like that was a terrible idea. Even for people she wasn’t worried about being hypothermic. 

“It would make me feel better if I could drive you,” she said, meeting his eyes with an earnest plea. Maybe it was low, playing on what she’d heard about English people’s mortal weakness to social mores, but the ends justified the means.

He frowned. She wrapped her fingers around his hand. “Please, Gale. Let me give you a lift. It’s cold, and the wind tonight is supposed to be brutal.”

His eyes widened at please, Gale in a way that sparked a wicked hope in the back of her mind. Oh, she would marinate on that at length . Later. Right now, he just needed to say yes to letting her finish saving him from frostbite.

“Well,” he sighed, and she beamed at him. “Do you know where the Aurilssbarg lighthouse is? Would it be out of your way?”

“I do!” she answered quickly. “I live in Aurilssbarg too, over by the co-op. It’s no trouble.” She dropped his hand and made a quick detour to pick up his fallen satchel, dusting the salt and sand off of it, before sliding back into the driver’s seat and popping open the passenger door on her station wagon. 

He settled into the station wagon with the grace of someone who was used to being driven around, and she passed him his satchel. With a crank of the heaters, they were off, leaving the library looming in the rear view mirror to join the country road that connected campus with Icepeak’s largest town.

“So, you live over by the lighthouse? That’s pretty cool,” Daphne asked. Aurilssbarg Lighthouse was one of Icepeak’s signature photo opportunities, the weathered white paint standing in sharp contrast to the dark blue sea behind. The building itself had been closed for years after some rich fuck bought it from the town and closed it to visitors, but that hadn’t slowed the stream of people coming to photograph it.

He chuckled. “I don’t live by it. I live in it. As of yesterday.”

She gasped, flicking her eyes off the road to regard him incredulously. “No fucking way. How did you swing that? I thought it was like, condemned or something. No one’s been inside for years.”

“Condemned, no. At least, I hope that isn’t the case—I would imagine Ulder wants to make me happy here,” he said. Something sharp simmered beneath the surface of his tone, then vanished as quickly as it had appeared. “All told, it’s quite cozy. Romantic, in a sort of rugged way. And there’s plenty of room for Tara as well.”

Daphne’s heart sank. Of course. Someone this beautiful and accomplished couldn’t be unattached. “Oh. Is she, uh, settling in?”

“Mostly. She’s still quite cross with me for moving her across the Atlantic, but I know she’ll come around. Especially once she realizes how fresh the fish is.”

Daphne raised her eyebrows, but tried her best to keep her tone neutral. No reason to be a dick just because his partner sounded kind of weird. “We do have good fish.”

“So I’ve heard.” He seemed more relaxed now, stretching his long legs out with a soft sigh. “Between the food, the cozy house, and the birdwatching, I think she’ll be most at home here.”

“If she likes birdwatching, I have a great book I can loan her,” she offered. “My neighbor wrote it. It’s like, a guide to all the local birds and things.”

Gale gave her a concerned look from across the moonlit car. “I suppose I could always read it to her?”

At the implication that Tara couldn’t read, Daphne shot a even more concerned look back at him. Literally, what the fuck.

“ Oh,” he gasped. He swiped a hand down his face, and she really needed to stop noticing how long his fingers were. “Oh good lord, I— oh no. No. My cat, her name is Tara. Tara is a cat. A Maine Coone, appropriately enough. She’s enormous and intelligent and my dear friend, but certainly still a cat.”

“Oh!” she echoed. Her traitorous heart soared in her chest, buoyed by hopes it had no business entertaining. She took the exit off the highway and entered the city limits of Aurilssbarg.

“To quote a recent acquaintance,” he continued, a wicked smile curling his lips, “I’m single.”

Daphne groaned, thudding her head against her headrest while Gale—she was still getting used to calling him that—chuckled smugly. 

“I was flustered.” She hoped very much that he couldn’t see how hard she was blushing.

“Apologies,” he murmured, not sounding very sorry at all. “If it makes you feel any better, I found myself caught off-guard by our first interaction as well. I thought for certain that I’d already offended someone before I’d even started work—and then you laughed, and parried my faux pas back to me. It was a pleasant surprise.”

Daphne’s knuckles whitened where she gripped the steering wheel. They were almost to the lighthouse, if she didn’t spontaneously combust before she could get him there. 

“And you’ve also saved my life,” he continued. “If anyone should be flustered, it’s me. I owe you a debt not easily discharged.”

“Yeah? In that case, you can come move all sixteen tons of books out of your new office,” she laughed, eager to move away from the topic of their introduction. “As someone who spent eight hours doing it today, that would definitely clear up any life debts lingering on your account.”

“Done,” he affirmed. “Expect me at 8am sharp.”

It was only then that Daphne’s brain caught up to what her mouth had said and her ears had heard. She’d just invited Hot Professor, with whom she was suddenly on a first name basis, to spend a full work day with her. Alone. In a basement. And he’d said yes.

The tall, white pillar of the lighthouse towered over them as she took the turn into Aurilssbarg’s wharf district, then pulled into the long, looping driveway in front of the whitewashed cottage at its base. She coasted to a stop in front of his porch. With a deferent nod and soft thanks, Gale opened the passenger door.

“You don’t actually have to come tomorrow,” Daphne admitted just as his shoes hit the pavement. He stepped out of the car, but bent down to peer at her through the doorframe. His eyebrows knitted together behind the rims of his glasses. “It was just a bit. I don’t want you to feel like you owe me anything.”

He shook his head and gave her the same mysterious almost-smile that had set her aflame yesterday morning. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Daphne. Thank you again for the lift.”

He shut the passenger door and turned to walk into his house, then unlocked the rugged oak door to his new home and disappeared into the darkness. Daphne didn’t drive away until she saw a light turn on inside. 

Chapter Text

By 6am, Daphne was showered, moisturized, and standing at her tiny kitchen counter with a deep conditioning mask in her hair. Call her neurotic. She felt she’d earned the right to a bit of neurosis.

She loaded two slices of wheat bread into the toaster and laid out her sandwich supplies, along with a few little tupperware containers and brightly packaged Trader Joe’s snacks. Her hand briefly lingered over the bread bag as she considered making Gale a sandwich too. Desperate, Astarion’s voice chided in her head. She snatched her hand back. Imaginary Astarion was right. She literally just met the guy; they were barely even friends, much less sandwich-level friends. 

If she added twice as many chocolate-covered almonds to her tupperware than usual, well. That was her business.

She bounced on the balls of her feet as she waited on the toaster, nerves jangling. She looked at her reflection in the kitchen window yet again, fretting over wanting to seem cool and casual, but also elegant and put together, but down-to-earth, but feminine, all in clothes she didn’t mind caking in book dust. She’d settled on a canvas jumpsuit with short sleeves, long pants, and cargo pockets, with a zipper up the front. With the french braids and bandana, would it be too Rosie the Riveter? Was that a cultural reference he even had? 

The toaster pinged right as the timer on her phone went off, signaling that it was time to rinse her hair out. She hurriedly tossed her usual turkey-sprouts-pickles-mustard sandwich together and wrapped it in butcher paper before speedwalking down the hall to the bathroom. 

Her hair dried and plaited, she stared herself down in the mirror. Yep, still just Daphne. Black hair. Brown eyes. High cheekbones smattered with freckles. Little gold septum ring, nothing ostentatious but enough to let everyone know she’d gone to art school.

Her gaze wandered to the jumbled collection of makeup in one of her vanity cubbies. She chewed her bottom lip. Before she could overthink it, she combed a little clear gel into her eyebrows and a few swipes of mascara on her lashes, then flicked off the light and dashed to gather her things. 

The basement was empty when she descended the stairs and unlocked the wide double doors to the book arts wing. Thank god. She could get settled, fortify her resolve a little before Gale arrived. Her pulse thumped giddily in her throat as she put her stuff in her office. 

“Ohhhhh-kay, Daphne,” she exhaled. She smiled to herself, like an old therapist once told her to do when she was feeling anxious. Something about the mind-body connection. Just like that, she felt the tiniest bit of tension leak from her chest. Everything was going to be f—

“JESUS HAROLD CHRIST,” she yelped. A tall, dark-haired, male form loomed in the doorway to her office. She backed against her desk, panicked, before registering that the equally startled man in front of her was just Gale in casual clothes. 

“I’m so sorry, I was going to wait for you but then I thought we might want coffee—” he held up the cups in his hands, panicked, “—and when I came back the door was open—“

“It’s okay, it’s okay, fuck, I’m sorry. I startle hard. It’s not your fault,” she breathed, laughing shakily. So much for cool. “I’m all right. You got coffee?”

His shoulders eased, and he held out a cup to her. She accepted it and took a sip. Cafe au lait with oat milk. Warmth, not just from the coffee, spread through her chest.

“You got my coffee,” she said softly, regarding him over the edge of her drink. No wonder she hadn’t recognized him—in place of the trousers and waistcoats she’d seen him in before, he was wearing a dark green sweater with ICEPEAK knitted across the chest in white letters, blue jeans (which still definitely looked tailored), and brogue boots. With his silver-streaked hair swept back in that half bun and his coffee cradled in his hand, he was devastating in the same way the hottest man at a farmer’s market is devastating. She wanted to make sourdough with him and ravage him on the countertop while it proofed.

“Thank you,” she added, blinking back to the present. “What did you get? For when I want to return the favor.”

“What if I would rather maintain my subtle air of mystery?” he asked, mischief coloring his voice. 

Bud, you have nothing to worry about on that front , she mused. “Absolutely not. You already get to swan into town mid-semester and charm everyone with your accent; that’s plenty of intrigue for one man.”

Gale quirked an eyebrow at her. “Are you charmed by my accent?”

“Not nearly as much as you would like,” Daphne dared to shoot back, stifling a grin. 

He met her gaze with a delighted gleam, leaning against the doorframe. “So it would seem. I’m still learning to like coffee, so the gentleman in the cafe made a recommendation. It’s called a, hmm. A dirty chai latte? ” He took a sip, his mouth twisting uncertainly. “It’s… nice, I think.”

“Ooh, those are good,” she said. “You’ll need the caffeine today, too—if you still insist on helping, that is. You’re sweet for showing up, but I wouldn’t judge you for backing out.”

A hint of sadness crinkled the corners of his eyes. “Of course I’m not backing out, Daphne.” 

Something deep and tender inside of her ached, like a thumb pressing on a bruise; his unexpected sincerity made her heart do something funny. He was so… emotionally available. She’d have to get used to that after years of Astarion, Lae’zel, and Shadowheart as her most frequent social contacts.

“Okay then,” she chirped. “Let me show you what we’re dealing with.”

She opened the door to LB-52 with only slightly less effort than the previous morning and flicked on the lights. Gale stood frozen in the doorway, taking in the scene.

“Blimey. This is gory.”

“I told you,” Daphne groaned.

“There’s so much red rot on those,” he gestured to a row of crumbling leather tomes, “that I’m shocked they’re still in one piece. There’s no way they’re stable enough for cold storage.”

“Right? It’s a miracle they haven’t disintegrated,” she agreed. “That’s my task for the day—while you load the other books into crates, I’m going to make acid-free archival containers for these poor things. I can’t promise they’ll survive, but it’ll at least keep the rest of the volumes clean.  Does that sound amenable?”

He nodded, rolling up the sleeves of his sweater. “Very much amenable. Do call me over if you find something exciting.” 

Daphne tied her scarf over her hair and stole a glance at his forearms, where his muscles worked visibly under his skin as his deft fingers tucked his sleeves into the crook of his elbow. They were freckled, in places, and dusted with soft-looking brown hair. Her teeth worked her bottom lip. She was no better than a Victorian man glimpsing an ankle. 

Thankfully, Gale didn’t seem to notice. She gave herself a brisk little shake as he walked away to fetch the nearest cart of books, and retreated into the workshop to set up. She always kept a healthy supply of flat-packed archival boxes ready for such occasions as this, so she tucked a stack of them under one arm, clipped a box cutter in the front pocket of her jumpsuit, and grabbed a fresh roll of thick acid-free paper for making envelopes. 

A second wind of confidence lifted her spirits as she laid out her supplies on the workbench. Here, at least, she knew exactly what the fuck she was doing. 

Daphne flitted back into the room and carefully picked up the first of about two dozen truly hopeless books she intended to save today. She gingerly opened the front cover, hoping it wouldn’t snap off in her hand, and was disappointed to see the title page simply read Black’s Law Dictionary. It was a first edition, so that was something, but she certainly wasn’t titillated.

“The first one’s a disappointment,” she said, loud enough for Gale to hear her as he stacked books in the hallway.

“Are you sure? I’ve been told my interests are so esoteric that they border on mind-numbing,” he called back. “What is it?”

She furrowed her brow and followed his voice out into the hall. “Who said that to you?”

“A particularly scathing RateMyProfessor review,” he explained, wiping his hands clean on his jeans. “In fairness to the student, it was the first time I’d taught an introductory course. It hadn’t occurred to me that everyone in my lecture wasn’t as excited about Roman coins as I am.”

She cackled, she couldn’t help it. “Oh my god. That’s so harsh, but I’m also imagining a room full of teenagers totally glazing over while you’re animatedly explaining that the ridges on this particular penny demonstrate the owner was left-handed or something–”

“It was a denarius, thanks so much.” His smile had a way of illuminating his whole face, she noticed. 

“Okay, well. This isn’t about denariuses either.” She carefully tipped the book in her hands toward him so he could see. “Just a Black’s Law Dictionary. They’re so common that they’re practically worthless, but I don’t have discard privileges, so I guess it’s getting preserved.”

Gale frowned, regarding the dictionary with an analytical eye. He reached his hands out and cradled the book in her grasp, and his fingers gently spread over hers. “May I?”

His hands were soft, but strong, and even more electrifying against her skin than she’d imagined. Daphne nodded, unsure if the nerves connecting her brain to her mouth could be trusted at that particular second. He slid the crumbly volume from her hands, gripped it by the cover, and tore it in half. 

“What!” she gasped. 

“Oh, what a shame! This item appears to be too damaged to save,” he fretted, his eyebrows raising theatrically as he regarded the two stacks of mildewed paper and leather he now held. She covered her mouth with her hands, shocked and delighted in equal measure. “As the rare books librarian, I’m afraid that I’m going to have to ask you to dispose of this immediately. It would be a waste of your immense talents to salvage it, Miss Tavian.”

Miss Tavian , in his rich voice and in her delicate state, hit her like a rogue wave. Her mouth went dry in an instant. As sweet as her first name always sounded on his lips, the formal address made heat rush to her face and, god help her, between her legs. 

“If you say so, Professor,” she quipped back, hoping she sounded nonchalant enough to hide the frankly embarrassing way he affected her. This man was a coworker right now, she reminded herself. Professionals of good repute probably shouldn’t get wet over their coworkers’ long fingers and pornographic voices.

But. The halves of the book twitched in his hands, and she saw his knuckles whiten for a moment where he gripped them. If she had the courage to look at his face, then maybe—

He moved closer, into her space. She whipped her head up to meet his gaze where it bored into her, pinned her with the blinding light of his full attention. Her body froze.

“I generally prefer Gale,” he admitted in a low rumble. “However, I…” 

Daphne’s lips parted. He exhaled heavily, heavy-lidded eyes unwavering as they searched hers. “I won’t deny myself the pleasure of inviting you to call me that whenever you like.”

The edges of her vision went dark and her pulse pounded as she reeled. Excitement and disbelief bloomed in her chest—their banter hadn’t been just idle flirting. He really wanted her too. Her qualms about being coworkers crumbled and disappeared under the heavy weight of her desire to feel him on her, under her, inside her.

She reached out to take the sheafs of ruined book from him, running her fingertips over the backs of his broad hands as she did. He didn’t let go. His eyes widened in panic. The cold reality of the moment seemed to crash into him at once, so hard she could practically see the moment of impact. Daphne’s heart, so newly elated, plummeted to the floor. 

“That was highly inappropriate of me, I’m so deeply sorry,” he blurted, letting Black’s Law Dictionary go as if it burned him. 

“It’s okay, it’s fine,” Daphne said, smiling reassuringly even as the back of her throat tightened with sadness and shame. “I’m not offended. We can just forget it happened if you want.”

Gale seemed not to hear her. He clutched at his temples, his mouth, his chest as his breathing accelerated, his eyes roaming and unfocused. Her stomach twisted in concern. Something wasn’t right here—something more than a regrettable flirt with an officemate. 

“Forget it happened?” The color rose in his cheeks as his tone grew more anxious. “You are under absolutely no obligation to forgive me for harassing you in your workplace, after all the kindness you’ve shown me, god in heaven, I’m so sorry— ”

“You didn’t harass me,” she countered, as calmly as she could through her rising confusion. “Hey. Gale, it’s really okay. I– I’m sorry.”

“How could I do this?” He was almost whispering now. “How could I do this?” His shaking fingers raked across his scalp, disheveling his neat bun. Her blood turned to ice in her veins as Daphne guessed what was happening. This wasn’t about her at all. Gale’s mind was somewhere else, and it wasn’t somewhere good.

She slowly crouched and laid the ruined book on the floor, careful not to make any sudden sounds, and stood back up just as slowly. With her palms up, shoulders relaxed, she stepped into Gale’s field of vision where he leaned against the brick wall of the hallway. 

“I’m not going to touch you or come any closer,” she said, intently finding his wild eyes behind his glasses. What she saw there felt like a knife to her heart, a glaze of fear and anguish and shame. “I think you should go into my workshop and lock the door. Stay in there as long as you want and get a cold drink out of the minifridge. Okay?”

Gale regarded her uncomprehendingly for a beat. She worried she would have to call for medical help. But, finally, he nodded, and she beamed back at him in genuine relief. 

“It’s just there, the door to your right,” she gestured. “I’ll make sure no one comes in. I won’t even say you’re here if someone asks.”

Shakily, he pushed his way along the wall and slid into the workshop, letting the metal door clunk closed behind him. She had a key, in case she became genuinely worried he was in danger, but she doubted she’d need it. By her impression, he just needed privacy for a while. A dignified place to process… whatever the hell was happening. 

She knew, though. The clammy terror that had seized him was too familiar not to recognize. From friends, from students. From her own reflection, years ago. Someone had inflicted something reprehensible on Gale Dekarios. Likely, recently. She took a long sip of her coffee, breathing through the wave of nausea that swept up her throat.

She took a deep inhale and relaxed her body one joint at a time—jaw, neck, shoulders, elbows, hands—allowing herself a moment to be grateful for how far she’d come. She wasn’t a scared college girl anymore, she reminded herself fiercely. She was happy, she was independent. She had graduated from therapy two years ago and had a chintzy little certificate hanging in her bedroom to prove it. 

“I am whole. I am strong. I am an example,” she said, quietly. It was a dumb mantra, but it was hers. 

The best thing to do when anxious, she thought, was something, so she set about unloading the cart Gale had been working on. Lift, pack, lift, pack. Don’t dwell on the clear, searing mental image of his perfect face contorted in fear. Will he want to talk about it? Come up with something neutral to talk about when he comes back. The weather. His cat…  

She finished that cart and moved onto another, one ear listening for the sound of her workshop door clicking open. Halfway through cart number four, it came. 

She turned, careful not to move too quickly, and found him easing the door closed behind him. He certainly looked better–a little flushed, slightly more rumpled than before, but otherwise no worse for wear. Their eyes met, and he didn’t flinch away from her. He didn’t say anything, either, but her chest still eased a fraction as they stared at each other for a moment in the quiet hallway. His expression was open, serious, a little embarrassed perhaps, but no longer afraid. 

In the hand not resting on the door handle, he cradled a can of seltzer.

“You picked my favorite,” she murmured, gesturing at his drink. “Pink apple and lemon.”

He looked down at it in bemusement, then back to her. “I like it, too,” he answered, voice subdued. “I didn’t think I was one for sparkling water.”

“You are now, like it or not. This is a seltzer-based work environment,” she joked tentatively. He smiled back at her, a tired acknowledgement of her attempt to lighten things. Her heart ached for him. 

“I suppose I owe you an explanation.” It wasn’t a question. He focused on the pull tab of his seltzer can, picking at it with an anxious finger. Getting right to it, then.

“You really don’t.” I already have a pretty good guess , she didn’t say. “We’ve all been there at some point.”

He raised an incredulous eyebrow at her over the bridge of his glasses. “We’ve all made brazen efforts to communicate interest in a new acquaintance, then unexpectedly launched into a loud and embarrassing emotional collapse?”

Trying very hard to think clearly enough to be witty through the surprise and joy clamoring in her brain, she cocked her head back at him. “You weren’t loud. And you didn’t see me after I dropped you off last night. Chaos, wailing, gnashing of teeth. It was biblical.” That elicited an actual laugh from him, rough and brief.

“If you want to talk about it, though,” she continued, taking a step toward him, “I’m listening.”

He worried his bottom lip between his teeth, clearly thinking hard. “That’s incredibly kind of you, as always. I never intended my affliction to become your burden as well.”

“You’re not a burden.”

“You don’t know that. Not yet. My story is,” he paused, searching for the right word. “Sordid. Perhaps I would be selfish to involve you in it.”

Daphne bit back a sigh. Poet types and their martyr complexes would be the death of her. If he didn’t want to talk about it, that was fine, but he didn’t need to pretend it was for her benefit. 

“And, I would prefer to enjoy the warmth of your good graces for longer than just these few days. Which I fear would be quite impossible after–” he trailed off. A raw edge crept into his voice, a little quaver on the end of his sentence that made her sick with heartache. God. He wasn’t being theatrical, he was lost . A surge of affection carried her forward, urged her to show him the next step.

“Gale.” She drew closer, hovering on the edge of his personal space without crowding him. “I’m just gonna say what I mean, if that’s okay.”

“By all means,” he said. She didn’t miss the way his shoulders tensed, or how he shifted his weight nervously. He thought she was going to let him down easy. 

“I think you’re a fucking delight. I want to know you, and it seems like you want to know me. Am I right?” 

He nodded at her, surprise written in every feature. A faint, lovely blush bloomed on the high points of his cheeks. Drawing on the last reserves of her courage, she continued. 

“Then we have all the time in the world. It doesn’t matter if we talk about it today or in six months or in a year. As for right now, I can give you two choices.” She held up one finger. “Option one, we get in my car right now and I drive you back home. You take a nap, read, whatever, and I can finish this up by myself.”

His eyes softened and shone as she held up a second finger. “Option two, we tell Ravengard we need a one-day extension because of, I don’t know, a preservation emergency. We dip out now, go get brunch, and spend the day exploring the island.”

A slow smile dawned on his face. Daphne fought the absurd urge to cry. He was so beautiful when he was happy.

“Option two,” he affirmed. 

She grinned back at him. The morning was still young. One magical day on Icepeak, coming up.

Chapter Text

Gale scanned their surroundings and slunk low in his seat as the station wagon peeled out of the staff lot and turned toward the back exit of campus.

“You nervous?” Daphne wiggled her shoulders with excitement. “I bet this is your first time ditching, like, anything, ever. It’ll be fine; Ravengard thinks we’re on an urgent supply run for–what did you tell him? Vellum sheets?”

He made an indignant noise from the passenger side, but straightened up nonetheless. “Hardly. I’ll have you know that I was known to sneak away for a bit of fun once or twice in my wild university days.”

“Nah, no way,” she goaded. “I don’t believe that for a second.”

He thought hard for a moment. “When I was twenty, I once skipped three entire days of my graduate program to attend an antiquities conference in Malta.”

Her eyebrows knitted together. “You, for fun, skipped class and traveled internationally to go to an academic conference? Just, on your own?”

“Indeed I did. Well, I was one of the speakers, if we’re being totally honest. Still,” he continued, his voice warm with nostalgia, “The food, the wine, the museums—it was a perfect couple of days. I watched the sun rise over the Mediterranean in the morning and set there again in the evening.”

She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing, even as she delighted in how freely he’d offered up this happy memory. What a dweeb. A pretty, mysterious dweeb.

“Tell me about Malta,” she said softly, glancing over at him as she accelerated onto the ring road that circled Icepeak Island. For a brief moment, his dark eyes connected with hers, and her stomach fluttered.

The man is in crisis, get it together, she chided herself.

On the drive up to the north side of Icepeak, Gale described the entire island of Malta in truly exhaustive detail as she nodded along, letting the stream of his words wash over her. He told her about the quarries that had produced the cobblestones, how the architecture changed in stratified layers from the Byzantine catacombs underground to the modern skyscrapers above, the particular varietals of wine only produced on its rocky hills. He narrated his recollection of the cart where he’d bought breakfast each morning, and the scenery he passed on his walk to the conference venue. One glorious afternoon, after he’d spoken on his last panel, he’d rented a bike and cruised effortlessly through town to some seaside cliffs, where a family had seen him standing alone and invited him to share their picnic lunch. 

“I spoke Italian to them and they–very patiently–taught me some Maltese. That was enough for us to get along famously,” he explained. He was so seized by the memory that Daphne felt like she was there too, being welcomed by smiling strangers on a sun-drenched cliff, overlooking water so blue it blended into the sky. “There was at least a dozen of them, of all ages, but they insisted they had room for one more. They poured me a cup of wine and plied me with more bread and cheese and olives than anyone could possibly eat. I could barely manage the bike ride back afterward.”

She chuckled, and he joined her, tapering into a wistful sigh as his recollection faded. “I only wish I’d had something to give them in return.”

“You did,” she reassured him.

They exited the ring road and coasted to a stop at the red light that led down to Bjorn’s Hold’s main street. She turned to him with a knowing smirk. “You sat and chatted with them and let them feed you. I can promise you, that was exactly what they wanted, especially if they had a grandmother with them. I’m sure every time they go back to that spot, they turn to each other and say, hey, remember that gangly British guy? Wasn’t he sweet? ”

Relief stole across his features, softening the lines that crossed his forehead and framed his eyes. “I hope that’s true. That afternoon was one of the most pleasant of my life.” 

“Worth playing hooky for?”

He huffed a laugh. “Certainly worth playing hooky for.”

The light turned green, and Daphne took her time making the turn into Bjorn’s Hold so that Gale could savor the view down main street. Her pride swelled at the quiet gasp that escaped him. Below them, a narrow, cobblestoned street wended its way down from the top of the hill to the shore, lined on each side with cafes, shops, and cottagey stone rowhouses. Was it a little touristy these days, as Icepeak relied more and more on mainland money to thrive? Sure. Was it Daphne’s favorite part of the island all the same? Absolutely. 

She slid into a convenient parking spot and threw the parking brake on with a flourish. She stowed her keys in her tote bag and did a quick check of her hair. Oh, god, she was still wearing the stupid bandana. She whipped it off and frantically smoothed her flyaways down with her palms.

A blast of cold air swept into the car as her driver’s side door opened. A broad hand appeared at her eye level, beckoning her to take it.

“Oh!” she gasped. Gale, wrapped in his long wool coat, looked down at her patiently as she regarded him, his hand, and him again. No one opened doors for people in this century. Right? 

She tentatively lifted her hand to his, unsure if this is what he wanted. He took it with an easy confidence that made her head spin. This was okay? Not an hour ago, the brush of her fingers on his had sent him into a panic. He helped her out of the car and squeezed her fingers gently before dropping them and shutting her door behind her, and Daphne’s thoughts turned to radio static.

Maybe touching was on the table, but it had to be his idea. She could work with that. She stuffed her hands in the pockets of her parka and started down the sidewalk, Gale’s long strides easily keeping pace beside her.

“The most important thing about ditching,” she began, willing her focus away from the surprise of his touch, “is embracing the spirit of hedonism. This isn’t just free time; we are actively choosing not to work.”

“Right,” he affirmed. “A bacchanal of sorts.”

“Sure. That’s the party with tons of wine, right?” They approached the restaurant she had in mind, its wooden sign bearing an etching of a candle lit against a black background. “Luckily for us, Bjorn’s Hold has the coziest spot in the world for not working, and they make a killer brunch. Here we are: Last Light Inn.”

She reached for the door, but he was quicker. As she crossed the threshold, stepping up into the warm, sunlit main room of Last Light, she wondered if he’d insist on opening every door moving forward, or if this was just a mania that had seized him in a vulnerable moment. 

Either way, she could get used to it. 

She tucked them into her favorite nook at the back of the cafe, between the roaring hearth and a wall of potted plants, and began the surprisingly complex process of guiding Gale through ordering his first American breakfast. He’d never had maple syrup before, which she found stunning. Biscuits and gravy was an entire conversation on its own–he made such a horrified face when he saw it on the menu that she threw her head back in laughter, gasping an explanation as best as she could and promising it tasted better than it sounded. Finally, he settled on “a true Maine experience,” as he saw it: wild blueberry pancakes with syrup and bacon. Daphne flagged down the bored-looking waiter and ordered Gale’s pancakes, her usual spicy omelet, and two large mimosas.

“What do you think?” Daphne asked as Gale carved another delicate bite from his stack of pancakes. He dragged the forkful through the pool of maple syrup on his plate and popped it into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully.

“Damn fine splendid,” he exhorted. He wrapped his fingers around the long stem of his half-empty fishbowl glass, studying it. “I’m ashamed to say this is my first mimosa, as well, and I’m finding them equally lovely.”

She smiled broadly, holding up her drink to him in a toast. He mirrored the gesture, but stopped short of clinking glasses.

“To what are we toasting?” He cocked his head at her, leaning one arm on the table in perhaps the most relaxed posture she’d ever seen him take. 

“I’ll do one, and then you do one,” she proposed. She pressed her lips together in thought, the champagne making her thoughts delightfully fizzy. The rugged planes of his face also glowed a little pinker than usual, she noticed. “To true Maine experiences and Wednesday bacchanals.”

He chuckled, melodic and earnest. “Well said. In that case–” His eyes skimmed over her features in naked appreciation, lingering on the bow of her lips and the flush of her cheek. She clenched her thighs together under the table to get some relief from the sudden throb between her legs. Whatever the fuck was going on in his big, complicated brain, it was stretching her self-control to its absolute limit. 

“–to Daphne, who saw a wretched soul hungry for comfort, and gave it without hesitation,” he intoned, an unbearable tenderness pitching his deep voice. “To kindness I don’t deserve, but hope to repay tenfold.”

“To kindness you absolutely do deserve,” she clarified. She leveled a challenging look at him, daring him to fight her on it. His brows knitted together as he worked through a response. She could practically hear the gears in his head turning.

Finally, deliberately, he clinked his glass with hers. She exhaled, shaky with an emotion she couldn’t name. As they sipped, eyes locked, Daphne felt the amorphous cloud of tension and shyness and curiosity between them solidify just a little bit into something new, something real.

Trust. That was it. Not a broad and sturdy bridge between them, not yet, but enough to be a foothold. 

She set down her glass, unsure where to go from here.

“Would you– may I offer you a bite?” he asked tentatively, turning the uneaten portion toward her. “Or several; there’s enough pancake here to feed a family.”

Her heart squeezed in her chest. “Only if you take some omelet. It’s not too spicy, I promise,” she smiled.

It was, indeed, too spicy, but he was a very good sport about it.

After some wrestling over the check, with Daphne initially claiming victory only to discover that Gale had slipped his card to the waiter as soon as they’d arrived, they spilled out onto the sidewalk to explore Bjorn’s Hold. 

“So, where now?” he asked as they continued down the hill.

“Wherever catches your eye. There’s enough cute shit here to fill an afternoon, especially for those of us who’re cursed to put our hands on everything.” She wiggled her fingers and he laughed, shaking his head.

“You’re daft, you know,” he said with affection. Daphne grinned down at her feet, determined to hide whatever besotted expression had surely taken over her face. God. She was in so much trouble.

They tooled through main street for hours, until the sun hung low over the ocean and the wind turned bitter. Gale took her invitation and stopped in every shop they passed, eager to see what new experiences waited within. He sampled rocky road fudge at the candymaker’s, wincing at the overpowering sweetness. In the used bookshop, she unearthed an illustrated history of Icepeak College to show him, and he bought it on the spot. He followed Daphne into the yarn store, where she just needed to pick up some more wool for the sweater she was working on, and engaged the elderly owner so deeply in conversation about drop-spindle hand spinning that it took her twenty minutes to check out.

“I’ve been buying yarn from Esther for years, and I’ve never once seen her smile,” Daphne cried once they were out of earshot, approaching the snow-covered shoreline at the bottom of the hill. “Never! And you come in with the most niche topic of conversation I’ve ever heard, and all of a sudden, she’s giggling? ”

“Drop spindles aren’t niche, they’re one of the single most widely-used technologies in the entire anthropocene,” he protested, amusement bubbling bright in his voice. “There are vases in ancient Egyptian tombs depicting their use; moreover, they were used to make the wrappings for the mummies in those tombs. And today, nine thousand years later, artisans all over the world still use the same technology for the same purpose. Spindles are incredible, and I shan’t hear otherwise.”

“If they’re so incredible, then you can teach me how to use one,” she returned, the flood of affection that followed his rant clouding her wit. Just the simple act of knowing things, collecting experiences, made him practically vibrate with joy. His contagious enthusiasm justified how verbose he could be. “If I impress Esther at the next workshop, maybe she’ll finally stop charging me fifteen bucks a skein for this stupid wool.”

He barked a surprised laugh as they stepped off the boardwalk and onto the beach, snow and pebbles crunching underfoot. “I confess, I’m no spinner. You’ll have to ask Esther for help yourself. Or do some bartering.” Daphne made a face, and he chuckled again, knocking their shoulders together playfully. 

They came to a stop at the water’s edge and let the sunset wash them in rays of pink and orange. For a contented moment, they watched the twilight creep in and let time slip silently past them like a stream over rocks. The wind whipped at their faces and tugged at their jackets, kicking up flurries of powdery snow around them.

A strong gust swept in from the sea and swirled around them like the eye of a hurricane, encasing them in a glittering cocoon of snow as it howled. Gale and Daphne turned toward each other, grinning and shocked, as the wind surged around them in a shining eddy of ice.

The wind subsided, leaving them alone on the beach. Gale’s plush lips parted, and Daphne felt her own mirror him. His dark eyes caught the warm light of the fading sunset and reflected it back to her in shades of molten gold, the creases that framed them smoothing as his gaze softened. Her stomach rose up into her throat. Something, something had to happen. She couldn’t live like this for another moment. 

He shifted his weight, the soft groan of the snow beneath him deafening in her ears. “I wish for all the world that I could kiss you.”

Daphne couldn’t breathe. A flush of shock and desire rose furiously in her cheeks as she imagined his lips on hers, her fingers tangled in his long hair. “Why can’t you?” she asked earnestly, before catching herself. “Right, sorry. I meant what I said this morning, that we can take our time. It’s okay. I just, god, I want to kiss you too. That’s all.”

A flicker of joy crossed his face, quickly extinguished by his worry and guilt. It dawned on her that he didn’t know why she’d responded to his panic this morning with so much understanding. He probably thought she was just pitying him, or waiting around to see if he’d get over it.

“Can I tell you something? Something personal?” she asked, tentative. 

“Anything.”

She fixated on the top button on his coat to spare herself the awkwardness of watching his reaction. With a deep breath, she began.

“When I was in undergrad, I went to a house party with someone I didn’t really know. I had a good time, but I got way too drunk, way too fast. I think someone might have slipped me something; I’ll never know. The next thing I remember, I was in the campus hospital. There was a victim’s advocate in the chair next to my bed. Everything hurt.”

She watched his chest rise and fall. A pained noise escaped the back of his throat, and she clenched her fists in her pockets, willing herself to continue.

“Anyway. The next time I went out with my friends, just to try to feel normal again—I panicked. I panicked hard. It felt like the cozy world I’d known had collapsed around me like a movie set, and I’d never be safe again. It took years for me to feel anywhere close to normal.” 

She dragged her eyes up to his, just for a moment. “I don’t know what happened to you, Gale. But I know enough. I know that feeling when I see it. And whatever happened, god, I’m sorry. ” 

The sun finally slipped below the horizon entirely, and the streetlights along the boardwalk flickered to life. A breeze blew a lock of his thick hair across his face, and she fought the impulse to brush it away. He was silent. She waited. If she’d misjudged, or overstepped, well. She’d know soon enough.

Slowly, he withdrew his hands from his pockets.

“May I touch you?” he whispered.

Anticipation crackled along every nerve. “Of course.”

His long arms wrapped around her waist and spanned her shoulders, pulling her to him. She tucked her head into the crook of his neck as he held her tight, leaning on him for support as her knees went weak. Her cheek pillowed against the soft wool of his coat, and he settled her in his arms. The warm spice of his cologne filled her lungs. She felt like she could be dreaming. Something between a sob and a laugh bubbled up from deep in her chest, a release of emotion she hadn’t realized she’d been carrying all day. 

“I will hold what you told me today in deepest confidence,” he murmured into her ear, urgent and sincere. “And I will never forget, for a moment, the privilege of your trust. What happened to you was cruel beyond words. Yet, you must know, you must know, in the face of that cruelty, you’ve grown into someone compassionate, and quick-witted, and determined to care for others with no expectation of return. I am honored just to have met you.”

Tears pricked at the corner of Daphne’s eyes, and she buried her head deeper into the collar of his coat. Goddamn it, this was supposed to be about him.

“As for…” he trailed off, his fingers tightening against her parka. Daphne stilled against him and listened to his pulse thunder in his chest. She curled her fingers to clutch at his lapel.

“You aren’t incorrect. The situation is, to put it mildly, complex. I don’t know that it paints me in the most flattering light, to be honest.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she whispered into his neck.

He exhaled through his nose, pressing his cheek to the side of her head. “I hope you’re right.”

Reluctantly, they eased apart again. The walk back up the hill, past all the shops they’d bounced in and out of earlier, was quiet and contemplative. Daphne slid into the driver’s seat of her car before he could grab the door handle, shooting him a small smirk as she buckled her seatbelt. He rolled his eyes at her.

Twenty minutes out from Aurlissbarg, Gale suddenly spoke up.

“You mentioned that you attended university earlier.”

“Yes, I did,” she replied, caught off-guard.

“Did you have a mentor there? Someone who oversaw your degree?”

“Um. Kind of. I had a thesis advisor my senior year—Professor Carlton. We met twice a week and he helped me put my final portfolio together.”

He hummed, as if that confirmed something in his mind. “Archeology is a bit different. Our advisors don’t just guide us through the final product, they’re a vital connection to getting research opportunities and funding.”

“That makes sense.” Where was this going?

“I was something of a prodigy when I was younger—not in a self-aggrandizing way, mind; I was always genuinely far beyond the rest of my schoolmates in terms of not just what I could do, but what I wanted to do. I started university when I was fifteen, graduated two years later, and immediately began a doctorate in archeology at Cambridge. I was voracious to leave the classroom behind me and begin the real work, in the field, finding things for myself.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him run an agitated hand through his hair. He took off his glasses and polished them on the edge of his scarf, roughly sliding them back into place.

“Imagine you’re that ambitious young prodigy. Imagine you arrive at your PhD program and get put on clerical duty—cleaning tools, sorting samples, taking notes for other candidates at conferences. That’s to be expected before you pass your qualifying exams. But, then, imagine that your second year begins, and nothing has changed. You’re still in the lab, scrubbing lumps of dirt with toothbrushes. Imagine the restlessness, the boredom. The feeling you’re wasting the potential you’ve spent your whole life cultivating.”

The frustration in his voice was still palpable. She could imagine young Gale, impetuous and overdressed, sullenly sorting through a sheet pan of rocks at a lab table.

“Imagine you petition the head of your department, one of the most famous archaeologists of the last century, for help. For the first time since you began, someone listens when you ask for better work. She sees your potential as clearly as you do, and she agrees to help you use it. Suddenly, you’re getting put on field teams. You’re at dig sites. When it’s time to write the paper, you’re one of the co-authors. Your career, in which you’ve spent years feeling so stifled, explodes. Almost overnight, everything is better than you’ve ever imagined it could be.”

His delivery became strained. Daphne’s stomach soured—she didn’t like where this was heading.

“Imagine it’s time to begin writing your thesis, using one of those plum opportunities you’ve been offered. Imagine that you take a chance and ask the department head to be your advisor. After all, she’s the only one who understands you. Who saw the greatness in you from the beginning and nurtured it. Imagine that she accepts, and invites you to have dinner at hers to celebrate your new relationship.”

Daphne’s palms began to sweat against the plastic of the steering wheel. 

“Imagine that she feeds you a sumptuous dinner and an entire bottle of red wine. Imagine that she moves you to the sofa for dessert. Imagine that when you look up, she’s unbuttoning her blouse. You’ve grown so close, after all. She can’t resist you any longer if you’re going to be working together from now on. You think about the doors this could open for you. You think about how lonely research is. You think, well, maybe you do love her. And you, you foolish, arrogant boy, you undo your tie.”

“Oh, Gale,” she gasped. He was on a roll, now, though. 

“Imagine that you finish that doctorate and start another, this one in ancient history. She’s your advisor again. You’re at hers almost every night, going at it like newlyweds. You’re hopelessly in love. She won’t claim you in public, you understand, but everyone knows she chose you. Everyone knows that you’re the way to get to her. By the time you finish your second degree, with a library Masters you picked up along the way, you’re set to be a tenured professor before your twenty-eighth birthday.”

“This went on for years,” Daphne exclaimed. 

“Then,” he continued, voice rough, “instead of Cambridge, imagine she sends you to found a new program at a school on the other side of the country. St. Blackstaff’s. You’re the only one she trusts to do it, she says. You’re so eager to prove your worth, prove your love to her, that you accept without hesitation. Imagine that the day you leave town is the last you ever hear from her. Imagine that you spend four years thrashing in the dark, trying to keep your career alive while wondering what you did wrong.” 

“Imagine that one day, it becomes too much to bear. You’re at Cambridge for a conference, again. She won’t answer your calls, again. So you do something terribly desperate. You use the spare key to her office and walk in, with the intention of finally forcing a confrontation. Imagine—”

He took a steadying breath. Daphne silently placed her upturned hand on the center console. He covered it with his own, lacing his shaky fingers with hers.

“Imagine you find her in a very compromising position with her new prodigy. He looks to be same age you were, back then. Imagine that although she’s shouting at you, and you’re shouting at her, the self-pity and betrayal you anticipated doesn’t come, because you’re looking at him, and god, he’s so young. He’s so young.”

Daphne squeezed his hand hard. “Fuck.” What else was there to say?

“Imagine that news of your little outburst—not her part in it, just yours—becomes the hottest gossip imaginable among everyone you’ve ever respected, almost as if someone were industriously circulating it. Imagine that, while you can’t lose your tenure to reputation alone, no one at your institution really wants to work with someone as explosive and unstable as you’re now known to be. No journal wants to publish you. Imagine being completely alone, just how you were before you met her, but with all of the memories of how it felt to be at the peak of your powers.”

“So, how do I end up here?” she asked, gently steering the car up the off-ramp into Aurilssbarg. The lighthouse peeked over the mansard roofs and snow-capped pine trees of the starlit town.

He huffed a humorless laugh. “You finally call in perhaps your one remaining favor on the planet, from your university flatmate whose wife is the dean of a little college on a provincial speck of land in the Atlantic. They’re the first people you speak to about any of this. You’re on a plane three days later.”

Daphne’s shoulders relaxed a fraction. Being the only person in the world to know a story like this would be a lot to carry. She made a note to be extremely generous the next time Dean Aylin’s wife, Isobel, came by looking for craft supplies. 

“And now we’re here,” she finished. 

He sighed. “And now we’re here.”

Gale’s hand remained a solid weight in hers as she coasted through town and up the curved driveway to the lighthouse. She threw the car in park—with some difficulty, given her right hand was occupied—and twisted sideways in her seat to face him. 

He looked wrecked. The crags of his face, usually so appealing, only amplified his exhaustion in the harsh contrast of the streetlight. His lips pressed in a tight line, anxious and thin.

“There is nothing about the story you just told me that makes me think any less of you,” she swore. “Not as a person, not as a friend—“

His eyes widened in disbelief at the word friend, and Daphne’s heart just fucking shattered. 

“—yeah, we’re friends now, Gale. At the very least, no matter what else happens here, you’re my friend.”

He squeezed her hand for a long moment, contemplating her. She got the distinct feeling she was being studied, turned over in his hands like a pottery fragment. 

“It’s been a long time since I was anyone’s friend. I hope I remember how,” he murmured. 

She gave him a sad smile and a shrug. “If you fuck up, I’ll just tell you. Astarion assures me that I’m blisteringly direct .”

They both laughed. Finally, the tension leaked out of the moment. Daphne felt completely spent, and she was sure he did too. With a final squeeze, she eased her hand from his, and he got out of the passenger side. 

As he fumbled with his keys on his front step, Daphne rolled down the window. 

“Sweet dreams!” she yelled.

He spun to face her, his surprised smile luminous in the night. “You as well!”

Satisfied, she waved goodbye and drove off into the winter darkness. When she rested her elbow on the center console, it was still warm from where their joined hands had rested.

Chapter Text

The November grind hit Icepeak hard, as it always did. Midterms meant weeks of stressed-out students and faculty weary from extended office hours. It also marked the start of the Christmas crunch for Daphne’s team, when a tide of students looking to make cheap gifts for their parents flooded the book arts workshop. At this stage in her career, she’d learned to just make up a few generic wintery designs and keep the templates prepped by the letterpress. Five-by-seven cards with the vintage Icepeak seal and “Let it snow” in copperplate font, that sort of thing.

In a moment of misplaced optimism, she invited Lae’zel and Shadowheart to contribute options for the patrons to choose from. Shadowheart presented Daphne with a greeting card template that wished the reader HAPPY DECEMBERWEEN, complete with an admittedly kickass skeleton motif. Lae’zel’s offering was a clean, austere-looking text block of unbroken French. When Daphne asked what it said, she’d tossed her hair and informed her that, obviously, it was an educational treatise on how the English ruined Christ’s birthday with bad food and worse drinks. 

“Eggnog, right? You’re talking about eggnog.” Daphne regarded the sample Lae’zel printed with a skeptical eye, scanning for words she knew for sure were vulgar.

“I am first and foremost talking about the maudit eggnog,” she snarled. 

Daphne rubbed the bridge of her nose, mulling over if this was worth a fight. You know what—it wasn’t. “Just don’t get me in trouble with management this time. You already know how they feel about criminal incitement and actionable threats.”

Lae’zel, very pleased with herself, set her template next to Shadowheart’s on the display table. The two of them almost immediately had lines out the door of students clamoring to print their own. This year’s kids hated England and loved bones, apparently.

Gale seemed to be just as busy as Daphne was, if not busier. The moment he’d started work, professors from across the campus began packing his schedule with requests for guest lectures. English and Classics were to be expected, but as the semester wore on, his lecture topics seemed to grow stranger and stranger.

“Are those all about dolphins? ” she asked him one afternoon just before Thanksgiving break, when she passed him pushing yet another cart stacked with books into his office.

He groaned, letting his head drop. His loose, flowing hair swished forward and hit her with a waft of the same roses-and-cedar scent that seemed to follow him everywhere. 

“Dr. Umberlee asked me to speak to her Marine Mammals class. She claims she’s open to any topic I think would be appropriate, but frankly, this isn’t a part of antiquity in which I’m especially well-versed,” he admitted. He raised his head, shooting Daphne a lopsided grin. “Figured I’d make it easy on myself and just talk about dolphins. Everyone likes a dolphin. Did you know, the ancient Greeks believed that they loved music?”

The image of someone in a toga playing a lyre toward the ocean for the dolphins’ enjoyment brought her immeasurable delight. “I didn’t, and now I love just thinking about it,” she giggled.

His eyes softened in that particular way that made her heart flip—the same half-wondering, half-yearning way he’d looked at her on the beach weeks ago. 

She’d done her absolute damndest to give him plenty of space in the weeks after their trip to Bjorn’s Hold. She hadn’t asked for his number (to Astarion’s continued chagrin), and she tried not to be bothered that he hadn’t asked for hers. They hadn’t even emailed. When she passed him in the cramped brick hallway that separated their offices, she smiled and engaged in small talk like she would with any coworker, always from a few feet away. 

Her side of the attraction hadn’t dimmed at all—if the stack of academia romance novels on her coffee table was any indication—but he clearly had a lot to process, and she knew that kind of work needed space and time. As the days had passed and they’d maintained their fond, friendly distance, she’d watched as life at Icepeak let him absolutely bloom into someone who smiled a little easier, walked a bit more confidently. It delighted and pained her in equal measure that she’d been right.

Today, though. Today felt different. He moved closer to her as they talked, let the full force of his attention really linger as he looked at her. All at once, she realized that the Gale who’d shrunk away from her that day in October was very much not the Gale in front of her now, leaning toward her over a library cart.

“Daphne,” he said, soft and suddenly nervous. Her pulse pounded. “I’ve, ah, been meaning to ask—”

Her phone buzzed and jangled in her hand. Flustered, she checked the screen, where a reminder displayed in bold text: IUD REPLACEMENT. Fuck, it was already 4:30. She had 30 minutes to get over to the campus clinic.

She looked back up at Gale, whose concern reflected her own embarrassment. “I’m so sorry, I have to run to an appointment across campus. But I really do want to finish this conversation,” she rushed out.

“Perhaps, would you like if—could I walk you there?” he asked, pushing his hair back in thought, and as tempting as finally being alone with him again sounded, she would rather die than let him drop her off to get her cervix dilated. 

She grimaced. “It’s a doctor’s appointment. You’re extremely sweet, but I promise, it’s fine.”

Disappointment drew his features down, and Daphne bit her lip. This was a goddamn disaster. 

“Let’s catch up tomorrow morning? I’ll bring your coffee,” she offered, but the frown remained. Without thinking, she placed a comforting hand over his where it splayed on top of his books. He immediately stroked his thumb over her fingertips. Fireworks exploded in her brain. 

“I’m afraid I’ll be en route to the airport tomorrow morning,” he said wistfully. “I’m spending Thanksgiving with my mother in Surrey. Well, we won’t be having Thanksgiving. But it will be Thanksgiving, you know, in a universal sense.” His cheeks pinkened as the words kept spilling out. 

“I don’t do Thanksgiving either, if you’d like some solidarity,” she smiled. “My whole family doesn’t. I’ll just be here, doing my usual routine of puttering.”

He laughed, his gaze flicking between her face and where their hands lay nestled on top of a copy of Dolphin Mysteries: Unlocking the Secrets of Communication . 

“Go, run,” he assured her. “Don’t be late on my account. I will take a rain check for that coffee, however.”

“Of course!” She backed into her office to retrieve her coat and bag. “Have a safe flight!”

“Cheers!” He pressed his palm over his heart and wrangled his cart the rest of the way into his office. The mahogany door swung shut behind him with a soft thud.

As Daphne lay on her back, biting hard on the sleeve of her sweatshirt, counting the specks on the clinic’s ceiling tiles while a nurse in novelty SpongeBob scrubs yanked her Mirena out with a tiny pair of pliers and replaced it with a fresh one, their conversation and his parting “cheers” floated in her Valium-smoothed brain. It was already so hard to imagine a week without him.

“Well, hello,” Astarion drawled as she flopped into the passenger side of his Volvo. “Are you babyproofed? I’m not ready to be an uncle at my tender age.” 

 “Hurgh.” She tipped her seat back as far as it would go, cradling her tender stomach. “I guess. Sex isn’t really something you wanna think about after you’ve had your—”

“Nope, ew, stop it,” he interrupted, turning the radio up to drown her out. She giggled, and he threw an indignant glare down at her where she reclined. “Can’t believe this is my reward for being an inspiring feminist ally.”

“A what? ”

“Oh, fuck you. You’re welcome for the ride, by the way.”

“I’ll ensure your name echoes through the halls of womankind forevermore,” she said drily.

“Darling, trust and believe,” he purred, accelerating onto the highway toward Aurilssbarg. “It already does.”

The next morning, Daphne descended into the basement (perhaps a bit more gingerly than usual) to find Shadowheart and Lae’zel already at work, with the presses switched on and warming up. She checked her watch—yes, it was Friday. She’d never known them to be early, much less on a Friday.

“Uh, good morning? Girls?” she said, poking her head into the studio.

“Good morning!” they answered in unison. 

She stood dumbfounded in the doorway as she watched Shadowheart carry a heavy stack of cardstock from the supply closet without complaint, which Lae’zel took and hefted onto the guillotine cutter. As she carefully cut blanks for the day’s projects, Shadowheart picked up a pot of thick, glossy ink and began inking the presses for printing—even the big platen press, which Lae’zel usually guarded with territorial ferocity. Not a word passed between them. The atmosphere in the room felt, dare she say it, collegial .

Shadowheart wiped her ink scraper on a rag and cocked her head at Daphne. “Aren’t you going to put your things down?”

“Yes,” Lae’zel added from across the room. “You make a poor doorstop. Go set your things down in your office.”

“Right, in your office. ”

Daphne cut her eyes back and forth between her two assistants, completely lost for words. They both continued to work as though she wasn’t even in the room. Slowly, she turned and opened the door to her office. On her first step inside, something crinkled underfoot. 

She looked down, certain she was walking into some kind of prank for Shadowheart’s social media presence—but a square envelope sealed with red wax waited for her on the rug, as though someone had slid it under her door. She picked it up, appreciating its weight, and flipped it over. It was addressed “FOR DAPHNE” in an unfamiliar and artful hand.

She threw herself into her desk chair and fumbled in her junk drawer until she found her letter opener, then gently pried the wax seal apart. A thick square of card—unbleached cotton, by the look of it, very nice—fell onto her desk. As she read the typeset words pressed into its soft surface, the faintest hint of rose and cedar mingled with the familiar scent of ink and lead.

PROFESSOR GALE A. DEKARIOS

humbly requests the company of

MISS DAPHNE TAVIAN

for an evening of dancing, champagne, and moonlight
at the Ramazith Historical Society Soirée
Saturday, the seventh of December, at half past eight in the evening

The favor of a reply may be addressed to
Gale Dekarios | 207 555 4253

She let out a gasp of surprise, and two sets of footsteps thundered across the hall in response. Shadowheart skittered into her office, followed by a more casual Lae’zel. 

“He came in and asked for our help while we were closing,” Shadowheart smirked, her usual bored affect cracked briefly by her excitement. “I picked the paper; I know you keep the good stuff hidden behind the newsprint.”

“I typeset it, of course,” Lae’zel drawled, pride audible in her voice. “One cannot trust a beginner with center-aligned text. He did choose the font,” she acknowledged, nodding toward the card in Daphne’s hand. She studied it for a moment. Bookman Antiqua. Naturally.

“And then,” Shadowheart continued, “because we stayed late to help, Dr. Dekarios took us to the inn and bought us dinner and drinks, and then called a car to take us home because it was cold. It was, like, full princess treatment.”

Daphne beamed, her mind reeling from the morning’s many revelations. Asking her out via letterpress was charming, in exactly the way she loved to be charmed. Being kind to her grad students, however—

The fire she’d smothered in her chest since they met, that she’d so carefully avoided feeding, blazed to life with a ferocity that threatened to consume her.

“How incredibly generous of him,” she stuttered. She remembered being a student; it was a banner week if she could afford eggs to put in her rice. A full meal at a restaurant, plus a car ride home afterward, would have felt like a vacation.

Shadowheart’s eyes unfocused dreamily. “I had soup in a bread bowl and wine that didn’t come from CVS.”

“The meal was passable,” Lae’zel scoffed, although there was no venom in it. “However, Dr. Dekarios has correct opinions, and that is more than I can say for most professors.” 

“Oh yeah? What did you talk about?” 

Lae’zel crossed her arms, squaring her shoulders. “He shared my outrage that the French department offers no education on français québécois, despite the fact that we are neighbors . Dean Aylin will hear of it, he assured me.”

The faint hint of a hopeful smile dimpled the corners of Lae’zel’s mouth, and Daphne felt like she’d been pushed out of an airplane. Lae’zel wasn’t someone who smiled. Neither was Shadowheart, who had practically bounced into her office just now. In one evening, Gale had simultaneously won over both of the most idiosyncratic artists she’d ever worked with.

She needed to text him before his flight took off.

Luckily, the 9am bell chimed, and she shooed them out of her office to deal with the opening wave of students. She shut the door behind them, her hand shaking as she turned the lock, and picked up his invitation again. She snapped a photo and sent it to her group chat with Astarion and Karlach, along with several dozen exclamation points.

With her emergency contacts notified, she faced the task of responding to Gale’s invitation. She spun in her desk chair, typing and erasing, checking that she had the right number, until finally she just closed her eyes and pressed send.

To avoid the temptation to watch for an indication that Gale was typing, Daphne switched chats to see what her friends were saying.

icepeaky blinders

Karlach: AAAAAAAAAH
Karlach: FCUKING FINALLY
Karlach: OMG HE’S BRIDGERTONING YOU SO HARD

Dr. Astarion Ancunín, PhD, Local Genius: God, of course he made you a little invitation. What an insufferable nerd
Dr. Astarion Ancunín, PhD, Local Genius: Is the second stage of getting Bridgertoned when he feeds you tea and cakes after your tender lovemaking, or when he lets you know that he’s waiting until marriage? Because I’ve met Gale and both are equally likely

Karlach: You me and Alf are so going shopping next week omg you need a new dress
Karlach: Astarion!! don’t make me fucking come up there

Okay, well, she didn’t know what she’d expected. She slipped her phone into the breast pocket of her overalls and joined her team on the floor of the workshop. A line was already forming, and she eagerly threw herself into the task of helping student after student use the letterpresses. 

She felt like she’d only blinked, and then it was lunchtime. Frantic, she whipped her phone out of her pocket. Four missed texts from Gale’s number, timestamped hours ago. Her heart leapt into her mouth as she swiped to read them.

If you thought spoiling my grad assistants was an effective way to get a date… then you’re absolutely right, read her initial text at the top of the screen.

Gale: And telling me I’m absolutely right about something is an effective way to get taken out for dinner beforehand.
Gale: Only joking.
Gale: About the transactional part, I mean. I was going to take you out for dinner anyway. Assuming you said yes. Did you like the invitation, by the way?
Gale: Egad. My flight is about to take off, and I’m not sure how reliably I’ll be able to text from England. Would you mind if I wrote to you? My personal email is [email protected].

Daphne’s hand shot up to cover her mouth, but it wasn’t enough to hide her giddy smile. She hadn’t emailed someone for fun since, what, high school? And now this wonderful, bizarre man was asking to “write to her.” Karlach was right; she felt like a Regency ingénue.

“Egad,” she whispered to herself. 

That night, bundled beneath her heaviest winter duvet and warm with post-happy hour glow, she put the finishing touches on her email to Gale. 

_____________________________________

Subject: egad

Dear Gale,

I have to tell you, I don’t remember the last time I emailed someone not for work, and I definitely can’t remember the last time I wrote a letter. I feel like I have a pen pal.

Yes, I did like your invitation! I loved it, actually. Your choices of ink, paper, and font were very harmonious. I would totally use it as a teaching aid if I could ever bear to let anyone else touch it.

Also, what’s this Ramazith ball we’re attending? I’ve never heard of it and Google isn’t being super helpful. I’m excited, but not as excited as my friend Karlach is to take me shopping. You’ve really improved her whole week.

Hope you land safely,
Daphne

_____________________________________

She read her writing one last time, decided this was the best it was going to get, and hit send. Tossing her phone to the floor with a squeal, she rolled over and finally let her exhausted body rest.

A notification pinged in her earbuds in the middle of her Saturday walk through downtown Aurlissbarg, which even a fresh barrage of snow couldn’t prevent her from taking. She shrugged her tote bag, laden with dinner supplies, onto her other shoulder so she could fumble her phone out of the pocket of her puffer jacket. When she saw his name on the screen, she tore a glove off with her teeth and opened it greedily.

_____________________________________

Re: egad (?)

Dear Daphne,

Your well wishes for my flight have worked spectacularly well, because I arrived in one piece and, after a long day of getting settled, I am now safely under a blanket with a hot toddy. Perhaps blessing travelers is a gift of yours. Have you thought about offering your services to the rich and famous? For an extortionate fee, of course?

If the aesthetic choices on that invitation were harmonious, as you eloquently put it, then it was none of my own doing. Shadowheart and Lae’zel (what incredible names!) were the most knowledgeable guides a man looking to woo a letterpress artist could ask for. And, might I add, excellent dinner companions. Lae’zel in particular has a fiery, inquisitive spirit that I pray academia never dims. 

If I’ve really made something worthy of such jealous guardianship, though. I will happily claim all credit. At my heart, I am a selfish man.

Don’t be concerned that you haven’t heard of the Ramazith Historical Society—that’s exactly how they prefer to operate. Much of the funding for large-scale historical projects in the UK comes from their coffers, anonymously funneled through various local preservation societies, universities, and such. They recently completed their first project in the USA: a legendary lighthouse on an island off the coast of Maine. The Aylin family has been one of their top donors for decades. No prizes for guessing why I, disgraced as I am, have been called upon to attend this year’s event. 

It brings me immeasurable joy to hear that you’re excited, and that you have people in your life who are so ready to celebrate you as you deserve. I would love to meet this Karlach at your earliest convenience; it seems we have a great deal in common.

I find myself looking forward to December seventh as well, far more than I thought possible. I promise, I will do everything in my power to make your decision to accompany me worthwhile.

Wishing you warmth on a snowy day,
Gale

_____________________________________

Daphne’s heart quickened and her chest grew tight as she read his email again, and again, all the way through the thickening snowstorm back to her bungalow. He wrote just like he spoke, guilelessly and in long, elliptical leaps from thought to thought. Phrases like immeasurable joy and a man looking to woo a letterpress artist swirled in her mind, caught in the blustery whirlwind of her emotions. And—was the snow a lucky guess, or had he checked the weather on Icepeak? 

As soon as she made it inside, she called Karlach and Alfira and arranged for a ferry trip over to the Canadian mainland on Tuesday, when they were all off of work. Surely, something at the big mall in Saint John would suit her.

As she wriggled into yet another confection of tulle and satin in a cramped dressing room cubicle, however; she began to lose faith that she would actually be able to attend this party at all.

“You coming out, Daph?” Karlach’s hearty voice called through the door. “Alfira’s back with the Tim Horton’s!”

“Ughhhhhh,” Daphne sighed, throwing the curtain back to reveal herself to her friends. Karlach, broad and sprawled out on an armchair, and Alfira, daintily perched on the arm of said armchair, smiled and clapped dutifully, but their faces fell as they took in the dress.

“I mean,” Alfira hummed thoughtfully, twirling a glossy strand of hair around one manicured finger, “empire waists and uneven hems are both really in right now?”

“No offense, but even I know that one’s fucking awful.” Karlach rummaged around in the Tim Horton’s bag and popped a donut hole into her mouth, wiping the powdered sugar off on her cargo pants. “She’s got a bangin’ bod, but you can’t even see it under all that fluff.”

“Sure, but the not-poofy dresses we found were either for clubbing or for grandmas.”

“Should we just call it for today?” Daphne asked, regarding the lavender flounces on her voluminous skirt with disgust. “I can, I don’t know, check the consignment store in town. Or borrow something from the theater costume shop. Literally anything would be better than this.”

“I can look in mine and Lakrissa’s closet when we get home,” Alfira offered cheerfully. “One of us might have something formal enough.”

She smiled at her friend gratefully, then pulled the curtain closed to change back into her own clothes. If she didn’t find a dress today, at least she had a donut and a too-sweet iced coffee to look forward to.

At home, warming her frozen feet by the fire in her little hearth, she typed up a reply to Gale.

_____________________________________

Re: egad (idk I just thought it was funny)

Dear Gale,

I think you and Karlach would get along like a house on fire. I’ll make sure to introduce you when you’re back. She runs the machine shop over at the engineering school, so it’d be easy to have lunch together or something.

Her mission to find me a dress today was completely unsuccessful, though. Everything I tried on was a nightmare. I’ll have to find something to wear before the seventh that won’t completely embarrass you in front of the rich folks. Is there an ancient Roman god I could pray to for help with that?

If it matters at all, I don’t think of you as disgraced. Everything you’ve told me so far makes me think the people in your field are just real assholes. You’re doing them a favor by even showing up. 

Of course it will be worth my while to hang out with you. I would have said yes if you asked me on a date to the hardware store. That’s part of being wooed, I think.

Staying warm as best as I can,
Daphne

P.S.: I haven’t thought about offering traveler blessings for extortionate fees, so thanks for the suggestion. I’ll set up an Etsy listing right away.

_____________________________________

After some consideration, she attached a photo of the fire crackling in the grate and the glass of wine in her hand. She imagined her message zipping across the Atlantic, finding Gale wherever he was and stowing itself in his pocket. What was Surrey like? Was it snowing there, too? What did he do when he visited home?

She spent the rest of the night looking at the Home Counties on Google Maps and reading about the many cheese varieties of the south of England, only going to bed when she couldn’t physically stay awake any longer. All of Wednesday, she kept one hand on the phone in her pocket, anxiously anticipating his reply.

Thanksgiving dawned with the first sunlight Icepeak had seen in a week. Daphne woke up late, determined to luxuriate in unrepentant laziness until she headed over to Astarion’s to begin their annual bar crawl. Her family didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving, and Astarion didn’t have a family at all, so naturally, they spent the day drinking and eating french fries.

Somewhere in the dreamy haze of her lie-in, her phone pinged. An email. She grabbed her phone, and with delight, saw Gale’s name glowing back at her.

