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Tav has never put much thought into romance. Hell, until she fought her way out of the Nautilus, she never gave much thought into having friends. It's not that she's a loner- no one truly is, she thinks, but she's always been a nomad, she's always been too restless to stay in one place for long enough to keep and maintain relationships of any kind.
Well. Restlessness has something to do with it, but it's more because of her dark gray-blue skin, and the way that people stare at best and attack her at worst. She has never been treated kindly, and she has never wanted to be the first to extend kindness. Why would she? What's in it for her? Nothing but the possibility of gold given for a job well done, and she's never minded being alone. Not really.
It's a cold, rainy night. They've all holed up in their respective tents. She can hear vague signs of life outside of her own space- the wind carries sounds of Karlach humming and Lae'zel muttering to herself. Someone is sharpening a weapon. Someone else- Astarion or Wyll, she thinks, is moving around, tolerating or uncaring of the light rain that has begun. It's probably Wyll, restless and dancing, but she thinks of the first time that Astarion was caught in the rain. He had been unpleased, of course, had whined about the state of his hair and his clothes until Shadowheart had told him to put her shield over his head if he cared so much, but Tav hadn't missed the wonder in his eyes. He'd turned his face to the sky as if he'd wanted to watch the droplets fall downwards, but was rudely interrupted by said droplets falling in his face.
Tav doesn't know who is out doing what, and she doesn't care. She's wary of looking out of her tent at all. She despises the shadow-cursed lands like nowhere else, if she's being honest- she misses the sun, even though it hurts and blurs at her eyes. She hates fighting all of the people and the things who didn't survive the shadows, she hates how silent everything is unless the area's overtaken with the scream-song of battle. She's lived in cities for all her life. It's easier to disappear. It's always loud, always full of possibility- jobs are plenty, coinpurses are often unwatched, it is loud and full of life.
Tav breathes in deep, and breathes out. She is not alone, now, and this campsite- the entire fifty feet of it- is not dead. Yet.
She hears laughter, Wyll's and Volo's, and Scratch's excited yip. She keeps breathing. They grow quiet again, far too soon- this place is dead, it all feels dead. She can only light but so many braizers as she passes them, she can only withstand her companions' pity but for so long as she tries, futilely, to combat the dark.
Gale's tent is on the opposite side of the camp. There is strategy to it: casters and half-casters and melee fighters are spaced evenly across the area in case of an ambush. But he's too far away for her to hear. She doesn't know if he's awake, she doesn't want to disturb him if he's gone to bed.
He is as restless as the rest of them, though, she knows that. He has told her, she has seen it- he reads and studies and wanders through the night, caught up in his wild ideas and wilder imagination. That night, in the meadow he had lit, in the bed he had pulled from the weave- sex hadn't been enough to dull his energy and excitement. She had bid him goodnight, and turned at the edge of the meadow to see him pulling at the Weave again, just like how she'd found him there. Except, of course, he had been buck-ass naked the second time around, and she had laughed all the way to her bedroll, giddy and endeared and, at the time, confident in the space they've found with one another.
She's still confident. She trusts him. She knows that he trusts her, it's not a matter of whether or not she feels as if he loves her. She knows that he does.
Tav has never been a romantic.
She gets up and leaves her tent. Nevermind the rain and the way that Wyll and Volo both look over to her. Scratch bounds up to her side with his ball in his mouth. She scratches at his ears and takes the ball- fetch!- and tosses it towards the others. Scratch takes off at a run, and Tav, trusting that one of the others will continue the game, goes to Gale's tent.
She doesn't hesitate, because it's raining and it would be foolish of her to stand in the elements. She steps under his little awning and inspects what tools he's left under it for the night. He's vacated all of his books, of course. It's a pity- she wants to read them, sometime. His telescope is covered. Also a pity. This was a bad night to try to rummage through his things.
A movement in the corner of her eye makes her look up, always at the ready- it's Astarion, inclined against the side of his own tent with his arms crossed against his chest. His hair is falling into his eyes. He's been out in the rain, like she thought.
He grins at her, and her ears pop like there's been a change in altitude. His voice filters into her head- "shyness isn't a good look on you, my dear."
