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i. i don't care about your good intentions
Astarion isn’t entirely sure what possesses him to turn up at Gale of Waterdeep’s front door in the middle of the night. Well –
He knows what possesses him in the middle of the night. Without the stowaway tadpole he has very little choice, one of the several members of their party left to challenging fates despite being a conquering hero. Gale’s residence is another matter entirely.
With much less confidence Astarion knocks again, aware of the hour and the creeping sense of dread in the pit of his stomach. He tightens his cloak around him in a futile attempt to stave off the rain, wondering if it’s too late to return to the ship he’d spent two miserable weeks on and make his way back to Baldur’s Gate to obsess over his folly for the foreseeable future. At least the city is awake even if Gale isn’t – maybe he could even catch a bite –
“Mr. Ancunin?”
Astarion still flinches at the sound of his own last name, after decades of disuse. He glances up, shoving his soggy hair out of his eyes, to find a pair of yellow-green eyes gleaming down at him from a cracked window. There’s a glimpse of a tawny foot swiping at the pane, as if Tara could push the window up on her own. “I’d be surprised you remember me, but,” he gestures at himself absently. “Who could forget? Forgive me for the late hour, darling, I was just leaving.”
“Absolutely not.” Tara’s little foot swipes again, then he sees her attempting to shove her nose beneath the window. “Mr. Dekarios would never forgive me. You just wait there.”
Not that there’s much else for him to do. She disappears, and a few minutes later he hears, very faintly, the thump of little feet landing. The door swings open, and Astarion steels himself to answer a number of extremely uncomfortable questions, only to find himself face to face with a hazy, half-formed purple specter with Gale’s face.
“Hello! On behalf of Gale of Waterdeep, I regret to inform you I am not currently –”
“Now come inside before we both catch cold.” Tara’s voice cuts across the illusion, and after a few awkward beats, Astarion reluctantly crosses the threshold, walking right through the magic. It seems most substantive around the hands, and there’s a familiar prickle on the back of his neck and the faint scent of the air after a crackle of lightning. Once he’s safely inside, Tara swats at something next to her, and the illusion pushes the door shut and disappears.
Something between a mage hand and mirror image, then. Astarion’s too cold to be impressed. He can feel himself shaking and tells himself it’s the cold and the fact that he’s sopping wet. “You didn’t have to do that.”
Tara regards him for a long moment, her head tipped and her wings tucked at her sides. After a beat she launches herself off the table and circles him with a look in her eyes that feels somehow more critical than the average cat’s. “You are of course welcome to leave,” she says finally. “But I would implore you to wait until morning, at least. Mr. Dekarios will be delighted to see you.”
Gale is delighted to see anyone who listens to him talk with a polite smile for more than five minutes. But, all the same. “If you insist.” Astarion politely clears his throat. “But I don’t suppose you can help me freshen up a bit first.”
Tara shepherds him to a guest room that seems to see little use as anything other than storage. There’s a bed and blankets, once Astarion navigates around shelves of books and vials and scrolls, and boxes of things he gives a wide berth to out of an abundance of caution. Gale seems to have rigged up quite a few artificer and alchemical tricks just for Tara’s sake; she’s able to fetch him a towel and a mug of warm tea, which is at least nice to hold. Last but not least is a painfully familiar pair of pajamas.
Whatever face he’s making isn’t as grateful as he’s hoping for. Tara clucks at him. “Regardless of whether or not it would kill you, you can’t sleep in those.” She waits and watches, maintaining eye contact with a familiar intensity that makes Astarion deeply uncomfortable until he starts peeling out of his soggy layers. “I’ll inform Mr. Dekarios in the morning that we’ll need to make arrangements for breakfast, and I will do my best to make sure you are able to see him again at your leisure, not his.”
Something tightens in Astarion’s chest. “Very kind of you,” he replies dryly, occupying himself with finding someplace safe to hang his damp cloak and shirt. “You’re surprisingly trusting, Ms. Tara.”
He hears her sniff, and the thump of her feet again as she leaps from box to box so she can depart. “Only when warranted.”
By the time Astarion jerks out of his short, tumultuous trance, disoriented and bewildered not to find himself in the miserable, empty husk of Cazador’s mansion, the sun is peeking through curtains across the room, and Astarion can smell the scent of bacon and something sweet. He stands, assesses the damage to his clothes – ruined, dammit – and then falls back on the bed with a thump to wait.
Gale’s tower is likely lousy with windows. It’s safer to wait for someone to retrieve him – safer not to have to confront the half-baked sequence of decisions that deposited here – safer not to wear out his welcome, to not offer the opportunity for someone to throw him out. But, true to her word, Tara seems to keep Gale confined to the rest of his own residence. The smells fade as the noise of the waking morning crowd begin to sift in from the streets, the cacophony battling with the sound of Gale’s footsteps and boisterous conversations with Tara and whatever his morning routine entails.
Nobody comes to see him. Gale pauses from time to time near the door, only to sigh, fine, fine, or I’m starting to worry, it can’t be helped before Tara seems to herd him away.
Eventually it starts to feel more embarrassing to hide away. Astarion stands and takes a steady breath, combs his fingers through his curls and straightens Gale’s – straightens his shirt before hesitantly making his way to the door and taking a wary look through it.
The tower’s as lousy with windows as Astarion expected, but most of the hall seems illuminated with either magic or lamps. The curtains are drawn, and something tightens in his chest. He hears Gale close by, upstairs maybe, and reluctantly finds his way.
“There is absolutely no reason to get my mother involved in this, Tara.” Gale’s exasperated voice pulls Astarion towards a room that seems to be a study – it’s drowning in books and half-filled open notebooks. There is, inexplicably, a piano. “She’ll just frighten him off. Whatever he needs, I’m sure I can manage –”
Gale turns and pulls up short, mouth open around whatever he was going to say and nothing coming out. Tara is lounging across his shoulders, her feet hanging over his chest and flexing against the fabric of his sweater. “Ah!”
He looks the same, mostly. A little grayer than eight months ago, his hair longer, his face closer to clean-shaven. He seems softer. Astarion sees one of his hands jerk out, towards Astarion himself, then drop. Gale’s fingers flex and tap against his palm with an anxious restlessness, the weave sparking against his fingers.
“Hello, lover.” Astarion can feel his face falling into the appropriate expression for the teasing greeting. They weren’t, of course. They wouldn’t. It’s funny to see Gale’s startled expression go pink before the wizard huffs out a strained laugh.
