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Karlach finds Tav at the edge of camp, propped up against the trunk of a felled tree and tuning her well-loved lute. The stench of wine is still thick in the air, even with most of the tieflings gone or passed out in various spots around the clearing. Karlach herself had to step over one of the sleeping partygoers to leave, back bent low and mindful of her footfalls. The last thing she wants is to be interrupted.
Fiery eyes watch the elf with more rapt attention than she's ever given anything. The way nimble fingers stroke the strings of her instrument, lips pressed into a thin line to hum a tune. The collar of her blouse unlaced almost completely, revealing an expanse of freckled skin and gooseflesh left by the night air. She's cold, Karlach thinks. She can fix that.
Tav's eyes lock onto hers as she steps closer, and Karlach feels a familiar rush of heat go through her. Smells the burn of the magical flames that thread through her hair, betraying her excitement. Gods , she wants this.
"Think everyone's asleep. Mind if I join?"
And she can't fucking have it.
Tav nods, smiling sweetly when she puts the lute aside. Karlach sits across from her, a safe distance away from the dead tree. One too many lustful glances and she'd start a forest fire. A single bead of sweat forms at Tav's hairline.
Karlach realizes she's staring, and tears her eyes away. Clearing her throat she says, "Beautiful night, huh?"
Indulging her, Tav looks up at the moon above with her. When she'd first made it out of the Hells, Karlach spent what felt like hours with her head tilted back, looking at the sky. Afraid to blink, afraid it might take her from the sun she'd been deprived of for so long. Its warmth paled in comparison to the embers inside her— another thing her service had taken from her.
"You have no idea how long I've been waiting for this," Karlach says, talking about more than just the blanket of night above them. Looks back at Tav, holding the smaller woman's gaze. Another wave of heat washes over her.
Then, reality makes its cruel presence known. Tav adjusts her position slightly, toe of her boot grazing Karlach's, and recoils violently. The stink of burnt leather permeates the air, making their noses wrinkle. There hadn't been enough contact to burn through the boot entirely, but the way Tav flinches takes the wind from Karlach's sails, makes her pull her limbs close to her body protectively.
"I'm sorry," she says, chin low. "I want nothing more than to touch you— but I can't. Another second like that and I'd turn you to charcoal."
"I could always dunk you in the river," is Tav's reply, voice thick with all the charm of a bard. She waves the smoke from her singed boot away. "Bucket of water?"
"All good ideas, soldier," Karlach feels the smile returning to her face. "I'd still be hot as the Hells, though."
Tav sighs, wiping away the sweat forming at her brow as her face twists in the way it does when she's thinking. Or about to tell a less than truthful story— it's not always easy to tell.
"So I can't touch you," she swipes her tongue along her top row of teeth. "But I can tell you what I'd do if I could."
Karlach feels an honest to gods shiver run down her spine, a sensation as foreign to her now as the comfort of another. "I'd like that."
Tav crawls to her on all fours, Karlach mindful of the space she takes up. When she finds herself close as she can be without being turned to cinders, Tav cocks her head to the side, covering her mouth with a hand to speak into the tiefling's ear.
"If I could, I'd start with your arms. Drag my fingers up them nice and slow, like when I oil the strings of my lute. I know you watch me when I do— why you watch," she pauses for effect, adjusting her position slightly. "You'd feel me touch every muscle, how much I like them. I really like your arms, y'know? I envy your battleaxe. How you handle it."
Karlach swallows, feeling the lump in her throat. She aches for Tav now, tenfold more than anything she thought she'd endured before. It takes all the strength inside her and more to keep her hands to herself, digging clawed fingers into the dirt beneath them instead.
"I know," she whispers back, fully engrossed in the tale her little bard weaves for her. "Then what?"
"I'd ask you to pick me up. You would, wouldn't you?" Tav waits for her to nod. "And it'd be nothing to you— but you'd still feel me. Kissing you, tasting you, until you can't stand it and hold me against the closest wall. I'd reach between your legs; what do you feel?"
"Hard," Karlach says without thinking. Tav snorts, then she wheezes out a laugh at herself. "I mean, I'd be really hard. Like, rock solid, ready to fuck you 'til you see stars hard."
"Good," Tav replies, a breathiness to her voice that betrays her otherwise calm demeanor. She returns her hand to her lap. She's sweating more now. "Keep going."
