Bromance: A Lothar/Khadgar Story

"I swear, if you sheep me one more time—"

"Sorry! I said I was sorry— it was an impulse reaction—"

"You turn people into sheep on impulse?!"

"That really hurt, okay!"

Maybe they'd taken too long to begin, but finding Medivh's herbs hadn't been easy; now Khadgar felt utterly daft while he waited for Lothar to treat him. He'd been certain he was fine until the lesion on his shoulder had started to hurt worse than before.

Lothar had tried the balm on himself first, he'd got his shirt off and dipped a washcloth in water, and Khadgar watched him wince while it moved over his skin; he could see now the size of the impact, but also that it was far from his first time, Lothar had scars all over. Some of them appeared like they must have been very painful once; the water streamed down his chest in glittering rivulets, low sounds of liquid echoed quietly through the room.

And the way he cringed after applying the ointment didn't bode well for Khadgar.

"Now you," he said spontaneously, far too soon; at that, Khadgar stiffened, he stared back in mute horror.

"Ah—" he muttered; "Go on," Lothar said, he turned toward a cabinet, where earlier they'd found Medivh had kept towels and cloths. "Get your robes off."

"Already?" Khadgar sputtered; "Yes, already," came the reply. "Don't be stupid about this."

"Right, of course not."

It was embarrassing, having to take off his robes after he'd got a look of Lothar's impressive physique; Khadgar had nothing on that, he was all skin and bones, and pasty from the time he'd spent indoors studying.

He tried to act like he was cool as a cucumber, but his own anxiety betrayed him, and he'd somehow managed to get out of his clothes in the most awkward conceivable way; he even dropped like three mana gems on the floor in the process, one Darkmoon token, and half a conjured roll that had long since gone stale.

He didn't even remember having all that stuff.

The worst part perhaps was that he totally never did things like this— he never left stuff in his pockets before taking off his clothes, but he was stupidly nervous, Light only knew why; as for Lothar, he might have taken the opportunity to make fun of him, and Khadgar completely expected him to— but, for some reason, he said nothing to that effect. He merely busied himself getting a new towel damp and then soaked in the preparation of golden sansam; he seemed impatient and annoyed.

Maybe it still hurt, Khadgar thought; maybe that was why there was little of his usual cheeky ridicule.

After he'd collected the stuff that had fallen on the floor, Khadgar readied himself for the inevitable, and he must have appeared utterly petrified— because Lothar paused partway to where he was going to clean his lesion, and instead regarded him strangely. "Light almighty," he said; "you'd think you didn't have me under you just a half hour ago, doing hell knows what with your spells."

"That was different," Khadgar stammered; the words came very fast, and he squirmed backward away from the cloth like it would be the death of him.

"Unbelievable," Lothar let a dry laugh; "You pulled some kind of shadow... thing... out of me without so much as batting an eye, and now you're this bloody frightened of a little ointment?"

"Yes. No. I mean— no, of course not!"

He tried to sit up straighter, and willed himself to just calm the fuck down— but for some reason, he was totally freaking out despite that.

And it wasn't because of the salve, either— okay, maybe the salve had a little to do with it— but beyond that, Lothar's scrutiny had got him shy while he was vulnerable and disrobed. From this close up, Khadgar could see not only how perfectly sculpted he was, but also how he seemed to wear his scars like trophies of battle, it was terribly humbling.

Khadgar had a scar on his lower back, from a time his chair broke spontaneously while he sat at his desk reading.

It was possibly the most embarrassing sort of scar someone could have.

At the moment, he wished he hadn't thought of that; he tried to think of other things, anything to make him relax, and he hadn't realized he was nervously shaking one leg.

"Could you stop that?" Lothar asked.

"Stop what?"

"You're making the chair squeak."

"I'm what?"

Lothar's hand came down hard on Khadgar's knee; "Stop shaking," he said.

"Oh," Khadgar replied stupidly; "right, sorry. What are you doing—"

That was the first time he'd cast polymorph; apparently, Lothar had had enough of his squirming, and had finally pressed the cloth directly to his lesion. It hadn't even hurt yet at first, it was just the abrupt move— and Khadgar hadn't actually meant to cast polymorph, he'd intended to blink in order to get away.

But, somehow, even the most basic spells had escaped him, and instead he'd cast the first thing that came to mind; he stared in bewilderment after the fact while the full meaning of what he'd done slowly registered, as well as how pissed off Lothar would certainly be.

"Ah," he murmured; "sorry— sorry—"

Needless to say, on being changed back Lothar wasn't amused.

He snatched the washcloth and rapidly thwacked it across Khadgar's head; "Idiot," he muttered, "What the hell was that?!"

Khadgar could feel his ears burn. "I never do that," he stammered; "I don't know—"

"You don't know? You just—" Lothar waved one hand sarcastically; "—you just cast things at random?"

"No! No, it's not like that, I'm not usually like this."

"Wanna bet?"

"I mean with magic— I don't usually, like— I don't randomly— let's just get this over with—"

By the time Lothar had actually started to treat him, Khadgar had managed to polymorph him twice more; the third time was because by then the medication began to take effect, and it had stung exactly as much as he'd expected.

After that, Lothar got both Khadgar's wrists in one hand and proceeded to point with the other; "I'm done trying to help you," he said. "Do it yourself."

He tossed the washcloth in his direction and then got to work putting things away, but he could see out the corner of his eye how reluctant Khadgar was to try treating himself; there he was, delicately dabbing at his skin with the wrong side of the cloth, which hadn't been properly sterilized and might make things worse.

Lothar sighed after some seconds of watching this; he took the washcloth without a word and went on to dip it in more of the ointment, and then turned his gaze to Khadgar; his irritation was unmistakable. "You sheep me one more time," he said, "and I'll take a proper swing at you. Understood?"

His eyes appeared almost predatory; Khadgar stared back with visible trepidation, he had no idea why he'd polymorphed him before.

"Understood," he replied softly.

(On to Chapter 3)

A/N: I was so tempted to have some apexis crystals fall out of Khadgar's pocket too, but that wouldn't make sense for that point in the lore XD

XXX

I would love to RP these two if anyone is interested! (There are actually a lot of m/m pairs I'd love to RP in Warcraft lore); it's completely cool by me if you're new to Warcraft or to RPing, if you don't know that much lore, or if English isn't your first language— I just like writing with someone else who's passionate about the same stuff. If you think you might want to give it a try, please let me know (contact info on my profile).