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Astarion is running.
He has been running ever since the words ‘Calamity of Waterdeep’ left that tavern patron’s mouth, back in Athkatla. How long ago was that? Half a night at least, and however much of the day has passed by now. That would make it, oh, four days now since the last time he fed? And all that exertion only accelerates the spending of his energy, the growing of his hunger.
Yet still he keeps running, aware that in a city he never visited before today, a pitiless clock is counting down to an end he refuses to acknowledge.
After Astarion bolted from the tavern, a Zhent smuggler sold him a portal connection from Athkatla to a graveyard in Waterdeep. From there, Astarion dashed through brightly-lit and crowded nighttime streets, fighting against the panicked flow of people to make his way to the Dock Ward.
“If you’re ever in the city,” Gale had said, handing him a piece of paper with an address scribbled on it. “I’ll admit the location is not exactly the most refined, but the view more than makes up for it.”
Astarion may have memorized that address, terrified he might lose it.
He never considered the location itself might be lost.
Barely into the Ward, it was as if a line had been drawn. On one side, moss between the cobblestones, flowers in pots on windowsills.
On the other side, death. The moss turned black and brittle. The flowers hung dried and brown in their pots. And between the houses, bodies. Deathly pale, sprawled wherever they had fallen, not a mark on them that Astarion could see. Not a drop of blood had been spilled, except where someone had hit their head on the cobblestones.
Further on, a greenish, glowing barrier crossed the street and domed over the houses beyond, a field of pure magic energy. A clump of people stood before it, shuffling their feet in the way of men helpless to do anything else. Behind the barrier, barely visible, even more bodies lay.
“Don't touch it!” someone yelled at him as he jerked to a stop. “Sucks the life right out of you, it does. Got poor Mikkel when he tried to get to his wife.”
“So, what, everyone is just… dead?” Astarion asked.
When he'd first heard about the calamity, he’d felt fear. Insidious and smothering, nauseating as it gnawed its way through his body.
But there, in front of that glowing barrier, gaze skittering from one lifeless body to the next, that fear spiked into panic, sending bloody bile up his throat.
Those people couldn't be dead. They weren't allowed to be dead.
If they were dead, one man in particular was also dead, and that man was absolutely forbidden from being dead.
“Plants in there are still alive,” one of the men, a human in a truly hideous red shirt, pointed out. “So maybe so’re they. Might be the curtain kills them as it touches them.”
“How far does this go?” Astarion demanded.
“Seems to be a perfect circle. Started out just brushing up against Mirt’s Mansion, I think.” Red Shirt shrugged.
“Shrunk since then, though,” another human butted in, this one wearing a blindingly orange scarf around his neck.
“What about Sail Street?” Astarion made himself ask. “Would that be in or outside of the circle?”
“What, Mage’s Row?” Red Shirt scratched his head. “Dunno, should be about… half in, half out?”
“Would've been all the way inside the circle, though,” Scarf added.
“Corner of Sea Lion Street,” Astarion pressed. “In or out?”
“In,” both men answered without hesitation.
Astarion pretended his knees didn't go a little weak at that information.
“Dunno how long, though,” Scarf added, and Astarion fought down the urge to throttle the man.
“Fucking magic,” an elf muttered somewhere off to the side. “Shouldn't be allowed.”
“Should be a way for people to shut it off,” someone agreed.
Shut it off.
Astarion spun around to the barrier, hand already reaching for one of his favorite daggers. The men around him flinched back as he pulled it from its sheath, the metal glittering oddly in the barrier's sickly-green light. A slim blade, forged in fires lit with sussur bark.
The anti-magical dagger slid through the barrier like a knife through fabric. The magic parted with a crackling sound, but when Astarion tried to widen the cut enough to step through, the barrier closed behind the blade without leaving a seam.
“What is that?” Red shirt asked.
“An idea,” Astarion said and turned away.
As he ran back towards the graveyard and its portal, someone behind him asked, “Didn’t that fellow look like a vampire, though?”
No matter. Astarion had a plan now, and running with the flow of the crowd was faster than against it.
Even so, by the time he reached the graveyard, the first rays of sunlight were gilding the scattered clouds above him. He slapped his hand against the portal.
“Myconid colony,” he snapped.
The gateway opened and he all but dove into it.
On the other side, spongy mushroom towers taller than most houses in the Lower City rose around him, filling the air with an earthy autumn scent. Myconids of all sizes went about their business between the growth, barely paying him any attention.
“Life-Chanter,” a guard greeted him as he sprinted through the entrance to the colony and out into the cavernous depths of the Underdark.
The air around him was cold, damp, carrying a myriad of smells. One of them, unfortunately, was that of old blood. Saliva shot into Astarion's mouth: preparation for a bite that would not follow.
Gods, he was hungry.
