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Lazy and humid: the afternoon ekes by.
Ants march alongside the worn soles of his leather boots; he wastes more time aimlessly counting them. Thanks to the touch of the sun, the decaying wood of the porch underneath him gradually turns from warm to hot to blistering—and still, he sits in stasis, smoking the last of his cigarettes. It’s foolish of him to do so, especially when at any moment Cazador, Petras or Dalyria could search for him but here: with this lazy breeze, the whispered clank-clunk of the bamboo chines hanging above him, and the vast view of never-ending trees and field to stare at instead of the eerie, dust covered portraits that rest against the warped wood paneling of their home—it is the closest to peace he’ll ever be afforded.
Crickets and cicadas, the raspy screeching of old crows and the summertime-bright songs of birds; further off: the hum of heavy tiling machinery, the disjointed barking of herding dogs from the farm a few miles off: but he keeps his ears perked, even as the headphones around his neck relay the off-beat skipping of the CD player in his lap, because:
Down the singular red dirt road that connects everyone in town, he hears it—loud, off-key rapping: Tanyl; the high-pitched, grating squeak-and-rattle of a skewed and rusted bicycle chain carrying along wheels that’ve seen better days.
His CD player and headphones get set to the side, the butt of his cigarette gets slid between the slats of the porch planks—plausible deniability if Cazador ever asks: “what cigarettes?”—and then, he’s sneaking around the soft sand perimeter of the house with boots not meant for sneaking. The porch awning that wraps around the lower level of the house shields him up until he gets to the edge of the house. He pauses, waits for any signs of danger: silence, good. It’s not his finest form as he makes a mad dash under the shade of the trees to the overgrown shrubby that hides a gape in the chainlink fence, but finesse isn’t worth much when it comes to this.
When he meets Tanyl on the edge of the property next to a rotting oak that acts as their cover, Tanyl’s still rapping—badly. At this rate, all of Tanyl’s caterwauling isn’t just going to alert Cazador but everyone else that lives within a twenty mile radius.
“I know it’s a skill you may not have learned with your dubious upbringing, but for gods sake, would you please try to practice some discretion?” he hisses as Tanyl climbs off the bicycle. “And stop taking my fucking bike without asking me!”
“Yo, is that any way to treat the guy who’s gonna make your day, like, ten thousand percent better?” Tanyl asks, clicking his tongue as he drops the bicycle to the ground.
“Depends on if his stupidity makes it worse first,” he says, eyes narrowed. “Well?”
A small, dramatic bow from Tanyl as he reaches behind him to pull something from one of his cargo pants pockets. Out come the contents with a flourish and a bunny-toothed smile that never drops: a perfectly sealed bag of weed with Astarion written in familiar blocky letters.
“For Ser ‘starion, I, Ser Tanyl, present the finest of homegrown herbs,” Tanyl enunciates with an insufferable English-Scottish accent.
“Please shut up,” he says, yanking the bag out of Tanyl’s hands. “You really don’t have to do this every single time.”
“You’re welcome,” Tanyl says, glib as he pushes his choppy blue hair off his forehead. “Oh, he also sent these for you”: from the front pocket near his knee—a sealed pack of cigarettes, the money he sent with Tanyl for the weed and a sandwich wrapped up neat in cling film—“No charge, he said.”
He frowns, tucking the money and cigarettes into his waistband while looking at the sandwich and weed. It’s just, so typical of him. He wants to be angry, pissed—yell at Tanyl and send him back on down to the farm way down the road to return everything, or maybe even just, bike down there himself and give him a piece of his mind but:
The sandwich: multi-grain whole wheat bread, like it always is. If he were to peel the soft, homemade bread back, the insides would consist of salami and home-crafted pepper jack like it always does. There’d be a thin smearing of mustard, two symmetrically sliced pickle halves, no mayonnaise—everything still the same as if nothing between them has changed. His tongue finds the glued on fangs in his mouth and his free hand finds the dangling chain attached to his studded belt.
Anxious habits, gods, pathetic—but worse yet, the vulnerable, traitorous part of himself, the wistful part of himself is... disgustingly pleased, tender-hearted and melancholic from these simplistic gestures.
The rational part of himself is annoyed by it all. It’s ridiculous to have feelings over a fucking sandwich.
He doesn’t quite feel like going back inside just yet, even as Tanyl occupies himself with another rap as he picks up and straddles his bicycle, prepping to go off to wherever someone like Tanyl can easily find trouble. If he goes inside, he’ll have to sneak past Cazador, who’s no doubt still watching his telenovas as loud as they can go in the living room. He could probably avoid Dalyria, but Petras’ll have nothing else to do than bother him and he’s,
Tired. Bored.
He clears his throat, sneaks a glance at Tanyl as Tanyl works to free the torn ends of his pants from the rusted bicycle chain.
