Chapter Text
No Man's Sky
The scent of old paper, ozone, cedarwood, and the salt-tang of the Sea of Swords washed over Vesper as solid ground—familiar, beloved ground—met his feet. He stumbled slightly, the immense divine power and sudden teleportation leaving him dizzy, but Gale’s hand tightened around his wrist, steadying him. The contact burned, not with pain, but with the sheer familiarity and the lingering echo of Gale’s irresistible commanding presence.
The halo enshrouding his head flickered and vanished, though lingering motes of silver light and shadow drifted slowly downward. A single moonflower petal landed on Gale’s sleeve, clinging there like a plea. The roaring pressure of other divinities’ presence dissolved, replaced by the profound, intimacy of the Tower of Ambition.
Vesper knew this place instantly. Home.
Or rather, Gale’s home.
But this wasn’t the noisy grand celestial audience chamber. This was the quiet inner sanctum—a meticulous reimagining of Gale’s old tower in Waterdeep, just for him and Gale.
The floor-to-ceiling bookshelves crammed with familiar titles—A Treatise on Elemental Conjuration, Volume III leaning precariously next to The Ballads of the Blackstaff. The worn rug, its threadbare patch near the desk exactly where Gale used to pace while muttering celestial incantations. The large, comfortable armchair piled high with scrolls and that slightly lumpy maroon cushion Vesper had once stolen for his own divine catnaps. The massive four-poster bed draped in deep blue velvet dominated the intimate space, moonlight streaming through the arched window.
Vesper moved numbly to the window with Gale still holding him, drawn by the impossible view. Far below, rendered in aching perfection: Waterdeep. The rooftops of the Castle Ward, the glittering expanse of the harbor, the distant bulk of Mount Waterdeep—even the exact angle of moonlight glinting off the Sea Ward’s townhouses and their chimneys. A dagger of nostalgia twisted in his chest, sharp and sweet. He’d lived here. Loved here. Argued over magical theory here. Felt safe here.
Until the day he left.
Gale gently released his wrist, the absence leaving Vesper strangely cold. He moved to stand beside him at the window, his back momentarily turned, shoulders tense beneath the fine vestment and robes. His fingers flexed once, as if resisting the urge to reach out again, before he gestured—a sharp, elegant flick toward the view—a silent offering. A reminder.
Silence descended, thick and charged. Not the oppressive quiet of the library, but something heavier. More intimate. The scent of moonflowers lingered, mixing with cedarwood and parchment. The echo of Mystra’s fury and the goddesses’ laughter felt realms away. Here, there was only the view of their past and present, the scent of home, and the devastatingly changed man who wielded celestial law like a scalpel—yet had just pulled him from chaos into this pocket of memory.
Vesper turned from the window.
Gale leaned against the frame, facing him now. The polished, ruthless charisma was still there in the line of his shoulders, the set of his jaw—but in the quiet, Vesper saw the flickers beneath the mask. The faint shadows under his eyes. The tightness around his mouth that spoke of weariness. A vulnerability starkly absent in the library.
His thumb brushed the edge of his collar once, unconsciously, before stilling.
Then Gale did what he did best when words were too crude for the moment: he fell utterly silent. His gaze locked onto Vesper’s, unwavering.
Gods, not this.
Vesper’s breath hitched. In public, he could wield charm like armor—flashing smiles, theatrical gestures, silver-tongued distractions. But here, stripped bare before Gale’s knowing eyes? His old mortal anxiety surged. He dropped his gaze to the moonflower petal on Gale’s sleeve, then to the rug’s worn patch, anywhere but those piercing silver eyes. Heat crept up his neck, a familiar flush born of nerves… and something else entirely.
The image flashed unbidden: Gale in the library, radiating divine authority, dissecting Mystra’s arguments with that razor-sharp wit, commanding the attention of gods. The sheer, intoxicating power of it. The way it was still Gale, winning with words and mind, over brawn (even though he could win with brawn too if he so desired it) just as he had when he was mortal. It sent a jolt through Vesper now, low in his belly, white-hot and undeniable. He was furious, hurt, bewildered… and gods help him, incredibly, painfully attracted to his dangerous, brilliant beloved standing silently before him.
Gale didn’t move. Didn’t blink. His silence was a presence, patient and absolute. He could have filled it—could have dissected the meeting, could have closed the distance and claimed Vesper’s mouth with the same effortless authority he’d wielded against the pantheon, could have pinned him against the bookshelves or the velvet drapes of the bed. Vesper’s pulse hammered against his ribs at the thought, a frantic drumbeat of panic and a treacherous, exhilarating thrill. He knew, intimately, that Gale was in complete control here. And part of him ached to surrender to it.
But Gale waited. Watching. His stillness wasn't passive; it was a choice, a restraint that felt like its own kind of power.
Try, his stillness seemed to whisper. I’m here. Just look at me.
Vesper dragged his eyes back up, meeting Gale’s for a heartbeat. The intensity there – the focus, the intelligence, the sheer Gale-ness of him (there’s truly no other word to compare him to, he’s just... Gale but... more Gale as a god somehow) beneath the godhood – made Vesper’s breath catch. His gaze flickered down, lingering for an instant on Gale’s mouth before he forced it back up, heat blooming fiercely across his cheeks. The struggle wasn’t just anxiety now; it was the effort to hold that gaze while every nerve screamed with awareness of him. Two years of estrangement hadn’t erased this magnetic pull, this quiet language of theirs where looks held volumes even in their time as mortals.
He tried again. Held for three breaths this time, the blush deepening. Gale’s eyes softened—just a fraction—in encouragement. No smirk, no triumph. Only steady, boundless patience. The kind that had always made Vesper feel safe, cherished. The kind that spoke of Gale’s innate kindness and care, even now, even as a god capable of cosmic fury. Vesper loved him fiercely for that, even through the hurt.
On the fourth attempt, Vesper anchored himself in that gaze. He stopped fighting the dual currents of anxiety and attraction. Instead, he let the warmth of Gale’s focus, the sheer relief of being seen by him again, wash over him. The anxiety didn’t vanish, but it transformed, melting into a potent mix of affection and desire that spread through his chest, brightening his eyes even as the blush remained. He didn’t just endure the eye contact; he leaned into it, a silent surrender to their rediscovered dialect, a wordless confession.
I see you. I’m still here. I’m still yours.
Even after so long apart. Yours. Only yours.
The corner of Gale’s mouth lifted—not a smile, but an acknowledgment. A shared victory in the quiet. A spark of warmth igniting in his own silver gaze: Gosh, I’ve missed this. Missed you.
Only then did Gale push off the frame, starting to close the distance with a single, deliberate step.
He didn’t speak.
He just looked at Vesper, his expression unreadable yet intensely focused. Waiting.
The silent question hung, heavier than any divine decree, charged with all that had passed between them and the heat simmering beneath the surface: What now?
---
Vesper swallowed, the sound loud in the quiet room. He had no words. Only the storm in his chest, the phantom heat of where Gale’s grip on his arm was, the lingering scent of moonflowers, and the glittering reflection of their past shimmering in Gale’s impossibly sharp, watchful eyes. The silence stretched, taut with unspoken history and the terrifying possibility of the future.
Then Gale spoke, his voice softer now, stripped of its divine precision, yet still carrying an undercurrent of that unnerving focus.
"Do you remember," he murmured, the sound a low vibration that seemed to resonate directly with the Galerian Weave sliver humming within Vesper, "that night by the River Chionthar? When I first helped you to channel the Weave as I once did?"
The question struck Vesper like a physical blow.
We were hardly friends.
Like oil and water...
I used to... infuriate him so much!
It was so much fun to make him scowl so handsomely...
How could he forget? The soft glow of magic conjured between Gale’s palms, the warmth of his hand guiding Vesper’s, the feeling of raw, vibrant power flowing between them like a shared, intimate breath. The patient instructions, the thrill of connection… and then the terrifying, exhilarating moment his control had slipped.
An image, unbidden, flooding the connection: Gale leaning in, his lips meeting Vesper’s, a kiss both tender and utterly possessive. His deepest, most secret desire, laid bare before he’d even fully acknowledged it himself. The exact moment Mystra held them in her hand and later closed her fist over the connection. He didn’t know it back then, but he knew it now. She made him feel lost and alone after the magic faded.
