Chapter Text
Astarion was usually more careful than this.
Careful as he was, though, it was nothing short of a miracle he hadn’t been caught before now. And, of course, it had to be by the one person he would least like to make conversation with. Especially at this time of day.
“You’re spoiling the view,” he growls, a touch more than mildly irritated at having been found out. And something else, too. Not embarrassed, but close to it. A creeping sense of shame, exactly the thing he'd been trying to avoid in his self-imposed solitude.
“I’m hardly within your periphery, I’m sure,” comes Gale’s easy response from behind him. Astarion does nothing to hide the eye roll it elicits, although it still probably goes unseen from Gale’s vantage point.
“Hardly is more than enough, and you’d do well to bugger off and forget you ever found me here.” Here is a cool secluded outcropping of stone just above and beyond camp. Still close enough that if he turned, he could see the wisps of smoke rising from last night’s dying fire. If it sounds as final as he intended it to, the wizard, rocking back and forth on his heels, doesn’t seem to notice.
“And deprive myself of this most marvelous of views? Perish the thought. I’ve not indulged in a sunrise since before any of this nonsense began,” he says, ruefully. To Astarion’s increasing irritation, Gale takes the few steps forward required to settle beside him, legs folding less-than-gracefully underneath himself. The glare he earns for it would kill a less oblivious man.
“Go find your own perch, then, and leave me to mine,” he snaps, drawing his legs up tighter to his chest. Neither of them makes a move to extricate themselves, however. This close, he can smell the thread of something he’d detected in fleeting passes. Something sweet, almost rotten, buried under the wizard’s skin.
Gale sighs, a wistful smile gracing his features despite Astarions snippy attitude. Drinking in the view seems to be soothing any of the barbs thrown his way. A shame. “These sorts of things are best enjoyed with another, I would think. Although it’s been some time, as I said, so my frame of reference may be a touch skewed,” he chuckles. Astarion pulls his gaze from Gale’s face to continue his renewed ability to appreciate the blue-purple-gold streaking itself above the treeline from where they sit. The view the cliff provides is quite nice, and he likes nice things.
He had snuck off just before dawn every morning since the nautiloid had stranded them along the Chionthar, now close to a tenday ago. Seven sunrises, all to himself. No longer, it seems.
“Skewed doesn’t even begin to cover it,” he huffs. “I was having a perfectly pleasant time sitting here in silence, as you put it.” Gale finally screws his face up at the snipe, a flash of embarrassment and a blush.
“Ah, I do regret my shortness with you that day. Soggy boots, soggier mood. I do apologize,” he says, rubbing at the back of his neck. Sincere sounding enough, Astarion supposes. He still glances at him suspiciously from the corner of his eye but doesn’t respond. Let him stew, he thinks bitterly. Less bitter at the jab Gale had made about enjoying their walks (‘Uhm... Sure. In silence’), more bitter at having his silence disturbed now. He’d rather have preferred his sentimental mornings be kept a secret. Something for himself, finally.
Gale blessedly allows the quiet to return, however, and it becomes almost companionable in the wake of his apology. They sit and watch crimson creep away from the clouds, giving way to the blue sky of morning proper. Just as Astarion’s about to call it and head back to camp before he (or Gale) are missed, Gale cuts into the stillness once more.
“Would you truly rather watch the sunrise alone every morning?” he questions. It gives Astarion a considerable amount of pause, to be asked what he wants so plainly. That hadn’t been part of the equation for some 200 years, even for something as simple as this.
After a moment: “Yes,” he decides, and he hopes it doesn’t sound as stilted as it felt. “And don’t go telling the others about my spot, either. I did get here first,” he adds, a little embarrassingly desperate. Something for himself, and all.
Again, Gale takes no notice of his snippy tone, just gives a curt inclination of his head to show he understands. Astarion can only hope he can take the man for his word.
With that, Astarion does get up, elegantly brushing the dust off his breeches from where he’d sat so long, and descends back down to camp. Gale follows a respectable amount of time later. True to his word, he does not join Astarion the following morning. The silence he’s met with instead is almost boring.
