Archive of Our Own

The first time Dorian visits the Fade and recognizes it for what it is, he's eight years old and dreaming. The shifting permeability of it intrigues him, but it also terrifies him, and when it begins to slip away from him, he lets it go. He finds himself there in his dreams occasionally after that, but never for very long. Every time he sees it and can't hold it, his desire grows to enter it at will.

The first time Dorian visits the Fade deliberately, he's thirteen. His tutor—one in a long line—is with him, protector and guide, showing him how a mage's will can be imposed on the chaos around them. She also warns him about the many dangers of the Fade, but now that he can see the Fade while awake, Dorian is more intrigued and less afraid. His tutor, perhaps sensing that, does not teach him how to reach the Fade on his own. His visits are limited to those times when he can persuade her to take him, and then he's only ever allowed to trail along in her wake.

Given time, Dorian might have found a way to trick or persuade the secret out of her, but she only lasts another few months. The tutor who follows her and the one after that both feel the Fade is no place for a child and refuse to take him at all, leaving him only the occasional, frustrating glimpse of it in his dreams.

The first time Dorian visits the Fade on his own, he's sixteen. His newest tutor is entirely susceptible to a set of tactics Dorian is just learning to use: a sly smile, and coyly lowered eyelashes, and his tongue licking slowly over his lower lip. For the first time since he began trying out these tactics, however, they won't get him all the way to what he wants. Eventually he gives in with a mental shrug and makes good on what all those coy looks have been promising. He'd hoped he wouldn't have to, had hoped the man might be persuaded to show him the trick in an effort to impress him, but Dorian will do more than this to get what he's wanted for half his life. The tutor is older than his father but clean and not cruel, and willing to show Dorian what to do. Eager to do so, in fact, as if Dorian's inexperience pleases him.

The bitter taste of the man's seed is still on his tongue the first time Dorian steps into the Fade on his own and awake. It's been so long since he was last here in anything other than a dream, mostly what he feels is disoriented. Dreams are fluid by nature, but his waking mind wants order. It expects tables to be on the floor rather than the ceiling, and it expects that when he walks down a staircase, it will stay a staircase rather than melt into a hill or a lake.

It's also more tiring than he expected, his tether to his body weakening quickly. Newly impressed by that first tutor's strength to hold herself and him in the Fade for hours, he nevertheless retreats rather than risk the tether breaking. It would be a shame to die before he's had a chance to enjoy something he's worked so hard to get. He can return tomorrow, and every day after, now he knows how to do it.

But like so many new toys, the allure wears off soon enough. Exploring the Fade is exhausting, and since he can only do it when he's alone in his room with time to spare, his attempts are usually made late at night. His days are long, full of lessons and the duties of a magister's son, now made longer by his own curiosity as to what other magical secrets he can seduce his tutor into revealing.

A surprising number, it turns out, before he's too talented with his mouth and the man, grown bored with him, moves on to someone less experienced. Dorian doesn't make any effort to keep his attention, but that doesn't mean he has no interest in anyone else's. There are plenty of boys his own age, and men not too much older, who are very interested in a skilled partner. Most days, the prospect of a mouth on his cock holds more appeal than wandering the Fade. He visits occasionally but makes no concerted effort to explore.

Until he's nineteen, and his father sends him to Minrathous.

By the end of Dorian's first week with the Order of Argent, he's more bored than he's ever been in his life. His skill with magic is so far beyond his peers that even the more advanced classes require him to expend very little effort. Sex would be a perfectly good diversion, except he finds very few men like him among the others. Or at least, few men willing to admit they're like him. Since Dorian is confined to the grounds on his father's instructions—instructions given to the school and not to Dorian, because his father isn't stupid—it leaves few options for passing the time.

He can get himself off, of course, but that gets boring after a while. His hand is never going to surprise him, or teach him anything new, or talk with him after. It's not that every one of his past lovers was interested in talking, but many were, and he's grown to like it. In Minrathous, people are barely more interested in talking to him than they are in fucking him. His fellow students resent his skill, possibly because he doesn't bother to hide how little effort magic requires for him, and his teachers were warned by his father about his troublesome ways.

By the start of his second week, Dorian is bored and frustrated when a passing comment from one of his teachers reminds him of his trips to the Fade. That evening, during the time he's supposed to be studying spells he already knows, he returns to the Fade for the first time in more than a year. He begins to explore idly at first, then with more focus. His skill with magic has grown substantially since he was sixteen, and while the Fade isn't terribly interesting if he can only stay for a few minutes at a time, it has all sorts of possibilities for someone who can wander it nearly at will. He spends most of the first evening just playing with the Fade itself, coaxing it into various shapes to see what he can make and what shapes will hold together the longest.

The next evening, he turns his focus toward a single project, one that's equal parts joke and challenge and act of defiance. It gives him a savage pleasure to turn what was supposed to be a punishment—his banishment to Minrathous—into an opportunity for debauchery. Besides, he never could resist a challenge, especially not when the very idea of this one makes him grin.

Rather than try to create anything human-shaped, he takes as his model a sea creature he once saw in the warm blue waters near Ayesleigh: a waving mass of tentacles, drifting in the currents. With that creature as inspiration for the basic shape and movement, Dorian then lets his imagination run wild, starting with tentacles that are much warmer than anything that lives in the water.

The sea creature was smaller than Dorian's fist; his Fade creature is decidedly not. The length and thickness of its tentacles vary greatly, but even the smallest is as long as his leg and as thick as a finger. The largest tentacles are as long as the jungle snakes he's read about, four or five times his own height, and thicker around than his upper arm. It's possible he got a little too caught up in his own fantasies on those last ones, but what's the point of fucking himself in the Fade if he can't take advantage of the fact that this isn't the real world? Admittedly, he hasn't tried manipulating his own form yet, but it can't be too different. His "body" here is just as much a product of his mind as the Fade beast; he simply creates it on a more instinctive level.

Being fucked by a Fade-beast of his own creation admittedly doesn't provide any more surprises than fucking his own fist, but at least it's different. Very different. It has as little in common with fucking his fist as it does with fucking—or being fucked by—a man, and the novelty of it is half its appeal.

