#weavepop

His friends warned him about the coughing and it felt wretched, like his insides were going to turn in on themselves. But soon after, eyes burning and chest warm, it felt like they had promised it would—smudging away stress he didn't even know he had buried away in the wrinkles of his brain.

The lights were brighter, the sounds more sumptuous, and he quickly forgot about everything that had been worrying him so. Excellent. Quite excellent indeed.

It's packed, like any Friday night at any bar just off campus, and it was so hard to keep himself steady as he wormed his way to the bar to order.

Until, rather, he bumped into someone at the bar. Oh no.

She's glowing, somehow, but his mind doesn't linger on the how for once. Her bright red hair is like a flame and her face made even more brilliant by a wide smile. It's like he's taken another hit from the pipe.

"Pardon me," he prattles, struggling to remember how to be a gentleman.

"Babe, no worries."

Gale doesn't normally like that pet name. But when she says it, and with the way her lips move when she says it, she could say anything and it would be the most spectacular thing he's ever heard.

"Hello!" he practically bellows. "My sincerest apologies. "I'm Gale—" he sticks out his hand confidently, the embarrassment washing away in the face of how bold her beauty makes him feel that he could glow too. "Gale Dekarios."

She takes his hand, cool and soft to the touch like the cold side of the pillow, and shakes with him. "I'm Poppy. Poppy Lyons," mimicking his own delivery.

Gale feels as though he's brimming with something, anything, everything and he can't contain it. Poppy. Poppy. Poppy. Poppy. Her names bounces around his head and quickly becomes his new favorite word.

"Is everything okay?" she asks.

His mind homes in on her words—he's still shaking her hand, how long has he been doing that? He lets go and his body screams at him to grab it again—he doesn't.

"My apologies," Gale replies, words more difficult than usual to find. "I'm usually better at this—"

"At introductions?"

He laughs. Gods, she's funny. "At many things, normally," he starts. Gale wants to continue but he freezes and looks around at whoever's near them. It's not as busy around them as it was a moment ago. But he still feels the need to be surreptitious all the same.

Gale leans in a little closer. "Can you keep a secret?"

Poppy nods, one side of her mouth turning up into a conspiratorial smile. "Of course."

Feeling brave, Gale leans in even more, so that he can whisper despite the volume of the bar. This close, he is inundated with the warmth of her perfume, something spicy and heady like chai. "I may have smoked some…" he looks around once more just to be certain, "halfling leaf before coming to the bar tonight."

Her eyes widen, gleaming with mirth at his reveal. "No," she replies in a mock disbelieving way.

Gale nods, emphatically. "Can I tell you another secret?"

"Lay it on me."

"It was my first time smoking it as well," Gale blushes at the reveal but does not feel embarrassed. He makes him feel bold, in fact. So very bold.

"And how are you enjoying it?" she asks, now grinning ear to ear.

"It's marvelous," Gale replies easily. "Though, I do feel quite sluggish. I'm not used to my thoughts moving so slowly."

"That's the point though," she says, lips moving in a way that draws Gale's gaze once more. "It smooths everything out."

"Quite right," he clears his throat, her perfume now all he can smell. "Do you think then, that I could be…smooth enough for the two of us?"

Is she blushing? Her hair is so red, he cannot tell if it's the weed or if it's her.

"Oh, more than enough. Why don't you sit down?"

Gale whirls around to look at the stool behind him and sees that it's been vacated. "Splendid!" he declares before plopping himself down onto the cracked vinyl seat.

An arm clutches his and tugs. It's Poppy. With a soft smile and another tug, he manages to understand her meaning and scooches the stool forward until their knees are knocking together.

"Can I buy you a drink, Gale? Though, as an experienced smoker myself, I might recommend not getting crossfaded on your first night smoking."

"Whatever the lady recommends," he replies, smitten. "I like you. I like you very much."

"Gale Dekarios likes me very much?" she play-gasps, placing a hand on his forearm. "But we've only just met."

"I know what I like," Gale replies confidently, puffing out his chest a little. "And I just know that you are spectacular, and very much worth knowing."

There's that pink haze again, but this time Gale is more certain that she's blushing. His eyes wander down her frame. Gale thought her top was shiny but the mesh material's sheen is deceiving; through the dark, abstract pattern and the aforementioned sheen, he can see the swell of her breasts within her bra and the lines of a tattoo on her sternum beneath it. His mouth, dry before this, somehow dries even more.

A tap-tap-tapping on his arm surprises him, making him jolt, and he finds Poppy staring at him knowingly. Oh, how he would love to press himself against her, to somehow sweep her off her feet with some grand gesture. But even the thought of standing sends his mind spinning and the last thing he wants to do is scare away this beacon of color before him.

"May I…" he starts, now of all moments beginning to feel a mite self-conscious. "May I hold your hand?"

Poppy's hand trails down his bare forearm, making a shiver run up his spine. "My hand? In public? Scandalous," she teases. Her pale, halcyon eyes are charged with something that makes his cock twitch in recognition.

Her hands finish their journey and weave between his own, locking them together. He gasps in awe, in pleasure, in pure unadulterated joy. Gale feels his heart in his throat and his head between his legs and his skin becoming stardust.

"Let me tell you what, Gale," Poppy says, her words strumming in his ears not unlike music. "Let me finish my drink and get you some water, and then we can go outside and enjoy some more of that halfling leaf."

Shame shadows his face and tugs it down to let his hair hand down limply. "It wasn't mine," he says pitifully. "I'm not sure he has any more, I'm so sorry…"

Poppy laughs, "No, silly. I have some of my own." She brandishes a joint between the fingers of her hand just by the opening of her purse on her lap. "I want to get on your level, it's only fair."

Seeing an opening, Gale manages to sidle in with his own teasing tone, "I'm not sure…I'm quite high at the moment. Do you think you can meet me all the way up here?"

"I look forward to trying," she winks, sending another shiver up Gale's spine as she waves down the bartender.

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@dr-demi-bee @lanafofana @spooky-lil-bee @feedthepheasants @crimson-and-lavender @pouroverpaloma @marlowethebard @seastar-bunny @caughtnyact @roguishcat @femmefuck @asorceresswrites @galelover042

Poppy downs the rest of her drink while the man before her prattles on about himself. She steals a glance towards where she last saw Karlach and spies her flirting with a blonde-haired woman, one of her strong arms around the shorter woman's shoulders. At least one of us will be getting laid tonight, Poppy thinks, resigned.

Karlach was the one who dragged her out here tonight, determined to help Poppy break her years-long dry spell. But standing in this bar, now-empty glass in hand, just reminds her of what kept her away in the first place: prospects who only talk about themselves, ones who only talk to her tits, or ones who take off their wedding rings before approaching her. The man in front of her has somehow managed to do all three tonight.

It sucks, honestly. In the few hours she took to get ready for tonight, she had actually begun to look forward to "getting back out there." Refreshing the color on her hair had taken an age, and during the drudgery of bringing the pink back into her sadly faded locks, she recalled over and over again what her therapist has told her over the years: That it takes strength to be vulnerable, that she's allowed to ask—no—fight for what she wants.

Too bad the man in front of her isn't worth fighting for.

She just manages to side-step the man as he stumbles towards her, his drink almost sloshing down her front.

"So sorry," he apologies to her chest. He spots her empty glass and gestures his mostly-empty pint glass to her. "Care to get us another round?"

"Nope," Poppy answers curtly before stalking towards the bar to buy herself a refill. She told Karlach she would try, but even only after one drink, she's considering the potential excuses she can tell her friend so she can go home and watch Next Gen for the upteenth time.

All the seats at the bar are taken, but Poppy manages to find a gap between two men so she can catch the barkeep's eye. There's this loud man to her right who talks too much with his whole body and when she tries to lean over the bar, he shoves her and knocks her into the man to her left. Her left elbow makes contact with the man's drink, spilling it over the bartop.

"Ah, shit. I'm sorry. Hey!" Poppy waves down the barkeep and gestures at the upturned glass next to her. "I'll get him a new one of whatever he had, and a whiskey sour please." She makes sure that she takes up as much space as she can between these two barstools, the drunk who shoved her not noticing a thing while the man who's drink she spilled shies away from her.

When the drunkard inevitably leaves his own bubble again, her well-placed elbow is there to catch him. It's at that perfect moment when he turns his back to the bar to look at her where she slips a rogue ice cube from one of the empty glasses at the edge of the bar into the back of his collar.

"WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT," his manly growl turns into a squeal as he jumps out of his seat, the shock of the ice startling him. Poppy doesn't care when the heavy barstool is shoved into her hip as he storms off. She cares a little bit more when the girl the asshole has been speaking with mouths her a "thank you" as she leaves cash under her glass for the bartender and scurries off. She cares the most when an oh-so-tired voice to her left speaks a weary, "thank you."

Two rocks glasses are placed in front of her: one an old fashioned with a curled orange peel sitting on top of the perfectly cube-shaped icecube, the other her whiskey sour with its foamy top.

"Don't mention it," she replies, and any thoughts of going back to Karlach across the room leave her when she gets a good look at the man next to her. The first thing she notices is that he looks utterly miserable. His big brown eyes are red and puffy and he is just exuding a level of sadness she can only describe as anguish. There is a tension in his jaw that makes her wonder if he's about to break down into tears any moment.

The second thing she notices is that he's the hottest man she's ever had the pleasure of being within arm's reach of, and she is not interested in increasing that distance with any immediacy.

His dark brown hair tumbles in waves just past his shoulders, half- pinned back into a small knot at the back of his head. His slightly unkempt beard is hiding what she is almost certain is an incredible jawline, and to top it all of he's dressed like some posh professor at an elite private school, complete with crumpled brown corduroy blazer and a sweater vest. An argyle sweater vest.

She nudges him playfully as she raises her drink to him and says, "Cheers."

His eyebrows scrunch in a way that Poppy just knows he does this often. "Is there something worth toasting?" Fuck, he's British, Poppy's body warms all over at the warm baritone of his voice.

It's been a minute since she's used her tits to try and boost someone's mood, but she remembers how well enough. She rests her arm on the bar and leans into it, pushing out her chest in a way that shows it off even more than the deep neckline of her dress already is. Despite the overt flirting, she gives his question consideration. She's already knocked over his drink and bought him a new one, no way in hell does she plan on making this man cry.

"To whiskey," she starts, gesturing with her drink in hand. "To karma," she says next, noticing the rowdy man from before getting removed from the bar by a bouncer. "And," she starts—because all good things come in threes—"to flirting with cute strangers in bars." She winks for good measure…hell, is she putting it on too thick? She must be out of practice.

Thankfully, the handsome man in front of her chuckles. A deep, warm sound that she wants to hear again and again. She feels struck by him—and he's barely even smiling! If she manages to make him smile tonight, she's not sure she'll recover from it.

They clink glasses and drink, and the deep quaffs he takes of his don't go unnoticed by her. The lack of a wedding ring on his left hand also does not go unmissed.

"I don't think I've done anything tonight worthy of being referred to as 'flirting,'" he says, the corner of his mouth quirking up slightly.

Aw, he's trying to tease me.

"Speak for yourself," she flirts, letting her gaze obviously rake down his form, taking in every bit of him, including the novelty socks peeking out from his drab-professor chic.

Once her eyes return to his, she continues, "So what brings you and your cute cat socks to this bar tonight?"

The surprise at her calling out this specific fashion choice does not stick as he processes her question and ducks his head, eyes staring into the depths of his drink. "Drowning my sorrows, I suppose." He huffs a laugh that doesn't sound like his heart is in it. "How terribly cliché."

"Is there any room in your plans for some company? You see, I met this irresistably handsome man at the bar tonight, and I would love nothing more than to get to know him. But if he's busy…"

"No! I mean, I'm not too busy for such a lovely lady as yourself. I would be honored if you joined me, even for but a short while." God, he's so cute when he blushes.

While one of Poppy's requirements tonight was to find someone who definitely wants to fuck her as much as she wants to fuck them, she's too drawn in by this man to break away just yet. And so she claims the recently vacated seat next to him.

"So you've had a shit day?"

"Absolutely wretched."

"Any way I can help with that?"

The man scoffs. "As lovely as you are, it all feels enormously insurmountable at the moment. Besides, I don't wish to ruin your evening."

Not wanting to push the man more than he's comfortable, she considers taking her leave when a stack of cocktail napkins nearby gives her an idea.

"Want to play a game?"

He pauses before answering, taking her in properly for the first time as if to see if she's serious. "What did you have in mind?"

Leaning across the bar, Poppy scoops up a handful of white cocktail napkins with the bar's logo in the corner and a pen from a recently signed bill. She takes one napkin and draws 4 connecting lines and he catches her meaning immediately.

"Hangman," he says pensively. "Such a dark concept for a simple game."

Poppy draws out the dashes and slashes needed for her phrase in mind. "It gives a sense of urgency, don't you think?"

The stranger snorts. "Always has seemed like an unequal punishment to me."

She slides the napkin between them, the finished sentence ready for him.

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He quickly offers up, "'E.' One of the most common letters in our lexicon."

He may be right, but it only gets him one slot filled.

"T."

The man's head is drawn onto the gallows.

"Blast. I never quite understood why we start with the head. Feels less dramatic that way."

"I don't disagree," she says, happy that her plan has him ensnared so quickly. "But it's there all the same. Next letter?"

"A."

Once again, he is only rewarded with a single letter, two back from the E.

"Bollocks. All right, let me see…"

He guesses R, which earns the stick figure his stick for a body, making the stranger grumble. He flies through the rest of the vowels, even Y, where U earns him his first arm. S appears twice, finishing the word "IS"

His man is half-hung, and the stranger does not take this lightly, and carefully considers his next guess.

"You're so close," Poppy murmurs. "I can tell you're smart, you'll catch on quick enough."

He does not look her way but the way he reddens from her praise is unmistakable.

"M!" he declares, which earns him the first letter of the first word and the third letter of the second. He pauses then, the first words becoming clear to him. "'My name is" he recites, and Poppy fills in the letters neatly, giving him the duplicates that appear in her name as well.

He looks up at her, glowing and smirking and oh, yes, this man will most certainly ruin her. "Allow me to introduce myself. My name is—"he starts to introduce himself but Poppy stops him, holding a hand up.

"If you win, you get my name and we can introduce ourselves. If you lose, then I guess we'll never know."

She almost takes it back, with how he deflates at her words. But she feels a swell of pride when she sees him steel himself and look back to the napkin with a sense of determination.

"…L?" he guesses and beams when he sees that the letter finishes her last name.

"Lyons, Lyons," he rolls across his tongue. "But your given name still evades me…"

He turns his analyzing gaze to her and Poppy clenches her legs together. Gone is the lost, hazy look in his eyes and instead is a look that makes her feel he can see right through her. Self-consciously, she tries to fluster him back, tossing her hair over her shoulder to reveal that it's bare and tattooed in her off-the-shoulder dress. He notices, but it doesn't faze him.

Poppy is worried she is going to start blushing when he asks, "Have I heard this name before?"

"I don't recall hints being a part of how you play Hangman."

"Hmm," he mutters before taking up a fresh napkin and pulling his own fountain pen out from inside of his jacket, and begins jotting down names. Poppy lets him work, admiring his neat scrawl as he lists out five-letter names ending in Y, struggling to make the O fit where it should. He even lists out all the letters of the alphabet, silly man, and crosses out letters that have already been guessed.

A hesitant "D" gives his man his second arm, which returns the stranger to his napkin.

Suddenly, a veritable firestorm approaches them in the form of Karlach, tall and excited (more than usual) and talking so very quickly.

"Poppy! Hey girl, listen I hate to leave you here but I'm going to be heading out with Jen," she gestures behind her where Poppy sees the blonde—no—white-haired woman Karlach has been flirting with all night.

"Oh, yeah, no worries—" Poppy barely gets out before Karlach is parting the crowd of the bar like the sea, beelining for the exit and her hopefully fun night with Jen.

Mouth agape, she slowly turns her head back to the stranger who is staring at her with a similar expression, before they break down into simultaneous gut-wrenching laughter.

Poppy is still shaking with laughter when she fumbles with the pen to fill in the last letters: three P's to complete her name on the napkin.

"Well, I suppose it's a pleasure to meet you, Miss Poppy Lyons," he says, holding out his hand. "I'm Dr. Gale Dekarios."

She shakes his hand, still grinning ear to ear. "Can I buy you another drink?"

—

"Why pink?"

"Hm?" she mumbles, lips still wrapped around the lip of her glass.

"Your hair. It's such a lovely, striking color. I merely wanted to understand why you chose it."

"Do you want the general answer or the today answer?"

Gale cocks his head to the side, confused by her response. "Both? I suppose?"

She puts her glass down. "I've dyed my hair every color under the sun. And I quickly learned that I like, roughly, this shade of pink. I like red, I like bubblegum pink. Occasionally I'll dip into purple. But tonight? Karlach asked me to come out with her a few hours ago and my hair looked a wreck, so tonight's hair is due to a concoction of whatever bottles were almost out but not quite so I mixed them all together to create this."

Gale laughs. "Well, despite it's last-minute nature, it is quite fetching. I'm sure you would look divine in any color."

There he is with the flattery again. He bought the third round of drinks and he's loosened up more and more with each one. She's used to flattery, or at least she thought she was. He's just so earnest.

"Well then, you haven't seen me as a blonde," she deflects. "Horrible. I look half-dead."

"Now, I won't hear you talk about yourself that way. What is your natural color, by the way?"

"Dark brown. Not unlike your shoes."

There it is, that piercing look again as if he's looking right through her. "Just as I said, you suit most colors."

Poppy chuckles. "What happened to any color?"

"Retractions are allowed to be made! Especially when one learns new information that invalidates their past statements."

In the two hours they've sat like this, so far Poppy has learned that he is a professor of astrophysics at the local university (hot), loves to cook (hotter), and when the mood strikes him, tries his hand at poetry (the basement is flooded).

He's making this so easy. She had been admittedly nervous to come out with Karlach tonight, but even if this doesn't end up with her ridden hard and put away wet, she will still consider it a success because Gale is just that wonderful.

The bar is well and truly packed now. To prevent another mishap and to protect their little bubble, Gale and Poppy scooch their stools together so that nobody can come between them. Every so often their feet or knees brush together but Poppy doesn't move away and neither does Gale, to her delight. Gale smells like sandalwood and orange—heady, not unlike the old fashioneds he's been drinking. Right before the kitchen closes, they manage to sneak in an order of whipped feta dip and warm pita and every time their fingertips brush when they reach for the plate at the same time, Poppy feels more and more bold.

"Now, I've waited long enough. Please show me pictures of your cat."

Gale looks at her, stunned. "I don't remember telling you about Tara."

Poppy pointedly eyes his socks and the bits of cat hair clinging to the hem of his pants, then back up at him.

"Well, don't keep twisting my arm," he playfully grumbles. "Just a moment—"

Soon enough, his phone is out and he is showing her pictures upon pictures of the most beautiful fluffy, mottled calico-tabby cross she's ever seen.

"Oh, and this one as well," he says as he swipes, like a proud father. This new set of pictures, because one can never take just one photo of their pet in a single position, depicts Tara spread on her back in a patch of sun, her soft-looking fur displayed like a cloud and dangerous temptation.

"Does she allow belly rubs?" Poppy asks, close to Gale's ear so he can hear her over the din of the bar.

"Only from me," Gale replies smugly. "Though with enough treats and some catnip, she is wont to accept pets anywhere from most anyone."

"What about you? Do you like having you tummy rubbed, Gale?"

He flushes crimson at that, eyes not daring to even dart her way. "I think closeness earned from any creature is worthwhile."

He gets sad all of a sudden, which has happened a handful of times in the few hours they've spent together.

Gale has not gone explained in detail what drove him to "drown his sorrows" at this bar tonight. He mentioned that this was his first week teaching at a new school and that he’s new to the city, which Poppy can imagine is cause enough for loneliness. There's more to it, though, she just knows it.

"She moved with you, right? How's she taking it?"

"Oh, as well as any cat takes to change, which is to say horribly. But she's resilient, she will come around," he says absentmindedly. He pockets his phone and takes a deep sip of his drink.

But there's something else, lingering. Obviously there's more going on, and not that she wants to become Gale's therapist, but she's just drunk enough to…

"Why did you move, anyway? Moves are difficult, but this feels bigger than that."

Gale stares at the melting ice in his drink as if it holds the answers to the universe.

"I ruined my marriage," he says so quietly Poppy can barely hear it over the noise around them. "I broke her trust and she divorced me over it. I'm a horrible man who was deservedly ousted from his own home and forced to leave a city and job I loved to die in obscurity."

Her stomach sinks. This is what she hated the most when she prowled bars and clubs in her youth: finding out that the men or women or anyone in between were being unfaithful, or that there was something messy and dark hiding behind the facades they put on for the unassuming like herself. Five years ago, Poppy would have denied this mess in front of her outright, but…

"Well, I think I'll be the judge of that."

Gale looks at her, confused and afraid. "I beg your pardon?"

"I'm incredibly judgy, so I think I'll do a great job of confirming whether or not you are in fact as horrible as you say you are."

"Surely you don't…"

"Oh, I do," she replies readily, downing the rest of her drink. If this is the end of their evening together she might as well finish her drink now.

"Go on," she dares. "Let's hear it."

If he looked afraid before, Gale wilts under her gaze now. She wonders if he'll leave. He said he broke her trust. Did he cheat? Does he have a gambling addiction? Drugs? What could possibly be so horrible to have him shivering like a leaf in front of her?

"Well, if you insist," he starts, waving down the bartender and gesturing for another drink. Once his new drink is in hand, he turns towards her.

"What do you know about grants?"

Poppy blinks. "Not much, but I'm sure you can explain it to me."

Gale continues, "My ex-wife is the head of the department of where we both worked and we often worked together on grants and research, me being second author on many of her papers. Many of the projects we worked on together were hers. Most of them, in fact. She's brilliant and has deserved every grant she's won and more. She helped build my reputation as a researcher and scientist and has an eye for brilliant minds, myself included.

"I won't get into the minutiae of grant applications, but one of the more insidious things about them is the social games that surround them. Sometimes it's beneficial for multiple groups from the same department to apply for the same grant, to show need. Sometimes, however, it's important to let someone who has the best chance apply instead, as there's only so much money to go around. A grant from the Waterdeep Council of Aeronautics and Space Exploration became available, and I had something I wanted to put forward." He lights up here, the closer he gets to talk about his research. "I had been researching the effects of Karsus particles on electromagnetic fields, something that would change how we understand Lagrangian at a base level—" he sees that he's losing her and stumbles. "But I digress. Please believe that it is compelling. In any case, I wanted to apply for it, even came to her with a mostly finished draft to show her that I was serious. But…she disregarded it entirely. Told me not to bother, that there's no money in my idea. That it's a dead end. To leave the grant application to her.

"But I couldn't let it go, you see. I finished the draft and kept thinking about it, working myself to frayed ends over it, until I decided to just…submit it. The last day submissions were allowed.

"A month later the WCASE announced that I had won the grant. I thought she would be happy for me, proud of me, even. But I've never seen her more furious. She told me not to come home that night. I thought she'd calm down, come around, see how worthwhile the work would be for me, for us, for the department. But…" he drops off there, pausing for a while. "She never did. I've never been ignored so resolutely. I went to her office one day to try and have a civil word with her but instead found her in a compromising position on her desk, and, well…Divorce papers were served to me by an attorney the next day. Like she had been waiting to do it. Nine years of marriage down the drain."

He sighs, his shoulders turning in and making him seem half his size. "So now you see, now you've heard my sordid tale. If you want to leave, I understand. I wouldn't want to stay if I were you."