***
Eventually, the camp must be moved further inland, as the trek to the goblin camp and the grove becomes too long to bother with every day. Once Astarion has put the final touches on his plush tent, he meanders over to the campfire where the rest have gathered for a hard-earned dinner. Gale is cooking, as usual.
They’re chattering about the woods they’ve found themselves in, caught in the crossfire as they are. Wyll has just commented on the sunset.
“You know, I found a lovely little spot to watch the sunrise,” Gale mentions as he ladles a bowl of stew out and passes it to Karlach. He is terrible at trying to sound casual. Nothing about his tone ever screams casual. Another ladle, “One never knows what one will find following a deer’s trail.” He passes this bowl to Lae’zel, who voices her disapproval.
“Tchk-- such frivolities I should have come to expect from a romantic like you, Gale. I won’t waste the quiet hours of morning sitting idle.”
“I dunno, I think it sounds nice if I wouldn’t have to wake up so early for it,” Karlach grins around a mouthful of vegetables. Lae’zel is similarly unimpressed with her assessment.
Gale isn’t paying attention to them, though, he’s slyly meeting Astarion’s near-seething gaze from across the fire. He gives what would be a charming wink if Astarion wasn’t feeling so petulant, and goes back to serving up the rest of the party.
“Sounds perfectly boring,” Astarion gripes, and storms back off to his tent, appearances be damned.
*
When Astarion wakes from his trance just before dawn, he begrudgingly plays along to the wizard’s instructions. He rises and dons his boots as quietly as he can before creeping from his tent.
The deer-worn trail isn’t immediately obvious, tucked around a set of boulders that separate the camp from the forest proper. He finds it, though, and follows it up a short distance through the woods into, what he’s loath to admit, is a beautiful clearing on a hill. Perfect for watching the sun rise where the trees thin in the east.
It also appears that Gale has beat him there, this morning. Perhaps he slept here. He dozes against a moss-cushioned rock, legs splayed out upon a hideously patterned blanket in the grass. Beautifully, irresponsibly unaware of his surroundings. As he moves to join him, Astarion catalogs the number of ways he could pin the wizard into compromising positions in moments, fangs sunk into his neck just above the intriguing smoke that trails up from the orb on his chest. He doesn’t, but he does revel in the start it gives Gale when he finally flutters open his eyes to find Astarion already sitting next to him, slow blinking with a smirk touching the corner of his mouth.
“Mystra’s grace-- Astarion, how long have you been sitting there?” he chides, but it’s hardly intimidating with a comical hand over his panting chest. Astarion can hear his rabbit-racing heart, though its pace slows to its regular hop in mere moments.
“Long enough that I should scold you for your positively abysmal sense of self-preservation,” he drawls. He gives a show of stretching, of leaning back on his hands, legs crossed gracefully in front of him.
Gale tuts. “Apologies, but I must admit that situational awareness was never all that pertinent back home in Waterdeep.” He rubs the drowsiness from his eyes and fixes his gaze on the horizon, the first traces of peach and orange just beginning their ascending glow beyond it.
“Now that’s a surprise. I’d be sure that you’d have made plenty of enemies in your academic circles.”
Gale’s brow furrows, but keeps his eyes trained forwards. “On account of what?”
“Of being dreadfully boring, and irritating, somehow both at the same time.”
That garners enough of a reaction to pull him from the short reverie, at least to glare at Astarion. “Entirely unnecessary,” he shoots back, affronted. He shifts his weight to the left, creating if nothing else, another centimeter of space between them. Tamping down the amusement he gleans from even beginning to rile Gale up, Astarion shrugs, turns to look upon the sunrise himself.
“You asked, darling.”
Gale purses his lips, shaking his head as he turns back as well. It’s such a petulant gesture that it almost makes Astarion laugh at its specific mature brand of immaturity.
The same uneasily companionable silence from the first sunrise they shared returns. The clouds reflect tendrils of crimson, weaving slowly up the sky, reaching for where the sun will eventually find itself later in the day.