How much control he has over his own form remains a test for another day, because the rest of it proves to be better than even he expected. The first warm, slick touch on his cock is nearly enough to put him over the edge, and he doesn't get around to fucking himself before he's coming with a shout he doesn't bother to smother. This is the Fade. Who is there to hear him?

His body sweats and pants because his mind expects it to, but with a little effort, Dorian manages to quell both and bring his cock back to hardness. This time he fucks himself without touching his cock, using a tentacle as thick as three fingers and taking it deeper than a cock could ever go. Only when he's aching with the need to come does he wrap a second tentacle around his cock. Moving both at the same time is more difficult than he expected, and he eventually wraps a hand over top of the tentacle around his cock so he can use something he has more experience controlling. It's still amazing, like fucking and being fucked at the same time, and it feels like he comes forever.

Exhaustion catches up with him at that point. He reinforces the magic holding his Fade beast together in hopes that will stop it from dissipating while he sleeps, tries to fix this section of the Fade in his mind so he can return to it, and then falls back into his physical body.

He's too much a scholar and experimenter not to make a few mental notes on improvements to his creation, but he doesn't make it very far before sleep drags him under.

His dreams are strange but not unpleasant, mostly involving his Fade beast fucking him in different ways. In the strange half-reality of dreams, the creature doesn't need Dorian's guidance now, its tentacles stroking all over his body, though still only a few at a time.

Dorian wakes to find himself face down on his bed, hips working to rub his achingly hard cock against the sheet beneath him. Still half asleep, Dorian gets a hand around himself, only needing a dozen strokes to finish, smothering any noises in his pillow.

When the pillow starts to feel like it's smothering him, he staggers out of bed to clean up. He has no classes this morning, and normally he would take that as an opportunity to sleep in. Instead, he opens the shutters that cover his narrow window and inhales a deep, self-satisfied breath. The sky is turning pale in the east but the sun isn't yet above the horizon, a sight Dorian doesn't normally see unless it's from the other side. He appreciates it for the length of time it takes him to drink a little water, then crawls back into bed and the Fade.

Awake, though. He doesn't want to fall back to sleep, not when there are so many other things he could be doing.

It takes him only a little searching to find the place in the Fade where he left his creation, and it's survived the night almost completely intact. A few tentacles are turning wispy, starting to dissolve back into formlessness, but it doesn't take Dorian long to put it to rights. He spends a little while making improvements to the creature's spells, then banishes his clothes to fuck himself again. Controlling more than three tentacles at a time is beyond him even with the additional spells, but it definitely feels more like being fucked by another person.

Until he brings one of the tentacles up and into his mouth. It's completely tasteless, in a way nothing in the real world could ever be, and the strangeness of that jerks Dorian from his pleasant haze of arousal. A few more changes to the spells fix that problem, so that each tentacle tastes like clean human skin, with just a faint trace of salt sweat. Dorian considered other options before discarding them all as too distracting and more likely to make him laugh than arouse him.

He loses track of time and misses his afternoon class, earning himself extra work as a punishment. The work isn't difficult, merely tedious, but it fills his free hours for several days and leaves him too tired at night for anything except sleep. As a consolation, he dreams of his Fade beast every night and wakes with his cock hard each morning, needing only a few strokes to finish himself off.

By the time he's able to return to the Fade, his creature is a muddle of half-disintegrated spells, its shape so blurry it's barely recognizable. Dorian considers disassembling it completely and starting over from scratch, but he's become strangely attached to it. That he knows it isn't a real creature doesn't seem to matter, and with a sigh, he sets to work picking apart the mess. The tangled spells aren't easy to separate from each other, and despite working late into the night, he isn't able to finish.

In the morning, he's bleary-eyed from lack of sleep, and by lunchtime, all he wants to do is put his head down on the mess hall table and nap. His eyes aren't the only thing unable to focus, which is probably why he's so indiscreet as to suggest to his seatmate that, should the young man find himself in Dorian's rooms this evening, Dorian would be happy to fuck him through the bed. The man in question is only a little older than Dorian, and Dorian has caught a few admiring glances sent his way, glances a little too intense and lingering for mere aesthetic appreciation.

Whether the young man is repelled by the specifics of the offer, hoping to ingratiate himself to the teachers, or simply lying to himself about his own desires, the end result is the same: Dorian has the pleasure of an extended lecture from several of his teachers. As an additional punishment, he's confined to his room for three days, to be allowed nothing except a copy of the Chant and any other books his teachers allow. Under other circumstances, he would have trouble containing his glee at this "punishment" that gives him nothing but time with his Fade beast, but he's too angry over what he's being punished for. Ever since he realized who and what he likes, Tevinter and his father have been trying to drag him into line, as if he's simply being stubborn. To be punished for it yet again is infuriating, and even in the Fade, he shakes with anger.

It makes the delicate work of untangling spells nearly impossible, and after the third time he makes the problem worse instead of better, Dorian sets it aside. Better to let his anger fuel new spells, because unravelling the current mess would only have been the first step anyway. There are repairs to be made on the original spells, and new spells to weave in based on ideas he's thought of but not yet had time to implement. Some of those spells can be built before the mess is completely sorted out, and Dorian gives himself over to more-satisfying work.

He sleeps poorly that night and lets his dreams of the Fade melt into his waking presence there, without ever truly returning to reality. The tangle of spells he abandoned yesterday hasn't gotten any less tangled for a day's neglect, and all he accomplishes by picking at it is to trigger a resurgence of yesterday's anger. How dare they. How dare they punish him for the crime of wanting to fuck and be fucked by other men. How dare they punish him for daring to own that desire, for not hiding it away in shameful silence the way they think he should. How dare they.

He nurses that anger throughout the day, using it to support his spell-work as he rebuilds his creature, leaving the Fade only when his body requires it. Otherwise, he works with the feverish intensity of someone fortifying a position against an invading army already visible on the horizon. That he's afraid underneath the anger only makes the image more appropriate, but he ignores his fear except as more fuel.

There isn't a point where he makes a conscious decision to give up on untangling the old spells, but towards evening, he realizes that's exactly what he's done. The framework for the creature was the first thing he repaired, along with anything required to make its movement lifelike, but much of the more delicate work remains a mess. His new spells have simply bridged the gaps where necessary, patching holes and shoring up weak areas, burying the mess rather than fixing it.