Poppy stares at him, confused, trying her best to understand how this is as devastating as he says it is. But the more she thinks about it, the more she finds nothing wrong. A part of her wonders if he's lying, that he's using her lack of academic experience to pull one over on her. But he's been the picture of respect tonight, and she is confident that her initial read on him was correct. The tension knotting her stomach begins to loosen, and she actually feels a little hopeful…and also a little pissed on his behalf.

"All I hear is that you won on your own merit and she's pissed you didn't listen to her. She sounds petty. A truly supportive partner would have at least talked with you about it instead of shutting you down. A good partner wouldn't have been so driven to get back at you that they would cheat on you. Like, what the fuck."

It's Gale's turn to stare at her, dumbfounded.

"I—I broke her trust as an academic, as her husband, her partner—"

"The point of grants is to be applied for…you applied…and you won it, seemingly fair and square. Seems someone believed in you, believed in your ideas. She didn't. None of that gives her good reason to do any of that. She sounds like a cunt. A petty cunt. Let me guess, now that you're no longer at that university, you don't have that grant anymore and she has it now."

Gale nods, looking at her as if she were some puzzle.

"And as your boss too, fuck. Nine years married? Next you'll tell me that she was your advisor as a student or something."

Gale balks then. "I don't see what that has to do with anything—"

It's her turn to look at him dumbfounded. "You married your advisor? Isn't that some sort of ethical violation on her part?"

"I was mature for my age! What we lacked in similar age we made up for with our minds, our shared intellect. I'm the one who broke our relationship, I'm the one who deserves to be banished as I am. I'm the one who deserves to be depressed at a bar, wishing that it would all end tonight." He turns away from her, burying his head in his hands.

All the wind is taken out of Poppy's sails at that, recalling how earlier tonight he did look like he was on the verge of…something. Something familiar.

"But you're still here," she says. Gently. Oh, so gently.

His face turns so quickly towards her that she wouldn't be shocked if it gave him whiplash. Poppy reaches out her hand to him, clearly an invitation to take it, but she has a second motive. She allows the black, mesh sleeve of her dress to ride up and expose the two, small words she has tattooed on her wrist, next to silvery striping scars.

"not today."

None of this goes unnoticed by him, the keen man she can tell that he is. She wonders if he'll actually take her hand. When he finally does, he laces his fingers in between hers and squeezes. "What small miracles this world holds," he speaks so very quietly, staring at where their fingers link together. His thumb strokes her hand and she lets him, enjoying how gentle he's being in the middle of a crowded bar.

They fall silent, Gale's touch feeling meditative, grounding. She hopes it feels as good for him as it does for her. She's not the one who needs it more.

"When did you know? That it would be okay?"

She recalls those darker days, the ones where she felt like he does now. Poppy Lyons does not open up to strangers like this. But she's drunk, her therapist's words are still ringing in her ear, and Gale isn't just any stranger. Not anymore.

"It was…honestly, it was such a small thing. It was late afternoon, near sunset. My blinds were open and, it was overcast. I was ready to go, but I realized that I couldn't remember the last time I saw the moon. That just…bugged me so much. That I wasn't sure when I'd last seen the moon in the night sky. So I told myself, 'not today, tomorrow.' And so I put it off a day. I saw the sunset, I saw the moon rise in a little sliver. And I thought, ‘well, I want to see the moon grow, so I'll wait again.’ It was 'not today, tomorrow' for a while. New things kept popping up, new little things that had me continue to put it off. Until one day, without realizing it, 'not today, tomorrow' was just simply, 'not today.'"

Now Gale looks well and truly like he's about to cry, his eyes are welling up and he looks so bedraggled, as if she just pulled him in out of the rain.

"Hey, hey," she soothes, leaning in even closer to him so that only she is in his field of view. "I'm here. You're here, we're here."

The tears fall anyway, Gale shuddering as he speaks quietly enough that she has to strain over the music and the chatter. "I want to believe. I want to so much," he gasps. "But it's so hard to see out of the hole when you're already at the bottom of it."

The bartender appears out of the corner of Poppy's eye and she mouths for water and to close out her tab.

She lets go of his hand and brushes away his tears, cradling his face gently with both hands. "That's why we live in the present, yeah? The opening only seems far away when you're looking at it. Just stay in the now and it'll be closer before you know it.

"Think about it. Today hasn't gone the way you thought it would, right? Did you expect to drink here by yourself and then…what? Die in a gutter? Find a hotel room? Call your mom? None of those have happened—though I do think you should call your mom at some point. And you know what has happened?"

"A stranger has taken pity on me," Gale sniffs, looking utterly pitiful.

"A friend has enjoyed every last minute we've spent together this evening."

"We're friends?"

"Of course we are. 'Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine,'" she recites. "I'm not going to lie, living by 'not today' makes you have to feel everything. Even all the shit. But the way out is there, just out of view. I promise."

It's when the bartender returns with the bill and two glasses of water that he kisses her; trembling hands hold her face like she his, and desperate lips taste each other's whiskey. Poppy's hands slip down his front to hold his middle, the soft, worn knit of his sweater vest something comfortable to cling to while Gale consumes her. She's been wanted before, desired. Lusted after. But this feels different, like some sort of renewal or absolution. For both of them.

She breaks the kiss and passes him one of the glasses. "Drink this, finish it," she pants, before signing the bill and shoving her card back into her purse.

"Did—did I? Are we?" Gale stutters next to her. It may have been only a short few hours, but Poppy has come to know Gale well enough that he's incredibly well spoken and even feeling his worst, does not stumble over his words.

"You're coming home with me," she says as she picks up her own glass and chugs it.

"As my lady commands," he says, a little dazed. Her lipstick is all over his lips and she passes him a cocktail napkin to wipe it off, as much as she adores how he looks in it.

In a flash, they're out into the balmy September night, the lights of the city dulling the stars in the sky. Poppy calls a car from her phone and soon enough one arrives and they're sliding inside, pressed close to one another as the driver heads towards her home.

"So did me quoting Mary Oliver really do it for you, or…?"

Gale huffs a laugh, looking lighter than he has all night. "I'd be lying if I said that wasn't at least a factor. But I must confess that you've completely bewitched me, and quoting 'Wild Geese' was just the push I needed."

Poppy kisses him then, all tongue, looking to lose herself on this car ride. But so smoothly, so effortlessly, Gale grasps her chin and slows them down. What this kiss lacks in outright indececy it makes up with being even more intense than she was intending. When he finally pulls away, she's left so stunned that she sits there frozen, just staring at him, mouth gaping just a little where he left it.

The bastard notices and smirks of all things, making indignation flare bright in her chest. She'll wipe that smirk right off his face.

With one hand skating up and down his front oh, so slowly, she leans in so that her lips are at his ear, and she starts.

"You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting—"

"Oh, you maddening woman," Gale groans, tightening his arm's grip around her shoulders and stilling her hand with the other. The simultaneous tightening of his pants around his groin does not go unnoticed.

"Something wrong?" she asks with an air of innocence, but unable to hold back her giggles.

"Nothing, nothing is wrong," Gale says, stroking her hand with a finger. The most positive thing he's said all night.

Soon enough, they're in front of her house: an adorable split level, mostly brick with a bay window and rhododendron bushes out front. She tugs Gale out of the car, thanking the driver and paying him, before they both make their way up her front walk, Poppy's hands fumbling for her keys.

It's never been this difficult, she thinks, to find the right key on the ring and get it in the lock. She even remembered to leave the light on so she can see what she's doing. But it's not until they're finally inside on her small staircase landing and the door is closed that it hits her.

It's been…a long time; years since she's done anything like this. Since she's done it. She's kept herself satisfied, don't be mistaken, but having someone new here for the purposes of…

"Is everything alright?"

Gale's voice breaks her out of her spiraling, and everything feels suddenly still. Like she's lost all momentum. She still wants him—fuck, she wants him so bad, but all of a sudden it's so much.

She tugs on the strap of her bag with both hands. Probably not good for the leather, but she doesn't particularly care at the present moment. What a fucking time to get nervous.

"Yes, it's—I'm fine. We're good," she averts her eyes, even though she probably knows he needs the reassurance, but she can't bear to look him at the moment. "It's just been a while since I've, ah." She pauses, unsure of how to finish her sentence.

"Taken someone home?" Gale supplies cautiously.

"That! Yes, but also the reverse, and more and—" fuck, now she's rambling she never does that, what's gotten into her?

Wordlessly, Gale calmly removes her purse from her hands, placing it on the small table by the door, and kisses her soundly.

This, she remembers. This is easy. She's usually so concise with her words, attempting here and there to branch out and be more poetic, mostly in her own writing. But in this moment where she found herself floundering, Gale Dekarios picked her up and set her right. She's always been better at showing than telling, anyway.

Poppy deepens the kiss and Gale welcomes it greedily, giving back what he receives in more than equal measure. She can feel his growing erection pressing into her abdomen and the excitement begins to outweigh the worry. Not today. Be here, now.

Gale is delightfully here, his hands exploring now that they're finally in private. The little whimper he gasps against her lips when he feels her piercings through her dress is criminal and the sigh he sighs when he grips her ass makes her whine helplessly into his mouth.

His fingers skate along the hem of her dress, which has ridden up with how she's raised her leg against his. If he's intending to tease, she can't tell, but it has the same effect, his fingers grazing along the curve of her ass, remind her of how thrilling this actually can be.

He slots his leg between hers, grinding his erection against her hip while he sucks kisses down her jaw, to her neck. Poppy's eyes flutter shut as he does so, goosebumps bristling all over her skin in response to his attentions.

"Tell me," his voice, turned gravelly, murmurs against the thin skin of her neck. "Tell me what you want and I'll make it happen. Whatever you desire, I'm yours."

Oh, what has she gotten herself into? This man is just full of surprises and the last thing she expected of this evening was that question kissed into her neck.

She was prepared to fight to get off this evening, but if he's willing—

"Use me—" it comes out as a rasp just as he tweaks one of her nipples through her dress.

Gale does the worst possible thing and stops and looks at her. "Pardon?"

Years of journaling and meditation and fucking therapy didn't prepare her for this, didn't prepare her to actually talk about this with someone.

It's not bad that she wants to get laid, she reminds herself. It's not bad that she wants this sad, sad man to call her a good little slut in his devastatingly attractive British accent as he fucks her silly. And she wants it not because that's what he told her she wants, but because she wants it, because it's on her own terms. That for once, she wants a person and not just to feel a warm body against hers, is new and exciting and freeing. She can be whatever she wants, and she hopes that God, the universe, or whatever else is out there listens to her prayers right now that he agrees, that this doesn't fizzle out right here against her front door.

"I just want to feel good."

"Well, I'm certain I can manage that," he ventures. "But to be honest, I'm not interested in objectifying you."

Poppy takes a deep breath, trying to find her words amidst the haze of arousal. "It's…fun," she starts, wanting him to understand. "Sex is fun. And while it's been…a while since I've done this, I'm back out here to try and finally ask for what I want. I want to get off, I want to get off with you. I want to have fun, to play, if that makes any sense. No pretense, no performances, just fun for both of us." The words feel desperate as they fall from her mouth. She had hoped this would be effortless, because she was tired of feeling like all of this was work.

But there's something that settles in Gale's eyes that makes her realize that maybe he does get it. "I don't think I've truly had fun having sex in quite some time myself."

Ah, but there's the hope. The light.

"I want to have fun, Gale. I want to have fun with you. To just let go."

His eyes alight and he murmurs, "To let the soft animals of our bodies love what they love?"

Poppy beams at that. "Yes, exactly."

"Then if we're going off feeling, can I tell you what I want? What I'm feeling right now?"

"Of course."

His hands that have been gently gliding over her sides this whole time stop and hold her waist tight. "I feel like I've been blessed. You have reached your hand into my pit and shown me kindess the likes of which I haven't felt in a long time. Like I said, it's been quite some time since I've had fun while making love but I haven't forgotten what it can feel like. My mind is brushing off the cobwebs of what this could be, and…I have the sudden urge to take you against this door…that is, if you're amenable to the idea."

Oh, she's so glad she bought this man a drink. Every worry dissipated, she kisses him, deep and wanting and hungry. He understands, Gale understands.

Gale slowly kisses down her body, lowering himself to his knees, his eyes never wavering from hers as he does so, now all dark and full of intent. "Then let me have the pleasure of doing so." He kisses the soft, inner skin of her thigh and her knees almost give out as his hands slide up under her skirt. He helps her slide her lacy thong down her legs and over her tall boots before pocketing them.

The trembling, panicking man from the bar is gone and replaced with a man who not only knows what he wants but goes after it with a fervor bordering on worship.

The moment he licks her, Poppy becomes a live wire. Pressed up against her front door, leg hoisted up over his shoulder, boots still on, panties in the pocket of a man she met less than six hours ago, she never would have thought spilling a stranger's drink would lead her here.

Precariously perched as she is on one foot, she leans into Gale in an attempt to find her balance and he growls, the rumbling feeling oh, so good—

"Fucking hells, Gale," she moans, weaving her fingers into his hair. "That's it, you feel so fucking good."

He pushes even closer to her, which Poppy didn't think was possible, but he's pushing the bounds of her flexibility from this position, spreading her wider so he can reach every bit of her.

Her head swims; Gale said he had been looking to drown his sorrows but instead he's making her drown in pleasure. Even her breaths come quicker, not due to a shortage of air but due to the fact that Gale has found exactly what she likes in a record amount of time. She hazards a glance down at Gale and, fuck, it's even worse. His eye smolder from their position below her, almost daring her to keep looking at him and so she does.

She rakes her fingernails against his scalp and he purrs, making her cry out his name again. Poppy undoes his little bun and slides the hair tie onto her wrist, tangling her fingers into his hair once more but now with a better grip and even better noises from Gale.

"Fuck, babe, you feel so good. You're so fucking hot, you know that? Making me the luckiest girl—ah! tonight. You're so good at this…" The praise was the right choice, Gale ramping up his efforts tenfold with her flattery.

She forgot how good it could be with someone else. Spending years taking care of oneself makes you think that you're fine alone. But oh, a partner is just as fun. Especially when that partner is as hell-bent on ensuring your pleasure as Gale is.

"Fuck, fuck, Gale—please, please, please."

Maybe the begging is just what he wanted, because after that he devotes all of his focus to her clit, sucking it, kissing it, whispering…whispering?

Just barely, between how wet she sounds and Gale's own moans comes her name from his lips, whispered in reverence with every breath he breathes against her.

She hits her head hard against the door when she comes, not disrupting the orgasm but somehow amplifying it with the sharp pain. It's pairs well with the bruises Gale is surely pressing into her thighs with the force at which he's gripping her.

He guides her through her orgasm, attending to her with a softness and intent that she's never experienced before. Even bringing her leg down, sore from being held up like that for so long, he's careful with her. The thing that breaks it, however, is the groan he lets out when he stands from where he was kneeling.

Poppy giggles at the noise, pulling him up the rest of the way. "Was it worth it?"

He kisses her in answer, locking their lips firmly with a hand behind her neck to keep her there. This kiss feels different: less desperate and less wanting but more brutal, more possessive. More like he doesn't want to let go, and that's okay because Poppy doesn't plan on letting go, either.

They come up for air at the same time, both panting heavily. Poppy feels like putty but Gale is taut like a bowstring, ready to pounce at any moment.

"Will you turn around for me, my goddess?"

Maybe if she was sober she would think he was laying it on thick. Maybe if she wasn't fresh off an orgasm, she would think it was insincere. But there is nothing artificial about Gale, she realizes. He is nothing if not sincere. And so she turns around, his hands bracketing her hips as she does so.

She thought she'd be lost without being able to look at him, but Gale tethers her. With every brush of his hands against her skin, to the kisses he places on the back of her neck after brushing her hair to the side, she feels as though they've both been made complete.

He presses the line of his body against hers and she grinds her ass into his erection, begging for more, for more of him. When he slides a finger through her folds for the first time, they groan together, Poppy arching her back to beg for more.

"Look at you, opening yourself up for me. Are you ready for me?" He slides his finger inside her and Poppy keens, pushing her hips back into his hand.

"Please, please Gale, I need more…" she moans.

"Anything for you, anything," he promises, sliding another finger inside and curling just right.

Wanting more, Poppy tugs her dress and bra down to expose one of her breasts. Taking Gale's hand, she directs his fingers around the titanium bar piercing her nipple and lets him take over.

Gale in short order he has her writhing with her arms and cheek pressed up against the door. His mouth hasn't left that spot on the back of her neck, his hot breath against her skin contrasting with the chill of the door.

"You know, I normally find it quite easy to be polite, to be a gentleman. But one cannot always be a gentleman and my God, your breasts were tempting me to break that composure all night, you minx. You knew exactly what you were doing. You knew how it would drive me wild, and now look at me. I'm about to fuck you against a door. I've never done this before!"

Poppy can't help but laugh. "Me either!" He kisses her then, slowly and achingly sweet between her shoulder blades. It's sweet, despite how wrecked she feels.

His hands move faster now, the wet noises echoing out into her quiet house. But the only thing louder than that are Gale's own constant string of noises, sent directly into Poppy's ear.

Her hips rock against his hands, remembering how to ask for more, how to reach for more. The words fall out of her mouth in the haze.

"Spank me," she gasps, pushing her ass harder into his hand.

Gale, apparently very eager to follow directions, moves his hand from her breast to her ass, tugging the skirt up so that it's rucked around her waist, but he pauses, warm hand resting on her backside.

"Are, are you sure? I've never…"

"Please," she groans, and he listens. His hand comes down with a sharp smack on her ass cheek and she wails. She'd never quite been able to do that to herself effectively. She's missed that sharp sting, how it just makes her ache even more.

Seeing how she responds so positively, Gale is no longer hesitant. He spanks her again, and she's in heaven now, fucking his hand while the delicious sting burns her skin.

Her hands scrabble for purchase and her fingertips cling to the molding of the half-moon window at the top of the door, the bare skin of her breasts tingling against the cooler hardwood.

"Please Gale, I want your cock, please," she begs.

He slows but he doesn't stop, laying a grounding hand on her ass. "It occurs to me we never discussed protection. I don't have—"

"My purse," she says, awkwardly gesturing with her hand to her bag on the small table to the side.

Gale fumbles with the clasp one-handed before the bag tips over and an obscene amount of condoms and dental dams spill out, Gale just barely managing to catch a strip between his fingers.

"My word…"

"Karlach shoved them into my hand before we got to the bar," Poppy laughs. "Said she had a good feeling about tonight."

"Remind me to thank her, then if I ever get a chance to meet her for more than a rushed goodbye."

The idea of Gale meeting her friends doesn't immediately scare her, but she is unable to put more thought into it as Gale notches the head of his cock at her entrance.

She's fucked herself on her dildos enough to be familiar with what this feels like but fuck she forgot about the anticipation of it all.

Gale just holds himself there, one hand on his cock and one tight on her hip, a message for her to not. Move. One. Bit.

"Gale," she whines, hips twitching under his touch.

"Forgive me," he groans, biting down on his words. "I just need a breath, a moment."

A moment might kill her, but she tries. She doesn't move her hips but there are other parts of her that move involuntarily at the temptation at her lips and Gale whimpers at the flutter of her walls around his head.

"I think you're going to kill me," he grits through his teeth.

"The feeling's mutual." Poppy cranes her head to look back at him and fuck. His eyes are scrunched shut and that double crease between his brows is back as he concentrates. Gale's gorgeous lips pucker as he focuses on his breathing, steadying himself.

"Gale," she calls gently. He opens his eyes and meets hers, looking almost pained. "Having fun yet?"

He laughs and oh he has the nicest laugh. "Yes, I think I am," he replies before finally pushing into her.

So much better than a dildo, she thinks. Even with the condom, the delicious give of flesh is apparent. He's so careful with her, pumping slowly to acclimate them both.

"Fuck," she whines, head reeling from how good it feels. She's thankful she wore these boots, the heel high enough so that she's at that perfect angle for him.

"Everything alright?" he asks, sounding worried.

"Everything's perfect," she purrs, arching her back and pushing her hips back until his entire length is inside her.

This she also forgot, that bottoming out with hips pressed against her ass. Gale curls over her back and presses his forehead to her shoulder, breathing even heavier. Poppy lets her eyes flutter shut, reveling in the stretch and press of him. He presses even closer to her, wrapping his arms around her middle as his hand strokes up and down her stomach.

"Fuck, you feel divine," he whispers, sounding like he's hanging on by a thread, hands gripping her hips so tight that it almost hurts.

"Gale, fuck me please," she begs.

He straightens up and there's a sharp intake of breath behind her as his hand comes down hard on her ass and alights stars behind her eyelids.

"Fuck—" she whines as Gale finally starts to fuck her and braces her forearms against the door.

Gale is a constant stream of moans, a once-eloquent stranger now a friend whose brain sounds as though it's melting out of his ears.

He spanks her one more time before exploring, hands roving across her stomach, up and down her back, across her ass. She wishes he had more hands, she thinks, to touch her everywhere all at once.

His hands roam farther, down her front past where her dress is rucked up around her waist. His fingers comb through her curls until he finds her clit and begins stroking it in slow circles.

"Oh my God," she whines, hips pulsing against his.

Gale doesn't complain this time. His hips join hers, volleying her between his fingers and his hips in waves of pleasure.

She uses her arms as leverage, pushing her forearms into the door as she fucks him. This is what she wanted: to get lost, to just feel. Nothing else matters, just Gale.

The hand not busy playing with her clit comes up to grab her breast and oh that makes her lose it.

"Fuck me, fuck me, Gale, please fuck me. Please, please, please, fuck. Ohhhh my goddddd," on and on the words spill from her mouth, egging him on.

The door's rattling beneath them now. And between that, both of their noises, and the wet and delicious slap of his hips against hers, Poppy wonders faintly if the neighbors can hear them. She almost hopes so. She can't remember enjoying sex this much and she wants more.

"You like this, Gale? You love fucking my wet pussy? You wanted to take me in the bar, didn't you? Just wanted me to drag you into the bathroom and fuck you silly."

Gale whines into her shoulder, hips stuttering against hers.

"Use your words, babe. Tell me how much you want me. Tell me more about how my tits drove you wild."

"If you dragged me away from the bar I would have followed you, no questions asked. I would have pressed you against that bathroom door and tugged your dress down and up so I could taste all of you. I would have taken you like I am now, or maybe on top of the sink so I could kiss those sinful lips of yours as I drove into you over and over again," each 'over' punctuated with a thrust as if to demonstrate his intentions. "I wanted you to fuck me and wail your pleasure for the whole bar to hear. I wanted them all to know that I was worthy. That only I could make you feel that good, that I was your chosen for the evening."

Her own bathroom-fucking days are over but to find out that sweet, sweater-vest, cat sock-wearing Gale Dekarios, PhD, would have followed her and taken her like that makes her impossibly wetter.

"They would've kicked us out, you know," she adds, head spinning with his words. "We probably would have been interrupted—"

"And I would have ensured you finished at least once before they even got there. They'd have to break down the door before they could even separate me from you."

His forefinger and thumb come up to pinch her nipple now, tweaking the little barbell in a way that makes her keen. "I would do anything for you," he sobs, hips moving harder, harder—

"Are you going to come for me, Gale?" she teases, on the edge herself, brought there by his words. "Are you going to fuck me until you come? Fuck your good little slut until she comes around your cock and milks you dry?"

"Ohhhh," he groans. "Is that what you want? Will you come for me? Oh please, won't you come for me?"

His voice really has just been making her wet this whole night and hearing him beg like that while he's pounding into her is just what she needs. Gale's perfect hands don't stop their rhythm, they keep playing her perfectly as she tumbles over the edge, crying out as her whole body shakes in pleasure.

