Chapter Text
He’s throwing up, again. Not just raw nerves and anxiety this time, but real, bone-chilling fear. His body rebels and his joints ache in protest at the way he’s using them. He thinks - not for the first time - that the hardwood floors of the office he spent years haunting are probably the answer to the question of why they hurt so damn much. Another agony he believed to be a gift, once.
This situation has got to end. He’s said it to himself so many times already that it’s lost all meaning, beyond being advice he seems incapable of heeding. His chest is tightening too, and everything hurts, but more than that is that he’s so utterly defeated. He has tried. Tried hard, actually. Despite his best efforts, this evening feels as though it was designed solely to break him. Crush him. So far, it’s succeeding.
His phone is ringing, a fact he is only very dimly aware of. There are people out there at the party that he’s supposed to be meeting - and no doubt impressing - but he’s just not capable right now. His head is resting against the bathroom wall, and he knows that conversation is beyond him. Moving feels beyond him, honestly, but at least the retching has stopped. The thought that he’s now as empty as he feels occurs to him, and the laugh that it inspires sounds like it belongs to someone else. It’s the saddest laugh he’s ever heard.
He needs to get up. He fantasizes sometimes, about leaving and not coming back, about turning his phone off and driving until somewhere feels safe again. When he’s in here, shaking and trying not to spiral into a panic attack, it almost feels like he could do it, like his very next move will be to walk to his car - but this is where the fantasy falls apart. He knows he can only be brave in this room, alone and behind a locked door.
Eventually, he drags himself up and over to the mirror to assess the damage. He looks pale, tired and haunted, but sadly none of that is unusual enough to raise any concerns. Nobody would know he had to come here and do this, thank God. Splashing some water on his face, washing his mouth out, cleaning up the scene of the crime; it’s all become so rote that he can do it without thinking. A small mercy, actually - it means he can save his energy for what comes next.
---
The only perk of this labyrinth of a house is that he can disappear without notice when a party like this is happening. Mystra is too busy playing hostess to wonder what he’s up to, even though he knows she’ll want to hear about who he spoke to when she couldn’t be watching. The answer will be the same ‘nobody unexpected’ that it always is. She never believes him, but Gale has nothing to offer a stranger and doesn’t try and pretend otherwise. He’s so very, very tired of the role he’s playing.
He grabs two glasses of red wine from a tray that a roving waiter offers him. For a brief moment, he allows himself to imagine he’s here with someone he wants to be at a party with, someone that makes him feel alive and vibrant with as much force as Mystra makes him feel cold and withered. Maybe she’d like him for himself - what a concept. Maybe she’d be missing him already. Maybe- but he cuts himself off. Dangerous to wander down that path, but nights like tonight make it so hard to resist.
He takes a cautious sip from one glass, balancing the notion of chasing the unsafe ideas away against keeping the drink down. Not like you’ll be driving home after this anyway. The thought tastes like the one that led him to the bathroom initially, and he fights to swallow it back down into himself. He’s heading to his safe place, his bolt hole for events like this. There’s a summerhouse down near the back of the garden that he hides in, and somehow Mystra hasn’t figured it out yet. Maybe she cares as little as he does at this point.
So sure is he that he’ll be alone enough to brood, he doesn’t realize that the glorified shed has someone in it already. He’s too wrapped up in his wretched little world to notice there are lights on, until now. There’s a woman sitting on the peculiar floor cushions, leaning against the wall with her eyes closed. She’s got tattoos snaking out of her dress sleeves, and unruly copper hair. She doesn’t look like Mystra’s normal party guests; she feels far more solid, resonant. Human. She looks beautiful, out of place, and - when her eyes open and she sees him watching her - incredibly guilty.
His mind stutters at the eye contact, unsure how best to adjust to this new development. He would have remembered if someone that looked like her was here tonight, wouldn’t he? He feels certain he would, based on how difficult thought is to come by when he looks at her now. He sets a glass down on the side table, freeing a hand to run through his hair, forgetting it’s half up tonight. Maybe he should leave. Ask her some follow up questions at least, but it’s as if he’s forgotten how. For what feels like far too long - and he knows it - he stares at her, with his mouth hanging open.