The whole seems sturdy enough, though, and it isn't as if his life will depend on whether his Fade beast lasts forever. Someday, when he isn't so angry, he can take the whole thing apart and do it right, or simply start over. Always assuming he doesn't get bored of the whole thing and allow it to dissolve back into the Fade.

He falls asleep much the way he woke up, drifting from one state to the other without quite leaving the Fade. His dreams are more vivid than ever, his creature appearing in them to fuck him in every possible way, tentacles manhandling him into increasingly improbable positions until he wakes with a groan and a jerk, coming even as he's pulled from sleep. The aftershocks seem to run through him forever, his sense of time still bent by the Fade.

His legs refuse to hold him on his first attempt to stand, dropping him back down onto the bed where he sits for a while, staring blankly at his feet. The second attempt is more successful, though his steps are staggering and uncoordinated as he makes his way to the table.

He drinks a little water and eats a chunk of bread left over from last night's supper, staring out his window at the dark sky. A tiny voice in the back of his head mutters unhappily, made nervous by his dreams and the amount of time he's spending in the Fade. One of his best tutors warned him about the dangers, and he's heard plenty of other mages on the same subject with equally dire warnings.

Of course, none of them were as strong as he is, and the appropriate level of caution for a child is different than for a trained mage.

Just to prove to himself that he can, he doesn't return to the Fade until after lunchtime. There's the usual moment of disorienting formlessness, where he exists as nothing except his thoughts, before his mind collects itself and creates a body to hold his consciousness. He still hasn't had time to play with that particular effect, to see if he can override an instinct so strong even non-mages brought into the Fade will do it unprompted. With enough effort and magic, could he create a body for himself that looks nothing like his real one? Not that he's unhappy with how he looks, but it would be fun to be a dragon.

Lost in thought, it takes Dorian a moment to notice that something isn't right, and another, embarrassingly long one to identify the problem. He's appeared in the wrong part of the Fade. How he did that is a mystery, when he's always been able to return to the place he left his creature, but he's managed it today. As much as the Fade shifts around, he would never know whether he was in the right or wrong place except that his Fade beast isn't here.

Irritated, he walks in a slow circle, trying to get a sense of which way to go. As much effort as he's put into the thing, he's not starting over, and besides, all those spells should make it easy to find. Anything that structured and controlled should make ripples in the Fade, and those ripples should carry the mark of Dorian's spells.

Except he can't find it. All his magical senses insist he's in the right place, that it should be right in front of him, but-

The ground under his feet explodes, hurling him off his feet. Dorian pulls on his magic, crafting a spell with more strength than finesse even as his body tumbles through the air. The spell is a silent command to the Fade to break his fall before he crashes to the ground and finds out what happens if he dies here, the spell non-specific in a way he would normally never allow it to be.

Something snatches him out of the air, which isn't quite what he expected, but since it means he doesn't crack his skull on the ground, he's disinclined to complain. There's a band tight around his chest, too thick to be an arm, and smaller bands around his ankles and one wrist. Before he can get a good look to see what his desperate spell has created, another band loops around his free arm, near his elbow. It shifts its grip almost immediately, twisting down his forearm to hold his wrist instead.

The four smaller bands pull in unison, stretching Dorian between them to hang face down. It means he's staring straight at the thing that has hold of him, and he gives a sharp, surprised laugh at the twisting mass of tentacles beneath him. His Fade beast, apparently, was hiding.

The level of awareness required for that is far beyond anything Dorian would have tried to give it, and the anxious voice in the back of his head moves toward outright panic. He jerks against the tentacles holding him, but while they flex slightly, they don't release him, and their hold doesn't slip.

A bit of rational thought reasserts itself. Dorian takes a deep breath and layers his magic into the words as he says, "Put me down."

Nothing happens.

This time, he grabs every bit of magic he can hold, the strain of it burning in his head as he shapes it to his will. "Put. Me. Down."

The magic drains away as if the spell was successful, but the creature still doesn't obey. The tentacles holding him simply wrap more coils around him, and smaller ones rise to explore Dorian's face.

About to step completely out of the Fade and back to the real world, Dorian hesitates. It's not hurting him, after all, and depending on what the tentacles do, it might even be fun. The thing is clearly self-willed now, with no effort required from Dorian. Effort that was, if he's honest, a bit distracting even when it was worth it. And if it wanted to hurt him, wouldn't it have done so already?

That it wants anything, rather than merely operates under an admittedly complex set of spells, is a thought both daunting and intriguing. Does it want? And if so, what? Are the spells Dorian created still directing it, so that it wants only what Dorian told it to want when he first created it? And if not...

If not, what does it want?

A chill slides down Dorian's spine, but he chases it away. The creature might have hold of him, but it's not as though he's truly trapped. He can leave the Fade whenever he wants.

He doesn't want to, though. His cock is half hard from the rough grip holding him spread wide and helpless. It's a game he's played in the past, though not often and mostly for someone else's enjoyment. There never seemed much point to it for his own pleasure, not when he could burn rope or shatter iron with a thought and a look.

It's a very different game when his magic is rendered useless, and one he's suddenly much more interested in playing.

He banishes his clothes with a thought, and more tentacles rise as if they understand the invitation. They're warmer than they were, almost hot, and they slide easily over Dorian's skin, leaving behind warm trails of the substance that covers them. Dorian had only made a few of them slick like that, but now all of them seem to be exuding it. Even the larger ones holding his arms and legs are slippery, able to hold him only because of the suckers that run down one side of them, from the tip all the way to where they disappear among the mass of the others.

He didn't make all of them slippery, and he also didn't make so many, or in so many sizes. There was no point when he only has one mouth and one ass. Are the smallest ones the result of larger ones splitting apart? But that doesn't explain why there are so many more of the larger ones.

There's only one explanation that makes sense, and Dorian feels another chill along his spine, one that has nothing to do with the sweat and slick drying on his skin. His Fade beast—if he can even call it his anymore—is growing. On its own.