Gale rides her through it, coming himself at some point but Poppy's so gone that she can't even tell. Once he's done he holds her there, staying connected for a minute or two as they catch their breath together. Eventually, they pull apart, Gale tying up the condom as Poppy straightens out her dress and brushes her hair out of her face, pulling it into a ponytail with his hair tie still on her wrist.

When she turns around, he's still holding the tied-off condom, unsure of where to put it, deliciously disheveled. Poppy realizes now that she hasn't seen him naked, that she never saw his dick. She reaches for his tie then, loosening it and fiddling with the tiny buttons on his shirt.

"What are you doing?" he asks, bemused.

"Making you more comfortable. I want to keep looking at you and—what is this?" Unbuttoning his shirt has exposed beneath a thatch of soft chest hair, the swirling lines of a tattoo just below the hollow of his throat.

His hand not holding the condom stills her hands and meets her gaze, eyes hesitant in a way she can't place.

"I have had the most wonderful evening with you. I have never felt so wanted, so one with someone." He guides one of her hands up to his lips and kisses her palm, nuzzling her there. But there's this sadness in his tone…

"Why does this sound like goodbye?" She says it teasingly but her stomach sinks despite her words. She had kept her expectations of sleep and where she was going tonight loose, one of the things her therapist worked with her to stop worrying about when getting back out there, and while she realizes that she never once clearly considered that Gale would stay the night, the idea that he wouldn't makes her want to throw up. Why does the idea of letting go of him now make her shoulders tense up horribly?

"Forgive me, but I did not want to overstep…this is your home and I only want you to be comfortable."

An opening—she takes it, "Don't you dare," she says, the words spilling out of her mouth. "Kick your shoes off and come with me. I don't think I'm done having fun with you yet."

Gale's eyes grow so big and wet and shiny now, but no longer full of tears but full of hope instead.

"Thank God," he chuckles, trying to mask his relief. "Candidly, I don't want this day to end."

Poppy pulls down the cuff of his jacket to take a look at his watch. "It's 1:13AM."

"Blast."

Bending down to unzip her boots and tossing them to the side for future Poppy to worry about, she tugs him up the stairs.

"Come with me. I want to see what you look like in my bed."

---

@dr-demi-bee @lanafofana @spooky-lil-bee @feedthepheasants @crimson-and-lavender @pouroverpaloma @marlowethebard @seastar-bunny @caughtnyact @roguishcat @femmefuck @asorceresswrites @galelover042

He just had something to show Poppy on his phone. He wasn't even looking up as he pushed the door open, calling her name. And there she was: in the bathroom, standing at the sink with the water running, a toy of a sexual nature covered in suds in hand. What made it worse was that it wasn't the only one; two other smaller ones sat to the side on a microfiber towel, freshly washed. But not only that, the toy in her hands looked like no sex toy he's ever seen before, and he hasn't been able to wrench the vision from his mind.

And so he lays there, facedown on his bed with the door tightly shut after blurting out a rapid, bumbling apology, his pants tightening as his ever-curious brain imagines what that toy could possibly be used for. Gale is no prude, and he has lived with the internet for most of his life. He is not unaware of the range of sex toys that exist in the world—but that toy was like nothing he had ever seen.

It was…long, but not like any usual dildo or vibrator. And he's seen the ones that look monstrous—in pictures, mind you!!—but it was no tentacle she held in hand. It was smooth, untextured. Not ribbed in any way along the shaft. It wasn't solid like the dildos Gale is passingly familiar with, but split down the middle with one end curling up on itself.

His mind flicks through the possibilities, imagining Poppy splayed out on her bed, breathless. One moment he imagines her clutching it around the shaft and moving it up and around her arousal, thumb tapping away somewhere to adjust the vibrations. Because surely it vibrates somewhere? The scene changes and she's bent over, the whole toy clutched between her closed legs as she grinds on it, every harsh breath a whimper—

Gale reaches up and pulls a pillow toward himself, clumsily shoving it between his body and the bed. This isn't the first time he's fantasized about Poppy, but it’s the first time he's finally touched himself about it. He’s never even gone beyond palming himself to the thought of her, but the lurid images of Poppy fucking herself with this mystery toy chuck the rest of Gale's self-control over the proverbial cliff.

His face now burns for a different reason as he tears off his glasses and smushes it into the bed. He arches his back to give himself a better angle as he thrusts against the pillow.

Living with her is like torture sometimes. He moved down to Baldur's Gate this summer for his internship, and who is he to turn down a free place to stay? Especially from such longstanding family friends. He was anticipating a pleasant summer catching up with Poppy and Adrianne and enjoying their hospitality, even with his falling out with Mystra still taking up most of his thoughts and souring his mood. But instead, he experiences the worst kind of torment on the daily.

Maybe it's because they didn't see each other as they grew older, but he wasn't expecting this buxom woman who only wears the shortest shorts and tank tops in the summer heat. One day during his first week there, they took a trip to a beach in Rivington and Poppy removing her coverup to show the skimpy black bikini underneath made him retreat to the cold water for a good, long while.

And it's not just her looks. Has Poppy always been this funny? This sharp-witted? Gods, he loves talking to her about everything and anything but he finds that lately he works harder to make her laugh than to impress her with his swaths of knowledge. To see those pink lips curl up as she closes her eyes and arches her head back…

"Fuck," he whimpers into the bedspread.

Gale bears his hips down into the bed, imagining the noises she'd utter in pleasure, imagining the toy in her hand…

Was the toy meant to be shared? He could imagine maybe the toy was meant to sit between both of them—but where would that curled end fit? No matter. His fingers grip his bedspread so tightly his knuckles turn white. His shoulder is sitting funny but he's so worked up he doesn't even care.

Poppy's skin always looks so soft. Oh, how he wants to lick the salt from her skin, how he wants to find every little thing that makes her tick, makes her squirm, makes her moan his name—

The sound of her name is muffled by the bed as Gale comes. His eyes are closed but his vision goes white and his jaw slack as the pleasure courses through him.

Thank the gods for a sturdy, quiet bed, Gale thinks as he comes down from his high. Some part of him does hear Poppy walk out of the bathroom, turn off the lights, and walk across the landing to her room before shutting the door behind her, but he doesn't fully acknowledge it. And that's when the shame starts to appear.

She has the right to not be leered at in the privacy of her own home, in which he is a guest. They didn't have to offer up their spare room! And what would Adrianne think of him, ogling her daughter as he has been? He's no better than some of the boys he went to Blackstaff with who turned bug-eyed and slack-tongued like in the cartoons the moment a pretty girl walked by. At least, that's what it feels like. Whenever Poppy newly enters his vision, each time he is assaulted by her, shocked by her. As if every time he's seeing her is for the first time all over again.

He sits up a little and groans at the crick in his neck, bringing a hand up to massage it. The groan turns, when he moves his hips and feels his spend stick him to his briefs.

Is she seeing somebody? Is that who the toy is for? Familiar self-loathing rots away in his stomach. If Mystra discarded him, surely Poppy wouldn't even bother with him. He's even here because of that very thing, being relegated to an internship at the Ramazith Institute in Baldur's Gate as opposed to the much more prestigious Aumar Industries in Waterdeep. For which he’d had an offer, by the way. An offer he’d accepted. That they revoked. At Mystra's behest.

He was made to suffer here, in every way possible.

Gale quietly stands and shuffles to the recently vacated bathroom to clean himself up, making sure the door is closed firmly behind him and locked.

He takes his time, which only minimally helps the self-loathing recede. He is about to go back to his bedroom to sulk or better yet, find Tara to cuddle whilst he sulks, when Poppy's door opens and her head pokes out.

"Did you need something?"

"Pardon?" Gale starts. Dread pouring down his veins like ice.

"You came looking for me earlier. What did you need?"

"Oh! Yes!” Gale pulls out his phone, internally letting out the biggest sigh of relief while swiping open his code. "There's this incredible cat that competes in dog agility courses…"

-

Gale lets himself into the quiet house once he's home from work. Poppy's car is in the driveway but Adrianne's is nowhere to be seen. He recalls Poppy mentioning that one of her students cancelled their lesson today, which happens occasionally. He climbs the stairs, looking forward to locking himself in his room with Tara after the utterly shit day he's had when heavy, strained breaths catch his ear.

He turns the corner on the second floor landing and right through the half-open door, Gale sees Poppy sprawled out on her bed. She's gloriously naked and she holds the mysterious purple toy in one hand, thrusting it inside herself, the curled end flexing and rolling against her mound with every thrust. Gale can hear the motor running as it vibrates, and not only that, but how wet she is…

He's frozen there by her door as he watches her pleasure herself. The vision before him is so overwhelming that he can only stare. Sunlight filters in through her window and alights on the sheen of sweat on her skin and the sparkling bars piercing her nipples. Her legs are bent and splayed so he has an unobstructed view of her arousal, puffy and soaked. Poppy's free hand toys with one of her nipples which draws the most delicious noises from her mouth, better than in his fantasies.

The stiffening of his cock is more of an inevitability than anything else. He's spent hours these past few days wondering what this toy could do, and a few failed internet searches, only to have his questions answered with a live demonstration.

"Gale…"

His name startles him, but he quickly realizes it's coming from Poppy.

Oh, it nearly undoes him, hearing her beg for him like that. Seeing her hips roll faster and with more intention as she moans his name, as she is surely imagining…

"Gale…"

Gale's eyes snap to her face and he's trapped now—because her eyes have caught him. Poppy hasn't stopped playing with herself, if anything the last groan of his name came out more broken than the rest. His hand stops dead from where it was palming his length through his trousers. When did he start touching himself?

"Don't stop on my account," she breathes, a pleased smile bowing across her face. "Let me watch, please?"

Is she pouting? He really is a goner. Gale drops his backpack unceremoniously onto the floor outside her door before stepping into her room, palming his hardness with renewed vigor.

If the view of Poppy masturbating from the hall was overwhelming, the view from the foot of her bed shatters him. Tattoos that have constantly teased him from where they poke out from under hems or above waistlines except for that one tortorous beach day are now fully visible, like a private gallery just for him. A whimper croaks out from his mouth at his new view: the shine of her arousal coating the inside crease of her thighs and the length of the toy. From here he can hear both motors rumbling away at different speeds. And just beside her bed, her bedside table drawer is sitting open with an empty drawstring bag draped over the side, with other filled bags taunting him with their mere presence from inside the drawer.

Poppy's pout persists as her eyes drop to where he touches himself over his clothes. "Can't I see?" It comes out so quietly, but he could never mishear Poppy Lyons begging to see his cock.

Gale's hands shake a little as he unbuckles his belt, his eyes never leaving hers. A particular thrust with the toy makes a shudder roll through her body and that's enough to snap the threads of hesitation still holding him back. His hands fumble as they shove his shirt, trousers, and briefs out of the way and he frees himself, groaning at his own touch and the way Poppy's eyes widen when he finally exposes himself.

"Fuck," she whines, fucking herself faster.

Gale is under no illusions that his cock is anything but above average in size. Mystra's hesitant and almost sneering reaction reaction had been unfavorable to say the least, but the unabashed want transfiguring Poppy's face makes him impossibly harder.

He tries to pace himself, but the urge to match her is too strong. It's barely been a few short minutes but he's as hard as diamond and could honestly come at any moment. Poppy's chest heaves with her exertion and her free hand has moved to fist the mussed sheets of her bed. Her breathing quickens and reaches a fever pitch, a keen breaking her throat and her whole body shaking as she comes.

"Gods," he gasps in awe. He doesn't think he's seen anything more beautiful.

One of her trembling hands removes the toy as she comes down from her orgasm, fingers fumbling to turn off the motors on the vibrator. "Come on me, Gale" she begs.

He just about comes at that moment, but his body has enough sense to listen and scramble one-handed up her mattress until he is between her legs and hovering over her, hips bucking into his hand.

"Poppy," he whines as he comes, unable to hold himself back any longer. Ropes of cum paint her stomach and breasts as he shudders with pleasure.

Gale slumps, catching himself on his hand planted right next to her waist. His thoughts are moving like molasses as he comes down from his high, and Poppy's bare legs settling onto his thighs send shivers up his oversensitive body. Their eyes meet, and he breathes in to say something, anything, when the telltale sound of jangling keys and the front door opening makes him stop breathing.

"Hey, kids!" Adrianne calls from downstairs. "I picked up dinner from The Mermaid on my way home." Her voice grows farther away as she walks deeper into the house, away from the stairs.

Suddenly very aware of their current predicament, Gale blushes fiercely as he tucks himself away. He flounders there, looking at the mess he made of her but unsure if he should clean her up himself or go back to his room to avoid being caught by Adrianne.

"I'll take care of it, don't worry about it," Poppy murmurs. Her eyes, normally so piercing it's as though she can see right through him, are hazy and pleased. He's so enamored by her face that he doesn't see her scooping up some of his spend with two of her fingers until her lips are already sucking it off her fingers.

"Poppy?" Adrianne calls. "Can you grab more paper towels from the attic?"

"Sure! Be down in a minute," she calls back, not breaking her eye contact with Gale.

Gale takes the message to finally get up, backing off of the bed even though removing himself from Poppy physically hurts. Scurrying to his bedroom, he shuts the door behind him and as he strips off his work clothes, he hears Poppy pad to the bathroom to clean herself up.

That night, long past dinner, long past everyone has gone to bed, Gale lies awake with the image of Poppy breathless and covered in his come replaying again and again in his mind.

~

@dr-demi-bee @lanafofana @spooky-lil-bee @feedthepheasants @crimson-and-lavender @pouroverpaloma @marlowethebard @seastar-bunny @caughtnyact @roguishcat @femmefuck

Gods, he hates Lorroakan. A self-important prick who loves that Gale has to report to him. There is nothing wrong with only having a Bachelor's degree, but Lorroakan seems to thrive off of reminding Gale that Gale is but a lowly intern despite being in school for his Master's, while Lorroakan has a permanent position and is already establishing himself in the field. Between the near-constant jabs, snide comments, and menial tasks that were not part of the job description, Gale shuts himself in his room most days after work, utterly fuming until the others come home and call him down for dinner.

But today is different. Today, Lorroakan's comments turned personal. Comments about Gale's physique, background, even his own mother that Gale can't even attempt to refute given that Ramazith always seems to walk by right after Lorroakan says his piece. And so he arrives home, pissed off to the point of shaking.

Gale is not a violent man, but having to restrain himself all day has left him wound tight, and the moment the door is closed behind him he yells into the empty house, surely scaring Tara, but he doesn't care. He practically launches his backpack into the back of the couch as he spits out in a torrent every vile word that's been boiling in his throat since this morning. He's on a roll when he turns in his ire to find Poppy standing in the doorway to the kitchen, looking stunned with the washing up gloves still on her hands, wet and dripping, as she had clearly just been doing the dishes.

All wind taken out of his sails, Gale slumps and pants, his heart unsure how to react now with the mix of emotions cooking within him. Remnants of brilliant anger meld with humiliation—specifically from the look in her eyes. The minute amount of fear there that makes him recall the stories his mother told him about Poppy's father—used as moral lessons on how not to be a husband or father.

"Hells, I'm—what are you doing home early?"

Her voice is quiet but steady when she responds. "I had to bring my car to the mechanic and then I took a cab home.”

His breath comes heavy now, almost labored. I scared her, didn't I?, he thinks. I'm everything Lorroakan says I am: a privileged prick who deserves every bad thing that's happened to him.

"I'm sorry—I—" The words stick in his throat like molasses but also threaten to undo him. But what else can he say other than apologize? So he tries again.

"I'm…I'm sorry—" and he breaks, his body concluding that tears are in fact necessary.

He can't bear to look at her. Turning around, he trips over his backpack before unceremoniously scooping it up and running up the stairs, shame coursing over him like acid.

Shutting his bedroom door behind him a little too loudly, he throws himself onto his bed where the quietest muffled mrrp is the only indication he receives that Tara is under his bed. He deserves to have everyone mad at him. Mystra has thrown him away, Lorroakan lives to stomp Gale under his discount shoes, Tara is displeased, and now Poppy is surely disappointed in him. Which will only lead to Adrianne becoming disappointed in him—and now the tears start afresh.

Why is he even here? This internship has been feeling less and less worth it with every passing day. But this was supposed to be worth credits and without it…the trajectory of his last year of his Master's completely changes. Is his research still even available? Surely Mystra has replaced him by now…

A soft knock at the door disturbs his pity party, followed by a just as soft voice. "Gale? Can I come in?"

Part of him wants to tell her to go away, to leave him alone. But he recalls how he just stormed away crying and winces at his behavior. She deserves another apology, at minimum. It's the least she deserves, and she deserves so much more than that. Sitting up, he wipes the snot off his nose with his sleeve, feeling utterly foul.

"Come in," he croaks, head hanging low as he sits on the edge of his bed.

He sees the door open at the edge of his vision, and Poppy's bare feet step into his room.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Dread courses through him at the idea of this conversation, at the idea of having to talk about his anger with her. He's already apologized, but he'll gladly castigate himself before her.

His apologies are a deluge from mouth, words tripping over one another as he tries his best to express how sorry he is that he scared her, that he yelled like that in her home. That she doesn't deserve to have a raging man in her sanctuary. Muscles strain as he grips his knees with his hands, knuckles turning white. Gale is not even sure if he's coherent but he's about to get on his knees, if that helps, when his speech screeches to a halt as Poppy's hands gently cup his face. He feels her thumbs brush fresh tears away—he didn't realize he was still crying. His eyes dart up to hers anticipating hatred or disappointment but instead finds…concern?

"Why—" he starts, his words once plentiful are now dried up.

"Gale, you don't need to be sorry about yelling. But work has been clearly weighing you down and I wanted to talk about that, if you were up for it. You've been shutting yourself in your room every night, I'm not surprised you blew up."

"You aren't angry? Disappointed in me?"

Her eyes grow big at that. "Why would I? You don't normally get angry like that and I wanted to see how I could help."

Gale doesn't know what to do with this gentle touch, these kind words, but his body reacts anyway, with his face leaning into one of her hands without his permission.

And so…he starts. Much slower than before. He doesn't tell her everything, like Mystra and exactly what lead him to Baldur's Gate. But he tells her about how this wasn't his first choice, and how Lorroakan is determined to make his life a living hell. He's too focused on maintaining a steady momentum with the story that he doesn't notice how his body responds: his hands release their death-grip on his knees, his shoulders slump, his body leans forward until she no longer holds his face in her hands. Instead, his face is pressed into her neck while her arms wrap around his head and shoulders, cocooning him in comfort.

Poppy listens; murmuring her assent here, calling Lorroakan a "fucking cunt" there. One of her hands plays with his hair as he tells his sordid tale, and the scratch of her nails against his scalp is better than any massage he's received at the Temple of Sune back in Waterdeep.

Eventually, he calms. Not the satisfying calm from a good night's rest, but the bedraggled and heavy calm that makes you feel fragile. He still feels foul, but at least Poppy isn't upset. At some point during his story, he hesitantly wrapped his arm around her waist to hold her there. The large and soft T-shirt swamping her body feels like butter under his hands and his thumb rubs a spot in the dip of her spine, back and forth like a worry stone.

"How about this?" her voice ruffles his hair from where her cheek rests on his head. "You go take a nice shower. Wash up, feel like yourself again. My mom is out late tonight for a dress rehearsal and so I'm ordering pizza and watching a movie." Poppy moves back a little so that she can see his face and he hers. "And you are invited. Don't spend another night alone in your room."

An evening with Poppy. He's been here over a month and they haven't really spent any significant time together. But the house just to themselves? Sitting closely on the couch? He suddenly recalls the afternoon they had, Gale thrusting into his hand over her naked body, and his cheeks warm at the memory.

This isn't a date but…gods, he's not cleaned up enough for anything like this. Gale's hand begrudgingly removes itself from her back to scrub at the scruff on his chin. "Maybe a shave as well…" Mystra and his mother preferred him clean-shaven and down here in his depression he's let it grow out.

Poppy looks thoughtful at this, and rubs her thumb along his jawline. "I mean…do whatever you'd like. But, I think it suits you. I think it just needs to be cleaned up a tad, but I'm also not the one wearing it."

Gale's hand that's still sitting on her back comes around to tentatively rest on her hip. He doesn't miss how she shifts her weight slightly so that she pushes into him just so.

"Well," he smiles. "What movie did you have in mind?"

The Lords of Netheril is a trilogy of epic fantasy films based off of the novels of the same name. They also just so happen to be Gale's and Poppy's favorite books and movies. Karsus's Netherese stones as depicted in the novel's end page illustrations are tattooed on Poppy's forearm, while Gale has always been interested in the artistic tendrils of his orb, but never feeling brave enough to pull the trigger on that particular body-altering decision.

They sit on the couch in front of the TV, Gale freshly washed with beard trimmed. They have eaten their fill of pizza and Gale is on his second can of hard cider while Poppy cuddles into him with his arm draped over her despite the warmth of the house.

Everything Poppy has done this afternoon has completely turned his day around. Here he is, his horrible workday long forgotten and in it's place, a lurid image of more happening with Poppy. While his horrible work situation has been at the forefront of his mind as of late, Poppy and her body covered in his cum is not an image he would readily forget any time soon.

Earlier, Poppy had bent over to insert the first disc of the first installment's extended edition into the DVD player and it revealed that under the big shirt she wore was the tiniest pair of shorts Gale had ever seen. As they ate, she sat a suitable and appropriate distance from him. But now, with food consumed and Poppy well into her own second can of cider, she curled up against him without a word. His hand currently sits on her hip, barely a finger's width away from the hem with swaths of soft skin tempting him silently.

He's tense more than anything else; that calm the shower provided him washed away the moment Poppy pressed herself into his side. Her hand that's been draped over his middle this whole time teases him, whether on purpose or not he does not know. Her fingers toy with his shirt, rub rhythmically into his side, or even just hold him there, the kindest of touches. And gods, don't get him started on her hair.

She had started dyeing it during her mother's bout with cancer and has kept it up since, the long locks currently a dark pink color similar in color to the skin of a pomegranate. She takes good care of it if the scent alone is an indicator, something herbal almost like tea yet sweet at the same time. Due to how her head sits on his chest, every breath he takes fills his lungs with that scent, making him want to bury his face in her hair and more.

"Gale, breathe." Poppy's voice shocks him and he does take a breath, breathing in sweet air and the aforementioned alluring perfumes. He didn't even realize he was holding his breath.

Gale looks down at her, flustered, and she looks back just a few centimeters away. How did he get here? No courting has taken place and she is…here. In his arms. How far can he take this? How big can his first step be?

As big as he likes.

"Apologies," he chuckles, tension tight in his chest. "You're just so utterly breathtaking."

Gods, he's lucky. Her laugh makes her glow, ringing out right here at his flirtation, but she does not move away. If anything, she moves closer. The hand that's been draped over his middle drags up his chest to rest over his thumping heart, which is beating at a pace that matches the galloping horses onscreen. Her pink lips are curved just so and are right there and he can't help himself. Gale's fingers brush past the loose hair that's fallen out of her ponytail to cup the back of her head and bring her in for a soft kiss.

If he thought he loved her laugh, the sound she makes when he kisses her absolutely tops it; a hint of shock that melts immediately into a pleased moan. Gale wishes he could bottle up all her noises and keep them to himself forever.

Time stops here, on this couch. He's waiting for her to pull away at any moment, to tell him that he's misread the situation, but she keeps kissing him and so he won't stop either. Gale knows the movie well enough to know exactly how much time is left in this disc, but his favorite movie in the world cannot compete with this woman in his arms. There's a moment where they both stop to take a breath, and they just stare at each other with noses brushing together.