Following a half-remembered path, he ran. Glowing crystals and mushrooms spread just enough light for him to orient himself in the gloom.
A lone acid blob accosted him and he dispatched it with ease.
A trio of phase spiders gave him a harder fight, but he managed, largely because he was better at not being where he’d stood just a moment ago than they were.
There was no way he was going to take on the bulette that tunneled towards him, though. He clambered onto a rock as silently as he could and crouched there, unmoving, nauseous with hunger and worry, for the eternity it took for the damn thing to move on.
Finally, the sussur tree rose into view. Luminous blue veins marbled the ancient wood, leaves shining more brightly than anything in its vicinity.
It stood like a beacon.
A beacon that had attracted a minotaur.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Astarion muttered, and leapt.
The beast reeked of blood and fur. It bellowed its rage as Astarion went for its vital points with his blades. He was faster, but it had the advantage of greater strength and reach.
He needed to be quick about this. To slash here and stab there and bring the fucker down already.
He wanted to bite it. He wanted to bite it so badly, he could cry from frustration. He ached to satiate that screaming hunger by sinking his teeth into the creature’s neck and drinking and drinking until he was full.
There was no time. That gods-damned countdown kept ticking at the back of his mind, made worse by not knowing the exact deadline.
He had to get back to Waterdeep.
With a snarl, Astarion drove his dagger deep into the minotaur’s neck, hot blood spurting over his hand as he pulled back the blade. The minotaur collapsed into the dirt and bleated out its final protest. Astarion was moving on before it was fully dead.
Its blood would feed the tree’s roots instead of him.
Maybe the tree was grateful to him. Maybe it wanted to show its thanks. Maybe it was just sheer dumb luck. Whatever the reason, a few feet away, on a root that grew straight up to connect to a branch, a single flower bloomed right at eye level.
It tinkled and shone, its odd anti-magical field falling over Astarion as he plucked it from the bark.
He had it. For once, his luck held and he had it.
And now he's running again, back towards the Myconid colony, licking blood off one hand like a madman and clutching the sussur flower in the other. The blood is hardly enough to sustain him for long, only a drop when what he needs is a bucket, but he imagines his body puts out a burst of speed anyway.
A hook horror chitters in the darkness ahead. Astarion bares his teeth and hisses, dares it to try and stop him. It withdraws.
Good.
He makes it back to the Myconids without any further encounters.
“Life-Chanter,” a guard – the same one? – greets him as he rushes into the colony. Another one hums and puffs out a small cloud of spores, conveying a faint feeling of welcome. Astarion ignores them both.
He’s made it all the way back to the portal, about to slap his hand on the sigil and state his destination, when thankfully his brain catches up to him and he hesitates.
How much time has passed since he came down here?
Is he about to step straight into the afternoon sunshine, nothing left of him but a peculiar flower and a cloud of cinders on the wind?
Does the magic portal even work when he’s holding a fucking anti-magical flower?
“You seem dismayed, my friend,” a voice says behind him. “Is it a matter in which I might assist you?”
He turns.
The hobgoblin scholar – Blarg? – from the Society of Brilliance gives him a friendly smile.
“I…” Astarion hesitates, before he decides to go against his every instinct and simply trust in someone's good intentions. “I need to know what time of day it is.”
“Ah, yes. The insidious properties of sunlight when applied to a vampire.” Blarg – no, Blurg, right? – chuckles. “Not to worry.”
He turns to a passing Myconid and frowns in apparent concentration. Through the faint connection of the spores that saturate the colony, Astarion picks out a general air of inquiry, a sense of daylight and a breeze pushing its gentle way through grass.
The Myconid hums and sends back… something. Water dripping on a clump of fungi, nestled in the dark. Whatever the hells that means.
“It says it has been about twenty minutes since the sun has set.”
What the… He can’t have spent a whole day down here, surely.
“How could it possibly know that?” Astarion asks.
“The spores can tell,” Blurg says with a serene expression, like that explains anything.
Gods, he misses Gale’s tendency to throw around more details than anyone could possibly want. He misses the way that even sentences stuffed to the brim with multisyllabic words somehow still made sense.
He misses… Gale.
Astarion pulls in a sharp breath. No dwelling on that now.
“Thank you,” he says, for once sincere.
“Whatever your endeavor,” Blurg says, “I wish you success.”
Astarion nods and puts his hand on the portal sigil.
“Waterdeep,” he says, praying to all the gods he knows that the magic which powers the portals is different from whatever the sussur flower so happily disrupts.
It is.
The darkened graveyard stretches before him, shadows already deepening in anticipation of true night.
Astarion lets out a breath and resumes running, through the fading dusk towards the Dock Ward, towards the barrier.
Towards Gale, for better or worse.