“Charming as ever,” Gale replies. His fingers flex, and then dig into the meat of his own thigh through his pajamas. “I don’t suppose you’re ready for brunch.”
ii. i care more about your bad dreams
“You really don’t have to do this.” It’s been six weeks. Astarion is watching Gale clear boxes out of the room Astarion’s been staying in – the room where Astarion’s sparse belongings fight for space with Gale’s books and spell components and alchemical mysteries. There’s something tight in Astarion’s chest and he doesn’t know what it is, and the more Gale moves out of the room the tighter it gets.
Gale hefts a box, grimacing as he adjusts it in his arms. “Nonsense. You’re a welcome guest here, Astarion, and I have been remiss in letting you wallow in a storage closet for as long as I have.”
He hauls the box towards his study. Astarion leans out through his – the – his – the doorway, watching him climb the stairs. “As if I need the space.” He laughs past the tight thing in his chest. “Gods, this is palatial compared to being trapped in a tomb.”
Astarion can’t remember if he’s told that story before. He thinks he did. He thinks he has. It’s supposed to be a joke, but maybe he hasn’t told it, because Gale pauses at the top of the stairs and fixes Astarion with a long, inscrutable look. “Waterdeep is the City of Splendors, my fanged friend.” Gale’s tone doesn’t quite match up with his words. “As the esteemed Gale of Waterdeep, I have a responsibility to exemplify our city’s grandeur and hospitality.”
He heads into his study, and Astarion turns to examine the room. There’s so much space. Too much space. Too much space with nothing to fill it – he left all his belongings, save his gold, in Baldur’s Gate, and hasn’t bothered to send for them. Hasn’t bothered to see to the estate. It was never his to begin with, and while that was part of the appeal – taking from Cazador, and having the freedom to go wherever he liked, and find new ways to make himself miserable, punishing himself for every spawn that now walks the Underdark – it does also mean the City has likely taken it back, or squatters. Astarion has nothing except this sprawling room that should belong to Gale. It does belong to Gale.
He’s not sure how long he stands there, looking at the room, and the bed, and his meager wardrobe. Looking at everything and nothing, chest tight, unmoving. He knows he’s gone somewhere, because it feels like returning when he becomes aware of something warm and solid nearby. Gale is leaning against a crate, watching him again. Thinking, Astarion can tell, and very loudly. He misses the tadpole, for a moment.
“Please know,” Gale begins, picking over his words like he’s tiptoeing his way through a field of bibberbang. “You are welcome to leave at any time, with no need to spare my feelings. But I do consider you–”
Gale’s fingers flex against the crate, and he drums them idly, the mark on his chest still seeming to pulse in time though the glow is fainter than before, now that the orb is gone. “I consider you a friend, and I would be delighted to have you stay as long as you like.” He pats the crate. “I thrive in clutter, but I should think you’d prefer the opportunity to have some clutter of your own, if you so desire.”
If Astarion had to breathe, it would be challenging; he feels like an overwound clock, body so primed to move – to leave, or sneer, or cry – that it’s impossible to do any one thing at all. He opens his mouth. He should make a joke again. He should make the face that goes with jokes – or teasing, or the little sneer with a hint of fang that makes Gale roll his eyes with an exasperation that makes Astarion think he must be imagining the flutter of his pulse in his veins.
Instead, Astarion turns around. “As if I could live with anything undignified as clutter,” he says finally, as if he hasn’t been doing exactly that at Gale’s expense for several weeks. “If I have free reign over at least one empty corner of this overstuffed museum, then I’m going to live a life of luxury and decadence.”
He glances back over his shoulder. Coy, flirtatious, charming. Muscle memory. “Just as I deserve, my dear.”
Gale’s expression softens, his ears pink. He drums his fingers against the box again and then reaches up to pull his hair – freshly trimmed, one of the few things he has allowed Astarion to contribute to the household – into a sloppy knot at the nape of his neck. He pulls too tight, the way he always does when he’s not sure what else to do with himself. Astarion’s fingers flex to loosen Gale’s grip.
Their mutual silence pulls on like the draw of a longbow. Astarion has learned that the way he instinctively seeks to fill those silences makes Gale go tense; he tries not to, and he has noticed, or hoped to notice, the way Gale attempts to fill them instead on his own, even though there’s no way Gale can know about the tight, miserable thing that clutches at Astarion in the dark and quiet.
Before the bow snaps, Gale stands and grabs another box with a smile. It feels sincere, even if Gale won’t quite look at him. “I look forward to seeing the ways you find to put the rest of my humble home to shame, then.”
The tight thing in Astarion’s chest loosens. He picks up a small stack of books, and moves to follow Gale to his study, grateful he doesn’t breathe so there’s no way Gale could notice the way his heart would pound, if it beat at all. “I’ll try not to make you regret that challenge.”
He moves things piecemeal with Gale for the rest of the afternoon, letting Gale do the heavy lifting – they’re his things, after all – and making a nuisance of himself with Tara as he helps Gale reshelve all the things he has to relocate. Gale has been – is – careful not to encroach on Astarion’s personal space, but it’s hard like this, dancing around crates and books and trading spaces backed up against overstuffed shelves as Tara winds around their feet and darts around to examine their progress. They breathe – have been breathing – the same air, the same smell of leatherbound books and old scrolls. Gale’s slightly floral soap, which Astarion pretends not to steal.
Gale presses a key into his hand, when they’re done. His skin is warm and rough against Astarion’s, and he tries not to think about that, focusing on the small brass key Gale has left on his palm. “For your privacy,” he says, as if that isn’t a thing Astarion has had to beg and scrape and claw at for two centuries. “My home is yours, for as long as you like.”
iii. don't you cry to me
“If you don’t stand still, Florian –”
Astarion doesn’t have to jab the antsy elf in front of him with a pin, but he does, on purpose.
Florian Greenbottle – rangy, smug, and bordering on so annoying even their sister’s money can’t make up for it – yelps. “I was still, gods, how many more of these appointments do we need?” They twist back to scowl at Astarion in a way that he can’t take personally; there’s a practiced distance to it that feels familiar in a way it’s better for Astarion not to linger on for long.