So alone... so cold...
"You lost control then," Gale continued, his voice a velvet caress that slid over Vesper’s skin, making the hair on his arms stand on end. He took another step closer, such that Vesper would have to raise his gaze. The air crackled, not just with divine energy, but with a potent, focused charisma Gale was wielding with devastating precision. His silver eyes held Vesper’s, stripping away pretence, demanding honesty.
"The Weave... it showed me what you truly wanted. Before you even knew it yourself. I was taken aback. Truly. It was a most pleasant thought to share that night." He reached out slowly, not touching Vesper’s skin, but tracing the air near his temple, a tangible warmth of his Weave against Vesper’s cheek. "It’s still there, Vesper. That connection. Our connection. Stronger now, bound deeper than ever. Ao saw to that. Wove us together. Broke us but also married us in the most intimate, cosmically visceral way. We can’t tell where one starts and where the other ends... and why would we? Our bond was always more. As much as I loathe what was done to us, this bond of ours is not a regret at all. It’s the one good thing that came out of all of this, wouldn’t you agree?"
Vesper felt it acutely – the thrum of the Galerian Weave within him, a constant presence now resonating violently in Gale’s proximity. It was a lifeline and a vulnerability. A dormant seed. And it was alive and fiercely seeking it’s sun.
He tried to shore up his mental walls, to hide the chaotic storm of emotions – the residual anger at abandonment all over again, the aching loneliness of the past two years, the terrifying, rekindled want that seeing Gale like this, powerful and polished and devastatingly handsome, had ignited. He focused on Waterdeep outside the window, on the scent of old paper, anything but the magnetic pull of the god before him and the insistent pulse of their soulbond.
But Gale was the God of Ambition. He understood want in its purest, most potent forms. And he knew Vesper. He leaned in infinitesimally closer, his breath warm against Vesper’s cheek, his presence overwhelming.
"Oh, my heart. That’s precious. You think you can hide from me here?" he whispered, the words a soft challenge laden with unbearable intimacy. "Draw up walls? In the seat of my power? In the echo of our Weave? Let me remind you of our bond. You seem to have forgotten."
Gale didn’t need to compel. He simply… opened the channel further. Not invading, but inviting the Weave to flow more freely between them, as it had by the river all those years ago. The effect was instantaneous and overwhelming.
Vesper gasped as the connection surged, a torrent of shared sensation and raw emotion flooding his open mind and soul. He felt the echo of Gale’s fierce protectiveness from the library, his lingering awe at the moonflower spectacle, his soul-deep relief at having Vesper close again... and beneath it all, a searing, focused hunger that mirrored Vesper’s own buried longing. It was a feedback loop of love, desire and recognition, amplified by the divine bond.
"Gale—" Vesper started, a warning, a plea, a desperate attempt to regain control.
"Shhh," Gale breathed, his gaze holding Vesper’s captive, a gentle command. "Don’t think. Just feel the Weave. Like before." His voice was hypnotic, a siren song woven with power and memory. "Let it flow, let me nestle you in the cup of my hand. I will not hurt you. I am not Her. I will not leave you feeling cold and alone. Never."
And Vesper, overwhelmed by the proximity, by the intensity in Gale’s eyes, by the sheer force of the bond thrumming between them, by the flood of Gale’s own potent emotions washing over him, made the same mistake he’d made five and a half years ago. He didn’t try to project a thought; he simply lived it.
That was all it took.
In a fleeting, unguarded moment, stripped of defenses by Gale’s proximity, his charm, and the overwhelming feedback of the bond, his mind conjured it: Gale closing the final distance, his strong hand cradling Vesper’s jaw, his thumb brushing Vesper’s cheekbone, his lips descending with possessive certainty. Not a question, but a claiming. The kiss deep, hungry, silencing all doubt, erasing the years of separation and pain...
It wasn't a detailed fantasy. It was a visceral flash of pure, desperate wanting – the same wanting Gale had seen reflected in the Weave that night at the river, only infinitely stronger. A silent scream of desire echoing through the bond they shared, brighter and more potent than any spell Vesper had ever consciously cast.
Gale went utterly still. His eyes, already intense, flared with a sudden, incandescent understanding. The charming, focused expression vanished, replaced by something primal, triumphant, and utterly focused. He saw it. He felt it. Coursing through the bond like liquid lightning. The deepest, most honest truth Vesper couldn't voice, couldn't even fully admit to himself: he wanted Gale. He wanted this. He wanted him. Needed him. Loved him, despite everything.
"There it is," Gale murmured, his voice rough with a satisfaction that bordered on reverence. He didn’t move to kiss him. Instead, a slow, devastatingly confident smile touched his lips – the smile of a man who had just won everything. "Your heart doesn’t lie, dearest. Not to me. Not through this." He tapped his own chest, over the thrumming orb, the nexus of the Weave that bound them. "You can rage. You can run. You can hide in Jaheira’s basement and tell yourself you hate me. Tell yourself that a life without me is better. But the Weave knows. I know. We are both lesser for the distance. Truly we are."
His gaze held Vesper’s, stripping his heart bare far more effectively than any spell could. "You forgot, but I should remind you, shouldn’t I? How deeply our bond is woven together? Our marriage of souls? You are far more than my husband. You are my other half. My everything. No one, perhaps not even Ao himself understands the depth of our bond after ascension... There’s no going back for us. But we have each other, and I won’t let you lose yourself. You hear me? Together as one, my love. Always."
The certainty in his voice was terrifying. Undeniable. And Vesper in that moment mourned.
He hoped that mortality was in reach but in his heart of hearts... he knew it would never be so. Their bond... was too strong. Some ties, even the gods themselves could not untie, and Vesper had no doubt that when Ao ascended him, that bond with Gale, so incandescent and true... that bond could never break. It was elevated, made into something sacred and untouchable.
They were an eclipse in every sense. Light and shadow, love and hate, order and chaos, everything and nothing, ambition and silence.
Did Ao know this?
Did he know what he created?
Did Ao know what he and Gale truly were?
Vesper felt exposed, his secret longing and his squashed hope of mortality laid bare not just to Gale, but vibrating in the very air between them through the Weave. He opened his mouth to deny it, to cling to his anger, but the words died. The truth pulsed in the bond, a relentless counterpoint to his fear, amplified by Gale’s unwavering gaze.
Gale saw the struggle, the flicker of surrender beneath the defiance. He saw the permission that Vesper’s own heart, his own unguarded thought, had just screamed through their connection. The moment stretched, taut with anticipation, charged with the shared knowledge of that projected desire. Then, Gale’s expression shifted again, the triumph softening into something fiercely tender, yet utterly resolute. He wasn't asking. He was acting on the truth Vesper had just broadcast.
"Enough of this," Gale declared, his voice low, final, resonating with divine certainty. "No more hiding. No more distance. No more. I almost lost you to Gortash and Orin’s machinations. I will not lose you to anyone, let alone yourself. I refuse. I absolutely refuse. We survived the worst time of our lives together, my daft bard. We can survive anything the cosmos throws at us."
---
Vesper stared at Gale, the raw truth of his heart and soul vibrating like a plucked harp string within the bond. Gale’s declaration – hung in the air, a divine decree wrapped in velvet certainty. The old hurts, the years of silence… the death of the hope of being mortal again... they were still there, jagged rocks beneath a turbulent sea, but they were momentarily submerged by the sheer, overwhelming force of the connection laid bare and Gale’s own terrifying vulnerability, his trust in Vesper to let him feel that emotions... Vesper opened his mouth, perhaps to voice the 'why' burning like a brand in his chest, but the words dissolved before they formed.
Gale didn't wait. He moved with the certainty Vesper’s own traitorous heart had broadcast early through the Weave. In one fluid motion, he closed the final, aching distance. His strong, warm hand cradled Vesper’s jaw, fingers tangling gently in the hair at his nape. His thumb brushed Vesper’s cheekbone, a tender prelude that sent sparks skittering down Vesper’s spine making him gasp. Then his lips descended.