The streets are empty of people now, barely lit. Somewhere on the far side of the barrier, purple light spreads briefly across the dome and dissipates, a booming sound following a moment later. Mages trying to break through, probably. He wishes them luck.
Astarion's feet carry him down a main road, then along a smaller alley and finally toward the greenish wall of magic. It has moved inward since this morning, leaving more bodies and dead flora behind. Grim-faced people are silently collecting the corpses, barely sparing him a glance as he barrels past them.
When he finally reaches the barrier, it seems the same clump of people is gathered before, following its retreat with horrified determination. Bearing witness.
“Sail Street,” Astarion huffs out, because while he may be dead, his body never learned that breathlessness is not an intrinsic part of running. “Corner of-”
“Sea Lion, yeah.” Red Shirt is leaning against a wall across the street from something called The Metal House of Wonders, pale face drawn. “Still in, probably.”
“Cutting it close, though,” Scarf adds. He, too, looks tired.
“What's that?” Red Shirt asks, pointing at the flower in Astarion's grip.
He doesn't owe them any explanation. Still, they did try to help him.
“It's a sussur flower,” he says as he steps up to the barrier. “It dispels magic.”
With more confidence than he feels, he holds out the bloom.
The magic fizzles and parts before it like a pair of curtains. The small crowd of people gasps.
Astarion had hope the dome might collapse entirely. This will have to be enough, then.
Holding the sussur flower over his head like an anti-magical umbrella, he steps through the barrier.
On the other side, silence spreads thick like a shroud. People, animals, all lying motionless where they fell, suspended in time. Not a single voice or bark or cockadoodledoo rings out.
That is, until Red Shirt shouts, “Are they alive?” needlessly loud considering Astarion stands only a few feet from him. “Please, are they-”
Astarion crouches beside the closest fallen body, a dragonborn in sailors’ clothes. They don't feel cold to the touch, and when he holds his hand in front of their nose, warm air puffs against it.
He has to close his eyes for a moment, almost swaying from the sudden rush of hope.
“Alive,” he says, and ignores the relieved sighs behind him as he gets back up and starts running again. He's certain that whatever caused this, it will be right in the center of the dome. A center that should be no more than a handful of streets away.
In his wake, someone asks, sounding almost awed, “But seriously, weren’t that a vampire?”
“Shush.”
A different voice, thoughtful, says, “Looked hungry, though.”
“Shush.”
The voices fade as Astarion dashes down the road. He takes a left and then a right, and finds himself in a warren of smaller streets and alleys. Houses cluster around him like they’re huddling for warmth. There’s no trace of anyone or anything that might have caused the calamity.
“Shit,” he says.
Takes another left. Another right.
More houses.
Even narrower streets.
“Oh, fuck this,” he sneers and clambers onto the nearest canopy.
From there, it’s only a short jump to a tiny balcony and a quick climb up onto the roof. Around him, the Dock Ward spreads out like a silent maze. Some of the other houses are higher than this one, but he can see the barrier well enough, eating its slow way through to the heart of the calamity.
And there, about three more houses away, a sickly green glow lights up the walls of the surrounding buildings at street-level.
That has to be it.
He sprints across the roofs until he reaches a broader thoroughfare. There, he climbs down and makes his way between tieflings and dragonborn, humans and elves. So many of them. The calamity must have hit some time in the early evening.
He finds her in front of what looks to be a lowbrow theater. A slip of a girl, tiefling, barely out of her teenage years. She’s stretching one hand up towards the roof of the barrier, green energy manifesting a few feet over her head to pulse down into her body.
Her skin is glowing. So are her eyes when she opens them to look at him.
She’s crying.
‘What are you doing?’ he wants to yell at her. ‘What the fuck are you doing?’
“Why?” is what comes out in the end.
Not that it matters. Not really. But he wasn’t expecting someone so young as the root of all this. She’s practically a child.
“They think they’re better than us!” Her voice sounds cracked, reedy. As thin as her slight frame. “They let us die and spend their coin on whores and think they’re better than us!”
“The mages?”
“Everyone!” She cries harder, but her outstretched hand remains steady. “But I can bring them back! My family. My friends. I can bring them all back!”
“Don’t be naive,” he snaps. “You don’t make that kind of deal without paying double and triple for it.”
“I’m not paying!” she snarls. “They are! I just need one more little bit and it will all be done!”
“Your one more little bit is my friend!”
She might already have him. Who knows how far the barrier still spreads? Astarion might have been running to save a dead man.
“I don’t care,” she says. Her hand is shaking now.
“Listen… girl.” Astarion makes his voice as soothing as he can, which admittedly isn’t very much right now. “You refuse to accept a world without your family. I respect that.” He does. She’s taking back what’s hers, and damn the costs. “But we are not going to live in a world in which I’ve let you kill my friend.”
