Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/10680255.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage, Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Major_Character_Death
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      World_of_Warcraft
  Relationship:
      Khadgar/Medivh
  Character:
      Medivh, Archmage_Khadgar, Apprentice_Khadgar_-_Character, Moroes_
      (Warcraft)
  Additional Tags:
      Karazhan, Magic, Magic_in_sex, Orgasm_Delay/Denial, Light_Dom/sub,
      Khadgar_snark, Khadgar_sass, Typical_mercurial_Medivh, Raventrust, Why_am
      I_writing_this_instead_of_sleeping, Why_am_I_writing_this_at_all?,
      Archmage_Khadgar_is_hella_sexy, I_blame_the_writers_of_RavenTrust_here_on
      AO3, It's_all_your_fault, no_it's_not, it's_all_my_fault, Underage
      because_Apprentice_Khadgar_is_technically_underage, there_will_be_angst,
      Angst, Explosive_Orgasms, Explosive_Arcane_Orgasm, Multiple_Orgasms,
      Dirty_Talk, At_least_what_passes_for_dirty_talk_for_mages, Anal
      Fingering, Anal_Sex, Arcane_constructs, What_Have_I_Done, Coming
      Untouched, The_more_I_write_the_more_tags_I_wind_up_with, Coming_at_the
      sound_of_someone's_voice, Overstimulation, Rough_Sex, Very_rough_sex, I
      have_created_a_monster_with_a_mind_of_its_own, technical_first_time,
      Orgasmic_Arcane_Explosion, Soul-baring, death_and_injury, but_not_really
  Series:
      Part 3 of Conspiracy_of_Ravens
  Stats:
      Published: 2017-04-20 Completed: 2017-04-24 Chapters: 4/4 Words: 20378
****** Misplaced ******
by Kalla_Moonshado
Summary
     Set sometime during Legion. Khadgar returns to Karazhan for answers -
     a bit less frantically than in the Harbingers short. He finds his
     research, and also finds his heart (and body) still yearn for the
     Magus who once taught him. He also finds said Magus and proceeds to
     [CENSORED] and then [CENSORED] while [CENSORED] and then....
     [4/21/17 - Updated tags for upcoming chapters]
     [4/23/17 - Updated tags again. You've all corrupted me so
     horribly...]
     [4/24/17 - Changed my timeline a bit. Because ... reasons.]
Notes
     Since diving into the LionTrust and RavenTrust pairings (reading
     only, since I tend to write only for my own OCs), my mind has been
     plagued.
     I blame those of you who write such wonderful things, inspiring me to
     attempt to write (hopefully) wonderful things.
     My last foray was not RavenTrust – unless that incorporates the sort
     of love one has for a father figure one never knew they NEEDED until
     they lost them.
     This? This is RavenTrust in the proper sense. And because I can’t
     seem to write cheerful!Khadgar, have some angst to go with the rest
     of it. Because. Angst.
     Not beta'd in any way, since I decided not to write the other part(s)
     before posting, mostly to see if anyone thinks it's worth my letting
     a Khadgar!Muse in and taking over, delaying Last Breath. Again XD
     [4/21/17 - Corrected several errors in grammar, spelling and
     forgotten words and punctuation.]
***** Memory *****
It was not often that Khadgar found himself back in the tower of Karazhan.  He
usually went hunting for a book vaguely remembered from his youth that he
thought might contain an answer for a question that had occurred to him that he
thought may have crossed his mind before.  His mind was often so full that
things tended to spill out, and something would put it back – a name, a face,
an event, his own mind turning in circles as he tried to sleep.
It was this occasion that brought him to the tower now, as he sighed at the
wreckage that seemed to accumulate further with each visit.  Often, he would
attempt to sweep some of the cobwebs and dust away, though he had given up when
he realized the entire servant’s quarter (which he often wondered about,
considering it was so large, or at least the fallen walls gave the impression
it was, and he had only known Moroes and Cook to be present) had been
completely infested.  Not that he hadn’t seen ghostly valets, kitchen helpers
and other imprints moving about, and he often wondered what it was like before,
when Medivh was younger, or perhaps when his mother had dwelled here.
He winced at the loud creak of the gate into the foyer, and the ominous slam
when it closed; the latch clicked with the sound of a locking door, though he
knew from experience that it was not locked – at least not to him.
Not like he was the only person to have been here either – adventurers had
swept through the tower, and some of the wreckage, he suspected, was from their
carelessness.  The guest quarters were a giant wreck, for instance, and the
opera hall (what had possessed Medivh to build an opera hall of all things?)
saw bloodstains in the gallery, orchestra pit and on the stage that were not
from times past, but much more recent.
Let the ghosts lie, he decided in the end.  Let them have their long abandoned
joys and revelry.
He crossed the main hall, and paused as an imprint walked through in front of
him, not for the first time, and not for the last.
“Magic’s strong here. Strong, and wrong, sometimes. You see… things…”
He watched his younger self cross the hall, loping along beside Moroes as the
older castellan continued to offer him blinders, explained Cook’s rose quartz
glasses, and he sighed.  Neither deserved the end they had …
Well.  That was neither here nor there. Not now.
He continued across the hall and up a set of stairs, then another, and yet
another.  There were three rooms that could have been given the name of
“library” in the tower – the main library that encompassed two floors, the
Magus’ private study, and a smaller nook that felt more like the library he now
had, no matter where he called “home”.  A small reading room, more like,
combined with a study and sitting room with comfortable furniture, a warm fire,
tall windows and tables to hold snacks and drinks – and of course the current
books-in-progress at day’s end.
His destination was the main library, the one he had organized in his youth. 
As he looked around upon reaching it, he sighed, and lifted Atiesh over his
head, the glow it produced illuminating ... chaos.  All of his work, undone. 
Books piled haphazardly, bookcases toppled, some books still smoldering –
though whether that was the work of the idiot adventurers or of the demons that
had once plagued the tower it was impossible to tell.  With a sigh, he looked
around the room, and managed to find at least one functioning light, though it
was hard to tell it was actually functional; the dust was thick and it looked
as though it had attracted at least half the room’s worth of dust.
He fought to keep from rolling his eyes as he reached into the satchel at his
side and pulled out a dust-rag.  He was nothing if not resourceful after all. 
Once the globe was clean, the light was a bit better, though it would not be
long before the sun would come in through the set of windows just over –
– Just over where the sun would never shine through the destruction again. 
Khadgar rolled his eyes, gave up on trying to gain further light, and rubbed
his nose with his free hand, Atiesh held in the other as he began moving
through the shelves.
 
He could have been seventeen again, nose in a book at a familiar worktable (one
of the few still intact, where he had found the globe), poring over the words,
lips moving unconsciously, even as his fingers reached for the quill just to
his right side, dipping it into the inkwell to its left, tapping it on the
folded parchment pad below it, and moving to take notes without ever taking his
eyes from the book.
He could almost believe that if he looked up, he might meet the eyes of his
mentor.  He could almost believe that he might hear Moroes’ slow shuffle as he
checked on the apprentice.  His eyes scanned the pages before him, absorbing
the words as though he saw the practice of it in motion, his mind working
quickly to see the practical application of—
His head snapped up at the sound of scraping – the scrape of a chair across the
dusty floor.  The quill dropped from his ink-stained fingers and his hand shot
to the side to curl around Atiesh, and hold it aloft, the light spilling over
the library wreckage.
“Who’s there?” he called, his voice hoarse from hours of disuse.  His tongue
darted out to moisten lips he had not realized had gone dry.  His words echoed
back at him faintly from the upper reaches of the library, having been twisted
into something much larger and confused in the years he had been gone.
Silence met his challenge, and his eyes darted from shadow to shadow out of
Atiesh’s reach. Heartbeats passed. Minutes passed, and the only sound was that
of his own breathing.  Slowly, he set Atiesh back down, resting it against the
table once more, and his fingers lifted the quill, tutting over the splotches
of ink across the notes he had been taking.  He shifted to a new sheet and
copied what was legible of the original notes, then continued writing, his eyes
lowering back to the pages of the book.
A tutting sound came from behind him, and he stiffened.  Whatever – whoever –
whatever had crept up on him had done so swiftly and silently and was close
enough that he would not be able to reach for the staff a second time.
“Relax, Young Trust,” came the whisper from somewhere to his left, nearly at
the level of his ear.
Khadgar swallowed, harshly; his every muscle tensed for fight or flight as
adrenaline began flooding his veins.  He dared not speak, dared not move,
though he thought he heard the quill in his fingers crack as he tensed.
“That is the opposite of relaxing,” the whisper came again, chiding gently.  A
whisper of fabric against the dust of the floor caused Khadgar’s eyes to shift
to his left, searching the shadows.  “All these years and you are still afraid
of me?”  This time the voice was more than a whisper, and it was as warm as the
Archmage remembered it, in those times where the Magus had taught him, worked
with him, spent time with him just to spend time with the apprentice who would
one day take his place. Or at least pretend to.
A hand, long-fingered and spidery, nails long but manicured rested on the table
beside his right hand, the sleeve of the robe brushing against Khadgar’s
wrist.  Khadgar’s eyes shifted to it, and stared at it, and swallowed again.
“Infusion? Looking to create an artifact of power, Young Trust?”  The voice was
still warm with approval. “You have not neglected to study, even now.”
“M-Medivh?” Khadgar whispered, more because his throat and mouth had gone dry –
drier than before.
Another tutting sound, and a glow of faint blue-violet.  The hand lifted, and
returned, offering a mug to the Archmage.  Still frozen in place, Khadgar could
only look at it.  “It isn’t poisoned.  I haven’t poisoned anything I’ve
conjured in many, many years, and the first time was because I slurred a
syllable.”  A gentle hand tugged the quill from Khadgar’s fingers, and set it
down above the sheaf of notes, then returned to wrap the Archmage’s now-free
hand around the mug.
“Haven’t you learned to look after yourself?”  Khadgar started guiltily, and it
seemed to break the spell his body had held itself in.  His fingers wrapped
around the mug, and his head finally turned as his heartrate slowed, his
breathing eased, and his body began to relax minutely.  “Spring water, young
one. Just spring water.”
Khadgar lifted the mug to his parched lips and sipped, cautiously.  Sweet
spring water, tinged with the mana that had conjured it. It cooled his mouth
and throat, and eased the ache he hadn’t realized was there.  He should have
known better, considering the amount of dust he had to clear away in order to
have a clear workspace, the globe that augmented the light still dimly shining
from Atiesh, and the pile of books in front of him.  Another sip – slowly,
slowly; he knew better than to drain the mug at once.  A third and his throat
stopped hurting when he swallowed.  He sighed.  “Thank you,” he murmured, his
voice somewhat restored.
A chuckle answered him as a chair shifted, and Medivh settled into it with a
sigh, the aged and abused wood creaking.  So he was real. This was real – or a
fevered dream, induced by dust and residual magic and the haunted nature of the
tower.  Silence between them stretched as Khadgar drank, feeling his body
protest bitterly at the abuse of the past few hours.  He pushed it down as he
drained the last of the water, then set the mug down with a sigh.
As soon as his hand left the mug, a hand entwined it.  “Look at me, Khadgar,”
Medivh murmured.
Compelled, the Archmage raised his pale blue eyes to meet the former
Guardian’s.  He couldn’t suppress the swift intake of breath, the vice around
his heart, or the twitch of his body as shock touched him.  The green eyes were
not glowing with demonic fel. They were soft and tinged with silver and gold as
the Magus offered a little sad smile.  “All this time, and I come here to find
you unable to care for yourself.”  Green eyes searched blue, and the smile
faded.  “I know only a little of what you’ve seen since … since we last met. 
You have much resting on your shoulders, and my only regret is that I did not
prepare you for it properly.”  The hand in his tightened as Khadgar tensed
again.
“No – no you did, and you taught me the strength to do what I must do—“
“No, I did not.  You saved what was left of my soul that day, and then I left
you to your own way.  From what I have seen and heard from my sources, you have
surpassed all of my expectations and more.”  He lifted Khadgar’s hand to his
lips and pressed a kiss to the knuckles. “I am proud of you, Young Trust.”
Khadgar swallowed, hard, swallowing down the tears that sprang to his eyes.  He
was seventeen again, and this was just an evening after a particularly long day
of practice.  He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came.  He closed his
mouth, closed his eyes, and drew a long, deep, shuddering breath.  “I have
missed you,” he whispered at last.  “I can’t believe you’re here. I can’t
believe you’re real.  It’s just… so… so…”
He heard the shift of the chair, and the angle of their entwined hands changed
as Medivh moved.  Khadgar felt a cool breath against his cheek before the
Magus’ lips settled on his in a sweet, short kiss.  “Is this real enough for
you?” he murmured against Khadgar’s lips.
Khadgar gasped, his eyes opening in surprise, and bit back a sob. “Almost,” he
managed to say before leaning forward, crushing his lips to Medivh’s, lifting
from his chair slightly as his other hand reached up to his mentor’s shoulder.
The hand not in Khadgar’s moved to encircle the Archmage, and the scrape of
wood on wood and a loud clatter shattered the silence as light danced
erratically, then went out.  They broke apart hastily; Khadgar’s cheeks tinging
pink, Medivh chuckling softly.
