Chapter Text
One of the problems of living in a wizard tower was the sheer number of interesting experiments and trinkets and whatnots that were just lying around in the open, but dangerous to actually touch. Unfortunately, one such item had brought Astarion to his current predicament.
The vampire looked around and was relieved to see that he was at least still in the observatory of Gale's tower, though the glowing purple and gold armillary sphere that had caught his eye was nowhere to be found. The sun was just beginning to set, meaning Astarion had somehow lost several hours, which was worrying. But more concerningly, his ring was radiating a slight amount of heat, indicating that it was actively shielding him from the sun — something that should not have been necessary since Gale had applied some sort of protective enchantment to all the windows in his tower.
Astarion cursed, scrambled into the stairway, and considered what to do.
The first order of business was to find his husband; it was late enough in the day now that Gale should have returned home from Blackstaff. So Astarion descended the stairs, occasionally poking his head into Gale's favorite haunts, and searched.
As he approached the library, Astarion finally heard sounds of another presence, but they alarmed rather than soothed him. There was labored breathing and quiet half-suppressed sobbing — noises Astarion recognized far too well from the early days of traveling together under the looming threat of ceremorphosis, when the orb had not yet been stabilized and Gale had stared hungrily at every magic item they came across.
Years of peace and safety hadn't entirely wiped away the habits formed from centuries of misery, so instead of calling out, Astarion crept silently forward, mentally cursing himself for a fool to not keep a dagger on hand at all times, even in this place of safety.
Inside the library, Astarion was met with a strange sight. There were several piles of books that Astarion knew hadn't been there earlier in the day and the display mounts and cases where Gale kept eye-catching magical items that he'd acquired were concerningly empty. Astarion stalked further in, heading towards the desperate and pitiful sounds and dreading what he'd find.
Curled on the ground in a heap —books and parchment scattered around him— was Gale. Only this wasn't the husband Astarion had bid goodbye earlier, looking devastatingly handsome in his teaching robes with his hair pulled back and a contentedness to his demeanor.
Gale sat on the floor breathing heavily and trying to keep from crying in pain. Greasy strands of hair fell around his face, which was scrunched in an expression of agony. His clothes were rumpled, his beard was in desperate need of tidying, and the smell of his scent and sweat lay heavy in the air, implying he'd gone the better part of a tenday without bathing. But what kept Astarion from rushing over to his husband's side and helping him out of his clothes and into a bath was the dark circular mark on Gale's chest that pulsed with an angry purple glow.
Astarion was debating whether he should sneak off and sort out his problem —being magically sent to the past, apparently— on his own, or if he should just take the plunge and ask the younger Gale for help when the choice was taken from him.
Gale looked up. The desperation and pain in his eyes was briefly replaced by surprise and then indignation.
“Well, shit,” Astarion said as Gale muttered something and Astarion abruptly found himself magically restrained. Normally, this would have sent a shock of terror through Astarion, but this was Gale —even if this wasn't his Gale yet— Astarion could maintain a level of calm.
Gale forced himself to stand, wincing as he did so. “I know the gossip mongers are all too quick to speculate on my disappearance from public life, but I would hope that anyone bold enough to attempt to steal from a wizard would also be clever enough to at least ensure said wizard wasn't occupying the very room they were trying to pilfer from.” He glared at Astarion, looking more annoyed than anything else.
“I'm not trying to rob you, you fool,” Astarion protested. He was only mildly surprised to find that he could still speak — it had to be a modified version of Hold Person then. He could always count on Gale's desire for information. “Besides, how would a common thief have gotten through the wards?”
Gale frowned, even as one of his hands went to his chest and rubbed at the spot where the orb sat, trying to soothe away its ache. “Yes, how did you get through my wards?”
A voice in Astarion's head that sounded suspiciously like his husband fretted about chronological consistency and timeline stability. Astarion ignored that voice in favor of answering, “Time travel. I was upstairs in the observatory when I was sent back.”
Gale's eyes narrowed. “Chronomancy is a particularly rare and complicated magic. And it doesn't explain what you were doing in my tower in the first place.”
“Oh for fuck's sake.” Astarion rolled his eyes. “I'm a vampire spawn, darling. I was only able to enter your tower at all because you invited me. Nearly begged me, in fact.”
“And why would I invite a vampire into my tower?” Gale asked skeptically.
Astarion could feel Gale's eyes running over him, noting all the markers of vampirism, and, hopefully, the way Astarion was dressed for lounging around and not for breaking into a well-guarded wizard tower. Astarion could tell the second Gale noticed his ring because the wizard's breathing hitched, his eyes widened, and he took a half-step forward.
Instinctively, Astarion tried to flinch away from the hunger he saw in Gale's eyes —the desire to possess and consume— but the Hold Person spell kept him frozen in place.