“Do you... do you perhaps, feel like smoking?” he asks Tanyl, voice small.
Tanyl blinks, looks at him with his nose scrunched in a way that makes him look more innocent than he’s ever been.
“Kinda question is that, stupid? ‘course I fuckin’ do.”
Hidden from the house and anyone who might wander down the dusty road, they lounge in a dead patch of grass. The long branches of the oak shade them from the worst of the traveling sun but the heat is unforgiving this summer—and his thick, black clothing helps none. Sweat gathers in uncomfortable places; Tanyl’s got a stench to him too, but the smells, the sensations: he doesn’t mind, not much in any case because it is but a small price to pay when the only other option is inside.
Besides, the weed is enough of a distractor.
“What do you suppose it’d be like to be an ant?” he asks Tanyl. The sandwich sits in his lap: comfortable... menacing. Next to him, Tanyl makes a noise around the two joints in his mouth he’s attempting to light at once.
“Why would I ever think about being an ant?” Tanyl asks, face covered by smoke as he feeds air to the cherries. “This meat suit is annoying enough.”
Tanyl hands him one joint, keeps the thicker one for himself. The joint is damp at the tip from Tanyl’s lips, but it’s their routine by now: the first pull of smoke is heavenly—the second: even better. Silence joins them, and it’s only when he feels the high in his blood that he deigns to answer his own question.
“I’d imagine it’d be far less lonely,” he mumbles, rolling the joint between his fingers as he thinks. His nail polish is chipping again; he’ll repaint them later tonight, perhaps... red this time. “It’d be hard to feel isolated when there’s hundreds of thousands of you swarming around. No room for doubt... not when you exist for such a straight-forward reason.”
Tanyl inhales: deep, holds—an exhale: “Can ants even think?”
He squints, bringing the joint back up to his lips. “I... don’t actually know. Do they have... brains?”
Tanyl hums. In the distance: the screaming of pigs travels from the slaughterhouse; today: it’s not as off-putting as it normally is.
“Dunno, but it’d be sick as fuck to carry super heavy stuff, y’know?” Tanyl says, contemplative. “Like, I could carry like, an entire cherry back home to my ant girlfriend, or whatever. Be a godsdamned... ant hero and everything.”
He stares at the dopey smile stretching itself across Tanyl’s face. Why can’t I love you instead?
The fire in his joint has gone all lopsided. He’s known Tanyl long enough to know that he’s terrible at rolling the damned things—but that’s what he can appreciate about this life of his sometimes: the innocuous consistencies, the things that never change: like Tanyl’s earnest yet dangerous incompetency, Karlach’s reckless optimism, Halsin’s...
Well. Halsin’s everything.
“Do ants... like cherries?” he asks Tanyl, killing his melancholy with heavy smoke. Tanyl scoffs.
“Find me one person that doesn’t,” Tanyl mumbles around his joint like it’s a well-known truth when it’s not.
“I don’t, for one,” he points out. “I like cherry candy, though. Lollipops, gummy worms.”
“Yeah, but everyone likes cherry candy,” Tanyl reasons.
He clicks his tongue, ashes his joint; it’s dying, quicker now. The next pull will be nothing but the taste of ash but his lighter sits forgotten on the back steps of the porch: too far of a walk for it to be worth it. He could use Tanyl’s—but Tanyl has one of those finicky sorts, the kind that makes his thumb hurt from trying to spin the spark wheel. It’s... off-putting too—on the metal sits a skull with amber-colored gems embedded in the eyes, drops of blood circling it. It always feels heavy and hot in his hands even in the dead of their most severe winters. He dislikes touching it more than he needs to but—needs must.
“Not Lae’zel, I can tell you that much,” he says, reaching over to pluck the lighter from Tanyl’s lap. The lighter starts to burn immediately once he curls his fingers around it, but fortune must favor him today because it only takes a few turns of the spark wheel for a flame to come to life. Just a few puffs, and the joint breathes once more.
“Find me one thing Lae’zel actually likes,” Tanyl says, reaching over to snatch the lighter back. As if anyone actually wants the damned thing. “Just one!”
His joint dangles dangerously from his lips as he stops to consider Tanyl’s statement.
“Fair enough.”
Another day slips from their fingers and warm evening air settles atop them like a wool blanket. The sun pushes past the shield of the oak and it’s during times like these when he feels jealous of all the lazy farm cats—how nice it must be, to have these quiet moments in the sun with little interruption, no worries.
It’ll be night soon, and with night comes stripping himself of every layer of protection afforded to him. He’ll have to unzip his boots and leave them by the door, unhook the chain on his belt and hold it tight in his hand just so he can sneak past Cazador in the living room without a sound. More than likely, Dalyria’ll be in the kitchen making an elaborate dinner none of them will feel like eating and Petras...
