(These characters are NPCs in a Dungeons and Dragons game set in the Magic the Gathering world. Two former students of Strixhaven have made their feelings known to each other after years of pining, mixed signals, and missed opportunities. Hope you enjoy this first chapter!)
The Ravnican chateau was littered with empty bottles of wine and abandoned, half-full glasses. Gareth Greycastle and Bellamy Vanderbilt didn't own the place...and neither was it a chateau, per say. The owner was Luddevic Dutner, a prominent Tenth District mogul who lent out the loft to his latest artistic fascination. But the loft was far from modest, and certainly bigger than many Ravnican flats.
They had already spent a night or two celebrating. They had confessed to each other their feelings, something Bellamy and Gareth had never thought was possible. It was all thanks to a few mishaps. Some nosy cousins and annoying sisters may have been the catalyst; but there was no shame shared between them for getting help. The gap between them yawned into a rift after Gareth got expelled from the university...Gareth pushed down the regret that kept stabbing at his mind.
Gareth was more easily able to visit Bellamy, thanks to the fact that he was a Planeswalker. His isolation did his body no favors--he had tried to pack on more weight to appear less cadaverous. Gareth actually tried to shave a bit and cut his brown hair to be presentable. He would have done more, likely obsessing over it for weeks; had Bellamy not said that he looked fine, 'slim as ever' in the green-and-blue tunic he's worn since his Sophomore year as a Quandrix student.
Leaving Strixhaven University a year and some change after his graduation, Bellamy had become the recipient of Dutner's patronage--Gareth was happy to planeswalk to Ravnica and take advantage of the patriar's generous property.
"Our college dorm was tenth of this size," Gareth remarked. He casually mage-handed an empty wine bottle across the master bedroom--and Bellamy's mage hand caught it. "This is one of the rare times being a disgraced nepo-baby has its perks, eh Bells?"
Bellamy closed his eyes and buried his head of red, auburn hair against Gareth's chest. "I'm grateful we're not too old to have abandoned Bottleball." An old pastime of theirs was to throw delicate objects (almost always glass, almost always bottles) and catch them with their illusory mage-hands. It was a poor excuse for an exercise to strengthen your cantrips. But both of them truly believed that it improved their skills, even if they made a sport of it for its sheer thrill.
"Too old? We're in our twenties, darling." Gareth's chin rested against the back of Bellamy's head. His eyes glazed over, memory suddenly invading his nostrils and holding a grip over his heart. "No...right. It...really has felt like a decade, hasn't it?"
Gareth Greycastle was in love. He had been in love for six years, and expelled for two. Bellamy Vanderbilt had been the sole target of his affections since before he was a freshman. And, Elder Dragons be praised, Bellamy was finally his.
But it took too much to get there. Bellamy was a saint and never wronged him, but the way things panned out for the drop-out was far from right. These past few years have been spent in crippling loneliness and shame. Gareth's duty to Greycoast was something he took pride in, but that act of service only served to empty a sinking ship with spoons.
No time thinking, no time yearning. Gareth thought. Could he even remember the week-long periods that passed without seeing a single soul?
A hand reached up and firmly gripped Gareth's shoulder. Gareth looked down to Bellamy, his lovers' eyes peering up at him with a somber glance.
"I feel you getting wound up." Bellamy said, and unceremoniously plopped his chin on Gareth's chest. The painter's embrace was warm, and the sight of him on his stomach...his body hardly relaxed, but his heart was free again.
"I'm...different, Bellamy." Gareth pushed his tongue against his cheek. He frowned. "I'm not...who I used to be. I'm not sure there is anything left of the man you last met. The one you love."
Bellamy brought a hand up to Gareth's cheek and stroked it. And gods damn it, Gareth gripped his arm and leaned into his palm. "The man I love is before me. I am in his arms." Bellamy said. Tears rolled down his cheek. "I had let that man slide into the abyss. I was a coward, Gareth. But I have killed that coward. I dance on his corpse. Now that he is dead, and that man is in my arms, I shall never let go."
Bellamy kissed Gareth's cheek, smiles and excitement taught on his face. Unerring. "You are different, yes...but what has made you mine is something that cannot be taken from you. What makes you Gareth Greycastle cannot be stolen."
Gareth's heart erupted. His head was light. He was drunk, intoxicated on this feeling. Joy made him smile. Joy made his blood pump and his fingers and toes jitter. His body had no way to express the energy but stand. "You kept me waiting...but I could have waited longer. I could have waited forever. But damn you, Bellamy, you are here! WE ARE HERE!" Laughter escaped him like bottled fire, tears poured down his face as he picked up Bellamy by the legs and neck and spun him around. It hardly mattered that Bellamy was taller than him by considerable inches--the love birds swung around like spinning top.
"W-WAIT!" Bellamy yelped in surprise. A loud shattering halted Gareth in his crescendoing joy. The bottle that Bellamy's mage hand held no longer had a hand to hold it, and it had dropped like a stone down a quarry. Glass was everywhere.
The two lovers looked at each other for a moment. Then they laughed. And laughed, and laughed.
"You have to clean that up, by the way." Bellamy said.
Gareth gasped. "But you were the one who dropped it! Bottleball rules clearly states--"
Bellamy raises a finger and recites, "'A shattered ball is the responsibility of the player who dropped it, failed to catch it, OR whose actions were invariably the cause of the mishap.'"
Gareth dove into Bellamy's lips, joining each other by their mouths. The painter's eyes widened, but quickly fluttered and reciprocated. A solid thirty seconds of locking lips, tongues swirling into eachothers mouths. Fire. Fire. Fire erupting. Gareth pulled away.
"I will clean it, love. So long as I know that mouth isn't going anywhere."
--
Bellamy and Gareth were fairly confident that they could clean the loft quickly, should they have any unexpected guests. So despite being frivolous and detail-oriented, their celebrations happily left it a sty.
Leather scroll cases were scattered across the massive bed they lounged upon. Gareth popped the cap of one and pulled out a massive scroll. Unfurling it revealed a massive portrait of a half-eaten undead gorgon. Her tits were out, but clearly decayed. The wizard gawked with an expression of horror.
"Elder dragons..." Gareth swore, tilting and moving the painting around. "I nearly forgot the Golgari existed."
"Most people do." Bellamy replied. He spoke up again. "Ah, shit--well, she doesn't prefer to be called a Golgari. She is a member of the Undercity, though."
"If either of us die, we are being buried in Greycoast."
