Chapter Text
When the ringer cuts off and you hear Shadowheart’s soft greeting in your earbud, you send a prayer of thanks up to any gods who might be listening. You don’t even bother to greet her back; you need to talk before you lose your nerve.
“I had a sex dream last night.”
“Ooh, fun.” A pause. “You sound…unhappy about this for some reason.”
“Yes, because it was about someone I don’t feel that way about.”
“Ah. Gale?”
“No. Although—“
It’s just a voice call, since you’re technically working, but you can picture Shadowheart’s eyebrows raising like she’s in the shop with you.
“Well, he made a cameo. But not in a dirty way. He just—he was sort of present, but not involved—“
“Selune help us.”
“No, not like that! And hold on, why would it be about Gale, anyway? Why was that your first thought?”
“Well you had a date with him, didn’t you?”
“Fucking Astarion, the two of you gossip like old ladies.” You congratulate yourself on how normally you manage to say his name. Your cheeks turn red, but Shadowheart doesn’t need to know that.
“Did that happen already? How was it?”
“Don’t bother pretending he didn’t give you the entire play-by-play already.”
Shadowheart sighs, her breath crackling in your earbud.
“He picked this one occasion to be vague and nonspecific, of course. He implied you said no in the end, though.”
Now it’s your turn to sigh, leaning on your elbows from behind the apothecary counter. The shop is painfully slow. Perfect for a panicked phone call with a friend, though, and Shadowheart is the only person you’ve opened up to about Astarion’s recent weirdness. More importantly, despite her love of gossip, she can actually keep a secret.
“Yeah,” you reply after a moment. “it just…didn’t work.”
You don’t really want to say any more, and she doesn’t press. “Fair enough. So it’s probably a good thing you didn’t have a sex dream about him, then.”
That gets a laugh out of you. “That’s a silver lining, I guess.”
“But who was it about? You have to tell me or I’m going to tell everyone it was Volo.”
“Gods. To be fair, I stayed clothed. If I was going to have a sex dream about Volo, I guess I’d prefer it be one along those lines.”
“How the fuck did you stay clothed?”
At this you bury your face in your hands and collapse against the counter. “I don’t know, and Shadowheart, it was still the hottest fucking dream I’ve ever had, like by a WIDE margin.”
“Damn, alright. And it was about….?”
You straighten again, suddenly nervous.
It feels too real to share like silly gossip, but it’s not. You know it’s not. You told yourself it wasn’t about 700 times last night. Before you…well. No need to relive that part of the night.
Still, you swallow before answering. “Um…Astarion?”
The line is silent for a few seconds, and then you hear her choke back a laugh.
“Okay. Wow.”
“I know.”
“Is—sorry, is this not a thing that’s happened before?”
You sign, exasperated. “Of course not, we’re–it’s not like that with us. This is fucking weird.”
“Okay. Well, that’s…”
You collapse into your hands again and you let out a muffled, “I know.”
When she’s silent for another moment you panic. “You can’t tell anyone, Shadowheart. You definitely can’t tell him, alright?”
“Oh come on, a few months ago the two of you would be telling this story at parties.”
“Yeah, but a few months ago we were a lot closer. Now things are complicated, and I really don’t want to complicate things further.”
You already went through this while you were getting dressed this morning. You don’t mention the other conclusion you reached, which is that you can’t trust yourself to tell him about it without becoming…flustered. In a way that would definitely raise questions. Maybe you’ll tell him someday, once you have some distance from it and the memory alone doesn’t leave an ache between your legs. Once things are more normal.
“That makes sense, I suppose.” She speaks slowly, like she’s choosing her words carefully.
You ignore her. “I feel like that’s where it’s coming from, though. Like I just miss him and my brain turned it into this…other kind of wanting.”
She pauses thoughtfully. “That’s certainly an explanation.”
“Okay…but you have a better one?”
“I just feel like the usual reason people have sex dreams is, you know, sexual attraction.”
Your brain doesn’t offer up a single coherent thought in response to that. Just anxiety.
“It can’t be that.”
“Being attracted to a friend isn’t the end of the world or anything. These things happen, we have hot friends. I certainly found you attractive when we met, and gods know I got over that.”
She’s right and you know it. Your anxiety doesn’t make any sense. You’re being so much weirder about this than you need to be.
