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“Brooding doesn’t suit you, cub.”
Zaelitav jerked around, quickly forcing his muscles to relax as he pretended he hadn’t been caught off guard. Jaheira stood above him, unimpressed and certainly not fooled.
“I’m not brooding.”
“Mhm.”
The night was early, but the sun had already nearly finished its descent, a sign of the changing seasons. Zael sat at the edge of their makeshift camp, barely cut off from the rest of the lower city, legs hanging over the water. The smell was…less unpleasant than directly by grey harbor, but it didn’t bother him either way. The view of the dying light of day reflecting off the water created a perfect moment of solitude.
But that wasn’t brooding.
Jaheira sat next to him, letting out a couple of grunts as she lowered to the ground.
“Smells like shit over here. Can’t think of any other reason you’d spend the night here instead of by the fire. Or that wizard of yours.”
Zael’s mouth twitched, almost a smile.
“Clearly you haven’t seen him when he’s found a new tome to tear through.”
Stolen from Cazador’s palace…
Jaheira let out a small sigh, tired and exasperated.
“I won’t say today was a good day. But we did a good thing. You did a good thing. You should be celebrating. Or sleeping.”
Zael shook his head.
“I don’t doubt what we did, I just…you’ll think I’m ridiculous if I explain.”
“Oh good, so nothing will change then.”
Zael rolled his eyes at the sarcasm, but still…maybe it wouldn’t hurt to get her opinion.
“So many terrible things have happened since this all started. Terrible things happened today. And yet the only thing on my mind…”
Zael sighed.
“I don’t know why, but I keep thinking of that moment Cazador tried to take Astarion from us. The way he stole Astarion’s clothes to use that mark on his back. Such a small thing, in the grand scheme of all that happened, but it’s bothered me every since we finally left that place. It was like this one last attempt at a humiliation, at stripping away his dignity.
“It’s stuck in my mind and only my mind it seems. It’s left me wondering why, and I think…I’m not like the rest of you. Of us, I mean, here.” He waved vaguely at the camp. “I do not have a grand or complicated or difficult past. All of the horrors we’ve come across are new to me in a way they don’t seem to be for everyone else. I’ve wondered since the beginning why everyone just stepped back, let me take a position as some sort of leader of the group. After this I feel only more confused, and I just wonder…why did Astarion come to me with this?
“Why tell me everything he did, trust me with the knowledge of his past, his torture? Trust me with information about Cazador, about his plans? Why not Karlach, one of the kindest people I’ve ever met? Or Wyll, one of the most patient and heroically minded?
“Don’t misunderstand, Astarion is and will always be my comrade in some way. I will always help him if he needs it, be there if I can. But for most of our time together, he’s acted as if he could barely stand me. I don’t know if I could call him a friend the way I might some of the others. I don’t imagine he’d call me a friend, I know he’d choose to spend time with Wyll or Karlach over me any day.
“So why come to me?”
There was a beat of silence. And then Jaheira just scoffed.
“You are overthinking this. You underestimate just how important it is to be someone willing to make a decision, to take action. They-we all come to you, follow you, because of that. There’s no secret to it or deeper meaning to uncover. Try to find one and you’ll just drive yourself insane.” She shrugged. “Or maybe get us all killed.”
Zael couldn’t help but chuckle at her casual tone.
“That is most certainly not my goal.”
“Ah! Then we agree. Good.”
She was quick to stand back up, again with slight grunts that accompanied her age, that Zael politely ignored.
“I hope you’ve gotten your fill of my elderly wisdom for the night.”
Zael gave her a small smile.
“Thanks Jaheira.”
“Get some sleep, cub. Or at least sit somewhere that doesn’t smell like a pile of shit.”
For a moment, he watched her walk off, caught up in his own thoughts. He nearly jumped again as something moved into his vision, muscles tensing as he twisted to look up.
Astarion stood above him, expression serious.
Zael was moving immediately, half up before Astarion held out a hand.
“Calm down! Nothing is happening, no need to scramble like a cornered rat.”
Slowly, Zael lowered himself back down, raising an eyebrow at Astarion to make his confusion as obvious as possible.
Astarion fidgeted for a moment, not speaking. He glanced away, then back, then towards the ground.
Oh. He wasn’t concerned, he was…awkward.
With a sudden huff, Astarion joined him on the ground, sitting where Jaheira had been only a moment ago.
“I may have overheard your little conversation.”
“Oh.”
He wasn’t sure how else to respond. Should…he be embarrassed? It didn’t seem like something to apologize for, even if it was, well…awkward. Did he upset Astarion somehow? Even now, the vampire could be such a mystery to him…
They sat in the silence, each second more uncomfortable than the last. Should he say something? Get up and leave? Why had the man come over here in the first place…?