"Can I please keep kissing you?" he pleads.

There's that smile again, her perfect lips doing the bare minimum but it's enough power to knock him clean off his feet. He could never possibly get tired of this. "You don't need to ask."

Gale pulls her back in, deepening the kiss immediately. Her tongue greets his eagerly as she throws one of her legs over his own. Her hand on his chest grips his shirt, tugging on the collar and pulling herself into him. He doesn't want this to stop, doesn't want to let her go. Hells, for once he doesn't want to talk, he just wants to feel her need just as it is now: transparent and contagious.

He feels how her hips start to roll onto his thigh and he helps her, pulling her more upright so she can straddle his thigh. Gale steals the resultant gasp from her mouth once he's happy with where she is.

Her shirt has ridden up so now his arm is wrapped around her exposed waist, reveling in her bare skin. Poppy grinds her hips into his thigh as they make out and Gale can't help but whine into her mouth at her desire. His own want for her feels as though it's bubbling over and out of him, unable to be contained any longer. Each swipe of their tongues stokes the fire within him, every whole-body tremor he's able to coax out of her makes him feel like he's on top of the world.

Poppy's knee slips off the edge of the couch and they break away for but a moment as Gale catches her, pulling her fully into his lap instead. From here, both of his large hands cup her ass and grope at the barely-covered flesh. Her backside has taunted him all these weeks in this house, and now in his hands it's impossibly better than he imagined.

Both of her hands card through his hair as they continue. Poppy's whip smart and that has not disappeared with her desire. She pulls just so at his hair at the base of his scalp and keeps tugging even when he has to stop kissing her to groan deeply, seeing stars behind his closed eyes. Her teeth graze his neck where he's bared it and he jolts, jostling her in his lap. Her soft, wet lips traverse down his neck until they reach the soft meat of his shoulder, bared slightly by her pulling at his collar.

He was hard long before he pulled her onto his lap, and Poppy reaps the benefits. Her moans turn broken and desperate the longer she grinds on him, muffled only by her mouth sucking and licking his neck. The combination of her grinding on his hard cock, pulling on his hair, and sucking hickeys into his neck makes Gale cast broken whimpers into the otherwise empty house. He writhes under her ministrations, bucking his hips up into her own.

Gale grips her hips and pushes her down onto him, pressing his clothed length into her warmth, itching for more. A strangled moan that could be argued sounds like Poppy's name croaks out of his throat desperately.

"What was that?" she teases, her hot breath tickling his sensitive skin.

She releases his hair and he looks up at her, glasses askew on his nose. "I think you've been sent by the gods to torture me."

"Oh, but you like it," she purrs, her hips not stopping their torturous gyrating. "I've been wanting to do this for ages." "Ages?" he gasps. He wants to ask more, to explore to what extent she means by that, but it's in that moment Poppy decides to strip off her shirt.

Now only wearing a soft-looking lace bralette, he has a perfect view of her gorgeous cleavage. The shock of it all makes him utter a trembling "hells."

He's upon her in a moment, kissing down her neck to the swell of her chest. Gale's hands tease her back; the tips of his fingers brush lightly up her sides, sending a shiver through her whole body. His hands come around her front to cradle her breasts, both piercings sitting between his fingers through the thin fabric. She keens at his touch and pushes his hands into her chest with her own. Taking the hint, Gale gropes a little rougher, massaging her chest with his hands.

She tugs at his shirt and he breaks away from her for but a moment to tear the offending layer away, completely dislodging his glasses from his face. Poppy gathers them up and leans back, placing them on the coffee table behind them, before coming back to continue kissing him.

She kisses every groan and gasp he sighs, wanting to be just as close to him as he does her. Now that he's shirtless, Poppy's explore eagerly. Her hands rove over his shoulders and back but keep coming back to his hair, tugging and making him continue to moan, a long string of low tones that she summons from him over and over again.

Gale has started sliding down the couch as they make out and he's now at this wonderful angle that dangles her breasts in front his face and allows him to more easily thrust back up into Poppy's wanting hips. Unfortunately, it quickly creates a crick in his back that screams at him the longer he sits there. No matter.

Gale loops one arm around her and manages to smoothly reposition them so that she is laying down on the couch beneath him. It seems Poppy didn't expect this, with the surprised gasp she huffs once she settles into the couch. Her normally pale eyes are dark and her lips are swollen and even more pink from all the kissing.

His deft fingers slip past the soft fabric to find her hardened buds beneath, the titanium bars enticing him to no end. A gentle nudge makes her whine and a twist makes her shudder. And the noise she makes when he bends down and takes her nipple in his mouth? Hells, he's a goner.

Poppy's legs wrap around his waist, trapping him, but is he really trapped if he wants to be there?

At this angle he can't grind into warmth like he'd prefer to, but every teasing brush of his tented shorts against the couch or her thighs sends ripples of pleasure through him.

"Fuck, Gale," Poppy gasps.

The flat of his tongue catches her nipple as she says this, Gale's eyes meeting hers.

"Need something?" he murmurs, not breaking eye-contact with her but still toying with her breast with one hand, watching her squirm.

"When do I get to see your pretty cock again?"

Gale chuckles. "Normally, I'd make you wait. You've dashed through all the rules I'd normally follow when courting someone. What if I want to take my time with you? What if I want to savor you?"

"Who says you can't do any of that right here? Don't tell me that big brain of yours isn't already thinking of a million different ways to fuck me on this couch."

She's not wrong. Far from it, in fact. The lurid imagery of doing everything and anything with her floods his mind. The rush is enough for him to forget about taking things slow and to instead sit up, pull her hips into his and press grind his own arousal into hers. Hells, he can feel the heat of her through their layers. And the way her eyelashes flutter at the contact makes him feel on top of the world. Yes, he can think of a million ways to fuck her on this couch, and a million more as how to tease her before they get to the main event.

One of his hands slides down her front to thumb at her lips and he finds her clit quick enough, making Poppy's eyes slam shut and her hands grip his shorts to keep him from moving.

With Poppy keeping the two of them right where they are, Gale's free hand tugs the bralette straps down her shoulders so he can grope at her breasts.

Gods, she's a feast for his senses. How she feels, sounds, moves—what about her taste? His mouth waters at the mere thought. He keeps toying with her for a few moments more before he can't take it any longer and he breaks Poppy's holding. Shoving himself back and sinking flat to the cushions, Gale presses his face in between her legs.

Her shorts being in the way makes it almost better—the shock of finding how wet she is through the cotton that makes his eyes roll to the back of his head as he inhales deeply. His tongue darts out to lick her and her taste is distinct even through her shorts.

Gale begins mouthing at her clothed lips, tempting her with the idea of him consuming her but not quite. It's quite effective, he preens, with how her hands rush to his hair to pull his face impossibly closer. He lets her think she's gotten the upper hand and allows her to grind against his face. His feet dangle off the arm of the couch as his hips pulse against the cushion, aching for more.

His tongue laps at the fabric, soaking it even more. He could get used to it here, between her thighs. His fingers loop around both the hem and waistband of the shorts and tug pulling Poppy even closer. This new angle allows Poppy's legs to fall open more, and giving Gale an unfettered view of her face as he lavs at her through her shorts.

If she was the one in control a tenday ago, the tables have turned now. She looks utterly debauched, hair plastered to her face and mouth in a pout that would be heartbreaking if it weren't for the obscene noises falling out of her mouth at every move Gale makes.

Gale feels as wound up as Poppy looks and as much as he thinks he could come from this alone, he doesn't want to. With a gasp, he tears himself away and considers Poppy, recalling her nightstand drawer full of drawstring bags.

"Beautiful," he murmurs, kissing the side of her thigh. It takes Poppy a moment to realize he's not just complimenting her but addressing her and she shakes her head.

"Mmm?" She mumbles, bringing herself back to the moment. "I'd hate to make you get up," he croons. "But as I recall, you have quite a collection of toys upstairs. Why don't you go pick something out and bring it back down?"

A wrecked smile lights up her face at the request. "Anything particular in mind?"

"I trust you," Gale replies quietly, kissing her thigh again.

They're a tangle for but a moment as they sit up, Poppy kissing him before running upstairs to her room.

The moment she's gone he sits and tries to take a full breath for the first time since they started kissing. This ploy wasn't just to give him a minute to collect himself, but Poppy is eager and is back downstairs in a flash. Beams of magic and clashing swords dance across the screen behind her as she strips off the last of her clothes and plops herself down on her spot on the couch before holding out a pink bullet.

He taps the button twice to turn it on an it comes to life, rumbling a consistent pattern. "Really?" he asks. "Just a bullet?"

Poppy leans towards him, palming his erection with one hand and grazing his ear with her lips. "I'm here for you. I thought this would just be a fun addition."

Tearing her hand off him, she falls onto her back willingly this time, an eager look on her face. He fingers the bullet in his hand, but another idea comes to mind.

Gale leans down then to kiss her, or so he makes her think. Instead he pauses just above her face so he can see her expression when he slips two fingers inside her.

"Oh fuck," puffs out hot from her mouth and tickling his face.

The sounds of his fingers working her is music to his ears. It's easy to find that textured spot when he curls his fingers up just so and the effect is immediate, the come-hither motion making Poppy pant and grip his back hard enough he thinks her nails will draw blood.

"Gods—fuck, fuck me Gale, please…" The last word is drawn out with Gale scissoring his fingers inside her.

Gale preens at the words, and at how she feels around his fingers when she says those words. "The ever-stoic Poppy Lyons, begging me to fuck her? What have I done to deserve this?" he teases, bringing the still running bullet up to circle her clit.

The effect is immediate. His thumbs finds that bundle of nerves quickly and he revels in how responsive she is. Gale moves the bullet in slow circles, making Poppy writhe and squirm.

"You—you've just been you. Been Gale." She says it as if it's obvious, as if those words don't completely ruin him. He hasn't done anything special if he were to try and think about it. He has not gone above and beyond to impress her like past relationships; no impressive displays of intellect or grand romantic gestures have been attempted. But to have her to reach for him so eagerly, he can't help but believe in his heart of hearts that she means it.

Poppy's hips meet his hand with every thrust, sending his mind racing with thoughts of what this will feel like with his cock inside her. What it will feel like to be one with her.

"Gale—" she keens, completely at his mercy. "please fuck me please." There's no more teasing, just pure want. He feels powerful, like he can do anything. Like he can ask anything of her.

"Keep begging for it."

"W-what?" she struggles to get out, each word coming out in halting gasps as he draws the bullet closer to her clit but doesn't touch it, making her quake in search of that tantalizing sensation.

"If you want me to fuck you, as you so eloquently put it, be a good girl and beg for it." It comes out an octave lower and more gravely than he intends but the effect on Poppy is immediate.

Words spill out of her mouth in a torrent. "Please Gale, please fuck me. I want it so badly, I'll do anything—Please PLEASE PLEASE—"

He's dropping the bullet and undoing his zipper by the second please, pulling his aching cock out of his shorts and boxer briefs. There's a wet spot on his underwear from the precum he's been dribbling from the moment she started grinding herself on his thigh. Gale wouldn’t love anything more than to sheath himself inside her this very moment but he holds firm, wanting to revel in his power for a while longer. He takes up the bullet once more and reinserts his fingers.

There is this thrill that dominates his entire being. He's never been this hard in his life and even just using his own hands and a simple bullet to pleasure Poppy is enough. She is enough, more than enough. Poppy is inexhaustible in her ability to completely consume him in every way possible.

"Could you come like this?" he asks, that lower octave back again. "Will you come for me, Poppy? Be a good girl and come all over my fingers?"

"Ohhh my gods," she wails as he feels her walls flex around his fingers.

"I know you have it in you. Won't you please come for me? I'll fuck you after, I promise I promise I promise…"

Together they're a wave, his hand and her hips working together as he holds his pattern for her. Her eyes are shut tight and she's all liquid as she comes. He doesn't think he'll ever get tired of this view, of how this feels. It's as though she's pulled him under, brought him to some new world where there's only the two of them.

Both of his hands find her face and cradle it, in awe of her. Gale lets her recover, letting her take her time to land back on Toril.

Even though he hates it, he lets go of her as she catches her breath. He tries to clean off his hand with his mouth, moaning at her taste, but he's sweating enough that he needs both hands to peel his shorts and underwear off.

Back between her legs, Poppy is still recovering, but the smallest pleasure-wrecked smile cuts through her fog and he kisses it off her face. He pours everything he feels into kissing her, hoping almost that she could read his mind and feel what he feels towards her. Gale's cock brushes up against her lips from this position and hells it's the best thing he's ever felt.

A thought. An unwelcome, halting thought freezes him in his tracks and makes his stomach sink. "Poppy…I don't have any condoms, I—"

"I'm on birth control," she replies readily.

It's not just that, but he's never had sex without a condom before. The prospect sets his heart racing even faster, combined with the immediate trust that makes his heart soar, promptly righting his stomach to where it once was. She is rewriting every past sexual experience he's ever had.

He can't fathom leaving her embrace, so he stays close to her like this as he tries to blindly line himself up.

Poppy helps, in somehow the best and worst way possible. She grabs her legs and opens herself up to him, completely rending his brain useless. A first. He notches himself at her entrance and pushes and gods he has no chance. Gale has felt many incredible things in his life but nothing can ever top this. Nothing ever will. The sheer tightness and heat makes him hiss through clenched teeth. Her walls flex erratically, as if she too is trying her best to stop herself from bearing down on him entirely.

Gale's barely halfway in and it almost makes him want to cry, how perfect she feels. It simultaneously feels as though he's reached paradise and come home. That home could be paradise commits him, fully sheathing himself within her. Was home always supposed to feel this good?

Poppy pants beneath him, trembling with the effort of taking him. She's so beautiful like this, so completely undone. He wasn't merely teasing when he said that she's breathtaking, he was speaking the truth.

Every breath weighs heavy and is thick in his lungs and in his throat. Somehow moving himself in and out of her mere inches is the most arduous task he has and will ever face. There's a moment where he pulls out and replaces himself with his fingers, not wanting to leave her wanting.

"You tease," she groans, hips bucking into his hand, begging for more.

"It takes one to know one my dear," Gale chuckles despite the tension he's holding in his entire body to not come this very moment.

He falls back into her, taking up the bullet and keeping it at the ready with one hand. It gets easier—barely. Enough to go a smidgen faster. In the past, there have been worries of being a good partner, of being attentive, of being worthy of not being snapped at. But there's something about Poppy that just reduces all those worries to nothing. This feeling of fitting together perfectly, the safety of being able to tease her to not only make her laugh but to have her tease back, to be bold and be rewarded makes him feel whole.

Each thrust of her own hips up into his makes Gale come apart, overwhelmed with emotion for her. He imagines just raw power and energy from his heart coursing into hers, as if that could make her understand this unwieldy emotion that he feels towards her now. Gale is a logical man, a scientist, but he thinks it could work. Or is even already working, given the words that spill out of Poppy's mouth in a frantic torrent as he fucks her.

"Fuck, you're incredible. You're so fucking good Gale you feel so good. Fuck me—yes fuck just like that—"

On and on her praises tumble into him and threaten to knock him out, to knock him off this careful precipice he treads.

Well if he falls, she might as well fall with him.

"Please come for me one more time. I know you have it in you, Poppy. Will you do it? Just for me? Will you come all over my cock for me? Please—"

Fuck, he's weak. He's coming before he even finishes what he has to say and has lost control of his voice. At least he's not alone. Pleasure explodes behind his eyes as she cries out his name. It's even better the third time, Poppy coming beneath him. Not just seeing, but feeling her entire being writhe around him and because of him completely and utterly wrecks him.

Everything is slow, afterwards. His body takes what feels like forever to re-acclimate. It doesn't help that he can't imagine letting go of her and since Poppy doesn't seem to either, they stay there for a little while longer. Gale turns his head and surveys the blurry mess around them. He can just make out his glasses on the corner of the coffee table, clothes strewn everywhere, their ciders long forgotten and warm, and a familiar "Please insert disc 2" emblazoned on the black background of the television, very likely reflecting their debauchery back to them.

Turning back to Poppy he finds her staring at him, smiling warm and unfettered. He'll never get tired of this, of her.

They take their time extricating themselves from the couch and cleaning themselves up. Gale showers again but this time Poppy joins him, helping him wash but not without teasing touches and many, many kisses.

A while later, both cleaned up and dressed with the movie continuing onscreen, they doze on the couch under a blanket with Poppy laying half on top of him like she belongs there. They exchange lazy kisses throughout the evening until finally sleep takes them both, the colors of the movie dancing across their sleeping faces.

~

@dr-demi-bee @lanafofana @spooky-lil-bee @feedthepheasants @crimson-and-lavender @pouroverpaloma @marlowethebard @seastar-bunny @caughtnyact @roguishcat @femmefuck

Pulling his bag higher up on his shoulder, Gale leaves the classroom and heads for the nearest staircase to head home.

A bright spring day welcomes him as he steps out into the courtyard, the past tenday of Mirtul warming up the city and calling the Waterdhavian citizens out onto the streets. Staff mill about the wide-open doors to the ballroom, measuring pillars and holding up swatches of fabric. The Blackstaff Ball is two days away and now he’s without a date.

His hand’s always been a popular one at the ball, but never popular enough to be asked as someone’s date before. Besides, Marietta and her boyfriend are infamously on and off again. She’s pretty enough, but when she’s not passing notes with her friends her contributions to class are middling at best…Gale’s not even sure if she wants to be a wizard. While he had been looking forward to being her date to the ball, he wasn’t necessarily interested in anything longer-term after the fact.

A group of underclassmen race past him in the dormitory, taking on the end of semester with carefree zeal. He unlocks his door and begins packing up the last of his things in his bag of holding; now that exams are over he can finally stay at home for the summer. Gale had been looking forward to the giddy anticipation of the ball for the next two days but instead he is now trying to ignore the disappointment festering in his stomach.

His mother always offers to send the carriage to bring him home but it’s such a lovely day and he’d much rather be outside. It’s a short walk into the Sea Ward where his childhood home resides, a villa with a sprawling garden that wraps around the whole house, all aspects of which are carefully curated by his mother. Gale walks around back through one of the garden gates to find his mother where he expects her at this time of day: sitting outside on the patio drinking a cup of tea and completing the latest Waterdhavian Gazette’s crossword. 

“Good afternoon, my darling. ‘Never forget this tragic playwright–’ six letters.”

Gale ponders for a moment before settling on the answer. “Alamos, mother.”

“Ah, yes thank you, that’s perfect,” she chirps. Setting down her quill and the paper, she levels her gaze at her son as he sits in his usual chair opposite her, his bag landing on the patio tile a little too heavily. “Something the matter?” she asks. Nothing gets past her…ever, really. 

“Marietta is going to the ball with someone else,” he exasperates.

“Now, that doesn’t make sense, she asked you to go with her!”

“She and her boyfriend got back together again, it seems,” punctuating his words with a shrug.

“Sit up, my dear.” Gale corrects his posture with minimal huff. “How incredibly inconsiderate of her, and downright churlish if I do say so myself. Two days' notice! Unheard of. Who raised that girl?”

“Nothing to be done about it now,” he mutters. He reaches for the teapot to pour himself a cup of a Calimport blend his mother has been favoring lately, adding in cream and a heaping of sugar.

A footman appears a few minutes later with a letter on a silver platter. Morena thanks him and her face alights as she looks more closely at the envelope. Cracking the wax seal open, she flips open the contents and scans the letter. “Oh, delightful! Gale, Poppy is done with her coursework and she and Adrianne will be arriving tomorrow! A whole two tendays earlier than usual, isn’t this splendid?”

Gale lights up at the news, his eagerness at seeing one of his oldest friends begins dashing away at the disappointment that had been making its home inside him. “That’s wonderful!”

Morena sweeps away from her chair, taking her cup, the letter, and the paper with her. “I have to alert the staff, we can’t have their rooms unprepared for them, can we? I’m so happy to see you home, my love.” 

Shortly after his mother disappears, Gale picks up his bag and weaves through the staff in the kitchen before ascending the back stairs. They’re technically only for the staff but Gale doesn’t care about that one bit. He strolls through the upstairs hallways sipping on his tea before coming upon his bedroom. The door is cracked open and after pushing it open finds his quarry: Tara sprawled out on his bed and snoring quietly.

He places his bag gently down on his desk chair before tip-toeing over to the bed, laughing to himself. Tara insists like a proper lady that she absolutely does not snore, even though the evidence right in front of him begs to differ. Leaning onto the bed, he reaches a hand forward to sit in front of her snout and he waits. It’s after a few twitches of her nose that the rest of Tara begins to awaken, yellow eyes blinking open and ears twitching like a predator’s are wont to do to keep an eye on the place. 

“Tara…,” he croons, gently scratching Tara behind her left ear just the way she likes. 

She grunts and stretches as sleep falls away, pointing her sharp eyes at him. “Good afternoon, Mr. Dekarios, I hope your day went well?”

“Yes,” he beams. “Mother just got word, Poppy and her mother are arriving tomorrow!”

“Good heavens, that’s early! It will be wonderful to see our good friends again. Now, how was your last day of exams?”

Gale stands, brushing some rogue tressym fur off his front. “Nothing of import,” he answers, making his way over to his desk and emptying his bag of holding of the last of his things from the dormitory.

Tomorrow can’t come fast enough.

—

Poppy and her mother materialize onto the Waterdeep transportation circle late the following morning, steadying themselves after the displacement.

“I don’t like that—what was his name, Lorroakan?” Adrianne comments as they right themselves. “I didn’t like that look in his eye. I assumed Ramazith would have better filters for who he brings on but maybe he sees something in the young man that we don’t.”

Poppy recalls the hungry and dark look in Lorroakan’s eyes whenever he scanned her body like some sort of thing to possess and shudders. “I think maybe Ramazith is getting old and can’t see that prick for what he is.” He also wouldn’t stop staring at my tits.

They stroll out of the transport room into the customs area, handing the officer their papers once they’re at the front of the line. Quickly enough, they’re outside and find the Dekarios carriage waiting for them. The footmen help load their luggage and they climb into the cab before setting off towards the Sea Ward. Poppy stares out the window, eyes not taking in the scenery around her. Her fingers tap on her legs mimicking the fretting for one of the songs she had played for her College of New Olamn audition months ago.

Adrianne’s warm hand settles on Poppy’s knee, stopping her brain in its tracks but her fingers keep moving, the muscle memory for this song well-worn in by now.

“Sunshine, don’t let the anxiety rule you. We’ll find out soon enough.”

“You said you had them divert the letter?”

“I did.” Her mother squeezes her hand. “Whatever they say, it does not reflect your talent or capability. I believe in you. Gale, Morena, and Tara believe in you. Whatever happens, you know they will also have your back.”

She knows her mother is right. There have been plenty of successful bards who eschewed college to instead go out into the world on their own…but New Olamn has been a dream for ages now. Waterdeep has been her second home for years and she and Gale always talked of what their lives will be like once they’re old enough to not fully rely on their mothers. The key change she chose for the fifth verse of The Knights of Dragon Down was probably too excessive… What if they didn’t like her monologue? Did they notice how one of her swords slipped near the end of her demonstration? Her drums were perfection but her lute performance could have been tighter—

“Poppy, breathe. Remember the exercises Mother Helena taught you.”

Poppy’s hands clench around nothing as she resists the urge to scratch at her arms. She takes a deep, shaky breath and looks out the window to truly see the city.

Five things I can see…she starts, willing her body to pull itself together before they arrive.

—

Gale takes a deep breath and speaks the incantation once more. He moves his hands just so to try and manipulate the Sleet Storm spell into a new shape but he feels the energy falter in his grasp. Suddenly, he hears bustling around the front of the house. Curious, he breaks the spell and shakes out his hands—he hasn’t quite figured out how to keep the ice from crystallizing on his palms—and walks toward the gate that leads around front.

