He waves her off, "You know what I mean. If you want to be involved in... this," he puts a hand over the mark on his chest, "I've got to know what your skills are."
He sits back, shaking his head with a smile. "No, I like it. Harleen. Harleen," he tests it out with his typical precision, like memorizing a new word in a foreign tongue. "Thank you for telling me. You know my name already, of course. Gale... Dekarios." Saying it all together like that feels like admitting defeat, like Gale of Waterdeep is already dead, leaving behind his useless, powerless shadow. He tries not to let on, though, keen to prove that he isn't so sad about his own problems that he couldn't bear to hear hers. "Though..." It feels important to offer something in return for this piece of information, even though she already knows his worst secret. "No middle name. My middle name was my father's surname, but as far as I'm concerned, he took it with him when he left."
She sighs, since he seems determined to stay on topic. She sets her fork down and leans back in the chair with her arms folded over her chest. So they've reached the interrogation stage of the relationship.
"My focus is on trauma responses, mental and physical." A pointedly arched brow at his clearly traumatized self. "And there's no way you go through what you're going through without significant strain on several processes. Even without considering magical effects." If he keeps pressing then she'll have to find a copy of her doctorate thesis and hit him in the face with it.
She ... doesn't know how to feel about hearing him say her name. Nobody has called her Harleen in years, and almost never a friend. It's like he's talking about someone else. She doesn't know that woman anymore.
"I think it's a family name? But I don't know for sure. Doesn't matter."
Gale raises his eyebrows. It's not exactly what he expected her response to be. If anything, given the type of jobs she seems to take (as much as he knows about them, anyway), he had expected her to specialize in field medicine, the type of thing one uses to keep themselves and their comrades conscious through the end of the battle. He hadn't really expected her expertise to be in handling the aftermath of the battle.
"Tara has said much the same," he finally replies. "So, you mean to repair my mind, then?" He doesn't doubt her expertise now that she has responded sincerely, though he's not sure she'd be able to help with his trauma any more than his orb. Maybe he is just an irreparable mess. Maybe he deserves to be.
"You're right, it doesn't matter. Family is who you chose. Sometimes, family is feline," he says with a big grin, because of course they both love Tara. "But it's just your name now, and I am glad to know it."
She holds up both hands in surrender. "I don't mean to repair anything. I just want to examine your current state. I'm not making any promises, and I can't officially take you on as a patient and stay friends. There have to be boundaries, and I'm not good at boundaries. That's why I don't--"
She runs a hand across her eyes and back through her hair. A muscle in her jaw jumps as she clenches her teeth. There's a deep history lurking just beyond what she's saying and giving voice to it feels like reopening scars.
"I was his doctor before I was his lover."
There. The first incision. At least she doesn't have to worry about when and how it will come up now that it's over.
She clucks her tongue and crosses her arms again.
"So what do you want to drag out next? Sad childhood?"
Gale isn't quick enough, or maybe just skilled enough with social graces, to keep the surprise off his face, but when it goes, there is no pity or revulsion left behind, just a little sadness and understanding. "I was her student before I was her lover. Maybe neither of us are very good at boundaries," he says, voice soft and careful. He doesn't talk about this, particularly not like this, with anyone but Tara, and rarely even then. It's blasphemous. Worse, it's pathetic. "It's something you learn, though, with practice, I should think. And I care very much about your friendship, above all else. So wherever you mark a boundary, you may trust me to mind it, I swear it."
He pushes his plate aside and reaches across the table, tugging one of her arms free of the other so he can take her hand. His grip is firm; he doesn't treat her like some fragile thing on the verge of shattering. "I don't want to drag anything. Tell me what you would, and keep anything you'd rather not tucked away."
She doesn't resist his pull on her hand or flinch away at the surprising strength behind his grip. Surprising for a wizard, anyway, let's not be too generous. She just lets go of a quiet sigh and meets his eyes. There's no sorrow or pain in her gaze. She won't let him see it, not in this moment. These things that happened before have to stay separate from the person she is now. It's how she can carry it.
