Archive of Our Own ^beta

Sunlight was warm.

Astarion knows this, has known this for all of his years. Even when it was taken from him, he knew it as a mechanic, knew it as all the rooms paced from east to west for the first fifty years, waiting for something to finally end. 

But somewhere, he got confused. His mind got lost. Sunlight changed to warm, changed to burning, changed to free, changed to unattainable. Sunlight was not for creatures like him. It burned, a torch set to a dry field. Burning, burning all the way up.

So the first time he sees the bright light filter through the hand he brought up to shield his eyes, he expects to burn. All the rays do, though, is warm his pale skin. He turned his hand this way and that, marvelled at the feeling, and still nothing came to punish him. 

Still fanged, still pale, still hungry.

(Always, always hungry.)

Still a vampire, and judging by the lack of clouds of mists he was willing into existence, still a spawn at that. It turns out all Astarion needed to be freed was to get kidnapped and a worm put into his eye, and although the entire situation was wholly unpleasant, he couldn’t help but think it should’ve happened sooner.

The rest of the story is pretty mundane after that, really. He pulls himself to his feet and drags some weapons off some poor soul whose head is oh-so-temptingly split across a rock. Picks up a pack from a different fisher and gives a wide-ish berth to the nautiloid ship, until the sound of voices and blades hitting squishy flesh causes him to hatch a plan involving a boar, a dagger, and a pretty bard’s throat.

Despite the tentacle monster-ness of it all, it doesn’t take Astarion that long to slip into his role. With enough half-lidded gazes and suave lines, he’s sure he can get that cleric or bard - whoever ends up being the more powerful of the two - eating out of his hand. A perfectly mundane, thorough plan.

That is, until the angel shows up and Astarion’s perfect plan quickly falls apart.

He’s still basking in the feeling of the sun that day when the party approaches a swirling vortex in the middle of a rock.

“That’s not particularly a good sign,” Astarion muses.

Shadowheart hums. “I have to agree. Seems like it might be better to leave it be- Tav’s touching it.”

“Of course they are.”

The two reasonable companions keep their distance as the bard walks up to the portal, reaching out towards the upheaved void and snapping their hand back when the magic bites at them. Astarion’s about to make a witty comment about how if they wanted to get their hand in some random hole, he’s sure someone out there will help them when a different hand sticks itself out of the rock.

“Hello?” A disembodied voice calls, presumably coming from the other side of the portal. “A hand? Please?”

Tav wastes no time smacking the hand. The corner of Astarion’s mouth tugs up into a smile.

The hand reforms itself into a pointing finger. “Perhaps I should have clarified. A helping hand? Anyone?”

The bard grasps the forearm and puts their entire body into the pull. There’s some resistance from the portal. Astarion wonders for a second if this will backfire and his oh-so-dear bard is going to get sucked into the ether forever and he’ll have to find a new band of merry-wits to tag along with, when suddenly it gives.

A whirlwind of limbs and feathers emerges as a man all but flies out of the portal and lands on the ground. Astarions first thought is: angel . 

The man sits up on his knees, staring up at the party with mussed hair and a confused look in his eye. With a blink, the look melts into something more grateful. Big white wings ruffle and shake, and the man reaches over as if to steady them before pushing himself to his feet. The sight doesn’t get any less confusing as he dusts purple robes, shedding more feathers around his very nice boots.

Astarion can only appreciate the wonder of it all before a rotten stench hits him at the back of the throat. He grimaces and recoils in disgust. It’s as if bile had a distinct burntness to it, clogging the air around him and crawling down his windpipe. It takes him no time to place that the odd stench is coming from the angel. Astarion doesn’t exactly know what divine smells like, but if this is it then it’s an extra layer for him to hate the gods.

“Hello,” The angel says, stilted and thrown off kilter. “I’m Gale. Of Waterdeep. Apologies, I’m usually better at this.”

“At introductions?” Astarion asks before he can stop himself.

The angel smiles, mouth pulling up crookedly. “At magic,” He corrects.

“I would assume an angel would be,” Shadowheart says. “How did someone like you end up in a situation as you were?”

The angel’s hand falls into the same pointing gesture. “Common mistake! Unfortunately, beyond my appearance there is nothing angelic about me. A set of interesting and privileged circumstances led me to be altered in this way at the blessings of a goddess.”

“Sounds angelic enough to me,” Astarion sniffs, wondering if the stench would somehow disappear the longer he was around the man.

The man’s smile turns slightly strained. “I assure you, I am just a human.”

“With wings,” Astarion interjects.

“Yes,” His words are clipped. “With wings. Is that all?”

“But you’re obviously versed in magic,” Shadowheart points out.

“Of course!” The angel - Gale - brightens again. “Very well versed, but my skill was acquired by studies of magic, then my form was altered. Just a human. Not an angel.”

Astarion wants to poke fun more at this topic, see how long he can get the wizard to run in circles of ‘just a human, not an angel’ until he figures out Astarion is deliberately ruffling his feathers. Unfortunately, a sharp pain behind his eye quickly redirects the topic.

“I see you all were on the nautiloid ship as well,” Gale is quick to point out. “I don’t suppose any of you are healers? Clerics? Particularly well-versed with a needle?”

Shadowheart frowns. “This is beyond most clerics’ skills, I’m sure you’re aware.”

“Today is full of surprises,” The wizard says. “Who knows? I had to try my hand at the notion I was in the presence of the few. It seems I’ll have to find a healer the harder way. Are you all aware of the timer we are on? With the insertion of an illithid tadpole, a process known as ceremorphosis begins…”

Astarion tunes him out. He no longer doubts that Gale is just an oddly-equipped human; surely no divine entity could be this annoying.

He pays attention again at a spike of Gale’s excitement, wings shifting minutely. It takes him a second to piece together that his dear bard had invited the wizard into the party. Astarion can’t say that a wizard that got stuck in his own portal is a particularly good sign, but he can’t deny he’s intrigued. Judging off of the lack of reaction from the rest of the party being around Gale, only Astarion can pinpoint that disgusting scent to him, or even detect it at all. Meaning that there has to be something wrong with his blood. Whether it be by whatever had happened to the wizard to alter him so, or by something else, Astarion was determined to find out. 

Besides, the wizard could still be useful yet.

Ugh, goblins .

There’s few things Astarion despises more than mindless altruism, and yet here he is, scrambling up a rock to get a better shot at one of the little furred beasties in front of the gate to the tiefling camp.

He hits, of course, before deciding to meld into the shadows as he restrings another arrow. There’s the sound of pain, and the scent that’s been hanging in the air magnifies. A second later, Gale climbs up on the rock next to him, crossbow bolt in his shoulder.

He doesn’t see Astarion, eyes focused on the goblin leader with a focus that makes Astarion’s eyebrows raise. That odd little tattoo on his chest glows bright purple, like a warning.

Gale says something, a deep rumble in his chest that Astarion swears he can feel in the rock beneath his feet and in the sky above, and he sees the goblin leader fall before processing that an arc of blue lightning raced from Gale’s hand and connected with the being. 

Even Gale looks surprised as he drops his hands. Astarion means to spit out a witty comment, but before he can, movement from the corner of his eye demands his attention.

A small goblin manifests behind Gale, climbing up when no one was paying attention. Throwing her whole little body into it, she shoves the man from behind. Gale stumbles, arms pinwheeling for a moment, before ultimately slipping over the rock’s edge.

Astarion laughs haughtily at the goblin’s move. It takes a special brand of idiot to shove a winged creature off a ledge, especially one that just incinerated your leader. The laugh dies though as he hears the thud and groan as Gale’s body hits the ground. It wasn’t a particularly long fall, but definitely something the winged wizard could have saved himself from.

  Astarion shoots at a goblin as she wheels to face him, hearing his laugh. The goblin lets out an undignified, choked squawk before Astarion takes a page out of her book and plants his boot in her face, shoving her off the ledge as well. Glancing down, he can see Gale picking himself off the ground, just barely moving out of the way to avoid the goblin. Without missing a beat, Gale launches a stream of fire at her, effectively ending her life. He glances upwards and meets Astarion's eye. Instead of an awkward smile or a mouthed ‘thank you’ like Astarion expected, the wizard holds his gaze for a moment. Astarion doesn’t blink, and eventually the wizard looks away as a new, different man joins the fight, crying something about a blade. Gale runs over to the fray, keeping enough distance to safely lob spells at the remaining foes. 

So, for one reason or another, the angel refuses to fly.

How interesting.

“I do so enjoy our little walks together, don’t you, angel?” Astarion says afterwards as they pick their way over goblin corpses together. He despises them as much as the next person over, but a part of him can’t help but be irritated by their defacto-leader’s heroisms. They were on a particularly harsh timer, one that made it so Astarion didn’t care to waste away by doing such useless things, like saving children and refugees. 

“Uh, sure,” Gale says, glancing at him from the side. “In silence.”

Tav coughs in such a way that sounds perfectly like they are muffling a laugh, and Astarion briefly considers bringing back the art of bloodletting right here in the middle of the grove. 

“And I’m not an angel,” Gale adds on after a moment.

“Oh, I know, angel,” Astarion says, recovering as he runs a hand through his curls. “But you’re quite a force with that lightning spell of yours. I mean, you took that goblin leader down in one hit. If the shoe fits, you should wear it.”

Gale laughs, something about it uneasy. “Thank you, I suppose?”

So much for conversation.

The party treks along in silence, Astarion deciding he’s having quite a miserable time as Tav continues to pick up heroic quest after heroic quest. He’s tired, thank you very much, and covered in illithid slime, and hungry.

(Always, always hungry.)

“Right,” He says eventually as Tav begins to make their way back to the door to the emerald grove, setting out to do something like save a puppy or kitten or another child (even though he can appreciate Arabella’s gusto to snatch the idol right out from under the druid’s noses). “If I have to move another inch my feet are going to fall off, and then you lot are going to have a wonderful time having to drag and carry me everywhere, where I will complain the entire time and tell you all the ways this could have been prevented.”

“You have taken five steps since you first started that sentence,” Shadowheart says with her arms crossed and an eyebrow raised.

“And if I have to walk another five steps, I will make sure it is the entire grove’s problem,” Astarion hisses through grit teeth.

“I have to agree with Astarion,” Gale chimes in, “It’s been a long day. I could keep going if necessary but being stuck in a portal will do terrible things to one’s sleep schedule. If we could set up camp, perhaps find a nice river to rinse off in, it would be greatly appreciated on my end.”

Tav turns and stares at the lot of them, and then themselves before nodding. It is not lost on Astarion how everyone seems to deflate a little in relief.

They trek on a little further to a spot by a clear, but shallow river, and set up camp there. Before long, the sun has dipped below the horizon, and Astarion can’t help the artificial little sigh that goes with the last beam of light. The fire Tav set up crackles as Gale and the bard talk, something about going to Hell. Astarion can’t help but scoff at the irony of their not-divine friend being so interested in Hell, of the oh-so-great Gale of Waterdeep blanching at dragons and devils. 

He’s set up camp in the far corner from Tav and Gale, shocked at how well the talkative wizard and silent, stoic hero get along. Shadowheart, ultimately, had a similar idea as she kneels in front of her own tent in something like prayer or meditation. Well, Astarion’s more than fine to leave the foolishly pious at it, as long as her healing spells keep helping him in battle. For his own case, he turns a mirror this way and that in his hand, carefully angled so no one can see his lack of reflection. It appears that though this tadpole was generous enough to let him walk in the sun, seeing his face is too much for him.

With a sigh he places the mirror facedown on the floor, glancing about at his bare tent. He lets his eyes drift to Shadowheart, the way her night clothes hug her and guide the eyes to his chest. Surely there’s something he can do with the name Shadowheart, isn’t there? A line to work in his favour?

A shadow falling across his vision causes Astarion to glance over. Gale stands before him, haloed in firelight and hair tied back, damp still.

“Do you mind?” Astarion asks. “I’m brooding.”

Gale pays the dismissal no mind. “I’m sure you have questions.”

Part of Astarion wants to quip that he doesn’t, just to see the shocked look on Gale’s face. A bigger part of him wants to know what the wizard is willing to offer.

So, Astarion raises one eyebrow. “To put it lightly. Do you make these rounds with everyone in our little adventuring party?”

“No one else saw me fall,” Gale says.

“A shame, really. It was wildly entertaining,” Astarion smirks at the way Gale’s gaze hardens.

“Though I was curious,” Astarion continues, “On why our angel let himself become well acquainted with dirt. If you wanted to get hurt, darling, all you had to do was ask.”

The line goes over Gale’s head, which is probably for the better considering Astarion fed it to him more out of habit than any real interest.

“Not an angel,” Gale corrects again, “And I can’t fly.”

Curious. “Wings just for show, then?”

Gale pauses, as if debating his options. “In a sense. They were functional, once. But not anymore. That’s all I’ll say on it.”

“Oh, come on,” Astarion says. “Walking all the way over to my tent to tease me with your backstory, and then so cruelly yanking it away? Wizard, dark and mysterious isn’t a good look on you.”

Gale huffs. “I’m telling you because you were going to approach me with questions eventually, and I’d rather get it out of the way before I fall off of a taller cliff and am left with a knowing glance. I’ll tell the others as well, or they’ll figure it out on their own time. That’s all.”

Astarion straightens and for the first time really looks at his companion. To his disappointment, the wizard stands taller than him, but he’s softer and fuller than Astarion’s lithe build. Unsurprisingly more tan, hair longer than it seemed to be at first glance, with no shy amount of gray hair. Of course, there’s also the white angel wings. Though, as Astarion rakes his eyes across them, he notices they aren’t white - not completely. There’s almost some form of purple sheen or glow to them.

He also notices that the wings aren’t as full as they should be. Astarion has seen birds before, even though the more recent ones were of the nocturnal variety. He can’t say he was fond of them, but he always did envy their ability to pick themselves up and leave a situation as quick as that, completely and utterly free. In fact, he hated them for this. Gale’s feathers were wrong, even when taking into account the few he lost at the portal. They didn’t follow the sleek pattern, but stopped abruptly.

The little angel’s wings were clipped.

Gale, as if noticing that Astarion noticed, shifted as if he could hide the wings. “Right, if that will be all-”
“You came to me, angel.”

“Not an angel. Goodnight, Astarion,” Gale said. “I’ll make dinner soon.”

Astarion hums, fully intending on not being here for that.

Astarion eventually gets traded out for the Blade of Frontiers, of all people.

It does unfortunately do a blow to his ego, to get swapped with the exact antithesis of everything he is. He wouldn’t mind if it wasn’t for the clear irritation at which it was done. Astarion stumbled over some line in the sand, made one too many off-handed comments about how this was a waste of time, how they had bigger worms to extract. Tav had just pivoted to face him, pinching the bridge of their nose. They held up a hand to tell him to stop, like he was nothing but a dog , and then waved him off. As if they had the right!

“I think that means they want you to wait at camp,” Gale had said, leaning closer to Astarion as if he was simple. “We’ll travel with Wyll.”

It wasn’t as if Astarion cared about these people, nor this adventure, nor even particularly wanted to be here, but he had his pride after all these years still, dammit.

He recovers, voice dripping with sarcasm about how sad he was to have to stay behind and leave all the heavy lifting to the rest of them.

At the words ‘heavy lifting’, Tav’s eyes lit up. They placed a hand on Gale’s shoulder, and then pointed to Astarion.

The wizard’s eyes widened with shock.

“What?” Gale asked.

“What?” Astarion echoed, confused.

The bard makes more vague hand gestures, Gale’s offense only growing. Astarion wonders how they can possibly have a bard who does not say a word. A decent bard, at that.

“I…” Gale frowns. “I question the wisdom of that decision, but so be it.”

Gale turns to him. Astarion blinks at him. “How in the Hells can you understand what they’re saying?”

Gale looks confusing. “What? It’s not hard.”

“Well then, what did they say?”

“I’m,” The wizard swallows, looking as if he had just bit into a lemon. Astarion briefly toys with the idea that Gale can actually smell his own stench, but he just shakes his head and continues. “I’m going back to camp with you.”

Astarion laughs in his face. Gale scowls, but it doesn’t stop Astarion from lifting a hand to his mouth as the rest of the party continues through the grove.

“Oh,” Astarion cackles, “Oh this is perfect, angel. Just the two of us, alone at camp.”

He angles his head so his eyes can seem darker, watching as Gale processes the implications and then looks affronted, though a blush appears on him. It’s just too easy, really.

All in all, Astarion thinks he handled the situation with even more grace than his resident mage, who seemed to be in a sour mood the whole way back from camp. His hand kept pressing against his sternum, against that intriguing tattoo, and trailing up to his neck before down again in what was assumed by Astarion to be a self-soothing motion.

When they arrived at camp, the wizard fucked right off to his tent, leaving Astarion to pass the message along to Lae’zel.

“Knock, knock,” He says as he approaches her. She straightens and meets his gaze evenly. She’s very fit, intimidating. Wouldn’t be a bad target, if not for the fact Astarion isn’t totally sure she’d kill him if he propositioned her. On the other hand, it’d be nice for something to bite back.

“Speak,” Lae’zel demands before Astarion can even get another word in.

Fine with him. “Our dear bard has requested your presence. Something about finding that tiefling you so badly wanted to meet.”

Lae’zel’s eyes brighten at this, and she stands. “Finally. The sooner we head towards the crèche, the sooner we are cured.”

“Uh-huh,” Astarion answers. He didn’t buy the whole ‘the gith have the cure to all of their problems’ schtick. He thought it was more likely they were going to get there, get a lobotomy, and be sent on their way to the dungeons if not killed just for being istik . 

“Is the party full?” Lae’zel questions, though she’s turning to gather and don her armor regardless.

Astarion gestures to himself as part of the answer. “You’ll be accompanying our leader, the ‘Blade of Frontiers’, and Shadowheart, of course.”

She scoffs at the name of the cleric. “And of the wizard?”

“He’s here, sulking for one reason or another.”

“Good,” She says. “He is powerful, but vulnerable, and squishy. A crèche is no place for him.”

Astarion hums idly, inspecting his nail beds. He hardly doubts that their bard will pick everything up and immediately head off towards the crèche, if they go there at all. No, Tav had to run around and play hero, and oh so loved to dawdle.

Lae’zel gets dressed and leaves without even a goodbye, only asking for a vague direction. Astarion can hardly get ‘Emerald Grove’ out before she’s off, and he’s utterly alone.

Well, not utterly alone, but he might as well have been with how Gale had disappeared. He was tempted to find the wizard and try to toy with him, but then that could lead to adverse effects, such as Gale actually talking to him.

No, it’d be better to leave the wizard be, at least for a little while. Besides, his camp shirt had begun to fray at the seams again, and that simply wouldn’t do.

Astarion occupies himself like that for a few hours, at least. Enough for the sun to move further along in the sky. He hunches and contorts himself over his work, not really paying attention to it as he embroiders small patterns on the inside of the shirt. Nothing to be noticed, or really even anything practical. Just to refine his practice, really. 

He’s finishing the small birds on the insides of his cuffs when he hears a small clatter outside. He freezes, unfolding himself from where he had been hunched over. Sneakily, he glances out the break in his tent's folds.

Gale kneels over their shared chest, looking in it. No, that’s not correct. Gale’s looking for something specific. There’s items scattered all over the floor near the chest, and he’s only pulling out more and tossing them aside. 

Astarion’s brow furrows, watching as he pushes aside robes, swords, even the pouch of alchemy ingredients Tav keeps that everyone knows is where they actually keep a stash of emergency gold. Astarion’s made use of that more times than he can count.

If it wasn’t clothes, weapons, or gold that he was after, what could the little mage want?

“Come on,” Gale mutters under his breath, quiet enough even Astarion can barely hear him. “Come on, come on, come on. There has to be something. We have to have picked up something .”

His volume picks up in sheer desperation. As if suddenly aware of it, his head snaps towards Astarion’s tent. All he sees, though, is the still red fabric.

Astarion’s readjusted himself to the woods on the outskirts. Curiosity piqued, he stalks around, closer to the chest. After a moment, Gale goes back to searching. It becomes apparent as he gets closer that Gale is glowing.

The strange tattoo, that circular and trailing thing, glows a bright purple. Trailing all the way up to the corner of his eye, into his iris. It doesn’t stop there. That faint purple sheen that was on his wings has somehow magnified, emitting their own glow as well. The light halos Gale, slowly crescendoing.

With quiet footsteps, Astarion pads towards the man, consumed in his search to notice the near-silent footfalls.

He’s almost standing over Gale when he speaks. From this position, he can see the bottom of the chest, can see Gale’s fingers scraping at it in desperation.

“Looking for something, angel?” Astarion questions.

