The Tristan Effect

Title: Winter's Last Kiss... OR Tristan In the Rain Revisited
Author & email: pharaohs_kitty@yahoo. com
Type (slash/het/gen): slash FPS
Pairing: Tristan/Gawain definitely and uh, more!
Rating: NC17 for descriptive (I hope) sex.
Summary: This takes place AFTER Snaring Tristan. They're on patrol. They get rained on. LOL... you KNOW where this goes.
Archive: Feel free and if you can do better with this idea, help yourself.
Disclaimer: Characters and settings do NOT belong to ME.
Author's Note: Praise accepted gratefully! (you know... that's called feedback) Also any Ewww Yucks or whatever. Now ... going back to Soothing Tristan... I'm working on it ... I am.. really.

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Winter's Last Kiss ...OR Tristan in the Rain, Revisited


The rain. The eternal unending damnable rain. No more and no less wet than they were any other spring day were the patrol of Sarmatian knights except that today a wind came out of the north with the breath of winter still attached with bright teeth and sharp vicious claws.

"Tristan, find us some shelter, for the sake of Bors' future children."

"He has enough and he's not here."

"For the sake of MY future children."

Tristan turned in his saddle to the thoroughly despondent Lancelot. His face didn't change but Tristan's voice was amused.

"I thought Bors was already bringing up your children."

Lancelot grinned mischievously. "Only whichever one he's bragging about at the moment is mine."

Tristan snorted. It reeked of an 'I knew that' attitude.

Gawain laughed heartily. If he hadn't been just as sodden and hadn't already lost the feeling in his toes, he'd have told Lancelot that Tristan didn't need to seek out a shelter for Lancelot's future children as who would want LANCELOT to reproduce? Instead he edged closer to Tristan and begged shamelessly.

"Tristan, pleeeeassssse get us out of this cold. If the Woads attacked us, I'd not be able to hold my axe long enough to strike. My fingers are numb and my toes HURT!"

Tristan glanced down at Gawain's legs noting the soaked through leathers. A thought passed his mind and he whipped around in his saddle. Abruptly reining back his mare, Tristan came alongside Galahad. Glaring at the boy, he barked, "Why didn't you say something!"

Galahad's face was white and his eyes feverish bright. He was wearing cloth trousers under his usual tunic but he'd gone past cold a long time ago. He merely twitched a smile unable to SAY anything, had been unable to say anything for miles.

Tristan took Galahad's reins gently from his frozen fingers and kicked his mount into a faster pace. The other two knights fell into line obediently, eagerly, even joyfully. Anyplace sheltered had to be blessed by the gods.

"Tristan, that's a grave."

"It's shelter. Think of it as a cave. It's a hole in the earth, it's a cave."

"There are DEAD people in it."

"And Galahad will be joining them if you don't get off those horses and round up some firewood."

Gawain and Lancelot slid off their horses with alacrity. Tristan was already afoot and engaged in coaxing his mount and Galahad's into going into the dark opening in the barrow. Probably they could smell the taint of death in this ancient place. Galahad was crumpled against the earth and stone wall of the barrow entrance. Tristan was right, Galahad needed warmth... NOW.

Until they came directly on the entrance to the timeworn grave, Gawain had thought it merely a hill they were skirting. Trees, bushes and ferns grew on the mound and it looked exactly the same as the rest of the forest floor. No one would have ever guessed the location of this resting place of some barbarian notable.

Gawain scraped through piles of dead fern to find dry pieces of wood. He wadded a few handfuls of the brittle brown fronds beneath the wet layer into balls and stuffed them behind his hauberk to keep them dry. When his arms were full of wood that would burn well, Gawain staggered back to the barrow entryway.

Tristan had managed to stuff all four horses into the outer vaulted room. There were amazingly few webs or roots here. Perhaps neither spiders nor trees wished to disturb the venerable dead. A small fire lit the area from a corner but it was merely meant to provide light and would soon gutter out. Tristan had unloaded and fed the horses from the looks of things. Gawain patted his gelding's inquiring nose on the way by.

The gear had been neatly stacked farthest away from the small flickering blaze. Always careful, no detail forgotten, that was their Tristan. Gawain paused to give thanks for something they all took for granted. How many times had Tristan's attention to the smallest details saved their lives? More times than even he knew, Gawain was certain.

Gawain saw that Lancelot had returned as well. A large pile of damp wood sprawled next to the inner door. No patience at all, that was Lancelot. Took what he could find the fastest. Gawain grinned. Sometimes that wasn't a bad thing. He had his good points, did their Lancelot. All that passion, energy, and fury was virtue itself at times. When he had his hands full of steel, when he had his hands full of Tristan, when he had Gawain. Gawain sank his teeth into his lower lip to get a particular steely item under control. 'Down, down, ... nothing to do here... nothing happening.'

