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Astarion paused, as he often did, to read the sign before entering.
Dekarios Research Laboratory
Blackstaff Department of Neuropharmacology
Principle Investigator: Gale Dekarios, MD, Ph.D
MD, Ph.D. He supposed it took up less space on the plaque than “chronic overachiever”.
Astarion pushed the door open. The mosquito hum of fluorescent lights greeted him.
Maybe it was the cleaning crew. Maybe he wouldn’t be in.
The telltale sound of jazz playing quietly on a cell phone wafted down the lab hall, accompanied by a little off-tune humming.
He was in.
Of course, Astarion was no stranger to a little workplace crush. Harmless things, usually. But Gale Dekarios, MD, PhD, was an almost unfairly attractive man, in ways that seemed plucked directly from Astarion’s most lurid dreams. Thick dark hair, streaked with gray and just brushing his shoulders. The sort of strong, straight-edged profile one usually saw in museums.
And his wonderfully lush frame was packed into a nicer-than-usual outfit today, Astarion noted as he knocked on the open door of Gale’s office. Cleanly pressed navy slacks and a heather-gray sweatervest over a white buttondown? A good look. He must have had a presentation at the medical school. On days he exclusively worked in the lab he tended towards dark jeans and more casual footwear. A loose, well-worn cardigan over a v-neck t-shirt, sometimes.
Not that Astarion kept track.
“Mr. Ancunin!” Gale looked up from his laptop and spread his arms in anticipation. The sleeves of his buttondown were rolled up, exposing his tanned, hairy forearms. “Tell me you’re here with good news?”
“Oh, I would. But then I’d have to kill you.”
“Damn.” Gale removed his thin-rimmed square glasses and rubbed at his brow. “I could have used some, after the day I’ve had.”
“Well, I rarely disappoint, but on this occasion I’m afraid I must. I’m just dropping these off,” Astarion said. He set his folder down beside Gale’s other documents. “Final copy of the Karsus grant proposal. For your records.”
“Ah. Thank you.” Gale stretched, then picked up his phone, clicking it once and glancing down at the time. “God, ten to nine already. I’m surprised you’re still here. I thought I was the only one still burning the midnight oil.”
Astarion hummed sympathetically.
He knew the cafeteria chatter. A messy divorce. A heart condition of some kind for which Gale underwent a procedure last year while the lab sat quiet for a month, save for the shuffling around of a few post-docs. He’d even seen Gale’s ex dropping off paperwork a handful of times during their split. Shockingly beautiful woman - he supposed he’d spend more late nights at the lab too, were he going home to a house newly absent of that.
“I’m headed out after this, thankfully,” Astarion said. “There’s an open bottle of red and fresh episode of Missing & Murdered calling my name.”
“Ah, I should as well. Tara will be yowling for dinner, if she’s not already.” Gale closed his laptop and stretched. Astarion tried not to eye the curve of his stomach straining the cabled pattern of the sweatervest. “Are you in the university car park? Care to walk together?”
“But of course.”
“Let me just hit send on this and gather my things.”
Astarion wandered the lab proper and peered at a few old samples while Gale wrapped up. He wasn’t much of a science person by nature. Too many details to keep track of; too many step-by-step procedures. But even big research hospitals like Blackstaff needed someone adept at begging for money, and Astarion could be very persuasive.
“I know it’s all very top-secret and confidential,” he called over his shoulder. “But I would so like to know what’s in a few of these that you simply won’t throw out. Be honest - it’s terribly embarrassing, isn’t it. Experimental DNA for human-cow hybrids, that sort of thing?”
Gale’s warm, easy laughter echoed from within his office. “Hardly. Though give Enver’s latest publication a read, if that sort of thing intrigues you. You know he’s on the verge of phase 1 trials for kidney xenotransplantation? Man’s got to wade through a minefield of ethics to get it approved, mind you, but I can’t say I don’t admire the ambition.”
“Only the best for Blackstaff.”
Astarion trailed a finger over a rack of small glass tubes cloistered behind a few of the more outdated - oh, what were they called, the little machines that had rats running on a spit. He plucked one of the samples from the tube rack at random. A flaky sort of substance suspended in a thick, jelly-like solution of some kind. It was labeled and dated in Gale’s meticulous handwriting; a series of letters and numbers that meant nothing to Astarion.
The lab’s massive spinny-thing roared to life behind him with a cacophonous series of beeps and high-speed whirring.
“Shit,” Astarion swore, startling at the sudden racket.
The tube slipped from his fingers and promptly shattered on the benchtop. Whatever was contained in the sample splattered onto his face and hands and Astarion coughed, quickly wiping his mouth on his shirtsleeve.
Broken. Completely broken.
It was probably some ridiculously expensive, top-secret, irreplaceable whatsit, too - that would be just his luck. Astarion scrambled, ripping a few paper towels from a nearby roll and attempting to herd all the shards of glass into a neat pile.
“Astarion? Everything alright?”
He turned to see Gale adjusting the strap on his satchelbag.
“I am so sorry,” Astarion blurted.
“Why, what for?”
No hiding it really, was there. Astarion stepped aside and gestured at the mess. “I was having a harmless little peruse when that horrid whirring machine of yours turned on and I sort of…well…dropped it. I’ll reimburse the lab for whatever it cost, of course. Or a, well - a reasonable amount,” he amended.