His tone is so different from before. There is no teasing lilt to it, no playful seduction. It’s dark, cold. Inquisitive, if a positive word had to be attributed to it at all.

Gale flinches backwards, away and into the chest as he spins around. His hand comes up to claw at his chest. “Astarion-!”

He cuts himself off with something between a cough and a gag.

Astarion doesn’t give. “What do you need?”

“What-?” Gale moves to stand up, but he’s caught red handed. He doesn’t even make it up. The rotten smell is near overpowering, tempting Astarion to not breathe at all. It’s as if whatever causes it has bubbled up too close to the surface.

“Don’t play coy,” Astarion’s tone is cutting. “You need something, and you need it desperately. What are you looking for?”

He doesn’t know why he expected Gale to fold under his tone, but the angel does just the opposite. He moves back, wings spreading as if to make himself look bigger. It’d be almost amusing if Gale didn’t look so haggard. 

“Nothing,” He says. He moves to the side, keeping his eye on Astarion like he’s a predator. “I don’t- I can’t explain this to you, Astarion. I’m dealing with it.”
Astarion raises an eyebrow. “This is you dealing with it? What’s wrong with you? You’re like a homing beacon. You’re glowing, for gods’ sake, angel.”

“I’m handling it,” Gale repeats. “I’m- I’m handling it.”

“You know, repeating something doesn’t make it more true.”

Gale throws a hand up in exasperation, and begins to stagger away. Astarion doesn’t know what possesses him to do it, but he darts forwards and grabs Gale’s wrist.

Gale pauses before turning to him. His eyes hold no rage or indignation at being grabbed, just an irritation at being bothered. A hunger, but not for him.

Astarion glances down at where his pale fingers wrap around tan skin. Underneath, he can see the veins glow faintly. Not nearly as much as the dark tendrils of the tattoo, but they seem to shimmer somehow. Gale’s blood seems to hum within him. It’s disturbing enough that Astarion wrenches his hand away like it burns him.

“Darling, I’m trying to help you!” Astarion has to fight not to hiss the words out. 

“Thank you,” Gale grits, furiously cordial, “But I think you’ll find I don’t need your help.”

Astarion laughs in shock. “Fine then,” He snaps, “Be like that! Never say nobody tried to help you.”

“I wasn’t going to,” Gale responds, heading back towards his tent. Astarion stands there, surrounded by Gale’s mess, and huffs in indignation. He briefly considers the idea of kicking the items around like a child, but decides he has more dignity than that. But far be it from him to clean up the angel’s messes, so he heads back towards his own tent, at least satisfied with the idea of stabbing a sharp object through something, even if it’s just cloth. 

It’s less than an hour later when their band of merry adventurers returns to their camp. They’re all chatting amongst themselves - well, chatting may be a generous word. Lae’zel and Shadowheart are sniping at each other while Wyll attempts damage control, and Tav is leading silently. Astarion sits back to watch them approach, sitting idly in front of his tent with a book on his lap that he was half-heartedly reading.

He watches with satisfaction as the party stops short at the mess scattered about on the floor, remnants of Gale’s tantrum.

Lae’zel curses. “What is the meaning of this? Are our companions so useless as to let robbers get away in broad daylight?”

Four gazes swivel towards Astarion. He shuts the book with one hand before lifting to gesture lazily in the air. “Oh, don’t look at me. There were no robbers, just our dear little angel making a mess of things. He’s quite a bothersome pet.”

He waits with a thrill of satisfaction as Lae’zel’s scowl deepens, waiting for some sort of punishment to be dealt out, even if it’s just a chastising. Tav’s expression, however, drops as if Astarion had delivered worrisome news. Without hesitation, they run towards the purple tent, disappearing without knocking.

Something in Astarion sets alight by that, not just at the lack of justice but at the casualness of it all. He hadn’t been paying particular attention to the wizard and the bard, had not seen them get close enough to warrant that kind of stepping into boundaries displayed.

Though, it seems none of the rest of the party did either. Shadowheart’s eyebrows raise while Lae’zel scoffs and walks off. Wyll and Shadowheart exchange glances before Wyll shrugs. To his surprise, the Blade begins walking over to himself.

“Astarion!” He greets, grinning. Astarion gives him an unimpressed look and an even more unimpressed hum.

“How was it, out there, taking my rightful place by Tav’s side?” Astarion questions monotonously as he opens his book again.

“Good!” Wyll doesn’t take the bait, “We made a lot of headway. How was Gale?”

Why was everyone so concerned with the damned mage?

Astarion scowls. “How should I know?”

“Well, you were here with him the entire time we were out.”

“Careful,” Astarion says, “One might think you’re implying something.”

That gets the man to raise a hand in defense and laugh. “Woah! Not what I was meaning to imply, I was just curious if you knew why Tav was in a hurry to go see him. They looked worried.”

Astarion pauses, considering his hand. He could expose Gale’s secrets here, lay him out bare for his campmates to see. It would be so easy to twist the tables, gain some of their trust at the expense of throwing the mage under the carriage, so to say.

And yet.

Part of Astarion was curious. As much as he loathed the entire interaction, it had left him with something to ponder. To whittle away at while he worked.

Besides, in Gale’s eyes he saw something reflected. A hunger.

Something to ponder indeed.

So, Astarion shrugs again. “I’ve not a clue, dear. You would want to try to see Tav for answers, gods know you won’t get any out of Gale.”

“Ah,” Wyll says, sounding not just a little disappointed. “I see. Thank you, anyway, Astarion. Did you, uhm-”

He fumbled, searching for conversation.

“My day was fine,” Astarion answers briskly, taking pity on the man, “I got nothing done, did no heavy lifting, did not break a nail, checked all the boxes on my to-do list, et cetera. Are we done here?”

Wyll blinks for a moment, and then nods. “I- yes?”

“Good,” Astarion brushes himself off, tucking himself back in his tent. “If you’ll excuse me.”

He shuts the curtains closed without any more preamble, sitting himself back down in a corner. He picks up another shirt he started working on. Littered across the collar, little feathers fall.

Very few mortals will ever understand true and real hunger.

It’s a thought that bounces around Astarion’s brain late at night, when he watches his campmates wander around the fire, eating food the wizard painstakingly made with love and care. Soft, melt in your mouth food. Solid food. With good wine, and vegetables, and sometimes even fruit.

Sure, they can go hungry. Can have gluttony, greed, and an insatiableness. But never a true hunger, not like this.

Always, always hungry.

He can’t take this anymore. He can feel it, the ache in his body. Every lack of heartbeat, every fake pull of air. It’s in his godsdamned teeth, a pulsing, throbbing hurt. A buzz of emptiness. He’s been able to sustain on animals for all of his undead existence, not by choice, but by force. Here, though, this is too much. Too much moving, too much working, too much hunger.

Thou shall not drink the blood of thinking creatures .

Astarion closes his eyes. Cazador wasn’t here now. The connection, that spawn-vampire bind, led to nowhere. This stupid worm in his brain had granted him something as close to freedom as he could get, and still the words bound him.

He’s tired of having to wait until everyone has fallen asleep to slink away and hunt. He’s tired of having to sit and theorize about what each of his companions taste like, of smelling them, of having to drag himself away from offering to help patch their wounds.

He is so hungry; there’s simply nothing else to think about.

He can feel his resolve unravel like a ball of yarn as the night grows colder, and people begin tucking themselves into their tents. In front of the campfire, Tav, Shadowheart, and Gale rest. They rest gently, thinking that Astarion’s elven nature will help protect them from the darkness of the night.

Out of the shadows, Astarion creeps closer.

He’s made the decision now, hasn’t he? It makes everything so much easier. Almost overwhelming with the choices he has. Like a buffet spread out before him. His mouth waters.

Should he go for the silent and stoic Tav? The bard hasn’t spoken a word since they met, Astarion wonders what lurks underneath their skin. If their blood pulses with a single-minded determinedness like they do, if it will be mellow and light, like tea.

His eyes flit over to Shadowheart, laying on her side, curled up. The strong-minded cleric will surely make him feel better. He imagines her skin would hold on before giving under his fangs, her blood dark and bitter, but with an undercurrent of sweetness, not dissimilar to chocolate. Divine.

The angel shifts in his sleep, and oh, isn’t that an idea?

He really shouldn’t, he knows. He can smell the warning signs all the way over here, not dissimilar to a poisonous frog or bug. But still, he can’t help but wonder if it’s something external, having to do with his wings, or the glowing tattoo on his chest, or some other mystery of the wizard of Waterdeep. Maybe, underneath that tan skin there does lay divinity, something Gale wanted to keep all for himself, something that would free Astarion from these binds. He’s just an over glorified bird, after all.

Astarion crouches next to him, silent as can be. He stills his fake breaths, leaning over the wizard. From here, he can see the dark tendrils that lead up to his eye, the way his silver earring catches fire in the light. Mystra, isn’t it? Something about the goddess of magic. Astarion’s never been particularly fond of gods.

He moves some of Gale’s hair out of the way, watching it trace tantalizingly across his neck.

Let go of your wizard, Mystra . The thought isn’t a prayer; it’s a taunt. Tonight, this is mine.

His lips part gently over Gale’s neck, ready to sink into tender flesh.

Then, the angel wakes up.

“Shit,” Astarion whispers as Gale sits up.

Suddenly, the fantasy is gone. Everything crashes around him, like the whole sky has shattered at his feet. He can almost hear the pieces scattering around as he scrambles back.

Thou shall not drink the blood of thinking creatures .

“I-” Astarion stumbles, literally and over his words, “It’s not what it looks like.”

“It looks,” Gale says, and his voice is quiet as he stands. Too quiet. “Like you were about to bite into my neck.”

“I wasn’t going to hurt you!” Astarion struggles briefly to keep his voice down. The monster inside of him - the hunger - thrashes and writhes with the sudden muzzle Astarion has forced onto it. “I just needed, well, blood.”

Gale stares at him for a long moment. Then exhales, almost laughing. “You’re a vampire.”

Astarion does not flinch under the branding. “Spawn.”

“Oh, I had assumed,” Gale’s tone is bitter, bordering on mocking. “I don’t think a vampire lord would waste time travelling with an emaciated group of adventurers. I don’t think a vampire lord would have let himself get in this situation in the first place.”

The words slice at something in his chest, a brutal reminder of his weakness. It feels as if his emotions bleed.

“I can’t believe we didn’t see it sooner,” Gale breathes, “We even found the corpses of your prey.”

“Listen,” Astarion holds up his hands, gaze shifting to Tav and Shadowheart to check that they were still asleep. “I need- I need you to listen to me.”

Gale frowns. Then, his defensive stance drops a bit. “Well, never let it be said I don’t have an open mind.”

Astarion scarcely believes that he agreed, before realizing it’s his turn to speak. Speak he does. “I wasn’t going to kill you. Wasn’t going to drain you dry, we need you. Not to mention the questions it would bring up in the group. I just need something. I’ve never killed anyone, not for food. I feed on whatever I can find, animals, mainly. It’s not enough anymore.”

He puts all he can into the words, barely caring that he’s borderline grovelling. He needs the wizard to understand, to do anything but drive a stake through his newly-freed dead heart.

“All this running and fighting,” Astarion implores, “Not to mention our little passengers, all of it is culminating. I’m too weak for this, as I am. If I just had a little blood, I could think clearer. Fight better.”

He swallows his pride for what feels like the billionth time in his life. It’s bitter. “Please.”

Gale is still frowning at him. Astarion is almost barreled over with the sudden hatred he feels for the way the wizard stares at him, like he’s picking him apart bit by bit with his gaze, turning each sliver over in a way as if he could understand what this feels like.

“My main question is,” Gale says eventually, “Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

Astarion scoffs. “Please, angel. We all have our secrets. With Shadowheart’s mysterious wound, Tav’s lack of memory, and your everything-”

Gale frowns.
“-it hardly seemed as if you were all entitled to know mine. At best, I thought someone would say no if I had asked. Tell me to leave, if they found out. At worst, I thought one of you would ram a stake through my heart.”

“So what changed?” Gale asks.

“The hunger,” Astarion bites out. He hates admitting it, hates how even after all of this there are things he cannot escape. “It’s just too much to bear. I needed you to trust me before I made a move. And you can trust me.”

“You tried to bite me in my sleep.”

“I have radically changed and grown as a person since then.”

Despite the tension in the air, he swears he can see the wizard fight a smile down from that. 

Good , he wants to croon. Just a little more, let me into your heart.

As it is, he can see Gale’s inquisitive nature fighting against his self-preservation instincts. The wizard fidgets with the hem of his shirt, thinking.

“Alright,” Gale says eventually, and Astarion feels relief crash into him. “I believe you.”

“Thank you-” He begins, but Gale holds up that damned finger again.

“But,” Gale continues.

Shit.

“This is merely out of academic purposes,” Gale explains. “I can’t promise that I will taste particularly nice.”

His expression grows more grave, more serious.

“Astarion,” The wizard says, “I can’t promise it would be necessarily safe for you. I couldn’t let you go through with this without warning.”

“Darling,” Astarion smirks, “I can smell the warning of you from here. Trust me, under any other circumstances I’d be avoiding you like the plague. But I’m nothing if not…a little curious myself. I’ve always wanted to know what angel tasted like.”

Gale, in the face of it all, actually laughs at that. “Again, the modification of my form has not led to any change in my species, Astarion. I would taste similar to an average human.”
“You, wizard of Waterdeep,” Astarion purrs, “Are anything but average.”

“You don’t have to flatter me,” Gale snipes back, “I already told you you could feed from me.”

“Right,” Astarion says, “Let’s get ourselves comfortable, shall we?”

He gestures to Gale’s bedroll, and after a second of hesitation, Gale lays down. He’s nervous, though undoubtedly trying to hide it. Astarion can hear the rabbit quick beat of his heart as he carefully climbs over him. This close, he can smell what lies under the acrid stench. Something not dissimilar to books and dust, whisky maybe. It’s not displeasurable. He takes care to not actually touch any part of Gale. He doesn’t need to shove his thigh between the wizards, or thread his fingers through his hair. So he places his hands on either side of Gale’s head, careful to avoid any feathers.

(They do look very soft. In different circumstances, Astarion would have taken a particular fascination with them. He pushes the thought away.)

Astarion does take a brief, selfish moment to take in the sight. Gale stares up at him, hair fanned out. The brown of his eyes catch the firelight. Even though he’s scared, his gaze is steady. He looks as if he trusts Astarion. He looks- he looks-

Astarion lunges forward and sinks his teeth into the soft flesh of Gale’s neck, shutting his eyes tight against the image of dozens - hundreds - of people giving him that same look. Total trust. Trust to be shattered.

He hears Gale’s gasp of shock. For a moment, everything slots into place. Gale’s blood flows over his tongue like ichor. It tastes wonderful, rich and refined. Everything he dreamed of.

Then, it hits the back of his throat, and Astarion gags into Gale’s neck. He sits up, not caring of the mess he makes of Gale’s neck as he does so. The wizard groans in pain in response, hand reaching to grab at the bleeding puncture wounds.

Astarion spits and tries not to retch, trying to get this stupid substance out of his mouth as fast as possible. It tastes almost exactly how it smells, and it burns, and this is terrible. Blood drips off of his chin and onto Gale, and in any other scenario it would’ve been almost an erotic or welcome sight, the wizard flushed red with his hair amuck, and blood sprayed across his face. As it is, he can see the red seeping into Gale’s shirt and ponders for a moment if he actually was going to end up killing the wizard. That would not be ideal.

“Oh, Gods,” Astarion eventually sputters, spitting more of Gale’s blood back onto him. The wizard raises a hand in defense of his eyes as the red seeps into his feathers. Astarion wishes that his blood was bearable because the red against the white of the wings was frankly just unfair.

“Can you stop spitting on me?” Gale snaps, trying to sit up. Astarion clambers off of him to give him the opportunity. 

“What in the Hells is wrong with you?” Astarion wipes at his face, and tries not to feel despair at this experience being so ruined by it all. Because of course, Astarion cannot have anything good. No, no, no, that would be simply too much to ask for. “What is wrong with your blood?”

Before Gale can answer, Astarion sees movement. His eyes widen, and he snaps his head to see Tav sitting up, drawing out a dagger from nowhere. Shadowheart also begins to move. In the night, he sees Wyll and Lae’zel’s tents shift as they peer out.

Astarion is no slouch with having to process one thought at a time, and tucking away the others for later. It’s how he’s survived so long. That being said, his first thought is an amused Looks like we disturbed their beauty sleep . The thought that follows right on that one’s heels is simply, Shitshitfuckfuckfuckshitfuckfuckshitfuck .

Gale follows his gaze and also turns around, hand still pressing against his neck. To Astarion’s surprise, Gale moves closer to him, as if the party is hunting him as well. It’s absurd enough to almost make Astarion want to laugh.

Then, Gale does something insane.

“Wait,” He calls, holding up his free hand to halt the party. Shockingly, Tav stops their stalk forward, and Shadowheart stalls. Wyll and Lae’zel wander over, both flashing blades in the light, but don’t move forward beyond where Tav stays idle.

“A vampire,” Lae’zel hisses. “Blood beast.”
“Elegant bearing, saucy voice,” Wyll’s eyes narrow in on Gale’s neck. “I should have seen it. The signs were all there.”

Even with the monster hunter’s blade in his hands, he almost sounds plainly disappointed in himself.

Tav’s dagger flips in their grasp.

“Hang on, my dagger-happy friend,” Astarion works out. “Let’s talk about this.”

They tilt their head to the side. 

“Wait,” Gale says again, this time more imploringly. He shifts, and then suddenly Astarion can’t see the party at all. It’s just a swath of white feathers, and he realizes that Gale is shielding him from view. “I gave him permission.”

From the beat of silence, Astarion assumes that this gave them pause. He sits up, peeking over the half-hearted barrier to gauge their reactions.

“He didn’t take any more than he needed,” Gale continues.

“It sounds like he didn’t take any at all, that or he’s a messy eater,” Shadowheart’s head tilts to the side. “Why is that? I distinctly remember him complaining about your blood.”

“I warned him about that,” Gale wavers. “But it’s a complicated situation-”

“Speak plainly, wizard,” Lae’zel says.

Astarion realizes that maybe their positioning isn’t so inconsequential. The party is currently against both of them.

“I…have a condition,” Gale begins to explain. “It contaminates my blood, as it turns out. A bit of Netherese magic, a fraction of the Weave, stuck in my chest.”

“You let me drink evil magic blood?” Astarion asks, incredulous. 

“It’s not- no!” Gale turns to him. “Will you just let me handle this? It’s important. I might as well explain.”

Astarion narrows his eyes, but sits back down.

Gale takes a deep breath, and begins his story. “I am what one might call a wizard prodigy. Ever since an early age, I was engaged with the Weave. Not only controlling it, but actively composing. I would form new spells, like a musician creating new pieces. I took to it like a house takes to fire. From the very moment I was aware of what magic was, it became me, and I it. Such were my talents that they gained me the attention of Mystra.”

Shadowheart hums. “The Lady of Mysteries. The goddess of magic.”

“The Mother of the Weave herself,” Gale nods in agreement. “She revealed herself to me. Became my mentor, my muse, and eventually, when the time was right, my lover.”

“You shared your bed with a goddess?” Astarion asks. “Your teacher?”

“It was a dance back and forth, but eventually, yes, Mystra offered me to become her Chosen when I was old enough. She approached me, offered her company. Mind, body, soul. She opened up aspects of the Weave to me that were previously locked. In return for my devotion, she blessed me.”

His wings ruffle.

“You became her angel,” Astarion says, realization dawning over him like cold water as pieces began to fall into place.

“In a sense,” Gale corrects. “She could not fully morph me into an angel. As gods cannot intervene in mortal affairs, to change me so utterly would be to violate the same principle. The wings are more symbolic. As her lover, she wanted something to mark my devotion towards her, and her to me. To bless me with non-human capabilities. Flight, illusion, Weave manipulation. Many hours I would spend in the Astral plane’s sky with her. Not to mention the ability to fly was, simply put, very convenient for me, if I was a bit clumsy with it. It was a gift. But even so, I desired more.”

Astarion’s eyes narrow. Gale turns and stares into the fire. 

“Wizards, no matter how powerful, can only scratch the surface of the Weave. There are boundaries put into place by Mystra, to protect us from that which would destroy us. I didn’t understand that. I stared out into all I did not have, and I hungered for it. I was warned to be content, but I wanted to prove myself worthy to her. To show I was not like her previous Chosen. There is a story, here, of a fallen kingdom of magic, and a man who tried to be a god himself. His ambitions resulted in the destruction of magic, until Mystra returned, and saved us all.”

Lae’zel scoffs at the idea of magic saving them all, and Astarion is almost inclined to agree.

