Before BG3, the last time I had even thought about fanfic was back in the Firefly days, when I managed to shock myself away from it by not understanding how to filter tags. Now, I cannot stop writing and reading. Like, it's a problem, how much I want to write and read fanfic, especially if it includes Astarion and/or Gale. Anyway, here's what I have so far and what is near-term WIP.
I'm using AO3 links since not all of these have been posted full-text to Tumblr (Tumblr gave me technical fits about Bonds of Blood, and I gave up). If you want to see if a fic is full-text here, my blog tag #myfic should bring them all up.
The AO3 versions have the most recent edits.
Oh, and I wrote an original novel too! You can find out more about my MM Romantasy penname @hkamenar here in Tumblr or check out my book and other socials here: https://linktr.ee/hkamenar
Last updated: 5/3/2026
Longfics:
Forget Me Not: (COMPLETE, FULLY POSTED) A Gale-centric Bloodweave fic focusing on a probably unintentional gaff on Larion's part about Mystra and Gale's respective timelines, which I just grabbed and ran with. Very smutty. Told through Camp interactions and journal entries.
This Old House: (COMPLETE, FULLY POSTED). Astarion inherits Cazador's palace and title and a giant mess that comes with it. He and Gale learn Cazador is almost as much trouble dead as he was alive. Bloodweave fluff, domesticity, and gratuitous smut fic.
The First Worshipper: (COMPLETE, FULLY POSTED). Astarion's post-canon life hits some very hard bumps, and he becomes Ascended Gale's first and most annoying worshipper in a bid for attention and help from his former best friend and one-time lover. Long time-span bloodweave fic.
The Downside of Daring Rescues: (COMPLETE, FULLY POSTED). Astarion is "rescued" by a "hero" 80 years before the Nautiloid. Mild, slow-burn smut.
Threefold Returns: (COMPLETE, FULLY POSTED). M/M/F Bloodweave + Tav, fluff and smut fic where I indulge my wish to smite Mystra and write about a Throuple.
Batstarion's New Groove: (COMPLETE, FULLY POSTED). A sort-of-sequel to Threefold Returns (can be read without Threefold). Astarion gets stuck as Batstarion in the middle of the Throuple's efforts to make a life on the surface for the spawn Astarion spared. Bloodweave + Tav, fluff and smut fic.
Bonds of Blood: (COMPLETE, FULLY POSTED) A playthrough-style fic, my first ever fanfic. Features AU magical lore and happier endings for all companions. Decent smutty smut in the second half.. Please don't judge the quality of my writing based on this one - I got better!
Shortfics:
Cold Comforts: (COMPLETE, FULLY POSTED). Written for a 48 hour flash fic event with the prompt: "Gale needs to keep Astarion warm through the night." A fun, quick, cuddle fic with some tasty smut, feels, and a unique take on the shadowcurse.
Still Life: (COMPLETE, FULLY POSTED). Written for Spooktober (Day 17 Living Statues) + Kinktober (Day 25 Double Penetration and Day 15 Object Insertion). Statue fucking, double-stuff sexual shenanigans with feels.
Ghostwritten: (COMPLETE, FULLY POSTED). Written for Kinktober 2025 (Exhibitionism and Voyeurism) and Spooktober (Ghosts, Haunted House Library, and Storms). A massively elaborate cum joke with feels.
MASHed Up: (COMPLETE, FULLY POSTED). Astarion and Gale find love during the Korean War at the 4077 MASH unit. Lots of emotional smut.
Shelter in Place: (COMPLETE, FULLY POSTED) A low-takes, cozy, modern, the-Ant-and-the-Grasshopper AU about a prepper/romance-author Gale saving his socialite neighbor Astarion from a snowstorm. Very sweet but smutty.
Shifting Perspectives
Blind Spots: (COMPLETE, FULLY POSTED). A rivals-to-lovers Bloodweave featuring sensory deprivation, lingerie, and a wild ride of an emotional arc.
Transplant Shock: (COMPLETE, FULLY POSTED). The rivals-turn-lovers try to figure out the life they actually want together.