To his surprise Gale only laughed. “Oh, not to worry. Trust me, many an undergraduate has wrought far more damage upon this lab than a lone shattered test tube. Most are only subject samples awaiting disposal, anyways. I’ll just make a quick note and update my records tomorrow. What’s the sample number?”
Astarion turned and cautiously poked through the broken glass. Luckily the label hadn’t torn. “89S001P3.”
“89S0….” Gale’s hand stilled on the notepad he’d grabbed to jot down the number. His face went curiously blank, a bit of the color fading from his hearty complexion. “Read that again. Slowly.”
“89S001P3.”
Gale dropped the pen, raising his hand to his mouth and rubbing at his jaw. His next word was barely audible. “Shit.”
“Shit?” Astarion didn’t like the sound of that. “No. No no. Why shit?”
“You didn’t…touch it, did you? Breath it in, at all?”
“It shattered all over me, of course I touched it. Oh, god. I’m going to become a spiderperson or something, aren’t I.”
“Okay. Okay. First things first, let’s not panic.” Gale lowered his satchel to the floor and held up his hands as if expecting Astarion to charge. “It’s essential - dare I say, imperative - that we do not panic.”
Admittedly, Astarion was starting to panic. It was only a lab full of experimental neuropharmacological substances after all, he chided himself. What could possibly go wrong?
Gale was already in full professorial mode, gesticulating with the range and creativity of an Italian grandmother mid-charades as he spouted the beginnings of a monologue.
“The good news is, that particular sample was from an abandoned project. Funding ran out before we even made it to human trials. We only ever tested it in rodents - mice, mostly. For all we know, humans might experience an entirely different reaction. Or even none at all! Of course, our correlation analysis of the relevant orthologs in humans and mice indicated a high degree of functional overlap, which in that context was promising, but -“
Astarion cut him off. “What happened to the mice?”
Evidently Gale did not want to talk about the mice. He shook his head and pulled out his phone, avoiding Astarion’s eye. “I’m dialing 999.”
That did not help with the panicking. “Gale,” Astarion said. “What happened to the mice?”
“They, well…” Gale ran a hand through his half-up hair, looking up at the ceiling with a helpless sort of gaze. His finger hovered over the green dial button. “There’s no easy way to say this.”
“Answer me, damn you - what happened to the mice?”
“They…” Gale clapped a hand over his eyes and took a deep breath. Astarion was on the verge of shaking him when he abruptly said: “They fucked, Astarion.”
“They - what?”
Surely it was a joke.
But Gale’s face was somber as he tapped the dial icon. “They grew aroused and engaged in copious amounts of sexual intercourse.”
He held the phone out between them on speakerphone and chewed at his lip as it rang.
Well, he wasn’t going to laugh, Astarion had to - in relief, if nothing else. “That doesn’t seem so bad! All things considered. Here I thought you were going to say they - I don’t know, grew tentacles or some nonsense.”
“No, no, I assure you the concern is warranted. This compound is a tad more potent than your bog-standard Viagra, to put it mildly. When we tested it on the mice, it…” Gale’s gaze, Astarion couldn’t help but notice, kept flicking downwards, and not towards his phone. “It was nigh uncontrollable. Libido-induced chaos, if you can imagine it. They wouldn’t eat, they wouldn’t sleep. Most died of dehydration after a few days.”
“I’m sorry, died?” Astarion spluttered. “You didn’t think to lead with that?”
“Not to worry, you are much larger than the average mouse,” Gale said, holding up his free hand as if that was at all reassuring. “The effects should be far less intense and wear off considerably sooner. A matter of hours, I imagine, instead of days.”
The speakerphone clicked as someone picked up Gale’s call. “999, what’s your emergency?”
“Hang up,” Astarion hissed. “Hang up right this instant.”
“One moment,” Gale told the operator, hitting mute.
Astarion thrust a finger of his own in Gale’s face. “I am not winding up in tomorrow’s Gazette as ‘Blackstaff grant writer nearly dies after ingesting experimental sex drug’. Absolutely not. Hang up the phone.”
“Astarion. You need to go to the emergency room.”
“And what are they going to do for me there, hm? With some unknown, untested compound in my system?”
“IV, fluids, monitor your vitals. Sedate you if necessary.” Gale ticked them off on his fingers.
“Basic stabilization. You’re both kinds of doctor, aren’t you, and we’re in a hospital already -”
“A teaching hospital. Not an ER.”
“- you can monitor me and make the call later, if things go south.” Astarion clapped his hands. “There. Sorted.”
Gale unmuted his cell briefly, addressing the 999 operator. “So sorry, one more moment please.”
Astarion wasn’t backing down. He went for the throat. “If this gets in the papers they’ll defund your entire lab, you know. Let alone grant you tenure - you can kiss that ship goodbye. Do you really want to risk that? When you yourself even said it might not affect me at all?”
If there was one thing Astarion trusted in to save him, it was Gale’s desire to protect his precious lab’s reputation. Gale Dekarios, MD, PhD, not to mention whatever measly bachelors and masters degrees he didn’t bother tacking on - it was his life’s work, and it meant everything to him, didn’t it? Esteem, prestige, the admiration of his peers. Surely he wouldn’t forfeit it all over one lousy broken test tube.
“Take me down, and I’m taking you down with me, Dekarios. Don’t you dare call that ambulance.”
