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The smell of blood was overwhelming. It assaulted Astarion’s senses with no regard towards what he had gone through, nor the thoughts and feelings that he was trying to process as he watched his lover stand and brush himself off. As if he hadn’t been dead just a few moments prior. Astarion’s eyes flitted around the cave, from Tav to the dead bandit with Astaron’s his knife embedded deep in its chest, to the scattered crates and barrels, then to the loose jewelry half buried in the dirt. Finally, to Tav’s weapon, the Blood of Lathander, laying on the ground next to a pool of blood. A large pool of blood. Tav’s blood. It was too large. Too much. Too…
“-ove? Astarion?” Astarion jumped as Tav’s hand cupped his cheek. Gently, Tav moved Astarion’s face so he could look at him.
“Ah, apologies. What were you saying Love? I’m afraid I was rather…lost in thought,” Astarion said, leaning into the touch. He placed his hand over Tav’s, holding it in place.
Tav’s eyebrows knit together as he studied Astarion's face. The slight tremble in the vampire’s fingers did not go unnoticed. “I asked if you were ready to continue looking for the ring.”
The Ring of the Sunwalker. The reason the two of them had come to this dingy cave in the middle of nowhere to begin with. The ring that would give Astarion the ability to walk in the sun again. The ring that Tav had found a lead on after asking what type of artifact Astarion had hoped to find. The ring he had suggested after joking about Tav not proposing.
The ring that Tav had just died for.
“I…I’m sorry, may we come back another day? I can’t stay here when this…when you just…” Astarion said, trailing off as he gestured vaguely around the cave.
Tav smiled, “Of course Love. Whatever you want.”
Astarion sat at the dining table in his and Tav’s shared apartment, staring absently at the case that held the Blood of Lathander as he fiddled with a small box in his hands. It had been months since the two of them had gone to the cave in search of the Ring of the Sunwalker and they had not journeyed back, at Astarion’s request. The memories of that night still ran through his mind. The bandit’s knife slipping behind Tav’s armor. The blood flowing through his fingers as he tried desperately to stop it. The smile on Tav’s face right before his body went limp. His own screams echoing back at him, mocking him, as he gathered his lover’s cooling body into his arms.
The memories swirled, repeating over and over and seemed to only get worse as time went by. They were especially bad during the quiet moments. The early mornings when they were wrapped in each other's embrace, as cool fingers ghosted over warm skin and Astarion watched Tav’s face as he slept. The steady rise and fall of his lover’s chest being one of the few things keeping him grounded as the memories tormented him. It was the memory of Tav’s final smile that haunted him the most. No matter how many times the memory replayed itself, Astarion couldn’t understand why Tav had smiled at him right before he died. He couldn’t fathom why anyone would be smiling on their deathbed. Especially if they were smiling at their lover who was desperately begging them to hold on.
Even now, months later, he couldn’t wrap his head around it. But the conversation he had with Tav, the evening before the cleric left to visit Gale, made things a little clearer for him.
“Did you know?” Astarion asked.
“Hmm?” Tav hummed.
“Did you know you were going to die that day? In the cave?”
Tav looked up from the bag he was packing, confused. “Why do you ask?”
“Because I need to know why you were smiling at me when you were on your damned deathbed!” Astarion snapped, months of bottled up feelings boiling over. “I was terrified. You were slipping through my fingers, there was nothing I could do and you had the fucking nerve to smile at me seconds before you died. Like…like you were happy to be leaving me!”
Tav waited a moment, to give Astarion time to continue speaking. When he didn’t, Tav spoke softly, “Love, that is the farthest thing from the truth. I was not happy to be leaving you.”
“Then why?” Astarion demanded.
Tav was silent, choosing his words carefully before he answered. “I am a cleric. No matter how much I may act like I’m not, I do have a god that I serve. I had never asked anything of my god before, I was content just to serve and do as my god bidded of me, no questions asked. Then I fell in love with you.
“I have had relationships in the past, but I never felt as strongly about them as I do about you. That night in the Shadow-cursed lands, as you opened up to me and told me about that simple plan you had, your desire for us to be something real, your uncertainties about intimacy…that night I asked my god for something for the first time.”
“What did you ask for?”