From the corner of his eye, Astarion notices Gale tracing that horrid pattern in the blanket with his fingertips. A nervous tic, if he had to guess, and rightfully nervous, if he had to justify it, although Gale can’t know what he is. He sighs, loudly, tilting his head back dramatically to snap the wizard out of whatever track his mind had gotten stuck in. It earns him a glance, at least.
“Yes?” Gale inquires. There’s something to the anxious edge in his tone that makes Astarion want to give it up, let his mind circle the drain. He doesn’t, and that makes him wonder about how quickly his streak of unkindness is fading.
“Lovely blanket,” he returns evenly, biting down on the smirk that comes so naturally. Unkindness thankfully still intact, just a bit in check, he reassures himself.
Gale huffs. “I may not be the most perceptive out of the bunch, but I can recognize facetiousness coming from someone who has mastered wielding it,” he wags his finger towards Astarion before letting it fall for a beat. “It’s a horrible blanket,” he finishes candidly. His dejection does make Astarion laugh, then.
“Then why hold onto it?” he asks, trying not to sound too genuinely curious. Gale’s eyes light up, and, groaning, he knows he’s failed.
“Despite the gaudy pattern, this is the first object I enchanted as a young mage,” he starts earnestly, almost scripted, like he’s told this story a thousand times. “Waterdeep can get quite cold at night, especially so in the winter. And despite having been told by more than one bedfellow that I run hot, that doesn’t do much against a drafty dormitory window. Thus, the blanket my mother sent me off to school with enchanted with a resistance to cold. And to the rain, in a pinch,” he adds with a twinkling glance at his companion. Astarion hides his eyes rolling, but it’s a near thing.
“Riveting tale, truly.” Gale takes it at its face value, at least, beaming.
“I will always be proud of my humble beginnings,” he says, inclining his head.
Not so humble, Astarion thinks to himself, but doesn’t say. Best not to crack at the wizard’s ego. It could be useful. A longer beat of silence than Gale usually allows.
“You know, I think it’s sweet,” he says.
“What is?”
“Watching the sunrise. Must be novel for you, after so long,” he answers. Astarion flicks his head in irritation.
“Nothing I do outside of the bedroom is sweet I can assure you, and you’d best not go around insinuating otherwise,” he snaps, prissy. It only serves to make Gale chuckle, which in turn only serves to irritate Astarion further.
“I wouldn’t dream of spreading such salacious rumors,” Gale responds gravely. It drains from his voice as he smiles. “Just thought I’d let it be known I see beyond your sharp tongue, in these moments.” There’s not a hint of teasing in his words.
He doesn’t know what to say to that, so he doesn’t say anything at all.
They settle in to watch the rest of the sunrise in silence, and if Astarion notices Gale shift his weight a centimeter to the right, he says nothing.
***
Despite Astarion’s initial irritation at having his routine broken by the company, he slides into this new one with ease. The always-warm and always-dry blanket helps, he’s sure.
Usually, it is Gale joining Astarion in their clearing, but sometimes Astarion finds him already there as he had been their first morning after moving camp. This is one such morning.
The first, since Gale disclosed the uncomfortable reality of his scar. The first, since Astarion’s sanguine nature had been revealed to the camp.
Gale, however, seems blissfully unaffected by the revelation, as absent in mind and awareness as he had been a tenday ago. Stupidly unafraid. Once again, Astarion ignores his impulse to take advantage, despite going to bed hungry the previous night. The commotion in camp after Shadowheart had woken up with his face inches from her slender neck must have scared off half the wildlife on the continent. It’s soured his mood, and he makes his presence known, loudly.
Gale still startles, and Astarion huffs as he drops down onto the blanket next to him, haughtily reclining onto the rock it's been settled against.
“You know, you really ought to be more vigilant. I hear there’s a vampire prowling around these woods lately,” haughtiness carrying. Gale blinks at him a few times before he catches up, and his mouth quirks up into an amused half-smile. He waves Astarion off with a dismissive head shake.
“Nothing I can’t handle,” he assures as if that had been Astarion’s point at all. It’s difficult to bite back his growl.
“Truly not frightened at all, wizard?” he hums, brow raised. Arm draped across the rock behind Gale’s shoulders, not touching. The man shrugs absently.