"But you still want to know, and better to know it from me than let you imagine tales to fill in the gaps. So. Next question, if you would."
"I can imagine a great many things, often simultaneously, about anything and everything."
He shifts, and he gets that look, the gears obviously turning in that big thinky brain of his. "I have no intention of interrogating you." He taps a finger against his teacup, hands always seeming to long for some sort of motion when they're not busy casting spells. "However, if we were to take turns? That might be a more fair exchange of information. So, what do you want to drag out of me next, Harleen?"
He laughs, a little surprised. Curiosity is perhaps his greatest strength and his biggest weakness. He wants to know everything about everything all of the time. Living any other way is something he can hardly imagine. "Alright, Harley you shall remain, then. Hm, you could ask my birthday, so you know when to give me a nice gift?"
That shove feels like a victory, and he beams. "What can I say? I'm insatiable, I suppose." The orb is, anyway, eating all his gifts in more ways than one. "My birthday is the seventh of Tarsakh. I was born during a particularly terrible storm, and that's where my name comes from."
It's really not fair that he has such a sweet smile. How is she supposed to keep being dramatic and miserable when he's so cute? Awful. Put him in jail.
"Mine is the twentieth of Flamerule, and my birthday present better be huge."
Of all the gifts she's given him, his favorite is when she looks like that.
"With standards like that, I bet you've had some truly abhorrent mixed drinks. I've had my fair share of those, though. At Blackstaff, most of us learned rather early that you could use a fabrication spell to turn just about any fruit juice, honey water, or similar into alcohol, but there was no accounting for the flavor of the finished product. It was tradition at parties for everyone to combine their concoctions in one cauldron that we would all drink from. Stuff of nightmares, if I could remember half of it." He points at her like she got the answer in a pop quiz correct. "Got it in one! Preferably dry. I can't stand an overly saccharine alcoholic drink."
She laughs. His rambling tangents are usually charming, at least in her opinion. It would be pretty hard to spend time with him if she didn't like listening to other people so much.
"Probably because you got burned on those horrible party drinks. I like anything sweet." She reaches across the table to boop his nose. "Like you, for example."
She can't let corny line go unsaid. A reflex, perhaps, or a curse.
He tilts his head to the side then nods. "Maybe you're right and I was scarred by horrible party drinks." Gale had never actually considered it before, but then again, she makes him think about a lot of things he never considered before. "They're much worse coming up than going down."
Once she's already booped him, he swats at her hand. She's joking, she's joking, she's joking. He sets mage hands to clearing their dishes and stands. "If you're done eating, I suppose now's as good a time as any for you to, ah, perform your examination." Oh no. He'd meant to change directions, distract himself, but hadn't considered how embarrassing the prospect of taking his shirt off would be, and now he can't unsay it.
She nods and hurries to finish her tea as she stands. Speaking of embarrassing Gale--
"Would you be more comfortable if I also took my shirt off, in the interest of fairness?"
Is she joking? She doesn't look like she's joking. She doesn't sound like she's joking. She's already pulling up the hem and most of her thigh tattoos are on display. Hurry, wizard, it's nearly too late!
"Nononono!" He pulls her arms back down and tugs the hem back down into
place too. He's not even sure she's wearing any undergarments, and that's
something he decidedly and intentionally does not imagine either way.
"There's no need for that." He's definitely losing the war against his
flushed skin now, because the blush has pressed its advantage as far south
as the mark. "It's... fine." It's not, really, but as much as he might fuss
and fight, he's a people pleaser, so if she says off with his shirt, then
off it will go.
Gale's hands hover at the buttons briefly, but he reminds himself that this
is strictly clinical and no cause for nerves. He unbuttons it and pulls
both sides apart, exposing his chest and abdomen. The black marking left by
the orb had looked like a tattoo at a glance, but upon closer inspection,
it's deeper, like a scar carved into his skin with a precise blade. He
fidgets under scrutiny. "Do you have favorite tattoos?" A question to
distract him from the matter at hand.