It wasn't a question. It was a claiming. Possessive, desperate, fuelled by two years of agonizing absence and the raw power of their eternal bond. The kiss was deep, hungry, silencing all doubt, balming the years of pain and misunderstanding in a single, shattering moment. It was the physical manifestation of the silent scream of desire Vesper had sent through the Weave – a scream Gale had caught, understood, and now answered with devastating finality.
Vesper gasped against Gale’s mouth, not in protest, but in pure, overwhelming sensation. The dam holding back his grief, his loneliness, his fears, his anguish, his desperate love, finally broke. But it wasn't just emotion that surged forth. It was understanding.
This. This was what had been missing all this time..
He had walked the cobbled streets of Reithwin, felt the sun warm his mortal skin, smelled the salt of the Sea of Swords, tasted Jaheira’s bitter herbal tea, heard the raucous laughter of children in city. He had felt the scratch of wool blankets, the ache of his tired muscles, the comforting solidity of the earth beneath his feet. He had revisited every beloved sensation of mortality, craving their grounding reality, believing they were the antidote to the hollow vastness of godhood.
But now, wrapped in Gale’s arms, fused by the kiss and the roaring Galerian Weave thrumming between them like shared life-force, Vesper realized with shocking clarity: it had all been muted. Like seeing the world through thick, grey glass. Pleasant, familiar, grounding… but fundamentally dimmed.
Gale’s love wasn't just an emotion. It was the sense of self. It flooded Vesper’s being, vibrant and overwhelming. He felt it in the possessive pressure of Gale’s hand on his jaw, in the desperate hunger of the kiss, in the tremor that ran through Gale’s godly frame. But more than that, through the bond, Vesper felt Gale’s own emotions crashing over him like a tidal wave: a soul-deep, aching relief so profound it bordered on agony; a fierce, protective possessiveness that burned brighter than any star; a raw, vulnerable love stripped bare of all divine pretence; and beneath it all, a desperate, clinging need that mirrored Vesper’s own. It was terrifying in its intensity, its completeness.
This was the colour he’d been missing. This vibrant, overwhelming spectrum of connection, passion, and profound belonging. Mortal sensations were pleasant monochromes; Gale’s love was the universe exploding into impossible, feywild colors. It was so much more. So much brighter, so much more real. The world he’d sought solace in suddenly seemed washed out, quiet, muddled in comparison. The sheer, staggering difference between existing without and now truly feeling loved and wanted again by Gale Dekarios broke his heart all over again.
How could I be without you?
You are the sun to my dark moon...
All is shadow without your light.
Hot tears welled and spilled over, tracing paths down his cheeks even as he kissed Gale back with equal fervor, his hands fisting in the divine leather vestment, anchoring himself in the only reality that mattered now. He wasn't just crying from relief or catharsis; he was weeping from the sheer, overwhelming revelation of what he’d been starved of, what he’d almost lost forever, of mortality he could never reclaim. The depth of the lack, now so violently filled, was itself a kind of pain.
Gale felt the tears. Of course he did.
He broke the kiss just enough to pull back a fraction, his own silver eyes shimmering with unshed tears, his breath coming in ragged gasps mirroring Vesper’s. The sight of Vesper’s tears, the raw vulnerability and dawning wonder in his beloved’s face, undid the last of Gale’s composure. A single tear of starlight escaped, tracing a path down Gale’s own silver cheek.
"My heart, my beloved..." Gale breathed, his voice thick with an emotion Vesper could feel through their bond – a complex tapestry of sorrow, adoration, and shared awe at the intensity of their reunion. He didn’t try to stop Vesper’s tears; instead, he began to gently wipe them away with his divine fingers, his touch infinitely tender. With every swipe of his thumb across Vesper’s damp cheek, he pressed another soft, reverent kiss – to his temple, his closed eyelid, the corner of his mouth, the tear-streaked skin his thumb had just cleared. It was a litany of comfort, of apology, of worship spoken without words, each touch and kiss reinforcing the overwhelming sensory truth: Gale’s love was the most real, the most vital thing in any plane of existence.
Below, the vista of Waterdeep dissolved. The skies of Gale’s realm, responding to the cataclysmic surge of divine emotion – relief, love, sorrow, and overwhelming joy – erupted with rainclouds and gusts of Galerian Weave. Thunder boomed, not with anger, but with profound release, shaking the very foundations of Thalasia. Jagged forks of silver and violet lightning, threaded with veins of deepest shadow, split the heavens. And then, luminous rain began to fall. Not water, but gentle droplets of pure, soft light, like captured moonlight given liquid form, washing over the balcony outside the window, casting everything in a serene, ethereal glow.
The sudden celestial storm drew a flash of white fur to the rain-slicked balcony railing. Zephyr peered through the open door, her large eyes wide. She saw them: Lord Gale, holding the returned Master Moonshadow with heartbreaking tenderness, wiping his tears, kissing his face as the luminous rain fell. Gale himself was crying. She bounded off, her excited yowls rising, making Vesper chuckle as he took in her words: "Master Moonshadow is back! Lord Gale is smiling and crying! Cloudburst! We're saved!"
Gale rested his forehead against Vesper’s, shaking his head in amusement, their breaths mingling, the storm outside a reflection of the tempest within finally calming into awe. The revelation of Gale's love, its sheer, unmatched vibrancy compared to everything else, still resonated within Vesper, a profound hum in his soul. It was this overwhelming, sensory truth that finally forced the choked, essential question past his lips, raw with wonder and the echo of that perceived lack:
"W-Why?" Vesper whispered against Gale’s skin, the word trembling. "Why did you let me go? Why let me walk away for two whole years? You knew..." He gestured weakly between them, towards the thrumming orb-sigil that pulsed like a shared heartbeat, the conduit for this impossible, vital sensation. "You knew this... You knew I couldn't truly be without this... You knew I was starving for you... for mortality and you just... let me leave? Why, my love? You could have spared us a lot of heartache..."
Gale’s triumphant intensity softened, replaced by a profound weariness that reached deep into his silver eyes. He didn’t retreat, but his posture lost some of its apex predatory edge, becoming more human, more vulnerable. He reached out, not to pull Vesper closer this time, but to gently trace the line of Vesper’s jaw with his knuckles, a touch so familiar it stole Vesper’s breath.
"Because," Gale murmured, his voice thick with a pain Vesper hadn't allowed himself to imagine Gale felt, "You needed to find yourself again and I needed to learn the hardest truth ambition alone could never teach me." He met Vesper’s gaze, his own filled with a raw honesty that was terrifying in its intensity. "Your absence, Vesper... it wasn't just punishment for my blindness. It was my crucible. I needed to feel the hollowness. To understand, in my bones, what it truly meant to be less without my bard. I had to learn to make you my greatest ambition."
M-Me?
He took a shaky breath. "Godhood is vast, my heart. It is power, knowledge, creation on a cosmic scale. But without you? It is nothing. An empty, echoing palace. A crown made of ash. I built my Tower of Ambition, made my Weave from the corrupted fragment that survived Karsus’ Folly, and now I inspire countless legions of petitioners, alive and dead... and yet I was profoundly, utterly unhappy." The admission hung in the air, stark and devastating. "I needed to feel that separation, that gnawing void where you should have been, just as desperately as you needed to feel the soil of Faerûn beneath your feet, the sun on your face, the messy, beautiful chaos of mortality again."
Vesper’s anger faltered, replaced by stunned disbelief. "But... you were here. Ruling. Looking like... that." He gestured vaguely at Gale's imposing divine form. “You seemed pretty content without me in that meeting.”
“Never.” A faint, almost boyish smile touched Gale’s lips, chasing away some of the shadows. "Appearances, beloved. A necessary mask. But I digress. I... wasn't just here." His voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. "Wherever you walked, Vesper, I walked unseen beside you. When you slept in Jaheira’s basement, huddled under that scratchy blanket, my hand was in yours. When you sat by the harbor, watching the gulls, I was on the bench beside you, feeling the salt spray. When you cried yourself to sleep... I held you in my arms." His thumb brushed away a traitorous tear that had escaped Vesper’s control. "I was always with you. Anchoring you, even when you raged against the bond. Protecting you, even in your fugue. Loving you, even in your silence."