“Of you, I’m assuming? You’ve given me no reason to be.” Astarion simply can’t contain his displeasure at that. He tries very hard to be scary, no matter how charming. He leans in, barely scenting the side of Gale’s neck unmarred by his hubris.
“Really?” he rumbles, close to his ear. “Never gotten a chill on the battlefield, watching me do all the dirty work?” It elicits a shiver, at least, but Gale still shakes his head. Heartbeat that same steady hop. A truth.
Astarion growls, curls the arm around Gale closer, nails skirting over the scars that follow his veins. Another shiver, as he leans in.
“Not afraid even now?” he purrs. There, finally, his heartbeat picks up. A rabbit kicking, prey that knows something is wrong despite Gale’s bullheadedness. Despite his denial, again, the shaking of his head. Despite what he says next, with Astarion’s teeth so close to his neck.
“You can,” he whispers, throat clicking when he swallows after, as if surprised by his own offer. Astarion certainly is. He pulls away completely, brows drawn tight.
“You don’t mean that," he starts, cut off by Gale’s hand flitting up to find the one that had curled around his neck. Keeping it there. The wizard, once again, seems as shocked by it as he is. Their gaze meets for the first time, unlikely in its steadiness. Gale looks determined in a way Astarion’s only seen him in the midst of a fight, otherwise while he’s pouring over a particularly complicated text.
“I do what I can to feed the members of our camp,” he says, even as he can muster. “I’d be sorely remiss not to extend the same courtesy to you.”
A beat, and red eyes narrow suspiciously. “You said you weren’t for eating,” Astarion reminds him slowly, head quirked. He begins to lean in again, movements drawn out so as not to startle the prey beneath him. Interested in the offer despite anything his mind might be screaming at him, if it is screaming anything at all. A glance at the scar on the neck presented to him. That is screaming at him. It reeks.
Gale chuckles nervously, grip on Astarion’s hand loosening. “Another irritated quip made on instinct, I’m afraid. You can hardly blame me for my initial, er, defensiveness.” His voice is wavering, but whether it’s with excitement or trepidation, Astarion doesn’t know.
Gale remains perfectly still, and Astarion takes stock of the situation. The wizard, charming to a point, generous to a fault, curious to many more faults.
“What’s in it for you?” he draws out, pieces of a puzzle fitting together. He must have found two that fit together because the question makes Gale flush faintly. Imperceptible to someone less versed in how, exactly, blood moves beneath the skin.
“Let’s call it academic curiosity and leave it at that?” he answers shakily. Astarion chuckles low in his chest, predatory, perceptive.
“Call it what you like, darling. But we can leave it, for now,” he tuts. He lifts his leg to settle into Gale’s lap proper, who swallows below him. Their eyes never leave each other.
“Ready when you are,” he says, and the confidence in his voice would be admirable if it weren’t so foolish. Add this to the long list of his follies.
Astarion decides not to look the gift horse in its mouth, so he’s already got his fangs halfway into Gale’s neck by the time he finishes uttering his permission. He gasps at the parallel points of pain, of ice, of fading numbness. His hand returns to Astarion’s, curled against Gale’s shoulder. A sigh, from both of them.
It doesn’t last long, a mouthful, maybe two, before Astarion rips his mouth away, face screwed up in disgust. The jerking motion sprays blood across both of their fronts, across the hideous blanket.
“Gods, you taste like bile!” he retches, and it’s not even much of a performance when he rakes his hand across his tongue. It really is that bad. “What in the hells is wrong with you?”
Gale is still slightly out of it beneath him, despite how little blood had been leeched from him in the end. Astarion rolls to the side, pouting. Shaking his head, Gale returns to lucidity.
“Ah, my apologies, but I do believe I warned you about my taste, however.” His gaze is still slightly unfocused. Forward, at least, towards the sun’s creeping form. Blue, purple, gold.
“You just said you were only being defensive!”
Gale’s eyes twinkle with mischief. “Ah, well. Perhaps that part of it had been steeped in truth. My apology holds firm nonetheless.” He turns to face Astarion, relaxing back onto the mossy stone. The twinkle in his stare morphs into something Astarion’s recognized in it enough times already: curiosity. “So, bile?” he prompts.