If Mystra tapped on his shoulder right now and asked what the hell he thought he was doing, he's certain he still wouldn’t be able to look away from the unexpected intruder in front of him. Freckles hide under the pink that’s creeping across her face, and her eyes are wide and hazel, framed with black flicks. She looks out of place, buried under the black cocktail dress she’s wearing. He wants to get closer. Notice more. Something stirs in him - a desire that’s been dormant so long he thought it had died. It stirs far more unavoidably when he notices that for the first time in maybe years, he wants to see how this will play out.
The woman who has discovered his sanctuary is at least as shocked to see him as he is her, but she’s not making any move to leave. Rather, she’s taking him apart with her scrutiny - that’s how it feels to Gale, anyway. If this is what it is to be looked at, then nobody has ever looked at him before. He finds that he likes it, even though this scenario is so far out of his comfort zone that his legs are in danger of giving out from under him.
Her voice knocks him out of the buffering he’s stuck in, at last. It’s huskier than he would have guessed, but no less enjoyable for it.
“I’m sorry, I know I probably shouldn’t be in here. I just needed somewhere to hide,” she hurries out, like she’s expecting to be interrupted. “I can leave. It’s just the door was unlocked, and you can actually pretend you’re somewhere else in here, y’know?”
She sounds as distressed as Gale feels. He’s still not entirely sure he’s fit for company, but casting her out feels like unwarranted cruelty. Maybe she needed this place as much as he did tonight. The most pointless outbuilding in the world certainly has the space for two unwilling players in the evening’s charade. The dim light the lamps cast makes the space feel cave-like. A shelter from the storm. They could be refugees together, perhaps.
“You don’t have to go.” His voice is so quiet from the rawness of his throat that he’s not sure she’ll hear him. “You just startled me, that’s all. But if you prefer, I can leave instead and let you hide in peace.”
Giving yourself an out even now, coward. Have to reject yourself so that they can’t do it first, isn’t that your signature move?
Relief flushes over her. She shakes her head: his company is desired, it would seem. He moves fully into the hut now, abandoning his threshold hovering and closing the door behind him. She’s right - in here, the party feels so far away it might as well be on another planet. That's why he likes it. He lets out a long, deep breath, the weight of the evening lifting from his shoulders a little. In here, Mystra’s expectations hold no relevance. He can’t let anyone down within these walls, which is why on nights like this he gravitates here. He hopes that remains true.
“Seems a little unfair to evict you now, anyway. You did get here first,” he admits, walking over to where she’s seated. He takes a seat of his own on the strange bed-sized pillow his new companion has made herself at home on, and offers her the untouched glass of wine.
She takes the glass from him with a smile, which is again, not what he’s used to, even without the rest of the situation he’s found himself in. There’s something else, too, but he can’t figure it out. Too out of practice. Too unused to interest that isn’t solely to further one-sided attention. Now that she’s stopped looking at him like she’s scared he’ll call the cops on her and like she’s taking inventory, he doesn’t know what to say.
Woefully out of practice.
She introduces herself as Mia whilst holding out a hand to him, like this is the most normal thing in the world. It very possibly could be to her, he thinks. He does, at this point, only know her first name, that she will drink red wine out of politeness, if nothing else, and that she hates the forced enjoyment of an evening with Mystra almost as much as he does. Enough to hide from it, at the very least.
“Gale,” as he takes her offered hand in his. “Apologies, I’m usually… better at this,” he adds, awkwardly.
“At introductions? I mean, I’m trespassing, so I’m not sure how much it should weigh on you that you didn’t immediately roll out the welcome wagon.”
She smiles widely at him, dropping his hand so she can lightly bump her shoulder against his. Playfulness. Something else Gale hasn’t had much cause to practice. Do those muscles atrophy?
“You did also bring me a drink as an apology,” she says, raising the glass as if she’s toasting him. Her red lipstick stains the glass, and he wonders if it would stain him, too.
“At introductions, at human interaction as a whole, really.”
He shifts slightly, uncomfortable admitting how out of the habit of conversation he is. It’s not as if he doesn’t talk to anyone, it’s just he’s pretty much stopped caring about what they think about him. Hard to value a stranger’s opinion of you when you’re already overflowing with self-loathing. He finds he does value hers, though. Could be that it’s because she surprised him, but deep in his mostly settled stomach, he knows that’s not it. Something like this has never happened to him before. He has no frame of reference to compare it to.