She scowls at him, her confidence bolstered, and turns away. He doesn't speak again, but as he pulls out of her mind she can feel an echo of fond amusement, given at her expense.
The tent is lit, inside, by candlelight. He's awake.
She knocks lightly on the crate beside his door. "It's me."
There's a rustling inside, the soft thud of a book being set down. "Ah, hello," Gale says, soft. "Come in."
Tav does. She ducks under the small awning and looks around. It's not that she's never seen the inside of Gale's tent before, but it wasn't exactly hers to peruse, either. Not that is, now. He's got his bedroll set against the far left corner and a makeshift desk on the near-right corner. All of his books have been stacked precariously on and around it, those unlucky enough not to get the desk are lifted off of the slightly-damp ground by a wooden board. His hourglass and his potion-distiller and other trinkets are set up in the corner. Still, he's left a good amount of space in the middle.
On the left side is a thick canvas cloth, set atop the equally-thick, blue and white patterned rug that covers the entirety of the floor. There are pillows scattered there. She knows that Wyll and Karlach often spend time in here with him. It's the closest thing to a seating area that he can provide, and it's awfully endearing that he's tried to provide it at all.
Gale is seated cross-legged on his bedroll. The chest beside his bed has been turned into a makeshift nightstand. There are lit candles that have burnt nearly down to their wick, open books, half-filled papers.
"You've been busy," she notes.
"Always," he answers. She can see him smiling at her, out of the corner of her eye.
"With what?"
"Ah, you know. This and that. I am... tinkering," he shrugs. "I'll let you know when it starts working."
"Hm." She touches one of the books on his desk, and pulls away.
"What's on your mind, Tav? Or, in it," he adds, with a wry lilt to his voice.
She huffs out a laugh. "You already know the answer to that."
"Only to one of them. I could suss out the other, but I don't think you'd take kindly to me rummaging around in your head."
"Ha. No."
And she stands there, all but mute and needlessly agitated, in the middle of poor Gale's tent. He had been working. Why is she here? What's the plan, fearless leader?
Gale doesn't speak. He eventually looks away from her, and turns back to one of his books. It doesn't feel like ignorance or a lack of interest in her- it's like smoking out a fox den. He knows that she'll talk eventually.
Tav sits in his little pillow-pile and stares at the candle for a long time. Then, his hands, as he writes. She watches him scratch out a line of glyphs and rewrite them. She doesn't know anything about wizardry, doesn't have the faintest clue as to what he's working on. There is so much she doesn't know about him. Yes, she knows that he is a skilled wizard, accomplished enough to catch the attention of Mystra herself. She knows that he likes cats, and that he's a skilled cook, and that he doodles- badly- in the margins of his notes when he's bored. She knows that he is probably going to die, sooner than the rest of them if he and his goddess have any say in the matter. She knows that he has trouble sleeping, some nights, and that he likes to stargaze.
She doesn't know who he is when he isn't fighting for his life. She doesn't know what he likes to cook, as opposed to what he's capable of working with. What's his favorite book? Does he have a favorite flower? What does he see in her?
She says, defeated by his silence, "It's hard for me to rest when I don't have eyes on the lot of you."
His writing slows, then stops. He's looking at her again. She stares resolutely at his hands, now clasped in his lap. He's wearing the enchanted rings she handed off to him, as well as several others. The metals are mixed; silver, bronze, gold. His earring is silver. She wonders where he got it. Likely from Waterdeep, yes, but what shop? Would he take her there? Would he let her buy him something pretty? Another earring, perhaps. It will be gold, she thinks, just to keep the metals unmatched.
"It's not your job to watch over all of us, all of the time," Gale answers quietly. "You have to take some time for yourself."
"Why," she says more than asks, flat. It's almost a genuine question.
He asks in turn, "who were you, before all of this?"
She frowns. It takes her a moment to come up with any answer other than a bastard. "A sellsword, a thief, a good time if you paid up front. Anything that paid. Anything that I could get away with."
Gale breathes out slowly. It's not quite a sigh. "That's what you were to other people, Tav. I'm asking about you."