“Don't you fucking dare,” Astarion hissed, knowing all too well what was going through Gale's mind. “You are not going to eat my wedding ring, you silly man. I don't care how desperate you think you are.”
Gale swallowed heavily as he forced himself to meet Astarion's gaze. “Please. I…I can't explain, but it is imperative that I consume the Weave from your ring. I'm afraid the item—”
“Will be destroyed,” Astarion cut in, wishing he could wave his hand dismissively to emphasize his point. “Yes, yes. I've been through this already, darling. But you can't absorb the Weave from an item that you yourself enchanted. So you can put the idea of eating my ring out of your pretty little head.”
Gale's brow furrowed. “I enchanted that for you?” he asked. His eyes still occasionally drifted towards the ring.
“You will,” Astarion corrected, emphasizing the tense. “You promised to help me walk in the sun again.”
“And I'm just supposed to believe you?” Gale scoffed. “A suspicious stranger who broke into my tower?”
Suddenly, Astarion felt the spell's hold on him drop. Rather than give Gale a chance to trap him again, Astarion sprang forward, crossing the distance between them before Gale could even register he was free. In an instant he had the wizard pinned against him, making sure to restrain Gale's hands.
“Ful—mmph!”
Astarion didn't let Gale finish his incantation, instead cutting him off with a chaste but firm kiss — not ideal, considering he was still trying to convince Gale to trust him, but it was the only painless way he could think of quickly to silence the wizard while both of his hands were occupied. This close, the sour smell of Gale's unwashed sweat and oil was inescapable — it was a far cry from his husband's usual cleanliness. Gale shivered in Astarion's hold as the orb's glow pulsed, and Astarion abruptly remembered how starved for touch the wizard had been when they'd first met.
“Behave,” Astarion ordered firmly. “I'm not going to hurt you, love. And there's no need to worry about me feeding on you — I remember all too clearly how awful you taste with that orb in your chest. This will be better for both of us if you stop trying to bespell me.”
From the silence, it was clear that Gale was considering attempting to cast another spell — Astarion's love was many things, but subtle in combat was not one of them, even when he wasn't throwing fireballs. But when Astarion released Gale from his hold and took a step back, the wizard simply glared at him.
“There. Isn't it nice to just be civilized?” Astarion held both hands out to the side in a show of being non-threatening.
“Invading my tower uninvited and then assaulting my person is hardly what I'd call civilized,” Gale spat. His thumb ran over his lips, as if to remove the memory of Astarion's touch.
“Then don't leave mysterious items unguarded in the tower for your innocent husband to find,” Astarion countered, batting his eyelashes for effect.
“I highly doubt ‘innocent’ is a word that has ever been used to describe you. You have yet to convince me that you're my husband,” Gale huffed. He rubbed the center of his chest as if to soothe away the ache of the orb. “Or from the future.”
Astarion sighed and rolled his eyes. “You have a magic bomb in your chest because you were desperate to impress Mystra. It's absorbing your magic, only kept at bay by consuming the Weave from magical items. I assume Tara is off somewhere trying to fetch more of those, since otherwise she would have attacked me by now.” Astarion pointedly looked around before continuing, “You have a birthmark on your inner right thigh.” He tapped the spot on his own leg with a knowing smirk. “You use lavender scented soap because it's supposed to be a calming scent. You don't know how to relax if you're not forced into it, and as a consequence your shoulders are a mess of tension.”
“That… You could be reading my mind,” Gale replied. He seemed to sink into himself, his shoulders rolling forward.
Astarion rolled his eyes. “Then use your magic to see that I'm not. I don't know. You're supposed to be the smart one, darling.”
Gale made a strange scrunched expression that Astarion recognized all too well as a sign of Gale's frustration and disappointment with himself. Then Gale cast a handful of spells in quick succession as Astarion remained still and let him conduct his examination.
“You do seem to bear chronomatic residue,” Gale conceded. “But this incident isn't consistent with Time Conduit, and Mystra forbids all other uses of time travel.”
Astarion couldn't help but scoff at the goddess's name, drawing a sharp look from Gale. Astarion sighed and said, “I know she's important to you, love, but I don't like her. Let's leave it at that.”
Gale frowned, clearly wanting to press for more information, but instead he sighed. “I don't suppose you happen to know what the particular item you interfered with was.”
Astarion shrugged. “It looked like an armillary sphere —of which you own far too many, by the way— only it was glowing.”
Gale closed his eyes, his brow furrowing — a perfect picture of frustrated resignation. “And you didn't consider that perhaps it was best left alone?”