He tips his head back so he can lean it against the wooden wall, and lets out a sigh. He can’t remember what this room was actually used for, outside of a place he came to cry about how he’s so bored and trapped and lonely he can’t see a way out of it. Maybe that’s what everyone else uses it for too. It’s a good spot for it.
“Don’t you ever get tired of pretending you’re okay?” she whispers.
There’s no judgement in her voice, only a quiet understanding that Gale is certain was hard-won. Her insight is frightening, though perhaps he’s just not used to anybody caring about how he’s feeling, or whether he’s faking it. He avoided the calls of the last person that would have, and eventually the calls stopped coming, because even his own mother couldn’t stand the slow motion collapse of her son’s happiness and promise, not even from the sidelines. He’d never had a good enough answer for why he stayed where he was and let himself remain despondent - his mother didn’t need to hear the truth, which is that he doesn’t know who he is without it at this point.
Whatever Mia sees in his face answers her question, it seems, which is fortunate as he can’t bring himself to make it a reality by saying it aloud. Telling someone else how perilously close to the brink he is makes it feel all too real. Too undeniable. Something in the tightness of his smile or the rigidity of his posture has allowed him to maintain the illusion without audibly confirming how on the money she is, and he’s grateful. Let her think he’s mysterious, let her want to carry on smiling at him. Let her stay a little while longer.
As if she heard his plea, she rests her head on his shoulder without any hesitation. Her soft hair brushes his neck, the gentle scent of peaches fills the nearby air, and he can feel a long forgotten heat start to rise within him. Gale’s entire body freezes, and a hiss escapes him, even as he tries to pull it back within himself. He doesn’t want her to stop. Please, God, don’t let her stop. Don’t let her come to her senses and leave.
She leans away at the noise and studies his face again. He’s aware it’s an open book if you know what to look for, no matter how hard he tries otherwise. It’s gotten him into too much trouble before for him to not know. With that in mind, she can probably see all too clearly the unusual mix of desire and sadness that’s coloring him at this exact moment. As he looks at her, though, he sees something like it reflected back at him. Well, alright then.
Women don’t look at him like this, he thinks. Like he’s interesting, worth knowing. As if he’s desirable. Just him as he is, none of his skills or failings on trial. He’s aware he’s attractive, if for no other reason than Mystra has an eye for finery, but still. Perhaps what he really means is that nobody has looked at him the way Mia is now. She’s looking at him like she wants to eat him, and like maybe she will, and it excites and scares him in near equal measure. He’s weighing it up, trying to decide what his next move should be - what his next move can be - when suddenly, he doesn’t have to anymore, because she’s kissing him.
Parts of his body that have been offline for years leap back into life. He can hear his pulse roar in his ears as he deepens the kiss, tasting red wine and melancholy, and idly wondering if it’s her or himself he’s getting it from. His hands bury themselves in her hair, anchoring her to him, as he swallows her moans like the starving man he is. Gale has no idea what the rules are here. He's wandered into unknown territory and he’s trying to keep his footing stable. He pulls away - despite how it pains him, despite how she instantly moves to bite at his neck, a question of consent about to pass when-
“Yes, to all of it. Anything you want. Help me forget, Gale,” she breathes into his ear, and any resistance he thought he might be capable of is gone. He is consumed.
She nips at his neck again, as if to give him a push. He does not need to be asked twice; if his mercurial tenure with Mystra had taught him anything at all, it was to follow instruction. He moves his hands to her shoulders to gently ease her down onto her back, letting her legs frame him. Then he’s leaning down over her to feast; her neck, her jaw, her gasping little mouth. Her hands are in his hair, gripping him, keeping him close. He wants to devour her. Overcome with the need to taste her, all of her. Anything he wants, she said, and yet he’s going to stick to what he knows he’s exceptional at.