“To help me be able to stay with you,” Tav stated simply. “No, I didn’t know I would be dying that day in the cave. But I did receive a premonition from my god that it was a…possibility. I purposely haven’t brought the Blood of Lathander on any of our previous excursions because I was afraid its light would hurt you now with the tadpoles gone. But I knew that I had to bring it on that trip, no matter how much I was afraid of the weapon hurting you. As soon as that bandit snuck up on me and I felt the knife deep in my throat, I knew that I had done the right thing. That smile before I died was not a smile because I was leaving. It was a smile because I knew I’d be back. If I had not listened to that feeling from my god, had I not brought the mace with me, I would not be here, with you, in our home right now.
“You are my world Astarion. For as long as you’ll have me I want to stay with you. I would die a thousand more deaths and go the rest of my life without ever seeing the sun again, if it meant that I could stay here with you.”
Astarion scoffed, “That’s ridiculous. There’s no way you could possibly mean that.”
“I do,” Tav said, gently taking the vampire’s hands in his. “I don’t need the sun when you are my sun Astarion. My life has been nothing but brighter since you entered it all those years ago and I can only hope I have even a fraction of the same effect in yours.”
Astarion hadn’t had the words at the time. Anything he had wanted to say had been stuck in his throat as he pulled Tav in for a kiss. He had only hoped that the thoughts and feelings that he couldn’t express outloud were translated through that kiss and night of passion that followed. But, as he sat at the table, looking down at the box in his hands Astarion knew that the physical intimacy wasn’t enough. Tav deserved better. He deserved to hear Astarion’s feelings, just as earnestly as he had offered them to Astarion before he left.
So, there he sat, waiting in their small dining room for his partner to return home. Tav had mentioned that this visit would only last for two weeks. It was a quick trip to Waterdeep to discuss Gale’s findings on something Tav had asked him about shortly after they returned from the cave. Astarion vaguely remembered Tav mentioning something about wishes and scrolls, but he had been too wrapped up in his own thoughts that he hadn’t been fully listening to his partner.
And that’s the problem, isn’t it? Astarion thought bitterly. He has always been focused on himself. Over and over Tav has shown just how much he cares about him. After the Netherbrain had been defeated, the cleric had devoted his life to helping Astarion find a way to walk in the sun again. Most of the research had been done by him. The leads had been found by him. The expenses, the housing, Astarion’s comfort. He changed nearly everything about his lifestyle to accommodate Astarion and what did the vampire do in return? He couldn’t think of a single thing. Nothing that measured up to everything that Tav had done for him, at least. Astarion had practically given up on ever walking in the sun again after the night in the cave. He couldn’t bare the thought of losing Tav over a simple relic. But Tav didn’t know that. How could he when Astarion hadn’t expressed it clearly.
The sound of a key turning in a lock brought Astarion back to the present. Looking up he found Tav shuffling through the door, trying to keep as much sunlight out of the apartment as possible. Standing, Astarion tucked the small box away in a pocket, and met Tav in the entrance.
“Welcome home Darling,” Astarion said, wrapping his arms around Tav’s waist and burying his face in his back.
Tav paused in the middle of taking off his boots to turn and embrace Astarion in kind, “I’m home.”
Astarion took a deep breath, the faint smell of old books and hundur sauce mingled with Tav’s own. “How’s Gale?”
“He’s doing well, he’s been asking about you, you know. Says you should come along next time,” Tav said, pulling away from Astarion so he could finish taking off his boots. “Loathe as he is to admit it, he misses you. Misses everyone really,”
Astarion’s chest tightened. Tav didn’t say it outloud, but he knew that Tav missed everyone too. Out of all their companions from their time with the tadpoles, Gale was the one companion Tav had been able to keep in contact with regularly. They sent letters to each other frequently and met up as often as they could. Astarion only joined them occasionally. He could only take so much talking about magic studies and books after all. While Astarion missed all their companions, he hadn’t formed quite as close a bond to the others as Tav did. So the lack of contact doesn’t affect him as much. But it does affect Tav. He remembers the look on Tav’s face when Shadowheart’s letters began to slow in frequency and basically stopped coming at all. The look of relief every time he receives a letter from Wyll letting him know that he and Karlach are still alive and doing well in Avernus. The sadness he sees on Tav’s face as he looks up at the stars, wondering if Lae’zel is alright and if she had successfully helped lead her people out of Vlaakith’s tyranny.
And it pains him because, deep down, he knows if he had not been in a relationship with Tav, he would have just become another companion that would have eventually stopped sending letters. He would have drifted away and disappeared deep into the Underdark. Possibly finding the other spawn and helping them come into their powers. In that timeline Tav possibly would have courted Gale instead, becoming Mr. Dekarios, and moved to Waterdeep after defeating the Netherbrain. Astarion wasn’t daft enough to pretend he did not see the chemistry the two of them had. But he wasn’t in that timeline. He was in the timeline where Tav chose him.