Combined with its apparent ability to understand intent, not to mention the way it hid from him before, Dorian knows he should leave. Whatever he's created, it's grown beyond his ability to control. It has its own motivations that Dorian doesn't know, and at least enough sapience to make basic plans. It hid from him. Hid, and waited to strike until he was distracted. That doesn't put it on the level of a person, but it certainly elevates it to at least the level of a lion, and Dorian has no illusions about a lion's ability to hurt or kill him. Especially one immune to his magic.

The panicked voice in his head is screaming at him to leave, jump back to his physical body along the tether holding him to it. It would be easy; if anything, staying in the Fade is what requires effort, his own or someone else's. Since he isn't trapped here by a stronger mage, Dorian has to do it, a thin stream of magic to hold this body together and keep his consciousness here. Returning to the real world is just a matter of letting go.

The creature still hasn't hurt him, though, and if the panicked voice would stop screaming, Dorian would even be enjoying this. Is enjoying it, despite the screaming. More and more tentacles are touching him now, and even as he thinks of leaving the Fade, one tentacle wraps itself around his half-hard cock. The grip is perfect, exactly the amount of pressure Dorian used when he was controlling it, and the slick heat of it reminds him of being sucked, only better. No teeth to get in the way, no need to keep his hips still to avoid choking his partner, no need to worry about anything except his own pleasure.

Maybe he's given the creature too much credit, a back-handed sort of arrogance given he was the one who created it. Maybe it still wants nothing except to please him. After all, wasn't he just thinking how much better the game of being tied up is when he can't destroy his bindings with a thought?

The tentacle around his cock squeezes gently, and Dorian groans, abandoning all thoughts of leaving the Fade. There's nothing half so interesting in the real world.

Hungry for more of everything, Dorian turns his head toward one of the tentacles stroking his cheek and manages to catch it with his mouth. Like so many things with the creature, the taste is similar to Dorian's original spell but also different. Whatever Dorian made it taste like, the Fade beast was never human, but there's the faintest hint of musk to it now, making it seem more an animal and less a construct.

Curious, Dorian sucks tentatively. The tentacle freezes in place, a loop resting on his tongue and the tip pushing lightly at the inside of his cheek, but when Dorian curls his tongue around it, it moves with him. He licks and sucks, and soon enough it gets the idea, going rigid and straight so the first five or six inches fuck his mouth in a slow, steady rhythm. The slippery substance covering it gets all over the inside of Dorian's mouth, its heat lingering long after it should have cooled to the temperate around it. The longer the tentacle fucks him, the more of that liquid it makes, and the more it makes, the warmer it gets, until Dorian gives in and swallows it.

He can feel it the whole way down his throat to his stomach. It's like taking a drink of something that was almost too hot, except the sensation is as much tingling as it is hot. He swallows again, wanting more, but there's only a tiny bit left in his mouth, barely warm enough to feel in his throat. Getting more should be easy, though: the longer he sucks, the faster the tentacle produces that liquid. He's been licking as much as sucking, but now he focuses on sucking it, trying to encourage it wordlessly to fuck deeper into his mouth.

The tentacle around his cock begins to squeeze rhythmically, and Dorian gasps. Caught up in everything else, he'd lost track of his body, of exactly how aroused it was. Now he can't think about anything else except the ache in his balls, already starting to draw up, and the way his cock is dripping onto the tentacles beneath him.

The tentacle in his mouth bumps against the back of his throat, then does it again and again until Dorian closes his lips and goes back to sucking it, letting warm liquid fill his mouth. Half distracted by his own need to come, some of it spills out between his lips, but he swallows the rest. As it slides down his throat in a thick, hot wave, the tentacle around his cock squeezes again, and that's all it takes, he's coming, hips jerking, mouth opening on a groan as his eyes shut tight.

Afterward, he hangs there and tries to stop twitching as the tentacle around his cock continues to squeeze, its grip tightening as his cock softens so the pressure never changes. His come is splashed on a few of the tentacles writhing below, and he follows those drops with his eyes until they're smeared into invisibility.

He's still breathing too fast when the tentacle in his mouth demands his attention again, this time pushing into his throat to block it for a moment. Dorian considers biting it but decides against it. Better to just close his mouth and suck, letting heat trickle through his chest and down to his stomach in waves. Between the tentacle around it and Dorian's own enthusiasm, his cock is already starting to harden again.

A slim tentacle slides between the cheeks of Dorian's ass to rub over his hole. He would spread his legs for it if they weren't already held open; he doesn't even have enough room to lift his ass into the air. As if the Fade beast would recognize the meaning of a position that has more to do with a two- or four-legged creature mounting another to mate.

Dorian tries to push his ass up anyway, because the tentacle is teasing him, rubbing up and down along his crack without giving him what he really wants. It didn't listen to his commands earlier, and probably wouldn't now, but if his mouth wasn't full, he would be ordering it to fuck him. It should know what he wants: he certainly spent enough time having it fuck him with cocks of various sizes and shapes.

The larger tentacle holding one of Dorian's arms shifts itself around so it's still holding him but the tip is free to touch him. It toys with his lips where they're wrapped around the other tentacle before making its way down his throat and chest to flick one of his nipples. Dorian whimpers, then cries out when the tentacle lays itself across his chest and uses its suckers to tug on both nipples together. The only thing it lacks to make it perfect is teeth to bite with, and maybe even they aren't necessary: the tentacle sucks with more force than a person could ever manage, and it doesn't need to pause to rest. Dorian's nipples start to ache under the steady pressure, an ache that makes him twitch and try to thrust into the tentacle around his cock.

It's as he's writhing, all his attention on the tentacle across his chest, that the one that's been teasing at his ass finally fucks him. As small as it is, there's no pain, barely even a stretch, and Dorian moans a protest. He wants more. He wants so much more.

Please, he thinks at the creature, unsure if it can hear him but too desperate not to try.

Maybe it understood him, or maybe it had planned to do so all along, but either way, the creature pushes another tentacle inside him. It's no bigger around than the first, but the feel of the two twisting around each other is unusual enough Dorian doesn't immediately beg for more. It's a sensation unlike any he's ever felt, not even the time two men fucked him at once. Their cocks hadn't been able to move like this, nor could they go so deep. Dorian hadn't been able to feel them squirming their way deeper inside him.