Moving back, he settles on his surprisingly compliant knees so that he can better drink her in. He would never normally do a thing like this - putting aside how this is, so far, a once in a lifetime offer - but the alternative is thinking about what could potentially be waiting for him after everyone else has gone home. Mia is actively offering distraction, a way to feel good about himself, even if it is fleeting, and truthfully, he isn’t strong enough to pass that up. To be desired, to be kissed by someone that wants him like this - to be kissed full stop, is too much to resist. So he won’t.
He runs his hands up her legs slowly, teasingly, uncovering more hidden tattoos as he goes. Mia seems to approve, from the way one of her own hands have reached for his shoulders, tugging at him, urging him to act faster. She can barely keep still under him as he starts to push her dress up to her waist. Anticipation alone is clearly doing a number on her, and the knowledge that he’s the one making it happen is intoxicating. Gale, bastard that he’s capable of being, just sits and admires the view.
Mia reaches up and pulls his face back to hers. The red wine taste returns, and he could die here doing this and only regret that he didn’t get to do more of it. Her hands are not idle; she’s trying to navigate his shirt buttons without looking, without having to break the kiss Gale’s almost lost in. In the interest of testing her ability to maintain concentration, he moves his hands higher up her thighs and starts to trace gentle circles on her skin. She rewards this by lifting her hips to him, allowing him to remove the last barrier between what he wants to give and giving it.
He knows what she’s waiting for and yet the thrill of having someone at last that wants him this… obviously leaves him in no rush to be done. He softly mouths at her neck, her skin as galvanizing as the rest of her. His thoughts are all getting jammed behind the overriding urge to have as much of her as he can, to make her as drugged on him as he seems to be on her. Sucking at the underside of her jaw, interspersing it with gentle nibbles, determined to make her ask for what she wants. The insistent noises she’s making are almost enough, but he wants to hear it in words. Needs to.
He moves to work his way down her, now that he can - gently hooking her leg over his shoulder and using his hand to angle her hip towards him. She doesn’t know who he is, not really, and that means he can be anyone he wants to be. Let him be the Gale he remembers being, confident and capable. Allow him to give her that much, for this kindness. He uses his free hand to hold her still, to quell the slight bucking of her hips. The feeling of his breath on her is what finally gets him the first part of what he wants.
“Gale, please, please-”
Her breathing is coming in ragged gasps, and he knows in his bones he’s right on the edge of getting what he’s waiting for.
“I need-”
The words remove any lingering reservations he might have. Lowering his face down to the warmth of her already wet center, he slowly licks the full length of her, before pushing his tongue further inside. He hums in contentment; the taste is rich and decadent and an excellent chaser to red wine melancholy. Mia’s plea evolves into a strangled moan of pleasure, and what replaces it is just as wonderful: mindless rambling as he slowly untethers her from rational thought.
“Gale, shit, how are you so good at this, Jesus fuck-”
She tries to roll her hips up to him again, wanting more than the measured pace he’s giving her. He releases the leg he’s holding down, and slowly, far too slowly for what Mia clearly wants, pushes his index finger into her and crooks it. The twin sensations of Gale’s mouth sucking at her clit with such perfect, delicious pressure and the way his finger is working into her has her unraveling faster than anticipated. The inadvertent praise goes straight to his groin.
He moans into her fully now, unable to help himself. The taste of her, the feel of her, the way she makes no effort to hold back the effect he’s having on her; the stream of previous unknowns slam into him and leave him unable to do anything but vocalize his pleasure. He works a second finger into her, and finds a pace that has Mia arching her back and holding on to whatever part of Gale she can find.
He feels the oncoming wave of her orgasm approaching as she tightens around him, and he redoubles his efforts with his mouth, consumed with the desire to hear her falling apart for him. It feels as if it’s the only thing he’s ever wanted in his entire life. His free hand finds one of hers, and he threads his fingers through hers, and this, more than anything, seems to push her over the edge. The taste of her floods his tongue; the slightly sweet tang of her release is beyond his imagining. He slows his pace but doesn’t stop, so determined is he to wring every last drop from her, even as her leg slumps from his shoulder.