The driveway is abustle with staff unloading the family carriage. Gale cranes his head in his search for one particular dark head of hair. He spots Adrianne with her nearly identical brown locks like the blackest cup of coffee almost immediately and he falters a moment before Poppy appears from around the back of the carriage. She speaks a few words with the footman there who hands her her lute in its case from the rear boot.

They exchange letters almost every tenday throughout the months they’re not together, but they’re not compensation for real company, or for more immediate conversation. Maybe he should finally get around to making those sending stones…

Stepping out of the rocking carriage and onto solid ground doesn’t do as much to help her stomach and mood as Poppy would like. She still feels strained from the carriage ride, having to utilize her breathing techniques the entire time to not much success. The Dekarios’s servants swarm the carriage, only making her feel even more overstimulated, and so she stalks around to the rear boot to start digging out her belongings herself. 

A footman unstraps her lute in its case and hands it to her, and it’s in that moment that she catches movement out of the corner of her eye. Gale approaches from the back garden, his hair has grown out just past his ears and his sleeves are rolled up exposing his tanned forearms as if he’s been working on his spellcasting. Seeing her best friend for the first time this year allows her to begin to push the worries of her college acceptance results to the back of her mind. 

“Pulled your nose out of a book to greet us? I’m honored!” she calls to him, cocking a hip to one side. Maybe if she forces the joy, maybe it’ll overcome everything else. Her fingers flex where they’re wrapped around the case strap, continuing to fret that song she’s been worrying about the whole carriage ride. Gods, she would love to just sit down at the Dekarios’s piano right now…

His heart skips a beat—for the past eight years Poppy has been the best part of every summer, even last summer when she wasn’t feeling her best and kept herself in bed most days. Having her even just in the same house instead of over 500 miles away is always a vast improvement upon his life. And having her joke and smile as a greeting? She had mentioned in her letters she started feeling more like herself but seeing it just makes his whole day and he can’t suppress the grin that cracks his face in half.

“The day I am unable to tear myself away from whatever I’m doing to see you will be a terrible day indeed, and you have my permission to thoroughly wallop me if that were to ever occur—which it won’t.”

“What a bold thing to come out of the mouth of a future archmage who will most certainly have more important things to do than socialize,” she banters as she approaches.

“My lady, you wound me,” he replies as he wraps her in his arms, placing his icy hands on her back.

“Mystra’s tits, Gale! Warn a girl next time!” Poppy exclaims, pushing him away playfully.

“It’s just some ice, no harm done,” he replies cheekily. “Nothing a student of New Olamn can’t handle, am I right?”

She’s so exhausted and still so frayed, it takes her longer than usual to school her face into something that’s not the strain that immediately flashes there.

“Surely you’ve been accepted,” he continues. “They’d be daft not to–”

“I haven’t heard from them yet,” Poppy replies tightly, avoiding his gaze.

Gale doesn’t think he’s ever truly read discomfort on Poppy’s face, but now her whole body reads it. In her body language, in her tone. He’s not sure what to make of it. He crouches down a bit to catch her gaze and he smiles, trying to coax one out of her. 

“I mean it! You’re a shoe-in,” he insists. So earnest. Poppy wishes she could be as positive as Gale but she knows better than to get her hopes up–it makes the inevitable disappointment that much more bearable. 

She forces a small, close-lipped smile. Her mouth might not mean it but her eyes do soften enough. His earnestness is so powerful, enough to melt away her icy edges. But not completely. 

“Thank you,” she whispers; genuine, but her heart aches with worry all the same. “I’m going to bring my things inside, I’ll come find you shortly.”

Gale wipes the melted ice on his pants as he watches her go. Even when she isn’t feeling her best, she is enough to wash his every worry away, enough to make him forget why he was so dejected the day before.

Neither of them notice how Morena pulls Adrianne aside furtively, leaning in close to whisper in her ear as they make their way into the house between staff unpacking the carriage and carrying things inside.

Gale is in the back garden once more working on the spell when he starts hearing the piano from inside. He pulls his watch out of his pocket and realizes that quite a bit of time has passed since Poppy and Adrianne arrived.

Gathering up his things, he makes his way inside to find Poppy in the parlor playing away.

The piano is a gorgeous thing that Poppy wishes she had access to year-round. She practices on the piano at Chromatic Scale as often as she can manage, but that old and slightly out of tune upright can’t compare to the immediate access of a baby grand piano. The song has been stuck in her head all day, and given all her pent-up energy, it feels good to let it out like this. She doesn’t notice Gale until he sits next to her on the bench, quietly listening and watching.

Gale loses himself as he watches her play, her expert hands dart across the ivory keys, playing a song she knows deep in her bones. He’s practiced at piano and can hold his own when performing a song but the ease with which her fingers dance across the keys is utterly captivating. His eyes steal a glance at her face and she appears completely relaxed, humming to herself as she works through the piece. Some movement out in the hallway catches his eye and looking up, catches his mother with a knowing glint in her eye as she observes them. Gale tosses her a questioning look and suddenly he’s frozen there, paralyzed. Poppy’s sparkling laugh fills the space and she moves into his view since he can’t even move his eyes, smirking at him.

“Careful, Gale. If you keep making faces like that one day it’ll get stuck that way.”

With a wave of her hand, she drops the Hold Person she cast on him. She used the song she was playing as her verbal and somatic components without me noticing, remarkable!

She snickers at the awe-struck look on Gale’s face. 

“You’ve been practicing!” he exclaims. “That was incredible. You need to show me again.”

Poppy doesn’t get a chance to as at that moment the housekeeper appears, summoning them all to the dining room for lunch.

As Poppy passes Morena on her way to the washroom, she catches a wry look in the woman’s eye that troubles her. Morena only gets that look whenever she’s plotting something and with all of them about to sit down for lunch, she braces herself as she washes her hands for whatever she has in store.

If Gale knows anything, his body language gives nothing away as she sits down for their meal, scribbling away in a notebook. It’s once their food is served and the staff retreats and Poppy is about to take her first bite of mackerel when Morena speaks up.

“So, Gale, I’ve been putting a lot of thought into what you told me yesterday and Adrianne and I have decided that you should bring Poppy with you to the ball.”

Poppy’s fork freezes in front of her mouth as a disbelieving look possesses her face. The fish falls off her fork as she narrows her eyes at the two older women in front of her, looking utterly pleased with themselves.

“It’ll be just so wonderful!” she continues. “After that wretched girl jilted you so boorishly, wouldn’t it be just the thing for the two of you to go together? Poppy, we’ll take you shopping once we finish up here, obviously. The ball is tomorrow, and we’ll ensure that the Temple of Beauty does you up so beautifully…”

“Tomorrow?” Poppy says incredulously.

Adrianne reaches an arm over to her friend to stop her. “Gale, sweetheart, we thought it would cheer you up. And Sunshine,” she says, looking at Poppy. “You’ve always said how you’d love to go to the ball, but we were never up early enough. We thought you’d both enjoy it. Morena has made a few calls to make the preparations a breeze.”

It’s an insane idea. Find her a dress and get her ready when the ball is tomorrow ? What the hells is Morena thinking? And why does this need to have been some sort of scheming plan crafted by their mothers? Poppy squints at her mom, not surprised that she’s going along with Morena’s plan but instead a tad hurt that she would go behind her back about anything. They share everything with each other and she doesn’t appreciate having this thrust upon her. Besides, finding a formal gown? In an afternoon? Impossible. Just the idea of dress shopping even with plenty of time before them makes her skin crawl.

Beside her, Gale sits frozen in his seat. It’s embarrassing how often his mother does this, bowling over him and making decisions for him. He loves her, truly, but this is…not the worst idea actually. Poppy’s never been up early enough to even consider asking her to the ball, and the idea of spending an already wonderful night with his favorite person on Toril excites him.

“This plan is absurd—” Poppy snaps and Gale looks over at her with concern.

“Do you not want to...?” Gale’s voice trails off, his grip feeling weak around the pencil in his hand.

Poppy turns in her seat to face him. “I don’t want to impose! And these two,” she says gesturing to their mothers, “feel the need to—”

“Nonsense,” Morena interrupts. “I’ve gone through a lot of trouble to ensure the two of you have a lovely night out together. Everything has been arranged. Poppy, we have an appointment at Meiroth’s in an hour and an all-day session tomorrow for you at the Temple. Just an afternoon to find you a frock is plenty of time. Oh, this is such a splendid idea, I cannot wait to see the two of you just sparkling.”

Poppy bristles, Morena’s choice of words and tone not going unnoticed. Her mother had assured her before they left that she’d finally be able to rest after finishing her schoolwork, not diving into one of Morena’s elaborate plans.

Gale and Poppy share a glance they’ve shared many times that says, “We don’t cross Morena when she gets like this,” before turning to their meals in front of them. Poppy turns into herself. An echo of one of Mother Helena’s reminders peeps up but is easily squashed down. 

The rest of lunch is the two of them listening to Morena prattle on about dress colors and hairstyles for Poppy, with Adrianne piping up with a suggestion here or there. Poppy listens, nodding and assenting where appropriate, whereas Gale stays silent for the rest of the meal. 

He occasionally steals glances at Poppy to try and get a gauge on how she’s feeling. While she never looks up from her plate, her furrowed brow only burrows the pit deeper into his stomach.

He finishes first and excuses himself, finally allowing his face to fall into the expression he’s been holding back–one of unease. Poppy’s obviously put-out by Morena (and Adrianne’s) meddling, but it doesn’t even seem like she wants to go, which hurts. Gale has never seen her with her hair and makeup done or wearing a formal gown, she’d be beautiful, she’d—he catches himself, acknowledging his flushed face in one of the mirrors in the hall.

This isn’t a date, they’re going as friends. That’s the plan.

Then why does it make him feel so sad?

—

This fucking godsdamned day. 

She never truly settled down after that carriage ride. Playing the piano had been an attempt to channel her restless energy elsewhere, and while teasing Gale always puts her in a better mood, neither were enough to snuff out her anxieties.

And then their mothers decided to meddle. 

Dress shopping was, in a word, grueling. Morena insisted that Poppy try on every available off the rack frock at Meiroth’s including some truly hideous options that thankfully were immediately taken out of the running once both mothers saw it on her. 

Poppy doesn’t mind being the center of attention, she is a musician after all, but the poking and prodding and her body being on display in such a manner eviscerated her already tattered nerves. It took all of her energy to not snark at Morena the whole time they were there. She was ready to beg her mother to take her home when the last dress she tried on ended up being a winner, notable enough for Poppy to herself to acknowledge that it was lovely, but only for a moment. By that point, the sun had set, she was starving, and her skin felt like it could crawl away from her if given the opportunity. 

She loves Morena. She well and truly loves her like a second mother, but gods every little comment about how everything needed to be just right for her precious baby boy set Poppy’s teeth on edge. This whole afternoon has made her feel more like a mannequin and less like a human and if she doesn’t get to hide in her room the moment she’s back at the Dekarios residence, she will not be responsible for what happens afterwards.

Dinner is laid out for them when they get home late with Gale nowhere to be seen. Poppy snatches a plate of food from the table and stalks upstairs without a word to their mothers, slamming the door to her bedroom behind her. 

Despite her hunger, the food sits heavy in her stomach and once she’s finished she leaves the plate outside the door and crawls into bed fully clothed, pressing a pillow over her head to block out the rest of the world.

—

The ladies are out all day and past dinner, Gale eating his meal in the garden with only Tara for company. He’s not used to an empty house. His mother goes out without him occasionally, sure, but it just feels different. Or maybe he’s just willing it to feel that way. At some point he transitions to his balcony, a book in his lap that he tries to read but to no avail.

Hours later he hears the women return. Gale can hear their mothers chatting away from afar before heavy stomps racing up the stairs smother their voices. The stomps only cease once he hears Poppy’s door open and slam shut, silence echoing throughout the house. A while later, there’s a knock at his door and the sound of his mother letting herself in.

“Gale, my dear. Poppy is wearing these colors, if you could transfigure your robes to match.” His mother brandishes two scraps of fabric pinned together and she’s outright giddy.

“I take it the trip was a success?”

“Oh!” his mother swoons. “She looks ethereal, darling. Just wait till you see her tomorrow.” Just as quickly as she swept into his room, she floats away, closing the door behind her.

Gale fingers the pieces of fabric in his hands. Marietta wanted them both to wear red in a shade that wasn’t quite complementary to Gale but he followed along nevertheless. The scraps he holds are both of a deep blue, one solid-colored swatch of silk while the other is more sheer with some lovely swirling floral embroidery and beading. He has not a clue what her dress could possibly look like but knows that this will look divine on Poppy. 

Tara hops onto his desk to take a look at the fabrics for herself. “My my, what a lovely selection!”

It’s no trouble at all to adjust his robes, turning the reds to blues and even transfiguring the pattern of the brocade to look closer to the scrap of embroidery. He keeps the gold trim—gold has always been his color.

“Mr. Dekarios, you’ve been sulking all afternoon, I thought you’d be excited about these new developments!” Tara chides.

Gale sighs, “You didn’t see her Tara—she was so upset at lunch. And hearing her slam her door shut? She abhors the idea. I’d rather go without her if it means that she won’t have a bad time at my side.”

“I say,” Tara harrumphs and leaps off the desk towards the open balcony door. “I’ve had enough of this. I’ll leave you to your brooding and pining over Miss Lyons if you’re so determined to avoid any sort of self-reflection.”

“I—pining? Tara, what are you—,” Gale stutters as Tara flies away, probably to go hunt or keep his mother company. 

Pining? He doesn’t pine over Poppy! She’s his best friend! He feels everything one normally does about their best friend. He loves spending time with her, to the point where he wishes she lived in Waterdeep so he could see her more often. He feels the most like himself around her with the way she doesn’t shut him down when he rambles like his classmates do. It’s as if she knows him almost as well as Tara does. Gale would do anything for her. And of course he feels admiration over her entire being: her wit, talent, determination, and not to mention her beauty are all worth that, the last one being a fact and not just something only he sees. 

His mind once again wanders to the image of them dressed up, him in his newly blue robes and Poppy wrapped in some concoction made of the swatches he caresses in his fingers absentmindedly. He feels his face flush at the idea that his classmates will see her on his arm. That they’ll be able to dance, his hand on her waist and Gale at the center of her attention. He recalls how her piercing eyes flashed at him as they bantered in the driveway, how her pants clung to her thighs as she sat at the piano…

Gale freezes at the thought and he shakes his head as if to be rid of it. That’s not proper, he shouldn’t be thinking of her like that—unwillingly, his brain recalls an image from two summers ago, when a long heatwave broke with a glorious rainstorm and Poppy ran out into the deluge fully clothed and it made her clothes cling to every inch of her—

He attempts his earlier failed casting of Sleet Storm until the frost coats his hands again and presses them to his face. Gods, control yourself, he thinks. He’s not some silly Blackstaff freshman who ogles every girl that walks by! He’s 19 for godssakes! He’s a grown man and can handle himself around a beautiful woman. A beautiful, charming, incredible…

Gale refreshes the spell and claps his hands on his face again before stalking over to his overstuffed bookshelves to look for a new distraction.

A few hours and barely half a page read later, Gale still hasn’t settled down. Once these unwelcome thoughts of Poppy started they were hard to keep away. He recalls how during one of their first summers she came back with puberty in full effect and her chest much larger than he had last seen it, he remembered his mother’s etiquette lessons and was fastidious in never staring at her like that. But sometimes, he realizes now, he can’t keep his eyes off of her. And that’s not merely an appreciation of objective beauty but rather something else.

Maybe Tara was a little bit right. More than a little bit right, even. 

Deciding that it’s probably best to just get ready for bed, he pulls off his clothes and starts putting on his pajamas. It’s as he’s half-dressed and reaching for his shirt that a voice materializes from out of nowhere.

“Did you move the corkscrew?”

Gale starts, his heart jumping into his throat at the voice. He turns around to find Poppy in the balcony doorway with a wine bottle in hand and another on the ground by her feet, searching around the potted plant in the corner. She’s not looking his way but he covers his naked chest with his bundled shirt nevertheless.

“Elminster’s beard! A knock would be most appreciated in the future!” He says as he fumbles to pull his shirt over his head.

Poppy glances over at him at his words and sees him dressing but doesn’t otherwise care, the one task she’s focusing on eclipsing all other thoughts or observations. Finding the corkscrew between two fronds of the leafy plant she had been digging through, she sets to uncorking one of the bottles she pilfered from the Dekarios wine cellar.

Gale isn’t otherwise surprised by Poppy’s presence; they frequently spend nights on his balcony during the summer, talking the hours away. She usually climbs down with one of his Feather Falls at the ready for safety’s sake but he sees in her demeanor that something is not quite right. The way she angrily twists at the cork and yanks it roughly out of the neck to only then take deep quaffs from the bottle solidifies that for him. 

He approaches cautiously, out of care for her current mood but also the past few hours have him looking at her differently now. The red wine she picked stains her lips and there’s a drop of pinkish red clinging there that’s distracting him when she blurts out, “I fucking hate today.”

Tears burn the back of her eyes but she glares at the bottle as she hands it to Gale, willing the waterworks to stay away.

She picked something expensive tonight, Gale thinks as he drinks deeply, willing the rich red wine to slow his busy mind.

“Anything I can help with?” he asks, Poppy still standing at him glaring at nothing.

“Sure,” she replies. A lilt of sarcasm pulls at her words as she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. “Maybe you know a spell that can reverse time, so that I didn’t have to spend hours being manhandled and cinched every which way like I’m some sort of fucking doll while our mothers got drunk off champagne at Meiroth’s! Or maybe, we can fast forward in time so I can just get my rejection from New Olamn and get all this fucking over with!” Tears begin to betray her now and prick at the corners of her eyes.

Gale takes a deep breath and considers the words he wants to use to comfort her, but she continues in what starts as a steady stream of words that quickly turn into a tumbling torrent. “All I wanted to do once we got here was rest, but no! I feel so twitchy from waiting for the godsdamned acceptance letter. I almost had a breakdown in the fucking carriage ride here about my audition! I don’t know what I’ll do if I don’t get in, this has been my dream for years!” 

Her last few words crack embarrassingly and the tears fall freely now, Poppy finally succumbing to it all. 

Putting the bottle down on the ledge, Gale pulls her in for a hug, pressing his face into her hair.

Poppy’s hands claw at his back until a bunch of fabric is in each hand, anchoring herself to him. Despite his namesake, Gale is grounding. It’s just her and her mother in The Gate, which is perfectly fine most days, but nothing can compare to Gale’s company. One of his hands cradles her head while the other hooks around her back and between him and the wine it’s more than enough to help her start calming down, to breathe deeply, and for her nerves to properly start washing away.

The tension leaves her shoulders, her arms, her hands, until she feels limp and malleable in Gale’s arms…not to mention a little wet and bedraggled. She pulls away from the hug but Gale keeps her close, his warm, large hands cupping her face so that she can’t escape the patented Gale Dekarios Glimmer of Determination in his big, round eyes.

“You are Poppy Lyons,” he says decisively. “If New Olamn denies you, they would be the biggest fools on Toril. I know for a fact that even if that did happen—which it won’t!—You would make a killing as a bard in Waterdeep.”

“If I don’t get in, I can’t just leave my mother in The Gate—”

“But you will get in, there’s no need to worry about that!”

“Gale, you’ve gotten everything you’ve ever dreamed of before you’ve even asked for it. I put my blood, sweat, and tears into that audition and it still wasn’t perfect.”

“Well, I know that’s not possible,” Gale dismisses.

“Gale, you weren’t even there.”

“No, but I know it was perfect because you’re perfect.”

Gale is always so earnest but there’s something in how he says this that makes Poppy falter. His hands move down from her face to rest on her shoulders and his touch now feels as though it’s branding her, sending ripples of heat deep within her. His thumbs massage her shoulders but his eyes never leave hers, locking her in this spot. 

“You’re the most remarkable person I know,” he continues quietly but no less determined. “I have never encountered anyone who cares as much as you do. I still remember the second summer you came here, with a pile of empty notebooks and freshly sharpened quills, questions about magic brimming at the tip of your tongue to ask me even though I am no bard. Your dedication I’m certain will inspire your contemporaries and beyond. I know that within the next few years if not sooner, bards all over will be singing your songs and regaling patrons of The Yawning Portal and beyond of you and your adventures. I—” he pauses, realizing he has likely said too much and would say so much more than he should. Damn the wine. Damn her for rattling the foundations of everything he thought was true until this afternoon. 

They’re so close, he suddenly realizes, and before his body can react embarrassingly he releases her shoulders, trying to appear casual as he reaches for the wine bottle. 

“You what?” Poppy asks. 

He glances at her over the bottle as he drinks deeply, buying himself some time. What is that look on her face? Gale doesn’t know what to make of her furrowed brow. Better to get farther from all of this. 

“Just that I’ll get to say I told you so when you do get in,” he teases.

Poppy thankfully laughs at that and snatches the bottle from his hand, grabbing the other off the floor shortly after. “Oh, I bet you’d like that wouldn’t you?” she says as she flops onto the bench.

–

Time passes differently once the sun has gone down and wine has been consumed. One bottle of wine sits empty on the table while the other is half-empty, sitting resolutely beside its companion. Gale’s teasing comment was what they both needed to break through whatever that was and combined with the wine it felt as though almost nothing was amiss. Almost.

She’s touching him. Some indeterminate amount of time ago, she decided that laying down would be more comfortable than sitting and since this bench isn’t particularly long, her feet and calves have been resting on Gale’s lap. For a shorter but equally indeterminate amount of time, he’s been touching her, too. Just her legs on his lap, just playing with the fabric of her soft pants. But it’s still been enough to keep him on edge; that pleasant high that comes when you’re so close to someone who makes your heart race, as if you are walking along a precipice. 

He can’t help it. She just looks so godsdamned comfortable, laying there next to him, finally free of her worries, at least temporarily. For the first time in many years, Gale allows himself to look at her. The curve of her neck is exposed with how her hair is piled on top of her head. She had changed out of her traveling clothes before she jumped down to his balcony; the slightly stretched collar of this shirt exposes her collarbone and the fabric otherwise stretches tight across her chest in a way that makes him want to ogle. He recalls the press of her breasts against his chest when they hugged earlier—

His face heats as he realizes what he’s doing and shakes his head, willing the thoughts to leave his brain. There’s still that niggling in the back of his head that this is just temporary, that she’s going to be down upon the morrow with the ball right in front of them. Her giggling visage just a short distance away tugs at him—he’s had to work hard to pay attention to what she’s been saying given that the idea of wrapping her in his arms once more refuses to leave the front of his mind. 

Poppy does feel much better. Granted, the wine is doing much of the legwork, but Gale is no slouch in that department, either. Everything feels better with him—lighter, more possible. He looks at everything and anything as if a new challenge to conquer and it’s infectious. What is the point of worrying when Gale Dekarios has put his whole head and heart into believing in you? That, and the way he smiles at her that makes her stomach do somersaults. That is new and decidedly not unwelcome.

He’s grown so much these past few years, hasn’t he? Poppy thinks to herself. Physically and emotionally, he has become not just the boy she grew up with building sandcastles at their yearly trip to the beach but a man, even. There’s this ease with which he carries himself that she is so envious of, herself being so self-aware of everything and anything her body is doing at any given moment that it’s hard to relax. Except here. Except around him. 

Last summer, she could barely get out of bed. And most of those days, Gale was right next to her. He would do his summer work, read to her, or more often than not, just talk about anything and everything, which she didn’t mind. Poppy could listen to Gale talk all day. She never asked him to do that, he did it of his own accord. No judgment, no prying questions, just him. 

