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Chapter Text

Karlach, Gale, and the Harpers had scattered to intercept the migrating cultist herd, leaving Thorne to follow the Drider’s tracks, eager to witness the grotesque aberration up close, but what he found wasn’t a monster at all, but something beautiful.

The Drider was obviously in pain, both physically and mentally. But he was gorgeous in his suffering, and it would be so easy to trick him. To say a few false words and slip a dagger into the soft gaps between the Drider's chitinous chest. The Moon Lantern would be his and the cultists would be left alone to fend for themselves on their pilgrimage to Moonrise. Cold and hollow, to die like so many others had before them. Thorne could almost taste the opportunity in the air and yet… the words wouldn’t come.

For the first time in his life, there was no spark of cruelty, no thrill in the deception. The Urge to eviscerate, to manipulate and maim, was silent, except for the growing urge between his thighs.

Desire and compassion was a mix that he was unused to, and it surprised him how strongly it was.

“What a magnificent creature you are,” Thorne murmured, his voice low and almost reverent.

He stood on the cliff just above the Drider, watching as the spider-like being babbled to himself, twitching and muttering nonsense while rifling through the pockets of long-dead Harpers. Fingers trembling. Movements frantic. Pitiful, yes -but there was something captivating about its madness. About the shape of him. The ruin.

The spider hissed the moment Thorne made himself known, the Moon Lantern in his hand casting a pale, ghostly blue light across the rocks and corpses below. “What is it, Majesty?” the Drider hissed to himself, his many eyes glinting as he scuttled up the cliff face with alarming speed, limbs clacking against stone. In seconds, he was beside Thorne at the top, looming and twitching. “Meat for Kar’niss?” he asked, head tilting in a sharp, birdlike motion. Hopeful and hungry.

“Afraid not.” Thorne took a slow step back.

The Drider advanced, limbs clicking against stone as it closed the distance.

“I am…” Thorne hesitated, then steadied himself. “I am a True Soul. Seeking Moonrise Towers." There, not exactly a lie but a partial truth of sorts, Astarion would be proud. "But I fear that my intentions have changed since meeting you.”

“Changed?” The Drider’s voice sharpened to a hiss, baring needle-like teeth. “Blasphemy.”

“Kar'niss, is that your name?" Thorne hummed, loving the way it sounded on his lips. "You'll forgive me, won’t you?” Thorne grinned, eyes glinting with something wicked and soft all at once. “For I have been enchanted by you.”

The Drider went still.

The clacking of his limbs ceased. Only the faint rustle of the wind howling through the dead grass filled the space between them.

“You mock Kar’niss,” the Drider rasped at last, voice low and venom-laced. “Pretty meats do not speak kindly to monsters. They scream. They bleed. They run.”

“Don't threaten me with a good time,” Thorne chuckled, which only seemed to anger the creature even more.

The Drider leaned in, his many eyes blinking out of sync. Up close like this in the lamplight, Thorne could see where his flesh twisted unevenly into hardened carapace. He did not much care for the goddess of these lands, but Lolth surely had a skilled hand to craft such a divine being.

"Worry not, Majesty. I will eviscerate it, in the name of your greatness."

Thorne didn’t flinch, not even as Kar'niss gripped him by the neck. He held the creature’s gaze, eyes searching the Drider’s face. “You think I’m lying," Thorne grit out, feeling the pressure on his throat increase. "That I don’t mean what I said.”

Kar’niss hissed, dragging Thorne up off of his feet, the two of them face-to-face, the toe of his boots barely scraping the ground. “You think my face enchanting?” Spittle flew from his twisted lips. “This wreck of body and mind? You seek to own it, maybe. Wear it like a badge, like a broken pet. But I belong to my Mistress. I will not be taken.”

“No.” Dark spots clouded Thorne's vision. It did nothing at all to stop the desire spreading between his legs. “I want to belong to you.”

That stopped the Drider. Kar'niss' head tilted, jerky and insect-like. For a moment, the madness behind his eyes dulled, replaced by something sad, as if Thorne had intentionally hurt him after all. The spider released his grip, and Thorne fell to his knees in a slump, coughing for air.

“Words,” Kar'niss said. “Pretty, sticky words.”

"Teach me," Thorne wheezed, his lungs filling up with air, but still burning. "Teach me how to be yours."