He blinks. Well. Petras’ bedroom is on the first floor... if Petras is lurking about instead of in his bedroom, it’d be nothing to sneak in through Petras’ window and make his way upstairs to his room from there.
There’s no reason to stay: his joint has long burned to the flimsy cardboard filter Tanyl keeps in those endless pockets of his, and Tanyl’s been humming in a way that tends to prelude being subjected to his one man concerts. Yes, inside with the energy vampires is far better than suffering while mosquitos try their best to suck him dry.
“I should head inside before they realize I’m gone,” he says, holding on tight to the sandwich as he stands.
“Hey, so,” Tanyl starts in that nonchalant way that always preludes information that he would’ve been better off knowing hours earlier. Tanyl’s avoiding making eye contact too, the son of a bitch. Whatever it is, he’s not going to like it.
“Dunno if you heard, but, Gale’s going up north in the fall. ’s all anyone can talk about. Halsin’s throwing a party next week, like, if you wanna go or whatever,” Tanyl continues.
He sighs.
Of fucking course.
While Tanyl may be a nuisance on the best of days, the others in their little troupe are even more so. That cliché southern hospitality that he’s never found the tongue or stomach for—soft, well-meaning, brown sugar-sweetness sprinkled atop any lingering suspicions and spite—it makes his teeth ache. Jenevelle is fine, Lae’zel too: their abrasive personalities mesh well with his, but Wyll? Karlach? Gods, Gale, the fucking southern dandy:
The sympathy, the pity! It’s maddening, infantilizing; so, no, actually, he doesn’t want to go trekking down to Halsin’s dinky little farm to celebrate Gale’s little monumental moment while everyone else ignores the big fat milking cow in the room: him, poor Astarion, with his nasty siblings and over-bearing, over-controlling adoptive father.
He could reach for an excuse, claim to be busy but. He’s got no real plans, not really. The only thing on his agenda is to get high in the bathroom with a complementary wet towel shoved against the two-inch gap of the creaky door, watch the same five degraded VHS movies he could repeat the script for backwards and ignore the sounds of Petras and Dalyria fighting and Cazador shouting the answers to his game shows.
It’d be nothing to sneak out. It’s only a matter of wanting to.
“Who’s taking us?” he asks. “I won’t be riding on the back of the bicycle like last time. I thought the gash on my forehead would never heal—,”
Tanyl smiles, nose scrunching up just enough to twist the scar that drags itself across his face.
“Don’t worry ‘bout it,” Tanyl says, kicking his legs out to get comfortable despite dusk falling. “We’ll get a ride, promise. Hey, were you gonna eat that sandwich? And can I use your bike some more?”
“Hey there, cowboy!” Karlach shouts from the driver’s seat, loud enough to be heard over her truck mufflers. From the passenger seat, Jenevelle leans out of the window to wave down at him.
Karlach’s truck has always been obscenely large but she’s gone and... done... something to it, something that lifts it higher off the ground than the last time he crawled into the cab of her death trap.
He hisses, fangs digging in against his lips. Even in his boots, he can hardly see the thousand watt smile he knows she’s sending towards him. Nothing about Karlach is ever quiet; it’s usually not much of a bother, but when night falls into complete silence, it becomes a bit of a problem. Even if Cazador takes enough painkillers to sleep like the dead—he’d still rather not risk Petras having blackmail on him.
In the truck bed: Lae’zel, Wyll and Gale, and gracelessly: Tanyl, flopping around like a fresh caught bait worm as he hauls himself over the body of Karlach’s truck head first.
He stares down at his boots, illuminated by the bright red underbody lights of the truck. His beloved platform boots—the one thing he purchased with his small cache of money on his nineteenth birthday that Cazador miraculously had no problem with. He felt a brand of happiness he never knew existed as he tore into the taped up box: not secondhand, not too small or too large but brand fucking new, and all his.
And because he loves them so, he has no problem admitting they are... very difficult to walk in, much less climb things with, which is, apparently, what everyone expects him to do tonight.
“Karlach,” he... says, absolutely not whining, kicking the thick rubber of her wheel and wincing only a bit when the impact reverberates through his leather soles. “How in the devils am I supposed to climb up into this damed beast?”
“Aw, heck. No worries, partner!” Karlach shouts before he hears the tell-tale ding-ding-ding that comes along with a door opening and staying open.
Before he can backtrack, protest, no, really, I’ll figure it out, thank you, Karlach has teleported beside him, behind him, oh gods, grabbing him around the waist.
“What in the Hells are you doing?” he asks, calmly, most certainly not flailing around as she grunts and lifts him. “Put me down right this instant, Cliffgate!”
But he is nothing in the face of Karlach’s farm-bred strength; and so, like a kitten with no use of any of its faculties, he is lifted without consent, hissing the entire time as Karlach hauls him up and over like a bale of densely packed hay. He’s got no sense of coordination once she’s released him—he flops across Tanyl and Wyll’s laps, seething as they help him upright and make room for him in between them.
