Anxiety is rising outside my window and I am very tired of it. My tattoo artist is working on a sketch with Gail and I hope to live long enough to get it
I always thought that I could not draw. And I never really wanted to. Either because of the knowledge that if I didn't try, the picture in my head would never be the same on paper, or simply because I put the cross on myself as an artist. Who knows? But today I picked up a pen. It is difficult to call it a successful drawing, but for me it is an achievement. And isn't it strange that it was Gale who helped me get it. He lives in my head for free.
summary: Gale wakes up to hearing his name and spirals
word count: 1.4k
notes: I have no idea what I'm doing. This is first fanfic I've ever written, but I had one of those ideas at 2am and I thought it would be hilarious if Gale woke up to Tav having a "dream" that very much included him and he spirals. I'm sure it's not an original idea and I'm sure there are plenty of grammatical errors and repeated words (I mean, it was 2am and I initially typed it out in my notes app).
“Gale…”
It was scarcely more than a breath, barely even recognizable as a word snagged on the sound of the fire’s soft crackle. Faint. Fragile. His name, exhaled like a secret.
Gale stirred, eyelids fluttering open, heavy with sleep. The firelight washed his vision in flickering gold, blurring the images of bedrolls, shadows, and the ever-present wilderness beyond. He blinked. The sound — had he imagined it? It clung to the last wisps of a dream already unraveling in his mind, something formless and gray slipping away from memory.
Whatever ghost had brushed the edges of sleep this time, he was thankful it had vanished before it could take shape.
He couldn’t remember the last time a dream had been anything other than torment. No warm nostalgia or idle imaginings — only the cold weight of the consequences of his own hubris. The orb. The humiliation. Mystra’s retribution. And lately, dreams stained with desperation of finding magic to satiate the curse in his chest.
He sighed and shifted, a quiet grunt escaping as his body protested the hard earth beneath him. He wasn’t built for this kind of travel. He was a man of books and soft chairs and deep, quiet solitude. And yet, here he was, trying to rest while dirt worked its way beneath his clothes and a parasite pulsed behind his eye.
His gaze swept across the camp. Everyone else still slept, or as close as one could come in the wilds with the gods playing dice with their fates. They inevitably landed on Tav.
Gods, he hadn’t meant to look, but his eyes had a will of their own where she was concerned. He should have turned away, closed his eyes and let the fire lull him back to sleep. But he didn’t, not yet.
The glow of the embers gilded the soft curve of her cheek, lit the strands of hair that had fallen over her brow. For once, her face was unguarded. No furrow of frustration carved between her brows, no flash of defiance in her eyes. The sharp edges of her will had softened into something quieter. Gentler.
Peaceful.
Not driven, not bristling with the need to act, not barrelling into danger as though self-preservation was an afterthought. Not lashing him with some scathing line masked as jest — to flirtation. He could never quite tell the difference. She walked a fine line between hostility and flirtation. Hells, perhaps the hostility was flirtation? One moment she was shoving past him with a glare, the next brushing a hand against his shoulder and calling it accidental. She wielded sarcasm like a blade, but there was always a glint of heat under it.
Once, after a battle, she’d caught him staring and had cocked an eyebrow in that maddening way she did.
“Like what you see, bookworm? Should I pose for your next tragic sonnet?”
He had stammered something foolish in return, trying not to trip over his own feet — or the growing interest in his chest. He was careful after that. Careful not to look too long, not to linger. Not to invite that smirk or the inevitable follow up: “Try not to combust, wizard.”
But tonight…
Tonight she looked like the magic burning in his own chest — breathtaking in her beauty, volatile at her core, and far too much for mortal hands. Her lashes rested against her cheeks, her lips slightly parted with each steady breath. One hand tucked under her chin, the other curled against her collarbone, rising and falling with each inhalation. A lock of hair drifted over her mouth.
The space between their bedrolls was achingly close. He could reach out — just barely — and tuck the stray strands behind her ear. Feel the warmth of her skin. Trace the line of her jaw. The impulse startled him, shame following close behind, hot and unwelcome. He folded his hands together and pressed them to his chest, as though it could contain the thought.
“Mm…Gale…”
This time, the whisper was unmistakable. His name again — soft, clinging to the silence like a kiss not yet given.
He froze. Surely the gods weren’t so cruel — or generous — as to let him hear that. He blinked, once, as if trying to clear dream-logic from his brain. Was this some kind of fevered hallucination? A trick of exhaustion? Or worse — was this how ceremorphosis began? Was that it? Sudden, delusional euphoria? Hearing names in the night?
Brilliant. By morning he’d be sprouting tentacles and feasting on his companions’ frontal lobes.