That’s what it comes down to: there simply is no way he’s going to allow this. Let her kill half of Waterdeep; he doesn’t care. But the corner of Sail Street and Sea Lion Street lies within her little circle of death.
He will not accept that.
“Sounds like an impasse.” She lifts her chin and stares him down. It’s a brave gesture, but he can tell she knows what’s coming.
“Can you drop the spell?” he asks her anyway. One last chance for her to step away. To try again in a city he doesn’t have to give a shit about.
She laughs. “Even if I could, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t.”
“Then I’m sorry,” he tells her, and means it.
She gives him a wobbly smile.
“I’m not.”
The sussur knife slips into her in one smooth, gentle stroke. She coughs. The glow in her eyes dims.
She’s dead before she hits the ground. It’s the one kindness he can give her.
Above him, the gleam of the barrier dome dissipates.
It’s done.
He leaves the sussur flower on her corpse. It seems like the fitting thing to do.
Then he turns from her, ignores the smell of blood and the first stirrings of the people lying around him.
Has he ever known anything but hunger? He’s sure he must have, but it’s hard to remember right now.
He squeezes himself through a narrow opening between two buildings. People are starting to raise their heads and make sounds of confusion. He turns right. Someone’s already staggered to their feet, reaching down to help someone else. He takes another right. The sounds around him pick up, more and more people rising, talking, shouting.
Astarion presses on, makes eye contact with a human who looks to be somewhat lucid.
“What street is this?”
“Sail Street,” they reply.
“Sea Lion?”
“No,” the human says, drawing out the syllable, “Sail-”
“That way,” a gnome woman breaks in, pointing to Astarions right as she uses her other hand to slap the human’s leg.
The human yelps. “What? What’d I do?”
For the last time that night, Astarion runs.
He passes more buildings. More people. They all blur together as he runs, mouth dry, feet pounding on the cobblestones. He shoots past an intersection. Two.
And there, staggering through the front door of a grandiose house that is in no way a tower, but is almost entirely covered in dead ivy-
“Astarion?”
The relief is so vast, Astarion lets himself collapse right into it. Simply drops to the ground, knees turned wobbly, legs refusing to carry him even one more step.
“Gods,” he breathes, sitting in the middle of the street and feeling oddly detached from his body. “Fucking hells.”
“Astarion, are you all right?”
Gale rushes over. He looks uncharacteristically frazzled.
He looks delicious.
Shit.
“Don’t touch me!” Astarion snaps when Gale reaches out.
The hunger is surging again, greedy and grasping, refusing to be tamped down. It didn't use to be this hard to control, especially when all he's done all day is run. He never struggled like this under Cazador.
Then again, under Cazador, he never knew what it was like to be full.
“Apologies,” Gale says and takes a step back. “I did not intend to…”
He clears his throat.
“Say, did you notice all these dead plants?” he asks in a blatantly casual tone, clearly inquiring more to distract Astarion than because he's interested in what he's seeing. “This whole area almost looks like it was overtaken by the shadow curse.”
He pauses, his mind working despite himself to puzzle out what happened. Astarion sits and breathes deeply, tries desperately to keep himself grounded as he watches Gale’s brows furrow.
“Modified, of course,” Gale mutters, “and obviously not cast by a god, otherwise we certainly wouldn’t be seeing so many survivors stumbling around. But judging from the affected area I see here, the curse still must have been quite strong. It would have been designed to draw the life force from everything it touched and funnel it to a single recipient. With an infusion of that magnitude, why, you could rival the gods for sheer power.”
He breaks off, mouth dropping open with obvious outrage as he makes the connection.
“Hold on. Did somebody cast a modified shadow curse to try and ascend to godhood? In the middle of Waterdeep?!”
“Don't worry about it, darling,” Astarions bites out, trying for an airy tone of voice and hitting strained instead. “I killed her.”
His hunger is snarling at him to gorge himself on all those walking blood bags yammering on around him. Rip them open, empty them out, let their corpses drop to the-
No.
“That is not what I'm worrying about.” And of course Gale can tell that Astarion is about a minute away from losing it. “How are you faring?”
“Starving,” Astarion replies shortly. “Don't touch me.”
“I-”
“Sir? Uh.”
Someone is approaching the spot where Astarion still sits in the street, dragging their steps like they'd rather be anywhere else. Astarion and Gale both turn their heads to look. It's Red Shirt, from the edge of the barrier. A whole gaggle of children of various sizes and genders is clustered behind him, two of the littler ones clinging to his legs.
“Mister Vampire, sir?” he asks meekly, shuffling closer. Two fat rabbits, so freshly killed their limbs are still twitching, dangle from his fist. “Are you, uh. You look. Hungry?”
He holds out the rabbits.
