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“What are they fighting about?” Karlach asked uneasily. She tried to keep her voice down, though generally speaking, when Tav and Astarion were together, they rarely paid any attention to anyone else anyway.
It was cute, sort of. They were both kind of messed up, but it was nice to see they could be lovesick fools like anybody else.
Gale didn’t answer from where he was stirring tonight’s dinner— stew, it looked like, and Karlach was grateful he was cooking, because he was the only one of them who could muster up something tasty from their poor rations— and Lae’zel just sniffed disdainfully, ignoring her in favor of sharpening her big sword. Tav had stolen it from the créche for her, a while ago, and Karlach was convinced Lae’zel slept with it like a teddy bear.
“I’m not sure,” Wyll replied, just as quietly. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen them argue, before,” he added, sounding a bit uncertain. Oh! That was why Karlach felt so uneasy, hearing the two of them hissing at each other like that.
“Yeah, they usually get on like a house on fire,” Karlach said. “You know, really well.” Tav and Astarion rarely differed in opinion, and when one or the other of them said something outrageous that Karlach would have expected to start a fight, the other one usually just laughed and turned it into a joke.
Tav never smiled so much as when Astarion was ranting about killing things. Goofy little weirdos.
“Don’t look at me,” Gale said, grim the way everyone had been since stepping foot in the Shadow-cursed lands. He’d seemed extra dour lately. Karlach understood the temptation, what with having a bomb in his chest. Kind of killed the mood. “I’m far from Tav’s closest confidant.” Wyll shot him a look, but Karlach just sighed, glancing in Tav and Astarion’s direction.
Astarion was gesticulating wildly, but instead of standing back and enjoying the show, like Tav typically did, he was leaning in toward the elf with a fierce frown, looking irritated as he replied. “Maybe it’s some new foreplay they’re trying out,” Karlach said, hopefully; she didn’t really want Tav and Astarion to be fighting. She could only imagine how ugly things would get for the rest of them, if those two had to turn their barbs on anyone else.
“It is not,” Lae’zel interrupted. “They have not copulated since we entered the shadow-cursed lands a tendday ago,” she said bluntly, testing the edge of her blade.
“Uh, okay,” Karlach said, frowning a little, but Wyll was sputtering into his ale.
“What the hells,” he said flatly. “How do you even know that?” he asked, and Lae’zel frowned at him severely.
“It is not as though this camp is very large,” she said, derisively. “And the githyanki are trained to be superior observers and scouts. On Créche K’liir—“
“Yes, alright, the githyanki notice everything, got it,” Wyll said with a sigh, shaking his head. “Generally speaking, people around here try to give people more privacy,” he tried to explain tactfully. “Even if it’s only pretense.” Wasn’t much privacy on the road.
Lae’zel made that noise she always made when someone corrected her cultural knowledge, and tried to look like it didn’t bother her that she’d missed something. Poor Lae. Must be hard to always feel out of place. “Well if they wished for privacy they should have at least made an attempt to remove themselves from the range of hearing,” she scoffed. “See? It is nothing but a ridiculous disagreement. Tav is only trying to flirt his way out of wearing it,” she added, sounding even more disgusted.
“Of wearing what?” Wyll asked, sounding confused, and they all watched as Tav darted under Astarion’s arm, mid-tirade from the elf, to plant a kiss on the corner of Astarion’s jaw. Astarion fisted a hand in his colorful blazer and kissed him fiercely on the mouth in answer.
“Looks like foreplay to me,” Karlach said absently, while Gale looked up.
“Wait, you can hear them?” the wizard asked Lae’zel.
“Of course,” Lae’zel scoffed, frowning at him, and the others looked her in confusion. Understanding dawned over Lae’zel’s features and she looked smug again. “I suppose the peoples of Fay-run have other inferior senses as well. The githyanki have evolved to have excellent hearing as well as vision.”
“Well, what are they saying?” Karlach asked impatiently, watching as Astarion changed his mind and shoved Tav backward. He folded his arms and refused Tav’s outstretched hand, and the half-elf’s face fell. “They’re not breaking up, are they?” she asked worriedly.