“Yeah, you’re right. And thank you, right back at you. The attractive thing, I mean.” You run a hand over your face, willing yourself to be normal. “I think it just…feels different. It’s not like when I had a crush on Halsin and then I got to know him and realized he never wears deodorant and it gave me the ick, you know? I know everything about Astarion already, it doesn’t seem like it’s going to be that easy.”
“Hmm. That’s true, I guess. Maybe it’s just the dream version of him you’re crushing on, like you’ve idealized him a bit since he hasn’t been around. The next time you see him in real life it could be like, ‘oh, I forgot about that weird mole, also you’re really annoying, nevermind about the crush.’”
You snort. “He is a little shit sometimes.” A potion bottle on the counter display rack is askew and you straighten it as you think. “He hasn’t been like that recently, though. Maybe that’s the problem. When he called after my date with Gale, he said all these really sweet things, and…I don’t know, I feel like it fucked with my head a bit.”
“Maybe he feels bad he was such a shit friend and he’s trying to make it up to you. Did he ever actually explain that, by the way?”
“Kind of. He said Gale seemed worried about how close we were and he wanted to back off a bit until I knew how Gale felt. I think it was more that he kind of panicked.”
“About what?”
“I don’t know, he was talking about how we rely too much on each other. I think talking to Gale made him realize he wasn’t really prepared to…share me, I guess.”
“Hmm.”
“What?”
“I’m just not sure that’s a concern I’ve ever had about a platonic friend.”
“Being codependent and being platonic are not mutually exclusive.”
She laughs. “Fair enough.”
There’s a companionable silence as the two of you mull everything over. She’s the first to break it.
“You know, babe…it would be okay if you were actually into him. Like, that’s not a crime.”
Your guts twist. She’s obnoxiously intuitive, you always forget that. “I can’t change the rules on him like that. I can’t make it into something he didn’t agree to.”
“He’s allowed to say no. You two are adults, you could work through it.”
“But that’s the point, I’m the one person he never has to say no to, because I’m the one person who’s never going to bring it up. The literal foundation of our relationship is that we are friends only. No sex. And you should have seen him when I told him that, it was like the clouds parted. He lit up.”
“That was years ago, though. Have you talked about it at all since then?”
“A couple times early on, I think. Not for a while.”
You feel the judgement in her silence.
“Well how the fuck am I supposed to bring it up? ‘Hey, remember the first thing we ever said to each other and the basis of our relationship? Let’s not do that anymore, I’m too horny.’”
That gets a laugh, and the tension in your chest dissipates some. “You should write him a note that says ‘Let’s bang, circle one: yes or no.’”
Now you’re laughing. “Hells, I’m pathetic.”
“You’re not, you’re just a person with feelings. It’s fine. It’s healthy, probably, given how fucked up your last real relationship was.”
“That’s true, I guess.”
“It’s okay to want him.”
Your heart breaks a little. “I guess I’m not the first.” You never wanted to be like all the others, though. You weren’t like the other girls. You were immune to his charms.
Or possibly you were just trying very hard not to think about them.
“It’s different. You actually know him.”
“I guess.”
“It is. He’d know that.”
When you don’t respond she sighs again, and you can feel her patience wearing thin. If it’s annoying just hearing your thoughts, she should try living with them.
“Listen, all I’m saying is, time has passed for both of you. Maybe he’s ready for the rules to change.”
You take a deep breath and straighten, shaking off your melancholy. If you’re tired of talking about this, she definitely is. “This is probably all a fluke, anyway. No use getting all worked up about it now.”
“We’re in the ‘ignoring Shadowheart’s good advice’ phase of the conversation, I see.”
“Literally the opposite! I’m agreeing with what you said earlier, I’m probably just into the idealized dream version of him. Or I’m ovulating or something. I’m supposed to hang out with him tomorrow night, so things are already starting to get back to normal.”
“Lovely. I support you wholeheartedly. To be clear, if this ends up just being you in denial about how in love you are with him, you owe me several drinks.”
“Sure,” you reply absentmindedly, looking around the shop and making a list of unnecessary ways to keep yourself busy for the rest of the day. “If we ever become more than friends, drinks are on me.”
“I’m holding you to that.”
You’re rolling your eyes, already on your way to the storeroom to restock healing potions.