“Love, are you alright? You’ve been standing there, boring a hole into the floor for the past couple of minutes.” Tav asked, startling Astarion out of his thoughts.
Astarion laughed, waving away Tav’s concerns, “Yes, of course. I was just thinking.”
Tav hummed in response as he placed his boots to the side. Then, taking Astarion’s hand in his, Tav led them to the living room and gently pulled Astarion down to sit on the couch next to him. “May I ask what you were thinking about?”
“I was thinking about the conversation we had before you left,” Astarion said, squeezing Tav’s hand. “About how you said that you only hoped that you made my life even a fraction as bright as I make yours. It made me realize that I haven’t told you just how much you mean to me. Not since that night in the graveyard after Cazador's.
“I love you. I love you more than I can possibly express with words, but I’m going to try because you deserve to hear me say it outloud. I need you to hear it,” Astarion paused, glancing over at Tav. Tav’s expression was soft, a warm smile on his face as he squeezed Astarion’s hand back.
Taking a deep breath he continued, slowly, “When you…died…in that cave, I felt like I had died again with you. As you laid there, the light dimming from your eyes, as your blood was flowing through my fingers, my world went dark. I… I cannot bare to think of a world without you in it. If you had not come back to me, I would still be back in that cave with you until you were nothing but bone. If I am your sun, then you are just as much mine.
"Tav, you brought my dead heart back to life, and it continues to beat so long as you are here with me. I had practically given up on finding a cure to let me walk in the sun again after you died. The idea of a cure doesn’t seem as appealing if it means losing you in the process. I don’t need an artifact, or the sun as long as you’re by my side. I know that it’s my fault that I never expressed that. That I may have made it seem that finding a cure for my condition was what I wanted most after the tadpoles, but that is far from the truth. Being with you, traveling the world or just being together here, in our home, is all I ever wanted. You are everything I ever wanted.”
Astarion gently removed his hand from Tav’s and pulled the small box out of his pocket. Tav’s eyes widened as Astarion shifted to face him, the box held in front of him. “I know that I was originally the one to ask for a ring, but there has never been a reason for me to not offer you one first.”
Slowly, Tav took the box from Astarion and opened it. Nestled inside the box was a silver band. It seemed simple enough at first glance, but as Tav examined it closer he found that the band had been skillfully crafted to look like vines and leaves wrapped together to form a ring. Beautifully tasteful to look at up close, but simple from afar, a perfect fit for him.
Still looking at the ring, Tav asked, “Love…are you asking me to marry you?”
“I am. But, only if you’ll have me, of course. I know you must have had your reasons for not proposing and I-” Astartion started, but was interrupted by Tav pulling him into a kiss. Astarion melted into the kiss. Cupping the back of Tav’s head, he pulled him forward, deepening it.
When they parted, Tav rested his forehead against Astarion’s. “Of course I’ll marry you.”
Astarion let out a shaky breath, “Good. I was worried you’d say no since you’ve never brought up the subject before.”
Tav chuckled, “Honestly, I didn’t think marriage was something you wanted. So I was waiting until we found a way to help you walk in the sun before I asked.”
Astarion sat back quickly to look at Tav, frowning. “And what if we never found a cure? What would you have done then?”
“I would have kept loving you as I always have,” Tav said. “Whether we’re married or not, my feelings for you will never change.”
“You know...I feel the same way,” Astarion said, taking the ring box from Tav. Picking up the ring he slid it onto Tav’s finger. “Though, I really do love the idea of this ring showing others that you are well and truly taken. By me, of course.”
Tav laughed. Then an idea struck him. Standing up he twirled to face Astarion, face bright with excitement. “How's this, tomorrow I’ll go out and get you a ring. A nice, normal ring, one that you’ll like. We’ll get married in what ever style you want. But, if you want, we’ll keep searching for a way to help you walk in the sun again, whether it’s with the Ring of the Sunwalker, or the project Gale and I are working on. If we succeed, let’s have another ceremony, we’ll renew our vows in the sunlight and challenge the world again, together, in the light of day.”
Astarion stood and wrapped his arms around Tav, beaming up at him. While the idea of searching for artifacts and putting Tav in danger again still filled him with fear. The look of pure, unadulterated joy on his partner’s face was contagious. It made him truly feel like if they were together, anything was possible.
“Darling, how could I possibly say no? It’s a date.”