The inner room was small and would barely fit the four of them and a fire. Tristan had piled rocks in the center for a fire ring, or had it already been there? Gawain dropped his load of branches next to Tristan who was patiently feeding small twigs to a newly born blaze. Gawain searched between the stiff wet leather and steel of his hauberk and the tunic beneath. With relief he brought out the wads of fern and handed them to Tristan. Tristan built a tripod of branches over the fledgling fire and another over that. Shoving the dry ferns a ball at a time into the center, the small twigs burst into licking gouts of heat and warmed the wood enough that it caught.

Lancelot had removed Galahads cloak and tunic. Now he was trying to simultaneously hold a dry cloth from his bedroll around Galahad and strip off his boots and chausses. Galahad tremored constantly. His eyes were completely blank as he endured Lancelot's fumbling.

"Lancelot, hold the cloth to him and hug him for extra warmth while I get the rest."

Gawain's firm voice steadied Lancelot's composure. He ducked his head in acknowledgement as he knelt behind the boy to wrap him in dry cloth and Lancelot's own body heat. How many times had Gawain shoved Lancelot off the bed because Lancelot's inner fires had warmed him beyond bearing in his sleep? Lancelot had come to expect to meet the floor regularly. Gawain asleep was unmovable and concerned only with his own comfort. Lancelot merely met Gawain's incredulous inquiries of 'Why are you sleeping on the floor?' with an elegant shrug and a lifted eyebrow that said 'Does it matter?'.

Gawain removed the last of Galahad's wet things even as Tristan's fire began to colour the earth walls with waves of light that pulsed into and receded from the shadows, a tide of unworldly warmth and illumination. Gawain fell over backward upon Tristan as he yanked off the last piece of uncooperative drenched cloth. Tristan steadied him and pushed him back into place with both hands.

Long fingers pressed into his neck and back a moment and Gawain sucked in his breath. He loved the feel of Tristan touching him, pressing the sensitive tips of fingers against his body with sturdy pressure. He knew Tristan's fingers were directly wired to Tristan's cock. How many times had he taken his mouth and bit gently on Tristan's hand, licked slickly across Tristan's palm and suckled the joints that made Tristan's eyes roll back into his head. Odd that an archer would yet have so much feeling there despite the callused skin, but then Tristan habitually wore leather sleeves over his fingers to prevent blisters forming there. Galahad's hands were so covered in toughened surface scale that to take HIS hand was to invite injury.

Gawain knew every spot now on Tristan's gloriously striped hide that would reduce Tristan to a blithering pool of lust. He mourned for a moment as he considered that no matter how much he teased Tristan into feverish desire, with or without Lancelot's aid, that Tristan would resolutely hold back from driving himself into Gawain's body. Gawain had even begged him to 'take, Tristan, for once, just take' without result.

Gawain resolutely put both lust and sorrow out of his mind. He returned to Galahad's side and cuddled the nearly naked brother knight tenderly. No matter how many times he touched Galahad so familiarly, whether it was to share warmth or to fit gear or to tend wounds, Gawain never felt the slow welling of unstoppable passion that Tristan brought to him by merely being.

Lancelot, well, Lancelot was another story. Lancelot had needed him, then looked at him with love and Gawain had simply returned it. It was woven into the sinews of his body the way blood was woven into and under his skin. It existed. It was. Love and Lancelot twined together so tightly that Gawain could no longer remember NOT looking at Lancelot and thinking 'Me, You, US' in such a way that no actual articulation of it occurred. He looked upon Lancelot and felt it. Love. My love.

Lancelot stripped out of his wet things with speed. He hated being wet, dirty, cold. As soon as he was elegantly naked, lanky arms and legs highlighted with nature's illuminata, the fire, Lancelot dug out Galahad's bedroll which was two furs bundled tightly to prevent the wet from getting in. He spread the furs along one wall and lay with his back to it. Gawain helped the shivering Galahad into Lancelot's waiting arms. With the heat of his body, Lancelot gradually stilled Galahad's shivers even as Gawain gratefully stripped at last.

Lancelot winced as Gawain's tunic jerked up and over his head. He closed his eyes tightly against the sight as if to shield himself from an overbright sun. Right now, with his arms full of chilled temperamental Galahad, Lancelot was utterly certain that he did not wish to view the expanse of Gawain's chest and the prickly blond hair upon it. Just remembering the last time Gawain had lain heavily atop his back after vigorously fulfilling both himself and Lancelot with the fevered hungers of their erotic practices and pricked Lancelot's skin into red relief rubbing his chest hairs up against Lancelot's body... well, it was NOT having a settling effect. Lancelot bit the inside of his cheek HARD. He would NOT scare Galahad to death by suddenly acquiring an erection beneath him.