Tav's poor, tadpole-addled brain sparks out like a counterspelled fireball. The wild rush of manic, angry energy, and then silence. The memory of an empty, half-burned home flits through her mind, the crunch of snow underfoot. She knows what he's asking and she could answer, but each word that her mind offers up is harsh at best and dispassionate at worst, and, suddenly, she doesn't want to be here.
It's hypocritical of her to want to know Gale and to not want to offer any part of herself in return. Tav knows that. She does.
"I've more in common with a stray dog than I do with you," is what she says. It's not even remotely close to a coherent answer. He doesn't bat an eyelash.
"Hm. Aside from the self-flagellation," he answers, quick with it. It startles a harsh laugh out of her, and she finds herself standing by the front of his tent before she's aware that she's moved at all.
She doesn't leave. She doesn't want to be alone and she doesn't want to go through whatever this discussion has turned into. She wants to scream, and she doesn't know why she's so angry. It's burnout, she knows, and Gale knows it too, except she still feels like she's on fire.
The rain has picked up. It's coming down hard, now. She can see Scratch's tail wagging against the inside of Karlach's tent. Volo and Wyll have disappeared- so everyone's sheltered, safe and warm. No one will see her if she goes out.
"Tav," Gale calls, with worry in his terrible, kind voice. It's too late. She's standing out in the rain.
"Tav," he calls again, closer. He's just inside the doorway, she thinks. "I didn't mean to upset you." A pause. "You're going to catch a cold."
Astarion, ever the asshole, laughs from the inside of his now-closed tent.
"Shut the fuck up!" she picks a rock up off the muddy ground and throws it hard against the side she knows his bed is on. It hits with a thud and she hears him hiss, but there is no response, no indignant shouting, and he doesn't come out. He knows that a lack of response will piss her off more than anything else he could do. He probably didn't even mean to laugh aloud. Or, he did, but- he's being a dick right now and he'll stumble his way over an are you alright tomorrow.
She throws another rock. She's misjudged her aim; it flies above his tent, hits a tree trunk, and bounces gently off of the top of it.
Gale sighs deeply, like he always does when he has to watch her and Astarion or Lae'zel get into spats. It does stop her from throwing anything else, she can give him that. She's being exceptionally petty, tonight. And now everyone knows she's losing it, because she's shouting and throwing shit. She doesn't look around to see if anyone's watching. She doesn't care. She doesn't.
Tav doesn't sit down in the mud only because she knows that that's a little too immature of her. She's not throwing a tantrum, except that she is, and she doesn't know why. She doesn't know what she wants. She has never known her wants or likes and hardly even her interests beyond basic necessities: food, shelter, rest. She's going to die before anything good comes to or becomes of her.
Gale's going to die a hero and he's going to die before she does, unless she's taken out alongside him. That wouldn't be so bad, she thinks. It all starts and ends in fire.
She hears footsteps. Gale stands beside her, in the cold and the dark and the now-pouring rain. She sort of- twitches, in his direction, adamant that he-
"Don't tell me to go back inside," he says, low and definitely a little angry. Then, still angry, but in a worried sort of way, "I didn't mean to upset you."
"I was already upset," Tav says, hardly audible over the rain. Her chest hurts, terribly. She wants- she wants to press his hand against her heart. To have him check for a pulse, to feel that he's warm and alive.
This blighted land is really, really getting to her head.
She had cuddled up against his side that night, not for long, only until they had both caught their breath. But she had. He'd laid an arm over her waist and carded a hand through her. She loves him. She's being terrible to him right now.
"And so you came to me," he murmurs. "Thank you."
"I don't know what I want. Other than you," she adds, because it's true. It's something he already knows. He knows as much about her as she knows about him. Not much. Her day-to-day habits. She likes flowers, she likes goldenrods and daises, every flower that grows on the edges of the roads that they've walked down together.
They stand out in the rain for gods know how long, quiet. Misery loves company and she's awfully glad for his. They're both going to get sick, but they've already been sick for years, in their own ways. Sick with magic and with sunlight and elated with both, despite the harm it has brought to them.