The driver’s door slams. Across from him, Lae’zel smirks. It’s nothing to ignore her little piggy face as he situates himself, stealing the just-lit joint Tanyl’s begun to lift to his lips. Already this night seems to be shaping up to be more trouble than it’s worth and the easiest way to get through it with his sanity in tact is his favorited tried and true method: get fucked up, and do it as quickly as humanly possible.
“Give me that,” he snaps at Tanyl, kicking away Lae’zel’s feet and enjoying the way the thick leather soles of his boots slide against the floor of Karlach’s truck bed.
Gods, at least Karlach keeps it clean back here.
Karlach revs the engine thrice before peeling off down the bumpy road. In the truck bed, they all jostle together like peaches speeding down an assembly line—it’s more contact than he’d like to have with Tanyl and Wyll as they yap about nonsense over his head, but the rush of wind combined with the terrible rattle-scream of Karlach’s mufflers is enough to kill any chance of being thrown into conversation.
Though, that’s assuming he actually wanted to talk to these idiots in the first place.
Bog water and shit: the farm hasn’t changed in that aspect at all.
Everything else, though... the various farm equipment in the fields, Halsin’s new truck, the animals they pass on their way up to the farmhouse: it’s all... different: an undeniable truth that he’s been refusing to acknowledge as he rots away in his bedroom—the passage of time.
He stares at the cow in front of him. He’s never been fond of this cow in particular. It’s too intelligent for its own good. Halsin always told him it’s all in his head, that there’s nothing strange about the eerie perceptiveness of the strange cow, but.
He knows better. He’s not an idiot.
“This cow...” he says to no one in particular. “It knows too much. Look how it follows my hand. I don’t like it one bit.”
He waves his hand in front of the cow’s face again. The cow moos.
“Leave the gods damned cow alone, Astarion,” Jenevelle shouts as she makes her way to the farmhouse. “You’re terrorizing the poor thing. Of course it’s going to be staring at you, idiot.”
The screen door clacks shut behind Jenevelle. The cow continues to chew hay, and suddenly, left alone in the darkness, he feels rather silly.
The summer storms left some time ago but ozone lingers between the wet-damp that comes from farmland dirt getting properly soaked. The loud song of bullfrogs in the bushes and somewhere, over there in the trees, an unseen owl that most certainly can see him hoots.
Nighttime isn’t scary, but in the barren sticks, the cacophony in the dark coupled with his isolation borders the line of frightening.
Nasty things tend to happen in the dark.
And is... is this where he wants to be? Right here, with a cow that, even now, mocks him with its wet eyes and drawn out moo that shapeshifts into the makings of a laugh right there towards the end?
He squints hard at the cow as he drops his hand and steps back slow.
It blinks, blinks and chews.
Never once turning his back, he leaves it with one last threat: “Watch your back, cow.”
The cow moos. Laughs.
By last count, it has been seven months, three weeks and five and half days since he’s last laid eyes on Halsin—which is an incredible feat in this small town of theirs.
Though, it’s not like he’s counting or anything ridiculous like that.
It’s rather foolish to think the others would stop being friends with Halsin when he’s so beneficial to their social circle all because he’s unable to handle the weight of Halsin’s boundless affections. He’s never expected them to choose or anything like that but he still doesn’t appreciate being dragged along as if there’s not history and unresolved feelings still festering between he and Halsin.
Seven months, three weeks and five and a half days: and still, he could navigate his way through Halsin’s farmhouse with his eyes closed. It’s tempting to test but instead he takes time re-familiarizing himself, head swiveling like a baby barn owl: white-orange lighting that covers everything like a loving embrace, a safe haven; warm tones of cotton, wool and leather, handcrafted wooden furniture and scratchy rugs that’ve seen his knobby knees more times than he’d like to remember.
The little space on the walls that remains untouched by giant carcasses of mounted animal heads and the occasional longbow sits decorated with tacky woven art pieces from one of Halsin’s ex-girlfriends. From the stereo system in the living room, soft country music drifts to greet him and as he moves onto the kitchen, it smells like seasoned steak, weed, lilies and fresh laundry. He drags his fingers over the polish wooden table that he’s spent many evenings at and he... hates it, himself, maybe.
He follows the murmurings of music, conversation and laughter that come alongside ill-advised indulgence in the name of celebration. The living room unchanged as well inviting, dim as the rest of the house. One glance shows that everyone seems to have made themselves comfortable.
On a small cow print loveseat, Jenevelle sits princess-pretty atop Karlach’s lap. On the floor next to them: Wyll, who has his arm draped around Gale’s shoulders. He squints into the low-light of the room, and no, it’s not just a trick of the eyes—Gale seems to have acquired a cheap, paper party hat in the short time they’ve been here.