“The Weave had been fractured into many pieces, and then reassembled,” Gale continues. “Or so I had thought. Until I had found a tomb that held a part of Weave unavailable to Mystra. I sought to return it to her, a lost part of her to herself. A gift for my goddess. To prove myself worthy of all she denied me. I failed in doing this.”

“So, what happened?” Shadowheart asked. 

Suddenly, a sharp pain in Astarion’s mind caused him to wince. He saw flashes of a vision, of a book with no pages and yet seemed to never end. The pages were blank until they weren’t, and suddenly he was reading words, words he felt in his soul he cannot read- should not read or else something terrible would happen - yet the comprehension cannot escape him, he cannot look away. Sounds surround him from all sides, but he cannot tear his gaze away from the book. Teeth and claws assault him from one side, the other, above. It crawls down his throat, carving a space in his heart. He can’t stop reading the blank pages until it is over. The thing in his chest hungers. It will continue to hunger, forever. Always, always hungry.

The vision fades, and Astarion leans back, woozy.

“How…are you still alive?” Wyll asks after a moment.

Gale sighs. “The fragment wasn’t enough to kill me outright, thankfully. But the ball of magic, the orb, needs to be fed. I must consume traces of the Weave, of what I love, to sate it. If it ever destabilizes…I fear that it may erupt in such a way to level something the size of Waterdeep.”

“We have been travelling with a walking bomb this entire time?” Lae’zel asks.

Gale winces. “Unfortunately. I would have told you, but I didn’t know who would want to take advantage of something like this. If you need me to leave, if you want me to, I will. Wander to the furthest corner of the Underdark, or maybe a mind flayer hive, and wait.”

“No, no,” Wyll says immediately, holding up a hand in protest. “Gale that’s not- you don’t have to do that.”

Tav nods.

“I have to agree,” Lae’zel says. “You’re quite the asset in battle.”

“You don’t have to kill yourself,” Shadowheart says, and Astarion can see Gale twitch minutely at the words, as if he didn’t even think of it that way. “Finding magical artefacts won’t be easy, but nothing in this journey is.”

“You are shaping up to be quite the expensive pet,” Astarion says. Gale turns, like he had almost forgotten he was there. “And though I don’t appreciate drinking gunpowder blood, you did warn me. Though a clearer warning would have been nice.”

Gale opens his mouth, and then closes it. “No, no you’re right, Astarion. I didn’t have the right to invite you to do that when you did not have all of the information you needed. I…apologize.”

Astarion blinks, unsure of what to do. The comment was meant to be nothing more than a barb.

“Uh, yes, well,” He answers lamely. “Now I know.”

“On the topic of vampirism,” Wyll says.

Astarion curses internally. 

“If we have a walking bomb with us,” He says, “I don’t understand how I’m any more dangerous.”

“That’s a different situation,” Wyll says. “Gale has not attacked any of us in the night.”

“That’s not what happened,” Gale and Astarion say simultaneously, and then exchange a glance.

Silence descends upon them, and Astarion gets the feeling they’re waiting for him to start spilling his guts about what skeletons he has in the closet. He’d prefer if they did stake him.

Eventually, Shadowheart shrugs. “You’re not the worst company. Though, if I wake to find fangs at my throat, it will be the last thing you ever do.”

“I trust him,” Gale says immediately, “He won’t do that.”

Astarion’s eyebrows raise. So do the party’s.

“He could have killed me tonight, easily,” Gale elaborates. “But he didn’t. He’s still Astarion.”

“That last sentence is not as reassuring as you think it is,” Shadowheart says.

Astarion pretends that doesn’t smart. “I’m here in the spirit of openness and honesty. To work together, as a team. To utilize all of my assets.”

The party exchanges glances. Tav shrugs.

“Maybe we could get him a bell,” Shadowheart says, and he can hear the teasing lift in her voice. “Dissuade any nighttime prowling.”

“There,” Astarion says. “We’re all friends again. Shall we return to our rest now? We have a long day ahead of us, and I swear that nothing will happen. I was actually keeping watch all of those times, you know! Well, when I wasn’t hunting.”

And so the party settles back to sleep. Gale, though, stands.

“Apologies once again, Astarion,” He says.

Astarion shrugs. “Water under the bridge, darling. At least you didn’t stake me.” He pauses. “Why didn’t you?”

“I’m sorry?” Gale says.

“Stake me.”

Gale looks confused. “You’re my party member,” He says, as if that explains anything. “You didn’t tell me to leave when you heard of the orb, even though it poses a threat to you.”

Astarion supposes it does. “Aren’t you going to bed?”

Gale grimaces. “As pleasant as that would be, I need a bath.”

“I need to hunt,” Astarion says in the spirit of camaraderie. “Do you need a pair of dark-adjusted eyes to guide you to the river?”

“If you’re offering to walk me, I won’t say no.”

“Then let’s go.”

The two set off into the woods. It’s quiet, partially because Gale seems lost in thought and partially because Astarion is thinking about what Gale could be thinking about. He’s turning the wizard’s story over in his mind.

“You know,” He says eventually into the quiet night, “I had seen you rooting through our chests. I thought you were just a petty thief.”

“And you still kept me around?”

“Oh, I thought about throwing you under the carriage, so to say, but then figured whatever you stole, I could steal back from you. There’s no doubt I’m the better petty thief.”

Gale laughs at that. “Of course you are, Astarion.”

“I do have to ask, though,” Astarion says. “Whatever happened with Mystra?”

Gale’s good mood, just barely flowering, seems to burn up under the question like mist under the sun. “Ah. Mystra cast me out for my hubris. For evident reasons.”

Astarion stares at him.

“I had gone directly against her wishes,” Gale elaborates, as if it’s a perfectly normal thing to do when having a fight with your partner. “It was her right. So, I hid myself away for years for the safety of others, until some mind flayers saw fit to disrupt my isolation.”

“She clipped your wings,” Astarion’s eyes rake down to the mauled parts of Gale again.

Gale’s mouth presses into a thin line. “She clipped my wings,” He confirms.

Astarion nods for a moment, redirecting his gaze to the ground. Something uncomfortable sat heavy in his chest. To have such a mark of ownership, and instead of removing it, but maiming it when displeased with one’s own lover, who Gale had had in his life since he was a child…

Astarion wonders, fleetingly, if deicide is really that hard.

The sound of the river interrupts that thought.

“Ah,” Gale says, “Here we are. Thank you, Astarion. I’m sorry my blood can’t sustain you. Perhaps you can feed off of any stray bandits we attack?”

Astarion hums. “Not a bad idea. If worse comes to worst, I’ll bug you again. Maybe you’re just an acquired taste.”

He grins in a way that flashes his fangs, teasing.

Gale smiles back, soft and genuine. “Let’s hope you don’t have to acquire it, then. Thank you, again. I’d like some time to think, now.”

Astarion can see where he’s not wanted, and the hunger at him is driving him away too. “Of course.”

He begins to walk away, before pausing. “And Gale?”

He can hear the shift of cloth pause, and Gale’s inquisitive hum.

“This was a gift,” Astarion continues. “I won’t forget it. Thank you.”

Astarion dips into the shadows before the wizard can reply, footsteps soft on leaves and dirt. As he sinks his teeth into a rabbit, he wonders if somewhere in the Astral, Mystra is watching.

Something changed between Astarion and Gale after that encounter. They became - though Astarion was hesitant to claim it as such - closer. Whether a mutual understanding was achieved because of their respective conditions, a gratitude embedded within them, or something else, when the party wandered, Astarion often found himself in step with Gale. Sometimes they would chatter mindlessly, Gale going on about a spell or book, Astarion commentating on scents that Gale’s inferior senses could not pick up; other times, they walked in silence. During brief respites in their journey, Gale had even taken to teaching Astarion some spells for defense. Hurling a fire bolt at an enemy was shockingly helpful, and Astarion had grown particularly fond of magic missile as when he found nowhere he could duck into the shadows.

On top of that, it seems that the two of them were not to be separated, even by the others. If Astarion’s expertise was needed in the party, so was Gale’s. If Gale was sent back to camp, Astarion was to go back with him. In such conditions, they almost had to bond, if just to avoid going insane.

Astarion, loathed as he was to admit it, was beginning to realize he actually enjoyed the wizard’s company. He sits in front of his own tent and watches Gale from across the camp, flipping through a book and marking notes down on a separate paper ( “Gods, Astarion, I’m not going to write in the actual book unless I have to. These things are expensive. They aren’t even mine.” “We pilfered that off of a corpse, angel, it isn’t anyone’s.” “All the more reason to not disgrace it!” ) and muttering to himself.

It was a spell book, Astarion could see from the care it was bound and the wear that it had. Gale was copying spells from it into his own with a careful precision. The wizard’s hand moved with precision in every stroke, as attentive as his mouth when forming the syllables on his tongue.

Astarion has been thinking about it. He’s had his eye on every companion since the beginning of this wretched trip, debating who would be most likely to provide him protection. Sure, Lae’zel and Shadowheart were strong, Tav was deceptive, Wyll would no doubt lay his life down for him if he just pulled a few strings, but the problem was in regards to how to go about it. He couldn’t get Karlach, which was unfortunate, because he did enjoy her company, too. Lae’zel wanted nothing to do with him, Shadowheart would no doubt send him away, Tav was too much of a wild card, and Wyll was far too high-and-mighty to lower himself to a roll in the hay on first interaction.

That’s what Astarion told himself, anyway.

This left just a certain angel he had a lot of alone time with. It was almost too easy.

Astarion put his own book down, long forgotten. He ran a hand through his curls, wondering again why this damned tadpole couldn’t just give him one more non-vampiric aspect of himself back. Still, he stood and dusted himself off, sauntering towards Gale.

The mage glances up at him. Where once his face might have held surprise, now it is only welcoming.

“Ah,” Gale smiles, as if he had been wanting Astarion to approach him, “Astarion! How are you, my fine fanged friend?”

Astarion steps closer than normal, towering over Gale. He seems surprised, but not put off by the motion, instead leaning back to stay staring at Astarion’s face. Astarion leans lightly on one of the tent poles, assuming an aura of nonchalance.

“Alliteration aside, angel,” Astarion smiles back, more wicked than his counterpart. “I’m quite alright, you’ll find. If not bored.”

Gale lingers at the smirk on the vampire’s face before nodding. “Yes, being continuously left behind can be quite irritating, but at least neither of us are alone.”

“Exactly,” Astarion responds. In one swift movement, he straightens before crouching down in front of Gale. He meets Gale’s gaze and places a hand on the side next to Gale’s thigh, if just for the illusion of helping him balance himself, though it brings him closer to the wizard. “I was wondering if you would be interested in passing the time with me.”

He hears the wizard’s heartbeat pick up. His feathers are literally ruffled. Astarion bites back a smile. Hook, line, and sinker.

“With…you?” Gale questions.

“Doing something fun,” Astarion adds on.

“You are asking me to have some fun with you,” Gale repeats, questioning. Astarion almost rolls his eyes, wondering if he has to spell this out for him. Before he can, Gale smiles again. “Of course!”

“Oh?” Astarion sits up a bit, not expecting such a willingness from such a flustered, borderline repressed wizard. Though he supposes being dumped by a goddess, a vampire wouldn’t be a half-bad rebound.

Gale closes both spellbooks without another word, before moving back and standing. He ducks into his tent.

Astarion takes a moment to steel himself. It’s not as if Gale was unattractive, or even unlikable. An odd feeling had just settled in his stomach. Disappointment, he supposes. He was expecting more of a back and forth. He follows into the tent, walking in the most promiscuous way he can.

He pauses at the entrance. Soft lights dance around near the tents ceiling, casting everything in a lavender glow. Gale stands, putting away his previous two books before crouching down and pulling out another book. After a moment of hesitation, he procures a different book, with a red and black cover.

Astarion stands in the doorway, despite not needing an invitation. He’s confused, but maybe this was some sort of special wizard foreplay he had never heard of before. He did seem to love books a lot, and Astarion’s heard and done weirder things.

Gale settles onto the bedroll, seeing Astarion linger. “Come in! Come in, of course.”

“Thanks,” Astarion replies flatly, walking forward. He stands over Gale again, arms crossed, wondering how they were going to do this. Gale just looks up at him.

Was Astarion to take the lead? Demand Gale get on his knees and service him? Or was Gale waiting for Astarion to get on his back? What was with the damned books?

“Are you going to sit down?” Gale asks eventually, raising an eyebrow in expectation.

“Of course,” Astarion says. He pauses before sitting across from Gale, mimicking his position with his legs crossed. Their knees press against each other here, and Astarion can feel the magic pulse under Gale’s skin. He wonders if it’s like that everywhere.

Gale gives him another smile. Patient and warm in comparison to the situation.

“Right,” Gale says, and Astarion almost lets out a breath of relief as the mage takes initiative. “I haven’t done this for a while.”

Astarion snorts. “Really, darling?”

Gale’s look is confused. “Well, being locked up in a tower will do that to you.”

“Of course,” Astarion waves a dismissive hand. “I don’t mind, then.”

“Alright,” Gale opens the book on his lap. “I’m not sure what you’re exactly interested in, so if this doesn’t suit your fancy, don’t hesitate to tell me. I have a book here about the anthropology of myconid colonies in the Underdark, but for you I’ve picked out a history of blood in medical practice and in alchemy. It dives into necromancy and darker magic, you’d be surprised with what one could do with it. It sounds dry, but it’s tied in with a narrative I imagine you might find exciting. I imagine we’ll read for, what, about ten minutes? Making annotations, and then exchange afterwards. It’s an easy way to get the most out of what you read as well as different interpretations in text. I did this quite a lot with my friends at Blackstaff, it helped us all study.”

Astarion realizes he might have misjudged this situation.

“Ready?” Gale asks. His eyes brim with excitement, as if he didn’t just propose the most boring thing Astarion has ever heard of.

“Uh,” Astarion blinks. “Yes?” Maybe weird book foreplay could still save this.

“Wonderful!” With that, Gale opens his book and begins reading.

Astarion stares at him for a moment in bewilderment, wondering how he could possibly have ended up in this situation. When Gale’s eyes dart up to him, Astarion opens the cover of his book. He stares at the words and skims over them, not really comprehending anything except how to salvage this situation.

He steals glances at Gale, watching as the wizard scribbles down on a side sheet of paper - of which he has also provided Astarion a sheet of, damn the considerate man - enthralled by his reading on Myconid colonies of all things. His hair curls gently at the ends of his shoulders, wings tucked back and out of the way. All of him bathed in a lavender light.

Something lurches in Astarion’s throat, and he snaps his gaze back down to the book. 

“And that would be time,” Gale says suddenly, and Astarion glances back up at him. Gale reaches out a hand for his book, and Astarion feels like he didn’t do his homework, or something else entirely trivial yet worrisome. He still hands the book over to the man, not sure of what to do. Gale’s book is suddenly dropped into his lap, sheet of paper included.

Without another word, Gale is reading again.

Astarion is realizing that unfortunately, this is not foreplay. Gale is trying to bond with him.

Most known for their unique aversion to violent behaviour within the Underdark, Myconids - also known as Fungus Folk - have a distrust towards outsiders that are not ‘melded’ with the colony. A common view of the myconid has them under the same consciousness as their sovereign, however it is important to note that each myconid is a unique individual that is instead bound to the others within their colony. It is also worth it to note that although myconids are peaceful, they are not true pacifists, as when confronted by danger-

“You know, wizard,” Astarion says eventually, “This isn’t exactly what I had in mind.”

Gale looks up, blinking. “Hm?”

Astarion reaches forward, taking the top of Gale’s book and tilting it downwards. He leans closer, all but crawling into his lap. He stretches, placing one hand on Gale’s thigh and pulling the book aside with the other. He lets his lips brush against the shell of Gale’s ear. “I was thinking something more…carnal.”

He watches as Gale’s face begins to redden. “Ah. I see. I thought that was what you meant.”

That gives Astarion pause. He leans back, just a bit. “You did?”

Gale clears his throat, obviously flustered. “Yes, well of course. No offense to you Astarion but you are a very…sensual creature. You flirt, quite often even. I suppose I had just thought myself a bit different from the rest of the party.”

“What do you mean?” A different feeling has encompassed him now. Not the sickening twist of disappointment, but something icy running through his veins. Not that different from fear, anticipatory of failure.

“I’m not foolish, Astarion,” Gale wasn’t leaning back from him, but in no way was returning his advances. Astarion subconsciously leans back, out of the wizard’s space. “I knew what this was. A part of me always thought that it might end up like this. It’s not as if I’m not flattered, or even averse to the idea. It’s just…”

The wizard trails off, looking at the ground. Astarion does not give him the fill-in he’s looking for, does not relieve the pressure off of him.

“I think of you as my friend,” Gale eventually confesses. “I don’t particularly want to be someone you have sex with because you feel as if you have nothing better to do.”

He’s being rejected. It’s not the first time this has happened to him, of course, but it almost feels different. “You don’t want to have sex with me?” Astarion clarifies, because not clarifying was what got him into this situation in the first place.

“Not like this,” Gale says, “I can’t just- I don’t just-” He struggles for words. Astarion waits.

“If we are going to have any form of relationship,” Gale speaks slowly, each word meticulously chosen, “I don’t want sex to be the foundation of it. I’d much rather it be something like this.”

Astarion laughs in his face.

“Darling, it’s not a ‘relationship’,” He says, not as kind as he could have been. Gale doesn’t flinch, but hurt does flash across his face. “It’s just sex.”

“I can’t do that, Astarion,” Gale grits his teeth before meeting Astarion’s gaze steadily. Softer, “Do you really think I could?”

And oh, of course. Really, it was an oversight on Astarion’s part. Gale’s previous lover had been a goddess. Astarion may have been abandoned by the gods, but he knows their kind of thinking. Devotion was probably branded into Gale’s soul. An instruction, a mantra. Put there since he was a child. He would not have Astarion unless he could have him in his entirety, laid out at his feet to bleed on his altar and whatnot. The idea was appealing, and that made his skin crawl.

Something in Astarion’s chest tightens. Somewhere else, something loosens.

“Alright then,” Astarion stands, and Gale’s expression falls. “That’s alright then, but a simple ‘no’ would have done fine. I’ll leave you to your myconid colonies, apologies for the misunderstanding, have fun and all that-”

“Astarion, wait,” Gale grabs Astarion’s wrist as the vampire moves to go. Astarion turns, but does not yank himself out of Gale’s grasp, though a corner of his brain screams at him to.

“I didn’t want to chase you off,” Gale begins, “I don’t dislike you. I just didn’t want to sleep with you now. With the orb, and everything around us, I just- can’t. I’m not sorry for it. But I do want to spend time with you.”

Something in Astarion’s head buzzes at that in confusion. A dissonance so strong that it almost knocks him off his feet. Gale wanted to read with him just because something about it was entertaining to him. Something about it was worth it, and that something was just Astarion.

Gale drops Astarion’s wrist.

“Well,” Astarion says haughtily. “I do suppose the others won’t turn up for a while yet.”

Haltingly, Astarion moves and sits down next to Gale. They don’t talk to each other, but Gale does open up a book again. Astarion doesn’t like reading. He leans over Gale’s shoulder anyway.

“Is this even true?” Astarion asks. It’s soft, hushed under the purple light.

“Presumably,” Gale answers, matching his tone. “I’ve never met a myconid before. Though, I wouldn’t be surprised if we ran across a bunch in this adventure.”

“I’ve never met a more adventurous angel.”

“Not an angel,” Gale corrects, flipping the page.

“Please,” Astarion says, gaze shifting to the wizard. “You’re ‘Gale of Waterdeep’, of Waterdeep is a title to be given to the likes of angels.”

Gale laughs gently, seemingly flustered by that comment of all things.

“Dekarios,” He says after a moment.

“Hm?”

“My last name is Dekarios,” Gale says.

“Dekarios,” Astarion echoes, as if testing the name in his mouth. “Gale Dekarios.”

“Entirely average and human,” Gale gives him a grin.

Astarion rolls his eyes. “Alright, angel. Whatever you say.”

For a night before a slaughter, everyone is quite cheerful.

Far be it for Astarion to call for the mood to be dour, it’s not as if he particularly leans one way or another in this whole debacle. On one hand, he’d love to have the power that the cultists offer him, but he could do without all the dimwitted goblins following him around. The tieflings he doesn’t care about, but if he were to go against the group it would lead to adverse consequences. He doesn’t want to lose this group and his newfound…friends. It doesn’t feel like he can apply that label to them. He knows they’re not victims, but it’s hardly as if Astarion is in the business for making friends.