Had he not been watching, he might have doubted it came from her. But he had…and it did. Every breath, every shift of her brow, and he knew — knew — it came from her.
A small sigh followed as she shifted restlessly. Her legs seemed to twist and coil against themselves beneath her blanket, her breathing faster now, uneven. Her mouth moved again, murmuring words half-lost to the night.
"…please…don’t stop…”
The words landed like a fireball to the chest. His breath hitched something sharp and involuntary. For a moment, he had genuinely believed the orb had surged.
It was too intimate. Too much. He was intruding, even without meaning to. She certainly had not meant for him to hear it, her voice spilling like a secret, a spell meant for no one but herself…and perhaps him, in the quiet, treacherous part of his dreams.
And yet, here he was. Listening. Watching. Imagining.
She shifted again under the blanket, her brow drawing inward. There was a flush to her neck, a trembling exhale. Her body answered some invisible rhythm, hips giving the faintest sway, like she moved beneath a touch only she could feel — his touch, if his wretched imagination had any say in the matter…and it very much did.
Vehemently, repeatedly, and with far too much creativity.
He squeezed his eyes shut, but it was too late. The image had already taken hold. Her breath ghosting against his neck, her hands tangled in his hair, her voice saying please like that again, awake this time, and for him alone—
This was wrong. Deeply, viscerally, morally wrong.
But he didn’t look away. Couldn’t
A man of letters. A man of principle. A man with a sentient magical time bomb in his chest and a brain parasite on the brink of turning him into a tenctacled aberration, and here he was, completely undone by a dream not even his.
Honestly, it was far more likely that she was dreaming of strangling him with his own robes. Or bludgeoning him with that sharp little dagger she kept in her boot. Her affection, if it existed, was about as easy to read as an illusory script — and twice as dangerous.
Still.
He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t had the same thoughts. Where he’d pull her into his arms by the fire, or kiss her senseless against the side of a ruin. Where her laughter melted into moans and she’d call his name again and again.
A sharp gasp broke his thoughts, and he snapped his eyes shut.
She sat bolt upright, attempting to slow her breathing. Her eyes were wide, darting, the fog of sleep not yet cleared.
He stretched in his bedroll, feigning a sluggish rousing, and groaned low in his throat like a man half-asleep.
”Hmm,” his voice rasped. “Everything alright?”
She looked at him too quickly, her cheeks flushed and her chest rising with a sudden breath before falling again. Like she was exhaling the remnants of the dream, and his presence was making it harder to let go. Or perhaps that was just his wishful thinking – guilt-drenched and absurd as it was.
”Yes,” she blurted, voice too high and fast. “Just…a dream.”
Oh, he knew it was. The kind that would keep him warm through the coldest of night if he let it.
He nearly asked, the words hovering behind his teeth, heavy with suggestion. What kind of dream? But before he could summon the courage — or the recklessness — she bolted to her feet.
”I need to relieve myself.”
He raised a brow, but kept the remark to himself. Barely. The jokes were lining up in his mind like eager tavern patrons.
Instead, he rolled over, back to the fire, lips twitching in amusement. Flattered. Pleased. And just a little too smug.
Until a voice sliced through the quiet from across the fire.
”You both know I’m an elf that meditates instead of sleeps,” came the dry drawl, “and a vampire with extremely sharp hearing?”
The smugness died instantly. Gale froze, staring into the black treeline.
summary: Gale wakes up to hearing his name and spirals
word count: 1.4k
notes: I have no idea what I'm doing. This is first fanfic I've ever written, but I had one of those ideas at 2am and I thought it would be hilarious if Gale woke up to Tav having a "dream" that very much included him and he spirals. I'm sure it's not an original idea and I'm sure there are plenty of grammatical errors and repeated words (I mean, it was 2am and I initially typed it out in my notes app).
“Gale…”
It was scarcely more than a breath, barely even recognizable as a word snagged on the sound of the fire’s soft crackle. Faint. Fragile. His name, exhaled like a secret.
Gale stirred, eyelids fluttering open, heavy with sleep. The firelight washed his vision in flickering gold, blurring the images of bedrolls, shadows, and the ever-present wilderness beyond. He blinked. The sound — had he imagined it? It clung to the last wisps of a dream already unraveling in his mind, something formless and gray slipping away from memory.
Whatever ghost had brushed the edges of sleep this time, he was thankful it had vanished before it could take shape.
He couldn’t remember the last time a dream had been anything other than torment. No warm nostalgia or idle imaginings — only the cold weight of the consequences of his own hubris. The orb. The humiliation. Mystra’s retribution. And lately, dreams stained with desperation of finding magic to satiate the curse in his chest.