Spotlight Shenanigans
Backstage: (COMPLETE, FULLY POSTED). Written for a crack fic prompt: locker room setting, University AU plot, Barebacking kink, and Musical wildcard. Turned into the an extended smut fic.
Centerstage: (COMPLETE, FULLY POSTED). Our horny theater boys take their sexcapades center stage. Still mostly an extended smut fic.
Offstage: (COMPLETE, FULLY POSTED). Our horny theater boys graduate and are working on a film together. Alas, the pressures of their work schedule at first lead to a distinct drop in sexcapades and then an entirely new one. Still lots of very explicit smut, but a bit more plotty.
Midnight Magistrate Series:
A Star(ion) is Born: (COMPLETE, FULLY POSTED). Angst with a happy ending one-shot about Astarion getting roped into performing a vampire act at a Tavern. Medium spice smut with extra feels.
A Star(ion) Burns Bright: (COMPLETE, FULLY POSTED). Sequel to A Star(ion) is Born in which Astarion's fame from his performance as the Midnight Magistrate becomes A Thing. Low spice but all the feels and a triumphant ending.
Mayhem in the Margins Series:
Editorial Prerogative: (COMPLETE, FULLY POSTED). Bloodweave fic about Astarion becoming Gale's beta-reader and what these two geeks get up to. Very spicy with tons of feels and nerdy laughs.
Dedications: (COMPLETE, FULLY POSTED) Sequel to Editorial Prerogative in which the publishing of Gale's chronicle is addressed. Very spicy, more feels, and low-brow cum humor.
Narrative Distance: (COMPLETE, FULLY POSTED). A sequel to the Editorial Prerogative and Dedications shortfics. Gale drags Astarion to Halsin's healing retreat under the guide of it being a writer's retreat. Summer camp mayhem with a lot of emotional smut and established couple growth. At ~40K words not sure if this is still a shortfic but listing it here for series tidyness.
Writer's Block: (COMPLETE, FULLY POSTED). 10 years after the events of Narrative Distance, Astarion and Gale get approached for help by a superfan, Milo, at a signing of the 11th entry in their wildly successful fiction adventure series, but the deadline for their 12th book looms, and they are out of inspiration. However, Milo won't take no for an answer, and their pursuit of dangerous cultists takes them on a journey to reclaim both their muse and each other. Very smutty but also plotty, and fully a longfic.
Rhonda Doomweaver Series:
Fortune Favors the Bold: (COMPLETE, FULLY POSTED). Fluff one shot about Astarion visiting a fortune teller, Rhonda, and being aggrieved by what he learns. People seem to really like Rhonda. Smut-free.
Terms and Conditions Apply: (COMPLETE, FULLY POSTED). Slightly longer than Fortune Favors the Bold but still a short. Sequel featuring Rhonda again, because I liked her too, and Astarion, because the two of them are hilarious together. Smut-free.
Cozy Romances (not really a series):
Rainy Day Reading: (COMPLETE, FULLY POSTED). Fluffy smut one shot. Astarion and Juniper use trashy romance novels as a playful guide to intimacy during a stormy day. Medium spice smut with feels.
By Starlight: (COMPLETE, FULLY POSTED). A Fluff and Romantic Smut one-shot about spawn Astarion being taken stargazing shortly after defeating the Netherbrain. Also features Juniper but isn't a sequel (can be read in either order).
Astarion grabbed Gale's wrist and yanked him toward the door.
Gale dug his heels into the floor. "Wait—"
"No." Astarion spun, his eyes wild in the moonlight. "I have been patient. I have been understanding. I have endured your mother's house, our mutual ex's heroic return, and your childhood nemesis's—" A particularly enthusiastic moan filtered through the wall. "—vocal appreciation of Tav's technique. I am done waiting."
Gale caught Astarion's other hand, drawing him close. "I'm asking you to let me give you what you deserve."
"What I deserve is you on your knees as soon as poss—"
"Silk sheets." Gale pressed a kiss to Astarion's knuckles. "I promised you silk sheets and sitting rooms and a life of comfort. Not—" He gestured vaguely at the window, at the moonlit courtyard below. "—rutting in a roadside ditch."