And she gets just that this evening. It’s so easy to get him talking; just a single question about his freezing hands from earlier starts a long explanation of the intricacies of the Sleet Storm spell and indicative reflexives. Despite what would normally be a fascinating conversation to Poppy, she is not able to stay focused. Sure, the whole bottle of wine she’s consumed has to do with part of it, but Gale’s hair is just as powerful as the wine. She can’t stop staring at it; how it curls around his ears, how it hangs in front of and around his eyes, how it moves when he runs his hands through it. It looks unbelievably soft and she desperately wants to touch it.

The words tumble out of her mouth before she can stop them. “This looks good,” she says, gesturing to his hair. “I can’t believe your mum is letting you keep it this long.”

Gale blushes and looks almost nervous as he runs a hand through his hair once more, disheveling it further and causing a few strands to fall in front of his face. “She looks for any opportunity to tell me I need to chop it off.”

“Well, you shouldn’t. It looks great.” Where is her self-control? Gone with the wine, she supposes. 

If Gale weren’t already drunk surely these compliments would have made him so. A million words and responses tumble through his mind and before he can come up with the semblance of an answer, a voice startles him out of his thoughts.

“Yoohoo!”

Tara’s voice calls out from the darkness, the tressym silent on her wings as she flutters down onto the table on Gale’s side. 

“Tara!” Poppy calls, happy to see Gale’s familiar again. “We haven’t said a proper hello today, have we?”

“It is such a pleasure to see you again, Miss Lyons. Hearing the dulcet notes of that old piano echo through the halls of this home are much more pleasing to the ear than whatever explosions Mr. Dekarios decides to summon in the back garden.”

Ignoring Gale’s scoff, Tara furls her tail around his head before carefully stepping onto the back of the bench and carefully tip-toeing her way towards Poppy.

Tara, with the ease of, well, a tressym, steps down onto the small patch of bench between Poppy’s side and the back cushions before flopping herself down into her arms. Poppy giggles at Tara’s overt affection, rare from the tressym, but always welcome.

“Aww, thank you, Tara. You’re so sweet.” Tara’s purrs rumble through her body as Poppy begins to scratch away at that one spot behind her ears Tara loves so much.

Tara sniffs, “I say, did you two get into the wine cellar again?”

“Don’t ask questions you already know the answer to, Tara. It's unbecoming of you,” Poppy mumbles into Tara’s fur, lost in the softness and the purrs.

Gale, on the other hand, is quite jealous at the scene in front of him. Oh, how he’d love to have her hands play with his hair, to be pressed up against her like that…

“It pleases me to see that you two are finally enjoying yourselves. You should have seen him earlier, Miss Lyons. Mr. Dekarios was wallowing so deeply I thought he was going to drown in his own feelings!”

Poppy’s eyes open at that, round and soft and full of concern at Tara’s words. “Why were you wallowing? Is something wrong?” she asks.

Gale flushes, “N-nothing you need to worry about….” Dammit, Tara.

Maybe it’s the tressym in her arms purring away, maybe it’s the wine she’s been drinking, but she swears she feels her body warm considerably when Gale blushes again at Tara’s words. His eyes somehow go even bigger and he looks away, the picture of bashfulness. Now that does something to her stomach and the rest of her that’s much harder to ignore. He’s never had any reason to be even a little nervous around her, what’s going on?

“Hey Tara, my mother picked up some beholder jerky on the way home from Meiroth’s today. I’m sure they’d love to deal you into a game of three dragon ante again for it....”

Tara’s ears perk up at that. “You don’t say…Well, it seems I must be off, then!” 

She stretches luxuriously, her tail swishing against Poppy’s chin as she does so before taking the few steps needed to butt her head against Gale’s. 

“Don’t stay up too late, you two. You have a big day tomorrow!” Tara soars off to drain their mothers’ coin purses and beholder jerky stores and Gale and Poppy are once again alone. 

“You didn’t answer my question,” Poppy says once Tara is well out of earshot. “You know you can talk to me about anything.”

Gale starts and turns back to face her only to find those piercing grey eyes of hers trying to see right through him. She’s sitting up now, her legs removed from his lap and crossed under her. Gods, and so much closer to him as well, he can almost count all of her eyelashes. 

Gods, he doesn’t want to talk about this. Bringing up the ball again is risky even if his intentions are good. But she’s so insistent and Gale can’t deny her…

“I know you’re not looking forward to going to the ball with me,” he says slowly, reaching for the half-empty wine bottle on the table to take a swig. “But maybe it can take your mind off things? The ball really is a grand time.”

She feels so cold now that Tara’s gone from her arms and his words ring discordant in her head. Hells, she hasn’t even considered Gale in all of this, has she? She just assumed he was as put off by their mothers’ conniving as she was. Poppy hasn’t even let herself think about the ball and what that would entail. To go to the Blackstaff Ball, the event Gale has always gushed about whenever she visits, with her favorite person in all of Toril… 

“Gods, I didn’t even…,” her voice trails off. No words feel right at this moment.

The words spill from his tongue too easily and it makes his heart sink, his desire to placate at the moment much too strong. “I don’t want you to force yourself to go especially if you don’t think you’ll have a good time—”

“I know I’ll have a great time because I’ll be there with you,” she interrupts.

He freezes at that, the conviction in her words clear as day on her face. Is she even closer now? He squeezes the neck of the bottle in his hand.

“I mean, as long as you’ll still have me,” she continues. “I’ve been a complete and utter ass.”

Gale takes her hand while he drinks from the bottle. “You,” he says with a gasp after his drink, “are the farthest thing from that. You’ve been under immense pressure and my mother is…”

“Inevitable.”

Gale quirks a wry smile and points at her with the bottle in hand. “Right you are.” 

She giggles, of all things, and the relief Gale feels at hearing that sound makes him feel buoyant. 

“It will be fun, won’t it? With all the dancing and sumptuous feasts,” she says, borrowing one of Gale’s favorite words. She holds out one of her hands and he passes her the bottle. But instead of pulling away, Poppy grabs hold of his hand as she raises the bottle to her lips with the other.

It’s all so overwhelming, her hand in his and the way her throat bobs as she finishes off the bottle of wine. Nevermind the thought that she actually seems excited about this, now. He had resigned himself to her disappointment but to see her coming around to the idea—

“All of those dance lessons our mothers put us in are going to finally pay off,” Poppy slurs, well and truly drunk now. “Your hand is ‘s—so popular’ according to your mother, I’m going to have to fight off a million suitors wanting to dance with you, won’t I?” She’s even closer now with one of her legs slung over his lap again. Poppy continues to play with his hand in her lap, both of her hands now preoccupied, the empty bottle set aside on the tile of the balcony. 

“No,” Gale says resolutely. She looks up at him at that, eyes wide and hazy. “Your name will be written next to every dance on my card, if I have any say in the matter.”

“Scandalous,” Poppy banters, a rogue lock of hair falling in front of her eyes as she shakes her head. “What will everyone think?”

“I don’t particularly care what they all think. Your opinion is all that matters to me,” Gale replies, reaching a hand up.

It startles her, when his fingers touch her face just so as they brush her loose hair behind her ear. Poppy is so drunk and time is so wibbly-wobbly, she thinks it’s the wine making her think that his hand lingers there just behind her ear. It’s probably also the wine that’s making her think that he’s looking at her differently, looking at her in a way that makes her face burn and her heart race. And so she tucks her head into his shoulder while both of her hands continue to toy with his fingers.

He smells like sandalwood and ozone; that sizzling arcane scent that follows him as a caster, magic just clinging to him like sweat. Poppy breathes deeply, taking him in. 

“I didn’t know you held my opinion so highly,” she huffs, starting to wish she wasn’t as drunk as she currently is.

Gale’s hand comes down to rest on her knee, the one that’s slung over his lap. He can move it higher, she realizes. She’d very much like that, in fact. 

Gods, his heart is pounding. It would be so easy to lean down and kiss her, to pull her into his lap. 

“Can I ask you something?” Gales whispers, before he can think better of it.

She doesn’t need to imagine her heart racing at that question, at its potential. “Always.”

He hesitates now, in way too deep. He wants to kiss her so badly it feels as though he will explode if he doesn’t. But…

“Please don’t climb down here without me,” he says instead. “You know I’ll always catch you if you fall.” A pit starts to form in his stomach that the wine eats away at and he curses his cowardice.

Poppy can’t help but smile into his shoulder and Gale feels it, smiling wide and unbidden himself, thankful that he didn’t just completely ruin the moment. 

“I promise.”

—

Poppy is awakened the morning of the ball by her mother with a fresh cup of coffee in hand and Morena tittering just outside the door. Adrianne knows better than anyone that Poppy can’t go without her coffee and Poppy is otherwise thankful for the shield against the storm that is Morena Dekarios on a day such as this. Besides, her head is pounding from all the wine she drank with Gale last night and—

Fuck, last night. 

She was flirting. He was flirting, there’s no doubt about that. Was it just the wine? Was it just to make her feel better?  Poppy doesn’t get a chance to see him and gather any more intel as she is sent off to the Temple of Sune bright and early to begin the hours-long prep Morena booked for her. Upon arrival, Morena apparently sprung for the all-inclusive option which enables Poppy to order a hangover cure without even pulling out her coin purse.

Once hangover-free and settled into a hot bath full of sweet-smelling things, she lets everything wash over her. She feels excited. Giddy, even. She recalls how she kept finding Gale looking at her differently last night on the balcony and she can’t help but grin and kick her feet. Any thoughts of New Olamn and her acceptance results are far from her mind.

Gale is similarly buoyant; even his mother asking him to cut his hair before he sets off for the Temple of Sune in the early afternoon can’t dampen his mood. He keeps an eye out for Poppy at the temple but doesn’t see her, which only makes his anticipation for seeing her later build exponentially. When it’s time for his haircut he accepts the hot towel shave but only tells the hairdresser to trim his ends and nothing more; something his mother will certainly complain about, but he doesn’t care. Poppy likes it long, so he’s keeping it this way.

Getting ready with her mother is a fun affair; Adrianne laces up the dress (delivered as of this afternoon) and cinches Poppy in securely, ensuring that the elegant makeup done by the Temple doesn’t smudge on anything. Morena comes in only once to drop off some jewelry for Poppy to borrow, which turns out to be Morena’s entire jewelry box. Poppy carefully picks through it, in awe of the options but also what it means for Morena to give all of this over to her to pick from.

Once home and dressed, the nerves start to settle in. Gale Dekarios does not get nervous. Or didn’t, until today, or was it yesterday? He’s more than a little vain and can’t help but fret about whether or not Poppy will like how he looks in his dress robes. The room suddenly feeling too warm, he steps out onto the balcony for some fresh air. He takes a deep breath and is inundated with the scent of the flowers from his mother’s garden. She deserves flowers, he thinks and Dimension Doors himself right into the garden to peruse his options.

Minutes later, he climbs the stairs in the main hall with a bundle of blush pink peonies in hand. The fresh air did him some good, but it’s time to leave soon and he’d like to give her the flowers out of view of his mother. Ascending to the third floor, he knocks on her door and sweats.

Adrianne opens the door and her eyes soften as her gaze settles on him. “Oh look at you,” she coos. She cups his face in her hands as she takes him in. “So handsome. Are you sure you’re the same little boy who summoned a magma mephit in the bathroom just a few summers ago?”

“Lies and slander,” he replies cheekily.

“You brought me flowers?”

Adrianne steps back and Gale is suddenly assaulted by the vision standing behind her.

She looks like starlight, he thinks. 

Beads and crystals glitter along the length of her midnight blue dress. Though the dress is high-collared, the top of the bodice dips slightly between her breasts exposing her collarbone. It’s clear the dress is designed to draw the eye to the exposed skin there and Gale has to work to keep his eyes from settling there. This proves especially difficult when he realizes that even her skin is shimmering from…magic? Some sort of lotion? Attempting to look elsewhere, his eyes instead catch one of her bare legs stepping through the slit in her dress that goes partway up her thigh and he feels his mouth go dry.

As she approaches, his eyes land on her face and his heart just about stops. He’s not sure exactly what the Temple of Beauty did to her hair, but it’s shinier and pulled back with curls bundled at her nape. A few pieces artfully bounce around her face and Gale has the sudden urge to brush them out of the way, to touch her. As she gets even closer to him he starts feeling very hot under his collar—is he blushing? He tries to train his face into something more neutral but he’s not quite sure he’s succeeding.

How is he supposed to survive the night with her on his arm?

Poppy wasn’t sure what to expect of Gale in his dress robes but she certainly wasn’t expecting broad shoulders and his round puppy-dog eyes looking at her like she hung the moon. With her favorite flowers in hand, of all things; it’s sweet enough to make her teeth ache and her heart to boot.

In her heels, she stands eye-to-eye with him and is thus pinned under his gaze. She fiddles with the rings on her fingers, not sure what to do with her hands. The recollection of the fact that he was just dumped a few days previously rings in her ears and the thought baffles her; how could anyone turn down this glowing, sweet boy before her?

“Sunshine, let me find a vase for these.” Gale lets Adrianne take the blooms, not really paying attention as she disappears into Poppy’s ensuite bathroom.

They both stand there, holding their breath.

“Hi,” she whispers, smiling.

Somehow Gale’s eyes grow even wider and an adorable blush crawls across his face as he smiles back.

“Hello,” he replies, his breath hitching a little. “You look...breathtaking.”

Poppy waits for Gale to continue, but he doesn’t. She’s truly made the ever-verbose Gale Dekarios speechless, something she once thought impossible without magic.

One of his hands comes up and brushes his hair back. He had clearly done something to style it but this one motion has undone how artfully it had sat just a moment prior.

She tsks. “No, put your hands down. Let me.” 

Poppy’s hands brush against Gale’s temples and he freezes at her touch, his eyes growing even wider. Gale is bombarded by her perfume with her wrists so close to his face now. It’s something that tickles his nose in a welcome way—peppery and slightly sweet. He finds himself leaning into her hand but rights his posture immediately, letting her do her work.

Has she always bitten her tongue like that when she focuses? he wonders. Poppy’s hands course through his hair to style it accordingly and he wishes she would press harder—scratch, tug, even. Her fingers are deft—he’s witnessed her pluck complicated songs on her lute or dance across the keys of the piano in the parlor countless times and now he’s wondering how they would feel dancing across his skin. This close, he sees how her eyelashes are darkened and how shades of glittering blue, black, and silver make her gray eyes glow like the moon. The shimmer on the tops of her cheekbones is iridescent, almost like the light cast by a prism hung in a window. Her lips are painted the color of blackcurrant jam and look just as delectable. Poppy, simply, looks like a work of art. His fingers twitch as he restrains himself from touching her, the urge so strong with her so close. He has to remind himself to breathe, which only sends more of that intoxicating perfume into his lungs. Gale can’t decide if he wants to consume her or be consumed by her. Both, preferably.

This close to Gale, Poppy can see every striation of brown in his irises and how long his lashes are. His hair is soft beneath her hands as she styles it. The stiffening of his posture does not pass her by, but his eyes are so distracting...

One of her rings catches on a lock of hair that causes her to pull a bit harder than she intended and Gale puffs out a quiet groan at the sensation.

“Oh! Sorry,” she frets. “I hope you didn’t hurt you.”

You could have pulled harder and I would have begged for more, he thinks. “No, no you didn’t. Don’t worry about it. Promise,” he reassures.

Adrianne returns with the flowers in a vase, placing them carefully on the mantle. “Let’s hurry along, you two. Morena is surely pacing downstairs and the carriage is waiting.”

When they reach the stairs, Poppy moves to pick up her skirts but Gale slides in, proffering his arm for her. She takes it with a small smile and Gale wants to pull that smile out of her again and again and again. 

Dual gasps cut up the stairs as they descend arm in arm. Morena is dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief with Tara perched on her shoulder. “Oh, aren’t you two just the picture—we’ll need to schedule a time for you to sit down and have a portrait done, oh my goodness.”

They hug Morena and Tara makes a point to bump both of their heads with her own, purring her approval.

Gale and Poppy climb into the carriage with minimal kerfuffle from their mothers, Adrianne wrangling Morena to not fuss over them even more than she already has.

The carriage bumbles along to Blackstaff, Poppy and Gale sitting silently, not sharing a word. Occasionally they steal glances at each other and catch the other looking, which makes them both blush.

At one point the carriage hits a pothole and Poppy grabs Gale’s hand to keep herself from going flying. Neither makes a move to let go. If anything, Gale ends up absentmindedly toying with one of the looser rings on her fingers. It’s his mother’s, he realizes.

His lingering hand doesn’t escape Poppy’s notice and she doesn’t care; she loves it, actually. The worry of the past few days is completely gone and is replaced with this effervescent bubbling under her skin. This is what this should have felt like the whole time.

“We’re going to have fun tonight, aren’t we?” he asks, squeezing her hand gently and breaking their silence.

She squeezes his hand back. “Oh, definitely,” she grins. “We’re going to have a blast.” 

The way his eyes dart down to her mouth do not go unnoticed, and neither does the way her leg presses against his from where they sit in the trundling carriage.

—

“Oh my gods you saw them at Three Pearls? I was on vacation with my family in Neverwinter at the time and the one time they come to Waterdeep, I’m out of town. I am unbelievably jealous. Did they perform Cecelia?”

“They did!” 

Poppy and Gale’s classmate Nell have been chatting nonstop like this ever since they realized they were both fans of the traveling bard duo Shymon and Scarbunkel. Both women talk animatedly with their hands between bites of food while Nell’s boyfriend on her other side chats with the rest of the table. The classmates they’ve found themselves as tablemates are fine, he supposes. Nell is intelligent and one of the least scathing of his peers, but their classes don’t overlap much. Zanthas to Gale’s left isn’t particularly smart but neither does he outright antagonise Gale which is a small win, if you’d call it that. 

“And you brought Dekarios with you? He didn’t chatter your ear off during every song?”

Poppy bristles a little at the slight at Gale but holds her tongue otherwise. After last night, she has only been barely sipping her wine but takes a larger sip now to give herself time to gather a nicer response. 

“Forgive me, Nell, for wanting to bring my best friend with me. Gale thoroughly enjoyed himself that night. He’s had years of me performing those songs in front of him, he knows all of them almost as well as I do.” 

“Just please don’t ask me to sing any of them,” Gale interjects. “I wouldn’t dare sully the air with my singing voice when Poppy is right here.”

“You sing?” Nell asks. 

“Oh, she can do much more than sing,” Gale answers immediately. “In fact, her acceptance to New Olamn should be arriving any day now.” 

Poppy cringes inwardly at the mention of the school. “Gale…”

“They’ll know soon enough anyway; you’ll have a recurring gig at The Yawning Portal by summer’s end, I guarantee it.”

Poppy eyes Gale’s wine glass, which is still half-full, just like her own. None of this can be blamed on the wine like it could have last night. 

Gale sees her hesitancy and decides to double-down. There’s just something about making her blush that makes his already impressive ego grow even larger. “How many times do I have to remind you that I would never dare to disparage your immense talents? Especially because by doing so I’d be made a liar as there is nothing to disparage.”

“Oh, then please continue singing my praises; I’m sure that’s what everyone wants to listen to right now,” Poppy replies dully, taking another sip of her wine to hide her blush.

But her prayers never really get answered, do they?

“Gladly! Let’s see, you can sing, play the piano, drums, lute, lyre, and violin….” Gale rattles off while raising a finger for each instrument mentioned. 

“Oh, is that all?” Poppy replies feeling her cheeks redden further, unsure how to handle this Gale who so willingly sings her praises.

Six fingers still extended, Gale looks thoughtfully into the middle-distance before replying cheekily, “You know, your flute could use some work.”

“Well, everyone,” Poppy addresses the table. “It’s been a fine evening, but I really must be going—”

“Now, now,” Gale chides, grinning from ear to ear as he grabs hold of her hand. “We haven’t even danced yet and I promised you that we’d dance every single one.”

Standing there, Gale’s hand in hers, a shiver runs through her. As she readjusts her skirts to sit back down, she catches the eye of a girl a few tables over shooting her the dirtiest look Poppy has ever been on the receiving end of. It’s not the first time; Poppy noticed the sneer from the girl in a red dress from the moment they first sat down. If Gale has noticed, he hasn’t said anything. Granted, Poppy is also aware of how Gale hasn’t taken his eyes off of her throughout their meal. She keeps a subtle eye on the strange girl throughout dessert, the glare never wavering.

Gale’s hand tingles from the aftermath of holding her hand once more. His mind wanders to her hand in his as they exited the carriage, her hand on his arm as he led them into the ballroom, even her hand on his back for one too short moment as they found their seats. The bare leg exposed by the slit in her dress mocks him from mere inches away. His knee knocks against it but gods what he would give to reach down and touch. 

“Gale,” Poppy hisses in a whisper only heard by him. 

His eyes dart up from where they had been locked on what she is assuming was her bare leg and smirks at him when he catches her eye. It’s so easy to let a smirk curl her lips and the effect on Gale is immediate, eyes darting down to the movement and lingering there even after once her mouth has relaxed.

“Who is that girl in red staring daggers into my back two tables away?” 

Poppy jerks her head slightly in the direction she’s referring to and as casually as he can manage given that not looking at her seems like the worst kind of torture at the moment. He scans the room in the direction that she indicated and immediately finds Marietta staring daggers in their direction. Her boyfriend sits next to her in matching red, speaking with a girl he doesn’t recognize in a fluffy pink dress. 

Turning back to Poppy he takes her hand in his once more, almost instinctually, and replies hesitantly, “That’s Marietta.” 

Recognition rings a bell in Poppy’s mind as she recalls Morena disparaging the girl during the trip to Meiroth’s. 

“I thought she dumped you, why is she glaring at me?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. She was all apologies when we last spoke and I was perfectly civil; I see no reason for her to be treating you this way. I can go and tell her off if you’d like?”

Poppy’s lips quirk a small smile. “No, don’t worry about it. I’ve been through worse.”

“Worse?” Gale worries. “Who needs to be on the other end of my Lightning Bolt?” 

His voice has turned from worry to heated in but a moment and it warms Poppy in turn in places beyond her cheeks. She likes protective Gale, she thinks. Very much. Suddenly, it occurs to her that Marietta might be jealous. It’s not beyond the realm of possibility; Gale is handsome and from what Poppy has heard, Marietta seems to not have the best judgment otherwise. 

Egged on by the racing of her heart and the tingling under her skin, Poppy leans forward and kisses his cheek, staining his skin with the dark purple of her lipstick. 

Gale tenderly touches the spot she kissed to see that his finger comes away with some of her lipstick. “What did I do to deserve such a gift?” 

“Just being you,” she replies simply. Affection for him makes her heart feel full to bursting.They could all rot for all she cares, she just needs Gale. She grins as she guides Gale’s hand to rest on the top of her knee and her hand on top of his. The reddening of the tips of his ears and his widening eyes do not go unnoticed as she digs into the dessert that has been placed in front of her. As she returns to her meal, Nell shoots her a silent but knowing look over the lip of her wine glass that Poppy doesn’t deign to respond to.

Gale doesn’t taste the food as his hand on her bare knee, half-obscured by the drape of the white tablecloth, takes up all of his brain’s processing capacity as the rest of his tablemates chatter on.

Once the dessert dishes are cleared away and guests begin milling about, Gale guides Poppy by her hand to the open glass doors to one of the balconies off the ballroom that look out over the city. From this angle, they can see the coast from where it appears from behind Mount Waterdeep and even the Sea Ward. The mountain and setting sun together cast a shadow. He sees her shiver from the breeze of the cooling day and, feeling quite bold, wraps his arms around her and rests his chin on her shoulder. From here, her perfume is the strongest and he takes a deep breath, trying to commit this scent to memory.