Astarion screws up his nose.
“I would affirm that... initial assessment, but it was almost worse. Gods, I hope all mortals don’t taste like you do. Perhaps I wasn’t missing out on much after all,” he grouses. He knows it can’t be true, though. No one else he’s ever met has had that stink about them, sickly sweet with poison. He should have heeded its warning.
“Worse, how?”
“Gods, I don’t know! I don’t exactly have a frame of reference, do I?” he huffs. “You could fool me into thinking it truly was just an offer of academic curiosity to be sated, with all this interrogation.”
The blush he gets from Gale wouldn’t fool him, though, but he doesn’t comment. He’s too easy to fluster, Astarion thinks.
“Forgive me for wanting some questions answered about the nature of my own body,” is Gale’s haughty comeback.
“Oh I could teach you all about your own body, darling,” Astarions responds on instinct. Gale’s flush deepens.
“You know very well that’s not what I meant,” Gale chides. He pinches at the robes in his lap, sliding the fabric together. Astarion sighs.
“It tasted... sweet. Not like wine, fermented properly. Rotten. Probably not like you’d be familiar with rot tasting, though.”
“I’m not sure I’m familiar with how rot tastes at all.” A twitching smile, from Astarion.
“Not an adventurous eater, wizard?”
“Not of the inedible, no,” he tries to maintain an air of dignity. It doesn’t keep, and a grin cracks his features. Full smiles, from both. Astarion rolls his back with a sigh and also settles against the rock properly, shoulder to shoulder.
“Sorry about the blanket and... your shirt,” Astarion gestures. Gale perks up.
“Ah! Not to worry!”
He draws a loose circle with his wrist, no verbal component necessary, and the blood-- black, Astarion notices for the first time-- clears from blanket and attire alike.
“That’s a handy trick.”
“It surely is,” Gale nods, at ease. Astarion sighs.
“Well, I appreciate breakfast, however light it may have been. I hope you won’t take offense if I refrain from indulging again.”
“None at all, my friend,” Gale responds with a sincere smile.
They watch the rest of the sunrise in companionable silence, and not an uneasy one at all.
***
Their camp moves again, up towards the mountains. Lae’zel’s insistence upon following the whispers of her people’s Creche is a hard thing to deny, it seems.
Determined not to need Gale’s help for such things, when Astarion goes hunting the night after they’ve settled, he makes a casual attempt at finding a suitable nook for watching the sunrise. He doesn’t end up having to look far, as the terrain offers plenty of eastward-facing views. One in particular stands out, however, framed as it is by trees with their roots desperately clinging to the rock faces. Even with just the moon and the stars, it’s striking. He heads back to camp to rest, belly full.
When he stirs just a few hours later, shaking off the memories of his sire like its second nature, he jumps to realize Gale standing just beyond the entrance to his tent.
“Gods, aren’t you the last person I’d expect to be able to sneak up on me,” he hisses into the dark. Gale rocks his weight back and forth on his heels, hands clasped behind him.
“Ah, accept my apologies. I realized we’d not agreed upon a perch,” he says nervously.
Astarion rolls his eyes, stretching. “We aren’t attached at the hip, you know. You’re perfectly capable of watching the sunrise on your own.” His stomach clenches as soon as he says it, and he struggles to admit even to himself that he’d rather Gale didn’t. He also regrets the way the wizard’s face falls, the way his fidgeting stills.
“I see, well... I would most certainly respect that if it’s your wish,” he says, guilty and quick in a way Astarion finds almost depressing. He huffs and pushes at Gale’s shoulder to turn him around and urge him forward.
“Oh hush, darling. You’re welcome to join me in the spot I found myself,” he soothes. It’s unfamiliar, the instinct to correct any hurt he’s caused. Gale’s frown eases, though, and so does Astarion’s stomach.
“Well then, in that case, lead on!”
He does, and bows with a flourish to present the crescent-shaped clearing he’d found not that much earlier. The moon and the stars are still the only thing glittering in the sky, but its deep blue has begun to brighten. A bird sings from one of the trees trying not to slide down the mountain.