“That’s not his actual sad face,” Gale assured her with a sigh, as though he regretted being pulled into the conversation. “Don’t let the kitten-eyes get to you.”
“What exactly are you all doing?” came Shadowheart’s dry voice from the other side of the fire. Karlach was a little surprised she had joined them. She’d been shaken up, after everything they learned about the Nightsong. “You’re supposed to be resting, before we head to Moonrise Towers,” she said, looking a bit wan herself. Karlach waved her over, offering her the most comfortable dead stump to sit on.
“Lae’zel’s going to tell us what Astarion and Tav are fighting about,” she said, and beamed when Shadowheart joined them, reluctant as she seemed. Gale pressed the first bowl of stew that was ready onto the cleric, and she graced him with a curt nod.
“We should probably just let them be,” Wyll offered, half-heartedly, like he didn’t enjoy gossip as much as the rest of them. “Tav seemed terribly shook up about something after the Gauntlet.”
“Yes. A Justiciar ripped a hole in his blazer,” Shadowheart said sarcastically, stirring her dinner without eating it. Karlach kept an eye on her as she tore into her own portion. Clerics needed to eat, no matter how much emotional pain they were suffering when they turned their back on their god.
“You’re serious,” Wyll said after a beat, eyes widening a little.
“He was quite distraught,” Gale agreed wryly, dishing out the rest of the portions. He left the pot over the fire to keep it warm for when Astarion eventually remembered his bard needed to eat and inevitably dragged the half-elf over for his dinner. “He was less concerned about the bloodstains and more upset about the fact that he doesn’t know how to sew well enough to fix his garment.” Tav loved that green and teal outfit with the fancy gold embroidery, like, almost to the point of obsession. Karlach didn't really get it, but to be fair, she was a little behind on fashion trends.
“That’s what they are arguing about,” Lae’zel said, as she forewent a spoon to sip right from the bowl, so she could keep a hand on her sword, probably. “He asked Astarion to patch it up, and Astarion refused.”
“Huh,” Karlach said, brow furrowing a little.
“Manual labor beneath him?” Wyll asked wryly, and Lae’zel shook her head.
“No. He claimed that as long as the blazer was ruined, Tav would have to wear something else into battle,” the githyanki reported. “And that Tavran’s ‘imbecilic need to be the center of attention doesn’t mean he should be stepping in front of every blade aimed at the party’,” Lae’zel added, clearly quoting Astarion. His words in the gith’s voice sounded even more ridiculous.
Karlach exchanged a glance with Wyll. Astarion wasn’t exactly wrong, honestly. As someone who was supposed to be a caster, Tav got into way more close-quarters combat than any of them were really comfortable with. At least Gale was a proper wizard, who knew to stand behind the barbarian or the fighter or even Shadowheart’s big shield, when it came to combat.
“He also said that if he’s going to ‘insist on bleeding for a bunch of lackwits’ he should at least wear proper armour,” Lae’zel announced, finishing off her stew. “That’s when Tavran tried to distract him.”
“Don’t think it worked,” Wyll said wryly, as Tav started to look increasingly frustrated at Astarion’s uncompromising posture and expression. The vampire kept his arms crossed tight across his chest and refused to play along with whatever Tav was muttering to him. When he did speak again, the Astarion's expression remained severe. Whatever she heard him say made Lae’zel snort contemptuously into her stew.
“Well?” Gale asked, curious now and looking a little irritated about it. Or maybe irritated that he had to rely on someone else to find out.
“An ultimatum. He said that if Tav refuses to use Astarion’s old armor, he will never— hm.”
“Okay, I get the picture, don’t repeat whatever filthy thing he said over my innocent stew,” Wyll said with a wry smile, and Lae’zel shot him a fierce, unreadable look.
“Astarion said that ‘hugs are off the table’, and that they would never hold hands again,” she told him flatly, and Karlach felt as surprised as Wyll looked.
“Oh,” Karlach said, softly, and looked back over at the bard and the vampire. Astarion was still holding himself very stiffly, and had locked his hands together behind his back, as though to keep them from reaching out to where they weren’t allowed to go. Tav, for his part, looked a little gobsmacked, and even she could read the shape of the words on his lips from where she was sitting.
