Chapter Text
Gale smiled, pained, as Astarion twirled around in a voluminous robe, trying to pretend this wasn’t all his childish nightmares come to life.
Hells, what was the best way out of this? A sudden vortex, perhaps, that consumed his tower alone. A mysterious pit opening up beneath his feet that sent him plunging to his doom in the Underdark. The timely intervention of a benevolent god.
Astarion exclaimed, “Please tell me this isn’t yours?” and Gale managed a nervous titter like some sort of maiden aunt.
“To think, I was worried about you settling in here,” he told the vampire. “Viewing the old place as mine rather than ours, and all that. I see I needn’t have concerned myself.”
“You told me to make myself at home,” Astarion said, and, yes, Gale had said this on a number of occasions. At the Elfsong, when he had mentioned he had a spare room and been unsure how Astarion would respond; when they first arrived in Waterdeep and he had invited Astarion across the threshold with grave solemnity; on the many days since then, as they learned to fit their lives around each other. And he had meant it.
Seeing one’s erstwhile travelling companion and new housemate rifling through one’s wardrobe was another matter, though. More than enough to make anyone regret a past beneficence.
“Is this a wizard issue?” Astarion asked, with another little twirl. The borrowed robe — Gale’s, from a lifetime ago, plucked from a wardrobe in one of the guest bedrooms — commanded the space around him with self-important grandeur. “Or some sort of Waterdhavian tailoring deficiency?”
“I’ll have you know, it’s rather fashionable,” Gale huffed. “Or was, in its time. Can’t say I’m an expert on what’s in vogue at the moment.”
“It’s horrendous.”
“Have your tastes changed in the past two centuries, Astarion?”
“The tailor took you for a ride, darling. A gaudy fabric they wanted to get rid of, and on top of that, you were sold twice as much as you needed. Daylight robbery at its finest. I mean, look at this! It’s enormous.”
On Astarion’s lithe figure, it certainly was. And, gods, was that all it took? One comment about his clothes, and Gale was a boy in the schoolyard all over again. Astarion would have thrived in said schoolyard, no doubt. Pretty and popular, a secret favourite amongst the teachers, an idol amongst the students. Not the sort of boy who faked illness during sports matches, dreaded the need to change clothes in front of his classmates, understood perfectly well that adults were pleased by his talent for magic but wished it came in a body that tried harder to be acceptable.
Gale cleared his throat. “It used to fit rather well, actually.”
Astarion paused. The swishing fabric stilled. “What?”
“I used to be a man of, shall we say, larger proportions.”
Astarion’s arms flopped to his sides. He looked like a child who had been caught stealing sweets. He glanced down at himself in the robe, then raised his eyes back to Gale. “Shit. I’ve been a bit of an ass, haven’t I?”
“Not to worry,” Gale said breezily. “How about we — ah — how about you return that sartorial misadventure to wherever you exhumed it from, and we’ll forget all about this.”
He spun on his heels and took himself to the kitchen for a strong cup of tea.
The leaves and water were getting acquainted in one of his mother’s old teapots, and he had selected his second-favourite teacup from the china cabinet, when he realised Astarion was watching him from the doorway.
“How much larger?”
Could a man not make a cup of tea in peace in his own home?
“And how long ago are we talking about? Shortly before we met? Or should I be picturing a young, strapping Gale?”
“You shouldn’t be picturing anything at all.”
He set his hands on his hips, but Astarion had settled himself at the kitchen table, straddling one of the chairs as though determined to misuse it. His hands were resting on the back of the chair, his pointed chin on his knuckles, and Gale knew when to concede defeat.
“It was before this, specifically.” He waved his hand in a circular motion over his chest. “After I acquired the orb, I spent a lot of time locked away here, speaking to no one but Tara. I grew out my hair, the beard became default, and I … I lost some weight. Quite a lot of weight, actually. ”
Why was it so mortifying to talk about this? He felt prickly-hot and bone-tired and like he owed someone an apology.
He added, “Not on purpose, as such. I suppose I just lost my appetite.”
Astarion’s eyes were suspiciously unreadable, his head slightly cocked to one side. This would all be less awful, of course, if Astarion weren’t so very beautiful and if Gale weren’t so terribly fond of him and if he wasn’t currently morphing into every confident, handsome, haughty boy that Gale had wasted his adolescence pining after at Blackstaff.
“There. Are you satisfied?”
Astarion prompted, “You still haven’t said how much larger.”
“Quite stout indeed,” said Tara, and Gale nearly dropped his teacup. Must every occupant of the house delight in sneaking up on him? “Mrs Dekarios used to chide him about it, but he did always look rather distinguished.”
“Really,” Astarion said, as Tara made herself comfortable on one corner of the table.
Gale poured himself a cup of tea with the self-composure of a man who did not wish to disintegrate into the floorboards. “Well, well. Much to do!” he announced. “My research won’t write itself!”
With a cup and saucer in one hand and the teapot in the other, he retreated upstairs feeling rather a fool.
*
Astarion was a respectable housemate, all things considered.
He created very little mess, except perhaps in his own room, but that was entirely his business. He handled all arrangements for his unique culinary needs, and when storing bottles of blood in the kitchen, did so very neatly. He was not friends with Tara, per se — Gale had caught them hissing at each other on precisely two occasions — but they would deign to make civil conversation when he was present, and that seemed like enough for now.
They kept very different schedules, as one might expect from someone with Astarion’s requirements around sunlight. But more often than not, Astarion would be waiting in the kitchen when Gale returned home after a long day of teaching. He would ask all the right questions, eyes glittering at the promise of gossip about people he didn’t know, as Gale grumbled about his day or enthused about his students, making a pot of tea or fixing himself some dinner. He gave sparse information about what he got up to with his own time, and Gale doubted that all of it was entirely legal, but he kept busy and seemed happy.