“Ask your sister,” Astarion says, glancing over at the sister in question – Fifi Greenbottle, a very gracious and glamorous young elven woman whose warm demeanor and deep pockets are the only reason he keeps taking the siblings’ business – and jerking his head towards Florian. She sighs, and glides over to position her sibling again so Astarion can finish taking in their jacket. “Anyone with an ounce of patience would have been done a month ago.”
He’s been in Waterdeep for six months. Three months in, he’d insisted on finding a way to bring in some income of his own, and when Tara mentioned the city’s seemingly endless supply of bards who were often low on funds but desperate to look classy enough to book gigs in the city’s wealthy North Ward and more importantly don’t mind odd-hour appointments, Gale had gladly encouraged Astarion to start taking tailoring clients.
He has a few regular customers, all of whom he takes in the space he’s carved out for himself in Gale’s old storage room. His room. His room in Gale’s house. Astarion keenly aware there’s gossip floating around the city about his presence – his clients pay him in idle chatter as much as they do copper and the occasional gold – and it’s been at once novel and disconcerting to piece together the picture of Gale of Waterdeep, chosen, hero, wizard exemplar as Waterdeep sees him rather than the shunned wizard he spent months covered in goblin blood and Illithid brains with, or the reclusive academic who forgets to feed himself for hours but remembers Astarion detests poultry blood and ensures the vampire has a steady diet of cattle and pork.
The siblings’ sniping falls into a familiar rhythm, laced with fondness, and Florian fortunately stills. It’s strange, tailoring for other people rather than his own worn out garments or whatever he can patch or embroider from Gale’s closet, but easy to lose himself in the work and eavesdrop on their ambient conversation.
There’s a bigger festival in the coming months, something about bards celebrating Mystra, whom he has carefully never discussed with Gale, and whom Gale never mentions. There’s always something, and it’s been a thrill to get to explore Waterdeep’s lively streets at night with minimal worries and plenty to occupy his time and his pockets. Astarion struggles with too much privacy and quiet, haunted by his year of forced solitude and the subsequent crowding of the other spawn in too-small quarters. In that way, Waterdeep is a relief – though Gale seems to struggle with too much noise and people in a way that leaves Astarion unsure of his footing in their shared home.
Gale goes out with him, occasionally, something Astarion thinks he does more to keep Astarion company as a courtesy than because he seems to enjoy it; there’s the occasional quiet concert or formal show Gale seems to sincerely enjoy, but the crowds and cacophony of competing conversations and music and shopkeeps luring in customers seems to exhaust Gale quickly – he feels the way he feels intensely and with a staggering sincerity that seems to preclude him from performing social niceties any longer than necessary for politeness, unlike the skill for extended shallow pleasantries Astarion has honed over decades.
It’s easy, then, to wave away Gale’s absence from Astarion’s night time jaunts. He has been increasingly absent in recent weeks during their overlapping hours as well, though – it’s hard not to be annoyed about going to all the trouble to line the tail end of his waking hours up with Gale’s early rising only to find Gale often gone, a jar of blood and a sweet pastry waiting for Astarion on Gale’s kitchen table.
Out of nowhere Florian twists hard on the stool they’re standing on, jerking Astarion out of his thoughts. He stabs them with a pin again. He was nearly done. His mouth opens to snarl for them to stop fucking moving, but there’s voices at the door and it slams open with a thud before Astarion can even stand up.
“I told you, Elminster, I will not be dissuaded!” Gale is palpably angry in a way Astarion hasn’t been in close proximity to for over a year; it’s jarring to remember the way Gale’s intensity manifests in his fury. The air in the room is thick with tension, figuratively and literally with Gale’s barely restrained magic, prickling in the atmosphere even in Astarion’s room. “I have done as much as I am capable of that she has asked of me – to lay this new demand at my feet is as cruel as it is absurd. It borders on parody.”
Florian’s hand closes around nothing instinctively, and an instrument bow of some sort shimmers in their grasp before they drop it and it sinks into nothingness again. Florian is avoiding Astarion’s gaze with the same pointedness Fifi is watching him with. They look at each other, and something in the room shifts with a glimmer of pink as Astarion feels magic wash over him – Elminster is yelling in return, but it’s muffled and unintelligible, as if he’s screaming underwater.
“I wanted to listen to that,” Astarion snaps instinctively. He rounds on Fifi, forgetting how much taller he is than her for a moment until he’s looming over her in a way he knows he’ll regret later. She doesn’t back down, to her credit. Florian doesn’t intrude, to theirs.
Fifi gives him another imperious look, then turns to help Florian out of the pinned-up coat. “You won’t want us to. You let us mind our business, and then you can mind whatever business you want.” She folds the coat gingerly and presses it into his hands. “Come to Trollskull Manor in the North Ward tomorrow, we can finish up and get a look at the whole outfit.”
She reaches for her sibling’s hand. “A door, please?”
Florian whistles sharply as a translucent, open door frame wavers into view, looking out into the street just outside his window. They walk through into the rainy evening, and Fifi gives him one last thoughtful look before Florian’s magic collapses on itself, along with Fifi’s own silence spell.
“I don’t understand why you’re being so difficult, Gale.” Elminster’s voice is more measured, but there’s an undercurrent of desperation and frustration. “Compared to what challenges have previously been laid at your feet, to do nothing should seem like a blessing.”
Astarion tries to busy himself with tidying his space up. Packing his tailoring kit, hanging Florian’s jacket back up the overcrowded rack with this other projects to sew up later. Anything but listening to a conversation that makes him feel like a trespasser for the first time in months.
“I tire of blessings,” Gale snarls. Astarion sets his kit by the clothing rack so it’s easy to pick up tomorrow. He lingers by the open door. “I have had my fill of them. I recognize my folly, Elminster. I fall prostrate every other tenday to repent yet again –”
Astarion tries not to consider the frequency with which Gale has been absent lately, or imagine the hours he may have been spending at the Temple of Wonders, praying. Whatever that word means to Gale at this point, with his former lover. He has no right to feel anything about it at all. He glances out the door, sees Gale gesturing wildly as Elminster stands, absorbing his anger, and Astarion feels with an intensity he’s desperate to ignore. His chest goes tight.
Against his better judgment, he steps into the hall and clears his throat.
Both archmages round on him. Elminster’s gaze makes Astarion’s skin prickle; he isn’t surprised to see Astarion here, which should maybe not surprise Astarion given the gossip, but there’s something – there’s something in his gaze that feels familiar and expectant in a way Astarion hasn’t experienced since before the tadpole. Before he escaped.