He sighed and shifted, a quiet grunt escaping as his body protested the hard earth beneath him. He wasn’t built for this kind of travel. He was a man of books and soft chairs and deep, quiet solitude. And yet, here he was, trying to rest while dirt worked its way beneath his clothes and a parasite pulsed behind his eye.
His gaze swept across the camp. Everyone else still slept, or as close as one could come in the wilds with the gods playing dice with their fates. They inevitably landed on Tav.
Gods, he hadn’t meant to look, but his eyes had a will of their own where she was concerned. He should have turned away, closed his eyes and let the fire lull him back to sleep. But he didn’t, not yet.
The glow of the embers gilded the soft curve of her cheek, lit the strands of hair that had fallen over her brow. For once, her face was unguarded. No furrow of frustration carved between her brows, no flash of defiance in her eyes. The sharp edges of her will had softened into something quieter. Gentler.
Peaceful.
Not driven, not bristling with the need to act, not barrelling into danger as though self-preservation was an afterthought. Not lashing him with some scathing line masked as jest — to flirtation. He could never quite tell the difference. She walked a fine line between hostility and flirtation. Hells, perhaps the hostility was flirtation? One moment she was shoving past him with a glare, the next brushing a hand against his shoulder and calling it accidental. She wielded sarcasm like a blade, but there was always a glint of heat under it.
Once, after a battle, she’d caught him staring and had cocked an eyebrow in that maddening way she did.
“Like what you see, bookworm? Should I pose for your next tragic sonnet?”
He had stammered something foolish in return, trying not to trip over his own feet — or the growing interest in his chest. He was careful after that. Careful not to look too long, not to linger. Not to invite that smirk or the inevitable follow up: “Try not to combust, wizard.”
But tonight…
Tonight she looked like the magic burning in his own chest — breathtaking in her beauty, volatile at her core, and far too much for mortal hands. Her lashes rested against her cheeks, her lips slightly parted with each steady breath. One hand tucked under her chin, the other curled against her collarbone, rising and falling with each inhalation. A lock of hair drifted over her mouth.
The space between their bedrolls was achingly close. He could reach out — just barely — and tuck the stray strands behind her ear. Feel the warmth of her skin. Trace the line of her jaw. The impulse startled him, shame following close behind, hot and unwelcome. He folded his hands together and pressed them to his chest, as though it could contain the thought.
“Mm…Gale…”
This time, the whisper was unmistakable. His name again — soft, clinging to the silence like a kiss not yet given.
He froze. Surely the gods weren’t so cruel — or generous — as to let him hear that. He blinked, once, as if trying to clear dream-logic from his brain. Was this some kind of fevered hallucination? A trick of exhaustion? Or worse — was this how ceremorphosis began? Was that it? Sudden, delusional euphoria? Hearing names in the night?
Brilliant. By morning he’d be sprouting tentacles and feasting on his companions’ frontal lobes.
Had he not been watching, he might have doubted it came from her. But he had…and it did. Every breath, every shift of her brow, and he knew — knew — it came from her.
A small sigh followed as she shifted restlessly. Her legs seemed to twist and coil against themselves beneath her blanket, her breathing faster now, uneven. Her mouth moved again, murmuring words half-lost to the night.
"…please…don’t stop…”
The words landed like a fireball to the chest. His breath hitched something sharp and involuntary. For a moment, he had genuinely believed the orb had surged.
It was too intimate. Too much. He was intruding, even without meaning to. She certainly had not meant for him to hear it, her voice spilling like a secret, a spell meant for no one but herself…and perhaps him, in the quiet, treacherous part of his dreams.
And yet, here he was. Listening. Watching. Imagining.
She shifted again under the blanket, her brow drawing inward. There was a flush to her neck, a trembling exhale. Her body answered some invisible rhythm, hips giving the faintest sway, like she moved beneath a touch only she could feel — his touch, if his wretched imagination had any say in the matter…and it very much did.
Vehemently, repeatedly, and with far too much creativity.
He squeezed his eyes shut, but it was too late. The image had already taken hold. Her breath ghosting against his neck, her hands tangled in his hair, her voice saying please like that again, awake this time, and for him alone—
This was wrong. Deeply, viscerally, morally wrong.
But he didn’t look away. Couldn’t
A man of letters. A man of principle. A man with a sentient magical time bomb in his chest and a brain parasite on the brink of turning him into a tenctacled aberration, and here he was, completely undone by a dream not even his.
Honestly, it was far more likely that she was dreaming of strangling him with his own robes. Or bludgeoning him with that sharp little dagger she kept in her boot. Her affection, if it existed, was about as easy to read as an illusory script — and twice as dangerous.