_____________________________________

Re: egad :)

Dearest Daphne,

To think of you relaxing, fire-warmed and enjoying a sip of wine, is an image to be savored. Thank you for allowing me such an intimate glimpse into your home.

Hmm. For deities, I suppose you might pray to Venus, for beauty? Or perhaps to Diana, for help hunting down the thing you desire. Although, Diana famously wasn’t interested in frivolous diversions, as she would almost certainly view your search for a dress. Mercury was the god of merchants, but I wouldn’t rely on him to so much as make me a sandwich, so I shan’t direct you to him. Therefore: in my professional opinion, you’re best off making your supplications to Venus.

In all honesty, don’t worry too much about what to wear—I cannot imagine a reality in which I’m anything but elated to be seen with you. At dinner, at a soireé, at the hardware store, if that’s really something you’d enjoy. You would know much more about tools and such than I would, and I’m sure I’d exhaust you with my many questions. But, I imagine, you would continue to exhibit that infinite patience with which you seem to grace me. I bask in it as I would sunlight.

Your last letter, particularly the part where you called every historian in England “real assholes,” threw me into such high spirits that I had to go for a walk to regain my composure. I fear that you’re correct in at least one case: Dr. Archibald Lorroakan, the chair of Ramazith’s board. You will almost certainly meet him, and for this, I apologize in advance. He is the worst kind of charlatan; a would-be historian who failed to cut it in the academic sphere and turned his mercenary eye onto gaining status through money and power. Don’t let whatever smooth speeches he has prepared fool you into thinking him knowledgeable about anything at all.

I once served on a peer review panel for a paper in which he plagiarized my own article, which was published in the same journal to which he was submitting, and he still got the date of the Crisis of the Third Century wrong. The Crisis of the Third Century.

Anyway. I never seem to run out of things I wish to tell you.

I’ve read your line about being wooed perhaps a hundred times since you wrote it to me. It echoes through me like church bells through a valley. Whatever I’ve done to earn your favor, I never intend to stop.

Thinking of you,
Gale

_____________________________________

Below his message, he’d attached a photo similar to the one Daphne had sent—his elegant fingers wrapped around a glass of red wine as a fire blazed in the background. Except, both the glass and the fireplace looked much nicer than Daphne’s. She squinted, making out carvings of deer and heather and a family crest on the marble mantelpiece above the hearth. Make that much, much nicer. 

“Holy shit, he’s rich,” Daphne gasped out loud. So many things made sense, suddenly: his education, his wardrobe, his manners. Gale was fucking loaded. Like, old-money loaded.

Her fingers itched to type his name into Google, but she resisted. He’d already entrusted her with so much. There was no need to snoop.

Instead, she dove back into his email from the beginning. Her cheeks heated as she let herself linger in his words—all of those old books where the heroine gets won over by a well-placed love letter were totally right. And this was, she was pretty sure, a love letter. 

Desire, hot and insistent, pulsed in her veins and pooled between her hips. If she were being honest with herself, it started the moment she saw his name on her screen. And now, after he’d told her that he basked in her patience like sunlight and that he never intended to stop earning her favor? 

She stole a guilty hand under the duvet. She was so wet that it coated the creases and valleys of her inner thighs. The side of her finger nudged her clit as she explored, and a delicious shudder made her back bow off the mattress.

Fuck it. She flung her hand out and groped around for the vibrator in her bedside table. 

Finally, finally, she gave herself permission to fantasize about him the way she’d wanted to since they’d met. Gale’s craggy face, his lovely hands, his broad shoulders flashed bright and clear in her mind’s eye as she flicked her vibrator on and slipped it between her legs. The cold dose of shame she’d expected to feel for picturing him like this, curiously, never came. In its place, a wave of ecstatic relief swept through her every nerve and wiped her mind of all thought. Her muscles seized in pleasure. A moan so broken it might have been a sob wrenched from her lungs.

She imagined them in his cozy office, where she knew a brown leather couch waited for them to fall onto it in the heat of passion. His impatient hands slipped under her shirt and hiked it under her armpits, exposing the soft planes of her torso for him to kiss and bite and suck. His perfect lips, so expressive when he spoke to her, traced hot lines of teeth and tongue over her fevered skin. He freed one heavy breast from her bra and ravished it with his mouth, then the other, and Daphne’s cunt clenched hard around nothing. 

She worked the toy in tight circles around her clit, so wet it was fucking embarrassing, and bucked into her hand. Fantasy Gale moved his attention from her heaving chest down to where her skirt bunched around her hips, exposing her soaked underwear. She ground helplessly against his thigh between her legs, unable to stop taking the pleasure he gave her. He pressed it harder against her, and a stream of pleasepleaseplease escaped her as she rutted mindlessly, like an animal. 

“You know,” Fantasy Gale purred, his lips brushing the shell of her ear. “Love is a sacrament best taken kneeling.”

He bowed between her spread legs, pulled her underwear to the side, and sealed his lips over her cunt in a filthy, passionate kiss. Daphne’s eyes rolled back as her orgasm ripped through her in brutal waves. 

“Oh, fuck, ” she gasped, unable to control the way her body continued to writhe. She’d never come like this by herself before. She gripped the sheets with her free hand, desperate for an anchor to reality as her toes curled. At last, she collapsed to the bed, boneless, panting, damp with sweat. 

Staring up at the ceiling with a vague, satisfied smile, she knew it was probably time to get in the shower. She would. Once her legs started working again.

When she hurried into the Blushing Mermaid and slid into a booth across from Astarion, she found he’d already ordered her first beer. His clear eyes appraised her in that preternatural way he had, and she arched an eyebrow in response.

“Well,” he began, clearly gearing up to tease her, “I would guess that someone’s late because—”

“—I was busy fucking my own brains out, yep, got it in one,” she said, taking a swig of her beer. Ooh, he’d ordered her a Miller High Life instead of her usual Miller Lite. What a treat.

His eyes widened in surprise, and she cackled. She so rarely got the jump on him.

“Disgusting habit, honestly; it’ll make you go blind,” he replied primly. He smirked into his bloody mary, clearly amused.

“Not all of us are so pretty that we never have to orgasm alone if we don’t want to.” She slapped a hand to the table. “Speaking of, I’ve been very respectfully not asking you who you’ve been texting so much. Confess. Is it our favorite beefcake arborist again?”

A genuine smile flickered on his face as he set his drink down, and Daphne was shocked to see the barest hint of a blush color his cheekbones. “Ugh, no,” he drawled. “Halsin was a fantastic lay, but he just wouldn’t be goddamn normal about things. Like, obviously we’re both fucking other people; we don’t have to have a… a philosophy about it.”

“He had a casual boning philosophy?”

“God, honestly, it was the Unabomber manifesto of sex. I can’t begin to describe. He was one of those the natural state of all mammals is polyamory guys, but with this weird extended metaphor about bears?”

Daphne groaned sympathetically. In her younger years, when she’d been more open about her bisexuality, she’d gotten the same speech from a few dudes at bars who were clearly trying to set up three-ways. Not with bears involved, though. That was a fresh twist on an old standard.

“Okay, so. Not bearfucker Halsin,” she continued. “Who?”

He averted his eyes, suddenly becoming very interested in the tiled ceiling of the bar. “Astariooooon?” she prodded, leaning toward him eagerly over the table.

“Did you know Ravengard has a son?” he asked quietly, a smug smile playing at the corner of his mouth.

Daphne gasped loud enough to draw the attention of the bartender. She waved at her apologetically, turning back to Astarion with laser focus.

“ No I fucking did not, ” she whispered emphatically. “Astarion. Astarion. ”

“Well, he does.” Astarion plucked the olive from his bloody mary and handed it to Daphne, who ate it. “I don’t know the details, but I know they don’t talk. He’s a fish and game warden up on the mountain.”

“For someone who hates being outside, you have such a proclivity for rugged outdoorsmen,” she observed. “I can’t believe you’ve been fucking around with Ravengard’s secret kid.”

Unbelievably, Astarion looked flustered. He smoothed his hands down the front of his black turtleneck. “Well. Not fucking, as yet.”

Daphne stilled. For as long as they’d known each other, Astarion had never expressed interest in anything other than sex, with as many hot people as he wanted. “No?”

He looked at her, hands wrapped around his drink, and dropped his mask for just a moment. His familiar fear, the bone-deep terror that haunted him still, telegraphed itself clearly on his features. But there was something else, too. Curiosity. Joy, even.

“How did you meet?” she asked, steering him into shallower waters.

“Grindr.”

“Classic.”

They finished their drinks at the Mermaid, then bundled up again to head down the block to the next bar. She bumped her shoulder against him as they walked. He knocked the sharp point of his elbow into her ribs. 

“Let me get one more drink in me, and then I expect I’ll hear the latest about our beloved Professor Gale A. Dekarios,” he sighed, put-upon.

She rolled her eyes with an indulgent smile. “You’re just too good to me.”

“I’m well aware.”

Chapter Text

Gale returned to work on Tuesday, as Icepeak resumed its frenzied rush toward the end of the semester. 

Daphne was elbow-deep in admin work at her desk, her door propped open in case the girls needed help with something, when she heard his keys jingle as he unlocked his office across the hall. Her chest squeezed when she looked up to see his already-familiar form: his gray wool coat wrapped around him like a cloak, his thick hair pulled back in a half-knot, his Roman nose pink with cold. 

He unexpectedly turned as he closed the door and caught Daphne observing him. Their eyes met, she blushed in embarrassment, and—

Every time he smiled, really smiled with his whole face, the world around him seemed to dim in comparison. He made her want to take up painting again. Or pastels, or any of the other art forms she’d left behind when she graduated RISD and started her first bookmaking apprenticeship. She’d never felt compelled to make representational art, but Gale Dekarios in the full bloom of joy was absolutely worth representing.

He waved at her with a curious look, and she abashedly returned it. His door drifted shut, and she threw herself back into her spreadsheets with singular focus.

The book workshop’s numbers, once again, looked unbelievably good. Lae’zel kept inventory and maintained the presses with military precision, and Shadowheart brought in droves of students with her sarcastic, aesthetically pleasing designs. Daphne’s stomach sank, as it always did, thinking about their graduation in May.

She picked at a stray thread on the hem of her black sweater dress thoughtfully. If she could just get more support from Ravengard and the board, she could bring them on full-time. She knew they would both stay if she made them an offer. The last time she’d brought this up at a board meeting had been a total failure, but if she came up with a showstopper to finally get admin’s attention before graduation, they might still have a chance at remaining a team.

She spent the rest of her day catching up on trade magazines and flipping through old printing press manuals. Something, anything, could be the spark that set their magnum opus in motion. When Lae’zel and Shadowheart prepared to leave for the day, Daphne waved them on home and promised to lock up when she left.

A knock on her doorframe and a greeting in a rich, rumbling voice made her look up from the thick volume of typesetting samples that lay open on her desk. Gale leaned into her office, his herringbone suit thoroughly rumpled from a long day of lecturing. His satchel was tucked in the crook of his elbow. “Am I intruding?”

Daphne scrambled to her feet and rounded her desk. “No, of course not, come in, any time.” He closed the door gently behind him.

They stood a breath apart on her ancient Persian rug. He shifted his satchel under his arm.

“Hello.”

“Hi.” She clasped and unclasped her hands, unsure where to put them. “You made it back.”

“Yes, my daring return to the frozen north,” he said drily. She opened her mouth to say something, but her mind raced too fast to pick something normal. I missed you. Will you ever kiss me. What does wooing mean to you because if I’m wrong then I might actually throw myself in the Atlantic.

“I brought something back for you, if that’s all right,” he continued, mercifully interrupting her anxious spiral. “You don’t have to accept it, of course, if you don’t want it; I won’t be hurt, and honestly, this might be too forward in the first place, but—” He rummaged in his satchel and pulled out a beautifully wrapped bundle the size of a throw pillow. Dark blue ribbon held the thick, cream-colored paper in place. He held it out to her, tentative, and she accepted it. 

“Holy shit, dude. You really didn’t have to get me anything,” she chided him, weighing the package in her fingertips. It felt soft, but dense. 

He just flashed her a quick smile and shook his head. “Obligation is the furthest thing from my mind, I assure you. Go on.”

She carefully unthreaded the ribbon and unfolded the paper packaging, shimmying its contents into her upturned hand. Silken, shimmering folds of deepest blue and blackened purple, heavy with layers, poured like liquid into her palm. She held it up, turning it in her hands until she could finally admire it.

It was a dress, but that was a gross understatement. She couldn’t even perceive where it was pieced together. Long, flowing sleeves balanced the open neckline and plunging back, and the ripples of its skirt were scattered with gold and silver beads like stars in a twilit sky. Just the gentle tremble of her hands was enough to stir the fabric into motion. 

“What,” she breathed, gazing at him with wide, questioning eyes. “This is so beautiful, I—how?”

He worried his bottom lip. “You said you’d had no luck finding something to wear, so I found your friend Karlach in the faculty directory and wrote to her. She was, I’m sure you can imagine, very enthusiastic to help.” 

Daphne huffed a laugh. Karlach was nothing if not enthusiastic to help. 

“It’s not perfect, I have to warn you,” he continued, gently running his fingers down the gossamer fabric. “The sizing is based on what limited information I had, so it was made to be fairly loose. If you’d like it altered, I will happily make arrangements.”

“Made to be?” She whipped her head up. “Did you have this made ?”

“By my tailor in London, yes,” he smiled. “Wonderful old chap, a true artist. Been going to him since I started at Cambridge.” 

Daphne had to swallow an unexpected wave of emotion. She could count on one hand the times she’d gotten dressed up. And even then, she’d never let herself splurge on anything truly special; her closet had held a rotating selection of sale rack finds and thrifted projects since she was in high school. This—this wasn’t just designer. It was made for her . Every detail. Solely for her. 

Gently, so gently, she draped the fine dress over her desk, taking care that it never touched the ground. She turned back to Gale. Whatever he saw in her face, it made him drop his satchel to the rug. She advanced on him, and he caught her in his arms, one hand cradling her cheek.

“Do you like it?” he asked, just on the edge of a plea.

She stood on her tiptoes and pressed their foreheads together. His eyes fluttered shut, a sigh in the back of his throat.

“Gale Dekarios,” she half-whispered. “You just gave me the most beautiful thing I’ve ever owned, for no reason at all. Yes, I like it. I love it. Thank you.” The arm wrapped around the small of her back tightened, pressing them together. She could feel his shallow breaths reverberate through her own chest.

“You should have many more beautiful things,” he murmured, shifting against her slightly to nestle his nose alongside hers. His lips brushed the corner of her mouth as he spoke.  “The way you worried about embarrassing me—I couldn’t bear for you to feel that way. Not after everything you’ve made possible for me in the short time I’ve known you. Daphne—” 

He pulled back to look at her, a worried crease between his eyebrows,  and all she could think about was how dearly she missed his skin on hers. Her pulse pounded against her ribs, thundered in her ears. 

“May I tell you something personal?” he said, echoing her words from the beach back to her.

“Anything,” she promised.

“In my last row with Mystra—her name is Mystra, by the way, I don’t think I mentioned that—she told me that I should have taken the hint when she punted me to Waterdeep. She said I’d long outlived my utility, to her and everyone else, and I would do the world a favor if I just… disappeared. There would be one fewer washed-up academic cluttering the field. No more verbose, pedantic Gale to cope with.” 

The hand Daphne wasn’t using to cradle the nape of his neck flew to cover her mouth. She’d dated some narcissists in her time, but jesus . 

“I believed her. How could I not, when all I’d known for ten-odd years was her and the reality she created for me? I believed her as I rotted away in solitude at St. Blackstaff’s, and I believed her when Isobel arranged for me to come to Icepeak, and I believed her when I stopped at the library cafe to buy a croissant on my first day.” He pulled her a little closer, which should have made her heart race, but so much grief and anger still welled in her chest that her ribs ached to contain it all. 

His eyes held hers for a long moment. “And then I made a joke, and you laughed.”

She tucked her face into his neck, a shocked blush creeping over her cheeks. The smell of his cologne was thick and wonderful there. “Duh. You were witty. You are witty.”

She felt him nuzzle the top of her head. Something warm and soft brushed against her temple, and her body stilled. It was so close to a kiss. 

“For the first time in years, I felt hope that, maybe, other people wanted me around. And that hope grew, tended by your kindness,” his deep voice lilted into her ear. “I began to see that I’d been walking along the edge of a great void, tempted with every step to find relief in its depths, to finally give Mystra what she wanted—but you pulled me back. So much has happened, Daphne; I can scarcely wait to tell you, but it all became possible because you reminded me that life outside of Cambridge not only existed, but existed for me. ” 

Gale pulled back and cradled her head in his hands, shaky thumbs brushing her cheekbones. Time seemed to slow as his eyes flicked down to her parted lips.

Yes, she pleaded internally. Yes, please.

“Not here,” he whispered, squeezing his eyelids shut. His voice cracked slightly on the last syllable. “I will, I want to, god above, I’ve wanted to for ages, but please, don’t let me do this here.”

“Here where?” she asked. A stab of concern twisted in her gut.

He took a deep breath. “I’d rather not do this in another institution of higher education, I think.”

Of course. Daphne cursed herself for not putting it together, especially considering the panic attack he’d had in their hallway. To be tangled up with her like this in a university office, after everything he’d endured at Cambridge—she couldn’t imagine what he felt.

“Home?” she asked, gently encircling his wrists with her fingers.

His eyes flared with dark excitement. “Are you certain?”

“Mine or yours?”

“Mine.”

“Get your coat.”

She grabbed her keys off her desk and carefully slinked the dress into a spare tote. By the time she turned the lock to her office, Gale was there, ready to take her bags from her. Without a word, they piled into her station wagon and peeled off toward Aurilssbarg. He placed his hand on the center console, palm up, and she covered it with hers. She’d never made it into town so quickly in her life.

When they pulled up to the lighthouse and Daphne threw the car in park, though, he stopped her. 

“Don’t you want to park in the back?” he asked. “Someone might see the car.”

Her brow scrunched in confusion.

“People will know that you’re here. With me,” he elaborated.

“That’s… fine?” she said, slowly. “Unless you’d rather keep this secret, which is cool. I don’t care, if that’s what you’re worried about. You’re not in my chain of command, so we aren’t doing anything wrong.”

Daphne’s heart, already shattered for him, cracked just a little more as she watched her words sink in. She could practically hear the gears turning in his head as he sat back for a moment, staring out of the windshield. 

“Ten years, and she made you park in the back?” she asked, trying hard to keep her tone neutral.

He nodded. “Or down the lane, if she’d just had the lawn done.”

She sighed as she turned the car off, letting the engine tick down. “With all respect to you,” she grumbled, “it sounds like your ex did some of the pettiest shit I’ve ever heard.”

Gale chuckled. Softly at first, then harder, from deep in his chest. Daphne watched, bewildered, as he struggled to contain himself long enough to talk. 

“It– it is rather petty, isn’t it?” he eked out between bubbles of laughter. “And stupid! It was so stupid!”

“Completely fucking stupid,” she affirmed, a small smile breaking on her face when he shook his head at her incredulously. She sat and held his hand tight as the mirth continued to leak out of him. It was like watching the pressure of everything bottled inside of him finally equalize, just a little bit.

Recovered, he threw his car door open and led her up to the porch. Anticipation simmered in her gut as he fumbled with the lock. This was her third time at his house, but she’d never made it this far before. 

The heavy, salt-bleached door to the lighthouse cottage swung open, and Gale tugged Daphne across the threshold. She had barely heard it close behind her when she felt it knock against her back. He pressed the length of his body against hers and slotted a knee between her legs, pinning her in place. Her blood flashed hot in her veins. 

She tipped her head back to meet his gaze, wilder than she’d ever seen him. He leaned into her, so close that the tip of his nose grazed against her septum ring, and her eyes drifted closed of their own accord.

“You obsess me.” His lips ghosted over hers. “Daphne—”

His mouth slanted over her own in a crash of heat, and Daphne’s brain whited out. She let herself melt into his embrace, meeting each press of his firm, yielding lips with caresses of her own. He engulfed her entirely, like every touch might be his last, like she might be snatched away from him at any moment. Her tongue traced along his bottom lip, and he opened for her with a pleased hum, deep and warm and eager. He tasted of spearmint and black tea and an indescribable, ambery essence she guessed was just Gale.

They broke apart, gasping for breath. Daphne beamed at him through half-lidded eyes, dizzy with want and disbelief. 

“I can’t remember the last time I was kissed so thoroughly,” he panted. 

She raised her eyebrows. “We haven’t even scratched the surface of thorough, Dekarios.”

He made a pained noise and whipped his glasses off, tossing them who knew where. They crushed together again, and Gale lifted Daphne off of the floor entirely to wrap her legs around him as they kissed. Eventually, there was a flurry of shedding jackets and toeing off boots, and somewhere in there they toppled onto the couch. 

She landed on a pile of throw pillows and pulled him on top of her, fingers clawing at the back of his button-down as he nipped and sucked the tender skin where her neck met her jaw. His erection pressed impossibly hard into the crease of her hip as he ravished her pulse point, and she arched into the pressure involuntarily.

“My god , you’re exquisite,” he panted, tugging at the hem of her sweater dress. She pulled at the placket of his shirt, signaling what she wanted in return.

He sat back on the couch with one final kiss, meticulously working the buttons down, and Daphne stood on unsteady feet to shuck her dress over her head, leaving her in just her bra and black winter tights. Gale peeled off his button-down and yanked his undershirt over his head. She was shocked to see a pretty sizable tattoo spiraling over his heart. It looked like nothing she recognized—a swirl of fine black lines that dipped down across his abs and curled upward onto his collarbone. Most of it was hidden beneath the soft thatch of his chest hair, but she could tell he must have spent hours in the chair to get something that large and elaborate.

What would he think of her own tattoos? Well. Too late to worry about that now.

She unhooked her bra with a sigh and let it fall loose around her elbows, then to the floor. She watched his eyes catch on the clasping hands inked inside her bicep, then the delicate vine that twisted around her waist and bloomed in a bunch of jasmine just below her sternum. 

He stared up at her from the couch with unguarded awe.

“A million verses, collected over a lifetime of reading,” he breathed, looking her over with wide eyes, “and I’m left speechless. No work of prose or poetry could describe even a single aspect of your radiance.”

Suddenly self-conscious (because literally, who talks like that), she folded her arms in front of her, but he gently took her hands in his. 

“But I shall still try, I think,” he continued. He stood, kissing her knuckles before draping her arms around his neck. “There’s Byron, for your hair. She walks in beauty, like the night, of cloudless climes and starry skies. ” 

He carded his fingers through the loose riot of her curls with a tenderness that made her knees weak, letting them scatter along her shoulder. Under normal circumstances, she would have rolled her eyes if a guy tried to use Byron on her... but Gale meant it.

“For your eyes,” he said as he looked into them appreciatively, “I’ll make an unorthodox choice and give you Mary Oliver. Truly we live with mysteries too marvelous to be understood. ”

He pressed a kiss to her forehead, and her lips formed a thin line as she bit back a smile.

“For your skin, of course, only Neruda could possibly get it right. Each time you blush, I think to myself, I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees. ”

She surged forward to cover his mouth with hers. He returned it, but kissed away up her cheekbone until he reached her ear. His broad hands skimmed up her sides, leaving goosebumps in their wake, until he palmed one of her breasts, gently kneading her with his fingertips. A breathy moan wrenched from her.

“For your body, bared to me in the half-light. For the most intimate of your many splendors, undeserving as I am to receive them,” he purred, his warm breath curling into her ear and down her neck, “Let my tongue show you what words fail to convey.” 

Greedy fingers traced the waistband of her tights, teasing their way just under the elastic. She gasped something like pleasegodyes, and suddenly, she was sprawled halfway onto the couch and Gale was kneeling in front of her, dexterously tugging her free of her tights and underwear. He lifted behind her knees to press her legs up and apart, spreading her obscenely open, but she couldn’t find it within herself to shrink from his gaze again. Not when he was hungrily mouthing up her inner thigh like she was the only woman in creation.

He reached the apex of her thighs. His eyes locked with hers as he hovered just a fraction away from her cunt. The anticipation, paired with the caress of his breath against her, made her shiver in his hands. 

The motherfucker winked. 

Her indignant gasp broke off into a guttural moan as Gale laved the flat of his tongue against her. He propped one of her feet on his broad shoulder, freeing his hand to skim down over her stomach and settle on her mound. His thumb pressed hard in quick, relentless circles just at the cleft of her, and nerve endings she didn’t even know existed suddenly blazed to life. 

“ Holy fuck, ” she cursed as her back bowed off the couch. The warmth of his mouth disappeared as he raised his head. 

“Perfect.” His voice was unlike anything she’d heard from him before, a low rasp that made her eyelids flutter. “I knew you’d taste like paradise. I knew you’d shake so sweetly on my tongue. But this—” 

The pressure on the tip of her pubic bone doubled as he kept up his pace, and Daphne keened as a hot jolt of pleasure scorched through her. 

“—I could never have imagined you. The way your flesh rejoices to be touched, how eagerly it shines for me, it’s otherworldly.” He dove back into her with singular devotion and she buried both hands in his hair, a ragged shout tearing from her throat. 

He dug his fingers into the meat of her hips, pulling her hard to his face as he licked and sucked and burrowed deeper. The euphoria punched so hard, the tension in her belly yanked so taut that she feared she wouldn’t survive the oncoming orgasm. 

Then. He pitched forward and ground the flat, smooth surface of his front teeth against her clit, and her brain shut down entirely. Her toes curled and her fingers scrabbled for purchase as she came against his face. All through her writhing and gasping and babbled exclamations, he never released his grip on her, never relented.

Finally, her body went limp. Gale remained between her legs, kissing and murmuring praises, until she squirmed and tugged on his hair.

“You— you could kill somebody like that,” she panted, eyes glassy and vague as she slumped halfway onto the floor. 

He flashed her a cocky smile as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Will I be charged with your murder?” He hopped onto the couch and carefully hauled her to curl against his chest, arranging her limbs comfortably and tucking her hair to one side. 

“Mhm. First degree,” she sighed. He crooked a finger under her chin to kiss her, his mouth rich with her salt and musk. “What do you have to say in your own defense?”

“Absolutely nothing. I’m extraordinarily pleased with myself.”

They laughed together, lulling into a satisfied silence punctuated with the soft peck of lips against skin.

Eventually, though, the buckle of Gale’s pants pinched against Daphne’s hip just too much to be comfortable. She slid off to kneel between his legs, and he gave her a confused look as she reached for his belt. 

“Is it okay if I take this off?” she asked, hands hovering above him.

He scoffed. “Oh, don’t worry about me. It’ll go away.”

Now it was her turn to be confused. “What will?”

“You know.” He gestured at the hard line of his cock in his pants. “It’s nothing. I would never make you deal with it.”

Daphne’s mind kicked into high gear as she thought through his weirdly dismissive attitude about his own pleasure, and rage flickered in her blood. Obviously, he could like what he liked, and there was no shame in not wanting reciprocation… but she had a pretty fucking good idea who had taught him that his sexual response was something to “deal with.”

She sat back on her legs, carefully considering how to play this. If she came on strong and told him that his pleasure mattered, he’d brush it off. But if she just left it alone, she would reinforce whatever dysfunctional shit he’d been programmed with. Maybe going back to something even more basic would help them get their footing.

“Okay. I won’t take your belt off,” she said casually. “Would it be okay to touch you like we were before, with my head on your chest?”

He cocked his head at her. “Of course?”

She shrugged. “I like to check in, is all.” She curled up on him again, carefully avoiding his buckle to spare her skin, and made a show of happily getting comfortable. Above her, she could feel Gale thinking hard. 

“When you say check in, ” he spoke up, and Daphne internally cheered, “what—what function does that serve for you?”

“I need to know what you want to happen, right? Otherwise we might do something that you don’t want, which would be,” she struggled for a breezy way to say this, “a bummer for everyone. So, I figure it’s good to ask before I do things like go for your belt.” 

He was silent for a moment. “I didn’t ask before I— oh, god, Daphne, was that—”

Fuck, she should have seen that train of thought coming. She propped herself up on an elbow to look him in the eyes.

“Hey. No. I loved everything we just did,” she swore. “You took great care of me, and I felt very heard the entire time.”

He physically relaxed beneath her. 

“How do you feel?” she asked gently. “Are you having a good time?”

He huffed a laugh, wrapping an arm around her waist. “The woman I’ve pined over for nigh on two months is in my home, naked, on top of me.” She ducked her head to hide her bashful smile. “A good time doesn’t remotely cover the night I’m having.”

Their mouths found each other again and again, seeking and providing the same confirmation: you are safe.  

Daphne’s stomach growled, loud and embarrassing, and Gale startled. 

“Great scott, it must be nearly seven!” He squinted to check his watch without his glasses. “No wonder you’re hungry. I’m a terrible host.”

“I’m pretty sure I saw the face of God earlier, so I wouldn’t say terrible, ” she deadpanned, “but if you’re offering to feed me, I won’t say no.”

“Excellent. I was also planning to open a bottle of wine, so you’re welcome to, ah— stay the night, if that’s something you might want?” His voice thinned with anxiety at the end of his question, as though Daphne hadn’t spent the evening draped around him like a scarf.

“Depends,” she teased. “What’s for dinner?”

“Linguine alle vongole? It’s nothing special, I just make some fresh pasta and dress it with clams in a white wine garlic—”

“Fuck yes I’m staying the night.” She launched to her feet as Gale cackled. She reached for her dress, only to find that the largest tortoiseshell cat she’d ever seen had made it into a bed. It stared at her with baleful orange eyes.

“This is Tara, I’m guessing?” she asked Gale over her shoulder. “I don’t want to disturb her, so I might need to borrow some clothes.”

He stood beside her, shaking his head. “I would say that means she likes you, but I never quite know what she’s thinking. One moment.”

Thirty minutes later, Daphne perched on the counter with a glass of sauvignon blanc as Gale carefully sliced pasta dough into ribbons beside her. He’d given her free reign of his closet, so she’d slipped on his Icepeak sweater and a pair of luxe cotton boxers she suspected cost more than her phone bill.

She’d always been a chatty person, and she got the impression Gale was the same way, but neither of them felt the urge to keep up conversation. She sipped her wine and dangled her legs as he carefully wound the linguine into little floured nests and shucked the clams with a sharp knife, then sautéed them in a stoneware pot with garlic and a knob of rich yellow butter. He was confident in front of the stove in an easy way Daphne had always envied in people. Before she knew it, he was transferring the boiled pasta to finish in the sauce with a dollop of its cooking water, tossing it theatrically until the whole dish turned glossy and fragrant.

He plated it up with a flourish of lemon peel and led her to the little breakfast nook that overlooked the ocean. The sun had long since set, but the sound of the waves breaking against the seawall was close enough to rumble through the window. 

“Thank you,” she smiled at him, twirling her first bite around her fork. It was, unsurprisingly, incredible. The brine of the clams cut through the buttery richness of the sauce, all on a dense, chewy canvas of the freshest pasta she’d ever had. 

“Good?” Gale asked, raising his eyebrows over his glass of wine.

She shook her head. “Exquisite.”

He smiled. She thought about the oil paints in the back of her closet.

After dinner passed in a pleasant lull and the dishes were put away, she followed him back to his bedroom. It was large, in an unfussy way she found comforting: a big bed with crisp white linens took up most of the space, while built-in shelves filled with books and curios wrapped around two of the walls. His closet, still open from when she’d raided it, neighbored a little dressing table littered with his grooming kit. She noticed an unmarked bottle of cologne on its surface. She was so investigating that later.

She closed the door behind her, and he turned. She padded across the hardwood to him, settling in his arms and smoothing gentle fingers across the worn Christ’s College t-shirt he’d thrown on for dinner.

He captured her mouth, softly at first, then with a desperate intensity that had his stubble scraping against her skin. Her own need roared to life in response. He was still clearly keyed up from earlier, and she was gonna take care of him one way or another. 

She broke the kiss and locked her eyes with his. 

“I’m yours tonight,” she lilted. His eyes, already black with need, darkened even further. “Show me how you like it.”

He crushed her to his chest with a rumbling moan, their lips and teeth and tongues a frenzied mess, until he tumbled them onto his bed. He grabbed her by the hips and pulled her to him, pressing himself along her back.

“You look,” he rasped as he kissed along her neck, “absolutely indecent in my clothes.”

“Yeah?” she managed. He nibbled at the base of her neck, earning a moan.

“Oh, yes. I’ve never learned to share, Daphne. The sight of you wrapped in my things, your wicked little mouth telling me you’re mine—” he rolled his hips, grinding hard against her ass, and they both shuddered. She was already wet enough to know she was soaking his borrowed boxers.

“I am. I am yours.” Her head lolled back, and he took the opportunity to claim her lips again. “Wanna see you, wanna make you feel so fucking good, just tell me how,” she murmured into the kiss. 

He spun her around to face him, a furrow of worry on his brow. He opened his mouth, as if to say something, but nothing came.

“Talk to me,” she whispered.

“If—when we’re naked together,” he began, haltingly. “I can trust you to be kind?”

Oh, Gale. What happened here? “I would never be anything but kind to you.”

His anxious eyes filled with warmth. “I know that; I do.” He reached for the hem of his shirt, and she stripped off her sweater. She tucked herself against his side and watched him undo his belt, then shimmy his pants down his legs and toss them to the floor. Each new detail of his body seared itself into her memory. His runner’s legs, long and corded with muscle, were covered in the same dark hair as his chest. A birthmark peeked out of the hem of his boxer briefs on one side. Was that what he was insecure about?

As long as she was looking at his boxer briefs, she let herself glance at the ridge of his cock where it lay trapped against his hips. Her eyes widened. It, to put it mildly, did not look small. Remarkably not small.

She looked up to see he was already studying her. The worry lines between his eyebrows had only deepened. She dropped an encouraging kiss to his chest, then another. Her hips lifted and she shimmied out of her bottoms. 

With a sigh, he slipped his fingers under his waistband and slid them down, kicking them off. Finally, there was nothing between them but the heady air of his bedroom. 

She curled against his side again and ran an appreciative hand over his tattoo and down the lines of his abs. She tilted her head back to kiss him, deep and soft. “I want to look at you. Is that okay?”

He gave her a jerky nod. She pushed up to kneel beside him, a steadying hand still spread over his lower belly, and began the slow process of drinking him in.

The first thing that came to her mind, looking at Gale as he fidgeted beneath her, was a marble figure of an Olympian she’d seen once at the Louvre. Every detail of him, from the dip of his collarbones to the ridges of his stomach to the muscles of his hips, invited the eye to linger. There was power in his frame, plenty of it, but it was tempered by the long, graceful lines of his limbs and torso. His body matched his face, in a way—wreathed in the appealingly debauched mess of his hair, the bluntness of his bone structure flowed easily into the softness of his shining eyes and kiss-puffed lips. 

The second thing that came to her mind was that Gale Dekarios had, at minimum, an eight-inch dick. 

“I can’t believe you’ve been hiding all this muscle under those twee little suits,” she smiled, a flush creeping up her neck as she determinedly did not look between his legs. “You’re stunning. Really.”

His face went red in an instant, and he turned his cheek against the pillow. “One looks after oneself,” he mumbled. 

Her hand on his stomach drifted lower, down the dark trail of hair leading away from his navel. “Is it okay for me to touch you?”

He looked at her quizzically. “Honestly, what would you do if I said no?”

She held his gaze. This was important. “I would take my hands off you,” she said, holding her palms up, “and I would thank you for telling me. The next part would be up to you.”

His face brimmed with an emotion Daphne couldn’t quite name, but instinctively recognized. She was watching him start to believe her. But, there was something else there too—something like shame.

“You can be honest,” he rasped, resignation coloring his voice. “I know it’s a disappointment.”

Despite her best efforts, Daphne couldn’t keep the incredulous shock off of her face. She looked down again to check that her initial impression had been right. The length of him, thick and achingly hard, lay along the line of his hip and almost hung over the edge of his body. A shiny wet smear decorated his skin near the head. 

“Okay. You want honest, you’ve got it.”

He tensed beneath her. She took him under the chin, nudging him to look at her.

“You have the biggest, prettiest cock I’ve ever seen, and when I find the asshole who told you otherwise, I’m gonna commit a fucking felony.” He barked a surprised laugh and covered his eyes with his hand, but she tugged it away.

“Gale, I’m so serious right now,” she grinned, pinning his wrist to the bed next to his head, “it’s huge . Did you not know? Did you— do you really think it’s a disappointment?”

“ Yes, ” he insisted as he squirmed playfully against her, still laughing in disbelief. “I mean, I’d always heard—she always said I made up for it in other ways, so I just thought, well, I’m unlucky that way—and the lads in pornography are, you know—are you quite sure?”

“Oh, make that several felonies,” she swore, and they both collapsed into giggles again. She relaxed to lie halfway on top of him and kissed him soundly. He maneuvered her hips to line up with his, gently rutting against her stomach, and she moaned happily.

“Well,” he hummed. “If you really like it so much, I could be convinced.”

“I need a hell yes, not an I could be convinced, ” she replied, ducking to nibble at his ear. 

He gasped and writhed under her, and when she sucked his earlobe into her mouth and teased it between her teeth, he made a sound like his soul was leaving his body. “Hell yes.” 

Daphne trailed her lips down the column of his neck and onto his chest, nuzzling against the center of his tattoo and briefly flicking her tongue over his nipple before licking a hot stripe up the center of his abs. His fingers scrabbled in her hair as the air punched out of his lungs. 

Finally, she settled between his legs. She spread one hand between his hip bones, gently pressing him to the bed, and wrapped the other around his cock, thrilling at the solid weight of him. Her fingers caressed him in slow, swirling strokes. His eyes burned as he watched her.

“Yeah, look at me,” she coaxed. “See what you do to me. I want this so fucking bad.”

He propped himself up on his elbows, already breathing hard just from the gentle motion of her fingers. She leaned in to press a kiss to the tip of his dick, and he groaned in response. 

“Do I get to put you in my mouth?” she purred. “Can I suck this big, beautiful dick you brought me?”

“Uh huh” he slurred, nodding. At the first press of his cock head against the roof of her mouth, he collapsed back to the mattress. She savored the bitter musk of him on her tongue, how the smell of clean, warm skin and sweat and Gale enveloped her. She hollowed her cheeks. He flung an arm over his face with an ecstatic sigh.

Her hand and mouth worked in unison to drag him higher, pull stutters and moans from his parted lips. She felt his hand brush her shoulder and she grabbed it to plant it on the back of her head. His fingers threaded into her hair. Her hand pressed on top of his, showing him how to push her deeper—she’d always liked when her partners rode her face.

His hips rocked tentatively up into her mouth, and she hummed in pleasure. His abs flexed with effort. God, he was so close already.

She bobbed her head, urging him on, and something snapped inside Gale. Finally , he let go and just took pleasure from her the way she craved for him to do. She moaned around him as his hips rolled, her name a gravelly chant on his breath as he neared his peak. Her jaw ached to fit him, her breathing became labored, but it felt so good to let him use her. To hand him control and discover what he’d do with it.

“Daphne,  god, your mouth—I might—”

She pulled away with a filthy wet sound, gasping for air. Her hand wrapped around his cock and tugged, long and slow up from the root of him as her tongue traced around its fat head, and he shook beneath her. 

Daphne glanced up to revel in how completely undone he looked. He was still wearing his glasses, which was honestly so sweet she might combust. 

“So pretty here,” she murmured, mouthing a kiss to the underside of his shaft. A clear bead dripped from the tip, and she eagerly lapped it up. He cursed and white-knuckled the sheets, but never took his eyes off of her. “Feels so perfect in my mouth, feels so fucking good when you stretch me. I want it all, want you to make me fucking choke on it.”

His jaw went slack and his eyelids fluttered. Triumph mixed with her desire, went straight to her head. It was a gamble, talking this dirty to him, but clearly she’d been right.

She nuzzled into the crease of his thigh and sucked one of his balls into her mouth. He cried out.

“Good?” she asked.

“ Fuck. ”

She smiled. A whine crept into his exhales.

“You’re gonna come on my face,” she urged breathily, her fingers flying up and down his length. “Wanna swallow it so bad, but god I need to watch you come. Come on me, please, I’ll take it so good just come on me pleaseplease please—” 

His jaw clenched as he gritted out something that might have been her name, his eyes screwed tightly shut. She threw her head back as his come splashed across her cheek and down her neck. There was so much of it, way more than she’d expected—but then again, she suspected this was his first experience with anything close to a caring partner, nevermind a caring partner who liked giving head. 

Daphne rested her head on one of his thighs, smearing them both with come. Whatever. She was too tired and happy to care. 

“You all right up there?” she said wryly, hearing him take great lungfuls of air above her.

He chuckled weakly. “Double murder.”

She propped her chin in her hand, looking up at him. His flushed features glowing, sweat-damp hair stuck to his forehead, a shocked half-smile on his lips as he gazed down at her through crooked glasses. She loved him.

Her stomach dropped. Oh, fuck.

“Shall we get in the shower?” he asked, oblivious to the slow-motion car crash happening inside of her head. “The feeling of—well, what you encouraged me to do, that is, was truly a moment of transcendence the likes of which I’ve never known, but I do feel as though this is a mess you’d probably like cleaned up.”

She shook back to herself. Falling in love with Dr. Gale A. Dekarios, The Visiting Professor Who Will Leave Forever In Six Months, was a tomorrow problem. 

She rolled her eyes at him playfully. “Always the gentleman.”

“Well,” he smirked, gently sliding off the bed and helping her to her feet, “not always. ”

Chapter Text

“I just think it’s odd that he won’t tell you a thing about where he’s taking you,” Astarion groused, again, from where he was draped over the armchair in her bedroom. Daphne stopped doing her eyeliner in her closet’s mirror long enough to roll her eyes. “I know he apparently made you come so hard that you experienced ego death, but that certainly doesn’t make him a known quantity. If anything, I’m more suspicious of anyone who’s that good at giving head.”

“My good bitch,” she sighed, exasperated. “You already have me on Find My Friends, against my better judgment, and it’s not that big of an island. And need I remind you, this is the same guy you once told me had eyes like a wet kitten .”

Astarion snorted. “Well, he does.”

“If you actually get worried, which I sincerely fucking doubt you will, because that’s never happened in my entire life,” she continued, “just grab your handsome prince and get him to come rescue me or something. At least then I’d finally get to meet him.”

He was quiet, for once. That alone raised her eyebrows, but teasing him about it outright would just make him skittish. She went back to doing her eyeliner.

“Wyll is the sort of prince type I would’ve dreamed of marrying,” he mused. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep quiet. He sounded… sincere. This was brand-fucking-new territory.

He scoffed, shifting back to his usual sardonic delivery. “When I was about thirteen .” The sarcasm sounded wrong, somehow, like he was pretending to be himself. Cagey. This side of Astarion, at least, she knew intimately.

“Oh well. I bet he looks good in the uniform, anyway,” she casually tossed out, finishing the sharp little flick at the corner of her eye.

“Almost everything looks good on him,” he retorted. He sighed, deep and dreamy. “ That man. ”

Daphne slammed the lid back on her eyeliner with a forceful click, holding her breath to keep from squealing. 

Astarion was in love.

He would pull his own teeth before he admitted it, especially to a third party, but this was more tenderness than she’d ever seen him express unprompted in his life. He was absolutely, totally, for sure in love with their boss’s boss’s hot estranged son.

She wished he would admit to it. Then she’d at least have someone to commiserate with about the fucking jet engine where her heart should be. She’d come home exhausted every day since Tuesday because just seeing Gale across the hall threw her into palpitations. 

On Wednesday, the very next day after she’d had his dick in her mouth and just five hours after they’d brushed their teeth together in his master bathroom, Gale had popped by her office unexpectedly with a coffee and a pain au chocolat. When she accepted them, he’d beamed, looked around furtively, and pecked her on the cheek. She’d had to take a lap around the building without a coat on to let the windchill cool her down. 

Daphne steeled herself back into the present and swiped on a few coats of mascara, then doused her face in a spray Alfira swore would keep her makeup on even in a hurricane. It was time for The Dress.

“Showtime,” she called over her shoulder. Astarion languidly slid off the armchair and sauntered over to stand beside her. Delicately, he plucked the shimmering dress off its hanger and held it up to her.

“Denude yourself that I may dress you in your finery, O Daphne,” he drawled, bowing his head. She snorted as she unwrapped her robe and tossed it to her feet. Gently, he slipped the dress over her head while she ducked to keep her fresh makeup out of the way. 

He did up the back laces of the dress with nimble fingers, cinching it tight over her hips. When he stepped away, she finally looked in the mirror. 

Subtle shifts from midnight blue to blackened purple flowed around her like water, wrapping her in graceful swaths of silk and flowing down her arms in billowy sleeves. The dreamy layers clung where they should cling and drifted where they should drift, all held together with an internal architecture the likes of which she’d never seen. The front dipped shockingly low, low enough to show the jasmine tattooed under her sternum, and the back swept even lower, but she felt securely held in all the same. In the generous drape of the skirt, flashes of gold and silver winked with her every movement. 

Astarion, his one job done, sprawled out on her bed and resumed texting. She swept her hair up, pulling out tendrils to curl around her face like the girls on BBC Masterpiece. After some dithering, her usual septum ring got swapped out for a thinner one made of twined gold wire. Finally, there was no more to do. This was the version of her that Gale would take to meet a room full of his academic peers and the nauseatingly wealthy people who funded their livelihoods.

The Daphne in the mirror, ethereal and dark, almost felt like a stranger. The only detail that grounded her in her body was her cuticles, still perpetually stained with ink.

A low whistle pierced the quiet of her room, making her spin around in a rustle of skirts. Astarion had dropped his phone to the quilt and was giving her the full up-and-down with his chin in his hand.

“Heavens above, has Daphne’s rack finally seen the light of day?” he said approvingly, sitting up and crossing his legs. She crossed her arms huffily. Her penchant for thick, crewneck sweaters was a frequent source of strife in their friendship. Before she could snipe back, he reached out and took a handful of fabric in his elegant fingers.

“I can’t believe that one had the fortitude to buy such a slinky little number for you. If you don’t get railed tonight, I’ll—well, I don’t know what I’ll do. Something dire.” He took a long drink of cabernet from his heavy crystal goblet (a yard sale find of hers that he was exceptionally fond of) and fussed with his hair in the mirror.

“Awfully heteronormative to assume I’ll be the one getting railed, you philistine,” she replied, airy and playfully biting, as she bent to wriggle into her high heels. He pitched forward and clapped a hand to his mouth to keep from spitting out his wine. “I’m one trip to Adam and Eve away from blowing his back out.”

He gave her a real, full-throated laugh—a rare treat. Her chest ached with affection for her oldest friend, for how unburdened the years had let him become. For once, life was being kind to him. To both of them. It felt so strange and so overdue at the same time. 

“God, having even one single proclivity would make him more interesting, that’s for fucking sure,” he said, still animated with humor. “How’s this: rail or be railed; either way, do give us a full review afterward.”

Daphne packed a borrowed pearl-studded clutch with her phone and keys. Astarion, his goblet drained, left with a smug grin and a declaration that he was “off to be charmed and adored.” The clock on the microwave said 5:48. Gale was supposed to come collect her at six. 

She tried to pace, found her home’s uneven floorboards too risky in heels, and sank down onto her loveseat instead. 

“I love you,” she said to her empty house. Just saying it allowed the smallest wave of relief in her chest. “I love you, I love you. Don’t go back to England. Change everything about the life you’ve led so far, abandon your quest to save your career, and love me on this tiny fucking rock instead.”

The answering silence felt humiliating, somehow.

Three knocks suddenly echoed through the house. The narrow window across the top of her front door showed a peek of high forehead and silver-streaked hair. She grabbed her clutch and winter wrap and tried to compose herself as she hurried to her entryway, her dress flowing ostentatiously behind her.

“Ohh-kay, Daphne,” she sighed, her hand resting on the doorknob. She counted to five in her head, throat thick with anticipation, and wrenched it open on five. 

Gale was heartbreakingly radiant under the glare of her porch light. His hair was done in his usual half-up situation, although he’d definitely styled it with something to make it shine. He’d neatened up his scruff, too, in a way that highlighted the jut of his cheekbones and the strong line of his jaw. He smiled at her, nervous, and the mix of uncertainty and excitement on his face somehow made him even more appealing.

And then—she’d prepared herself for Gale in a tuxedo. She was completely and woefully ill-equipped to handle him in this one.

He’d taken the darkest shade of midnight blue from her dress, the not-quite-black of a clear night sky, and transmuted it into a gorgeous wool and silk suit. His tie and lapels even matched the crêpe of her skirt exactly—had he asked for the whole thing to be made alongside her dress, as a complement? The blue-black made his olive skin and brown eyes glow with an otherworldly warmth, even in the December chill. 

Just when she was about to get her bearings enough to say hello, he produced a bouquet from behind his back. Red roses and lush greenery shot through with sprays of white jasmine. Speechless, she stood there and gripped the door frame for support. 

“It’s a challenge to get good flowers this far north, so apologies if they’re not exactly, er, hale and hearty,” he blurted as she cradled the bouquet in her hands and brought it to her nose. Fresh, grassy notes from the roses mixed smoothly with the jasmine’s indolic, sweet perfume.  “Greenhouses take a lot of heating, I imagine, and with energy costs the way they are, the island’s bylaws would probably—”

“ Gale, ” she interjected. His mouth snapped shut, his soft brown eyes wide with surprise. She almost felt bad. “They’re gorgeous. I can’t believe—I wasn’t expecting this at all, thank you. Let me put these in water really quick before we go?”

He stepped into her foyer and closed the door behind him while she scurried to grab a vase off of her mantle. She brought it over to the sink and filled it with cold water, then carefully settled the flowers inside. The kitchen quickly filled with their heady fragrance.

While she admired her handiwork, she heard his footsteps behind her. Two arms wrapped around her as Gale pressed a kiss to her temple. 

“You look…” he groaned, trailing off. Another kiss, then another. 

“Come on, Dekarios,” she grinned. “I’ve been looking forward to more poetry.”

He seemed surprised at that, for some reason. “Oh, you will come to rue those words,” he chuckled. He spun her to face him and slanted their mouths together. Humming contentedly, Daphne wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him close.

“No chance,” she murmured against his lips. “You keep millions of things up there in your head. I love when you share them with me.”

Careful, Daphne.

His eyes slid closed with a deep inhale. “Then you’ll have every line I know, and more besides.” 

His fingers delicately cradled her head as he kissed her under one eye, then the other, and Daphne worried she might actually faint. The night hadn’t even started yet, and he’d already given her more romance than she’d experienced in a lifetime. His complete lack of guile or irony, the sincere delight he seemed to take in her reactions, made it all almost too much to handle. 

He was just… earnest. His enthusiasm poured out of him without regard for how vulnerable it made him. And, for reasons she was still untangling, he was apparently enthusiastic about her.

With one last kiss, he reluctantly stepped back and offered her his arm. “Well. Let’s get our skates on. If we don’t leave this instant, I heavily suspect we won’t emerge from your home until Monday morning.”

There was a black town car waiting at the end of her driveway. Gale helped her inside before sliding in himself, and they were off. Thankfully, Icepeak wasn’t supposed to get any fresh snow tonight, so the moon hung bright and full over the ocean as they cruised through the wharf district of Aurilssbarg and out into the quiet, secluded shoreline of the bay. 

On the seat between them, his hand inched to brush hers. She took it with a happy squeeze, still raptly admiring the shine of the moon on the water. 

“Oh, it puts the heart in my chest on wings,” he intoned after a while. She looked over to see him contemplating her blithely from across the moonlit car. “For when I look at you, even a moment, no speaking is left in me.” 

She blushed. “Who’s that from?”

“Sappho. Imperfectly delivered in my voice, obviously, but if she could see you tonight, I’m confident that she’d agree with me.”

She blushed even hotter. The last time someone had read Sappho to her was in Ava Golritz’s dorm room after ceramics class. It had worked then, and goddamn, it was working now.

“I love it,” she simply replied, the word love hot in her mouth again.“Thank you.” 

He lifted her hand and brushed his lips over her knuckles. 

Their car cruised to a stop in a secluded, wooded spot overlooking the bay. Gale swiftly got out and helped her out onto the gravel. She shot him a questioning look—this sure as hell wasn’t a restaurant. He just smiled knowingly, tucked her arm into the crook of his elbow, and led her up a carpeted, candlelit path that seemed to lead directly into the forest.

They didn’t have to walk far before they reached a clearing. Daphne’s hand flew to her mouth as she took in the scene: in the middle of the snowy meadow, a glass geodesic dome the size of a greenhouse glowed with soft light. Through the crystalline windows, she could make out a table set for two and a bottle of champagne chilling in a silver bucket of ice. 

“I’m assured it’s heated, but we’ve also been supplied with blankets should you need to bundle up further,” he said apologetically. 

She shook her head. “It’s Icepeak. Any day it’s not actively snowing is basically springtime. Anyway, more to the point—oh my god, how did you do this?”

Happy relief spread over his features, as though he’d been waiting for a slap and gotten a kiss instead. He tapped a finger to his nose, and she rolled her eyes teasingly.

Arm in arm, they traversed the candlelit walkway to the middle of the clearing and ducked inside the dome. A wave of warm air wrapped around Daphne as the door shut behind her, melting away the familiar bone-deep cold of the north Atlantic in midwinter. 

He pulled her chair out for her and took her wrap and bag before rummaging through an insulated cooler at the back of the dome. She was so absorbed in taking in their surroundings—the dim fairy lights strung overhead, the uninterrupted view of the forest—that she almost didn’t notice when returned, carrying a quart-sized styrofoam container.

“Our first course, I believe , is bouillabaisse,” he said, peeling back the lid and releasing a burst of rich, savory steam. He carefully spooned Daphne a bowlful, then one for himself as he finally sat down.

They took their first bites together, followed by tandem moans of appreciation. As many seafood stews as she’d eaten over the course of her life in New England, nothing had ever tasted like this. Light but substantial, with fish that flaked under her spoon and perfect, tender mussels.

“This,” she sighed, pointing to her bowl with her spoon, “is what they serve at the cafeteria in heaven.”

He grinned, and there it was again. That release of tension in his shoulders, that exhale of relief. Confusion made her pause. After how blisteringly direct she’d been about her attraction to him, did he really think she would sneer at his thoughtfulness? Starlight dinner in the forest was over-the-top for a first date, sure, but that was Gale. Why did he keep expecting her to—

Her stomach dropped. Oh, that bitch .

“Perhaps, but it could never taste as lovely as it does right now,” he answered, the crinkles around his eyes deepening as he smiled. “I hope the other four courses are equally up to scratch.”

She coughed. “ Four? ”

Conversation flowed slow and easy as Gale served course after course of the best food Daphne had eaten in years. After the soup came little croquettes stuffed with buttery cheese, then a salad of roasted fennel and tomatoes tossed with something lemony and bright, then an entire half of a cornish game hen. A surprised noise escaped her when he laid the miniature chicken onto her dinner plate.

“Do you not—shall I call the restaurant and ask for something else?” he asked, tongs frozen in his hand. “They know where we are, it would only take—”

“No no no,” she rushed to interrupt him, grabbing his wrist. God, he was breaking her heart. “Everything’s perfect, it’s all wonderful. Gale, I’m happy. ”

The word seemed to catch him completely off-guard. His wide eyes glittered behind his glasses, reflecting the strings of countless little lights above them. In the silence, her pounding heart rose up into her throat. 

“I… good, that’s good,” he rasped, brow knitting together as though he were on the cusp of finding an answer to some fundamental question. His speeding pulse thumped hard under her fingers. “Do you know— I’m happy.” 

Daphne didn’t even want to know what her face did in response, but it was enough to make Gale set the takeout container down and bend to kiss her. His lips were tentative as they met hers, searching and soft. She curled her fingers into the silk lapels of his jacket, careful not to crush them, and tilted her head back to meet him.

Urgency, heat, want—the usual undercurrents that flavored their kisses were absent. This was something new and sweet and unbearably, terrifyingly honest.

They ate their main course quietly. Between bites of juicy, herbed chicken, she either stole a glance at him or felt the heat of his eyes on her. Once, she reached for her water glass and brushed against his fingers as he did the same, and just the warmth from his skin made her lightheaded. When she placed her silverware to the side, he abruptly dropped his as well and cleared away their plates.

He checked his watch, then looked upward. “Ah. You have perfect timing, as always.”

With a well-practiced flick of his wrist, he popped the cork on the champagne and poured them each a flute. He offered Daphne his hand and pulled her to stand beside him, handing her a glass. She expected him to make a toast, but instead, he reached over and flicked a hidden switch on one of the dome’s supports. The lights went out. The two of them were plunged into total, impenetrable darkness.

His arm slid around her waist, and she leaned into him with a relieved sigh. Roses and cedar. The warm, solid line of his body in the dark. Safe.

“I love this time of night,” his deep voice lilted next to her in the dark. Funny, this still didn’t sound like a toast. “There’s an almost reverent silence that accompanies the peak of darkness, when you’d almost believe the dawn will never break—but tonight? Tonight is different. Look up, Daphne.”

She looked up just as the first trickle of pale green light swirled overhead, cutting through an inky sky thick with stars. Incredulous surprise punched the breath from her as she finally understood what he’d arranged. 

In all six years she’d lived on Icepeak, she’d never made it out of the city to see the full aurora borealis on the rare nights it dipped this far south. Gale heard her gasp and pulled her tighter against him, huffing an awed laugh.

Overhead, the night sky erupted into rivers of smooth, flowing light. They stood transfixed, clinging to each other for support, as it bathed the snow-covered meadow in a strange glow, almost alien in its pallid, changeable nature. 

“I know this is all likely far too much, far too early, even by my standards of doing things properly,” he murmured, “but I did it for you.”

She tore her eyes away from the lights for a brief moment to look for him in the darkness. Not being able to see him made her lurch a little, made her just a hair more vulnerable.

“You didn’t have to do any of this for me,” she whispered. “You already know—we’ve already—”

He pulled her close, pressing a long, thoughtful kiss to her forehead. “And you must know,” he answered directly into her ear, “You must know. You’re… very special to me.”

The sheer enormity of what she wanted to say was clawing its way up her throat with such force that she didn’t dare open her mouth. So, instead, she wrapped her arms around Gale’s neck and tipped her head back to look up at the skies with him. Brief ribbons of pink and purple shimmered through the bright currents, shocking in their brilliance.

“When this ends,” he continued, trailing his fingers down her spine, “it will be time to tumble back into the car and brave the Ramazith crowd. I don’t have to tell you that we might be met with a frosty reception from most, and for that, I’m so deeply sorry.”

She shrugged. “I still think you’re exercising an inhuman amount of grace by even going. Just tell me if there’s anyone I’m supposed to be nice to outside of Aylin and Isobel.”

“I’ll admit, they are few and far between,” he said, amused, “and I’m honored to have you so thoroughly in my corner, but even so. You don’t deserve to be caught in the undertow of my sordid mistakes.”

She leaned forward and planted a kiss somewhere on his bared throat. A protective anger she had no right to feel reared its head, and she stomped it down. 

“You’re talking to someone who once got arrested for having sex in a graveyard,” she deflected, drily. An especially impressive flare of light surged across the sky, and her skin prickled with goosebumps. “So I’m not sure we have the same definition of sordid or mistakes. ”

He spluttered a shocked laugh, and she smiled in victory. Above them, the aurora continued its silent, cosmic blaze through the stratosphere.

In the town car, rolling back toward civilization, she realized something that made her poke him on the arm.

“Hey! You promised me five courses,” she protested playfully. “Champagne isn’t a course. Even I know that.”

Without a word, he popped the back cushion off of the middle seat to reveal a tiny refrigerator. He reached in and pulled out two pots of crème brûlée with little golden spoons already cracked through their caramelized crusts.

“Honestly,” he chided her, smug, as she cackled in disbelief. “It’s like you don’t even know me.”

By the time they finally pulled up to the venue—Moonrise Towers Ski Resort and Members’ Club, not very historic of them—the crème brûlées were long gone and so was Daphne’s lip gloss. She fished the tube out of her bag and handed Gale a makeup wipe to scrub his face with.

“Okay, so,” she said, dabbing the gloss on with her finger, “really quick, who am I looking out for, specifically? I remember you told me the director was a piece of work—Arthur something.”

“Archibald Lorroakan. Unfortunately, I have a feeling he’ll be quite interested in making your acquaintance, both because you’re rapturously beautiful and because it will get under my skin. He’s tall, long ginger hair, unmissable really.” He presented his face for inspection, and she gave him a thumbs-up. Thank god she hadn’t worn glitter.

“So he’s the aborted Weasley brother, got it.” He cocked his head at her, and she felt a wave of embarrassment as she realized that, of course, he had no idea what she was talking about. “Never mind, it’s incredibly stupid. Anyone else?”

He sighed wearily, the corners of his mouth turning down. “Honestly, perhaps your best policy for navigating this situation is to remember that I was only invited to show off Ramazith’s incredible charity. To highlight that their work doesn’t just preserve history, it also serves to rescue and reform even the field’s most undesirable characters. I’m not a guest; I’m one of the projects—a salacious, pitiable incentive to donate.”

She reached over and placed her hand on his thigh, giving him a comforting squeeze. His eyes shone big and sad back at her. Wet kitten, Astarion’s voice in her head sing-songed.

“I’m really glad you brought me with you, and not just because of dinner,” she said, low and earnest. “The thought of you braving all this alone breaks my heart.”

He smiled to himself, looking down at where her hand rested, and covered it with his own. “Then let me mend it. Let’s drink their wine and dance to their music, and then escape home like foxes from the henhouse, hey?”

The car slowed to a stop in front of the ski chalet’s grand entrance, and a bellboy in a double-breasted suit opened her door. She eased out, straightening her skirts nervously, and took Gale’s arm when he appeared beside her. The weight of his bicep in her grasp grounded her as they walked up the granite steps and through the enormous double doors.

She’d never been to Moonrise before—like most locals, she would never be able to afford it—so she eagerly looked around as they made their way through the foyer. The floor was set with New Hampshire granite flagstones, polished to a mirror shine, and high above them, rough-hewn rafters criss-crossed over austere, whitewashed walls. The doors to the various halls and wings were each twenty feet high and crafted from solid oak, with artfully hammered brass fixtures.

It was as though the architect had tried to design a cottage on the scale of a cathedral. Everything exuded “folksy and rustic” as viewed through the warped lens of unfathomable wealth, too affected to be glamorous and too soulless to be authentic. She’d expected to be dazzled, but instead, she felt uncannily like she’d walked into the Restoration Hardware at the St. John mall.

“Once more unto the breach, dear friends , ” she joked to him as they whisked toward the banquet hall, where the mingled noise of conversation and chamber music spilled out of the doors. He looked down at her, the smallest bit captivated. She realized belatedly that that was Shakespeare, and not just a thing her dad said when he was about to do something unpleasant.

“Once more,” he replied. The creases around his eyes, the wonder in his voice from just an offhand remark, made something soft and warm and wonderful melt into her belly. She smiled, unrestrained and probably ungraceful, but he returned it with such brilliance that she couldn’t care.

She squared her shoulders and did her best to keep her chin up when they stepped into the ball. It was exactly what she’d expected—chandeliers, gowns and tuxedos, a dance floor with a string ensemble, bottles of wine that cost more than her paycheck. A coat check attendant appeared to take Daphne’s wrap from her. Someone with a clipboard approached them, and Gale gave their names as “Professor Gale A. Dekarios and my elegant companion, Miss Daphne Tavian,” which god, sounded so Downton Abbey it was unbelievable. She loved it. She loved him so much it made her kind of nauseous.

He didn’t know that. However, she smiled to herself with an evil thrill, she was still going to make it a problem for every obsequious fuck in this room.

It wasn’t as though all eyes immediately turned to them as they walked in. People turned to look, of course, nudged by their conversation partners or curiously peeking over bites of crudités, but it was more of an unseen, unspoken chill of morbid curiosity that settled under her skin. Gale was right; they were one of the exhibits. 

“By the way,” she asked, determined to deflect the anxiety that was no doubt creeping up on him as well. “What’s the A. in Professor Gale A. Dekarios stand for? Don’t tell me it's, like, Aloysius; I’ll never recover.”

He chuckled, looking a bit bashful. “It’s not Aloysius, thank heaven, but it’s still… unconventional. You may have guessed from the surname, but a few generations back, the Dekarios clan all lived scattered across the Greek isles. That’s what first made me interested in classics as a young lad; I wanted to know more about the sunny, adventuresome place I came from instead of boring old England.”

Vivid images of young Gale, lonely and precocious, looking for himself in book after book about Ancient Greece flashed in her mind. Her chest tightened with affection.

“So, my first name, Gale—that’s nothing, I think the priest chose it. But my mother chose my second name after her grandfather, Apollo Dekarios. He was a shipbuilder in Naxos, or so I’m told.”

“Gale Apollo Dekarios,” she grinned, lending each syllable its own gravity.

“Gale Apollo Dekarios, yes.” A grimace flickered on his face. “Obviously, in my line of work, it’s a bit on the nose, so I just use the A.”

They joined the crush of guests waiting in line at the stately, gilded bar. She preened inwardly reviewing what she’d accomplished: Gale had entered the party exuding nonchalance, with someone hanging on his every word. An excellent start.