“Astarion.” Gale seems to collapse into himself. There’s no warmth to him – just restraint. His arms drop to his sides; his hands flex. “I – did you have an appointment –”
“All gone, I’m afraid, without even paying.” Astarion leans against the wall, arms crossed at his chest. Casual. Friendly. Nonthreatening. “You’ll owe me two bottles tomorrow, to apologize.” He looks to Elminster, hoping he hasn’t entirely forgotten what ‘neutral’ even feels like on his face and that he’s landed on the right thing. “To what do we owe the pleasure? He can’t blow himself up anymore, so I’m not sure what you’d have left to ask for.”
It doesn’t land how he hoped; Gale flinches, and Elminster doesn’t react, not even bothering to look ashamed of himself for the message he’d passed along at the miserable cusp of the shadowlands.
“Astarion Ancunin.” Elminster gives Astarion’s name a weight that feels threatening. He thinks of the grave he left behind in Baldur’s Gate, and of Godey, eager for the chance to deal out punishment after any one of Astarion’s many transgressions. “Nothing as gruesome as that. It might be a conversation of considerable interest to you, as a matter of fact.”
Gale straightens at Elminster’s side – he looks from Elminster to Astarion and back again, and moves to shove the older wizard towards the door. “Absolutely not. Do not force this conversation here –”
“No, please do.” Astarion feels the tight, tense thing in his chest again. He’s worn out his welcome. He’s done something – taken up too much of Gale’s time, attention, somehow offended a goddess he has never once engaged in with his mere proximity to the former object of her affection. The weapon she didn’t get to wield. “Force whatever conversation you like.”
“Astarion, please.” Desperation underpins Gale’s words. He waves his hands slightly, aimlessly, in the way Astarion knows he does sometimes when Gale doesn’t know what else to do with himself – doesn’t know what he’s feeling when he sits with Astarion, talking himself through it aimlessly with Tara between them. Or a tressym-sized space. They don’t get any closer.
Gale doesn’t get any closer now. He looks, for the first time since Astarion moved into his tower, deeply afraid. “We can talk later. I – let me tell you. Please.”
If Astarion had a heart, it would be beating out of his chest. If he had to breathe it would be so fast he’s sure he’d feel faint. “You’ve been too busy to talk lately.” It’s needlessly cruel given the tension, given all the things Astarion clearly doesn’t know. It will cut. He knows that Gale will agonize over whether or not it was meant to, later, and politely swallow his frustration and discomfort and embarrassment over needing Astarion to explain. Astarion won’t explain.
The last six months have been too easy. He had been starting to think there was no other shoe to drop. “I’d like very much to know what brings my name to a goddess’ lips.” Astarion gestures at Elminster. “Feel free.”
Elminster has the decency to look, for a moment, regretful – there’s a weight in his pause, like he may not continue. He does, of course. “He means to cure you,” Elminster says, in a tone staggeringly even given the way his words make the tight thing in Astarion’s chest seize up. “It is a dangerous magic –”
“To the untrained!” Gale’s voice is nearly shrill. “To the foolhardy, to the wasteful and impatient –” He turns on Astarion, brown eyes wide and wet. “It would be hard –”
“It would likely kill him.”
“-- but to even be able to offer you a chance at the sun again, Astarion, it would be worth it!”
Ah. There’s the shoe.
Astarion straightens, stalking towards Elminster in a way that he can see makes Mystra’s latest favorite raise his staff defensively. “Consider your news delivered. I would encourage you to see yourself out.”
“Convince him,” Elminster says, his voice firm. “She believes you can.” He portals himself out, after that, and Astarion’s proximity to his magic stings.
“Astarion.” Gale is frantic, in the corner of Astarion’s vision. Gale’s hands grasp for him.
They don’t ever touch, on purpose, or with enough purpose that their purpose would be clear. All they’ve done for six months is dance around crates, books, tables, Tara. Astarion’s captivity, and Gale’s, in the way that it manifested.
Astarion’s eyes search Gale’s worn face. His hair is a mess, his face ruddy, his brows furrowed anxiously. “You have never asked me for anything,” Astarion says faintly. Gale is reaching for him; the bowstring is taut again. Astarion thinks it might break, if nothing happens, the unleashed tension lancing them both as the string flies apart. “You cannot offer something like that and want nothing in return.”
“I don’t,” Gale whispers. “It would be enough to know I could offer it to you.”
Astarion feels nauseous. It’s too much. The room – the space, the things, the meals, Gale’s reckless, foolish desperation to give enough to feel like he’s made someone care about him, which is what Astarion begins to recognize this as. More altruistic, perhaps, than his pursuit of the Crown, but sharing the same potentially fatal consequences.
Gale Dekarios would gladly die to afford Gale of Waterdeep the opportunity to make someone happy.
“You can’t –” Astarion rocks on his feet, torn between backing away and throwing himself at Gale to shake him to his senses. “Fool wizard. Absolute – you truly have no concept of what you’re asking of me. You can’t even know what you’re asking of me, Gale!”
He leans in, not to shake him, but to lay his hands on Gale’s cheeks. Gale starts, and then leans into it as Astarion swipes his thumbs over Gale’s damp cheeks. Astarion watches Gale's eyes search the planes of Astarion's face. “You don’t know me well enough to die for me.” If you knew me well enough, you would know I’m not worth it. He should say it out loud. It wouldn’t help.
“I wouldn’t,” Gale retorts, tone sharp despite the hitch in his voice. The undercurrent: It would be worth it.
Astarion knows in his unbeating heart that Gale believes he would be doing it for Astarion. He knows it with the same certainty that he knows Gale would also be doing it just to prove he could. That no price is too high to pay to prove his value. That any price would be more than Astarion deserves.
He’s let them get too tangled up, moving in parallel through the grasping hands and strangling magic of the traumas they shared, and the ones that predate their meeting. Astarion pulls Gale towards him, rising up just enough to press a kiss to his forehead.
Before Gale can say anything else, Astarion leaves.
He arrives at Trollskull Manor in the middle of the night, soaked to the bone and grateful for the way Fifi pretends his face is only wet from the rain when she opens the door, Florian lingering behind her. They work in tandem to set him up in what they say is an only slightly haunted apartment on the second floor, returning to the tower with a carriage to fetch as much from the silenced room as they can with Florian's dimension door as Astarion stands at the locked door, staring at the key in his hand.