“Do you want to know why I talked to you? Why I came to you with all of…this?” Astarion waved a hand in the air, as if that somehow indicated his entire sordid history.
“Do you remember that night at the grove. The night before those tieflings set off? That little party?”
“Of course I do,” Zael said, a bit slowly, unsure of just where this was going.
“Do you remember when I…” he paused, mouth slightly open, as if the next words struggled to come out. “when I tried to…proposition you?”
Zael’s mind went blank. When he…what? That hadn’t happened. Had it?
He cast his mind back, trying to remember the night. Most of it was a little hazy, and tainted by a vague feeling of frustration and rejection. Not from Astarion, though. Zael had made some drunken attempts at flirting born from stress, but he knew for a fact none had been aimed at the vampire who clearly did not like him up to that point.
Then another moment poked through the haze. A moment he’d forgotten about over the months, but could just pull back up to the front of his brain now.
“That was serious? I thought you were mocking me. You’d spent the entire time so far insulting and judging every move I made!”
Astarion winced, ever so slightly. Zael bit back anything else he might have said. It wasn’t intended as an insult, but well, it was true.
“No, you’re right. I didn’t like you at that point. You seemed soft, obsessed with helping every stray we came across, entirely too unconcerned with our plight. You annoyed me, then. But even so, you’d gotten us through that damn goblin camp, saved the tieflings.”
His voice took on a mocking tone.
“I didn’t like you, but I thought, if anyone here can get these damn tadpoles out of our brains, it might just be you.”
His voice shifted, fully bitter now, any hint of joking gone. A stone formed in Zael’s gut, the first puzzle piece falling into place. He could remember the moment, more clearly now than before. The way Astarion had looked at him, the way he approached him.
He went quiet for a minute, avoiding Zael’s gaze completely, eyes staring straight ahead at nothing. When he spoke again, his voice was low and quiet, as if the act of speaking had become just a little too difficult.
“I told myself I was using you. Outsmarting you for my own gain. But I was fooling myself. I was…scared. Terrified. For two hundred years, I have had only one tool available to me. One tool I was allowed to use. So of course, I tried to use it on you. The big damn hero of the day. My ticket out.”
Anger seeped into his words, though clearly not directed at Zael.
“I did everything perfectly. Turned on the charm, used the right words, the right tone, the right tilt of my fucking head. Perfected over so many years. I’d watched you the entire night, waited until you’d had more than enough to drink. I was so, so sure it would work. I had done it so many times…what was one more?”
The stone in Zael’s stomach only grew. His tongue sat like lead in my mouth.
“But then…”
Finally, Astarion turned his head, his eyes coming up to meet Zael’s. A thousand emotions fought each other, with no obvious winner.
“Do you remember what you said?”
Zael said nothing. He only waited.
“I told you I wanted to spend the night with you. And you looked me directly in the eyes, and you…you said ‘no you don’t.’”
His voice shook at the end, what little control he had falling away.
The moment had been so small for Zael. Inconsequential and unimportant, a silly joke at his own expense.
But it hadn’t been that. It had never been that.
He could see it now. Why Astarion had given his trust, however reluctantly. Why he’d chosen to come to Zael first every time, regardless of his own disdain. It was so painfully clear now, twisting his gut.
Such a small fucking thing.
“I’m sorry Astarion, for what I said before.”
It was the vampire’s turn to be confused, just for a moment, before Zael could finish his thoughts.
“You are my friend now, even if you weren’t before. And I’m glad for that.”
Emotions flitted across his face, difficult to identify individually, complex and deeper than could be easily expressed.
Astarion sniffed before taking a sudden breath, deep but shaky, clearly fighting for control of himself.
And in a moment a forced, but still very Astarion expression of aloofness was on his face.
“Don’t you dare try to invite me to your house. I was already forced to meet your mother, I refuse to do it again. Feel free to let Gale suffer that honor.”
Zael couldn’t help it-he burst out laughing. The stone was gone, replaced with a feeling of lightness in his core.
Astarion’s expression shifted to something like annoyance.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what!”
“Like Karlach when she wants to hug someone.”
Zael fought to stop his laugher, smothering the giggles still trying to force their way out.
“I promise, I will not hug you unless you ask.”
“Yes, I know. And it…it means a lot to me.”
There was another beat of silence, the world freezing for just a moment of time. Then, with a slight huff, Astarion was on his feet, wiping down his clothes for no particular reason.
“Well, that’s enough of that. Any more sentimentality and I might just vomit.”
He looked out at the water again, nose wrinkled.
“Well, because of that and the smell.”
“So I’ve heard. Rest well, Astarion. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Good night…my friend.”
Zael let out his own small sigh once Astarion had walked away. It really did smell like shit.
He hoped he’d remember it, when it was over.