 “Apollo’s a kickass middle name, for the record,” she leaned in to confide. He brushed a kiss to the top of her head, chuckling. 

She heard their names being called from off to their left. Isobel, in a black sheath, and Aylin, in a similarly close-cut pantsuit, were standing at a cocktail table tucked against the wall, beckoning them to join. Once they secured their first round—a hearty glass of Malbec for Gale and a martini with a twist for Daphne—they weaved their way over.

The jitters that came with socializing with Dean Aylin outside of work notwithstanding, Daphne was relieved to slip into friendly, excited conversation with her and her wife. They both asked her about her position at Icepeak, and she felt a giddy little flutter of hope when they seemed genuinely interested in the work that Lae’zel and Shadowheart had been doing. Isobel regaled her with a few riotous stories about teenage Gale at university—including his first ever night out, when he’d marched up to the bar and confidently ordered a screaming orgasm on the advice of his friends—that made her laugh until she cried. 

“Aylin, control your wife, please,” Gale groaned as Daphne dabbed her eyes with a cocktail napkin. “The lengths to which I’ve gone to give this woman the impression that I’m charming and worldly, only to have it all undone with so much glee—”

“Not a chance,” Aylin said, looking at Isobel like she shone with her own light. “Although, I will say that we must do some more circulating before I can take her home, and I can scarcely wait longer to do that. Please, enjoy yourselves.”

Isobel cheekily waved goodbye as she looped her arm through her wife’s and sailed off to mingle, or do whatever old-money people did to network. As they turned to brave the crowd again, his face looked the youngest she’d ever seen it—relaxed, pink with humor and wine. Daphne wondered with melancholy about how many of those gray hairs had appeared in the last few years. 

“You’re staring,” he remarked.

“I’m not staring,” she parried. “I’m admiring.”

The moment shattered, however, when a pale man with pin-straight orange hair and thin, humorless lips sidestepped in front of them. His tuxedo looked expensive, but ill-fitting, sagging off his narrow shoulders and pinching his waist. Either he’d bought it aspirationally, or his tailor fucking hated him. 

“Gale Dekarios, out of seclusion at last! So good of you to come,” he drawled in a supercilious tenor voice, not looking at Gale at all. Instead, his pale eyes were fixed on her. Gale planted his hand possessively on her lower back, and she smiled placidly as she leaned into it. This had to be Lorroakan.

If being a young, female staff member around old men with tenure had taught her anything, it was that creatures of ego like Lorroakan were embarrassingly easy to manipulate. If she made sure he perceived her as intellectually beneath him, played the naïve and starstruck townie, she could safely make him miserable all night.

“Archibald,” Gale greeted him through a stiff smile. “Lovely evening, this. You must be quite proud.”

“Oh, I am. Just as proud as you must be to have procured someone so astronomically beyond your station as your plus-one. You still have a taste for women much, much your better.” He leaned conspiratorially toward Daphne, close enough that she could see the watercress stuck in his teeth. “Did you know, we thought he was going to bring his cat,” he stage-whispered.

“Oh my god, stop, that would have been so cute,” she chirped effusively. Gale’s hand on her back stiffened in surprise. “But no, you just get me instead. Hi, I’m Daphne.”

Lorroakan’s gaze flicked to her hand where it hung at her side. She didn’t offer it. That seemed to throw him off for half a second.

“Ah, a classically beautiful appellation,” he continued, smoothly, in exactly the patronizing tone she’d expected. She could practically feel the greasy trail of his gaze as he raked it over her. “Much like your namesake, you certainly do possess a certain beauty that pleases too well. Surely you’ve read Ovid?”

Okay, no, she hadn’t. That did sting a little. There must be a mythical Daphne she didn’t know about. Anyway, that could wait.

“Um, I’m named after my great-aunt,” she explained as though he were stupid. She watched the light leave his eyes. As he struggled for words, a tall, broad-shouldered man with dark hair and a miserable expression sauntered up to their little group holding a drink in each hand.

“Whiskey soda, Doctor Lorroakan,” he said, passing him a crystal lowball glass. Lorroakan took it without so much as a glance at him. 

“Ah, Rolan!” Gale sounded genuinely pleased. “I hope you’re keeping well since I saw you last.”

“You as well, Professor Dekarios,” he deadpanned, although his frown wavered for a moment. Mentally, she made a note to dig into how they knew each other. At the very least, they seemed friendly. “And good to make your acquaintance, miss.”

“Nice to meet you, Rolan,” she smiled, extending her hand. “I’m Daphne, Gale’s date.”

Lorroakan’s nostrils flared as Daphne shook Rolan’s hand. Oh, this was already going so well.

“Rolan is my assistant, ” he snapped, his cool facade showing critical signs of failure. “He hit a dead end on his research, poor soul, so I kindly took him on. Never did finish your thesis, did you, boy.”

Rolan looked at his drink as though he were contemplating drowning himself in it. “No, Doctor Lorroakan.”

Christ, what an asshole.

“Wait, babe?” She turned to Gale with doe eyes. “I’m so embarrassed, I know we went over this in the car, but—what’s the difference between professors and doctors again? Rolan called you both different things.”

Gale’s lips formed a thin line of suppressed amusement. Her breath caught in her chest as she desperately hoped he knew how to play along.

“Nonsense, you’re doing so well,” he cooed, rubbing the hand on her back in soothing circles. “They’re very close, but not quite the same. Doctors could be anyone who has a PhD. Professors are doctors who work at universities, write papers, and get published.” 

“So, that’s why you’re a professor,” she beamed.

“Clever girl.” He nestled her closer, under his arm, and she giggled. They turned back to a wide-eyed, delighted Rolan and a Lorroakan apoplectic with barely-concealed rage. “So. How go things at Ramazith these days, gentlemen?”

For the rest of the conversation, Daphne focused on what she could do to further make Lorroakan’s pallid face even redder. She toyed adoringly with the little gold laurel wreaths of Gale’s cufflinks (were all ancient historians such terminal nerds?) before directing her fingers to trace his silk lapel. She tuned in and listened raptly when Gale or Rolan talked, but as soon as Lorroakan spoke, she looked away or fiddled with something on Gale’s tuxedo. When the ginger addressed her directly, rather than giving him a chance to belittle her again, she stared at a spot on his right cheek so hard that he swiped at it with a handkerchief. 

The music shifted, and Gale perked up. “They’re playing Fée des Lilas —darling, you must indulge me in a waltz,” he pleaded, looking down at her. She knew he was just playing along to extricate themselves, but the unexpected endearment still made her a little lightheaded. 

She didn’t have to put on an act to smile up at him dreamily. “Okay.”

Gale made their brief excuses to Rolan and Lorroakan, and led her through the crowd to the polished hardwood dance floor just beneath the orchestra platform. A few other couples floated across the space, but otherwise, they were alone. 

“I only kind of know how to waltz, by the way,” she quietly confessed. “I haven’t tried in about a decade, so. Sorry in advance.”

He pulled her in by her waist and held her right hand aloft with a flourish. “I have every confidence in you. Just feel the lead here—” he shrugged the shoulder where her hand rested, “—and keep your eyes forward, don’t look at your shoes. It’s my job to do the rest, anyway.”

He stepped easily into a slow, simple waltz, and she did her best to remember the steps from high school phys-ed. After a few rounds of stumbling and stubbing of feet, they found their rhythm together. He was an excellent dance partner, equal parts forgiving and self-assured. He was so easy to admire like this, as well: she noticed the very tip of his mysterious tattoo peeking just above his collar, and that the hair at the nape of his neck curled into dark ringlets.

“You unholy terror. You’ve deliberately led Lorroakan to think you’re an airhead so that you can torment him to his face,” he stated, matter-of-fact.

“I am, and I have.” She followed him as he began to take them into a wide, graceful turn across the floor. 

“Why?”

She raised her eyebrows. “Because he deserves it. Well, most people here deserve a lot worse, but it’s the best I can do while still making you look good.”

Their eyes met. He was studying her in that singularly focused way he had, like she was a puzzle he was working on, and she realized with a sickening swoop that he was dangerously close to the solution.

“I should demand satisfaction for that Ovid line he tried on you,” he murmured, the set of his jaw tightening. “I’ll refrain, because watching you humiliate him is powerfully seductive, but I would be well within my rights to ask for pistols at dawn.”

There was a big, wide possessive streak under all the blushing and sweet words, wasn’t there? Pressed together as they were, turning in long ellipses under the chandeliers, there was no way he didn’t feel the way her heart raced in response.

“He’s not worth the jail time,” she replied, so flustered that she blurted the first thing that came to mind. “And if it makes you feel better, I actually don’t know what he was talking about. If it was an insult or something, I didn’t get it.”

He straightened, chastised. “I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed. He’s a cad and a braggart; don’t let him make you feel inferior.”

“You could explain it to me,” she asked, “if you want? This isn’t part of the bit; I’d actually really appreciate it.” 

Every feature telegraphed how thrilled he was at the prospect of telling her a story. In tweed or silk, he was always himself. The waltz ended, and he kissed her hand as she curtsied. The next song started up, something lilting and sweet.

“I do love this one as well; it’s Bach,” he said, casting a look up at the orchestra. “Would you let me regale you while we took another turn about the floor?”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, twist my arm.” 

Gale took her waist and settled them into an easy box step. “Right. Imagine, if you will, the aeon of the gods. A time when monsters and deities roamed the earth, getting into all kinds of scrapes and generally behaving badly. One fine day, Phoebus, the god of the sun and patron deity of Greece itself, does some spectacularly good arrow-shooting and kills a giant snake called the Python. Obviously, he feels pretty great about that, so he shouts over to Eros—or Cupid, as most know him—basically, ‘you’re a little boy playing with a man’s weapon, and I’m a way better shot than you.’ Eros, understandably, takes exception to this.”

“He decides he’s going to show Phoebus exactly how good of a shot he is. So he flies to the top of the tallest mountain, where he can get a good view of everyone, and spots an extraordinarily beautiful girl: the nymph Daphne, daughter of the river god.” He held up his arm, and she twirled obligingly. “That river god bit will become important later. Eros takes two arrows out of his quiver—one that dispels love, and one that inflames it. Daphne gets hit with the first one, and that ends up leading her to stay a virgin in the style of Diana, ironically, Phoebus’s sister. With the second one, he pierces Phoebus.”

“Oh, shit,” Daphne interjected, earning a laugh from Gale.

“Are you available to come to my classes and provide commentary? It would do wonders for retention, I’m sure of it.”

“We can discuss my rates later,” she said drily. “Come on, what happens next?.”

“Well, just what you’d expect. Phoebus is hunting in the forest some time later and sees Daphne. Immediately, he becomes consumed with love for her to the very marrow of his bones. He calls to her, trying to introduce himself, but she takes one look at him, sees what he’s about, and starts running. Phoebus pursues.”

She suddenly recalled a painting she’d seen long, long ago, in some marble gallery—a haloed man charging up a hill, arm outstretched, and a naked woman, knocked backward in her haste to escape him. She thought she could remember seeing her own name on the placard, but the name Phoebus didn’t ring a bell at all.

“She runs faster and faster, his pleas to slow down or listen to him only spurring her forward. Eros appears, hanging off Daphne’s shoulders and even giving Phoebus wings to try to facilitate her capture, but like the hunter of Diana she is, she outruns him still. Finally, though, her path is blocked by a river. She can’t ford it, and Phoebus is close behind.”

“But her father is the river god!” she exclaimed.

“ Yes! ” Gale’s smile was positively triumphant. If there were other couples on the floor, if anyone else was still at this party, she couldn’t know. It was just her, and him, and this story in an empty, music-filled universe. “And in that moment, she cries out to him for help. ‘Help me father!’ she prays. ‘If your streams have divine powers, change me, destroy this beauty that pleases too well!’ And as soon as she says these words, just as Phoebus reaches the riverbank, her skin hardens into bark, her legs twist and become roots, her fingers elongate into branches. When Phoebus reaches her, Daphne is no more. She’s become the first laurel tree in creation.”

“Phoebus is still pierced through the heart with love for Daphne regardless. He presses kisses to her bark, even as the tree shudders at his touch, and declares that from this moment forward, his symbol will be the laurel branch. He makes a wreath from her leaves and sets it on his head of curls, and he’s depicted forevermore wearing a crown of laurels.” 

The music reached a swelling finale, and he threw her into a spin away from him before tugging her in again, catching her with her back against his chest and their arms crossed in front of her. She didn’t know when either of them had started breathing so hard.

“So, there you are,” he said. “Not exactly a perfect romance, of course, but quite tame by mythology standards.”

“I swear, I’ve seen a painting of this somewhere, for an art history class or something,” she mused, “but it’s driving me nuts that I can’t be sure. I’ve never heard the name Phoebus before.”

He huffed a nervous laugh behind her. “I’ve no doubt you’ve seen many depictions; it’s a favorite myth of Romantic painters. They usually use his Greek name, though, rather than the invented Roman one that Ovid made famous.”

“Which is?” She tried to turn around, but his arms kept her tight against him, so tight that she could feel him swallow hard.

“Apollo.”

She looked down, at their hands intertwined over her waist. On his cuffs, the little laurel wreaths shone winkingly back at her. His symbol and hers. She traced one with her thumb, and he sighed into her neck.

“Yes,” he murmured into her ear, in answer to her unasked question. The next song had begun, couples were dancing around them, but they remained still. “I meant it as a kind of… private token, but—”

“—but neither of us are subtle people,” she finished. 

“We aren’t. God above, we aren’t.”

Finally, she turned to face him. “In that vein—what would make your night perfect: taking me home right now, or watching me bully Lorroakan into saying Julius Caesar invented the caesar salad and then taking me home?”

“I’m in love with you,” he replied. Her mouth dropped open. His broad, wonderful hands came up and framed her face, let him look into her eyes like a sailor setting his compass by the moon. Every synapse in her brain fired at once.

“So,” she finally stammered, “is that—”

“The first one,” he rushed out. 

Without bothering with goodbyes or even collecting Daphne’s wrap from coat check, they fled the ball and hailed the town car from the valet lot. Gale pulled her onto his lap as Moonrise Towers receded into the darkness, and she crushed her lips to his with the abandon of someone finally free.

Chapter Text

Gale banded an arm around Daphne’s waist and snaked a greedy hand into her hair, pinning her on his lap in the back seat of the town car. Streetlamps and Christmas decorations whirled past their windows in the dark, and the changing light threw his face into a million kinds of relief at once—one moment, she was captivated by the deep, joyful crags around his eyes, the next, his strong jaw where it contrasted against the soft furl of his hair. 

Mostly, though, she didn’t have time to look at him much at all. Not with the white-knuckle way he crushed his mouth to hers again and again.

“I love you. I love— ” he gasped in one of the rare moments they came up for air. “You don’t have to say it back. Actually, don’t. Don’t say it back just yet. I want to—ha, I want to relish this. The feeling of loving you while you know I’m doing it.”

She laughed with him, breathy and bewildered. Her blood felt, somehow, like it had sparks in it. Like the shock of the last fifteen minutes had shaken some of her wiring loose and she was about to trip a breaker. “Whatever you want. I—fuck, come here—”

His tongue teased its way into her mouth, and she welcomed it with a brush of her own. She realized that the hand in her hair had slowly fallen down the curve of her neck, resting unassumingly on the deep slash of the neckline of her dress. She had a wicked thought. The driver couldn’t see them, and they’d already dropped any pretense of decorum, hadn’t they.

She placed her hand on top of his, tangling their fingers together, and slipped them into her bodice. She could feel his sharp inhale and shaky exhale against her cheek as she guided him to cup her breast, showing him with a slow curl of her fingers how she liked to be touched. He repeated the motion under his own power as she slid her hand away, and she rewarded him with a deep moan. 

“Tell me again. Tell me more,” she murmured against his lips. If he wanted her to wait, she could, but not without some encouragement. “ Please. ”

He sucked one more bruising kiss to her mouth before breaking away. His eyes in the changeable light looked wild, awesomely bright with new life. 

“As you wish,” he rasped. The arm around her waist squeezed her against him, not hard enough to hurt but enough to get her attention. A thrill shot up her spine at the novel idea of Gale manhandling her. She never thought he’d be the type. “I’m in love with you. I have loved you for, god above, I don’t know. I don’t know when I began; it feels just as natural to me as knowing your name. You’re Daphne Tavian, you live in Aurilssbarg next to the co-op, you take your coffee with oat milk, and you possess me entirely.”

She leaned in for another kiss, but he dodged her with an impetuous peck to her cheek. 

“Oh, no, beloved, you’ve got me started, now you have to hear it all. Surely, by now you know my propensity towards verbosity—or perhaps I should remind you of my practiced tongue?” His hand on her tit gave her another slow, kneading squeeze, and she shuddered. “I thought you were so well acquainted.”

“Mm, forgive me, my memory is hazy,” she mumbled with an unfocused grin. “You know how easily women at balls can swoon; it’s our delicate constitutions.”

His dark chuckle ghosted across her cheek. “I believe, in your own turn of phrase—I made you see the face of God. I’m going to do it again the second my front door closes. And again, before breakfast, and again, whenever I damn well feel like it, which is always. If you’ll indulge me.”

She ducked her head to softly bite at the soft junction of his neck and jaw, then soothe it with her tongue. He convulsed under her. 

“ Hell, woman, you’re going to kill me,” he ground out. “It may be the… diminished blood supply to my brain just now, but I fully believe I’d let you. Anything to keep you. Anything.”

Her face flushed hot. No one had ever talked to her, about her, like he did. It was like he wanted to worship her—not in a reverential, church way, but with prostration and candles and blood. It was intoxicating.

He groaned, and the deep vibrations buzzed against her lips as she kissed down his neck. The hand inside her bodice had drifted to play with her nipple in soft, delicious strokes. The town car slowed to turn into Gale’s driveway. They were home. 

She pulled back to look him in the eye. In the reflection of his glasses, she caught a glimpse of herself, kissed-up and tousled. Debauchery looked good on her.

“No need for that,” she said wryly, as the car coasted to a stop. “I’m quite attached to you. And your tongue.” 

He kissed her once, twice, with a nip to her lower lip. “What mercy. I don’t generally believe in the divine, but you’re embodied proof that a higher power cares for me. Stay here a moment while I unlock the door; no need for you to stand in the cold.”

Gale opened the car door and gingerly slid out from underneath her. Through the window, she watched him jog up his front steps with keys in hand.

An absurd, even wickeder thought pinged into her mind. A way to draw out more of the whimsical, reckless Gale she’d just discovered. Was it too weird? Fuck it, he’d never complained before.

She bit back a grin when he retrieved her from the car and took her clutch from her, and another when he gripped her hand in his instead of offering her his arm. The car drove away behind them as he helped her up the steps, leaving them, at last, alone with nowhere to be.

As soon as they made it to his porch, she kicked off her heels with a theatrical sigh that made him chuckle. 

“Your long-suffering feet. Couldn’t even wait until I got you inside, hm?” he teased. He opened the front door for her and gestured for her to enter. 

She didn’t move. “You know, I think you’re wrong. You do believe in the divine, when it’s relevant, and I can prove it,” she replied. His brow furrowed in confusion. 

“How—how’s that?” he stammered.

A sly grin ticked at the corner of her mouth as she gripped her skirt in her fists. 

“Apollo,” she beckoned. “Come catch your Daphne.” 

She hiked up her dress and sprinted past him into the house. As she bolted through his foyer, she heard the slam of a heavy door behind her and the pounding of dress shoes on hardwood. Her heart screamed with giddy adrenaline. She bobbed right, towards the hallway to his bedroom, before zipping left into his spacious kitchen instead. She heard an incredulous shout over her shoulder—much closer than she anticipated. 

The lights in his kitchen flickered on as she entered and rounded the kitchen island. She stole a glance behind her to see if he would follow, or try to cut her off. 

“Oh, no you don’t,” he laughed. Before she could react, he planted his hands on the countertop and swung himself over the island completely, landing just feet in front of her. She squealed, doubling back and changing direction just as his arms closed around nothing.

“Maine All-State Varsity Track two years in a row!” she gloated as he swore and chased her out of the kitchen and back down the hallway. “Four hundred meter dash!”

She could practically feel his chuckle on the back of her neck. A hot, wonderful shiver rattled down her spine. They ran into his room, toward his waiting bed, and two strong hands finally seized her hips. Suddenly, she was lifted, and he tackled her to land under him on the duvet, safely ensconced in the cage of his limbs. 

“Cambridge University rugby sevens,” he panted into her ear. “Fly-half.”

“You had time to play rugby during your PhD program? ” She didn’t know much about rugby, but she’d seen the Icepeak team play. The image of Gale being splattered with mud as he grappled and ran and kicked made her a little dizzy.

“One makes time. When most of your days are spent writing a hundred thousand words about aqueducts or Thracian plasterwork or what have you, the body yearns for a bit of stimulation as well.” 

There was so much more to him than she knew. It was just beginning to dawn on her that she might actually get to discover the rest. All of him.

She shook her head. “I’ll be honest. That’s incredibly hot. Maybe Apollo should have tried rugby.”

With a surprised laugh, he pushed himself to kneel over her. She started to get up as well, but a gentle hand between her shoulders nudged her down again. She felt his other hand trail downward, to where the dress laced up low on her hips.

“I rather think it wasn’t up to him,” he answered, a teasing curl to his words. “My Daphne wanted to be caught. Didn’t she.”

She hummed in agreement. His fingernails pressed bluntly into her skin in long, tingling strokes up her spine. It was a shockingly intimate gesture, after chasing her through the house and throwing her on his bed, but she had no intentions of stopping him. It felt incredible.

“You know, when I picked this up to bring home to you,” he mused, fingers still lingering on the laces of her dress,“this was the element that captured my attention. Not the silk, nor the silhouette, both of which I knew would favor you beautifully.”

A tug, then the feeling of the dress loosening, his other hand still tracing up and down her vertebrae. Her breath left her in a deep shudder. “It was this little bit of corseting that plagued me. On the plane back from London, I couldn’t stop dreaming of this moment. When I’d release you from it, and it would fall around you, and there you would be, so resplendent I could scarcely picture you.”

“I thought about you too,” she sighed, face pillowed against the duvet. “While you were gone.”

More tugs, followed by even greater ease around her hips. He must have been unlacing it entirely. “Oh? Do go on. My ego loves a good stroke.”

She blushed, hard, and her tongue stuck in her throat, but the rhythmic scrape of his fingernails along her back was deeply convincing.

“We were in our basement. I know you have a couch in your office. Sorry, I—this might upset you, actually.” She tensed. He spread the flat of his hand between her shoulder blades and rubbed the tight muscle there, pulling a moan from her.

“This is limited to our imaginations, yes? Take me with you. Draw me into your fantasy.” She felt the lace slide free of its last fastenings, and the dress fell open all the way to her tailbone. He smoothed a palm across her newly bare skin, soothing and searching. Between his hand low on her hips and his other on her back, she felt held down in the best way—anchored, cared for. Adored.

“Mm. We were on the couch in your office, and you laid me down on it. We were kissing, a lot, and I imagined what it would feel like to…” she swallowed, “have your mouth on me. On my stomach, on my tits.”

She could practically hear his grin. “Wicked, you are. Was it wonderful?”

“Yes.” It slipped out without hesitation or shame. His warm, confident attentions leached the inhibitions from her. “It made me so—you pressed your thigh between my legs so I could ride it, and I did, and it felt so good.”

The moan that escaped him, despite his efforts to bite it back, made her aware of just how shockingly wet she’d become. She could feel it leaking down her thighs, probably onto her dress. 

“I’d let you use me any way you wish,” he rasped. “But, oh, you’d be magnificent like that. Gasping and starry-eyed astride me before I’d even touched you. Satisfied with just my thigh.”

She groaned softly. He didn’t know the half of it.

“You didn’t get me off that way,” she murmured. He was silent, rubbing her back in circles that melted her bones to the bed, waiting. “You got on your knees and pulled my underwear to the side, and you ate me out. You were smiling. I came so hard.”

With a desperate noise from deep in his chest, he rolled her onto her back. He’d shrugged his jacket off at some point, leaving him in just his shirt and suspenders. As she watched from below him, he hooked his thumbs into the straps and eased them off his shoulders to hang around his hips.

“Is my happiness so erotic?” he asked, in what she imagined was supposed to be a suave, witty remark, but the thickness in his voice gave him away. His nimble fingers, the same ones that had captivated her the day they’d met, fumbled to unbutton his crisp white shirt. Halfway down, he gave up and tugged it over his head. 

She swallowed, pushing herself to sit up. Her undone dress slumped off her shoulders and barely clung to her front. The elegant twists of the symbol tattooed over his heart bent and morphed with the rhythm of his breathing. He was too much all at once like this: vulnerable yet debauched, raw and wanting. Her last spark of willpower died. 

“Yeah, it is. Just a side effect of falling inexorably in love with someone, I guess.”

“ Daphne. ” His hand flew to cover his mouth, then to cradle her cheek, as though touching her would make her words more real.

She unsteadily slid off the bed, holding her dress to her front. When she faced him head-on, when she felt the full blaze of his attention engulf her from his perch on the mattress, she let go. The silk slid off of her in one fluid movement, and she was naked. 

“I am… terrified,” he confessed, his voice thick, “that I will never recover from you.”

“Then don’t. Don’t you dare even try.” 

He held his hand out to her, palm up, fingers reaching. She stepped out of her dress and crawled back onto the bed to take it, mirroring his posture to kneel in front of him. For a long, slow moment, they looked at each other in the yellow light of his bedside lamp. She took his other hand in hers as well and dropped a kiss to each before planting them on her waist. His answering smile was equal parts unsteady and heartbreakingly radiant.

Her admiring gaze slid from his face, down his heaving chest and broad torso, to the closure of his fine trousers. Even through the wool, his desire for her made a thick, obvious impression. 

“Yes,” he answered, abruptly. “Yes. I want you to.”

Daphne tipped her forehead to rest against his as she undid the closures with unsteady fingers. When the waistband popped free and the zipper slid down, they rearranged so that she could pull the last of his clothes away. 

They’d been naked together before, in this very room, on this bed. So why were her hands shaking as she tossed his clothes aside? Why did this feel like rarified air? Why did every line and shade of him feel too precious to forget? 

“I love you,” she said, finally, finally , and his eyes flared with brilliance. “Do you also feel like this is—like, tonight is—”

“Intense? Overwhelming? Life-altering?” he asked, his familiar humor seeping back into the moment, if a bit shakily. “Absolutely yes. As I said, I’m terrified. But, I’d be a poor lover indeed to rush a single moment of this. Come here.”

Gale reclined onto the pillows and she joined him, face to face on their sides, snaking an arm under his head and hitching a leg over his hip. He welcomed her with a soft kiss and a deep sigh that echoed into her own body. 

“There we are,” he whispered. “Just this, just us.”

There was us, now, she realized. That’s what usually happened when two people loved each other, which she and Gale did, now. She’d never felt the transition from singular to plural hit so viscerally. 

“Just us,” she affirmed. She kissed his forehead, and he hummed with such contentment that she had to do it again. He pulled her to press against him, and she was shocked at how intimate it felt just to hold him—the warmth radiating off his skin, his thatch of chest hair pressed against her own chest, the smell of his fading cologne mixed with his skin’s clean musk. He shifted closer, and his cock pressed warm and thrilling against her belly. 

She snaked a hand between them, skating down the firm planes of his stomach and curling her fingers around its girth. His breath stuttered.

“God, you have no idea what your dick does for me,” she smiled lazily, catching his eye as she stroked him. “You feel so good, even in my hand.”

Gale flushed bright pink, bravado shattered by her frankness. “I’m, ah. I’m so glad you think so. Terribly relieved.” Mischievous, she licked a wet stripe onto her palm before wrapping it around him again, and his eyes widened.

“I do. You’re beautiful everywhere,” she rasped, leaning in to brush a kiss along his cheekbone and up to his ear, “but this… it’s almost too good. I can’t believe you’re real. And mine. ”

He inhaled sharply and rolled them so he lay under her, her legs straddling his thighs. She threw a steadying hand against his sternum while she pumped him, slow and teasing. She couldn’t keep a victorious smirk off her face.

“Oh, look at you,” she breathed. His eyes unfocused where he gazed at her behind his glasses. “Do you like that? When I call you mine?”

“ Ye-es ,” he shuddered. “ God . I don’t deserve you. I don’t—”

“You can’t deserve me,” she interrupted him, her voice rough with conviction. Her hand stroked him a little harder, a little faster, just on the edge of what she knew he really wanted. “Let’s make that clear. I’m in love with you, and there’s nothing you can fucking do about it.”

His back arched and the breath punched from his lungs in an quiet, ecstatic moan. A trickle of clear fluid leaked from the tip of his cock and flowed down her fingers. Her heart raced as she watched his body waver out of his control, succumbing to the mindless bliss she offered even as his big, anxious brain struggled to allow it. Somehow, she had to get him out of his head completely.

She felt his delicate skin begin to stick against her hand, so she held it up in front of his face. 

“Lick.”

His breath steamed against her outstretched hand as he opened his mouth obediently. The wet, slow drag of his tongue mapped her palm. She trailed her thumb along his lower lip, and he sucked it into his mouth with a moan. A fresh wave of arousal flooded her.

“You’re a fucking wet dream,” she gasped, taking his dick in hand again with a tug up from the root of him. He keened. “I’m gonna take you apart, just like this, and then I want you to pound me through the bed. Yeah? Let me bring you there. Let go.”

His breaths came hard and fast, his fingers scrabbled against the bedspread. She could feel his anxiety stubbornly clinging, even as his legs shook and his abs clenched rhythmically with the forewarnings of his orgasm.

She followed a wild instinct and leaned over him, pressing two fingers of her other hand against his parted lips. His mouth yielded immediately. Gale’s eyes fluttered as he took her up to the knuckle, sucking her fingers deep and laving at them with his tongue. She withdrew them minutely and shoved them back in again. He whimpered through his full mouth.

“ There you are. Show me how much you like it,” she urged, her voice ragged. His hips bucked weakly up into her fist as she finally took the brakes off and let her hand fuck him while her fingers thrust shallowly into his throat. “Almost there, gorgeous. Come so pretty for me. Make me proud.”

On those last three words, his cock pulsed in her fist. Gale mumbled something frantic around her fingers and pitched his head back as his release splashed hot over her fist and up his torso. She felt his muscular thighs go rigid under her and watched with feral delight as his entire body writhed in pleasure, his hands gripping his hair by the roots and clutching at the pillows. An endless stream of praise flowed from her through every shudder, until finally, he collapsed against the mattress with a heavy sigh. 

She withdrew her fingers from his lips, and he kissed them with a dazed smile.

“All good?” she panted. 

 “Great scott.” He shot her another delirious grin before collapsing against the headboard. “That was… an awakening, for me, personally.”

“Nothing wrong with wanting fingers in your mouth. I get it,” she shrugged, privately adding great scott to her running catalog of his turns of phrase. “We can have oral fixations together.” Her tongue lapped a drop of come from the side of her hand, and his spent cock twitched.

He huffed a laugh, suddenly bashful. “ Yes , that, but—hm. Everything else, as well. That was entirely new. Incredible, I must emphasize, but new.”

Daphne’s brain whirred and clunked. Surely he didn’t mean—

“That wasn’t your first hand job, ” she said, perhaps a little more incredulous than she intended. Catching herself, she backpedaled. “Not that, I mean, that’s totally fine, it’s just—you’re really hot, and I know you’ve had sex. It’s a natural assumption.”

He stared up at the ceiling, worrying his lip with his teeth. “Perhaps it is—and, thank you—but there’s much about my experience so far that I’m realizing may not be strictly natural. To answer your question, yes. That was, in your terms, my first hand job. ”

“And last time,” she stammered, “when I put my mouth—” 

“That, too,” he replied. Her stomach dropped in disbelief. “Forgive me for not mentioning it, I was understandably distracted.”

She shook her head. “I’m surprised, but that’s not, like, your fault or anything. You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.”

He picked his head up to look at her though crooked glasses, and her heart ached fiercely. There was a new set to his brow, a glint in his eye that telegraphed something vital had clicked into place.

“I… want to,” he said, as though the words were occurring to him as he spoke. “Not right this moment, obviously, but, I think I want to unburden myself to you about what happened—before. With her. If it’s too much to ask of you, that would be completely understandable.”

Relief that he felt safe enough to talk about Mystra (which, Daphne imagined, was totally her real name and not a breathtakingly stupid alias) mixed with bone-deep dread for what he’d reveal. The glimpses she’d had so far weren’t good. The details would definitely be worse.

“If you’re trying to scare me away, you’re going to have to work much, much harder than that,” she said, casual, even while her heart pounded in her throat. “It’s a date. Anyway, don’t move—let me get you a washcloth so you can de-jizz yourself.”

He laughed, his fingers smoothing over his mussed hair as he flopped back against the mattress. “Am I always to suffer? I’m in love with someone too daft to be believed,” he sighed good-naturedly.

It hadn’t fully sunken in until he said it so casually, like he didn’t even have to think about it: he loved her. That pretty man loved her. 

Daphne flicked the bathroom light on and grabbed a clean washcloth from the neat stack on the counter, turning the tap to hot and letting the water run. She glanced up into the mirror and recoiled—her makeup was holding up passably, but her hair was a lopsided mess of curls and tangles. She plucked out all the bobby pins she could find and ruffled it back into place with her fingers. For good measure, she went ahead and washed her face with something labeled “beard shampoo” on his vanity. It smelled heavily of rosemary and did a shockingly thorough job of removing her eyeliner. 

The water finally steaming, she wet and wrung out the washcloth. When she returned to bed, he’d put his glasses away somewhere and taken his hair down, as well. The domesticity of it tugged at her already-bursting heart.

“Hot towel, sir?” she smiled in her best flight attendant voice.

“Oh, yes please, thank you,” he replied smoothly, an amused smirk playing on his face. “And one of those very small bottles of wine, if it’s not too much trouble?”

“It is,” she chirped. “Fuck off.”

Gale snorted, taking the cloth from her and scrubbing away the mess spattered across his torso. When he finished, he tossed it to the side and reached to pull her down to him. 

“You are terribly funny, you know,” he said, his dark eyes glittering with intent, “but I fear I’m not distractible tonight.”

“Distractible from?” Anticipation thrilled in her stomach.

He leaned in close as his body slotted on top of hers, pushing her back against the pillows. “Bringing you to ecstasy. Filling you with every desperate thought you’ve ever inspired in me until you know how completely I belong to you. Making love to you so well that you beg for me, and you receive me, because I can deny you nothing.”

Her head lolled with the force of his words. He dove in to mouth hungrily at her neck, sucking and biting hard enough to leave a mark that would definitely need covering come Monday, but she couldn’t care about anything except the scrape of his teeth on her pulse point. Let him mark her up, indulge that possessive streak. She’d press her thumb to the bruise just to feel him again.

He grasped the back of her knee and pulled it wide, spreading her open, before skating his fingertips back up her thigh and dipping into her folds. A delicious tremor wracked her from the gentlest brush of his touch against her cunt. He swore.

“I knew the moment I tasted you that once would never be enough. You shake so sweetly for me. You were made for pleasure.” His fingers pressed against the length of her slit and dragged, hard, making her hips stutter. Again, then again, he coaxed her body apart until she was a pliant, soaking mess for him.

By the time he finally pressed one long finger inside her, her breath came in shallow, tortured pants. A second one soon joined it, curling up in a way that made her mouth hang open, until a third worked its way in as well. Her back arched at the stretch. 

“Shh,” he soothed her. “You’re so good to me. Let me in, darling, there , yes, relax—”

She felt stuffed, full, pulled wholly out of her body as he crooked his fingers inside her and drew spirals against her walls where they fluttered around him. Her skin flushed hot, her eyes rolled back in her head, caught between trying to squirm away from the stimulation and grinding harder into his hand. Gloriously, with a whine that might have been his name, the first deep, irresistible tug of climax pulled her under.

His comforting weight settled on top of her while his fingertips beckoned wave after wave out of her, grounding her in the moment even as her mind went blank and the world went dark. The warmth of his lips, his breath, his skin enveloped her in its familiar comfort. When she came back to herself, he was still on top of her, still buried up to his knuckles, murmuring gratitude into her neck.

She squirmed. His fingers didn’t move. 

“All right?” he asked, kissing up to her ear.

She huffed, amused. “Fucking phenomenal.” She shifted her hips again, but he continued to hold her in place. 

“I’m glad. Phenomenal is a good place to start, to say nothing of fucking phenomenal.” His fingers slowly dragged out of her, brushing against her overstimulated nerves. She gasped in surprise when he pushed them back in. 

“Beautiful, I don’t know if I can—”

“Please?” he asked softly, a raw edge to his voice. “Please. One more, and then I’ll have you. I don’t want—I might hurt you if we don’t. Just one more.” 

She opened her mouth to point out that she was very much not a virgin, and she might die if he didn’t fuck her into low-earth orbit immediately, but the context of his fears caught up to her in time. His hesitancy to even let her see him naked at first, his certainty that his dick was a disappointment and he’d never make her deal with it, his shocking gaps in experience came into focus as one picture. Mystra.

What sadistic mindfuckery had she put Gale through to keep him underfoot for so many years?

“I love you,” Daphne said to the nervous academic in her arms. 

His brow furrowed, even as his cheeks flushed. “I love you too? Very much.”

She gave him a small smile. “I know you’d never hurt me if you could help it. And if you did ohfuck— “ she grunted, his fingers working in and out of her again with a wet noise, “if you did, I would just tell you and we’d do something different. No big deal. Sex is improv, not theater.”

He huffed, pushing up on his elbow to look down at her. “Sex is improv, ” he restated flatly, a quirk to his eyebrow.

“Yeah. You’ve never heard that?” She canted her hips down on his fingers, asking for more of the too-much feeling she’d already begun to enjoy. He pushed deep, nudging farther into her with a slow rhythm, and she hummed contentedly. 

“Think of it like… when I come to bed with you, we’re making something up together. You have ideas, I have ideas, and we see what we like. It’s raw, and spontaneous, and imperfect, but that’s what makes it so good, right? The trust that we’re collaborators, not performers. There’s no script and no audience. Just us.”

Gale was quiet. His hair hung around her in brown waves, swaying minutely with every thrust of his hand. Her lips parted a fraction as a honeyed warmth radiated outward from his clever fingers into her limbs, already impossibly good.

Finally, he seemed to come to a conclusion. “So, if I were to voice the idea that I would enjoy it very much if you ran your fingers through my hair and watched as I licked you senseless?” 

Daphne’s hips jerked hard onto his fingers, pulling a moan from both of them. “Goddamn, you’re a quick study.”

He gently withdrew his fingers from her with a soft rasp of laughter. “It’s not all Grecian urns and coliseums up here, you know. I read voraciously about many other subjects.”

Daphne scooted back up the bed, arranging the pillows against the headboard and draping herself onto them. Seconds passed before her brain finally processed what he’d actually said. Did he—surely he didn’t mean? 

“Does someone with two PhDs still read pornography? ”

She expected him to play along in their usual style, be the bashful foil to her teasing Jezebel. The man looked her straight in the face and said—

 “Oh, yes. And you forgot my Masters.”

The immediate flush of surprise and delight and desire must have shown plain on her features, because his mouth softened into a smirk.

“Surely it’s no shock that a man like me enjoys all forms of the written word?” he asked, trailing fingertips down her neck and between her breasts before palming one with a squeeze. “Another thing we have in common, in fact. Don’t be coy—I saw your coffee table earlier. Heaped with mass-market academic romances, all seemingly new releases? All entirely unrelated, I’m sure, to that little daydream about opening your legs for me in my office?”

He urged her knees apart and knelt between them. His frank, wanting eyes met hers as he took two of the fingers that had just brought her to orgasm and laid them across his tongue to wet them before teasing them along the seam of her. Her vision swam.

“I could scarcely summon the willpower to make it out of your front door. The image of you in your armchair by the fire, turning page after page of love stories like the ones you wished for us, swept away in images of heroines being pressed up against bookcases and bent over lecture hall desks—spread across basement office couches—”

“Jesus Christ, ” she keened, her back bowing at the first gentle circle over her clit. 

“Just Gale is fine.” She shot him an exasperated look. He looked extremely pleased with himself, and through some perverse trick, that’s what turned her on. “Professor if you like, which I have evidence to suspect that you do.” Well. He had her there.

He pulled away and laid himself between her legs, throwing one over his shoulder and spreading the other wide with a firm hand. Without pretense, without so much as glance her way, the soft heat of his mouth sealed around her clit and sucked . She cried out, and he moaned from deep in his chest as he laved his tongue up the length of her in a slow, deliberate slide. When he reached her clit again, he did something that made her hips buck against his face and her fingers scrabble in his hair for purchase. His satisfied hum buzzed through her. He dove back into her with a filthy wet noise and a devotion that bordered on religious.

She lost track of what he was doing, where, how long. The arm across her hips flexed to keep her in place on the bed. Her fingers scraped across his scalp and through his hair. She existed somewhere outside of time.

“Good, so fucking good, don’t stop,” she panted, grinding her hips to his relentless mouth as he found a place that made her breathing stutter. “I’m gonna come my fucking brains out if you keep—fuck. It’s coming. Shit—do it, do it, yes— ”

This orgasm hit her with the force and subtlety of a blow to the back of her head. His tongue worked inside of her just in time, urging her through it while an honest-to-god scream wrenched from her and her body shook apart. Somewhere in the house, something thumped and crashed to the hardwood. He nuzzled her clit with feather-light brushes of his lips until she giggled and tugged on his hair.

“I believe,” he smirked between gasping breaths, “you may have scared my cat.”

They both laughed, giddy. “Objection. I was never that loud before you did whatever fucking witchcraft you did to me. You scared your cat. I was just the conduit,” she sighed.

“I’ll argue the point later. With slides.” He jabbed a finger for emphasis, even as his head drooped heavy against her thigh.

“And a bibliography?”

“Annotated,” he mumbled.

“Annotated? I can’t not fuck you.”

He laughed again, but she felt the way his body tensed. “That was a joke,” she clarified hastily. “We don’t have to. I feel thoroughly fucked as it is, I promise.”

He mouthed a kiss just below her belly button in a bizarre, tender display of adoration. He looked up at her with soft eyes. Without his glasses on, she wondered how clearly he could see her.

“Not thoroughly enough for my tastes,” he said, a determined set to his mouth. “I’ll just need a little patience, I expect. If I haven’t used your last reserves of it already.”

Daphne’s jaw tensed. Someday, she didn’t care if it was years from now, she would find the root of his self-loathing and tear it out of him with her bare hands. She would bind him a book of everything she loved about him, starting at the top of his head, and make him read it to her until the pages wore out. But this wasn’t the venue.

“Duh. Love is patience,” she said instead. The rise and fall of his chest between her knees stopped short. 

He fixed her with a look she couldn’t place. For a long moment, she kept expecting him to pick up his endless stream of chatting again, but he just. Looked. 

“If I asked you to stay on your back, would you still want it?” he asked, tentative. “I haven’t attempted this in years and I think it would… be best. If I could see your face.”

Gale. “Of course.”

He moved, but not to hover over her, as she’d hoped—he reached for the drawer of his bedside table and fumbled until he withdrew a still-sealed box of condoms. 

“I hope it wasn’t too forward of me,” he stammered, “buying these, but I imagined we might need them—“

Her arm shot out to grasp his wrist before he could open it. “We don’t. I mean, we totally can if you want to, but I have an IUD. If we’re both clean then…I think we’re good to go.”

Gale’s eyes widened and a pained noise leaked from deep in his chest. “I have never been so elated to assume incorrectly,” he groaned, tossing the box back where it came from and shoving the drawer closed. He dove to kiss her with abandon, snarling under his breath when she wrapped a hand around the nape of his neck and yanked him closer. She pulled his hips to settle against hers, the weight of his cock pressing heavy and warm at her entrance. They were so close.

“Daphne,” he breathed against her sweat-damp skin. “My dawn. My new world. Tell me this is truly what you want. This, now, with me.”

She bit her lip while she shimmied ever so slightly down the bed to notch the tip of him inside her. His pupils blew wide. “Please.”

A long, stunned moment passed, and he nodded. One of his broad hands snaked under her to steady her back. He took a shaky breath, and pushed .

She’d had him in her hand, and in her mouth, but the slow breach of his cock still felt even bigger than she’d expected. The way he stretched her made the edges of brain go fuzzy. Tension she hadn’t realized she was holding in her shoulders vanished, leaving her loose and pliant against the pillows. When he bottomed out, the sensation of being fucked and stuffed and full radiated all the way up to her ribs. 

Her muscles fluttered around him, and it knocked the breath from his lungs in a way that made her preen internally.

“It’s so good,” she whispered into his hair. “You feel so good.”

He shivered, letting his head rest against her shoulder. “All right?”

“Fucking amazing. You can try moving, if you want.”

The hand not cradling her lower back planted next to her head. He nudged deeper into her before drawing out until they were just barely connected. When he slid forward again and her body thrilled to meet him, she smiled and let her head flop back to the pillows. The feeling of having him over her, around her, inside her made her thoughts burn away like mist.

“Daphne?” his anxious voice asked from above her.

“Love you . So fucking full.” She rolled her hips beneath him, seeking more, and he swore through gritted teeth. The rhythm of his thrusts was slow, patient, cautious as he started to fuck her in earnest. It was incredible, but not what she needed. He was still treating her like she was breakable. 

She focused again to take in his face. His brows knitted together, his eyes darting. 

“A little harder, gorgeous,” she breathed. “Let me feel it.”

He swallowed, hard, and picked up his pace. The soft, wet sounds of their hips meeting again and again echoed in the silence. 

“Oh my god, ” she whimpered, her legs trembling. “Yes. Yes. Keep—yes—”

One of his knees slipped on the duvet, plunging him too far into her. The head of his cock bumped her cervix. She winced and sucked in a breath through her teeth.

In an instant, Gale was off of her and scrambling backward to the foot of the bed, chest heaving, eyes enormous.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he blurted, panicked. “God damn it all. I’ve ruined everything. It was cruel of me to even try.”

She sat up, bewildered. “ What? ”

“The only other person I’ve slept with could only bear seconds with me , ” he explained bitterly. “Sex with me is painful, no matter how much I want to believe I can change. I’m so, so, sorry. You should—you can go. Or I will, I can sleep in my office—”

“No one’s going. Sweetheart, what the fuck are you talking about?” she said, as calmly as she could while trying to brush off the sting of his command to leave. With a sinking feeling, she recognized his glazed eyes and trembling hands from that awful morning in their hallway. Only this time, there was no way in hell she was leaving him alone to ride it out. He remained frozen at the end of his bed, shoulders curled in as though he expected her to hit him.

Her blood ran cold. Part of him probably did expect her to hit him.

“I don’t know what she told you,” Daphne began, trying desperately to imitate the gentle-but-firm delivery her therapist had mastered, “but bumps and knocks just fucking happen. Especially if both of us are out of practice. I’m fine.”

“Don’t patronize me, Daphne, I know—you hissed. ”

“And I’ll probably do it again.”  She slowly scooted down the bed until only half of it remained between them. “So will you. That’s just how it goes. Did you hurt me on purpose?”

He was silent, his gaze dropped to stare a hole through the duvet.

“I… don’t think so. Not consciously. But that doesn’t matter. If I did it, then I must have meant it. I don’t want to deny your reality.” He sounded like he was delivering lines he’d memorized, his tone flat. Daphne’s rage roared hot and loud in her ears. He’d said something about Mystra creating a world for him to live inside before, and for the first time, she was beginning to understand what he meant.

“I have no goddamn clue what ‘denying my reality’ means, but I don’t think you’ve ever done that. You’re just a— a normal dude , Gale. You’re a normal dude with normal problems and a big dick, and I knew all of that when I fell in love with you.”

Something in there snapped his focus to her and cleared the fog from his eyes. She clung to that foothold.

“Seriously? You’re the most fucking normal,” she insisted, her voice pitching up. “You’re literally just some guy. A guy I’m obsessed with, because you’re kind and smart and thoughtful, but there’s nothing inherently wrong or different about any part of you. I could reasonably expect to open the LL Bean catalog and see you on page six modeling hiking pants, and honestly, I love that.”

The rigid lines of his body relaxed a fraction. His eyes, still bright with fear, roamed over her as though he were trying to find evidence that she was lying. She let him.

“You really believe me so mundane?” he asked, in a tone somewhere between halfhearted teasing and despondency. She inched closer to him, just far enough away not to crowd him. His foot fidgeted and rested against hers.

“Safe. I’m trying to tell you that you make me feel safe, you beautiful idiot,” she pleaded. He inhaled sharply. “Safe enough to tell you that I’m really fucking worried about what just happened. I think it’s time to call it for the night. We can take a shower, maybe have some tea, you can read me, I don’t know, the Iliad or something.”

She moved to get off the bed, but was shocked into staying when his hand grabbed her elbow. 

“That’s a great idea,” he said, finding his voice. “I have one as well.”

Her eyebrows raised. There he was. Gale the fast learner. The former child prodigy with a chip on his shoulder. She motioned for him to continue. 

“I won’t pretend to know what I want. I don’t believe I even know what I like, outside of, well,  bringing you to orgasm,” he confessed, “but I am certain that I’ve loved everything you’ve ever done to me. Especially earlier, when you had me lie back while you, ah—”

“—jerked you off and let you suck on my fingers?” she interjected. “We can do that again; I’d be happy to.”

“Not quite.” He sighed. Daphne took his hand in hers, squeezing it apologetically. “Rather, I already know that letting you have the run of me feels right. On my back, with you over me—the peace was indescribable. I can’t help but imagine that would translate to success here, as well.”

It clicked. He’d be gorgeous like that, and her mind was already racing with all the little tricks she could use to ruin him, but—“Listen, I mean it. We can stop here for tonight. Just say the word.”

With a firm set to his mouth, he leaned back on an elbow and stretched his legs across the bed. The length of him, hardening again under her gaze, lay tempting and thick across his stomach. He reached out a hand for her to take. 

She wavered for a moment. Was this what was best for him? Probably not. A responsible person would make him drink a bottle of water and take a hot shower to reset his nervous system. But that wasn’t what he wanted. What he wanted was her. 

“If you’re that into me getting rough with you,” she scoffed, taking his hand and throwing a leg over him, “you could have just asked.”

“I’m asking. I’m begging,” he said back, his voice warm and familiar again. “I can grovel if you like.”

“Mm. Maybe next time.” She placed his hands on her hips and wrapped her fingers around his cock. It only took a few moments of attention before he was hard again, the muscles in his abs jumping with each tug. Satisfied, she rose onto her knees and slid the head of his cock into her. 

She paused, just letting them breathe into the moment. There was a crackling, giddy anticipation here that had been absent before, and she couldn’t hold back a grin when he looked up at her with soft, dark eyes. 

“Love of my life,” he said, a relieved sigh in his voice.

She eased down onto him until she settled against his hips. That delicious, hazy feeling flooded her again, and this time, she got to watch the moment it hit him too. His breath stuttered out of him on a drawn-out moan, a vague smile at the corner of his mouth, and he collapsed back to the bed. 

“There you are, beautiful. See how tight we fit? How fucking good we are together?” She ground their hips together, dizzy with how well he stretched her already overstimulated cunt. “I’m gonna keep you like this, I think. On your back, all fucked-out and mine. If I was made for pleasure, you were, too.”

His back arched under her as yes god please gritted through his teeth. She leaned forward to brace on either side of his head and snapped her hips forward, again, again, until she shook the bed with the rhythm of it.  It was intoxicating to watch him feel all of this too, now, hear the thousand little moans and keens and sighs that streamed from him. His fingers clung to the soft skin of her waist, even as he lost himself. 

She leaned down to kiss him, and the minute shift in angle made them both shiver.

“This is… I had no idea. No idea,” he murmured against her lips, so quiet she barely heard him. “You teach me devotion I’ve never known. I was lost from the start.”

Her heartbeat thudded in her ears. Suddenly, unexpectedly, she felt another climax winding tight in her belly. 

She crushed their mouths together again, silently chasing the edge so she could throw herself over it. Only when she was past the point of no return, when her hips canted and her eyes fluttered with it, did she let him see how undone he’d made her. “Oh, fuck, I’m coming, Gale, I’m coming— ”

His heavy-lidded eyes blew wide in disbelief as she fell forward onto his chest and writhed through it, shuddering around the thick stretch of his cock. Beneath her, his chest heaved, his breaths came ragged and desperate. She reached down and rubbed her clit mercilessly as he followed her, her name a shaky groan as she felt him pulse inside her. A warm tide of come leaked from her when he finally pulled out. They were both too boneless to do anything about it.

She looked up at him from his chest to find him already fixated on her. 

“You okay?” she panted. 

He huffed a laugh. “More okay than I’ve ever been, I’d wager. And more exhausted.”

“Good. Same.”

As he washed and conditioned her hair in the shower, as he handed her his favorite t-shirt to sleep in, as he smiled into her goodnight kiss and pulled her close in the dark, the novelty of suddenly sharing so much intimacy made her head spin. There was so much they would need to work through, so many complications looming in their future. She hoped she was up to the task.

But they had time , she reminded herself. They had so much time.

Chapter Text

Daphne woke to faint dawn light streaming in through the windows, a pleasant soreness in her legs, and someone warm and solid pressed to her back, lazily kissing up her neck.

She opened her eyes a crack and remembered with a start that she wasn’t in her room. The events of the previous night came slamming back to her in hot, lurid flashes—their teeth clacking in a particularly furious kiss, his desperate moans muffled by her fingers, raking her hands through his hair where it spilled over her spread thighs. A sigh on his lips as she finally sank onto him: love of my life . 

Eight weeks. She’d known this guy for eight weeks, and now they were saying “I love you” to each other and having life-changing sex inside the goddamn Aurilssbarg Lighthouse. What was she doing? Her breath caught as her eyes snapped open. 

“Mm. Did I wake you?” his deep voice rumbled from behind her, rough with sleep. His familiar, melodic cadence snapped her out of her panic. Gale. Not just a guy. Gale. “Apologies, I couldn’t help myself.”

“No, it’s nice, I like it.” She found his hand on her hip and dragged it to rest over her heart, atop the faded Christ’s College crest on her borrowed shirt. He made a satisfied noise and pulled her flush against his chest. As if by instinct, the tension eased fractionally from her shoulders.

Still, the pit in her stomach remained. Waking up swaddled in the arms of someone she loved, but whose middle name she’d only learned last night, felt chaotic even for her tastes. And what did he think? Assuming he meant it, what did “love of my life” entail in practice? Was that, like, an exclusive label? Were they dating?

Best to rip the band-aid off now, before she started spiraling. “So, um. We should probably talk about this.”

His breath huffed against her ear. “Blimey, good morning to you, too. What’s on your mind?”

“Are we, like… so, you said you loved me, and I said I loved you.” Great start, Daphne, definitely something a well-adjusted woman in her fucking thirties would say. 

“I vividly recall those events, yes.” His tone was wry, but she felt his entire body go tense behind her. 

“And I do! I love you,” she added hastily. “I spent most of last night trying to avoid blurting it out over dinner, seriously. My question is—god, there’s no way to ask this that isn’t lame—”

“ What are we? ” She nodded. He dropped a kiss to her shoulder. “Just like in the movies, eh. If it helps, I’ve never had this conversation before, so I’m not one to judge your phrasing.”

She bit the inside of her cheek to stifle the oh, honey threatening to leave her mouth.

“Gosh. I can tell you what I envision, perhaps, and we can discuss?” he pitched, unsure. “Or you’re welcome to go first, of course. It’s likely obvious how I feel, but I don’t—I have no desire to persuade you into something you don’t want.”

The melancholic undercurrent of those words made her chest ache. He was clearing the way for her to let him down easy.

“Sure, I’ll go first,” she murmured. The hand over her heart tightened.

“First of all, I really mean this.” She turned her head as far as it would go to glimpse him out of the corner of her eye. “I’m in love with you. Like, honest-to-god, Jane Austen, probably have the freckles on the backs of your hands memorized, in love with you. Every day that I get to spend time with you is the best day of my life.” The rise and fall of his chest against her back stuttered irregularly. 

“But that’s also my problem, right. Time.” She swallowed, hard. “I can love you all I want; you’re still leaving to go back to England in June. I can’t even think too much about it, because it makes me want to throw up.”

“My visa’s valid through most of July, actually,” he interjected softly. “I promised to teach the first session of summer classes.”

“I’m—that’s incredible, wow.” It was embarrassing how much pure, distilled joy flooded her at the news they had one more month together. Still. She had to get through the scary part. 

“But even then, what happens after that? Those flights are really expensive. We’d only get to see each other a few times a year. Do you think that—like, trying to keep this going,” she stumbled out, “is something that would be worth the effort? To you?”

He sighed, deep and tired. “Oh, Daphne.” She froze. That wasn’t an answer.

“I haven’t made myself clear at all, have I,” he murmured. “Let me remedy that. Yes. You are worth the effort. You are worth every effort. I’ve been daydreaming about negotiating holiday visits with our families since Thanksgiving.”

Her face flashed hot with relief. He was serious, then, about everything. This was real.

“Good,” she breathed, simply. 

“Good?”

“Yeah.”

Silence hung over them for a few moments, over the white comforter and its stripes of sunlight and their huddled bodies beneath. His fingernails picked at the screen print on her shirt. She threw one leg behind her to drape over his knee, the best approximation of an embrace she could manage like this.

“So, uh,” she started, her voice cracking. “What about you? What do you, you know, want?” 

“Mm. What do I want.” He rested his chin on her shoulder. Against her back, his heartbeat pounded a sharp, anxious tattoo.

“I want to take care of you,” Gale declared, thoughtful and deliberate. “I want to buy every cup of coffee you ever drink. I want to live with your hand in mine. I want to empty my heart at your feet and let you sift through the contents. I want to love you without ceasing. I want to belong to you, only you, and if you’re willing, I want you to belong to me.”

This must be what it’s like to be sucked into the vacuum of space, she thought. She was floating, she was out of air, the stars were unimaginably bright.

“You sure?” she managed, even as her heart came up to strangle her throat.

He brushed a kiss across her temple. “Absolutely. Everything else is merely logistics for me. Logistics, if I’m honest—oh, god. Forgive me for not exactly being proud of this—logistics made significantly easier by the, ah, several million pounds? Gathering dust in my trust fund? Don’t worry about the plane tickets, is all I’m saying.”

Several million pounds. Which was twice as many several million dollars, probably. She’d figured he had money, but— several million, in a trust fund he felt rich-kid guilt about. Selfishly, her mind raced with ways she’d be happy to relieve him of this blemish on his character: the new roof her house needed, the student loan payments auto-drafting out of her bank account every first of the month, that silk-alpaca blend she’d been wistfully squeezing at the yarn shop for months. 

“What the fuck, Gale ,” she blurted before she could catch herself. He groaned, hiding his face in her neck, and she playfully elbowed him in the ribs. “You can’t just like, confess your undying devotion and then casually mention by the way, I’m a fucking millionaire, are you insane? ”

“I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable,” he protested through nervous laughter. “But then you were so worried about the flights, and you don’t need to be—”

“For the love of —”

He made a stifled noise somewhere between amusement and mortification, his lips curling in the crook of her neck. “You have the whole of it now, I promise. I’m asking to twine our lives together, and I’m ready to do anything that could require. That’s all. I suppose what you might call that would be a matter of your personal taste: your boyfriend, if that’s what suits you, or your partner, or your, I don’t know, your gentleman caller.”

“ Gentleman caller? ” she spluttered, incredulous. “How did I not see it before, you say the most trust-fund shit—”

“Oh, give over,” he groaned, exasperated. She cackled and leaned her head back to clumsily land a kiss on his face. “So, that’s not the option you’d hypothetically choose, I’m gathering.”

She retched, and his answering laugh rumbled from his chest into hers. He squeezed her tighter to him, nuzzling his face into her hair. The lingering doubt and uncertainty clouding her desires vanished.

Gale was so infinitely careful with her. Even now, in the act of outlining exactly what he wanted with her and how badly he wanted it, he remained adamant about leaving her space to choose. The love and care and security he offered didn’t come at the expense of her autonomy. As far as she could tell, it didn’t come at any expense.

She was seeing him for the first time again, back in the cafe, pastry crumbs on his oxfords. A sudden miracle of a person.

“Yeah, boyfriend or partner both work for me. I imagine I’ll just alternate.” His startled inhale spread an unrestrained smile across her face. “What do you want to call me? I’m not picky.”

He went silent, thinking hard. She just skimmed her fingers over his knuckles and waited. 

“Likewise, I think? I always imagined you’d deserve something special, something less pedestrian,” he finally said, “but now that I have the unexpected honor of actually making the decision, I’m faltering. Girlfriend seems so juvenile in the abstract, but with you—I can’t deny that there’s a certain whimsy to the word that suits the way you make me feel. Partner, moreover, is appealingly simple in its utility. A real Volkswagen of a label.”

She snorted, even as her heart hammered under his hand. “Ah yes, the inherent romance of German engineering.”

“Well, actually, the Germans do indeed offer a surprisingly endearing vocabulary for lovers,” he added, perking up. “There’s Liebling, which literally means ‘favorite,’ and there’s a compound word for ‘life traveling companion’ that—”

“Jesus, no—fine, I’ll be picky.” He chuckled behind her, a delirious thrill to his amusement.

Daphne’s skin prickled hot as she realized they’d just passed the event horizon with as much ease and humor as any of their conversations. It felt so foreign to be sure about someone who seemed, frankly, even more sure about her. 

“So we’re doing this,” she murmured. “We’re together.” 

His voice in her ear was soft, deep, final. “Indeed we are.” 

She swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. “I think this is when you kiss me.”

He pounced. He rolled her onto her back and covered her body with his, slotting a knee between her legs, cupping the nape of her neck with so much tenderness she could barely look at him. She couldn’t not look at him, though. The strong planes of his face softened by stubble and creases, that mysterious tattoo twisting with each heavy breath, the purpled marks scattered across his olive skin where she’d bitten and sucked the night before.

This was her person. Warm and alive, tangled in her and—not smiling, necessarily; his teeth worried his lower lip and his forehead was corrugated under his wild nest of sleep-tossed hair. He was more… radiating. In his painfully honest way. Joy and disbelief and triumph and bewilderment poured off of him like the morning light thrown across their bed. 

“Well?” She raised her eyebrows. 

Soft eyes. Pink cheeks. The dawn of a hopeful, heartbreaking smile. “Whatever you need, you have only to ask.”

With a deep exhale, he leaned to rest his forehead against hers. Their eyes slid closed. The slow, warm press of his clever mouth felt like taking her first breath after a long dive. He was sunlight, and fresh air, and the promise of rest.

She felt a nudge of expectation that one of them would push it further, trail their fingers somewhere erotic or graze their teeth over a sensitive place, but the more their lips met again, and again, so happy it ached—the less she felt compelled to make things more exciting. 

“Daphne,” he pleaded against her lips. She hitched her legs around his waist, linking her ankles together and pulling their bodies flush. A wistful hum rumbled deep in his chest. The fingers cradling her neck curled into her hair.

No, urgency had no place in a morning like this. She wrapped her arms snug around his shoulders and felt the chattering worry in her brain go quiet, for once.

The sun rose entirely, pouring both its light and the sparkling reflection of the sea through the enormous picture window that faced the harbor. It created absolutely no sense of obligation in her. Above her, Gale broke away from her mouth to kiss idly at any part of her face he could reach—between her eyebrows, down the bridge of her nose, even on her chin.

In response to such a sweet, yet absurd, gesture, a line from a song she’d once loved pinged to the forefront of her mind. 

I’m gonna roll around you like a cat
rolls around sawdusted patios,
I’m gonna kiss you
like the sun browns you

She giggled. He pulled back, a crease between his eyebrows. 

“Why are you laughing? What did I do?” Genuine worry drew his features down.

She smiled broader, shaking her head. “Nothing, gorgeous. I’m just— happy. You’re here, and perfect, and loving me, which is maybe the best news I’ve ever gotten.”

Relief washed over his face. “Oh, thank god. I’m just sort of making this up as I go; I thought I’d done something embarrassing.”

“Not even a little. You’re amazing.” She craned her neck to kiss the tip of his nose. “So there.”

His eyes crinkled with humor. 

“Oh, and I’m fatally weak to that ,” she crooned, running her thumbs over his crow’s feet. “Get back here.”

“Happily,” he smiled, ducking to kiss her into the pillows.

Finally, resentfully, they had to admit that their hunger was becoming too sharp to ignore. They disentangled and staggered toward the en-suite, Gale hopping to strip off his boxers before depositing them in a stylish wicker hamper by the door. She shucked her t-shirt and tossed it in behind him.

Stepping into his bathroom in the light of day, she realized it was even more ludicrous than she’d perceived last night, in her haze of love and adrenaline. If this level of luxury was customary for the Ramazith Historical Society’s alleged restorations, she thought, someone should probably run an audit of their expense accounts. An ornately framed mirror hung over the vast wood and brass vanity where she’d washed her face last night, and beneath her feet, the polished tiles felt unusually warm, as though the floor itself was heated. She suspected it was.