It felt as if they were all friends, or friendly at least, and Astarion sat on the outside. He was stuck in a carriage with a hand on the glass. Always moving, yet stuck perpetually in the same place. Any and all bonds reached out cut by sharp canines, sharp words, sharp objects carving things into his back. The threads snap and all come back to him, scattered at his feet like ruins.

“Hey, soldier,” A voice says next to him, a second before a heat engulfs him.

Astarion’s gaze slides to Karlach, who has sat herself next to him. They don’t touch at any point - can’t - but Astarion would be a liar if he said he didn’t enjoy being next to her. His body makes it so it’s hard for him to feel temperature change, another thing taken from him. The tiefling’s warmth makes him feel, well not alive, but at least warm.

Gods, he’s like a lizard.

“What are you doing sulking all the way over here?” Karlach continues, tilting her head.

Astarion sniffs haughtily. “Just seems a bit early for celebrations.”

“It’s of life!” Karlach gestures at where the rest of the party talks quietly, happily around the campfire. “We may not get another chance to just…bask in it again.”

“Some of us,” He says a bit waspishly, “Are already dead.”

“Aw, c’mon Fangs. You know I don’t mean it like that.”

Astarion sighs. “I know.”

“Look,” Karlach says, pointing over to the fire. “Even Lae’zel and Shadowheart aren’t tryna kill each other. Ain’t that fantastic?”

“It is a miracle, I would say,” Astarion rolls out his shoulders, figuring that Karlach won’t leave him to brood. “Soon we’ll see them braiding each other’s hair and kissing.”

“I wouldn’t get too excited,” Karlach says.

Astarion’s eyes flit to their resident wizard, wings glowing faintly in the darkness. He’s sat next to Wyll, heads bowed, the two of them talking passionately. Astarion wonders what it is, if they’re exchanging spells, or cooking recipes, or something else.

“Who’re staring at?” Karlach whispers, leaning in.

Astarion gives her a look, and she leans back, grinning. Astarion can’t help the way the corners of his mouth curl up in response. “I was just thinking that our angel and devil duo make an interesting sight.”

“Oh! Oh, yeah,” Karlach says, glancing over at them as well. “I guess you’re right. Wonder what they’re talking about, yeah?”

“Oh, magic user things most likely,” Astarion waves a dismissive hand.

“Aren’t you a magic user, Fangs?”

“I only dabble, Karlach, dear.”

She laughs slightly. “Yeah, I’d be surprised if you didn’t pick up magic, seeing how much time you spend around the best wizard of Waterdeep.”

Astarion hums in agreement before the words process. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothin’!” The grin she supplies contradicts the words. “Just…the two of you get quite cozy quite often, yeah?”

“Karlach!” He presses a hand to his chest. “Are you insinuating that there’s something between the mage and I?”

“I’m not not insinuating that.”

“Ha,” Astarion turns back to gazing at where Wyll and Gale remain locked in conversation. “Well, bad news for you, darling. I tried that route, and he promptly shut me down.”

“No,” Karlach sounds aghast, “Really? I would’ve thought for sure he liked you!”

Astarion tilts his head this way and that. It wasn’t an outright rejection, not like Karlach was probably thinking of. But it had been an outright rejection, at least to Astarion. It had taken the foundations of everything he knew and knocked them from underneath him. Now, he stood uncertain, not sure of what foot to put forward, where to put his weight. Gale had offered him his hand, and he just wasn’t sure of how to take it.

Karlach takes note of his silence. “What’s going through your mind, Astarion?”

He wishes they were having this party at any other night, so he could at least attempt to drink himself into oblivion. 

He watches from the sidelines as Gale suddenly stands, wings fluttering in excitement. Astarion can barely hear them from his place, but he can see their mouths moving.

Gale extends a hand towards Wyll, bowing with a slight flourish. Astarion scowls for some reason, as Wyll holds his hands up as if bashfully, denying him.

“Aw, come on,” He can barely hear Gale say. “Just one dance?”

He doesn’t know why he’s doing this. “He wouldn’t sleep with me.”

“What?” Karlach sounds thoroughly confused.

Astarion drags his eyes back up, watching as Gale leads Wyll a safer distance from the campfire before the two bow to each other. The angel takes the devil’s hands in his, and the two begin to waltz. It’s a slow thing, mostly just the two of them spinning in a circle. Wyll walks Gale through a move, and then they perform it. Gale’s eyes light up as he remembers something from a ball he attended in Waterdeep, and recreates it for Wyll. They forget a few steps, and laugh. Gale steps on Wyll’s feet, and they laugh.

“Astarion,” Karlach starts. He doesn’t let her finish.

“Don’t,” He snaps, meaner than he should be, and he knows it. “I know what you’re going to say.”

She says it anyway. “Just because he wouldn’t have sex with you doesn’t mean he doesn’t like you.”

Gale and Wyll do make a fine pair, Astarion has to admit. There’s something ironic about the two dancing around the campfire, and how between the two of them, it was probably Gale who had the grayer morals.

“What do you know?” The words tumble out of him before he can really think about it.

Karlach goes a little quiet, as if Astarion just shoved a handful of problems into her hands and now she doesn’t know what to do with them. That’s exactly what he did.

“Well, y’know, Gale just doesn’t seem to be that type?” She tries.

That type . His rejection had felt like Astarion should brace for punishment, the shame had burned into his skin like a mark. 

The worst part is that they look like friends, dancing together with no cares in the world. Being free and laughing together, Astarion can see where Gale’s eyes crinkle when he laughs, can see how Wyll’s shoulders shake and he has to walk away to compose himself for a moment. It’s all just so achingly alive , it feels as if Cazador has taken his claws to the mangled pulp of his heart and pulled at it again, just to see if anything else can fall out of place. Even after two hundred years, Astarion keeps finding out that something else can.

“All I’m trying to say,” Sweet Karlach continues, “Is don’t give up hope, yeah?”

This is the part where Astarion concedes. Or snaps at her. This is the part where he lays down his arms or sets the entire village on fire from inside his carriage - his cage.

“That’s easier said than done,” Is what he ends up saying instead, “There’s a moment in time, Karlach, where you have to know when you’ve lost.”

“You don’t really think that, yeah?”

The village starts to catch, and he scoffs. “I do. I don’t know what naive, romantic little world you live in, but this one is different. To sidestep to the best part of the relationship and throw it back is fine. I don’t care he rejected me, I don’t. But I’m not foolish enough to delude myself into something that’s real, something that I don’t even care about. It was never going to be real, that was never the point, anyway.”

He stands, Karlach looks at him, confused. “What was your point, then, Fangs?”

He feels the open wound that’s his soul throb and pulse. “The point is that people want sex,” He says it slowly, as if to let the words seep in, “If I offer it, and they deny it, then the transaction is over. They don’t want anything from me, and I don’t want anything from them. At some point in you life you learn, that even after everything, there is nothing worse than somebody who doesn’t want to fuck you.”

He spins on his heel before she has a chance to reply, before she can try to worm her way into his heart and head with her sweet words and reassurances. He doesn’t care. So he doesn’t have Gale’s protection, fine. He can have Tav, he can have Shadowheart, or Lae’zel, or anyone else. He and the angel can be friends of a kind. He could use that. He’s fine.

He ducks into his tent, shutting out the world. He sits down angrily on his pile of pillows and blankets, internally cursing himself for not dipping into the woods to hunt. He can’t leave this tent, not now, not unless the party decided to actually do the responsible thing and sleep. He’ll be hungry tomorrow, sluggish and off-balance, but he’ll be fine. He’s always fine, at the very least. 

His nerves curl up and wind inside him, waiting for the other shoe to drop. No prey, no pay, in a sense. He has to remind himself. Cazador isn’t here. There is no punishment for not getting someone. There will be no torture, there will be no other shoe. There’s just him, in his tent.

Alone.

He’s spent his nights alone before. He’s spent many nights alone before. There’s nothing to it. He hears the rest of the party from the other side of the tent, can hear their chattering voices. Has Karlach joined them? Did she give up when Astarion pushed, like she was supposed to? Has he already slipped Gale’s mind?

Astarion shakes his head as if to dislodge the thought. Better to trance now, hunt later. When the rest of them are tired and bemoaning, he’ll be ready. It will be fine. Utterly fine.

It was not, so to say, utterly fine. The goblin camp was an utter nightmare. They won, of course, but not without a lot of wasted blood spilled onto the ground.

Astarion doesn’t know what anyone was expecting, really. It wasn’t as if they had been pacifists this entire time, they had slaughtered many creatures to get here in the first place.

Tav had decided to take him, despite his sour demeanor, and he had trucked through the whole day with hunger pains in his stomach and exhaustion gnawing at his brain. He had bitten and drunk his fill from a few goblins, but their blood was vile and full of a cheap wine that left him not sure of his footing. Despite Tav’s surest efforts to solemnly nod and lie their way through, it all fell to bits when there was nothing left to do but act as assassins.

The entire camp had to be slaughtered. Astarion thought nothing of it, but there was a moment in the aftermath of it all where Tav stood there, chest heaving and blood spattered across them, staring at nothing. Astarion watched from the shadows as Wyll hesitantly touched their shoulder, and they whipped around to him before letting him lead them away.

All of this, just for some more cheap wine, annoying company, and a stupid party.

Needless to say, he’s not having a good time. He lingers in front of his tent, watching the wizard apprentice make pretty lights for his siblings and scoffing at it.

“Not enjoying yourself, Astarion?” A familiar voice says next to him. Astarion isn’t startled, could hear the angel approach from a mile away.

“Please, angel,” He replies, rolling his head to stare at the man through his eyelashes. “I just don’t see the big deal.”

Gale tilts his head in confusion, not unlike a puppy. “What do you mean?”

“So we traded a few tiefling lives for a few goblin lives,” Astarion waves a dismissive hand. “It’s not like it matters. What do we have to show for it? A pat on the head, and vinegar for wine.”

Gale hums. Before Astarion can really process it, he swipes the bottle from Astarion. Pressing it to his lips, he takes a drink from it. He pulls it away, as if analyzing, face going through multiple different expressions. He swallows, and Astarion sees the way his throat works, can almost see the blood pounding through in currents under the skin.

It takes him a moment to realize Gale has offered the bottle back to him, and he takes it as smoothly as he can possibly manage to avoid the fact he had been caught staring.

“I think that might be your vampirism, friend,” Gale says when Astarion had taken it back, “Sure, it’s a bit dry, but I would hardly call it vinegar. It’s nothing from Waterdeep, that’s for certain.”

“A bit of a wine connoisseur, are you, angel?” Astarion raises an eyebrow.

Gale smiles, soft and almost hidden. “I dabble, one could say. I’ve been invited to many Waterdhavian parties as an esteemed guest, and the hosts of those parties had a lot of social flaunting to do. I’ll have to show you sometime. I’ve sampled a fascinating blend of reds and whites, even a few where there were gold flakes instilled in the wine.”

Astarion takes another swig of his drink. “Has anyone ever told you you’re a bit of a braggart, wizard?”

“I’ve heard from time to time,” Gale accepts the drink when Astarion hands it back to him. “No shame in taking a bit of pride in my accomplishments.”

“‘A bit,’” Astarion throws the words back at him lightheartedly.

“A fair bit,” Gale amends. His expression, light and playful, falters. “Though, I suppose some humbling is necessary after such a folly.”

He brings a hand up to the mark on his chest, pressing against it as if to push discomfort away. 

“Does it hurt?” Astarion asks. He’s not sure why he hushes his voice, like it’s a secret between the two of them.

“In some sense,” Gale answers. “It’s…odd. To have a hunger that resonates from somewhere other than my stomach, to want something other than food. I suppose you would understand.”

“You don’t say?” Astarion asks sarcastically. “That thing isn’t about to go off, is it? As much as I dislike the party, I’d have to say that would probably call for a premature end. A real crasher.”

Gale laughs, but the sound is strained. “We’re not near imminent death, I think. However, I can feel it destabilizing.”

What an interesting concept, this whole orb business was. Arcane hunger, something to set Gale apart from the others. If Astarion were more adept socially - or perhaps if he was anyone other than Astarion - this would be the moment where he comforts Gale. Croon gentle questions. Are you alright? Do you need help? Can I get you anything?

“Describe it,” Astarion demands, voice barely a whisper.

Gale startles at the command, eyes flicking from Astarion, to the bottle of wine, to the party. He swallows, as if weighing his options. What options?

“Like,” Gale starts, stops, starts again. “Like my being is unravelling. Imagine a candle in a dark room. The way the flame flickers, fighting off the darkness in waves that encroach and recede. Now, imagine if it was the opposite. There’s a darkness inside of me that keeps rising, swallowing parts of me whole. It grabs onto the parts of me that I like most. My rational, my magic, my blood. It unravels and taints it all, until all I am is just skin holding it at bay. Which I cannot do for long.”

Astarion lets the testimony sit in the air, giving it the same silent judgement he was fond of doing as a magistrate, letting the witness squirm under his gaze. Gale holds his gaze steady.

Astarion stands suddenly, placing the bottle of wine aside. “Follow me.”

It’s not a question, but still Gale hesitates as Astarion ducks into his tent. Astarion can hear the tent flap rustle a moment later as he digs through his chest.

Gale does not question him aloud, but Astarion can feel it in the angel’s gaze as he turns around. He keeps his prize behind his back, tucked softly into his cold palm.

“On your knees,” He says simply.

Gale blinks. “Astarion…?”

Astarion holds up one finger, a signal that gets Gale to stop talking. “Do you want my help or not, Gale?”

The use of his name has the wizard pausing for just a second before slowly sinking to his knees. Astarion doesn’t tell him to, but the wizard tucks his hands behind his back.

Something in Astarion stirs. It feels as if his fangs have grown longer to accommodate the hunger suddenly within him.

Astarion moves to lean over Gale, examining him not unlike a bug. He feels tall here, calm and in his element. Carefully, he brings up his hand and lets his prize slip. Gale flinches as the locket comes racing towards him, before stopping short and swinging wildly, the pretty chain wrapped around Astarion’s fingers.

It takes Gale’s eyes a moment to find the locket. When they do, they follow it like a dog does with a treat. The pupils in his brown eyes dilate almost impossibly. There’s a purple glow in the room, reflected on the shine of Gale’s eyes. Distantly, Astarion notes that it comes from Gale’s tattoo. He’s too busy staring at the darkness of his eyes, the way they swallow that light and more.

It’s as if he’s staring directly into that thing in Gale’s chest. Or, better, this could just be the wizard. Staring at the locket with such hunger that it reopens the void inside of him, the thing that surges through his veins and allows for the wizard to call upon ground and sky to aid him in battle. Pure, raw power.

Astarion’s fangs ache. WIth a simple flick of his wrist, the locket arcs through the air and back into his palm. Gale’s eyes follow it, before blinking. The hungry gaze is redirected towards him.

In an attempt to wrestle the burning in his stomach back under control, Astarion appraises the locket with a faux nonchalance. 

Never dark again , the locket proclaims on the back. How naive.

Gale makes a noise in the back of his throat, and leans forward as if to chase the locket. He tips forward too far, steadying himself by grabbing onto Astarion’s hips. Astarion does not flinch, but bites the inside of his lip as Gale does not move. It’s a very pretty picture, here. Gale, on his knees, grabbing at Astarion, desperate.

“Describe it,” Astarion repeats.

Confusion flickers in Gale’s gaze if just for a moment. He swallows heavily, eyes not leaving Astarion. Or Astarion’s palm.

“The locket has evocation magic,” The wizard starts gently. His wings flutter behind him, as if in excitement. “I can see it. I can taste it, almost. I…I want it.”

Such a simple phrase. It hits Astarion directly in the chest, spreading a fire within him. He stares down at the angel on his knees, and he wants. It’s a foreign feeling, he doesn’t know what to do with it.

“Please,” Gale says, hunger radiating off of him in waves. Astarion understands in that moment the void in the eyes that swallows Gale whole, and suddenly wishes to know what it’s like to be so consumed.

He lets the locket fall from his hand, and Gale catches it in his teeth, having to chase just a bit. The brightness of his tattoo increases, that same sheen on his wings. They shudder heavily before all but going limp, sprawled out awkwardly on Astarion’s tent floor. They must be covered in dirt and grime, but Gale doesn’t seem to care. His face twists in abject agony, teeth clenching down on metal.

Astarion reaches out and bends over Gale. He runs a hand down the angel’s back as far as he can reach, palm flat against the area between the two wings. He can feel Gale trembling under his touch, minute shakes that are hardly contained. He splays his fingers to touch where human skin gives way to feathers, and a noise is drawn from Gale’s throat.

He hardly hears it, instead so fascinated by the soft feathers that peak out from dark purple cloth. He pinches one, not gentle, but not enough to yank it from its purchase in Gale’s skin. He puts it back into place, fine-tuned ears catching the quick breath of relief from Gale.

“Astarion,” Gale says, slightly muffled. Astarion pulls back, seeing the unimpressed look from the wizard, who still has a locket in his mouth.

Astarion holds out his palm, and Gale drops it in his hand. Astarion tosses it to the side before returning his gaze to the angel. The angel, still on his knees, hands still on him, staring at him with a barely-sated hunger.

It would be so easy to slip. 

“Better?” Astarion asks.

Gale nods.

Astarion runs a hand through the wizard’s hair, letting his nails gently scrape. “Good.”

Gale inhales sharply. “Astarion,” He repeats, this time more akin to a warning.

Astarion leans down and kisses him.

For all of his warnings, Gale seems as if this is what he was expecting. Moreso, when Astarion’s tongue swipes across his bottom lip, Gale offers no resistance when his mouth drops open. Astarion claims the space easily, mapping out Gale’s mouth as if he could taste the evocation magic the wizard so headily described.

All he can taste is metal and wine.

Gale’s hands flex on him, as if hesitant. But his grip eventually tightens. Astarion feels as if he’s won a victory, despite that sinking feeling in his stomach. He’s done it, brokedown the wizard until this landed where Astarion always knew it was going to land. The wizard can keep his hands to himself all he wants, but at the end of the day he is still just a man. He could try all he wanted to be virtuous, but Astarion knows where exactly to push and tug to have the angel whimpering into his mouth, fingers pressing into the skin under cloth like he can’t wait to take it off. 

He was right. He’s always right.

There’s a harsh movement of air around himself after a moment, and Astarion pulls away in surprise at the sound of papers and cloth rustling.

Gale looks up at him, eyes glazed. Around the two of them, though, Astarion can only see a purple-sheened white. The wings had come up, as if to block Astarion in. He lurches back at this realization, looking around.

He’s not trapped, he knows. Can see his tent through the gaps in the wings. Before he can hammer this thought into himself, though, the wings drop. They sprawl back out onto the floor.

“Sorry,” Gale murmurs, a bit out of breath from the kiss. “I didn’t know they would do that.”

The red of his tent comes back into view, the glowing from the orb dying down. Astarion gives Gale a long look. The wizard looks sheepish, hands on his laps from where they fell away from Astarion. 

Astarion drops to his knees and crawls into the wizard’s lap. Gale looks surprised only for a second before Astarion grabs his chin and tilts his head to the side.

“Say yes?” He asks against Gale’s throat.

“Yes,” Gale answers without hesitation.

Astarion’s teeth sink into the flesh. Gale winces instantly, a hand fisting in the back of the vampire’s shirt for something to hold onto. Astarion’s hand drops from his chin to rest on one of Gale’s shoulders, the other scrambling for purchase somewhere on his back.

Gale’s blood tastes the same it did before, deceptively rich at first before bile-filled. Astarion’s instincts tell him to retreat, so he soldiers onwards, taking long drags like he did with the horrid tasting wine.

His hand finally finds something to hold onto, grabbing a handful of feathers at an odd angle and pulling slightly.

Gale lets out a yelp of pain before muffling himself with one hand. Astarion can feel the angel’s chest heave against his still one. 

“Astarion, stop .”

The command comes with no room for hesitation. Astarion does so, pulling back and letting go. He looks at the angel, disheveled and bleeding from the neck, panting in pain, and feels some sort of shame.

“I…” Astarion starts.

Gale glares at him, which he supposes he deserves. “Don’t I make you feel sick?”
“Pardon?” Astarion asks. He supposes he does feel sick. His victory doesn’t count, does it? Not if it’s from Astarion’s manipulation, stringing him along. How could he blame Gale for that? A nausea does sit in his stomach.

“My blood,” Gale clarifies, “Doesn’t it taste like bile?”

“Oh,” Astarion says. “I…well, yes. Though, I suppose after consuming your magic dosage, it’s not as bad.”

Gale hums, twisting around to look at something. Astarion realizes he’s still on the man’s lap, and slides off of it.

“Are you alright?” Astarion asks after a moment of Gale turning this way and that.

“Could you fix my feathers?” Gale answers with a question.