"I'd, uh, fuck , Tav," Karlach wrings her hands, feeling her leg start to bounce with pent up energy. An impromptu storytelling lesson was not what she'd expected out of tonight.
Tav waits, touching the handprint Karlach left in the dirt while she watches. It's the closest thing they'll get to handholding for now, and it turns her stomach to knots.
"I'd have to touch your tits, yeah? Don't think I could keep my hands to myself there…" Karlach trails off, distracted by the sight of Tav unlacing her collar the rest of the way. It reveals another splash of freckles, an indulgent stretch of the space between her breasts without actually uncovering them. Her flames burn hotter.
"I want to use my mouth," she continues, eyes locked on the elf's exposed chest. "Everywhere. Especially between your thighs— Gods, I want to devour you."
Karlach has to clamp her eyes shut, chest aching from desire and the engine inside her working on overdrive. Her body burns like the hottest pits of Avernus, so much so that she fears she'll incinerate Tav without laying a hand on her. Wills herself to turn away, stiffening the line of her shoulders.
It seems to break the spell between them, Tav shrinking back with sweat slick skin.
"Sorry, soldier. I can't keep teasing you like this. And myself," Karlach sighs, recomposing herself before turning back to the elf. "Don't want to burst a gasket before Dammon figures something out."
"You're right," Tav says, smiling up at her. "...And you're a pretty good storyteller."
"Got a good teacher," Karlach grunts, pushing herself to her feet. "Not just stories, though. They're promises."
Despite the stares it earns them, Karlach barrels her way through Last Light Inn with Tav held tight in her arms. One of the tieflings from the grove starts to say something to the snatched elf, only to be silenced with a gesture.
"So good to see you all— Be with you shortly!" She calls over Karlach's shoulder, voice shaking from the vibration of the woman stomping up the stairs.
Finding an unoccupied room is an easy task. Even here the curse seems to permeate the walls, making everything darker, a bit colder. The heat of Karlach's body, and her excitement, cuts through the cold like a knife as she goes, kicking the door shut behind her.
They only make it halfway into the room, a few paces from the slammed door before the intensity of their desire becomes too strong to resist. Tav threads her fingers through Karlach's hair, gripping it near the scalp as she takes her mouth with her own.
"I can touch you," Karlach says, breathless between kisses. "I'm touching you."
Tav nips her bottom lip. "Less talking, more kissing."
Karlach nods, tongue pressing into the sweet warmth of Tav's mouth while she makes a muffled sound of agreement. Dropping to her knees, she cradles the back of the elf's head as she lowers them both to the floor. Braces her knees on either side of Tav's body, dragging her hands up the sides of the woman's torso, pressing her fingertips into her skin through the colorful fabric of her doublet. Just the sensation of the fabric in her hands is delightful, a mix of satin and cotton that's far softer than anything she'd touched in a decade. Swears she could spend hours tracing the embroidery, the shape of the pronounced sleeves, if not for the gnawing lust in her gut.
"Touch me," Tav breathes, lips ghosting over Karlach's, an edge of desperation in her voice. " Touch me ."
Karlach feels her flame burn brighter at the sound of her little bard's pleas. Instinct nearly makes her recoil, run away from Tav to protect her from the fire. But instead of burning her lover to ash, the elf remains safe and unharmed in her arms. Gods, she could kiss Dammon if she wasn't otherwise preoccupied.
"I am, baby," Karlach replies, a similar tone in her voice. Tugs harshly at the elf's doublet, tearing it open along the seams and revealing the white blouse underneath. "Shit, I'm sorry I—"
Tav shushes her with another kiss, mumbling something about not caring about her clothes. Shrugs herself out of the ruined layer, and joins Karlach in unlacing her blouse. The tiefling quickly loses patience for such delicate work, instead opting to pull it over Tav's head in one smooth motion.
Any regrets about the rough treatment of the bard's clothing die on Karlach's tongue as she drinks in the sight of Tav's chest. The freckled flesh is flushed, round breasts tapering off into puffy pink buds. If Karlach's ever touched anything softer, she doesn't remember. Reverent hands smooth over and across Tav's torso, half appreciative and half in pure disbelief. She can't believe this is her life, hers to touch and caress, to put her mouth upon.
—Her mouth! She'd promised Tav to kiss every part of her. She can think of no better time to start than now.