Galahad fit neatly inside the circle of his arms for all that they were the same height. With his eyes tightly closed against any further stray visions, Lancelot allowed himself to drift drowsily. With the even pattern of his breathing continuing on, even Galahad at last sank into sleep. Now all Lancelot had to do was stay mostly asleep but awake enough to avoid drifting into some torrid dream of warm skin and ardent loving. He wished to avoid raping Galahad by mistake in the grip of some enthiusiastic fantasy. Ruefully he considered all the times he'd awakened in the throes of taking Gawain or Tristan. His body functioned well enough even without his mind to direct it.

Not acquiring an unwanted visitor suddenly became much more difficult as he FELT more than heard Tristan creep close to Gawain. There was a low voiced muttering and the wet splat as Tristan's gear began to meet the ground. Determined, Lancelot began reciting Arthur's wretched God's sayings, "Thou shalt not ....this.... and thou shalt not.... that", then he began trying to remember the stupid prayers Arthur muttered endlessly. It didn't work when the low words began to creep in.

"I saw you once."

Tristan didn't answer. There wasn't a need to say anything to that, so he didn't. Gawain's voice continued on hesistantly.

"I saw you once. In the rain. I was out hunting and.... you arrived... there. I was watching and you..."

Gawain's voice caught. Lancelot knew that catch. It meant Gawain was fighting off his hunger, trying to pull back in the maelstrom before it unleashed.

"I what?"

Tristan's voice was idly curious, an unfurling flower stretching out to kiss the sun.

"You WASHED."

Gawain's voice was full of something that Lancelot couldn't quite place. It wasn't surprise or statement or .... just what was it?

"Ah, Gawain..."

Tristan's voice, on the other hand, was full of something Lancelot knew quite well; intimately, deeply, to the bone. Lust. The kind of lust that blossomed into lush reality in the pulse of a heartbeat. The incarnated form of demonic need, driving you to gratification whether you willed it so or not.

Lancelot's body trembled, but it wasn't desire or passion or even from the cold. He shook because he was holding back tears. Sorrow sang along the layers of his soul. He heard it in Tristan's voice - driving NEED, unbridled necessity - and Tristan would hold it back yet again. And Gawain would be hurt... yet again. There would come a time when Lancelot could no longer endure this torture of his beloved. He KNEW it and the knowledge ate at him. What would he do then?

"Show me, Gawain, show me what I did then..."

Tristan's voice lured, tempted, teased the bull with red. Come. Strike at this. Come.

Gawain happily leapt for the bait.

"You undressed to nothing. Like you are now. I saw you drop your things on your mare. They were already soaked through. You walked through the rain. Free. A wild thing. You walked into the brook and stood there with water to above your knees. Here."

Lancelot puzzled over that odd cadence in Gawain's spoken words. What was it that he was feeling? Gawain's voice was clear, but not his feelings. Lancelot cracked his eyes open to observe.

Gawain's back was to him and he could see Tristan just beyond. They were both on their knees facing each other. Gawain's left hand was on Tristan's thigh and his fingers lightly traced a line across Tristan's leg from the outside scar on the right thigh to the delicate inner skin. Tristan trembled from the strength of intemperate craving.

"You took the cloth in your hands. I had thought it a bandage. It was a long strip a hand width wide and two armslength long. You folded it into something that would fit in your hand and you rinsed the dirt off your face. Here and here."

Gawain's fingers traced over Tristan's face. Softly they trailed from his forehead down Tristan's nose to lazily trail across the cheekbone brands then further down the side of Tristan's face and back again across Tristan's mouth. Featherlight touches that made Tristan straighten his shoulders and suck in his breath. Amazingly, Tristan's eyes did not flutter shut as they usually did, but watched Gawain with an appetite that was truly fearsome.

Maybe this time... maybe.

"You folded the cloth into a longer shape, soaked it and pressed it to your chest. Here." Gawain's right hand curled through the thicket of hair on Tristan's chest and spread out, palm flat to Tristan's heart. "The end of it trailed down and it brushed across your skin as you washed from here to here."

Gawain's left hand brushed gently from side to side through the chestnut pelt of Tristan's skin. The movement flashed silvered hairs in the firelight. Those greying traces marked the path of the whip that had bitten Tristan so cruelly deep those many years ago.

"The end of it, the tail of it, moved across you and I saw you rise, hardening before my eyes. I did not dare breathe. I was afraid...."