And then, there was the shower: a sleek, glassed-in sauna of stone and teak, with a baffling shower head that seemed to take up most of the ceiling. As Gale turned the handle, hot water fell in a sheet of rain from directly overhead. 

So, this is what the rich did with all the money they didn’t pay in taxes. They funneled it into nonprofits and used it to build day spas into national landmarks.

Her righteous anger about the injustices of late capitalism, unfortunately, softened almost immediately after joining Gale in the steam and the spray, and then vanished entirely as she browsed his charmingly maximalist collection of products. No wonder he smelled good; the man kept an entire French apothecary at his disposal. 

Daphne turned to him, fully intending to make some kind of witty jab, and was caught short at the sight of him. Rivulets of water snaked down his glistening skin as he closed his eyes and turned his face upward. He combed his fingers through the roots of his hair, the lean muscles in his arms flexing subtly as he shook it out. 

He was so ready to be vulnerable with someone. So eager to give himself entirely. And someone had seen that in him, and used it for their own twisted—

“Suddenly, I get the whole Helen of Troy thing,” she said, giving herself a shake. “I’d easily start a war over you.”

A dazzling, bewildered smile broke over his face. “What—good grief, beloved. I have troubling news about how that line of thinking worked out for both Helen and Troy, but nonetheless, you’re very kind.”

“It’s true,” she shrugged, throwing him a smirk. “Don’t worry, I know to go for the ankles.”

They showered together in easy chatter, joking and stealing kisses through the steam. Daphne gleefully lathered herself in concoctions from all kinds of bottles and jars while Gale peppered her with questions about the island and his observations about its inhabitants. Why was it so hard to get good gin here, for example, and why did people keep asking him if he was interested in ice hockey? Should he become interested in ice hockey? 

“You played rugby; you’ll like watching hockey. Plenty of senseless violence. There’s a home game next week if you wanna go,” she said, picking up a jar labeled Pate Delice and examining it. “What’s this mean?”

He squinted to read the label without his glasses. “It says delicious paste. And that bit there,” he used his thumbnail to underline some smaller print, “says shards of almond. ”

“I don’t know how I feel about the nouns ‘paste’ or ‘shards’ in this context,” she balked, and replaced the jar on the shelf. He snorted.

“It’s brilliant for scrubbing. You, however, just used I believe four different soaps? You’re going to crumble into dust when you get out. Here, put out your hand—” 

He reached for a glass bottle of amber liquid and poured a dollop of something oily into her palm. The sweet, heady smell of almonds cut through the steam. 

“Many people believe oils are detrimental for the skin, but a healthy lipid balance is actually of critical import,” he explained, authoritative. 

She warmed the oil in her hands and went to work applying it. Her skin shone faintly in its wake. “Thanks. I’m not complaining, but I have to ask—how did you get into, you know,” she gestured around, “all of this? I always thought of you as kind of minimalist.”

His head cocked to one side. He poured himself some of the same oil before setting the bottle aside. “That’s—hm. I’ll have to think. I like to feel clean, I suppose? I always have. And I enjoy the ritual.” 

He rubbed his hands together before briskly massaging the oil in, starting with his arms. She turned her attention to her legs, where she knew her skin was most likely to get dry and weird. 

“You know,” he said after a while, snapping her out of her thoughts, “I can remember—years ago, it must have been. My skin, all over, went so dry it hurt. It got so bad that it cracked in places. I saw a GP about it.”

He spoke as though he were struggling to recall a dream, or a retell half-remembered movie plot. She straightened.

“Was it, like, eczema or something? That’s super normal.”

“No. I don’t think so. He just said I’d stripped it, and I should moisturize. The details escape me, but I do remember a big trip to Boots afterward.”

The ghost of something crept heavy around them, but she couldn’t put her hand on what it might be. It wasn’t like him to be unsure of the details. In any context.

“I guess it worked,” she supplied, at a loss. “You look great.”

He made a noncommittal noise. “Not completely. It helped. But, at least, now I knew where to begin researching.”

Of course he’d researched. She looked around again, at his curated hoard of potions meant to soothe and replenish. She hadn’t snooped in his cabinets last night, but she had a pretty good idea what she’d find. 

“Why—when did it start, I don’t,” he muttered to himself, the crease between his eyebrows appearing as he struggled. “Sometime after I moved to Cambridge, I’m sure. I remember the bath in my flat.”

“So, during your first PhD, maybe,” she added, trying to be helpful. As soon as the words left her mouth, however—

Her memory wrenched her back in time, to her junior year of college. She was in the communal showers of her run-down dorm, watching the steam rise off her reddened skin. Trying to boil herself alive. Scrubbing shampoo into her scalp with sharp fingernails. Thrashing against the grease she still felt coating her insides, against the absolute certainty she’d never be clean again.

The hot, damp air suddenly sent a wave of nausea up her throat, but Gale seemed unperturbed. He was still deep in thought, trying to retrace the steps that got him here. Thankfully, he hadn’t yet finished the trip.

“Anyway!” she chirped, a little higher than she’d intended. “It was a dumb question; you’re allowed to have as much fancy soap as you want. Are you finished? I’m finished.”

The lines between his eyebrows melted away as he regarded her, the warmth returning to his eyes. “Never dumb, my love, perish the thought. Ask me anything you like; I’m an open book in your gentle hands.”

She slunk up against his chest and smoothed her hands along his shoulders. “Well, in that case. Do you have coffee?”

He nodded. “I procured some after the first night you stayed over. Far be it from me to leave you uncaffeinated.”

“I love you.” He kissed her. Against her lips, she could feel him smiling.

At his breakfast nook, with a French press and a teapot sharing pride of place next to a platter of toast and eggs, she found her equilibrium again. Gale sat across from her, his second cup of tea with milk and two sugars resting beside yesterday’s edition of The Guardian UK. His hair was back in its bun and his glasses balanced on the bridge of his nose, while a thick wool cardigan hung off his broad shoulders. Tara purred like a chainsaw on his lap. If Library Journal had a centerfold, this would be it.

“Half-something, six letters, rhyming slang for stolen?” she asked, frowning at the crossword in front of her. She could only occasionally finish the puzzles in the Portland Press Herald; she didn’t know why she’d even attempted a British one.

“Half-inched,” he replied immediately. She penciled INCHED into 22 Across. 

“Thanks, I would genuinely never have guessed,” she sighed. Perking up at the next clue, she eagerly jotted LEHRER down for Tom ___, satirist best known for poisoning pigeons in the park.

“In your defense, that’s quite literally the point of rhyming slang.” He glanced up from his article. “Looks like you’re doing well, though, Cockney subversions aside.”

“It’s keeping me humble, I’ll say that.” She skipped 2 Down for later after a cursory glance. Only half of that sentence contained believably real words.

She looked up to ask for help with county bordered by Hampshire and Devon to find his gaze already fixed on her. Time slowed to a stop. The adoration plain in his soft, dark eyes caught her so unaware that her pencil slipped from her grasp, to the table, to the floor.

He reached across the table for her, and she slid her hand into his. 

“Are you certain you’re real?” he asked conspiratorially, a smile peeking through his lips. “You aren’t just a vision of beauty I’ve conjured to wear my jumpers and laugh at my jokes?”

That earned a laugh, which earned an accusatory finger point from Gale, which earned an even harder laugh. 

“Believe me, I feel the same way. I can’t believe I’ve spent more than thirty years just, like, fucking around and living my life while you were out there doing the same thing. And now, all of a sudden, here you are.” She squeezed his fingers in hers. 

His thumb caressed her knuckles as he drank her in. He had this way of looking at her as though she were something more than human—even now, with her hair damp and the sleeves of a borrowed sweater pushed up to her elbows.

“Here you are,” he echoed. “What shall we do, then? It’s only just gone noon, we have the whole day ahead of us to waste.”

She stiffened. “Well, I just realized my meds are still at home,” she groaned. “Would you mind running back there with me? Or I can go and come back. Fuck, I’m so sorry, I should have put them in my bag.”

Before she realized, Gale was on his feet and pulling her up with him. “You’re entirely too hard on yourself. I would love to see your home, properly this time. Borrow any trousers you’d like; I’ll call a car.”

Fifteen minutes later, she was waiting by the door in thick socks, a pair of his running tights, and a puffy jacket. It smelled deliciously of his cologne. 

“Right, they’re almost here,” he announced, grabbing his house keys off of their hook. “Are you warm enough?”

“For the ten feet from your door to the car, and the additional ten feet from the car to my house? Yeah.” He smacked a kiss to her forehead, muttering something about incorrigible New Englanders.

On the stoop outside, they were met with the sight of her kicked-off shoes from the night before. The car pulled up while they were still doubled over in laughter. 

They burst through her front door only minutes later, thanks to the quiet roads, and she shed her jacket on her way to the kitchen. Gale trailed behind her, only stopping to toe off his boots. In a routine she’d performed hundreds, if not thousands of times, she pulled three bottles off of her windowsill, extracted a pill from each, and swallowed them with a mouthful of sink water. 

“There. Now the day can begin,” she joked, turning to face him. “Thanks again.”

“Not at all. Your health is just as important to me as the rest of you.” His eyes scanned around her kitchen, over her face, everywhere but the pill bottles in her hand. 

“Oh! Oh, it’s nothing embarrassing, here,” she said, holding them out. She tapped the lid of each bottle in turn. “Depression, depression, allergies. My signature cocktail.”

To her mild surprise, he didn’t react with concern or alarm—just genuine curiosity, studying the labels as she presented them. “Is it polite to say I had no idea?”

“You know, I have no fucking clue,” she smiled, relaxed. “Is it polite to say I’m glad you weren’t weird about it?”

He waved his hand dismissively. “Pish posh. I’m grateful to be in your confidence. We can come up with a solution for future mornings at my place, I’m sure.”

Pish posh. Oh, her heart. She shot him a wink, replacing the bottles on the windowsill. “A toothbrush on your vanity and a stash of pills in your cabinets? Careful, Dekarios; I’ll start to think you’re moving me in.”

He blushed furiously and suddenly insisted that he really did want to see her home, if the tour was ready to start. She obliged him. There wasn’t much to look at—they started with her well-worn kitchen with its blue painted cabinets, sat and enjoyed her fireplace nook in the main room for a while, then trundled down the narrow hallway to her bedroom. As she shouldered the door open, she silently thanked god that she’d cleaned up before Astarion had come over yesterday.

“So, this is it,” she said, awkwardly gesturing. “My, uh, bedchamber.” 

The sight of him transposed against the familiar background of her room felt surreal. Her brain had to work extra hard to make sense of it as one image. His hands clasped behind his back like a museum patron, he silently studied the four walls and a bed that made up her innermost sanctuary. She watched his eyes linger on the blue-and-white toile armchair she’d been ecstatic to find at an estate sale, the twin bookcases stuffed with novels and yarn and block printing supplies, the ancient rolltop desk that served as her workbench. He paused there, not disturbing anything, just observing.

Daphne turned away to let him ruminate. She ducked into her closet to change, wriggling into her warmest pair of leggings. After some debate about how cute she really wanted to be today, she slid into an overlarge button-up thermal she’d chopped to waist length. Cozy, but sexier than a sweater. Astarion would be proud of her.

She sidled up beside him at the foot of her bed, where he stood analyzing the dozens of art bits and photographs that adorned the wall above her headboard. 

“Which one’s your favorite?” she asked.

After a moment of thought, he pointed to a postcard-sized piece near the top left. “The print of the flying saucer and the crowd below, just there. It has a subtle sarcasm to it that’s very Daphne.”

She smiled. “Really? I just made that on the press one afternoon when I was bored.”

“Really.” His arm draped around her shoulders. “But, you’re the curator—which do you like best?”

Without hesitation, she pointed to a photo in a hideous heart-shaped frame near the center. Young Daphne planted a kiss on Young Astarion’s cheek as he bared his teeth to the camera in a Sid Vicious sneer. Sweat plastered their hair to their foreheads and smeared their eyeliner. The flash made them glow against the background of the dimly lit club behind them, the crowd a blur of faces and limbs caught mid-dance.

“That was the first time we saw each other after graduation,” she explained, tipping her head to rest on his shoulder. “Astarion went to Vancouver to do his doctorate. It took me a year to save up enough to buy the ticket.”

Gale considered the picture with raised eyebrows. “Can that really be Dr. Ancunín? I don’t believe I’ve ever seen him in a shirt that wasn’t starched.” 

“Yes, well, he’s got money now,” she drawled, imitating Astarion’s accent. “Don’t let him fool you, though. He’s still a weird little art school kid with way too much to say about post-Soviet industrial music.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” he chuckled. They were silent for a moment more, then another. She was about to ask what he had in mind for their next move when he unexpectedly spoke up. 

“Your friendship is truly something to be envied. I’m glad you’ve been loved well,” he said, quieter than before. “To be understood so deeply is a rare privilege.”

“Hey, don’t count yourself out. Isobel loves you. And Aylin too, I’m sure, in her own… highly specific way.”

She smiled up at him to see that he was still staring straight ahead, his jaw working in agitation. Instinctually, she knew where his mind had wandered. Back to a reality colder and more familiar than this one. His past loomed close to the surface for both of them this morning, apparently.

“What’s up,” she whispered.

He met her eyes, his mouth open as if to say something, stumbling on the words. “If we were to talk about, you know, would it—is now a good time?”

She maneuvered them to sit side-by-side on her bed. He planted his hands on his knees and took a deep, reluctant breath. 

“Isobel was the first person I had to cut off. I explained that she wasn’t interested in men, that she was just a good friend, but she—Mystra—didn’t care. I felt wretched. Isobel never gave up on reaching out, and she sounded so worried; but I never answered. It would only start a row. Mind you, it would start a row regardless, even if I didn’t reply, so I’m not sure why I bothered.”

He addressed his stream of consciousness to the patch of rug between his feet. Her fingers ached to touch him, but she didn’t dare invade whatever state of flow he’d entered. 

“That’s horrible,” she said. He jerked a quick nod.

“Then, it was any woman in my cohort. I daren’t go out on pub nights, obviously, but that wasn’t enough. I gained a reputation as a flake because I knew that, on the wrong day, even being in a meeting with mixed company could mean a screaming match was waiting for me at night. Eventually, people stopped inviting me to collaborate at all. My research narrowed to the work I could get through her connections. Which, fortunately, were more than powerful enough to compensate.” 

His fingers flexed against the taut muscle of his leg. “And even then, even once she was the only woman I breathed around, she still found ways to make me grovel. Night after night, indulging her every whim without complaint—out of love, at least as I conceived of it, and out of hope that I could still build a career worth having. I came to think of myself as the most devoted worshiper of an exceptionally cruel goddess.”

He paused to catch his breath, squeezing his eyes shut. 

“What about rugby?” she asked, tentatively hopeful. “That must have been a bright spot.”

He huffed a cold laugh. “Oh, it was. For a while. She resented me deeply for keeping it up, of course, and I still had to come straight to hers afterward, but she didn’t have a defensible means of forcing me to stop. Until—”

The words stuck in his throat. A sheen of sweat broke out on his brow. His breaths tightened, his shoulders hunching with the effort of it. She discreetly leaned to grab the trash can next to her bedside table, in case he needed it.

“No, no, I’m—it’s not that,” he ground out, digging the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. “I just, oh, I loathe this. The exhumation of it. Although, it’s worse to leave it buried.”

Delicately, she spread her hand across his back. He leaned into the touch. She waited, feeling the rise and fall of his breathing under her outstretched palm. 

“I told someone.” He cleared his throat deliberately. “Apparently, rocking up to practice late and fuming, then leaving before everyone else even takes their boots off, comes across as suspicious. One of the lads eventually pulled me aside and asked me if there was anything I needed to talk about. It took embarrassingly little prodding for me to pour out my soul to him.”

“That’s a good friend,” she said. He winced.

“I should have expected he would alert the university.”

Shit.

“One afternoon, I found myself in a dean’s office being offered pamphlets about recognizing domestic violence, and I knew what I’d done. Cambridge placed her under disciplinary review while I had to call around loudly and strenuously denying everything. And, of course, no one could find evidence of our relationship on work equipment; we weren’t stupid,” he scoffed. “Two weeks later, they declared no findings, and it was like nothing had ever happened.” 

His eyes were hollow when he turned to look at her. “But. I’m sure you can imagine how such a grave betrayal was received.”

Stupid, unhelpful tears welled in her eyes and threatened to spill down her face. This was about him, she reminded herself with clenched teeth, this was his story, but the thought of him being so relieved to finally tell someone what was happening, only to arrive at that meeting and see those brochures on the table—to know with unnerving certainty that his one attempt at accepting help was about to set his life on fire—

“Fuck,” she cursed, hiding her face in her shirt sleeve. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, you can keep going—”

His arms were around her so quickly it knocked her breath away. She balled her fists in his cardigan, inviting him even closer as her shoulders shook.

“Don’t cry for me,” he begged guiltily, his voice thick. “You couldn’t have done anything, darling; no one could have. I’m the one who was too blinded by ambition to break it off.”

“That’s not true, Gale, it’s not fair, none of it was fair, I’m gonna fucking kill her ,” Daphne sobbed into his shoulder.

“Don’t kill her, either.” His composure was finally starting to wear thin as well, his breaths coming in hiccups. 

“Because you’ll get put away for life, and then where does that leave me, hey,” he shakily tried to joke. “Alone? Without you—oh this is absurd —” 

He shuddered and curled against her to sob quietly into her hair. They clung to each other even harder, so tightly she could feel his pounding heartbeat racing to match her own, his tears splashing hot down her neck. 

“Are you—are you crying because you imagined me going to jail for murdering your shitty ex-girlfriend?” she asked when she finally caught her breath. “You aren’t, right?”

“Yes? No? I don’t bloody know , ” he sniffed indignantly. “I just thought, well, that would be fitting, she’s already taken everything else from me—”

“Jesus Christ, Gale , ” she warbled. Fresh sobs bubbled up from her chest. “I won’t kill her, I promise, just—fuck, that’s so sad—”

“ I know, ” he lamented, swiping tears off his cheek with the back of his hand. “I’ve always had a flair for melodrama, I’m afraid. Perhaps I missed my calling as a writer on EastEnders or something.”

She buried her face in his cardigan and either laughed, or cried, or some bizarre, giddy combination of both until the adrenaline subsided for good. In her arms, the tension slowly leaked from his posture as his breathing calmed. Exhausted, they flopped backwards to lie across her bed.

“I was going to invite you for a drink at the Mermaid,” he said, his soft eyes bleary, “show you off on the town, so to speak. However, to be frank, I can’t fathom the idea of leaving this house.”

She shook her head. A dull throb behind her eyes let her know that a headache was imminent if she didn’t act fast. “We can go some other time. This has been a big fucking weekend.”

He fumbled around for her hand, then brought it up to kiss her knuckles. “It has been, indeed, a big fucking weekend. Recent events aside, this is genuinely the happiest I’ve ever been.”

The joy and excitement of the rest of the day burned bright in her chest again. Even without her reflection in his glasses, she knew she was beaming.

“Me too.” An idea sparked in the back of her mind, something to salvage the end of a whirlwind couple of days. “You know, usually, after a big cry, I do this thing called slug time.”

His brow furrowed adorably. “Slug time?”

A little while later, Gale sat bundled in a quilt on Daphne’s couch. The coffee table had been cleared of books and now held a cheese board (some sharp cheddar she’d sliced and arranged on a plate) as well as a few bowls of sour candy and chocolate covered almonds. Two Nalgene bottles of ice water sat wedged in the sofa cushions for easy retrieval.

“Do you like hard cider? It’s all I’ve got right now, sorry.” She flopped down next to him and offered him a bottle, then tucked her own blanket under her chin.

“Yes, actually, cheers.” He extricated an arm from his cocoon with some effort and took the bottle, swigging from it. “ Gracious , that’s sweet.”

She shrugged apologetically. “It’s America; we’re gonna put sugar in stuff. You know what’s not American, though?”

The TV flickered to life, and she pressed “play from beginning” on the episode Hulu had queued up for her. Cheap house music blared from the speakers while tan, swimsuit-clad twentysomethings flexed and posed for the camera.

“ Previously, on Love Island, ” a cheerful voice greeted the viewer.

Gale whipped his head to her. “You’re joking.”

“It’s the only show stupid enough to help,” she smiled into her drink. “Shut up and have a snack. We need the calories.”

He begrudgingly took a handful of almonds and retreated into his quilt. As the recap played, Daphne gave him the relevant details about who was currently together and who needed to graft if they wanted to stay another week. He resisted through the first episode, making cutting remarks about the vapid conversation and the carelessness with which these young people were treating each other.

“It’s Machiavellian,” he insisted as Tyla cozied up to Mike in the hot tub. “Theo is right there , for god’s sake! How is this edifying television?”

By the time dinner rolled around, he’d started taking notes. 

She returned from the front door with the Chinese food he’d ordered for them, plunking cartons of greasy noodles and glossy potstickers down on the coffee table. “Got your theories ready for the next one?”

“Just a moment—” he scribbled something out and drew a new arrow between two names in the chart he’d created. “Yes. Let’s proceed.”

He took a dumpling and chewed thoughtfully, walking her through his notes while the theme song played. She curled against him, tucking herself under his arm as he chattered. He paused to press a kiss to her temple, ducking close to her ear.

“You are, without exception, the most merciful thing that’s ever happened to me. Truly.”

“ This time on Love Island, a steamy surprise: not one, but two new bombshells enter the villa!” chirped the television. Gale swore and tossed his notebook aside, throwing his hands in the air. Daphne cackled.

Chapter Text

Daphne leaned out of the doorway to her office, craning her neck into the hallway.

“Team meeting in five!” she called into the workshop as the last students left for the day. Before she’d even sat down again, both of her grad students tumbled breathlessly into her office. As expected.

“I think I’d know if this was the kind of place that had team meetings, because I’d have quit after the first one,” Shadowheart drawled.

Daphne sighed heavily as she dropped into her chair.. “Look. You’re aware as well as I am that we have a lot riding on this year’s January interim class. We took a big risk applying, and four weeks is a long time to fill, but we were lucky enough to be accepted.”

The girls exchanged looks. “If by lucky you mean that we busted our asses and totally earned it, then sure,” Shadowheart sniffed. “Why, what about it? Did they withdraw us?”

Daphne shook her head. “No, god, of course not. We’re already at full enrollment, actually,” she noticed both of their eyebrows raise in surprise, “but unfortunately, that’s not why I called you in.”

Lae’zel crossed her arms while flicking her hair, which was tantamount to an international incident. “Then speak.”

In a show of exhaustion and gravity, Daphne flicked open the work email on her phone. “I need to ask you to cover the class by yourselves on Friday, January 26th.” She paused to take a sip of her coffee, long cold by now. “The Board of Trustees sent me an email. I’m expected to appear in their chamber at nine in the morning that day, and I don’t know how long I’ll be in there. They seem pretty serious.”

Shadowheart and Lae’zel froze, waiting for her to elaborate. Daphne looked up at the ceiling to collect herself. 

“If you remember, I accompanied Doctor Dekarios to that swanky party earlier this month,” she reluctantly confessed. “Good food, better wine. We had, uh, plenty of both. You know who else was there? Dean Aylin. And her wife. And I thought, well, that’s fucking convenient for me and the workshop—”

“Oh, god,” Shadowheart groaned. “You didn’t.”

Daphne winced dramatically, swiping her hand down her face. “I… might have walked over there and started talking.”

With a noise of derision, Lae’zel pinned her with a withering look. “And now the Board must speak with you? If I have to return to Havre-Saint- fucking -Pierre because you cannot hold your wine—”

Daphne held her hands up. “Let me finish, please, and then you can be as mad at me as you want.” Lae’zel reluctantly closed her mouth with a determined grimace.

“As I said,” she continued, sighing, “We had a… conversation, and now the Board is demanding to see me. Because—oh, how do I even say this?”

She finally looked the two of them in the eye, ready to relish the next ten seconds. “Because they’re going to reconsider our proposal to fully staff the workshop.”

For a beat, they stood still, just as annoyed and confused as before. And then:

“Bullshit. Daphne. Are you serious? Are you serious? ” Shadowheart darted a hand over her mouth to cover her grin.

“When you say fully staff, this means us? Correct?”

“So this whole little meeting was—I swear to god I’m gonna tell our fucking union that you’re creating a toxic work environment—”

“ Hostie de criss de câlice de tabarnak— ” Lae’zel’s shoulders sagged with relief as she buried her face in her hands. Next to her, Shadowheart practically vibrated out of her boots with equal parts unbridled joy and indignation as she re-processed the conversation.

Daphne finally collapsed into laughter. She looked down at her phone again, at the invitation she’d received and Aylin’s private reply to her.

  I am very much looking forward to hearing about the Book Arts Workshop’s potential to enhance Icepeak’s liberal arts education, it read, as well as how many new kinds of paper my darling wife will be able to pilfer from your collection if funding is approved. 

Thank you for calling your team’s marvelous work to my attention, Aylin signed off. Daphne’s heart swelled with pride. Finally, finally. They were inches away from getting everything they needed. She could start actually planning the next five years, set a course for expanding the workshop into a titan of their field. 

“Anyway, that’s it,” she smiled, clapping her hands. “I do actually need you to cover class that day. That part was real. January 26th is the last day of J-term, I think, so it should be pretty easy. Other than that—have a wonderful winter break.”

“Sure, fucking, of course. Whatever.” Shadowheart turned on her heel and sauntered out the door, her attempt at a huffy exit undermined somewhat by the jubilant swing of her ponytail. Lae’zel, however, remained.

To Daphne’s surprise, she stepped toward her. Her enigmatic shop assistant perched uncomfortably on the edge of the chair Daphne kept on the other side of the desk for the rare occasions she received visitors. Bony, well-kept hands smoothed down the front of her Carhartt button-up as she gathered herself. 

“It is not in my nature to, ah, hope,” she said, stilted. “Action is a much more reliable tool than imagination.”

Daphne kept quiet. She almost didn’t dare breathe. This was already a wildly different encounter than any they’d had in the last two years.

“However.” Her hazel eyes darted down to her lap, to her folded hands, then back to Daphne with iron resolve. “If this meeting is successful—if, as you say, we are able to remain a team. If I may stay. Then it will be… a very good thing. The best thing, perhaps, for me. I hope that you will convince them.”

Daphne’s throat grew dangerously thick. Lae’zel had never admitted to enjoying a moment of their time together, but here she was, calling working under her a very good thing. The unspoken rules of their relationship were being rewritten in real time.

“None of this would be possible without you.” She did her best to hold Lae’zel’s piercing gaze. “You are a viciously hard worker and a generational talent. You and Shadowheart belong here. I promise, I’m going to fight for you to stay.”

Lae’zel didn’t blush, or flinch, or scoff. Her eyes lingered for a long, hard moment on Daphne’s face, as though she were measuring her by some inscrutable metric. Finally, she gave a curt nod, rose to her feet, and walked briskly out of the room. A few moments later, the tell-tale creaks and clunks of the platen press being dismantled for deep cleaning echoed down the hallway from the workshop.

Daphne’s head was still spinning when she locked her office door for the night and said goodnight to the girls, who were in the throes of scrubbing and oiling the presses for their six-month maintenance. They were about a month ahead of schedule, come to think of it, but she chalked it up to the two of them needing to work off the excitement.

In the past, cleaning the presses was the kind of delicate task Daphne would have only trusted herself to execute, she thought as she watched Shadowheart douse two fresh rags with solvent and pass one to Lae’zel. Not anymore. If they could find a way to work together peacefully, she could easily imagine turning the workshop over to their care someday. Her heart swelled so hard with pride that it actually kind of hurt.

She stole up the stairs into the quiet, empty lobby of the library. The evening block of classes wouldn’t let out for another thirty minutes. Her blood pounding as though she were getting away with something, she ascended the next flight of stairs and stole down the hallway connecting the library’s small block of classrooms, toward the big lecture hall at the end. Gently, as silently as she could, she cracked one of the double doors open and shimmied inside.

“—sinking into the sea was meant as an allegory , of course. Its watery demise demonstrates the superiority of Plato’s idea of Athens as a perfect state; a sort of logical extreme of the ‘ship of state’ metaphor he uses throughout Republic . Very oceanically-minded people, the Greeks, understandably so,” Gale was explaining in his scholarly tone as she slipped into a seat in the back row. It was stiflingly warm, thanks to the radiators, so he’d removed the jacket of his gray tweed suit and rolled his shirt sleeves up to his elbows. The muscles in his forearms flexed appealingly as he underlined a few words in chalk. 

As she looked around, Daphne bit her cheek to keep from laughing. The lecture hall was maybe half full, at best, but the front and center rows of seats were packed with women and several equally interested young men. Unsurprising, honestly. She’d recently overheard a pair of students in the workshop wistfully discussing how they needed to “fuck that old man” in a way that was “concerning to feminism,” and Shadowheart had waggled her eyebrows at her from across the room so lasciviously that she’d had to excuse herself to her office for a moment.

 “Anyway,” Gale continued, “it’s been centuries since historians have contended that Atlantis was a real, physical place one could locate on a map. Although many, many students have reliably informed me that popular media once again disagrees with scholarly consensus.”

He winked and clicked his remote, and an amused cheer rippled through the students as the gawky hero and knockout heroine from the Atlantis animated movie flashed on the screen. Charmingly out of date, as most of his references were. He clicked it again, returning to photos from some dig in the Mediterranean. It looked to be a fresco, long crumbled into shards. She could make out the waves of a choppy ocean, as well as a land mass where something violent seemed to be happening.

“So, now that we’ve been over Plato’s account of the folly of Atlantis, and you’ve all confirmed to me that you’re familiar with the myth in its more, let’s call it sensationalized form,” he said, to quiet laughter, “tell me. What does this fresco depict? It’s in fragments, of course, but don’t let that stop you.”

“Atlantis,” a chorus of voices answered him.

He slammed his hand to the desk next to where he stood, mischievous delight on his face. “Wrong! As we learned, Plato’s account of Atlantis dates to 359 BCE. Why, then, would this Sicilian fresco date to—” he clicked his remote again and more information appeared, “roughly 440 BCE, more than a century prior to Plato’s account and well before he was even born? It simply doesn’t make sense, does it?”

A dark-haired girl toward the front raised her hand, and he pointed at her. “Maybe it was a local legend first?” a tentative voice asked.

He clasped his hands together in a theatrical gesture of gratitude. “You, Miss– what is your name?”

“Arabella.”

“Miss Arabella. I do hope you are at least considering archeology; the field would benefit immensely from your instincts. That is exactly what we now believe—”

As Gale continued, a scruffy boy next to Arabella ruffled her hair proudly. She poked him in the ribs, smiling as she admonished her friend. Daphne thought of the Intro to Art History lecture where she’d first met Astarion. They’d been asked to go around the room and share their favorite museum as an icebreaker activity, and she’d said the Hirshhorn Museum in DC. He’d leaned over and said something acerbic, insinuating everyone but the two of them had based their choices on art heist movies, and she’d laughed. The next time their class met, he’d flopped down in the seat next to her. That was that.

When her reverie ended and she looked up to Gale’s lecture again, she had to stifle a gasp with her hand.

Projected ten feet high above his head was the same swirling symbol he had tattooed on his chest. It was woven into a thoroughly deteriorated tapestry, barely legible amid the rot, but—she’d know it anywhere. She could draw it from memory, at this point. It was the same.

“—we know, as a matter of record, that the ancient Greek sailor Pytheas made contact with the Picts during his famous voyage to the British Isles. We know, specifically, he visited and wrote extensively about an area of northern coastline and islands he called Orcas. That name survives today in what are now the Orkney Islands of Scotland—where this Pictish tapestry fragment was unearthed just last decade. This, my colleagues, is theorized to be the first discovered depiction of the Folly of Karsus legend, dated to roughly 500 BCE.”

He set his remote down and stepped into the center of the lecture stage, so close to his audience that the front row could have touched him. 

“I’ll tell you that legend now. As one of few who know it still.”

The room went silent. Her arms prickled with goosebumps. Gale briefly cleaned his glasses with his handkerchief, gathering his thoughts.

“Once upon a very long time ago, a mighty lord lived in a tower. A flying tower, to be precise, as despite his young age, this lord was adept in the ways of magic. As he grew in fame and might, his tower grew to a city, which grew to an empire called Netheril. Imagine it: a flying empire, streaking high above earth, glittering in the sun.”

He swept his arm in an arc above his head, and Daphne watched from the back row as a sea of heads turned to follow its path.

“This young prodigy was called Lord Karsus. The child-who-would-become-a-god, as the epithets would impress upon you . All his work, all his amassing of power, led up to one ritual of his own devising: to harness all magic under one yoke— his yoke—and, indeed, ascend to godhood. He almost managed it. Almost.”

“At the spell’s zenith, he realized with horror that he had reached too far, demanded too much. It failed spectacularly, destroying Karsus’s command of magic. All at once, his flying empire ceased to fly. Then, with the screams of thousands, it fell.”

He gestured back toward the screen, at the circle and the long wisps furling behind it. Oh. She could see it now: Netheril, hurtling from the clouds. 

“His empire crumbled into the ocean and his people perished as young Karsus turned to stone. But, the ramifications of his hubris extended far beyond his kingdom. The force of what he unleashed that day was phenomenal , roiling like the prime chaos that outdated creation. Magic could not sustain such a drain on itself. It fractured—then shattered—and all but a whisper of magic was lost to the mortal realms forever. No empire would reach the heights of Netheril again, and no mage would ever even scratch the surface of what Karsus once achieved.”

He crossed back to the desk and picked up his remote, then clicked to the next slide. The tapestry now shared the screen with the fresco from earlier, side by side.

“Knowing both of these legends as you do now. Seeing these artifacts compared. What do you make of the hypothesis that the Folly of Karsus is the proto-myth for Plato’s Atlantis?”

Hands shot up into the air. Gale scanned over the class, glowing with satisfaction—and then gave a start when he finally spotted Daphne in the back row. She wiggled her fingers at him. He smiled, shaking his head as his cheeks pinkened, and called on a stocky blond boy in the middle of the room.

By the time he finally called time on their discussion, it was ten minutes past the end of class and Daphne’s stomach was starting to rumble. Between her hunger and the built-up anticipation of telling him about the Board meeting, she practically bounded down the aisle when the last student pulled the lecture hall door shut behind them. 

He waited for her at the front, ready to catch her when she threw her arms around his neck. Stubble tickled against her skin as he brushed his lips just below her ear.

“I don’t believe you’re registered for this course, Miss Tavian,” he softly scolded her. She shivered. God, he was undeniably relishing what the professorial shit did for her. She was so fucked.

“Dr. Gond’s Intro to Architecture class got a theatrical, riveting explainer on what your tattoo means before I did?” she accused as a diversion. “Me, your alleged girlfriend?”

He coughed a surprised laugh and leaned back to look at her. “Firstly, that allegation is entirely meritorious, let the record reflect.”

“Good to know.” She raised her eyebrows expectantly. “Well?”

The tips of his ears turned pink. “In the practical sense—I’d completely forgotten that this lecture was even happening until I got a phone call that I was late, so I pulled academia’s oldest trick and re-used my thesis research. So, no premeditation there.”

His thesis? The back of her neck bristled with interest.

“But where it concerns you and I,” he said, cradling her cheek with a gentle hand, “you simply never asked, beloved. And boasting about one’s own tattoos uninvited is terribly gauche, isn’t it? I assume that’s why you’ve never elaborated on yours. Forgive me; I didn’t know you were curious.”

Fair point, well made. The next time she got him naked, she resolved, she’d tease the full story out of him when he was more pliable. Her brief indignation was already slipping away, anyway, eclipsed by the excitement of her Big News.

She covered the hand on her face with her own reassuringly. “Okay, all right. You’re forgiven. But only because I’m in a fucking incredible mood.”

Relief crashed over his features. Her chest ached. She still wasn’t used to how transparently he telegraphed his every emotion; he was constantly communicating even when he wasn’t talking. 

“Is that so? And what, pray tell, is the source of this incredible mood?” he asked, tugging her closer.

She’d considered waiting until dinner to tell him everything, but, fuck it. She opened the email on her phone again and handed it to him. As he read, his eyebrows inched toward his hairline and his hand on her waist tightened. 

“Next month! That might as well be tomorrow, by university administration standards,” he laughed, triumphant. “Daphne, this is—well, this is certainly worth celebrating. I’m so proud of you. Consider our plans for an evening in immediately canceled; this calls for a trip to the inn.”

I’m so proud of you. As if she wasn’t already halfway to melting after watching him in his element. Maybe it was a good thing he held fast to his no-kissing-on-campus policy; they’d be stuck in here overnight.

It was a short walk from the library to the Icepeak Inn and its cozy in-house restaurant, a straight shot across the wintery expanse of the college green and through throngs of giddy students preparing for the last weekend of the semester. Gale pointed out four boys carrying a keg through the snow on a stretcher, like a wounded soldier, and that’s when Daphne had to explain that one of the fraternities held a D-Day party at the end of each semester.

His brow corrugated. “The Normandy landing happened in June.”

“Yeah, but that’s not the point—it’s D-Day because exams are over? So now you get to,” she swung her arms like she was running, “storm the beach?”

“At Christmas?” he spluttered.

“I mean, maybe. A lot of people go to Florida in the winter; I don’t know, or maybe it’s just a metaphor. I’ve never interrogated the validity of Delta Alpha’s party theming.”

“Well, someone should.” 

She smiled and patted his arm. “Yes, dear.” 

He snorted, taking her hand in his. He didn’t let go until they were shrugging their coats off at their secluded table in the dim, tchotchke-lined dining room.

The inn’s signature black bread arrived almost immediately, and they each took a slice. Daphne slathered hers in butter, while Gale did his peculiar thing of only buttering the part he intended to eat, the same way he’d eaten his pancakes and syrup at Last Light. She smiled to herself as he took a single, delicate bite. He’d totally been given etiquette lessons as a fancy little lad, hadn’t he.

Drinks (a beer for her, a pinot gris for him) and dinner (the inn’s enormous nicoise salad and a basket of fries split between them) flew by in a flurry of flirtation and banter. She could barely keep up with the flow of it. Gale shone even brighter than usual, his smiles easy and his stories told with even more of his raconteur’s flair. More than once, she looked at him mid-sentence to find him already staring at her, an excitement she couldn’t quite place simmering in his eyes. 

Surely, it wasn’t just her news about the workshop? But the course of the conversation kept accelerating and twisting, and the moment kept slipping away from her like fish in a fast-moving stream. 

Mere minutes after they’d sat down, it seemed, the check arrived. Daphne reached for it, but Gale jokingly fended her hand off with his fork and handed his card to the waiter. 

“Can I give you a ride home, at least?” she sighed, shaking her head at his pride.

He smiled, gathering his satchel from where it slouched against the booth. “That would be perfect, my darling, thank you.”

His hand once again found hers as they left the cozy glow of the inn. They gripped each other tighter as the bitter, icy night blasted them with wind.

“That definitely feels like another cold front,” Daphne hissed. Winter wind sliced into her exposed skin and stung her face. “Sweet hell. I might as well sleep in this sweater.”

“Well, it’s a very nice sweater,” he hummed, seemingly unbothered by the grim weather. “That particular gray suits you remarkably well. I find it animates your eyes.”

She cocked her head to look at him as they started across the green. “Does it really?”

Gale, however, wasn’t looking at her. Weird. He was looking down, at the phone peeking out of his coat pocket. Very weird. She’d only ever seen him use his phone to take photos of Tara or very begrudgingly send his mother a message.

“What, is it a text from your other girlfriend?” she joked, trying hard to sound flippant. “I thought I told her, I have dibs this weekend.”

He didn’t seem to hear her, fully absorbed in whatever he was reading. She clamped her mouth shut and tried to stomp down the urge to peek. She wasn’t that kind of partner. Was she?

He inhaled sharply, coming back to the moment. “Forgive me, darling, I didn’t mean to be so preoccupied.” His grin was broad and earnest as he finally looked at her, which eased at least some of the tension from her shoulders. “Well. Truth be told, I am preoccupied.”

The tension snapped right back into place. “Uh huh?”

“It’s a long story,  but one I’m just now finally, finally able to tell, if you’ll allow me,” he rushed out, keeping his voice low. “Only to you, though, you understand. The subject matter is highly delicate.”

Eyes wide, Daphne mimed locking her lips and throwing the key over her shoulder. 

He glanced around, his jaw tightening as he squinted through the night.“I suppose I can begin with some… less proprietary information until we’re safely in your car.”

“Jesus, what’s going on, Gale?” she finally demanded. “ Proprietary? ” 

He chuckled. “Once more, my apologies, beloved. I’ll be economical with my words. You remember meeting Lorroakan’s assistant at the soirée, don’t you? You seemed to take a liking to him.”

The memory of the saddest, cheekbone-havingest man she’d ever seen came back to her immediately. “Rolan, right? Tall, dark hair, fucking miserable?”

“That’s him. And he is miserable, astutely observed,” he said, some gravity finally returning to his demeanor. “In brief: when I returned to England for Thanksgiving, he reached out and asked to meet. It seems that my sudden departure from Waterdeep shook the community enough to expose some of the true nature of my, ah, career trajectory. You understand.”

It took her a moment to puzzle out what he meant. “Like, contrary to what M—” she paused, remembering they were being discreet. “ Your advisor had been telling people?”

He nodded. “It seems as though a few of my peers were more observant than I gave them credit for. Including our friend Rolan. My escape, for lack of a better word, encouraged him to reach out for help in orchestrating his own.”

Her stomach dropped. Lorroakan’s pale, beady eyes and roaming fingers flashed vividly in her mind. “Ugh, ew, ” she retched before she could stop herself.

“Ah,” Gale stiffened. “Not quite that, I mean, not quite so similar,” he stammered. “They aren’t involved, but—upon reflection, perhaps this is where we should really continue behind a closed door.”

They rounded the corner into the faculty lot, past the teetering pile of snow from which Daphne had extricated him that one night months ago. She dug her keys out of her coat pocket and unlocked her car, the taillights flashing bright in the snowy dark. 

They jogged the rest of the way and slid into their seats, quickly locking the doors behind them. Daphne cranked the engine to let it warm up. 

“Lorroakan is a brute,” Gale confessed immediately. She froze, hands on the wheel, waiting for him to continue. “He’s not just a cad and a hack, he’s cruel. To Rolan, specifically. If I showed you just some of the photos of his injuries he’s sent me—”

“Rolan’s being hit? ” she interrupted, louder than she’d meant to. Thinking back to that night at the gala, the grim mask of his expression stood out in her memory. His skin had looked a little odd, too—as though someone not well-versed in makeup had packed on too much concealer in one spot, she realized. Oh, fuck.

Gale nodded jerkily. “And often, I’m afraid. Suffice it to say, the man I met for lunch in November was a broken one. The mere husk of a brilliant mind. He had, correctly, put together that he could find a welcome secret-keeper in me.”

Her chest ached. No wonder he’d kept this from her. He’d given Rolan what he’d never had: a real confidant. A friend. She threw the car into reverse and peeled out of the parking lot, toward Aurilssbarg.

“What did… you can tell me however much you want to, but I don’t want to pry,” she half-whispered.

Gale looked ahead, through the melting ice on the windshield to the pitch dark beyond. A flash of his teeth glinted in the low light as he worried his bottom lip.

“Lorroakan, arrogant prick that he is, loves to chatter about Rolan never completing his education,” Gale said. “When he’s frustrated, or displeased, or just in the mood, he riles Rolan into defending his intelligence and then, well. Corrects his insubordinate behavior.”

She winced. If only she’d known this much at the gala; she would have stepped on that ginger slimeball’s neck instead of merely embarrassing him—but would it have helped, or made things worse? She thought of Gale in the dean’s office at Cambridge. Her stomach soured.

“If he started his doctorate, why can’t he finish it?” she asked, her gears turning. “Wouldn’t let him find independent work, maybe? Get him out from under Ramazith?”

Gale leveled her with a strained look, his mouth a thin line. Understood. 

“For the record, I’ve offered to plead his case to my few remaining contacts at St. Blackstaff’s, or even Aylin and Icepeak,” he amended. “He doesn’t see leaving as viable. Not while Lorroakan still holds the purse strings for so much of the field. I don’t want to agree with him, but I’m afraid he’s correct—I mean, even I’m technically beholden to Ramazith.”

She hummed in sympathy. From what she’d seen, a hell of a lot of money did seem to flow through Ramazith and, by extension, Lorroakan’s wretched little fingers.

“But.” The thrum of excitement returned to his voice. “Those weren’t the only misdeeds Rolan brought to my attention. And, as of this morning, he’s succeeded in producing some inescapably concrete evidence. We were just coordinating—” He opened a document on his phone, holding the screen to her peripheral vision while he scrolled so she could get an idea of its contents. 

“Spreadsheets? Why would—oh, holy shit!” she gasped. “The fucker’s embezzling!”

Gale scrolled faster, months and months of data whizzing under his fingertip. “The fucker is very much embezzling!” 

Daphne whooped and pumped her fist in the air. Gale pitched forward in his seat as he laughed at her, long and loud and happy. The justice system rarely handled cases like Rolan’s with anything close to tact—but every government she could think of took one thing seriously, and it was when people fucked around with money. If Al Capone went down for tax evasion, Archibald Lorroakan could absolutely go down for fraud.

The lighthouse came into view as they pulled off the highway, still dizzy with the whiplash of her emotions. Her anxiety for Rolan and her grief over how much he’d suffered mingled with the savage anticipation of what was coming for Lorroakan. 

“Okay, so. Next steps,” she prompted as they stopped at the traffic light. Some festive vandal had thrown Christmas lights over the wires, messily illuminating the intersection with points of light. “Are you turning this over to the London police, or does England have an FBI-type agency that would be better equipped to handle it? Or, ooh, maybe the tax people?”

Gale shook his head. “No, no, nothing nearly so indelicate.” He stowed his phone in his coat pocket again. “You must remember, Ramazith is an institution. Any undue turbulence there could decimate entire university departments.”

Her brow knitted. The light turned green, and she started down the road toward the wharf district. “Sure. So, more like a sting operation, I guess.”

“Yes,” he hedged. “In a sense.” 

“Uh, evasive much? If you’re planning on having him whacked, just say so,” she snorted.

Gale said nothing. They were approaching his driveway.

“You’re not, right?” she laughed, although a pit was beginning to form in her stomach. “Tell me you aren’t having him whacked.”

“Rest assured, no hitmen are involved.” He ran a hand over his hair. “When I return to Surrey on Sunday, Rolan will join me at my family home, an address not known to anyone at Ramazith. Then, we’ll arrange a time for me to meet with Lorroakan. I’ll say that moving here was a massive mistake, maybe pretend to beg for his help getting my job at St. Blackstaff’s back.”

The pit in her stomach grew heavier. Even as a ruse, hearing him talk bitterly about Icepeak stung. And that didn’t even scratch the surface of—

“Then, once I’m in his office,” he continued, his eyes shining as they pulled up to the lighthouse, “I’ll show him everything. The abuse, the fraud, evidence of all his many indecencies. And I’ll suggest that, in light of the facts, perhaps it would be wise to appoint someone else to take the helm at Ramazith.”

The car stopped in front of Gale’s door. She took in his face, at the determination evident in the set of his brow. He was the same man who’d held her hand at dinner, but wrong, somehow. His warm brown eyes seemed flat, shark-like. 

“Rolan?” she asked, tentatively. “He’ll step aside so Rolan can take his place?”

He shook his head, a smirk tugging at his mouth. “Me, beloved.” 

The bottom dropped out of her stomach.

“By New Year’s Day, I intend to be announced as the incoming president of the Ramazith Historical Society. I’ll start my term in July, of course—I could never leave you so early, and there will need to be some time to transition,” he explained, animated, like a coordinated campaign of blackmail and extortion was just another obligation to schedule around. “It’s such an elegant solution; I’m shocked I didn’t think of it before. Imagine it! Lorroakan will slink into obscurity, Ramazith will finally have a real academic at the helm, and Rolan will remain securely in his job, safe from harm.”

He looked at her expectantly, as though she was supposed to whoop and cheer for this revelation as well. 

“Wow,” she managed.

His eyes softened a fraction. “I’ve shocked you one too many times in a single night, I fear,” he murmured. He placed his hand, palm-up, on the center console. “Forgive me; this must be quite a lot to take in, especially when I’ve kept everything hidden from you for so long. May I invite you inside for a nightcap? A little brandy to calm the nerves?”

She was still staring at his hand, his broad and wonderful hand, willing her own to slot into place with it. Shakily, she managed it. His fingers curled around her like a vice. 

“Thanks, but, I can’t,” she stumbled out. “I have to get the tiramisu started for the party tomorrow; I promised Astarion I’d make it. Come over to mine around five for a cocktail, though? And then we can walk over together?”

Disappointment flashed on his face, but only for a moment. “Nothing would bring me greater pleasure. Goodnight, Daphne. I love you.”

She squeezed his hand, her heart pounding in her mouth. “I love you so much. Sweet dreams.” He leaned over to kiss her, lingering and soft, before he slid out of the car and bounded up his front steps.

Uneasy, she waved goodbye and drove off into the winter darkness. Under her elbow, his body heat faded from where their joined hands had rested.

Chapter Text

Daphne snatched the Moka pot off the stove just as the flow of coffee began to splutter.

She poured it into a plastic bowl nestled inside a tray of ice water, then unscrewed the pot, refilled the base with water, and replaced the spent grounds with a fresh scoop. Most people would just use instant espresso or bottled cold brew for a tray of tiramisu that was only destined to be demolished by drunk partygoers, but she wasn’t in the mood to be most people. She was in the mood to scald her fingertips on the hot metal of her percolator and crank the flame on her stove up to high.

“That should be the last batch,” she said to the Moka pot. While it brewed, she unwrapped and cleaned the aluminum baking pan she’d bought during her frantic grocery run through the co-op. She’d learned years ago not to bring anything to Astarion’s parties that she didn’t mind breaking or losing.

Finally, she poured the last batch of coffee into the bowl to chill and set about unwrapping the ladyfingers from their crinkly cellophane packaging. A waft of sugar and vanilla and butter washed over her as she dumped them onto a plate, hatefully sweet against the bitter scent of fresh espresso.

She dipped her finger into the coffee. Room temp. Safe to add a (generous) glug of rum without the alcohol evaporating away.

Her tools laid out before her—the huge bowl of pillowy mascarpone filling, the ladyfingers and their boozy marinade, the dark chocolate waiting to be grated—she waited to feel the peace that came with beginning a clearly-defined project. It didn’t come.

She dipped the first ladyfinger into the coffee and laid it on the bottom of the pan. Another, then another.

Who, on god’s green earth, had she driven home tonight?

Her brow furrowed and she finally gave up on holding her emotional chaos at arm’s length. This is a normal reaction, she reminded herself, years of dialectical behavior therapy springing into action as her throat grew thick. I am allowed to feel negative emotions.

“Fuck,” she sighed to the ladyfingers.

Okay. Make a list of what’s true.

She loved Gale Dekarios. That was true.

And, Gale Dekarios loved her. 

How do you know? She set the final ladyfinger down with a little more force than necessary, snapping it in half. She nudged it back together and reached for the mascarpone.

It was true that Gale smiled when he looked at her. He didn’t just listen to her talk, he engaged with her ideas. He brought her coffee every morning, whether they were at work or she was in his bed. He held her hand everywhere they went. 

It was true that last week, she’d overheard him telling Dr. Umberlee that he couldn’t reprise his dolphin lecture for her other class because “my lovely partner and I have a prior engagement.” 

The prior engagement had been an afternoon by her fireplace with a book of short stories, after a lunchtime conversation about reading had taken an unexpected turn. She hadn’t realized he was being serious when he kept offering to read to her, and he’d immediately sworn to show her what she’d been missing.

So, after work that day, when he could have been lecturing undergrads about Ancient Greece, he’d settled her head on his lap and read aloud from a collection he’d chosen from the library: Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk by David Sedaris. 

“Its back matter boasts that the contents are both delightfully bizarre and charmingly subversive, ” he’d explained as he cracked it open, his smile brilliant in the firelight, “and I thought, well. That’s my Daphne, isn’t it.”

He’d even tried to affect a squeaky voice for some of the dialogue. She’d been useless with laughter.

She slapped three glops of filling down the middle of the pan, then got to work delicately spreading it to the edges. This was always the hardest part—the ladyfingers slid around on the aluminum and made it hard to lay down a smooth first layer.

So. Those things were true. Keep going.

Gale Dekarios, her handsome, charming, utterly devoted boyfriend, had just announced his intention to take over a prestigious nonprofit via mob-style intimidation. That, unfortunately, was also true.

He honestly didn’t seem to think of it that way, from what she could tell. His reasoning had included the good of the field, rescuing Rolan from an impossible situation, and dishing just desserts to an objectively terrible person. Good things, noble things.

But. Those were all secondary actions. The primary action, what he was really doing in practice, was forgoing bringing Lorroakan to justice so that he could personally seize control of a trust that controlled millions of dollars in funds. Maybe billions; who knew.

True: he clearly expected her unqualified support.

Her chest tightened and her mouth went dry. That was it. That was what made her the queasiest.

She wrapped the end of the chocolate in a paper towel so it didn’t melt in her hand and grated it high above the mascarpone. The dark, brittle shavings dusted over the layer of cream and drifted in its ridges. 

Time for more ladyfingers.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want him to get his career back, whatever that entailed. She’d always known that was his endgame. He was brilliant, and driven, and frankly owed some fucking respite after what he’d suffered. And, in taking such a high position of power, he could finally do what he loved without the shadow of Mystra hanging around him like a coat he couldn’t take off. He’d be free.

And Rolan would be free, too. Kind of. Gale seemed definitive about keeping him on, which was good, but wouldn’t the right thing to do in this situation be to help him find a way to finish his doctorate? Especially if Ramazith funded basically all the university programs—

A chill like ice water seeped into her veins. 

Her hands moved faster of their own accord, robotically finishing the final two layers. She really didn’t want to know the answer to the question pressing insistently to the front of her mind. She really, really didn’t.

But then the tiramisu was in the refrigerator and her hands were washed and she was sitting at her desk in front of her decade-old MacBook, typing the words “Mystra Cambridge Ramazith” into Google.

Immediately, a portrait of an attractive older woman with piercing blue eyes appeared at the top of the search results, along with a blurb from Wikipedia. Mystra Weaving, British academic , announced the chiron above her headshot. 

Daphne’s stomach lurched. This was already a bad idea. Looking directly at her spiked the same primordial fear as spotting a snake coiled underfoot, but months of pent-up curiosity wouldn’t let her look away. Her attention kept lingering on the wrong things—how her glossy black hair draped just so over her shoulder, the way her porcelain complexion and heart-shaped face gave her the arch appeal of a silent movie star. 

The woman on her screen had taken absolutely everything from Gale with the impersonal brutality of a carjacking. That she was beautiful … was unexpected. Cosmically, it felt unjust. 

She made herself scroll down and click the link for Ancient History at Cambridge: Faculty. There she was again, in a different headshot this time, sizing Daphne up from the top of the page. 

And there, next to her portrait, was Dr. Mystra Weaving, Halaster Blackcloak Distinguished Professor of Classics, Ramazith Historical Society Department Chair of Ancient History and Archeology.

In eleventh grade, Daphne’s American history class had learned about the race for the atom bomb. Her teacher had wheeled in one of those giant old televisions strapped to an AV cart and showed them footage of some Army nuclear tests way out in the desert. What had struck her at the time wasn’t the way the horizon erupted into impossible brightness at the end of the countdown—it was the long seconds of silence afterward. Complete stillness. And then, rushing forward out of the smoke, a wave of invisible devastation that uprooted trees and shattered houses. 

The wave finally hit her.

She closed her browser and gently shut her laptop. Her feet took her back to the kitchen, where her hands fished her emergency medication from the very back of her shelf. She shook a single Valium onto her countertop, cut it in half with a kitchen knife, and took one while depositing the remainder back into the bottle. It was bitter on her tongue even after she washed it down with a handful of lukewarm water.

Her teeth got brushed and her clothes crumpled on the floor. She lay face-up in her dark room, the wind howling outside, letting silent tears stream down her temples and soak into her hair, until sleep finally pulled her under.

The next morning dawned pale and quiet. Daphne woke up already full of—something. Not the leaden sadness that had overtaken her last night, but definitely Something. It buzzed under her skin and in her ribs. It demanded to move.

The Something pushed her to get out of bed and, honestly, out of her house as soon as possible. She piled together a winter walking outfit of mismatched layers and her sturdiest boots. She remembered to take her meds (thank god), horked down a granola bar, and slammed out her front door.

The birds weren’t even singing yet as the weak winter sun peeked over the horizon. She stomped along the icy sidewalk, partly to make sure her boots didn’t slip, partly because it felt right. The cliffs north of town were about three miles away—a good distance for a day like this, and on a familiar trail. She wished she’d brought a second granola bar.

The houses grew sparser and sparser as she reached the edge of Aurilssbarg, until they stopped entirely. She entered the trailhead to White Mink Overlook and started its slow, switchbacked incline. The night’s wind had knocked the ice from the trees, but it had also blasted the snowy landscape clean of every footstep, every track. Each crunch of her boot could have been the first these woods had ever heard. 

When she reached the first bend, she stopped and looked behind her. The sun shone through the gap in the trees that marked the trailhead, spilling watery light over the dazzling snow and throwing her single track of footprints into sharp relief. The buzzing feeling inside her intensified. She needed to get farther away. 

She was almost running, chest heaving and sweat beginning to soak into her wool long johns, when she crested the hill to the overlook. She jogged to the railing and caught herself against it, head down as she gulped lungfuls of icy sea air.

The sharp, droning hum inside her finally reached a crescendo. 

“I’m angry , ” she gasped. She threw her head back, her arms still braced against the railing as she took in the scenery from the top of the cliffs. The sea stretched into the horizon across the full field of her vision. Choppy, roiling, steely gray, even in the morning light.

For a long few minutes, she just leaned there, watching the ocean beat relentlessly against the granite cliff face. She’d come up here to introspect. Instead, the pounding of her heart and the whip of the winds had shaken her hard enough to instantly clear her head. 

“I’m angry, ” she repeated, loud enough to hear herself over the crash of the waves below.

Daphne pushed off the railing and set off right back down the hill, stomping her way homeward with increasing conviction. The heat in her chest simmered.

Why had Gale spun this cover story about rescuing Rolan and putting Ramazith in the hands of a capable academic when it was clear this whole scheme would only really benefit him?  

Why had he kept this fucking absurd power grab from her until the last possible moment? 

Maybe he’d actually convinced himself he was acting out of altruism and courtesy to Rolan, or maybe this entire thing was just the narrative he’d selectively presented to Daphne to gain her approval. She suspected this process hadn’t involved very much introspection, so it very well could have been the first option.

But, speaking of introspection—she was, at the heart of it, mainly angry at him for failing to treat her as an equal partner. Well-adjusted adult relationships didn’t involve ultimatums, and this had been a hell of an ultimatum. If he’d just fucking talked to her, she could have prevented him from going down this path in the first place. And, she was damn sure, they could have found a way to extricate Rolan by now without becoming accomplices to any felonies.

And then, and then! There was the Mystra of it all. It was bad enough to confront the possibility he was acting out of greed, but revenge? Even after he’d worked so hard to move past what she’d done to him?

After how much of herself Daphne had given in assistance?

He knew this was fucked. He had to. It seemed all too intentional that he hadn’t included “by the way, this plan will conveniently put me in proximate power over the woman whose abuse you’ve been helping me heal from for months. Thanks!” in last night’s revelation.

God. Tears stung in her eyes, but she blinked them away with a grimace. She’d never assumed he was perfect, but she’d never guessed he was sneaky.

She was mad when she got home. She was mad when she shucked her boots and layers, and she was mad when she threw herself into a steaming hot shower. The blood vessels deep in her bone-chilled tissues burned and itched as they thawed again under the hot water, and that pissed her off too. 

She finally ate lunch around two. He hadn’t texted. She rubbed her sternum, over where her heart ached. Five o’clock was both years away and also entirely too soon. Dread, cold and suffocating, seized her as the instantaneous heat of her anger subsided.

Knitting, television, the first Ramones album—nothing helped. She sat, and she stewed, and she revised her mental lists of all her points. He didn’t text.

At around 4:30, when she was muddling blackberries to garnish the dark and stormys she was prepping for them, her phone buzzed. 

Gale: Setting off in your direction shortly! I missed you all day.

She braced herself on the counter and leaned over the sink, certain she was going to throw up. The urge receded. She dumped the macerated blackberries into a ceramic pot with a little spoon and carried it into the front room, where she set it down next to the ice bucket and a few bottles of her favorite ginger beer. 

See you soon, she made herself respond. He didn’t get an exclamation point, not today.

I love you, she added, because fuck, she did. Even today.

Twenty agonizing minutes later, there was a knock at her door. A sliver of a familiar forehead, topped with the wooly hat she’d knitted for him, peeked through the window at the top of her front door. Globs of snow clung to his hat and hair. He must have walked.

She took a steadying breath and walked to the front door. Her hand rested listlessly on the doorknob. 

Five. Four. Three. Two—

She wrenched the door open, and Gale slipped into her house with a flurry of snow and wind. The big snowfall the news had promised was finally making its entrance, it seemed. She shouldered the door shut and turned to see him shaking the snow off on her doormat, pink-cheeked and smiling and beautiful. 

“Gracious, what a perfect day for a walk! Very invigorating,” he crowed as he pulled off his boots and hung up his coat and hat. “Hello, my treasure, you’re absolutely gorgeous this afternoon—”

He pulled her to him and kissed her soundly. Her arms wound around him, grabbing fistfuls of his flannel shirt. She leaned into him, into the warmth of his mouth and the roses-and-cedar of his cologne. Savoring. 

“Hello yourself,” she said with an unsteady smile when he pulled back. Her palms were already beginning to sweat. “Come in, sit down.”

He settled onto the couch with a satisfied sigh. 

With leaden feet, she followed him. 

He reached to make his own drink, but she stopped him. It would give her something to do with her hands. She took the tongs from the ice bucket and began filling their glasses.

“You weren’t completely honest with me last night,” she said simply, her eyes forward. The air in the room seemed to still. 

“Before I get mad at you—which I kind of already am, to be honest—I want to give you the chance to fix your mistake.”

She picked up the rum bottle and finally looked his way. It was worse than she’d anticipated. His face was pale, almost white, with the frozen terror of a cornered animal. Her big, stupid heart flung itself against her ribs in a panic, urging her to take it all back and make it better, but that wouldn’t be fair. It wouldn’t be right. He was a fucking adult, just like her. 

“If you don’t have any ideas about why exactly I’m upset, I won’t make you guess,” she amended, softly. “You’re not, like, being scolded. I’m talking about it with you because I want to work this out together.” She poured a glug of rum into each glass. 

Finally, he formed words. “I’ll admit, you’ve got me on my back foot,” he stammered, panicky, and oh, fuck, this hurt. 

Rather than editorializing, she picked up her phone and pulled up the same browser tab she’d been opening and closing since lunch. 

“Doctor Mystra Weaving,” she read, working hard to keep her tone even, “Halaster Blackcloak Distinguished Professor of Classics, Ramazith Historical Society Department Chair of Ancient History and Archeology. ”

She locked her phone again and looked him in the eyes. To her confusion, he visibly relaxed. 

“Oh, darling, you gave me a fright,” he sighed, smoothing a hand over his forehead. “I thought I’d actually done something worth fighting over. Yes. Ramazith funds Mystra’s work. As I said, they fund nearly all—”

“Hang on?” she interrupted him, reeling from the sharp turn this conversation had taken. “I literally just told you I’m upset about this.”

“Yes, of course, and I’m telling you that you shouldn’t be,” he said with a placating squeeze of her knee. “Becoming Ramazith’s director will involve me in a great many programs at a great many universities. Naturally, Cambridge is one of them.”

“Naturally,” she repeated, flat and disbelieving. She pursed her lips at him, indicating this would be a good time to keep talking. Instead, he reached forward, popped the top off of a bottle of ginger beer, and nonchalantly divided it between their glasses.

“Is this compote?” he asked, stirring the little pot of blackberries. 

“Macerated blackberries,” she responded automatically. He carefully spooned some into each of their drinks, then handed her a glass.

Under the weight of her scrutinizing gaze, he sighed. “You’re still unhappy with me.”

“Yeah,” she rasped, her teeth on edge. “To put it mildly. And you’re gonna hear about it, whether you think it’s worth fighting over or not, because I’ve had a hell of a twenty-four hours.”

That, at least, seemed to get his attention. She swallowed around her dry tongue. Their drinks sat sweating in their grasps, untasted.

Daphne’s thoughts, all her well-reasoned points of contention, were starting to blur together as her emotional state started to pressurize. This conversation had to start being constructive soon, or she wasn’t going to keep a grip on herself.

“I am,” she started, deliberately, “really hurt that you didn’t clue me in on any of this earlier. I know you wanted to respect Rolan’s privacy, and that’s admirable, but the rest of it seems like something a normal couple would at least discuss before one of them makes a life-changing, morally questionable decision.”

His eyebrows snapped upward. “ Morally questionable? Daphne, a man is being physically hurt—”

“I’m not done.” 

Gale, wisely, shut up.

