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Gale insisted that he loved road trips. He began to reminisce about how his mother would need to come up with things to get him to stay out of trouble but also not let his reading consume him (supposedly this was a delicate balance, but Astarion was only ⅔rds listening), so he had fond memories of slow drives around Waterdeep to make ‘discoveries’ and eat picnics in trespassed gardens.
A summer road trip, just the two of them, sounded like a little rom-com until the reality of it set in.
"Can you – can you slow down please?!" Gale jerked to his right, away from the passenger window, as if his proximity to it might help shrink the car away from the other vehicle they barely missed clipping.
"I'm already going slower than I normally drive, Gale. Sorry I don't drive like a grandfather."
"It would be much safer for everyone if you did – Astarion!"
"What!"
"I can see the speedometer! You're going 140!"
"So? I usually go 160 on this road."
"I can't do this. I'm going to be ill."
"No you are not . I just had the car detailed."
Gale, cradling his bag of trail mix, stared at the floorboard beneath his feet where his ankles were surrounded by meal bar wrappers and discarded coffee to-go cups. "Then why is there so much trash down here...?"
"It was detailed last week , you fussy l—"
Whatever insult Astarion said was drowned out by the strangled noise Gale made.
They narrowly avoided the merging truck with Astarion's maneuvering. The sharp cut of the wheel made Gale snatch the handle above him like he expected to arrive at the pearly gates at any moment.
Fifteen minutes later, Gale was humming to himself in the driver’s seat, cruising in the inside lane at a modest 94 kph with his hands perfectly positioned on the steering. Astarion scrolled on his phone with the bored disdain of a teenager on a family vacation.
“This is excruciating,” Astarion sighed, head lolling back against the headrest. “I feel like I’m dying of old age in real time.”
“You’ll live longer this way,” Gale replied, practically serenely as he carefully sipped his iced herbal tea. “Think of it as… preventative care.”
“I already have an exercise routine and a skincare regimen. If I die on the highway, I’d prefer it to be as a glamorous smear than as a wrinkled crone.”
“You’re welcome to get out and walk. I won't be subject to your vehicular manslaughter charges.”
Astarion made a sound like he was dying inside.
They were a couple of hours into their trip by the time the roads thinned out, long stretches of the scenery peeling away in waves.
The plan Gale had devised on his phone notes app was so jumbled that Astarion had almost taken offense and made a followable spreadsheet – but that would require more effort than Astarion was willing to give to this endeavor. Instead, Astarion used the entire time he skimmed the itinerary to declare everything Gale had come up with was dumb and boring.
Ultimately, he acquiesced; half of his complaining was just to complain, and anyway, anything was worth a change of pace from their boring day-to-day. Driving from Baldur’s Gate to and along the further coast and back wasn't the worst way to spend their time. Though Gale intended on stopping at “sites of historical and natural significance” along the route – a lighthouse, an especially giant antiques market, a cave, a cheese farm, and at least one bookstore “worth the detour”. But having skimmed the itinerary exactly once, Astarion had made a mental note to ignore it at every possible opportunity, though maybe he'd allow for the bookstore.
They stopped for fuel somewhere that barely qualified as a town. A squat gas station had a single working pump, and a hand-lettered sign on the door that read NO RESTROOM.
“I appreciate that you've made it this far without suggesting 'I Spy,'” Astarion said as he stretched out beside the car, lighting a cigarette.
“Yes, well. I've met you once or twice,” Gale replied, shielding his eyes from the sun. "Though it can be a stimulating game if done correctly."
Once he finished at the pump, Gale disappeared inside, emerging some minutes later with an armful of processed atrocities – hot chips (for Astarion, likely), chocolates with toffee (for Gale), another type of trail mix (for Gale), a couple of large and very suspicious meat sticks (????), two bottled drinks (another tea for Gale and a bottled coffee for Astarion), and yet another physical map they'd never use because there was no world in which Astarion would ever let his phone die even if it was somehow perpetually at 6%.
“Not only do we already have a whole backseat full of your little snacks," Astarion said, flicking ash to the side and away from his shoes, "You know that’s... not food, right?”
“Says the man who had four espresso shots and half a bag of sour worms for breakfast.”