Gale was, however, almost certainly in love with him, and that was becoming something of a bother.
In more sensible days, he had instructed himself that he was never to fall in love again. The whole business was far more trouble than it was worth, even when the object of one’s affections wasn’t a goddess. He was old and wise enough to learn from his past mistakes.
But then Astarion would smile at him, all silver and pearl in the moonlight, and laugh in a way that was huge and free and beautifully ugly in its authenticity, and Gale started to suppose it was a mistake worth making.
“I thought I’d find you out here.”
The touch on his shoulder was light, a gentle signal of his arrival, but Gale jumped all the same. He had been under the impression he had the house to himself; the nights came earlier now, with autumn well established, which gave Astarion more time to roam Waterdeep as he pleased.
Astarion chuckled, his hand migrating to between Gale’s shoulder blades, while Gale set down his glass of wine and attempted to right himself.
“I am, perhaps, predictable,” he acknowledged, marking his place in the book and setting it aside. An evening on his balcony with some light reading and a large glass of wine was nothing out of the ordinary, but it was a joy he didn’t plan to take for granted ever again.
He twisted to peer up at Astarion, and his smile, already shamelessly bright, became a laugh of surprise. With a flourish, Astarion presented him with a plate of cakes and pastries arranged in a swirl of decadence.
“Oh! How lovely. Are they for me?”
“They’re not for the vampire spawn or the tressym.” Astarion claimed a chair of his own — Gale would not say he was sitting, as such, but he arranged himself elegantly across the seat — and wriggled out of his heavy cloak, looking just as dapper in his shirtsleeves. “Yes, wizard, they’re for you.”
“You shouldn’t have,” Gale said, while feeling very pleased indeed that he had.
“I was in a generous mood. It’s been known to happen. And that bakery you like sells things very cheaply when they're about to close for the day.”
Gale’s fingers danced over each item in turn before selecting a round tart piled high with sliced pears. True, he had already eaten dinner and treated himself to a selection of cheeses afterwards too, with the odd glass of wine along the way. But it was sweet of Astarion to bring him these, and there was nothing to be gained by being ungrateful.
“I hope they’re to your liking,” Astarion said, as Gale took his first large bite. “They look delicious, but you never can quite tell. And my memory for these things is, ah, outdated.”
“This one is very good,” Gale assured him, placing a careful hand underneath the pastry to avoid showering himself with crumbs.
He wasn’t altogether sure that Astarion cared about food, or missed it, but he looked so very interested in Gale and the pear tart that he felt the need to say something more about it.
“There’s a good glaze on the pear slices. A light vanilla cream underneath. There’s jam, too — damson, I would say — which brings a nice note of sharpness. Lovely.”
There was something almost hungry in Astarion’s expression, Gale thought. But that was a deluded notion indeed. His one and only attempt at tasting Gale’s blood had gone poorly, after all.
Conversation came easily, as it always did between the pair of them. Astarion leaned back in his chair, illuminated by the spheres of light that Gale had conjured around the balcony’s perimeter. The pear tart was followed by a square of chocolate cake that was rich and moist and promised to make a terrible mess of everything in its path. Astarion put his feet up on the table and obediently removed them when Gale waved an indignant, chocolate-flecked hand in their direction. Waterdeep twinkled below them with its familiar charm, and Gale reflected, not for the first time, how well this backdrop suited Astarion. His two worlds had crashed together and somehow emerged unscathed, despite his silly fears that one might somehow tarnish the other.
By the time he had polished off the chocolate cake and drained the last of the wine from his glass, he was warm and content and more than a little sleepy. Even so, something in him murmured that the night was still young and full of promise. It didn't help that Astarion was shimmering prettily in the magical lights, or that the remaining cakes on the plate sang so loudly with temptation.
But it seemed unforgivably gluttonous to work through so many desserts by oneself, especially in the company of someone who could not eat them. Two was more than enough. Astarion would probably tease him if he were to take a third, and he would be right to do so.
“Best that I retire for the evening,” Gale said, stifling a yawn. It wasn't especially late, but if he dozed off out here like an old man, his pride would take some time to recover.
He picked up the plate of cakes and tried not to look at them with too much longing. He could enjoy the rest tomorrow, or, preferably, spread them out over the next few days. He was more than capable of such restraint.
He said lamely, “Thank you for these. Very kind of you.”
Astarion waved a hand dismissively. “You’re letting me live here with no strings attached. The least I can do is bring you gifts every now and then.”
He leaned forwards, and Gale was treated to the delicate lines of his collarbone peeking from beneath the soft folds of his shirt.
“And I know you like sweet things.”
He reached out and patted Gale on the knee in a gesture that managed to be both endearingly awkward and shockingly intimate. Gale’s next words crumbled in his throat.
“Sleep well, darling.”
“Yes. Ah.” Gale’s tongue scrambled for an appropriate response. The hand on his knee lingered. “Goodnight, Astarion.”
Gale went to bed that night thinking about how, in the tadpole days, Astarion had petted Scratch and the owlbear cub when he thought no one was watching; how he had danced with Wyll, permitting himself to be held and directed and dipped; how he had hugged Karlach again and again after her second upgrade and curled up with her by the fire so often that Tav had congratulated them on their budding romance.
Gale thought of Astarion’s hand on his shoulder, at his back, patting his knee. He hoped that all of this meant what he thought it did — that he could read the touches as trust, and that Astarion felt safe here in Waterdeep with him.