“You certainly have an eye for beauty, Astarion,” Gale compliments. It gets waved off as they creep towards the edge. A cursory glance around before Gale is shaking their blanket out, perhaps a touch risky in its closeness to the cliff’s face. They settle down regardless, propped back on their hands, legs dangling over the ledge. Gale’s kicking.
“Part of my more vigorous studies required I learn the constellations,” Gale provides.
“All of them?”
That light in the wizard’s eyes, again. A chance to show off. “Yes, all of them. Over the course of many years, though, naturally. But there--” he points up to their right. “The Sleepless Knights,” he says. He curls his fingers, gives an imitated push, and five stars light up. Four in a square, the fifth in the center. His hand blocks one of the corners where it lingers, so Astarion bats it back down to the blanket. Gale huffs a quick apology and shoots him a brief smile. Almost unconsciously, Astarion lets his fingers brush against Gale’s on the blanket a second longer than is necessary.
“Looks like a box, to me,” Astarion says. Instead of the irritated grumble he was looking for, Gale laughs.
“Quite. I never saw it either. I would never tell Mystra that, though,” he adds conspiratorily, leaning in towards Astarion as if that could shield a goddess from listening in. He returns his gaze to the sky.
“The knights are said to have stood wait in the mountains in the midst of war, ascending into the sky after their inevitable battle. Now they watch over the North, warning of any incoming armies. Those born under their sign are said to be as steadfast as they are.”
Astarion hums. The stars fade back into the others with the lightening sky. Blue, then purple, then gold.
“I take it you never took much interest in astrology, then?” Gale asks. Astarion shakes his head, but there’s a whisper of familiarity to all of this in the back of his mind.
“Not that I can remember. Never had the time, after,” he says as way of explanation. Gale’s brow furrows.
“Can’t remember? I thought elves had perfect memory,” he says, brow furrowed. Likely recalling any lecture or literature he’d consumed on the subject.
“We do, but it’s almost funny what 200 years of torture can change about ones mere physiology,” Astarion says, trying to imbibe any amount of humor into the words to back them up. Gale’s face falls regardless.
“Ah, I’m sorry,” is all he says. Astarion scoffs.
“I didn’t ask for your pity. Merely explaining myself, not that I have to.”
“No, not at all.”
The silence that follows is the most uncomfortable they’d shared since that first morning. He hates it, but it hangs. Blue, purple, and gold in the sky. As usual, it’s Gale to break it again.
“I thank you for letting me join you in the mornings, Astarion. It’s no easy feat for you to open up, I’m sure.”
“I’m not opening up, I’m just--” Astarion splutters, catches himself. What is he doing, if not that? “Just bored,” he decides.
“Of course,” Gale says. Too knowing, for Astarion’s liking. The purple is fading, blue sky and gold sun dominate the landscape. The mountains are beautiful, like this, their shadows and light the same color as the sky above them. It’s cool, too, not like Astarion is used to. He shivers, and freezes when Gale’s cloak is pressed over his shoulders. Their eyes meet, and it’s a perfectly kind smile that he’s met with.
“It would be most rude of me to impress my company upon you and not offer you a coat when you’re cold,” he explains simply. Astarion nods, curling his hands around the collar, drawing it tight. It must have the same enchantment imbued upon it as the blanket beneath him. It warms him as much as it can, given.
With the sun risen almost entirely above the horizon and noises from camp drifting up towards their perch, Gale stands, knees cracking. He stretches in a manner almost certainly intended to be practical as opposed to flattering and says, “Well, I’d best not leave our companions without breakfast. A wizard always earns his keep.” It’s said with an easy smile, burdenless despite their circumstances. “Good morning, Astarion,” he adds in way of goodbye and turns to go.
He’s almost at the edge of the clearing when Astarion calls, quietly, but loud enough to be heard-- “Thank you, Gale.” He pauses at the treeline and turns, but Astarion is still facing away towards the sun. He doesn’t ask what he’s being thanked for.
“Of course. Anytime.”
He leaves to make breakfast for the rest of their party, and a weight Astarion hadn’t known he’d been carrying leaves with him.