When Fifi and Florian are done, he slides it under the door so Gale can unlock it from the outside. Gale doesn’t open it immediately, a respectful as Astarion’s space as ever even now; when Fifi’s magic collapses again, Astarion’s not sure whether the sob he hears is Gale’s or his own.
iv. where you'll find me waiting
Astarion doesn’t know how a single city can sustain so many godsdamned bards.
The winter solstice festival is finally over, a tenday-long gauntlet of seemingly nonstop performances featuring locals and travelers eager for the chance to make their name on a Waterdeep stage, all preening for the favor of the Mother of Magic. It would be fun, under other circumstances. At the very least it’s meant business, fortunately, but an exhausting all-hours working schedule that he struggles with in spite of his body's relatively low maintenance needs in terms of rest and sustenance.
The quiet of his own room – his own private, quiet room above a quiet bookstore, below a quiet open-air garden and greenhouse – is a welcome reprieve, and after emptying his pockets onto his small desk to deal with in the morning, he stumbles into his soft mattress and collapses into a deep, immediate trance.
He lasted a month in Trollskull Manor, a soft place to land while Astarion learned how to exist on his own for the first time without fear and desperation constantly haunting him – to make whatever decisions he wanted, whenever he liked. He’s been in the apartment for five months. He takes his clients at the Manor and keeps his small room to himself, finding it nice to have a space where people have to be invited in by him, and where he has the luxury to not invite anyone at all.
For the first time in two hundred years, Astarion Ancunin lives his own life.
Gale has never visited. Astarion has never told Gale the address; just that he was safe, and staying in the city. Gale writes to the Manor, though, sprawling, lengthy missives that dance around any conversation of substance the same way they danced around each other for the six months Astarion had lived with him.
Tara caught a pigeon – he learned a new recipe with his mother – he’s going to teach a course at Blackstaff Academy in the spring, as a favor to the Open Lord. Gale reveals more about himself and his life before the tadpoles in the mundane than he seemed able to share with Astarion directly, in their close proximity; Astarion writes in return, proud of the perfectly fulfilling nocturnal life he leads. Fifi offers to deliver them herself, at some point, and Astarion accepts without either of them pretending it's for any reason other than Astarion wanting her to lay eyes on Gale, to ensure Gale is half as well as he claims to be. He trusts her more than her sibling not to snoop and appreciates the tidbits of gossip she shares with him over cups of tea. Gale’s left his hair longer. Tara makes sure he eats. He operates largely on the schedule he’d fallen into with Astarion still, despite Astarion’s absence.
Gale has left AStarion's-- the storage room untouched.
Fifi offers no revealing details about what he might be working on, and Astarion can’t bring himself to ask about Gale’s … project. He can’t bring himself to wonder if he could ever be happy enough as a spawn to convince Gale that Gale didn’t have to try, and likely fail, to outrun death.
His life is pleasant. The tight, grasping thing in Astarion’s chest diminishes; the nightmares become less frequent. It’s almost possible to ignore the hollow ache he feels when he thinks too much of Gale.
He knows it’s too much to ask for anything to be peaceful for long, which is why Astarion is almost not surprised when Elminster invites himself into Astarion’s space one night, unannounced and unrepentant, right in the middle of where Fifi is helping Astarion hem a voluminous skirt as Florian tunes a violin in the corner.
They’re all three immediately on their feet. The siblings share a look, Fifi more tense than Astarion remembers seeing her in their short acquaintance. An alarm is wailing, an arcane ward drawn long before Astarion moved in by the very paranoid greenhouse owner he rents from, and Astarion hears feet coming down the stairs. Sloane, Merle's lone greenhouse employee, has always been kind to him.
If he moved fast enough, Astarion is very confident he could kill Elminster on his own with ease, but it’s nice to know people who do not have, and have never had, a vested interest in his survival might be interested in keeping him alive.
Elminster taps his staff on the floor, uninterested in the way he’s trampling a pile of very expensive fabric, and the ward quiets. “This would have been much easier if you’d left, you know.”
“Who the fuck invited you, gramps?” Florian’s lifting their violin to their chin, til Astarion waves a hand for them to do literally anything else.
“Please do not cast fireball in my apartment.”
Florian grimaces. “That was one time.”
“Once is enough, I think.” Fifi, still the only one of the two of them capable of reading a room, attempts to delicately sidestep Elminster to collect her sibling. Both of their ears are twitching in the way Astarion knows his own do when he’s annoyed. “I’ve got deja vu, so why don’t we… step outside.”
Fifi leads them out, as Florian protests, apparently determined to stay nearby. Florian doesn’t hesitate to shove an elbow into Elminster’s back on their way by, though Elminster remains undeterred.
The door clicks behind them with a soft click. Astarion feels a wave of pure, potent weave wash over him and then hears a muffled, watery curse from beyond the door. He sighs and arches an eyebrow at Mystra's chosen, his friend's old friend.
“Could you at least take your musty, miserable boots from these silks before you stain them?”
Elminster doesn’t move. The archmage searches Astarion’s face, looking for something Astarion isn’t sure how to give him anymore. His face is his own – his expressions reaction, not reflex. “If you’d left the city – disappeared again. He’d forget, if you’d just left him alone.”
It’s true, some part of Astarion says. The part carved into his psyche by Rhapsody in his back that will last on his skin as long as the Infernal pact does, til someone kills him or he finally allows himself to die. It could be true; who would want to remember someone like Astarion, who causes nothing but problems. He exists to be consumed, if not by Cazardor’s greed, then by Gale’s hubris. Except –
“He wouldn’t.” Astarion is surprised by how firm his own voice is. He would have been posturing six months ago, before six months of scrolls and postcards and half-formed sketches formed a pile on his desk. “I don’t know what he would do, if I left, but I think we both know that ship sailed when he decided to pursue whatever your mistress is in such a mood about. He wouldn’t forget anymore than he’ll ever forget having that orb in his chest.”
Easier to talk about the orb than anything else Astarion could be – is – jealous of. Of everything Gale gave to Mystra that Astarion will never know how to ask for, and Mystra could simply demand, or that Gale offered without question.
Astarion shakes himself out of his own annoyance. “I don’t suppose that you’d ever be bothered to share what it even is, by the way.”
There’s wavering, muted whispering outside the door, and more footsteps, then a dulled thump that has the air of Florian making a deliberate nuisance of themself.