They locked eyes in a silent showdown. Astarion tried to keep the desperation out of his.
“Ahh!” Gale clenched one fist in the air, hand closing around an imaginary stress ball, or perhaps Astarion’s neck. Then he unmuted the phone. “We’re fine here,” he said, never breaking eye contact with Astarion. “No emergency after all. Sincerest apologies for taking up your time.”
Thank god.
Astarion pinched his brow. “Good. Now then. Tell me you have an antidote.”
“I do not, hence why the emergency room is clearly the better - no, wait.” Gale held up a finger, wagging it slightly as he thought. “Let me think…”
“Yes,” Astarion urged him. “Put all those fancy degrees to use. There must be something.”
“I might…we could try a general-purpose dopamine and phenethylamine inhibitor. Perhaps combined with a quick-acting antiandrogen. Of course, that assumes the compound activates in the same mesolimbic pathway that regulates one’s libido. It’s up to you, of course, should you like to try the suppressant or not, and I would minimally need your verbal consent to -“
“I’m evidently on the verge of fucking myself to death, so - yes, please,” Astarion said, drawing the words out in cloying sarcasm. “I would like to try it. Immediately.”
“Of course, of course. Wait here, I’ll just…” Gale hurried towards a cabinet and began scrambling with the lock.
Astarion ran a hand through his hair. Normally the academic rambling struck him as cute. Given the circumstances, his patience ran thin. He paced anxiously, nerves as rattled as the pill jars he could hear Gale clamoring with in the background. Mice that fucked themselves to death. Mice, Astarion thought, grappling with the absurdity of the situation, that fucked themselves. To death.
So far, at least, he wasn’t feeling anything but apprehension. He glanced back, ensuring Gale was suitably busy in the storage cabinet before quickly palming himself. Nothing. Good.
God, he hoped it stayed that way.
“Here.” Gale handed over two small beige pills. “This is a - ”
Astarion downed them both dry, not bothering to listen to the explainer. Couldn’t be worse than the alternative.
“Right, then. I can’t make any promises. This is hardly a controlled trial. We’re in rather uncharted territory and we’ll just…well, we’ll just have to wait and see, I suppose,” Gale said. “Now don’t take this the wrong way, but if you’re so terribly opposed to me dialing 999 then I’m afraid I am going to have to lock the doors to the lab.”
Astarion scoffed. “Lest I descend upon the general populace a newborn succubus?”
Gale fixed him with a stern look over the thin rim of his glasses. “For your own safety, Astarion.”
Fair enough. Astarion huffed and waved a hand in resignation. No matter how much he wanted to protest - even if just for the sake of demonstrating his discontent - it did seem the most contained, reasonable approach. Leave it to the good Doctor Dekarios to be pragmatic, even now. He paced between the workbenches, watching silently as Gale flicked the locks and dug out the requisite first-aid kit from a storage closet.
Bandages, antiseptic wipes, burn cream. Then, with a somewhat sheepish glance in Astarion’s direction, Gale pulled out his wallet and added a condom to the supplies.
Astarion raised a brow. “Had that one ready to go, did we?”
“You didn’t see the mice,” Gale muttered, in an awfully grim tone for a man wearing a sweatervest.
Once finished with his makeshift aid station, Gale settled into a chair - one of those ridiculous, ergonomic stools-on-wheels, which creaked slightly under his weight.
For a few moments they said nothing.
Astarion employed a few prophylactic strategies of his own. He tried a handful of the ridiculous deep breaths Dalyria was always going on about. He focused on the least arousing sights the lab had to offer. A stained and sagging ceiling tile. An endlessly dull safety poster. Do not pour chemicals down drains. Do not block emergency showers, eye washes, exits, or hallways. Handle glassware carefully.
Whoops.
“Well?” Gale seemed to be waiting with bated breath, though the concern in his eyes was tempered by an unsettling curiosity. “Are you feeling any sort of, ah -”
“Uncontrollable urge to fuck?” Astarion filled in with a caustic laugh.
“- spontaneous and insuppressible increase to your dispositional sexual motivation? Or, yes. That.”
As best Astarion could tell, the inhibitors were helping. That was to say, he had begun to feel a slight twinge, down there, but nothing too concerning, thank god. He wasn’t sure he’d recover from springing a full erection like some puberty-riddled adolescent in front of Gale Dekarios.
“Nothing major,” he said, hoping to downplay the half-hard stirring in his trousers. “If this is all there is to it, I think we’re in luck, and the uncomfortable conversation with HR can be avoi-“
Then it hit him.
A sudden rush of - calling it “arousal” seemed insufficient. Arousal was a familiar beast. Arousal, he knew how to handle, but this? This was a - a monsoon of thirst, a downright hemorrhaging of lustfulness, like something out of one of those salacious novels Karlach read. Astarion’s head spun. His cock felt as though it must be about a meter long and harder than concrete.
The change must have been apparent on his face, or more likely, in his pants. Gale grabbed his notepad and began to scribble furiously. “Can you describe the sensation?”
“I’d really rather not,” Astarion gasped.
“Look me straight-on, please. Follow my finger.” Gale held one up, moving it left, right, left.
Astarion turned away.