“Soon you’ll be up there,” he gestures to the high slope of Mount Waterdeep, about halfway between The Sahuagin Humbled and The Lady Dreaming, to the location of New Olamn. “And I’ll be right down here, so close yet so far. Be sure not to forget me when you ascend to those heavens.” 

“Not this again,” Poppy scoffs, but her smile betrays her. Being wrapped in his arms feels so completely perfect.

Gale’s breath is hot against her cheek as he replies, “I will continue to remind you of your greatness until you believe it yourself, and well beyond that in case you dare to forget.” 

Fuck, she wants to kiss him so badly. “Flatterer.”

Gale’s skin alights with her response. Are her cheeks pink from the comment? Or from the chill in the air? “Are you accusing me of being insincere? Because I promise you, I am the farthest thing from that,” he murmurs into her skin, brushing her cheek with his lips.

Hells, she feels so off-kilter. She’d do anything to feel more control here. “I think I like you when you’re more arrogant. Where is that infamous wizard arrogance, anyway?”

“It’s right here, waiting for you to kiss me.”

Never one to back down from a challenge, especially something she desperately wants to do, Poppy turns in his embrace and pulls his face into hers, stealing his breath with a kiss.

Gale’s hands flex around her waist as they clutch her, mind going completely blank. All there is in this moment is Poppy. Any past fumblings in dark corners of the Blackstaff library or his dormitory are immediately eradicated from his memory. Her cold hands are ice against his face but brace him there, warmth exploding throughout his body from every point their bodies come in contact. 

A quiet groan rumbles through Gale’s chest and it takes all of Poppy’s willpower to not drag him away to some dark corner. It feels…perfect; his arms around her, her lips against his, her hands tentatively weaving into his hair. All of it. All of him.

A sharp wolf whistle from the ballroom breaks them both out of their reverie, a group of junior apprentices stalking by and whooping. Gale starts at the noise, knocking them both into the balustrade.

Poppy’s hands grab at his sides. “Don’t fall,” she gasps as he steadies. His lips are stained dark with her lipstick and the sight makes her feel as though something right has fallen into place.

“I think I already have.”

Poppy huffs, ignoring how that one comment makes her stomach do somersaults, and so she kisses him instead because she definitely didn’t get enough of him the first time. She presses herself against him, making them flush against one another. Gale’s hands begin to wander, rubbing up and down her back and shoulders. He hums the quietest whine when she starts to pull away and the pleased groan it transforms into when she kisses him again is addictive.

Spoiled, she thinks affectionately. Possessively. There is just something in how expressive Gale is in his want that thrills her to no end.

Finally pulling all the way away, Poppy hums a melodic Prestidigitation against his lips and the lipstick disappears, leaving his face clean.

“Gods, you have to teach me how to do that,” Gale groans, heart pounding and head foggy with lust and adoration.

“You don’t need me to teach you how to cast Prestidigitation. Last time I checked, you were able to cast that right out of the womb.”

“Yes, but I want you to teach me. I love watching you cast, each time is more astounding than the next.”

“So you’re saying you want some private lessons?” Poppy replies with a smirk. His hands have settled on her hips after their travels and they twitch toward her backside at her words.

“There are many things I’d love for you to show me in private,” Gale says, every voice heated and weighted with his true meaning. “And as much as I’d love to see many of them at this very moment, unfortunately this balcony is a little too open for my tastes.”

“Not an exhibitionist, Gale? Hmph. I thought you were a show-off.”

Gale stands and straightens himself before holding his arm out for Poppy. “You on my arm tonight, dancing with me tonight, is more than enough to show everyone that you’re mine. Anything else that happens between us, well….” he pauses, one of his hands reaching up to rub away a smudge of lipstick smearing away from the edge of her lip. “I’d rather have you completely to myself if it’s all the same. Let’s head back inside, the dancing should be starting soon.”

The dancing does indeed seem to be starting soon—musicians have taken to the stage and are tuning their instruments, the warbling of soon- notes wafting through the open ballroom.

Despite not wanting to leave Gale’s side, nature calls and Poppy would love a few minutes to collect herself before she’ll be swept up in Gale’s arms once more.

“Nell, can you show me where the lavatories are?”

“Oh! I have to go, too. Let me show you.” Nell stands and leads Poppy out of the ballroom and down the hall.

Gale watches Poppy as she goes, unable to tear his eyes from Poppy’s rear end as it sways and shimmers until she’s out of sight. 

Zanthas also apparently can’t tear his eyes away, and once the women are gone, he turns to Gale and asks, “Where did you find her?”

A million poetic words jump to mind about Poppy, but at this moment, his brain is only able to form one simple response.

“She’s always been here, I suppose.” His heart thuds at the idea that what he didn’t know he needed has been by his side this entire time.

Nell leads Poppy down a hall and just before they enter the women’s lavatories, Poppy notices Marietta’s curly-haired date excitedly following the girl in a fluffy pink dress through a nondescript door. Interesting. 

The Blackstaff lavatories are just as impressive as one would expect and Poppy takes her time in the grand space. She checks her makeup in the mirror as she washes her hands but notices a familiar sneer dressed in red behind her in the reflection.

“Can I help you?” Poppy asks as she turns the water off.

Marietta reaches out and pokes Poppy’s arm, much to her shock. “Gods, you are real. Did he summon you or something?”

Poppy recoils at her touch, “Excuse me?”

Marietta rolls her eyes. “I only asked him to go to the ball with me to make my boyfriend jealous, but the fact that he found you in such a short amount of time? What, did his mother pay you to go with him?” She gasps, “Did he pay you?”

Vicious words simmer on her tongue, waiting to be unleashed but Poppy bites them down, not wishing to start a fight. “He’s my best friend,” she replies tightly. “And it—”

Marietta barks out a sharp, cruel, laugh. “You? His best friend? Dekarios doesn’t have friends. He must have paid you extra to say that about him. How pathetic!”

Poppy is only tangentially aware of Nell approaching the sink to wash her own hands, obviously listening to their conversation. But Marietta has managed to render Poppy mostly speechless. She is a guest here; she cannot start anything but this horrible girl in front of her is making it difficult. 

Marietta takes Poppy’s terse silence as permission to continue. “He’s cute enough, but I can’t imagine actually being intimate with him.” She then pretends to gag whilst rolling her eyes. “He’d probably spend the whole time talking about Mordenkainen’s theories of the multiverse. Dekarios loves the sound of his own voice more than he does anyone else. Does he ever stop talking enough to kiss you? Or does he think that his mere presence is enough of a gift for you?” 

It takes almost all of Poppy’s self control to keep herself from slapping Marietta across the face. Unfortunately, that is not enough to keep her mouth shut. The weave is so potent here and with the notes she can hear flitting down the hall from the musicians tuning their instruments it’s so easy for her vicious words to hold power as she spits at Marietta, “Advice coming from someone who has to play tricks to keep her boyfriend around when minutes ago I saw him sneak into the closet down the hall with another girl? Better to keep things together at home before you go shitting in someone else’s house.”

The shorter girl’s pupils turn to pinpricks as the words his and she sways as the words stab true.

Poppy sweeps out of the lavatory, trying to slow her breathing so as to not scream into the halls as she so desperately wants to.

Nell catches up to Poppy, still steaming. “I’ve never seen anyone make Marietta shut up like that before. That was incredible! I can see why Gale likes you.” 

It’s one thing to feel it yourself and it’s another for it to be said out loud by a third party. Poppy feels her cheeks heat at Nell’s words as they re-enter the ballroom together. Just the vision of Gale across the hall, animatedly talking about something with Zanthas makes her heart swell. Somehow in the middle of his conversation he notices her and beams, his smile blazing like the sun and warm enough to burn away the rest of the tension in her body. 

Before Poppy can even get near the table, Gale stands, taking his leave with Zanthas and tries his best to not outright sprint over to her. As stimulating as it was to discuss a particular intricacy of Mordenkainen’s theories of the multiverse with him, he is not embarrassed to admit that he had anxiously been keeping an eye out for Poppy. His whole body has been feeling like it’s crackling ever since they kissed on the balcony. Gale is thankful his layers of robes easily hide his half-hard cock, refusing to flag after their embrace. It took every ounce of self-control to keep himself from lewdly groping her as his hands so itched to do. And even now, as he walks quickly over to her, he finds himself meditating on one simple command, “Keep it together, Dekarios.”

The musicians are finally done tuning their instruments and seem to be getting ready to start. Guests stand and take hands or rush to other tables to find dancing partners. Gale knows her answer already, but when he reaches her and holds out his hand in question, it still utterly thrills him that she takes his hand to follow him to the dancefloor.

She has so quickly become…everything. He doesn’t think a single thought that has crossed his mind in the past twenty-four hours has not been of Poppy. And so when he takes her up in his arms to start the first dance, a whirling, energetic song that has the two of them spinning round and round the floor, Gale can’t help but feel as though he is drowning in her. 

Being held by Gale like this, being led around the dancefloor is a rush that Poppy loves like no other. It’s almost enough to make her forget about what had happened in the lavatory just moments before.

Almost…if it weren’t for—

Right as the song ends and Gale and Poppy come to a stop, chests heaving at the exertion and all flushed cheeks and brightened eyes, a sob cuts through the din as Marietta runs into the hall and towards the main doors, covering her face. Not far behind is her boyfriend in the matching red, covered in lipstick much pinker than the dark color Marietta is wearing.

Poppy tries not to overtly stare as she runs out of the ballroom main doors. But that doesn’t stop Gale and the rest of the hall for that matter from staring at the pair as they leave. A few giggles and hushed murmurs fill the hall once they’re gone save from Poppy who shares a look with Nell just a few feet away in the arms of her boyfriend.

“Did something happen in the lavatories?” Gale asks Poppy.

Poppy bites her lip under his gaze before answering slowly, “I may have pointed out that her boyfriend and another girl were having some time alone in a closet…”

“You did more than that, I’d say,” Nell whispers over to them. “She was being a bitch and you defended him! Gale, you should have seen her, she was your bard in shining armor.”

The music starts up again, something more sweeping than the last and Gale and Poppy are off with eyes locked on one another. 

“Defended me, did you?” He manages before he twirls her around, making her dress glitter and swish. 

“She deserved it,” Poppy replies decisively, her voice breathless in a way that distracts Gale to no end, making him wonder how he can make her breathless is a much more pleasurable way.

There is this tension coiling between them that Poppy cannot ignore. Gale leads her around the dancefloor but she wants nothing more than to pounce on him and have her way with him. Marietta’s outlandish and blatantly incorrect insults did nothing to make her like Gale less. If anything, it has only highlighted every little thing about him that she adores. 

Something about Marietta’s exit and this new information seems to change something in Gale. His moves are no less graceful but there is something in how he looks at her now that makes Poppy feel too warm in the layers of silk and gauze that adorn her body. Before she is even conscious of it, the song comes to an end, and they both stand there panting.

A trill from the harpist cuts through the ballroom, a descending arpeggio that pulls in the rest of the instruments, introducing a slower song to dance to. Gale pulls her in, his eyes never leaving hers as they begin to sway. His pounding heartbeat echoes in his ears and it has nothing to do with the exertion. His whole world has been turned upside down since his mother had this not-so-harebrained idea to have them go to the ball together. Or rather, maybe he’s been living upside down this whole time and he’s finally right side up.

Poppy doesn’t know how it happens, but they’re closer than they were before, their chests brushing against each other every so often. Feeling brave, she leans her head forward just so, wanting to be even closer to him. He closes the distance between them even more and rests his forehead against hers, his breath hot against her face. They close their eyes and it’s as if the rest of the world falls away.

There’s this energy, like the anticipation of a kiss, that thrums between them. Poppy glows under his touch, his closeness. There’s no worry, there’s no nervousness. Only acceptance and excitement. Their relationship is forever changed and she couldn’t possibly be happier.

It’s as if there is a thread between them pulling and pulling and Gale hesitates. All he has to do is lean in, but even though a moment ago it was as if they were alone, suddenly the noise of the ballroom comes rushing back into his ears, the presence of so many and the potential for eyes on them making him sweat.

The tip of Poppy’s nose brushes against his and he shudders. Eyes like platinum flash in front of him and he’s hers. Simple. Her hand on his shoulder brushes up his collar to hold his cheek and pulls and gods there are so many people—

Gale pulls away. “I want to—so, so badly. But not here, not in front of everyone...”

“Gale, it's just a kiss…,” Poppy soothes, brushing her thumb along his cheekbone.

“But if I start kissing you, I won’t be able to stop,” he murmurs, body thrumming.

Poppy’s eyes widen at his words. “Someplace private it is, then,” she replies, stepping even closer to him. Poppy is fully pressed up against him now and Gale feels as though his heart will burst out of his chest and into her own with how hard it’s beating.

Gale takes a bracing breath, trying to steady his racing heart. Focus. A place to go. Nearby and away from chaperones and other guests. His eyes dart down to her lips and just as quickly as he did that he trains his eyes elsewhere. FOCUS. There’s plenty of classrooms nearby, guaranteed to be monitored for this very reason. But there is this particularly long and meandering hallway on the other side of the ballroom...

Of course she doesn’t miss how his eyes glanced at her lips, or how his hand on her waist almost imperceptibly tightened afterwards, or how his eyes alight once he’s clearly settled on an idea—

Gale leans forward to whisper into her ear, “It would be suspicious for both of us to leave at once, so let me give you some directions...”

It takes all of Poppy’s brain power to commit Gale’s directions to memory, his hot breath tickling the shell of her ear determined to possess all of her attention.

“...you will go first and I’ll follow a minute or two behind you. Do you have all that?”

Poppy nods in understanding. Gale steps away and her body cries out at the separation. But she takes a deep breath and casually walks towards the door he indicated, letting her hips sway a little more than usual just for him.

She strides through the hallways and up a set of stairs with purpose, recalling Gale’s instructions as best she can given the circumstances under which they were bestowed upon her. Just as he predicted, no professors or chaperones roam these halls. The last turn brings her to a small hallway with a large window at the end overlooking the city.

Waterdeep could have no actual splendors within it but it would be worthy of the epithet nevertheless if it still looked like this; the glow of the moon and stars shining down upon the city roofs and the streetlamps and candles in windows making the city sparkle. It’s enough to temper her racing heart just enough.

Two minutes feels like a decade to Gale, as he returns to the table and takes a sip of his wine. He tries not to let his mind wander but even restricting his thoughts does nothing to the tightening he’s feeling in his trousers beneath his robes. The sight of her swaying hips as she walked away was almost enough to make him run after her, but he holds firm.

Once the two minutes are up, it’s a struggle to not look excited or suspicious or both. The anticipation nearly kills him as he follows the path he directed to her, hoping she found it alright. He gets his answer in the form of Poppy right where he directed her, back to him as she looks over the city.

There are no lights in this hallway, the window providing the only illumination but Poppy practically glows from where she stands. This wandering star, this celestial body beckons him, her allure something he had succumbed to years ago but only in the past day has he realized how indelible she truly is.

Poppy hears steps behind her and in the reflection of the glass can tell it’s Gale but something makes him stop. She waits a few moments and when he doesn’t move, she turns and finds him standing a few yards away, gazing at her.

“Sorry, I was just enjoying the view.”

“As was I,” he replies, his eyes unwavering from her and full of longing.

The force with which her eyes roll could have towed a ship to shore but it doesn’t stop Gale from finally approaching her. If anything, he finds it funny if the quiet chuckles she hears are anything to be believed.

Poppy turns and leans back against the wall next to the window as he approaches. His patience wanes with every step and by the time he’s only a few feet away Gale practically pounces on her. Capturing her face in both his hands, he kisses her fiercely. These are not the gentle first kisses back out on the balcony, but uninhibited and hungry. 

Now that they’re properly alone, there is no more hesitating. Poppy has known Gale long enough that you do not stand up against the storm, you get swept up in it instead and let it take you wherever it wants. And tonight, they want the same thing. 

When she licks into his mouth for the first time Gale’s legs almost give out. He’s been wanting this all night and now that he has it, it’s almost overwhelming. Every crush of their lips and swipe of their tongues is accompanied by the low moans of desire. One of Gale’s hands rakes down her front and around her back to grope her backside, pawing away at the soft flesh wrapped in silk and beads.

Poppy has decided that she loves Gale’s hair, and every little noise she can pull out of him when she plays with it. Every scratch and tug of her fingers summons broken whines from her wizard’s throat and she cannot get enough of them. His hands scorch her, leaving her skin buzzing in their wake with how he caresses her. 

This must be a dream, truly. Gale does his best to not crush her against the wall but clearly that is something Poppy wants with how she uses her arms wrapped around his shoulder as leverage to press their bodies together anyway. He must be dreaming, he must—a groan rips through him as one of Poppy’s hands tugs harder on his hair. No, most certainly not dreaming.

Gale’s lips travel down her jaw to just below her ear, licking and sucking on the sensitive spot and making her see stars.

His hand on her cheek skates down her neck to cup one of her breasts through the stiff fabric of the bodice of her dress and the sharp gasp she cries at his touch makes him achingly hard.

“Gods...Poppy...” he groans between kisses. “You have no idea what you do to me...”

“Why don’t you use your words, then?”

“I think I’d rather let my actions speak for me this time.” Gale grips both of her hips and presses them together and her eyes grow wide when she feels his erection press against her abdomen. Slotting his mouth against hers once more, he immediately deepens the kiss, summoning a moan from deep within her.

Gale kisses her so thoroughly it makes her knees weak and so she clings to his robes for stability, trying desperately to stay afloat. Every growl and moan that falls from his lips goes right to her core.

Carnal desire threatens to overtake him, fraying his respectability. He suppresses the urge to just rut into her against this wall. She deserves better—a bed, privacy, her attention completely on him instead of also the risk of getting caught. Gods, this was all his idea, who does he think he is?

Gale’s leg notches between her own and she bends her leg exposed from the slit on her dress, hooking her knee against his thigh. He takes the hint and pulls that leg higher, holding it up against his hip.

One arm holds up her leg against his hip with that hand gripping her lush backside. His other hand slides down between them past the slit in her skirt to her smalls where her heat greets him expectantly. He takes two fingers and rubs circles around and on her clit through the soaked cloth and she gasps, her whine a delicious vintage on his tongue. 

Poppy holds on for dear life as he pleasures her, her leg held obscenely high over his hip to give his hand full access to her arousal. She wants their clothes off to be as close to him as possible. She’s addicted to the groan that tumbles out of his mouth whenever she tugs on his hair. They’re at this perfect angle where if he freed himself and just slid her smalls to the side they could—

Gale removes his hand and she gasps a pained whine at the lack of friction, but with a motion of his hand suddenly there’s a breeze down there and his hand has returned to touch her directly. She breaks their kiss and pants, “Did you just vanish my fucking smalls?”

“They were in the way,” he replies simply, voice husky. His lips continue to explore her jaw and neck. She’s soaked under his touch, his fingers gliding through her lips effortlessly. His hand on her ass pulls just a bit to open her for him and he uses the opportunity to slide a finger into her, making her squeak at the insertion. He barely needs to move as Poppy’s bucking onto his hand gasping, “yes, yes, yes,” into his ear. 

Each sound of hers is like a verbal component to a spell, the roll of her hips the somatic and all of it together thoroughly ruins him. She’s going to be an incredible bard with how she’s so effectively charmed him. Gale would do anything for her, be anything for her. He tells himself he wouldn’t take her right here and now but if she asked…begged, even…

He slides a second finger into her core and she arches her back, suppressing the cry she wants to unleash into the hall. 

“Gods, I need to taste you, I need you to make me yours,” he babbles into her ear, breath tickling her skin. “You’re so perfect like this, gorgeous—sublime, even.” 

“F-fuck, Gale,” she groans, clinging onto his shoulders for dear life. Every brush of her clit against his hand sends sparks throughout her body. She feels as though she could be lit aflame at any moment and she’d thank him for it. 

Gale nibbles and kisses down her neck but is immediately stopped by the stiff, embroidered mantle covering her neck and shoulders wishing for more. More skin, more her. His entire world has become his best friend in and around his hands and there’s no place else he’d rather be.

He curls his fingers just so and it makes Poppy cry, “Yes, fuck,” in his ear. His whole hand works her now and is completely soaked, kneading her clit with the heel of his palm and fingers finding that perfect spot within her. Gale opens his eyes to find Poppy’s are half-lidded in ecstasy, lipstick smudged and cheeks flushed. Ethereal.

“Come for me, Poppy. Come for me,” he pleads.

Her eyes flash open at his words, her body singing for him. Every touch, every sound, every word threatens to be the one to push her over the edge. His intense gaze traps her like a leash, tethering her to him even more than they already are, already have been.

He can’t be looking at her like this, he can’t, he can’t. Those massive godsdamned eyes have ensnared her, locking her into this moment with him. They hold such tenderness and care that simultaneously breaks her heart and holds it together so that it could never ever shatter.

This whole time he’s been gripping her ass as if he were afraid it would disappear and it’s when the pleasure starts to brush the line with pain combined with a trembling press of his palm to her clit that she comes, crying out his name as she falls apart in his arms.

He’s a goner, truly. Nothing compares to her, nothing at all. She is recontextualizing everything he once thought beautiful. Everything will be compared to her, now. Her scent, her sounds, how she makes him feel, every bit of her. One could almost call it obsession, with how his heart latches onto her as if it had never felt love before.

Poppy’s hands stutter against him, looking for a place to hold. Gale releases her leg but moves to hold her by her waist so as to not let her fall. He raises his hand to his mouth and licks it clean, savoring it. Just her taste riles him up even more, the desire to kneel before her and hoist her legs over his shoulders—the thought makes him moan around his fingers...

“Fucking hells, Gale.”

His eyes flutter open after doing one of the hottest things she’s ever seen, pupils all blown out and dazed. He’s completely gone and utterly captivating.

“You’re made of magic, I’m certain,” he asserts, peppering kisses across her face.

She shakes her head, trying to clear the post-orgasm fog. “I’m no sorcerer...”

“Then how would you explain how my acute arcane senses are tingling?” he says between every kiss along her jaw.

“I think that’s just your dick,” she huffs, grinning and palming his erection through his robes.

Gale shudders at the contact, hips rolling out of his control and groaning into her neck. His hands aren’t his own, tugging at her dress as if to remove it.

Poppy’s other hand stops him, her voice breathless but stern, “You will not be ripping this dress off of me or vanishing it to only gods know where.”

He didn’t vanish her smalls, they’re just in his pocket. But her dress can’t fit there, he has to admit, which is difficult to accept when she keeps stroking him through his clothes like she is.

“I feel as though my whole body will be set ablaze,” he shudders.

“You should go to a cleric to get that checked ou—”

“I think I heard something this way,” a distant voice echoes down the hall.

They hurriedly right themselves, adjusting clothes and hair as necessary until Gale notices that Poppy’s lipstick is quite smudged. Casting Prestidigitation to make her lipstick and its mess disappear, Poppy does the same to him without question and he’s thankful for it. Gale turns them both around so they’re looking out the window and he begins pointing out notable landmarks as if that’s what they’ve been doing the whole time.

“See? And over there past The Hawk Man is the Honorable Knight! The Lady Dreaming is behind us but surely tomorrow I can take you there—”

The footsteps get louder until they’re clearly in the hallway with Gale and Poppy when one nasally voice pipes up.

“Excuse me! You cannot be here. Please return to the ballroom at o–ah. Mister Dekarios.” They turn around and see two dour-looking professors at the other end of the hall.