A third tentacle joins them, and finally Dorian feels a small stretch as it forces his body to open for it. That stretch intensifies as a fourth tentacle slides in along the other three, and before Dorian has a chance to adjust, two more follow at the same time. It pulls a gasp from him, and he clenches involuntarily in surprise.

The creature either doesn't notice, doesn't understand, or doesn't care. It's already pushing another into him, all the tentacles writhing and thrashing to make room, and as they do, they rub across something that lights up every nerve in Dorian's body. He's felt it before, but never like this: the tentacles are hot, their loops and knots pushing against just the right place, movement rippling the whole length of each one, all the way to where the ends are buried inside him. He forgets about the tentacle in his mouth, too busy gasping and groaning to even lick it, until he comes and stops breathing completely while shudders wrack his whole body. The tentacles slide deeper the entire time, as if they sense Dorian's desire to be filled.

Afterward, Dorian is lightheaded and disoriented, but not so much he can't control enough magic to keep his cock hard. He experienced this a little during his earlier experiments, this endless cycle where he didn't have to pause for his body to recover, but it's different now. With no need to control the creature, he can sink down into a haze of pleasure and do nothing but anticipate what happens next.

The tentacle in his mouth withdraws, and Dorian thinks nothing of it until something taps softly against his lips. He pries his eyes open with considerable effort, but then they widen on their own. Another tentacle is poised in front of his face, bigger than any that have fucked him so far, so big Dorian is only willing to say that it will probably fit. If it fits, his jaw will ache in short order. It will more than ache.

Dorian works his jaw to keep it from popping, then opens his mouth as wide as he can. The creature isn't unnecessarily rough, but it isn't gentle either, and Dorian's estimate of how well the tentacle would fit was exactly right. It misses scraping against his teeth by no more than a hair, leaving only the gaps between itself and the corners of Dorian's mouth for air to get through. Even that wouldn't matter if it tried to fit in more than a few inches of its length; one slight curve would fill all the available space, never mind an entire loop.

Dorian pushes up with his tongue, feeling the slight give of its skin and the firmness underneath as he rubs along the underside of it. It tastes the same as the others and drips the same liquid, which is already starting to fill his mouth. Is it because the larger tentacles produce more, or simply because there's less free space to fill? Eager to find out, hoping it's the former, Dorian swallows all of it and starts to suck as best he can.

A ripple runs over the tentacle's surface, and Dorian's mouth is flooded with liquid so fast he can't possibly swallow it. It leaks out between his lips and runs back down the tentacle, some dripping onto the ground and some trickling all the way to where the tentacles become an indistinguishable tangle. He swallows quickly, trying to get what's left before any more escapes, chasing the last drops with his tongue as best he can.

It turns out he needn't have bothered. As soon as he returns to sucking on it, the tentacle ripples again and spills more liquid into his mouth, as much or more than before. The near-burn of it in his chest and stomach makes him groan, his hips rocking despite the tentacles holding his legs. Suckers pull at his skin as the creature shifts its grip, no doubt leaving bruises on his thighs, and his only regret is that he can't see those marks.

The tentacles in Dorian's ass flex and begin to pull, spreading him open slowly but with inexorable force. Deep inside him, the ends writhe even more violently than before, so violently Dorian can sometimes see the skin of his stomach distort around one. He can feel them more than sometimes: he's sweating from the heat of the tentacles on his skin, overheated from being wrapped up in so many of them, but the ones inside him are hotter still. When he swallows another mouthful of liquid, its heat spreads downward to his stomach and seems to merge with the heat of the tentacles fucking him.

Dorian's jaw has begun to ache from the tentacle in his mouth, and it takes him far longer than it should to remember he can do something about that. This is the Fade, and he's a mage. He's in control of his body and what happens to it.

The panicking voice in the back of his head screams that he is most definitely not in control. Dorian ignores it and calls up a thread of magic to ease the ache in his jaw.

It's more difficult than it should be, the magic slipping away from him like the tentacles would if he tried to grab one. He pours more concentration into it than he's given any spell in a long time, and even when his magic finally responds, it's sluggish and difficult to control.

Maybe that should worry him, but he doesn't get a chance to chase the thought down. A tentacle is exploring his cock, sliding under the foreskin as another, thinner one teases the slit. Dorian is so entranced watching his foreskin bulge and shift, he forgets to suck on the tentacle in his mouth until it nudges the back of his throat in reminder. He swallows hastily but doesn't take his eyes off his cock.

The thin tentacle that's been prodding at his slit eventually gives up on prodding and begins to wriggle its way into his cock, a thread of heat in comparison to the thicker tentacles still stretching his ass open. Dorian groans as they all work their way deeper, and groans again as the tentacle under his foreskin tightens, making the one inside his cock fight to move. He can feel it undulating, growing thinner and thicker to squeeze more of itself into him, and when the suckers on his nipples pull at them, he comes again, his cries muffled by the tentacle filling his mouth.

Afterward, he's more lucid than he's been in a while, lucid enough to realize that the panic he's been ignoring is maybe not entirely misplaced. His magic still won't respond properly, seeming more like a balky horse than the well-trained hound it normally resembles. He needs to destroy the creature, or at least whatever it's using to dampen his magic, and then he can go back to enjoying himself. Without his magic, though, he's helpless against this thing, and the realization of how deeply it's already invaded his body doesn't bode well for its plans for him.

Dorian pulls on his magic with increasing desperation even as his body responds to the tentacles stroking and fucking him. They shatter his concentration again and again, like the creature knows what he's trying to do and wants to prevent it. Real fear turns the sweat on Dorian's skin from hot to cold, and he pours all his will into something that's less a spell and more a hammer of pure magic.

Let. Me. Go!

Nothing happens. Or, more precisely, nothing changes: a dozen tentacles are still burrowing into him, and the grip on his arms and legs doesn't slacken.

Now truly panicking, Dorian abandons the fight and reaches for the cord of magic that connects him to his body. The creature will eventually die without his magic—Dorian has ample proof it can't hold its form for more than a few days unless he reinforces the spells—and in the meantime, Dorian can explore other areas of the Fade. Or maybe find entertainments in the real world, at least for a month or so.