“I wanted to know what it did,” Astarion replied with a careless air. He walked past Gale and draped himself across the couch. “Besides, I've touched countless glowing objects in my time and lived to tell the tale. Well, not ‘lived’ per se, but…”
Gale sighed and practically collapsed into a nearby armchair. He massaged his temples for a moment and then cast another spell. “The chronomatic residue on you doesn't appear to be fading so much as waning, which implies there's still some lingering effect,” Gale muttered, thinking out loud. “It might very well be that after a certain amount of time has passed you'll simply find yourself back in your own time.”
“So there's no need for me to beg the brilliant Gale of Waterdeep for help?” Astarion teased with a toothy smile. “A shame. I beg very prettily.”
Gale looked away with a quiet cough and hunched deeper into the chair, but not before Astarion caught the blush beginning to darken his cheeks. It was fun to once again have a version of Gale who was not yet used to Astarion's teasing.
Then Gale winced. His hand instinctively pressed at his chest as he let out a quiet gasp of pain. The orb pulsed hungrily beneath his hand.
Astarion mentally went through every magical item he had on his person. His wedding ring he was never going to give up, it was too precious and also provided a necessary protection — and that was leaving aside that Gale couldn't consume it anyway. His shoes could have been sacrificed, but Gale had enchanted those as well. Nearly everything else was the same, except…
The skeleton key had been a gift from Gale, as a sort of joke. Astarion had no need for an enchanted key that magically fitted itself to any lock, since he was handy enough with a lockpick that only his renewed vampiric restrictions or a magical lock could hope to keep him out.
Astarion reached into his pocket and pulled out the macabre-looking little trinket. “Here,” he tossed the key over into Gale's lap. “That should be enough to sate your hunger for now.”
Gale took a moment to verify that Astarion hadn't changed his mind and decided to sacrifice his wedding ring, then awkwardly met the vampire's crimson gaze.
“No need to be shy, darling,” Astarion teased, with a dismissive wave of his hand. “It's nothing I haven't seen before.”
Gale's face wrinkled for a moment in embarrassment, then the orb pulsed again — as if agitated by the proximity of a suitable object. Gale waited no longer to press the key to his chest, which glowed brilliantly as the orb devoured the key's Weave. A gasp of relief left Gale's lips as he collapsed back, some of his earlier tension gone. “Gods,” he wheezed, still catching his breath.
Astarion waited silently as Gale recovered, until the wizard pulled himself together enough to meet Astarion's gaze and murmur, “Thank you.”
“Think nothing of it,” Astarion said, some genuine feeling slipping out into his playful tone. “I can hardly marry you later if you explode now.”
“I suppose not,” Gale replied. There was still uncertainty in his voice, but also a small amount of wonder — it was as if the reason he still questioned Astarion's claim they were married had less to do with distrusting Astarion and more to do with not being able to believe his words. This did not escape Astarion's notice — he was long aware of his husband's insecurities.
“You look awful, love,” Astarion said quietly. Even at his lowest, even in the Shadow-Cursed Lands when all hope was pulled away by the oppressive darkness and Gale still ranked the destructive order from his goddess higher than his will to live, even then Gale had not let his appearance fall this far. Astarion pointedly ran his eyes over Gale's miserable form. “I'm sure you believe you're showing penance or some such nonsense, but Mystra is not the goddess of hygiene. You have a wonderful bathtub upstairs, you might as well use it. Prestidigitation only goes so far.”
Embarrassment and shame appeared clear on the wizard's face as he abruptly became aware of how bad a state he'd let himself get to. Gale attempted to surreptitiously sniff at his robes, making Astarion's lips curl up into a soft smile.
“I'm afraid it's rather slipped my mind,” Gale mumbled. His hand rubbed absently at his chest.
Astarion let out a sympathetic hum as he stood. “I'm sure. But a bath would do wonderful things for your mood.” He held out his hand for Gale to take, but Gale simply stared up at him in confusion. “Well?”
“I'm sorry, you want me to take a bath right now?” Gale asked incredulously, eyes wide. “With a virtual stranger left to freely wander my tower?”
Astarion shrugged and feeling mischievous said, “Would you prefer I joined you? The tub is certainly big enough.” He knew Gale well enough to know the wizard as he was now would never take him up on that offer, he was far too private about his body to be comfortable being naked in front of a stranger — he'd done his best to bathe alone during their journey with the tadpoles. Plus, the orb meant he'd steer clear of too much excitement.
As Astarion predicted, Gale blushed and huffed, suddenly unable to meet Astarion's gaze. “That's— No! That will not be happening.”
Astarion couldn't help chuckling at Gale's frantic yet firm refusal. “Ah, you're always so much fun to tease.” He took a step back, crossing his hands behind his back. “How about this, I'll draw you a bath, and you can either take it or not.”