He makes his way back up her body, and whatever he’s going to do next he’ll have to do it with one hand, because he’s not letting go of her now. He’s kissing every inch of her he can find, condensing the nights he wishes he could give her into the thirty or so minutes that they actually have. Pushing their shared hand above her head so he can lean on his forearm and carry on holding her with one, and keep fucking her with the other. Set on drawing another orgasm from her, to make sure he’s met his brief in helping her to forget. She’s moaning his name in his ear in a way that threatens to ruin him right along with her.
“You defy explanation,” he gasps into her neck, to his horror. Apparently, he’s so far gone his inner monologue is now spilling out of him, unbidden. Mia seems to like it - at least, that’s how he chooses to read her attempt to redirect his face to where his fingers are crooked into her. He takes the hint, finally and regretfully letting go of her hand so that he can raise her hip again and bring her the pleasure that she deserves. Her hand has wound into his hair again, tightening its grip and pulling a moan from him that sounds downright sinful. This is what it should always be, he realizes. He’s been getting short-changed for years.
It’s messy, and noisier than he remembered it could be when it’s with someone you’re excited by. Mia gasps out something that could be his name as she’s pulled under by the current of the second orgasm he brings her to. His hand grips her hip, hard enough to bruise, holding her to his face and drinking her in like it’ll cure him. He’s been getting short-changed for years.
Gale wants to wake up next to her, he wants to fall asleep next to her - he wants all the time in-between with her too, and he’s dimly aware that this is an unhinged line of thought, a desperate dream of a touch starved man shown kindness, but he can’t stop himself. He presses one final, lingering kiss to Mia’s thigh and then rolls away to lay flat on his back. His breathing comes hard, the most effort he’s put into the act in at least a decade. Hopefully that it was a good enough showing for her that not only did she forget, she will remember.
The warm glow of a job well done washes over him, radiating heat throughout his body. Mia curls into him, resting her head on his chest, and his breath catches a little. He’s so used to being kicked out immediately or left in bed alone, with nothing but his seemingly endless capacity for disgust for company. So much of this entire experience was foreign to him; the eagerness, the mutual interest, the emotions it stirred. The desire to stay and bask in the after, together, is a more than welcome change.
“Do you feel less miserable now?” she murmurs into his sternum, rousing him out of his reflections. If she’s surprised by his stopping point, she hides it well.
The vibrations carry through him, and he thinks again that he’s been accepting a counterfeit type of love too brittle and small to sustain him. He reflexively tightens his arm around her.
“Is that what this was in aid of? Pure altruism on your part?”
There’s a lightness in his voice that has been missing or presumed dead for years. The spark of an idea building in his chest at the thought that he will leave this room an altered man.
“Nope, no pity fucks here,” she says, punctuating each word with a light kiss to his chest. “Ideas can have more than one goal, but that was one of them. For you to feel less miserable.”
“You certainly achieved that with ease.” He nuzzles the top of her head with his chin. There is an easier intimacy with her already than the only comparison he has, and he wants to stay in the bubble of it, feeling like this forever. Even as the thought occurs though, he can feel the worries starting to come back to life, unpaused and unavoidable.
How long have you been gone? Has Mystra noticed? How can you go back to the prison your life has somehow turned into?
But equally - how can you not?
This woman, Mia, is an entire person, not a Gale-sized life raft. He has to save himself, and he already knew that, but God above does it have to be this hard? He can feel the acid roiling within him, and he really does not want to be sick here, now. He needs to get up, he needs to-
“This is going to sound a little… out there, but uh, how do you feel about waffles?” she asks, her voice once again breaking through the rising anxiety.
“I… like them?” he says, slowly. The unexpected subject change has diverted his mind from expulsion, at least. Now he just has to catch up to where she is on her train of thought.
“I was thinking about maybe leaving to go get some, if you want to come with? I could drive you back here afterwards, if you need your car.”
Between the faint waver in her voice, and the way she’s buried herself a little more into him, so she doesn’t risk seeing his face at all, he realizes he’s not the only nervous one here. From the confidence required to ask a stranger to fuck them into memory issues, he wouldn’t have guessed anything scared her.
He needs to say something reassuring, he needs to say anything, but he’s left it too long.
"We don’t have to, it’s a pretty odd thing to ask,” she blurts out, “I don’t even know your last name. But I am hungry, and I thought maybe if you were too…"
“Dekarios,” he says, thrilled to have something that he can contribute without thinking too hard.