He couldn’t imagine a worse audience to play witness to his indignity. Even his first week on the job, he’d struggled not to eye Gale in the halls. Something always shivered up his spine when he heard the research assistants call for “Doctor Dekarios”. He enjoyed catching Gale in the break room of the fifth-floor labs, eating some creamy pasta dish out of a Pyrex and playing word games on his phone. And now -
“Astarion,” Gale said sharply.
“God, fine.” Astarion made every effort to ignore the hot clench in his gut and follow Gale’s instruction. Left, right, left.
“I assure you, my curiosity is purely academic in nature,” Gale said. “I can better help you manage the symptoms if I understand what’s happening. Now, is it contained to physical arousal, or are you experiencing any related thought patterns?”
Seeing as he was going to have to resign after this, surely, he may as well humor the research, Astarion thought. Let Gale remember him as cooperative, if foolish. Provided he didn’t die first, of course.
“Physical,” he said, biting back a groan. “It’s…shit, the worst blue balls you’ve ever felt in your life.”
Gale chuckled. “Tell that to my ex-wife.” He winced. “Sorry. Awful time for a joke. I’ve been known to ramble when I’m nervous.”
Astarion gritted his teeth. “You don’t say.”
“Please - keep going. And, ah, don’t be shy in the detail, no matter how odd it may seem. There’s no room for embarrassment in science, I say.”
“Speak for yourself, darling.” Astarion could hear his voice shifting, easing into his well-practiced sultry, breathy tone for pet names and come-ons. “You’re not the one getting hard enough to cut diamonds. You’re just sitting there taking notes, looking plump enough to eat.”
Gale’s brow raised, just a fraction, but he didn’t look up from his notes.
“Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” Astarion managed through his mortification, clapping a hand to his mouth. “I - I didn’t mean -“
Gale waved him off. “Diminished impulse control is to be expected,” he said, though his cheeks were slightly more flushed than they had been. “I won’t take it personally.”
“For what it’s worth, it was a compliment - you’re obviously a very…a very attractive man, and…” Astarion broke off with a groan. As if confessing his interest made it better, somehow, instead of an even more flagrant violation of every workplace harassment training he’d ever taken.
“That’s…” Gale rather noticeably swallowed. “That’s the compound talking.”
“Three years working alongside you say otherwise. Trust me, were I locked in here with Thorm, I wouldn’t be eying how delectably his ass eclipses that chair.”
The second the words left his lips Astarion turned and planted his forehead against the nearest shelf guard. He clapped a hand to his mouth, willing it to shut the ever-living fuck up.
To his horror, it wasn’t just the mortification washing over him. He felt terribly ill, in the most confusing of ways. His skin itched, red-hot and vulnerable, and something akin to lava seemed to flood his veins. Whatever latent attraction he harbored for Gale was no longer content to simmer. It boiled over, the froth of it rising behind his teeth and in his gut, consumptive and insatiable.
“I’m burning up,” Astarion said. He pressed a hand to his forehead, sweeping the curls back and nearly recoiling at the heat of his skin. “I’m burning up, I have to -“
He tore at his clothes. Damn things couldn’t get off fast enough. All he could think was that he needed to be naked, now, and then he needed to rub his aching cock between every roll on Gale’s fat body and -
Gale made a quiet, strangled sort of sound.
“Shit,” Astarion breathed.
Gale’s eyes remained glued to his notepad. “Merely the -” he cleared his throat “- the manifestation of pharmacologically-induced decreased neuroinhibition. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. And the, ah, expression of human sexuality can be diverse. I’ll categorize it a related thought pattern, shall I, and we’ll just -“
“Please shut up.”
A terrible, wanton noise escaped him, and Astarion doubled over. His entire body throbbed with arousal. He tried to cover up his erection with his palm, but even the slight touch was unbearable.
“Why the hell would you develop this, anyways?” Astarion spat. “Some sort of pervert, are you?”
Gale was tearing the pages from his notepad as he wrote. Astarion could barely make out the scribbles. “It was a government project that got defunded during administration turnover. Don’t ask.”
Astarion gnashed his teeth. There was no getting out of this unscathed, was there. He was only barely in control of his body. With every passing second it grew harder and harder to fight the predatory urge to lunge at Gale and have his way, satisfying every lewd thought battering his mind.
They were locked in together. And the inevitable was coming.
Astarion knew it, as certain as he’d known anything in his life: neither of them were walking out of the lab until he’d come down, and that wasn’t happening until he had sex. Probably quite a lot of it.
All he could hope to do was attempt to persuade Gale to join willingly, before the need became so urgent that he stopped caring.
Astarion took advantage of Gale’s preoccupation with his notes to grab his ridiculous sweatervest and yank it up, tearing the tucked-in buttondown out from his pants at the same time.
Gale yelped. At last he turned and met Astarion’s eye. “What are you -“
“What does it look like.” Astarion seated himself in Gale’s lap. The office chair creaked ominously under their combined weight. He continued to claw at the shirt, relishing the sight of Gale’s increasingly exposed belly. “God, you’re hairy.”
Before Gale could respond, Astarion took his face in his hands and kissed him.
Any lingering safeguards of sanity and decorum were well and truly out the window now. HR was going to tear him in two, Astarion thought, clenching his thighs around Gale’s all the same. He’d never work again. He’d have to leave town - hell, the country.
The drug didn’t care. Nor, in that moment, did he. No matter how Astarion’s mind spewed warnings, his instinct for self-preservation overrode them. There was only one thing he needed, and unless he wanted to end up like the damned mice, he had no option but to take it.