Astarion snatches the closer one before the man can even think to flinch away and rams his teeth into it. Warm blood explodes into his mouth and he groans, sucking it out in hard and fast gulps. It spreads through him like liquid relief, soothing the horrible ache inside him.
He drops the rabbit, looks up to grab the second one… and stops.
A little girl, grubby and with tear-stained cheeks, stands maybe two feet from him, staring at him open-mouthed. She's clutching the other rabbit with both tiny fists, arms visibly straining with the weight.
Wordlessly, she holds out the rabbit. He takes it from her as gently as he can, conscious of her continued stare as he stabs his teeth into the animal and drinks.
Awkward.
Her…father?... puts a tender hand on her shoulder and draws her back. She keeps her wide-eyed gaze on Astarion as she's pulled up and into Red Shirt’s arms. Red Shirt nods at Astarion and walks away, herding his kids in front of him.
Astarion lets the second rabbit fall down next to the first one. He's still hungry, but it's more of a background noise now.
“Did I just feed on someone’s pets?” he asks, wiping at his chin although he knows he didn't spill any blood. Not this time, at least.
Gale chuckles.
“My friend, you saved a significant part of the Dock Ward at the very least, not to mention whatever other havoc might have been wrought if not for you. I suspect people here will be glad to feed you their unloved uncle if you require sustenance.”
‘My friend.’ Of course.
That’s what he told the girl, too, wasn’t it? That he did all this for his friend.
He didn't see Shadowheart rush in to help, though, did he. Or Halsin. Or any of the others.
Friends.
Astarion sighs, folds his arms across his knees and then drops his head to rest on his forearms. Anything for a moment of rest.
Anything to avoid looking at Gale.
For some reason, he feels… unsteady.
Something is bugging him, though. One question he suspects he very much doesn’t want to hear the answer to, but feels a perverse need to ask anyway.
He looks up again, meets Gale’s concerned gaze.
“Not that I care, you understand. But merely out of curiosity, darling,” Astarion braces himself, “where were you in that ‘tower’ of yours?”
“Ah.” Gale pulls a face. “Had you ventured inside my humble abode, you would have found me at a desk right underneath yonder window.”
He points. The window in question sits on the third floor, not a foot away from the line between luscious green and brittle brown ivy.
Astarion puts his head back on his arms and breathes.
There’s a rustling sound in front of him, then Gale’s voice again, sounding closer.
“Astarion…” He hesitates. “Are you all right? Truly?”
Astarion just hums in something like affirmation.
He’s exhausted. His feet ache. He’s got cuts and bruises all over. He wants to lie down in some dark corner and not get up again for at least a week.
Truly, he feels like shit.
But if he had arrived only a little later… If at any point, he had been just a little slower…
No matter. He wasn’t late. He’s here, and Gale’s here, so he’s good.
It’s all good.
“I suppose we all are very lucky that you were nearby,” Gale says, sounding oddly hesitant.
Astarion snorts into his arms.
“I was in fucking Athkatla,” he says. It comes out muffled, but who cares.
Silence.
Silence that stretches, undisturbed, and that is so unheard of that Astarion has to look up.
Gale is kneeling in the dirt in front of him, hands on his thighs, like that’s a normal thing for a wizard to do. He’s grinning, the loon, like someone just handed him a rare tome of magic and told him to just keep it, actually, and would he like another one?
“What-” Astarion begins, but Gale talks right over him.
“You,” he says, and gods help him but Astarion has missed that smug little note of ah-hah! in his voice, “came here to rescue me!”
“I,” Astarion sniffs, “came here to save the illustrious and noble city of Waterdeep. Anticipating a generous reward, naturally.”
“You're here for me,” Gale insists, still grinning. His eyes are shining.
He looks so fucking radiant, it makes Astarion want to stab something.
“I’m here for the money,” he says, perhaps more harshly than he meant to.
Gale’s grin fades, turns uncertain. Somehow, this is the opposite of what Astarion wants.
He lets out a long-suffering sigh.
“All right, fine. Yes,” he says, studying the sky so he doesn’t have to look at Gale, “I did indeed come here for you, oh mighty wizard. Of course I came here for you.” He snorts. “What do I care about Waterdeep?”
Gale doesn’t reply.
Astarion stops his contemplation of the Waterdhavian night sky to risk a glance.
Gale is watching him. The grin is gone, replaced by a small smile that is so openly fond, it almost hurts to look at.
“Can we get up now?” he asks. “Loath though I am to admit it, these cobblestones are not acting very kindly towards my knees.”
Astarion makes a little tsking noise with his tongue, just to be annoying.
“What do I care about your knees?” he grouses, but fine.
He gets up, wincing as he puts his weight back on his aching feet.
The people around them have started to cluster together, speculating loudly about the events of the night. They don’t yet seem to have realized that an entire day has passed them by. Astarion is sort of looking forward to the dismay.