‘You can’t be serious,’ his mouth said. Astarion’s back was now to her, but she could guess at his response.
“Surely that won’t work,” Shadowheart scoffed, but she sounded less certain than her words implied.
“Oh, it definitely worked,” Karlach said with a small grin, feeling the machine in her chest skip a beat at the way all of Tav’s edges suddenly softened. “Hells, that’s adorable.”
“Don’t tell him you heard that,” Gale warned, because he thought they were idiots, probably. Karlach rolled her eyes.
“Of course not,” she said, pleased to see Shadowheart eating a few bites when she looked away from her favorite couple again.
“Looks like Astarion won,” Wyll said a beat later, sounding amused, but Karlach wasn’t surprised. They were making out now, she could see out of the corner of her eye, so the argument was over. No messy breakups today. It put her in a good mood. “Do they have to do that while I’m eating though?” he asked, sadly, and Karlach laughed, nudging him.
“Look somewhere else,” she suggested. “Or maybe find your own partner,” she added playfully, giving him a wink as he grinned at her. She ignored Gale’s flinch; poor guy would get over his crush on Tav eventually. She hoped. She felt a little bad for him; it was clear Tav only had eyes for one of them.
“No one needs to find any partners over this hot meal Gale has prepared for us,” Shadowheart said firmly, then raised her voice to yell at Tav. “If you’re quite finished over there, dinner is ready!”
“Aw, I was hoping for dinner and a show,” Karlach teased, loud enough for Tav to hear and choke on a laugh as Astarion towed him over; the elf had realized Tav skipped meals if left to his own devices, distracted by planning new fight strategies to try out, or by music, or by magic, or by talking to the camp pets, of all things, so he had taken it upon himself to make sure Tav got fed.
He claimed it was all in the name of his ‘own meal being properly fattened up’, but Karlach was starting to suspect it was a little more than that.
“I could still give you a show, Kar,” Tav volunteered brightly, then his face fell. “Except that damned fat zombie—“
“Balthazar,” chimed in several voices, with varying levels of tiredness and exasperation; Tav had refused to learn Thorm’s henchman’s name. Astarion, she noted, didn’t bother to correct him. He probably knew what she suspected: that Tav did know the necromancer’s name, and just refused to say it.
“—took my flute with him when I Thunderwaved him off the ledge. What an asshole,” he muttered, scowling, and Astarion shoved him into a seat on a nearby log.
“Quit fussing about your flute, you already have another,” he said, and gestured for Gale to put a bowl in Tav’s hands.
“But that one was special,” Tav said mournfully, giving Astarion a pitiful look. The vampire remained utterly unmoved, giving him a scornful look until Tav accepted the bowl of stew. “I clocked Dror Ragzlin in the nuts with that flute. We had a bond.”
“Yes, very sad,” Astarion said, with no emotion whatsoever. “Eat your stew.”
“No one appreciates my artistry,” Tav told Karlach mournfully, and she laughed.
“Oh, I think you get appreciated plenty,” she said with a grin, reaching out to poke the visible hickey on his throat. It wasn’t even a feeding mark. Gods, they were no better than teenaged lovebirds. Tav squawked dramatically, unable to fend her off with his hands full of stew.
“Don’t waste Gale’s hard work,” Astarion snapped at him, when he looked about to fumble it. “Do I have to feed you, too?” he huffed, dropping down to sit next to Tav and steadying his bowl. Tav immediately seemed to find his grip on it again without any issue at all, but he also slumped half his weight on the vampire so Astarion couldn’t leave.
Boys.
“That would be an interesting role-reversal,” Tav mused playfully, and Wyll snorted into his dinner in spite of his best attempt to look disapproving.
“Freaks,” Lae’zel said, but that was practically affectionate, coming from her.
Karlach let the chatter wash over her as Astarion and Tav bickered their way through dinner, managing to drag the others into it as well— something about the difference between a soup and stew, she wasn’t sure. It was nice, to enjoy a fire with her friends, because that’s what they were now, no matter what happened next.
And there wasn’t even any breakup to worry about. Karlach was going to take that as a good sign. Whatever awaited them at Moonrise Towers, they could handle together.
New flute or not.