Gale gasped when the kiss broke. His shirt and vest sat rucked up over his stomach, baring a broad expanse of soft fat covered in thick, dark hair. “Astarion, this is highly unprofessional.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Astarion groaned. He couldn’t resist. Something else seemed to be piloting his body, insistent upon rubbing his cock against Gale’s belly for some fraction of relief. “God, I’m so sorry. But I don’t - I don’t think I can…”
His helplessness seemed to provoke a measure of sympathy. “No, of course,” Gale said, sounding paradoxically apologetic himself. “It’s hardly your fault. Only - this isn’t…ah…”
He kept trying to push Astarion off his lap, though his touches were halfhearted and he was clearly trying to avoid any sort of impropriety. Gentle fingertips pressed at Astarion’s shoulders. It was far too apprehensive a nudge to be effective in shaking him, though Gale seemed determined not to lay a hand on him anywhere else, nor to make eye contact.
Gale made another of those quiet, half-whining noises and looked away as Astarion groped at the rolls on his sides.
He shoved Gale’s buttondown and sweatervest over his head in one go, paying no mind to the soft ping of a few buttons lost in the process. He could hear himself panting like a wild animal, and damn it all if he didn’t feel feral as one in heat too.
“So fucking soft,” Astarion growled. For years he’d eyed Gale’s tits - through t-shirts that showed the outline of his nipples; through sweaters that made him look particularly round and plush; even once, at a department barbecue, through a sort of loose tank top thing that highlighted his thick thatch of chest hair and pillowy arms.
Those memories only made his heart pound faster. The jackhammer throb radiated throughout his body. Any moment now it seemed the damn thing was liable to beat straight out of his chest, pushing through the ribs and skin and falling into Gale’s lap in a frenzied, bloody mess.
“I need this,” Astarion attempted to explain, though forming an understandable string of words was getting harder by the second.
“What?” Despite it all - the absurdity of this situation, the embarrassing, objectifying words that kept slipping from Astarion’s mouth - a fraction of intrigue laced Gale’s horrified look.
“This. You.”
“If you need to seek relief, Astarion, I won’t stop you. But please, do not involve me in what your hand can surely accomplish on its -“
“If I don’t have sex now, I genuinely think my heart might give out,” Astarion said in a rush, hoping that conveyed the gravity of the situation.
Gale wordlessly raised two fingers to Astarion’s neck.
Immediately, he realized - what a stupid thing to say to someone who actually had a heart condition. Not that he knew the details of Gale’s circumstances, of course. He tried to apologize for what felt like the tenth time in as many minutes, but with Gale’s broad palm just there, fingers on his pulse and thumb brushing at his jaw, all that came out was halfhearted stuttering.
“I - I’m -“
“Ssh.” Gale’s tongue clicked wordlessly behind his teeth in time with Astarion’s heartbeat.
The slight pressure on his veins was nearly overwhelming. A bit of attention to his neck during sex always made his blood pound. Light kisses, a bit of a nuzzle, even a hard, bruising bite now and then…he hissed a shaky breath out through his teeth.
“Your pulse is elevated,” Gale said, lowering his hand. “Rather significantly. I’m overriding you. You need to go to the emergency room, Astarion.” He squirmed beneath Astarion’s hips, digging his cell phone out of one pocket. “I’m dialing 999, truly.”
The roll of his belly met Astarion’s bare thigh as he leaned forward, and as soon as the phone was in his hand Astarion snatched it and threw it across the lab. Gale winced at the resulting crack.
“What I need, is to fuck,” Astarion insisted. How much more clearly could he say it? Normally he was the one fending off advances, not the other way around. He couldn’t help but feel a mite insulted. “Most people can’t wait to get their hands on me, you know.”
“You’re under the influence of an extraordinarily potent neuropharmacological agent, you’re in no place to give consent.” Gale attempted again to shake his roaming grip.
“Well, I’m afraid this drug of yours doesn’t give a shit.”
“What…what do you mean by that,” Gale said. His head snapped up, and he looked truly alarmed for the first time since Astarion’s symptoms began. Good. That meant he was beginning to grasp the seriousness of the situation.
Astarion took a deep breath. “I mean - and I am terribly sorry about this - that I am going to fuck you. And I don’t think either of us has much say in the matter.”
Gale’s eyes went wide.
For fuck’s sake, the whole thing was like some absurd fever dream. Maybe it was. Maybe he was only hallucinating, Astarion considered. Or on a particularly bad trip. His head certainly swam like it. His head spun as it hadn’t since his younger, wilder days, when an average Tuesday meant unknown pills downed with some stranger in a graffitied club bathroom. At least he knew how to approach the throes of such a spiral. It was like skidding on the ice - you turned into the current and hoped for the best. Nothing to do now but ride it out.
Then again, surely no hallucination could produce such a glorious replication of Gale. So lush and warm beneath his hands.
“This is…profoundly inappropriate,” Gale said shakily.
Yet he didn’t protest as Astarion fumbled with his belt buckle. He only breathed hard, looking all furred belly and ample thighs; an irresistible display of luxury and indulgence.
“On the last notch, are we,” Astarion breathed as he released the clasp.
Gale shut his eyes as Astarion palmed the softness below his navel, scratching at the thick dark trail of hair. “Astarion, I beg you.”