She lifts her head to raise her eyebrow at him. Apparently, that was not the important part of her statement.
“My last name, it’s Dekarios,” he repeats, even though he’s fairly sure she understood him.
“And your general thoughts on late night diner waffles?” she queries, eyebrow still raised, eyes still searching his face.
He looks at his watch. 1 AM, which means that things would be winding down by now. Mystra would be holding court in the conversation pit for the die-hards, feeding her ego before Gale really fed it properly, if he’d understood her earlier insinuations. He could be brave, or he could stay heartbroken - doubly so now that Mia had shown him what was possible. He does not want to finish his evening on his long-suffering knees, worshipping at the wrong altar.
“I encourage and support their pursuit, wholeheartedly.”
Reason doesn’t catch up with him until he’s doing his shirt back up. They absolutely cannot leave out of the front door, because Mystra will see him. And if she doesn’t, somehow, someone that looks out for her interests might. That is not a conversation he is equipped to have, considering the alternative offering.
“Maybe we should leave through the garden,” he says, trying to sound casual, like he’s as fine walking back through the house - back past Mystra - as the man he’s pretending to be would be.
She glances over at him, confused. She’s gotten her clothes back in order whilst he’s been distracted, and the temptation to undo all their work and push her back down to the floor and lose himself is stronger than he thought a feeling could be. Stay focused, you’re finally within reach of BEING brave instead of wishing you could be.
“Otherwise we’ll get stuck saying goodbye to everyone for an age. Even if nobody notices you’re not at the party, they still feel compelled to see you off from it.”
He leans over to her, cupping her face in his hand and kissing her far more delicately than he has thus far.
“1 AM waffles can’t wait until 2. Throws the whole thing off. Completely changes the feeling of it,” he asserts, as if this is an actual phenomenon that inspires heated discourse within certain circles.
If Mia knows he’s hiding something, she doesn’t push him on it. She hints, with her slight eye roll, but she lets it be. Instead, she slides her hand into his, and allows him to lead the way.
---
They make it to Mia’s car unseen, and as they start driving, Gale releases the breath he’s been holding since he’d noticed how few other cars remained on the drive. Well, he’d been holding it in some capacity since they’d left the summerhouse, if he was being honest. The lack of guests remaining at the party has unsettled him; things were wrapping up ahead of schedule, which meant Mystra would be looking for her victory lap sooner rather than later.
He decides to give himself over to curiosity instead of panic. If he had a therapist, they might call this personal growth.
Or avoidance.
“So what great sin did you commit, to earn your invite to hell’s waiting room?”
“Oh, well, no ‘great sins’ or anything, it’s pretty boring if I’m honest. The woman that’s throwing the party, she hired me, and I feel fucking terrible but I’ve forgotten her name. I remember it was pretty wild, but apparently not wild enough to stick in my head.”
The urge to take a hard U-turn back into the familiar territory of ‘panic’ is rising.
“Her name is Mystra,” he supplies, hoping that the turmoil he feels is hidden effectively enough. “What did she hire you for?” Gale asks, because he wants to know - needs to know - how disastrously he’s allowed his double life to overlap already.
It would certainly follow the general pattern of his luck, for his one foray into life-changing to result in an unwitting entanglement with Mystra’s newest assistant, but he remains hopeful he can defy fate. The odds definitely owe him a win at this point.
They do not provide one, though.
“I’m an artist, and she hired me to paint a portrait for her, for some work thing? I guess she wanted me to see her in her home environment or something, I don’t know.”
She makes a noise of disdain, before finding the same tone she used to tell him he didn’t have to come and eat with her. Nervous.
“I felt so out of place at that party… everyone was like three generations of wealth above me and looking at me like I’d broken into the house.” She wrinkles her nose and grimaces. Gale knows all too well what she means. He’d risen above those looks once Mystra had elevated his position, and it was hard to believe he’d thought that a victory, at the time.
“Until you, which is ironic as I actually was technically trespassing then,” she teases, placing her hand on his thigh.