“Setting my point about Mystra aside, which I’m only doing for the sake of being productive—I think you’re making a goddamn huge mistake in trying to handle Lorroakan yourself. Not only is he much more experienced than you at being a bully, even if you succeeded, you’d be screwing over everyone he’s stolen from. What, are you gonna make him give all the money back? Have you drafted a, a payment plan?” she asked, plaintive. “And none of this really answers my big question, which is why? Why do any of this? Why not just let the cops handle it?”

His eyes widened to the whites. “ Why? ”

“Yes! Why!” She spread her palm out and gestured searchingly with her drink. “To what possible end?”

“To every end you can imagine, ” he replied, color starting to flush his cheeks. “And, good god, a thousand more beyond. With the immense resources of Ramazith in capable hands at last, there would be no limit to what we could accomplish. Us, Daphne.”

Her temper was starting to slip its leash, she could feel it. “Don’t you dare say you’re fucking doing this for me, Gale.”

“I am, ” he bulldozed onward. “Please, don’t be too hasty about this. You’re in academia as much as I am; you know all too well how much of our livelihood consists of power and money—the lack of it, the pursuit of it, the endless groveling to boards, and supervisors, and the damn Ramazith Society for permission to do your life’s work.”

It occurred to her now, as she slammed back a gulp of sharp, spicy ginger and rum, that she’d never seen him angry and he’d never seen her angry before this exact moment. 

“I have the opportunity to ensure you and I never have to depend on the whims of others again. You can do anything, be anything, you’ve ever wanted.” he finished. He punctuated his argument with a pointed sip of his drink. An ugly spark of satisfaction flared for half a second when the ginger made him cough.

“The only thing I want,” she countered, “is to keep my staff and expand my workshop.” Which you would know, if you’d just asked, she didn’t say.

“Done.” His response was immediate, confident. “But come on, Daphne, ambition isn’t a sin. You can think bigger.”

“I don’t want to think bigger.”

He ground out an exasperated sigh. “At least try! There’s an entire world out there, beyond Icepeak. Why wallow in the mud when you can reach for the stars?”

Why wallow in the mud when you can reach for the stars.

Her tongue swiped over her front teeth. She didn’t have to think too hard to puzzle out who was the mud and who was the star in this metaphor.

“Wallowing in the mud.” Her voice sounded wrecked, even to her own ear. His eyes widened again, but this time, she didn’t feel shit about it. “Is that what this has been for you? A fucking rustic little vacation? God, just when I thought I was helping you get your miserable life back together—”

“I didn’t mean that as a slight—” he had the audacity to say.

“Cut the shit, Gale.”

“I didn’t! I cherish the adventure we’ve been on together—”

“Maybe it’s an adventure for you, but this is my life, ” she exploded. She stood up and set her drink on the table with a rough slosh, unable to sit still any longer. “You came into my home and fell in love with me. My plans and my opinions are exactly as important as yours, because I existed as a whole person before you met me, believe it or not, and I will continue to exist when you fuck off back to England to do whatever the fuck it is you’d rather be doing!”

He stood to meet her. “You mean my job? The career I’ve worked relentlessly, since I was a child, to build?” His chest was heaving now, hands gesticulating angrily. “I have earned this. I’d hoped you of all people would believe that. I have one, fleeting opportunity to reclaim my life as it should have been, before she discarded me on a whim like yesterday’s—”

“There it fucking is.” She pointed at him, her vision narrowing. “You can say what you want about Rolan, and Lorroakan, and the good of the field, but you and I both know this is about her. ”

He genuinely seemed stunned into silence. For a long moment, the only sound was the rasp of their breathing.

“Every day, I watch you bloom a little more into someone whole, and unburdened, and at ease. Someone happy, ” she pleaded. “Don’t throw it all away for a wild-hare shot at revenge. Don’t let her keep taking from you. Please. Gale, please.”

He swallowed. His eyes darted around the room to his hands, the lamp, the ceiling. She waited, wishing with every cell in her body that he’d just fall into her arms and let her pick up the pieces.

“She sent me to die,” he said instead. 

She’d expected tears, if this happened. Her eyes remained dry. Clear.

“Then I guess I can’t force you to live,” she replied, soft and final. 

The weight of what came next hovered over them like a dense, insatiable black hole. Neither of them moved.

Finally, he crossed to the front door. She watched as he laced on his boots and shrugged into his familiar gray winter coat. He turned to her again, grimacing as he tried and failed to hide that he was absolutely fucking shattered.

She couldn’t muster the will to even try. Every romance novel metaphor about hearts breaking and burning and freezing over was happening to her at the same time.

“My flight leaves from Boston at 8am tomorrow,” he said. He huffed a private little laugh to himself. “I… I don’t know why I said that. I can’t expect you to care about that now.”

“I do care,” she returned, embarrassingly quickly. “I think I’m always gonna care.”

He took a step toward her, and she took a step toward him. She could see his fingers twitch to reach for her, the same way she was straining not to pull him close and kiss the sense back into him.

“I love you.” His eyes bored into hers. “You should never, ever doubt that.”

“God, I love you so much,” she hiccupped. “But if you’re gonna go, then go. Don’t—don’t let me hope. It’s cruel.”

He went. Daphne stood in the doorway and listened to the crunch of his footsteps recede into the dark. The snow continued to fall, delicate little flurries of ice in the glow of her porch light, as she watched through the window at the top of her front door. Her knees ached. Her feet went numb against the freezing tile of her entryway.

At some point, she didn’t know when, her phone buzzed on the coffee table behind her. She turned and saw two glasses, half drunk, decorated with the prints of fingers and lips. The image hit her low in her gut. 

She shuffled over and answered the phone. Immediately, the joyful chaos of a party in full swing echoed down the line.

“Darling,” Astarion purred before she could say anything, “where are you? The party’s been going for almost an hour and my guests hunger for Daphne’s tiramisu.”

In spite of herself, she snorted. “First of all, could you have phrased that any more ominously?”

“Absolutely,” he replied immediately. 

“Okay, fuck, don’t start, I’m putting my boots on. See you in, like, ten.”

“Make it eight. I can only keep Karlach entertained for so long; I’m running out of items for her to rip in half.”

She hung up, grabbed the heavy tray of dessert out of the fridge, put on her boots and coat, and headed out the door in what felt like one smooth motion. If she didn’t pause, she didn’t have to think about it.

There was already a set of footsteps in the fresh snow leading to her front door, then a deeper set leading away again. She walked around them. She wasn’t thinking about it. 

The walk to Astarion’s house was short, but it took her down a steep hill, not well lit and rarely plowed because of the incline. Over the years, she’d become something of an expert at navigating the treacherous stretch of sidewalk from the top of the hill to his front gate halfway down, but those were skills that lived in her brain, and her brain was currently operating on its emergency generators. 

All that to say: her boot caught the jagged edge of a loose paver hidden underneath the snow, and she pitched forward. On reflex, she flung her hands out in front of her and deftly caught herself on her palms. She exhaled. Living on Icepeak made everyone pretty good at catching themselves.

Standing once again and dusting herself off, she realized that her hands were now empty. She looked around. A glint in the distance caught her eye. The tray of tiramisu was skittering down the frozen sidewalk. She stood there dumbly as it gained speed, clipped a mailbox, and went spinning into a parked pickup truck, where it splattered across the passenger side.

Daphne regarded the situation—her with snow down her front and gravel stuck to her mittens, Astarion’s house glowing invitingly just yards away, the Jackson Pollock painting of mascarpone and espresso rapidly freezing in place on the pickup truck’s chassis—with a level of complacency that rivaled most senators. Any emotions she could have felt, positive or negative, simply glanced off of her. Such was her overwhelm.

Blithely, she picked her way down the rest of the hill and up to the front door of Astarion’s charming Victorian house, gray with black shutters. She raised her hand to knock, but the door swung open before she even connected with it.

“There she is!” Astarion crooned. He was in rare form tonight, with a ruffled shirt that slashed down to his navel and tight black pants. His toothy smile quickly dimmed as he looked her over.

“You look like hell. What’s befallen you?”

“Fell,” she managed.

“I see. And the tiramisu is…”

She pointed to where the truck was parked three houses down. He craned his neck out of the doorway and delicately covered his mouth with his fingertips, clearly restraining himself. 

“Your manly lover couldn’t carry it for you?” he drawled. “For shame, really. And I thought he had such good breeding.”

“He left,” she said.

His eyes snapped to hers. “He left?”

She spread her hands out in a helpless gesture. “Yeah, like, he left. ”

“What happened.” Astarion’s voice dropped low, out of his usual theatrical musicality. Over his shoulder, someone complained that he was letting the snow in, and he flipped them the bird without taking his eyes off her.

“Um.” It was suddenly very warm inside her parka. “We had a fight, and he said he had to go home to do something really fucking stupid, and I tried to talk him out of it but he wouldn’t change his mind, and then he put his boots back on—”

“Ah ah ah, all right, in you come,” he interrupted her before she started spiraling in earnest. He pulled her through the door by her coat collar and zipped it off of her, then hung it up while she bent to fumble with her boots. 

“Wyll, darling?” he called, clear and tense over the ruckus of the party. 

Oh my god. 

She heard footsteps approach, low conversation, and a soft smack that sounded suspiciously like kissing. Oh my god, oh my god.

Her second boot finally wrestled off, she straightened, beaming. Wyll Ravengard, secret boyfriend of the century, stood with his arm wrapped around Astarion’s waist and a passionfruit White Claw in his other hand.

He was, as promised, statuesque and poised and absolutely stunning, but she’d never doubted he would be. His outfit matched Astarion’s aesthetic: David Bowie-adjacent pants and a drapey off-the-shoulder idea of a shirt in a deep garnet red that made his dark skin shine. 

Astarion hadn’t mentioned the blank, white eye staring out of the right side of Wyll’s face, or the shallow gouges scarred around it. Whatever he’d survived must have been terrible. But—he seemed to wear it all, somehow, as casually as jewelry. He was just that much more striking for it.

A bittersweet warmth suffused her, realizing how much the men in front of her likely held in common.

“You’re already letting him dress you, huh,” she smiled. 

Wyll laughed, a gentle, easy sound. “He’s very persuasive. Do we still need to do introductions, given how often Astarion talks about you?”

She cut her eyes to Astarion with an insufferable grin. He rolled his eyes back at her, but it lacked his signature disdain. Even being next to Wyll seemed to soften him, relax the lines of his face. She was losing her mind. This was completely, utterly unprecedented.

“Oh, let’s. Hi, I’m Daphne.”

“A pleasure, Daphne. Wyll Ravengard,” he replied. Even his voice was elegant, in a subtle, genuine way that reminded her of old movies. He briefly released his grip on Astarion to shake her hand, or so she believed. The next thing she knew, he was inviting her into a hug, and she was standing on her toes to throw her arms around him. 

“Astarion just told me,” he half-whispered, gently squeezing her shoulders. “I’m so sorry.”

“Fuck, dude, you’re gonna make me cry.” She patted him on the back. “Yeah. I’m in hell, but also, it’s Astarion’s party, so. I don’t wanna bring the mood down.”

He leaned back, clapping his hand on her upper arm. “Well, that’s a mandate for shots if I’ve ever heard one. Light of my life,” he said, looking over at Astarion, “Do you have anything we could take shots out of? Not wine glasses; it’s tacky.”

Astarion huffed at the insinuation, but he was also fucking blushing. “Of course, I’m not a philistine.”

They were cut crystal champagne flutes. Which, Astarion emphatically pointed out, were not wine glasses, and anyway this was his house and his nicest vodka so he got to make the rules.

The rest of the night passed in a happy, loud, jostling haze around her. Her head still ached with numbness, her heart was still a heap of splinters in her chest, but it was hard to dwell on any of that while Karlach was cradling her in her lap and insistently feeding her barbecue chips. Or while Dammon had her tucked under his tree trunk of an arm, scrolling through every video of Scratch on his phone. She was passed friend to friend, fed bites of snacks and sips of drinks and words of kindness until she burst with all of it, and for a little while, she could almost see sunlight peeking through the fog.

When the party died down and the despair started to seep in again, Wyll put Ella Fitzgerald on the speakers and swept her into a slow dance. She let him maneuver her around the living room. His measured, easy stream of narration gave her something to cling to as he plied her with stories about Julliard and the dance companies he’d toured with before his injury forced him out of performing and into government work.

“I don’t wanna ask, but—you’re okay, right? Other than,” she gestured to her eye.

He nodded. “It’s a long story, not really party material. But, yes. I’m the best I’ve ever been, I would say.” 

They both looked over at Astarion. He was still locked in an animated exchange with a pinched-faced redhead woman from the Biology faculty, delight blazing in his eyes. 

“I’ve never met anyone who loves an argument like he does,” Wyll sighed indulgently. “Look at him go.”

“I don’t know how you do it,” she chuckled, shaking her head. “He can fucking drive me to the edge of homicide if he’s in the right mood.”

He shrugged, his expression doing something so unbearably tender that Daphne almost felt like she was intruding. 

“You didn’t have to wait for him,” he murmured.

Her breath left her in an unexpected rush. They swayed together in silence for a while, letting the last stanza of Blue Moon wash over them. 

“I guess I didn’t,” she replied.

Daphne had intended to go home after the last guest departed, but somehow woke up tucked under a blanket on Astarion’s couch anyway. She let herself out and locked up behind her with the key he kept under his doormat. 

The pickup truck she’d victimized last night was no longer in its driveway. What had its owner thought of the mess?

She ran through every possible scenario in her mind as she hurried home, carefully this time, through the picture-postcard scene of Aurilssbarg decked in fresh snow. Did they think it was a prank, or something sinister? Had they even noticed at all?

Stumbling back through her front door, she noticed something she hadn’t in the miserable blur of yesterday’s events: Gale’s hat, still hanging on a peg in her entryway.

Don’t.

She snatched it and pressed it to her face, inhaling hungrily. Roses, cedar, his almond shampoo, the clean musk of his skin, a faint soapy remnant of the wool wash she’d used to clean and block the hat before giving it to him as a just-because surprise. Warm, as though he’d just taken it off and would be back for it soon, even though she knew it was just the radiator.

She finally let herself cry. 

Chapter Text

January 5th

The first snow of the new year fell in thick, billowing sheets as the ferry neared Icepeak Island. A pang of sharp relief bloomed in Daphne at the prospect of soon being home, in her own bed, eating take-and-bake pizza off of her own plates.

Not that her trip home hadn’t been pleasant. As usual, she’d spent most of this Christmas in the kitchen of her parents’ farm house, operating as her mother’s sous chef. She’d caramelized onions and simmered tomato sauce and brushed melted butter on pretzel rolls with the focus of a fighter pilot, to hearty praise from her large, boisterous extended family.

Also as usual, when the subject of producing a grandchild inevitably came up (because I’ve only got you, Daphne, and god knows I’m not getting any younger ), she’d shoved a tasting spoon in her mother’s mouth and asked if whatever she was cooking needed more salt. It was a trick question to which her mother was fatally weak: everything always needed more salt.

Home was joyful, and loud, and distracting. It just sure as hell wasn’t restful, and god, she needed a rest.

The ferry captain’s voice crackled from the speakers to inform everyone they’d be docking in Aurilssbarg in ten minutes. Through the lessening storm, the skyline of the town began to fade into view. She could spot her rooftop, high on the hill, if she squinted. And then, so close to the side of the boat it seemed impossibly large, the imposing column of the Aurilssbarg lighthouse emerged from the snow, along with the whitewashed cottage at its base.

Without thinking, she scanned the windows for Tara. But, no—Gale had planned to bring the cat back with him to visit his mother. He always did. It truly was empty in there. 

A cold, numb weight settled into her stomach. A familiar sensation, just recently.

The ferry docked at the terminal, and Daphne shouldered her hiking backpack full of clothes. She knew better than to pack a rolling suitcase during the winter; not when home was just a jaunt up the hill. She could almost feel the lighthouse’s watchful presence behind her as she turned her back to the bitter wind and started up through town.

He would have called a car for me.  

She swatted the thought down with a bitter flash of pride. She didn’t need a car called for her. She’d lived here going on six years; she knew goddamn well she was capable of walking.

January 6th

Dear Gale,

I love you. Isn’t that stupid? I love you. You’re being exceptionally fucking difficult about it for reasons I don’t understand. Come home so I can scream at you until you make better fucking choices—

Daphne threw her phone across the room before she could finish the email. 

“Not my job,” she gritted out. She rolled over, face-down on her pillow. “Not my job, not my job.”

If this was ever going to get fixed, he was going to have to fix it. Not her. 

January 8th

“Okay, let’s hit it!” 

Daphne slapped a Class In Session sign on the wall outside and closed the doors to the studio. The ten undergrads who would be in their custody for the next three weeks gave some polite noises of enthusiasm from where they were seated at the room’s various workbenches.

“I’m Daphne Tavian, I’m the manager of the Book Arts Workshop here at Icepeak, please just call me Daphne, I’m not a professor,” she chirped, striding into the center of the room with the warmest smile she could fake. “I’ll be one of your instructors for the next three weeks. You’re also lucky enough to be learning from my two amazing graduate assistants, Lae’zel—”

Lae’zel inclined her head.

“—and Shadowheart.”

Shadowheart gave a small, bored wave.

“ Shadowheart? ” a student guffawed under his breath. Daphne turned toward the source of the interruption, a distinctly hockey-player-shaped boy seated by the platen press. She opened her mouth to inform the kid that she would be happy to help him switch classes—but stopped short when, mysteriously, Lae’zel got there first.

She sauntered in front of him, her slight frame seeming to tower as she sized him up. She splayed one of her strong, bony hands on the workbench in front of him. The ropy scar that slashed from between her middle and ring fingers up to her wrist stood out harshly under the fluorescents.

“This scar,” she growled in her lowest, most sinister voice. “I was working alone and lowered the press on my hand. Split it in two. You can see,” she trailed a fingernail along it, “where they sewed me back together.”

Daphne knew where that scar came from; it was an old sports injury from a wayward skate. And anyway, didn’t Lae’zel roll her eyes every time Shadowheart corrected her on her name? Since when did she care?

Lae’zel leaned fractionally closer to Hockey Boy. “It would be quite a shame if someone were to allow you to come to similar harm, niaiseux, hm?”

Holy shit, okay. Daphne clapped her hands together. “Thank you, team! Now that we’re all introduced, why don’t you go around and say your name and… how about, your favorite font?”

Hockey Boy, perhaps shaken into submission, went first. His name was Mattis, and his favorite font was Cooper Black, of all things. Go figure. The rest of the class filled in their names and a frankly amusing range of typefaces, from Times New Roman (yawn) to Impact (distressing).

The last student to introduce herself was a sharp-eyed girl whose upright carriage and bouncy brown hair seemed familiar, somehow.

“Arabella,” she said, pointing to herself. That was it, she was the one who’d spoken up in Gale’s lecture that time. The same day he’d—

Fuck. Daphne gritted her teeth to keep her expression open and neutral. 

“…is definitely Bookman Antiqua,” Arabella was saying when she tuned back in. “But, I’m like, super dyslexic, so serif fonts are kind of my worst enemy. It’s the great tragedy of my one wild and precious life, I fear.”

“No tragedies in the studio; workshop policy,” Daphne replied, waving her hand. “There are tons of sans serifs in here; I’m sure we’ll find you a new favorite. I’ll go get our specimen binder so you can get a feel.”

Arabella grinned, and in spite of herself, Daphne smiled back. 

January 8th, 11:36 p.m.

“This better be important; I’m watching Succession.”

“Again? This is what, your seventh watch-through?” Daphne squinted at Astarion in the blinding glow of her phone screen.

“Is not,” he argued automatically.

“ You’re right, it’s the eighth, I forgot about the Great Seasonal Depression of 2023—“

He made a big show of fumbling off-camera to pause the television, looking extraordinarily put-upon. 

“All right. What’s got you facetiming me at this late hour,” he asked, the witty edge in his voice softening. 

She thudded her head back against her headboard. “I read his emails again.”

“Ugh, no, you masochist —”

“They’re just so good, and he says he wants to woo me, and there’s nowhere he wouldn’t be glad to be seen with me—” she whined, pointedly avoiding looking at Astarion’s grimacing face.

“Yes, of course, and then what happened?” he countered. “You fixed him with your love or whatever, then he immediately decided he was too good for the whole fucking island, insinuated you were beneath his station like some kind of duke, and flounced off to be Head Drip at some dismal little charity.” 

“It’s not dismal. ”

“Daphne, my sweet, I guarantee it is suicidally boring.” He exhaled through his nose. “Stop… marinating in your own despair; it’s deeply off-putting. This isn’t even close to your worst breakup.”

She wailed. “I don’t know if we broke up or not, that’s the whole goddamn point, I think we did but we never said so specifically and it’s not like I can ask him— ”

“Oh, my god. I’m hanging up if you’re going to be delusional.”

Frowning, she looked at him with her biggest, saddest eyes. 

“I know what you want,” Astarion warned. “The answer is no.” 

She raised her eyebrows pleadingly.

“I’m about to go to bed. I’ve got three freshman reference presentations to teach tomorrow, and you know they’ll all be wretched.”

She let her bottom lip wobble. 

Pinching the bridge of his nose with a pained expression, he sighed.

“Christ, you’re a terror. Fine. But only to the end of this episode.”

The view on her screen whirled as he propped the phone on his end table. The side of his face shone in profile in the foreground, illuminated by the television they were now both watching. He hit play, and Tom Wambsgans continued interrogating the network’s news anchor about Mein Kampf.

“Thanks, friendo,” she yawned, settling her phone against the pillow next to her. 

He made a noncommittal noise. She still saw, though, the faint smile lines form on his cheek, thrown into deep contrast by the blue light of the television.

January 9th

For the first time in months, Daphne scaled the stairs into the library lobby and pushed through the door to the cafe. The same blonde young man as usual waited behind the cash register. 

“Hey, there you are!” he waved cheerfully as the customer in front of her left with their drink. “It’s been forever!”

“Good to be back,” she lied.

“Oat milk cafe au lait,” he confidently narrated as he punched it in, “and a dirty chai for Professor Dekarios.”

She smiled tightly, freezing on the spot.

“It’s your turn today, huh,” he continued with a smirk and a knowing wink.

Her mouth went dry. As she watched, dumbstruck, the barista turned and made the two drinks, as he had no doubt done every day of last semester. 

He slid her and Gale’s drinks across the counter to her. Numbly, she tapped her card against the payment terminal and collected them both. 

“Come back soon!” he chirped. Daphne nodded and shouldered the door open, retreating sheepishly back to her basement.

January 10th

Dear Gale, 

The barista still thinks we’re together. Did you know dirty chais are seven fucking dollars? I do, because he keeps making them when I walk in, and I keep letting him sell them to me, because I can’t tell one more fucking person that you aren’t here. You left Icepeak. You left me. 

You said you wanted to buy every cup of coffee I ever drank. So why am I here holding yours?

Daphne looked at the words on her screen through bleary eyes. Sighing, she closed the window. 

“God, get a grip, ” she groaned under her breath. 

Her fingers typed “from: [email protected] ” into her email’s search bar. The same two messages as always appeared on the screen, dated months ago. She chewed her lip.

She did not close the window.

January 11th

The kids’ project for the end of their first week was to design and print six-by-ten cards with their names. Simple, yet easily shared and shown off around campus—at least, that was Daphne’s hope. The more visibility she could generate before their Board meeting, the better.

At least class itself seemed to be going well. She could already feel her bruised heart begrudgingly opening to her eclectic little collection of undergrads. Each kid brought a curiosity and a creative instinct all their own, and Daphne was honestly flabbergasted at how quickly they absorbed her instruction. Not just about the mechanics of letterpress printing; about everything .

“Hmm,” a thin, curly-headed boy—Marcus? Minkus?—hummed as he leaned over Arabella’s typesetting frame. “Yeah, you’re right, something’s weird. Maybe it’s this part right here? You’ve got your last ‘A’ at kind of a square angle with this ornament, and that interrupts the flow, remember.”

“Ugh, that’s totally it.” Arabella groaned, plucking heavy lead pieces out of the frame and laying them back on her prep surface. “Thanks, Mirkon.”

Mirkon, Daphne repeated in her head. 

“I was coming over here because you looked like you were working through something, but I can see I’m not needed,” she smiled, sidling next to them. “Great eye, both of you. And way to problem-solve, Mirkon.”

Mirkon flushed red at the praise. Arabella nudged him with her foot, grinning.

Suddenly, a knock sounded on the doorframe behind her. Daphne wheeled around, her traitorous heart doing something very stupid against her ribcage, to see Isobel poking her white-blonde head into the studio. 

“So sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt!” she stage-whispered. Daphne looked around to make sure Lae’zel and Shadowheart had things under control, then ducked out into the hallway and shut the door behind her.

“Hi, Isobel,” she stammered. “What can I, uh, what’s up?”

Isobel grinned apologetically. “You know me, I’m here to beg, borrow, and steal. I was hoping you might have some of that thick cotton paper lying around? I’m working on a scrapbook of our anniversary trip to the Isle of Skye as a surprise for Aylin.”

Of course. She was here for craft supplies, like always, not for anything about—of course. Obviously.

She led Isobel to the end of the hall and unlocked the supply closet, revealing the stacks of paper and Tyvek and vellum she kept in ruthlessly organized bins. She stood on her toes and pulled down a wire basket labeled Gmund 100% cotton (bleached).

“I think this’ll suit,” she said, offering Isobel the basket. “It takes watercolors really nicely, too, just a tip.” 

Isobel riffled through them thoughtfully, then nodded, taking a sheaf. She hugged it to her chest as Daphne hefted the basket back into place. She turned, ready to get back to work, but found Isobel hadn’t moved from the doorway. 

“I, ah. I know I’m probably not the person you want to talk to about this,” she trailed off, ducking her head. 

Oh, fuck. She was here about Gale.

“You want to know how I’m doing,” Daphne guessed when she didn’t press further.

Isobel nodded.

“Because he told you about, like. Us, and why he left, and—”

Isobel nodded again, her enormous blue eyes sad and searching. Her teeth worried the edge of her lip. Questions caught in Daphne’s throat, asking exactly what he’d told her—whether, in his story, she was the spiteful harpy who tried to hold him back or just the sweet backwater simpleton who proved incapable of understanding him—but she swallowed them. Knowing more would just make it sting harder.

What was the line? If I loved you less, I could talk about it more.

“I’m about as fine as can be expected,” Daphne said coolly. Her heart was pounding so hard that she could feel it in her teeth, and tears were already bubbling behind her eyelids, but Isobel didn’t need to know that, because Gale didn’t need to know that.

“I’m sorry. I can tell how deeply you’re both hurting,” Isobel said with a level of genuine sympathy that grated against Daphne’s pride.

But, but : was Gale hurting, really? The man who had just gotten everything he’d ever wanted? The thought curled in her chest, around her heart, stoking an unsteady, nauseous hope. 

No, certainly not. She would not ask for details. She did not need to know.

“Yeah, well. Wasn’t your fault,” Daphne deflected, tugging agitatedly at her shirt cuff. “I guess it’s good to hear that he’s, like, alive? We haven’t talked, and he’s probably already in charge of Ramazith by now, so. I don’t expect he’s even coming back to Icepeak at this point.”

Isobel’s cupid’s bow mouth flattened into a thin line. “I don’t know his exact plans at the moment,” she countered, lightly defensive, “but I do know he’s not the kind to just abandon the people he cares about.”

Daphne felt her composure slip. “I thought he wasn’t the kind to do a lot of things,” she replied, breezy and biting. “Guess we’ll find out.”

Conflict creased Isobel’s forehead as she took in Daphne’s face. Daphne stared back at her, her expression carefully neutral. After a moment, Isobel seemed to realize she was blocking the door and stepped away, apologetic. 

“Thanks for the paper!” she called over her shoulder as she strode toward the staircase.

“No problem!” Daphne answered. She watched Isobel climb the stairs out of the basement, swept into the whirlpool of her own thoughts. When she was out of sight, Daphne shut the door to the supply closet again, sank onto an unopened box of kraft paper, and had a brisk, efficient cry.

When she slipped back into class, puffy-eyed and a little pink, she barely had time to orient herself before Arabella excitedly waved her over to the platen press.

“Daphne! Okay, I think I finally got the whole flow idea down, look—”

Shadowheart pulled a print off the press and handed it to Arabella, who proudly held it out. Her name stood out in a round, friendly sans serif, framed along the top and bottom by delicate strands of ivy.

“I’m going to ink wash the leaves green,” she added, bouncing on her heels. 

Daphne covered her mouth with shaky fingers, pride welling in her fast and deep. “It’s gorgeous, Arabella,” she rasped. “Excellent work.”

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January 13th

Daphne hunched in her usual booth at the Mermaid, waiting on her friends. The cozy tavern was already starting to fill up with the dinner rush. From her vantage point in the back corner, she could see everyone as they arrived—locals in jeans and flannels, skiers taking a night away from the resort to experience “real Icepeak,” families, lovers.

A tall man with a kind face and a lift ticket tacked to his parka walked in, holding the door open for the dark-haired woman behind him. He took her coat and scarf, delicately hanging them on the coat rack before unzipping his own. She took his hand as they walked to their seats at the bar, and he lifted hers to his lips for a kiss as she giggled.

Daphne pressed the heels of her hands into her eye sockets as she slumped forward onto the table. Fumbling for something, anything else to do, she impulsively reached for her phone and opened a fresh email.

Dear Gale,

Do you remember when you took me to that fancy restaurant up on the mountain, the one with the stained glass windows? You ordered us negronis because I’d never had one, and I didn’t like mine, so you took it and drank both. You got adorably tipsy before the appetizers arrived. You apologized over and over, but you were so sweet and silly, it only made me laugh. I kept telling you it was all right, it was an accident, I’d make sure you behaved.

You looked at me across the table with this little smirk. Do you remember? You said, “You hold my leash so gently, my darling.”

I think of that dinner, and the way you kissed me after with campari on your mouth, constantly. Because I wonder, Gale, exactly what the hell you meant by that. 

“Hey, Daph!” 

She jolted back to the present to see Alfira, Lakrissa, Karlach, and Dammon weaving across the dining room toward her. She locked her phone and hastily threw it into the front pocket of her overalls as she stood. It dug into her sternum when Karlach crushed her into a hug.

January 17th

“Mattis!” Daphne gasped, pulling his first print off the press. 

“What did I do? I can fix it,” he blurted nervously. She shook her head, beaming.

“Don’t change a thing. This is so clean, I can’t believe it. Everyone, look at this!” 

Daphne held up Mattis’ print for the room to see. They were typesetting favorite song lyrics this week, just a phrase or two of their own choosing. Mattis’ print read “ living in this big blue world, with my head up in outer space ” in delicate, italic font, the text scattering down the page in a trickle.

“There are a few things Mattis did well that I want to point out,” she said. “First, look at how many line breaks he has and how his text drifts to the right with each one. That’s a visual choice that works well with his content. Now look at how even his spacing is. His leading, his kerning, his flow, it’s all consistent. Nothing sticks out. That lets the eye just kind of gently slide across the page without getting stuck.” 

Mattis looked simultaneously proud and like he wanted to melt through the floor as everyone intently examined his work. “Lae’zel helped me,” he added, bashful. “She showed me a trick for drafting your designs first, so you’re not guessing when you load your frame—”

“Oh yeah?” Daphne swung around to where Shadowheart and Lae’zel were prepping the roller press for their demonstration later. “In that case—let’s switch, Lae’zel, I want everyone to learn whatever you taught Mattis. This is insanely good work.”

She shrugged, laying her ink scraper down and heading over to their seldom-used chalkboard. Daphne sidled into her place beside Shadowheart and started inking. For a while, she and Shadowheart worked in silence while Lae’zel lectured in her brisk delivery and the kids frantically took notes.

“Whatever animosity was between Lae’zel and I,” Shadowheart suddenly said, quiet enough for only Daphne to hear, “I want you to know that we’ve worked it out.”

Daphne paused. “I’ve noticed.”

Shadowheart ducked her head, pointedly avoiding Daphne’s gaze to focus on inking a particular edge of the roller. “Well. Good. Just in case that was a consideration, for, you know, keeping both of us on. There won’t be any issues.”

Daphne furrowed her brow. Where was this coming from? “No, don’t worry. You’re already a great team. If you guys have found a way to stand each other’s company, that’s just a bonus.”

Shadowheart nodded, placidly wiping her ink scraper clean on her apron. Okay—matter settled, apparently, although she still didn’t know why she’d asked. Poor thing must have been so nervous over nothing.

She bumped her shop assistant lightly with her shoulder. “Aw, come on, it’s been almost two years,” she chuckled reassuringly. “I don’t expect the two of you to suddenly be friends or anything.”

Shadowheart laughed too, to Daphne’s surprise, high pitched and a little frantic—although that might have just been her laugh, Daphne didn’t know. She’d never heard it before. Lae’zel paused in the middle of writing something to glance back at them, concerned, and Shadowheart’s laughter turned into a coughing fit. 

“I’ll just go get some water,” she gasped out, hurrying out of the studio. 

“Take your time,” Daphne reassured her. The stress of their funding hanging in the balance was getting to all of them, it seemed.

January 20th

Her policy was to only work on the clock. One of the reasons she’d taken the Icepeak job in the first place was the contractually guaranteed weekends off.

And yet—here it was, a perfectly good Saturday evening, and Daphne was stretched across her couch with her ancient laptop chugging on her lap, going over her PowerPoint slides. Again. 

Six days. For better or worse, the trajectory of the entire workshop would change forever in six days. It all came down to her ability to charm the seven multimillionaires who governed Icepeak with their checkbooks. And Ravengard, obviously, but she knew he’d go where the money went.

She clicked away from her PowerPoint for a moment, just to rest her brain, and saw that she’d left her browser open to the Salford University Book Arts Workshop page.

Curiosity tickled the back of her brain. Where was Salford, anyway?

Google Maps showed, disappointingly, that Salford was up by Manchester in the middle-ish part of England. She zoomed out and let her eyes follow the spiderweb of highways that connected it, eventually, to London.

Well, couldn’t hurt to see—she set Salford as her starting point and put London as her destination. She frowned. Four hours by car (could she even drive in England?), or three hours by train. Not terrible, but not ideal.

What about Oxford?

As soon as she hit enter, the map zoomed in close, and her heart raced. Just a little more than an hour, and she wouldn’t even have to change trains. She needed to see where exactly Ramazith was headquartered, that could make a difference in which stop—

Icy, brutal awareness of how humiliating this line of thought was becoming slammed through her in a wave of shame. She closed the browser with a hasty click and pulled up her PowerPoint slides again.

“Ongoing improvements in workshop ROI,” she forcefully read aloud. This was where her focus belonged. This was her future. Not Oxford, or Salford, or anywhere else Professor Gale A. Dekarios may be. But—

There’s a whole world out there beyond Icepeak, his voice echoed in her head. She cringed at the memory, but it gripped her nonetheless.

Why wallow in the mud when you can reach for the stars?  

She groaned, reclining on the arm of her couch to stare at the ceiling. With the benefit of weeks between herself and the moment, Daphne finally had to concede that she understood what he was trying to say. 

He wasn’t justified in saying it, exactly—and it was still pretty fucking condescending for her tastes—but he was right. There was, factually, a whole world beyond Icepeak. 

And the more she thought about it, the more she realized it was open to her.

Look at her resume: specialized education at a prestigious art school, an apprenticeship with glowing recommendations, six years of experience leading a book arts workshop with minimal guidance from administration. Guiltily, she glanced back at her laptop screen, at the graph she’d made to chart the workshop’s profits year over year. The line climbed steadily up and to the right. 

She was good at this. She could leave Icepeak, if she wanted to. And, god help her… she maybe, probably, wanted to.

Not now, of course, not at such a pivotal moment and not with two young artists depending on her. But in a year? Two years? When she could envision leaving the workshop in Lae’zel and Shadowheart’s capable hands?

A sense of uncanny calm blanketed her, as though she’d finally accepted a part of herself she’d been desperate to reject. Her life on Icepeak was small, and safe, and lovely, but it was small, and it was safe. Something terrifying and wonderful and big waited for her elsewhere. 

Gale had seen that future for her. And, even while his own ambition broke her heart, he’d urged her to follow hers.

Her pulse thudded in her ears. Flipping through her slides with fresh eyes, she saw her story beats, her pressure points, her questions and answers all laid before her like a turn-by-turn map. Every success, every problem she’d ever solved, was here, thoroughly documented and charted and graphed.

Exhilaration sent sparks up her spine. She was absolutely capable of convincing the board to fund the workshop. She would . And then, she would do anything she damn well wanted. 

Reaching for her phone, she hit Astarion’s name on speed-dial.

“ Slushayu, ” his smooth voice answered.

“Bonjour,” she replied. After all this time, she still hadn’t picked up a word of Russian, and he knew that. “I’m done for the day. Wanna open a bottle of wine and see what new horrors we can find on the Kindle Unlimited store?”

“Hi Daphne!” Wyll’s voice called in the background.

“Ooh, even better—does Wyll want to open a bottle of wine and discover the horrors available on the Kindle Unlimited store?”

Astarion scoffed. “Darling. As if I would spend this much time with anyone who doesn’t share an appreciation for dreck. My angel,” he said, leaning away from the phone, “what was that book you were reading a few days ago? The one with the minotaurs?”

Peals of Wyll’s rich laughter rang down the phone, long and loud. “Hang on, he seems to be having some sort of fit,” Astarion narrated.

“I’ll be there in ten,” Daphne grinned. God above, Wyll had better stick around. 

“Do. I’ll uncork the Malbec.”

January 20th, four hours and 1.5 liters of wine later

To: [email protected]
Subject: [none]

Dear Gale

I get it.. I don’t forgive you but I get it 

[Message sent!]

January 21st

I am never drinking again, Daphne thought miserably as she stared into her coffee. Her head pounded. The awful, bitter taste of hangover coated her mouth and hung on her breath. 

The last thing she remembered of last night, she was staggering back up the hill to her house. At least it seemed like she’d washed her face and brushed her teeth before bed.

She tapped her phone to check the time—a little past noon. Her thumb hovered over her email icon, itching to type g-a-l-e into the search bar. No, she scolded herself, yanking her thumb back. She was already suffering enough. No need to wallow in that particular well again. Certainly no need to check for an email she knew was never coming. 

Before she could think better of it, she swiped over the icon for her email app and dragged it into the trash. It blinked out of existence. There. If she wanted to mope, now, she’d have to go through the trouble of firing up her ailing MacBook—or, even less dignified, logging in on her work computer. 

Groaning, she let her forehead rest against the cool tile of her kitchen tabletop. The tension eased from her shoulders. She was gonna be okay. One day at a time, she was going to be okay.

January 22nd

For the last week of class, Daphne’s lesson plan had originally dictated that everyone would typeset the same paragraph of text, but in their own style. It would be a great way to showcase what they’d learned and demonstrate their grasp of the material. 

However. These kids were way, way too cool to just copy down the same passage from The Winter’s Tale. Something else had to be done. 

Daphne arrived to work early on Monday, while the stars were still bright in the midwinter morning sky. She unlocked their wing of the basement and flicked the hall lights on, striding past the darkened door to LB-52 with no second glances, thanks so much, and scuttling into the workshop. Every workbench was covered in a joyous collage of ink and paper.

She took a slow lap around the room, easily picking out which prints came from which student. Mirkon favored musical motifs, dotting his prints with ornaments of instruments and clefs. Arabella leaned into bold, simple fonts contrasted against botanical elements. Mattis’ style was clean and unfussy, while Sylvie, his much quieter sister, showed a shockingly sly sense of humor in her visual language. 

All of her kids showed such incredible promise. How could she choose a final product that would let each of them shine? They were all entirely unique, driven artists—

She stopped dead in her tracks. That was it. They were past the point of formal instruction; it was time to set them loose completely. 

She crossed to the blackboard and wrote FINAL PROJECT: GO NUTS in tall, confident letters. Her fingers tingled with anticipation. Yeah. This felt correct.

In the hall, she heard footsteps approach and then abruptly stop. She leaned out to see who was there and saw Lae’zel and Shadowheart, frozen in surprise where they stood side-by-side. 

“Morning! It’s just me, didn’t mean to startle you,” Daphne smiled. Car keys still dangled from Shadowheart’s fingers, swinging in midair. 

“Aw, do you guys carpool?” she said, pointing them out. “I didn’t know that.”

“Yes!” Shadowheart answered. “Yes, we carpool.”

“My car is, it’s, broken up,” Lae’zel elaborated. 

“Broken down,” Shadowheart corrected.

“ Oui. Broken down.” 

“So I’ve been picking Lae’zel up in the mornings.” 

Suddenly, Daphne’s stomach rumbled. She’d gotten such an early start that she hadn’t even bothered with breakfast. 

“Ugh, sorry, I’m starving. I’m gonna go up to the cafe and get some oatmeal with my coffee, you guys want anything?”

“No!” they replied in unison. 

Shrugging, Daphne trudged past them and up the stairs. She wouldn’t have turned down free food when she was in grad school, that’s for damn sure, but maybe times were changing. 

January 22nd, 11:36pm GMT

To: [email protected]
Subject: re:

Dearest Daphne,

Just the sight of your name has filled me with an ecstasy of hope that I have absolutely no right to feel. 

I don’t expect, nor deserve, your forgiveness. Not after the mess I made of everything. Especially not after I’ve left you alone these many days without so much as a note. I promise you, there is a reason—and you’ll hear it very soon, if you’ll grant me the time. It would be understandable if you didn’t. Your strong will is one of the many reasons you bewitched me in the first place, after all.

My heart aches with the weight of everything I wish to say to you. Let me distill it all down to its briefest essence: I love you more now than ever. I love you into eternity. If you banished me from you forever, if all I had left was the memory of our moment of happiness, I would die an old man with your name on my breath.

Perhaps this has all grown distasteful to you now. Perhaps, once the drink has worn off (as I suspect it has), the memory of this exchange will repulse you. Even if you will not entertain my love, please, accept my grief. Daphne, I’m sorry. I am desperately, wretchedly sorry.

I remain,
your Gale

January 23rd

Daphne, frowning, stopped on her way to grab more cardstock and beelined toward Arabella instead. The lanky girl sat slumped at a workbench, hunched over a thick collection of poems with her head in her hands. 

“What’s up?” she asked, sliding onto the stool next to her. “You look befuddled.”

“Oh!” Arabella startled, flicking her hair aside. “No, sorry. I mean I am, but it’s fine. I want to do a botanical-themed piece with a poem, so I’m just looking for something good.”

Daphne cast her mind all the way back to undergrad, and the poetry seminar she and Astarion had taken as a layup class. “Um. There’s that one about the plums?”

“I thought about that—thematically, more food than trees,” she sighed. “Plus, it’s way too short. I want something meatier, you know?”

“A meaty plant poem, got it,” Daphne joked. “Well, keep at it. Make sure you have something locked in by tomorrow, though; we gotta get you on the press.”

With an encouraging knock on the table, she threw herself back into action. If class had been busy when they were all doing the same assignment, it was a free-for-all melee now.

Daphne couldn’t remember a time when she’d had more fun.

“Aw hell yes, Mattis, you have to use that,” she gasped at the enormous, filigreed ornament block he’d rescued from behind a cabinet. “I don’t even know what that is, but you have to.”

The boy smiled sheepishly. “I have an idea. I think it’d be cool to do, like, a word cloud? But not just around it, maybe over it, in that gold ink you showed us–”

“ Daphne! ” 

She shot Mattis one last thumbs-up before dashing over to Mirkon, who was examining something near the bookbinding station with Lae’zel. 

“Have you seen someone do this? Can I do it?” Mirkon pointed to a photo in the reference book they were studying. It was a kraft paper poster with block letters done in a swirl of bright colors, from yellow to pink to red. 

Daphne grinned. “Yeah, I’ve seen someone do that. That’s me.” She pointed to the citation at the bottom of the photo. “Affogato sbagliato. Daphne Tavian, 2015.”

Mirkon slapped his hands to his forehead. “Oh my god. ”

She cackled. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Lae’zel watching their scene play out with something dangerously close to fondness.

“That technique is a little tricky, but I’m sure we can teach you,” Daphne said, looking at Lae’zel for backup.

“Yes,” she reassured him with a curt nod. “You are among the most capable of this group, and the most tolerable. I will ensure you master this.”

Mirkon, to his credit, had the good sense to look pleased.

January 24th

“Daphne!”

She whipped around, searching for who needed her so urgently. Class hadn’t even started yet. 

Arabella bounded up to her, a sheet of printer paper waving in her hand. “I did it! I found the perfect thing for my final.”

Daphne pumped her fist. “Amazing! Is it meaty?” 

“The meatiest,” Arabella beamed. She handed over the sheet, and Daphne took it, happy to play along with her enthusiasm.

“ Where I Live in This Honorable House of the Laurel Tree, ” she read aloud in her best NPR voice. “ By Anne Sexton. Oh, this does sound good.”

“I really think you’ll like it,” Arabella sing-songed.

“I live in my wooden legs,” she continued, “and O, my green green hands. Too late to wish I had not run from you, Apollo—” 

Her voice died in her throat. Her fingers tightened on the printed page as she willed them not to shake.

“Do you get it?” Arabella burst with excitement in front of her. “It’s about Daphne! It’s you!”

Daphne’s heart seized as her eyes scanned down the page, picking up scattered, stomach-churning phrases like I, who ran nymph foot to foot in flight and the trickeries of need pain me everywhere and my out of time and luckless appetite.

You gave me honor too soon, Apollo, the last stanza finished. There is no one left who understands how I wait, here in my wooden legs and O, my green green hands.

Her mouth opened, and closed, and opened again silently. In front of her, she could feel Arabella growing uneasy.

“It’s perfect!” she finally exclaimed, perhaps a bit louder than she’d meant to be. “Wow. I’m so honored. This is going to be—wow.”

Arabella’s expression melted with relief, thank god.

“You know what?” Daphne smiled with all her teeth. “I think we have a laurel ornament, actually! Let me go look while you tell Shadowheart your plan.”

She thrust the poem back into Arabella’s hands and speed-walked around the corner, into the nook that held their big cabinets of type. She whirled around to see if anyone was behind her. The coast was clear. 

She opened a random drawer, braced her hands against it, and just…wilted.

January 25th

Events must have happened on Thursday. Logically, Daphne had to assume she’d accomplished a lot. She was busy from the moment she got up until the moment she crashed into bed. None of them registered. The long, all-encompassing shadow of the next morning blotted everything else from her memory.

Except for one thing: Arabella jubilantly pulling her first draft off the press, delighted by the laurel wreath ornament Daphne had managed to find.

January 26th

Daphne smoothed her free hand down the skirt of her sheath dress. It was slinkier than anything she’d ever worn to work, close-cut to her body in a nubbly black fabric, but Pinterest had assured her that this was what boring, responsible thirtysomethings were wearing to meetings these days. That’s what she needed to project today: “boring and responsible.” Not “aging bisexual” or “former Parliaments smoker,” likely candidates for her usual aesthetic.

The imposing door to the Board’s chamber swung open. Aylin, in an artfully draped suit that probably cost more than Daphne’s mortgage, welcomed her inside with a sweep of her arm. 

“Thank you for joining us, Miss Tavian,” she boomed, winking at her discreetly. “Please, come in. You’ll find that your presentation is already on the projector.”

“Thank you, Dean Aylin,” Daphne replied with a smile. She hiked the sheaf of papers on her hip higher and walked into the room, silently chanting heel, toe, heel, toe to herself to stay balanced on her pumps. 

She didn’t know what she’d expected—a high court with seven lecterns, maybe, or a long and imposing mahogany table with her at the far end. Instead, the Board sat in a u-shape around the speaking floor. Very Socratic of them.

“Good morning,” she greeted them each with a nod. “Thank you so much for calling me up to speak to you today about Icepeak’s continuing commitment to excellence in the book arts. Now, as an artist, I’m personally a tactile learner, so I’ve brought some examples of our recent work to distribute—”

She launched into her presentation. Beat by beat, she could feel the wax and wane of their attention: they were lulled by promises of student enrichment and then thrilled by the recruitment opportunities for the art major she’d packaged; they drifted during the problem-solving portion and snapped right back during the profits breakdown. She was leading them along like a stubborn horse, and if she did this with enough charisma, they'd have no idea she was even holding the reins. 

She wrapped up with highlights from this year’s January term class, with photos Shadowheart had snapped mid-action, and the immediacy of ending on something happening right that second inspired even more enthusiasm than she’d hoped. As she said her final thank-yous, she was shocked into silence by a burst of sudden applause.

“Well!” President Ravengard chuckled indulgently as the noise died down. “Thank you, Miss Tavian, for taking time away from your students to speak to us this morning. I’ll open the floor for questions—yes, Mrs. Portyr?

Daphne stood and answered questions for a shocking amount of time. Half of them were from Aylin, granted—god bless her—but all seven of the well-dressed people around the table with Ravengard pressed her to elaborate on everything from the gritty details of her projected expenditures to softer questions, like “what’s been your favorite project so far?”

She paused for a second, mulling over exactly how she wanted to spin this. 

“You know? If you’d asked me that question three weeks ago, I likely would have told you it was the restoration of that set of yearbooks from the first ten years of the school’s history. But now,” she grinned, proud and genuine, “without question, it’s our January term class. The students we’ve been able to welcome into the studio for such concentrated instruction have surprised me at every turn. I’m already thinking of how we could do things next year, different ways to push them harder to grow as artists.”

Around her, the room hummed with approval.

The meeting, finally, adjourned sometime just before lunch. Daphne floated out of the door and back down the stairs into the library lobby. With shaking hands, she opened her contacts and FaceTimed Astarion. It rang through.

“Fuck, he’s on desk today,” she muttered. She went to the next contact down and called Karlach. True to form, she picked up on the second ring, clearly flat on her back underneath some piece of heavy machinery.

“Hey Daph!” her hearty voice cheered. Next to her head, a pan seemed to be rapidly filling with greasy black motor oil. She didn’t seem concerned about it. “How’d it go?” 

“Full funding!” Daphne squealed.

“Fuck! YES!” Karlach hollered. “Let’s fucking go, baby! Have you told the girls?”

“Texted them immediately. Couldn’t wait to get downstairs.”

“Nice. Ugh, Daph, I’m so fucking happy for you. I told Alf that it wasn’t bad luck to send your present early!”

“Thanks, thanks—wait, present?” Daphne asked, confused.

“Yeah! We got you something, it’s in your email.”

Realization dawned on her. “Oh! Sorry, I deleted my email app so I would stop obsessing over—you know. I haven’t checked it this week.”

Karlach made a petulant noise. “Well, un-delete it! This is official Karlach business. I gotta see your face when you open it now.” 

Her stomach swooped, but Daphne swiped open the app store and re-installed her email. As Karlach wriggled with anticipation, she tapped in her password. She was instantly confronted with an inbox overflowing with credit card notifications and Michael’s craft store coupons. 

“Ah, geez,” she sighed. “What day did you send it?” 

“Uh. Monday, I think? The 22nd?”

She scrolled down to the 22nd. 

“Ooh, I see it!” Daphne beamed. “A gift card to the yarn store! Aww, you guys shouldn’t have.” 

Karlach shot her a proud thumbs-up. “Well, I wanted to get you an impact driver, but then Lakrissa said that was—”

Karlach kept talking. About what, she didn’t know.

Because just above that email, there was an unread message from Gale Fucking Dekarios.

“Babe? Babe,” she cleared her throat, cutting Karlach short. “I gotta go. Thanks for my present.”

“No worries! I’ll see you—”

She hung up the call and bolted to the staircase heading down into the basement, catching herself against the handrail. Her phone shook in her hands. She read the sender over and over again, there in bolded letters: Gale Dekarios. No subject line.

With a sensation of freefall in her stomach, she opened it. 

Dearest Daphne, she read. Just the sight of  your name has filled me with an ecstasy of hope—

Her knees buckled, and she collapsed to sit on the basement steps. On top of the adrenaline comedown from the last two hours, there was no holding it in. This was gonna have to be a proper cry. Mortifying.

She sobbed her way through the rest of the email with her hand muffled over her mouth, reading and re-reading every line as she tried to convince herself this was real, he was real, he was sorry.

He was sorry.

The fact that she’d apparently drunk texted (drunk emailed?) him was a humiliating revelation that was going to have to wait. Astarion would happily clown her for that into the next decade anyway, it wasn’t urgent. What was urgent was that he’d signed off with the words,

I remain,
your Gale.

She flopped her head into her hands, completely overwhelmed. Four days had passed since he’d sent her this, and she’d said nothing back—there was no way to take that other than rejection. What decisions had he made? Did he still feel the same? Had she been the one to fucking blow it, this time? Her phone slipped from her fingers and clattered noisily down the marble steps. Shit, she was probably being so loud. Thank god classes were in session; otherwise she’d never live this down.

“Um.”

A gentle hand slid her phone next to her on the step. She froze. If it was Lae’zel or Shadowheart, at least, they had no room to judge her. Ugh, but what if it was a student, this was so going on her feedback form—

She took a deep breath to collect herself, slowly, through her nose. 

Roses. Cedar. 

Her pounding heart leapt into her mouth. She whipped her head from her hands. 

On his knees on the steps below her, in a suit so rumpled he might have slept in it, was Gale. His beard had grown, thick and a little scraggly, and his hair was longer and less tame than she remembered, but the adoration in his soft, dark eyes as he looked up at her punched her as hard in her gut as it always did. 

“I am so fucking mad at you,” she shakily half-whispered, unable to keep the relieved, incredulous smile off her face. She wiped her tears away with her wrists. He reached into his coat pocket for a handkerchief and offered it to her. She took it.

Gale, her Gale, hopefully, laughed breathlessly and ducked his head. “I should certainly hope you are. I’ve been the worst kind of ass.”

She finished dabbing her cheeks dry and held out the handkerchief, dangling it in front of him in offering. Slowly, deliberately, he pulled it from her fingers.

“If I may. If you’re willing to hear it,” he said, his voice cracking. “I was hoping to do some groveling.”

Groveling. That seemed promising. She leveled him with a heavy look. “ Good. ”

He nodded, a dim hope glimmering briefly in his eyes. “Good.”

Chapter Text

The fire crackled low in the grate behind Gale. Rolan preferred to sit at the side of the table farthest from the hearth, claiming a warm nature, so the gentle scorch of hot, dry air at his back had become comfortingly familiar over the last days.

Well. Comforting wasn’t the word. Predictable, perhaps. Constant. 

His mind wandered again to the last time he’d been home, sitting in front of the same grand fireplace in his favorite chair with a glass of wine—his book forgotten in his lap as he stared, incoherent with excitement, at a photo of Daphne’s ink-stained hand cradling a glass of her own, by the tiny fireplace in her matchbox house. 

He hadn’t known what her home looked like, then. Just the single snapshot she’d given him had set his imagination galloping. He’d pictured a small but cozy kitchen with a nook full of coffee supplies; he’d pictured her bedroom as a colorful nest of her creative endeavors. As he knew now, he’d been right on both counts.

Not that it mattered, he thought with a pang. In all likelihood, he was never going to see them again.

Gale realized that he’d pulled up the photo in question on his phone. His laptop hummed on the table in front of him, Rolan diligently paged through a sheaf of records just feet away, and yet he was stuck looking at her hand and her wine and her fireplace and her of course it will be worth my while to hang out with you. The ache in his chest became unbearable. He’d always been one to press at a bruise.

He stretched his legs under the table, wincing as his knees creaked. He and Rolan had been cooped up in the study for hours today, as well as the day before that. The sheer quantity of information Rolan had been able to scrape from Ramazith’s internal files was staggering, more than twice the amount he’d shown Gale during their first fateful meeting in November. It was more evidence than either of them really knew how to handle. The last couple of days had been spent combing through it all, picking out the punchiest, most damning morsels to throw in Lorroakan’s face. Although, that was proving to be a mighty task in itself. Every time Gale thought he’d found the most disgusting example of Lorroakan’s behavior, he quickly found three more to top it.

For the first time, Gale fully understood the enormity of what they were up against. The depth of the man’s avarice was only rivaled by his cruelty. His gaze flicked up to Rolan. Even after a week away from Ramazith, the green-purple fingerprints crushed into his wrist and up his forearm were still scarily vivid. He hid them from view, usually, but they were on full display now that he’d rolled up his sleeves.

Mystra had never left a mark like that. Too sloppy.

He swallowed, heavily, as a nauseous, clammy feeling swept through him. His ordeal with her felt unusually close to the surface, as of late. Chafingly raw. He’d never let himself dwell on the realities of his daily life under Mystra; he’d always been able to redirect his feelings somewhere more abstract—first to yearning, then to self-pity, then to revenge. After all, he reasoned, it wouldn’t matter what she’d done to him, once he destroyed her. And he would, absolutely, destroy her. It was his right.

So why was it, when he reached for the familiar blaze of his anger to dull his pain now, his thoughts always led him back to Daphne instead?

Daphne offering her upturned hand on the center console of her car as they drove through the dark.

Daphne’s laughter mixing giddily with his as her soft, welcoming body covered him.

Daphne wearing his clothes, eating his food, drinking his wine, while the very walls of his house seemed to relax in her presence.

Daphne’s back pressed against him as she fell asleep in his arms, the cocoa and vanilla of her body lotion thick and sweet on her skin.

Daphne standing, feet planted, on the carpet of her living room as he shrugged his coat over his shoulders. Daphne urging him away with a choked-off “don’t let me hope; it’s cruel.” Daphne watching the door close behind him—

“Ugh,” he sighed, fed up with his own malingering. Might as well pack it in for the night if this was how far his mind had wandered. He set his phone down on the table with a heavy thunk and it slammed his laptop shut.

Across from him, Rolan startled. His grip on the papers in his hand loosened and they fluttered to the tabletop with a soft whump as his eyes went enormous, regarding Gale with a fleeting moment of terror before he regained his senses. 

“I’m sorry,” Gale winced. “I understand. I know. I shouldn’t have—”

Rolan waved him off, his usual impassive expression slipping back into place. “I’m just being stupid. No need to apologize.”

“Don’t say that.” His hand twitched to reassure him with a pat to the arm, but he thought better of it. 

Rolan leveled him with a dry look. “Yes, Professor Dekarios.”

Gale rolled his eyes. “Don’t say that, either. I’m not your superior. And even when I am, in title anyway, please just call me Gale.”

The tall, lanky man in front of him stretched his long arms over his head, yawning. “Noted. Think I’m just about finished for today, too, if that’s okay.” 

“Of course.” Gale shot him a reassuring smile as he gathered the empty tea mugs scattered around his work area. “Did Cal and Lia get back home all right?”

At the mention of his siblings, Rolan’s mood visibly lifted. He looked up at Gale with a small, genuine smile. “They did. Thank you. I don’t think I’ll ever hear the end of it from Cal about the Christmas dinner you and Morena put on; that was more food than he’s ever seen in one place. I already have a text from him reminiscing about the roast pork.”

Gale chuckled and gestured dismissively. “It was really our pleasure, especially for my mother. I may be an only child, but if she’d gotten her way, I’d be the eldest of six or seven. Having three extra guests to fuss over for a few days was truly her Olympics.”

A flicker of understanding crossed Rolan’s face before his usual melancholy settled back into place. The silence stretched on between them as they tidied up for the day, sorting documents back into folders and powering down laptops.

“You know,” Gale observed, “you’ve really done something incredible here. I hope you know that.”

Rolan cocked his head at him. “What do you mean? All I did was steal several thousand pages of internal documents with no consideration toward any future criminal consequences, and then hunt you down in a panic to tell you about it.”

“And that was incredibly brave,” Gale pressed. “But it’s more than just stealing, Rolan, you know that. Putting this, this archive of misdeeds together required more diligence and patience than I would have shown at your age. Give yourself due credit.”

The tips of his ears went red. The poor lad clearly didn’t know what to do with unqualified praise—and why would he, given his last three years? Gale watched the conflicting emotions war on his face as he tried to come up with a response, half dismissive, half hopeful. 

“Well. If you really think so,” Rolan scoffed, an awkward smile twitching the corner of his mouth. 

“I most certainly do.” Gale nodded, pushing his chair back from the table. A quick stop by the kitchen for the dishes, and then—

“Shall I go ahead and start preparing your file, then?” Rolan joked.

Gale froze. His gaze was still locked on the empty mugs dangling by their handles off his fingers, his legs still tensed as though he were just about to stand. He remained seated.

“My file?” he finally asked, trying his hardest to match Rolan’s casual tone even as a sudden rush of panic made his skin crawl.

“Well, you know. With a plot this devious, who’s to say you’re not a Lorroakan in the making?” Rolan continued. He stood, an wry laugh still on his breath. “I can at least be prepared from the start, this time. And you’ll know that I am. It’ll be like Kennedy and Khrushchev.”

Numbly, Gale followed Rolan out of his chair and toward the double doors separating the study from the grand hallway to the rest of the house. With every footstep on the dense carpet, however, his insides buzzed and churned, his palms sweat, his heartbeat pounded just a little bit louder. It only worsened as he clattered his empty dishes into the sink, and again as he absentmindedly bid Rolan good night.

He walked the few further steps from Rolan’s guest room to his own door. Pushing it open, he stood on the threshold and let his gaze wander across his childhood bedroom. 

The posters of Hubble Space Telescope photos from his astronomy phase still papered the far wall. The still-standing Lego model of the Coliseum he’d spent months assembling remained on his desk. The bookshelves where heavy, cloth-bound classics shared space with worn paperback copies of Horrible Histories and The Children’s Illustrated Encyclopedia were as crammed as they ever were. The lovingly framed newspaper article announcing his admission to the University of Surrey at just fourteen and a half—

God. He’d really been a child, when that letter had come in the mail. And just barely a man, when another letter had come from Cambridge. If he’d known—if somehow, the veils of time had parted and he’d been able to see what was barrelling toward him—would he have leaped out of the way? Would he have had the sense to abandon his dreams and instead do something, anything else—teach sixth form history in Guildford for forty years and then retire to the seaside, maybe? 

He knew, in his heart, that he wouldn’t have. Not then, as a blindly ambitious young boy, and not now, as a willfully optimistic, if scarred, man. 

He’d been so sure, when Rolan had come to him for help, that this was the moment when he would finally forge the weapon of his just reward. He would make all his suffering mean something, if he could wrest Ramazith’s near-absolute power for himself and use it to exile the bad actors from the field. He could finally rest in the knowledge that his hero’s journey was complete. 

Or—as Rolan had so casually seared into his conscience minutes ago—he could become the villain. 

He crossed to the wall and examined the grainy black-and-white photo beneath the headline. Teenage Gale, spotty and gangly, stood smiling with his arm around his mother. Beneath the photo, the caption read, Epsom College student Gale Dekarios with his mother, Morena. The young prodigy says he intends to study archeology when university classes begin in the autumn.

Gale remembered that day. He remembered posing for that photograph; he remembered answering the reporter’s somewhat facile questions about his grades (perfect) and how he arrived at archeology (the same way he arrived at any conclusion—through reading). He remembered how proud his mother had been when the paper arrived, so she could clip out the article with her best scissors and carefully nestle it into its frame. 

He’d scoffed at her, he suddenly remembered. It had been yet another moment of his mother being too enthusiastic, too involved.

“Just you wait,” she’d pointed at him with an accusatory finger, “someday, when you’re happy and successful, you’ll be so proud to have a souvenir from the day it all began.”

A heavy mass of dread began to coalesce in his stomach. It seemed farcical to think of his life in those terms. But—

Every day, I watch you bloom a little more into someone whole, and unburdened, and at ease. Someone happy.

Hadn’t he carved out a home for himself, tiny and remote as it was? Didn’t his classes enjoy him, didn’t his colleagues respect him? Didn’t someone love him? The whole time—the whole damn time he’d spent on that island—hadn’t he been happy?

Wasn’t that more success than he’d ever known?

Don’t throw it all away, Daphne’s pleading voice echoed in his skull. Don’t let her keep taking from you.

The ugly, slavering creature of his pride thrashed in his chest. He still wanted, more than anything in his mortal life, to take everything from Mystra. He craved it. The image of her sneering, perfect face finally shattered by grief shone bright in his imagination. Mere weeks from now, he could turn the well-appointed office where he’d so often been pinned between adoration and terror into a dusty, empty room, devoid of memory. The Persian rug that had left the knees of his suit pants permanently flecked with red and white lint could be rolled up and forgotten in a skip behind the history block, with the rest of her things. He could finally force her to feel regret. His nails dug into the meat of his palms just thinking about it, about how she could be the one to beg for mercy and he, for once, could deny it.

But the day after, he’d be alone. Gale ran an agitated hand over his hair. 

Daphne certainly wouldn’t see him again if he went through with it; his colleagues would fear him. Every day into his long, gray future, he would come home to a lavish, cavernous house and sleep in a cold, enormous bed, with only the memories of his delicious exertions of power to keep him warm. Alienated from everyone and fueled by spite. Exactly like—

Gale stood there. He stood, and he stared, and he hurtled toward a conclusion he very much did not want to reach.

A soft brush around his ankles startled him back to the present. Tara was slinking around his legs, looking up at him with her barn owl eyes and purring hopefully. He scooped her up into his arms and cradled her like a baby, the way she liked. She made a halfhearted attempt at grooming his beard before settling into the crook of his elbow. He kissed her on the head.