“Other way around, darling.” Astarion’s own breath came labored and shaky. He grabbed one of Gale’s hands and attempted to drag it down towards his aching cock. “I need this. Just give in, and it’ll be easier for us both.”
Gale made one last noise of protest; a soft, half-hearted whine. Then -
Maybe it was involuntary. A jerk of the head in surprise, or a barely-suppressed glance down at the painfully hard cock dimpling his belly. In truth it didn’t matter all that much. Astarion would have taken a blink as a yes. Hell, he’d have taken anything shy of Gale crying out ‘no, Astarion, no’ as a yes - and even then, the only difference would be that he’d fuck him a touch more apologetically.
But Astarion was calling it a nod.
“Perfect,” he said, his voice growling out deep and hungry.
Gale’s soft, grabbable body was ideal for manhandling. Astarion hauled him to his feet with a firm grip of the fat beneath his navel and shoved him towards one of the lab’s many workbenches, sweeping some variety of papers and mercifully empty test tube racks aside. He wasted no time. With the belt undone it was easy to hook his thumbs under the waistband of Gale’s slacks and underthings both and shove them down, exposing a wide, jiggling ass that - like most of Gale, it seemed - was dusted with dark hair.
How terribly cruel of the drug, to not allow him the patience to even appreciate the sight before him. It only craved pleasure, and Astarion was notoriously weak in the face of temptation.
And oh, was Gale tempting.
Wine-hued stretch marks spanned his lower back; little beacons directing Astarion’s touch to those places most freshly coated with new fat. Without hesitation he shoved his cock between Gale’s thick thighs. The instantaneous bliss of friction - finally - and soft warm pressure him did wonders.
He was dimly aware of Gale trying to kick one foot out of his pantleg beneath them.
Astarion took hold of his hips and yanked him closer. “No time.”
“At least - Astarion -“ Gale was fumbling on the bench, picking up vial after vial and discarding them rapidly, evidently not finding what he was looking for. “Some measure of preparation, please -“
The first aid supplies lay forgotten on the desk - too far, now. He wasn’t certain his legs were in fact capable of doing anything beyond holding him up long enough to get his cock where it needed to be, anyways.
“PG,” Gale breathed.
“Darling, we’re rapidly headed for R.”
“No, propylene glycol, I - here.” He waved a small bottle of something over one shoulder.
Astarion grabbed it and popped the cap. A quick drizzle would have to be enough.
He took himself in hand and eased in to Gale’s too-tight hole. Someone cried out, though he couldn’t quite tell if it was Gale’s plaintive half-wail at the lack of preparation or his own sob of relief. The “PG” didn’t do much in the way of lubrication, providing only the slightest insulation against chafing.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Astarion whispered. Absurdly, he found himself stroking Gale’s broad, hairy back like he was a frightened pet in need of comfort.
A feverish haze took over as he began to thrust, crowding out the shame. Words fell unthinkingly from his lips; a dim echo of yes yes yes accompanying the filthy sounds of his hips meeting Gale’s ass and Gale’s belly slapping against the lab bench in turn. It only confirmed what he felt: he needed the relief, yes, but more than that he needed the carnality of it all; the madness of uninhibited fucking, with all the raw noises and sloppiness it entailed.
“God, that’s it,” he gasped. “Fuck, you feel incredible.”
He struggled to follow the flurry of movement, though most of it was his own. His dick buried deep in Gale’s ass; his hands stroking at those soft flanks, pinching eagerly and following the crease of a roll across his back…
When he reached around to fondle Gale’s chest he thought he heard a sound above - a gasp, or a swear, or a groan. It didn’t matter. He kissed everything within mouth’s reach, only vaguely aware that that a levy of some sort had broken and horribly obscene things were dripping from his lips - how he wanted to hear Gale moan, just like that; how good it felt to be bent over a man more than twice his own width, with every forward thrust shaking the full tits beneath his palm and every pull-back giving him a perfect view of his -
“- cock ravaging that glorious ass of yours, filling you up,” Astarion heard himself gasp. He clawed a hand in Gale’s half-bun. “If I had more patience I’d have you putting that mouth to work. I’d hold you in place and tell you how damn good you are for me, my gorgeous plump pet, and oh, god, I’m, I'm so -“
-sorry, Astarion tried to say, even as his world grew helplessly narrow. A noise he’d never heard himself make escaped as he keened into Gale’s back, gripping whatever handfuls of fat he held for dear life through the most mind-numbing orgasm of his life.
He felt slightly more lucid afterwards, thank god. Aware enough at least to take stock of Gale, who’d buried his face in the crook of one arm and used the other to brace himself against the workbench.
“Are - “Astarion struggled to catch his breath. “Are you…?”
Gale made a weak thumbs-up by his head.
Good. That was good.
But his relief was short-lived.
“Goddamn it,” Astarion muttered.
Gale’s voice was muffled. “You’re, ah -”
“I know.”
Of course Gale could feel it. Astarion grit his teeth. He hadn’t even pulled out - hell, he’d barely stopped shaking - and already he was near as hard as when he’d begun.
Oh, it wasn’t fair. It really wasn’t fair. Here he had Gale Dekarios bent over one of the benches in his own lab, that silver-streaked hair falling out of its half-knot, legs spread wide and welcoming, and he could barely even appreciate it.