Vesper stared, a sob catching in his throat. The sheer, terrifying devotion of it, the violation of privacy mingled with profound, unwavering care... it was overwhelming. "Then why?" he whispered, anguish warring with a dawning, terrifying understanding. "Why not just... fetch me? Pull me back like Mystra just tried? End the misery? I think I would have relented if you came to get me- "
Gale’s expression hardened momentarily, not with anger at Vesper, but with righteous disgust. "Because I am not Mystra!" The name was a curse. "I would never disrespect you, your choices, your need for space, by wrenching you back against your will. To drag you kicking and screaming into eternity? To force my presence upon you when you sought solace in the Material Plane?" He shook his head, the silver streaks in his hair catching the light of the luminous rain. "That is the act of a tyrant, not a lover. Not a husband."
The boyish smile returned, softer now, tinged with wonder. "Sometimes, when you love something fiercely, desperately... you have to let it go. You have to trust that the bond you share, the love that forged it, is strong enough to bring it back. I had to trust you, Vesper. Trust that you would find your way back to me when you were ready. I was prepared to wait centuries if need be, watching over you, holding your hand in the dark, until that day came." He chuckled, a low, warm sound that resonated in Vesper’s chest. "Though I confess, I am profoundly thankful Mystra’s petty theatrics forced an earlier reunion. Seeing you stand before the pantheon, halo blazing, defending me with such magnificent fury... declaring me your husband... demanding I take you home... It was exhilarating." His voice caught, thick with emotion. "Look at the aftermath, beloved. You are here. Willingly. In our sanctuary, the place that is the center of our entire universe. That is worth any amount of celestial legal chaos."
The weight of Gale’s words, the depth of his sacrifice and his faith, settled over Vesper like a warm cloak woven from starlight and shadow. The years of hurt didn't vanish, but they shifted, reframed by this staggering act of love and respect. The luminous rain continued to fall outside the window, a gentle, persistent patter against the balcony stones, casting the image of Waterdeep in an ethereal, silver-gold glow. The thunder had subsided into a distant, comforting rumble, like the realm itself sighing in contentment after the storm of their reunion. The charged tension of the Endless Library and even the passionate intensity of the kiss had softened into a profound, aching tenderness that hummed in the air, thick as the scent of ozone and old paper.
Before Vesper could formulate a response – words felt inadequate against the sheer magnitude of Gale’s confession and the lingering, vibrant rightness of his presence – Gale snapped his fingers. Not a grand gesture, but a soft, decisive click, almost lost in the gentle susurrus of the rain.
The imposing God of Ambition shimmered. The divine vestment and starlight robes dissolved like mist under moonlight, the sharp, honed edges of his divine form softening from silver perfection into the olive flesh Vesper loved so much. In an instant, standing before Vesper was Gale Dekarios as he’d been in their mortal years. Warm, familiar brown eyes replaced the piercing silver. Romantically tousled chestnut hair, threaded with the same familiar silver streaks at his temples, escaped its loose tie to frame his face. He wore the comfortable, slightly worn purple robes he wore when Vesper pulled him out of the malfunctioning waypoint portal, the fabric soft and known. The faint lines of laughter and worry around his eyes, the slight unevenness of his beard where he always scratched as he idly thought – the man Vesper had fallen irrevocably in love with stood before him.
Simultaneously, Vesper felt the oppressive mantle of Moonshadow lift. It wasn't discarded, but folded away, quieted. He looked down to see his own tanned hands, the familiar callouses from lute strings and camp chores returned, clad in simple, comfortable mortal clothes – dark trousers and a soft, grey tunic. The shadowed radiance that usually clung to him was gone, replaced by the warm, solid, reassuring feeling of his own mortal body. He flexed his toes, feeling the scratchy socks he’d mended in his boots. He was Vesper again. Just Vesper.
Gale (no longer the imposing god, just Gale, his Gale) offered a genuine, slightly hesitant smile, the kind that crinkled the corners of his eyes.
"Tea?" he asked, his voice warm, familiar, devoid of any divine resonance, rich with the cadence Vesper had memorized over countless nights. "Chamomile with three spoons of honey, just like you love it. Or I could make you that peppermint one you loved when your fidgets got too much? The really good stuff from that little shop tucked behind Blackstaff Academy. The one with the cranky old tabby guarding the door when you were last there." He paused, a flicker of vulnerability crossing his features. "I... I kept some. Just in case. You said it was the best you had, so I got Squall to procure it while you were gone." He gestured not towards any grand celestial kitchen that might exist elsewhere in his domain, but towards the small, familiar wooden door leading to the private kitchen nook tucked away in this recreated tower space – the one where they’d shared countless post-coitus late-night talks, debates over magical theory and divinity, and quiet moments of comfort over steaming mugs, not divine audiences.
As they turned towards the door, a massive shadow blotted the light from the balcony window for a split second. Not the flash of Zephyr’s white fur, but something larger, darker, and radiating palpable power. The creature landed on the rain-slicked railing with a heavy thump that vibrated the glass.
Cloudburst.
He was easily thrice the size of Zephyr, his fur not white but a deep, stormy grey shot through with streaks of lightning-blue. His wings, vast and leathery, folded with a sound like wet sails snapping taut. Intelligence, sharp and assessing, burned in his large, golden eyes – eyes usually reserved for scanning planar rifts and navigating the most dangerous courier routes across the Abyss or the Elemental Chaos. He was Gale’s most formidable messenger, entrusted only with threats that could unravel realities.
He peered through the rain-streaked glass, his gaze sweeping the room with practiced, predatory alertness, clearly investigating Zephyr’s frantic reports. His eyes locked onto Vesper, who waved happily.
It’s always good to see them.
I... I miss Tara.
Cloudburst froze. Utterly. His formidable wings, usually held with rigid readiness, sagged slightly, humbled. His sharp, intelligent gaze widened, not with alarm, but with profound, undisguised shock. He stared at Vesper – not Moonshadow, but Vesper, in mortal guise, standing calmly beside Gale in his equally mortal form, in the intimate space of their private sanctuary. The sight of the returned, mortal Vesper, the palpable warmth and normalcy of the scene amidst the luminous rain, clearly defied all his expectations of divine drama or catastrophe. He blinked once, slowly with a nod, as if processing impossible information.
Then, without a sound, the dangerous, plane-hopping tressym simply turned and launched himself back into the rain-swept sky, vanishing into the silver downpour as silently as he’d arrived. His silent departure was more telling than any yowl, Vesper, attuned to the Galerian Weave could hear the massive tressym’s thoughts: She spoke true! Moonshadow is truly back, and Lord Gale… is simply Gale Dekarios again. W-We are at peace again! His scowls will only be the happy scowls that Lord Moonshadow makes him have! I’ll tell the others not to bother them until Lord Gale calls for us! Torrent! Go tend the gardens! Quickly! Lord Moonshadow is back and he’ll want to play for the petitioners in the amphitheatre! Go!
Gale chuckled softly, a warm, mortal sound. "Ah. Cloudburst. Checking Zephyr's intel, no doubt. Seems even he was... surprised. I didn’t exactly announce your return home..." He flushed slightly, a truly endearing, human reaction. "Come," he said, opening the kitchen door. The cozy, cluttered space welcomed them, smelling faintly of dried chamomile, sage, and the ever-present salt air from the Waterdeep firmament outside.
"Now... before you overthink, my daft bard; don't worry about time, I have made arrangements to suit your time constraints." he added, his voice gentle as he filled a familiar, slightly dented copper kettle from a conjured stream of pure water – a simple, elegant spell, not a cosmic display. "I've dilated the flow of hours considerably here and at your Moonlit Campsite. However long you wish to stay, however long we need to talk, or just...to be... it will be barely an hour passing in the Material Plane. Jaheira won't even have finished her cup of that dreadful fungal brew of Jord’s." He placed the kettle on a small, enchanted heated cast-iron plate that glowed with a soft, mundane light.
"You are free to leave whenever you wish, Vesper. Truly. Stay for tea. Stay for a while. Stay for a year. Go when it suits you. My simulacra are managing the realms. Tending to our realms... they can wait. Everything can wait." He turned, leaning against the worn wooden counter, his warm brown eyes holding Vesper’s with complete, undivided attention, the gaze of a man utterly focused on the person before him, not the cosmos beyond. "Right now, my love? I am entirely at your disposal. Nothing would please me more than to spend even a mere fleeting moment in your presence."