“You never were one to be patient.”  The former Guardian tilted his head
slightly.  “Am I real enough for you?”  At Khadgar’s nod, he chuckled again. 
“I take it,” he said softly, withdrawing his hand from his former apprentice’s
and retrieving the fallen staff and resting it in its new owner’s hand, “that
you have kept in practice?”
“No,” came the soft answer as Khadgar’s hand tightened on the shaft of the
staff, the soft glow rekindling. “Never.” The last was barely a whisper.
Medivh’s hand covered Khadgar’s on the staff, and the glow brightened enough so
he could see his former apprentice clearly.  Green eyes searched blue once
more, noting the silvery quality to their color.  “What troubles you?”
Khadgar looked up, swallowed and shook his head.  Too many emotions were
warring inside him, reactions, actions playing in his mind, and the chaos was
nearly as bad as the library around them. “I—“ He could not form the words to
explain himself.
“Too much,” Medivh supplied.  His hand turned slightly and lifted from
Khadgar’s and the staff dimmed.  He took Khadgar’s wrist and tugged.  Ever
obedient, Khadgar responded by standing when the Magus did.  Medivh moved
around the table, gently taking the staff and laying it across the table, then
leaned in to kiss Khadgar again, this time without the table in the way.
Khadgar closed his eyes, his hands lifting, hesitantly as he felt both of
Medivh’s curl around him, one around his shoulders, one around his waist.  He
leaned into the kiss as his arms settled around the Magus.
Medivh broke the kiss softly, turning his head to speak. “Leave the guilt
behind, Young Trust. There is no need for it.  Leave the sense of failure
behind – you have done more than you know.  When was the last time someone told
you that you had done well, that you were appreciated, that someone loves you?”
Khadgar was quiet for a long moment, content to breathe in the older man’s
scent.  “I have – tried. So many lost. So little I could do.  I am told
constantly that I am brilliant, reckless, and stupidly lucky – that most of my
insane ideas shouldn’t work when they do.” He snorted a mirthless chuckle. “I
don’t know if that is praise or damnation, but Someone has to … to…”
“Take my place?” Medivh pressed a kiss to Khadgar’s neck and sighed.  “No one
person should take all that on their shoulders.  You fight. You lose and you
gain, but you should never think that you are the only one.  If others make you
think so – or worse, back away when action is needed… I’m not talking about
limitations of skill and power – for you have both in more than enough to
replace me – but in will and courage – then they don’t deserve to know you.”
Khadgar’s arms tightened around Medivh as he shook his head.  “It’s the ones
who follow me into the fray that are lost more often than not.  So many, so
many…”
“And if you take their failings as your own, you’re a sentimental fool,” Medivh
replied harshly. “But, your heart is such that you will never blame someone
else – and you will take it all upon yourself, whether you earned it or no. 
You are so much more than I could have been, and yet… and yet…”
“And yet, I am still an apprentice in comparison.”
“No. The day you took it upon yourself to watch over me, try to tell me of the
demons in my tower, the days you spent exhausting yourself at the wards so
nothing would get in – it was then that you surpassed me, and all of my wildest
expectations.  It was then that I realized I loved you.”
Khadgar could bite back the sob, but he was helpless to stop the tears that
spilled from his tightly closed eyes. “I never thought – you tried to keep your
distance, and I know why now but then it hurt. I wanted so much, and time was
so fleeting and short and—“
Medivh silenced the torrent of words with another kiss, this time heated as his
arms slid lower along Khadgar’s back, one hand trailing over his rear.  “And
right now, there is no time here.  We have all the time we want.  Your book and
notes will still be there.” With a possessive tug, he pulled Khadgar flush
against him, making his obvious desire well known, and smiled slightly when he
realized he wasn’t the only one.  “So beautiful, my Young Trust. Always the
innocent but not innocent.”
Khadgar may as well have been reduced to being seventeen again. He couldn’t
stop the color from rising into his cheeks, spreading to his ears and down the
back of his neck.  He rocked against Medivh, and the noise that escaped him
made the older man chuckle.  “You have not kept in practice?” Medivh asked
again, and Khadgar shook his head.  “Do you remember?” he breathed against
Khadgar’s ear.  A nod. “Here, or perhaps we can find—“
“I don’t care,” Khadgar hissed, his own arms shifting against Medivh, sliding
one knee between the other’s. Decades of suppressed emotion and desire bubbled
up in him like a dormant volcano waking.  His hips shifted restlessly, pressing
himself against Medivh’s thigh and shifting in an effort to find friction
through layers of his robes.
“I do,” came the amused reply.  “I will not have you so uncomfortable after so
long for want of a little sense.  You have been patient for years, surely you
can be patient a few more moments?”
Khadgar whined softly, much like he had when he had been younger, pressed
against his master just as he was now, all adolescent want and need and his
heart bursting with love for someone who was technically forbidden him.  But,
he was older now, he reminded himself sternly.  He drew in a deep breath and
forced his hips to still, forced his arms to relax, forced himself to draw away
before he embarrassed himself by proving his decades of technical celibacy.
He could not control his sleeping body, after all, any more than he could
control the majority of his dreams.
Medivh let him go with reluctance. “There was a small reading room upstairs,
was there not?” he murmured.  “You liked it there, once you discovered it.  I
mean, I couldn’t have you sleeping on the tables, once I found you had been
doing so.”
Khadgar jerked backwards suddenly, his eyes wide. “What?”
“You didn’t think I’d find out about that, hm? Moroes knew. It concerned him
enough to tell me.”  Medivh leaned forward and whispered softly against
Khadgar’s ear, “why do you think it was oh-so-convenient the first time you
lost control of yourself, confessed it all, and begged me to touch you?”
Khadgar gasped and he very nearly pulled Medivh against him again.  He could
remember. Oh, yes he remembered that day.
 
The sound of shattering glass, splintering wood and the unmistakable sound of
something exploding shook the tower.  Typically, at this time of day, Medivh
left Khadgar to his own devices, studying, researching, experimenting, learning
to stand or fall on his own.  But an explosion was not something normal – at
least not from the one he had at last named “apprentice”.
Where normally he would sigh, set down his work, and calmly descend the stairs
if noise reached him from the library below, the sound and more importantly the
rattling saw him drop the astrolabe and turn to run down the stairs.  He
stopped at the library entrance, where Moroes stood shaking his head and
muttering.
There was a half-globe of crystal on what was left of a scorched table.  As
Medivh skidded into the room, it slid down the slope and shattered on the
scorched floor.  A bookcase leaned precariously forward, looming over the prone
form of his apprentice, who appeared to be whole, if not unhurt.  At least all
of his limbs and extremities were attached and he was not covered in blood, and
there was no pool beneath him.  It appeared that he had been thrown backwards
by whatever had happened.
The pitiful cry as Khadgar tried to move sent chills of terror down Medivh’s
spine, and he checked the impulse to run to the youth, instead moving quickly,
but calmly to his side.  He raised one hand and the bookshelf righted itself;
no use having it fall on the boy.
He lifted Khadgar’s shoulders and head with extreme care, to find the blue eyes
half-open and dazed.  He gently tapped the young man’s cheek, speaking
carefully and slowly.  “Are you all right?  Young Trust, speak to me – what
happened here?”  He vaguely heard Moroes shuffle out of the room, presumably to
find a broom.
Khadgar moaned again as his eyes opened to see Medivh looming over him.  He
gasped and sat upright, one hand lifting quickly to his head.  “’m sorry,
Magus.” His eyes widened slightly in fear. “I fell asleep… didn’t realize what
I was doing. Muttering in my sleep I guess.”
Medivh said nothing, but looked from his apprentice to the table and crystal
and back again. “In your sleep,” he repeated. Khadgar nodded.  “Why were you
sleeping here?” Khadgar blushed. “I see. Well, come on. We’ll see about this
headache you seem to have.”
Instead of carrying the younger man to his room, he carried him up the stairs
and into a small, cozy study.  It was furnished simply with a chaise, a couple
of overstuffed and comfortable chairs, low tables and a single bookcase, which
was currently empty other than two books, both of which were clearlynotspell
books or histories or anything scholarly.
Gingerly, Medivh set his charge down on the chaise, then ran his fingers over
the back of his head, gently.  Khadgar sucked in a breath, hissing a little,
but nothing more.  Medivh nodded.  “Well, you’re going to be sore for a day or
two, but there seems to be no permanent damage.  Can you move for me?”
The next few moments had Khadgar moving fingers, toes, knees, elbows, neck,
eyes and tongue according to instructions.  Satisfied that his apprentice was
not damaged, Medivh chuckled.  “This room has been used to sleep in before –
had I known you were sleeping in the library… well.  I cannot claim to have not
done so myself.  Weary feet and long staircases do not mix well.  You just stay
here, and get somerealsleep.”
As he turned to go, he heard a sniffle, then a ruthlessly suppressed sob.  That
didn’t sound like the confident, but inexperienced youth he had taken as his
apprentice at all.  He turned back, to see Khadgar rubbing one eye with his
hand, biting his lip hard enough to turn it white.  Melancholy in the face of
an injury perhaps? Stress reaction?  He hesitated.  The young man had managed
to worm his way into the older mage’s heart over time, but now was no time to
think of such things. An offer of comfort could too quickly turn into something
the young mandidn’twant, and his own mercurial nature would all but ensure he
couldn’t stop himself once he started.
Khadgar was trying to sit up, one lock of his white streak falling into his
face as he struggled.  He seemed unaware that Medivh was still there.  He was
muttering to himself in an angry, hurt tone, and Medivh moved to the back of
the chaise so the younger mage could not see him, but so he could hear every
word Khadgar said.
“Bloody brilliant, stupid. Perfect way to prove your capabilities. Perfect way
to have his hands on you, and now you.. you..” He let out a short snarl and
leaned forward, his head in his hands.  He barely felt the weight shift, and
didn’t even realize it had as Medivh sat next to him.
“Young Trust?”
Khadgar’s neck made a soft crunching noise as he jerked his head up.  Wide blue
eyes stared into calm green ones, and then quickly dropped. His cheeks turned
red.
“You … didn’t finish what you were saying.” Khadgar shook his head. “I would
like you to,” Medivh tried, more quietly.
“Diligence,” Khadgar finally said softly. “You respect competence and diligence
and perfection.”
“I also cherish your curiosity, quick mind and wit, and the way you are usually
– usually so honest with me,” Medivh countered softly.  At the word “cherish”,
Khadgar’s breath hitched slightly, but he kept his eyes down.  “Are you saying
that you would prefer me to cherish more than that?”
Khadgar’s eyes blurred slightly.  He thought it was from the lump on the back
of his head that throbbed still.  He wasn’t hurting nearly as much as he had
been, though it had been quite obvious at the time that the bookshelf had won
the argument of which of them would occupy the space.  Perhaps it was that same
lump on the back of his head that caused him to open his mouth and before he
could stop himself, before he realized the words were pouring out him, he was
confessing that he had started wanting more than just tutelage, more than the
friendly gestures and praise, more than he had any right to want.
Horrified, he tried to stand up, tried to flee back to his own room.  He could
be packed and gone before the Magus could get angry if he managed to do so now
and… and…
“Stop.”
Khadgar froze, the command in the voice making him cringe.  The cushion he sat
on shifted again, and there was a hand brushing his cheek, gently brushing the
lock of hair from his face.  “You feel that strongly?”
Khadgar closed his eyes, and nodded miserably, expecting that he would be sent
away. How could he learn whatever it was Medivh had to teach him if his
feelings got in the way?  He expected the mercurial mage to pat his shoulder
and leave.  He didnotexpect the hand against his cheek to turn his head.  “Look
at me, Khadgar.”
He almost winced at being called by his actual name – until overbright blue
eyes met green and gold, the older mage searching the younger’s face.
Heartbeats passed, and Medivh leaned forward to touch his lips to Khadgar’s. 
“I thought I was inappropriate to care so deeply for my apprentice.  Little did
I know my apprentice cared so deeply for me in return.”  He kissed him again,
and Khadgar returned it this time, hesitantly, clumsily, still half afraid this
was a dream, and he would wake with his head pillowed on a book and his back
aching.  “No more secrets then, Young Trust.  It’s in the open.  Tell me this
is not what you want – and I will stop. Be silent, and I will be unable to stop
myself from…”
Heartbeats passed. Khadgar’s eyes widened.  Medivh’s expression faltered and he
started to pull his hand away, only for Khadgar’s to reach up and capture it. 
The younger mage leaned forward, free arm moving around Medivh’s shoulders,
boldly as he feather-touched his lips to the knuckles of the hand in his. “It
is what I want. Please.PleaseMaster—“
“Medivh.”
“Please Medivh. I do want this. It is what I want, and I’ve wanted it so much
for so long and I was afraid to say anything because I thought you would send
me away and I would not only have been a disgrace to the Kirin Tor but to you –
I’m your first apprentice in—“
“Only apprentice. In ever.”
The words shot through Khadgar’s aching skull and into his heart.  He leaned
forward, only half-realizing he was doing so, and his lips were on Medivh’s,
young bold overconfidence and hormones warring with the swelling in his chest,
and it was all he could do to keep himself from exploding from it all.