“I really am so, so sorry about this, darling,” he managed, then grabbed either side of Gale’s wonderfully soft belly hang and began to thrust again.
To his immense relief, the haze clouding his mind stopped short of the near-spellbound state of discombobulation. Gale breathed heavily, whimpering a little on the exhales and occasionally biting the flesh of his own forearm - in pain or to stifle a moan, Astarion wondered. He wished it made a difference.
Kneading Gale’s plush body stirred his drive. Maybe he could push it over the edge sooner, Astarion reasoned. Not prolong the torture, so to speak.
He gave it a try, shamelessly pawing at the underside of Gale’s belly to make it jiggle all the more, then groaning as it had the desired effect. He buried his face between Gale’s shoulderblades as he came a second time.
“If we were to truly bed each other, it wouldn’t be like this,” he tried to say, uncertain if the words came out fully formed. “I’d worship you like you deserve. I’d keep you on the edge with my tongue, hungry for it, for hours, and when you started to beg I’d indulge that hunger with a sweet treat between your lips, a - a-“ What were those little things he kept in his desk?
Gale’s quiet, strangled voice relieved his stumbling. “Macaron.”
“As many as you wanted,” Astarion purred. This time he expected the rapid rebound, welcoming the hardness as he pushed deeper into Gale’s now-accommodating hole. “The entire box, and I’d kiss the taste of them from your mouth, see to it that you’re flush with pleasure, decadently adored -“
He’d never explicitly fantasized about bedding Gale - present situation aside, he was a professional, after all. If he had, it probably would have been some sickeningly lovestruck scene; glasses of wine by the fireplace and slow, besotted lovemaking while the windows frosted with snow.
God, Astarion thought, lost in a thousand voluptuous sensations and head spinning, he wished they were doing that instead of…this.
But there was no fireplace, just the gently buzzing florescent lights overhead. The only glass to be found was the haphazardly scattered borosilicate test tubes.
And yet it felt incredible.
He’d never experienced sex like this. Frantic, uninhibited fucking; orgasms that felt like the first gasping breath after revival from a drowning. Gale’s noises had a distinctly pleading quality to them, a breathy little hitch of desperation that only made Astarion crave his unraveling all the more.
“Beautiful,” Astarion whispered, over and over - all he was able to manage, to impress upon Gale the uncontrollable bliss his body brought.
With each release his head cleared a little more. He lost count of how many times he came, only that he hit a point of orgasming dry, his cock trying desperately to pump out seed that wasn’t there.
And as the effects of the drug faded, exhaustion set in.
Astarion lay blanketed over Gale’s hairy back, feeling the heave of their chests in tandem. He inhaled the scent there, sweat and musk and lingering hints of oaky-vanilla cologne beneath the tell-tale reek of cum. Please be over, he thought. Please, please. Psychological aftermath aside, he wasn’t certain his dick could withstand another round of unprepared, barely lubricated fucking. He could only imagine how Gale was feeling.
“Is it done?” Gale’s voice was quiet and throaty.
“I think I’m…it’s, close,” he whispered back. A kinder way of saying no.
He felt Gale nod into his arm and shift slightly, spreading his legs into a more stable, grounded position.
As Astarion issued silent, futile pleas to his cock not to harden again, he realized that while the desire remained, it had…evolved.
“I think I need to ride you.”
Gale craned his head. His hair had been tugged fully out of its half-knot and now fell haphazardly over his face. “What?”
“I need to ride you,” Astarion repeated, feeling more certain in the necessity of it as he said the words out loud. What a relief it was to find himself lucid enough to speak coherently again. He pulled out, observing with mixed pride and shame the copious cum matting the hair of Gale’s ass and inner thighs.
“You’re certain?”
“Positive. On the floor for me, if you would. Ah -please,” he hastily amended.
If he looked half as debauched as Gale - and more likely, he looked twice it - he’d count himself lucky there weren’t any mirrors in the lab.
“Just the once more,” Astarion said - hoping it was a promise he could keep - as Gale lay back on the vinyl tile. His legs were shaking. Actually, quite a lot of him was shaking, but that came with the territory of his weight, Astarion supposed.
They were near fully bare. Gale had evidently managed to shake off what remained of his pants and underwear sometime amidst the fucking. All that remained was his wristwatch and a pair of black socks, held up by suspenders clasped around his thick, hairy calves. The sight had Astarion near salivating. So much so that it took a second before he took stock of what exactly he was working with.
Well.
And all this time he’d thought Gale hadn’t hardened an inch.
Astarion couldn’t help but smirk a little as he knelt. No wonder in all his groping he hadn’t realized Gale was erect. The head of his cock barely brushed the pad of fat threatening to eclipse it.
“That will make things easier. I suppose it would be unfair for you to be big everywhere,” he said, giving Gale’s belly a pointed shake.
Gale turned his head in evident embarrassment, allowing Astarion a glimpse of his Hellenic profile and the soft dimpling of fat under his chin. “God, Astarion. Is this not indignity enough?”
“Oh no no - don’t be embarrassed, you poor dear.” Astarion swung a leg over those broad hips and leaned forward, bracing himself on either side of Gale’s head. “Had I known you were such a delightful size I’d have been tempted to start here.”
