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Gale wouldn't say his mornings were usually quiet.
Usually Astarion was first up, several hours before Gale in fact, as he didn’t need to trance long. Sure he’d stay and lie and bed with Gale for a little while, soak in the domestic bliss and enjoy the peace of the morning before the sun came and his partner was still asleep. But eventually he’d get up to wreak his havoc.
He wasn’t noisy , per se (he still maintained his roguish tendencies most of the time, after all) but it was apparent that he seemed to lose all his dexterity when pots and pans were involved. It wasn’t uncommon for Gale to wake up to the sound of cast iron and stainless steel colliding. On one of Astarion’s more ambitious cooking ventures (or schemes, more like) Gale woke up to a sound sweeter than birdsong: the sound of his most expensive (and, as Astarion would claim, ugliest) piece of glassware shattering all over the floor.
On occasion he could enjoy a peaceful morning, his partner still in bed next to him, the warmth of the Waterdhavian sun on his face. Getting Astarion that sunwalker’s ring was possibly the best choice Gale had made since all of that mess with the Absolute was over and done with. He always looked so gorgeous in the sunlight.
Gale wouldn't say his mornings were usually quiet, though. This one was no exception, but not for the usual reason. When Gale woke up this morning Astarion was still trancing.
He looked rather peaceful, if not a little distressed; his handsome features pinched into an uncomfortable expression though his eyes remained closed and his face relaxed. But he was humming .
The tune was simple, and as Gale listened longer he realized it looped easily into a repeating melody that was easy to follow and equally easy to get lost in. Gale let it pull him along for a little while, but it left something inside of him . . . unsettled. There, deep in his chest, as if something very old was being pulled from a crowded, forgotten place. Something that should have perhaps remained forgotten. He listened closer.
It wasn’t long before something wriggled free at the back of his mind. Not a tadpole, thank the gods, but words. Lyrics.
Thaniel and me
Do just what we please, together
Waiting for the sun, forever
It was a song that haunted him every time he stepped into Last Light, rightfully so. Those days were dark for more than just the shadow curse that had taken over the landscape. Silent, too. Lonely.
There was so much weighing Gale down at the time. The Absolute. Elminster. Mystra. Astarion .
“You can’t. You won’t, you damned idiot! Not if I have anything to say about it.” Tears streamed down Astarion’s face as he shouted at Gale.
He’d meant to kill himself. At least, that’s what he’d said. That it was what Mystra wanted him to do. That it was their best shot at defeating the Absolute. And when he told him, Astarion had yelled, and yelled, and yelled at Gale. Gale refused to change his mind so the man refused to speak to him.
He wouldn't go out with the rest of the party and he wouldn't come back to camp with them; he stayed in that room with Art Cullagh until Gale “came to his senses” as Astarion put it. He tended to him, took care of him alongside Halsin, and whether he realized it or not he'd picked that tune up.
Days, he stayed there. A tenday, maybe longer. And each night that passed Gale told himself he was doing what was best, for him, for Astarion, for everyone. Told himself he would save countless lives, what was one sacrificed, freely given? It only got harder as time passed.
Any time Gale stepped into the room Astarion was cold to him, wouldn't even look at him properly. He wouldn't speak, not to Gale, not to anyone, only hum to himself, a quiet melody drifting along the underbelly of Art's song. He may have spoken to Halsin when the rest of them were gone. It would've been impossible to know.
Gale couldn’t help the sickening thought that he had been abandoned in his time of need. That when he was at his most vulnerable, as time ticked away and things became more dire his partner had stepped away.
But that wasn't the case. This was Gale’s folly, his mistake. And Astarion had been kind enough, had been understanding enough to give him space when he wouldn’t see reason. He told things as they were, right to Gale’s face.
When Gale realized his mistake he thought it was too late. There was a stumble in his step as he made his way to Art’s room, and he had to focus his breathing to keep himself from shaking. He stepped into that room half expecting to be met with a blazing fire and another screaming match, but he wasn't; one of the countlessly many ways that Astarion differed from Mystra. Gale promised Astarion that he wouldn't set off the orb, that they would find another way, that they had to.
The walk back to camp was quiet, but the coldness had gone from Astarion’s demeanor. They walked hand in hand and the rest of their companions said nothing about just how closely they stood.