Astarion blinks at him.

“Considering you bent them,” Gale adds on.

Astarion blinks at this. “Did I? Does it hurt?”

“No,” Gale says. “It’s just messy-looking.”

Astarion stands up and moves to circle Gale, crouching down. He sees the damage he caused, and tries his best to fix it. Straightening them to the best of his judgement, he runs his hand down Gale’s back again, and then down the wings. Gale shudders.

Astarion wants him.

Gale looks at him from over his shoulder, pupils still dilated, swallowing Astarion whole.

“All done,” Astarion says in lieu of anything else.

Gale stands. “Right, then. Uh, thank you for the artefact. I should be getting to my tent. We have a long day tomorrow.”

“Gale,” Astarion starts, and then stops. Gale stares at him expectantly.

“Take the rest of that horrid wine, won’t you?” Astarion ends up saying. 

Gale pauses, and then nods. “Of course. Have a good night, Astarion.”

“Good night, Gale,” Astarion says. The thing inside of his chest thrashes as he watches the angel go. All his feathers are in order, but Astarion still has to stamp down the urge to run his fingers along the wings, just to check.

It would be so easy to slip. 

The wizard is going to kill himself.

Astarion turns the reality of the situation over and over in his mind, waiting for it to feel more real. In the span of a handful of days, his relationship with the angel had disintegrated into almost nothing, and then his stupid goddess of all things demanded he blow himself up. 

And he’s considering it.

What a waste of a perfectly good Gale.

The night after the party, the group had picked up and gone to the Underdark, a dark and dismal place Astarion was not the fondest of. Walking around without the sun was bad enough, but it didn’t help the perceived tension in the air that haunted him with every step he took. After the night of the party, the dynamics within their ragtag team of weirdos had shifted, much to Astarion’s chagrin.

The angel’s not a target. Wouldn’t let himself be a target. But the plan had worked regardless. He had the wizard defending him, protecting him, all without having to lay a finger below the belt. He’s certainly not a victim, considering Astarion planned on never hauling a soul up to Cazador’s mansion again. Astarion felt off balance, confused. He staunchly refused to let the question play out in his head, did not let thought give it form enough to become real.

What was the angel to him?

Gale, for all his part, was a terrible liar. The wizard couldn’t stand to glance at Astarion for longer than a few moments before flushing red and turning away. People would think that Astarion had him tied up in a dungeon, begging for him all night, rather than sharing a little kiss.

The two don’t talk. It’s fine, Astarion supposes. It wasn’t as if he was hanging up decorations in their home in a domestic fantasy, Gale was just Gale. His - he still loathes to put the word to anyone - friend, and yes that would surely be a loss, but truly no more skin off of his back, right?

Sure, the wizard had promised him Waterdeep. But only in an off-handed comment. A fantasy, something far away to cling to. A vision of gold wine and wizard’s towers that let him grit his teeth and stomp through bizarre fungi on the worst of days. An idle thing Astarion knew would never be real.

“Can I ask you a question?” Shadowheart said to him one day, out of the blue. They’d ventured down an elevator of all things into the dreaded shadow cursed lands, and Astarion jumped from how high alert he was.

“That was a question, dear,” He replied, eyes flitting around in the darkness. He thought he could make out a figure, but wasn’t quite sure. “Do you know if Tav plans to stop anytime soon?”

The bard had been flipping through every key they had on a chest they had stumbled across, as they are wont to do, determined to make some use of them.

“I’m sure they’re entertaining themself,” Shadowheart waved a dismissive hand, “I want to ask about you and Gale.”

Astarion, who had been creeping towards the stairs of the room, stiffened. Plastering on a smile he turned to give the cleric a smarmy look.

“My, Shadowheart,” Astarion said, pressing a hand to his chest. “I didn’t know you thought of our wizard in such a way. Vying after all the juicy details, are you? Want to know the cadence of his moans?”

Shadowheart scowled. “Nice try, Astarion, but I’ve known you long enough now. That’s not what I meant.”

“Then I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Astarion swiped at a thin coat of dust, examining it on his finger before dusting his hands off. He went to walk away and found the cleric there in front of him.

“Pushiness isn’t a good look, darling,” Astarion growled.

Shadowheart doesn’t budge. “Did you do something to him?”

“Me?” Astarion exclaimed. “ Me do something to him ?”

“That’s what I said.”

“No!” Astarion lifted a hand in frustrated exasperation and side stepped around the cleric, seeing where Wyll had taken an interest in the conversation. “Nothing at all happened between me and the wizard, it’s not my fault he’s a freak.”

“Strong words,” Shadowheart commented, her calm voice doing nothing but agitating Astarion more.

He stopped dead as a thought came to his mind, pivoting to face her. He shoved a finger into her armor, not paying attention to the way this is certainly a battle he would lose.

“What did Karlach tell you?” He hissed.

Genuine surprise flits across Shadowheart’s face. “What?”
Fuck.

“Nevermind, then,” Astarion spun back around. Of course the teddy bear of a tiefling wouldn’t go spilling his brief breakdown to anyone else, because Karlach is a good person made for good things. Nothing like the rot and ruin that entangle Gale and Astarion every move of this perverted, twisted dance they take. That Astarion leads them through.

“Astarion,” Shadowheart tried again, “I just mean that if there’s any unresolved tension, it’s taking away from his ability to do well in battle. Besides, even you have to admit that you have been-”
“Shut up,” Astarion interrupted, holding up a hand.

“No!” Shadowheat argued instantly, “You can’t just-!”

“I mean it this time, cleric, shut up,” Astarion repeated, pointing to the figure.

An older wizard stood idly before the doorway, eyeing them curiously.

At the sudden sound of silence, it didn’t take long for Tav and Wyll to materialize by their sides.

“Who are you?” Astarion asked warily. The old man certainly didn’t seem shadow cursed. If this was the worst it had to throw at them, then Astarion couldn’t help but think the archdruid was a bit dramatic.

He was such an idiot.

“Hello,” The wizard started. “I couldn’t help but overhear. Were you talking about one Gale of Waterdeep?”

Astarion could feel his alarm bells ringing suddenly, eyes narrowing. Before he could bite out a comment that it might be best if the wizard went back from wherever he came, Tav stepped forward. In that way only they could do, they managed to wring out all the right information without saying a word.

The man was named Elminster, and needed to talk to Gale urgently. He was also a fiend for cheese, apparently. 

And now the wizard’s going to kill himself.

The entire camp seemed to be in shellshock, which offered Astarion a little comfort. Tav did their usual rounds, seeming to argue animatedly with Gale about the entire thing for a while. After that it was quiet.

The thing was, Astarion knew the wizard. He tried to deny it to himself, but he knew the wizard. When a little more time had passed, Gale would stand and do the cooking as always, pretending nothing was wrong. He would easily be a martyr for this woman, this god who placed a mark on him and told him to live with it. 

Wyll eventually stands and makes his way over to Gale. Astarion watches as the two have a gentle conversation. He could strain his ears and try to hear, if he wanted. Could try to catch the words traded between the two friends, as angel and devil leaned their heads against one another, pressed up close with familiarity and comfort.

Astarion couldn’t even go out and hunt, the stupid shadow curse pressing in on all sides and ruining him. Hunger stabbed sharply in his stomach, Gale’s appeasement radiating outwards from him. As predicted, Gale eventually stands and makes his way to the campfire, Wyll in tow. The two begin to work together on dinner, crafting something Astarion couldn’t eat if he tried, and Astarion’s suddenly fighting the urge to gasp. To dig his teeth into something that writhes and threatens to break away and can’t. He wants to breathe deep and quick in cold air and smell smoke, taste food, kiss that stupid angel despite the fact his stomach lurches at the thought of hands on his skin once again.

He hides in his tent like a fucking coward. He knows if there was a way to run, he would take it.

The night passes, and Astarion paces the length of his tent. He feels as if he’s going to crawl out of his own skin with the urge to do something, anything at all. The camp is quiet now, has been quiet, too quiet except for the fact Astarion can hear in the distance the moans of those who fell to the shadow curse, can hear the creak of beings shifting around, can hear Gale’s breathing that’s too shallow to indicate he’s asleep.

Astarion storms out of his tent without thinking much of it, and pulls open the flaps of Gale’s.

The angel sits up quickly. It’s dark in here, but Astarion can see the tiredness that pulls at the angel’s face, the paler complexion on skin the sun actually loves. 

Briefly, he thinks about the last time the two of them were in a tent together. Gale’s mouth on his, hands on him, where he was beautiful and blood-covered. Astarion can see his face through the dark, see where his hair falls into his eyes. He’s beautiful now, divine and bile-filled, everything Astarion both is and isn’t.

Gale opens his mouth to question him, but Astarion walks in further before he has the chance. The tent flap falls closed behind him, and Gale blinks in the way a prey animal does when it cannot see the predator before it. The snake and the bird.

“You’re not going to actually do it, are you?” Astarion sits down in front of Gale. There’s no rhyme or reason for why he lets his crossed legs relax enough to nudge against Gale, letting the angel know where he sits.

Gale glances over to him, not even bothering conjuring the lights. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“Why wouldn’t you?” Astarion repeats. “Are you serious?”

“Think about it, Astarion,” Gale starts. “A chance for forgiveness by a goddess. I could be returned to the legacy I once was. I could be on good terms with her again.”

“The only thing you’ll be is a pile of ash,” Astarion scowls.

Gale sighs. “Astarion, if you’re here to tell me not to do it, everyone else has already beat you to the punch. Shadowheart told me it’d be a waste of my mind, Wyll told me I have everything I need already, Lae’zel and Karlach told me Mystra’s not worth servicing at all. Why are you here?”

The wizards ire had slowly risen with each word from his mouth, until it lay bubbling under the surface like a whirlpool. It occurs to Astarion, then, that the wizard is mad at him. Perhaps for Astarion’s constant push-pull, perhaps Astarion is just the thing that offset the stress of the day, whatever it is, he once more has Gale’s glare aimed firmly at himself.

“Then I don’t see why I can’t throw in my two-cents,” Astarion starts after a moment. He’s never been the delicate type. “There’s no reason for you to do this.”

Gale scoffs. “You just don’t listen to a single word I say, do you?”

“As much as I try to cut the filler out, darling,” Astarion says, “I mean this. I know you want forgiveness, but does she deserve it?”

“She’s a goddess, Astarion. What could you even possibly mean by that?”

“I mean,” Astarion pushes on. There’s no rhyme or reason for why he stretches out a hand and places it lightly on Gale’s ankle. “That she’s manipulated you, strung you along, and abandoned you.”

He can see Gale wince vaguely at the words. “That’s not what happened.”

Astarion wants to push. Wants to repeat the words over and over until they sink into the wizard’s mind, his skin, until he understands. But Astarion isn’t a fool. He’s as likely here to chase Gale away as comfort him.

“If anyone else had asked, would you even consider it?” Astarion says. “What makes her word so special?”

“Because I loved her,” Gale moves away, curling his limbs in on himself and away from Astarion’s reach. “I love her. I always have.”

The wings curl around the small ball of a wizard, and Astarion does not see Gale of Waterdeep here. He sees a small boy, a human man. One whose chest has been broken open and the things inside stolen, played with, and not even returned. Gale Dekarios, with his wings used as a tool to separate himself from the rest of the world, physical evidence that he was loved once and will not be loved that way again.

“What is there for me, besides her?” Gale laments quietly. “There was no beginning or end. She has left her fingerprints on my soul forever. I am always going to be hers. I’d rather dictate in what way on my own terms. If it means that I am disintegrated for the greater good of all things? I’d rather take that than…”
Than to go on like this. 

Astarion sits there. Gale is in the dark with a predator, and he cannot see. He cannot see when Astarion leans forward, crawling just slightly. He cannot see when Astarion parts the curtain of the wings and moves into the angel’s space. He cannot see when Astarion places his cold hands on the wizard’s face.

“You are alive,” Astarion says softly, breaking the tentative silence between them.

“Astute observation.”

“Gale,” Astarion says softly, and the wizard falls silent. He continues. In the dark, he can see the way Gale’s eyes roam over where he thinks Astarion’s face is, uncertainty and fear etched out on every line. It feels too soft and rotten in Astarion’s mouth. He closes his eyes, and gently nudges at his own walls. He doesn’t know if they can come down. But they begin to crumble.

He pulls away for just a moment to take off his shirt. In the darkness, it is just a rustle of fabric. He reaches blindly for Gale’s hand, and finds his fingers digging into Gale’s own shoulder, like he’s hugging himself.

He cannot see Gale’s reaction as he grabs the wizard’s hand. He cannot see the furrowed brow as he awkwardly leans forward, head bumping into the wizard’s collarbone. He cannot see the way Gale’s mouth drops open in silent horror as he brings the warm hand to his too-cold back, encouraging the tracing of the scars. He hates it. He hates every moment of it. He feels as if he’s five seconds away from flinging himself off of Gale, outside of the winged trap he’s in and storming out to let the curse consume him.

Astarion swallows and closes his eyes tighter. “Cazador once spent a night carving a poem into my back. He would go over and over every single mark with precision, redoing any mistakes he made, or just to hear me scream.

He had tortured us before. All of us. But that night? I remember looking up from the table. I remember smelling my own blood, feeling his hands slip because of how slick and wet my back was. I remember him wiping away the blood, telling me how pretty I was. I remember thinking to myself: This is how it’s going to be forever. It’s never going to be anything besides this.

I didn’t believe it, in the long term. It wasn’t something I internalized. I refused to. But for that night, for those few moments, he had broken me. He had utterly, entirely broken me.”

Astarion shifts, then. He catches Gale’s hand and pulls it off of his back from where he had started to retrace the scars. The stupid romantic. He didn’t understand the way Astarion wanted to burn off all of his flesh at that moment, just to have something untouched.

“Mystra isn’t Cazador,” Astarion continues eventually, feeling the chest of the wizard rise and fall under him. “But somehow she’s broken you, angel. She broke you just the same.”

He lifts his head. The angel trembles under him, shakes. Gale’s a quiet crier, Astarion only realizes it through the hitch in his breath and feeling the tears drip onto him, slow and thick. 

Astarion opens his eyes. Gale’s staring at him, hands hovering, face tear streaked. There’s no light between the two of them, but Astarion can see him anyway.

“Don’t let her have this,” Astarion demands softly. “You can’t.”

He can’t bring himself to care if the analogy was cruel, if his command is overstepping, if this makes Gale feel guilty. He can’t bring himself to care. He’s focused on keeping his wizard around for now. He will feel bad later, in Waterdeep.

Gale swallows thickly and nods. Astarion thinks it’s just an appeasement. It could be a lie. But Astarion is not the type of person who can fault liars. 

He reaches back for his shirt and slips it on again, moving back as little as possible. Astarion isn’t crying, but there’s an ache in his throat and chest, spreading through his whole body.

“Lie down, angel,” He says.

Gale pauses, and Astarion knows he’s considering arguing.

He lies down.

Astarion mimics his position, laying down next to the angel. He keeps his back to the wizard, couldn’t stand to put a face to this. He doesn’t want to see in the dark, doesn’t want to know how Gale is staring at him.

A heavy weight drapes over him. White obscures his vision for a moment before it shifts into a position more comfortable. Like a blanket, Gale has draped a wing over him. He remembers seeing the way the wings were used as a shield. For the first time, Astarion thinks about not keeping something in, but keeping everything else out.

“You didn’t have to tell me that,” Gale eventually says.

Astarion knows he didn’t. He wants to tell Gale that. That he chose to tell Gale only partially because it makes the metaphor more clear. That he knows he could have gone his entire life with this thing inside of his skin, and no one would have been any wiser.

“Somebody had to know,” Astarion answers.

There is something tragic in having to relive a story to tell it. Then again, there is something tragic in a story that dies with you.

Astarion breathes out despite the fact he knows he doesn’t have to. “I spent two hundred years using my body to lure pretty things back to Cazador. And then he goes and mauls me.”

The wing on him shifts slightly, almost as if to cover more of him. Astarion idly traces what parts of it he can reach, skimming his fingers along the cut feathers.

“Sometimes it feels like the things that happened to me just happened to a body; I wish it was mine,” He continues. He doesn’t know why, there’s no rhyme or reason to letting Gale peek into these crumbled foundations of walls he can’t seem to bring down.

“I’m-” Gale starts.

“Don’t say you’re sorry,” Astarion says coldly.

“I wasn’t going to.”

“You’re a terrible liar.”

Gale doesn’t respond to that, because that’s the part of a conversation where an apology would go.

Astarion sighs. Perhaps he shouldn’t snap at the wizard who was going to kill himself, but every part of him felt like a live wire, humming and sparking off of any touch or word - or lack thereof. He turns back, and sees Gale staring at him. The pity in his eyes feels comforting and awful at the same time. The wing not draping Astarion is sprawled out behind him, threatening to knock small towers of books aside.

Astarion turns back to face the purple wall of the tent. “That can’t be comfortable.”

“It’s how I sleep,” If the wizard were more awake, perhaps he would sound more indignant.

He laughs despite himself. “That doesn’t make it correct, angel. Honestly, do you even know how to use these things, when you still could?”

“I figured most of it out eventually!”

Gale’s tone is light, sleepy and playful. Astarion takes pause.

“You figured it out?” He asks.

Gale shrugs, causing the feathers to skim gently along Astarion’s body. “They were always supposed to be more cosmetic than anything else. Just a signal, really. It was foolish to expect anyone to teach me how to use them. I just figured out the important parts along the way.”

Once again, Astarion wonders if deicide is really that hard.

“She changed you and just left you to figure it out,” Astarion scoffs.

Gale hums, somewhere between reluctant and uncomfortable in his agreement. The angel was still in love with his goddess, so as much as Astarion would love to tear into her, Gale was just as much of a live wire as he was.

The two lay in silence for a while. Astarion eventually closes his eyes, ignoring the hunger and attempting to trance. He’s assumed the wizard had fallen asleep, and only realizes he hasn’t when he moves.

Astarion stirs, mind coming back to reality from where it was buried in past memories. At some point, Gale had gotten closer. They still weren’t touching, but Astarion could feel the heat off of his living counterpart.

“Such a fitting ending,” Gale says into the quiet night, “For Gale of Waterdeep.”

“To explode?” Astarion questions, half-turning towards him.

“To go out with a bang,” Gale agrees, “It’s what he would have wanted.”

How curious, to talk about himself as if a separate person. Maybe he was.

“And Gale Dekarios?” Astarion asks. “What’s a fitting ending for him?”

Gale sighs, moving Astarion’s curls with his breath. “I haven’t really thought about it. I don’t know if there’s any Gale Dekarios left to end.”

“I disagree.”

“Hm?”

Astarion turns more to face him. “I think Gale Dekarios is the man who invited me to read when I propositioned him.”

“I’m never living that down, am I?”

“Never, darling.”

Gale smiles in the darkness, and Astarion doesn’t believe in the gods, so he doesn’t thank them for his darkvision, but something within him does stir at the sight.

“And Gale of Waterdeep?” Gale asks. “Who is he?”

“Gale of Waterdeep,” Astarion echoes, thinking. “I’d say he’s that fearsome wizard I once saw electrocute a minotaur. Who threw a duergar mage off of a cliff with thunderwave. Very impressive, that wizard of Waterdeep.”

“Sounds like you like him.”

“I’m admittedly a bit fond of him,” Astarion lets his voice turn lofty and pompous, “If I was forced to admit. I’m also quite fond of that Dekarios one, as well.”

“Are you now?” Gale says it quietly, like if Astarion focused hard enough to hear him, he might hear his voice through its breaking.

“Oh, yes,” Astarion responds. “I like Gale of Waterdeep. I quite like Gale Dekarios, too. Only if forced to admit it, though.”

“Of course,” Gale’s grin is crooked, and he adjusts the wing behind him as if it was uncomfortable. “Only if forced to admit it.”

Like many things, Astarion finds that that new interaction with Gale set a precedent.

The precedent being that in the middle of the night, when everyone else has squirreled away to sleep or trance or do whatever it is out of sight, Astarion creeps into the wizard’s tent and talks to him. 

Or, he tries to. After the fifth time of doing it, Astarion noticed that the next day the wizard was yawning big enough to threaten to swallow all of Last Light Inn whole. 

“Darling angel,” He says to him that night.

Gale looks up from his book, dancing lights spinning circles around his head like an ironic halo. Under the lilac light, Astarion can clearly see the dark shadows under his eyes. 

“That’s a new one,” Gale says, placing a spare piece of cloth into the book and putting it aside to give Astarion his attention.

“I call you ‘darling’ and ‘angel’ all of the time,” Astarion protests, moving to take his seat across from Gale.

“Never at the same time, though,” Gale says, “One might say I’ve inspired a new pet name.”