Still.
He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t had the same thoughts. Where he’d pull her into his arms by the fire, or kiss her senseless against the side of a ruin. Where her laughter melted into moans and she’d call his name again and again.
A sharp gasp broke his thoughts, and he snapped his eyes shut.
She sat bolt upright, attempting to slow her breathing. Her eyes were wide, darting, the fog of sleep not yet cleared.
He stretched in his bedroll, feigning a sluggish rousing, and groaned low in his throat like a man half-asleep.
”Hmm,” his voice rasped. “Everything alright?”
She looked at him too quickly, her cheeks flushed and her chest rising with a sudden breath before falling again. Like she was exhaling the remnants of the dream, and his presence was making it harder to let go. Or perhaps that was just his wishful thinking – guilt-drenched and absurd as it was.
”Yes,” she blurted, voice too high and fast. “Just…a dream.”
Oh, he knew it was. The kind that would keep him warm through the coldest of night if he let it.
He nearly asked, the words hovering behind his teeth, heavy with suggestion. What kind of dream? But before he could summon the courage — or the recklessness — she bolted to her feet.
”I need to relieve myself.”
He raised a brow, but kept the remark to himself. Barely. The jokes were lining up in his mind like eager tavern patrons.
Instead, he rolled over, back to the fire, lips twitching in amusement. Flattered. Pleased. And just a little too smug.
Until a voice sliced through the quiet from across the fire.
”You both know I’m an elf that meditates instead of sleeps,” came the dry drawl, “and a vampire with extremely sharp hearing?”
The smugness died instantly. Gale froze, staring into the black treeline.
summary: Gale wakes up to hearing his name and spirals
word count: 1.4k
notes: I have no idea what I'm doing. This is first fanfic I've ever written, but I had one of those ideas at 2am and I thought it would be hilarious if Gale woke up to Tav having a "dream" that very much included him and he spirals. I'm sure it's not an original idea and I'm sure there are plenty of grammatical errors and repeated words (I mean, it was 2am and I initially typed it out in my notes app).
“Gale…”
It was scarcely more than a breath, barely even recognizable as a word snagged on the sound of the fire’s soft crackle. Faint. Fragile. His name, exhaled like a secret.
Gale stirred, eyelids fluttering open, heavy with sleep. The firelight washed his vision in flickering gold, blurring the images of bedrolls, shadows, and the ever-present wilderness beyond. He blinked. The sound — had he imagined it? It clung to the last wisps of a dream already unraveling in his mind, something formless and gray slipping away from memory.
Whatever ghost had brushed the edges of sleep this time, he was thankful it had vanished before it could take shape.
He couldn’t remember the last time a dream had been anything other than torment. No warm nostalgia or idle imaginings — only the cold weight of the consequences of his own hubris. The orb. The humiliation. Mystra’s retribution. And lately, dreams stained with desperation of finding magic to satiate the curse in his chest.
He sighed and shifted, a quiet grunt escaping as his body protested the hard earth beneath him. He wasn’t built for this kind of travel. He was a man of books and soft chairs and deep, quiet solitude. And yet, here he was, trying to rest while dirt worked its way beneath his clothes and a parasite pulsed behind his eye.
His gaze swept across the camp. Everyone else still slept, or as close as one could come in the wilds with the gods playing dice with their fates. They inevitably landed on Tav.
Gods, he hadn’t meant to look, but his eyes had a will of their own where she was concerned. He should have turned away, closed his eyes and let the fire lull him back to sleep. But he didn’t, not yet.
The glow of the embers gilded the soft curve of her cheek, lit the strands of hair that had fallen over her brow. For once, her face was unguarded. No furrow of frustration carved between her brows, no flash of defiance in her eyes. The sharp edges of her will had softened into something quieter. Gentler.
Peaceful.
Not driven, not bristling with the need to act, not barrelling into danger as though self-preservation was an afterthought. Not lashing him with some scathing line masked as jest — to flirtation. He could never quite tell the difference. She walked a fine line between hostility and flirtation. Hells, perhaps the hostility was flirtation? One moment she was shoving past him with a glare, the next brushing a hand against his shoulder and calling it accidental. She wielded sarcasm like a blade, but there was always a glint of heat under it.
Once, after a battle, she’d caught him staring and had cocked an eyebrow in that maddening way she did.
“Like what you see, bookworm? Should I pose for your next tragic sonnet?”
He had stammered something foolish in return, trying not to trip over his own feet — or the growing interest in his chest. He was careful after that. Careful not to look too long, not to linger. Not to invite that smirk or the inevitable follow up: “Try not to combust, wizard.”