Kar’niss let out a sound that was a mix between laughter and a sorrowful wail. His pedipalps clicked together, chittering like insect legs. “You wish to be claimed? To be mated? By me?”

Thorne’s grin was slow, sure but reckless. “Oh yes.”

*

Kar’niss wasted no time.

He scooped Thorne up with ease, as though he weighed no more than a sack of potatoes, limbs folding around him in a protective cradle. Then he was moving fast, impossibly so, scuttling through the cursed dark with inhuman grace, skimming over stone and root. They stopped only when the trees broke into clearing where an abandoned house stood at its center, warped and forgotten by time. The roof sagged, the windows were shattered. The air hung thick with rot and silence.

Kar’niss slipped inside without a sound, depositing Thorne with surprising care before retreating to the ceiling, limbs curling around a beam, the lantern set in the empty sconce holder by the door. The pale light cast long, flickering shadows on the peeling walls.

Thorne took in the newly illuminated scene.

Skeletons occupied the room. A family, maybe. One was slumped on the floor, a cracked mug still clutched in its skeletal fingers. Another sat eternally at the dining table, collapsed forward, face buried in dust and cobwebs. The chairs hadn’t moved. The table still stood. But time had taken everything else.

Kar’niss clicked softly above him, watching, waiting, and Thorne began to undress. First his weapons, then his boots, shirt, gloves and trousers, leaving himself pale and naked. It was not lost on him that he was the only living thing in this room. Fleshy, meaty, his cock already swelling with desire, his heart pumping life into every inch of him.

Thorne looked up, locking eyes -so many of them- with the creature above.

“Won’t you come down from there?”

A silence followed, thick and taut.

Then the wood creaked.

Kar’niss descended slowly, limbs curling and uncurling in a deliberate, rhythmic cadence. He whispered softly to himself in a dialect of Undercommon -Drow, but older. Raw. The words were unfamiliar to Thorne, but their cadence had weight, like ritual, like reverence. With a final click of his claw, Kar’niss stood before him. He tilted his head, eyes all blinking in slow, disjointed patterns as if trying to take Thorne in from every angle at once.

Then he reached out, a clawed hand hovering just above Thorne’s bare chest. Not touching. Not yet.

And that’s when Thorne realized that he was praying. 

It did not sit right with him, knowing that that the Drider's goddess had abandoned him here, leaving him to rot and ruin. Allowing the Absolute to pick up whatever pieces remained. He did not yet know what the Absolute's motivation was, but gods were seldom altruistic, and he could not foresee a happy ending for the Spider. Thorne frowned at the thought.

Slowly, deliberately, he reached for Kar'niss' hand and brought it flush against his chest. The Drider sucked in a sharp intake of breath, his hand cold and rough against Thorne's skin.

“I wish to be claimed by you. Mated by you. Remember?" Thorne whispered, stepping closer, keeping the Drider's palm on his chest even as it began to shake. "So do it." Kar'niss continued those artful mutterings, eyes twitching every which way. Thorne stepped close until he was flush against the Drider's chitin covered abdomen, his own cock jumping at the touch. "Come on, Kar'niss. Show me.”

"My Queen blesses me," The Drider said, whispering to himself. "Yes. Yes. I have served thee well, haven't I?"

In a blink, Thorne was off his feet, yanked upward with unnatural strength before being slammed to the floor hard enough to rattle the bones of the dead. The impact drove the air from his lungs, a gasp catching sharp in his throat. He barely had time to rise to his elbows before Kar’niss was on him —crowding him, looming, legs stabbing into the rotted floorboards with loud, splintering cracks. One after another, sharp and sure, caging Thorne in beneath his too large body.

Thorne’s heart pounded in his throat.

Kar’niss loomed closer, pedipalps twitching, eyes darting across Thorne’s face with frantic focus. “You chose,” the Drider rasped, almost reverent. “You offered. Now you will be kept. As is her majesty's will.”

Then came the hands. They were curious, frantic, overwhelming.

The Drider’s many limbs moved across Thorne’s bare skin in a feverish scramble, claws dragging thin rivulets of red -searching, trembling, tasting through touch. Every inch was explored: his chest, his ribs, his throat, the curve of his hip, the hollow beneath his jaw. His ears, his knees, the slender curve of his cock. Kar'niss touched everything and made a strange, chittering sound deep in his throat, overwhelmed by the feel of living, uncursed flesh beneath his claws. Supple. Warm. Wrong in all the right ways.