"That I would see you there?"

"That you'd stop."

"Maybe."

"You took the cloth and wound it across your hip, over yourself and under the other thigh and stropped it back and forth. From here to..." Gawain's voice silenced as Tristan leaned into him and took possession of his mouth.

"Here." Tristan took Gawain's hand to his groin and laid the square hand upon his cock. "Here."

Gawain obligingly took Tristan into his palm. A heavy fullness, a heated length, an unsatisfied desire that filled his hand with Tristan's very essence. Gawain pressed Tristan into a hard embrace and heavily stroked the male greed inside his grip. Tristan would not, could not, give in to the need to devour Gawain. Gawain saw that, absorbed it, and grieved. He would give Tristan what he could to aid him. Gawain would master Tristan, accept his surrender, possess him the way Gawain longed for Tristan to claim his own body.

Tristan waited as Gawain wrapped him in arms made of steel. He tilted back his head and let Gawain taste his throat, his earlobe. Tristan whimpered as hard tongue plunged into his ear and swabbed while Gawain's fierce embrace refused to let him back away from it. Gawain's tongue explored the hollow just beneath the corner of Tristan's jaw, causing Tristan to actually moan. Gawain shushed him and captured his mouth, sliding his broad tongue up behind the sharp wolfish teeth and pressing relentlessly into the roof of Tristan's mouth with a sliding action that wrought Tristan into ribbons of thoughtless agony from the unbearable delight.

Lancelot had ceased to think, to breathe, to even pretend to sleep. He watched, fixated, filling, enlarging without recourse. He was firmly wedged against Galahad's thigh and IT HURT. The uncomfortable thing poking him must have caused Galahad to shift, because blessed relief was obtained when Galahad snorted in his sleep and shifted. Little Lancelot sprang freely upward, unbarricaded at last. It was a mixed gift. Now Lancelot hardened even further without the pain to hold him back from the view before him.

Gawain lay Tristan down with gentle hands. He straddled Tristan's groin and pressed his ass down against Tristan's prick. Tristan was not to be tempted. He merely surrendered to Gawain's touch. They had shifted enough that Lancelot's view was wholly unimpeded. He could see everything across the fire. Gawain leaned on his left forearm and ravaged Tristan's mouth with his own. Tristan's hands wound across Gawain's ribs up behind his back and clutched, fingers digging into the broad shoulders, pulling Gawain's full weight down upon himself. Gawain gave in gracefully and slid his legs down to lie fully prone upon Tristan. Their mutual needs pressed into the other's equally heated groin.

Lancelot whimpered, aware that neither lover could hear him and even if they could have, could not come to his rescue considering his position between the wall and Galahad. Galahad must have gotten cold because he twisted yet again in Lancelot's arms until Lancelot's cock was trapped between his thighs. Lancelot suffered greatly but obedient to Galahad's need for warmth pulled him closer still until his breath was timed with Galahad's.

It seemed that Tristan and Gawain would never stop touching. Hands and fingers pressed into soft spots, arms clasped and clenched, legs tensed and feet arched, mouths and tongues wandered into and out of wonder. Finally, Gawain wriggled down to salivate over the soft hard heat that was Tristan's cock. As he closed his mouth over it, constricting and pressing it, he wondered that such a solid thing could be so touchably smooth, silken and steely. He sucked and licked and pressed tip of tongue to eye of delight. Tristan's hips twisted up to seek after his retreating mouth time and again. Only when Tristan begged, did Gawain start meeting the pulsing rhythm of Tristan's need. His mouth worked wonders, wet tongue inflaming Tristan's passions. If only....

Galahad moaned in his arms. Lancelot tensed. The whisper came quickly, "Lancelot, please, please.... I don't know what ... but please DO SOMETHING."

The boy had awakened. Lancelot thought Galahad meant for him to stop Gawain and Tristan at first, but then Galahad wriggled like a newly caught fish in his arms and his cock between Galahad's thighs came up under an equally hard member. He'd never wanted Galahad and he was fairly sure Galahad had never wanted him. That was the trouble with some portions of your body though. They never listened to what you actually wanted. Just reacted and demanded.

Tristan was fully given over to letting go. Gawain's mouth took and demanded. When the pressure inside him was full to bursting, when his head was given over to desire for and need for Gawain's body, Tristan let go. He filled Gawain's mouth with seed that would never now find a place to grow. Tristan wound his hands in Gawain's hair, pulling it up and away from Gawain's mouth and held still as Gawain sucked every last drop out of him, accepting every little spurt and swallowing it. The mere feel of Gawain swallowing, the constricting and release of muscles in mouth and throat, caused Tristan to come more.