Instead of sitting on Halsin’s lumpy couch, Lae’zel and Tanyl sit on the floor, tucked in the narrow space between the couch and the coffee table. Tanyl’s head rests on Lae’zel’s shoulder, and it’s, surprising Lae’zel’s willingly letting her space get invaded. He’s never been quite sure what their... situation is, but the giant bong sitting in the cradle of her crossed legs might be doing a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to Tanyl’s affections.
He tries to steel himself, but still he’s not quite ready when his eyes turn towards the large, worn corduroy recliner he knows to smell like wet oak and Spanish moss and find Halsin. Halsin, who looks different from the last time he saw him, left him, and yet the same all at once. Objectively, discreetly—he catalogues the instances of Halsin he’s tried to erase from his memories, dreams: dirty copper-colored hair sits longer, wavier; and only for a moment does he let himself wonder who put the new beads on the small, messy braids in Halsin’s hair before he kills the curiosity lest it take root and embed itself too deep:
⸻Was it Kagha? Does the ghost of her still linger in every corner of Halsin’s memories? Does the shape of her occupy the recesses of Halsin he claimed as his? Or has Halsin nurtured new seeds of companionship, a seasonal ritual that every farmer knows well?
Cooling systems are rare in these parts; that’s the only reason he can find for the indecent, threadbare white t-shirt stretched across Halsin’s frame. Farm-worn denim and bare feet, braided bracelets that he’s counted the notches of innumerable times...
Seeing Halsin hurts, hurts in a way he knows it has no right to.
With a steadying breath, he clunks into the living room, taking special care to drag the heavy soles of his boots over the polished hardwood with each step. His beloved boots, they’re tall: they let him tower over Gale and Tanyl effortlessly, and still, he has to tilt his head up to maintain unwavering eye contact with Halsin as Halsin stands to approach him like Halsin would a skittish calf.
Try as he might, his stupid heart skips, bumps, aches against the shoddy cage he’s kept it locked up tight in for seven months, three weeks and five and a half days.
“Halsin,” he says, flat.
“Astarion,” Halsin breathes. “I didn’t... rather, I—”
Halsin cuts himself off before regrouping, starting again: “How are you? You’ve been well, I hope?”
Halsin’s hand reaches out and he breathes through the feeling of Halsin’s fingers curling around his—the most intimate of greetings. Still the same: these rough callouses that used to feel pleasant dragging against the vulnerable stretch of his back, legs as they laid in Halsin’s too-soft bed.
In his boots, he’s at least tall enough to peer around Halsin’s bulk—right there on the coffee table that’s seen all his spilled cups of tar black coffee, forgotten pizza slices and rings of moisture from ice cold sweet tea sits an unopened bottle of whiskey.
“As much as I’ve missed you, darling”, and this: he recognizes it for the half-truth it is, even as he yanks his hand free from Halsin’s comforting grip, “There’s a pretty bottle of cinnamon whiskey that’s calling my name and I’m thinking I should give it the attention it so deserves.”
The topic of the evening, naturally, is Gale: questions about his plans, his mother’s reaction, who’ll take care of Tara in his absence. While the others may think him cruel and spiteful—which, for the record, he’ll never deny being—he is happy for Gale in his own secretive way: gods only know that out of the lot of them, Gale is the only one with the potential to be everything he wants to be.
Which isn’t to say the others are aimless. They’re just...
Comfortable: with their lives, their farm jobs, relationships. He’s a tad bit jealous at their ease of dealing with this slow country life of theirs, because personally? It eats at him, expands in his chest every morning he wakes to the sound of morning television programs and doors slamming with passive aggressiveness—he was meant for more, bigger than this small town of theirs, bigger than helping neighbors tend to farms he couldn’t give a damn about.
Tucked in against the arm Halsin’s lumpy couch next to a flourishing monstera plant he’s come to know as Cheese—the others pay him no mind as he clings to his bottle of pilfered whiskey. It might look as if he’s, gods, sulking, but even on his best days, he’s admittedly not the best conversationalist.
So... he’s not. Sulking, that is. Really.
Ambition is... a very admirable thing to possess, even better when the action of wanting it actually leads somewhere.
He tries to ignore these contemplative musings with his whiskey in between bouts of playing Tanyl’s soft hair while watching the others. But without his permission, his eyes find their way to Halsin as Halsin laughs at something Karlach says.
It was.. a mistake, perhaps, to let himself feel the isolation long enough to fall into the temptation of socialization because Halsin is just so... bright, bright enough to make his regret bubble to the surface.
During his darkest moments, when Cazador’s cruelty and maliciousness hits its peak and the quiet judgement and contemplation from Petras and Dalyria becomes unbearable: he can admit that he misses Halsin—the way Halsin’s kind eyes crinkled up at the corners during early morning breakfasts before Halsin started his farm work, the honey-dipped laugh that’d drag against his ears at every grumbled complaint of his when the country heat would make late nights Hellish, the way Halsin treated him not as though he were made of something breakable, but something meant to be loved—and the way Halsin’s love felt... it was amazing, instead of patronizing.
