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dnd_drow

Dataset card Data Studio Files
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"I saw you scratching a dog earlier," said Dammon, as soon as Rolan was in earshot. His smile was wider than it had been since the exile. "That was an uncharacteristic display of affection from you."
"Oh, hush," Rolan grinned, trying to be charming. "What’re you doing, all the way over here?"
The fire barely reached them, far as they were.
The light fell on one side of Dammon’s face, licking his high cheekbones and that strong, strong jaw.
Rolan gazed at him. He gazed at Rolan.
And then, wetting his lips slightly before he spoke, Dammon replied: "Getting bread."
"Getting bread." Dammon held up half a loaf in his right hand. It was covered in bite marks. "Drunger."
"Drunger?" Dammon creased his brow. "Drunk... hunger?"
"You have a name for it?"
"Doesn’t everyone?"
"No," Rolan scoffed.
Dammon smiled. "Stands to reason."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Nothing," Dammon replied, still smiling. "Only—I can’t imagine you have an easy time letting go."
"Letting go of what?"
Still smiling. Still smiling and holding that fucking bread. Had he been wandering the camp... taking bites out of it?
The image was endearing as it was unwelcome.
"Forget I said anything." Dammon broke eye contact, casting his gaze back over to the party. "That wasn’t kind of me. Do you think we should go back and join them?"
Rolan didn’t answer. He didn’t answer because he wasn’t thinking of the rest of the party. He wasn’t thinking of the rest of the party because his left hand was around Dammon’s waist.
Let go. He’d show Dammon "letting go’.
Dammon made a small noise of surprise as their mouths met. It was drowned out quite suddenly by the sound of Rolan’s Ithbank hitting the ground as he gathered Dammon up as close to him as he could.
Dammon’s arms got a lot of attention. Rightly so: he was a blacksmith, and he swung hammers all day. Dammon's arms (and shoulders) were huge. Rolan couldn’t have encircled those biceps with both hands if he’d tried.
Everyone was so busy looking ta Dammon’s arms that they missed his real draw: those thighs. For every anvil hammer-knell, Dammon’s thighs seemed to increase by half an inch or so. Maybe they did—it’s not like Rolan was keeping track. Not like those thighs were on his mind.
But as he pressed his right hand to Dammon’s waist, he couldn’t help but think: I’m so close. So close to that perfect arc, that parabola Dammon swung every day. Starting in his legs, travelling through his waist, his arms, and ending up in the metal he bent over the fire. Like the dirk, strapped to Rolan’s wrist.
Rolan couldn't get any nearer, but he tried anyway.
Dammon felt hot and heavy in his arms. Under his hands. Even heavier, when he exhaled and pressed himself into Rolan.
He was so close. That warm mouth was on his; that warm tongue—licking and knocking and asking. Dammon’s hands were in his hair, knotting in the jaw-length mess of it. The same hair he had kissed, all those days ago.
Had he been thinking of this, when he kissed Rolan for the first time? Had he been imagining Rolan’s skin; his hands around that waist?
Had he wanted Rolan to pull him closer?
Gods, had he wanted Rolan to pull him closer? And Rolan, so wrapped up in Rolan, hadn’t noticed?
Dammon’s left hand shifted to the base of Rolan’s neck.
Dammon. Right here, under his hands. Warm and safe and alive. Wanting. Wanting him. Wanting Rolan.
He'd wanted this for so long. It had been so long. Dammon was such a staid and steady presence in his life—being without him was unthinkable. Life without Dammon was like life without his siblings (as welcome as that thought was sometimes).
Not that he and Dammon were ever as close as that.
Rolan had had a nightmare, once. After the Descent.
The details weren’t clear, but the relief on waking up was.
In the dream, Dammon had died.
Or maybe he hadn’t—maybe he’d left. Vanished. Gone below.
Not that Rolan knew Dammon by name, then.
All he remembered was looking out of that garret in Elturel-Avernus, and seeing that the blacksmith was missing.
And then waking up. Evaluating what that dream-fear had meant.
And here was Dammon; alive and well and kissing him. Kissing Rolan.
Until, he wasn’t.
The kiss broke slowly. It broke in pieces, parts separating out one by one.