The first time Daphne had seen him do this, late at night after a fair few drinks downtown, she’d burst out crying. “Look at how much she loves you,” she’d hiccuped, laughing at herself through her tears. “You’re so good, even cats know it.”

He crossed to his window. West-facing, with a clear view across the hills during the daytime. If he squinted, his foolish heart strained to believe he could see the glow of her porch light across the Atlantic.

“Damn you,” he hissed under his breath. “Damn you for giving me something to care about.”

Sighing, he shifted Tara to one arm, reached into his pocket for his phone, and opened a new search window.

A short while later, he turned on his heel and walked back into the hallway, to the door of Rolan’s guest room. 

Rolan answered after the first sharp tattoo of knocks. Already in his pajamas, a fleck of toothpaste still clinging to his upper lip.

“Gale, what—”

“Are you prepared to swear that everything we’ve discovered is true?” he interrupted.

“Um.” Rolan squinted at him. “Yes? Of course.”

“Do you trust me when I say that I will allow absolutely no harm to come to you, at any cost?”

“Well, sure, but I don’t—”

“Good.” He held up his phone, where a call was muted but already in progress. “Because I’m on the line with a very nice agent at the Serious Fraud Office, and I’m sure she’d be extraordinarily interested in what we’ve got to say.”

Chapter Text

Following Gale down the hallway to his office as the muffled sounds of her class’s last day in the workshop echoed around them felt like a hallucination. Not a dream in the hearts-and-flowers sense, but a truly uncanny warp in material reality that made Daphne briefly question if she hadn’t actually fallen down the stairs and died of head trauma a few moments ago. She’d seen a show on Investigation Discovery once about the things the brain can make up in someone’s final moments. Something to do with DMT or whatever.

With her eyes fixed on the back of his head (was there more gray in that half-bun now than there had been in December?), she jabbed the sharp edge of her thumbnail into the meat of her pointer finger. It stung. Gale remained in front of her, now fumbling to open the door to his office and inviting her inside with a wordless gesture and an anxious look. 

Her palms started to sweat. She wiped them on the thick, nubbly fabric of her black sheath dress. If this was reality, then it had better start making some fucking sense. 

She brushed past him, close enough to feel the warmth of his skin, and entered his little office. It looked hatefully lived-in, compared against the long, bleak fact of his absence. Sheafs of notes in his elegant handwriting still littered the surface of his mahogany desk; the throw blanket on his little couch by the door even looked slightly askew, as though excited students had been plonking themselves down onto it for office hours all month. The heels of her pumps wobbled on the large braided rug in the middle of his office as she turned back to him. 

He looked changed, in a way she couldn’t entirely place. His dark hair spilled over his shoulders now, and the familiar lines and creases of his face bore the signs of bone-deep exhaustion, but that wasn’t it. Something was different. Something fundamental.

Gale gingerly closed the door and even more gingerly turned the lock, careful not to alert the class next door to their presence.

Finally, he spun to face her, the tension easing from his shoulders as he unsubtly drank in the sight of her. The warm-blooded animal of her body responded to his attention the way it always did, with a thud in her heartbeat and a rush to her head, but she frowned and planted her feet even more firmly beneath her. No making this easy for him. Even if the thick scruff of his beard made his jawline stand out stronger than usual, and even if his shoulders looked extra broad in this particular jacket, and—

“I, ah,” he began, smoothing nervous hands down the front of his gray suit. The gesture did nothing to mitigate its many creases. “At the risk of admitting to snooping whilst retrieving your phone, I believe you may have just opened the email I sent you earlier this week.”

She nodded. He seemed to wait a moment, anticipating a response, but she didn’t trust herself to speak just yet.

“Is there… a particular reason? That you elected to wait several days before opening it? Was it—did I intrude, or have I grossly overestimated your interest—” he stammered.

“Stop it.” Even with their voices low, she winced at how harshly the words came out. She did mean them, though. “I didn’t see it until today. I deleted my email app a while ago because I kept—it was a distraction.”

He took a step towards her, intent. “You’ve been rereading them too.”

Fuck. She had to stop giving him material for free. “Yeah,” she reluctantly admitted.

“You’re made of stronger stuff than I am. I couldn’t have kept myself away if I’d tried. I didn’t try, though. Not a day passed where I didn’t return to linger in the residual warmth of your words.” A wistful smile played at the corner of his mouth, his tired eyes soft as he took another step towards her.

“You know, that line would work on me,” she snapped, careful to keep her voice down, “but I’m just not quite stupid enough to believe that you could be both so infatuated with me that you read my emails every day for a month and totally unwilling to fucking, you know, type one up yourself. A month, Gale. Where the fuck were you? What the fuck are you doing?”

Anguish crashed over his features again, and she must have been one stonehearted bitch, because she was glad to see it.

“I know. Daphne, I know, I’m sorry. God above, I’m so sorry.” He swallowed. “I worried about you constantly, wishing I could—”

“You could, you just didn’t, you asshole,” she hissed, gesticulating in a way that would have made her Italian grandmother proud.

“As much as I deserve your anger, believe me when I say that I truly could not speak to you.” He surged forward, and Daphne’s eyes widened as he approached, but he hurried past her, to his desk. He threw himself into his chair and booted up his computer, which groaned to life. He checked his watch and did some hushed calculations, his eyebrows knitting together as he hastily typed.

Daphne cautiously sank into the wooden captain’s chair across the desk from him and crossed her ankles. Confusion and annoyance warred with genuine curiosity as he made a few definitive clicks and suddenly launched to his feet again.

“Right,” he breathed, shifting his electrifying, all-consuming focus to her. He rounded the desk, and before she could open her mouth to ask what the hell was going on, he’d dropped onto one knee beside her.

Her blood pressure slammed into medically worrying territory. But no, thank god, he wasn’t reaching for his pocket, he was—unbuttoning his shirt?

Gale’s nimble fingers unknotted his tie and spread the lapels of his white Oxford shirt wide, revealing his tattoo. He reached out for her hand, and without pausing to think, she gave it. His thumb swiped over the backs of her fingers reassuringly.

“This was a youthful mistake,” he said, his other hand holding his shirt wide to reveal the swirling black lines circling his heart and curving up his collarbone. “A careless and trite mark of pride, taken after my first successful dig, before I fully understood its meaning. You can imagine how self-conscious I’ve felt carrying this symbol on my skin these many years, now that you know what it is. The myth-shaping folly it represents.”

She nodded, eyebrows creasing harder as she struggled to catch up to how any of this mattered.

“One would think that someone as well-versed in the legend of Karsus as I am, with a falling Netheril quite literally painted across his heart, would have some kind of… foreknowledge, about the destruction a man’s hubris can wreak. Or at the very least, some innate checks on his own ambitions. One would think I’d learned something.” He chewed the inside of his cheek, looking up at her with wet eyes. “One would be disappointed. I have been breathtakingly stupid, Daphne. Great ambition should not come at the expense of what you already hold dear, and I hold nothing dearer than you. I’ll admit, even with a month’s head start, I still struggle to find the words to express how wretchedly I’ve behaved.”

Blood rushed to the high points of her face. When he’d said he wanted to do some groveling, she didn’t expect that he’d literally throw himself at her feet, but here he was. She pursed her lips in defiance of the hope she felt threatening to dawn inside her. “Keep talking.”

Gale fixated on her hand in his. The raw sincerity on his features stabbed like a knife. “With pleasure, thank you. Let’s leave my failings behind for a moment. I want to speak about you, and what you so lovingly did for me even as I raged against it. What you said to me that night—it hasn’t left my mind since. You showed a staggering amount of courage in opposing me. I can’t begin to express how thankful I am for it. What I would have done without your intervention… the lives I would have damaged. I would have lost everything. I would have lost myself.”

“My plan to unseat Lorroakan was as untenable as it was amoral,” he pressed onward, chagrin brimming in his voice, “and it was born of my own selfish desire for revenge, and it was cruel to all others involved, particularly poor Rolan. Loath as I was to admit it, I was well on my way to becoming exactly the kind of cold, detached monster that—” 

Gale stopped short, pausing to gather his thoughts. He seemed to deflate, almost, with a heavy sigh. Daphne remained still and wide-eyed. The joyful din of the class next door hummed through their shared wall.

“You saw me so clearly,” he confessed . “I didn’t want to believe you. And to spare my fragile pride, I chose to abandon every promise I made to you.”

“You did,” she agreed.

His eyes flicked up to hers again. “I did. I’m so sorry, Daphne.”

She chewed her lip. These were pretty words, but he was good at pretty words. Look where it had gotten them so far. 

“How sorry?” she asked, soft, fragile.

His hand curled tighter around her fingers. She could see, clear and desperate on his features, how badly he wanted to bring them to his lips. 

“The best way to apologize is to demonstrate how you intend to alter your behavior in the future,” he began. A faint flush crept up his cheeks. “Considering the scope and scale of how drastically I’ve cocked this up, it seems to me that I really ought to see someone about… myself. I think you’ll agree. All this to say, my first appointment with the clinical psychologist here is next week.”

“Dr. Aumar?” she interrupted.

Gale nodded, slightly taken aback. “One of the few professionals on this island, it would seem. I hope he’s equipped for whatever horrors I’ve got lurking in my psyche.”

“He is,” she grinned. Pride suffused her chest. Asking for help was hard for anyone, but for Gale— and he’d done it entirely on his own. It was exciting and brave and, if she was getting ahead of herself, which she shouldn’t, incredibly fucking hot. “He’s… idiosyncratic, but very good. He will eat cheese and crackers during your sessions, I’m warning you now.”

Gale huffed a surprised laugh, looking up at her curiously, but didn’t press for details. “I shall keep that in mind.”

As his laughter faded, he squeezed her hand gently in his. His mouth worked nervously. 

“But. If it’s my heart you’d care to know. If you’re asking how repentant I truly feel.” His voice pitched low and beseeching. “Oh, I could beg your forgiveness every day for a lifetime, if you’d let me. I could crawl the earth behind you and kiss the ground under your precious footsteps. I could live at your whim, going and coming as it pleased you with never a complaint, grateful for every moment you allowed me to spend in the warmth of your attention.” 

He swallowed heavily, and Daphne felt her own throat starting to grow thick, but he wasn’t done. “I could erase myself from your life entirely, tormented eternally by the knowledge that you prefer my absence to my presence, if that’s what would even the score in your eyes. God knows I deserve it. God knows I don’t deserve you. But damn it all, I want to try. More than anything, I want to deserve you.”

His breath stuttered wetly in his chest, and he hurriedly cleared his throat. Still, a thin trickle of tears slid along the creases framing his eyes and rolled down his cheek, soaking into the salt-and-pepper thicket of his beard. He didn’t move to dab it away. He just blinked up at her, his hand hot and feverish where it held hers.

She couldn’t get enough oxygen, suddenly. The ice around her heart was thawing; nerves and muscles that hadn’t seen use since December were thrumming back to life in juicy, springlike rushes, but there was one thing, one last thing she needed to know before she could give into it.

“What happened?” she whispered, shaking her head. “You were so dead set, and now you’re back here saying all of this like—”

The bell tower high above them played its midday chime. Simultaneously, a dramatic theme swelled quietly from the computer’s speakers, and Gale lunged to grab the corner of the monitor and spin it around toward them. Video of external shots of London played under a banner reading Channel 4 News .

“Corruption, fraud, and violence enough to fill a Hollywood mob film, all hidden beneath the reputable veneer of one of the UK’s most prestigious charities,” a voiceover began, just loud enough to hear. 

“Gale, what the fuck—”

“You’ll see,” he urged, settling beside her again. “Just a moment.” Reluctant and a bit shaken, Daphne turned her attention back to the screen.

“And at the center of it all, one academic stands accused: Doctor Archibald Lorroakan. In the early hours of this morning, the Metropolitan Police conducted a raid on the Ramazith Historical Society headquarters in Kensington—”

An entirely too-loud gasp ripped from her as she lurched bolt upright, and she clapped a palm over her mouth to muffle herself. Gale’s hand found hers again. She clung to it like an anchor.

“You didn’t,” she whispered, her mouth agape.

“We did,” he replied. She couldn’t tear her eyes from the screen, but she knew he was smiling.

“—on the scene as police descended on Ramazith this morning were the two whistleblowers at the center of the month-long investigation: Rolan Wormwood, a former Ramazith employee, and Doctor Gale Dekarios, a history professor with credentials from Cambridge.”

Gale groaned. “I told them I was an archeologist and antiquities—”

“Shh. Holy shit, it’s you and Rolan, oh my god—”

The camera cut to footage of Gale and Rolan, bundled in coats and scarves against the pre-dawn frost, their faces lit harshly for the cameras. Rolan took center stage, his angular features solemn and brooding as a reporter spoke to him, while Gale stood supportively at his shoulder. 

“I’m grateful that the Serious Fraud Office took on my—our—complaint with such urgency. Truly, I never expected that this day would come.”

“What was your position at Ramazith, and how long were you there?” the reporter asked.  

“Three years. I was Doctor Lorroakan’s research assistant. More of a personal assistant-cum-errand boy, really; there hasn’t been a paper published with my name on it since I left school. Although perhaps, with all of this out in the open now, that’s a good thing.”

“So this is why I didn’t hear from you?” Daphne wondered. “You were, like, a part of the investigation?”

Gale hummed in agreement. “A witness, as well as something of a subject expert. I was hardly allowed to speak to my own mother until they felt they truly had Lorroakan cornered. You can imagine how poorly my requests to contact someone internationally went over.”

The ice around her heart finally melted away completely. “You asked?”

“Of course. Many times. I was astonished they let me respond to you earlier this week; I thought for certain they’d make me wait until after this morning.”

“Rolan Wormwood paused his studies at Queen Mary University of London four years into his doctoral program,” the voiceover cut in as Rolan continued to talk, “after successfully applying to work for Archibald Lorroakan. He was attracted to Ramazith for what was advertised as a one-year research fellowship, rife with networking opportunities that would help him secure a place in academia at the end of his studies. What Mr. Wormwood got instead, he says, was a three-year-long nightmare.”

Rolan stole a glance at Gale, who gave him a subtle nod. He turned his head to the side and pulled back the tendrils of russet hair framing his face, revealing an angry-looking scar that cut up his cheekbone and disappeared into his hairline above his ear. The reporter inhaled sharply enough to be picked up by the microphone. 

Daphne, too, startled. Gale rubbed her knuckles comfortingly. How had she not noticed that when she’d met him in person, mere feet away? Unless—oh, god, was it fresher than that?

“There’s a brass bookend in the president’s office that may fit this quite neatly,” Rolan said, tight and sardonic. “Purely speculation on my part, of course, for legal reasons.”

The voiceover returned as b-roll shots of Ramazith’s regal stone exterior, covered in crime scene tape and swarming with officers from a plethora of agencies. “Even as Mr Wormwood reports he was suffering from Doctor Lorroakan’s temper, he alleges that he soon discovered that Ramazith’s victims far outnumbered just himself. The president of the UK’s largest historic trust was cooking the books: embezzling huge sums of money from its coffers to his personal accounts via an elaborate scheme of bogus historic restoration contracts.”

“I expected him to get caught, eventually,” Rolan continued. “But he never did. He had everyone fooled. One day I just… realized I couldn’t take another day. I knew I had to tell someone.”

“And that someone,” intoned the voiceover, “was a colleague he’d not yet met in-person: Professor Gale Dekarios.”

The camera cut to a close-up shot of Gale, his cheeks pink with cold and his eyes animated with nervous energy as the reporter turned their attention to him. Daphne screamed quietly into her fist and shook their joined hands jubilantly, to the relieved laughter of the current Gale kneeling beside her.

“Rolan reached out to me and asked to connect over lunch, and it was immediately obvious to me that his circumstances were dangerous,” he explained. “He’s done something extraordinary by coming forward. I’m grateful he chose me to be his sidekick in all this.”

“Hardly a sidekick,” Rolan scoffed off-mic. Gale ducked his head, quickly schooling a proud grin off his face.

“I have to ask,” the reporter pressed, “why? Why get involved in something so serious on behalf of someone you’d just met, at the potential expense of your career?”

Gale looked directly down the barrel of the camera as he leaned in close to the microphone, and Daphne’s stomach lurched into her ribs.

“Rolan is a brilliant young colleague with a bright future. Instead of nurturing that future, his mentor abused the privileges of their station for their own rapacious ends. Whatever professional opportunities or accolades I may lose in helping Rolan right the many wrongs evident in this situation, I dare say, weren't worth pursuing in the first place,” he said with such conviction that Daphne knew he was speaking directly to her. 

“His case is merely the symptom of a pervasive corruption in academia. We are so obsessed with prestige, and power, and money, that we no longer care who comes to harm in the pursuit of those things,” Gale continued with an emphatic gesture. Daphne pumped her fist, laughing in disbelief. “I don’t want to devote my life to a field that turns a blind eye to suffering and exploitation as long as the funding isn’t interrupted. We must reckon with what Ramazith represents. We must choose humanity.”

The video cut to a police officer rattling off the particulars of the case so far, but Daphne twisted in her chair to look down at Gale. A tumult of pride and nervousness and expectancy and fear shone evident on his face. 

She opened her mouth, then closed it again. He went on gazing up at her, his chest rising and falling under the open tangle of his shirt.

“Were you—Gale, did you mean that?” she asked unsteadily. 

“Yes. Yes. ” He clasped her hand between both of his, fingertips curling around her wrist. “Every word. And immediately after I said it, I dashed here to tell you in person. You must know—here. Place your hand over my heart. Let me show you.”

Immediately after? He came straight from a fucking police raid? How? She eyed his rumpled clothes and unkempt hair with a new, awestruck appreciation. He’d never been more captivating. 

Her mind spinning, she let him plant her open palm over his tattoo. The thrill of his bare skin against hers again, unmistakably warm and solid, punched the breath from her. Gale. Her Gale. Here, with her.

“Show me what?” she whispered.

“As I said. My heart,” he smiled, the crinkles bracketing his mouth and eyes deepening in his Robert Redford way. “Four chambers, a finely tuned engine of muscle and blood. Saved from turning to stone by the miracle of your care, beloved.”

Her pulse roared in her ears. Gale shifted on his knees, inching closer to her. 

“Every moment in your presence alters me. I knew as much before I even knew your name. The undimmable light of your spirit warms me to the very marrow; it innervates a part of myself I’d long presumed dead.” He pressed her hand harder to his chest, and the vital thump of his heartbeat vibrated up her arm. “To think, my life could amount to more than lonely, bitter disappointment. To think, you could find me in a vast, improbable universe and remind me what living can feel like. Really living, just as I am.”

Daphne almost didn’t dare breathe. Every nerve stretched tight and fraying, sparks crackling in her chest.

“I love you,” he said, voice cracking, and goosebumps rose on Daphne’s arms. It felt less like a declaration and more like an oath, a promise he’d die before he broke. “As long as I live, I will only love you more. As long as you wish to let me stay, I will devote myself to proving it. Please.”

She opened and closed her mouth wordlessly, the dam she’d so carefully built in her chest over the last month finally crumbling against the overwhelming tide of her joy. She’d never stopped loving him, but now? When he’d not only pulled himself back from doing the wrong thing, but taken on the risk of doing the right thing, even when it could cost him his life’s work? 

They had to get out of here. She had to kiss him. If they could just make it to her car, she could do 90 the whole way home—

She shot to her feet and grabbed for her bag where she’d let it fall to the floor, digging for her keys. Gale was in front of her moments later, his tie dangling loose around the open neck of his shirt.

“If this is a no,” he stammered, his ears burning red, “I assure you, you don’t have to make an escape.”

She cocked her head at him, confused.

“Oh! Uh, yes, sorry, I love you,” she stumbled, realizing belatedly how bolting out of her seat at the end of his speech must have looked from his perspective. He reeled back half a step. “I love you so fucking much, we can talk about all of it later, and there is a lot to talk about, but I’m going to kiss you and I can’t do that here. Yours or mine?”

His eyes blew wide. Her lump of keys still bristled in her fist, halfway to grabbing her car remote, as she waited. His gaze roamed her face for a brief moment as something inside him seemed to hesitate, then resolve.

She furrowed her eyebrows. “Gale?”

“Sod it,” he breathed. 

He whipped off his glasses, seized Daphne by the shoulders, and slammed his lips to hers.

Her keys and bag clattered to the ground (shit, they were supposed to be staying quiet) and her eyes remained open in shock as Gale shuffled her a few steps backward to press her up against his wall of bookshelves. His hands slid up to cradle her head, his fingers threading into her hair at the nape of her neck. 

Kissing her. In his office; they were in his office and he was kissing her. She stood pliant but still, frozen with panic. Her heart hammered as she waited for the other shoe to drop.

Then he tilted her head back and slipped his tongue into her mouth, and suddenly she was meeting him halfway and balling her fists in the back of his suit jacket. 

His hands left her hair, and she whined at the loss until she felt his tie whip from around his neck, then his jacket slide off his shoulders. His arms wound around her waist and shoulders and crushed her to him, desperately seeking every point of contact, as though he couldn’t get close enough to her. She untucked the back of his shirt and snaked a greedy hand inside, relishing the warmth of his soft, downy-haired skin. His body felt like it had gained a touch more heft in his time away, both fat and muscle. Intriguing.

But, not as intriguing as the fact that he was still kissing her.

Gale was smiling when they broke apart, his eyes wide with surprise. He laughed, a startled, giddy sound.

“Great heavens,” he breathed.

“Oh my god,” Daphne echoed in a whisper. For a long beat, they just stared at each other, stunned. 

“I can’t believe—tell me you meant it. Tell me I’m not too late.” His voice was low, quiet, hoarse, but inflected with such cautious emotion that made her heart ache. His dark eyes darted anxiously over her face. 

“I love you.” She smirked, her head softly thunking against the hardwood shelf behind her as she leaned back to look up at him. “You must never, ever doubt that.”

For a moment, his brow furrowed, until— “Oh.”

He darted back down to her as she took him by the shirt and tugged him close, so hard their teeth clacked. He moaned hungrily into her mouth. His hands were everywhere, all at once, cradling her head and skimming her waist and circling her arms. She let her legs part as he pinned her up against the bookcase, and he gently slotted a knee between them. 

“Fuck, I missed you,” she sighed. He made a pained noise and let his head drop to her shoulder.

“That is shocking to me,” he panted. “I was a right prick.”

“You totally were, but—I knew my Gale was in there somewhere.”

He pulled back to look at her, suddenly, genuine relief finally easing the deep lines of his face. 

“Am I truly? Your Gale?”

A surge of possessive affection slammed through her . Of course. Ridiculous man, of course.

“Yeah. That’s you,” she rasped. “My Gale.”

He kissed her so hard, so urgently, that she wasn’t sure her feet were still on the floor. His arms wound around her waist and crushed her up against the wall of his chest, against the hot, insistent erection straining against the front of his trousers.

She furrowed her brow and clenched her fists in his shirt to resist rocking into him. Not the time; not the venue. Even if he was mouthwateringly hard. 

Determinedly, she distracted herself with other touches—a slow sweep of her tongue along his lower lip (his favorite), a searching hand up the back of his shirt to trail fingers along his spine, a soothing rake through his hair. He took it all eagerly. When they at last broke apart again, they were both glassy-eyed and flushed with pleasure.

“My Daphne. Mine,” he laughed breathlessly, as though he hadn’t quite convinced himself it was true. He held her face and tipped their foreheads together, letting his eyes slide closed for a long moment. In the stillness, his racing heart and his eager breaths resonated from his chest into hers. 

When he pulled away, she was already beaming back at him. God, he was so beautiful, he was so good. He’d been so incredibly brave in ways she didn’t even know about yet. And now he was here, and he was looking at her like she invented the kiss.

He tangled their fingers together and brought her hand to his mouth to kiss the back of it, then held it to his chest. “To answer your question, which I so rudely dodged—your desire. I don’t care where we go. Either way, you’ll be taking me home.”

With a choked-off sigh, she kissed him once, twice, then again for good measure, because anything more involved would let her start crying, which would put unnecessary minutes between her and seeing him naked again. She really, really could not have that.

Playfully, she gently pushed him off of her. He stepped back and immediately bent to retrieve her things where they’d landed at her feet, as well as his discarded jacket and tie.

When he straightened, the sight of him—half-lit from the sunlight streaming through the little window near the ceiling, as rumpled as a man could possibly be, radiating joy so palpably she could feel its heat on her skin—hit her deep in her chest. Their eyes met.

“Get your coat.”

Chapter Text

Daphne’s heart leaped into her mouth as Gale slowly, slowly unlocked the door to his office. He cracked it just wide enough to peek through. 

“All quiet on the western front,” he whispered. “Your door is unlocked?”

Getting Gale re-dressed and bundled into his gray coat (god, was it even possible to have an emotional reunion with a coat) had been quick and simple, when he wasn’t stopping to kiss her. He hadn’t brought his satchel along.

However. Daphne’s things, they’d realized with some horror, were in her office across the hall. Making escape without her students or anyone else seeing them was going to be twice as hard as anticipated. 

She crowded against him, ready to slip out. “Should be.”

“Right. Ready steady go.”

They skittered across the hall like naughty children, holding their breaths and vibrating with giddy energy. Gale turned the knob and let her slip around him before swinging it swiftly, quietly closed. Daphne hurriedly kicked her pumps off her aching feet and threw herself onto a chair, dragging her worn leather duck boots over to her and wiggling one thick sock onto her foot.

“Oh,” he laughed, flopping his back against the door, “I’m far too old and weathered to be sneaking like that.”

“Not too old and weathered to rugby tackle me into bed, though, huh?” she parried with a wink. He flushed bright red. Reliving that particular memory seemed to keep him occupied while she wrestled her other boot on and zipped into her parka. 

Just as they were about to dash down the hall, however, the tell-tale din of students spilling into the hallway echoed through the door. They froze. 

“Damn it, they must have let class go early,” Daphne hissed. “It’s the last day, anyway, not a whole lot to do.”

Gale delicately released the doorknob and backed away, tugging her with him by the cuff of her coat sleeve.

“That’s all right,” he said, threading their fingers together and squeezing her hand like he was trying to keep her from drifting away. He pulled her until they were standing face to face, toe to toe. “I intend to have so very much time to waste with you. We may as well start with a few moments now.”

Startlingly, it dawned on her that he was right. He was right in a way she’d never once considered.

From the very beginning, the end of the academic year had loomed in her mind as a brutal, crushing plummet back to reality. Even after they’d come together, she’d found herself trapped in a guilt-driven conflict between wanting to stay on Icepeak forever and knowing she absolutely could not keep him here. No matter what he said, she really couldn’t—not in good conscience. He was a bird too rare and brilliant to be caged.

But now, Daphne wasn’t even keeping herself on Icepeak forever, much less him. The world was open to them both. They could go anywhere, become anyone. Together.

Which he didn’t even know, she realized with a start. The future he was happily alluding to right now was the same future she’d convinced herself he’d never want. Emotion punched her in the chest as she looked up at him, at his too-honest eyes and his Greek-statue nose and his clever, gentle mouth. 

They had time. They really, actually did.

“How—” she stammered, choking on the words a little, “how do you want to, um, waste time? With me?”

He smiled at her, just small and slight, but it was enough to make everything else disappear in that magic way he had. “Oh, countless ways. Infinite ways. I could sort the books in your bedroom into their Library of Congress shelflist order. You could lie across my lap and let me read to you, again and again, while the fire in your fireplace dwindles.”

“Those aren’t wastes of time. One’s useful and the other’s one of my favorite things,” she protested. Her head was starting to feel light.

“What of this, then,” he continued, taking her other hand in his. “I can just stand here and be thankful I was born in time to adore you.”

And he did. He just stood there, gratitude crinkling his eyes and putting a sigh in his breathing. Time slowed, then stopped. When she’d rolled out of bed early this morning, put on her boring little outfit, gone over her slides in her head—it had never even occurred to her that he would look at her like this ever again. The dull ache in her chest had seemed eternal. Now, his hands were soft and solid around hers, and the scrape of his beard was still raw on her cheeks, and the ink was drying where she’d committed his apology to memory. And he adored her. 

She let herself tip forward until her forehead thunked against his sternum and her face buried in his chest. He huffed a pleased laugh. Somewhere, in the dim and distant part of her brain that was still tethered to earth, she realized the hall had gone quiet.

As Daphne locked the door behind them, her wad of keys stuffed into her shirt sleeve so it didn’t jingle, both their heads suddenly whipped toward the big double doors of the workshop.

“Is that music?” she whispered incredulously.

“The Cure, I believe,” Gale replied, straining to listen. “Oh, I love this one, it’s Friday I’m In Love.”

A theatrical range of shock, realization, and mirth suddenly crossed his face. The tips of his ears burned red.

“What?” Daphne hissed.

“Nothing. We should leave,” he choked out, clearly holding back some kind of outburst. “Now.”

Her eyebrows furrowed. “Well, yeah, but why?”

Gale, for some reason, found that a very difficult question to answer. He hesitated, an embarrassed flush creeping up his neck. 

“Well. It would seem,” he stammered, “that is, it would be easy to conclude—”

“Plus fort,” a clear, very excited voice moaned from behind the steel double doors. 

Daphne’s eyes widened as far as they could go. She flicked her eyes to Gale, then the workshop, then to Gale.

“Noooooo,” she breathed. 

Beside her, Gale was pinching the bridge of his nose and closing his eyes as he fought back mortified laughter.

“But they hate each other!” she whisper-shouted. “They’re not even friends!”

A rhythmic series of thuds sounded from inside the shop, as though a heavy workbench were being knocked against the plaster wall that separated the room from Gale’s office. There was some mumbling she couldn’t make out, then some French even she, with her three years of high school language classes, recognized as “fais-moi jouir.”

“Indeed,” he wheezed. “I would wager they very much aren’t friends.”

Daphne started to say something, thought better of it, and turned on her heel to whisk down the hallway to the stairs. Gale quickly caught up to her. Together, they silently hustled to her car without anyone noticing them.

She didn’t hit 90 on the way home, but it was a near thing.

“Since fucking when?” she finally blurted once they were on the highway and safely away from campus. Gale laughed in big, undignified peals and let his face drop into his hands.

“Well, upon reflection, I did notice them sharing food when I took them out for dinner,” he said. “And in literary analysis that’s generally a clear metaphor for—”

“I know what it’s a metaphor for,” Daphne shrieked, to his great amusement. “Oh my god. Oh, my god. I can’t—they can’t know I know. They haven’t signed the paperwork to be permanent employees yet; I might have to make them declare to HR and I think Lae’zel would stab me to death with an ink scraper before she’d do that. And then who would get my funding?”

Gale looked at her fondly. “You don’t know. Legally speaking, all we heard was a remarkably enthusiastic French lesson.”

She exhaled deeply, taking the off-ramp towards her house because it was two exits closer than the one for the lighthouse. Her room was clean enough, she was pretty sure. 

“Okay, yeah. You’re right, I don’t know anything,” she decided. “And I just won’t ever learn.”

“That’s the spirit. Blind, willful ignorance,” he replied with a pat to her knee. She snorted, but darted to grab his hand and place it higher up on her thigh. He gave her a slow squeeze.

By the time she white-knuckled into her driveway and threw the station wagon into park, he was up past his wrist under the hem of her dress and her heartbeat was pounding hot and needy between her legs. They rolled out of the car and hurried up the icy path to her front door, where Daphne’s icy fingers fumbled numbly with the keys.

“God damn it—there,” she grumbled, finally gripping her house key and twisting it in the lock before flinging the door open. Suddenly, there was a hand around her waist and another under her knees, and she was being scooped into the air.

Gale carried her into the house, careful to avoid bonking her against the doorframe. He kicked the door shut with the toe of his brogues. She expected him to put her down, but he kept going, past her couch and armchair, down the hall to her bedroom. 

“Have you been working out?” she asked incredulously. His face split into a broad, surprised smile.

“I have! Is it—do you like it?” He shouldered the door to her room open and bumped the light switch on with his elbow, then crossed to her bed. Gently, so gently, he laid her out on the duvet with her legs hanging over the edge.

She felt a tug on her boot laces, and she realized he was taking her shoes off for her. 

“I mean, I like you, regardless,” she said, staring up at her ceiling, her hands flopped by her head. “I’m just curious.”

Gale grunted as he pried the first boot off her foot. “Well. Quite understandably, Rolan was hesitant to use the gym in town alone, so I offered to accompany him there. The next thing I knew, I’d been persuaded into his whole… regimen.”

“That’s adorable.” Gale and Rolan, the very serious academics, spotting each other for lifts and chatting about aqueducts between sets. It was an absurd image, but she could see it clearly. He fumbled with the laces on her second boot, tugging at the double knot until it finally gave way.

“Is it?” he huffed, wiggling the boot back and forth in an attempt to loosen it.

“In, you know, a virile and masculine way,” she hastened to add.

Gale chuckled. “No, no. I don’t know that I’ve been adorable before. Let me savor it without qualification.”

Her second boot popped free and hit the carpet with a thud. Her socks soon followed. She expected him to take her tights off next, but instead, he kicked off his own shoes and crawled up her body, kissing her with enough force to press her into the mattress. 

“You miraculous creature,” he waxed. “You—you divine spark. Words fail me to describe how often I thought of you, and with what sharpness of longing—”

“Gale,” she protested, squirming under him. Not that she didn’t love the absurd way he spoke about her; it was fun to be described like she was a supernatural phenomenon, but she had much better uses for his mouth at present. Several came to mind.

He sealed his mouth over hers (that was one), scorching and slow, before wordlessly pushing back off the bed. She felt his knee dip the edge of the mattress between her spread legs as he leaned over her, then his sure, wonderful hands smooth up her thighs. 

“This dress…” he trailed off, his voice going rough at the edges. “Heaven and earth. You’re astonishing.”

Her hips lifted for him as he rucked the tight skirt up around her waist. His eyes went thrillingly hungry and dark, sweeping over her like an art thief coveting a Vermeer. She watched them darken further still as she parted her legs, but there was something else in his expression too, a new disbelief and exaltation she couldn’t quite place—

In the freely circulating air, she realized she’d soaked through her sheer tights and down her thighs. His clever fingers were there in a flash, skating up her legs to feel what he’d done to her. The shock of his warm touch through the cool nylon pulled moans from both their throats. For all the times they’d been naked together, this felt somehow more exposed. Filthier.

“May I?” he breathed.

With a heated look, she hooked her ankles around the backs of his knees and tugged him closer. 

He pressed the length of his fingers against the seam of her and rubbed slow, firm, back-arching circles. Daphne’s head snapped back with a shuddering exhale. So long, it had been so long. Her hips canted forward, into his hand, and he met her with a faster pace and awestruck eyes.

Gale stroked his free hand down her thigh, curling his fingers under her knee and holding it wide. The pads of his fingers trailed up to circle her clit, and even through tights and underwear, his sure, firm touch melted her into his hands. 

“Fuck,” she choked. He watched her writhe into his touch with a serious, reverent set to his face.

“Anything you want, let me provide,” he said, his low, fervent voice shooting straight to the core of her. “Everything. Your will is my own.”

Her sight went fuzzy around the edges as more blood left her brain.

“My idea, if I may.” he continued, the barest hint of pride warming his voice, “was to take you apart, by every means in my power, until you’re too wrung out to move. Let me worship at your altar until the last candle burns out. Let me ruin you past recognition.”

Holy shit. He started tracing firm, swirling patterns with his fingertips that made her mouth drop open, turning whatever stupid thing she was going to say into a needy whine of assent.

“Thank you,” he rasped. “You have no earthly idea how badly—Christ, you’re soaking, can I give you more?”

She wanted him inside her so badly it ached. Her cunt clutched and fluttered around nothing, desperately seeking him. “Please, god.”

Without prelude, his hands grabbed hold of the black nylon at the apex of her legs and pulled, easily shredding open the crotch of her cheap Walgreens tights. She gasped and hurriedly swallowed a squeak of surprise. Gale himself seemed pretty taken aback, too, as he let go and surveyed what he’d done. 

His anxious gaze darted to hers.

“I really fucking liked that,” she breathed.

Relief, then a spark of mischief, flashed in his eyes.

She felt him slip her underwear to the side (thank god this dress had required a thong) and ghost the tips of his fingers up and down her folds, leaving sparks in his wake. Her legs jolted wider; her breath stuttered.

“You confound imagination,” he rumbled, planting a hand on the bed next to her hip. “You wet, ardent, gorgeous thing. My dream. My prize.”

Daphne’s eyes fluttered, and he hummed.

“Do you still enjoy my voice?” he asked. She nodded, incredulous that he’d ever doubted it, and he exhaled shakily. “Good. Oh, good—I want to talk you over the edge of every orgasm you’ll ever have; it’s all I’ve thought about, and I’ve had a long time to think.”

Finally, he teased into her up to the first knuckle of one finger. Her mouth dropped open, a soft moan on her breath. 

“God above. Do you feel that?” He withdrew slightly before pressing in further. Warm, electric anticipation shivered through her, made her clench around him. “That. The thrilling little catch your body does to welcome me. Innumerable nights, half-awake and possessed by memories of pushing into you and feeling you shudder just— like— that—”

In gentle, confident strokes, he eased one of his elegant fingers inside her, then another. The heel of his hand ground against her clit, and she nearly levitated off the bed entirely. He swore under his breath.

“Never fucking leave me again,” she babbled, gasping for air.

Gale looked up at her through the wisps of hair that had come loose from his bun, achingly raw and sincere. “You will never need to ask.”

When she felt a third finger slowly working into her, she threw her head back, covering her mouth with her hand. 

“Shh, I have you,” he reassured her, fanning a hand between her hips and holding her to the duvet. “You know how, let go—sweet Christ, you feel fucking transcendent—there.”

The lines of her face went slack and her arms fell uselessly to the side. The chaos and noise that had dominated her thoughts all morning drained away to somewhere that didn’t matter, and a soothingly vague contentment took its place with each rock of his hand. Just a warm relaxation she sank into like a bath.

Gale dropped a kiss to the crease of her hip. “All right?”

“Fucking amazing.” A deep sigh left her as tension released from her neck down into her shoulders. “I don’t know how you do that.”

Maddeningly, he paused. “If you have the presence of mind to inquire after my technique, it can’t be so amazing, surely?”

Daphne rolled her eyes. He did something with his fingers that made them roll back in her head.

“There we are,” he hummed, the pleased smirk audible in his voice.

He fell into a toe-curling rhythm, letting his free hand roam over her ribs and stomach as she chased his fingers with her hips. 

“To answer you, it’s very little to do with me,” he continued. “You are the most phenomenally responsive thing alive.” He took his time with his words, letting his rich voice wash over her as his fingers coaxed her open. Her abs clenched and fluttered around him. 

“Look at you. You make it so easy for me, beloved. Your body demands its pleasure; all I do is obey. You take from me so… luxuriously—” His hand on her stomach slid down to circle her clit with his thumb—not hard, not fast, just lazily—and every nerve blazed to life. Gale’s fingers slipped further inside her, gently curling in a way that made her heart stutter with anticipation. And then, yes, fuck, he found it, fuck—

“Fuck,” he shuddered as her back arched off the duvet and her vision blurred. He kept his slow, relentless pace, stroking inside her and rubbing not-quite-enough spirals over her clit as she trickled down his fingers.

The overhead light of her room blinked out of view as she felt the first tremor slam into her, a slow explosion from some fathomless depth within her. She let it consume her. Through it all, as she arched and shook and cried out for god, his breathless voice lilted over her in a stream of gorgeous and perfect and I have you.

When she finally resurfaced, Gale was a warm, grounding weight on her heaving chest. His beard tickled the crook of her neck where he was kissing down to her collarbone.

“I said it before,” she groaned, and he pushed up to look at her, “but holy shit, I missed you.”

His eyes slid closed as he chuckled, a gentle, easy sound that made her chest ache. 

“The moment the news cameras shut off this morning, my final obligation was done, and I was off to you like a shot,” he grinned, still catching his breath. “Thank god Icepeak Regional’s airstrip is apparently equipped to take international charters, otherwise who knows when I would have—”

She spluttered. “What do you mean international fucking charters—”

He ducked to stop her protests with an urgent kiss. She squawked, but the slide of his tongue past her lips and the full weight of his body settling onto her quickly muffled her thoughts. Pinned to the bed, surrounded in the scent of his cologne, she was overwhelmed with the same kind of paradoxical longing that comes with returning home after a long trip. She’d felt his absence so acutely, for so many days, that the overwhelming relief of just having him here made her chest ache. 

Need stirred low in her core again, aching to have him closer. The fucking private jet conversation could wait. For now. 

She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and rutted her spent body against him. Gale moaned into her mouth, his kiss quickly turning greedy and claiming. He slotted his hips against hers and let her rock into the hard line of his cock through his trousers until she soaked them; the taut line of his body tensed with barely-restrained desire. He trailed a hand down her curves and gripped the back of one thigh, lifting it up toward her chest and spreading her open.

“If you’re truly ready. I am… fatally desperate to have my mouth on you again.” His eyes were half-lidded and entirely, unfathomably black as they searched her face. “Please. I need—I’ll make it perfect, I, please—”

Daphne grunted something like fuckgodyes and he was gone from on top of her. He sank to his knees next to the bed and pulled her hips to the edge, the top half of his face just visible when she craned to look at him. Her tights were only held together at the waistband now, and they unraveled further when he spread her other leg wide on the bed. Warm breath ghosted across her oversensitive folds as he positioned himself. She threaded fingertips lightly into his hair.

Generally, Gale savored the moments before he dove into her. He would pepper her skin with kisses and murmur praise about her beauty, and his undying devotion, and how sweet she was going to taste once he finally gave in. It was charming in a way only he could pull off, and she adored it every time.

So when the full, desperate heat of his mouth crashed into her and his nose buried into her folds, Daphne’s breath left her in one sudden plosive. The hand in his hair scrabbled to grab a handful at the roots, just to anchor her, and his answering moan reverberated up her spine. 

“Shit, I’m sorry,” she hissed, easing her grip. He furrowed his eyebrows and slapped his hand over hers, pushing it harder into his scalp. Her heart slammed against her ribcage.

Tentatively, she tugged on his roots, just enough for him to feel it. He let out a broken little sigh and sealed his mouth over her clit. Her back arched and she pulled harder, pitching his head into her. A whimper vibrated from his throat down to her toes.

She held him in place by the crown of his head as she rocked against his face, totally dishevelling his bun. His fingers bit into the soft skin of her hips as he encouraged her, his breathing deep and ecstatic. Superheated blood sang in her veins. Gale had always relished every chance to get under her skirt, and he’d always been incredible at it, but he was someone else entirely right now. Gentle, lovestruck Professor Dekarios was gone. In his place was a man whittled down to his most primal, urgent need: her.

A blinding wave of heat washed through her. She maneuvered his head to get a better angle against his nose, her voice cracking at the intense sensation on her clit.

Just as abruptly as he’d begun, he pulled away with a gulp of air, looking up at her with wide, wrecked eyes. “More,” he begged. “I need more, more of you, make me yours, make me know it—”

Daphne rolled up, grabbed him by the shirt front, and hauled him onto the bed in one fluid movement. 

“Shh,” she soothed as he scrambled onto his back. Belatedly, she plucked off his glasses and tossed them onto her bedside table. He raked his hair back from his face with shaking fingers.“You don’t have to beg. I’ll fuck your mouth, is that what you want?”

“Please,” was all he said, his voice sex-roughened. Raw energy crackled along her every nerve. She maneuvered to kneel above his head, looking down the sprawl of his body with a possessive flare of desire.

“Tap me if you’re about to die.”

His eyes fluttered, but never left her. He jerked a quick nod. She grabbed fistfuls of his ruined shirt, slid forward to straddle his head, and arched her back as she let herself sink onto him.

Immediately, he rose to meet her with an obsessive fervor that tore a shout from her throat. Her efforts to be gentle at first were met with an impatient groan and two strong hands pulling her down onto his face. Once she found a rhythm that seemed to satisfy him, one that ground his head into the mattress and made her moan through gritted teeth, she leaned forward and started popping the buttons of his shirt open. The familiar expanse of his olive skin, his chest hair, the planes of his stomach greeted her as she pulled the white cotton aside. Familiar, but not totally the same—his ribs were barely visible where they used to peek through his skin, and the lines of his abs were softer than before. He looked strong. Well-fed and well-exercised.

“Fuck, you’re so beautiful,” Daphne sighed. Gale made a pleased, bashful noise, fidgeting self-consciously even as his tongue never slowed. 

Falling forward, she fumbled to undo his belt one-handed until it finally unbuckled and she could take down his fly. She shoved his boxer briefs down just enough to finally, finally free his cock. It slapped heavily against his stomach, achingly, furiously hard. Clear, shiny fluid smeared messily over the head, down the shaft, onto his belly.

She stared. It wasn’t like she could really do anything, like this. Their heights didn’t quite match up in a way that would let her use her mouth well, and just jerking him off felt a little impersonal for life-altering reunion sex. But, fuck. Just seeing him, flushed and leaking for her, was enough to make her buck frantically against his nose and his chin and his relentless mouth. A fresh wave flowed from his cock as it jolted in response, pooling on his fevered skin. She trailed a finger through it as he shuddered.

“Could you come just from this? Right now?” she rasped. The moan that reverberated through him into her confirmed she was absolutely right. “Yeah? You’re just gonna let me fuck your face until you come your brains out? God, that’s so fucking hot, you’re so fucking hot.”

Gale’s breathing was becoming irregular, whining and quick, but so was hers. The tension building between her legs was already deliciously tight, and her thighs shook where they squeezed the sides of his head. She was close, and he was close, and that knowledge only pushed both of them further toward the edge. She eased herself upright with her hands on his chest and rolled her hips harder against him, and she watched his cock stiffen in response with a dark and selfish thrill.

Her control wavered, her back bowing, her painfully empty cunt spasming around nothing. She cried out in a mix of shock and too-sharp pleasure, and his eager hands wrapped around her hips to steady her as he sealed his lips over her and hollowed his cheeks. Her vision went pleasantly dark and warm at the edges. Blood rushed through her veins, through her lungs and her skin and her aching, ravished cunt. Her approaching orgasm coiled tight and hot low in her belly.

Before she got there, though, the hands on her hips dug fingernails through her shredded tights. Gale shouted, muffled, as come splashed up his abs and soaked into the trail of dark hair beneath his navel. 

“Oh my fucking god—” Triumphant, disbelieving, Daphne plunged headfirst into oblivion after him.

She pitched herself sideways and tumbled off of Gale. On her side near the pillows, trembling with the last aftershocks of her orgasm, she caught her breath and silently relished the sounds of him stirring to life behind her: his gasps for air tapering off into the familiar rhythm of his breathing, the rattle of his belt buckle as he kicked his pants the rest of the way off and let them slink to the floor. 

The unbroken quiet of her house had been one of the most painful reminders of his absence over the past month. Every rustle, and sigh, and mutter to himself felt miraculous now.

Suddenly, there were lips trailing up her thigh and over the swell of her hip. Gale slotted against her back, soft and warm. She reached around to find his hand and kissed his palm, and he replied with a kiss to the nape of her neck. For a while, they lay there in satisfied quiet as their adrenaline waned, just enjoying, just sharing air and warmth and time. 

Gentle fingers slipped past the waistband of her tights. “May I take these off you?”

“After I just pulled off the greatest stunt of my career?” She groaned an exhausted laugh. “You’re insatiable today.”

“Yes,” he agreed without hesitation. She snorted. “My motives at the moment, however, are less informed by depravity and more by the fact that someone in your state cannot possibly relax.”

She looked down at the catastrophe of what remained of her outfit with a satisfied smile. “I’d argue they’re a little informed by depravity. But sure.”

Gale freed her from the shredded remnants of her tights with careful hands, then unzipped the back of her dress and peeled it away. She unclipped her bra herself and tossed it over the side of the bed to join everything else on the floor. 

“Shame that I ruined this. It looks… awfully comfortable,” he winked down at her as he threaded the straps of her thong through his fingers. 

“It’s not,” Daphne smiled back blithely. He chuckled, sliding it down her legs and letting it fall from his grip. “The dress needed something that didn’t show, though, so I had to.”

“I see. Pride must abide, as they say.”

She snorted. “Let it be known that I fucking abided.”

Finally naked, they buried themselves under her thick duvet and reached for each other with eager, searching hands. She wrapped her arms around him and hitched a leg over his hip. He tugged her flat against him by her waist, burying his nose in the crook of her neck with a contented sigh. 

“Hi,” she whispered.

“Hi,” he said. “God, you smell just as sweet as I remember.”

Her brow creased. “I do?”

“Specifically, like an expensive French dessert,” he mumbled into her skin. “Have I not told you before? How unforgivable of me.”

“I guess not,” she laughed, incredulous. “It’s just lotion. I don’t use perfume; Astarion gets migraines.”

“Does he? I’ll keep that in mind.” He paused to kiss lightly up her neck. “Nevertheless, I do adore it. When you sleep in my bed, my sheets smell like you until I wash them.”

Gale pulled back, tragedy creeping into the lines of his face as he surveyed her. 

“Do you know—the first few nights I spent at home, I could barely sleep. I just felt desperately wrong, somehow, even in the same bedroom I’ve had all my life.” He kissed her forehead, sighing. “Finally, I realized: I’d become totally acclimated to falling asleep in the scent of you.”

She winced in sympathy. He stroked a thumb over the creases between her eyebrows, smoothing them out.

“Don’t,” he pleaded. “I deserve to feel every consequence for what I’ve done. To you, to us. If I’d lost you forever, it would have been more than justified.”

Guilt welled inside him again, so heavy that she could practically see him crumple under it. Fear, too—as if at any moment, despite his best efforts, she was going to change her mind and throw him back out into the snow. As if she’d be right to do it. 

She worried her lip between her teeth. 

“I’ll be right back.” 

Daphne extricated herself and scurried through the house, to the foyer. The cold terra cotta tile bit into her feet and made her shudder as she snatched his hat off of its peg. She jogged back down the hall to where he was sitting straight up in her bed, looking bewildered. His eyes roamed her face, then down her body to where her crossed arms clutched—

“Oh,” Gale sighed. Heartbreak crumbled his features. She hesitated, naked and shivering on her rug. “I had wondered where—of course. I’m so sorry; how unconscionably careless of me to leave it behind.”

She snapped out of it, shaking her head at him. “What? No, this isn’t a guilt thing, I’m trying to—ugh.”

Daphne crawled up the bed and straddled him over the duvet, sitting back on his thighs. He reached out to her as if by instinct, and she made a show of leaning into his touch as he skimmed a hand up her spine. 

She held up the wooly gray scrap in her hands. “You left this here the night we fought,” she began. He nodded, still miserable. “You hung it on the second peg, next to my keys, like you always did. I just… I couldn’t move it. I couldn’t put it away. No matter how fucking mad at you I was, it was your hat, you know? And you left it on your peg, in your spot. It was where it was supposed to be.”

“Oh, Daphne,” he interjected, clearly winding up for another apology. She stopped him with a finger on his nose. 

“Do you know what you smell like?” she asked. The question seemed, finally, to catch him off-guard. “I’ll tell you. I won’t even cheat, here, take this.”

She stuffed the hat into his free hand on his lap. He fumbled to accept it. With her grip braced on his shoulders, she waited until he met her eyes.

“I don’t know what your cologne is called, but I love it. If it comes in a candle, I want six.”

Pride tugged the corner of his mouth upward. “Chateau, 1970. The perfumer hand-bottles it in her shed. Probably my vainest affectation, and there’s competition for that title. But you—really?”

She nodded emphatically. “It was one of the first things I noticed about you, actually, after—” she made an all of this gesture at his body, and he scoffed as his cheeks colored pink. “Anyway, let me finish.”

He straightened, looking at her expectantly.

“Aside from that, there’s almonds from your shampoo. There’s acid-free paper and ink and leather from the books in your office. And then there’s the way you just kind of inherently are. I can’t describe it, it’s just sort of… warm.” She interlocked her hand with the one holding his hat and buried her face in the wool for a moment, letting her eyes slide closed as its faint but lingering scent greeted her. Gale’s breath caught in his chest.

“Some nights, when I felt truly fucking awful,” she pushed forward, through the creeping tightness in her voice, “I’d sneak into the foyer, like I was keeping a secret or something, and I’d hold this last piece of you up to my nose, and I’d let myself have one more moment where I could pretend you hadn’t left.” 

His grip tightened around the hat, around her fingers where they slotted between his. She took a deep, steadying breath.

“What I’m trying to say is. There’s still a ton of stuff we need to work out, and I’m going to want a fuck of a lot more information about, like, everything, but—someone who didn’t desperately want you would not have kept a hat only because it smelled like you.” 

Gale’s face did something so surprised and vulnerable it hurt to look at him. His mouth worked, but words didn’t come.

“So, just remember that, you know?” she finished lamely. “I already know you’re sorry. I believe you. You can believe me when I say I still want you around.”

The serious lines of his face softened. “Because you kept the hat.”

Her answering smile was shaky with relief. She’d fucking landed the plane. “Because I kept the goddamn hat.”

He twisted their joined hands to plant a kiss on the back of hers, then gently deposited the hat on her nightstand next to his glasses. Leaning into her space, he cradled her face in his palms and stopped just short of kissing her, as though he couldn’t bear to look away. 

“Come here?” His wet eyes shone in the soft light from her ceiling fan.

Daphne slid into the body-warm haze under the duvet and let him pull her on top of him, chest to chest, legs tucked along his hips. Their mouths slotted together easily, moving against each other in slow, easy glides as Gale wrapped his arms tighter around her. Contentment glowed like a sun inside her.

“I love you more than I ever dreamed possible,” he said dryly when they broke apart. “Someday, if we’re very patient, perhaps it will finally occur to me that the feeling is reciprocated.”

She rolled her eyes. “I feel like I’ve made that excruciatingly clear.”

“You have.”

“Like, I need to emphasize this: many times.”

“Oh, innumerable.” 

“I’d assumed that someone who finished two entire doctorates would be quicker to reach a conclusion.”

“And a—”

“And a Masters!”

He pecked a kiss to her cheek, sighing theatrically. “Unfortunately, my darling, you’ve discovered the terrible secret lurking at the heart of every academic. We’re actually quite stupid.”

She burst into surprised laughter, letting her head thud onto his shoulder. 

“You are,” she gasped for breath. “So stupid. Oh my god, fucking let me cherish you, you—you idiot.”

He slung one arm tight around her waist and pulled her to him, his own laughter shaking through them both. The last remnants of tension vaporized as he swiped a hand down his face, trying and failing to collect himself. 

“My poor, beleaguered Daphne,” he cried. “Saddled with that greatest of burdens, a classicist. Won’t someone think of her? Can’t you see she suffers?”

“Listen, you,” she shot back as she pushed up to hover over him, but he’d pulled her back into a suffocating embrace and crushed his lips to hers before she could even formulate the rest of her sentence. She draped her arms around his head and did her best to steal the breath from his lungs. He rumbled a delighted hum, which tapered into a moan as she slipped her tongue past his lips. 

The silken heat of his mouth nearly scorched her as it moved in smooth, passionate glides against hers. She really hadn’t kissed him enough yet. She didn’t think she’d ever kiss him enough. 

His flagged cock stirred to life again between them, thickening and hardening against her belly. Her blood flashed hot. She rubbed against him in small, enticing shifts, and before long he was hard and rutting into her ministrations with a moan on his breath. Gale broke the kiss, a question of permission on his tongue, but she yanked him back to her with a nod. At some point, he was going to have to learn the answer was yes. Always, always yes. 

Together, they shifted and maneuvered until they were locked in the same embrace, with his cock buried most of the way inside her. She shuddered against his chest. He felt huge from this angle, and she twinged with the too-muchness of him pushing so deep inside her so fast, but who fucking cared, because he was home. He was finally home. Tentatively, she used what little freedom of movement she had to rock against him, driven by her desire for him to move.

Gale clung to her harder as he held her in place and took over for her, lifting his hips and inexorably thrusting himself into her as he pressed restless kisses into her hair. 

“Yes,” she breathed, dropping her head onto the pillow next to his. “Fuck, yes, just like that—”

Her pliant, eager body finished yielding to him with a stretch so deep it knocked the breath from her lungs. They couldn’t fit together all the way, from this position, but maybe that was a blessing. No need to worry about her cervix. 

His anxious hands petted over her back, down her waist, until he seemed satisfied that she was comfortable. He eased back just a fraction, then nudged home again, rocking them together and sending electric bursts of pleasure through her core.

A realization through the haze in her brain made her grin. She waited until he’d set a slow, steady pace, then turned her head and let her lips brush the shell of his ear. “Does fucking me feel good?”

His hips stuttered in surprise, and his breath punched from his lungs as he caught her meaning, but he didn’t stop. “I—god above, perfect, you know it’s perfect—”

“What is, Gale? Tell me what feels perfect. Tell me what you’re doing.”

He couldn’t completely swallow his moan. She smiled broader, safely tucked into his neck where he couldn’t see her. 

“I’m—” he hesitated, his shallow thrusts intensifying in a way that had her eyes fluttering, “I’m fucking you.”

“You’re fucking me. God, you feel so fucking good,” she breathed. He made a strangled noise of ecstasy and dug his fingertips into the soft skin of her back.

“Just like that, just like that.” She snaked a hand under the nape of his neck and tangled her fingers in his hair. “Good. So good, angel. Don’t stop fucking me, it’s so good, it’s so fucking good, you’re so good—”

That did it. He whimpered, rough and desperate, and dug his heels into the mattress as he thrust into her. She kept a stream of depravity flowing into his ear, and Gale, sweet Gale, who craved reassurance at every moment that she felt good and she liked it and he was doing well, absolutely lost his mind under her. Sweating, shaking, wordless as he gripped her. 

“You’re gonna come inside me,” she purred. “You’re gonna hold me right here, and you’re gonna fuck me until you come. I want—”

“Tell me I have to,” he panted, delirious. 

“You have to,” she said, scrambling to change course seamlessly. Her fingers tightened in his hair. “And you will. Because you’re mine, and you’re good, and you do whatever I fucking tell you to. Am I right?”

“Yes,” he gasped, pistoning into her, almost but not quite there—

“Mine. Just for me, come just for me,” she said, trailing her lips over the flushed skin at his temple. “I love you.”

He shouted through clenched teeth as he followed her voice over the edge. Warmth flooded her. She latched onto the side of his neck and sucked a bruise to his fevered skin, just below his jaw. Somewhere even a scarf wouldn’t hide. A petty reminder to both of them that she’d been there.

He melted into the bed, loose in every limb, but kept her wrapped in his arms on top of him. She lazily scratched his head as he came back into his body. 

“How was that?” Daphne asked.

Gale huffed a winded laugh. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

She paused for a second to puzzle out what the fuck that was supposed to mean. “I don’t actually think you’re stupid, angel; we were doing a bit.”

“No! Not at all,” he said. “I was more trying to communicate, you expand the limits of what I conceive as possible. My wits aren’t at their sharpest, beloved; absolutely none of my blood supply is in my head at present. Your fault, really.”

She snorted, relaxing back onto him and letting her eyes drift closed. “You’re exhausting. Never change.”

“As long as you’re amenable to being exhausted,” he grinned.

“I am.”

“Then. As you wish.” 

Chapter Text

The twin blares of their cell phones shrieking out alerts jolted them awake in the earliest hours of the morning—first Gale, with a panicked gasp, then Daphne, groaning with the grim knowledge of what was headed their way. That sound only meant one thing.

She fumbled around on her nightstand and squinted at her phone to confirm—yep. BLIZZARD WARNING THIS AREA TIL 8:00 PM EST SATURDAY. PREPARE. AVOID TRAVEL. CHECK MEDIA.

“Christ alive,” she muttered, flinging the quilt back and wincing as the cold air hit her skin. “Don’t suppose they could have told us when it wasn’t 4am.”

“Mm? Who?” The bright light of his phone screen illuminated his sleepy, bewildered face. “I need my glasses—”

“Blizzard!” She clicked her bedside lamp on (so the electric was still working, for now) and bounded to her closet, hauling out her warmest layers. “Your first one, I bet. Check out the window for me; tell me how bad it looks.”

As she wiggled into her long johns, a tight wool one-piece usually reserved for ski trips, she heard Gale thump out of bed, shuffle over to the window, and pull the curtains back with a swish. 

He exhaled slowly and emphatically. “Gracious.” 

“That dire, huh.”

“I can’t see a thing. It’s either darkness or just… white.”

“Fuck. At least I already have the generator set up, but I still need to—”

“What on earth are you wearing?” 

Daphne whipped around to face him. He stood flat-footed on her rug, wearing nothing but his glasses and an expression of curiosity mixed with humor.

She gestured down the length of her wool-clad body. “Long johns?”

With the same perplexed look on his face, he slowly approached her and reached out to run inquisitive hands down her waist. She shifted on her feet, becoming a little indignant. 

“Look, I know it’s not, like, lingerie,” she said defensively. “My phone says it’s negative eighteen outside. Not counting the wind chill. Base layers are important.”

He skimmed his hands up over her chest, a smile tugging at his mouth. “You look ready to do a space walk. Or perhaps break into a bank vault.”

“And you look ready to freeze your dick off,” she parried. “I really wish you wouldn’t, by the way; I’ve got plans.”

His eyes widened. “Drat. I didn’t think—all my luggage is at the lighthouse. I only have what I came here wearing.”

Daphne’s eyes widened even further and she gripped the closet door frame. “Oh wait, oh no, Gale, Tara!”

“Safely back in Surrey with my mother,” he quickly assured her. “With the hasty speed of my departure, I didn’t have time to square away her paperwork. The two of them get along famously, anyway; she’s probably enjoying having a break from me.”

Daphne sighed deeply in relief, and he drew her closer to kiss her on the forehead. “You are entirely too good, you know,” he murmured. “However, the point stands. I am quite bereft of clothes.”

“Raid my closet? I have to go close the shutters before the wind really kicks up.” She stepped into her ski suit and zipped it up under her chin. “I wear a lot of men’s shirts, and I’m sure there’s… something you could do for pants in there.”

“I’d quite like one of these, actually,” he smiled, toying with the zipper of her suit. She rolled her eyes and ducked under his arm to slip out of his grasp. His laughter followed her out of her room and down the hallway.

“I adore you!” he called after her. “And your astronaut suit!”

“Love you too, man I’m never taking skiing,” she shouted over her shoulder as she reached the foyer and dug through her box of winter accessories. Thoroughly booted and bundled, she threw open her front door and clicked on her headlamp. A weak beam of light speared into the inky dark in front of her.

“Fuck!” she shouted reflexively, wincing. The icy wind stung like needles against every sliver of exposed skin. Her eyes watered, only for the tears to instantly freeze to ice in her nose; her septum ring zinged with pain. She tugged her scarf up to cover her face. The impending storm would not be kind. Better make this very quick.

Through the knee-deep snow, she stomped over to the living room window and slammed the shutters closed, fumbling to latch them with her thick gloves. The wind shrieked through the trees. She’d never really appreciated that turn of phrase until her first winter on Icepeak. It really was an almost-human sound—a high-pitched disharmony, somewhere between a whistle and a wail. The hair on the back of her neck prickled.

The first window done, she put her head down and waded over to the next one, then the next. She’d planned to do something silly for Gale outside her bedroom window, maybe turn the strobe on her headlamp to scare him, but her task soon blurred into a pitch-dark, freezing race to get back inside before frostbite caught up with her. Icy drifts began to fill her boots and soak into her socks. The snow fell thicker and faster in her narrow beam of light. As she rounded the back of the house, she fumbled around for precious seconds before finally finding her outdoor generator. She dug handfuls of snow away from its vents in case the power lines went down and she had to start it up. Fuck, she should have brought the shovel. Next time.

With numb fingers, she finally locked the shutters tight over the last window. She stumbled up the steps to her covered porch and gratefully flung herself back inside. Bent double, with her hands on her knees, she yanked the scarf covering her mouth away and gulped lungfuls of blessedly warm, dry air.

“Darling?” 

Panting, she craned her neck to look up. Gale appeared under the archway that led to the kitchen, softly illuminated from behind, radiating an anxious mix of relief and concern. The Avett Brothers t-shirt she’d bought at Bonnaroo years ago barely accommodated his broad shoulders, and a pair of ratty gray joggers with RISD printed down the leg hung low on his hips. His longer-than-usual hair was messily secured in a knot at the nape of his neck. 

A sliver of exposed skin peeked from between the bottom of his borrowed shirt and his waistband. Daphne’s brain activity flatlined as the impulse to bite it seized her.

Oblivious to her gawping, he hurried over to her and slid her snow-crusted hat and headlamp off her head, then the scarf from around her neck. “Let’s get these off. You’re terribly flushed,” he fretted, gently sliding a glove off her hand.

“Uh huh,” she stammered, shaking back to the present. He freed her other hand. Without a word, he helped her pry her feet from her snow boots and unzipped her from her ski suit. “You, uh, didn’t want one of my sweaters?”

“Not when it’s this warm in here. I do dress down occasionally, you know.” His arms full of her sodden clothes, Gale nodded his head toward the kitchen. “Your coffee is nearly ready. I do hope I set up your contraption correctly; I’m not used to doing chemistry experiments this early in the morning.”

“My Moka pot?” she smiled, surprised. “Thanks, wow—you could have gone back to bed, you know. You didn’t have to get up with me.”

“Pish posh,” he scoffed. Daphne nearly exploded with charm. “Go on, warm your bones. I’ll be with you shortly.”