He worries his lip with his fangs before bringing the whiskey bottle back up to his lips. Far too much to drink in one go with an empty stomach but he needs... needs to think less, feel less. He needs...
Oblivion, yes; after all, drunken contemplation has never suited him.
His first clue that perhaps he might’ve gotten too fucked up: the way the whiskey bottle flips from his grasp to spill what little remains inside on his black pants before it goes to bonk Lae’zel hard on the head.
The second clue is the vertigo that hits him unexpectedly right in the stomach. He should... he should find the bathroom.
“Watch where you put your things, shka'keth,” Lae’zel hisses, glaring daggers at him as he stands, stumbles.
“Oh gods. For fuck’s sake, those aren’t! Words!” he sneers; slurred, yes, but still arsenic sharp. “What are you even saying half the time?!”
One look around the room as he makes his slow way to the hallway: next to Halsin’s booming stereo system, Tanyl square dances to an exceptionally twangy country song with a proficiency that only manifests when Tanyl’s thoroughly wasted. Jenevelle and Karlach are wrapped inside of each other, quiet conversation and soft touches that make him more nauseous than he already is. Gale and Wyll—they’re engaged in a conversation, or maybe flirtation, given the blush pushing its way to Gale’s face and Wyll’s sly smiles.
And Halsin: Halsin’s eyes float to him—still, again: all night: drifting, floating to anyone that wants to engage him in conversation but eventually: back to him, and,
The burn of them.
The concern.
The love that remains even after the months gone by.
Nausea, grief: the blackened tendrils of them curl hot to the core of him as his mouth waters in that way mouths tend to do moments before disaster.
“Oh gods,” he mumbles, stumbles some more. “I need. I need the bathroom, fuck.”
He moves quick past Halsin, ignoring the urge to mock the concern he can hear floating after him as he runs through a house that still feels more like a home than Cazador’s ever will. He doesn’t need Halsin’s help, anyone’s help, really; he is perfectly capable of walking by himself and he, he is.
For the most part.
On his way up the stairs: he trips, slams the bone of his shoulder hard against the frame of the bathroom door and barely gets the toilet lid up in time. Then, head deep in Halsin’s pristine toilet: he vomits, heaves, pretends that the floodwater seeping up through the hairline fractures of his concrete shell are nothing more than the effects of physical distress and not because, even this act of purging, scratches memories long scabbed raw once more.
By the time he makes his way to the sink, it’s useless to pretend like the ache in his heart is nothing less than stubborn, sticky emotions long past their grieving period.
He reaches into his mouth and pulls the fangs glued to his canines out before sliding them deep in his pockets for tomorrow. The knob on the porcelain sink squeak-creaks as it turns. The water still runs warm from the well despite it being the cold tap; with shaky hands, he rinses his mouth free from the taste of cinnamon bile.
As he spits, he meets his reflection.
A dizzying moment of sobriety rises like steam and dissipates like fog—it’s a type of clarity that slides against his self-perception as if nothing more than a momentary lapse of reasoning.
His cake foundation does nothing to hide the smeared ink underneath his eyes that comes from sleepless nights. The roots of him sprout like tall, heat-touched wild grass, and there’s no chance he’ll be able to buy bleach to make himself snow-white once more without Cazador knowing. His lips, etched with summer cracks and stained rouge from cinnamon whiskey; and even with his cheap crimson contact lenses, it’s painfully obvious that unlike Kagha’s ghosts, Halsin’s have metastasized into poltergeists.
In this moment of stillness, he hates Gale more than he’s ever hated anything before, aside from Cazador, maybe himself: because Gale...
Gale is escaping.
Envy: the monster that makes a home inside of him.
He leaves.
It’s stupid to be paranoid that the laughter that greets him as he hits the landing of the stairs is because of him, at him—but the monster inside of him stokes the fire of doubt and turns the suspicions into cold, hard truth.
But it does. So he leaves, right through the front door, not caring if they can hear the clunk-thud of his boots or the clack-clack of the screen door as it slams against the frame. Non-stop: he walks, runs: from the house, from the others, down the driveway until his shoes start to get stuck in the glue of the land—and then,
He stops.
Breathes.
Shakes.
There’s no way he can make it back home considering the state he’s in. Cazador’s—it’s, it’s too far, even if he somehow managed to do a full sprint in these obnoxious boots of his but... inside isn’t an option, either.
With the mud and grass caked on his boots, they’ll know that he, he’s,
He sighs. Back up the drive, the strange cow moos.
Inside isn’t an option, so he goes the only place where he knows only one person will know to look.