And afterwards, when they'd sequestered themselves away in Gale’s tent? Astarion cradled Gale in his arms while he sobbed into his chest. He held Gale’s face in his hands and wiped away his tears and fixed his hair. He told him he loved him, told him that this wasn’t worth his life, that nothing was. And he meant all of it, every word.
Gale began to tear up. How could he have been so stupid? He had been blinded, searching so desperately for purpose he couldn't see what was right in front of him. He wanted so badly to be needed he was willing to give up his life for it.
Those days he spent away from Astarion were by far the most difficult during their journeys. His bedroll was lonelier for it, sure. And perhaps he should have looked into how odd he felt in the mornings when his blood hadn’t been half-drained the evening before, but that wasn’t all. He began to miss the jabs and jokes and off-comments the vampire made at his expense, his particular brand of affection. He missed the crooked, out of practice, fangy smile that took over his face when he thought no one was looking. He missed the cadence his voice took on when there was no one to seduce, no one to impress anymore.
And the thought that plagued Gale’s mind the most was that he knew just how heavy the shadows weighed on Astarion. A couple of tendays in the underdark, likely just as long spent wandering the shadow cursed lands miserably, the bright spot he had become had dwindled to a dim.
At the start of it, the first days spent in darkness, Gale would do light shows for him. He crafted spells that would bathe his tent in sunlight just to see a smile light up Astarion’s face. When Astarion was cold there was always a space next to Gale he could crawl up into. When prey was sparse there was always a vein he could pull from. When things seemed desolate and hopeless he always had someone to talk to.
Where had that love gone? Was it lost, a distant whim caught on the breeze the second his goddess made him feel wanted again? She didn't need him. She didn't love him. And even if she did, Gale was not hers to toy with anymore and she no longer his to love.
Gale was so lost in his thoughts he didn't even notice that the humming had stopped.
“Gale?” Astarion leaned up next to Gale and rubbed the tiredness from his eyes. “What’s going on?”
Gale turned to Astarion, his eyes glassy with tears yet to fall. “I'm sorry, Astarion, I'm so sorry.” Astarion was quick to wrap an arm around his shoulders and pull him in close.
“Whatever for, love?”
Gale looked wistfully down at his own hands.
“You were humming in your sleep– trance, whatever it is you were doing.”
Astarion tried to resist the small smile that began to take over his face. “I was? What was I humming?”
“Do you remember, before Moonrise, when you stayed at Last Light?” Gale was still staring down at his hands. He wore a blank, sorrowful expression.
“I do.” Astarion’s voice was more serious, then. “Of course I do.”
“That- that song. The one Art Cullagh was singing, you were- you were humming–” Gale broke down, shuddering in Astarion’s hold as he struggled to suppress his tears.
“Oh, darling.” Astarion pushed his forehead against Gale's. “I'm so sorry.”
Gale sniffled, leaned the weight of his head against Astarion's. “What do you have to be sorry for?”
“I was being harsh to you.”
“I was being rash!” Gale leaned away and faced Astarion, a confused sort of indignance written all over his face.
“You were being manipulated, dove.” Astarion reached for Gale’s hands and was not fought on it when he took them into his own.
Gale looked down to their connected hands somberly. His voice was small.
“You did what you had to.”
Astarion laughed, warm and slightly off-tune from his trance. “Darling, I was practically throwing a temper tantrum the whole time. What I should have done was speak with you. You know, be an adult, have an adult conversation?” He squeezed Gale’s hand tight in his.
Gale smiled, sheepish. “I suppose.”
“Oh you suppose ? Is that so?”
All Astarion received in response was an eye roll. “Shut up.”
A beaming smile lit up Astarion’s face. He dropped Gale’s hands so he could hold his face, instead. He studied his appearance for a moment. Gale was a little worse for wear, sure, his eyes still teary and tired, his hair tousled from his slumber. Astarion supposed his snow white curls likely weren't much better off, though.
“Happily.”
He leaned in, and Gale’s face was wet with tears and rough with morning stubble (Tara had finally convinced him to shave it), and Astarion kissed him anyway and it was chaste, and sweet, and perfect . Astarion pulled back and let go of Gale’s perfect face, and there was a perfect, dumb smile on it that he just ached to kiss away.
Gale groaned and shoved his face into his hands. “Gods, we are such dunces.”
“That we are, my love. That we are.”