Khadgar didn’t remember laying back, or Medivh putting him there. He didn’t
remember wrapping his legs around the older mage as his body rocked upwards in
stress-induced lust reaction. He didn’t remember the hand stroking him, the
mewling noises he made as he begged for something he couldn’t articulate. At
least, he didn’t remember until it all came crashing down as he arched, moaning
Medivh’s name brokenly.
The exploration that followed as clothing came off, piece by piece, lips,
tongue and fingertips taking in every inch of skin; the softness of youth, the
firmness of experience, the smoothness of sheltering, the scars of battle.  The
words of confession, instruction, need, want, desire…
 
“Khadgar?” Medivh’s hand waved across the Archmage’s eyes, and his expression
was amused.  “Lost in memory, are we?”
“A memory that is quite perilously close to being repeated,” the Archmage
replied.
“You aren’t going to blow up my library are you?”
“No, but if I don’t get this robe off, it will need cleaning.”
Medivh hissed a swift intake of breath and reached a hand down, running his
palm over cloth, leather and… “Yes, I see.  And you tell me you have been
celibate since our last night?”
Khadgar resisted the urge to push Medivh’s hand away, biting his lip instead.
“Yes,” he half-whispered, half-moaned.
“You know you didn’t need to—“
“I didn’t want anyone else. I don’t want anyone else. I never willwant anyone
else,” Khadgar replied fiercely.  “I want you.  Now more than ever.”
Medivh pulled away, and Khadgar stumbled forward a little at the loss.  “Come,
then, Young Trust.” He picked up Atiesh and put it into Khadgar’s hand.  “Lead
us to where I first heard you cry my name in ecstasy.”
Khadgar’s knees nearly buckled from under him, and he leaned on Atiesh to keep
him upright.  Keeping an eye on Medivh as though if he turned his back, the
Magus would vanish back into the tower’s shadows, he moved along a row of
shelves, to the stairs that lead to the little sitting room.  Surprisingly,
this room seemed to be untouched by time, the lamps still glowing softly,
tinging everything in warm sunset colors.
Atiesh’s light went out as it landed against an armchair, and Khadgar’s
shoulderguards and mantle hit the floor. Medivh’s hands were far less hesitant
than they had been the first time they had been in this room, and Khadgar made
short work of the former Guardian’s cloak, letting it pool in crimson and ebony
beside his own gear.
It was hard to tell who lead as desperate kisses landed on exposed skin as it
was exposed, and boots, shirts, robes and pants fell to the ground in rapid
succession, followed quickly by smalls and stockings.
Khadgar found himself pressed against the cushions as Medivh covered his body
with his own, one hand trailing languidly down the Archmage’s side, tracing
battle scars and lamenting to himself that his Young Trust had grown up, while
at the same time, pride bursting within his heart.  His lips trailed across
Khadgar’s collarbone as the younger mage arched upwards.
“Patience, Young Trust.”
“But—“
“No “buts”. I want to hear my name echoing off the walls of this tower in your
voice as I send you into the abyss.”  Khadgar moaned pleadingly.  Medivh
laughed softly.  “That will teach you to stay celibate for thirty years, now
won’t it?”
Khadgar growled and tried to move up to return the caresses.  Blue light
flashed and his hands were caught up in thin bands of arcane power, raised over
his head and bound together.  “I could not do this to you when you were
younger, but I can now, Khadgar.  Let me explore you again. I have missed a
great many stories that have been carved into your body.”
Khadgar’s breath hitched and he relaxed his arms. “But—“
“What did I tell you about that?  Don’t worry; I won’t let you get too far too
fast.” Medivh teased his lips across one nipple and Khadgar arched again, then
squirmed when the sensitive skin was bitten softly.  “That is, unless you think
you have the stamina to go more than one round with me,” he murmured against
the Archmage’s ear.
“I-I think so?” Khadgar murmured.  “I-I wouldn’t know.”
“You aren’t driven completely mad by a touch,” Medivh mused. “You have found
some release over the years.”
Khadgar’s eyes flared blue. “Magic. What else?”
“Truth, Young Trust.”
Khadgar blushed, though the glow did not leave his eyes. “Dreams, Master,” he
murmured, softly. “I would wake in sore need of a bath, but… it was something.
Enough to keep me sane.”
“And the rest of the time you threw yourself into your work so far that magic
was enough.” Medivh bit down on the other nipple.
“A-ah! Yes!” Khadgar answered.
“Do they mix?” Fingers pinched the abused nipple.
“M-Mix?” Khadgar’s mind concentrated on the question; a clever distraction.
“Have you ever felt it overwhelm you that you must cast, or … retreat and
relieve it in this way?”  A palm brushed over Khadgar’s cock, and the mage
jumped, shuddering.
“Experimentation,” Khadgar said shortly. “Creation of spells, research,
refinement. Oh please don’t stop… I—“
“So you used magic in the end.  Use both now.” Fingers curled around the shaft
and began stroking slowly, Medivh’s free hand pressed firmly against Khadgar’s
hip so he couldn’t move.
“Both?” Khadgar’s mind reeled.  Runes danced through his mind, and he could
come up with few spells that didn’t involve movement or destruction or…
“Create a rose, Khadgar.” Medivh’s tone was the same he had used so many years
ago, when after a night of indulging in some very fine wine, he had ordered a
rather tipsy apprentice to levitate his mug.
Khadgar’s eyes brightened, and runes danced in ribbons around his hands, slowly
curling to begin forming a rose.  Medivh’s hand sped up.  The ribbons tattered.
“Concentrate.”
“Medivh... I…” Khadgar whimpered, his cheeks coloring to find that he could
still make that noise at his age.  He concentrated and the ribbons reformed,
and the stem formed, then the bud of the rose, petals curling in from the
outside.
As he concentrated on the rose, he did not realize that Medivh had moved.  He
felt the tongue swiping his slit and the rose burst into motes. “O-Oh!”
Medivh leaned up and looked at Khadgar, one eyebrow raised slightly.  “Until
you can create a rose and keep it stable enough to be permanent, I’m not going
to give you release.”  Khadgar’s cock twitched and he felt the drip of precome
slide down the head and along the shaft before a deft tongue caught it. “Now,
try again, Young Trust,” he breathed against the sensitive head.
With another whimper, the ribbons formed again.  Medivh’s tongue lathed against
the underside of Khadgar’s shaft.  The stem formed. The deft tongue brushed
along the slit.  The bud formed. A kiss was pressed and sucked at the head. 
One by one, the petals formed, curling one over another around the bud. 
Khadgar felt the engulfing heat slid upwards along his shaft as Medivh took him
in. A petal, then two disintegrated.  The heat vanished.
“You’re so close, Khadgar,” Medivh breathed.  He couldn’t have spoken more
truth. Khadgar’s mind may have been on the formation of each petal, but his
body was screaming, aching, wanting, and he couldn’t ignore it much longer.  He
formed the petals, and the rose solidified a little.  “Turn it the color of
your desire.”  The rose turned a rich blood red, and leaves and thorns burst
from the stem as his toes curled and his legs trembled.
“M-Medivh… Please. Please! I can’t… I can’t—“ The rose fell from his fingers
and caught between his bound wrists.
Medivh watched as the magic spurred his lover on. “I’m not even touching you,
Khadgar.  Turn it pink for me – the color of the blush against your chest.”
The rose paled, slowly.  Medivh’s hand curled around Khadgar’s shaft again, and
began stroking quickly, his fingers tightening.  Khadgar arched.
“White,” Medivh ordered.
Khadgar’s eyes flashed. The rose went from pink to white instantly, and in that
instant he arched further, his body having had enough. “Medivh. Master. Please.
I can’t.. I can’t… I’m – I’m…” The words tumbled from his lips and Medivh
watched him come undone, arching, legs trembling as he squeezed gently. But
still he did not – could not release.
“Do you see what I mean?” Medivh asked, calmly, noting that his lover’s eyes
glowed blue as they watched him, waiting, begging for permission.  Khadgar
nodded, slowly, and the rose began to disintegrate again, the ribbons of magic
falling from it as the runes danced across his vision.  “Then, my Young Trust,
come for me.”
The words were hardly out in the open before the rose exploded into motes,
bathing the room in a blue-violet glow as the voice Medivh had longed to hear
cried out, repeating his name over and over again as thirty years of pent up
need were finally, finally released.
Medivh continued to stroke Khadgar through his orgasm, through the aftershocks
that came after, and then finally let him go.  Khadgar’s chest rose and fell
swiftly as he tried to catch his breath.  The bands holding his wrists had
disintegrated with the rose, and Khadgar brought his arms down, reaching for
his mentor longingly.
Ignoring his own intense arousal, Medivh moved to pull Khadgar into his arms
and held him.  “Feel a bit better?” Khadgar nodded.  “Did that take the edge
off, or have you aged to where you need more than a few moments?”
Khadgar snorted in amusement. “I can still keep up with you, Master.”
“Medivh.”
“Master Medivh.” Khadgar leaned up to touch is lips to the other mage’s,
opening his mouth and inviting his beloved in, effectively silencing any
further chastising.
For now.
***** Momentarily *****
Chapter Notes
     Not beta'ed... Just like the first one I'll get around to it.. but
     for now...
     Bring a towel. You'll probably need one.
He didn’t think the kiss would keep his mentor silent for long, not when it was
obvious that… Wait a moment…
Khadgar pulled away from the kiss just enough to ask, “How… H... I mean… Have
you kept in practice?”
Medivh pulled back just enough to look his former apprentice in the eye. “The
same way you have. I just had more… experience… before… before I lost you.”
Khadgar blushed. He hadn’t thought of that possibility. Not then, not now.  “I
see,” he said quietly. “And so you had better – ah – control over the
reaction.”
Medivh chuckled and leaned down to kiss Khadgar’s forehead. “Stop thinking,
Young Trust. Put your mind to rest for a while.  At least until I tell you to
stop.”
Khadgar chuckled right back. “With all due respect, Master, your teachings
revolved around my keeping my mind turning at all times.”  He shifted so he
could glide a fingertip, tinged blue with a touch of power, down Medivh’s side,
eliciting a gasp.  “As such, being older now, I also have … ideas.”  He
maneuvered a leg between the older mage’s and pressed his thigh upwards.
“Ideas,” Medivh said breathlessly, gasping at the contact.
Khadgar grinned, a feral smile that reached his eyes and tinged them slightly
darker, pupils dilated slightly. “Ideas. Dreams, fantasies, and I’ve had thirty
years to have them – and they began before I even stopped mourning.”
“Show me.” The words were whispered, but Medivh’s commanding tone said volumes
as his own eyes widened, and he tried to pull away from the contact between his
thighs.  Khadgar held him in place with one arm, preventing the older mage from
moving.
“Your wish is my command,” Khadgar replied, lightly.  His eyes lit as runed
ribbons danced from his fingertips, brushing against the former Guardian’s
skin.  Sparks flew where they touched, arcing from fingertip to skin and back
like miniature lightning.  “I found this by mistake,” he said quietly. “Awaking
from a dream, in fact.  My hands were glowing, and I … I was…” He blushed
darkly as he looked up in to Medivh’s eyes again.  He drew a deep breath, and
continued, his voice a little stronger, but no less soft. “I was hard as iron. 
It was dark, and it was a hot night.  My windows were open, and I was blessedly
hot in more ways than one.  I had kicked my blankets to the floor, my pillow
was clenched in one hand, my other across my stomach.”  He trailed the ribbons
along Medivh’s stomach, noting the jump of the muscles beneath the skin, and he
splayed his hand just enough so the other three fingers and his thumb joined
the first in their teasing, the ribbons tendriling out, upwards to Medivh’s
chest, downwards towards his hips.  He released Medivh, and carefully slid out
from underneath him, inviting the older mage to take his place.
Medivh moved, his curiosity as aroused as his body, now.  Khadgar’s hand
followed his movements to keep the tendrils of ribbon dancing their sparks
against his skin as he continued while the Magus settled.
“I had a choice,” Khadgar murmured. “I could begin my day long before dawn with
a cold bath, or… or I could act.  I had long since decided I didn’t want
another’s hands touching me, nor did I want my hands on anyone else… but the
dream, Medivh… the dream…” he trailed off, curling his hand into a fist as the
ribbons faded into tatters, and then motes.  “I was beneath you.  Your hands
were in mine, and you were buried within me.” Medivh gasped and his cock
twitched.  He reached up, cupping Khadgar’s cheek, just looking for some kind
of contact, even as Khadgar settled to straddle his legs and settled there –
out of reach, the older mage noted, for them to … touch. “You were so far
gone,” Khadgar continued, his voice a low purr now, “calling my name, the way
that only you can.  I begged you. I pleaded with you. I wanted to feel you.  I
wanted to feel you so it would trigger my release – the way it always did. 
Your heat, your force, the way you moved when you couldn’t stop it from
coming…”  Khadgar licked his lips again.  “It was thunder that woke me.”
His hand opened again, and tiny arcane bolts, like lightning, danced across
Medivh’s skin.  “I woke trembling, whispering your name, over and over again,
as though I could call the dream back so I…” He had to pause to pull himself
back under control, noting that his hips had begun to rock restlessly, and
Medivh could both see and feel his earlier “fear” had been unfounded.