Down to just her long johns, she padded on double-socked feet into the kitchen. Popping the lid of the Moka pot revealed that it had just begun to splutter, so she clicked the gas off and moved it to a cool spot on the stove. The coffee smelled perfect, not burned but not watery. She didn’t know why she was surprised, at this point. He was, after all, a fast learner.

She rummaged around for the box of black tea bags she knew lurked in the back of her pantry, retrieving it from behind a wall of canned beans. Hopefully it was the kind of tea acceptable to English people. She really wouldn’t know, but had a feeling it was probably a contentious issue. 

“Remind me, do you take milk and sugar?” she called over her shoulder into the living room as she filled her kettle and clicked it on.

“For tea?” his astonished voice responded.

“Yeah! I had some in the cabinet. Don’t be mad if it’s, like, somehow an affront to your culture, it’s just black tea from Trader Joe’s.”

He barked a laugh. Her heart clenched, all over again, hearing his happiness reverberate off the walls of her home. “I’m sure I’ll be furious. A splodge of milk and two sugars would be perfect, beloved, cheers.”

She flung open the doors to her overcrowded mug cabinet—her job required her to attend so many artisan markets, the pottery just tended to accumulate—and picked out two of her favorites, thick with glaze and pleasantly heavy. She filled one with boiling water and tossed in a tea bag, then turned to perform the familiar routine of assembling her oatmilk cafe au lait.

Facing down the mug of tea on her counter, she deflated. She’d never even considered what might make a good or bad cup of tea. Strength was a good guess, probably. Right? Once it darkened to a color that looked potent enough, she added milk and sugar, gave it a stir, and hoped it was drinkable. 

Mugs in hand, she entered the living room to see Gale crouched, stoking an already-crackling fire in the fireplace. Her wet outerwear was already carefully arranged on the brick hearth, ready to dry.

“Holy shit, that was fast,” she said approvingly, and he shot her a pleased smile over his shoulder. 

“I’ve had quite a lot of practice.” He sauntered over—stop staring at his hips you absolute freak—and gratefully accepted his tea from her, taking a tentative sip. Daphne watched his face anxiously. 

“Lovely,” he smiled, shaking his head at her adoringly as she relaxed. “Thank you, really. You’re entirely good to me.”

“You’re easy to be good to,” she said, taking a pull of her own drink. The hot, invigorating rush of it down her throat burned bright in her still-thawing chest. 

There was a pause of dead air as they looked at each other, the sudden domesticity of the scene finally crashing into them. This time yesterday, she hadn’t known he was coming back at all. Now he was wearing her clothes and drinking tea out of her cups while the fire he’d built filled her house with enough warmth to shut out a blizzard. She could almost feel the path of his gaze as it lovingly traced the planes of her face, her lips, her eyes.

“Come here,” Gale beckoned, offering her his hand to take. “You’re still frozen solid.”

He led her past the couch, to her surprise, over to the fireplace. The fire now roared in earnest, flickering higher with each gust of the wind and radiating a deliciously tangible heat that permeated into her chilled bones. He dropped her hand with an apologetic squeeze and arranged two throw pillows in front of the fire, then sank to sit on one with a groan. She followed him, setting her cup on the warm brick hearth in front of them. A giddy mix of tension and expectation of something coalesced and thickened around them as they sat side-by-side in the glow of the fire.

“This was a good idea,” she hummed after a while. She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. He had leaned back on his hands, letting the shirt ride up towards his navel in a way that made her nearly choke. 

“Cozy,” she managed to elaborate. 

“I used to do this when I was a boy,” Gale replied, still oblivious. “Sit by the hearth, I mean. Our study has a massive fireplace, and in the wintertime, I would bring a stack of books and read for hours.”

“The fireplace in the photo you sent me?” she asked. He turned to look at her, delight written clearly on his face.

“Indeed! You’ve a remarkable memory.”

She scrunched her nose. “Not really. I’ve just been staring at it every day for the last—”

Fuck. A spike of regret deflated her mood. She hadn’t meant to bring up the ugly fact of his absence so soon after they’d reconciled. Especially not in a moment as nice as this one. She hurriedly took a sip of coffee, hoping that he would simply let it pass unmentioned. When she looked back to him, however, he was furrowing his brow at her in confusion. 

“For the last?” he repeated, waiting for her to continue.

“Month.” She set her mug down with a clink. “You know. While you were away. Sorry, I don’t want you to think I’m going to, like, hold it over your head all the time or anything.”

He scoffed gently. “You could, you know. I certainly would, in your position.”

“Respectfully and with love—you absolutely would not.”

Hesitating before he replied, he shrugged his shoulders in defeat. “Regardless. Don’t censor yourself to spare my feelings. Frankly, if it matters, I would rather know too much than too little. God knows you’ve heard enough about how I spent our time apart.”

“Are you kidding?” She shook her head incredulously. “You were part of a white collar crime investigation. You made the national news! That fucking rips.”

Gale spluttered a surprised laugh. “You have such a—a colorful turn of phrase, my darling; it’s impossible to anticipate.”

“You missed it,” she teased.

“I did.” He wasn’t teasing. His arm snaked loosely around her waist, and she shuffled until she was snug against his side. “Anyway. Enlighten me. What did you get up to?”

Her brow furrowed. It was always so easy to remember specifics until someone asked an open-ended question. “Well… we had our j-term class, and it went better than I could have literally ever hoped. I love those kids. Oh, one of them—Arabella, if you know her?”

He chuckled. “I do.”

“She’s great, but she brought in the saddest fucking poem imaginable about Daphne as a laurel tree to use in her final project. As a special surprise for me. I thought for sure I was being, like, divinely punished for something.”

Gale groaned sympathetically and squeezed her closer. “I can imagine. Teaching is bizarrely vulnerable that way. A student can produce excellent work that also wounds you deeply, on a personal level, and you have to maintain the impression that it hasn’t.”

“Totally. Uh, what else.” She racked her brain. “Astarion has a pretty serious boyfriend now, Wyll. I’m a huge, huge fan; I would officiate the wedding tomorrow if they asked. I’m trying to think if there’s anything new with Karlach—”

The memory of her last conversation with Karlach yesterday morning, right before she’d discovered Gale’s email, pinged to the front of her mind. She gripped his knee and gasped loud enough that Gale startled.

“The workshop! We got funded—we got fully funded,” she beamed. “The board meeting was yesterday. I get to keep Lae’zel and Shadowheart on as permanent staff. God, I need to send Aylin an Edible Arrangement or something.”

He pulled back to face her, grinning just as hard. “Daphne, you didn’t! I thought you said something about them becoming employees, but I didn’t stop to puzzle it out—oh, darling, that’s wonderful. And well, well deserved. There is no one who could put that money to better use than you.”

“I don’t know about that,” she began, but suddenly she was being kissed within an inch of her life and his broad hands, tea-warmed and soft, were cradling her face. She let her eyes slip closed, melting into it. He gently pulled her onto his lap, her legs wrapping around his hips. 

She felt infinitely close to him, this way, nestled perfectly into the welcoming cage of his arms. She inhaled, slow and bone-deep, as he held her tighter. He smelled like her soap and her fireplace and her laundry detergent. A bright flare of possessive joy burned through her. 

“Is this going to be your reaction to all of my professional achievements?” Daphne asked dazedly when they broke apart. “Because I can work so, so much harder.”

“Ridiculous creature.” He pressed a lingering kiss to her forehead. “I love you. I want you to get what you want. I’m ecstatic when you do. Is that so strange?”

I want you to get what you want. What she wanted, she realized again, had changed radically since the last time they’d spoken (well, argued) about it. He needed to know. A spike of anticipation and dread and excitement and nerves made her tense.

“I guess not,” she said. She hooked a finger into the age-worn neckline of his shirt—her shirt—and kept her eyes fixed on a freckle at the base of his throat. “And this is what I want. It’s the perfect setup for when I leave the workshop to the girls.”

She tentatively glanced up. Gale’s soft smile froze in place for a long beat. She could see the questions begin to click into place behind his eyes as he studied her, bewildered.

“I thought about what you said. About the mud and the stars,” she continued.

He grimaced. “Daphne, god, I’m so sorry—”

“No,” she interrupted him, “no, you were right. You were a dick about it, but… I understood what you were trying to tell me. About there being a world beyond Icepeak, and that world having a place for me.”

Her heart in her mouth, she lifted her head to look him in the eye. The firelight gleamed orange and scintillating off the lenses of his glasses, but she could still feel the uncompromising weight of his attention on her. “I’m going to stay another year and make sure everything is established. Then… I’ll go anywhere. And—fuck, Gale, this is probably way too early, but I’m not twenty-five anymore and I’m not interested in wasting my time—I really want to go anywhere with you.”

His fingers flew to cover his mouth. It did nothing to hide the incandescent smile taking over his face, crinkling his dark eyes and brightening his cheeks. Either he was stunned into silence or he was waiting for her to finish. 

Daphne sighed, shrugging. “I just feel like, if we’re doing this, we’re doing this.” She swallowed nervously, the gravity of what she’d said fully crashing into her with a wave of cold sweat. “So, uh. Are we doing this?”

She was falling. No, wait—she was being pivoted, laid gently on her back on the hardwood floor of her living room. Gale hovered above her. With his olive skin flushed with heat and his face framed with the loose tendrils of hair that had escaped his bun, he glowed like one of Raphael’s angels as she stared back up at him.

“Daphne Francesca Tavian,” he rasped. 

“I never told you my middle name,” she interjected, her voice high and dreamy as her heart did its best to slam out of her ribcage.

“I pay attention. By which I mean, I found your diploma in the back of your closet.” He smoothed the hair back from her face with a sweep of his fingers, lingering as he trailed down her cheekbone. “But, hear this now. There is no universe, no extant form of you or me, in which we are not doing this.”

“Okay,” she returned meekly. “I know; I believe you. I’m just—well, I’m terrified, right, but I’m also excited. About the future. About you. About wanting the same things. It’s been years since I felt that way. And it’s like, I have a great life—but only because I’ve worked really fucking hard for all of it. Right? And then one day, you literally just drop into my lap out of the blue, and this grand romance just kind of explodes into my life, without me trying at all.”

She was rambling, she could hear herself rambling, but he just kept looking down at her and nodding to show he was listening. God bless. “It’s just hard to believe that I get to have this for free—you know? You’re incredible,” she continued, “and I want to do everything with you, all the time. And that’s never been true about anyone I’ve loved, and there’s been a number. Not that I do this all the time—ugh, god, I don’t know how to say it. It’s just crazy to me that you exist. And that you’re this sure about me.”

“Did I drop into your lap? Or did you catch me?” he interjected. His thumb grazed her bottom lip as he held her chin, gently demanding her attention. “Is this really all for free, as you put it, or shall I draw your attention to the hundreds of subtle ways you constantly express your care?”

He twisted to level a significant look at his mug on the hearth. Her heart rose into her throat. 

Gale relaxed until he was nearly lying on top of her, his elbow propped next to her head. Reverent fingers cupped her cheek. “I’ll say it as often as you like, in as many ways as I can invent: I only want you. Wherever we are.”

She nodded, taking in the raw sincerity on his face with a swoop of her stomach. Her eyes felt suspiciously hot and prickly and wet. Damn him and his big stupid heart and his fancy stupid words. 

“Only me?” she deflected with a shaky grin. “That’s all?”

Contemplative for a moment, he smiled and leaned down to her until their noses were almost nudging. “Mm. There is one other desire that comes to mind.” 

Her thighs twitched around him involuntarily. “Yeah?”

The bristle of Gale’s beard tickled her flushed skin as he slowly, agonizingly kissed up her neck and along her jawline. Her breath came in short, shallow pants; her pulse pounded between her legs. Finally, his lips brushed at the corner of her mouth, and her eyes slipped close in anticipation.

“I want to make you such a breakfast,” he said, smiling against her cheek. 

Suddenly, he had jumped to his feet and was well on his way into the kitchen. She remained flat on her back on the hardwood, dazed.

“What?” she called after him, fighting an incredulous laugh. 

“We’ve pledged ourselves to adventure and romance! A celebration is in order,” his voice rang from around the corner, underpinned by the familiar clickclickclick of her stove igniting. “A feast, dare I say! Come sit on the counter and commentate, why don’t you. Tell me I’m making your horrible scrambled eggs incorrectly.”

She scrambled to her feet with an indignant huff. A sharp ache of frustrated lust cramped in her abdomen, and she did her best to will it away. Damn tease. “They’re not horrible, you’re just a pervert who likes wet omelettes.”

Nevertheless, Daphne did exactly as he suggested, following him into the bright light and hopping up to sit between the stove and the sink. The aging laminate countertop creaked under her weight. 

“Ugh. This shit has got to go,” she muttered to herself, picking at a loose seam with her fingernail. 

“What’s that, darling?” He emerged from the fridge with his arms full, briskly depositing a pile of eggs and butter and god knows what else on his prep surface. Thank god she’d done a big shop right before a fucking blizzard appeared.

“Nothing. Just lamenting the state of my kitchen,” she said, watching him flick some water into the pan to check the temperature. It sizzled, which was apparently not good, because Gale scrunched his nose and turned to slice open a pack of bacon. He laid out a bed of paper towels and began drying each strip, then seasoning them with a frankly luxuriant amount of fresh pepper. 

“It may be showing its age a little,” he admitted, “but that’s no shame. You have a lovely home.”

Says the man who grew up in a house with a fucking study, the most insecure part of her brain piped up, but she stuffed it back down. Gale wasn’t like that. Gale really did think her one-bedroom bungalow from the Ford administration was quaint and charming. 

“It would be lovelier with a facelift and some fresh paint,” she said instead. “I have a whole list of shit that I’ve wanted to fix, but I just haven’t had the time. Or the money. And now— god, I’ll probably need to sell anyway, won’t I.”

He hummed. Another flick of water into the pan. Instead of sizzling, the droplets danced and raced around like air hockey pucks. This, apparently, was what he’d been waiting for. He laid half the bacon into the skillet and let it start to sizzle.

Reaching to retrieve a mixing bowl from on top of her fridge—oh holy fuck, she nearly said out loud when his shirt rode up and she got a panoramic view of his lower abs—he looked at her curiously. “Imagine that you don’t sell. If you could fix anything in this house, right now, what would you choose?”

“The roof,” she said automatically, clearing her throat. “It’s not a problem yet, but it’s going to be. It’s way too old. After that, new shower and vanity in the bathroom, then new countertops in here, and if there’s money left over, I want to rip that hideous stainless steel sink out and put in one of those big fuckoff farmhouse basins that the hot Mormons on Instagram have.”

He snorted. “You had my attention, now you have my interest. Do go on.”

Daphne launched into an impassioned description of not so much how she wanted her kitchen to look—her particular artistry had never really seemed to transfer to any skill with interior design, too three-dimensional—but how she wanted it to feel. Sturdy. Lived-in. Farmhouse, but not Better Homes and Gardens farmhouse. Like a real kitchen one might find on a real farm with real farmers. A kitchen that could believably produce several dozen biscuits on a moment’s notice.

His brow furrowed as he listened. While she expounded, he cracked eggs two at a time into the mixing bowl and started beating them briskly with a fork. 

“I see. Have you considered butcher block countertops?” he said thoughtfully. She whipped to look at him with surprise. “They need re-oiling every few months, but otherwise they’re practical and quite appealing. You could add a ceramic drainage area around the sink to protect the wood from water damage.”

They lost themselves in re-imagining her house as Gale assembled their breakfast, moving through each room in sequence. For someone who’d never owned a house all his own, his creative vision was astonishingly clear—and good. Everything he suggested, from replacing her dingy front door (easily done) to budgeting a tankless hot water heater into the bathroom renovation (fancy), instantly made sense. By the time they reached her bedroom, he’d built her the coziest home on the East Coast in their shared imagination, packed with warm woods and textures and built-in shelves.

“God, I want to curl up in your brain and live there,” she said as she rinsed their long-empty mugs and clicked the kettle on. “You have a real gift. If being a genius archeologist-historian-librarian doesn’t pan out, there’s a career in design just waiting for you.”

He made a bashful noise of reproach from over in front of the stove. A fat white onion had been diced into confetti on his cutting board, and the pan shimmered with butter and oil hot just enough to fry them. Grease hissed quietly as he dumped the onion in. “You may be working from something of a bias, beloved.”

“I am. But I’m right.” 

Daphne stood on her toes to pull down the bottle of Bulliet from her liquor shelf, then dressed the mugs with honey and lemon juice and slices of bright, glossy orange. She didn’t have cloves, but she did manage to toss in a few sticks of cinnamon that would hopefully compensate. With a generous pour of bourbon and some hot water, they made a pair of passable hot toddies.

She sidled up behind him and reached around to set his drink next to the stove, pressing a kiss to his shoulder blade. Drawn in by the radiance of his body heat, she wrapped her arms around him to rest her palms against his stomach. “What’s that for?”

“Just an accoutrement. Fried onion is lovely with bacon and eggs, and you happened to have one laying about,” he replied. Affection welled in her chest. Dr. Dr. Gale A. Dekarios, MLIS, housewife. Fussing over breakfast accoutrements while a blizzard howled and banged on the shutters outside. She squeezed him, burying her face at the base of his neck, and he sighed happily. 

“If you’re going to cook for me like this all the time, I’m going to have to keep you,” she murmured. 

He covered her hands on his stomach with one of his own. “My dear. That is entirely, transparently the point,” he replied, wry.

She inched one of her hands down his stomach, past the hem of his shirt. His bare skin glowed hot under her fingers. Gale stiffened in her arms, and she paused there, running her nails through the trail of dark hair below his navel. 

“Oh, I was going to keep you anyway. You look too fucking good in my clothes,” she said. His breathing deepened and slowed, his pulse hammered through his body, and she let him just sink into the moment, peppering his shoulder with kisses through the threadbare cotton. 

She realized, under her ministrations, that he’d stopped stirring, his spatula useless in his idle hand. With a grin, she stood on her toes to whisper in his ear. 

“Don’t burn my breakfast.” He startled back to the moment and resumed his work while Daphne laughed softly.

“Apologies. I find myself,” he stammered, “not especially of a culinary mind, suddenly.”

She traced the waistband of his sweatpants with her fingertips, just barely dipping past the elastic. A moan died in his throat. Taking that as a promising sign, she slipped her hand into the front of his sweatpants and ghosted down his cock. The heavy pulse of his heightening arousal thrummed just under his delicate skin as he hardened against her touch. 

“God in heaven, Daphne,” he grunted. His knees went weak and he gripped the countertop with one hand as the other continued stirring mechanically. 

“Do you want me to stop?” she mumbled into his shoulder between kisses.

“Please don’t stop,” came his too-quick reply. She smirked and wrapped her palm around the middle of him, where he was thickest. Gale made a noise like he’d been stabbed. 

“Good,” she breathed. 

One, two slow pumps of her hand had him finally giving up and turning the stove off, tossing his spatula to the side with a clatter. The onions continued to gently sizzle, fragrant and savory in her tiny kitchen. 

She kissed the back of his neck, slipping her tongue along the warm skin there briefly. “Giving up?”

Gale rasped a breathy laugh. “If you’re going to—” his voice broke as she squeezed the head of his dick, “ah, if you—just seemed the wrong time for open flames.”

She hummed happily, letting her eyes slide closed as she found her rhythm. His hips thrusted minutely to meet her fingers, so jerky it must have been involuntary. His little stunt in front of the fireplace had clearly left him wanting, too. How satisfying. She bit softly into the meat of his trapezius. His knuckles went white.

“Christ, I can’t believe this is happening,” he sighed, high and desperate. “You’re amazing, god, you’re perfect, you feel perfect, if you keep doing that—”

“You’re not coming,” she said, not unkindly, as she slowed the push and pull of her hand around his cock. Gale’s entire body seized, but just as she’d said, he didn’t reach completion. A ragged grunt of effort rumbled in his chest. “You’re the one who wanted to be a tease today, and that’s fine, but I’m much meaner than you are and I will win every—fucking—time. Relax, sweetheart, relax. There you go.”

Daphne expected a witty barb, or at least a whine to show his frustration with being denied, but Gale made absolutely no protests as she slowed to a halt and slipped her hand out of his pants. She washed up, set her little table, and carefully crammed a few serving plates in the middle. He simply busied himself dishing up the food.

The rich, savory smells of buttery scrambled eggs, pepper-crusted bacon, and the almost-perfectly done onions mingled in her radiator-warm kitchen. Her stomach growled. When the last dish was perfect, he circled the table and pulled out her chair with a flourish before she could lay a hand on it.

“It’s my house,” she smiled incredulously, shaking her head at him.

“And you’re my partner,” he parried. The jubilant light in his eyes when he said my partner nearly made her swoon. God, she was never going to get over that. Fine. She sat, and he smacked a kiss to the top of her head. 

As he pulled his own chair out across from her, she snuck an investigative look. Her thighs clenched together at the clear outline of his erection tucked against his hip, straining the gray fabric. Still, he simply eased into his chair with a comfortable, satisfied noise and took a sip of his hot toddy. He smiled, inhaling the steam deeply. 

“Your eggs are on this side of the plate,” he said, pointing to a pile of correctly cooked eggs next to his criminally gelatinous soft-scrambled ones, “and I think you’ll very much enjoy the au poivre treatment I’ve given the bacon.”

“I’m sure I will,” she said, huskier than she’d intended. The way his breath hitched momentarily was impossible to miss.

They helped themselves to the spread between them. Crackling sexual tension aside, Daphne was hungry. Starving. As she took her first bites of eggs, she curiously watched him butter a slice of bread and fold it in half around a few strips of bacon.

“That’s a great idea,” she observed. “I never thought of making a little sandwich.”

He looked up at her, flabbergasted. “You’ve never had a bacon sandwich?”

She surveyed him with a tilt of her head. “No?”

“No?” He clutched his heart and slumped forward theatrically. She cackled. “Oh, my poor darling; your culture is more primitive than I feared. Hang on, I’ll save you—”

Gale slathered another slice of bread with butter, laid a few strips of bacon down, and folded it in half, taking care to smush it flat with his palm before holding it out to her. She leaned over the table and took a bite right from his hand. 

It was, obviously, delicious—the soft bread and butter paired perfectly with the peppery chew of the bacon—but screwing with him when she knew he was bricked up under the table made it fucking fantastic. 

“God, that is really, really good,” she sighed. She noted his dilated pupils with a smug thrill. After sneaking one more nibble while his hand remained frozen in midair, she finally slid the sandwich from his grip and laid it on her plate. She resumed eating, spearing more eggs with a few fried onions, while he speechlessly watched her.

“My scrambled eggs are perfect, too. You’re such an amazing cook,” she continued. “Everything you’ve ever made me has been mind-blowing.”

“Well, ah—happy to please, as always,” he demurred, flustered. The tips of his ears burned red. Her own blood was beginning to run hot, seeing him try so desperately to keep it together while his composure frayed at the seams. Without really thinking about it, she reached out with her foot and ran it up the inside of his ankle.

Gale dropped his sandwich to his plate as though he’d been electrocuted. 

“Tell me something?” she said, casual and inquisitive. He looked at her blankly for a moment before finally registering that she’d asked a question.

“Of course,” he stammered. 

Daphne leaned her elbows on the table. “Let’s imagine our best case scenario happens, and we can go anywhere in the world together. Where would you take us first?”

As she’d hoped, the question cleared his eyes a little as he applied his brain to the task. The toe of her sock traced the jut of his ankle bone lazily as he spoke.

“Anywhere,” he hummed, drumming his fingers on the tile tabletop. He looked at her thoughtfully. “Would it be gauche of me to say Greece?”

Images of sparkling sand beaches separating the cerulean ocean from rows of whitewashed buildings flooded her mind. “No, no, I think I could cope with Greece. Wait, do you speak Greek? Like, modern, right-now Greek?”

He leveled a pained look at her over his glasses. “You wound me, Daphne.”

She laughed, holding her palms up in appeasement. “Of course, sorry, didn’t mean to impugn your expertise. Professor.” He shot her a wink, and her pulse kicked into a higher gear. “So Greece, on the list. Where next?”

As he ruminated, thinking out loud about some city or another, she skated her foot higher up the line of his leg to rest at the inside of his knee. His voice faltered and he broke off mid-sentence to look up at her with dark, wide eyes.

Daphne lifted an eyebrow expectantly, waiting for him to continue. Shaky fingers closed around her instep.

“You,” he said, “are indeed meaner than I am.”

“Cruel, even.”

“Quite inhumane.”

For a long beat, they just stared at each other across the table. The point of her toe brushed back and forth up his inner thigh; his hand remained loose but steadfast on her foot. 

“Would you, ah,” he breathed, “be crueler?”

The throttle that fed her heart slammed open. She went a little lightheaded with the force of it. Perfect man, perfect perfect man—

“I could.” Her voice sounded wrecked already, even to her own ears. He had to know the effect this was having on her, too. 

Gale’s breath leaked quietly from him in a long exhale. “Please.”

She was rounding the table in an instant, tossing her hair into a fresh ponytail as she dropped to her knees next to his chair. 

“I—that does not strike me as—” he began to protest.

“Shut up and push your chair back.” She looked up at him, suddenly blazing with fighter-pilot levels of confidence, and undid a few more buttons on her one-piece. Gale’s eyes immediately drifted downward as he obeyed. “Face me.”

Now comfortably situated between his legs, she tugged her neckline slightly more open, unbuttoned nearly down to her navel. Under his blushing, fascinated gaze, she playfully gave one of her tits a squeeze.

“Keep looking. You’re the only one who gets to see them,” she said with a casual smile. A vein appeared on Gale’s neck as she shrugged her garment off of her shoulders, revealing her breasts in the fluorescent light. “It’s all for you. Just for you. Do you know that?”

“I…” She pinched one of her nipples, and his voice cracked and faltered. “Yes. I struggle to, to conceive of it, but yes.”

She shook her head. “You better fucking conceive of it, because this?” She slid her hand over the thick impression of his hard cock in his pants, over the dark spot in the fabric where he’d begun to leak. “This is mine. And I’m not giving it back.”

Gale nearly threw his head back in pleasure. It was a surprise even to her how violently his entire frame reacted; his muscular thighs tensed and his hips canted forward into her touch. She stroked him mercilessly. 

“Don’t you want these off?” she asked, pity in her voice.

“God—yes—” He fumbled to hook his thumbs into the waistband and yank the sweatpants down his thighs.

“You’re still not coming, to be clear.” Something beneath a groan and a whine escaped him. His erection sprang free as he struggled out of his pants, and she impatiently took over the task and yanked them down to his ankles. “You’re going to sit here and let me play with your perfect dick.”

“It’s yours,” he interjected breathlessly. A rush of heady, obsessive love surged through her as she paused to grin up at him. His eyes were entirely black now, the lines between his eyebrows and around his mouth deep and tense. 

“That’s exactly right.” She took him into the hollow of her palm and wrapped her fingers around him, loose enough to tease but hard enough to punctuate her point. “It’s my perfect dick.”

The last vestige of his composure crumbled spectacularly. He pitched forward and cradled the base of her head as he slammed their lips together. She kissed him back hard, with tongue and teeth and a snarl she hadn’t known she was capable of making, and gave him a slow, hard pull up from the base to the head. He whimpered.

“That’s right, that’s right, let me,” she growled into his mouth. Daphne rolled her wrist and squeezed as she reached the tip, then let go. God, he was so wet that she could feel his precum pooling on her palm. She planted her other hand on his sternum and shoved him back into his chair, and he went willingly, clutching his arms to his chest. 

She paused to let him calm himself, watching attentively as he gulped deep lungfuls of air and dug his fingers into his borrowed shirt. When he was finally ready, he looked down just in time to see her lean in and lave her tongue up the shaft of his cock. 

“Fuck,” he gasped, his chest heaving with effort.

“You won’t come,” she reminded him, then gently sucked the very tip of him into her mouth. “Say it.”

“I won’t,” he panted, breathy and desperate and not at all convincing. “I won’t. I can’t.”

“Mm, you can’t? Why is that?” she smiled against the underside of his dick, where she was mouthing sloppily at the thick vein that ran along the length of him. Her free hand slipped under her chin to gently take hold of his balls. 

A strangled noise caught in his throat. 

“You,” he managed. “Everything. I can’t—it’s yours.”

The fire inside her finally roared too hot, too loud for her to contain. She was going to make him fucking come apart at the seams. She was going to let him fail.

With just a mischievous look his way as warning, she opened her throat and swallowed as much of him as she could.

 A string of curses and gasps and pleas burst from him all at once. She felt the warm, desperate weight of his hand at the nape of her neck again, and she rushed to cover it with one of her own, willing it to stay there. The size and thickness of him seemed to fill her past capacity, stretching her in every dimension until her jaw ached, but his shallow thrusts into her throat as his hips started to move satisfied something so primal inside her that words failed to describe it. She hummed from deep in her chest and let her eyes drift shut.

“—oh, yes, yes, no, Daphne, no, I can’t—” His grip on the back of her neck never faltered. She relaxed on a soft exhale, let him in even deeper, and a panicked whine crept into his breathing. 

She swallowed around him again, then again. His entire body shook.

“No, no, fuck, no, Daphne oh goddamnit yes please please let me—” he begged, his breathing accelerating, his cock stiffening in her mouth. His hips set a frantic pace as he thrust into her. She moaned around him and bobbed her head to meet him, fluttering her watery eyes wide open to look up at him through her lashes. When their gazes met, the most ruined man she’d ever seen came in heavy bursts down her pliant throat, trembling and crying out her name as his fingers twisted in her hair.

She kept him in her mouth as he softened, both of them just breathing into the moments after his orgasm. The wind howled; the shutters banged even louder. Daphne and Gale were still. 

Finally, she pulled off of him and pecked one final kiss to his dick. He huffed a laugh. She folded her arms on his thighs and carefully surveyed his face from below him—cheeks flushed, eyes bright, relaxed. Good.

“Everything okay?” she asked, just to be sure.  

“I love you,” he smiled dopily, still breathing hard as he came down. “Yes? Although, I think I’ve experienced ego death.”

Daphne shook with peals of uncontrollable laughter, and he beamed down at her, confused but happy.

“Give me a moment to… reorient myself, and you’ll have a more thorough report,” he finished.

“I love you so fucking much,” she smiled back at him. “That was fun.”

“Putting it very mildly.”

The wind kicked up again and banged the shutters loud enough to reverberate through the house. Thank god she’d fastened them; her windows would have been toast by now.

There was a new sound, and Daphne froze. Gale went tense beneath her. Unless the wind was suddenly strong enough to turn the lock on her front door—

She barely had time to turn around as Astarion barged into her house, covered in snow and wearing at least three coats at once. Her spare key was still firmly in one of his mittened hands.

“Jesus Christ, I thought you’d died!” he crowed, unwinding the scarf from around his face. “God forbid you answer your fucking phone the one time I need to—”

He finally seemed to register the scene in front of him. Her hastily rebuttoning her long johns, Gale pulling the half-eaten platter of bacon onto his lap to preserve his modesty even though his pants were still around his ankles.

Astarion’s clear eyes narrowed as they cut back and forth between the two of them. His gaze finally settled on Daphne.

“What fresh hell is this?” 

Chapter Text

The line separating the erotic from the humiliating is remarkably thin and permeable. Daphne discovered this for the first time as she knelt on her kitchen floor in her all-in-one long johns, the alkaline bitterness of Gale’s come lingering in the back of her throat, while Astarion Ancunín visibly plotted her death and dismemberment from five feet away.

His sudden arrival had quite literally swept a chill through the house. The lovesick haze she and Gale had occupied since yesterday dissipated in an instant, and now, there was absolutely nothing shielding her from the piercing weight of his judgmental gaze as he stood on the tile of her foyer, melting snow sliding off of him in clumps. 

Gale cleared his throat. “Good to see you again, Astarion—”

“Do not,” Astarion interrupted, swiping a hand through the air in his direction, “speak to me with your dick out. Amending that, actually; don’t speak to me at all. Daphne, get off your knees long enough to see me in the living room, if you can.”

She flinched. “Astarion—”

“Living room,” he insisted through clenched teeth. 

Shit. She eased to her feet and squeezed Gale’s knee reassuringly as she turned to follow Astarion into her living room. He was being catty, sure, but to be fair: this was a hell of a scene to walk in on.

He stalked over next to the hearth, where Gale’s fire still simmered low and orange, and began whipping off snow-soaked layers of clothes. When he was finally down to his thick wool button-up and jeans, he spun to face her.

Betrayal hardened his already sharp features in a way she’d rarely seen. He wasn’t confused, he wasn’t annoyed—he was enraged. She staggered back half a step.

“You are going to explain to me—quickly—why the hell that man is here,” he hissed, “and then you are going to explain to me what exactly he’s done to merit having his dick sucked after the entire calendar month I spent scraping you out of bed. And for the love of god, put some clothes on; you look absurd.”

He tossed his recently discarded scarf at her. She swatted it to the rug.

“First of all,” she snapped, instantly defensive. “I don’t know where the fuck you get off talking about my sex life, Astarion. Don’t even—don’t you dare make me go there, because you know I fucking can.”

A red haze crept into her vision. Astarion hid his pain like a wild animal, by biting and tearing at anything in front of him, and she knew that, but that understanding never quite blunted the sting. Especially not today, on the first day of a future she was actually looking forward to seeing. He had no right to come at her this hard when he literally had no fucking clue what was going on—

He opened his mouth to fire back, another acerbic snipe at the ready, but she didn’t let him get it out.

“And second of all, you wouldn’t even have known he was getting his dick sucked if you hadn’t broken and entered my house, so I have no idea where you get the audacity—”

“Oh my fucking god—” he snarled, swiping an agitated hand down his face.

“What, not hearing from me for a morning is suddenly a state of emergency?” she said mockingly, her heart racing. “Ooh, should we call the fucking Coast Guard?”

“I’ve been calling you for the better part of an hour.” 

Astarion’s iron facade slipped for a moment, and his expression twisted with deep, real upset. Daphne froze. 

Just as quickly as he’d wavered, he gathered himself again with a deep inhale and a roll of his shoulders.

“A tree branch came through my bay window,” he continued. “My house is frozen over. I can’t stay there. Wyll has his hands full with rescues, not that he could get down the mountain regardless. You’re my only other—anyway. So I called, and called, and you didn’t answer, even though I could see your location. And I thought—”

Astarion seemed to catch himself once more and yank himself back from the edge of sincerity, his blue eyes frosting over. “And I rather thought you’d appreciate it if I came here instead of freezing to death, but clearly I misjudged both your willingness to be contacted and the ease with which you’ll drop everything and everyone to give Gale Fucking Dekarios an orgasm.”

That wasn’t fair. But, she also really couldn’t come up with much to say in response.The white-hot pressure in her head drained away as suddenly as it had appeared. In its wake, an uncomfortable clarity began to settle over her.  

“My phone is still on my bedside table, I think,” she said as the realization dawned. “I didn’t know you called.”

“Ah.” His mouth worked tensely. “Well. Aren’t I the fool, falling victim to a sudden natural disaster. Won’t happen again.”

They stood facing each other, framed by her mantle. As if for emphasis, a gust of icy wind sputtered down the chimney. Point fucking taken. 

“Are you hurt?” she asked, awkward. 

Astarion sniffed disdainfully. “Charming of you to finally ask. No.”

“That’s good.”

More silence. Heavy, sullen.

“I’m sorry I didn’t answer my phone.” She really was, now. Even if he’d been a bitch about it. “And I’m sorry for not checking on you. A good friend would have done that, even if I was distracted.”

“Undoubtedly. And the fellatio?” he deadpanned. “The welcoming back into your life of someone who made you cry until you threw up? On my new bathroom tiles?”

“Ugh, fine. Okay. Quickly,” she said, raking her fingers through her ponytail. He swept his hand in a flourishing gesture of invitation, his expression deeply unimpressed.

The events of the last twenty-four hours came pouring out of her in a torrent. Sparing no detail, especially the details she knew he’d want—like what kind of pantsuit Aylin had been wearing—she started at the board meeting and bulldozed forward. 

“Daphne,” he gasped, unable to fully stifle his pride, after the full-funding big reveal.

“I tried to call, you were on desk.” 

“I’m always on desk when anything interesting happens,” he pouted. “Remember that year when the Bowdoin marching band came straight into—”

“So then, I called Karlach, and it turned out she and Alf and Lakrissa had sent me a gift certificate,” Daphne continued, an improbable smile tugging at her mouth. 

Astarion’s mood soured again at the initial reveal of Gale on the steps. He remained stone-faced through her recounting of verbally berating Gale, and that wasn’t a good sign; she’d counted on that part to win her some points. Gale’s heart-wrenching (to her, at least) apology definitively failed to move him. It wasn’t until she’d reached the middle of the news clip, when Gale had been offered the mic, that he held up a finger.

“I will need to see this alleged broadcast,” he said, slipping his phone from his pocket. “This was yesterday? What network?”

“Alleged? Astarion, come on—” 

He leveled her with a look that made her objections stick in her throat. Her stomach seized as she realized she couldn’t remember what channel it was from, or even a good search term.

“Try searching ‘Ramazith Society police raid,’ maybe?” she offered sheepishly. Astarion exhaled through his nose. 

“It’s on Channel Four News,” Gale’s voice suddenly added from behind her. “Yesterday’s five-o’clock news hour, first segment.” 

Daphne whipped around to see him rounding the corner from the kitchen, a tray of neatly arranged food and drink balanced in his hands. Her eyes widened to the whites. If Gale was about to try to smooth things over with Astarion, before she’d even smoothed things over with Astarion, there was going to be a singed patch of rug where he once stood. She could feel her best friend gearing up to rend Gale’s head from his shoulders. 

“Hello,” Gale smiled at both of them, steadfastly oblivious to the hellscape of his own creation he’d just entered. “I wonder if I might have a word with Astarion? Terribly rude of me to interrupt, I do apologize, but this may be the part of the investigation where I’m best suited for questioning.”

“What are you doing?!” she mouthed to him, minutely shaking her head, but he wasn’t looking at her. She turned back to see Astarion’s eyes narrowing with palpably malicious glee. Fuck. Fuck.

“Yes, Daphne, why don’t you let the two of us… catch up,” he purred. 

“I mean, I’m happy to stay! I don’t mind!” she squeaked. 

Astarion started to object, but Gale was the one turning to her with a reproachful look. “I left you. Your friends are right to be angry with me. I believe I owe it to Astarion to let him give me the third degree, as they say.”

Fine. She’d tried. Without a word, she slipped past him and hurried into the kitchen. Her Moka pot was washed and drying on the rack next to the sink. A bacon sandwich, cut into neat quarters, waited for her on the countertop. 

Gale really was deeply kind. She would miss that about him.

She couldn’t bear to overhear this. Her palms sweating, she snatched up her wireless earbuds from their charger by the toaster, waited for them to connect to her phone back in her bedroom, and tapped them to see if she’d left any music paused. Nothing happened.

Shit.

The two men in the next room were speaking just low enough to be unintelligible, but loud enough to convey tone, which was possibly worse than hearing the full conversation. Getting a full read eluded her. Gale didn’t sound like he was groveling—he was being disturbingly sincere, definitely, which could easily indicate apology, but it was really impossible to know with him. Astarion, meanwhile, was using the register of voice he usually reserved for calling insurance companies. 

Shit. 

Daphne cleared her plate. She washed and dried it. Astarion and Gale’s voices rose intermittently, occasionally letting her overhear snatches of dialogue. Astarion distinctly said something that ended with “and scatter them on the highway,” and shortly after Gale simply said “gosh.” Gale started a sentence with “of course I regretted—.” At some point, Astarion laughed in a way that made Daphne wince. She knew that laugh. She’d rarely fucked up badly enough to be on the receiving end of it. 

This was too much to handle. She pressed the heels of her palms over her ears, closed her eyes, and did some breathing exercises, letting the roar of her lungs and heart drown out everything else. When she finally eased her way back into the present, it was in the middle of a rapidly heating thunder of cross-talk. Both of them were trying to speak over the other; neither one of them could possibly be listening.

“I am at least as devoted to her as YOU are to deliberately misunderstanding me.” 

Gale’s voice rang into the kitchen with the unmistakable firmness of a teacher pushed past his limits. Daphne had never heard him sound like that. She leaned against the countertop in shock. The wind wailed through the trees outside as silence gripped the house. 

The conversation eventually returned, but in murmurs easily muffled by the background crackling of the fire. She crept as close as she could to the living room without being seen. Still nothing intelligible. She finally gave up on listening altogether.

Daphne paced the length of her kitchen one hundred and six times, by her count, although it was probably more. Holding a number in her head was a little too much to ask at the moment. Every time she passed the shelf that held her Valium, her eyes lingered on the bottle for a moment. 

She was supposed to take one in “moments of extreme distress.” The way her heart was beating in her throat would certainly meet that standard, by her reckoning. It would just make her awfully sleepy, was the thing, and she might need to be sharp depending on—

A warm hand grabbed her shoulder. She yelped.

“Sorry! Sorry,” soothed Gale, who was somehow still alive. 

“Oh my god, how are you still alive?” she panted, clutching her chest. 

He didn’t reply; he just crinkled his eyes at her enigmatically. “Astarion would like to speak with you.”

“About?” Again, Gale was unhelpful. He pecked a kiss to her lips and shooed her out of the kitchen. 

Astarion was elegantly sprawled in her armchair by the fire. The tray and one mug lay discarded on the coffee table; he held the other mug delicately in his fingertips. She could feel his piercing gaze on her like a physical weight as she crossed over to the hearth and sat on its brick ledge, near his feet. 

She drew her knees up and hugged them to her chest. His pale eyes roamed lazily between her, the banked fire, and the drink in his hand. He was clearly deep in the throes of some complex internal negotiation.

“So,” Daphne prompted when he didn’t say anything. “You didn’t exsanguinate him. I’m touched.”

“This Rolan fellow—have you met him?” Astarion asked abruptly. She furrowed her brow at him, confused, but he kept staring at his mug as though it held the answers he desperately needed.

“Yeah.”

He hummed, as though this confirmed something. “And Doctor Lorroakan, the villain of this particular tale?”

“Him too. He really is the fucking worst; you wouldn’t believe. I met him before I knew anything about what he’d been doing to Rolan, and he was still such a monumental asshole that I gave him the Dumb Blonde.”

Finally, his eyes snapped to hers, alight with interest. “Go on.”

Daphne snorted. “At that fancy Ramazith event we went to, right? He saunters up, insults Gale, has a conversation with my tits, and then insults Rolan in the space of like three minutes. So, you know. He had it coming.”

“Oh, I’m going to need more than that,” Astarion said, tilting his head. 

“What does this have to do with being mad at me or not?” she protested.

“Everything. Tell all.”

“God, you’re the worst,” she groaned affectionately. “So, like. He’d already been mean to Gale and gross to me, which had been enough to at least prompt the set-up. It was easy, because he clearly already thought I was stupid. And then Rolan came over with Lorroakan’s drink—”

“What kind of drink?” Astarion interrupted with a raised finger.

“A whiskey and soda, I think? I remember it because it sounded gross.”

“Indeed. Continue.” 

She exhaled heavily. “Anyway, I could tell Gale and Rolan were friendly right away, but then Lorroakan made a point to embarrass Rolan the moment he looked like he might be enjoying himself. So I went like, oh Gale, my dumb lady brain can’t remember why you’re a professor but Lorroakan is a doctor, could you explain it?”

Astarion nodded. “Masterful.” 

“Thanks!” she smiled in spite of herself. “And Gale took the ball and ran with it. It was the best improv I’ve ever seen him pull off. Lorroakan got so mad but like, what’s he gonna do? Yell at me for being stupid? Anyway, yeah, it went on from there.”

“And Rolan reacted with…” he prompted.

Daphne’s brow furrowed. What the hell any of this had to do with the argument at hand, she still couldn’t fathom. “He had to hold it in, obviously, but he looked pretty fucking delighted.”

Astarion set his mug on the table and slapped his thighs, standing abruptly. He walked briskly out of the room into the kitchen, then returned with Gale in tow.

“Sit,” he said to both of them, pointing at the couch. 

They both obeyed immediately. Daphne noticed her shoulders were pinned back and her back ramrod straight. With an inward scoff, she made a point to re-slouch them. Gale chuckled almost imperceptibly next to her.

“You,” he commanded, pointing at Gale. “Tell her the entire sordid tale you just told me. In order. I will not hesitate to correct any disparities.”

Gale placidly turned to face Daphne on the couch and tucked a leg under him. Instinctually, their hands found each other and interlaced on Gale’s knee. She stole a glance at Astarion and found him regarding their joined hands as enthusiastically as he might regard a dead mouse he’d found behind the radiator. She rolled her eyes, and he shot her a disdainful look.

Gale cleared his throat, and all attention turned toward him. He bowed his head obligingly. 

“Daphne,” he began. “After that ill-fated evening when we parted, and I left the better half of my heart in your precious hands—”

Astarion clicked his tongue. “Succinctly, if you don’t mind.”

Gale smiled politely, unperturbed. “Ah. Of course, my apologies.” 

Astarion fumed. It took every shred of Daphne’s willpower to keep her face straight. Had he finally met the immovable object to his unstoppable force? And was it seriously Gale?

“I know, sweetheart. It’s fine,” she said, squeezing his fingers. Astarion made a gagging noise, which she firmly ignored.

“Right. I left you—sorry about that—and went back to England,” Gale began again. “I was still insistent on going through with the plan until Rolan made a joke comparing me to Lorroakan, and I realized you’d been right the whole time. I called the Serious Fraud Office and became a subject area expert for them during the investigation into Ramazith, which precluded me from contacting you until the case went public. Once it did, I appeared on television, then immediately chartered a plane directly to Icepeak—”

Daphne inhaled sharply. “That’s right! Gale, no, the emissions! You know better!”

“Yes, Gale, the emissions,” Astarion chimed in. Daphne flipped him the bird with her free hand. 

“I did purchase a carbon offset,” Gale protested weakly. 

“Mm. You’re still on thin fucking ice,” Daphne replied, pinching her fingers together until they were a few millimeters apart. “No more private jets.”

“Of course, darling,” he stumbled over himself to agree. He looked up at Astarion where he loomed over them. “Has that sufficed?”

Astarion cut his eyes over to Daphne. “Is that the same story he told you?”

Daphne nodded. “It’s not a story, Astarion.”

Astarion’s frown deepened.

“For fuck’s sake, what else do you want?” she cried. “We’re not going to call up Rolan as a character witness just so you can rest assured that I didn’t give out an unearned—”

Suddenly, Astarion straightened, struck with an idea. He dug into his pocket and whipped out his phone with a flourish, typing briefly until he seemed to find what he was looking for. 

“You don’t have to call Rolan, because I’ve got him right here,” Astarion announced, holding his phone so they could all see the screen. He’d found the Channel Four interview. “We’re all going to watch this one’s television debut together, and then we can put this whole thing to bed, hm?”

As the interview began, Gale pulled her closer and tucked her under his arm on the couch. She leaned into him and settled a hand on his thigh. By the time on-screen Gale finished his impassioned speech about the ethical failings of the academic establishment, she was squeezing his leg so tightly that it surely must have hurt, but he didn’t complain. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see color brightening the high points of his face.

The segment ended. Astarion stowed his phone. His face had remained a mask of neutrality throughout, and now, he was examining the two of them with his chin in his hand. For several moments, they just sat there, waiting for him to say something. 

Finally, he crossed his arms. “I want you to know,” he said, addressing Daphne specifically, “that I am still very put out.”

“Understandable,” Gale intoned agreeably. Daphne elbowed him. Thankfully, Astarion seemed determined not to hear him.

“It will require effort and penitence,” he continued, “before you may once again enjoy the totality of my good graces. I would recommend that you begin outlining a plan of action immediately. And, although you hardly deserve the help, I will remind you that my birthday dinner is mere weeks from now.”

Daphne stifled a snort. He was shameless. 

A moment of silence passed between them as he took another long, considering look at her.  

“I suppose this means he’s telling the truth,” he said. “About, you know, the full Campbellian hero’s journey he alleges to have completed since Christmas.”

“Yeah, dude,” Daphne replied.

Astarion sighed deeply. He pinched the bridge of his nose with a soft noise of defeat. “Fuck.”

Wait—holy shit. No way.

She held her breath as Astarion pivoted his attention to Gale. His carved-marble face split into his most unsettling grin. Gale held his gaze amiably, completely unperturbed.

“You do this again. You forget one anniversary, you step a toe out of line, I get one phone call, and you will beg for a mercy death,” he purred. “I don’t care how many academics need your personal intervention to escape from captivity; I am never cleaning the contents of your intended’s stomach out of my groutwork again. Am I clear?”

“Very much. These are quite reasonable terms,” Gale said.

Astarion adjusted his shirt cuff. “Splendid. In addition, you are not invited to my birthday dinner.”

Daphne turned to Gale, exasperated. “Yes, you are.”

“No, he’s not.”

“Of course he is; you’re being petty.”

Astarion cocked an eyebrow. “He is not, and might I remind you—”

“Or!” Gale interjected, clapping his hands together. “Let’s not have any more discord on my behalf, hey? Astarion, may I offer my catering services for this celebration of yours?”

That, at last, seemed to truly rattle Astarion. With raised eyebrows, he finally turned to fully face Gale.

“It would only seem fair, given the trouble I’ve caused you,” he continued. “Unless you’ve already found a chef? In which case, I don’t mean to impose.”

Astation’s mouth opened, then closed. “No, I have not found a chef as yet,” he said, recovering. “I don’t suppose you’re capable of four courses for ten people? Be warned; I’m rather exacting.”

Daphne raised her eyebrows as high as they would go at Astarion. She knew good and goddamn well that he’d reserved the private dining room at the inn; she’d even helped pick the menu.

“Oh, I prefer five courses for birthdays; a cheese board before dessert prepares the palate well for cake. Any allergies or preferences?” Gale asked easily, reaching for the pen and pad of strawberry-shaped sticky notes Daphne kept on her side table.

“I do not enjoy Italian food,” Astarion replied after a hard stare. The venom wasn’t completely gone from his voice, but it was waning. He looked on, bemused, as Gale jotted the note down.

“Easily done. And what flavor of cake?”

“Red velvet,” Daphne supplied. Astarion jumped slightly, as though he’d momentarily forgotten she was there. Gale looked up at him with wide, earnest eyes, waiting on his approval. 

“Red velvet will do,” Astarion sniffed, as though it hadn’t been his choice for more than a decade’s worth of birthdays. Gale scribbled another note. 

“Very good. I do hope there will be an occasion where a Victoria sponge would be appropriate in the future; it’s my signature,” he mused to no one in particular. He peeled the strawberry off the notepad and tucked it into his pocket. “Right. I shall send you a tentative menu by the end of next week at the latest, and we can proceed from there.”

Astarion shifted on his feet, clearly unsure what to do with Gale’s near-delusional insistence on being amiable. “See that you do. Daphne, please tell me you’ve got liquor in here; my nerves are in pieces.”

Seizing the opportunity to finally leave this catastrophe of a morning behind her, she leapt to her feet and rounded the corner back into the kitchen to play bartender. She didn’t have to ask what he wanted. A hearty splash of cranberry juice joined two shots of vodka and lime juice in his favorite cut-glass goblet, and she gave it a stir with a butter knife before moving on to her and Gale’s drinks. When she returned to the living room, Astarion had resettled into the chair by the hearth while Gale carefully fed another log into the fire.

“Your cosmopolitan, Carrie,” she said as Astarion eagerly plucked the goblet from her hand. “And for you—I made a gin lemonade and a rum and coke. Which do you want?”

Gale squinted up at her from where he crouched on the bricks. “Are we going to make a habit of drinking multiple cocktails before noon?”

Astarion languidly checked his watch. “It’s twelve seventeen,” he drawled.

“And a blizzard,” Daphne added. “Blizzards are like airports; no rules of convention apply.”

Gale blinked. He opened his mouth, paused, and closed it again. “I’ll take the gin lemonade.” 

The afternoon passed in the slow way time moves during a snowstorm, when the arctic weather outside synergistically intensifies the coziness of being indoors. Astarion and Daphne opened a bottle of wine and started the binge watch of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives they’d been putting off. Gale dutifully drank his cabernet and watched the on-screen antics for the first half of the pilot, but when it was revealed that the titular Mormon wives had all been husband-swapping, he rapidly excused himself to the kitchen under the pretense of starting dinner. 

“Can’t even handle some good Christian soft swinging,” Astarion muttered as the clanging of pans echoed from the next room.

“Why, are you interested?” Daphne asked, leaning into his shoulder and waggling her eyebrows. He shoved her away so vigorously they both nearly spilled their wine.

Not content to leave Gale in peace for more than a couple episodes, they simply moved the party to the kitchen table and continued to horrify him with reminiscences from their college years at RISD. Daphne told a story from freshman year, when they’d both been selected to help fabricate the Cthulhu float for the Providence Pride Parade. Astarion tried to relay the events of the weekend when he and Daphne had decided to mix MDMA and mushrooms, but was helpless with mirth before he could even finish the part where Daphne had a loud, extended debate about original sin with the Archangel Gabriel.

“I was raised Catholic!” Daphne yelled as Astarion howled with laughter, head in his hands. “That shit is deeply fucking ingrained!”

The wind’s constant blustering finally receded in the early hours of the evening, just as the three of them were sitting down to a simple dinner of chicken and rice soup. Daphne’s little kitchen table barely accommodated the place settings, the drinks, and the enormous basket of fresh bread Gale had spent the afternoon proving and baking while the soup simmered.

“Not my best work,” he hedged as he pulled back the kitchen towel covering the oven-warm rolls. Everyone dove in to tear into them while they were still steaming. “Ideally, I’d have had time to develop the gluten more, but these should suffice.”

“And after we spent all day helping you slave over a hot stove, too. What a shame,” Astarion smirked. 

Gale snorted. “You were indeed of great assistance. I don’t know how I could have managed without knowing the noble history of… what was his name again? The university mascot?”

“Scrotie the Scrotum,” Daphne supplied around a mouthful of bread.

“Go Nads,” Astarion affirmed, dry.

Gale nodded sagely. “Of course. God bless him and all who sail in him.”

Daphne looked over at Astarion and found him studiously hiding a smirk behind his bread roll. Busted. She knew that in retellings of today’s events, he would paint himself as very graciously put-upon and stoic in the face of hardship, but she would never let him forget that he was, in this moment, having a great fucking time.

During a lull in conversation, Daphne checked the weather on her phone. It promised clear skies for the next few days, and she sighed deeply in relief.

“Thank fuck, storm’s over. Looks like you should be able to get someone out there for your window tomorrow,” she said. “You’re welcome to stay here as long as you need to, obviously—and Wyll too, if he can get down the mountain.”

“Hm? Oh,” Astarion said, as though he’d just remembered why he was here. “Wonderful. I’ll give him a call after this, although he’s likely busy being courageous and heroic.”

There was a hum of agreement as everyone tucked into their soup. For doing nothing all day, Daphne found herself surprisingly hungry. Her first spoonful was an explosion of silky, rich chicken stock, brightened with more lemon than she was expecting and cut with just enough pillowy rice to make it substantial. Her eyes rolled back in her head a little. If this was the way she was going to be eating for the rest of her life, she thought, she should probably get back in the gym.

She paused mid-chew as she pulled the emergency brake in her head. It was way, way too soon to be thinking about the rest of her life.

Right?

“What does Wyll do for work exactly, Astarion?” Gale asked, delicately dipping a hunk of bread into his soup. “I know he’s some kind of ranger, from what Daphne’s said.”

“He is,” Astarion preened. “He’s a fish and wildlife warden on the mountain, but he also volunteers for the wilderness rescue squad. At the moment, he’s—”

He opened Find My Friends on his phone. Daphne’s heart softened a little when she glimpsed his location overlapping with her dot on the map.

“—on the north side of the mountain, near the resort. Rushing to the aid of trust fund babies who snuck out for an unauthorized ski run, no doubt.”

“God awful, those trust fund babies,” Gale agreed, shooting a wink at Daphne. “A real scourge.”

“Ugh, you don’t know the half of it,” Astarion groaned. “Dealing with them is the thing I detest most about working the reference desk. Did you know, a boy asked me to write his paper for him last month.”

Gale made a horrified noise.

“I know, they’re beastly,” Astarion complained, seemingly unaware that he was now freely volunteering information to a man he’d wanted to kill this morning. “My nameplate does say Doctor Ancunín, which I’d hoped would deter the worst offenders, but that plan was predicated upon the assumption that these children could read. My fault, really.”

 Gale snorted. “Indeed. By the way, what was your dissertation topic? In Slavic studies, correct?”

Daphne watched their conversation like a tennis match, silently, with rapt attention. Perhaps the afternoon of drinking had softened him, or perhaps he was just as eager as always to talk about himself. In any case—Astarion was actually speaking to Gale like a person. Not a friend, per se, but a person. He’d dropped kayfabe. 

If she kept her mouth shut, maybe he wouldn’t notice. 

“—folk magic codices that didn’t take on the guise of Christianity were mostly destroyed by the pravoslavie, but not all of them,” Astarion was saying to Gale when she tuned back in. The other man was listening with his chin propped on his fist, concentrating on every word. “Obviously, I was interested in how and why these books survived; in particular, one collection of… shall we say unsavory rituals that was lying around in the University of British Columbia archives. How it escaped attention for so long, I’ve no idea; the thing has a massive pewter skull on the cover. It looks evil. It’s perhaps the least subtle artifact of heresy possible—yet somehow, it survived. My research was a dissection of the codex first as a text, then as a cultural object, as well as the few conclusions I could draw about its provenance.”

“I’ve never especially delved into Eastern European history, much less its folk magical practices,” Gale said, nearly vibrating with genuine excitement. “And to have such an extant piece—how utterly fascinating. If it’s quite all right, I will certainly be reading your dissertation as soon I can avail myself of the Icepeak library once more.”

Astarion took a long sip of his water, studiously avoiding any indication of approval or pride. “Oh, god. Who knows what’s in there; it’s been years.”

“Ah, doesn’t everyone feel that way about their dissertations? I’m sure I shall enjoy it thoroughly,” Gale insisted. Astarion’s brow took on a curious tilt, and as he opened his mouth, it became immediately clear to Daphne that he was about to ask about Gale’s thesis. Her eyes darted to Gale. He was doing his best to remain casual, but the sudden clench of his jaw telegraphed his dread. 

“You can’t stop there,” Daphne admonished her friend with a roll of her eyes. “Your post-doc is the best part! Tell him about the time you were hitchhiking through Moldova and almost got kidnapped.”

Astarion straightened, smirk firmly back in place as he prepared for even more adoring attention. “Oh, if you insist. You may be familiar with a little place called Transnistria…”

As he launched into the story with his signature flair, Gale slid his gaze to meet hers. He held it just for a moment, but the gratitude and sadness in his eyes hit her low in her gut. She winked at him. The tense lines of his face softened as he returned his attention to Astarion.

Later, in bed, with Astarion cocooned in blankets out on the couch in the living room, Gale gathered her under his arm and tucked her head against his chest. Daphne groaned in relief. They’d barely touched all afternoon, and it might as well have been a decade. She slung an arm and a leg over him for good measure, savoring his body heat.

His pulse thudded against her cheek. Every heartbeat was a confirmation—here, here, here.

“I believe, all things considered, I’ve done a bang-up job of convincing your best friend not to spatchcock me like a roast hen and scatter me on the highway,” he ventured.

She spluttered incredulously. “Oh my god, is that what he said?”

“Verbatim.” Gale chuckled as she buried her face in his shoulder and cackled. Of course. Astarion couldn’t simply threaten to kill someone; he had to put it in fussy Michelin-star terms.

“Well, that’s good,” she gasped, calming herself. “One less thing to worry about on Monday.”

“Oh, I’m not worried at all, beloved.” He craned to kiss the top of her head. “You forget, I was the pariah of my field for years. I am certainly up to the task of mending fences with colleagues who despise me.” 

The wind punched from her lungs. “Fuck, Gale, that’s awful,” she said, squeezing him tighter.

“Don’t mourn for me,” he murmured into her hair, kissing her again, and again. “I would do it again. I would endure it twice over, if I had to, if only to know that I would someday stand in that café and wait for you to come barreling in with a patently absurd coffee order.”

She huffed a disbelieving, incredulous laugh into his chest. He talked like a Jane Austen character. He was a Jane Austen character, come to think of it, complete with tragic backstory. 

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to you,” she smiled quietly. “Like, in general.”

“Good. I shall ensure you don’t.”

Daphne let out a bone-deep sigh, melting into him a little further as she retraced the morning they first saw each other in her mind. Had she been late to work? A little bit, she thought. And then she’d forgotten about the all-staff until—

“You know,” she mused aloud, “in a way, Astarion is the reason we met.”

“Oh?” he asked.

“Mm hm. I totally forgot we had a meeting that morning. He’s the one who texted me to remind me, and he’s the one who convinced me to stop for coffee on the way.”

Gale laughed, surprised. “You’ve never told me that particular detail. I’m certain he’s thrilled to be the divine intervention that brought us together.”

“Downright gleeful,” she yawned. Her eyelids felt so heavy, suddenly. Gale rolled them onto their sides, cradling her body with his own. 

“You were brilliant today. Go to sleep, beloved,” he murmured. “I shall be here when you wake.”

“I would certainly fucking hope so,” she mumbled as her eyes drifted shut. He chuckled, arms wrapping firm and solid around her waist. Sleep took her almost instantly.

Chapter Text

Honestly, Daphne hadn’t expected Gale to ask if she would collect him from his first appointment with Dr. Aumar. She certainly couldn’t recall feeling social after her therapy sessions, back when she was going. If memory served, she’d mostly wanted a glass of wine and a history podcast. To this day, she knew more than nearly anyone about the shipwreck of the Batavia.

Still, she agreed, partially out of altruism and partially because it was more time with Gale. At seven pm that Wednesday, he came striding out of Icepeak Health’s low-slung office complex with his usual easy gait and slid into her waiting car with a smile.

“Are you cured?” she asked brightly. He snorted.

“I must say, Dr. Aumar is as unusual as you described, but he’s terrifically knowledgeable. I could have asked him another hour’s worth of questions.”

She groaned, shooting him a reproachful look. “It’s therapy. You’re supposed to let him ask you questions, otherwise you’re charging your health insurance two hundred an hour to take Psych 101.”

He scoffed. “Hardly! The first step to solving any problem is to fully understand its origin. In this case, the human psyche and its patterns as interpreted through various pathologies. One moment, I took copious notes—”

“Oh my god,” she mumbled in disbelief as he fished a notebook out of his jacket pocket. 

He enthusiastically read off pithy nuggets of information about the purposes of different neurotransmitters and the scientific underpinnings of cognitive behavioral therapy, apparently his chosen mode of treatment, for the rest of the drive home. How he’d arrived at this choice, she was afraid to even ask. 

“Just think, this was only after a single session!” he exclaimed, snapping his notebook shut with a flourish. “Imagine what kind of man you’ll find when you collect me next week. Someone equipped with even deeper knowledge of his inner workings, as well as the tools to improve them.”

The man she collected the following week, however, walked to her car in a slow and thoughtful posture, and slid into her passenger seat without a word. Her stomach tightened, but she knew better than to ask—he’d talk when he was ready. He remained in contemplative silence as they started down the road to Aurilssbarg, and even still as they neared the edge of town. 

She was just mustering the courage to prod him when he turned to her with a deeply furrowed brow.

“Were you aware that most people don’t consider killing themselves?”

Miraculously, she kept the car on the road. 

“I figure that’s probably true,” she said, measured. “Do you? Consider it?”

“Yes.” He exhaled. “Not in an action-oriented way, of course, not in a way that feels… dangerous, I suppose? Not with any urgency. It just seems, factually, that shuffling off this mortal coil would be a relief. In a practical sense. I assumed that this was the generally accepted view.”

She chewed the tender inside of her cheek. What a fucking conversation. “I mean, I have felt that way. I think a lot of people do, at one point or another.”

“But not regularly.”

“Not anymore, no.”

He lapsed into silence again. The pit gathering in her stomach nudged her to stop the car, so she gently pulled into the parking lot of a strip mall. The neon signs of a post office, a Chinese takeout, and a nail salon flooded the dashboard with colors in the evening darkness.

“How did you, like—what made you realize most people don’t want to, uh—what was the inciting incident here?” she fumbled as she clicked the engine off. Gale sighed, frustrated.

“He was administering an inventory of some sort, and he asked me how often I think about doing harm to myself. I asked for clarification, since that’s an awfully broad question I’d never before considered, and he rephrased to ask how often I imagine dying. I answered most days, if not every day.” He spread his palms. “That answer was, apparently, quite worrying.”

She expected herself to have some kind of emotional outburst in response, because yeah, that was incredibly worrying, but on the other hand—

“Does it feel like you just want to go to sleep for three or four months?” 

He straightened in his seat, eyes alert behind his glasses. “Yes. Yes, precisely.”

She twisted to face him, unbuckling her seatbelt and tucking one foot under her. “Yeah. Or, like, do you ever think that you’d be happier as a sea cucumber or a spider or something instead of a person?” 

He huffed an incredulous laugh. “Or a hunting spaniel. Steaks every day, lots of exercise, constant praise.”

“That sounds perfect, actually.”