Thorne lay still beneath the cage of limbs, heart thudding against his ribs, his body no longer sure whether it was afraid, aroused, or some terrible mix of both. A bead of pre cum wept, pooling at his lower stomach. And above him, Kar’niss whispered again -not to Thorne, but to someone else entirely.

“See? See what I’ve found for You, my Queen. Your servant brings you soft things. Warm things. The living. The willing.” His breath hitched. One hand trembling at Thorne’s throat before sliding down, gently over his weeping cock to his left thigh, bringing it up alarmingly fast, near folding him in half.

Thorne gasped, half a laugh and half a moan. He reached out for Kar'niss, hands finding his face. His palms pressed gently against the chitinous angles, thumbs brushing the strange, ridged skin just beneath the Drider’s many eyes. “You’re so beautiful,” Thorne whispered, breath catching in his throat. “When I saw you, I just knew that-”

Kar’niss visibly shuddered beneath his touch, eyes closing, frowning. The twitching of his pedipalps slowed, relaxing as the armored mound beneath its legs unfurled, revealing a fleshy, near translucent membrane. A long, low sound escaped him. Not a hiss. Not a growl. A keening.

"Oh," Thorne panted, trying to get a better angle at what was between the Drider's legs. "Is that-"

He flinched as the Drider's fleshy and pointed appendage nudged against his hole, forcing past the tight ring of muscle without hesitation. Once breached he thrust the rest of the way in, the hard edges of his chitinous hips slamming up against the curve of Thorne's ass, sure to bruise.

Thorne's breath caught in his throat. "Ow." He couldn't stop shaking, his hips twitching in half aborted jerks as if attempting to pull away from the feeling of being split open, his tail going rigid before wrapping around one of Kar'niss' many legs for comfort. "F-fuck, Kar."

The Spider was driven by an animalistic want that knew nothing of consideration. It was simply desire in its purest form, which made Thorne salivate, even as the painful stretch of his rim nearly softened his erection all together.

"So pretty." Thorne hiccupped, feeling his eyes well up. His hands trembled as he cupped the Drider's face. "Like art. Like a statue. Like-"

Kar'niss bit at his hand, forcing Thorne to flinch away from his twisted face. "How cruel my mate is, Mistress." The spider hissed to itself. "How vile its tongue." 

"N-no." Thorne tried to reach for him again, wishing to trace every angle of the Spider's face. Those beautiful blinking eyes above his brow. The pointed tip of a finely sculpted ear. "I am being earnest. I am- I- fuck!"

Kar'niss pulled out and then thrust in again, his appendage pulsing with a heart beat of its own, spitting out slick that felt tacky and made the walls of Thorne's insides tug with every thrust. The creatures' slick was as sticky as its webbing, but it helped ease the glide somewhat, even if Thorne felt like he might unravel each time the Spider pulled out.

"Lies!" The Drider hissed, his face contorting as if pained. "My Majesty blesses and punishes me with the same hand." He wailed.

"P-please-" Thorne wanted to touch him, to hold him close, to be soft with him. It was a foreign feeling, but it burned just as hot as the urge to maim and sever did. "Please-"

Kar'niss kissed him hard. Their teeth clashing together, his lips and chin pushing against Thorne's in a slide of saliva as if he did not know how to kiss. And perhaps he didn't. But the Drider still desired it. If his splintered mind did not know it, his body in the very least, did. And Thorne wanted nothing more than to give it to him.

He opened his mouth to deepen the kiss, but found that he could not, for the Drider had sealed his lips shut, leaving behind a thin seal of webbing. He moaned a question, his voice muffled. 

"There, cruel sting." Kar'niss leaned back with a relieved sigh. He patted Thorne's hair, petting him like a dog, the only bit of tenderness he seemed able to do. Shooshing Thorne's whimpering moans softly. "That is much better."

*

The sounds spilling out of him were a mix of pained, unintelligible grunts, muffled and trapped in his chest as the Spider pistoned in and out of him. Slick and tacky threads of webbing drooled from whey connected, leaking from the tight suction of his hole with every thrust, pooling between Thorne's thighs and seeping into the wood.