“Pardon us, Professor Venris! I was just showing her the view and this is just the best window for it, don’t you agree?” Gale says affably. 

Both professors grumble something unintelligible while Professor Venris summons them forward which Gale and Poppy follow dutifully hand in hand. They are led down the maze of hallways and stairs that Gale had originally directed Poppy and are deposited back into the ballroom where the dancing continues. Once the professors are out of earshot, Poppy whispers to Gale, “Nice and private, hmmm?”

Gale can’t help but grin when he responds. “It was! But I can’t help that someone was quite loud—”

Poppy swats him playfully at that response but doesn’t otherwise snap back, a novelty. He spies that she’s blushing which makes him hold onto her hand even tighter.

The table is empty except for Nell and her boyfriend chatting and sipping on champagne. The redhead eyes the two of them when they sit down but Poppy ignores her and retrieves a few things from her purse to reapply her lipstick. Nell snickers from her seat and Poppy eyes her at that.

“You two aren’t subtle, you know that?”

Poppy blots her lips and sets everything back into her purse as she cheerfully replies, “I don’t think I know what you’re talking about.” She turns to Gale to find him staring at her, smitten and warm.

“Careful Gale, if you keep making faces like that, one day it’ll get stuck that way,” she teases.

One of his hands takes hers again and replies, “But what if I want it to?” 

Poppy ignores the oh my gods she hears Nell gasp from her right and kisses Gale’s cheek again to return her claiming mark to his face. 

I think this may very well be the best day of my life, Gale thinks to himself. The dousing of his obvious arousal has done nothing to dampen his desire or the rest of his feelings for that matter. He meant it when he told Poppy that he feels as though he will be set ablaze…or maybe he already has? He burns for her most ardently and he can’t imagine a world where she isn’t by his side. 

—

The last few hours of the ball are a whirlwind. Gale can’t keep his hands off Poppy and the only way to acceptably do that is to dance. Everything feels lighter now, with her in his arms, dancing with him.

Poppy doesn’t want this night to end. It almost baffles her, to think about how they haven’t done this sooner. Being so close to Gale, openly affectionate, and romantic of all things feels completely natural, like it was the next logical step in their friendship. He’s still her best friend but also more and every time his hand rests a little too low on her back she wishes she could find that coat closet Marietta’s boyfriend snuck into and have her way with her wizard.

But Gale is persistent at keeping her on the dance floor, and so they dance until the band finishes for the night and many of the guests have left, all of their table mates included. She is sweating and her feet are sore, but feels utterly exhilarated, like she can do anything. And with the way Gale has been looking at her all night, she knows exactly what she wants.

Gale Dekarios is many impressive things, but despite all of them he is still a young man with some…needs. Private Sanctum is a wonderful spell, but oftentimes he doesn’t want to take the ten minutes to cast it, especially for it to then last 24 hours. He may have, a few years ago, developed a variation of the spell that takes but a few seconds to cast and lasts an hour. He may have, as he told the footmen to take the long way home, cast said modified spell on the carriage before he and Poppy climbed inside.

Within moments, the carriage is off. He has intentions, plans even, on how to maximize their time on the way home. But all of them are dashed when Poppy slings a leg over his lap with her dress rucked up over her hips. Her lips are upon him becoming his life breath. All of tonight has spent like hours-long foreplay and he can’t fool himself anymore—he needs her now. It’s taken all of his concentration to keep his body from getting carried away, but now, in the semi-privacy of the carriage, that concentration breaks. 

He’s hard in moments, rolling his hips in time with every grind she gyrates on his lap. Gale can feel her heat through his layers and can’t wait to feel all of her around him. The bumpy cobblestone roads only make it more fun for Gale to kiss her, the bumps and jolts moving his lips to new spots to suck and tease that make her tremble beneath his touch. 

Poppy tugs at his robes, pushing them aside to access the laces to his trousers. Her hands fumble in the toddling carriage but Gale holds onto her by her hips to keep her from falling ass-over-teakettle. She sighs when he’s freed and Gale groans a deep groan that makes his eyes flutter when her hand wraps around his length. She can’t remember the last time she was this excited about sex, this excited to be with a specific person; it’s completely exhilarating. 

The jostling of the carriage has shifted where her bodice sits on her torso, shifting the neckline lower than is proper. Between another jolt of the carriage and Gale deftly unclasping the collar around her neck, she’s practically spilling out of the dress.

Gale ogles her cleavage, now easily within reach. There’s nothing to hold him back. Keeping one arm wrapped around her waist, Gale’s mouth sucks and nibbles on the tender skin. He had wanted their first time to be more private, in his bed preferably, with all of her clothes off. But beggars can’t be choosers and the only thing distinguishing Gale from a beggar tonight is the fact that he has yet to get on his knees.

Poppy doesn’t seem to care about this, as much as Gale wants to bury his face between her thighs. Besides, they’re on a time limit and nothing seems hotter right now than this goddess of a woman riding him into oblivion in this carriage.

She seems to think the same thing, even though Gale’s mouth on her breasts makes her a trembling mess. He’s managed to tug the bodice down just enough to pop a nipple into his mouth. Poppy whines and swears in his lap, little gasping “fucks” pouring out of her lips. Her hand releases his cock and instead scrabbles on his chest for something to hold onto as she submits to his ministrations. She presses herself closer and lowers her hips, running her lips over his hard length. They both groan deeply at the contact as Poppy starts grinding on him, chasing her pleasure.

Her babbling swears turn to gibberish as this goes on, Gale’s mind almost completely submitted to the sensations. But he can’t come yet, he won’t come quickly like some virgin schoolboy. Bidding her breasts farewell with a wet kiss, both hands move to her waist to lift her up. Poppy helps, planting one hand on his shoulder for leverage while using the other to line him up.

It’s when he’s notched at her opening and nothing more that the carriage rumbles over a rut, jolting both of them and sheathing Poppy halfway down his cock in one go. 

“Ah, fuck!” she cries out, trembling in his arms.

Gale’s eyes roll back into his head at the sudden pressure of her around him but recovers quickly at her exclamation. “Poppy—are you okay? Are you alright?” He moves to lift her off of him but she resists, covering one of his hands with her own.

She focuses on her breathing, adjusting to the stretch. In answer, she begins lifting herself up and down along his length, slowly acclimating herself to him. The ache quickly turns pleasurable and her measured breaths turn into moans and with it Gale’s worry melts off his face.

He slips his hands under her skirt to hold her directly, cradling her ass as she works him. She’s unbelievably tight and Gale is trying his hardest to not come right this very moment; it’s difficult when she’s hot velvet around him, so soft and pliant under his hands. 

Gale can’t tear his eyes away from where they’re connected, watching himself disappear inside her with each measured move of her strong thighs. “You’re astonishing,” he breathes, gazing up at her in awe. 

It’s not the first time he’s complimented her tonight, but in the privacy of the carriage and in this moment of bearing herself to him, Poppy feels especially vulnerable and can’t help but blush at his words. He’s looking at her like she’s some sort of goddess and the full force of his gaze is as powerful, if not more powerful, than any spell. Overwhelmed, she looks away but one of his hands comes up to hold her by her cheek to turn her gaze back to his. 

“Stay with me,” he says, mouth puckered in a heart-breaking pout and eyes beseeching. 

Poppy nods, unable to form coherent words at the moment, and wraps one arm around his shoulders, keeping the other hand pressed against his chest. This brings her face closer to his, close enough for their foreheads to touch. His breath tickles her face and every roll of her hips sends waves of pleasure up her spine.

Eventually, she bottoms out and holds herself there, relishing in the fullness. Gale gazes at her with a rapt expression on his face before surprising her with a kiss, all tongue and wanting. It’s as she’s kissing him that she starts moving again, rolling her hips in small, quick snaps. 

They moan into each other’s mouths, losing themselves in each other but not losing the other. Neither has felt closer to the other than before this moment, before tonight, even. 

Another pothole and thus another jolt of the carriage thrusts Poppy onto him harder causing Gale to stutter his own “fffuck—”

“A curse? From the dashing Gale of Waterdeep? What a treat,” she teases breathlessly, clenching her walls around him to elicit a shuddering “hells” from his mouth.

He responds only by sliding his hand on her face around to grip the back of her neck and tightening an arm around her waist before thrusting up hard with planted feet, transforming her smirk into a gasping “O” of pleasure. Catching her off guard, he uses the opportunity to turn the tables fully on her, Poppy shaking on top of him in a gorgeous moaning mess as he fucks her.

She feels as though her body has become one giant nerve, hyper-sensitive to everything him. Every one of his thrusts hits her in that perfect spot that renders her speechless. He’s just as noisy as she is, which is such a fucking turn-on, many of her previous male partners quiet as mice for only gods know why. Poppy tries her best to meet him with every thrust but she’s so overwhelmed by the pleasure coursing through her body that it’s difficult to control anything at the moment.

Gale wants her to come—no, needs her to come. He removes the hand from her neck to instead move between them to pleasure the bundle of nerves at her center. Knowing how she likes it after their rendezvous in the hallway earlier, he quickly sets her on the path to ecstasy.

Poppy’s certain Gale’s hands are magic at this point with how quickly he’s learned how to maximize her pleasure. Every meeting of their hips shoots bolts of electricity back through her body. A whine tears through her throat as he cranes forward to kiss and suck at her neck, every touch of his dragging her closer to her end.

He feels it before he hears it, how her hips and walls stutter around him as she approaches her climax. Gale maintains his pace, willing for her to fall over the edge before him.

“Fuck, fuck, FUCK—”

Her pleasure is everything. Seeing her at the precipice apparates him there as just the thought of her coming undone is enough to bring him to the edge. “Poppy, I’m going to come—”

Poppy’s desperate eyes lock with his as her body explodes with sensation, pleasure surging through her entire body as she comes.

It’s all the answer Gale needs, her climax milking his cock as he comes inside her. Poppy’s hips stutter against his as she comes down from her high.

She’s captivated by his expression, how his lower lip wobbles as he gasps her name and how his heavy-lidded eyes don’t waver from her own.

“You’re so pretty when you come,” she murmurs, and Gale feels his face burning, startled at the compliment and also how sincere and wrecked she sounds when she says it. Her eyes are locked on his and he feels simultaneously lost at sea and perfectly on track; he would let her lead him anywhere. 

“That’s quite a compliment,” he stutters, admiring her flushed face and heaving breasts, makeup smudged to high hells. She’s so utterly gorgeous like this, perfectly debauched. Perhaps he’s been bewitched, like she’s some sort of succubus or divine being. He doesn’t want to let go yet, so with a prestidigitation the mess is cleaned and she collapses onto him, her head resting on his shoulder as his cock softens inside her. She can have all of me, he thinks. Every last bit of me.

Glancing out the window as he catches his breath, Gale sees the carriage just now entering the Sea Ward.

“Come on, love,” he whispers, tapping her gently on her back. “We’re almost home.”

Love? She thinks. Of course she loves him, he’s her best friend. Does he…? 

Raising herself up, Poppy catches his lips in a sweet kiss. She can’t yet put into words how she feels about this, about everything that’s happened tonight, so she hopes this kiss conveys at least a fraction of how he has made her glow and feel so utterly seen. Slumping onto the seat next to him, she rights her dress and snaps her collar back into place.

Poppy watches his long fingers as they run through his hair to make it look less disheveled and admires him—the line of his jaw and the flexing of his fingers. There’s also all the purply-pink lipstick smeared all over his face that reminds her of what her own face must look like. 

She finds her purse where it has fallen onto the floor and digs out a small mirror to take in the damage. Gale casts prestidigitation on himself to clean off her lipstick, but her situation is not so salvageable. Lipstick covers the entire lower half of her face and her collarbone and the tops of her breasts. Her eye makeup is melting down her face and her hair is more than mussed. It’s more than a prestidigitation followed by some touch-ups that can save on such short-notice, so she resorts to casting Disguise Self to make it look as though her makeup is fine and only on her face, if a little faded and patchy after a long night out.

Gale tucks himself away, adjusting his robes and smoothing out any wrinkles as he watches her cast. He’ll never tire of her magic, how he’s never seen her cast a spell the same way twice. That tune rings through his head, the one they had danced to so closely earlier. The fact that she remembers it too and wanted to put it to such a use warms his already blazing heart. 

The carriage pulls onto his street and Gale places a hand on her thigh, grabbing her attention. Her sharp gaze pierces right through him, all-knowing and more. “Do I look presentable?” he asks.

He watches as her eyes scan him and he notes how they linger almost imperceptibly on his hands, eyes, and shoulders. “Perfectly presentable,” she says. “And myself?”

“Exquisite,” he murmurs, once again pulled in by the delectable color of her lips, even if this time it is an illusion. The kiss is short but not lacking in passion and Gale dreads pulling away, but now they’re pulling up to the house and they’re out of time.

His eyes rove over her form one last time. He’s never felt so hungry; she has completely wrung her out but he thinks–or rather, knows—that he could never tire of her.

“What’s that look in your eyes?” she asks archly, the footmen hopping down from their posts and jostling the carriage.

“If I don’t devour you in the next twenty-four hours, we’re going to have a problem,” he vows. Her cheeks heat at his words and then the door is open, waiting for them to exit their private sanctum.

Once inside, they hear that they’ve stayed out late enough where their mothers long having gone to bed, thank the gods. Ascending the stairs inside hand in hand, Gale has never felt happier or more whole. Her hand in his feels so utterly right and the entirety of the summer laid before them makes his mind race with ideas and possibilities. There’s a quiet beach in a cove just north of here he stumbled across late last summer that he didn’t get a chance to show Poppy last year—maybe a day trip when the days get warmer is in order. The image of Poppy in swimming clothes or even skinny-dipping with water sluicing off of her naked body sets his need ablaze once more.

Gale walks her to the stairs that lead to the third floor and, out of view of the floors below, he pulls her in by her waist for a kiss. His words from earlier ring in her head and as much as she hates to leave him now, she has an idea that she wants to act upon. 

Cupping his cheeks, she kisses his lips and then the tip of his nose, gazing at him with adoration. “Goodnight, Gale.”

“Goodnight, Poppy,” he breathes, looking utterly besotted and it makes her heart swell. Her hand grazing down his shoulder to his fingertips as she heads up the stairs, she finally looks away so she can see where she steps. It’s not until she’s about to turn the corner that she looks back down to see Gale watching her leave, but his eyes are not on her face.

“Eyes up here, Dekarios,” she hisses down the stairs with mirth. 

Gale’s eyes flit up to her face from where they had been trained on her backside as she climbed the stairs and he grins a sheepish and yet completely self-satisfied grin at being caught. Poppy blows him a kiss before disappearing around the corner and he feels so, so cold without her.

Once upstairs and in her room, Poppy closes the door behind her and lets the events of the day settle within her. It’s crazy how everything can change in a day, but this is not a moment to be dwelling on things. Summoning a mage hand to help her unlace her dress, she slips out of the gown and rushes to the washroom to scrub off the makeup and to undo her hair—but she’s not going to bed quite yet.

Downstairs, Gale slowly makes his way to his room, reliving all of the events of the evening. He undresses carefully, setting the clothes aside as he recalls his mother’s comments about the two of them sitting down for a portrait.

With a flap of her wings, Tara flits into his room from the open balcony door.

“Mr. Dekarios! I am so pleased to see you are home safe. I trust that you two had a grand time tonight?”

Gale can’t help the grin that spreads across his face as he recalls the events of the evening once more. “We certainly did, Tara.” 

As Gale finishes changing into his pajamas behind his changing screen he regales Tara with the more appropriate events of the evening. While emptying his pockets, he finds Poppy’s smalls and grins to himself, stuffing them into his pajamas pocket to hide from Tara. The tressym’s big yellow eyes gleam at him as he wraps up his story, now fully dressed. He may have made maybe a few too many comments about how Poppy sparkled in the candlelight or the amount of times he held her hand…

“Mmmm,” she hums. “It sounds like your mother will be very pleased when she hears about the details of your evening.”

Gale opens the balcony door, stepping out into the cool spring night. “I don’t think mother needs to hear all the details, Tara.”

“Mr. Dekarios, what do you think you are doing? It is late!”

“A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell,” he answers as he casts Dimension Door, teleporting himself onto Poppy’s balcony above.

There’s a screech when he lands, Gale crashing into Poppy on the middle of her balcony. He grabs ahold of her to stabilize himself but also to stop her arms from flailing.

“Shhh, shhhh, it’s all right, it’s me,” he soothes. Lit by the bright light of the moon in a clear sky, he notices that she’s washed off her makeup, undone her hair, and has donned her nightshirt...

“Poppy, where are your pants?”

Still breathing heavily, she responds, “Didn’t think that’s something you would put up a fuss about.”

“Care for these back?” he says cheekily, holding her smalls out in his hand while the other roves down her back to grope her bare ass.

She splutters at his words. “What, you don’t want to keep them?” Barbing him, readying herself for his response.

“If you ever decide to gift them to me, I will eagerly accept. Excuse me for attempting to be a gentleman...” He murmurs, leaving lingering kisses down her cheek. “But what are you doing out on the balcony so late at night? Dressed in such a state?” he continues, trailing kisses down her neck.

“I could ask the same of you with how you Dimension-Doored onto my balcony without warning,” Poppy gasps, Gale’s mouth all-too effective.

With his tongue on her pulse-point, he can feel her pulse race, still coming down from the shock. Without looking, he guides Poppy back into her room through the open balcony door, kicking it shut behind him.

Gale maneuvers her towards her bed until the backs of her knees hit the edge of the mattress. Before she can fall back, he tugs her shirt over her head and tosses it behind him, leaving her completely bare before him.

Everything about her is soft; soft curves, soft skin and he can’t get enough of her. Her skin still shimmers in places–-her arms, her collarbone, the tops of her lush breasts…his hands don’t know where to rest as he pushes her onto the bed, exploring every inch of her as he crawls on top of her.

As amazing as this is, Poppy needs skin, she needs his clothes off. After a few seconds of persistent tugging on his shirt, Gale finally gets the picture and stands, pulling the shirt over his head in one fluid motion.

She feels a little silly with how he so effortlessly knocks her off balance. His chest hair trails down his front past the top of his pajama pants slung low on his hips and gods, she’s never been more turned on in her life. Just as quickly, his pants are off and—fuck, she might be drooling.

Instead of climbing back on top of her, Gale surprises her by grabbing her ankles and tugging until her ass is almost hanging off the bed. His large hands grip her thighs and spread her wide as he kisses and bites up the sensitive skin towards her center.

Poppy sits up on her elbows to watch him, brain heady with all that he’s done to her. She had been hoping to get him on the back foot, to make him lose his mind. But instead he’s turned the tables so that she’s the one falling apart while he’s in control. 

Gale nuzzles her arousal, head swimming with her scent, her trembling, all of her. Finding her on her balcony ready to surprise him? Gods, he might just be in love with her.

Releasing one of her thighs, he guides one of her hands to the crown of his head and closes it until she has a tight grip on his hair. Poppy’s eyes go wide at the sight; at how Gale’s pupils have almost eclipsed his caramel irises.

“Don’t let go,” he pleads, almost sounding like a growl, before diving in to finally taste her.

—

Poppy awakens to the muffled sound of Morena waking up Gale in his room below hers, thankful that she doesn’t have to deal with Morena finding her dear boy missing from his bed. She had exhibited more self control than she believed she possessed by shooing Gale out of bed in the wee hours of the morning, her wizard all longing looks and tousled hair. There is no way in the nine hells she would have allowed Morena to find her son in here this morning. She rolls over and tugs one of her pillows to her chest, wishing it was Gale instead of cold silk.

Gale stumbles out of bed as his mother exits. He finds his dressing gown but gets his arm stuck in the sleeve as he attempts to pull it on—so very tired after not getting enough sleep. His exhausted mind slowly recalls all of last night's events and he decides that it is all quite worth it. Slowly walking towards the door, he passes by his full-length mirror where he catches the sight of a hickey on his collarbone, exposed by how he’s stretched his shirt in his half-arsed attempt at tying his dressing gown. Righting himself quickly as to not be interrogated by his mother this morning, he makes his way downstairs enticed by the smell of breakfast. 

Once downstairs he finds his mother and Adrianne already at the dining room table, digging into their breakfasts and chatting. They both light up at Gale’s appearance but continue on in a hush.

Poppy finally reveals herself and joins them at the dining room table looking delightfully rumpled with her hair sitting large and wild around her face. Like every morning, she still appears half asleep, but reaches for the carafe of coffee with purpose, filling her mug to the brim to drink it black, unlike how Gale prepares his with a mound of sugar and milk. She doesn’t look at him, which he doesn’t have time to worry about as he feels the side of her stockinged foot press against the side of his and he hides his smile at the contact in a too-big bite of pancakes.

She settles in with her mug in hand, nursing it. Poppy is grateful for it, giving her time to build her defenses against the onslaught of questions they will receive about last night. They didn’t have the time last night in the carriage home to discuss how they’d handle their mothers. Poppy isn’t a fool, she knows Morena desperately wants them to get together, but she’ll be damned if they let on that they had more than a little “fun” last night. Morena doesn’t need to know that Poppy fucked her precious son silly or vice versa.

It’s actually as she sees Morena open her mouth to speak and Poppy braces herself by taking a large bite of toast that her savior comes in the form of one of the Dekarios footmen declaring to the room, “Mail delivery for Miss Poppy Lyons.”

Gale’s head whips around to look at Poppy and sees that she’s fully awake now, her eyes wide at the footman’s announcement. He can count on one hand the amount of times Poppy has received mail while staying with them and so this is a true oddity, until he remembers why this announcement makes Poppy nervous. 

She swallows her toast heavily and moves to stand, her hands shaking slightly. Gale almost moves to hold her hand reassuringly but restrains himself, just watching her approach the footman and the silver platter he carries. 

Poppy picks up the nondescript wax-sealed, cream-colored envelope in her hands and takes a deep breath, before cracking the wax and opening the missive before she can talk herself out of it. She turns towards the others in the room but can’t look up right now, it’s as though her vision has tunneled on the paper in her hands.

The room is silent beyond the rustling of paper and Gale holds his breath, waiting for Poppy to speak as she unfolds the letter in her hands. She unfolds the pages and then her voice cracks out, “Congratulations!” before breaking down into happy tears. 

Gale is up in an instant, rushing towards her and wrapping her in his arms in excitement. Her feet are off the floor in his exuberance and she can’t help the laugh that she huffs at his reaction. Months of hard work and waiting and stress have paid off and she can’t believe she’s going to New Olamn—and Gale’s lips are on hers.

He just…got caught up in the moment. His happiness for her burst out of his chest and his body reacted accordingly. Pride does not even begin to describe what he feels. Her joy is his joy, it’s that simple. The unrelenting itch to even just hold hands with her all morning may have had some underlying influence…but no matter. Her lips are soft, she tastes like coffee, and the arm that she slings around his neck to hold him there is just the most welcome thing.

The awareness of where he is returns to him when she breaks the kiss. He can feel more than he can see both of their mothers’ eyes upon them, having just seen him kiss Poppy. To avoid any immediate confrontation about that, he just pulls Poppy closer and buries his face in her hair.

Poppy’s hand holding the acceptance letter is trapped between them and she’s reeling from the news and Gale and she lets him hold her upright. Her eyes dart across the room and her mother is standing on the other side of the table to give her and Gale space but her face is brimming with happiness. Adrianne’s hand clutches Morena's, who is crying into a lace handkerchief and babbling about how happy she is at all of it.

“I’m sorry,” Gale whispers into her ear. “I got carried away.”

“Don’t be. It looks like I’m staying,” before resting her forehead against his and closing her eyes to let the excitement wash over her. 

~~~

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