“I’m alive, aren’t I?”
“Debatable.”
After a stop at a wildlife refuge, where Astarion stood back and watched Gale chat with the guide who definitely was there for children but was very forthcoming with animal facts, they ended with a debate on what motel was acceptable. What they landed on wasn’t the worst place Astarion had ever stayed, but that wasn't necessarily a high bar.
The wallpaper peeled a little at the corners, and the water pressure was unpredictable, but the window looked out over a surprisingly lush patch of foxgloves.
Astarion claimed the bed by throwing himself across it like a tragic widow. Gale took longer settling in, removing his current reading from his satchel, then setting out his other evening items and medications on the bedside like a surgeon prepping for an operation.
“We could go for a walk,” he suggested. “Stretch our legs.”
“I'm stretching them right now," Astarion said, mostly face-down as he scrolled on his phone. "Also, this is prime mosquito hour, so no, thank you. I am very comfortable where I am.”
Gale rolled his eyes but didn’t argue. Instead, he flicked on the ancient wall unit that was possibly older than them both and opened a travel guide titled The Roads Less Traveled: Hidden Gems of the Sword Coast.
The next morning began at 5:53 with Astarion leaning directly over Gale’s face.
“I’m bored.”
Gale groaned and batted a hand at him. “That’s not a reason to wake someone up.”
“There’s nothing to do in this hellhole, and all I can hear is the ice machine making weird noises and your snoring. Let’s drive.”
“It’s not even six—”
Astarion pulled back the curtains with a dramatic flourish.
“I hate you.”
“You love me.”
A pause.
“…I tolerate you.”
“Close enough.”
After another day of stops (which included Astarion's loud pouting in the antiques mall, a greasy but delicious diner where Astarion and Gale both complained about how sticky the seats somehow felt, and a stop at The World’s Largest Lantern) they made it to the coast just before sunset.
The sea was a slow-moving mirror, a rose-gold shimmer with breathy waves. The air smelled like salt and honeysuckle. Their bags were in the trunk. Their shoes were in the sand. They hadn’t spoken in ten minutes as they smiled in companionable silence.
Astarion broke it first.
“I swear to the gods, if this doesn’t turn into a Nicholas Sparks sex scene, I’m going to toss you into the ocean to be beaten against the rocks.”
Gale belly laughed before looking at Astarion with glittering eyes. “So you want some widow-level beach erotica?”
“I want a bit of ocean salt all over us but we're somehow completely untouched by sand. And a slow-mo wet shirt removal.”
“You are, without a doubt, the most romantic person I’ve ever known.”
“And yet you keep me around.”
“I’m weak.”
“You’re smart,” Astarion said, sidling closer until their arms brushed. “You know a good thing when you’ve got it.”
Then, grinning, he got up and ran.
As he went barefoot across the sand, Astarion's silk shirt billowed behind him. He made it to the waterline before turning, eyes bright, and called out, “Come chase me, you idiot!”
Gale did not run. He walked, smiling and calm. He didn’t need to chase because he already knew how the story ended. When he reached Astarion, he looped his arm around his waist and pulled him into the surf.
Astarion shrieked like he was being murdered.
“Cold! You wretched bastard! I will kill you!”
“I thought you wanted messy foreplay.”
“Not with temperature shock!”
But he was laughing, breathless, water running down his legs and hair curling from the salt. Gale kissed him in the shallows, hands gentle at his jaw, the kiss open-mouthed and slow, playful at first, then not.
They pulled apart with noses brushing, Astarion’s hands finding the hem of Gale’s damp shirt to slide his hands along where it clung to his belly.
“Well, I can see we're both wet and ready,” Gale said, bouncing his eyebrows.
“You disgust me.” He leaned in, resting his forehead against Gale’s.
They sat there a while, surf pulling at their legs and the sand trying to slowly bury them there at sea.
“You know,” Astarion said, quieter now, “I never really did this. The vacation thing. Or the slow, sincere thing.”
Gale kissed his temple. “You’re doing great.”
Astarion snorted. “You’re biased.”
“I’m in love.”
“That’s worse.”
And yet he leaned in again, letting Gale hold him for a while longer.