Twenty years old, and he still seeks out the place that brought him the most happiness as if he were nothing more than a child. It should be nothing more than a distant memory given the time he’s spent away, but it calls to him—and it’s decidedly less hazardous than drinking an entire bottle of low-shelf whiskey by himself.
The heavy barn doors open with a creak. Nostalgia smothers the monster dragging its claws down the broken stone walls of his heart. This specific barn’s purpose has been rendered obsolete by Tanyl—a giant hole in the roof of it that robs it of all the things a barn needs to be—but even before that reckless summer full of new feelings and free flowing alcohol: Halsin never used it for anything other than feed for the animals, shelter for the marijuana and other vulnerable plants during the winters that were cold enough to burst pipes and cripple crops. It’s pitch dark in the open space, but even with the lingering storm clouds, the moon pushes past to shine just enough light through the Tanyl-made gap to guide is way.
Halsin never got around to fixing it, apparently. The idea that Halsin kept it for him makes him unreasonably happy.
He hates it.
Underneath the hole is one of Halsin’s defunct pick-up trucks: rusted body with missing wheels that’ve been repurposed for other things and other people—but the truck bed is the real prize. Blankets and pillows still remain as if stuck in stasis when he left Halsin for the last time all those months ago. Were he more sober and less soggy-hearted, he’d reconsider crawling into the nest of it: there could be giant spiders, a family of rats... bodily fluids, even, but sobriety is so far off it’s nothing to unzip his boots and kick them off the side of the truck bed. It’s a relief to flop back into the mold-scented thick of it, arms spread as far as they can go as heavy clouds drift past the full moon like lazy currents of smoke.
Loss joins the monster sitting beside him as the stars slowly begin to emerge from their shroud.
How long has it been since he’s gotten to stargaze without the threat of Cazador finding him outside of the house past his imposed curfew? How long as it been since he’s let himself remove all the layers of himself and expand like a blinding white dwarf instead of collapsing inwards like a star too depleted of what it needs?
Astarion: unknown the origins, but he knows in his heart that it means something, has to.
Astarion: a mystery, yes; but the adopted truth: Halsin’s name for him—little star.
In between that blissful, terrifying haze of being pleasantly shitfaced and unconsciousness is where he stays as the nighttime heat wraps him up with a different oppressiveness than what meets him during the meaningless summer days.
Quiet, stillness: it’s welcomed as his eyes drift shut.
The loud creak of the barn door breaks the nighttime silence and his drunken sleep spell.
He sits up, groaning as the bob of a kerosene lantern illuminates the figure by the door—Halsin.
Halsin is cautious with his approach, unsure. He rolls his eyes, crosses his legs to make enough room on the truck bed should Halsin feel like joining and clears his throat.
“If you’re going to wake me up, you might as well do it properly. Don’t be timid, darling. You’re far too large for that.”
Apprehensive: it’s the only word he can find for the feeling as Halsin comes closer.
The ache of having something good, throwing it away—it never just disappears like people would have others to believe. Taking a knife to cut away all the formative experiences that makes one’s existence worth living... no, it never fades: it is a loss that mutates.
Next to the truck sits an aged gardening table pushed against the barn walls, and Halsin sets the kerosene lantern down on the cobwebbed surface before turning to him. Instinct tells him to break the eye contact, but he forces himself to hold it, hating the way the gold in Halsin’s eyes shine in the lantern light, hating the way Halsin’s gaze still makes his heart jump and skip.
“Are you alright?” Halsin asks, voice full of genuine concern like no one ever is when it comes to him. “Your absence was felt... the others, they were worried.”
He doesn’t mean to giggle, but he does. Halsin’s brows furrow, smoothen.
“Alright. I was worried,” Halsin admits.
"As you can see, I'm fine. More than, really,” he says, sighs, brushing a slow crawling pill beetle off his arm. "At least, I was until you woke me up but. Fear not, little Astarion isn't going to off himself in the middle of Gale's big celebration. No, those plans are for tomorrow."
A pause: “You know, it is never amusing when you joke like that,” Halsin murmurs before he perches himself on the edge of the truck bed, turned just enough that whatever uncomfortable conversation that’s about to unfold will be done with proper eye contact.
He fiddles with the fleece blankets underneath him, the unraveled threads in the knees of his jeans, any and everything that can act as a release for the sudden nerves while Halsin does that silent brooding thing Halsin only ever does when he’s scared of saying the wrong thing.
In the warm glow of the flickering kerosene lamp, he’s faced with Halsin's handsomeness—and he knows this Halsin: knows the intricate contours of Halsin’s body, his face and the divots in his spine, the exact number of callouses on his hands and the tender spot on his neck that makes Halsin moan so sweet each and every time he drags his short canines over the stretch of it.
"I have missed you," Halsin says finally, softer than a Sunday church confessional. "I have worried many night about you... I have thought about you many more times than were probably advisable given our relationship and... lack of.”