“I was desperate,” Khadgar continued.  “But I would not finish it myself. I
could not bring myself to. But… that did not mean my magic could not.” The
ribbons formed from the lightning, and curled around the Magus’ cock; a
formless, pulsing Presence.
Medivh arched. “You have indeed come a long way, Young Trust,” he grated out. 
“Is this what you had done then?”
“No,” whispered Khadgar, leaning down to brush his lips against Medivh’s.  The
ribbons merged into a single one, taking on the size and shape of a palm, and
began to stroke Medivh. Slowly. Very slowly. “I did this instead.  The way you
did as I begged you to finish me the last time we were together.  But…” He sped
the “palm” up a bit. “I couldn’t control it. Not then.  I couldn’t keep it
solid enough, not like now. Like that rose… it burst into motes as soon as I
was just starting to go over the edge – and I couldn’t. I’m quite sure that my
desk didn’t deserve the treatment it got that morning, and I’m more than sure
that my wardrobe was never the same.”
“You didn’t—“
“No.”
Medivh looked up at his former apprentice with sadness and a kind of pity in
his eyes.  “How long ago?” he asked, breathlessly.
“After I returned from Outland, back to Dalaran, before it was moved to
Crystalsong.”  Khadgar sighed, softly, letting his created “palm” speed up
again, then pulled it away to trail down one of Medivh’s thighs.  “It wasn’t
the only time.  Most of the time, I would wake with your name on my lips and …
well. A need for a bath and to change my linens.  At least twice a week.”
Medivh couldn’t help the chuckle that escaped after his gasp as the arcane
creation shifted into fingertips once again, trailing along his thigh, and then
to tease lightly at his perineum. “At least one thing hasn’t changed, Young
Trust.  You were insatiable in your youth, and I assume you still are?”
“Terribly.”  Khadgar blushed again as he leaned down to whisper against
Medivh’s ear. “And I am hoping that before I lose you again, you drain me dry,
and keep going… or tease me until I simply explode. I want to experiment with
all the things we promised each other, back then. I want time to stop, crises
to stop, and I want to learn what I should have had a chance to learn before
that demonic bastard took you from me.”
Medivh could not answer other than to moan, his hips lifting.  If nothing else,
his Young Trust had turned out to be not so young anymore, but had grown into
the confidence he had seen in the past. Had they not been forced apart the way
they had been, this is what he would have wanted as a partner.
“And you’re going to turn those tables on me, aren’t you, Young Trust?” he
finally asked, his hips lifting to offer the arcane fingertips more access.
Khadgar ran his physical hand down Medivh’s other thigh, banishing the arcane
creation once he reached the spot it was teasing, brushing his fingertips over
the curvature of one of the older mage’s balls, firm and tight in its slight
swell. “Tell me you want to do all of those things to me as well.”
“All of those things, and more. Ideas, remember. Dreams. Dreams where your
thrusts were slow and infuriating. Dreams where they were so hard I could
almost feel the bruises when I woke. I wanted to see the evidence of every
bite, every spot you sucked the blood to the skin, the hands on my hips and…“
He stopped talking, closing his eyes and shuddering.
“You’ve very nearly talked yourself into release,” Medivh murmured in awe,
momentarily forgetting where Khadgar’s hands were.
It took a moment for Khadgar to pull himself back under control.  “Memories,”
he murmured absently, brushing a fingertip against the tight ring of muscle
behind the perineum.
“In your dreams, did you ever take me?” Medivh asked.
“Never.”
“And yet your hand…” Medivh lifted an eyebrow in inquiry.
“Curiosity, as always.”
“Curiosity,” Medivh repeated, then shifted his legs apart, pulling Khadgar
closer to him as he did so. “Good enough as an excuse.  Explore. Stretch that
muscle.”  Khadgar looked down at Medivh, surprised.
“What?”
“I want you to fuck me, Khadgar,” Medivh said heatedly.  “I want to know what
it’s like to feel you – and your magic – fill me.”
Khadgar’s hand stilled, the Archmage biting his lip hard enough to draw blood
as he fought his body back under control. “Medivh,” he whimpered softly. “You
can’t—“
“I can, and I do mean it.  But calm yourself a bit first… As you are you may
explode before you manage to seat yourself.” Medivh chuckled softly.  “Breathe,
slowly. Empty your mind.”
Khadgar did breathe, slowly. But he couldn’t keep the stray thought of I would
prefer to empty other things right now out of his mind.  He closed his eyes,
and the images that flooded his mind’s eye forced them open again, his
breathing shuddering.  In. Out. Pause. In. Out. Pause. After several long
moments, he let his hand press again at the tight ring of muscle, trying to
remember how Medivh had done this to him, that first night; the only night the
older mage had taken his time in teasing at the muscles to convince them to
loosen, to calm the young apprentice through nerves and the fear that
accompanies a first time doing something new.
A burst of violet light distracted him, and Khadgar looked up.  Medivh held out
his hand, a vial in it. “This may also help,” he said quietly.  “Sparingly
though – it’s meant more for you than it is me.”
Khadgar took the vial, shifting to free both his hands to work the stopper out.
“What do you mean?” he asked softly.
“Mageroyal, dear boy. Mageroyal and Kingsblood.”  The knowing smirk that graced
the older mage’s lips as Khadgar turned very interesting shades of red and
purple was almost infuriating.
“I… I can’t,” Khadgar whispered. “I.. It would overwhelm—“
“I know.”
“But I’ve not—“
“I know.”
Khadgar swallowed, nervously. “But—“
“What have I told you about that word?  Your name, Young Trust. Believe in it
as I do.  You can keep yourself together. I have faith in it, and in you.”
Khadgar had no answer that he could give verbally, but instead finished pulling
the stopper out of the vial, and trickled a bit of the oil infusion onto his
fingers, rubbing his thumb against his fore and middle fingers to spread it
before moving his hand back down.  With almost a too-light feather touch, he
applied a bit of the oil to the muscle, which twitched under the questing,
hesitant touch.
His mind whirled as he worked, his mind supplying the side-effects that were
often ignored in the practical uses of the herbs.  Mageroyal – a powerful
painkiller with no narcotic side effects; the only side effect being a bout of
intense arousal that tended to fade after a day or two.  Kingsblood – a less
potent painkiller, but a very good numbing agent and anesthetic applied
topically, with the side effect of intense arousal – that would not be denied. 
Other herbs lessened or cancelled these effects, particularly when infused or
brewed with Liferoot or Golden Sansam, though when combined with Dreamleaf
could render the drinker of such an infusion unconscious, making certain
surgeries possible.
Khadgar circled the ring as his mind worked, using the almost textbook-
precision of his thoughts to keep himself calm.  With a deep breath, his eyes
watching his mentor’s face, he slid the tip of his forefinger past the muscle,
carefully, slowly.  He was rewarded with a soft gasp, but from the expression,
it was not from pain.  He slid the finger in a little further, and Medivh’s
eyes closed.
“Good,” Medivh murmured encouragingly. “Very good.  Not too fast.  Not too
slow, though, or I may lose my own patience.”
“If I do this any faster I may not make it,” Khadgar murmured, his voice
trembling.
“Are you afraid?”
“No, I’m not afraid.”
“… Do you want this? Are you sure you want this?”
Khadgar slid his middle finger in with the first without preamble or warning.
“Yes,” he replied fiercely as Medivh gasped and his hips lifted, one leg
shifting further aside.  “I’ve wanted, but never even dared to dream about what
it would be like to.. to…” He stopped abruptly to take a few deep breaths. 
“Let me concentrate,” he pleaded softly. “I’m… too close to losing control.”
“I could help you keep control,” Medivh offered softly.  “I could bind you so
that you can get no further than…” he pointedly looked down at Khadgar’s cock,
dripping steadily against his thigh.  “I can help you hold back.”
Khadgar moaned, and his fingers stilled once again. “I… I think I’m all right.”
“If you are not—“
“I will let you know.”
Khadgar spread his fingers apart, working them slowly in and out, slowly,
gently, stretching the muscle around them.  He tugged gently at various angles,
massaging the muscle carefully as he worked.  He put all of his concentration
into memories of anatomy books, the way musculature worked, the way this
particular set of muscles worked.
It didn’t help much.
Khadgar was panting by the time he felt the muscles give a little, and he
couldn’t keep still.  Medivh had done nothing to ease the constant shifting of
his weight, nor had he commented, instead letting his apprentice concentrate.
It was the whimper of pure need that caused him to speak, softly. “Khadgar?” 
The younger mage shook his head emphatically, and continued to work.
It was nearly too much. The memories of knowing what his fingers were doing –
the memory of similar fingers against his skin, teasing, soothing, easing –
that were driving him mad. Regarded as the most powerful mage on Azeroth and I
can’t keep a rein on my own body. Pathetic. He ached, and even the minute
shifts in his weight trying to relieve it weren’t helping.
“Khadgar?” Medivh tried again, a little more firmly.  One hand reached up, and,
shifting his balance, Khadgar’s free hand shot out to grab Medivh’s wrist.
“Don’t!” he cried, his voice cracking.  He gasped sharply, realizing the
contact between them was sparking along his nerves, and he continued speaking,
unknowing that words flowed from him.  “No- No, don’t you dare!” His eyes
closed and his hand tightened around Medivh’s wrist. His body trembled for a
moment, before he managed to wrestle some kind of control back.
Medivh watched, eyes wide. Did he just... so nearly… just from… A wicked glint
formed in his eyes and he shifted very slightly under the pretense of getting
more comfortable.
“Your body will win, eventually, Khadgar. Unless your will is stronger. Let me
help.”
“No.” Khadgar’s voice trembled as much as his watery limbs did.
“You’re too close, let me help you.”
“No!” Khadgar insisted. “Please.. please just let me—“
His own words made his condition worse, and he bit his lip, hard, and released
Medivh’s wrist with effort.  The fire along his nerves was more than too much,
and he willed his body to stop feeling.  He returned his concentration to
stretching Medivh again.
“Remarkable,” Medivh murmured, unaware he was speaking his thoughts aloud.
“Nearly past the point of no return, on the razor’s edge, and you continue to
fight it.”  He looked up as he let his arm fall, realizing his voice still
echoed in his ears. “But oh to cross the line.  To let your memories or your
own touches on me, my voice, your own…”
“Stop it,” Khadgar begged, sliding his ring finger into Medivh to join the
first two.  “If you don’t stop… if you don’t let me concentrate…”
“Then you’ll burst.”  Medivh lowered his own voice to a purr.  “Maybe I want to
watch you do just that.”
Khadgar stopped moving, and closed his eyes and bit nearly through his lip,
shaking his head.  “No,” he murmured, pleadingly, clearly speaking to himself. 
“Not like this.. not until… Not … not…”
“Not to the sound of my voice? Not while you prepare me so you can fuck me
properly – though, you said yourself you never dreamed—“
“Medivh please… I can’t—“
“I know. And it’s beautiful.”
Khadgar’s free hand was a white-knuckled fist against Medivh’s hip. His other
had paused, three-fingers deep into Medivh.  His back was arching.
Medivh’s cock twitched at the sight.  “I take back what I said earlier.  This
is hotter than I could have imagined it to be.”
“Stop—“
“No. I won’t stop.  I want to see how far this goes.” Medivh’s eyes moved to
the steady drip landing on his thigh.  “The battle is beautiful.  And whether
you win or lose, we both win, and whether you win or lose, I know you’re going
to pay me back for every bit of this by fucking me senseless – that which you
never dared to dream of, and yet you will do.”
Khadgar whimpered again, and he arched further, his cock twitching and
darkening.  He squirmed, trying to find a position where it wasn’t so painfully
heavy. But there was no contact to shy away from. There was nothing he could
pull back from that wouldn’t stop the sensations along his nerves.  “M-Medivh,”
he pleaded, his voice sounding pitiful and pathetic in his own ears – something
that may have been acceptable thirty years ago, but not now. Not now.
“Yes, Young Trust?” Medivh answered softly.
“I-I-I can’t.. It’s…”
“Do you want to stop it, or do you want to let go?”
“Yes! No! I don’t know… I just.. I can’t – it’s too much.”
“Stop thinking, then. Stop trying.”
“No,” Khadgar whispered, brokenly.
“Yes,” Medivh whispered back. “Oh, Khadgarif only I’d known I could do this
with just what was in your own mind, my voice and letting you finger me.”
Khadgar made a broken noise as his cock twitched again.  He was dancing on the
razor’s edge and he wanted to fight it back, wanted to continue stretching his
mentor so he could… So he could… That thought alone started him tipping over
the edge. His breath hitched and he whispered “No- No!” over and over.
“Yes,” Medivh hissed. “That’s it. You’re there. You’re there and now you can’t
stop. I can’t tell you how beautiful it is, how beautiful you are and perhaps
if I just … Look at me, Khadgar. Look at me. Now.” Khadgar’s eyes opened and
his head turned just enough for their eyes to meet. “Come for me, Khadgar. Come
for me, and me alone, my Young Trust.”
Khadgar’s voice protested. Khadgar’s body obeyed.  He arched, then curled over,
trying to deny, to hide, something, anything, even as his fingers pressed
deeply into Medivh and struck something that caused the Magus to arch upwards
and for an instant, they came into contact, Medivh’s thigh against Khadgar’s
cock, even as the Archmage was coming, and the stimulation was too much. 