He could count on one hand the amount of sexual encounters he'd experience after the Nautiloid ship -the ones that he could remember, at least- and while they'd all been satisfying in their own, unique way, none had ever left him feeling so full. So bred. 

Thorn could feel the very architecture of his insides rearranging, fitting snuggly to the length and width of the Drider. Perfect as a knife to its sheath. Thorne shoves a hand between them both, reaching for his belly which throbbed and distended from every one of Kar'niss' thrusts. He could feel the curved head of the spider's cock nudging behind his belly button, and the pressure caused him to moan, deep and guttural -though it had no where to go.

Thorne reared his hips up to meet Kar'niss' thrusts as best he could, his rim burning and stretched beyond measure, toeing the line between pleasure and pain. He would surely be left gaping after this. Ruined and open as a well used cunt. He reached lower to fist his neglected cock, dribbling pre. It only took a few strokes before he was adding his own spend to the mess puddling between his legs.

"A perfect vessel." Kar'niss moaned loudly, ramming himself inside of Thorne. "A healthy one, and strong too. For my Majesty's children."

Thorne would've asked him what he meant if he could speak, but the sudden stretch inside caught him by surprise. His eyes widened as he felt the pressure inside of himself shift. As though the Drider's cock were reforming. Growing larger and larger to the point of bursting. 

Just when Thorne began to thrash and truly cry out in fear, he felt the pressure subside. Kar'niss eased out from his hole and Thorne froze with the dawning realization that something had been left inside.

Chapter Text

"You have got to be kidding me."

Karlach’s flames flickered in agitation, casting wild shadows on the cracked stone walls. Her breathing was heavy, her armor scorched and smeared with soot from the earlier fight against the cultists. Sweat glistened on her stern brow as she looked distastefully at Thorne.

“What? What is it?” came Gale’s voice, echoing down the ruined path behind her. The sharp scent of ozone clung to the air as he drew closer, magic crackling faintly at his fingertips as he joined Karlach in the crumbling farm shed. He stopped short. His hands dropping to his sides. “Oh, for Mystra’s sake.”

Thorne hung in the far corner, half-suspended near the ceiling, tied up in thick silvery webbing and naked as the day he was born. His limbs were wrapped tightly around himself, his tail coiled up at an uncomfortable angle.

"As if the Myconids weren't bad enough." Karlach tilted her head, hands on her hips, her tail flicking with irritation. “You just had to go and make some cursed decisions down here too."

Thorne made a muffled noise, unable to speak with the carefully placed webbing over his mouth. Kar'niss was a mad man, but he wasn't intentionally cruel, so his nose thankfully remained uncovered, allowing him to breath.

Gale pinched the bridge of his nose. “Do you know how many supplies it'll take to get you down? Drider silk is tougher than steel!”

“Can you burn it off?” Karlach asked, stepping closer. The strands looked wet and threaded with silver, glistening ominously in the dim glow of her infernal heart beat.

Gale gave her a flat look. “Without burning Thorne up with it? Unlikely.”

“Well. If it can't be helped-”

Thorne gave a muffled, panicked shout of indignation, eyes wide above the cling of webbing. The only parts of him free were his fingers and his toes, wiggling frantically in protest.

Karlach planted her hands on her hips.
“Now, now. Beggars can't be choosers. You've made your bed, now you need to lie in it.”

“I think lying in beds is part of his problem, actually,” Gale muttered.

Karlach snorted.

“Truly, Thorne," Gale said. "I feel that this is somehow even more horrific than the Myconids.”

As a wizard, Gale was intimately familiar with the truly terrifying; Mind flayers, Beholders, cursed artifacts, and the whims of deities. But his lingering childhood fear of spiders skittering across his bedroom floor had never quite let go of him. Gale gestured to the cocooned Thorne, whose cock was still flushed pink and stuck to his abdomen with webbing and what looked to be, dried cum “This is going to be part of my nightmares tonight," Gale said more to himself. "I just know it.” 

Thorne groaned, muffled beneath the silk. It might’ve been an apology or a groan of pain. Maybe it was both.

Karlach crouched down beside him, testing the strength of the silk with the edge of her axe. It cut a half inch into the webbing before stopping at the thickest part of it. She pulled it back with a hard tug. “Hang in there, Soldier. We’ll get you out as fast as we can."