"I feel better," she says, rough with it, glaring at the ground.
"Do you?"
My chest hurts. My stomach's twisted into knots. I want to get you out of this rain, and I'm cold. "I'm cold."
"Come back inside," Gale says. There's a pleading note in his tone. She doesn't like it.
"Alright," she says, and stands there for a moment longer. He waits. Tav knows that he won't wait forever.
She breathes in and reaches for his hand, and then holds onto it like a lifeline. He's a little warmer than her, still, and that warmth spreads through her, up her arm, tangling with the wounded mess in her chest. Oh, she loves him. She's sick with it.
She turns towards him, still too stubborn to meet his eyes, and presses his knuckles to her lips. It's less of a kiss and more of a simple, aching want for contact. Her eyes blur with something warmer than the rain, and she's shaking, now. She thinks she's shivering, but that's not entirely it.
He breathes in, about to speak. She interrupts him.
"I hate it here. It's dark and dead and I'm afraid of it, all of it," she says, rambling against his hand like a penitent. He makes a soft, mournful sound. "It's all getting to me. Badly. I know that I can't keep watch over all of you and I know that it's not my job to. Even if I could, I'm not made for that. I don't know what I'm made for. I don't know what I am. I don't know what I'm doing. I just know that I love you." Her voice cracks. She tries anyway, "I love all of you. I love you, Gale, I-"
Gale pulls her into a hug. He doesn't give a warning. She makes a wretched, wounded-animal sound against his shoulder and wraps her arms around him like a reflex, like it's instinct. She's crying and she's too tired to be embarrassed by it.
"Tav," he tries, faint with worry, "come back inside. Please?"
She pulls away, but scrambles to take his hand- and she lets him lead her back into the tent, out of the rain. She stops before they reach his bedroll- she's dripping wet- and he makes a quiet, thoughtful sound as he seems to realize the same.
"Let's wait out the rain in here, and then move to yours. We'll just hang this all out tomorrow. It will be dry by the time we bed down for the night."
She breathes in, and out. In, and out. She finds her voice and says, rough with exhaustion and tears and aching gratitude for him, "yes, if we weren't in the shadow-cursed lands. If the rain even stops. You can stay, you, would you stay with me? For a few nights?" she tries and fails to not sound like she's begging for his company. She is so tired of being alone.
"I would love to, Tav," he says. There's a faint but audible lilt of fondness in his voice, beyond his worry for her. She's never understood why people call it butterflies, that feeling of being in love. Her organs have grown claws and are trying to fucking eject themselves out of her and she laughs, a little hysterical, and reaches blindly for him until he gets the hint and hugs her again. He smells like woodsmoke and incense and a little bit like sweat, if she's honest, but it's not as if she's any better. His shirt is soft. She's a mess. She's definitely scaring the hell out of him, but he's still here.
Gale is rubbing slow circles against her back, calming and grounding her further. She does calm down, of course she does. It's not the end of the world yet, even if her body and mind seems to think it is.
Her eyes are stinging with exhaustion. She has a headache. She isn't sure how long it's been, but it hasn't been long enough for either of them to stop shedding rainwater onto the floor.
She pulls back, and rubs at her face. "Thank you."
"Of course," he murmurs. He continues, "Tav? Will you do me a favor?"
"Depends on the favor," she mutters. He knows that she means yes.
"Look at me?"
"Don't tell me that that's the favor."
He laughs, a quiet exhale. "I'm afraid I'm asking for two favors, then."
Tav looks at him, maybe for the first time since she came into his tent. She's self-aware enough to know that she's glaring at him. She tries to cool it, a little, and actually looks.
Her first thought is that he looks like a drowned cat. Be nice, Tav. There's a tightness around his eyes, but he's smiling a little, too.
He's always carried a tender sort of weariness with him. It's not like Tav is the only one of their party that extends their care to the others; they all do, in their own ways, both loud and quiet depending on the person and the day. Shadowheart is perfunctory but generous with her healing spells. Karlach throws herself between her companions and the enemy without a thought for her own safety. Astarion pretends not to care, but his eyes are sharp and his daggers are sharper. He's quick to pinpoint threats and to strike them down, and then he fades into the shadows as if to pretend that he didn't do anything at all.
