His headache lingered through most of the TV series marathon, but his grandma’s weed took a lot of the tension from his neck and shoulders. The box-mix cupcakes of yellow cake with chocolate frosting also helped. His grandma decided she didn’t want to make dinner, so Trevor had ordered a pizza despite knowing she’d get through one piece and then only want to eat the crusts from his slices.
He didn’t mind, focusing on his food and her goofy show as much as he could, eventually slinking down on the couch with Mr. Tams on his lap and Ellie either by his feet or running around on her own outside.
The show had standalone episodes and didn’t really have complex stories, so Trevor nodded along while his grandma discussed the character she’d thought was so handsome when she was younger, and smiled at all the silly gadgets. He couldn’t decide if the show was mocking spy cliches or reveling in them, but it was fun either way.
But his grandma got tired and went to bed, telling Trevor to keep watching if he wanted since she could always go back to where she’d left off. Trevor decided he would work, then didn’t, slouched on the couch while espionage antics went on in front of him.
He left the sliding door open with the screen shut to help clear out the weed smell and let Ellie up onto the couch since his grandma didn’t care. Pinned between dog and cat, he admired 1960s fashion choices for a while before picking up his sketchbook again.
He wanted some drama and real emotion in his series, not just delicious porn, but he had to admit that a commitment to the bit was important, and he shouldn’t be afraid to have fun the way The Man from U.N.C.L.E. did.
Aside from the questing, and the eventual capture and deeply emotional fucking by the dragon, the warrior character should get teased. He should have friends. Or someone who cared about him separately from a possessive dragon lord.
If his dragon encounter occurred part of the way on the quest, then he might have made friends by then, perhaps even despite himself. He was so scarred and wary and guarded, but it couldn’t only be the dragon seeing what he was worth. Someone would befriend him. Someone would come after him.
Nice family you’ve made yourself.
Found family was half the point. The party was the point. The people. Even an emotionally skittish older warrior might have made a friend. A friend who might not be the best at communicating but would not be pleased to discover the warrior had offered himself to the dragon to save the others or help them find a clue or magical item, or whatever detail to be worked into the bigger story arc later.
Someone would object to his sacrifice—or maybe not know of it at the time, and return to the group and discover what had happened and be furious. To the surprise of both that person and also the warrior, whenever they found each other again.
Because, of course, the warrior wouldn’t expect anyone to care about him that much. And the other person wouldn’t expect to care that much. And then oh, jealousy or something about the dragon. Envy that the dragon could give him what they can’t or don’t know how to. Some bickering to disguise affection and worry.
The protectiveness, Trevor mused sleepily. Someone not used to being protected having someone go to bat for him, or whatever the sport idiom was. That was where the emotion was. Someone challenging a dragon—maybe needlessly, but still—to protect a man who did not think he was worth protecting.
Someone so brave and reckless in doing so that the dragon would take notice. Someone so brilliant and strong that the very notion of then becoming a dragon’s treasure would leave them defensive and off-balance.
All the easier for the dragon to sweep up into its coils.
The second figure wouldn’t be as easy to woo, or take, as it were. This one would slap away trays of jewels, and turn his head from gold… and stare in disbelieving hunger while the other one allowed himself to be fucked.
Trevor swallowed at the mental image of the warrior stuffed to bursting and loving it, and this other character, pining for him and unaware of it until that very second, watching with a burning envy and what he must wish was hatred for the dragon.
Could the dragon smell jealousy? Could it smell desire? Would the dragon turn his head to watch the other one while it fucked his secret beloved? The possessiveness the dragon might feel… and then the distinct pleasure at having gotten there first. And then, perhaps, the need to take away the pain he’d caused in another such remarkable figure.
Ah, maybe the warrior wouldn’t even know he’d been “rescued” yet. So he could turn afterward and discover the other one had been there as witness to his undoing.
That was almost an unbearable amount of feeling to try to convey in one panel, maybe two. Trevor would have to show more of the build to it. Their slow, odd friendship growing as they traveled and through separations, how surprised they would both be in that raw, intimate moment to find each other again, but like that. With some shame, probably, for everything. For not realizing sooner, or being discovered full of dragon come, for wanting to keep watching, for wanting to be filled too, and to do the filling, all of it.
Trevor made a face. He’d taken on too much again. He couldn’t possibly write or draw that. He wasn’t that good. He still had so many blank spaces and plot holes.
Who could even conceivably challenge a dragon? It would have to be someone incredibly powerful, but hardly omnipotent. Someone with weaknesses they worked hard to conceal, maybe. Weaknesses exposed by coming to rescue someone he wasn’t even sure needed his rescue. After all, the appeal of the gesture lay in how the dragon could easily crush this person. Who would raid a dragon’s tower single-handedly to save someone they were unknowingly in love or half in love with?
Either the best and most humble of characters, a human without even fighting skills but with a pure heart, or the kind of devoted fool who could level cities but spent so much time surrounded by scrolls and ancient texts that he didn’t realize why he valued the company of a quiet warrior so highly.
The Dragon’s Tower was a good name for the entire interlude. Trevor noted it, though it did imply a set beginning and end. Things would happen in that tower, then that time would end.
Sad for the dragon, he couldn’t help but think. It would end up either dead or alone. But the other two would be irrevocably changed by their time with it. Some character sparkling with magic and power, a wizard, finding himself utterly disarmed within the sphere of the dragon’s magic and then undone by what he discovers there.
The dragon would want him too. The warrior was courageous, loyal, and self-sacrificing, but the wizard would be more combative. Brilliant, but with blind spots. If the dragon were clever, he would use one character to take apart the other.
Trevor couldn’t deny the potential of the entire scenario. By this point, rough or not, the dragon had been so thorough, so loving, that the warrior had surrendered in all ways except to bare his heart. The troublesome little wizard would have to be taken body-first as well, driven out of his mind with envy and lust until he acted.
Some people thought it was overdone to have a polyam setup that engaged in threesomes or foursomes. Trevor didn’t think it was overdone since it was still barely done at all, but did agree that threesomes definitely did not suit all characters.
But this was the two of them using the dragon to eventually face their own feelings, even if they hadn’t voiced them by the time they escaped. Really, the dragon was more of a stand-in than a character. If they couldn’t believe their feelings for each other, they certainly wouldn’t care about the dragon as anything more than a provider of orgasms.
Trevor closed his sketchbook.
Tell me you’re okay, he finally messaged Sky again before bed, his high fading, his limbs heavy as he dragged himself to his room. If I pushed you too far, tell me. I don’t judge you for what you want. I know others would, and for other things. But I thought it would help to make you say it. We don’t have to ever again if you don’t want to.
Don’t doubt yourself because of me, Sky responded right away, frustratingly quick. I do want to. That’s always been the problem. My problem.
Trevor’s fingers were clumsy as he started to type. Sky, I…
Can’t talk now. Sky messaged again, stopping him. I’m taking your advice and trying to get ready for bed, ending my staring at phone and computer time early.
That should have made Trevor happy but he was frowning.
You’ll be fine, Sky added, enigmatic and so smart Trevor could never keep up. Better than fine. You’ll be great. You always are. He’ll be eating out of your hand in no time. Literally if you want. Good night.
Good night, Trevor answered long minutes later, then got up to go back to the living room and watch the TV on mute until well after midnight.