After he’s had a healing potion. Or twelve.
“May I touch you now?” Gale asks.
“What?”
Astarion’s attention snaps back to Gale.
Did he miss something? Why are they suddenly talking about touching?
“Is your hunger still likely to react poorly to physical contact?” Gale insists.
“No, I’m…” What an absurd conversation to have in the middle of the street. “You may touch me.”
He doesn’t get what’s going to happen as Gale steps forward. He still doesn’t get it when Gale opens his arms.
His mind seems frozen, even as those arms close around him and pull him into a hug.
“Thank you,” Gale murmurs.
His chest is rising and falling against Astarion’s. They’re so close, Astarion can feel Gale’s heart beating, hard and fast and so beautifully alive.
Astarion brings his own arms up, hesitates.
He can hear Gale breathing.
Astarion wraps his arms around Gale. Lets his hands find their place on Gale’s back. Allows himself to just… hold him.
The warmth of him. The smell of him. The softness of his hair as Astarion digs his nose into it and breathes in deeply. The quiet little hum as Gale’s grip around him tightens. The utter peace that invites Astarion to let himself sink into it.
The line of dead ivy, far too close to that gods-damned window.
”I just need one last little bit!”
She would have drained him dry. A whole world without Gale in it.
Astarion closes his eyes, allows his chin to rest on Gale’s shoulder, and breathes with him.
He doesn’t know how long they stand like that. Time seems to lose its grip on them entirely.
Eventually, though, they pull apart.
Gale is still smiling.
Astarion doesn’t know where to look.
“Would you like to come inside?” Gale asks. “I don’t know when exactly sunrise will be upon us, but if it’s all the same to you, I would prefer not to take the risk.”
“After you, darling,” Astarion says with a smile that is almost entirely sincere.
Gale’s own expression turns into something a little more wry, like he’s perfectly aware that Astarion is falling back on his default flirtation rather than allow himself to face his emotions, but he doesn’t comment.
Gale leads them to the door of his ‘tower’ – it’s a townhouse that’s put on airs – and gestures grandly at the inside.
“You are invited to enter my tower, my vampiric friend,” he declares. “Now and at any time.”
Astarion gives him a look as he steps past. There’s no need to be so formal. It’s just a-
Then he sees the interior, and stops short.
Takes a step back outside and looks up the facade to make sure he remembers it correctly.
“At your own pace,” Gale says. He’s grinning again.
Astarion steps over the threshold for a second time.
The room he finds before him is… not entirely unexpected. Comfortably arranged, with side tables and plush chairs that look incredibly inviting, several bookcases and a variety of lamps. Not messy, but cluttered in a way that makes it look lived in. Very homey. Very Gale.
However, the room also stretches out significantly farther to either side than the house would suggest from the outside. Carpets cover the floor, but Astarion still spots the slight distortions here and there that signify magical traps. Two staircases lead to different floors higher up; an ornate desk strewn with correspondence stands proudly near the middle of the room; two large picture windows on either side show living landscapes in seasons completely unlike Waterdeep’s right now.
The sight is honestly impressive.
Like a proper mage’s tower.
By now, Gale's grin is outright smug.
“Welcome to my home,” he says pompously, but with a gratifying undertone of sincerity.
“I’ll admit it,” Astarion says, tilting his head back to inspect a giant chandelier that seems to be hanging from thin air. “I’m impressed.”
Gale laughs.
“I’m glad to hear it,” he says.
He probably means it, too.
Gale closes the front door and walks past Astarion like he does it every day. Like he’s perfectly comfortable with Astarion in his space.
Like Astarion could have come here any time and found himself welcome.
It's been months since they last saw each other at Withers' demented garden party. Why has it taken him so long to come here?
“Let me send a note to my favorite butcher,” Gale says, picking up a quill and flipping through the papers on the desk, presumably to find a blank one. “I don't know if he will have any blood to spare for you right away, but surely some sort of animal will end up on his block sooner rather than later. Oh, and don’t mind the traps. They won’t activate for you.”
“Uh.” Astarion gropes for something to say to that insane declaration. “Thank you.” He stands there, watching Gale pause to read a particular sheet of paper before putting it back down with a scoff. “I appreciate the thought, but there's no need to trouble yourself.”
He can just hunt something later. This close to the docks, there has to be an abundance of rats, much as he detests them.
Or maybe he'll find someone’s unloved uncle.
“You're still hungry, aren't you?”
“Yes, but-”
“Then there is a need,” Gale says firmly.
He finally finds a blank scrap of parchment and hums in satisfaction, completely oblivious to the fireball he just casually hurled into Astarion’s world view. In Gale’s mind, Astarion is hungry and so Astarion must be fed. Easy as that. Like it hasn’t been centuries since the last time someone went out of their way to give Astarion anything, simply because they think he needs it.