Relief is already pushing aside the panic as he focuses on how it will feel to once again have physical senses bound by a physical body that can't be changed at will. That doesn't sound as limiting as it did a few hours ago. Dorian reaches for it, as eagerly as he fled it before.

And once again, nothing changes. He's still in the Fade, still held by something that was his creation but now answers to instincts and desires of its own. Instincts and desires Dorian doesn't know, that might destroy him even as he learns them.

His own instincts take over, and he begins to struggle futilely against the tentacles holding him, grinding his teeth down on the one in his mouth. The creature doesn't respond to that, either, its grip neither tightening nor loosening, as if confident in how securely it has him. The only thing Dorian accomplishes is to wrench around the tentacle in his cock and the ones in his ass. Pain stabs through him, too much even for pleasure, and he tries again to scream around the tentacle in his mouth. No one will hear him, but it hurts too much for silence.

He sags in the creature's grip, shivering and aching and terrified. Even his attempts to reshape his body, just enough to soothe the pain, are in vain. The magic around him stirs when he tries to draw on it, but nothing more.

The tentacles holding his arms and legs move without warning, and Dorian has one moment of overwhelming relief—the creature is going to release him after all—that dissolves back into horror when the creature only flips him over so he's face up. It leaves him reclining in a nest of tentacles that hold him halfway between seated and lying, a position that no longer gives him a choice about swallowing the liquid filling his mouth. He can't move his tongue and lips enough to spit it out, and while half of it overflows to run down his chin, more than enough trickles down his throat. Even here in the Fade, where it should be impossible to choke, the urge to swallow is too great, his body overriding his mind so that he swallows again and again.

His struggles slow as he begins to lose track of why he's fighting. What does it matter if he can't return to the real world? Why would he want to leave this behind? And what need is there for magic when the creature will bring him pleasure he's only dreamed of before now?

That thought makes him want to giggle. He's in the Fade; why shouldn't the creature fulfil his dreams? Isn't that why he made it in the first place?

He relaxes into the tentacles at last, reveling in the soft glide of them over his skin. The air has cooled, but he's warm, and it feels good to be fucked like this. So, so good. He doesn't have to move, doesn't have to worry about coming too soon, doesn't have to care about anything except his own pleasure. He doesn't even have to think anymore: the creature pleasures him the way he taught it, and in ways he never considered. All Dorian has to do is lie there as more tentacles slide down inside his cock and the tentacles in his ass stretch his hole and fuck him deeper on every stroke. He comes again and again, each release forgotten as soon as it's over, Dorian more concerned with chasing the next than remembering the last.

At some point the tentacle in his mouth withdraws and is replaced with several smaller ones that tangle around his tongue. They don't give off as much liquid as the larger one, but when Dorian sucks on them, they squirm where they're caught between his tongue and the roof of his mouth. The sensation fascinates him, and he continues to suck on them, swallowing as much as he can each time. He wonders what it would feel like to have them twisting and wriggling in his throat, but the haze around his thoughts leaves him passive and disinterested in trying to find out.

Eventually the creature turns him back over and pulls him down into the center of its mass. From here Dorian can see that the tentacles have no central body from which they all originate; instead, they emerge from the ground in clumps of a dozen each, the clumps growing close together but not quite touching until the tentacles wind themselves into a single tangled knot a short way off the ground, a knot with Dorian at its heart.

Separate or not, they move as a single creature, settling Dorian facedown with his knees spread and pushed up toward his chest. Tentacles bind his ankles to his thighs and his arms behind his back, but loosely, without straining his joints. A former lover once bound Dorian in this position and fucked him, ignoring Dorian's struggles to breathe under the weight of another body or the way the rug scraped Dorian's face and knees raw. Dorian had enjoyed the risk of it, the thrill of being taken roughly and carelessly by someone stronger than he was, but it had only been a small thrill. The risk was low, after all: physical strength couldn't compete against Dorian's magic.

There's no thrill of danger now, but Dorian doesn't miss it. This is better. He has a creature dedicated to pleasing him who's capable of doing things that would be physically impossible in the waking world. It can move his body any way it wants.

Suckers attach themselves to his balls, manipulating them almost as if they were fingers, and smaller ones tug on his foreskin and the head of his cock. Dorian groans and tries to move so the suckers pull harder, but his hips are held tightly in place, more tightly than the creature has held him up until now.

It's enough to capture Dorian's attention, as much as anything can through the fog around his thoughts. He mumbles a question that the tentacles in his mouth turn unintelligible, and while he's still trying to work out a way to solve the problem, something presses against his ass and begins to push into him. With his body bound and tentacles all around him, there's no way for Dorian to know what it is. A larger tentacle, perhaps?

The thought makes him hum in pleasure, the only reaction left to him when he can't push his hips back to take the tentacle faster. Except maybe it isn't a tentacle after all. Something is forced into Dorian—something large enough to stretch his hole even with the smaller tentacles holding him open—but then the stretch disappears, leaving only the tentacles that were already fucking him and a desperate need to be stretched open again. He wants to be fucked by that tentacle, not given a hint of it and then left empty.

The tentacles inside him have gone strangely still, something Dorian doesn't notice until they start moving again. Unlike their earlier uncoordinated thrashing, their movements now are rhythmic and steady, and as they move, Dorian becomes aware that something is moving with them.

No. Not moving with them. Moved by them. The tentacles are carrying a piece of something deeper into his body.

The feeling of pressure against his ass draws Dorian's attention from whatever it is the tentacles are carrying. It's the same as before, pressure that builds and builds, forcing Dorian's hole wide while Dorian groans around the tentacles in his mouth and wishes he could rock backward. This time, though, when the stretch begins to ease, Dorian notices what he missed the first time: the feeling of something small but heavy settling inside him.

The smaller tentacles continue to move, carrying both weights deeper, until the first reaches the ends of the tentacles and only the second continues to move. The second is halfway to the first when a third forces its way through Dorian's hole. His thoughts are so clouded, there are four of them piled together inside him with the tentacles carrying a fifth before he realizes what they are.

Eggs.