"Yes I do, but apparently you don't want to see it. Now let me work."
She gently leads him to a chair and pushes him to sit. She steals some parchment from his desk. A quill hovers at the ready to take notes, as her own mage hand stays invisible unless it occurs to her to change it.
Once she begins the examination, she is shockingly professional, although not at all a detached clinical demeanor. She's warm and compassionate to his nervous hesitation, but bluntly presses for the answers she needs. They go over his entire medical history from before the orb until now, so she has a point of comparison. She checks all his vitals, records his self-reported sleep and eating habits, has the mage hand sketch diagrams of the mark and precise measurements.
Once they have gone through all her questions, and a back over some to verify consistency, she dismisses the mage hand and looks over all the information.
"There you go, was that so terrible? You survived!"
It surprises him a little, how readily she puts him at ease during the
examination. Part of him has worried that she would poke and prod, press
her fingers into the tender flesh marked by the orb, but she's never unkind
or thoughtless. He's scientific minded enough that once he's distracted
from his embarrassment, he's keen to help her with her examination,
providing as many details as he can think of that might be relevant.
"Barely," he says with a put-on sigh. "Hopefully I was a satisfactory
object of study. I'm more used to being one who does the studying." It is a
testament to her skills that he doesn't even rush to button his shirt.
She hums in vague sympathy at his terrible, terrible ordeal.
"I have more questions, but I suspect they'll be answered in your own research, so I'll hold back for now. I do want to follow up regularly, and I especially want to monitor the dark veins under your eye."
The examination complete, she shrugs off the professional demeanor and turns to give him a very blatant once over.
"But the real medical mystery is how in the hells do you have such a good body when the only thing you do all day is stay in and read!" She's not blind. She knew he was fit for a wizard, and had definitely enjoyed confirming it with hugs and cuddles, but there's a difference between knowing someone has a decent build and actually seeing it.
In summary, Gale is hot and nobody even knows it. It's a terrible tragedy.
Gale nods as she says all this. "I will show you the notes we've gathered. They're... thorough, so there will be a lot to look through. We've got it all in the study." It's perfectly reasonable, scientific. Still, he's the subject, and his hand creeps to the lines under his eye, pale enough to be missed at a glance. He's vain enough to be a little self conscious about it.
The next part still catches him off guard, and a pop of surprised laughter escapes his lips. "A little professional decorum, if you will?" He turns slightly aside to button his shirt, not enough to really make a difference and only joking, because of course she's already seen. "Exercise is important for one's health?" he offers. He doesn't mention that Tara is often the one encouraging him to get up and move rather than sitting at his desk for hours, often with the threat of being clawed. "It's not like vigorous movement is impossible in small spaces."Â
"I will not," she promptly replies, and further demonstrates her commitment to unprofessionalism by tilting her head so it is completely obvious, even to someone as flirt impaired as Gale, that she is checking out his butt. She even whistles at him, the menace.
He's right that exercise is important and that it is perfectly reasonable that nothing about his home would prevent him from it with a little effort. She nods acceptance at the answer and says, "Ah. Tara makes you do it."
He sighs and spins in place, though that just leaves her ogling elsewhere.
Gale huffs. "Actually, as a boy, I got very sick with ruddy pox. I had to be hospitalized for weeks, and once I recovered, regular exercise was prescribed as a part of my recovery, to regain my strength. It became something of a habit after that." Because Tara made him do it. But he's not going to just admit it so easily.