If I can get the damn job, he didn't say. He'd get the job, or do whatever it took, to give Astarion what he deserved.
"We'll find another inn," Gale continued. "Or I can Teleport us back to the tower. The bedroom there has—"
"Fuck the silk sheets."
Gale blinked. "I—what?"
Astarion stepped closer. The moonlight caught the sharp angles of his face, the gleam in his crimson eyes. "I said fuck the silk sheets, Gale. I don't want comfort right now. I don't want proper." His hand dropped between them, palming himself through his trousers. "I want your ass wrapped around this."
Gale's mouth went dry.
Astarion was hard. Visibly, achingly hard, the outline of his erection straining against the fabric as he stroked himself. Gale's gaze fixed there, his tongue thick and useless, every coherent thought evaporating like morning mist.
"I want to show you something, darling. Well. Two things, really." Astarion's voice dropped to a purr. "The first—" Another stroke, his hips rolling into his own touch. "—is my cock, preferably in the next three minutes. The second..." A bitter smile curved his lips. "Well, the second is for after. If you've got a Teleport in you, then I want you to take us to the garden."
"The—" Gale's brain struggled to reassemble itself. "The garden? Mother's garden?"
"Trust me."
The plea cut through Gale's confusion. Astarion's hand was still moving, his breath coming shorter, and Gale was so aroused he could barely think. Maybe Astarion meant to take him to the barn—he'd been helping with decorations, perhaps he'd arranged something—
It didn't matter. Nothing mattered except the promise in those claret eyes.
Gale wrapped an arm around Astarion's waist, pulled him flush against his body, struggled to focus through the feeling of them grinding together, and spoke the words.
Reality twisted. His stomach lurched, the familiar gut-wrenching displacement of teleportation magic compressing them through impossible spaces. The inn vanished. Cool night air rushed in to replace it, carrying the scent of turned earth and growing things.
They materialized in the middle of Morena's apothecary garden, moonlight painting the geometric rows of herbs in silver and shadow.
Before Gale could orient himself, Astarion seized his hand and ran, towing Gale in his wake.
Not toward the barn. Toward the dark line of trees at the property's edge, where the manicured beds surrendered to wild forest.
"Astarion—what—where are we—"
Astarion didn't answer as they crashed through the boundary between cultivated and untamed.
The treeline swallowed them.
The moment they crossed into shadow, Astarion spun. His hands found Gale's robes, yanking at ties and clasps eagerly.
"Take it off," Astarion begged. "Now."
The robe fell. Cool air kissed Gale's skin. Astarion's fingers hooked into his waistband and dragged his trousers to his ankles in one smooth motion, and then, a blur of disorienting movement later, Gale was on his elbows and knees in the soft earth, damp loam pressing cool against his palms.
Shoes on, shirt falling around his shoulders, bare ass in the air.
Gods, yes. He shifted his knees further apart and arched his back in invitation, rendered shameless with want.
Astarion shoved his own pants around his ankles and knelt between Gale's spread thighs. Then spit-slicked fingers found his entrance and pushed in.
Gale gasped.
Astarion knew his body like a map he'd memorized by touch. Two fingers, crooked at the exact angle that made stars burst behind Gale's eyes, working him open. Gale's hips bucked back, chasing the pressure, and a moan tore from his throat before he could stop it.
He buried his face in his folded arms to muffle the sound.
A hand fisted in his hair and pulled.
"No." Astarion's voice was rough. "I want to hear you."
The grip was perfect—firm enough to sting and send sparks cascading down Gale's spine. His head arched back, throat bared to the canopy of leaves above, and another moan escaped him, louder this time.
"Good." Astarion's fingers scissored, stretched. "Still with me?"
"Yes—" Gale's voice cracked. "Gods, yes—"
"Your lube trick." The word came out desperate, half-laughed. "Cast it. Now."