Starting at the column of Tav's throat, Karlach licks a wet stripe all the way down to the waist of her trousers. Plants open mouthed kisses up her belly, softened from good meal and drink, then to the shape of her ribcage, the gap between her breasts. Tav's hands anchor on her shoulders, nails digging into the dense muscle when she takes a nipple into her mouth. Humming in delight, she suckles hard and fast.
Half of her expects Tav to tell her to slow down— Karlach knows her and patience are strangers, prefering to go go go to the point of exhaustion and then some past it. Tav doesn't, however, only squeezing her tighter while the sweetest sounds spill from her lips. Every touch is twinged with desperation, of an ache from want and need that's plagued them both for so long.
Despite her propensity for rushing, Karlach spends a long time on Tav's chest, kissing, licking, and listening to the thundering of her heart. Her real , non-mechanical heart. When all is said and done and they both find themselves undressed, Karlach on her knees between the other woman's legs, she is paralyzed by choice.
She's waited so long for so much— what does she want first? Is there even enough time in the world for them to do everything she's missed?
Sensing Karlach's newfound vulnerability, Tav pushes herself up on her elbows, bringing them closer. Sees the light of her flames reflected in the deep pools of the elf's eyes, turning blue from the intensity of their heat.
"I reach between your legs," Tav whispers, and Karlach's ears prick at the familiarity of the phrase. It's their story, their hypothetical— their promise. "What do you feel?"
A nimble hand, fingertips callused from years spent against strings, finds the shaft of her cock. Karlach almost doubles over from the contact, a gentle touch against a part of her that's been neglected for so long. She whines from a place deep in her chest, watching a thumb swipe over the blunt head, smearing precome across the red flesh.
What do you feel?
"I—" pushing Tav to her back, Karlach hooks a hand under one of the elf's bent knees, pushing her legs apart. "—Am going to fuck you. Again, and again, and again . All night, soldier, unless you tell me to stop."
The angle makes the tip of her arousal drag against the slit of Tav's cunt, dripping slick hot as her engine, making both of them moan. Momentarily distracted, she busies herself with kissing Tav once more before lining herself up with the entrance awaiting her.
Though part of her craves the sight of her length pressing into Tav, her hunger for closeness wins the war in her mind. Karlach leers until they're chest to chest when she first slips inside, fiery eyes locked onto brown ones as she goes. A litany of expressions pass through Tav's face and Karlach feels her own doing the same.
If she has any more complex thoughts, she's lost the ability to articulate them. All she can feel is heat, hot as Avernus yet infinitely more welcoming, and a tightness that grips her, beckoning her further inside. Feels herself stretching her lover open as far as the muscle will allow, buries her face into the crook of Tav's neck. She smells of sweat, of Karlach's spit and the lingering burn of her flames.
And a hint of vanilla, somehow.
Karlach's sure she could heat all the homes in Baldur's Gate with how hot her engine's running, squeezing the back of Tav's thigh hard enough to bruise. The elf loops lean legs around her middle, locking them in place and urging her closer, deeper.
A decade. Ten years without the touch of another, without Tav. Her Tav. The little bard that'd stumbled upon her by that river, and was kind enough to believe her. Damn the tadpole but thank the gods they'd crashed, that they'd found one another when it would've been so easy not to.
Then, with the force of all the pent up frustration and need trapped inside her, she starts to move. Snaps her hips once, marveling at the sound that erupts from Tav. An uncontrollable groan tears its way through Karlach's chest as she thrusts, palms flat against the floor behind Tav's head for leverage. Each impact, every roll of her hips makes the elf whimper, her arms wrapped around Karlach's middle in a relentless embrace.
"Yeah?" Karlach asks, breathless in her eagerness. Her eyes search Tav's face for any hesitation or discomfort; it has been a long time since she's done this. "Doing good, right?"
Suddenly, Tav takes hold of Karlach's face, making her stop. Looks directly into her glowing eyes, expression betraying a level of sincerity uncommon with a woman so familiar with exaggeration and deception.
"Listen to me. You are perfect ."
A new wave of heat washes over Karlach, making her chest burn in spite of Dammon's upgrades. Flames dance through her hair and around her horns, blue as the deepest parts of the ocean. She nods, and resumes her movements.
“Won’t last much longer like this,” she grunts, nose crushed against the side of Tav’s cheek. She can’t bear to look away from her, afraid she’ll miss a single expression or sound. “Yank it out just before, yeah?”
“Stay,” Tav whispers, tracing the scars on the side of Karlach’s face, overlapping their lips without fully initiating a kiss.