“Preferably before the Drider comes back,” Gale added, eyes scanning the dark horizons. "And proceeds to liquify your insides and suck them out through your belly button."

Thorne made a panicked sound.

Karlach turned to Gale, quirking an eyebrow. "Is that really what they do?"

"Let's not find out."

*

After several attempts at grease spells and prayers to Mystra, the webbing snapped with a wet rip, and Thorne fell like dead weight.

“Got you!” Gale grunted, catching him under the arms just in time to stop him from hitting the floor headfirst. Thorne’s body sagged, legs giving out beneath him, twitching as if he were still tangled up in invisible strands, the pins and needles sensation coming in at full force in his limbs.

“You alright, Soldier?” Karlach asked, hovering from a safe distance away, steam curling in the air from the heat of her worry. She tidied her thumbs, eager to reach out and touch, but that'd only make things worse. When they found the Harpers' Inn and the Tieflings, she'd hoped that Dammon would've been among them. Unfortunately, he was most likely in Moonrise with the others.

Gale shifted his grip, cradling Thorne awkwardly against his side, his robes sticking together in some places from the strands of webbing still stuck to Thorne's skin.

"I'm fine but I-" Thorne gasped, his chest heaving, breath coming in shallow and panicked. “I have to-" He managed, clutching weakly at Gale’s sleeve, nails digging in tightly. “I have to get them out-”

Gale’s brow furrowed. “Get what out?”

“The eggs,” Thorne rasped. His voice cracking on the words, eyes wide, near panicked. “I-I can feel them. They’re moving inside of me. Growing.”

Gale stiffened. “You let that creature lay eggs in you!?”

"Eugh!" Karlach's face scrunched up as if she'd smelled something truly awful. "Are you serious Thorne?" 

“Help me!” Thorne snapped, breath hitching as another wave of pressure coiled in his gut, the egg sac shifting with every inhale. “Please, help me. He said -he said they’ll hatch and eat me alive! S'what good Drider mothers do, apparently. Die for their young. And I know it's awfully foolish but it sounded so hot at the time-” 

“If it’s any consolation,” Gale interrupted, his tone carefully measured. “A Lolth-cursed Drider is sterile.”

Thorne blinked rapidly, clutching onto Gale if only to ground himself. “Meaning?”

“Meaning,” Gale said, gently easing him to sit on the floor, taking his cloak off and wrapping it around Thorne's naked form. “They won’t hatch. They won’t eat you. They're duds. Unfertilized.” There was an awkward moment of silence as the words set in. “You’ll just have to… pass them,” Gale added, almost apologetically.

Thorne stared at him, jaw slack. “Pass them?”

Karlach made a face. “Yeah, you know. Pass them. Like Lae'zel's awful cooking. Or worse, like a clutch of cursed Drider eggs up yer arse.”

Thorne groaned and dropped his head into his hands. Sure, it had been one of the best fucks of his life, but now he was reaping the consequences of it. Worst of all, he hadn't even managed to get the bloody directions to Moonrise!

“Okay, okay,” Karlach cut in, hands up. “Let's get you back to the Inn, alright? Get you some place safe and...private.” She shuddered at the thought of the eggs inside him. "Maybe a healer, while we're at it."

*

"He's licked a spider before," Gale said conversationally to Karlach, arms folded as he leaned against the tiled wall of the Inn's cramped bathroom. "I suppose it only makes sense that he'd sleep with one, too."

Karlach grimaced. "He makes Clerics of Loviatar sound down right prudish."

"I can hear you both," Thorne called from behind the thin wooden partition.

The Inn’s washroom was small, and the strong floral scent of soap did very little to over power the faint smell of mildew. A wooden tub stood in the corner, filled with water that had long since gone tepid. Warmth in the Shadow-Cursed lands rarely lasted, getting sucked away by the bone chill of the air.

Thorne sank into the water with a hiss, the scratches along his ribs stinging despite Halsin’s careful ministrations. Most of the healing had been swift and clinical -but the lecture he'd received from the Druid afterwards was not. Thorne shoved that memory aside like a moldy rag.

“How’s the water?” Karlach asked, leaning casually against the doorway with her arms crossed. “Is it… helping?”