One moment, he was in Dammon’s arms. Another, his head was in Dammon’s hand. A third, and Dammon had him at arm’s length.
Face still held. Dammon’s thumb still stroking his cheek. But arm’s length, nonetheless.
That look Dammon gave him. Soft enough to melt. Soft enough to hurt.
"I don’t want to be this for you, Rolan."
Dammon’s thumb kept moving, but Rolan’s stilled.
"No," Dammon clarified. "Not like that."
He reached down to Rolan’s left hand, still fastened to his waist. Took it in his, and kissed Rolan’s upturned wrist. Those bright, clear eyes on Rolan’s the whole time.
"I don't want to be a mistake. To you."
"You aren’t a mistake." Rolan’s throat was thick.
"Then don’t let me be." Dammon kissed him again, one last time. Kissed the sensitive skin of his palm.
He stroked Rolan’s cheek, almost looking as if was reconsidering.
Then he’d bent down, picked up the fallen loaf and brightly offered, "bread?"
The third time was the one Rolan least wanted to remember.
It hadn’t been easy for either of them. Falling, half bled, into the Last Light hadn’t been a reprieve but a stay of execution.
Rolan had shouted at Dammon. Dammon had shouted at Rolan.
And why not? There’d been no-one else to shout at.
After he’d been cut off, Rolan had retreated back to barracks in the meagre side-room he’d been assigned.
What was the point in anything else? He didn't have any reason to stay. Who let kids man a bar, anyway?
He'd turned, fuming, to the wall. Everything else was incidental; the robes he’s thrown across the room, the boots haphazard across the floor. When Dammon had come in to return the books he’d left at the bar, Rolan had bitten out;
There had been a silence.
It went on long enough for Rolan believed Dammon had left. Or at least, to make himself believe he had. And wouldn’t that be a first? His warnings had actually come to something.
But, no. Of course they hadn’t.
"I wanted to apologise," said Dammon.
His voice sounded dry. Cracked. Broken, over that furnace.
Rolan said nothing.
He said nothing for so long that Dammon came and sat on his bed.
Rolan turned, suddenly hot. "What?"
"Nothing," said Dammon, recoiling. "I just wanted to check on you."
"Check on me for what?" Rolan bit the inside of his cheek.  "That I hadn’t drunk myself into a stupor? Over an argument with you?"
He didn't want to say the next part. He knew it was too far, too cruel. But it was coming out anyway. It was out, before he could stop it. "You aren’t that important to me."
"I know," said Dammon.
He said it straight away. As if he did know.
That cool-water voice.
And then he carried on, "but I know people who were."
"Shut up, Dammon."
Dammon didn’t get to talk about them. Dammon wasn’t there. All of that bloodshed, all of those hostages, and Dammon wasn’t there.
Hot tears bit at his optic nerve. Rolan screwed his eyes shut, curling in on himself.
He felt Dammon sigh through the mattress.
Dammon remained, for a few more beats of the heart. And then he kissed the top of his fingers. Rolan heard, even if he didn’t see.
Rolan felt when those fingers were pressed to his forehead.
And when Rolan uncurled himself, hours later, he noticed his dirk was missing.
They hadn’t spoken since then. Talked, maybe, but not spoken.
But as they’d arrived at the city gates, Dammon had turned to Rolan and said, "come and see me at the forge whenever you need."
The Forge of the Nine was a stone’s throw from the Tower. That was the excuse Rolan had been using to not visit Dammon so far—they were so close that they were bound to fall over each other at some point.
But then Rolan hadn’t wanted to show his face outside the tower. Hadn’t wanted to answer the questions, especially given his previous assertions about Lorroakan.
And disregard of the warnings he’d been given.
But, then. Come and see me at the forge whenever you need.
He steeled himself and knocked smartly at the door in front of him.
Dammon answered almost immediately.
"We’re closed!"
"It’s me," Rolan called back.
Three, four seconds.
The door opened.
Dammon must have been in the process of shutting up shop. His work-knot was coming undone, wisps of hair framing his face over the cropped sides of his head. There was a smudge of soot on his nose.
"It’s me," said Rolan.
"So I see," Dammon smiled. "What can I do for you?"