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He sits back, shaking his head with a smile. "No, I like it. Harleen. Harleen," he tests it out with his typical precision, like memorizing a new word in a foreign tongue. "Thank you for telling me. You know my name already, of course. Gale... Dekarios." Saying it all together like that feels like admitting defeat, like Gale of Waterdeep is already dead, leaving behind his useless, powerless shadow. He tries not to let on, though, keen to prove that he isn't so sad about his own problems that he couldn't bear to hear hers. "Though..." It feels important to offer something in return for this piece of information, even though she already knows his worst secret. "No middle name. My middle name was my father's surname, but as far as I'm concerned, he took it with him when he left."
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"My focus is on trauma responses, mental and physical." A pointedly arched brow at his clearly traumatized self. "And there's no way you go through what you're going through without significant strain on several processes. Even without considering magical effects." If he keeps pressing then she'll have to find a copy of her doctorate thesis and hit him in the face with it.
She ... doesn't know how to feel about hearing him say her name. Nobody has called her Harleen in years, and almost never a friend. It's like he's talking about someone else. She doesn't know that woman anymore.
"I think it's a family name? But I don't know for sure. Doesn't matter."
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"Tara has said much the same," he finally replies. "So, you mean to repair my mind, then?" He doesn't doubt her expertise now that she has responded sincerely, though he's not sure she'd be able to help with his trauma any more than his orb. Maybe he is just an irreparable mess. Maybe he deserves to be.
"You're right, it doesn't matter. Family is who you chose. Sometimes, family is feline," he says with a big grin, because of course they both love Tara. "But it's just your name now, and I am glad to know it."
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She runs a hand across her eyes and back through her hair. A muscle in her jaw jumps as she clenches her teeth. There's a deep history lurking just beyond what she's saying and giving voice to it feels like reopening scars.
"I was his doctor before I was his lover."
There. The first incision. At least she doesn't have to worry about when and how it will come up now that it's over.
She clucks her tongue and crosses her arms again.
"So what do you want to drag out next? Sad childhood?"
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He pushes his plate aside and reaches across the table, tugging one of her arms free of the other so he can take her hand. His grip is firm; he doesn't treat her like some fragile thing on the verge of shattering. "I don't want to drag anything. Tell me what you would, and keep anything you'd rather not tucked away."
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"But you still want to know, and better to know it from me than let you imagine tales to fill in the gaps. So. Next question, if you would."
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He shifts, and he gets that look, the gears obviously turning in that big thinky brain of his. "I have no intention of interrogating you." He taps a finger against his teacup, hands always seeming to long for some sort of motion when they're not busy casting spells. "However, if we were to take turns? That might be a more fair exchange of information. So, what do you want to drag out of me next, Harleen?"
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"The first thing I want is for you to not call me Harleen. And other than that, hells, I already know you. What else would I even need to ask?"
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"I give you gifts all the time, and still you ask for more!" She taps his new ring for emphasis. "Alright. Tell me your birthday, you greedy man."
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"Mine is the twentieth of Flamerule, and my birthday present better be huge."
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"Anything I don't have to pay for. And yours is red wine. Full-bodied, I'd guess."
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"With standards like that, I bet you've had some truly abhorrent mixed drinks. I've had my fair share of those, though. At Blackstaff, most of us learned rather early that you could use a fabrication spell to turn just about any fruit juice, honey water, or similar into alcohol, but there was no accounting for the flavor of the finished product. It was tradition at parties for everyone to combine their concoctions in one cauldron that we would all drink from. Stuff of nightmares, if I could remember half of it." He points at her like she got the answer in a pop quiz correct. "Got it in one! Preferably dry. I can't stand an overly saccharine alcoholic drink."
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"Probably because you got burned on those horrible party drinks. I like anything sweet." She reaches across the table to boop his nose. "Like you, for example."
She can't let corny line go unsaid. A reflex, perhaps, or a curse.
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Once she's already booped him, he swats at her hand. She's joking, she's joking, she's joking. He sets mage hands to clearing their dishes and stands. "If you're done eating, I suppose now's as good a time as any for you to, ah, perform your examination." Oh no. He'd meant to change directions, distract himself, but hadn't considered how embarrassing the prospect of taking his shirt off would be, and now he can't unsay it.