Astarion would be fine if he was alone. He has been before, and will be again. He is not. There are three people in the city alone who would rally the troops to kill this slavering, fawning puppet of Mystra just for looking at Astarion wrong. Half a dozen people who would make their way back to help. People who would mourn him.
“Details not forthcoming, I suppose.” Astarion lets himself relax, his tone more wry than nervous this time. “Regardless, I made my feelings on the subject very clear to our mutual friend.” Leaving the city would have been cowardice. Making a life in Waterdeep, a life that Gale could see, that exists independently of Gale or anyone else – a life he can be proud of, without sacrificing anyone, not even himself. Astarion is one of the vaunted heroes of Baldur's Gate, and living in a little room by himself still feels like one of the bravest things he's ever done. “You believe I have an influence over him that I have never asked for – some compulsion I have had quite enough of experiencing, and have decided most definitively that I no longer not want.”
Despite his better judgment, he shoos at Elminster. The wizard flinches, and then grimacing, moves off the skirt so Astarion can pick it up. They were close enough to done anyway. Astarion stands there with a pile of pale pink silk in his arms, fingers pricking against needles in the fabric. “If you’re here in my humble home, I must assume it is an influence Mystra is now missing as well. I would ask you – with the utmost courtesy and respect, of course – to let her know I don’t fucking care.”
“You’ll be the one to blame if he dies tonight,” Elminster snaps, looking for a moment like he might advance on Astarion and seeming to think better of it. “We have done all we can, and you refuse to sacrifice –”
“I have sacrificed quite enough , you doddering sack of rags.” Astarion snarls, throwing the fabric on his bed and advancing on Elminster instead to jab a finger into his collarbone. “If I cannot be enough for him as I am – I won’t –” He nearly chokes. “I am enough for myself. Whatever he thinks I need to be is a fantasy of his own making, and I will not be blamed.”
He flashes his fangs, and lets his gaze linger for a discomfortingly long moment on the papery skin of Elminster’s neck. Elminster could kill him – probably should – and the tight thing in Astarion’s chest seizes up again when he realizes it means that Elminster isn't allowed to do it. If the goal is to bring Gale to heel, it seems that no whiff of Mystra’s influence can touch Astarion’s twice-killed corpse.
Astarion should have kissed him at least once.
“Leave,” he says firmly. “Or I will drain you dry, and Mystra can kill me herself.”
v. you're a cry to your generation
It’s raining again, absurdly. It’s always fucking raining in Waterdeep. Astarion feels like a drowned rat, and fleetingly feels glad he can’t see his own reflection in the windows.
Elminster left. Fifi was gone outside the door, Florian deceptive and dimension dooring themself away before Astarion had the opportunity to ask any questions.
Finally, too close to dawn, Astarion sprints into the storm.
It would be best, he thinks, to leave Gale to make his own terrible decisions – to find out at sunset tomorrow whether he would need to mourn. To face the consequences of sharing what happened with the others, if they were able to mourn with him. He thinks Will and Lae’zel would understand. Even if she didn’t, he thinks Karlach would forgive him.
He doesn’t know if Mystra has rites for her dead. He would let Shadowheart read Selune’s.
His shoes are ruined – his trousers, hells, everything he’s wearing is soaked through and splattered with dirt. He left with nothing, not even gold for the carriage, and is left sprinting the full length of the city to make his way back to the Dock Ward, keenly aware of and pointedly ignoring the stares he gets as he goes.
The gossip about his presence in Gale’s home had died down quickly after he left; he sees flashes of recognition, snippets of conversation, and knows when he reaches his destination that respite will end with the next day’s gazette. If Gale is dead, maybe they’ll at least feel guilty.
By the time he reaches Gale’s door, he’s shaking and can’t tell if it’s from the cold or exertion or clutching thing in his chest that can’t stop thinking about Gale at the center of some failed spell, gone with no hope of Astarion ever saying – ever being able to –
Gale’s house is terrifyingly quiet. There’s no lights, the arcane lights extinguished on the street the tower stands on, and the rain too fierce for the lanterns. Astarion knocks mostly with the force of his body collapsing against the door.
“If you’re dead,” he yells, his voice cracking and muffled by the thunder. “If you’re dead – I will never forgive you, you miserable, rotten –”
Gale’s ghostly mirror image opens the door. Astarion nearly chokes on an angry sob as he stumbles through it.
“Mr. Ancunin –” Tara is darting around him in an instant, wing fluttering anxiously. When he meets her eyes, they’re wet. He feels whatever frantic, desperate wanting that was holding him up collapse out from under him, and he sinks to the floor, sopping wet. “Oh, Astarion, don’t –”
“Gods above, Tara, I told you to let me open the door.” It’s too much to hope for that it’s Gale, and it isn’t. It’s stranger still that it’s Fifi, and Astarion feels a bitter splinter of betrayal take root. She’s rushing down the stairs, in the formal garb he’s only ever seen her wear when she officiates handfastings in the temple of Lliira, Goddess of Joy.
What a cruel joke.
Astarion is too exhausted to lash out – he’s too exhausted to do anything except try to clamber up the stairs, half blinded by tears and his own misery roaring so loudly in his ears he can’t hear much else of what Fifi or Tara are saying.
He’s dimly aware of Fifi trying to push him back down the stairs. If he were steadier on his feet, she’d be no trouble at all to move, but he’s racked with the same sobs that left him limp on the floor of Cazador’s hellish ritual circle and despite her shorter stature she manages to wrangle him onto a couch downstairs. Eventually she gets something warm in his hands, and into his mouth, and the last thing he’s aware of before he passes out is Tara purring on his chest, whispering I promise it’s okay.
For the first time in six months, Astarion jerks out of a deep trance in Gale Dekarios’ house. Tara is gone from his chest, but he quickly spots Fifi watching him in a chair across the room.
He goes to stand; she holds up a finger, and for whatever reason, he sags back into the chaise he’d passed out on.
“You put something in my tea.” Eventually the reality of the situation will catch up with Astarion, and he’ll find the energy to cry again. “I – you should have let me upstairs. You shouldn’t be here. I don’t understand why you’re here.”
“Why not? I am a cleric,” is Fifi’s dry reply. “Given the circumstances, I’d say my skillset was in high demand here.” She pauses, and her expression softens, apologetic. “That was – tasteless, given what you know.”