But tonight…
Tonight she looked like the magic burning in his own chest — breathtaking in her beauty, volatile at her core, and far too much for mortal hands. Her lashes rested against her cheeks, her lips slightly parted with each steady breath. One hand tucked under her chin, the other curled against her collarbone, rising and falling with each inhalation. A lock of hair drifted over her mouth.
The space between their bedrolls was achingly close. He could reach out — just barely — and tuck the stray strands behind her ear. Feel the warmth of her skin. Trace the line of her jaw. The impulse startled him, shame following close behind, hot and unwelcome. He folded his hands together and pressed them to his chest, as though it could contain the thought.
“Mm…Gale…”
This time, the whisper was unmistakable. His name again — soft, clinging to the silence like a kiss not yet given.
He froze. Surely the gods weren’t so cruel — or generous — as to let him hear that. He blinked, once, as if trying to clear dream-logic from his brain. Was this some kind of fevered hallucination? A trick of exhaustion? Or worse — was this how ceremorphosis began? Was that it? Sudden, delusional euphoria? Hearing names in the night?
Brilliant. By morning he’d be sprouting tentacles and feasting on his companions’ frontal lobes.
Had he not been watching, he might have doubted it came from her. But he had…and it did. Every breath, every shift of her brow, and he knew — knew — it came from her.
A small sigh followed as she shifted restlessly. Her legs seemed to twist and coil against themselves beneath her blanket, her breathing faster now, uneven. Her mouth moved again, murmuring words half-lost to the night.
"…please…don’t stop…”
The words landed like a fireball to the chest. His breath hitched something sharp and involuntary. For a moment, he had genuinely believed the orb had surged.
It was too intimate. Too much. He was intruding, even without meaning to. She certainly had not meant for him to hear it, her voice spilling like a secret, a spell meant for no one but herself…and perhaps him, in the quiet, treacherous part of his dreams.
And yet, here he was. Listening. Watching. Imagining.
She shifted again under the blanket, her brow drawing inward. There was a flush to her neck, a trembling exhale. Her body answered some invisible rhythm, hips giving the faintest sway, like she moved beneath a touch only she could feel — his touch, if his wretched imagination had any say in the matter…and it very much did.
Vehemently, repeatedly, and with far too much creativity.
He squeezed his eyes shut, but it was too late. The image had already taken hold. Her breath ghosting against his neck, her hands tangled in his hair, her voice saying please like that again, awake this time, and for him alone—
This was wrong. Deeply, viscerally, morally wrong.
But he didn’t look away. Couldn’t
A man of letters. A man of principle. A man with a sentient magical time bomb in his chest and a brain parasite on the brink of turning him into a tenctacled aberration, and here he was, completely undone by a dream not even his.
Honestly, it was far more likely that she was dreaming of strangling him with his own robes. Or bludgeoning him with that sharp little dagger she kept in her boot. Her affection, if it existed, was about as easy to read as an illusory script — and twice as dangerous.
Still.
He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t had the same thoughts. Where he’d pull her into his arms by the fire, or kiss her senseless against the side of a ruin. Where her laughter melted into moans and she’d call his name again and again.
A sharp gasp broke his thoughts, and he snapped his eyes shut.
She sat bolt upright, attempting to slow her breathing. Her eyes were wide, darting, the fog of sleep not yet cleared.
He stretched in his bedroll, feigning a sluggish rousing, and groaned low in his throat like a man half-asleep.
”Hmm,” his voice rasped. “Everything alright?”
She looked at him too quickly, her cheeks flushed and her chest rising with a sudden breath before falling again. Like she was exhaling the remnants of the dream, and his presence was making it harder to let go. Or perhaps that was just his wishful thinking – guilt-drenched and absurd as it was.
”Yes,” she blurted, voice too high and fast. “Just…a dream.”
Oh, he knew it was. The kind that would keep him warm through the coldest of night if he let it.
He nearly asked, the words hovering behind his teeth, heavy with suggestion. What kind of dream? But before he could summon the courage — or the recklessness — she bolted to her feet.
”I need to relieve myself.”
He raised a brow, but kept the remark to himself. Barely. The jokes were lining up in his mind like eager tavern patrons.
Instead, he rolled over, back to the fire, lips twitching in amusement. Flattered. Pleased. And just a little too smug.
Until a voice sliced through the quiet from across the fire.
”You both know I’m an elf that meditates instead of sleeps,” came the dry drawl, “and a vampire with extremely sharp hearing?”
The smugness died instantly. Gale froze, staring into the black treeline.
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