He gestured to the small, scarred wooden table where two familiar, chipped ceramic mugs already sat waiting, steam beginning to curl from the spout of the kettle. The offer hung in the air, fragrant with chamomile and the salt of the Sea of Swords: Time, attention, respect, a simple cup of tea, brewed not by a god, but by the man who loved him and so much more. The path forward, after the long quietus of their separation, began here, in the quiet, rain-hushed warmth of a remembered kitchen, with a choice freely given. Vesper took a step towards the table, towards the scent of home, towards the man who was finally, fully, Gale.
---
The now empty chipped ceramic mugs sat abandoned on the low table between the two comfortable sofas in Gale’s atelier. The gentle patter of the luminous rain was now complemented by the soft, crackling pop of a fire Gale had conjured in the hearth with an absent snap of his fingers. The room was a chaotic, beautiful mix of celestial and mortal: star charts were pinned next to sketches of Waterdeep's skyline, and priceless arcane tomes sat stacked beside a half-finished, slightly lopsided clay mug Vesper had made for him a lifetime ago.
The air, once thick with the scent of tea and unspoken truths, now hummed with a different energy. The charged tension of the library and the raw, cathartic storm of their reunion had mellowed into a profound, aching tenderness. It was a living thing, this tenderness, pulsing in the space between them as they sat on the rug before the fire, its warmth painting their skin in gold and dancing shadows.
Vesper watched Gale, truly watched him—the warm brown eyes, the familiar worry lines, the way the firelight caught the silver streaks in his otherwise chestnut hair. He was just Gale. His wizard. And the love that shone from him was a tangible force, a warmth that seeped into Vesper’s very bones, more real than the woven rug beneath them.
Gale’s gaze was equally intent, tracing the lines of Vesper’s face as if re-memorizing a cherished text. He reached out, his fingers—calloused from years of turning pages and gesturing spells—brushing against Vesper’s knuckles. The touch was simple, but it sent a current through him, a spark that ignited the embers of the desire that had been simmering since the library, since the kiss, since… forever.
“You’re staring, my love,” Gale murmured, a soft, fond smile touching his lips. His thumb stroked the back of Vesper’s hand.
“I’m remembering,” Vesper whispered, his voice rough with emotion. He turned his hand over, lacing their fingers together. The connection was electric, a completed lattice of spellwork. “I spent two years trying to feel this solid. This real.”
Gale’s smile softened, his eyes shimmering. He shifted closer on the soft rug, the movement fluid and inevitable. He didn’t lead him to a bedroom. He simply leaned in, his free hand coming up to cradle Vesper’s jaw, his thumb stroking his cheekbone.
“Let me remind you,” Gale breathed, his voice low and layered with a depth of feeling that was entirely mortal and yet infinitely divine. “Let me show you how real you are. How real we are. May I?”
Vesper nodded.
This kiss that followed was not like the desperate, claiming kiss from before. This was slower, deeper, a rediscovery. It tasted of chamomile and home and a love that had endured against the odds. Vesper melted into it, his hands coming up to clutch at Gale’s soft, familiar robes, anchoring himself in the sensation. This was the color. This was the vibrancy. It wasn’t just emotion; it was a sense, blooming behind his eyes, singing in his veins.
Gale’s hands left his face, sliding down his back, pulling their bodies flush as he gently guided Vesper down onto the thick, soft rug before the fire. The wool was warm and textured against Vesper’s back, the heat from the flames a pleasant counterpoint to the cool air of the room. Gale came down over him, bracing himself on his arms, his body a welcome, familiar weight. He was hovering, his warm brown eyes drinking in the sight of Vesper laid out beneath him, bathed in firelight.
“I’ve missed you,” Gale whispered against his lips, his voice ragged. “Every second. Every breath.”
His hands were everywhere, relearning the landscape of Vesper’s body through the simple fabric of his tunic. He mapped the familiar planes of his chest, the dip of his waist, the strength of his thighs, as if verifying a cherished truth. His touch was both tender and possessively urgent, sparking trails of fire wherever it roamed.
Vesper’s head fell back with a gasp as Gale’s mouth found the sensitive skin of his throat, nipping and laving with a fervor that made his thoughts scatter. His fingers tangled in Gale’s wonderfully mortal, brown hair. This was what he’d been starving for. Not just touch, but Gale’s touch. His specific, knowing, worshipful attention.
“Gale…” he moaned, the name a prayer, a plea.
“I know, my heart,” Gale murmured into his skin, his hands working at the fastenings of their clothes with a deftness that spoke of intimate familiarity. “I know.”
In moments, barriers of cloth were pushed aside, tossed carelessly onto a nearby sofa. The fire-warmed air hit Vesper’s feverish skin, but it was nothing compared to the heat of Gale’s gaze as he looked his fill. He wasn’t a god assessing a creation; he was a man beholding the one he loved, laid bare for him on a rug before a hearth, in the heart of their shared sanctuary.
“Beautiful,” Gale breathed, his voice thick with awe. “You are always so breathtakingly beautiful.”
He didn’t need to ask. A thought, a flicker of divine will, and a familiar vial of oil—scented with bergamot—appeared in his palm from a nearby shelf. The simple, mundane magic of it, so characteristic of him, sent a fresh wave of love and desire crashing through Vesper.
Gale’s fingers, slick and warm, found him, preparing him with a patience that was its own form of beloved torture. It was slow, deliberate, stretching him with an intimacy that went far beyond the physical. Every brush, every careful twist of his wrist was a whispered promise, an apology, a welcome home. Vesper writhed on the soft rug, his breath catching in sobs and gasps, his fingers twisting into the thick wool.
“Please… Gale, please…” he begged, his voice cracking. He was unravelling, the coil of need within him wound so tight it was a physical ache.
Gale’s eyes, dark with a love so profound it was nearly frightening, met his. He leaned over him, bracing himself on one arm, the other hand spreading Vesper’s legs and guiding himself. This was his favorite position. Face to face. Heart to heart. Nothing hidden.
“Look at me,” he commanded softly, his voice a low thrum of power and tenderness. “Look at me, Vesper.”
Vesper’s grey eyes, blurred with tears of need and emotion, snapped open and locked onto Gale’s warm brown ones. And he saw it all—the love, the hunger, the vulnerability, the sheer want of the man above him. It was a view he never tired of.
And then he pushed in.
It was not a claiming of conquest, but a reunion. A joining of two halves made whole. The feeling was so intense, so perfect, so right, that a broken cry was torn from Vesper’s throat. It was fullness. It was home. It was the final, missing sense slotting into place, completing the spectrum of his existence.
Gale sank into him to the hilt with a single, smooth, inexorable motion, and stilled, his own face a mask of rapturous agony. A shudder wracked his frame.
“Gosh…” he choked out, his forehead dropping to rest against Vesper’s. “Vesper…s-so tight... just like our first time...”
Gale’s words made Vesper flush deeply. His body still remembered that night...
For a long moment, they simply stayed like that, fused together, breathing the same air, feeling the thunderous beat of each other’s hearts. The world had narrowed to this point of connection, to the hallowed feeling of Gale inside him, filling the hollow spaces that two years of absence had carved out.
Then Gale began to move.
His rhythm was a language older than words. It was a conversation of thrust and retreat, of pressure and release, that spoke of longing, of forgiveness, of desperate, joyful reunion. Each stroke was deep, measured, and devastatingly precise. And true to his nature, Gale began to experiment, to optimize. He started with Vesper’s legs apart, his knees bent, allowing for a deep, rocking rhythm that made Vesper moan with each movement. He loved this view—the way Vesper’s eyes would flutter shut, the way his lips parted on a gasp, the way his hands clutched at the rug or his chest hair.
But then, with a wicked, knowing glint in his eye, he shifted. In one smooth, powerful motion, he hooked his hands under Vesper’s knees and drew them up, pushing them back towards his chest, settling them over his shoulders. The change was instantaneous and electrifying. The angle became brutally deep, each thrust now striking a place that made Vesper see stars, his back arching off the rug uncontrollably. A guttural, punched-out sound was forced from his lungs.
“There,” Gale growled, his voice rough with satisfaction, his eyes fixed on Vesper’s face, watching every micro-expression of overwhelmed pleasure. “That’s it. That’s the spot, isn’t it? The one that makes you forget your own name.”