She leaves her chair and moves to sit next to him, perching carefully on the little bit of chaise left; he doesn’t move to give her more room. He doesn’t move when she rests her hand on the cushion near his thigh, close to his, not quite touching. “If you move, I’ll spell you. But I promise, Astarion, he is not dead.”
Astarion hasn’t cried this much in so long. He’s not even sure why he’s crying anymore. He’s furious – furious at Gale for going through with whatever he did, furious with Fifi knowing and saying nothing. Painfully, staggeringly grateful Gale is alive for him to scream at in person. “I deserve to be there,” he rasps, his throat sore. He feels wrung out. “I deserve to be up there with him.”
“I know you do.” Fifi pats the cushion next him again. After a moment, he edges his own hand closer, and Fifi gently curls one of their fingers together. “And you deserve to be mad. He’s exhausted, and he’s probably going to sleep for a week. So hold on to that feeling, and tell him, but please also hear him out.”
He lets the silence drag on between them, his ears straining for any noise from upstairs. He thinks he imagines a sluggish heartbeat. Fifi sits with Astarion until he feels – not better, not by a long shot, but on an even enough keel that he thinks he can go upstairs without rousing Gale to kill the wizard himself. She stands when he sits up and drops his hand, giving him space.
Astarion scrubs at his face. “Will Tara let me in?”
Fifi laughs. “She’d have carried you upstairs herself, if she could.”
He looks up at her, at the mischievous warmth in her face that reminds him of Karlach’s beaming smiles. There are so many people in Astarion’s life that feel like immutable figures now, despite his very real awareness of their fragility. The distance hurts enough sometimes. To lose one of them forever– to lose Gale–
Astarion feels himself choking up again and shakes it off. Fifi reaches into a pocket of her shimmering pastel robe and gestures for one of Astarion’s hands with her free one.
“You should hold onto this,” Fifi says, dropping Gale’s earring – Mystra’s token – into his upturned palm. It seems dull, more hollow than even the shallow scar Mystra had left in Gale's chest when she'd removed the orb. “You deserve that conversation. I have a bit more work to do, but I need to rest, and let everyone know you’re alright. Are you okay to get upstairs?”
Maybe. Probably. No. “I’ll be fine.” Astarion stands and stretches with a grimace, looking down at Fifi and reaching out to adjust her stole. “I’m still furious, but thank you.”
It does take him an embarrassingly long time to make his way to Gale’s quarters, at times so angry he has to stop and let himself calm down so he doesn’t storm out and at times sinking his fangs into his own forearm to stifle his sobs. He cannot think of the last time he’s felt so much all at once – not even when he was alive.
The door is cracked, when Astarion reaches Gale’s room. He peeks, too scared to enter yet, to find Gale is as asleep as Fifi promised.
He looks worse for the wear, the mark where the orb used to live within him an angry welt on his chest and deep bags under his eyes. His hair seems streaked with yet more grey, and his olive skin alarmingly pallid. Astarion tests for magic in the air, reaching out reluctantly with his own limited arcane ability. Gale, normally so steeped in the weave, is nearly bereft. Whatever he did exceeded the limits Gale has always been reluctant to admit he has, and Astarion knows with certainty that if Gale had been alone, he would be dead.
He nudges it open further and Tara’s wings flutter as she looks up, but when she sees it’s him and not Fifi, she just gestures for him to come in and goes to make herself more comfortable in another spot at Gale’s side.
There’s plenty of space for him.
There will be plenty of time to be angry later.
Astarion climbs in.
+i. under the blossom tree
High elven weddings are absolutely exhausting.
The actual ceremony’s not for another half an hour, and after a full day of meals and clothes and making nice with seemingly the whole of Waterdeep, Astarion is fully prepared to go fetch Gale and get the first magistrate they run into to sign the papers and be done with it, even if he knows he’d regret missing out on the memories down the line.
Karlach is fussing over him, in the absence of a mirror, carefully arranging a curl here and there and adjusting the way his cloak sits on his shoulders. “Still can’t believe you’re getting married, Fangs.” She beams at him, the ever-present glow of her infernal engine highlighting her face; its heat is manageable today, fortunately, thanks to the continued efforts of their blacksmith friend.
“Prickly as I am, I remain a romantic at heart,” Astarion retorts. “And he’s awfully persistent. I’m not sure I could have handled another year of poetry.”
“You’d have melted,” Karlach teases, and Astarion can tell by the look on her face that he must be blushing. Whatever his feelings about the pomp and circumstance, at least he’s been well fed. “He could be a dogshit poet and you’d still be crying over them.”
“Lucky for me he’s alright then, I suppose.”
There’s a knock at the door, and Astarion turns, frowning a little. Morena Dekarios is wrangling everything downstairs down to every tiny fastidious detail and exact minute of the schedule she’d crafted with Fifi. He is very aware, having been told several times, that no one will collect him and Karlach will walk him down when it’s time, and he's not allowed to sneak downstairs and fuss about, as Morena had delicately referred to Astarion's joking suggestion that one of his gifts be getting to pickpocket all his guests.
“Did you know,” Gale says from behind the door. Karlach barely stifles a laugh. “Many human families follow a tradition where it’s considered bad luck for the marital union if the groom sees the bride before the wedding day. Or – you know. The other groom. Any grooms.”
“The hell are you doing up here, then?” Karlach smooths down the collar on Astarion's waistcoat and gives him a final pat before shooing him off to one side and going to crack the door ever so slightly. Gale makes no effort to push his way in; he couldn’t if he tried, though it’d be funny to see Karlach shoulder him back out. “Inviting trouble?”
“I said many families, not all,” is Gale’s cheery reply. “And I have conferred with the local experts, who inform me no such concern exists for high elves, so if you would do me the courtesy of a few minutes alone with my fiance, Karlach, I would be unspeakably grateful.”
She looks to Astarion, who shrugs. They’ve dealt with enough; if a little tradition is enough to spoil their wedding, they should be reconsidering anyway.
With his approval, Karlach throws the door open and barely restrains herself from sweeping Gale up in a crushing hug – he’s all dressed as well, and Karlach has been so tickled by everyone’s formalwear that she’s been reluctant to muss anyone up. Astarion can tell she gets a little teary-eyed when Gale hugs her anyway. Astarion can see a small box in one hand, when his arms circle her shoulders.
“You got ten minutes.” Karlach carefully straightens Gale back out. “Wyll and I will come get you, and we’ll just pretend this never happened. Don’t get distracted!”