The warmth of it grounds him. He is in the car, he left. Gale rests his hand on top of hers, trying to bury the uneasiness that’s taken root. She knows Mystra, his recently acquired second life is far too closely tangled up with his actual one, this is a mistake-
His brain acts without him, saying the first suitable thing it can rush off the production line. “Is that why you found somewhere to hide then? The irrepressible atmosphere?”
He desperately does not want to explain his past with Mystra, because Mia is the first person in a long time that doesn’t know who he is and what he’s done. He can’t ruin it, not yet. Lying by omission feels like the lesser crime here, and it’s only really an omission if she asks, and she hasn’t. What’s one more bad idea that he talks himself into, at this point?
“Yeah, I was very bravely hiding, you got it. I was in the garden to get some air. It felt like I couldn’t breathe in that house.” She shudders, and her grip on his thigh tightens ever so slightly. The stirring that this inspires tries wildly to draw his focus.
“And then I saw that weird little hut and couldn’t resist. Figured I could hole up out there until it was an acceptable time to leave. Time did get away from me a little towards the end there - not that I’m complaining,” she says, as she gently removes herself from his grasp to throw the car into park.
They’ve arrived - not that he noticed, locked in his rotten little downward spiral as he was, until he looks up when she takes her hand back.
The car falls silent. Gale drops his head back against the seat and groans, closing his eyes against what might come next. The implications of the evening are finally breaking through fully, and none of them are as wonderful as he deserves, in the face of all his daring. He can feel Mia’s eyes on him. He knows this is an unusual thing to be doing right now, but he can’t stop himself. She’ll think he regrets what happened earlier, that he’s changed his mind about coming here with her. His only real regret is that one evening is all he gets with her. The devil on his shoulder is whispering, but it doesn’t have to be.
“Could you - if it’s alright - I just, don’t want to get in my car and part ways. You could meet me, back at mine, if you wanted to. After this. Would that be alright?”
It’s easier to badly attempt boldness like this when he doesn’t have to look at her. If Gale doesn’t know for sure what her face is doing, he can pretend she looks thrilled - or at least, not horrified. He can will anything into being if he doesn’t have inarguable proof that he’s wrong. Forever been his downfall, but he never seems to learn.
Mia’s seat belt unbuckles. He feels rapid fire flashes of shame, sorrow, surety wash over him. Risks opening his eyes.
Mia looks concerned for him, which is adorable on her. She doesn’t know yet that his personal hell was getting what he always wanted. She doesn’t know that at his lowest point he wished he could be ‘irreplaceable’ and the monkey paw curled a finger.
“I’m still feeling a little miserable, to be honest,” he admits, and it’s true enough.
She does seem to catch his real meaning, though. Maybe she still feels that way herself, so she’s on the lookout for it.
“Well, we can’t have that, handsome,” she soothes, pushing some rogue strands of hair out of his face. “But if that’s the plan for the evening, I definitely need to eat first.”
---
The waffles really are far better than they have any right to be, he considers. Each fluffy mouthful feels wholly restorative, and while the coffee does leave a lot to be desired, Gale is living proof that you can’t have everything. The diner itself is empty, save for a waitress that looks as if she could fall asleep at any moment, and some college kids clearly attempting to soak up their future hangover with fried food. It feels like he’s somewhere liminal, where time has stopped and consequences are hard to fathom.
When he looks back over at her, Mia has a smug look on her face. He raises his eyebrows at her questioningly.
“I just knew this would work,” she crows, jabbing a waffle loaded fork at the air in his face to emphasize her correctness. “You had a starved kind of look about you that showing off your talents didn’t resolve, so this is the next best thing that I could think of.”
Well, she’s got you there.
“You do seem to have a knack for knowing what I need before I do,” he concedes.
She’s lost in thought, or maybe the rapture of the waffles, for a few moments. When she does speak, it’s a curveball Gale couldn’t have predicted.
“I feel like it’s prize-worthy, honestly. My daring rescue and waffle combination cannot go unrewarded. It would be… criminal.” Her face is lit up with mischief, and he knows that whatever she asks for, he will give. The temporary man he inhabits does, after all, overlap significantly with whoever he actually is.
“I’d have thought my prior generosity would extend me some credit,” he huffs, levelling her a playful look of his own over his coffee cup. This is a game that he distantly remembers playing, but he’s still warming up.