Intrigued, Dorian twists and ducks his head, shoving tentacles out of the way with his chin until he can see his stomach. It's disappointingly normal, distorted only by the very occasional outline of a tentacle that always disappears too quickly. But he can definitely feel the eggs. The one moving inside him is difficult to locate precisely, but the other four have been deposited together, and the weight of them is enough Dorian is surprised haven't created a visible bulge. He wants his hands free so he can touch the place where they rest and find out if he can feel them from the outside, too.

His first attempt to free a hand accomplishes nothing—he's not even sure the creature notices—but to his surprise, a second, more forceful tug succeeds. Before the creature can change its mind, Dorian hurriedly places his hand on his stomach and probes gently with his fingers, searching for what he knows must be there. There's nothing, though, or at least, nothing he can find from the outside. Just his skin and the muscle underneath, as relaxed as he can make it but not relaxed enough. No matter how much he prods the area where he knows they must be, it feels no different from anywhere else.

Something pushes against his ass again. Dorian's first thought, that it's another egg, is quickly proven wrong when it begins to writhe and twist its way in. Another tentacle, then, and one as big around as the eggs at their widest point. Dorian gasps in mingled pleasure and pain as the tentacle stretches him open and keeps him there while it forces more of its length through his hole. Even once it's inside, it has to work its way deeper inch by inch, too large to move as easily as the smaller ones. Dorian thinks some of the smaller ones might be pulling out, but it's difficult to tell with the larger one moving inside him.

The smaller tentacles were only visible when they pushed against his abdomen from the inside, but this one is so big Dorian can watch it inch deeper by the way his stomach bulges slightly around it. His hole burns from the constant stretch, and when he presses his hand to his stomach, he can feel the tentacle through his skin, can feel it expand and contract as it moves. Can feel the heat of it on his fingers despite the skin and muscle between them.

He comes on a sob, pushing hard against the tentacle so it twists as it struggles to keep moving. His hips are still pinned in place, but the rest of his body shakes and jerks in a release more intense than any the creature has given him before. He feels so full, fuller than he's ever been, and it's only going to get better, whether the creature fills him with this tentacle or with more eggs, or maybe both.

When he's come for what must be days, Dorian's whole body goes limp except for his cock, which hasn't flagged in the slightest. Dorian blinks stupidly at it, watching it move as the tentacles inside it and under the foreskin slide around. Tiny red circles dot the head, left behind by the suckers of a tentacle that's currently making similar marks in a spiral around his shaft.

Dorian's attention drifts between those suckers and the lengthening bulge in his stomach. Neither one changes quickly, but Dorian is in no hurry. Right now he can't think far enough into the future or the past for that. He's stuffed full, and his hole burns, and his cock is all pinpricks of pain mixed with waves of pleasure.

When the large tentacle stops, enough sense of time has returned for Dorian to be disappointed. Surely it could go a little deeper. He's full, but he could be fuller. All his attempts to stroke and push and coax it along accomplish nothing, and he sucks on the tentacles in his mouth to console himself. They twine around his tongue, like a passionate kiss and yet nothing like it at all. Better.

A ripple runs through the tentacle, a ripple strong enough Dorian can watch as well as feel it travel all the way to the tip. As it reaches the tip, the skin under Dorian's hand begins to grow warmer, and he looks at it in dreamy surprise. The tentacle is warm, warmer than he is, but this is warmer yet and spreading.

It doesn't spread far, but then the tentacle ripples again and the warmth spreads a little more. A third ripple, and the warmth spreads to cover an area wider than Dorian can cover with one hand.

He tugs thoughtlessly at the arm that's still bound, grateful when the creature releases it so he can press one hand to his lower belly and one higher, a few inches below his breastbone. The warmth continues to spread with each contraction of the tentacle, and Dorian strokes the expanding border of that patch of warmer skin. He knows he should be able to put the pieces together and understand what's happening, but it doesn't seem important enough to bother. He doesn't need to understand it for it to happen, and his understanding wouldn't have an effect on it anyway.

The warmth spreads through him, meeting and merging with the warmth that fills him as he sucks on the tentacles in his mouth. It's everywhere, and even when there's no room left, the tentacle continues to expand and contract. The skin of Dorian's stomach begins to feel uncomfortably tight and hot, like the swelling around a broken bone. He strokes it gently, unsure why it feels as though the skin is stretching but wanting the feeling to stop.

Magic tingles in his fingertips, and there's something odd about that, something wrong. Dorian doesn't care why it might be wrong, or even whether it is; all he cares about is reshaping his body, soothing the pain where it feels like he's being torn apart. For all his efforts, it doesn't get any better. Every time he eases the pain in one place, it appears somewhere else, just as bad as before.

He's so absorbed in his magic that his stomach has swollen considerably before he notices. When he finally does, shock freezes him in place. The tentacle is still inside him—he can feel it easily, both where it stretches his hole and where the thick length of it fills him—but it's almost invisible. The bulges it made before are hidden under a single larger one, his previously flat stomach now so round he needs both hands to cup it.

It gives gently under his touch, distorting if he pushes in and returning immediately to a soft mound as soon as he releases it. Fascinated, he does that several times, enjoying the feel of everything inside him shifting. He thinks maybe he can even feel the eggs moving.

One hand still rubbing idly at his stomach, Dorian reaches between his legs with the other and touches the large tentacle fucking him. He was right that the others withdrew and left only this one, but he doesn't mind. Every time it expands in its rhythmic pulsing, Dorian's hole burns at the stretch without any other tentacles involved.

He could do something about that with his magic, reshape his body so the contractions wouldn't hurt, but he discards the idea as soon as he's thought it. He wants that stinging pain, wants it to hurt a little so he's always at least a little aware he's being fucked by something so large.

The tentacle is warm under his fingers, warmer than any of the others but covered in the same slick substance. Dorian strokes his fingertips up and down, the best he can do from this angle, pausing occasionally to trace where the tentacle enters him. Touching it, feeling his hole stretch as the tentacle expands, and contract as the tentacle does, knowing that the creature is filling him with every pulse...all of it leaves Dorian panting with the need for more. He doesn't care what the creature is filling him with, so long as it doesn't stop.