He’s not sure anyone ever has.
“I don't know what I would have done.” It’s out of his mouth before he realizes he’s going to speak.
“Hm?” Gale asks, distracted, scribbling his little note to his favorite butcher. Because Astarion is hungry.
“If you’d-” Astarion breaks off. Starts again. “If she had succeeded. With her plan. I don't know what I would have done.”
Gale’s writing slows. Stops. He stares blankly at the paper under his fingers, his breath stuttering in and out of him. Then he swallows and turns towards Astarion. His expression is… devastated.
“Astarion,” he says. Almost seems to choke on the name.
And Astarion knows that this is going to go poorly. Worse, he knows that Gale is going to be kind about it all, when that is the last thing Astarion wants him to be.
But now that he’s started talking, it’s like something inside him cracked open and all the words are spilling out. He can’t stop them, needs to say them. Maybe he even deserves to say them, for once completely unfiltered, unrehearsed.
Maybe Gale deserves to hear them.
“I… care,” Astarion says, and ignores the way Gale seems to have stopped breathing. “About you. More than I wanted to. You with your,” he waves a hand to encompass Gale’s… Galeness, “your oversharing of the most boring information in the world, and your need to dissect anything down to its parts, and that disgusting little habit of throwing yourself in harm’s way for perfect strangers without even securing a reward first.”
Gale huffs out a laugh, but it sounds strangled. He’s blinking fast.
“I…” Astarion runs a hand through his hair, frustrated at his sudden lack of vocabulary. “I don't know what exactly it is that I… feel… for you,” he finally settles on. “But I do… care. And I don't know what I would have done.”
He stands, waiting, while Gale stares at him like Astarion is an envoy from his goddess who just told him that Mystra changed her mind, actually, and would he mind blowing himself up after all? There’s a good boy. He looks shocked, like for once that prided intellect of his is having trouble processing.
Astarion feels for him. He can’t believe he just said all that, either.
An eternity ticks by. Then another one.
Finally, Gale straightens and takes a step forward. Towards Astarion.
“May I touch you again?” he asks. His voice sounds wrecked.
Astarion nods. His throat is so tight, he couldn’t get any words out if he tried.
See, he knew that Gale would be kind, perhaps unbearably so. In a moment or two, once they’ve both regained a smidgeon of their composure, Gale will give him a pretty speech about how he’s flattered, he really is, but how his interest lies in a different, more divine direction. How he values Astarion’s friendship. How of course Astarion is still welcome here, in Gale’s home, spreading his things across Gale’s guest bedroom and drinking fresh blood delivered by Gale’s favorite butcher.
Gale will give his speech and Astarion will smile and accept the room and the blood and whatever else Gale might think to give him, and tomorrow night Astarion will leave and never, ever, set a single foot inside the city of Waterdeep again.
Maybe Gale has the right of it. Maybe one more hug is exactly what they need.
And so Astarion waits, for the hug and the speech and the strained silence that is sure to follow.
He doesn't move away when Gale steps closer.
Doesn't flinch when Gale's warm hand reaches out to cup his cheek.
Holds himself stock still as Gale leans in and-
And-
Oh.
Oh.
Oh, this is ridiculous.
Astarion's body sways into the kiss like it has been yearning for it, which it most assuredly has not. His hands come up on their own accord to settle on Gale’s waist like they belong there, which they do not. Probably. Or maybe they do. Who even understands what's going on anymore. Astarion sure doesn't.
Gale sighs, his lips warm and soft on Astarion’s own. One of his hands still rests on Astarion’s cheek, the other landing cautiously on the small of Astarion’s back. Not pressing, just holding. They kiss, and kiss again, gentle little brushes so sweet, Astarion aches with the longing for just another one, just one more, please.
One more.
Later, he will be embarrassed about the protesting noise that shivers out of his throat when Gale tries to pull away. Right now, it gets him Gale’s smile branded to the corner of his mouth, where Astarion will keep it forever like the greedy thing he is.
Gale does step back eventually. Withdraws his hands and his lips and gives Astarion a space to himself that he couldn’t want less.
Astarion doesn’t follow him, though, because while Gale’s smile is warm and fond, it’s also inexplicably sad.
“I have missed you every day,” Gale says.
Astarion can’t help himself: he scoffs.
“Darling, do be serious.”
He believes it, though, is the thing. But the idea is so huge, so incredible, that his mind skitters away from the sheer, staggering magnitude of it.
Gale breathes out what could have been a tiny laugh, but isn’t.
“When we were traveling, all of us,” he says, “the last thing I expected, the last thing I wanted, was to fall for someone. After Mystra and how things ended with her, I didn’t think I would live long enough to even desire another person upon whom to bestow my affections. And I was fine with that, quite frankly. At least, I thought I was.”
He holds Astarion’s gaze, achingly sincere.