"Well, don't do that,” he sniffs. "Things are no better and no worse than they were before. As much as it'd pain you to hear, I am capable of handling myself. Look at me, I’m just fine without you."
"Are you?" Halsin asks, no hesitation; and he hates this part about Halsin the most—when his voice is soft, knowing, like Halsin can see through all the universes and galaxies he attempts to conceal himself with.
"Yes," he says, unconvincing, even to his own ears.
“You know,” Halsin starts, reaching out. Halsin’s calloused fingers feel like they did before, better, even, as they rub against the sliver of skin exposed over the top of his ankle socks: "There are nights where the weight of the day settles on me, and the loss of you is felt like a terrible blight and I... I find myself coming here to sit with that silence as I look at these stars that shine so bright and I..."
Halsin trails off, breathes, "I think of you. Often. Of how this place is yours as much as it is mine.”
Another lie to cover his truths: “Really? That’s funny, because I don’t think of you at all. Haven’t this entire time.”
Halsin doesn’t rise to the bait; this is the issue with knowing someone intimately: they know all the default defenses, they know how to navigate around all those spiky edges to traverse the path of least resistance—and then, he is just,
Tired. So very tired: of all his deception, the concealing and pretending he’s fine. How idiotic of him to still yearn for Halsin’s attention when he’s the one that broke them beyond repair.
"I knew on some level that I was the jealous sorts, I think,” he murmurs, not daring to speak louder just in case it makes his truth more damning. Halsin is listening regardless, that he knows. “ Of... Kagha. Nettie. Of Gale tonight. Of him being able to leave. Really, I think I'm jealous of all of them. They have... things, dreams. Tanyl, he's more than fine with all the bare minimum so none of this bothers him or Thydos but I..."
He inhales, shaky as whiskey sadness threatens to expose all his cracked insides.
"I was meant to have more than this... be more. I have nothing and I feel... pathetic for it."
He dares a look at Halsin—“Hells, I don’t even have you anymore.”
Halsin’s fingers curl around his ankle and squeeze. It is a comfort meant to soothe without stomping on his boundaries he confessed so long ago; (—my legs, they’re just, so far away from me, it’s, it’s as if they’re not even connected to me most times, he giggles, too full of blue steak, grilled potatoes and home brewed beer);
“What you may or may not have, and what you may or may not be—you are no less important or unworthy,” Halsin says, full of firm conviction that it makes him want to believe.
This is a conversation they’ve countless times, but it’s moments like these when the foundation of his existence begins to shake and tilt: this isn’t meaningless placations—no, these are Halsin’s truths.
“And even when you discard me for the sake of your well-deserved space,” Halsin continues. “You will always have me, little one.”
Like one of Tanyl’s dark urges: the question that has spent almost two years clawing at the squishy gray of his brain finally breaks free and finds purchase against his vocal chords.
"Why do... why do you love me? What..." he trails off, bites his lip before continuing. "What makes you look at me and say, yes, it’s you.”
Halsin smiles.
"The heart is like nature. There can be guesses, feelings, deductions, but when tending to the earth, there is no place for logic," Halsin says. "There are many things I know to love about you, and things I have not yet discovered but know that I will love all the same. It has been that way from the moment I first laid eyes on you."
Acceptance, honesty—it’s all so easy for Halsin. Just another thing that makes the envy inside of him restless and hungry; though, this time, he refuses to let it win.
He reaches down to pull Halsin’s hand free from his ankle. Palms up, he finally gives into the temptation to drag his thumb, fingers, all over the hills and canyons that tell of Halsin’s hard and honest work, experience, life.
"You scare me, sometimes," he admits, curling his hand into Halsin's, lacing their fingers together. "No one's ever looked at me the way you do... seen me the way you do. How do I accept all this... love that I haven't even deserved when I can't love you like you deserve to be loved?”
He feels Halsin’s eyes on him, but he turns his head to the moon that’s been a constant for billions of years, to the stars that are long dead yet alive to them, shining bright enough to be admired and loved, despite it all.
“Your anxieties are valid,” Halsin says, slow. “But I have never asked nothing from you that you were not able to give, and it will always be so.”
"I want to see what you see in me one day," he whispers to the sky, a confession, an apology. “I... I’m a mess that doesn’t know what in the Hells I want or need. But you,”
Inhale, exhale.
Bravery—it is no easy feat: “I know that I want you.”
Halsin says nothing, only brings their joined hands up to kiss each and every one of his painted fingers.
“Then you shall have me, forever, until you decide to rid yourself of me once more,” Halsin smiles. “Whatever you desire, little star, with these two hands, I will give it to you.”
Astarion: a mystery to most, unknown to even himself.
Astarion: little star—tenderness, reverence in spades.
The night sky above them feels brighter, hopeful.