Thog jumps. "ghosts are having ghostly way with thog!"

     The guard pokes his head in. "What in the Samwise Hill? Do we need to get an exorcist in here, or something?"

"thog not complaining, to be clear."

     "...right. Well, shut up, you're gonna wake your cellmate." He gestures vaguely at the pile of jailclothes atop the pile of Naleclothes. "Actually, wait, why do I care? You're both murdering scum. I'm going to go back to eating anachronistically decorated doughnuts." He does so.

Elan jumps back, his heart pounding. For a moment, he feels caught, and then he remembers that nobody can see him. That doesn't change that, while the guard glares at Thog, Elan can feel his eyes on him.

He suddenly understands how Haley felt, that time that she grabbed his butt while the party huddled together to fit in the discount Invisibility Sphere.

When the guard turns his back, he steps forward again, nearly pressed against Thog, and reaches around his trunk to grab the front of his prison shirt.

"Do you wanna turn invisible, too?"

Thog twitches. "thog think that question not literal."

Shoot, Elan was being completely literal there. But he can use his imagination (and everything Thog's said and done in the past five minutes) to come up with an alternative interpretation.

"Well, maybe," is what he says. "But it wouldn't hurt to try, right? And if it doesn't work, it'll just look like I'm having my—ghostly way with you."

His breath hitches as he says ghostly way. That sounds exciting, or perhaps scary, or maybe both. But isn't he supposed to get less shy? He's still not sure that he's ready to go "all the way" here, but… he can touch Thog. Invisibly. And make him feel good.

Right now he's just half-hugging Thog from behind, still holding onto his shirt. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath in through his nose.

"again, thog not complaining."

He casually shreds the uniform's shirt off himself, leaving Elan with a handful of black-and-white fabric and a view of some downright geographic back muscles. (And a handful of long scars.)

That helps! For a moment Elan's tempted to leave a note apologizing for the torn shirt, but he figures that they probably get lots of inmates dramatically tearing their shirts.

He drops the shredded fabric and reaches out to touch Thog's back. He wonders if this is what Roy's back looks like—well, if Roy's skin were a greyish-green instead of a warm brown.

He should do something, he thinks. Like run a hand along a scar, or feel what Thog's musculature is like up front. He decides to do the first thing first.

A deep-pitched giggle. "thog ticklish there!"

He's leaning back into it, though, so it seems like he doesn't mind the tickling.

Elan giggles right back and decides to do two at once with both hands, touching as light and tickly as he can.

"Where'd they come frrom?"

"oh, before nale thog enslaved as miner. also enslaved as minor. anyway, tyrinarian labor system very big on whips."

On impulse, Elan hugs Thog for real. He's warm and smells… nicer than Elan would have expected a barbarian to smell. Well, they did clean Elan up from the crime scene while they were healing him and getting him his prison clothes.

"Where's Tyrinaria? I've never heard of it."

"middle of desert. pretty nice apart from climate, slavery, water and food rationing, jackbooted oppression, culture of fear, ruthless yet sexy military junta, and state-sponsored educational programming including teletubbies."

The warmth is really only part of it. Feeling muscles of that density shifting under his skin is sort of mesmerizing. And his voice rumbles through the skin contact and vibrates in Elan's chest.

Whoa, yeah, it is. It's actually kinda hard to focus on what Thog's saying. He rubs his cheek against Thog's back, like a cat. He wants to hear more of his voice. It's so… bold.

"Is that where you met Nale?"

(He's really glad that the Greater Invisibility lasts until sunrise. He doesn't know if he's making any real progress on this ritual, but… this is nice, and if he was in a hurry then he'd probably feel too rushed to really be in the moment.)

"yeah. nale daddy took nale on mine tour for fun bonding activity. nale threw rock at thog. thog threw rock back for fun game of catch. nale not seem to like that as much, but had thog delivered to chambers for own amusement. thog like amusement way more than mining, and nale like it too, so thog made personal slave until some mean assassins tried to stab nale and thog beat assassins to death. then thog and nale just friends."

Elan wonders what kind of person his dad is, that gawking and throwing rocks at the slaves in a mine is a fun bonding activity. And he's also suddenly worried about…

"Do you… actually wanna do this? I'm having fun but I wouldn't be if you were just being my personal slave about it."

He doesn't unhug, though.

"thog did say thog like amusement. no knives here but lots of things still fun without knives."

He's going to reach behind him and stroke Elan's back, sort of comfortingly. His hands feel like leather gloves, with the amount of calluses and scarring on them. It's a novel sensation.

Despite what the book said about perversion not being Evil, Elan's pretty sure anything involving knives is at least a little Evil. But, as Thog said, there aren't any knives here. Just the two of them.

Thog's arms are in kind of an awkward position.

"Here, let me—"

Elan ducks away from Thog's hands so he can circle around to hug him from the front.

"That's better, isn't it?"

Thog just kind of... purrs. Instead of responding.

He's going to stand up (dragging Elan with him) and shimmy out of his pants, now, leaving a loincloth that...

listen. It's an offensive, harmful stereotype that orcs are all hung like donkeys.

Thog is also an offensive, harmful stereotype.

Does Elan remember when Roy was using that greatclub? Because that's the kind of dick we're dealing with here.

That loincloth doesn't hide anything.

Okay, literally speaking, it covers what's underneath. There's no mosaic censor springing up or anything. But… Thor's beard.

Elan should say something.

Any minute now.

Thog thumps back onto the floor. "pants get too tight when thog having fun. fashion design has long way to go."

"Oh, I dunno, I think that looks like a good amount of tightness," he says without thinking.

Wow, he really just said that. He's about to say even more.

"Can I touch it?"

"thog have no objection."

He relaxes and puts his arms behind his head, stretching out the thick muscles along his abdomen and chest, jutting out his crotch, and showing off his smooth-shaven armpits.

Elan takes in the scene before him, a little surprised at the smoothness of Thog's underarms. Elan doesn't shave any of his own body hair. But Thog does shave his head hair, too, so… maybe he likes to be smooth all over? Elan decides to feel Thog's chest with both hands, dragging his hands down until he reaches cloth.

"Your skin is so nice," he remarks. It's not soft in the same way Roy's was, back when he was wearing the belt, but there's a vitality to it, a hard-to-describe niceness. It's like he can sense Thog's personhood through touch alone, almost, that feels good in the same way that delicious food tastes good.

Maybe he should lick Thog who said that.

He smiles at the half-orc before remembering that he's invisible. That's… sad? But he doesn't really want to stop being invisible, either. He's having fun!

He thinks he's ready. He places his hand solidly on Thog's loincloth.

It's so fucking big. The cloth is thin, straining around the weight of it, almost transparent.

Thog shoves the loincloth's waistband down, letting his cock spring backwards and slam into his abs. If Elan's hand had gotten caught in that collision, he'd be looking at 1d4 to 1d6 bludgeoning damage.

Also it's, uh. Not mosaic-censored, actually. It's right there, in vivid detail.

Notes: It's immediately obvious that the shaving does extend this far. He's circumcised. The head is practically rectangular, barely tapering at all, a dark bruisey purple that contrasts to the shaft's sage-green. There's a strange bulge towards the base of it, flushed a darker pine shade. His balls look like they could smash through a gloryhole wall.

Also, in the mostly forgotten Tome, where many things are being written as the scene progresses, another thing is written.

A skill has been created by a special action! Trying to communicate conversational metadata when your conversational partner cannot see you has created the skill Slash HJ!