“I thought I was, until I took the time to get to know you better. Once I did, I found myself falling before I realized I had begun to stumble.”
Astarion swallows, mouth dry.
“You never said,” he croaks.
“Astarion.” Gale hesitates, visibly searches for just the right words to say what he needs to. “Of all the things I admire in you, the foremost has to be your tenacity. Your refusal to let yourself be broken by those who would see you shattered. You saw a chance to free yourself of your shackles and by the gods, you took it.” Gale sighs. “Whereas I was content to walk straight into my doom, determined only to ensure that at least my demise would serve a purpose. I am not like you. You’re indomitable, and I am… me.
“You deserve the world, my love.” He smiles, wistful and a bit forlorn. “Would that I could give it to you.”
Astarion is not going to cry. He refuses to cry, gods damn it all.
He looks up at the floating chandelier and blinks, wills the wetness from his eyes.
“But I can't,” Gale finishes. “How could I have said anything, when we are so poorly matched?”
A watery laugh escapes Astarion’s throat.
That man. That man is going to be the death of him. And Astarion will go willingly, if it means another moment shared.
Ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous.
“I don't want the world,” he says. His damn voice is shaking but he ignores it, reaching out to take Gale's hand. “I don't…” He has to clear his throat, start again. “I don't need a perfect match. I want… this.”
He brings Gale’s hand up to his lips and kisses the knuckles. Gale inhales sharply. Astarion lingers for a moment, lets his tongue flick out to trace a half-healed papercut on Gale’s finger.
So much power in this hand. So much magic, and Astarion doesn’t even care.
For once, what he cares about is the hand and not what it can do for him.
“Astarion,” Gale murmurs, his voice rough.
Astarion kisses him. Not as sweetly as he wants to, but not as hungrily as he might have, either.
For Gale, he can try to be gentle.
“I want this,” he says, and the way Gale sighs into him is intoxicating. Addictive.
If he could hear nothing but that one small noise, he would count himself lucky.
He withdraws, and this time it’s Gale who sways forward, Gale who chases after him.
Astarion pulls back a little further. Gale’s eyes flutter open, big and dark and so full of feeling that it’s almost too much. Astarion tangles their fingers together as proof that he’s not leaving, and Gale squeezes back instantly.
Astarion wants nothing more than to let himself fall back into the kiss. To stay in the foyer of Gale’s tower, kissing and kissing until he knows every nuance of Gale’s taste, knows the rhythm of Gale’s breath, knows the beat of Gale’s heart so thoroughly it might as well be his own.
But there’s something he still needs to say, if whatever is between them is to have a chance to strengthen and solidify.
“I’m not ready to be kept,” Astarion begins. “No, I know that's not what you want,” he adds when Gale opens his mouth. “To stay in one place, then. I don't know if I'll ever be ready for that.” He tries for a grin and almost manages it. “I may not want the world, but I do want to traipse around in it.”
Cazador had kept his grip so tight around Astarion, he'd all but smothered him. All but snuffed him out, mind and soul, leaving nothing but a pretty shell to steal and seduce and scream in agony, all in service to his master. For a long time, Astarion had been left with such little will of his own, he thought that Cazador had succeeded in breaking him.
And now that he is free, he needs to… to move. Away from Baldur's Gate. Away from a past that would keep him static. He needs to be beholden to no one but himself, to make his own decisions and then deal with the consequences.
No one will ever own him again or tie him down. Not unless he himself allows it.
“But,” he says when Gale’s face falls, “I would like to have somewhere to,” be safe, be seen, to rest, “to come home to. Someone. You.”
He puts his free hand on top of Gale’s to cradle it between his own.
“We fit well enough,” he says. Pleads, really. “Don't we?”
“Yes,” Gale breathes, his expression one of such familiar want, Astarion almost laughs from the joy of it. “Yes.”
How beautiful that at his core, Gale is a greedy thing as well.
They will have their arguments, of course. Gale is right, to some extent. They’re different enough to rub each other the wrong way and similar enough to find all their own faults in the other. They can bring out the worst in each other and consequences be damned, until they either find themselves in the ruins of their own making or set the world alight and watch it burn down around them.
Desperate ambition and an unchecked lust for blood are a poor match indeed.
But Gale is also wrong. They’re both scared. Both desperate for true affection. Both unwilling to give up anything they consider theirs. And they’re both just stubborn enough to puzzle out their differences and make them slot together in ways that will make them impossible to break apart.
They can do this. They are doing this.
Besides, at the very end, Gale did tell his goddess to fuck off. Twice. They're not nearly as incompatible as Gale seems to think. Astarion just needs a little time to make him see that.
“I love you.” Gale exhales the words into Astarion’s mouth, lets Astarion breathe them in.
And Astarion finally, finally, stops running.