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"Would you be more comfortable if I also took my shirt off, in the interest of fairness?"
Is she joking? She doesn't look like she's joking. She doesn't sound like she's joking. She's already pulling up the hem and most of her thigh tattoos are on display. Hurry, wizard, it's nearly too late!
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"Nononono!" He pulls her arms back down and tugs the hem back down into place too. He's not even sure she's wearing any undergarments, and that's something he decidedly and intentionally does not imagine either way. "There's no need for that." He's definitely losing the war against his flushed skin now, because the blush has pressed its advantage as far south as the mark. "It's... fine." It's not, really, but as much as he might fuss and fight, he's a people pleaser, so if she says off with his shirt, then off it will go.
Gale's hands hover at the buttons briefly, but he reminds himself that this is strictly clinical and no cause for nerves. He unbuttons it and pulls both sides apart, exposing his chest and abdomen. The black marking left by the orb had looked like a tattoo at a glance, but upon closer inspection, it's deeper, like a scar carved into his skin with a precise blade. He fidgets under scrutiny. "Do you have favorite tattoos?" A question to distract him from the matter at hand.
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She gently leads him to a chair and pushes him to sit. She steals some parchment from his desk. A quill hovers at the ready to take notes, as her own mage hand stays invisible unless it occurs to her to change it.
Once she begins the examination, she is shockingly professional, although not at all a detached clinical demeanor. She's warm and compassionate to his nervous hesitation, but bluntly presses for the answers she needs. They go over his entire medical history from before the orb until now, so she has a point of comparison. She checks all his vitals, records his self-reported sleep and eating habits, has the mage hand sketch diagrams of the mark and precise measurements.
Once they have gone through all her questions, and a back over some to verify consistency, she dismisses the mage hand and looks over all the information.
"There you go, was that so terrible? You survived!"
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It surprises him a little, how readily she puts him at ease during the examination. Part of him has worried that she would poke and prod, press her fingers into the tender flesh marked by the orb, but she's never unkind or thoughtless. He's scientific minded enough that once he's distracted from his embarrassment, he's keen to help her with her examination, providing as many details as he can think of that might be relevant.
"Barely," he says with a put-on sigh. "Hopefully I was a satisfactory object of study. I'm more used to being one who does the studying." It is a testament to her skills that he doesn't even rush to button his shirt.
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"I have more questions, but I suspect they'll be answered in your own research, so I'll hold back for now. I do want to follow up regularly, and I especially want to monitor the dark veins under your eye."
The examination complete, she shrugs off the professional demeanor and turns to give him a very blatant once over.
"But the real medical mystery is how in the hells do you have such a good body when the only thing you do all day is stay in and read!" She's not blind. She knew he was fit for a wizard, and had definitely enjoyed confirming it with hugs and cuddles, but there's a difference between knowing someone has a decent build and actually seeing it.
In summary, Gale is hot and nobody even knows it. It's a terrible tragedy.
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The next part still catches him off guard, and a pop of surprised laughter escapes his lips. "A little professional decorum, if you will?" He turns slightly aside to button his shirt, not enough to really make a difference and only joking, because of course she's already seen. "Exercise is important for one's health?" he offers. He doesn't mention that Tara is often the one encouraging him to get up and move rather than sitting at his desk for hours, often with the threat of being clawed. "It's not like vigorous movement is impossible in small spaces."Â
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He's right that exercise is important and that it is perfectly reasonable that nothing about his home would prevent him from it with a little effort. She nods acceptance at the answer and says, "Ah. Tara makes you do it."
She knows them. How can he keep forgetting?
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Gale huffs. "Actually, as a boy, I got very sick with ruddy pox. I had to be hospitalized for weeks, and once I recovered, regular exercise was prescribed as a part of my recovery, to regain my strength. It became something of a habit after that." Because Tara made him do it. But he's not going to just admit it so easily.
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