She throws Astarion a wink, and sidles out, closing the door gently behind her.
When Astarion turns to Gale, Gale is looking at him with an intensity that makes Astarion wish desperately that they had far more than ten minutes. “Keep that up and we’re going to be late to our own wedding, darling.”
Gale clears his throat, schooling his expression into something a little more doting than carnal though his gaze remains heated. “Glad we’re getting that portrait done,” he muses, stepping forward and touching his fingers over the high, delicate collar of Astarion’s cream shirt. “There will never be day where I am not astounded by your beauty, but –”
He thumbs over the sharp line of Astarion’s jaw, and Astarion has to take Gale’s wrist and nudge his hand away with a gentle kiss to the back of it.
“Our ten minutes is dwindling rapidly, sweetheart.” Despite his own warning, Astarion can’t resist the urge to run a hand over the brocade of Gale’s fine, rich violet jacket. “And while I hesitate to say this conversation is going nowhere fast, I cannot imagine our friends would enjoy finding us where it seems to be leading.” All the same, he leans in to steal a chaste kiss. “What can I do for you?”
Gale drops his hand back to his side, fingers flexing idly; these days, Astarion finds it charming rather than intimidating how much his proximity tests Gale's considerable restraint. “You’re right, I’m sure.” Gale clears his throat again and takes a step back, and Astarion can’t help but preen at the effort it takes Gale to comport himself in a more gentlemanly fashion, or the way Gale’s heart still rabbits in his chest when he meets Astarion's eyes. “I wanted to offer you something.”
If Astarion had a heart, it would be his turn to feel its frantic pounding. It’s been nearly three years since whatever ritual Gale had conducted – since he showed up to Gale’s home soaking wet for the second time, panicked at the thought Gale had let himself be killed to give Astarion something he would never be able to enjoy with Gale’s death.
By Astarion’s request, Gale has always been light on details. Astarion has been adamant he does not want to know if it succeeded or didn’t – would not even humor Gale’s request to court him until after eight long months of revealing conversations and heated arguments. Of feeling like Gale’s problem to solve, or a weapon of petty retribution. Of finding the language and the gestures Gale needed to feel valued for something other than his arcane skill, and navigating the complex labyrinth of unset boundaries and expectations neither of them knew how to begin establishing. Astarion has heard both of them say more times than they can count that they don’t deserve the patience they receive; he thinks they both know they do now.
“Gale,” he says, his tone cooler than he means for it to be. Gale tenses, uncertain. “At our wedding?”
Gale has the decency to look sheepish. “I thought it might be romantic. I hope it is romantic. It’s – it’s not what I was trying to do. That night. It’s not. I…” His brow furrows, and instinctively Astarion reaches out to smooth a hand over it, curling down around his cheek. Gale leans into it with a sigh. “I don’t have the right to lay that at your feet. I can still scarcely believe you stayed, sometimes, but please know I will never make such a foolish mistake again. I love you desperately, Astarion.”
Fifi had done such fetching makeup for him this mornng, Astarion thinks idly. What a shame it would be, to cry it all off before their vows.
Gale seems torn between brushing at Astarion’s tears and opening the little box, and after giving Astarion a searching look, he seems to opt for the box. He holds it out and pops it open to reveal–
“A ring?” Confusion pierces through Astarion’s sentimentality. “Sweetheart, there’s a whole ceremony before we get to that part. Karlach’s got yours.” He brushes the tears from his own cheeks, glancing at his finger and finding fortunately that there’s no makeup smeared there. He frowns, one hand poised to reach for the box, paused to let Gale continue.
His fiance picks up steam now, plucking the ring from the box and reaching for Astarion’s hand – the one that won’t bear his wedding ring, Astarion realizes.
“A wedding gift,” Gale clarifies. “Separate. I had to call in a number of favors, all of which were well spent by the way, but there were rumors of some rare items in the city some months ago, and once I heard I just knew –”
“Gale, darling, you are making me very anxious.”
Gale’s poised to slide the ring on his finger. He meets Astarion’s eyes, his expression open and earnest and the devotion in his eyes so profound it makes Astarion sway on his feet. “A sunwalker’s gift,” he says finally. “For you. I had some considerable assistance adjusting the spellcraft, but, ah.” He lets out an anxious chuckle. “It is what it says on the tin, now.”
He watches Astarion, anxious and expectant, and when Astarion doesn’t protest, he slides the slim gold band onto his finger.
Astarion feels – warm. Maybe that’s just Gale. His heart is light. Gale walks to one of the many curtained windows and pulls aside the drapery to reveal the North Ward's busy main street.
Gale turns back to him, a hand outstretched, and Astarion takes it, feeling the warmth of the setting sun on his skin for the first time since the tadpole.
“Whatever happens after today, this stays with you.” Gale lifts Astarion’s hand and presses a kiss so tender it to the back of it that Astarion can feel himself tearing up again. Gale looks so beautiful, framed by the vibrant colors of the sunset. “You can use it whenever you like – never or always. In Waterdeep, or anywhere else you’d like to go, with me or anyone at all. To the best of my ability, I want you to be able to make as many choices as you want to make, no matter what they are.”
“You’re infuriating,” Astarion murmurs, his throat tight. He clutches at Gale’s hands, puts as much of himself in the window as he can. “Miserable, foolish wizard. I made my choice. You’re my choice.”
“I love you,” is Gale’s fond response. “And while I consider this ring to be well and truly yours, existing for no other purpose than to let you choose whatever path brings you joy, I will be grateful beyond words for every day that path may lead you back to me.”
"Beyond words, he says.” Astarion’s voice is not shrill, absolutely not. “All this saccharine nonsense and he’s beyond words.” His face is not wet, nor his knees weak, nor his arms thrown around Gale for Gale to hold him up. There’s footsteps on the stairs and he pretends not to hear them as he draws Gale in for a heated kiss, so frazzled he nearly nicks Gale’s lip, without a care for any of their still-arriving guests who may see them from the street.
Gale winds an arm around his waist, and Astarion leans into him as a shadowy mage hand pulls the curtain closed beside him. “How mad do you think they’d really be if we were late?” He snaps his fingers, and the eerie, familiar sensation of silence spreads over Astarion and out through the room, the footsteps and Karlach and Wyll’s conversation muted and watery.
“I don’t know, sweetheart.” Astarion leans in for another kiss, thoroughly pleased with the way Gale shivers against him. “Let’s choose to find out.”