Despite the flush that steals over her face at the memory, she holds his gaze. In their corner of the diner, the teens erupt into fits of laughter, and even that doesn’t pull her attention away. That feeling from earlier sneaks up on him again - this isn’t a way he’s used to being looked at.
“I want to ask you something,” she says simply. “And I would like you to answer it, even if you don’t want to.”
There is a beat of silence. This is not the worst thing that’s ever happened to you. You can do this.
“You do realize,” Gale pauses to sip his coffee, mostly enjoying the tension he’s creating, “that knowing I likely wouldn’t want to answer your question makes me somewhat disinclined to accept your proposal?”
“I disagree. I think your curiosity to hear what I want to ask will win out,” Mia says, throwing down the gauntlet with the confidence of someone that knows they’ve already won.
He pretends he’s very engaged with cutting his remaining waffle into bite-sized chunks. She can see him down to the soul, it seems, and has chosen her moments well. He wonders if it’s something anyone could do, if they had the desire. Maybe it is something unique to her; a wish to take him apart, specifically. Either way, he thinks he could like it, once it stops being so damned unsettling. She’s certainly right about his curiosity. If anything has gotten him into more trouble than his very readable face, it has been that.
“I… accept the terms, I think.”
“In that case: what had you hiding out? You look like you belong at a thing like that, more than I do at least.” Mia gestures at his whole body, like she’s evidencing her argument. The idea that he might look at home at that party causes heat to creep treacherously up his face.
Gale opens and closes his mouth a few times, trying to find an answer that’s not outright dishonesty and coming up short. He’s suddenly very aware of how out of place they both look here, dressed like this, and the gulf between what he wants and what he can hold on to is starting to make his head hurt. It’s a dream, to think it matters what he says now - but he holds back anyway.
“I’ve had to attend a fair amount of those parties. I work with Dr Ryl- Mystra, I mean, so I’ve had to make the rounds a few times,” he says carefully. “I found the summerhouse on my second visit, and it became my sanctuary. Nobody noticed if I was mingling as ordered or not.”
Mia considers this, nibbling at her lip.
“So you were hiding from having to hang out with co-workers? That’s pretty relatable, I guess.”
Gale mulls the exchange over. He’s been a little vulnerable, a little misleading maybe, but he has managed to avoid outright lying to her. That has to count for something. There’s no good time to confess to the idiocy that his life choices add up to, but right here in the diner, when she’s hanging on his every word? He can’t bring himself to do it. What doesn't kill you outright kills you agonizingly slowly, it turns out.
“The man that can give a stranger the best orgasms of her life can’t make small talk at a party. Interesting contrast.”
“They are fairly different skill sets, even if they do both involve my mouth.” He winks at her, hoping his temporary self makes it look natural. That it will be disarming enough to end the discussion.
Maybe it is. Maybe Mia just doesn’t want to argue. Could be that she was saving her fight for paying the bill, something she is determined to do right up until Gale launches into an explanation on the origins of the barter system, and all desire for opposition seems to slump out of her at once. It’s not until they’re back at her car and have to separate that he realizes her hand has found its way into his. It just felt natural for it to be there.
The car ride back to Mystra’s is silent; companionable and intentional, right up until he’s supposed to get out and switch over to his own vehicle. The tightness in his chest has started again, because being on the property is the trigger for the Pavlovian panic attack response. His car is not alone on the driveway, despite the lateness of the hour, and that does help ease the fear that’s trying to claim him. Gale dares to let himself hope that Mystra has found someone else to torment - that maybe if she enjoys torturing them more than she does him, he could be replaced at last. Unshackled.
Mia’s hand finds his shoulder, and squeezes.
“We don’t have to do anything else, if you’ve changed your mind. You’ve already been pretty brave,” she says gently.
This - far more than her smile or how incredible his name sounds when he’s ensuring she can barely think - seals the deal. Not the acknowledgement that he’s been brave, nice as it is to hear, but that he’s free to choose. Really free, not the ‘request that’s actually an order’ kind of freedom that he’s so used to. Whether this leads to reward or ruin, he is making the decision for himself, at last.
He tries very hard to keep to the speed limit as he leads them back to his apartment, and for the most part, he manages it.