He held the position, pistoning into him with focused intensity, a scholar who had found the exact right variable for his experiment. Vesper could only take it, sobbing with the intensity, his own length hard and neglected against his stomach, bouncing and slapping with each powerful drive of Gale’s hips.
A hot wave of self-consciousness, a ghost of mortal embarrassment, washed over him at the lewd, bouncing display. He tried to move a hand to cover himself.
Gale’s hand shot out from under his knee, catching his wrist in a firm but gentle grip, pinning it to the rug above his head.
“No,” he said, his voice a low, commanding growl that vibrated through both their bodies. His eyes, burning with a possessive love, locked onto Vesper’s. “Don’t you dare.”
He held Vesper’s gaze, his hips never missing a beat, each deep, angled thrust making him gasp, making his body shudder, making his length slap against himself.
“I want to see it,” Gale ground out, his own breath coming in harsh, ragged gasps. “I want to watch it.” His eyes flicked down Vesper’s body, watching the honest, bouncing, noisy display, and a look of pure, awestruck triumph spread across his face. “Look at that. Look how your body sings for me. It’s the most beautiful music I’ve ever known.”
He released Vesper’s wrist, his hand sliding down his chest, his thumb brushing over a nipple, making him jolt again, which only made the bouncing below more pronounced. Gale chuckled, a low, dark, wonderfully mortal sound.
“It’s one of the things I love most about this,” he confessed, his voice thick with passion and intellectual fascination. “It’s… brazen. It’s a banner unfurled. A celestial event announced to the cosmos. It’s your very flesh shouting from the rooftops that I am, at this very moment, making you whole again.”
His words were a bizarre, incredibly arousing mix of clinical observation and filthy praise. Vesper was beyond shy mortification. He was lost in a sea of sensation, each wave higher than the last, pulling him under.
“Gale, please…” he begged, but he didn’t know what he was begging for. For mercy? For more?
“Please what, my heart?” Gale asked, his tone dripping with false innocence, even as he snapped his hips forward with renewed vigor, the angle somehow finding that spot again and again. “Please continue to remind you of who you are? Please continue to fill the emptiness you felt without me?”
He leaned down, his chest brushing against Vesper’s knees, his face close enough that their lips almost touched. His breath was hot.
“You have no idea,” he whispered, the words raw and fervent, “what your return does to me. You make the vastness of godhood feel… intimate. You make eternity feel like this single, perfect moment.”
He was losing his own composure now, his words becoming more grunt than sentence, his thrusts becoming powerful, possessive pistons. He was chasing his peak, and he was taking Vesper with him.
“Look at you,” he demanded, his voice a rough scrape. “Look at this… this perfect, honest mirror of your desire. I can see it… in your face… and I can feel it… and I can see it… right there…”
His eyes were fixed on Vesper's length, bouncing with every one of his movements. The sight seemed to drive him wild.
“You’re close… I can see it… you can’t… you can’t hide it from me…” he chanted, a mantra of possession pronounced by every thrust. “That’s how good... I am for you… isn’t it? So good you can’t… can’t even… speak…”
He was right. The coil in Vesper's gut was wound so tight it was painful. Pleasure was screaming through every vein. He was teetering on the very edge.
His mouth opened, but no sound came out. Just a silent, desperate cry.
Gale’s face broke into a look of utterly smug, triumphant love.
“That’s it,” he growled, his own release clearly imminent. “Don’t try to speak. Just… come for me, Vesper. Show me. Let me see it all. Let go, beloved. Come with me!”
His command was the final key. With a sound that was half-sob, half-roar of pure ecstasy, Vesper’s orgasm shattered through him. His body seized, back arching violently off the rug as pulses of unbearable pleasure wracked him. And just as Gale had asked, he spent himself across his own stomach and chest in hot, frantic stripes, his body jolting with each pulse, the force of his climax a physical testament to two years of pent-up need.
The sight of it, the feel of Vesper’s climax milking him, the raw, vocal proof of his pleasure, was enough to undo Gale completely. He shouted Vesper’s name, a raw, guttural sound that was pure feeling, and drove into him one last, final, deep time, burying himself to the hilt as his own release flooded into Vesper.
And it was then that Vesper felt it.
It was not merely a physical sensation. It was cosmic.
Gale’s seed within him was not just warmth; it was a revelation. It was liquid starlight, a river of pure, potent ambition and life, flooding into the hollow spaces, the lonely cracks, the parts of him that had felt faded and unreal during his self-imposed exile.
It was a divine anchor, tethering him to the present, to this plane, to Gale. It felt like a fundamental missing piece of his own divinity, of his very soul, sliding back into place. The feeling was one of profound, impossible wholeness. Whatever he had lost, whatever he had feared was gone forever, was being healed, sealed, and made radiantly new by the essence of the god who loved him.
He felt… real. More real than he had in his entire existence. More alive than he ever had as a mortal even. A choked, overwhelmed sob of pure, unadulterated joy escaped him as the waves of pleasure slowly began to recede.
Gale collapsed forward, his body shuddering against Vesper’s, his head buried in the crook of Vesper’s neck. He carefully lowered Vesper's legs from his shoulders, gently stretching them out on the rug as he gathered him close. They lay there amidst the quiet aftermath, wrapped in each other, their breathing slowly syncing, the only sound their ragged breaths, the crackling fire, and the soft, ethereal rain.
Gale’s hands, trembling slightly, came up to cradle Vesper’s face. He pressed a soft, lingering kiss to his lips, then his forehead, his touch tender and worshipful.
“You see?” he murmured, his voice husky with satiated wonder. He conjured a soft, warm cloth and began to gently clean the mess from Vesper’s stomach. “No need for words. Your body speaks a far more eloquent truth.”
Vesper lay boneless on the rug, a deep, humming contentment settling into his very divine spark. The embarrassment was gone, burned away in the crucible of mutual, cosmic pleasure. All that was left was the feeling of Gale’s weight, his warmth, the soft wool beneath him, and the incredible, life-giving sense of fullness within him.
He thought it was over. That this perfect, healing moment was the conclusion.
He was wrong.
He felt it first as a faint, persistent thrum deep within his core. The divine energy of Gale’s release, rather than dissipating, seemed to be… cycling. Renewing. Amplifying. The warmth began to build again, not as an echo, but as a fresh, rising tide.
Before he could even process it, he felt Gale—still hard and buried deep within him—stir. A low, possessive growl vibrated against his neck.
Vesper’s eyes, which had fluttered closed, snapped open in shock.
“Gale…?” he whispered, his voice hoarse.
Gale lifted his head. His warm brown eyes were gone. In their place was the piercing, incandescent silver of the God of Ambition. A slow, wicked, knowing smile spread across his lips. The mortal facade had been a beautiful, temporary gift. Now, the true depth of their nature was reasserting itself.
“Did you think,” Gale purred, his voice dropping into that resonant, multi-layered tone that was pure divinity, “that was all? A single, mortal-scale culmination after two years of starvation?”
He rolled his hips, a slow, deliberate movement that made Vesper gasp and wrap his arms around Gale. He was still impossibly, monumentally hard. And growing harder with every second.
Vesper could only stare, dumbfounded. His own body, which should have been spent and over-sensitive, was responding with a fervor that matched Gale’s. The fatigue was vanishing, replaced by a fresh, rising wave of desperate need. The divine energy within him was stirring, answering Gale’s call.
“Two years might have made you forget, my love,” Gale whispered, his voice a silken threat and a glorious promise as he began to move again, setting a new, relentless rhythm. This wasn’t the languid pace of reunion. This was a claiming. A celebration of their true power. “But I am here to remind you.”
His thrusts became powerful, deep, each one driving the incredible, healing warmth deeper, making Vesper see stars. He shifted Vesper's legs again, bending them back towards his chest, reclaiming that devastating angle, demonstrating his masterful control over the position he loved so much.
“We are not mortal,” Gale declared, his voice ringing with celestial power that made the fire flare and the shadows dance. “We do not tire. We do not falter. Our connection does not diminish.”
He punctuated each word with a thrust that stole Vesper’s breath.