At last there was no more and Gawain let go, collapsing laughing next to the boneless Tristan. Gawain bit Tristan's arm and chest, explored Tristan's collarbone, and ran appreciative hands across Tristan's arms and legs.

"Take me."

"No."

"Please."

Tristan's answer was to take Gawain's hand and place it on his flaccid prick.

"Nothing left anyway."

"Then .... let me take you in a way that I can watch your face. I want to see..."

Tristan lazily reached over his head and behold... there was the flagon of oil, warming by the fire all this time.

"Take me any way you want. Take what you want."

Gawain pushed Tristan over on his right side to face Lancelot across the fire. Tristan’s small twitch of a smile happened as he locked eyes with the wretched Lancelot whose arms were full of squirming Galahad. The look in Tristan’s eyes was easy to read ‘You’re on your own.’ Gently Gawain pulled Tristan’s knees up and whispered, “Put your left knee up to your chest, Tristan.”

Tristan’s ass lay exposed to Gawain’s whims. The stopper fairly flew out of the top of the small crockery flagon and a trickle of oil soon was spread by fingers eager to delve into crevices and nooks. Gawain normally patiently stretched Tristan out with little exercises of finger insertion. Today he seemed to have less worry over the possibility of hurting Tristan.

Gawain was as broad in cock as he was in chest. The wide width of it would fill Tristan fully as it had in the past. He quivered to think that Gawain would soon be inside of him. When Gawain skipped past the usual preliminaries, it only increased Tristan’s eagerness.

Gawain straddled Tristan’s right leg and pressed the very end of his engorged shaft to Tristan’s anus. With slow firm pressure, he leaned down on his arms and pressed further and further.
Tristan reached up with his left hand and wound his fingers into Gawain’s long braids. His right hand was at his mouth and he bit his knuckle as Gawain invaded him.

The oil slicked path in, but Gawain created an opening with that steady relentless shoving. Tristan forced himself to breathe out and let go, relax. It came as a surprise to both of them when Gawain found himself finally completely sheathed. Tristan liked this position. Gawain was deeper than he’d ever been and the feel of Gawain’s legs tight to his left thigh and back was a mark of Gawain’s possession. Gawain’s hands didn’t have to bear so much of his weight now and he could touch Tristan’s face, did touch his face, thumb roughly swiping over his lower lip.

“Now...” gasped Gawain and he plunged into Tristan.

“Now...” gasped Galahad as Lancelot behind him bucked his prick between Galahad’s thighs and Lancelot’s hand squeezed in time on Galahad’s cock.

Gawain claimed Tristan deeply while watching the aloof archer’s face contort in ecstasy. Gawain leaned heavily on his right hand and wrapped the fingers of his left hand around Tristan’s throat. It would be such a slight move to close his fingers and remove Tristan’s air. Tristan knew it, Gawain could see it him. Tristan delighted in Gawain’s complete possession and tugged at the back of Gawain’s head with the fingers of his hand urging Gawain to greater movements, to ram into him as hard as Gawain wished. Tristan’s throat stretched as he sought to surrender himself to Gawain’s control.

In the end they came together. Tristan’s prick had revived only to spill spurts of sticky goo even as Gawain pulsed heavily inside Tristan’s warm depths. On the other side of the fire, Lancelot burst between Galahad’s thighs even as Galahad welled up and relieved himself above Lancelot’s cupping hand.

Gawain removed himself from Tristan wearily to fall behind his back. He spooned himself against Tristan’s unmoving body and draped his left leg up under Tristan’s still tucked up left leg. Tristan huffed but subsided as Gawain’s arm claimed him. It took but minutes for them to reach into the depths of sleep.

Lancelot whispered in Galahad’s ear. “If you never mention this... I won’t either.”

A sleepy mutter reached his ear. “Mention what?”

Lancelot smiled against Galahad’s neck so that Galahad could count the teeth in his grin. “Don’t tempt me to show you properly.”

Galahad tensed in his arms.

“Oh, go to sleep, brat.”

“Going to sleep, old man.”

Lancelot’s arms encircled Galahad in tight bands. But he merely smiled again at the back of Galahad’s neck before letting himself drift. It was safe enough to sleep now. If he accidentally molested Galahad in the night, it would come under the definition of “what?” It must be safe enough here or Tristan would have made one of them take the first watch. Tristan always kept them safe. Nothing was going to touch what Tristan had claimed as his.

Lancelot frowned. Except that Tristan still hadn’t taken Gawain.

Weariness dragged Lancelot down as he pondered what he would do the day Tristan hurt Gawain one too many times.