Khadgar jerked backwards, breaking all contact other than the hand still buried
in the former Guardian.
“Oh Light,” Khadgar whispered, still trembling, still looking Medivh in the
eyes.  As he caught his breath, his eyes flashed, dangerously.  “And you were
right,” he murmured, still slightly out of breath. “I will pay you back.”
He withdrew his fingers, and dripped a few drops of the lubricant onto the tip
of Medivh’s cock, then gently massaged it into the skin.
“Khadgar, what are you doing?” Medivh cried in shock.
“Mageroyal. Kingsblood.  You knew what it would do to me when I finally used it
and when I came into contact with you when I seated.  So I’m turning the
tables, Master.  You’ve seen me come completely undone twice now.  And now I
want to watch you fall the same way.  The way I never dared to dream. For all
your power, for all your control, I want to see you lose it all.  Under my
hands. With my voice.”
As he spoke, he worked the lubricant onto his own cock, carefully stoppering
the vial and laying it aside on a table that may or may not have been there
before Khadgar reached to place the vial there.  “I may never have done this to
another, but I know how it works… And now… I’m not driven mad by need.  At
least not for release.” He leaned down to bite Medivh’s ear as he moved to
settle himself between the Magus’ legs. “Just need for you.”
He was entirely unprepared for the tingling of the infusion, but was even more
unprepared for the tight heat he slid into as he settled between Medivh’s
thighs, lined up and pushed forward. He was still oversensitive, and at first
it almost hurt, but he pressed on, fraction by fraction, ignoring Medivh’s
shifts as he moved.
He had to pause twice to catch his breath, and both times, his mentor
protested, but those protests went ignored. Khadgar pressed his hands to
Medivh’s shoulders and with one last quick thrust, hilted himself.
And stopped.
“Oh Light I had no idea,” he murmured, breathlessly. “Was this… Is this how…?”
“I always felt?” Medivh replied softly. “Yes. It was so hard, so hard not to
lose myself in you. So hard to wait, sometimes.”
Khadgar made a soft noise of acknowledgment, then slid, slowly, back out.  An
experimental, slow thrust. Another. A third.  Slow. Steady.
It was Medivh’s turn to writhe under the steady movements, (and under the
influence of two powerful aphrodisiacs) and Khadgar reveled in it.  His hand,
still damp from the lubricant, curled around Medivh’s cock and began to stroke,
matching his movements.  He could feel the older mage trembling in his hands,
around his cock, and could feel the heat of those green eyes on him as he
moved.
Oh, it was intoxicating. More intoxicating than any fine wine he’d ever had,
more so than that stuff the orcs had come up with – firewater, if he was
correct – the stuff that burned all the way down and warmed in the pit of his
belly like the way his body felt just before he unleashed a Pyroblast.
He couldn’t stay at this pace forever. His body, spent twice already, would not
allow for it. He was more than ready to come again, and he was determined that
he would not, until he had driven Medivh past the point of speech, to silence
that beautiful commanding voice into the tiny noises of need, want, desire and—
Oh he needed to stop thinking about that right now.
Instead he concentrated on watching Medivh, the way those green eyes had once
watched him for signs of discomfort, for signs of needing it to stop.
There were none.  Medivh’s arms had lifted and pulled Khadgar against him,
arching and bending until he could hold his apprentice close and still let the
younger mage work his magics on his body.
Khadgar couldn’t keep the slow pace.  He sped up, and Medivh held him tighter. 
As soon as he felt he could keep himself under control, he whispered against
Medivh’s ear. “I may not have dreamed of doing this, Master, but I had thought
about it. I wondered. You know my curiosity.  You could undo me with a look, a
touch, a promise of things to come. Distractions for my spell casting,
distractions from my studies until nothing could shake me.  But I let them in.
I let it all in.  Is this the kind of training you had, I wondered, since
nothing could shake you? Is this the reason that the oaths are so strict?  What
could possibly have given you reason to break them for me?
“And now I know. I know, because I feel it. I have you, trembling beneath me,
after all those times you had me beneath you, and now I know.”
He didn’t realize his eyes were beginning to glow – and it was something he had
been warned of, so many years before he stood before the tower of Karazhan, the
reason he remained so celibate until he was within these walls.
“Then you also know,” Medivh replied with difficulty, “the dangers.”
“To the lowest hells with the dangers.”
“Khadgar.” The word was mean to be sharp, but a particularly powerful thrust
made it much less so, even as the younger mage sped his pace up, and his eyes
brightened.  “This.. this is why I would never let you – not until you could
control…”
“The power that I can feel now? I can feel it. And I want it there. I want to
know what it’s like at least once.”
“I did too. I destroyed my study. Alone.”
Khadgar sped up again, his pace becoming less structured and more chaotic. “I
will keep it under control.”
“How?”
“I have to,” Khadgar replied, breathless, his voice breaking.  “I will not hurt
anyone, nor will I cause destruction where none is warranted.  I have to—“ He
slowed his thrusts, straining muscles slowing from their growing frantic pace.
“Keep control. Of that. At least. If nothing else.”
Medivh reached up and pulled Khadgar down to kiss him, hard.  He longed to
reverse their positions, to have his apprentice mewling beneath him as he had
so many years ago, to watch as those glowing eyes and the murmuring culminated
in…
“Medivh,” Khadgar whispered as he pulled back from the kiss, his eyes sparkling
with arcane motes.  “It … it is controllable.  Isn’t it?”
“Now you ask questions, after you’ve begun. Well, that always was your way.” He
tried to work a hand between them, but Khadgar reached down and pinned the
wrist to the older mage’s side. “Yes, it is, but it is difficult. But you, my
apprenti—No. My successor. You can, easy as breathing.  You can feel it singing
in your veins, with every heartbeat.  Just beware when it pools, when it
sparks.  It will take your control from you at your most vulnerable, if you let
it.”
Khadgar pulled back a little, shifting one leg so he sank deeper with every
thrust, and Medivh arched sharply. “Oh LIGHT, is that why you…?”
Khadgar smirked slightly and continued to hit that spot. “Yes,” he replied
softly. “And this,” he hit it again a little harder, then shifted his position
to slide over it every time he moved, “is why I wanted it.”
Medivh’s hands curled into fists around sections of the cushions beneath them. 
“Don’t stop,” he pleaded, surprising himself with just how much he had sounded
like Khadgar so many years ago.
“No intention.” Instead, Khadgar sped up again, letting his body do what it so
longed to do.  His eyes drank in the sight beneath him, the way Medivh arched,
trying hard to find a way for Khadgar’s hand to move faster, tighten.
Something.
“Please… I’m.. I need to… This is maddening!”
“It… always… was…” Khadgar breathed, his hand tightening just a little, then
sped up to match his frantic thrusts.  “And you always… Always… Oh Light… I
can’t…” But I must…
“Almost,” Medivh hissed.  “Just… Just a little…”
The sight of the Magus unraveling was nearly too much. Khadgar bit his lip to
stay silent, and to ground himself as he watched and felt the older mage’s hips
bucking upwards against his hand, and he let his hand follow it, wanting to
watch it happen. Wanted to watch the end.
Medivh didn’t scream, but the strangled noise he made tried Khadgar’s patience
to the utmost.  Perhaps the older mage had more control, but thirty years still
took its toll.  The strangled noise resolved into Khadgar’s name, moaned darkly
into the silence as he finally found release.
Khadgar’s control disintegrated.  Still stroking his former master, his thrusts
sped up once more until he could feel the heat pooling, the pressures building,
and the arcane pulsed in his veins to the beat of his racing heart.
He knew he should withdraw. Now. Before something horrible happened.
He couldn’t. He couldn’t stop. He couldn’t stop what was coming, even as his
lips betrayed him by moving in an incantation he couldn’t identify and couldn’t
stop himself from casting – and Medivh lay beneath him, green eyes wide as he
watched, unable to reach a hand up to stop him.
The world went grey, and then exploded in violet and blue light, and he could
feel himself coming, harder than he had in the past hour, harder than he had
ever in his memory.
And then knew nothing more.
***** Mediation *****
Chapter Notes
     Angst. Lots of Angst. Confessions. Souls laid bare, and stream-of-
     consciousness writing that I'm sure I'll hate when I read it again
     later.
     The ending of this chapter is dedicated to Callina - it was too good
     NOT to do. <3
“Ngh…” Khadgar’s throat hurt.  He swallowed, then again.  He was vaguely aware
of someone stroking his hair.  His head lifted slightly from where it lay, and
found himself looking into Medivh’s eyes.  Medivh’s amused, but concerned eyes.
Shreds of memory started to come back to him, little by little, and he suddenly
jerked upward with a gasp. “What did—“ he coughed, his mouth and throat dry.
Again.
“Look around you,” Medivh’s answer came, softly, in the darkness.
No, not darkness.  The study danced with light. Motes of it. Like fireflies,
blue and violet and green and gold, the little lights danced, blinked, winked
around them.  Atiesh glowed faintly blue where it still lay against the
armchair, pulsing slightly.  After watching it for a few moments, he realized
it was pulsing in time with his heart.
“Master, what did I do?” Khadgar whispered.
He sounded so much like his younger self that Medivh laughed, softly.  It had
been rare, that laugh – so carefree and happy.  “The short version is, well,
you exploded.”  He shifted to pull Khadgar closer, and a gentle hand pushed the
Archmage’s head back down to rest against his shoulder.
Khadgar let his head be moved, and shifted so he could cuddle better.  They
were clean, which spoke to him volumes about how long he had been unconscious,
and he half expected to wake bent over the table, drooling on the book or his
notes.  Perhaps this wasn’t a fever dream after all. Not when he could still
feel the tingling of…
Oh FEL not again…
Medivh laughed again, cradling the other mage and kissing the top of his head.
“Insatiable,” he teased softly.  “The long version, then… before we… resume.”
He cleared his throat, and sat up just a little, pulling Khadgar with him, so
they were lounging instead of laying.  He moved a hand over the table, and two
mugs appeared next to the vial Khadgar had put there.  He handed one to the
Archmage. “Here. We should stay hydrated.”  He took the other, and managed to
sip from it without dislodging Khadgar.  “Now. Has anyone ever explained why
the Guardian tends to stay celibate – vows or no vows?”
“No. I had assumed it was a newer thing, because of what your mother did.”
“No, it has gone back centuries.  Mages are vulnerable, at their most
vulnerable at two times, and why no one but us has figured this out I won’t
ever understand.” Medivh sighed.  “If you truly want to destroy a mage, there
are two times you can do so without them being able to so much as raise their
voice to defend themselves.  One of those times, is in the privy.  But then,
nearly everyone is at the same state there. Our bodies make us weak and focus
more on the removal of toxins and other such during that time.  It is the same
for all creatures, from the most intelligent of races right down to the very
simple creatures we once originated from.” He paused to sip from his mug.  It
was a light wine, this time, not just spring water.  Light, fruity, sweet, with
just enough alcohol to call it wine and not juice.  He stole a glance at
Khadgar, who lay curled against him, and this could have been thirty years ago,
Medivh giving a lecture, Khadgar curled up against him in sweet intimacy,
listening with wide eyes and rapt attention, sharing a drink.  He smiled at the
sight before continuing.  “But unlike most creatures, a mage is at their most
vulnerable in lovemaking.  Some may argue that for all creatures, but we are
more susceptible still.  You felt yourself the song of power, and even the
first time I watched you, I could feel it radiate – but you didn’t consciously
cast either.  This time,” he waved his hand at the motes still dancing around
them, “you couldn’t help but do so.”
“You didn’t try to stop me…” Khadgar mused softly, then looked up. “Why?”
“I could not.” Medivh sighed. “I couldn’t hear what you were saying, I didn’t
know what you were casting. But for you to have to use an incantation meant it
was something significant, something larger than combat magic or a swift word
of Power to direct.  But I was far too spent to move. I could only watch, and
wait.  And trust.” He paused again.  “You could have killed me.  Could have
killed us both.  You could have obliterated this very tower and sent it into
the Nether… It’s already a conduit there, and its twisted within, and only
grows more so because it does not have a custodian to keep it from doing so.
Well. Other than me.”
“But—“
“Yes, you have a very nice one, and I’ll get to it eventually, but for now…” He
sipped his wine again, then set the mug on the table.  “As you have probably
guessed, I can return here whenever I wish. I think I have bound myself tightly
enough to this tower, provided it doesn’t destroy itself, that I can stay here
until it crumbles to dust.  The tower itself, as you know, is almost sentient. 
Even though I drew that power into me and left it a shadow of what it had been
so I had the strength to warn the others about what eventually transpired in
Hyjal, it… I…”
“You wanted to retire, to finally rest. Didn’t you.”
“I did. But that is neither here nor there at the nonce.” He waved a hand at
the dancing sparks.  “I could not stop you from undoing the ravel of reality,
if that is what your lust dictated.  So. Now I have a question for you, Young
Trust.  What is this?” He picked his mug up from the table again and sipped
from it, waiting patiently for Khadgar’s answer.