“The night,” Gale vowed, his eyes blazing with love and divine fire, “is very young. And I intend to remind you of every second we lost. I will fill you with my light until you cannot remember a time you were not whole. Until you are so full of me, so alive, so real, that the very concept of emptiness is a forgotten myth.”
He captured Vesper’s lips in a searing kiss as his movements became faster, more intense, building a new peak with terrifying, wonderful speed.
“This is just the beginning, Vesper,” he promised against his mouth. “Just the first verse of our thousand nights and more. I will fuck you again… and again… and again… until you tell me to stop.”
And as the second, overwhelming crest of pleasure began to build within him, even more intense than the first, Vesper could only cling to him, a cry of joyous surrender trapped in his throat. Gale was right. He had forgotten. But his husband, his god, his anchor, was more than willing to provide a reminder.
Again.
And again.
And again.
---
The world had narrowed to a single, perfect point of sensation: the heavy, languid warmth of Gale’s seed slowly seeping from Vesper’s well-loved body, a constant, tangible reminder of the hours—or was it days? Weeks? Months?—that had blurred into one another.
Vesper lay sprawled on his stomach across the massive four-poster bed, his limbs feeling like liquid starlight against the plush fabric, utterly boneless and without will. The deep blue velvet of the sheets was cool against his feverish cheek, a stark contrast to the simmering heat that radiated from his core. Every muscle, every sinew, every fibre of his divine being was blissfully, completely exhausted. He didn’t think he could move a finger if the entire cosmos demanded it. And he had no desire to try.
Gale’s arm was a solid, welcome weight across the small of his back, his large hand splayed possessively over the dip of Vesper’s spine. His own body was a furnace pressed along Vesper’s side, his breathing a deep, steady rhythm that Vesper felt more than heard. He could feel the hard plane of Gale’s chest against his ribs, the faint, satisfied thrum of divine energy that still vibrated through him. And pressed firmly against his thigh, he could feel the insistent, undeniable evidence that Gale, for all his apparent satiation, was still very much hard. Ready. A low, continuous hum of anticipation that promised this respite was merely an interlude.
But for now, there was only peace.
A contented, wordless sigh escaped Vesper’s lips, stirring the soft fabric of the sheet beneath him. He felt… real. Not just in the philosophical sense, but in a visceral, physical way. He was aware of the weight of his own body on the mattress, the tickle of his own silver-streaked auburn hair against his neck, the slow, syrupy trail of warmth making its way down his inner thigh. Gale’s essence inside him felt less like a fluid and more like a contained star, its radiant energy seeping into his very marrow, healing, sealing, anchoring. The hollow ache of two years was gone, replaced by a profound, buzzing fullness. He was a vessel that had been empty and was now filled to overflowing, not just with seed, but with Gale. He couldn’t describe it.
He felt Gale stir beside him, the arm across his back shifting. A calloused thumb began to trace slow, idle circles on the sweat-damp skin of his lower back. The touch was so tender, so caring, that it made Vesper’s breath hitch.
“Comfortable?” Gale’s voice was a low, rumbling murmur, thick with a satisfaction so deep it was almost palpable. It was the voice of a well-fed dragon lounging on its hoard. But it was also, Vesper realized with a sudden, aching clarity, just Gale’s voice. The same warm, slightly pedantic timbre that had explained the Weave to him by a campfire, that had whispered stories in the dark of his tent, that had grumbled about the tressym couriers shedding all over the realm. It wasn't layered with celestial power. It was just… Gale.
Vesper managed a weak, affirmative noise that was more vibration than sound. Speaking required energy he simply did not possess.
A soft, husky chuckle vibrated through Gale’s chest and into Vesper’s side. “I’ll take that as a yes.” His thumb continued its lazy circuit. “You have… no idea… the sight of you right now, my heart. So beautifully sated.”
Vesper could only imagine. Sprawled across the dark sheets, skin flushed and gleaming with sweat and divine seed, marked by constellations of love bites and the faint red imprint of a bookcase edge from the library. A thoroughly debauched and ruined god.
“L-Lost count,” Vesper finally managed to slur into the mattress, his voice hoarse from overuse.
“Hmm?” Gale’s hand stilled.
“How many times,” Vesper elaborated, the effort of forming sentences was too much. “Lost count.”
Another rich, deeply amused chuckle. Gale shifted, rolling slightly to prop himself up on an elbow, looking down at Vesper. His warm brown eyes—he’d shifted them back to their mortal forms somewhere between the alchemy lab and the washroom—were soft, sated, and filled with an adoration so fierce it made Vesper’s spent body thrum with a weak echo of desire. There was no silver fire in them. No cosmic weight in his gaze. He was just a man, looking at the man he loved after making love for who-knows-how-long. Just Gale Dekarios.
“A gentleman,” Gale murmured, leaning down to press a soft, lingering kiss to a knob of Vesper’s spine, “would never kiss and tell.” He nuzzled the spot. “But as we have thoroughly established in our mortality and now godhood, I can be rather… ungentlemanly where you are concerned. Only for you of course.” His voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “It was seventeen. Eighteen if we count what we did in the sky... and judging by how tired we are, I’d say we spent at least a month in the throes of passion.”
Vesper’s eyes, which had been closed, flew open. Eighteen. He’d lost count after five, his mind dissolving into a blissful haze of sensation. Eighteen times. Over a long divine month, barely a few seconds in the Material Plane.
Oh g-gods...
A faint, helpless tremor ran through him. No wonder he felt liquid.
Gale kissed his back again and smiled as Vesper closed his eyes in contentment with a sigh.
Peace.
This was peace.
And yet.
Beneath the satiated bliss, beneath the overwhelming love and relief, a thin, sharp shard of bitterness remained. It was buried deep, a sliver of ice in the warm sea of his contentment. It was the memory of the hollow ache itself. The memory of the dull, grey world, of sensations that felt like echoes of echoes. The memory of a silence that wasn't peaceful, but empty.
He had his catharsis. Oh, gods, he had it. It had been wrung from him over a month apparently—eighteen—shattering, glorious times according to Gale’s estimations. He was replete with it. But the bitterness was for the need of it at all. For the two years of self-imposed exile that had been, he now understood with terrifying clarity, a form of slow, spiritual starvation. He had been trying to nourish himself on crumbs when a feast was waiting with open arms...
The terror came then, swift and cold, clashing violently with the warm afterglow.
This will end.
The thought was a splash of icy water. The temporal dilation was a beautiful, desperate lie. A stolen moment. He could feel the truth of it in the very fabric of the realm around them—a subtle strain, a divine effort Gale was maintaining to keep the outside world at bay. Jaheira’s fungal brew would eventually be finished. The sun would rise over a Waterdeep that was, for now, frozen in a single moment.
And he would have to leave.
He didn’t want to leave.
The moment he stepped out of the direct, radiant sphere of Gale’s presence, he knew with a soul-deep certainty what would happen. The vibrant, colorful reality of this reunion would fade. The world would dull again. The sounds would become muffled, the scents fainter, the textures less sharp. It wouldn’t be immediate, and it wouldn’t be as severe as before—not now that the bond was alive and singing between them—but it would happen. It was the fundamental, agonizing truth of what Ao had done to them. The ultimate violation of a soul.
He was the moon, and Gale was his sun. He could reflect that light brilliantly, but he could not generate his own. Not like this.
He needed the mortal world. He loved it, its messy, chaotic, fleeting beauty. But he needed Gale more. He needed to be near him. The two years had been a failed experiment, proving that one could not thrive without the other, especially Vesper.
A soft, soundless sob shook him. He pressed his face deeper into the bed, inhaling the scent of Gale and sex and home. He was terrified of leaving this realm now. Of leaving this bed. Of losing even a fraction of this perfect, real feeling.
Gale felt the subtle tremor. His hand, which had been tracing idle circles on Vesper’s back, stilled.
“Vesper?” His voice was soft, laced with a sudden concern that cut through his own satiation. “My heart? What is it? What troubles you?”
Vesper shook his head, unable to speak, afraid that if he opened his mouth, a torrent of desperate, clinging pleas would pour out. Don’t make me go. Never let me go. Keep time stretched forever. Hide me here.
But he couldn’t. He had duties. A purpose Ao himself had ordained. Or Shar would take him away.