“I think,” Astarion raises an eyebrow at him, “That sleep deprivation is making you delusional.”

“Delusional?” Gale exclaims in a whisper. After a pause he adds on, “Sleep deprivation?”

“You poor thing!” Astarion gestures at Gale with a hand, “You haven’t slept properly for days! Aren’t you supposed to have, what, fourteen hours of sleep a night?”

Gale frowns. “Eight or nine.”

“Well, that’s really not that far off. You know you don’t have to stay up for me?”

The frown intensifies. “I’d hardly be a good host if I left you here all by yourself by falling asleep on you.”

Astarion scoffs. “You’re not falling asleep on me, darling. You’re not even playing host. I just happen to be taking the most of my ability to enter spaces without invitation.”

“And I happen to be your prime target for bugging at this late hour in the night?” Gale raises an eyebrow.

“Who else would I go to?” Astarion leans forward, “Unless you know of another clever angel awake at this time.”

“Not an angel,” Gale corrects, but the words are deaf in the face of the pet name Astarion’s become oh-so-fond of using.

Any of Astarion’s rebuttals are interrupted by Gale yawning again, and so the vampire scoffs.

“Seriously, Gale,” He says, “Lay down and go to sleep. You’re beginning to prove more of a risk of swallowing everything whole than the shadow curse is.”

To emphasize his point, he places a hand on Gale’s chest and shoves him down. The wizard grumbles and readjusts into his usual position.

“But you-” Gale starts, but Astarion shushes him.

“Will I not be here in the morning, dear wizard?” Astarion says.

Gale’s fingers flex, as if he wants to reach out to Astarion but refuses to cross the line in the sand they have both helped draw. 

Astarion peers into his wizard’s face, and finds that behind the fatigue in his eyes there rests a layer of fear waiting to strike.

He makes a decision.

“Besides,” Astarion says, laying down next to Gale, “I only trance for four hours. I’ve been awake while you were asleep almost every night.”

Gale hesitates, and Astarion fights not to roll his eyes at the fact he has to do everything. He lifts Gale’s wing up - it’s shockingly heavy until Gale gets the memo and lifts it for him - and slides himself under it.

“I thought you left to hunt,” Gale comments.

“In the shadow cursed lands? Where would I do that?”

Gale suddenly sits up, and Astarion fights the urge to groan with frustration at the wizard’s refusal to sleep.

“Have you not been feeding?” Gale asks.

Astarion blinks at him. “What?”

“Usually you slink away to hunt. What have you been doing to feed here?”

Astarion deeply wishes the angel would shut up and sleep. “Biting anything I can bite.”

“We’ve almost solely been fighting plants and undead. Astarion, are you hungry ?”

What a stupid question. “I’m always hungry, angel. I’m a vampire. We don’t get full. That’s the whole point.”

Gale looks horrified at this revelation, like Astarion is at risk of starving to death. Suddenly, the angel moves his hair to one side of his neck, and Astarion can see two sets of bite marks imprinted on skin.

Something hot curls inside of his stomach at the sight.

“What is this?” Astarion asks, unimpressed.

“You need to feed,” Gale answers, like it’s obvious. “Here.”

“You’re still full of bile,” Seeing that the wizard wasn’t going to go to sleep easily, Astarion sat up as well. Part of him almost missed the weight and warmth of the wizard draped over him.

“You didn’t mind last time,” Gale’s eyes widen minutely the second the words are out in the air. He stumbled over the line they drew. He’s set himself up for the taking, and Astarion stands with a lanceboard piece in hand, ready to topple him.

Astarion straightens up, eyes narrowing slightly. “Yes, well, the circumstances were quite different at that point, if you remember. Besides, the taste wasn’t nearly as bad if you had a magical artefact in your mouth moments before. Your blood pounding certainly helped.”

Check.

Gale pauses, and Astarion can see him thinking, turning the situation over in his head. 

“Well,” The wizard adjusts so he’s facing more towards Astarion, “Then that does raise a question of if the charm that was blessed upon me has an impact on the taste in a way similar to being freshly fed.”

Check.

Astarion tilts his head. “And your blood pounding?”

He can hear Gale’s heart picking up at just the mere thought.

Check.

“Well, with the orb stabilized, I’m sure we can think of a myriad of ways for that to happen.”

Checkmate.

Astarion doesn’t think to consider it Gale’s victory or his as he crawls forward and onto the wizard’s lap. Without even pausing he crushes his mouth against the angel’s. As if on cue, the wings reach up to circle them both, keeping them tucked away from the world. Where at this moment, it is only Astarion and Gale.

For such a threat, the kiss started out quite sweet. Where Astarion had expected a familiar hunger found in so many targets to rear its head in Gale, the wizard kissed him with a certain level of tenderness.

Astarion pulls back to nip at his lip, and Gale allows him easy entrance. It’s a familiar song and dance, one not even Gale is immune to despite his genuine care for the vampire currently squirming in his lap. Though there’s a fire in Astarion, a cold and familiar dread begins to build up, neither one being able to take over the other.

When Gale parts to breathe, Astarion takes his opportunity to move down to his throat. He presses almost gentle kisses to the column of the throat, then marring the notion of them with soft threats of teeth. He can hear Gale’s blood pounding right under where his mouth is, almost drowning out the soft noises the angel is trying not to make.

Astarion licks a long stripe up the side of his neck, hearing Gale’s breath falter.

“Please,” Astarion catches the phrase falling from the wizard’s mouth under his breath, over and over, like a prayer.

Between the fire and ice in his body, hunger broke through both of them, surging through Astarion as he sinks teeth into tender flesh.

He feels Gale’s chest stutter and heave under him. Astarion’s hands grab at the fabric of the wizard’s shirt, digging through it to the flesh at his waist. Gale’s hands rise, one embedding itself in Astarion’s hair and the other wrapping around his waist like Gale had to hold on to something.

Astarion can hear pained noises coming from the wizard, but only distantly. The angel’s blood is just as rotten as before, but it pulses into his mouth with the rhythm of a racing heart, filling him and pouring down his throat.

He doesn’t hear himself growl as he tightens his grip and readjusts, pulling himself closer to Gale, closer and closer still. The angel shudders under him, around him, the holiness dying as Astarion drains it right out of him. He could crawl inside this being, could take every aspect of it into himself and never be hungry again. He could tear this thing apart and he would let him. He would be honored for the chance to.

“Astarion,” A soft noise breaks through his thoughts. It does not belong here.

Part of him rages, growling and pulling the wizard closer though it is not actually possible to do so, he does. Crushed against him, the angel whimpers his name again. In supplication? In prayer?

He could be the new god.

What is left for me, besides her? 

It’s never going to be anything besides this.

He’s beautiful in the darkness, divine and bile-filled. Beautiful here, writhing and begging for his mercy. For anybody’s mercy. Who would ever ask an angel what they want, when they are crafted for one thing?

Astarion reels back, detaching from Gale so frantically he begins to choke. He coughs, blood spraying from his mouth and lips onto his hands, onto Gale, onto white wings. He barely takes note of the hand drifting from his hair to rub at his back soothingly, but his skin writhes at the touch.

Astarion gasps though he does not need to, and in the lilac light can see the concern in Gale’s eyes, buried under a dazed blood loss.

“Stop touching me,” Astarion manages to say. “Stop it.”

Gale’s hands immediately fall to his side. Even the wings drop, and Astarion crawls out of the cage he built around himself, gasping and choking.

Divine blood, holy blood spills out from Gale’s neck. Astarion can still smell it and can hear his heart beating. It coats Astarion’s hand and his shirt - his shirt, how would he get the stains out? - and the tent and Gale. His poor, gentle, sickly sweet angel that’s rotten from the inside out. He was going to kill himself if Astarion did not kill him first.

“Astarion,” There’s a soft touch to his shoulder and Astarion turns around, snarling.

“Don’t touch me!”

Gale falls back. There is no fear in his eyes. Astarion is covered in blood - his blood - and there is no fear in the angel’s eyes.

“Don’t ever touch me again,” Astarion’s voice sounds tight to himself. He doesn’t want this, doesn’t even want it as the words are coming out of his mouth, but the bile is in his throat and stomach and his skin crawls.

“Okay,” Gale agrees immediately.

“Don’t even think about it,” Astarion adds on.

“Okay,” The angel agrees, and Astarion wants to tear him apart.

“Stop agreeing with me!” The only way to not make it a wail is to make it a threatening hiss.

There he can see Gale’s confusion, and hopes that the angel will get mad at him. Will cast him out for being a monster, for trying to take something so holy and beautiful away from this world just because he was hungry.

“Astarion,” He says his name like Astarion might have forgotten it. There were years Astarion feared he would. “Let me clean you up.”
It catches Astarion so off-guard that he cannot argue before Gale has made a gesture and muttered a word, and suddenly the blood is gone. Off of his shirt, off of his hands and his mouth. Off of Gale’s clothes, though it begins to trickle right back down from his throat. 

The lights shift colors, golden, like daylight. In it, with the lack of blood, Astarion can see the angel for what it really is, always has been. He’s just Gale Dekarios.

“I hate her,” Astarion’s chest heaves, but his words don’t sound threatened by sobs anymore.

“Who?” Gale asks, placing his hands on his lap where Astarion was not moments ago.

“Your stupid fucking goddess,” Astarion spits. “I hate her. I hate her for what she did to you.”

“For…what she did to me?” Gale seems confused, and it makes Astarion frustrated all over again. He wants to climb into the angel’s lap and shake him by the shoulders until the convoluted storm inside of Astarion makes sense to someone else. But he told Gale not to touch him anymore.

Instead, Astarion nods. He hates Mystra for what she did to his wizard. He hates that he wants Gale to be his wizard.

Silence descends upon them. Astarion stares at the ceiling of the tent, like he has for so many nights now, trying not to think of something. Trying not to let the sentence form.

“Are you alright?” Gale eventually asks.

Astarion exhales heavily. What use was there in trying to fight a thought? He might as well be battling against existence.

“I don’t think I want to have sex with you,” He says, instead of the words he doesn’t think.

“Okay,” Gale agrees immediately.

Astarion looks up at him. He tries not to make it a glare, but he doesn’t know how to do much else. “You’re shaping up to be a real yesman, wizard.”

That’s what gets hurt to flash across Gale’s face. Not the biting, or the shouting, or the decree to never lay a hand on Astarion again. The angel would hate to be accused of a lapdog. Astarion feels guilt worm in him. Of course the angel would.

“I just mean,” Gale struggles, and because Astarion is a monster, he does not help him. “I just mean that I don’t mind that, really. Astarion, I was the one who rebuffed your advances in the first place. Far be it from me to not respect this.”

“But you wanted to sleep with me eventually,” Astarion points out.

“Well,” Gale shifts, uncomfortable. And because he is Astarion’s angel, Astarion does not rush him. He lets the words Gale wants to say come slowly to the mouthy wizard.

“I assumed that was what you wanted,” Gale eventually continues. “To have sex with me, eventually. And I wasn’t opposed to the idea, I just…”

So fascinating, to see the wizard struggle for words.

“It’s just never me who wants sex,” Gale says finally.

Astarion sits up. “What?”

“Not that I don’t enjoy it,” Gale rushes to clarify. “I do! I just don’t seem to care for it. I can count on one hand the amount of times I initiated sex because I wanted to have it. I like it when it happens. I don’t dislike it. But really it’s never been the most important thing to me.”

Astarion blinks at him.

“Are you alright?” Gale asks again.

“Well,” Astarion says, “This is rather awkward then, isn’t it?”

“What do you mean?” Gale asks.

“I mean that I’m rather a one-trick pony, darling,” Astarion says. “If you don’t want to have sex, and I don’t want to have sex, then I’m afraid I can offer you nothing.”

More hurt flashes across the angel’s face. “This is nothing to you?”
Foot, meet mouth.

“I mean,” Astarion runs a hand through his hair, “I don’t know. You have to understand that I- I don’t know what I’m doing here, Gale. You’ve taken everything I had planned for, and shoved it aside. I was supposed to sleep with you, gain your trust, so you would fall for me and protect me. And now…”

“And now?” Gale asks.

The thought forms. Astarion grabs onto it and tugs it out of his chest. It’s crumpled, and folded, and it won’t lay down flat, but it’s there.

“And now, I find I’ve rather fallen for you, angel.”

Gale’s expression clears and cracks in something that Astarion wants to believe is relief and not shock.

Astarion keeps speaking before anything more can fall apart. “You are incredible, unfortunately. You deserve something real, not what I was trying to craft. You defy my plans, and me. The intimacy that was supposed to be used to lure people back to him became something you and I shared in freely. But it was tainted. There are parts of me that still think I am under his control. So many parts of me. But whatever this is, whatever this could be, I want it to be real. Truly.”

He fights the urge to bite down on something, anything, as he waits for his wizard to respond.

“I…care for you, deeply, Astarion,” Gale says eventually. Something in Astarion cracks in relief.

“Really?” He asks. His gaze flits up to the angel, sitting so patiently.

Gale nods. “I wanted to do this properly. Court you and woo you and one day, hopefully, whisk you away to Waterdeep. But I’m not allowed to do that now, not when the world is like this. It seems neither of us are going to get to follow our plans, huh?”

He smiles at Astarion, and the thing in him that has been screaming for two hundred years begins to quiet, just a little.

“I’m in love with you,” Gale says gently. “Which I know is…a lot. But I wanted you to know, at least. Whatever loving you will look like, I want it. Even if I never can touch you again, I would be honored just to look at you. If you wanted me to never look at you again, then I’d blind myself for you. If you wanted me to never think of you again, then I think you’d have to kill me, and when someone talks to my corpse I would tell them all about a stranger I can’t quite remember.”

Astarion doesn’t even know how to respond to that, and spends at least a few moments just staring.

“Too much?” Gale asks. The question is light, but there’s an anxiety strung through him.

Astarion smiles slightly. “You’re quite the romantic. I…” He falters, if just for a moment. “I didn’t mean it, when I said you couldn’t touch me ever again.”

“Are you sure?” Gale asks.

“Quite,” Astarion nods. “It’s complicated. The whole thing is very complicated.”

“I understand,” Gale says. Then he freezes, and continues onward, “I mean, not that I understand what you have been through because I could never- I just mean I understand that the situation is complex- though I suppose it being complicated means fundamentally that I wouldn’t understand, I just mean to reassure you that it’s okay to feel complicated on-”

“Gale,” Astarion interrupts.

“Can I hug you?” His head tilts to the side in question.

Astarion’s eyebrows raise in surprise, but he finds himself nodding. Gale slides over and very slowly, very tenderly hugs Astarion. Even though he knew it was coming, he finds himself shocked by it. Slowly, he brings his arms around and returns it. The monster within him quiets more.

Gale pulls back eventually, and Astarion misses his warmth, the way the wings curled around him. “You…you are full of surprises, aren’t you?”

Gale hums in slight agreement.

“I have no idea what we’re doing,” Astarion confesses, “Or what comes next, really. I just know that this? This is nice.”

Tentatively, he offers a hand. Tentatively, Gale takes it.

Moving almost as if in sync, the undefined lovers lay down next to each other once more. A wing drapes over the vampire, as if to protect him from anything that could hurt him. Like this, with their edges blurred and light threatening to die around them, Astarion cannot help but think that there are holy things worth praying for, in the end.

A perfect conclusion is something not afforded to the likes of Astarion. It never has been, and never will be. It’d be far too easy, you see, for his life to wrap up nicely with a bow. No, he must be beaten half to death in the street. He must be turned into a spawn and tortured for centuries. He must have something happen to the one person he cares about.

The shadow cursed lands were hell. This is something he already knew, and was well acquainted with. He could handle it fine, despite the starvation and the misery. He sees the way Karlach’s face falls every time she interacts with the vestiges left behind by the shadows, but refuses to stop despite how many of them attempt to drag her away. 

Still, they were managing. They had to run all around, speak in riddles to a pixie, fight evil plants and the like, but they were managing. They were going to save Thaniel or whatever, find the Nightsong, kill Thorm, lift the curse. All of that heroic bullshit.

There’s a reason Astarion hates heroic bullshit.

The worst part was that it’s a simple fight that does it. It wasn’t some grand final battle. They weren’t at Moonrise, facing down hordes of cultists. They were in some abandoned town, fighting some weird gold freak.

Tav, bless their stupid soul, had attempted to appease the greedy bastard at first. When she had declared that she wanted all of their gold, though, all of the sympathy and pacifism drained out of every party member ubiquitously. It was almost beautiful, in a way, that despite their wavering morals and differing situations, at the end of the day everyone in the party held their coin purse close to their chest.

It was nice until the tollmaster had immediately begun to attack.

She was difficult to fight, if only because Astarion didn’t actually know what he was fighting. He could sneak behind her well enough, but his dagger seemed to shift through her gold armor like water. He could hear her wounded cries, but it wasn’t enough. Something in him longed to get his teeth to flesh, but there was nothing he could possibly bite onto. 

Her visages didn’t help, ducking and weaving. When Astarion put his focus on one, the other attacked him. They ducked and weaved and drove him up a wall. He finally managed to grab one in his off-hand and plunged his dagger up through the soft, rotten flesh of its chin. Whatever necrotic magic animated it faded from its eyes, and nearby he could hear the tollmaster shriek in pain.

Whipping around, he saw layers of gold slough off the tollmaster like skin. She wailed in anger, and before Astarion could make any sense of what he just saw a ripping pain laced through him. A golden weapon had come arcing through the air towards him, and he had just barely managed to duck out of the way. Still, it skimmed across the cloth and flesh of his ribs like fingers over water, leaving dark and dead blood to slowly begin to drip out like molasses. 

The strangest feeling overcame him. Pointedly aware of the gold that rested in his backpack, he felt the slashing pain magnify, spreading through his body. He was sure it would have sent his heart to palpitate if his heartbeat still was true. He had the fleeting idea of a stone being thrown into water before he fell to one knee with a groan. 

Astarion’s world began to blur and darken at the edges. He fought down panic. This was hardly the first time he had been knocked down in a battle, though it was concerning that it happened so quickly and with one blow. He waited for something, anything. Shadowheart would cast healing word, or a healing potion would break over his head and he could yell at Tav for it later.

Nothing happened. The battle raged around him, sounds of blades hitting metal and spells being thrown with reckless abandon. The darkness around him doubled, intent on trying to claim him.

Then, a gentle hand on his back, still finding time within all the battle to run a quick, soothing thumb over the skin. Astarion took the other hand offered to him, staggering to his feet. Without pausing, he grabbed a health potion and downed the liquid, never happier to taste something so medicinal. 

“Gerringothe Thorm!” Gale said excitedly, hovering by Astarion as he reactivated his witch bolt on the tollmaster.

“Gesundheit?” Astarion called back, equal parts confused and sarcastic. He twirled around Gale, blades flashing as he swiped at a visage to ward it back before dancing back to Gale’s side. “What does that have to do with anything, darling? We’re a bit busy for epiphanies!”

“No!” Gale sounds exasperated, as if he wasn’t the one that just suddenly cried out nonsense. “She’s the tollmaster! The Thorm family, they-”

Gale cuts himself off with a yelp. At some point in the battle, a halberd had appeared, animated and operating by itself. It had slashed widely at Astarion. Though he was ducked and primed to get out of the way, Gale’s wing suddenly obscured his vision. The scent of his rotten blood filled the air, and a few feathers fell to the ground.

Astarion scowled, ducking below the wing. Maneuvering as quickly as he could, he notched an arrow in his longbow and shot at the offending weapon. The arrow scratched it, but the halberd literally shook the hurt off. 

“Don’t do that!” Astarion found the time to yell. “Want to fill out your martyr role, do you?”

Gale ignored him. “Give me your gold!”

“Angel, I was joking about the martyr thing!”

“Just trust me!” Gale exclaimed. “I have a plan! You all focus on the visages. I’ll handle her!”

Astarion paused, staring at the angel with blood trickling down one wing. His witchbolt flickered and waned, threatening to give out as Gale’s concentration flitted from it to whatever scheme he had. 

He swore under his breath before tossing Gale his coin pouch. Gale caught without looking, which was a little impressive considering it was him. 

Gale let out a sharp whistle, followed by a calling. “Hey!”

The tollmaster - Gerringothe - turned to him, face lifting almost as if she was scenting the air. Gale held up the pouch of coins tauntingly. “You require gold? Well, come on, then!”

Gerringothe and the visages turned their focus towards Gale, who pivoted and began to dash away through the crowded upstairs. Gerringothe followed with a deceptive speed, surprising any of them. She would have caught Gale if Astarion hadn’t hurled a ray of frost at her shoulder, feeling a sharp pain in his shoulder from a visage for his efforts.