Khadgar, meanwhile, let the question sink in – and pointedly ignored some of
the other things Medivh had said – and also took slow sips of wine, smiling
slightly at the memory of another similar evening of discussion over time and
then a smashed mug as he lost control of a simple levitation spell.
What was it he had done?  New spells, created on the spot as need dictated were
nothing new to him, though some of them had nearly gotten him killed,
especially when he stopped and stared at it when it worked.  It wasn’t that
long ago that he was nearly washed away in a flood after destroying a dam,
after all – and combining the three major schools of magic to do so was
reckless and stupid, and he ached, empty and sore after for quite some time,
considering he had only a few moments of rest before moving on, and then the
battle, and the mass teleportation, the portals... how he had not collapsed
still surprised him.  He stared upwards, watching one mote as it passed
overhead, blinking slowly into soft blue light, fading, then blinking in
violet, fading, then blinking in gold, fading and then repeating the entire
cycle.  His eyes moved to another – one with a different pattern: green, gold,
blue.  And another, gold, blue, green, violet.
The colors meant something, he was sure of it. His eyes darted to several in
succession, trying to figure out the pattern.  The color blue was the exact
color his eyes glowed when he cast.  The green was the color of Medivh’s eyes
as they lit before turning violet – the same color as the …
And the gold. Gold like sunshine on a summer’s day, warming the soul. Gold like
the power of the Light, healing, attacking foes with righteous fire.  He looked
closely at the motes again. There was no red among them.  It was not the
schools of magic as they were known.  But what did they mean?  The blue, green
and violet were obvious to him, but the gold…
“Light above,” Khadgar whispered softly, following one of the motes nearest
him, one that pulsed with the pattern of blue, then green, then gold. He had
the answer, but though he opened his mouth to speak it, he could not.  His
heart felt tight, and began to race.  Atiesh, cradled in the chair across from
them mirrored it in its pulsing glow.
“I—“ He looked up at Medivh, trying again and failing. His chest felt tight,
and as blue met green, he felt tears well in his eyes.
Medivh was quiet, meeting Khadgar’s eyes and holding them.  A soft smile
touched his lips and he looked up at the motes again. “Your answer?” he
prompted softly.
His answer was a soft sob.  He gently took the mug from Khadgar’s limp fingers
and set it beside his own. So. The spell had something to do with something so
deeply suppressed that it was only coming out now, was that it?
He pulled Khadgar closer, one hand gently rubbing his back, the other tracing a
pattern on the back of his neck.  “You’ve started that at least twice tonight.
And twice you have ruthlessly shoved whatever has brought it down.  Enough. 
Enough, Young Trust.  You resent it because of your age, do you?  Do you think
others have not wept when the world has been too much to bear?”
Khadgar tried to lift his head, tried to find some way of stopping Medivh from
saying those words. He was perilously close – too close, and it hurt,
suppressing it. But he could not. Not here. Not like this. Not when his mentor
counted on him – called him his successor, not his apprentice any longer.
“Do you think I had not done this, alone, when I knew I was hurting you – when
I knew you were looking out for me? Khadgar look at me.”  Khadgar shook his
head. Medivh tried again, using his fingers to lift the younger man’s chin.
“Look at me.”
His heart ached as he saw the stricken expression, the pain of … more than
enough years to have made this all go wrong now.  The overbright eyes, the
tears that spilled down the prematurely aged cheeks, catching and following a
line of a scar.
“The night you and Anduin came after me, I plead with everything good in the
world, from the souls of the passed to the Light. I begged for more time. One
more night before the madness. A night to tell you – tell you everything. You
trusted me with every bit of yourself, and I’d been keeping what was happening
behind my teeth to protect you.”  Medivh paused, looking up at the lights
above, then turned his eyes back to Khadgar’s.  “But it was not to be.  You
were right. I let you and Anduin close to me so you would be my undoing.  No. 
Not my undoing… that monster’s. But still, it resulted in the same thing. 
There was so much left to teach you. So much more for us to discover.  I told
you that I nearly cried when I killed Moroes and Cook.  At least… he did, if it
wasn’t me properly.  I didn’t tell you that I wept myself to sleep before then.
I wept, and I tried… I tried so hard to end it all so you wouldn’t have to. 
Incantations died on my lips, my tongue dried when I tried to speak, my voice
died in my throat.  I tried everything from setting my room aflame to
overloading myself with the power around me. And I wept when I knew I could
not.” Khadgar swallowed and turned away, unable to meet his master’s eyes. “No,
Khadgar. Look at me.” He gently turned the Archmage’s head again and caught and
held his eyes.  “And you think I would think less of you, now? You looked me in
the eyes when you drove that sword home.  The look on your face was…” He shook
his head, took a breath and continued. “You went on to become a commander. You
lost friends when you crossed the portal that first time. You returned hardened
after being stranded for years… and yet you continued to study, continued to
grow. You have followed a destiny you never wanted, but have taken on to
yourself nonetheless.  I meant what I said, the last time I saw you.  I can
never tell you enough how proud I am of you.  And yet, you are here, trembling
by my side, suppressing something that should have been let go years – decades…
I could make you forget. Your body wants me to make you forget, but I refuse. 
And if I have to keep talking to make you let loose your barriers, I will.”
Khadgar didn’t look away, but as Medivh spoke, more tears had streaked down his
face, and the trickle was rapidly becoming a flood.  He closed his eyes
tightly, but it didn’t stop it.  Something inside snapped, and he turned to
bury his face against Medivh’s shoulder, his arm seeking purchase around the
other mage, and felt arms encircle him, propping him up a little so he could
lean more comfortably.  He had heard of the term “ugly crying” from many of the
women he knew, but had never given it much thought.  This must be what it was
like – not letting tears fall to relieve some of the pain, but the awful soul-
wrenching sobs that tore from his throat, memories of everything he had been
through welling up and spilling out in an uncontrollable storm.  The final
stages of mourning for Medivh – the Medivh he had run through with his own
hands and a borrowed sword.  Turalyon, Alleria, Anduin, the countless others he
had lost over time as those in his charge fell, and fell again. How many of the
current champions would he send to their deaths when the true assaults began?
How many had he killed? How much death had he seen?
It didn’t matter.  Right this moment he was warm, he was safe, and he was being
held and comforted by the only being he had ever truly loved.  There it was.
That admission earned him a more painful bout of sobs, ones that threatened his
throat.  He couldn’t take it back now. Medivh had been the one to say the words
once. But now, Khadgar could deny it no longer.  His fingertips curled against
Medivh’s skin as he clung to sanity itself as he wept.
All the while, the motes danced around them, and Atiesh continued to pulse
softly, matching the pounding of his heart.
It may have been hours, days or years when Khadgar found he could not shed any
further tears.  His eyes hurt, his nose ached, and he sniffled, sounding much
more like his seventeen-year-old self than he cared to admit.  A scrap of linen
was placed into his hand as he pulled away from Medivh at last, and he used it
to repair what he could of his face.
“Now… would you care to talk about it? Some of it, at least?”
Khadgar took his time in drying his eyes, clearing his nose, and scrubbing at
his cheeks before he answered.  “This,” he waved at the motes slowly blinking
their patterns around them.  “It is love, Medivh. The only way I knew how to
express it.”
Medivh opened his mouth and Khadgar placed a finger to his lips to silence him.
“No. Let me finish.  It has been inside me, inside my memories like this for
years.  The blue of my eyes, the green of yours, the violet of casting, and the
warmth of golden sunlight that only the Light can mimic.  Happiness. I never
once told you, in all of our time together that I loved you. But I do. I always
have. And I can’t hide that anymore.”
Medivh was shocked into silence as Khadgar continued.  “It started out simple. 
I never had a parent figure in my life, not after I went to Dalaran.” He dabbed
his eyes again. “My siblings. My parents. When they sent me off, it was an
honor.  They had no idea… no idea of the prison it turned out to be.” He looked
up at Medivh. “When the Kirin Tor sent me to you – they didn’t send me because
you finally acquiesced to an assistant.  They sent me here to die.”
“What?!” Medivh’s arms tightened around Khadgar possessively.
“You know my nature. My insatiable curiosity. I learned things. I didn’t .. I
mean they … I knew things they didn’t want me to know.  I was a suitable spy. I
would be better off ferreting out your secrets and reporting them all back. If
I turned up like the – others – it would be best.  They gave me advice on how
not to get myself killed but…”
“They sent you to Karazhan to die.” Medivh’s voice was flat, and held a hint of
anger.
“When I returned, they were… less than pleased to see me at first, but seeing
as I returned upon revealing you as a demon and having killed you with my own
hands and with Anduin’s aid, and solved the mysteries of the deaths that had
been occurring, they didn’t dare … I mean they probably wanted to…”
“Turn you out, or lock you up, but as the Guardian presumptive, they didn’t
dare.”
Khadgar nodded.
“Your family?”
Khadgar shrugged.  “I never heard from them again.”
Medivh snarled softly. “Go on. There was more.”
“So you were my first father-figure since my instructors.  You didn’t talk at
me, or over me, or down to me. You talked to me. You didn’t teach me, you
shared with me.  It was gut-reaction. You paid attention to my theories. You
encouraged me to think. You encouraged me, period.”  Khadgar sighed, and rubbed
his eyes. “And then we fought those orcs after I …”
“Fell off your gryphon.”
“Yes. I expected to die there, you know.”
“But you fought, and you bought the time for me to get to you.”
“And you backed up my bluff, when I had drained my own powers, pathetic as they
were then.”
Medivh petted Khadgar’s hair, ruffling it gently into silvery spikes. “I had
just as little when I began my own training at that age. More than a fireball
and a shield and I just fell over.  Look at what time did to you, my Young
Trust.  It was in you all the time.  It just needed experience andproper
teaching. You had the theory, the thirst for more knowledge, and when that
started to rise, so too did your potential.”
“And you let me thrive on it. You let me be curious. You opened your library to
me.” Khadgar chuckled softly. “Little did you know then, that by doing so, you
had laid the heavens above at my feet, spread rose petals for my walking, and
caused me to bloom like a winter rose as the spring sunlight touches its
leaves.”
“Pure poetry,” Medivh smiled. “And this cause you to fall in love?”
“Some of it.  You were kind to me, when you remembered who I was. You let me
try myself instead of telling me what to do. You pushed me beyond my limits and
kept pushing.  There were days I nearly fell asleep in the bath at the end of
the day, and collapsed into bed – and as you know, times I slept in the library
when I just couldn’t make it back to my bed.  Or on nights I tried to catch a
stray grain of sand,” Khadgar admitted.
“Your curiosity and persistence in seeking those sands saved more than just me…
and I would have been angry had I known – then. Now I am grateful for your
persistence.”
“The more I saw, of you, I mean, the more there was to become fond of.  Then
you just… collapsed for days, and had me take care of things for you.”  Khadgar
blushed. “I stayed with you. Worked in your room. Watched you sleep. After a
while I simply let Moroes bring your broth to you and fed you myself. I talked
to you.”  He closed his eyes. “It was then.  I didn’t recognize it, but it was
then.  The thought of losing you began to hurt.  And then I saw that vision of-
of Sargeras and…”
“And I woke to find you on the floor.”
“I hadn’t been sleeping,” Khadgar said quietly. “I tried to attack that vision.
To protect you. I told myself it was because you were the Guardian, and as your
apprentice it was my duty to make sure you were safe, even at the cost of my
own life. An apprentice can be replaced. The Guardian cannot.”
“In other words, when I woke to find you caring for me, and realized just how
much I cared for you was when you realized the same,” Medivh mused quietly.
Khadgar nodded with a slight shrug. “And then we began the dance around the
subject until the day you blew up the library.” Khadgar nodded again.
“Ah, Young Trust, there are less destructive ways of showing someone you love
them. Flowers, for instance, or chocolates, or whatever else they come up with
for that Love Is in the Air business.” He gestured upwards. “Or this.  I notice
it’s not fading.  Most lust-magics fade quickly.”
“I… It wasn’t fueled by lust,” Khadgar murmured, looking up at it. “It may have
been powered by lust, but it was not fueled by it.” He winced slightly. “Have I
altered something here?” he asked, concerned.
“Doubtful.  It will fade over time.”
“Mm,” Khadgar sighed and settled back down against Medivh’s shoulder.  “So.
It’s in the open now.  Years, decades too late.”
“There will be others—“
“Never. Never in the past thirty years. Never before, and never after.”
“You shouldn’t close your heart like that.”
“How is it closing my heart if you are here, and I love you, and only you?”
Khadgar hadn’t meant for the words to come out as fiercely as they did, but
they had, unbidden.
“And if I am here because I am bound to this tower, and have only come here
because of your will?  When you find another, I will fade into the pages of
history, and when this tower finally succumbs to the twisted magics here, when
the Nether claims it…”
“Then so will it devour me.”
Medivh closed his eyes.  His heart ached – what was left of it.  He reached up
and stroked Khadgar’s cheek. “And the Legion?”
“Unless you feel that Karazhan will die tomorrow, I should have enough time.”
“And if I fade and you can’t call me back?”
Atiesh dimmed, and the pulsing stopped for a moment.
“I—“
“You see? Oh, Khadgar you must live on, and forget me, once you leave this
place for the last time.  Leave the ghosts to their memories, leave the
imprints behind.”