He forced himself to take a ragged breath, to lift his head from the bed. He turned onto his side to face Gale, the movement causing another warm trickle of seed to escape him—a cruel, crude reminder of the temporary nature of this fullness.
Gale was propped on an elbow, his warm brown eyes now sharp with worry, all traces of sleepiness gone. He looked so… mortal. It made the ache worse.
“I…” Vesper’s voice was a hoarse scrape. He tried again. “I have to… deal with the threat to Jhessem and then... invoke the Eclipse soon. A-Above Razamith’s Tower. I have to see Rolan with Jaheira.”
The Eclipse Pact.
It was the duty that defined him. The solemn, silent rite that was his reason for being. To cast the shadow that humbled the proud, to bring the silence that made the noise appreciate itself. It could not be put off indefinitely.
Gale’s expression softened with understanding, but the worry didn’t leave his eyes. He knew this wasn’t just about godly duties.
“I know,” he said gently, reaching out to brush a stray strand of silver-streaked hair from Vesper’s damp forehead. “We have time. However much you need. You know this. I will stretch time to it’s limits. Anything for you, dearest.”
“And after…” Vesper nodded, and continued, the words tasting like ash. He looked away, unable to hold Gale’s gaze for this part. He focused on a familiar whorl in the wooden bedpost. “After that… I have to go to Waterdeep. I… I told Tara and your mother I would come. It’s… long overdue. Two entire years. I... I’m ashamed that I’ve made them wait so long for me.”
The silence that fell between them was sudden and absolute.
It was different from the comfortable, charged silences they had shared before. This one was cold and heavy. Vesper dared a glance back at Gale.
The Once-Wizard’s face had gone carefully, terribly neutral. The warmth in his brown eyes had been stifled, replaced by a distant, shuttered look Vesper knew all too well. It was the look he got when confronted with a failure, a disappointment he had not yet found the intellectual framework to process. The mention of his mother and Tara—the two people in all the realms whose opinion truly, fundamentally mattered to Gale Dekarios besides Vesper’s—had thrown a bucket of cold water on their intimate aftermath.
Vesper’s heart clenched. The bitterness flared, sharp and bright.
You did this, he wanted to say. Your ambition, your neglect, your silence… it’s why I have to go and lie to the two people who love you most. It’s why I have to look them in the eye and pretend we’re thriving, when for two years we were shattered.
But he didn’t. He saw the flicker of pain in Gale’s eyes before the shutters came fully down. He saw the weight of that unspoken failure settle on his husband’s shoulders.
The awkwardness stretched, thin and brittle. The warmth of their bodies under the sheets suddenly felt stifling. Vesper wanted to curl into a ball. He had ruined it. He had brought the cold, hard world into their perfect, stolen moment.
Just as he was about to apologize, to take it back, Gale spoke.
His voice was quiet, stripped of all its divine resonance and its earlier lover’s warmth. It was just a man’s voice, tired and heavy with a decision he had clearly been avoiding.
“No.”
Vesper blinked. “No?”
Gale took a deep breath, as if steeling himself. The neutral mask cracked, revealing the turmoil beneath—guilt, dread, but also a resolute determination. He met Vesper’s gaze squarely.
“You will not go to Waterdeep alone,” he said, his voice gaining a sliver of strength. “I... I will go with you.”
Vesper could only stare, utterly stunned. Of all the responses he had anticipated—defensiveness, more coldness, a change of subject, being hurtled back into his avatar on the Material Plane with a snap of Gale’s divine fingers even—this was not one of them.
“Gale, you… you don’t have to,” Vesper stammered. “Your duties… the Weave… the petitioners…”
“Can be managed by my simulacra,” Gale interrupted, his tone leaving no room for argument. It was the voice of the God of Ambition, but the words were those of a penitent man. “They have been doing a passable job for two years. I continue to perfect them. Do not worry.”
He shifted on the bed, turning fully towards Vesper, his expression utterly serious.
“You said you would tell them we’re happy. That I’m busy but sent you with my love.” He paused, and a profound sadness touched his features. “That is a kindness I do not deserve, Vesper. And it is a lie I will no longer let you carry for me.”
He reached out and took Vesper’s hand, lacing their fingers together. His grip was firm. “The estrangement… the silence… it was my doing. My failure. My… my blindness.” The words seemed to cost him something, but he forced them out. “I let my ambition cloud what was right in front of me. I hurt you. And in doing so, I undoubtedly hurt them. The thought of my mother’s worry… of Tara’s disapproval…” He shuddered slightly. “I have been a coward, hiding up here, pretending the consequences of my actions would just… vanish if I ignored them.”
He squeezed Vesper’s hand. “You facing them alone, spinning pretty lies to spare my feelings and theirs… that is not a solution. That is me making you complicit in my failure as a son and a friend.” He took another deep, shuddering breath. “It is time I faced them. It is long past time. And I will not do it from a distance. I will stand beside you, in my mother’s kitchen, and I will… I will account for myself. She will have so many questions, especially about our marriage and she will not like the answers...”
The resolve in his eyes was terrifying and beautiful. This wasn’t the grand, celestial ambition of a god. This was the harder, more mundane ambition of a man striving to be better. To be worthy of the love he had been given.
“Hand in hand,” Gale whispered, his voice rough with emotion. “As it should have been all along.”
The bitterness in Vesper’s soul didn’t just vanish. It was too deep a wound for that. But as he looked at Gale—really looked at him, seeing not the god but the man willingly walking into a scene of certain and deserved maternal reckoning for him—the shard of ice began to melt.
This was a different kind of catharsis. Not the explosive, physical one that had left him breathless and boneless, but a quieter, deeper one. It was the catharsis of shared burden. Of not having to lie anymore. Of seeing the person he loved most choose to be brave in the most important way.
Tears welled in Vesper’s eyes again, but they were different tears. They were tears of relief. Of a hope that was no longer fragile.
He brought their joined hands to his lips and pressed a fervent kiss to Gale’s knuckles.
“I love you, my stubborn wizard.” he whispered, his voice thick. “Hand in hand, as you said.”
A slow, genuine smile spread across Gale’s face, banishing the last of the shadows. It was a smile Vesper hadn’t seen in years—a little nervous, a little boyish, full of love and determination. The smile of Gale Dekarios facing a challenge he was terrified of, but would meet head-on.
“I love you too, my daft bard.” Gale said, his own voice a little unsteady. He leaned forward and pressed his forehead against Vesper’s. “Then it’s settled. We will make the most of our borrowed time here. And we will go home to Waterdeep after the Eclipse.”
The word home hung in the air between them, its meaning expanded. It wasn’t just this tower, or Vesper’s moonlit campsite. It was a place with a fussy tressym and a doting mother who made the finest soup and tea and asked too many questions. It was a place they would face together.
The terror of leaving was still there, a cold knot in Vesper’s stomach. The fear of the world dulling, of the slow fading that began the moment he stepped out of Gale’s immediate light. But it was no longer a terror he faced alone. Gale knew now. Gale understood. And he was choosing to walk with him into that very greyness for a time.
Vesper believed in him. And that belief was a stronger anchor than any divine decree.
He surged forward, capturing Gale’s lips in a desperate, grateful kiss. It was not a kiss of passion, but of promise. Of partnership.
When they broke apart, Gale’s eyes were shining. The persistent hardness against Vesper’s thigh, which had never truly faded, now seemed less a promise of relentless pleasure and more a comforting constant. A part of the man he was embarking on this new, terrifying, hopeful journey with.
“Now,” Gale murmured, his voice regaining a hint of its earlier wickedness, though it was now tempered with a profound tenderness. “Where were we? I believe we were discussing the merits of a nineteenth round…”
And as Gale rolled him onto his chest, covering his back with his chest, Vesper laughed—a real, true, unburdened laugh that felt like the first one in forever as Gale’s chest hair tickled his back, strong, scholarly arms coiling around him as the heft of his wizard pushed into him, making his laughter hitch into a drawn out moan.
The bitterness was still a memory, but it was no longer a chain. The terror was still a fear, but it was no longer a prison.
He was whole. He was loved. And he was going home soon with the man he loved.
Come what may, they’d weather everything; together as one.
---
Original scene and full series (SFW) available here: Moonshadow
---