Gale scurried up the ladder towards the roof, Gerringothe following him easily. A visage tried to follow, but as it passed the rogue he leaped out and rammed his dagger through the temple of its skull, hearing the wail of Gerringothe from above. 

He understood the plan, now. Whatever these visages were, they lent Gerringothe her power and armor. He heard Gale hurling spell after spell at the tollmaster from the roof, ice and sleet raining down on the ceiling with such intensity Tav looked up as if it were about to cave in.

But Gale had underestimated the toll master’s speed and power. However much he darted around, she was faster. With Gerringothe gone, the party was able to focus on the visages, systematically stripping the Thorm from her defenses and power. It was almost a good plan.

With Shadowheart’s turn undead killing another three of the visages at once, a loud, pained shriek sounded from above. But instead of Astarion’s face breaking into the grin it almost surely does when victory is close at hand, a shiver ran down his back. He understood that shriek, the noise of an animal backed into a corner that is about to do anything for survival.

Astarion didn’t stop to think as he threw himself up the ladder, the wood shaking with the force he climbed up it. He heard Shadowheart call out behind him, an offended yell that he would leave Tav and her to deal with the last visage alone and break the plan, but he can’t care. It’s a stupid plan.

He scrambled to the top of the building and paused as he comprehended what he saw. Gold scattered about everywhere, and a thin figure with just little armor snarling at his angel. He began to step forward towards the areas she couldn’t see, both blades already out as he dashed. 

He watches instead as Gerringothe charged Gale, ducking her body low and forcefully as she rammed an elbow into his soft stomach. Gale was pushed back and back, feet unable to find purchase as the toll master shoved him. She didn’t stop until the wizard was clean off the roof, his palms outstretched wide as if something would manifest for him to grab onto and save him. 

The wings flapped once, twice. Muscle memory kicked in, and instincts that were never honed nor mastered tried to have Gale twist in midair. But the wings could not catch any air, not with how they were. The best they did was bring him further away from the roof, from the rest of the party in a mockery of a glide. Besides, Gale had never learned to fly. Not in any proper way, not anything that wasn’t him with one foot out the backdoor, feather fall ready to cast. The wizard twisted around in the air frantically, tangled in his robes and his fears as he tried to right himself. 

Maybe, Astarion pondered, maybe there was another aspect of it. His angel had been cursed. Clipped wings that never regrew. His power of flight was gone. In this, it would be expected for him to fall. As if Mystra had penned the ending and just sat back to watch. Was she watching, now? As her once-esteemed bird crashed into his demise?

Gale couldn’t right himself, in the end. Astarion watched as his body hit the ground back first - wings first. He couldn’t hear the carnage, or if the wizard screamed. Instead, Gerringothe’s wail called his attention. 

Before him stood a pitiful creature, shivering in the cold. She was cold.

Astarion did not bother with shadows and sneaking. He did not conjure up a cantrip or spell. In the end, it felt as if something inside him had overflowed. Whatever heat Gale had put inside him - kept putting inside him - all of the warmth and burning combined and Astarion moved if only to get away, but it followed.

His blade slid into her ribs. She screamed, tried clawing at him, and so Astarion sunk his teeth into her jugular and pulled. It fell apart easily. There was no burst of hot blood, no wanting to devour. Gerringothe fell before him. Astarion fell atop her, pulling his blade free and slicing at her chest, rending her asunder. Thick dark blood to match his own coated his mouth, coated the piece of flesh in his mouth that he held onto like a dog to his prize.

What has Mystra ever done for Gale that he couldn’t? Had she ever been his dog?

The thought ran through his mind with no sense, but it reminded Astarion of the task at hand. All of a sudden, it was like the world returned to him from a corner of the universe he could not reach.

His head snapped towards the slumped figure of Gale on the ground. He must’ve been able to move slightly, because he was rolled over now onto his front. The white wings shone like a beacon in the darkness that writhed and thrashed around the angel, swooping in before retreating as the blessing fought it back.

Astarion opened his mouth and started screaming.

Not mindless screaming, but screeching for the cleric. She appeared almost instantly, moving towards him as if to help him. At her quick glance, though, even she could tell nothing was wrong. 

So that leads Astarion to now, watching as the cleric’s head whipped around to see the form of their friend as a waylaid victim to the shadows. She stands without hesitation, running towards the same ladder she came from. Astarion rises to follow.

His mind is strangely quiet. If his heart were still beating, he’s sure it would be rioting, but it isn’t. He supposes he has always been good with tragedy.

Always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Tav doesn’t ask questions as Shadowheart sprints past them, Astarion close on her tail.

“Gale,” Is all he can manage to spare, and if the bard can’t deduce from that then they’re no good at all.

They run through the town to the few feet where Gale lays. To Astarion’s horror, he’s conscious. It’s only horrific because with the amount of blood he can smell, he thinks it would be more merciful if he wasn’t.

Gale’s rotten stench covers everything nearby. The grass nearby him was slick with his blood, crushed down and dark red. Once beautiful white feathers coated the ground, stuck in pathetic clumps of red. The smell hits Astarion hard in the back of the throat, and he almost gags before a pang of hunger runs through him. He hates it.

The wizard had rolled onto his stomach, presumably in an attempt to get pressure off of his wings. His arms were trapped under his own body, as if laying on them. It occurs to Astarion that he might have had to pull himself into this position, unable to move. His beautiful robes were ruined, streaked with gore and mud.

The most horrifying things is his wings. They stick out at odd angles, obviously broken. But the longer Astarion stares, the worse it gets. The skin that had contained such rot had broken, explaining where the blood had come from. Worse yet, shards of bone stuck through the skin, almost being lost in the sea of white and scarlet. Sharp pieces that jostle as Shadowheart kneels down.

She pauses, almost like she doesn’t even know what to do before placing her hands on Gale and muttering the spell for cure wounds.

Not all healing magic works. There are some things that are just too wounded. Astarion had read many horror stories of healing magic backfiring, or failing, or not being enough to prevent a fatal infection setting in. As Shadowheart poured healing magic into Gale, Astarion watched as the bones tried to knit back together through the flesh of the wing. They tried to retract and retreat, meet their other half, but to no avail. The other wounds on the angel’s body closed, but his wings jerked at odd angles as they tried again and again to reform to the magic’s want.

Gale started to scream in agony. Astarion stood as he writhed, trying to get away from Shadowheart and all of her good intentions, body convulsing in ways he could not control as it tried to fix something.

Tav darted to the side, scooping up Gale’s backpack. Astarion wanted to scream at them, ask them what they thought they were doing. Their wizard was dying on the ground like a bug, like an angel, and they were rooting through his items.

The words die as soon as Astarion opens his mouth, though, as Tav unrolls a spell scroll. With a practiced hand, they cast sleep on the poor thing.

Gale falls still. The air falls silent.

Astarion finally crashes to his knees.

“You stupid fucking wizard,” He hisses, and suddenly his eyes are blurry, but that’s not supposed to happen. “You stupid fucking wizard, what were you thinking?”

He grabs onto Gale, nails digging through too-wet cloth. Astarion’s body bows against his will, not in submission but in a sudden barrage of grief. He presses his forehead to the blood-soaked cloth and hopes the other two ignore the noises he tries to bite back. He will not cry for this wizard, not when he’s not dead.

Despite this, his vision clears suddenly in a way that must mean the tears are seeping into fabric.

“Astarion,” There’s a hand on his shoulder. Shadowheart, usually just as snarky as him, sounds hollow.

He shakes her off roughly, baring his teeth even though she can’t see it. Gale’s blood gets into his mouth and he closes his eyes.

“Astarion,” Shadowheart tries again, more forcefully. “If you shake him enough, he’ll wake up. We have to get him to Last Light. Now.”

Part of Astarion wants to scream and wail. Dig his heels into the ground and tell her to fuck off forever, leave the two of them to the shadow curse. But he has never been built to give up, so he clenches his jaw instead. He does not need to breathe. He does anyway, matching his breaths to the slow, labored ones of his lover.

His lover.

His angel, his wizard.

Was Mystra watching now?

He sits up. “If he dies, I’ll never forgive him for this.”

Astarion turns to face Shadowheart, who nods in acknowledgement. “I don’t think any of us will. We’ll blow up before we have the chance.”

It’s hard to maneuver the wizard in such a way to carry him with little jostling. They don’t want to move his wings. Shadowheart and Tav end up making impromptu splints to keep the damned things steady. Astarion sees them move the things like they’re dead weight and remembers nights where he curled up under them, safe. 

There’s almost a fascination to seeing the jagged shards of bone splitting through the skin. Something that was meant to stay in the dark forever finally afforded some light. 

He tries not to think about it, but it’s all there is to think about. They don’t waste time to Last Light. They don’t talk, they don’t joke, they don’t move anywhere they don’t have to. It’s probably the most efficient thing this team has ever done. When Astarion thinks the other two aren’t looking, he presses a kiss to the inside of Gale’s palm. A weird part of him wants to tell the unconscious figure it’ll be ok; the romantic wizard was rubbing off on him.

The moment they appear inside the sphere of Last Light Inn, people start scrambling to make way for them. Harpers approach, hoping to help, but Astarion bares his teeth at them and they dance away. He won’t risk any of them jostling Gale awake and back into agony. 

“Get Halsin,” Shadowheart orders them instead, and they move to make way.

“What is-” The sharp voice of Jaheira cuts in before she stops short. “Gods above. What happened?”

“Gerringothe Thorm,” Astarion hisses.

“Thorm?” Halsin asks as he rushes out. He reaches to help the party with the weight of the wizard. Astarion rankles over the fact of having to let go of him, but even he has to admit Halsin is more adept to the situation. He lets Halsin replace his grip, strong hands holding onto frail limbs with a gentleness only he could pull off. 

It doesn’t stop Astarion from hovering, though, following close behind as the party began to move. Jaheira was on his heels, too.

“The necrotic magic must spread to his family as well,” Jaheira comments. “Tell me you put an end to that greedy bastard.”

This comment was directed towards Astarion. He nods grimly, fangs flashing. “Trust me, I’d tear her to pieces a thousand times over if I could.”

Jaheira nods in approval as they turn into the room where they kept Art. His mumbling had long become background noise, but once again rose to be irritating as Astarion paced to and fro the side of the bed. Gale was laid face down, head tilted so he could breathe. Harpers crowded around, even tieflings with medical appearance showing up.

Astarion hisses at someone when they bump into his shoulder, moving him out of the way. They give him a look, but Astarion glances towards Halsin instead, not bothering to spare the feelings of some useless refugees.

“Tell me what happened,” Halsin demands, examining the angel.

Faces turn to Astarion, and he realizes that out of all of them, it’s him who knows the story best.

“The idiot was distracting her while we narrowed down her defenses,” He starts, “They ended up on the roof. The toll master pushed him off, and he landed on his back. Hard.”

Halsin winces.

“Why didn’t he fly?” One of the Harpers questions.

Astarion gestures angrily at the shape of his wings.

Halsin grimaces. “They’re clipped. Why does he clip his wings?”

Astarion lets out a harsh laugh. “He doesn’t. His goddess does.”

A brief second of sickly silence fills the air at this information. Astarion would feel bad for exposing Gale’s secrets like that, but he can’t care as he can feel the anger towards the Mother of Magic fill the air. 

“Besides,” He continues, “He doesn’t know how to glide with cut wings. He never learned.”

Halsin hums in acknowledgement. He leans over, pressing his ear to Gale’s back and listening to him breathe for a moment, holding up a hand for silence. Whatever he heard must not have been concerning, because he straightens and begins to focus on the wings.

“You attempted to heal him?” Halsin asks, looking at the dried blood.

“It was all I could think to do,” Shadowheart’s voice is halfway between defensive and guilty. Quieter, she continues, “It didn’t work.”

“You were right to do it,” Halsin says. “Even though it may have interfered with his wings, it was doubtful he escaped that encounter with those being harmed. A fall hard enough with this could have led to multiple serious injuries, which we don’t have to worry about now. You may have saved his life.”

Shadowheart’s shoulders loosen slightly with some relief, but not a lot. 

Halsin redirects his attention to the Harpers and tieflings crowded around him. “Somebody get me some scissors and gauze, as well as some rope and anyone good with medical supplies. I’m afraid I need the rest of you to clear out.”

“What?” Astarion halts his pacing to round on him. “You can’t just-”

“Astarion,” Jaheira interrupts, “Your pacing around like a mother hen will do no one any good. Look at yourself, you are covered in your own blood and as wild as a badger. You need to get treated and rest.”

“I will not-” Astarion snarls, but is interrupted by Jaheira again.

“You must,” She commands. Her tone, as always, demands respect to her leadership, and even Astarion wavers to it. Gentler, she places a hand on his shoulder. “I know what the wizard means to you. Trust that we will see him well. We have not led you astray yet.”

Astarion pauses, fighting an internal battle between his logical trust for Jaheira and his instinct to drain anyone even touching Gale right now. 

She must see this, because she continues. “See your cleric and make sure your party is okay. Inform them of what happened. Come back to check when that is done. We will keep you updated.”

Astarion sighs in defeat, and places his hand over hers. “If you don’t keep him safe, I’m killing everyone in this building.”

Jaheira’s grip on him tightens ever so slightly. She does not take the threat to her Harpers lightly. For a moment, Astarion thinks he may have to fight her. Instead, her grip drops. “I’d like to see you try.”

Her tone is playful, but cut with an undercurrent of threat. Astarion huffs and spins, storming out the door and towards camp.

“Astarion-” Shadowheart starts.

“No,” He calls. But he has never been able to talk to Shadowheart that way, so he’s not that surprised when she grabs onto his shoulder and spins him around. He hisses in slight pain as the gash in his side reopens. Without another word, Shadowheart closes her eyes. The blue glow of healing magic runs through him, closing the wound slightly and helping it clot.

He wrenches himself free of her grasp. “Worry about yourself, cleric. We’re down a healer with Halsin busy, and I can see skull-shaped bruises on your face.”

“Aw,” Shadowheart says, “If I didn’t know you any better, Astarion, I’d say you care about my well-being.”

“It’s a good thing you know me better, then,” He sniffs.

She places a hand on his forearm regardless and recasts the spell, helping him. She does not ask him if he is okay. Shadowheart is wise enough to know the answer already. This, though, is nice. A silent reassurance.

“Seriously, Shadowheart,” He says in return. “As tempting as the smell of your blood is, we must return to camp. It would do no good to have you collapsing.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Is all she says in response. Her hand drops, for which Astarion is grateful, and Tav limps up behind them, ankle twisted oddly for who knows how long.

The three limp into camp. Astarion is suddenly overcome with a wave of exhaustion. He can see the worry in Karlach’s eyes at their state, can see the confusion in Wyll’s. Jaheira told him to tell them what happened, but Astarion would be content to fall into a never ending trance with how fatigue drills to his bones.

Tav catches his eye and nods. Astarion’s never been very good at understanding them, and could probably count the number of times they’ve agreed with one another on one hand, but he cannot help but feel a sliver of gratitude as the bard limps over to the rest of the party.

He heads towards his tent, falling in and laying on his bedroll with no flourish of activity. He’s much colder, here, alone. Despite the tiredness that aches within him, all he can do is stare at the black and red drapes of his tent. Detachedly, his mind begins to wander, rolling in circles through memories of the wizard to the battle, until it just quiets and all Astarion does is stare. 

An indeterminate time later, the entrance to his tent moves. “Fangs?”

Astarion can hear Karlach, sense the worry in her voice. He means to move, to sit up and stare at her. He stares at the top of his tent.

“Hey, Fangs,” Karlach moves in slower, looking down at him. “You alright?”

He exhales heavier than usual. His eyes slide closed, and stay closed for a few moments. He opens them again, turning his head ever so slightly. “What?”

“You okay?” Karlach asks again.

It feels like waking up after a particularly long trance, or shaking off something this and heavy from his mind. He sits up, inhaling and exhaling sharply. “Yes, sorry, darling,” He answers on instinct. “I suppose I was just thinking.”

Karlach’s look is unbelieving. “Do you…wanna talk about it?”

“You’re sweet,” He replies. “Maybe some other time.” Astarion can hardly talk at all.

“Alright!” She says, tapping her hands against her knees. “Just, y’know, talking helps. But only when you’re ready!” She’s quick to add on. “Whatever or whenever or if you ever wanna talk about it, just know Mama K’s here, ‘kay?”

Astarion usually would indulge her ranting, but he still feels like he’s not-quite-here. He blinks at her.

“Anyway,” She continues, “Halsin’s here with news, if you wanna hear it.”

Something roils in his stomach, and instead of feeling relieved or anxious, he’s filled with a sort of dread. Suddenly, he wants to hide inside of his tent forever, or disappear into the night, the Absolute be damned.

“I suppose I should,” He says instead, standing. His body protests from however long it had been lying in the same position. 

He wouldn’t tell her, but he’s grateful for Karlach standing by his side. Not only for the source of heat, but he’s rather fond of her. He lets their arms brush as they make their way towards the elf, her gentle warmth soothing what’s long been cold.

Halsin sees him, and the grin he breaks out into is reassuring, though Astarion knows that that is its purpose.

“Astarion!” He greets. “Are you well?”

“Out with it, if you’d please,” Astarion crosses his arms, “As much as I appreciate the pleasantries, we know why you’re here and what I want to know.”

Halsin’s grin flickers briefly before it drops. He nods. “Right. I suppose that’s only fair. I’ll start by reassuring you: Gale is going to live.”

Despite himself, Astarion feels relief crack him open slightly at the words. He knows there’s more, there’s always more, but this felt as if a brick was taken off the wall that rests on his shoulders.

“However,” There it is, “There are…complications, regarding his wings.”

Astarion presses his lips together, if only to stop himself from worrying at one with his fang. “What does that mean?”

“They had begun to heal wrong. We had to rebreak them in order to restart the healing with a better alignment. Unfortunately they…” Here, Halsin falters in the way bad news for good people falters. “The wings are deeply damaged. Even with the aid of healing magic, it’s difficult to ensure the bones will heal correctly, considering the amount of breaks within them. We simply don’t have the materials here to perform the procedures correctly to even hope for a cleaner recovery.”

“So,” Astarion’s glad he does not have to breathe, because he’s feeling almost a bit light headed. “What does that mean? What are you going to do?”

“We’ve set up a makeshift contraption to help encourage the bones to heal,” Halsin says, “But it will be a long and arduous process. It might be better for Gale to be left here-”

“Leave him here?” Astarion exclaims, recoiling slightly.

“Just for the time being,” Halsin holds up placating hands. “He’s in no adventuring state right now, and should be watched. Until his situation is made more clear, it would be best to keep him out of danger.”

Astarion thinks about how Isobel was almost kidnapped in Last Light, and narrows his eyes. “Can I go see him?”

“Yes,” Halsin brightens at this. “He’s awake. He’s actually been asking for you.”

Astarion scowls. “Then why did you waste my time with all of this? Take me to him!”

“Alright,” Halsin concedes, turning and heading back towards the inn. “Karlach, would you care to keep the rest of the party here? I’m sure you’re all eager to see Gale, but we don’t want to-”

“Don’t want to overwhelm him?” Karlach asks, and then nods. “Consider it done, but I call dibs on seeing him next!”

Astarion waves goodbye to her as she turns to spread the news through the camp, following on the archdruid’s heels. “What’s the worst that could happen to Gale, now?”

“I try not to dwell on the worst hypothetical,” Halsin answers, “Instead I covet hope and keep in mind the most realistic option. But, since you asked. The worst thing that could possibly happen, I reckon, is that Last Light becomes under attack and Gale is somehow left defenseless. I don’t see that happening. The best hypothetical is that he makes a total and speedy recovery.”

“You don’t see that happening either, do you?” Astarion asks.

“I didn’t say that,” Halsin answers.

“And the most realistic?” Astarion questions instead, “What would you say that is?”

Halsin’s quiet for a moment. “I don’t know, truly. He is needed for your adventure, but I cannot see a way as of right now where he will be healed enough for it. Not without extreme measures.”

“What extreme measures?”

Halsin does not answer him. 

They arrive at Last Light quickly, before Astarion can press. He picks up his pace, moving past Halsin and into the room. 

There’s someone sitting by Gale, who straightens when they see Astarion. All Astarion has to do is glare before they’re scrambling and gathering their belongings, mumbling to Gale about someone wanting to see him.

Gale’s head twists and turns, but he’s still laid on his stomach. Astarion stands behind him, watching him struggle. His wings are bound tight at multiple points, almost constricting in an effort to align them. They’re also bound to his body, and Astarion can see that even as he moves a bit to try and gaze at him, the wings stay stiff and still as possible. Gale’s shirt was off, and the blanket of the bed pooled at his waist, obscuring his legs, but Astarion wouldn’t be surprised if they changed him out of his blood ruined garb.