“Never.  This tower holds too much knowledge for me to just leave it forever.”
“Take the books back to Dalaran. Or your own personal library. Build your own
stronghold – unless you intend to claim Karazhan as is your right.”
“I haven’t the power to call it back from the monstrosity it is becoming,”
Khadgar said, slowly, sadly. “Not and tend everything else that I must.”
“Spoken like a true Guardian.”
“I already told you I am no—“
Lips against his silenced the younger mage, and he trembled against the
attack.  He pulled back to breathe.  “You cheated,” he whispered.
“I always cheat when I can press the advantage.”  Medivh grinned, his eyes
lighting with it, then he leaned up to kiss Khadgar again, slowly, teasingly. 
“And I have an advantage now.  Surely now that you have unburdened your heart
to me, finally, perhaps you can find more peace in writhing beneath me as you
once did, crying my name to the Nether as I drove you past the point of
endurance?”
Khadgar blushed.  “I—“
“And now that your heart is exposed, not to a tainted entity but to me,
properly, perhaps, just perhaps, it will change how things work.  Not that I
don’t want you begging me for relief, but I want to see the love in it – that
last thing you held back from me.” For it may be the one and only time I ever
see it… “And now that you are older, you surely have a little more confidence,
hm? More authority. Use it. You technically outrank me, Archmage Khadgar. Of
the Kirin Tor. Of the Violet Citadel. Of Dalaran. Of Lordaeron.”
Khadgar blushed, a deep crimson that spread to his ears, down the back of his
neck and across his chest. “Oh no,” he moaned softly.  Medivh laughed.
“Moroes was a terrible gossip.” He sighed. “I miss him.  He… was a wonderful
companion. He and Cook refused to leave me.”
Khadgar shifted to lay a hand over Medivh’s.  “I’m sorry,” he began.
“No – no don’t be. The past is the past, and there is little that can be done
to change it without altering the outcome.  The sands must fall – regardless of
the order, they must fall, and this is how they were meant to fall.”
“I could wish,” Khadgar said softly, “that my grain had crossed the neck of the
hourglass a little sooner.”
Medivh choked, and Khadgar looked up at him.  Medivh shook his head, looking
down at the altered form of the apprentice he had come to love.  “After all I
did to you—“
“After all you had done for me.”
“And the times I tried to kill you – I stole your youth away from you—“
“The fel madness stole my youth from me, and it just took me a few years to let
magic heal some of the damage as I caught up to it. Do not compare yourself to
that demon.” Khadgar lifted himself up a little, and kissed Medivh with such
force that it stole the former Guardian’s breath. “Do not ever compare yourself
to that monster again.”
Medivh stared at Khadgar, and their eyes met.  Khadgar’s pale blue eyes had
turned a blazing azure, and the power held there made him gasp.  Oh, he must be
a sight when he was truly angry or roused in any other fashion – he already
knew what arousal could do to him.  It was no wonder he kept such a tight leash
on his emotions.  He leaned up and returned the kiss, pulling Khadgar under him
with relative ease, his lips bruising the Archmage’s as he let his own emotions
loose on his former apprentice.
“Not as long as you remind me there was more to me than a monster.”
“As long as I draw breath.”
“Then live Khadgar. My Young Trust. Live and don’t pine away for a memory.” 
Khadgar ignored the words and pulled the Magus down against him, sliding a leg
under Medivh’s and lifting his thigh.  Medivh gasped and tried to pull away. 
Khadgar wrapped his other leg around the older mage’s and held it trapped
between his own.
“I am living,” he answered simply, pulling Medivh’s head down again.  “And
right now, I want to be doing other things. If this is a dream, a memory, or
just a passing vision, I want it to leave me bruised and empty and enough to
fill my heart and remember why I must live.”
Medivh tilted his head to press his lips to the pulse along Khadgar’s neck, and
kissed it, softly, then ran his tongue over the spot. And then bit it sharply.
He used his weight to keep the younger mage in place as he sucked at the bite
ruthlessly, leaving a bruise that would show, even with what the mage usually
wore.  He wanted that mark seen, every time Khadgar saw his reflection, dressed
or not.  He trailed lower, leaving more such marks, and refusing to let his
former apprentice arch or move at all beneath him.  He ran nails down his
sides, leaving red welts where they passed, dug in, leaving crescent-shaped
marks on the skin.
Khadgar could do little but make tiny noises at every bite, moaned darkly as
nails dragged across his skin, and yelped when the nails dug in.  And he
reveled in it.  When Medivh let him up, he found his wrists bound again, and
this time they were secured above his head, bands closed around his ankles and
pulled him into a stretch so his feet were at the edges of the chaise, and he
was open and vulnerable – and unable to interfere. He watched as Medivh sat
back on the edge of the chaise, moving one finger, and runes appeared on his
skin.  Khadgar tried to lift his head enough to read them, but they were just
out of reach.  A shift in weight and a nail traced them, so Khadgar could feel
them.
Silence.
Binding.
Lust.
As soon as the last one was drawn, his body warmed.  He opened his mouth to
speak, but found his tongue would not obey.  His eyes widened as Medivh turned
his head and smiled, a feral grin that held something in his eyes that spoke of
longing, desire and a request – a request to trust him. Khadgar could only nod,
slightly.
He felt more marks sucked into his skin, down his torso and along his legs,
several on his inner thighs, and he squirmed – or tried to – as his arousal
built.  Lines of fire followed Medivh’s fingertips, followed by lines of ice,
followed by arcane sparks.  He cried out, and found that if he did not try to
speak, he could still do so. Clever.
“So interesting. I never thought of doing something like this until you did it
earlier.  And you respond so beautifully,” Medivh mused.  A wave of his hand
released Khadgar’s ankles, and he reached for the vial on the table. “But I’m
afraid that I find myself impatient.  Must be something about admissions and
something further about suppressed emotions and such.”
A touch between Khadgar’s legs trailed to his cleft as Medivh shifted his leg
out of the way.  The light shifted as Atiesh brightened in its pulsing and the
lights around them pulsed brighter.  “Ah, have you missed this then?”  A finger
slid in and Khadgar cried out again, and moved, not away from the touch, but
toward.  A muffled moan touched his ears and he chuckled softly again.  With
his free hand, he reached up and raked his nails across the silence rune,
leaving blood trails.  “I find I want to hear you.  It was your voice that
always spurred me anyway.”  A second finger sank as easily as the first, and he
was rewarded with another arch.  He kept Atiesh in his peripheral vision as he
teased and stretched Khadgar’s muscles, the visible representation of Khadgar’s
pulse very interesting to watch, even as he could feel it beneath his hands. 
He shifted impatiently, trying to rein in his own desires; he was far from done
with tormenting his former student.
Khadgar remained as quiet as he could – at least until a third finger slid in
and he arched with a soft cry.  Words spilled from his lips before he realized
they had, demanding that Medivh “get on with it”, and got a chuckle in reply.
One finger curled into a hook and brushed upwards, and Khadgar arched, and more
words tumbled as things he had only felt in dreams suddenly came alive and sent
fire along his nerves and sparks across his vision and oh by the Light he
needed this.  What was earlier was lovely but this – this was what he wanted. 
But the teasing just continued.  He twitched, squirming in his arousal, and his
hips lifted.  Oh if Medivh just kept going… just like that, he could… He could…
Cold bands snapped into place at the base of his cock, then just under the
head, and another around his balls.  Tight enough to feel, but not tight enough
to hurt.  He wailed in frustration, even as Medivh continued to tease him.
“I would never have bound you when you were younger – restraints would have
done you more harm then, but now? Now I can torment you to my heart’s content –
you’ve had the edges taken off… and now I can push you to your limits. And I
intend to, Young Trust.”
“Medivh – Master – please… don’t do this, not like this, not when—“
“Not when I have you so close already?  Trust in me.”  The fingers withdrew and
Khadgar bit his lip.
Something rather larger than fingers pressed against him, and nudged forward,
and with a sharp intake of breath, Khadgar relaxed, and … oh that was lovely…
this was what he missed for so many years.  The aching void of him was being
filled by something that only one person on the whole of any world he had set
foot on could fill.
Medivh moved slowly, angling to brush against that spot and watched the
Archmage’s reactions, his heart pounding in his chest almost in time with the
pulsing of Atiesh, now.  Khadgar’s head lay back, tilted so his throat was
exposed, and the pulse was visible there.  His mouth was open, lips parted just
enough to aid his breathing, which was forced in slow, deep gasps – a breathing
exercise to keep his sanity intact.  A lock of hair had strayed to his
forehead, and for a moment, just a moment, Medivh could see a younger man
there, with raven black hair, a white streak through it, his head tilted just
like now, keening cries vibrating his throat as he was driven ever closer to
his goal.
The older mage shook off the vision, and his body began to move of its own
accord, his thrusts speeding up, watching the expression on the younger man’s
face change subtly; the closed eyes opened, and glowed from within, his lip
found its way between his teeth, and he tried to arch, his feet trying to plant
themselves to gain more leverage.  Medivh threw him off balance by pulling one
of his legs over his shoulder and shifted forward, his thrusts becoming far
less gentle, and remembering something Khadgar had said earlier, wrapped a hand
around one hip, and made sure it would bruise when he moved away.
The tight heat was exactly as he remembered it – perhaps a trifle tighter,
after thirty years, but it was no less welcoming and warm and velvet around
him. He found himself fighting, and fighting hard to keep control.
Khadgar’s head lifted just a little, so he could meet the other mage’s eyes. 
“Stop,” he whispered. Medivh slowed down, but Khadgar shook his head. “Stop
holding back.”
“If I don’t, I’ll hurt you.”
“Hurt me then! I’m not seventeen anymore, Med. I’m not going to break if you
hurt me.”
Medivh’s heart ached at the shortened version of his name, and he leaned over
Khadgar and let his leg fall into the crook of his arm as he let years of pent
up desire come to the fore, and before he realized it, he could hear the creak
of the wood beneath him as his body moved, the sharp gasps that escaped Khadgar
as the movements sharpened.
“Yes,” Khadgar hissed.  He tried to lift his arms, but snarled when he found he
could not.  Understanding, Medivh leaned down, his angle changing enough that
Khadgar’s hisses turned to keening wails.
“That’s the sound I want to hear.  Oh Light, Khadgar. I’ve waited years to hear
you keen like that. Just like that.”
Whether the words penetrated or not, it didn’t matter. The wails shifted
slowly, as Khadgar’s hips lifted, trying to find purchase against his mentor’s
skin, forgetting the bindings that held him.  Medivh reached hand down and
began to stroke him in time with his thrusts, just as roughly.  The cries
intensified, and words began to spill from his lips again – begging, pleading,
and Medivh drank it in like parchment drinks in ink, imprinting those noises to
memory.
To keep himself from casting something, he concentrated on answering the
begging, the pleading, the cries of his own name.  The abyss was creeping up to
swallow him, and he didn’t want it to, not yet, not until he saw Khadgar come
apart, not until the other could break his bindings and… and …
It was unstoppable. He had pushed too far.  Khadgar’s eyes were hot on his as
he tried to gasp out a warning, and impossibly heard encouragement as he
stilled and his world went white.
He came back to himself within a few heartbeats, still able to feel the
slickness of precome against his stomach, the tight heat around him that was
keeping him harder than he had been in decades, and feeling able to do that
again in full.
Khadgar was watching him, his breath shallow, his heartbeat racing.  The lights
around them had finally faded, though Atiesh still pulsed.
Medivh banished the bonds around Khadgar with another rake of his nails, and
felt himself embraced at once.  Heated kisses blurred his mind, as he began to
move again, letting the pace do as it would. It didn’t matter anymore. Nothing
mattered but the here and now.
There were no secrets between them now, but Medivh would keep everything he
knew to himself.  Let no one else know what Khadgar carried on his shoulders,
the pains in his heart – he would keep Khadgar’s secrets so Khadgar could live
up to his name – Trust.
He ran his hands through silver hair, and wished he could take the spell of so
long ago back.  Khadgar’s mouth felt like molten fire on his, their tongues
warring in a dance of dominance.  His hands left fire where they touched, and
his own nails left marks he knew Khadgar would feel for some time to come.  The
younger mage’s legs had wrapped around his waist and he had twisted so Medivh
could sink deeper with every thrust – and each one was harder than the last.
Words began as simple affirmations of love, but soon crossed the lines from
love to lover, as Khadgar begged Medivh to fuck him harder, his own hips
matching the elder’s pace, arms gripping shoulders enough to leave marks, kiss-
bruised lips open in silent cries, gasps for breath or to whisper something
inane.
Something had snapped between them, as though they both felt time wearing on,
and leaving them behind.  Something in the tower was shifting, and they raced
to beat the clock.
Or the hourglass.
Khadgar arched, his back making an ominous cracking noise as he cried out for
Medivh to not stop – not that Medivh could at that point.  He was so close, so
close, and he intended to take his beloved into the abyss with him, this time,
he would not let him live on memories for another thirty years.
It was cruel, and he wouldn’t do it again.  His hand wrapped around Khadgar’s
cock and stroked it to the timing of his frantic thrusts, and Khadgar was
screaming his name, his hands around his shoulders, nails digging into the
flesh and ignored the blood that seeped from the wounds.  Medivh ran his nails
down Khadgar’s back, leaving blood-trails as he had over the rune he had drawn
earlier, practically weeping the other mage’s name.