Gale is prone to gift-giving, or moreso insisting that his companions have nice things. Lae'zel had found and then abandoned a beaded necklace, once, but not before she had spent fifteen minutes fidgeting with it. Tav had watched Gale pick it up from the ground and put it in his pocket, and then it reappeared around Lae'zel's neck the next day. He always offers the best of dinner to whoever got hit the hardest that day. He doesn't sleep well, so he keeps the fold of his tent open until he's sure that he's going to bed. He wants company as badly as Tav does, he's just better at showing it.
"There you are," he murmurs. She lets him press his hand against her cheek; she leans into it, weary.
"What's your favor?" she asks.
His smile grows. "You are as focused as always, darling."
Darling. She likes that. She waits. He takes his time, takes a moment to tuck her hair behind her ears, to just look at her. His undivided attention is- overwhelming. She starts to look away and is caught by a barely-there push of his hand, keeping her in place, but only if she allows it.
"Tav," he says her name, soft like a prayer.
"Gale."
"Give me a moment. I'm trying to put it into words." He sighs. "You're overwhelmed, Tav. You're right, you know. You're leading this troupe. It's a lot of responsibility. You didn't ask for this."
She feels her expression crumble at his words. He's right. She didn't ask for it.
"I'm alright with it," she tells him. "I am. Truly."
"I know. And, Tav, you're good at it. There is a reason that you always take point. We trust you."
She nods, she knows that. She can't look at him. But she doesn't turn her face away, at least, as her eyes flick to some unfocused point over his shoulder.
"This rain is horrible," he says, apropos of nothing. "Tomorrow is going to be miserable even if it stops by then. You're careful to ensure that everyone gets a day or two off in a row, but you don't do the same, and you need it."
"Don't tell me that your favor is to ask me to take a day off," she rasps.
"Ten minutes ago, you-" he begins, indignant.
"Alright," she backtracks.
"Let me talk," he snaps, with a sharp edge to his voice.
Tav doesn't think that she's ever seen anyone get angry with the force of their concern for her. She goes quiet and sort of blinks owlishly up at him. He's, oh, two inches taller than her. Not much. She's not sure why she's thinking about that- it's just an observation. He's taller than her, she likes it, he's upset and she's upset and she needs to focus on that. Gods, she's losing her fucking mind.
She loves him. She loves him. She loves him.
"Tav," he says, low, "I love you. I am worried about you. Half the camp is going to be worried about you, tomorrow, and it's going to spread to the other half. Take a day. Sleep in. Dance with Wyll, spar with Lae'zel, let Astarion throw rocks at you for a change-" she chokes out a laugh and tilts towards him until her head is back on his shoulder. He wraps his arms around her waist and sways the both of them back and forth. She closes her eyes, listens him talk. "I know that we don't have all the time in the world," he says, softer. "But our best chance at getting it is by pacing ourselves. You're our leader, but you're our friend, too. I love you. I'd like to not have to watch you cry like that again. I very much want to not see you stand out in the rain to, to try to calm yourself down. It's not the worst way of coping, but you- you were cold. I'm glad that I was there, I always want to be with you when you're upset, but it was hard to watch." His voice is shaking. "I'm scared, too, love, just as much as you are. But we can make this easier on each other."
She nods. He sighs and presses his cheek against the side of her head. "Alright," she says. "I'll take a day. I will. But it's your fault if I get bored."
"I think I'll be able to find ways to keep you occupied," he deadpans.
"Oh, do tell."
"That would ruin the surprise."
"Gale."
"Tav."
"Is it books or sex."
He laughs. "That depends on you, love."
Tav hums, considering. There's a nice vee in his shirt. She scratches lightly at what hair she can reach, just for the sake of touching him, as she crafts an answer to a question that she doesn't need to answer right now.
She breathes in. "You know, I found a manual on ice-worm hunting, I thought-"
"It's sex," he interrupts, bright and excited as if he's just had a brilliant idea, and she dissolves into giggles.
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