“It does.” He relaxed into his seat, relief evident in every line of his face. “Oh, thank god. Baffling, that Dr. Aumar expressed so much concern when you were able to relate so easily. Perhaps it’s generational; he appears to be well into his dotage.”

“No, it’s, uh—that’s just how I know when I’m very, very fucking depressed,” she interjected. 

Immediately, she winced. There had to be a gentler way to deliver that news. She’d never been great at subtle hints. Just as she’d feared, he opened his mouth, then closed it again, stricken. 

“I’m just some idiot, though!” she hurried to add. “Don’t listen to me; I literally went to art school. Dr. Aumar will probably ask you a bunch more questions and figure out exactly what—”

“He did.” He swallowed, suddenly awkward. 

The colors of Gale’s face washed out to nearly gray in the splotchy neon light. He dug into his coat pocket, rummaging around, as Daphne looked on in anticipation. 

“I thought he was being over-cautious,” he continued, a note of exhaustion creeping into his voice. “Or that he was simply taking the road most traveled, lumping me in with every other dissatisfied man in his thirties, but. Here.”

He unfolded a stapled packet of paper with DEKARIOS, GALE A. printed in bold near the top and held it out to her. Among the doctor’s office jargon, a wobbly hand had highlighted Major depressive disorder—moderate/severe in yellow.

Her heart squeezed in her chest. Not because it was a surprise, really; she just knew how hard this particular revelation sucked. 

“You got moderate to severe? Showoff. I just got moderate,” she muttered, examining the paper. “You always have to get the higher grade.”

He flashed her a smile, but his eyes remained grim. “I didn’t study, if that’s what you’re about to speculate.”

“Sure, sure.” 

She passed the paper back to him. He stowed it in his jacket again. The moment his hands were free, they reached for her. She took them fiercely in hers. 

“What do you think, though?” she asked. 

Gale balked. “Me?”

“Yeah. Do you want a second opinion or do you think he’s probably right?”

He frowned deeply, as though this line of reasoning genuinely hadn’t occurred to him. His thumbs rubbed idly over the backs of her knuckles. 

“I don’t want to agree,” he said slowly. “But if I try to look at myself with any kind of clinical distance—hm.”

His jaw worked in thought. Daphne actually bit her tongue to keep herself from interjecting. 

He grimaced, gripping her hands harder. “No—I struggle to reach any other conclusion. Damn. Damn.”

Pulling him in closer, she pressed a quick kiss to his lips. “Hey. It’s just information. Honestly, after the fucking decade you’ve had, it would be weird if nothing was wrong with you, right?”

Their foreheads thunked together as he leaned against her. “I suppose,” he mumbled, entirely unconvinced.

“And it’s something we have in common! Tons of people have depression, actually. It’s, like, the big one everyone has. It’s normal.”

A skeptical noise hummed in the back of his throat.

“It is,” she insisted. “No one cares. I’ve got exactly the same thing going on, and you literally cannot stop trying to fuck me.”

Gale spluttered a laugh, a genuine one that shook through him into her until his head fell to rest on her shoulder. She wrapped him in a bear hug with a toe-curling surge of affection. As his mirth receded, the rise and fall of his breath settled into a slow, contented rhythm, and she dug her fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck and scratched gently. A groan of relief rumbled from deep in his chest.

“So I’m expected to believe that this is fine,” he said flatly. She squeezed him a little harder. “I’ve got a psychiatric problem that needs an unknown amount of treatment, and you aren’t scared of it, and we’ll continue on as we always have.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah?”

“My dude,” she sighed. Exasperation was starting to wind tight in her muscles, but she forced herself to relax. This had been her, not that long ago, after all. “Do you think you were less fucked up when we met?”

Snow started to fall outside, dotting the windshield and casting tiny shadows over the dashboard. Gale thought. Her fingers continued their circular paths through his hair.

“Not likely.” He sounded resigned. 

“I can tell you—you weren’t,” she added, trying her best to temper her frankness. “But one, it would be pretty hypocritical of me to hold that against you. And two, I fell so stupid in love with you immediately that it didn’t matter anyway. It still doesn’t. It never will.”

She felt his cheek grow warm where it pressed against her neck. 

“I know this whole process sucks,” she added, softer. “But, hey, the worst part is over. You’re doing amazing. I’m so—”

“Oh, no,” he moaned.

“—fucking proud of you.”

He made a theatrical noise of mortification and tried to struggle out of her embrace. She held on tight, helpless with laughter, until he finally made a show of surrendering.

“You’re indescribable,” he murmured into her blouse. “I adore you. Come away with me.”

Daphne smiled into his hair. “I know good and goddamn well that you have three classes to teach this term. We’re not going anywhere.”

“Spring break,” he replied, finally sitting up and settling back into his seat. A part of her mourned that they couldn’t stay here, in this shitty parking lot, and let the world go on without them. “I’ve just decided that I’m whisking you away to somewhere foreign and expensive, and you’ll love every moment of it. Mark your calendar.” 

She shook her head incredulously as she cranked the engine and threw the car in reverse. “In your fragile condition; it would be medically inadvisable to say no,” she said dryly.

“Quite so.” He slid his hand onto her knee, as though he couldn’t bear not to touch her. “I can already feel the lust for life surging through my veins.”

Chapter Text

Something, Shadowheart was very certain, was getting weird at work. 

It wasn’t that Doctor Dekarios had returned to his office now that J-term was over; she’d figured he would be back with the start of spring semester. And it wasn’t that he spent every moment he wasn’t in class mooning over her boss, because that had never not been true. Although, he was definitely around more. It seemed like he spent half his fucking day in the workshop now, finding excuses to linger.

“Did you know cursive and print handwriting have both evolved in concert with the changes in printing technology over the centuries?” was an honest-to-god question he’d chirped at her and Lae’zel last week while they were in the middle of printing a batch of cocktail menus for a client. They’d shared a silent look between them, part incredulity, part dread, as he’d launched into a history lesson and Daphne had beamed at him in response. 

He also seemed to spend a significant portion of his time ducking in and out of her office, trying very hard to pretend that he hadn’t just spent their “faculty meeting” giving her yet another hickey. Gross. Weren’t they both like, thirty-five? Shadowheart shuddered.

With a pang of guilt, though, her disgust softened. Doctor Dekarios was a walking source of secondhand embarrassment, and she could not give less of a shit about his lectures, but he also cheerfully brought all of them breakfast most mornings. She was fully hooked on the almond croissants from the café now. And, fine— this was the happiest she’d ever seen Daphne. 

She was so happy, in fact, that she had yet to notice that her grad students had eloped just before the end of J-term. Nearly a month ago.

It wasn’t that she and Lae’zel didn’t want her to know, it was just desperately fucking funny to let her figure it out on her own. Daphne would notice eventually, anyway. Definitely once they both put their last names down as Chevalier-Hallowleaf on their onboarding paperwork. 

Shadowheart twisted the braided silver band—bought in one of Bar Harbor’s tourist traps on their way to city hall—around her ring finger with an inward thrill. They’d initially hatched the plan as a way to keep Lae’zel in the country if they didn’t get hired on at the workshop, with the understanding that they would just keep dating as normal even after the paperwork was done. But when it was Lae’zel’s turn to talk during the brief ceremony, she’d suddenly looked at her with the softest eyes imaginable and hit her with: 

“There was a time when I could not wait to escape this place. But now I… revel in it. I revel in you. I want you near, always. Mon coeur, will you stay with me? For good?”

The plan had vaporized right there in the registrar’s office.

As she’d stammered out her yes, heart pounding in her ears, Lae’zel had looked almost smug—as though she’d known this was the response she was going to get all along. Impossible fucking woman.If the mind-blowing way they’d consummated their union in a cheap hotel afterward was any indication, though; Shadowheart could admit that her wife had probably been right to call it forever.

Anyway. She shook her head, recentering on the task at hand—something else, the weirdness was something else. The vibrations had shifted in their basement. Every time she went down there now, she felt this tightness in her chest, this sense of a shoe about to drop. And it wasn’t the planets; she always kept tabs on Mercury and it was nowhere close to retrograde right now. 

She reached for her tarot deck and shuffled it, concentrating hard on her problem.

“Calisse, mon coeur, not again,” Lae’zel groaned at her, leaning her elbows on the kitchen table as they lingered over a late weekend lunch. 

They were in the cramped kitchen of her own apartment today, not that it especially mattered. All Icepeak grad students lived in the same landlord-special apartment complex just off campus. The commute between their pitifully small abodes was just a flight of stairs, and their possessions were equally distributed between the two at this point.

“It cannot be polite to ask the dead so many questions about your workplace,” she continued with a dry curl of her lip. “You bother them over nothing. We are going to have ghosts.”

Shadowheart didn’t acknowledge her wife’s complaints as she furrowed her brow over her tarot deck, carefully dealing three cards left to right on the kitchen table. Her efforts at divining any insight into what was activating her bad-vibes-detector had so far yielded nothing, but it was a full moon today. Maybe the cards would finally break through to her. 

She flipped over the first card. Six of Swords, reversed.

Interesting. She flipped over the second card. The Tower. A chill shot through her. Interesting, and not in a good way.

Heart in her mouth, she flipped over the final card.

“Oh,” she gasped, scooting her chair back reflexively. Lae’zel was on her feet in an instant, rounding the table to lean her chin on her shoulder and slip protective arms around her from behind. The clean scent of her tea tree shampoo enveloped her like a duvet.

“What is it?” her wife’s low, sultry voice rasped into her ear. God, she even sounded hot when she was worried. She’d have to tell her that when she took her back to bed later.

Shadowheart gave the muscular forearms folded across her chest a comforting squeeze. She turned her head, nosing gently at the hollow of Lae’zel’s sculptural cheekbone. For someone so bent on projecting toughness, she had wonderfully soft skin.  

“Do you really want to know?” she smirked. “What about the ghosts?”

Lae’zel made one of her many Quebecois sounds of disdain deep in her throat. “You have already disturbed them. Tell me.”

She chewed her lip as she tried to summarize the reading. Tarot wasn’t an exact science; any card could mean a variety of things, but she was already pushing the limits of  Lae’zel’s credulity as it was. Best to keep it simple.

“This,” she said, tapping the first card, “means the energy I’ve been feeling is coming from unfinished business. Like, being in the middle of a transition of some kind, but there’s something in the past that still has to get dealt with.”

With a barely suppressed shudder, she pointed to The Tower. “This means—well, there are no bad cards in tarot, but this is pretty fucking bad, and it’s in the future position. It means unforeseen catastrophe, mostly. And it’s a tower, like an ivory tower, so some people also tie it to higher education. Universities and stuff like that.”

That was more information than she’d planned on giving, but Lae’zel remained thoughtful and still. She took that as her sign to keep going. Picking up the last card, she held it up for them to examine. 

“This one is for the source of the energy. The Magician. It means someone educated, busy, very confident, a little self-centered maybe—”

“Dekarios,” Lae’zel interjected. Shadowheart nodded. “You are saying that something in his past will give us problems? Is he interesting enough for this to be true?”

“Not us, necessarily,” she clarified. “We aren’t specifically in here at all. This just says that he has unfinished business that will cause a problem. That’s what I’ve been sensing. He’s a vibrational disturbance.”

Lae’zel snorted. “He is certainly a disturbance. But I did not need to marry a witch to know this.”

“Too late. Good luck returning me without a receipt,” she parried dryly, too overcome with the thrill of saying it to fully rise to the bait. The arms around her tightened a fraction, and she pressed a lingering kiss to her wife’s (her wife’s her wife’s her wife’s) cheek. 

Lae’zel must have felt the same giddy rush—or whatever approximated that for her—because she lunged to lean farther over the back of the chair and kiss the living hell out of her. Her blood roared in her ears.

“No. You promised. I will have you forever,” she smirked against her mouth. “Ma femme. Ma p'tite sorcière.”

She groaned, head spinning with how fucking badly she wanted her. “God, why is it so hot when you—”

“Quand je te parle comme ça? Comme ça, ma femme?” Lae’zel purred as she ghosted her mouth across her cheek to her ear, taking obvious pleasure in the way she shivered in response. “Très facile, source de mes bleus et source de ma joie—”

Lae’zel let one of her strong hands drift lower, down her chest, to palm her breast through her ragged concert t-shirt as she nibbled the shell of her ear. Shadowheart’s breath left her in a long, disbelieving exhale. From the very first time their screaming matches had finally devolved into fucking, she’d remained convinced that she simply would not survive Lae’zel. She was an assault on every sense, from every direction. Unavoidable and irresistible. 

“I’m going to take my wife back to bed,” she rasped, and Lae’zel’s amber eyes glinted with feline delight. “Unless she would rather be on the couch again?”

“Your wife will have both,” she said in her matter-of-fact delivery. Shadowheart stifled an incredulous laugh, but rose from her chair and tugged her toward the living area anyway.

***

“Hello?”

“It’s your personal shopper,” Daphne said, pinning her phone to her ear with her shoulder. She held a paper-wrapped lump of artisanal butter in each hand, weighing them indecisively. “I’m blanking, did you want cultured butter or compound butter?”

Gale’s huff of amusement was barely there in the tinny speaker, but audible. The leg of lamb he’d been marinating for days sizzled in a hot pan in the background. “Cultured, darling, thank you. If I ever ask you to buy pre-packaged compound butter, please have me evaluated for head trauma.”

She put the log of herb and garlic butter back with its compatriots and set the other in her basket. “Got it. And for the red wine, I asked for help finding something dry and picked up a Tempranillo, does that work?”

“Very much! Excellent choice,” he said warmly. A happy flush suffused her. She should probably get a grip on herself at some point, but it wasn’t today. Today, she was turning pink in the refrigerated section of the co-op because Gale Dekarios thought she did a good job.

“Okay, good,” she mumbled, embarrassed. “I’ve got the wine, the butter, and the biggest jar of capers I could find. Speak now if you want anything else.”

“Just you,” he said. She let her forehead thunk against the cold glass of the dairy case. “I’ll see you in a moment. I love you.”

“Love you too.” She hung up and took a deep breath, allowing herself one more moment of chilling her flushed skin on the rapidly steaming glass, then pushed her way to the front of the crowded store and checked out. Astarion’s birthday dinner was less than two hours away.

When she arrived back at the lighthouse, she kicked off her shoes and hurried through the foyer to the kitchen, where an apron-clad Gale was using tongs to turn the lamb leg this way and that in a truly massive stainless steel pan. A savory, herbaceous aroma hung in the air, thick enough to taste.

“Ah! Perfect timing,” he exclaimed, flashing her a brilliant smile over his shoulder. “If you don’t mind, could you pop the cork on the wine and bring it here?”

She dutifully uncorked the wine and sidled up beside him, passing him the bottle. In one deft move, he flipped the leg of lamb onto a waiting roasting pan, then poured a generous amount of wine directly into the sizzling skillet. He stirred the simmering wine with a wooden spoon, scraping the bottom of the pan as it bubbled.

“Now the butter.” His brow remained furrowed in concentration as he talked Daphne through slicing pats of butter into the hot pan, explaining how correct temperature and agitation prevented the sauce from breaking and how the added fat was going to amplify the flavors of the herbs. By the time he finally clicked the stove off and poured the pan sauce into a waiting carafe, she felt like she’d just helped him perform brain surgery. 

He slid the seared lamb leg into the waiting oven to finish cooking. With a theatrical sigh of exhaustion, he spun to face her and leaned back against his countertop. All the trappings of a five course meal crowded around them, waiting to be served. Aside from the cake, of course—he’d cleared an entire shelf in his fridge to make room for it.

“How long do we have until the guest of honor arrives?” he asked, dabbing his forehead with a kitchen towel. 

She checked her phone. “About thirty. Is everything ready?” 

“Absolutely everything, exactly as ordered. Even down to the frankly horrifying amount of cream cheese frosting he’s had me plaster onto this poor, undeserving cake.” The lines around his eyes deepened in distress, haunted by what he’d done.

“Aw, don’t take it personally. The frosting’s his favorite; I don’t think he even likes the actual cake.” 

He begrudgingly conceded the point. Catching his eye again, she let herself appreciate how well a hard day of cooking suited him—his tousled hair escaping his half bun and hanging past his shoulders, the top half of his tattoo peeking through the open neck of his button-up under his apron, his rolled-up sleeves accentuating his toned forearms. 

“Well, now,” he drawled, a sharp twinkle in his eye, “surely you aren’t considering shagging the catering at your best friend’s birthday?”

She snorted. Shagging. What a deeply unserious turn of phrase. 

“We simply can’t. What if I forget to decant the Beaujolais in twenty minutes to let it breathe before dinner service?” he continued, a hand clutching over his heart. 

She gasped. “But then it won’t fully aerate!”

“We’d be ruined,” he sighed mournfully. Soon, though, his facade crumbled and he succumbed to chuckling at his own joke. He seemed so…unburdened, just recently. He smiled easier, laughed longer, cracked more jokes. It made her chest ache.

She closed the distance between them, hooking her finger into the front pocket of his apron. “Well, since it sounds like we need to flee the country anyway—have you settled on where you want to whisk me away to? I feel like you were leaning toward Italy.”

“I was,” he sighed wistfully, “but my itinerary for your first trip to Rome is three weeks long and growing; there’s just so much you must experience. Italy may demand its own month, I fear.”

Of course. One week probably wasn’t even enough time for the Gale Dekarios tour of the Colosseum. The plumbing alone was definitely at least a five hour lecture. 

“Twist my arm. In the meantime—I don’t know, I’ve heard Saint Lucia is nice. Rum drinks? Blue water? Absolutely no snow?”

“That’s the Caribbean, isn’t it? I’ve never been,” he mused. “Not much Roman history in that area of things, I’d wager.”

“Mm. No. You’d have to find something else to occupy your time,” she smiled.

He answered by wrapping his hands around her hips and tugging her to him, chasing her mouth with a sly grin—but the doorbell suddenly echoed throughout the cottage.

“Fucking already?” she groaned loudly in the direction of the front door. Astarion (because obviously it was Astarion) rang the doorbell again. It sounded sarcastic this time, somehow.

Gale kept his hands on her waist. “You don’t think this is some sort of proclivity of his, right?” he asked semi-seriously. “His sudden determination to intrude when we’re—”

Daphne retched. “Jesus. No. He just insists on decorating for parties like he’s fucking Louis the Fourteenth. I’ll try to stop him from unscrewing your light fixtures.” She slipped out of his arms with one more peck to his lips and stomped off to answer the door. 

An hour of frantic decorating later, she finally took her seat at Gale’s little-used dining room table. Astarion and Wyll, Karlach and Dammon, Alfira and Lakrissa, and a pair of Russian librarians whose names always escaped her were already seated and pouring from the decanter of Beaujolais Gale had set out for them. 

The frock she’d ordered specifically to fit Astarion’s theme—“high camp Harlequin romance”—had taken fucking forever to lace up, but she’d managed it. It was clearly meant for Renaissance Faire enthusiasts, with a layered skirt and a bodice that hiked up her tits so high they were practically around her ears. Other guests seemed to have dressed with varying degrees of commitment to the bit, from perfectly normal cocktail attire to, in Alfira’s case, a full jester costume complete with bells. 

“Are there jester-centric romance novels?” she asked.

Alfira shook her head, bells jingling. “No, like—Harlequin romance. Get it?” 

She groaned. Alfira looked extremely pleased with herself.

They really had transformed the room, she noted with pride. Candelabras lit with long tapers cast the room in a sultry glow; swathes of fabric hid the plain pine walls. They’d even scattered a bounty of pomegranates, cut citrus fruits, and bundles of herbs down the length of the table as a centerpiece.

And then there was Astarion, holding court at the head of the table. All the light in the room seemed to bend in his direction. No paperback clinch cover had ever seen a heroine so dewy and windswept, an off-the-shoulder black silk blouse billowing around him and a jeweled choker heavy on his collarbone. His already striking features took on an otherworldly quality as the wine stained his lips and the candlelight made his crystalline eyes glimmer. 

Wyll, sitting to his right, looked genuinely overcome. Daphne watched as he missed his mouth entirely and tipped wine down the front of his brocade waistcoat. 

“Does your gentleman plan on serving dinner before my next birthday?” Astarion drawled. She wrinkled her nose at him.

“Everyone isn’t even here yet. Relax.” she said, pointing to the remaining empty chair on her left. She inclined her head at poor Wyll, who was still dabbing at his shirt with a napkin. “Dote on your handsome prince a little.”

As if on cue, the front door opened and slammed again, and hurried footsteps clacked on the hardwood.

“Sorry! Hi, sorry, I’m so late, happy birthday,” a clear, accented voice chimed from the foyer. She twisted in her chair just in time to see Isobel, of all people, glide into the room and rush to give Astarion a slim, wrapped package. They kissed each other on both cheeks. Daphne’s eyebrows rose. Since when did they know each other?

Isobel retreated back down the table and took her seat next to Daphne, looking angelic in a white dress with wide, fluttering sleeves. “Hello! Can you believe what he’s done in here? And you, too, I expect. Gorgeous; what an inspired use of blood oranges.”

“Right? He saw some celebrity wedding do citrus centerpieces on Instagram and came up with the rest himself,” she replied with a hint of pride.

“I didn’t know you and Astarion had gotten to be friends,” she continued, curiosity already getting the better of her. “But, I mean, it’s a small island.” 

Isobel took a thoughtful sip of wine. “So small. We’re recent acquaintances; we both audited Dr. Meztil’s wine tasting J-term. Which is how I can tell you that this is a…” 

She swirled the wine in her glass and squinted at it in the low light, discerning something Daphne could not possibly guess. Astarion had taken a wine tasting J-term? He’d done something whimsical?

With creeping shame, she remembered some mentions of “class” and “wine” on his part over the course of January. She’d been too consumed with her own misery to ask for details. Bad form, Daphne. 

“...a Pinot Noir!” Isobel exclaimed definitively.

“Beaujolais, darling, but very close,” he called down the table. 

“Damn!” she replied. The party erupted with laughter. 

Gale shouldered the door to the kitchen open, a massive tray with ten little plates of hors d’ oeuvres in his hands. Most of his hair was pulled back into a sleek knot, and he’d changed into a fresh white shirt and black slacks. God, he even looked good as a waiter.

“Good evening, and welcome. I am entirely sure that we are all honored to celebrate Astarion,” he smiled, laying on the charm with a trowel. “Tonight’s service will consist of five courses, each with a wine pairing chosen by the host himself. To accompany your first wine, the Beaujolais, you have a Camembert served on toasted house-made bread, with herbs. Do enjoy.”

He set the first plate delicately in front of Astarion, then made his way around the party until he reached the end of the table.

“Madame,” he winked with a knowing smile. “If I may be so bold, you look simply bewitching this evening.”

He leaned across her to plate her hors ‘d oeuvre and took the opportunity to whisper in her ear. “Expect me to appreciate this dress very thoroughly when our guests have gone.”

“You’d better,” she murmured. When he straightened, she could see color blooming hot in his cheeks.

“And Isobel!” he exclaimed, momentarily dropping his maitre ‘d act. “I’d no idea we were expecting you.”

She smiled, waving her hand dismissively. “If there’s a Gale dinner to be had, I’ll find a way in. Now give.”

He dutifully handed her the last hors ‘d oeuvre, then bowed out of the room. There was a collective crunch, then moan, around the table as everyone took their first bites. Rich cheese, fresh herbs, chewy bread. 

“Fuck me, that’s good,” Dammon sighed. The other guests made noises of agreement.

Annoyance flashed on Astarion’s face as he chewed, clearly put out that something to complain about hadn’t immediately presented itself. “I should have specified a less piquant Camembert,” he finally grumbled. Wyll leveled him with a significant look, and he determinedly avoided his gaze.

The appetizer course of braised winter vegetables in beurre blanc followed, accompanied by some white wine with a long German name Daphne couldn’t pronounce. Again, it was perfect. Then the main course arrived, the entire lamb leg cradled on a platter in one of Gale’s broad hands, a small folding table tucked under his arm. He unfolded it with a snap of his wrist, then set the platter down and produced a comically large knife from his apron. 

“Would the guest of honor prefer a center cut, or something with a touch more bark?” he asked smoothly, wiggling his left hand into a glove that looked to be made of chain mail. 

Astarion’s mouth remained a thin line as he thought. “Center. Not too cool, though; I detest the texture.”

“Of course,” he smiled confidently. With the ease of a professional, he glided the knife down the length of the roast, peeling away stringy meat and sinew until he reached the bone, then held the blade perpendicular and made neat, uniform slices of the prime meat on top. With a final swift slice, he severed all of them cleanly from the bone below, ready to serve. Several people ooh-ed.

He selected two cuts from near the center of the meat and arranged them on his gloved hand, then held them out for Astarion to inspect. After some scrutiny, he chose one. Gale dutifully plated it with a drizzle of pan sauce and a mountain of mashed potatoes so smooth, they had to be mostly butter. 

Wyll was already beaming when he turned his attention to him. “And for you, sir?”

When Isobel had been served the last slice of lamb and everyone was rapturously devouring their main course (accompanied by a wine Daphne did recognize, a Cabernet), Gale packed up his kit and bid them all a good meal. A smattering of applause followed. Even in the dim light, his cheeks obviously flushed bright red as he gave a short bow and hurried out of the room.

“Daphne, you have to marry him, or I will,” Lakrissa cried around a mouthful of potatoes.

“We both will!” Alfira added. They high-fived. “Sister wives!”

“Would he also take a husband?” Dammon asked. Karlach socked him on the shoulder, and he kissed her on the cheek apologetically. 

Daphne hid her face behind her napkin as she finished chewing, too flustered to look anywhere but her plate. She’d been very determinedly not thinking about marrying him, thanks. It’s not like she even really wanted a wedding, or needed a ring, even if the thought of him wearing one made her kind of lightheaded in a way she was not prepared to confront—

Astarion cleared his throat significantly. “Wyll, darling, would you mind fawning over  me a touch? I’m being upstaged at my own birthday.” 

Wyll took Astarion’s hand in his and leaped to his feet. Propping one foot up on his chair, he swept his other arm in a graceful arc across the crowd. 

“You are the red of sunrise, the yellow of high noon, and the orange of sunset,” he declaimed, as though he’d rehearsed specifically for this. “If you were a song, I’d never stop singing. If you were a psalm, I’d never stop praying.” 

There was a communal dreamy sigh while Astarion lapped up the praise, and another when Wyll kissed him before taking his seat again. The Russian librarians shared a look. She wondered if Astarion had warned them at all about the tenor of his friend group. He probably hadn’t, on purpose, because he thought it would be funny.

“Speaking of wives,” Daphne said, turning to Isobel with her voice low, “where’s yours? I miss her.”

“She has a meeting back in London on Monday, so she flew out this morning,” she said with a sly smile. “The Aylin family has a spot on the board of the Ramazith Historical Society, and after everything that’s happened over there, she feels like they need a sterner hand than her other relatives have been providing.”

The image of Dean Aylin looming over a room of geriatric millionaires, about to unleash the full force of her righteous indignation, lit her up inside like sun through a stained glass window. If only Ramazith sold tickets.

“I can’t wait to hear how that goes.”

She laughed, a high, tinkling sound. “Oh, god, I know. She’ll have the place running like the Royal Navy if no one stops her.”

Isobel paused. She looked at her for a long moment, chewing her lip. The thrum of the party continued around them, forks scraping and voices chattering. 

“I’m so sorry I couldn’t tell you, Daphne.”

She froze. Had Gale told Isobel? When? But he said he couldn’t say anything to anyone, even his own mother—

“I wasn’t supposed to know, but Aylin takes all her calls on speakerphone and I’m very nosy,” she continued, a serious set to her mouth. “It didn’t take long for me to put together that her family’s trust had gotten caught up in some big scandal at Ramazith, and that Gale was involved somehow. And, well—you know his history with academia. I was so worried he’d done something rash.”

Daphne knew the feeling. Boy, did she fucking know the feeling. Her fingers flexed in her lap.

“Obviously,  she told me everything once she saw how upset I was.” she sighed. “I’m so sorry. I wanted to tell you, too, but she told me it was absolutely top secret and that I could get her in a heap of trouble if I said anything.”

“You did the right thing,” she rushed to reply, even if, yeah, it stung a little that someone so close to her had known the truth while she’d been morosely buying two coffees every morning. “And, like, look. Even if I were mad, I really can’t fault you for anything after how much you’ve done for him. You got him out.” 

Isobel looked away modestly and busied herself with her mashed potatoes.

“Could I invite you over for a cocktail sometime? I’d like to be friends,” she ventured. 

“Sounds great. You can help me plan the series of international crimes I intend to commit against the University of Cambridge history department,” Daphne said airily. Isobel laughed, hard, into her napkin.

“Oh, would you please?” she sniffed, collecting herself. “I’d post your bail. Don’t tell him I said that.” 

A hilariously elaborate cheese board arrived after the main course was cleared, accompanied by a Sauvignon Blanc that dried her mouth out completely. Then, at long last, it was time for dessert. 

Gale backed into the room, wheeling a dainty metal cart with a plump, cream-frosted cake atop. Conversation immediately faded away as he presented it at the head of the table, radiating pride. 

“Since I have been reliably informed that candles and singing are outrè,” he announced, “you will proceed directly to enjoying your final course, which is a traditional American red velvet cake with a whipped cream cheese frosting. As an accompaniment, Astarion has chosen something quite special: a Lambrusco from the Emilia region. Will everyone be taking dessert this evening?”

A hearty chorus of agreement filled the room, and his eyes crinkled as he nodded in acknowledgement. “Very good.”

He produced yet another chef’s knife and divvied the cake into hearty wedges, then offered Astarion his choice of slice. After plating it for him, though, he held up a finger.

“And! As the guest of honor, yours comes with a special accoutrement.” 

Astarion looked on with a skeptical brow as he reached into a lower compartment of the cart. His eyes widened when Gale emerged with a ramekin overflowing with extra frosting. 

He set the little bowl of sugary fluff next to Astarion’s wine glass. There was a moment of hushed conversation between them, Gale nodding to whatever questions he was posing as he poured the Lambrusco. Then, so softly she almost didn’t believe she’d heard him—

“Thank you.” 

Gale ducked his head, pleased, and turned to serve the rest of the party. Before she could look away, Astarion caught her staring and held her gaze from across the long table. 

She raised her eyebrows. Surely, now, he’d have to admit that this birthday dinner blew every preceding one out of the water.

He rolled his eyes, scraped a dollop of frosting onto his tiny dessert fork, and popped it into his mouth. Wyll rubbed his shoulder affectionately and murmured some private joke that made his ears go pink.  

When Gale came around to deliver her slice, she caught him by the arm and tugged him down to her level. “Well fucking played, Dekarios.”

“I was merely acting on the intelligence I was given,” he demurred. He set her cake down in front of her, brushed a kiss to her temple, and sailed off to finish his duties. 

She tentatively swirled her glass of dark red wine, sniffing it like she’d seen Isobel do—and gasped aloud at the sensation of bubbles fizzing under her nose.

“Surprise! Lambrusco is a sparkling red,” Isobel grinned. 

“I didn’t know you could do that,” she wondered, holding her drink up to examine it. Sure enough, carbonation softly hissed from its surface. 

The chime of a fork striking crystal rang over the table, and the hum of the crowd settled down again. Astarion stood and struck a regal pose.

“Another year on this tiny rock has passed, and I now find myself thirty-three years old. The same age that Jesus Christ was, allegedly, when he was crucified,” he began with the gravitas of a Shakespeare monologue. Daphne held back a snort. “I find myself, however, in rather the opposite position. This is the year I began to live. This is the year I’ve found rest and comfort. I’ve invited all of you here today because I feel that’s worth celebrating.”

She snuck a look at Wyll and found him with his face hidden behind his hands, already near tears. The raw adoration and pride pouring off of him filled the room.

“To Karlach, and Dammon, and Alfira and Lakrissa,” he continued. “To Ivan and Greta, and Isobel, and Daphne. To Wyll, the surprise of my lifetime.”

Wyll heaved a sob. One of the Russian librarians—Greta, apparently—passed him a lace handkerchief. 

He paused, briefly conflicted, then sighed. “And to Gale,” he added. “Cheers.”

“Cheers!” the table echoed. Lakrissa passed Gale his own glass, and they all toasted together. Lambrusco, Daphne learned, was wonderful.

It was close to midnight when the guests sleepily trickled out of the lighthouse, full to bursting with Gale’s cooking and jokingly demanding he invite them back next week. Astarion and Wyll stayed behind to break down the decorations, but soon they, too, were on their way out the door. 

Wyll swept Daphne into a crushing hug in the foyer. “Thank you for all your help. And for being so good to him. Most people—”

“—think the act is the real thing,” she finished. He nodded. “I’m so glad you’re here. I don’t tell you that enough. You’re a good egg.”

“Don’t, you’ll set me off again,” Wyll laughed wetly as he released her. He moved on to wrap a very startled Gale in a similar embrace, and Astarion slid in to replace him. She knew better to anticipate a hug. She could count on one hand the amount of times they’d hugged on purpose.

“Good birthday?” she asked, grinning. 

He heaved a forlorn sigh and looked into the middle distance. “Unfortunately, yes. I regret to announce that the meal was spectacular, everyone got along famously, and I had overall a very nice time.”

She pouted sympathetically. “Hey, you’ll get ‘em next year. Maybe we can go back to that seafood place in Bjorn’s Hold and get Karlach to fight the bartender again.”

He smirked, eyes alight at the memory. “Oh, don’t tempt me.”

That had been his thirtieth birthday. The idiot behind the bar had decided to make a very crude pass at Daphne while Karlach was in earshot. She’d thrown him into the harbor. 

“Anyway. Get home safely, okay?” she said. 

His cool, bony hand slipped around her arm and gave her a gentle squeeze. She did her best not to look surprised.

The mask lowered for a brief moment. Soft mouth, pink cheeks, relaxed shoulders. He was happy. Not ecstatic, just—comfortable, and happy. She wasn’t an easy crier on the magnitude of Wyll, but her heart did flip into her stomach a little bit.

“We will. Thank you.” Astarion took Wyll’s offered arm, and together, they crunched across Gale’s gravel driveway to his little all-terrain ranger truck.

Daphne swung the front door shut and leaned against it. Gale was on her instantly. She laughed as he peppered kisses over every inch of her neck and collarbone he could reach.

“If I’d known you had a medieval barmaid thing, I would have bought this a long time ago—oh, fuck,” she gasped. He’d found a sensitive spot just below her ear and nipped at it with his teeth. One of his hands palmed her breast through her thin chemise, and he moaned into her neck.

“I don’t have a medieval barmaid thing,” he panted, amused. “I have a Daphne thing. How many more ways can I tell you that you’re the most beautiful woman ever created?”

“I don’t know, but feel free to keep trying,” she groaned. He paused to tip their foreheads together, chuckling.

“With immense pleasure.” 

He kissed her, hard, and she was overcome by the memory of very first time they’d done this—right here, against this door. How strange, to realize that Gale and that Daphne were the same people they were now. The past few months had changed them so much. And now she was here, in a tavern wench costume, sliding into second base with someone who had rearranged his entire life to make it a home for her.

“Hey Gale?” she asked when she could come up for air. He immediately locked eyes with her. 

“Yes?” he asked, a hint of worry creasing his forehead.

“I really, really fucking love you.” 

He smiled. It was The Smile, the one that made string quartet music swell in her head and gave her visions of art galleries filled with his portrait. God. It was out of her hands, wasn’t it? There was never going to be anyone else. He was her last stop. She was done. Either he’d break her heart permanently, or they’d be inseparable for fifty years and die holding hands like the old couple in Titanic.

“I really love you as well,” he said. “Especially in this dress. Come, sweeting; let me bear thee away to our bedchamber posthaste.”

“I knew it! I knew the historical shit got you off, don’t try to lie to me—” she cried triumphantly as they stumbled down the hall to the bedroom, laughing the whole way.

Daphne didn’t wake until sunlight was streaming merrily through the windows the next morning. They’d had a deliciously late night. She groaned awake just as Gale rolled toward her and pulled her flush to him, their legs tangling together. He kissed her softly on the forehead.

“I’m telling you now so you aren’t cross with me when you see it,” he murmured, biting his lip, “but I may have been somewhat overgenerous when you asked me to give you a love bite last night.”

“You may have been?” She felt around the side of her neck. It was hard to tell, but there was a tender spot near her collarbone that could fit two fingers across it. “Wow. Yeah, that feels pretty generous.”

He made an apologetic noise. She kissed lightly up his cheekbone, reassuring him she wasn’t actually mad. She liked when he left marks, and she loved working him up past the limits of his self-control. If anything, this was an achievement.

“You know what I just realized?” she smirked.

“Hm?”

“You lost your mind over that stupid Renaissance costume, but you haven’t even seen me in a sundress yet. Your head’s going to fucking explode.”

His eyes sparkled. “Wise as always. With our travel plans on the horizon, this is quite an urgent concern. Why don’t you show me what sorts of dresses I absolutely shouldn’t buy, in the interest of safety?”

He reached behind him to his bedside table and fumbled for his phone, clearly intent on doing some online shopping. Cackling, she tucked herself under his arm and settled in. She’d never dated anyone who enjoyed dressing her before, but his taste was obviously impeccable. There had to be another occasion for her to wear her dress from the Ramazith ball, speaking of; it was too beautiful just to languish in a dry cleaning bag—

Gale’s entire body went rigid beside her. 

She sat up immediately. He was locked into staring at his phone, lips parted soundlessly as his breaths came sharp and irregular. Alarms blared in her head. 

“Gale? Is it bad news?” she urged. When he didn’t respond, she carefully placed a hand on his shoulder. “Is it your mother? Is she all right? Oh, god, is it Tara?”

Still nothing. Panic. Panic. Finally, he tore his eyes away from the screen to look at her, his eyes glassy and strange. 

Gingerly, she slid the phone from his hands to see for herself. It was still locked; the screen only showed the litany of email notifications he’d amassed overnight. With her heart in her mouth, she scanned them: Icepeak College newsletter, British Airways credit card offer, co-op coupon—oh, fuck.

From: Weaving, Mystra <[email protected]>
Subject: Need to speak to you urgently

Chapter Text

First rule in a crisis: hold it the fuck together.

Daphne clung to this mission like flotsam after a shipwreck as she stared down at the locked screen of Gale’s phone. Weaving, Mystra stared back at her. No matter how she tried to will it away or convince herself she was mistaken—there it was. And she needed to remain cool about it. For him.

Need to speak to you urgently. Her jaw clenched. Speak to him for what? After all this time, after how much he’d suffered both at her hands and in her absence, all while she presumably carried on with her accolades and her new favorite student. 

A wave of nausea swept up her throat. The dread seizing Gale in this moment… god, she could barely imagine. 

Well, no, she realized with a further lurch. She could imagine. A memory returned to her in full, brutal color. 

Her third summer on Icepeak. Opening the front door of her newly-purchased cottage to find the skeletal shadow of Astarion, suddenly returned to her after years of sporadic contact. She’d just assumed the pressures of finishing his thesis were the reason for dwindling phone calls and his caginess about setting up another visit. Instead, it was a boyfriend—someone old and rich and fucking awful. Someone who left scars on his body and a stream of voicemails so heinous they made her proud, cocksure best friend shake like a kicked dog. 

Of course, she’d taken him in. Astarion had spent the weeks before his post-doc in Romania haunting her house, picking at her food and sleeping fitfully next to her in bed. 

“I’m not going back,” he would sometimes whisper into the dark, just as Daphne was starting to drift.

“You’re not going back,” she would always reply. If she had the energy, she’d monologue at him about something boring, like kerning or ink composition, until one of them fell asleep. The stream of softly spoken banality seemed to sate his black hole of dread for a little while.

When he came back to America, sliding easily into Icepeak on Daphne’s glowing recommendation, his smirk was back in place and his humor sharp as ever. But still—in the moments when he wasn’t acting, when it was just the two of them, a flat, hollow expression would sometimes cloud his features like television static. 

The same expression Gale was wearing now.

She finally looked up at Gale again. His eyes were on her, but vacant, the spark of his quick mind absent. They gave her the same uncanny feeling as coming home to a completely dark house. 

“Okay.” She set his phone face-down on the comforter, an arm’s length away from both of them. “Okay. This is… all right.”

Slowly, carefully, she sat up against the headboard and reached to pull him into her lap. 

He flinched.

“Sorry.” She snatched her hand away, her eyes going hot and prickly. “I’m sorry, god, I’m so sorry, I know better—”

The waver in her voice seemed to snap him out of his haze, and he rushed to turn toward her, eyes enormous. 

“Oh, god, oh Daphne, no. Come here, darling,” Gale pleaded, opening his arms. She fell into them, determinedly not crying—not her turn—and wrapping haphazard arms around his neck. The flat of his palm rubbed up and down the ridge of her spine in apology.

He leaned heavily into her, even more so when she began raking nervous fingers through his hair. The sun continued to bathe them in paradoxically warm, hopeful light. 

“You’re so gentle,” he finally said, voice quiet and rough. “Every time.”

She switched from combing his hair to scratching his scalp, and he rumbled contentedly against her. The vice around her heart loosened a fraction. Another lapse of silence, another tense contemplation. Under her fingers, she could almost feel his thoughts buzzing like angry wasps.

“I’m sorry,” he croaked. “For frightening you. For how much work this has become for you. Far more than I’m worth.”

Her blood pressure skyrocketed again. She gripped him harder to keep her fingers from shaking. “It’s okay.”

“You shouldn’t have to—”

“I don’t have to, I want to.” In through the nose, out through the mouth. Slowly, so he didn’t notice. “This is what someone who loves you does. This. They’re careful, and they help you, and they…”

Her voice was starting to pitch up unsteadily. She swallowed around the lump in her throat. “And they don’t hurt you.”

He went quiet again for a long moment. She counted the rise and fall of his bare chest against her own. Something unnamable seemed stuck in his throat, just below his mouth.

“It didn’t happen often,” he finally said, embarrassment thick in his voice. “It wasn’t—I was perfectly aware I was riling her, and I pushed anyway. You mustn’t lionize me.”

She focused on her fingers’ meandering path on his scalp, meditative. Grief enveloped her like wet concrete. “If you say so.”

He made a soft noise of disbelief. “Oh? Not the reaction I’ve come to expect from you, to be perfectly honest.”

“I mean. I think you already know that’s bullshit, right?”

His fingertips trailed up and down the ridge of her spine. Was that too flip? It may have been too flip. She was still trying to brew up a softer turn of phrase when he huffed a melancholy laugh against her neck.

“I know it’s bullshit,” he echoed. Her chest felt like it was cracking open as energy returned to his voice, if weakly. “I didn’t, always, but do you know—I was walking home after we had that big row before Christmas, and I was nearly all the way there before I realized that you’d never... even though you were furious with me.”

“Sure was,” she affirmed.

“And I knew you were,” he pressed onward. “And yet you hadn’t—I never once thought you might—”

He trailed off. Daphne made to pull back to look at him, but he squeezed her to him. Understood. Some things were easier without eye contact.

Gale cleared his throat. “Suffice it to say,” he said tightly, “even a delicate hand can strike hard enough, given the motivation.”

There it was. The fingers in his hair threaded deeply along his scalp and just held him. Strangely, she felt a modicum of calm now that it was out in the open between them. If Gale’s psyche was a horror movie, she’d finally gotten a clear look at the monster. The suspense of trying to guess at its shape in the dark was over.

She nodded solemnly against his shoulder. “It really can. I know. I’m sorry.”

That did make him pull back. “How would you know?” he asked, horrified.

“Oh! Not from—I’ve just been in fights. Normal fights,” she rushed to clarify. “Not recently, but when I was younger and kind of a shithead. In my defense, I never started them.”

He cocked a skeptical eyebrow.

“I didn’t start most of them,” she amended, her cheeks suddenly hot. “This isn’t about Punk Daphne.”

The corner of his mouth tugged into a soft grin, and she could have lost her mind with relief. “Please, make it about Punk Daphne. The distraction would be a miracle.”

She carefully leaned forward to kiss his temple, and he met her with his lips instead. Another good sign. 

“Mm. How’s this. You finish your thought, and I’ll tell you a story.”

“I don’t know that I had a thought to finish,” he confessed. The lines of his face still looked tired, but softer now.  “Though if you’d like some sort of concluding statement, I’m sure I could whip something up.”

“No, no, don’t strain yourself.” Making a great show of pausing in thought, she finally tugged him back down to the pillows with a satisfied sigh. “Fine. This one is called The Fable of What Happens If You Push My Friend Over at the DIY Show.”

As it turned out—and she didn’t know why this surprised her—Gale was very intrigued by Punk Daphne. Especially as she explained what a half nelson entailed, with illustrative gestures. The color returned to his cheeks in a pink, delicate bloom, and she made a mental note to explore that much further when he wasn’t in the middle of a Whole Thing. 

What she could do for the moment, however, was continue distracting him. Another bar fight story followed the first. She ran a hot shower and coaxed him into it, spinning together a long series of anecdotes from six years of running the book arts studio. Afterward, wrapped in two of his many sweaters, they settled on his couch for coffee and tea and toast.

 “Are you quite sure you wouldn’t like anything else? A sandwich, at least?” he asked, delicately selecting another half-slice of buttered, browned sourdough from the plate. 

She shook her head decisively. “Nope. You cooked your ass off yesterday. Relax.” 

He snorted.

“Try to relax,” she amended, smiling knowingly. “I don’t know if I said this yet, by the way, but Astarion really did love everything. Not to jinx it, but I think you finally snuck into his good graces.”

The corners of his eyes crinkled behind his glasses. God, he looked so good in glasses. It wasn’t natural. “I shan’t get my hopes all the way up, but I am ecstatic you think I’ve succeeded. Either way, don’t worry, beloved. He and I have years and years to become the best of friends, after all.”

Daphne’s fingers crunched through the bit of toast she was holding. Years and years. Intellectually, she knew that had been implied for a while, but hearing him say it so casual and certain made her incoherent for a brief moment before she schooled herself back to baseline. 

The urge to make it clear that she wanted him forever burned unbearably up her throat. She knew he would be overjoyed, and that the post-confession sex would—well. But the fact remained that loftier promises always came with a heavier sense of obligation. At the very core of it, she just couldn’t bring herself to put any more demands on Gale. Not now, when he finally seemed to be finding his feet. Certainly not fucking today. 

“Uh huh,” she finally responded, suddenly aware she’d been miles away. Too late—his mind had begun to drift in the quiet, and the shadow had returned to his eyes. She raced to think of something, anything to fill the dead air, but he beat her there. 

“No use postponing it any longer,” he said, resigned. “Shall we?”

Fuck. “You don’t have to,” she countered. 

With a sad smile, he shook his head. “It’s all right. I doubt it’s anything interesting. Vituperative, certainly, creative in its assassination of my character, probably, but interesting? No. Best to just get it overwith so we can stop thinking about it.”

He stretched to find his phone on the coffee table. The screen flared to life. Weaving, Mystra. Need to speak to you urgently. Neither of them seemed to breathe. Daphne cradled his left hand in both of hers as he tapped the screen and the full text appeared.

___

From: Weaving, Mystra < [email protected] >

Subject: need to speak to you urgently

Gale,

You looked well in your Channel Four interview. You’ve matured greatly during your time away. I knew you would. 

I write to say that, if this change of character is as complete as it seems, I may finally and wholeheartedly forgive you for what happened between us. Whether such forgiveness is prudent remains to be seen, but my soft heart insists.

I’m offering you your only chance at redemption. If I may be candid with you, Gale—as we always were with each other—I find myself missing you lately. Your infamous temper aside, there’s simply no one who compares to you in raw talent or in determination. We owe it to the field to give collaboration another try, don’t you agree?

You’re ready to come home, Gale. Let’s not waste any more time. 

Amāris,

Mystra

___

Silence trapped them like bugs in amber.

Daphne started at “Gale,” again and read all the way to the bottom. She didn’t understand it any better the second time.

“What’s amaris?” she blurted, as though that were the key to making sense of the situation.

“It’s Latin for you are loved.” He sounded ten years older than he had just minutes earlier. She cupped his hand up to her face and kissed the back of it. “It was something we’d, oh, write on each other’s coffee cups and sign off messages with. Our secret sign. Not very secret, in retrospect.”

The full picture suddenly came into too-sharp focus. “So she’s saying—oh my god.”

This was a love letter. Via email. The last time they’d spoken, she’d literally told him to kill himself, and now she was trying to win him back via email. It would have been funny if it wasn’t so galling.

Gale’s mouth formed a thin line. Even with the radiators on full blast, a wave of goosebumps prickled under her sweater.

“Damn it all. I thought this was over. I really and truly did.” He whipped off his glasses and set them to the side so he could massage the bridge of his nose. “Then I had to go and be a hero on national television. I might as well have said look at me, Mystra directly into the camera, hey?”

She chewed her lip. In a sane world, this would be over. Why wouldn’t it be? What more did he have that was worth taking? 

“Do you think that’s it? I mean, why would she—not that there’s a reason not to want you back, obviously, but, like—”

‘Why else would she reverse course after going to all of the trouble to dump me in Waterdeep,” Gale asked, “and then painting me to every single one of our peers as too unstable to work with when I wouldn’t go quietly? Especially in light of the fact that she never seemed to enjoy me that much in the first place?” 

“In so many words, yeah,” she winced, squeezing his hand.

He huffed a humorless laugh. With a sympathetic groan, she dropped another kiss to his knuckles. They sat in silence for another while, staring at the email in the sterile light of his phone screen.                                                                                                          

“You must remember: research aside, she’s a social climber to the core. My profile has risen considerably in the last month or so,” he mused caustically. “Perhaps she’s finding it less and less advantageous to be the one who exiled me from academia. Perhaps she thinks it would be very advantageous to be the one to return me to the fold.”

Oh. 

There wasn’t much to say to that. If he were anyone else in the world, she wouldn’t agree, but from the months of events that had led up to this morning—

“Sounds about right,” she sighed. 

He nodded. Hurt creased the lines around his mouth. She leaned forward to kiss one of them away, but when she pulled back, he looked just as miserable. 

“It’s okay. It’s over.” She pressed another kiss just below his cheekbone. “You did the hard part; you can just delete it now.”

He sat still and silent, his attention fixed on their joined hands. Slow, heavy seconds came and went. 

“Is that what you want?” he asked in a small voice.

Daphne’s muscles tensed. Gale’s body responded in kind next to her. 

“What?”

He cleared his throat. “Do you want me to delete the email?”

Goddamn it. Yeah. Of course she wanted him to delete it. She wanted him to throw his phone in the ocean at this point. Maybe his laptop, too. Anything that could let that woman get to him. But that woman had also controlled his lines of communication for the better part of a decade, and Daphne wasn’t about to join that legacy.

“That’s up to you,” she hedged. She could hear how flat her nonchalance landed. Apparently, so could he, because his frown deepened further. 

“I beg you to be honest with me, Daphne,” he said, exasperated. 

“It is up to you. It’s your life, it’s your choice—”

“That’s not what I’m asking,” he said, an edge of desperation in his tone. “What do you want me to do? Do you want me to get rid of it?”

“I want you to do whatever you want to do,” she countered, earnest. 

Wrong answer. Hot, angry tears welled in his eyes as grief twisted his features. 

“Don’t make me guess,” he half-whispered. “If this is a test, I won’t pass. Just tell me to delete it. Or, fine, here—”

“Okay, wait, wait,” she interjected. “Just, I’m clearly fucking this up, okay? Don’t do it just because you think it’s what I want.”

“What else am I meant to do?” he bit out, hurriedly wiping his eyes with the heel of his free hand. “Damn it. I was afraid of this, I didn’t want to fight—”

“We’re not fighting.”

“Daphne.”

“You’re freaked out. You’re scared,” she insisted. “It’s okay, just feel it.”

“How exactly does one just feel it?” he accused, dropping her hands to gesture with his palms up.

“Look,” she finally snapped, “if you’ve already decided to be fucking petulant about it, I don’t know how to help you.”

His lip curled bitterly. “If you don’t have the basic decency to tell me the truth, then stop fucking trying.”

They reeled backward simultaneously. She was on her feet and backing away from him before she knew what was happening. On the couch, the color was draining from Gale’s wide-eyed face. 

“I didn’t mean that,” he breathed. “I don’t—I don’t know why I said that.”

“I didn’t either,” she rushed to add. “Like, I was frustrated, but I didn’t mean to—”

“Please, don’t, it’s all right.” He swallowed shakily. “I was being a bastard.”

His eyes dipped to the rug for a moment before he seemed to collect himself. Even then, he looked completely, hopelessly bewildered. “I’m so sorry, beloved. I’ve never… I failed to handle myself just now. That was extraordinarily cruel of me, and you didn’t deserve it.”

She exhaled heavily. Standing flat-footed in front of her, in his cable-knit sweater and boxer shorts and hastily reapplied glasses, he couldn’t be more pathetic if he were soaking wet. 

“I’m sorry, too.” He started to protest again, but she waved him off. “I just—yeah. We both let that get way out of hand.”

Across the living room, his hands clenched and unclenched at his sides, restless and unsure. Anxious for a cue from her.

“Okay. Starting over. Here’s what I really think,” she reluctantly began. “If this were up to me, you’d delete it, block her address, and maybe change your phone number.”

His eyes went wide with I told you so, but she held up a hand. 

“But! But,” she continued, “this is not up to me. Don’t make this my decision. I don’t want to be in charge. If you want to keep it—hell, if you want to reply to her—that’s okay. I support you.”

He sighed. “Surely you see how unhelpful that is as guidance.”

“Walk me there. Help me.” 

He went silent. His hand swiped down his face in thought. 

“You must understand the corner she’s intentionally backed me into,” he finally said, voice tight. “As I said: she’ll be angry if I don’t reply, and she’ll be furious if I refuse. Only complete, instant obedience will appease her, and that is an option I cannot pretend to entertain. Not anymore, I should say.”

Daphne couldn’t help it, she grimaced. A decade. He’d survived a decade of this, over and over.

“Either way, I’m tied to the tracks and the train is coming. The best I can hope for is that I can at least make you happy before it arrives. But you won’t tell me how. Do you see?” 

“Oh, Gale,” she choked. “God, that’s—come here. Come here.”

The broad plane of his chest slammed into hers as he nearly lifted her off her feet. She pulled back and cradled his head in her hands, begging him to look her in the eyes. 

“Thank you,” she said. “That really helps. But, here’s my problem: I can’t be happy bossing you around. I know that’s hard to believe, given everything about who I am as a person—”

He finally cracked a smile as he chuckled, and relief melted through her. 

“—but I mean it. I can’t… do what she did.” He inhaled sharply. “Right? I can’t take your choices away, but nicely this time. It feels really gross. Even if you’re asking me to do it. I just can’t.”

He chewed his lip. Funny, he must have picked that up from her.

“So, if I’m understanding correctly,” he ventured, “I want to make you happy, but you’ll only be happy if I make myself happy.”

“Basically, yeah.”

He groaned miserably and leaned his weight into her hands. Apologetically, she reached up on her toes to plant a kiss on his forehead. 

“I believe,” he said, exhausted, “this may be a case in which one consults one’s therapist.”

Pride swelled in her chest. “I believe you’re right.”

“Splendid. Meeting adjourned?”

“Back to bed?”

“Oh, at once.”

Sunday slipped away into the working week. The machinery of daily life hummed along as usual, or as usual as things could be during midterms. Gale, predictably, seemed to be constantly called away to study hours and lectures and one-on-one meetings with anxious students. More than once, Daphne heard the telltale sounds of sobbing coming from across the hall. Poor kids. Everything seems so dire when you’re twenty.

The only real change she noticed is that when he wasn’t otherwise occupied, he was even more glued to her than usual. Which made sense, she supposed. He even brought his grading into the workshop with him and set up shop at an out-of-the-way table, vigorously marking his way through a thick stack of essays. She let him nest there without comment, occasionally dropping off a handful of chocolate covered almonds or a pat on the shoulder.

By Thursday, however, the girls had noticed.

“I thought everyone did that online now,” Shadowheart deadpanned at him. After a few seconds, he finally looked up with a sharp, startled inhale. 

“Ah! Yes, that’s certainly the most, ah, usual,” he scrambled to reply. “I simply prefer to grade by hand. More direct, more personal.” She shrugged, already uninterested again, and he settled back in with his brow pinched deeply.

She turned her attention back to the task before them, carefully positioning the next blank in the frame of the platen press. Daphne mechanically continued stirring the pot of ink in her hand as she watched him over Lae’zel’s shoulder.

“What’s wrong with him?” 

Daphne jarred back to the present to see Shadowheart arching an eyebrow at her, waiting on an answer. At the same moment, she noticed that the open button-down layered over her dress appeared to be the exact flannel shirt that Lae’zel had shown up to work in that morning. God help her. 

“He’s okay,” Daphne whispered, hoping she sounded even a little casual. “There’s just some stuff from back home he’s dealing with. You know how it is.”

Lae’zel—who was wearing one of Shadowheart’s Sleep Token t-shirts upon closer inspection, Jesus Christ—whipped her head to share a significant look with her across the press. Shadowheart’s lips formed a thin line, as though she were holding back a quip. 

“It’s not funny, ” Daphne hissed, trying to stay out of Gale’s earshot. “I know he’s not your favorite, but you don’t have to be cruel about it.”

Both of their eyes went wide and horrified, which did make her feel a little better. 

“No, ah, apologies, it is only a—what is the word, mon coeur, a joke indoors—”

“An inside joke,” Shadowheart cut in. “Nothing to do with Dr. Dekarios. Just a stupid thing we do. Sorry.”

They have inside jokes now? she thought, fighting to keep her face straight. It wasn’t just fucking, then. Her grad students were fully dating each other.

She nodded belatedly. “No worries. Think you can close for me today?”

One negotiation later, she sauntered over to where Gale was fitfully scribbling notes in the margin of an essay. He darted a glance up at her as she approached. 

“I can give you a lift to your appointment, if you want,” she offered. “I’m good to go whenever.”

He hurriedly finished scribbling what appeared to be a diatribe about generative AI not counting as a citable source, then re-capped his pen with a decisive click. “I would very much like that, thank you belov—ah, Daphne,” he caught himself. She snorted. She’d long given up being discreet around the girls, but Gale and his well-bred manners insisted. At least he wasn’t still calling her Miss Tavian; the things it did to her were not fit for mixed company.

“Great.” She followed him out the door of the workshop with a wave and a silent thank-you to Shadowheart and Lae’zel. “So. The kids are using ChatGPT to learn about Constantine, huh?”

“Good lord,” he groaned, throwing his hands in the air. “Learning is absolutely not the correct verb, they’re trying to pass this dreck off as scholarship—”

His impassioned oration about the philosophy of academic inquiry and the existential threat to critical thinking posed by large language models carried them the entire drive to Dr. Aumar’s practice. Daphne had to physically reach across and undo his seatbelt to get him out of the car. He only went, reluctantly, when she reminded him that there was a $100 fee for being late.

She watched him disappear into the revolving door, then reached into the back seat for her knitting bag. Fifty minutes wasn’t going to pass easily. The elaborate textured scarf she was working on unfurled on her lap. 

Even with her hands busy, the suspense of knowing Gale was in there, talking about the events of the week with a third party, tore her nerves to shreds. The click-click of her needles accelerated. Would he emerge with a definitive plan for that goddamn email? Was Mystra going to try to wriggle her way back into his life regardless? What was she prepared to do about it, if it came to that?

She mistimed a flick of her yarn and watched in horror as a stitch escaped and laddered down several rows. Shit, this section was fisherman’s rib, too. Mending fisherman’s rib was one of her personal levels of hell.

With a sigh, she fished around for her crochet hook and switched on another interior light. For the rest of the wait, she was too consumed with fiddling with yarn and cursing God for the day she was born to ruminate on anything else.

“Well! That went swimmingly,” Gale announced as he flung the passenger door open and slid inside. 

She shrieked. The crochet hook went flying from her hands, thankfully seconds after successfully replacing the stitch on her needles. It clattered somewhere on the floorboard as Gale clutched his chest and profusely apologized.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” she panted, rolling her eyes. She stowed her knitting and chucked it into the back seat before some other disaster could happen. “I’m fine. What went well?”

“All of it,” he grinned, settling back into his seat. “He provided some excellent perspective.”

Daphne threw the station wagon into reverse and pulled away from the building. “Great! So you know what you’re going to do about…”

She hadn’t brought up the email by name since their fight about it. Thankfully, Gale seemed to know what she meant.

“Even better. I’ve just sent my reply.”

Daphne ground the car to a halt just before exiting the parking lot. 

“Holy shit, that’s a development.” She turned bodily in her seat to face him. “How did that happen?”

“First, we spoke at length about the necessity of closing the door behind me in order to move forward,” he said, miming with his hands as he recalled what had definitely been a teachable moment, “and how it might look to be assertive in closing that door. I did bring up my worry about her reaction, but I have to remember that her feelings are out of my control.”

She watched his face carefully. His expression was as animated as it usually was; no tight lines or doubtful furrows. 

“So then, I thought, why not close the door right that minute?” he continued blithely. “I solicited advice about the general shape of my reply, but otherwise, I simply said that I would not care to resume our acquaintance and will not respond to any further communication.” 

She whistled. “Fightin’ words.”

“And then… it was simply over,” he concluded, glowing with pride. “It was brilliant.”

She nodded and smiled as hundreds of questions swarmed to the front of her mind. She wanted to ask them all—if he’d told Dr. Aumar the full extent of what Mystra had done to him, if he’d been briefed at all about how to handle the responses he could receive, if he knew that assertive communication doesn’t fucking work in abuse situations— but she bit every one back. He’d done what she’d asked, now she had to support him through it.

She was, however, going to find whoever invented cognitive behavioral therapy and hit them with her car. Assertively. 

“That’s amazing. I’m so happy for you,” she said, shooting him a smile as she pulled onto the main road. “You look really pleased with yourself.”

He gave her knee a squeeze. “The truly unbelievable thing is—I am.”

They chattered companionably on the way back to the lighthouse, Gale fiddling with something on his phone while Daphne occasionally pointed out early-budding hellebore in the gardens they passed. As the end of March approached, the very first hints of green were starting to appear amid the ice. The promise of a new season tempered the persistent pit in her stomach, but didn’t ease it entirely.

Finally, she pulled up to his front door. He leaned across the console and kissed her thoroughly. 

“Ah! One more thing—there’s something else of note I accomplished today,” he smirked. 

Her heart was going to fucking give out at this rate. Before she could ask, however, he was showing her a webpage. The first words she could make out read Congratulations! You’re booked!

“Everyone says St. Lucia is lovely this time of year,” he hinted.

She clapped her hands over her mouth. “You’re fucking joking. We’re not—” She grabbed the phone from him and scanned the screen. Two flight itineraries, six days apart. Boston Logan to Hewanorra International Airport and back, connecting through Miami. 

“First class?” she yelped, smacking him on the arm. He burst into laughter. 

“You specified no private planes. I have never received any instructions regarding acceptable commercial flights.” His face lit up with the smuggest smile she’d ever seen. “May I tempt you with a glass of wine while we look at hotels?”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, twist my arm.” He whisked her into the house, radiating satisfaction.

The Mystra debacle and her accompanying unease quickly faded into the background in favor of the shining promise of spring break. Midterms reached their fever pitch, the school descended into its usual exam-time chaos, but there was a light at the end of the tunnel, and it heralded an unlimited supply of rum drinks. 

One afternoon, after overhearing a particularly rough student consultation, Daphne sauntered by his office and knocked on the door frame. He looked up at her, rumpled and exhausted where he slumped behind his desk.

“The resort we picked has a private hot spring you can rent by the hour,” was all she said. He dropped his head to the desk and muttered something like thank christ for that.

After some cajoling, she did get around to sending Gale a few examples of sundresses she liked. All six of them showed up on her doorstep the day before their departure, marked with express mail stamps. 

“You’re insane,” she said as soon as he picked up the phone, pinning hers between her ear and shoulder as she unfurled a cheerful riot of bright red cotton from the last package. His laughter echoed down the line.

“You would look life-altering in all of them,” he protested theatrically. “How could I be expected to choose?”

“We leave in twelve hours. My suitcase is already exactly fifty pounds and I’m not taking anything out,” she replied, “so I hope having your life altered is worth the overweight bag fee to you.”

There was a moment of silence on his end. “Yes.”

“Deal,” she snorted. “Thank you so much, seriously, I love them. See you in the morning, you ridiculous man.”

“The hour can’t come quickly enough. I adore you.”

“Love you too.” She hung up and heaved the bundle of bright colors and florals into her arms. If she hurried, there was just enough time to wash and dry everything in time for tomorrow.

As she lay awake that night, too excited to sleep, astonishment struck her all at once. What a bizarre, extraordinary year she was already having. And it was only halfway through the semester.

The morning after Astarion’s birthday, especially, felt pivotal in hindsight. It had been awful at the time—she still cringed to think about their big, stupid fight—but in a perverse way, it had played out perfectly. They were always going to have to deal with Mystra at some point; at least it had happened through the most detached, mundane method possible. He’d been able to say his piece. The swift revenge they’d both feared had failed to materialize. Now, with her specter dispelled, the two of them could finally be truly alone together.

She smiled into her pillow, giddy with anticipation for the morning and its travels. If there were ever a time to celebrate, now felt very, very right.