Without realizing what was happening, they both began to speak – the same
language, the same incantation, and before either could realize it and stop the
other, the last of their controls broke and as Khadgar felt the heat filling
him, he could feel the heat between them as he spent himself in Medivh’s wake.
Violet light exploded around them as their combined spell almostcompleted.  The
room went black, and somewhere in the dim light of the globes on the tables,
the clattering of a staff echoed in the silence.
***** Misplaced *****
Chapter Summary
     Sometimes the fabric of time just isn't strong enough for love to
     bloom.
Chapter Notes
     I did warn of heartbreak. And angst.
Khadgar woke with a start, the clattering invading his dreams and making him
sit bolt upright.
The chair beneath him creaked, and he stood up, looking around.  “Guardian?
Moroes?”
His notes were scattered across the table and he could see a drool mark on the
book he had been reading.  Great. Just what he needed.  Well, the last time he
tried to dry one, he’d almost set the book on fire.  He’d just let it lie for a
few moments.  He wondered what time it was.  He looked up, and saw nothing but
stars out the windows. So it was late, or early, and he probably should go to
bed.
He looked balefully at the door of the library, knowing he’d have to climb
stairs to get to his room.  His eyes turned to another set of stairs, one that
led to a reading room.  He turned his steps that way, leaving his work the way
it was.  Only a few hours before dawn and he would be back to it anyway.
He stopped at the threshold of the reading room – it looked like an explosion
had taken place.  The chairs were slammed against the wall, and one of them had
its upholstery torn.  The chaise was ravaged, as though it had aged – or been
the center of the explosion. The bookshelves were blown apart, the windows
shattered, the mantel had fallen into the tiny fireplace.
Khadgar took a step backwards, and another, and a third, and found himself
unbalancing on the balcony, the rail only knee-height. He toppled backwards and
reached up a hand, calling magic to slow his fall, but too late.  The last
syllable died on his lips as his back and head made painful contact with the
floor.  His eyes blurred, and his head ached in a way he’d never felt it hurt
before.  This wasn’t right. There was something wrong.  He had to find Medivh…
but he couldn’t get up.  He felt nausea rise along with panic.  He heard
footsteps, and recognized the step as the Guardian’s, and not Moroes.
“Light above.. what happened?”  He felt hands touching the back of his head,
waving in front of his eyes.
“The study – reading room.  Something.. Something’s wrong. It.. it..”
“Shh… Young Trust you’re very injured. We need to get you to a healer, or get a
healer here…” The Magus lifted his head and called softly for Moroes, then
called louder when there was no answer.
Khadgar tried to sit up again, but Medivh held him down.  “The study, Master.
Please. It’s destroyed. Looks like an explosion.”
Medivh looked at him for the first time, then blinked. “Explosion? In the
study?” He looked up the stairs, then back down, swearing softly in what
sounded like an Elven dialect.  “Stay here. Don’t move. I will go look – but
you must stay still.” Khadgar nodded, and closed his eyes…
 
His back ached.  His ass ached. He could feel bruises along his skin, and his
eyes opened.  His eyes met Medivh’s and he smiled sweetly, the way only a love-
struck teenager could. 
“Are you all right?” Khadgar nodded.  “Good.  No use in you going back to your
room tonight. If Moroes hasn’t figured it out by now, he will eventually.” He
pulled the blankets over them, and settled himself around Khadgar’s smaller
body.
The sound of an explosion sounded from downstairs, and both of them gasped. 
“That wasn’t me, this time.”
“You left nothing in an alchemical apparatus?”
“No, sir, nothing of the sort.”
Blankets were thrown aside, and pants and shirts hastily thrown on, and to hell
with shoes.  Their bare feet slapped lightly on the stairs as they descended to
the library.  All was quiet.  A glint of violet caught Khadgar’s eye and he
pointed to the railing that led into the reading room “There!” he cried.
They ascended the stairs, and Khadgar reached to push open the door, which
crumbled into mana-dust.  The destruction was thorough.   Medivh moved into the
room, looking around. “This was an arcane explosion,” he said, softly.  Then he
leveled his eyes on Khadgar, who backed up a pace.  “The power signatures are…
quite clear.  There was not one caster, but two.”
“How could they have gotten in? I didn’t sense the wards—“
“The casters were us, Young Trust.”
“Us? But…”
“How? I don’t know. When? Perhaps that is the more appropriate question.  The
power it took to do this...” He reached out and touched a table that contained
two mugs and a small vial – which vanished as his finger brushed the wood. 
“Curious.”
Khadgar had edged into the room, and was eying a destroyed armchair.  “Sir…?”
he said, slowly, reaching down to pick something up.  Medivh turned, and saw
fingertips touch a staff that was more than intimately familiar – and glowing
in a dull shade of blue that was slowly fading.
“Khadgar no! Don’t!”  A flash of violet light burst and collapsed in on the
point of origin.
 
Blood dripped steadily down the sword, and Khadgar shoved forward, driving the
blade deep enough to burst out of Medivh’s back.  He wanted to weep, scream,
something as they sank to the ground, but the words stopped him cold.
“Thank you.” Green eyes, clear and tinged with silver and gold looked Khadgar
over, and green met blue.  “I fought it… as long as I… could…”
Khadgar could not speak, for the mage was changing, and he longed to back away,
but he refused to let go of the sword in his hands.
What had he done?
He closed his eyes and felt the hot tracks of tears down his face.
 
Felfire burned his eyes as he opened them, and Khadgar looked up.  The Violet
Citadel lay in ruins, the spire of the Guardian’s chambers crumbled.  Flames
burned everywhere he looked. And he lay in the center of the citadel, staring
up at a green sky.
So this was how it would end.  He gathered himself, and reached for Atiesh,
beside him, and used it to get to the steps of the ruins.  He looked around. 
He saw… nothing. No one. No demons. None of Azeroth’s champions. No citizens.
He limped forward.  Was he the only living creature left on Azeroth?  He felt,
more than heard the approach of another, and he whirled to face them.
“Medivh?” he murmured incredulously.
“Once. Perhaps. I thought I’d taken care of you. Obviously my former apprentice
has a little more luck than the rest of the world.”
Khadgar shifted, his feet planting and he whipped Atiesh in a circle around
him, calling a shield of pure arcane power.
But it didn’t come.
Medivh began to laugh.  “Your toy is useless. There is no magic left but that
which we grant.”
Blue eyes widened, then looked around.  “This is wrong.”
“No, this is right.  Perhaps – perhaps in another time I would be sorry. But
not this time.” The Magus walked forward and pulled a dagger from his belt. 
“In another time, I might weep for this. But not this time.  He drove the
dagger between Khadgar’s ribs, piercing his heart.  “An eye for an eye, a heart
for a heart, Young Trust.”  He pulled the dagger out, and stepped back to watch
Khadgar collapse to the ground, coughing up blood.
Atiesh skittered away from him as he fell.
 
Blue eyes opened, reflecting the soft blue light of one of the last remaining
functioning globes in the library. With a sigh, Khadgar sat up, mumbling a
curse as he noticed that his quill had splattered ink across his notes when…
when…
He looked at the table, noted an empty mug and that Atiesh lay across it, not
leaned against it.  He seized the staff, and turned, robes flying, to run down
a back alley of shelves, up a staircase… and into wreckage.
Memory shreds fell into place as he moved forward, taking in the violet light
that permeated every bit of the room, the scent of Mageroyal and Kingsblood
still in the air.  A crystal vial lay shattered next to the ruined chaise, and
the armchairs were starting to break down into dust.  Something pulsed dully
beside one of them, and he shook his head.  It couldn’t be. There was no way
possible for Atiesh to lay there pulsing to the beat of his own heart, when the
staff was in his hand, lending its light to the destruction around him.  He
bent down to look at it, and reached out to touch it.
An echo sounded, loud in his ears, as though from the bottom of a well.
“Khadgar no! Don’t!”  But it was too late. His fingertips brushed the staff’s
shaft, and he felt something twisting inside him, as though he was being turned
inside out.  He screamed, but knew there was no one here who could help him,
let alone save him from whatever happened.
 
Medivh sighed, one hand outstretched. But it was too late. Khadgar was gone in
a flash of violet light that collapsed to a point of origin – on the chaise. 
He moved closer to it, and hovered his hand over it, murmuring detection
spells.
And gasped.
 
Blood blossomed between his fingers as he dropped Atiesh and clutched at his
chest, looking up at Gul’dan’s grinning eyes.  He staggered backwards, and
heard voices, screaming, prayers, and felt the Light of healing touch him, but
it did nothing to stem the blood flow or stop the pain.  He staggered back
again, and dropped to his knees.  Was this it then? Was this his end? Here,
against an adversary he had gone back in time itself to pursue, and now this? 
He closed his eyes.
No. Not like this.  He called all the power he could to him as he reclaimed the
fallen staff, and ignored the blood pouring from his death wound.  He raised
the staff and looked Gul’dan in the eyes as he directed the staff at Light’s
Heart, and focused.  The soul crystal shattered, Light’s Heart sang. And then,
and only then did he let himself fall, murmuring, “Medivh… wait for me.
Wherever you may be…”  Atiesh fell from limp fingers and rolled away,
clattering as it touched the ground, his eyes dulling to a pale silvery blue.
 
He was weeping.  He couldn’t stop the tears, and his head lay pillowed on his
arms.  Something was wrong and he was the cause, and it had happened while he
was here.  He had awakened to find Atiesh leaning against the table, but time
was moving in such ways that he couldn’t grasp it. He saw his own death in
multiple ways – felt Medivh’s loving smile turn to hatred.  Let his curiosity
blast him to motes. Bled out in an unknown battle with Gul’dan.
A hand touched his back, softly.  He jerked upwards, and turned his head. 
Medivh stood there, looking immensely sad.
“Young Trust, it is no longer safe here. Not for a while. You must go.”
“The explosion—“
“I’m not sure what we’ve done, but the balance is tipped.  Karazhan is dying. 
And I with it.”
“I’m not leaving.”
“You must.  You still yet live.”
“I don’t want to, if I can’t… If I’ll never…”
“You did once before and you were fine. You can do it again.”
“How do I restore the tower?”
Medivh stared at Khadgar, who had risen and taken Atiesh into his hand again.
“What?”
“The tower. How do I restore the tower?” Khadgar asked again, fiercely.
Medivh laid a hand on Khadgar’s shoulder, and leaned forward to brush a kiss to
his lips.  “You’re sure you want to do this?”
Khadgar nodded.  “And I will not leave here again like I left it before.  I can
spend just as much time here as I do in Dalaran.”
“Light be with you then.  Call the leylines in my private study. Call them to
the first floor of the study.”  He leaned forward and whispered, words, the
incantation that would call the lines. And then he stepped back.
“Will this hurt you?”
“It will be painful, but perhaps the pain will be worth it.”
“Would it be possible for you to help, considering we both—“
“No. You must call alone.” Medivh sighed.  “It is… It is the rite of a
Guardian, claiming the tower.”
Khadgar stopped in his tracks. “Will it…”
“No. It will not bind you.  The tower will just bind to you and answer you as
it once did me… and even you know I didn’t know everything.”  Khadgar turned
and started up the stairs.
Medivh waited in the library, eyes closed, praying to the Light that instead of
destroying everything, the Calling would restore what was able to be restored,
stabilize what was left, and his imprints would remain.  If not, he may have
just shattered the heart of the one person he could ever love in his life.
He felt the stirrings of power as it was drawn from the leylines. He could feel
the song of power as it coursed up the stonework, into the study. Wards
activated. Runes flared.  And it all began to falter.
“No,” Medivh whispered, turning to run up the stairs.  He stopped short at the
sight that greeted him on the landing.
Khadgar held Atiesh in both hands, planted firmly on the floor,  eyes closed,
sweat beading on his forehead.
“Don’t doubt yourself, Young Trust,” Medivh murmured.  He could feel his form
fading in and out of reality as the stones around him recognized a new master.
Khadgar opened his eyes, and found Medivh’s as he raised the staff, and
completed the calling.  The glow gradually began to return to the room. Lights
lit that had long been dark.
And Medivh sighed, closing his eyes.  Arms wrapped around him.  “You’re not
going to leave me now… are you?” The voice sounded so insecure, and he had to
chuckle. “No. Just readjust. It will all be fine now.”
 
The clattering of Atiesh falling to the floor was loud in the silence, and
Khadgar woke with a start.  He looked around the library, mumbled something to
himself, and stood up to reach for Atiesh again.  He was tired, obviously, and
wasn’t sure he could make it back to Dalaran by teleportation or by gryphon. 
He looked up the stairs, longingly, but shook his head.  He didn’t want to
know.  If it was real, it was real. If it was not, going into that room would
send him back into the time loop and … his heart ached.
He shifted aside his books and notes, stoppered his ink bottle, and set the lot
in the empty chair. Cradling Atiesh, he got up onto the table and stretched
out, the comforting blue glow of the globe soothing his eyes as he closed
them.  And ignored the tears that fell as he fell asleep.
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