It doesn't. It maintains the same steady pace, pumping liquid warmth into Dorian, and Dorian's stomach swells as it does. It grows until he begins to have trouble breathing, the weight of it pushed against his lungs by his position, and the creature has to raise his shoulders above his hips. It grows until he can no longer reach past it to touch the tentacle fucking him, and he has to settle for stroking his belly with both hands. It grows until he loses sight of his cock, until it's pushed so far back that every time he comes, his seed spatters his legs more than the ground below him.

As it grows, warmth becomes a heat so intense it should hurt but never—quite—does. Dorian begins to sweat again, and he sucks harder on the tentacles in his mouth, needing something to drink even if the liquid they give off is nearly as hot as the fire in his belly. The entire swell of it, from hips to breastbone, burns like a forge; he can feel its heat on his face and legs, and his fingertips ache like he brought them too close to an oven. It's pain like what the tentacles have given him in decorating his cock and balls and thighs with sucker marks, pain he wants to never end.

When his body is nothing but heat and his stomach so swollen he wouldn't be able to stand unassisted, the tentacle finally stops. By then, Dorian is too drunk on sensation to care. The tentacle is still inside him, and he can feel it every time it moves. Other tentacles cradle him, his Fade beast holding him as gently as a lover while it pleasures him like no mortal lover ever could. Once in a while, Dorian remembers there's a world outside the cocoon the creature has wrapped him in, but he always turns away from the memories. Everything he wants is here.

The large tentacle lies quietly for the most part, but after a while, Dorian begins to wonder if he was wrong before and there are still smaller tentacles inside him. Something certainly is, something that moves more freely than the large tentacle and creates strange ripples Dorian feels from inside and out. The ripples grow stronger over the course of what feels like days to his skewed senses, until they're too strong to be called ripples and Dorian finally realizes what they are. The eggs have hatched, and whatever creatures they held are now moving around inside him.

He wonders if the shells were hard, with jagged edges that might cut him, but he doesn't care. If it happens, then it happens. Since it hasn't yet, why think about it? He'd rather press his hands to his stomach and try to feel the creatures moving.

It gets easier as they grow and his belly doesn't grow with them. They bump up against the wall of his stomach more and more often—he likes to think they seek out his hands to nudge at his fingers through his skin—struggling constantly in the confined space. It reaches the point where the skin over his belly is never smooth: there are always a dozen bumps and ridges to show where the creatures are, a shifting landscape that's never the same from one moment to the next.

Dorian doesn't know what will happen when the creatures grow too big, but he knows they're reaching that point when their movements become slower and more coordinated. There's no more room for them to move easily; for one to move, the others have to move as well. They roll and twist ponderously now, the ridges under Dorian's skin drifting into new configurations rather than changing between each blink.

The first sign that the creatures won't simply kill him to escape is when the large tentacle that's been inside him all this time finally withdraws. It drags itself out as slowly as it pushed in, its entire length flexing as it works its way free. As much as Dorian loves the way it filled him, he can't deny that its writhing stretches his hole like it's fucking him, and pushes against the place inside him that sends shudders of pleasure all the way to his toes.

He comes twice as it pulls out, and he's only just recovered from the second when the creatures inside him begin to unravel themselves to follow. Unlike the tentacle, they move quickly, shoving at each other as though fighting to be first, making his skin bulge and stretch with their thrashing. They're still flailing when they push through his hole, all of them trying to force their way out at once. For just a moment, they stretch him open so wide Dorian cries out in real pain, half expecting to be split apart in their frantic efforts to get free.

First one, then another, and another slide from his body, and by the time there are only two left, the pain has eased. As the last two wriggle out, Dorian touches his stomach, bemused at how strangely hollow it feels now it isn't distended with tentacles or the Fade beast's young.

He sucks thoughtlessly and is startled to discover his mouth is empty of tentacles. The last drops of liquid are already sliding down his throat, and he rubs his lips together, fascinated by the strangeness of it after so long. Before he can consider what that means, the nest of tentacles that's supported him so long untangles itself, dropping him unceremoniously to the ground. It's only a few feet, but it's startling, and the impact of his sore ass against the ground isn't pleasant.

His bed of tentacles was more comfortable than the ground, but all his limbs feel weighted. There are worse places to be, so he lies there blinking sleepily at his Fade beast as it sinks down into the ground. Is it hiding again? But why?

If it is hiding, it's doing a thorough job of it. Dorian can feel his connection to it attenuating with distance as the creature moves not just down but also away from him. Like hot glass, the link between them grows thinner and thinner, until finally it gives way. The broken end of that connection snaps back on Dorian more like a whip than glass, if a whip could flay every inch of him at once.

Dorian screams in agony and in horror. The recoil brought his magic with it, and his magic purges the last of whatever his Fade beast—whatever the monster used to render him compliant. More than compliant. Eager. Eager to be attacked and violated, to be turned from a person into a thing, to be bloated with the creature's seed as it used him as a host for its young.

Retching and shaking, Dorian flees the Fade and lands back in his physical body, where he falls out of bed to retch and shake some more. Even once he's thrown up everything he's ever eaten, his body tries to turn itself inside out, as if to purge the memory of having those things inside him. Only, he can't. He can't feel anything but tentacles slithering over his skin, slithering into him and warping his body to suit their own needs.

Desperate to wipe away the phantom sensations, he crawls to the basin and drags himself to his feet. The water in the pitcher is cold, but he scrubs so violently that his skin reddens as if it was hot. He scrubs and scrubs and scrubs, and it doesn't matter: he still feels suckers clinging to him and slime coating him.

When there's no water left, he uses the wall to support his weight and gropes blindly in his wardrobe for the first clean clothes he finds, but they don't help. They shield his raw skin from the stone, but they can't shield him from the memories of everything that happened in the Fade. Shaking and nauseated, he slides heavily down the wall and wraps his arms around his legs, gripping the fabric of his robes until his hands ache.

He huddles on the floor of his room for hours, shivering and horrified, before he finally gathers the shreds of his sanity and staggers back to his feet. Somewhere in Minrathous there are brothels. He doesn't know where they are, but they can't be difficult to find, and maybe there he can drown out memories of the creature with memories of hands and mouths, along with however much wine is necessary. If he dies from the attempt, at least he won't have to remember how it felt to be enveloped and invaded by the creature's tentacles.

He won't have to think about how much a part of him still wants it.