“It’s scarcely room temperature,” Thorne grumbled, his voice echoing off of the tile. “Feels like I’m soaking in spit.”

"Charming,” Gale sighed.

“And the, uh… eggs?” She asked.

Thorne let out a pained groan. “Pushing on my bladder.”

Karlach snorted. “Well, that’s a sentence I never thought I'd hear.” She elbowed Gale, attempting for a bit of humor. “Think we should ask Jaheira if there’s a midwife somewhere in the inn?”

Gale gave her a deadpan look. “For what, exactly? Prenatal care? I think it's a bit too late for that.”

“I dunno, maybe someone here has experience in… unconventional removals?”

From behind the partition, there was the unmistakable sound of water sloshing over the rim and Thorne's tail smacking the side of the tub. “They're not coming out!”

Gale gave a small, sympathetic wince. “Hang in there, Thorne. Just think -by tomorrow morning, you could be a proud parent of…Well, nothing at all.”

"Could you both just...come here?" Thorne asked after a long pause, staring at his pale knees that breached the surface of the still water, contemplating whether slipping beneath it might be a better way to end the night. "It’s not like you both haven't seen me in worse states."

"Alright, alright." They both peaked over the partition before stepping closer. "Is there anything that we can do to help?" Gale asked gently.

"You could make the water warmer," Thorne offered, not quite capable of looking them both in the eyes just yet.

Gale sighed, shaking his head. "I've all but exhausted my energy today. Minor luxuries are, regrettably, beyond me at the moment."

"I think I’ve got you on this one, mate," Karlach said, rolling up her sleeve. She dipped her hand into the water and immediately there was a soft hiss as steam rose up, the temperature steadily increasing bit by bit.

Thorne let out a small, involuntary sigh as he slumped back against the tub, sinking deeper into the heat. "Gods. That’s actually a lot better." The warmth crept through his limbs, soothing the tightness in his shoulders, loosening the ache in muscles that had been locked up in the web for hours. For the first time since Kar'niss, he felt his body begin to unclench. After a few minutes, he  jolted upright, water splashing over the edge.

"What is it?!" Karlach and Gale both asked at once. "Are you okay?"

"I’m fine, I just-" Thorne swallowed hard, trying to settle back down into the warm water, but his stomach twisted with an uneasy cramp. "I think that the heat is helping. They must be ready to come out."

Gale paled slightly at the thought, visibly queasing. Karlach frowned but instinctively shifted closer to Thorne. “Can I feel?” she asked quietly.

Thorne hid his face in the crook of his elbow, but nodded.

Karlach’s hand came to rest gently over his abdomen, warm and steady like a smooth, heated stone, the water doing its best to dampen her flame. The touch helped eased the tension inside, coaxing the cramping to soften, as if her warmth was pushing back the unease. It was pleasant -and perhaps the longest they’d ever been able to touch without a barrier before,  though the temperature rose higher and higher with each passing second.

“Careful, Karlach,” Gale cautioned. “You’ll boil the water.”

“Right.” She pulled her hand back reluctantly, allowing it to rest on the edge of the tub, and almost immediately the water began to cool, her smile fading along with it.

Thorne mourned the loss, whimpering slightly, shifting uncomfortably beneath their gazes. He felt so foolish now and just slightly pathetic, lying here on his back under the care of his partners who had their own worries and problems to deal with. After refusing to kill Isobel, he'd needed to get the urges out somehow and well- Kar'niss had seemed like a good idea at the time. Now, not so much.

Gale reached in, his hand settling firmly on Thorne’s belly where Karlach’s had been. He pressed a little harder, palpating the area with focused intent. “I can feel it,” Gale said, more to himself than anyone else, brows knitting in that quizzical way that meant he’d found something morbidly interesting. "It's two, I think. Small. Close together."

"Yay," Thorne muttered weakly. "Small mercies."

"Does that mean you're having twins?" Karlach asked.

"Most likely not," Gale answered, pushing against Thorne's belly as if to help shift the eggs into a lower position. It hurt slightly, but Thorne relaxed into it, sighing softly. "Spiders are opportunistic eaters and will first devour their siblings before going on the hunt for less obtainable prey. I imagine Drider eggs are no different and that the strongest would eat the other before-"

"Gale." Thorne hissed, grabbing tightly onto his wrist and the edge of the tub. "Stop talking."