Astarion climbs onto the bed behind Gale, reaching out and placing his cool fingers on the space between Gale’s wings. Gale breathes in sharply, so sharp Astarion takes his hand away, worrying somehow he had upset the angel.

“It’s me,” Astarion eventually says, moving forward. He lies his body next to Gale, and Gale’s head turns for a final time to see him. Despite the confusion and pain etches into his features, he softens.

“Hello,” His wizard says, like this was an average day.

“Hello yourself,” Astarion responds reasonably. He reaches out and tucks a piece of gray streaked brown behind Gale’s ear. “How do you feel?”

Gale opens his mouth, and then pauses. He closes his mouth, frowns, and then eventually says. “I’ve been better. Believe it or not, my shoulders aching is really what’s doing me in. There’s a reason I don’t sleep on my stomach.”

Astarion hums in lieu of a response, too busy cataloging the sunspots and wrinkles on Gale’s face, the dark circles and tear trails.

“I still can’t believe sleeping on your side was more comfortable,” He replies eventually, when Gale does not continue.

“Before all of this I was a back sleeper,” Gale admits. 

He runs cool fingers through Gale’s hair, and sees his eyes flutter shut.

“You should rest,” Astarion says.

“I’ve just been asleep for gods know how long,” Gale counters, cracking one eye open. “I want to talk to you. Are you alright?”

“Am I alright?” Astarion echoes. When Gale just stares at him steadily he sighs. He moves forward and presses a kiss to Gale’s forehead. “You’re insufferable, angel. Yes, I’m alright.”

“You look tired.”

“Well, some idiot I care very deeply for got himself thrown off a roof. I’ve been a little worried.”

The attempt at teasing falls flat. Gale’s face twitches, like he tried not to shy away. “Apologies.”

Astarion wants to move closer, wrap his body around Gale, but doesn’t if only for the damned wings in the way. “Don’t you dare apologize. You’re too brilliant for your own good, evidently.”

“I have been told on multiple occasions that for someone so clever, I am a moron,” Gale admits. Astarion thinks he has contributed to many of those occasions. 

“My moron,” Astarion responds because he has nothing else to say.

Gale blinks at him, eyes wide and owlish and utterly admiring, even now. “Indeed.”

It’s all entirely too sappy for the likes of him, any longer and he’ll be sick. Astarion makes a point of telling Gale this.

Gale grins. “I don’t know what you were expecting, getting involved with me.”

“Fair enough, I’ll settle,” Astarion concedes dramatically. “Unless there’s some other wildly romantic, vaguely idiotic, stunningly handsome wizard around that you can direct me to?”

“Rolan’s in the other room.”

“Ew, no, darling.”

Gale outright laughs at this, and even though it makes him wince he keeps laughing. He reaches for Astarion’s hand, and when given it presses a kiss to the back of it.

Astarion finds he doesn’t quite care if Mystra is watching. He’s never been fond of the gods anyway.

Gale Dekarios is not an angel.

It’s a fact he’s been aware of for years. Someone like him could not be an angel, would not ever be an angel. When Mystra had first approached him with the offer for wings, the underlying confusion soured the bright taste of excitement. His relationship with the goddess had taken a turn in the years, as he moved on from Blackstaff to his own works.

It had been a privilege of lovers, she would explain. To partake in the divine without being cut of the same cloth. 

He was never under the impression that they were equals, he was never anything other than a mortal. He was not an angel, but for a moment in his folly he had forgotten. Flying too close to the proverbial sun, a lesson he seemed to never learn from. It was no surprise to anyone when he fell.

His shame had dragged behind him. Dead weight, useless wings. He could not stomach learning to renavigate them with their altered form. It was not for him; he was banished from love.

(Nobody had ever loved him like that before and nobody ever would again.)

Now, the mark of love hurts.

Astarion’s cold fingers run down his spine gently from where he sits next to Gale, pulling him from his thoughts, from the sadness that had begun to well out from his skin and stain everything. Gale shivers. He does not know if Astarion is aware of the reaction it pulls from him every time, muffles it for decency’s sake. Still, the cold and the resulting goosebumps that spread from his flesh are a welcome distraction.

The vampire says something, though Gale cannot catch it. The Harpers had given him something foul-tasting to dull the pain, though a blunt knife can still cut. It left his head fuzzy, drifting to and fro. He understood, for a moment, why Astarion would retreat into his mind like a cave.

( “Where do you go?”

“Nowhere.”

“Nowhere at all?”

“Nowhere at all.” )

Perhaps it’s not fair of a comparison; Astarion’s dissociation is caused by centuries of trauma, and Gale was just in a bit of pain. Besides, he’s not even sure he’s going to nowhere - if one could be said to go nowhere - instead watching as a spectator as his thoughts turn and wind through his own brain and narrative, not unlike a snake, until eventually they will turn and begin to consume themselves like an ouroboros, always hungry and never full, like the orb in Gale’s chest: sated but only just, always threatening, like teeth pressed against his throat that will not bite, divine teeth sinking into his flesh bereft of fangs though he’s sure Mystra has made him bleed more, that’s a sharp right turn, isn’t it? but his blood had been holy under her ministrations, if it fell onto himself would that qualify himself as a saint? How does one become a saint? What happens to a saint if it falls, what if left of an angel who has been cast out from a god-? 

Astarion’s fingers tuck some of his hair behind his ears and trail down his spine again. Gale lets out a content sigh, despite readjusting as if that would ease the pain that lingers, always lingering, and why did she do that to him? He was just a boy.

The same phrase is muttered by his lover.

“Hm?” Gale lifts his head and turns it, seeing Astarion’s red eyes float into view.

“Where are you?” Astarion asks, a kind of gentleness reserved only for Gale, but Gale at first mishears the question as What are you? a question of worth, where does he belong, if his soul was poured into a cup where would it go, and where is the person who would want it?

Nowhere .

“Lost,” He answers.

The days drip by slowly, the light burns when they’re on and the darkness is cold. Astarion, though, stays. Gale drifts through fits of agony and feeling nothing at all. Astarion’s hands are nice against his skin, he feels too hot.

His friends come and visit him (and Astarion, the ever-permanent presence he is) and Gale slowly drifts from being able to have a lucid conversation with them to not even registering they’re there. 

The days drip by slowly, like Halsin’s voice, or like Astarion’s fingers down his spine, or like the stars rotating through the sky. The pain becomes a backdrop, so un-notable Gale eventually stops feeling it. 

“There’s something wrong,” Astarion keeps saying, “I can smell it.”

Gale agrees.

“-think it’s the Absolute?”

Jaheira is talking, Gale registers dully. His breathing stays slow, labored. He does not lift his head from the pillow.

“No,” That’s Astarion’s clipped tone at the foot of the bed. His hand is on Gale’s ankle, but his grip is tight. “That wouldn’t make sense. The prism protects him from the Absolute.”

“I am looking for an explanation,” Jaheira replies calmly. “The two of them were both blessed. Who’s to say Marcus’s transformation did not start out like this as well?”

Marcus. Gale racks his brain to remember the name, but every time he comes close the answer drifts away like a river.

Astarion’s grip tightens even more, like a vice. “They’re hardly comparable and you know it.”

“I’d never thought I’d live to see the day you defended Mystra, Astarion.”

“I’m not!” The snap is harsh, Gale feels the urge to intervene but instead lays there as if paralyzed. “But it’s ridiculous to think Gale’s falling to the Absolute because of a few black feathers!”

“A few?” Jaheira laughs, cold and cruel but Gale cannot fault her because he quite likes Jaheira, cannot comprehend why she would be doing this to him, but he supposes he deserves it.

(Hasn’t he always deserved it? It wasn’t as if his hand was ever forced. He had nodded and swallowed and said yes, more, please every single step of the way.)

Her voice grows more serious. “I am not threatening anything, Astarion, do not confuse me for someone else. Gale is a strong warrior, and a loving ally. I would never suggest he of his own volition would do something like this. But these are dark times. Dark times that call for a few black feathers.”

A healing magic washes over him, and Gale feels the heat that plagues him from the inside abide a bit. Without thinking, he shifts, trying to get more comfortable, pressing more into Astarion’s touch.

The grip loosens. A blanket is drawn up around him, because for some reason Gale is shivering. Jaheira shushes him, almost gently.

“We will talk about this later,” She says. “I will consult the others.”

Astarion says something else, but Gale reaches for that coldness the spell awoke in him, the soothing ice that rests below the surface of his mind.

“She thinks you’re like Marcus,” Astarion whispers in his ear one night. That night? Gale finds he can’t care for the passage of time when he is laid out like this.

He’s sitting straddled on Gale’s lower back. His fingers alternate between pressing at Gale’s shoulders, to the area where wings meet back, to disappearing and ruffling his feathers as if looking for something.

Gale groans lightly, panting. It’s not even erotic, it’s just been so long since his back had been touched, and Astarion’s weight across him is grounding, and he can only remember complaining about the tension in his shoulders from this damned position once. 

“Who?” He tries to ask, but the words get lost and slurred, instead leading Gale to just make a vaguely questioning noise.

Astarion makes an echoing noise, this one taking the cadence of concern. Suddenly, a feather as black as night is being waved in his face. It’s hard for Gale to see in the dark, but eventually the shape is made out.

“The fist that tried to kidnap Isobel,” Astarion explains impatiently. Gale feels a cold press of lips to the place where his spine becomes his neck. Despite himself, he whines lightly. Astarion pays no mind to it, whispering words against his skin almost as if Gale wasn’t supposed to hear. “Gods, you’re so cold.”

“It’s Sharran,” He can hear Shadowheart’s voice. She sounds concerned, or shocked, but that’s not right, is it? She should be glad for that. He doubts Shar is kinder than Mystra, though.

Halsin replies, and who is here? He wishes he could turn and look, but the weight of the wings on his back is pinning. He feels vulnerable, laid out for examination. Where was Astarion?

“Do you think it could be the shadow curse?” The archdruid asks.

“It’s moving too slowly,” Jaheira argues. “The shadow curse wastes no time taking its victims.”

“But these wings were a gift,” Shadowheart throws back, “From a goddess.”

“A goddess who abandoned him,” And there’s Astarion, standing by his bedside. His voice seems so scratched, so hoarse. Is anyone feeding him? Who has been feeding him?

One Gale’s eyes open slowly, lazily, staring at the vampire. Astarion meets his gaze, and he looks exhausted and gaunt. Gale wants his cold touch against his burning skin again, but finds he can’t keep looking at the vampire. His eye rolls back into his head if he stops focusing, and isn’t that strange?

“A different goddess nonetheless,” Jaheira concedes. “Even without her direct interference, the shadow curse may have to fight against the magic in Gale’s blood.”

“It could have to do with the Netherese magic,” Halsin says, “Maybe nothing to do with Mystra at all.”

Nothing to do with Mystra? Mystra can't have abandoned him; sure, he was no longer her Chosen, no longer her lover, but he still felt her in his manipulation of the Weave. He tries to make his hands move, to cast a small cantrip, reaching out to the darkness for anything. But his hands won’t move.

Please, Mystra. Confused and addled, his heart sends a prayer while his brain rots . You know I can’t make it on my own. 

“Who cares what’s stopping it?” Astarion’s head snaps to the side as he breaks in, and Gale wishes he would look at him. “It’s obviously losing. This thing is killing him!”

He can’t die , he thinks distantly. It would be too dangerous. It’s not time yet.

“We have to do something,” Astarion says. There’s such a finality to it, said like someone who has run out of time. His hair is out of place, there’s a curl threatening to fall in his eye. Gale’s fingers twitch with the urge to tuck it away. 

There’s a silence that follows before Halsin sighs. “Get all available medics and clerics.”

With that, there’s the sound of movement, but Astarion turns back to him. He brushes his hair out of his face, grimacing when Gale’s eye rolls back temporarily.

“This will help, angel,” Astarion says, more to himself than to Gale. “Just go back to sleep.”

Gale’s eyes close again, and only a few minutes later he tastes something utterly vile before the world slips away in a veil of black.

Astarion paces.

It’s something he’s been doing a lot of, lately.

By the bedside, from one side of the room to the other, ignoring the glares of the Fist that sits by Art’s side. He never leaves the room, doesn’t let Gale out of his line of sight. He waits for whatever they put him under to wear off, for the slightest sign of life.

It comes in the form of Gale stirring. He curls slightly, a habit Astarion noticed from him trying to shift and alleviate pressure and pain from his wings. Without pause, Astarion moves over, climbing back onto the bed.

“Gale?” He asks. Angel feels too tainted and wizard feels too impersonal.

Gale makes a noise in acknowledgement. His eyes flick open. Astarion, more out of habit than anything else, presses his hand to Gale’s forehead. The skin of the man is still far too cold, but already improving. He still has that foggy look in his eye, but nobody expected getting rid of the source of the rot would instantly heal the man. Gale still had to fight a battle for himself.

“Hello, darling,” Astarion says, habit and nerves combining to make him fall back on older greetings.

Even in this state, Gale is too smart for his own good. His eyebrows furrow slightly, half of his face hidden in his pillow. He pulls himself up on his arms, revealing tangled hair and red marks from the fabric pressing into his skin.

“Astarion,” Gale starts, “What’s-?”

He cuts himself off with a wince, dropping back down. His hands grab at sheets in pain. Astarion sits up in alarm. “What? What is it? What hurts?”

Gale pants shortly. “My wings.”

Astarion freezes. “What?”

“My wings,” Gale says, “I don’t know why- I don’t-”

“Gale,” Astarion says, as the wizard begins to relax, either out of adjustment or the pain passing. “Darling, can you reach your back? Can you sit up?”

Gale gives him a look like he might be crazy, and he might be. Astarion doesn’t know how to deal with this, with any of this at all. 

Be there for him is what Halsin said. Be patient .

When Gale shakes his head, Astarion nods. “Alright. Okay. Just pay attention, alright?”

Gale lays still as Astarion slowly traces his fingers down Gale’s back. He had done it many times, either in their tents or on this bed, hoping to soothe whatever pain Gale was going through when he was muttering incoherently about Mystra and being lost. This time, however, he guided his fingers carefully. Past the shoulders, down the sweeping expanse of his back, and gently over new, shiny scar tissue.

He hears Gale hiss in a breath in anticipation of Astarion messing with his wings, or touching the area so full of agony. But then it’s released all at once. “What-?”

He turns then, suddenly, as if trying to look. He cries out in pain and Astarion sets a hand on his shoulder, trying to stop him.

“Gale,” He says again, as the wizard looks at him with confusion verging on panic in his eyes. “Be careful.”

“What?” Gale just repeats, his usual vocabulary running up and dry and away. “What?”

Astarion tries to guide him to lie on his stomach again, but Gale shakes his hand off. Gently, he readjusts himself to his side, wincing and scowling all the way. He was still shivering like a leaf in winter, and Astarion fought the ridiculous urge to cover him in a blanket.

He swallows hard, meeting Gale’s eyes steadily. “When you got injured, your wings got infected.”

“With what? ”

“The shadow curse,” Astarion whispers. “It was eating through you, starting from your wings. Mystra’s blessing, or the Netherese magic, kept it at bay, but only for so long. You-you were dying. We needed to do something.”

A dawning understanding broke over Gale’s face. “You took away the source.”

Astarion’s jaw clenches, and he searches for what to say. “I’m…sorry, darling. I’m sorry.”

Gale doesn’t answer, instead twisting his head as if trying to see. “Touch my back again.”

“What?”

“Astarion, it hurts ,” He snaps his head to face Astarion again, his expression full of anger and betrayal, mixed in with some form of desperate pleading. “Do it again.”

He cannot find it in himself to prickle at being so blatantly ordered. Instead he shuffles closer and leans over Gale, who remains on his side. It’s an awkward angle, but Astarion refuses to get up to readjust. He traces his hand over one side of Gale, gently at first.

“Harder,” The demand comes.

Astarion’s mind offers the word in a dozen other contexts, but he shoves them all aside the best he can. He folds in his fingers, running his knuckles down Gale’s back like the times he had when he was trying to work out the myriad of knots Gale would groan about in his shoulders. He’s still gentler with the scar tissue, the land where something once was and no longer is. The healing magic had undoubtedly sped the entire process up, but it was not perfect.

“I want to stand up,” Gale says abruptly.

Astarion pulls back. “No.”

“No?” Gale frowns. “I have to learn how to balance without them. I want to know, I want to see .”

“Give it a few days, you have to rest-” Astarion starts, moving back some more.

Gale’s hand encircles his wrist suddenly. “All I’ve been doing is resting for- for gods’ know how long!”

Astarion wrenches his hand away, teeth bared for a moment before he collects his bearings. Gale stares and then sighs, and places his head down. Astarion can see him, recognize the anger for what it is, recognize the grief of something having been removed from him without his choice.

“I’m sorry,” Gale says eventually in the resulting silence.

“I know,” Astarion responds as he tries not to take it - any of it - personally. He’d lashed out at the wizard more times to count, and he hadn’t even lost his limbs. “But I mean it, darling. You’re-”

“Broken, I know,” Gale answers. He tries to run a hand through his hair and gets it tangled in a knot.

Astarion blinks in surprise. That wasn’t what he was going to say in the slightest.

“ Recovering is how I was going to finish,” He says, settling in with his legs to his chest. “If you would not put words into my mouth.”

Though the words are scolding, the tone lacks any bite. Gale looks at him with such grief in his eyes that Astarion has the urge to kiss his forehead. There were still so many words unspoken between them, after all this time.

“I’m sorry,” Gale says again for the second time in how many minutes.

“I know,” Astarion says. He runs his fingers through Gale’s hair. I forgive you.

“Can I lay on my back?” Gale asks. “Is that allowed?”

Astarion can’t tell if his tone is bitter, sarcastic, or genuine. Maybe a mix of all three. Astarion offers his hands to help pull and readjust Gale, lowering him gently onto his back. He probably shouldn’t be doing this, almost definitely should not be, but cannot find it in himself to deny Gale this.

“Does it hurt?” He asks Gale.

“It’s…odd,” Gale says. There are dark circles in his eyes despite how much he’s slept. He holds Astarion close. “It hurts.”

He does not move to sit up.

“How close are we to defeating Thorm?” Gale asks.

How long was I lost? How much of myself did I just lose?

“We’re soon to venture and find the Nightsong,” Astarion asks. “After that, Thorm. I’ve heard there’s a Gauntlet of Shar.”

I have stayed by your side.

“Shadowheart must be ecstatic.”

“You would think so.”

Gale doesn’t take the bait for the question, unwilling to learn how much he’s missed. He brings his hand up and rubs at the mark of the orb in discomfort, mirrored on his chest and back, the folly of a lover. The betrayal of a goddess.

Astarion reaches up and runs his finger across the markings, finding not only were they a brand on his skin but indented onto it, as if carved.

“If it was the orb that staved off the shadow curse, I have to thank it,” Gale says.

“I’m not sure if I’d thank it. Or Mystra.”

“A blessing is a blessing.”

“No,” Astarion says suddenly, sitting up. “This was not a blessing just because it happened to work in your favour. The wings are not- they’re not a blessing.”
A mark of ownership. She maimed you. She humiliated you, and wanted the world to know. There are scars on both of our backs.

The words die in Astarion’s throat as he looks at Gale. He is reminded of a lyre that’s plucked at until fingers are bleeding. He’s reminded of something strung so tightly that it snaps, wound and ready.

“You’re the most foolish wizard I’ve ever met,” Astarion says. His hand curls on Gale’s chest. His wizard, his not-quite angel. His never-been angel. “Your life is not an equal exchange for this.”

“Astarion-” Gale tries to protest, voice breaking right down the middle of his name.

“I’m not saying goodbye to you, yet,” Astarion says. “You promised me Waterdeep.”

Gale wavers.

Astarion mimes a deep breath, wrapping around the string and pulling.

He lowers his head, pressing his forehead against Gale’s. There are no wings covering them, their bodies laid bare in the world. Astarion flays himself in front of his wizard, and he does not believe in the gods, so he does not have to pray that he will not be destroyed.

“You can’t let her take any more of you,” He whispers, like a secret.

Gale’s hands slowly wrap around him, and Astarion does not jump as he’s pulled back down. It takes him a moment to process Gale’s slow, steady stream of tears seeping into his hair from where the string snapped.

It will not be like this forever. I think I might love you. I am scared. It will not be like this forever.

A man and a vampire lay in a bed in the most cursed land on Faerûn. There are no wings to protect them, there is no light around them that threatens to die. In this corner of the world, there is nothing holy at all. Despite this, Astarion thinks of love and sunlight, and how everything cold can once again be warm.