Astarion trailed a hand over his own cock, gathering as much of the cum there as he could, before easing himself back on Gale’s. It slid in easily. Little thing that it was.
He rolled his hips slowly. There wasn’t enough of Gale to warrant a true riding, but the lazy rocking, combined with the ache in his inner thighs, was actually quite lovely. After however many rounds of frenzied battering he craved something manageable. And if the shuddering gasp Gale gave as he began to move was any indication, the change of pace was welcome all around.
Still, infuriatingly, Gale didn’t touch him. How like the good professor to let himself be fucked six ways to Sunday and still try to be a gentleman about it. He only lay there, one arm serving as a pillow, the other thrown wide. All the while his body rippled beneath Astarion’s hips. It was transfixing, like watching the gentle undulation of a tide rolling in and out - his tits swaying in tandem with Astarion’s motions; the pinchable fold of fat beneath them deepening every time his belly rocked upwards.
Was it inappropriate to tell him how very beautiful he was? On the one hand it seemed ridiculous to hesitate, given how much shameless filth he’d spewed without realizing it. On the other, perhaps Gale was owed a genuine compliment, now that Astarion was in his right mind.
“You really are a sight to behold, you know,” he whispered. “In other circumstances this would be a dream come true.”
Despite not laying a hand on him, Gale seemed to harbor no such reservations about looking. The voracious rake of his gaze invited imagination. Astarion watched his watching, picturing a touch following the path of his eyes - up his dripping cock, the wide spread of his legs, where Gale’s belly softly smacked against his thighs. He trailed hands over his own torso, stroking himself in all the places that wandering gaze lingered.
He wasn’t entirely sure what he was driving towards. Another climax of his own seemed nigh impossible, and the effects of the drug had faded nearly entirely, if he was being honest. All he knew was that he needed - god, just a little more.
Gale shut his eyes with a whimper and at last, finally, one hand came to Astarion’s calf in a whisper-light touch as he came.
“Yes,” Astarion sighed. The long-awaited relief was, paradoxically, orgasmic itself. He leaned forward and pressed his lips to Gale’s, craving some semblance of a real kiss before it was over.
Gale didn’t recoil. Didn’t break away, or push him off. His hand stayed just where it was, thumb rubbing ever so slightly against the smooth curve of Astarion’s calf. And when Astarion at last broke the kiss and pulled away, he arched up, the tiniest lift of his chin, like he didn’t want to stop.
Astarion rolled off Gale and lay on the cold vinyl floor, chest heaving.
The scene around them looked - well, it didn’t paint a flattering image of their activities. Clothes strewn everywhere, a rather copious amount of cum on the floor, broken glass and scattered papers littering the lab.
Now that his sanity was restored, Astarion almost wished it wasn’t. He briefly considered feigning memory loss. There was a smidge of truth to it, after all, in and out of his mind as he had been. Suppose he simply exaggerated, claimed he’d lost everything after the initial hit of arousal? Who was going to tell on him, anyways - the dead mice?
It was tempting. But he couldn’t. If nothing else, his inability to ever look Gale Dekarios in the face again would give him away.
In the corner of his eye he could see the rise and fall of Gale’s chest. The poor man was going to need a dozen showers to rinse all the spend out of his body hair.
“I’ll turn in my resignation first thing tomorrow morning,” Astarion said over the lump in his throat. “You’ll never have to see me again, I promise.”
“Astarion.”
“Only I’d be most grateful if you didn’t file a formal complaint against me. I imagine it’ll be rather difficult to find employment after ‘ravaged the lead researcher while under the influence of some insane sex chemical of said researcher’s own making’ is on your resume. I do still need to eat, and -”
“Astarion.”
What had it come to, when Gale Dekarios was interrupting his rambling?
“Right.” Astarion winced. He raised a hand to hide his face. “I’m sorry.”
“Yes, you have mentioned that. Some dozen times. And while I do appreciate the contrition, there’s no need to forfeit your position simply because you happened to drop the…“ Gale sighed, and Astarion could just picture the accompanying tilt of his head. “Well, the absolute worst sample in this entire lab to drop, if we’re being frank.”
It was a generous pardon. Far more generous than he deserved.
“Thank you,” he said, mustering every ounce of sincere gratitude he had. “Truly, Gale. You saved my life tonight.”
“Admittedly, it’s not how I ever pictured coming to the heroic rescue of Blackstaff’s most charming grant writer.” Gale’s breathy chuckle tugged at the knot in Astarion’s chest.
He played along, feigning a swoon. “My knight in shining armor.”
“Anytime. By which I mean, hopefully never again. So. Shall we, ah,” Gale cleared his throat. “Shall we get a drink?”
“You’re not serious.”
“I most certainly am.” With a heavy grunt, Gale pushed himself up to sitting. “I daresay you need one as much as I do right now.”
He wasn’t wrong.
Astarion stood and offered a hand. Gale’s fingers clasped around his wrist, and he hauled. Not a tremendous help, he knew - with the adrenaline-fueled might of the drug out of his system, he struggled with Gale’s heft. But the camaraderie of it pleased him, as did the shake of Gale’s stomach brushing against his own.
“If you insist,” Astarion said, unable to tamp down his smile. Maybe it would be alright, after all. He reached for the discarded sweatervest and sheepishly handed it over.
“I’d like nothing more.” Gale gave a single wag of his finger as he accepted the vest. “But you’re buying.”