“You’d let me do that?” She asks, surprised by how far away her voice sounds. Her mind is foggy, dizzy, even, while the once unfamiliar sensation of climax coils tight in her belly. “Gods, you drive me mad, girl.”
Imagining herself finishing inside Tav is what she needs to do so, hips stuttering as relief and euphoria flows through her like blood. Feeling her chest heave with dry sobs, she leans more of her weight into Tav’s embrace to seek refuge from the intensity of it. Her ears ring, the world feels both colder and louder than it ever did before and before she can realize she’s starting to, she cries .
Unwelcome tears spill out of her eyes and onto her cheeks. She cries for the ten years she’d lost, the death sentence in her chest, and from the embarrassment of crying in the first place. It’s another form of relief, though, not as flashy or intense as climax, but release nonetheless. An unwinding of a knot inside her, an opening of a closed fist.
“M’sorry,” Karlach sniffles when she’s done, hurrying to wipe the salty tears from her face. She’s still inside Tav, the snug wetness enough to keep her stiff. “Still like me, right?”
Tav’s skin is damp with sweat, flushed pink from warmth and arousal underneath her freckles. Pretty lips stretch into a smile that welcomes Karlach in like a warm hug.
"I more than like you, Karlach."
I love you! Her mind screams. I love you. I love you. The words sit in the back of throat, begging her to open her mouth and let them free. She swallows them instead. Too soon, she scolds herself. Barely their first time in bed — when they didn't even make it to one — and she wants to profess her love. She's good at this; the waiting, even if she's sick of it.
Trying to swallow both her insecurities and love confessions, Karlach busies herself with finding Tav's clit. Mindful of both her nails and where they remain connected, the pad of her thumb discovers the little bundle of nerves, friction making Tav's back arch.
She's surprised when Tav grabs her arms, willing her to turn over, not strong enough to do it herself. They clumsily switch positions, a frankly obscene amount of fluid seeping out of Tav's cunt when Karlach slips out of her. She'd come so much. Inside of her. Feels as if she'd staked some claim inside of Tav, marking it as her own.
"Can I use this?" Tav asks, lip twitching with the threat of a smile. She ghosts her fingers over the shape of Karlach's unbroken horn, stroking the keratin. The second half of her sentence, though silent, is conveyed.
"It's all yours," Karlach grins up at her, digging her nails into the meat of the elf's thighs as she climbs up her torso and toward her head. "Hells, you can— mmph ."
Tav silences her by straddling her face. Karlach hums in pleasure, feeling it vibrate in her glowing chest, and sets to devour the little bard. Laps up into the heat with the widest part of her tongue, suckling the bud of her clit before licking lines across her folds. Slick seeps out of the cunt in her mouth, and what is not eagerly swallowed drips from her chin down her jaw. She makes a mess of herself and of Tav, eating her like a starving woman that's been presented a meal.
Tav holds her by the horn, using it to direct her tongue into better positions and for leverage to rock her hips. Karlach paws at the widest part of them, kneading the flesh as she goes, satisfied groans muffled and turned into mere vibrations that only add to Tav's experience. The elf's sounds are soft, breathy, until they aren't. The longer that Karlach feasts upon her the more desperate her moans become, coming from a place lower and lower in her chest until she comes, crying out to no god in particular.
" Karlach ," Tav gasps, birdcage chest heaving as she chases after breaths that won't come.
All Karlach can think as she comes up for air is how good her name sounds in Tav's mouth. Like it was always meant to be there.
Tav's limbs are heavy but pliable when Karlach shimmies her way back into a sitting position, elf cradled close in her lap. The bard's eyelids are tired, blinking slowly as she comes down from the intensity of her climax. Sweat covers her body enough to make her skin slippery, but she is otherwise intact. So close to Karlach, yet unburned.
Time slows, becoming a much muddier, more forgiving thing as Karlach looks down at Tav. Memorizing every line of her face as she strokes the hair atop her head, continuing to marvel at how harmless her touch has become. Tav stares back, resting a hand over Karlach's chest, glowing bright as ever.
A million words go unsaid. Karlach knows what Tav wants to say, wants to ask her to do.
Threading her fingers through Tav's she leads the hand away from her engine and toward her lips. Kisses each callused finger when she does, then presses it to the scars on the right side of her face.
She will not go back to Avernus. She’s done enough waiting, and she will not do it again.