The verbal component fell from Gale's lips on instinct, magic surging through him to coat Astarion's cock in slick conjured lubricant. Astarion pressed his wet dick against Gale's hip as he scissored his fingers wider. A longing to be filled, to feel the head of Astarion's cock pop past his rim and push home, drove every other thought from his mind.
"Please," Gale begged. "Please, Astarion, fuck me—"
Astarion inhaled sharply and released the air as a moan. His fingers withdrew, and then the blunt head of his cock was pressing against Gale's entrance. Astarion drove in hard.
The burn was exquisite. Gale's body stretched to accommodate him, not quite ready. The edge of discomfort sharpened every sensation until the pleasure became a blade. He cried out—too loud, didn't care—and Astarion bottomed out with a groan that vibrated through both of them.
Then Astarion draped over his back, a hand on either side of Gale's, and his hips began to roll and snap.
The smell of spring earth filled Gale's lungs with rich loam, crushed grasses, and the petrichor from the evening's dew. Above them, branches swayed in a cool breeze. Beneath his palms, damp soil squelched between his fingers. And behind him, inside him, Astarion fucked him with an abandon that stripped away every civilized pretense.
They'd been so careful for days. Helpful for Morena. Smiling through Hanna's condescension. Managing the spawn, managing expectations, managing the fragile illusion that they were normal, respectable, acceptable.
Here, in the wild dark, none of that mattered.
Astarion's teeth found the back of his neck—no fangs, not yet, but the pressure of a bite meant to hold him still as Astarion pumped his cock in and out of Gale's needy hole. Gale twisted, tilting his head, offering the side of his neck in wordless invitation.
A growl rumbled against his skin. Then sharp points pierced him, and Astarion drank.
The pull of blood leaving his body merged with the thrust of Astarion pounding inside of him. Pleasure and pain braided together until Gale couldn't distinguish one from the other, couldn't tell where he ended and Astarion began. His cock throbbed, untouched, swinging between his thighs with the force of Astarion's thrusts.
His orgasm crashed through him without warning.
Gale came with a shattered cry, spending himself on the forest floor, spilling across dirt and crushed vegetation while Astarion's fangs stayed locked in his throat. The waves rolled on and on, each pulse of blood drawn from his veins extending the pleasure until he was shaking, wrung out, empty.
Astarion's mouth gentled. His tongue swept across the punctures, sealing them, and he rested his chin on Gale's shoulder with a ragged breath.
"Gods." Astarion's voice was wrecked. "You taste so sweet when you come. Like honey and lightning and—" His hips stilled, though Gale could feel him still iron-hard inside. "—I could drink you forever."
Gale's muscles had gone liquid and for once he could find no words to express how he felt. The orgasm had been astonishing in its intensity, leaving his head swimming in a hazy bliss, but he had come so quickly. Too quickly.
But Astarion had not. Gale almost sobbed with gratitude. How had he known? How had he known Gale would want more? He wanted to ask but all he could manage was a mumbling string of I love you's between panting breaths and shivering pulses through his limbs as his ass still clenched around Astarion's cock.
"You're doing so well, darling, now just let up enough that I can move again, okay? Just breathe through it, and I'll give you what you need. That's it." Astarion dropped kisses on the back of his throat, in his hair, between his shoulder blades as Gale summoned the will to slow his breathing.
Astarion stayed panting in his ear and waiting, until Gale felt the clenching muscles in his ass relax again and the faintest hints of that longing return.
Astarion's hand found his and gave two taps against his knuckles.
Gale shifted his hand and tapped back twice. Yes. Don't stop.
Then Astarion started fucking Gale again, and Gale keened in helpless pleasure.
"That's it." The words came hot against Gale's ear. Astarion's thrusts found a new rhythm, slower but deeper, each stroke dragging over that spot inside that made Gale's oversensitive nerves sing. "Do you like me like this, Gale? Without the silk? Without the manners?"
Gale whimpered and rocked his hips backward in answer as Astarion fucked him for long minutes. His cock was stirring again, impossibly, his balls drawing up tight despite having nothing left to give.
"Are we still us in the dirt?" Astarion's voice cracked on the question, vulnerable beneath the filth. "Without the pretty accoutrements?"
"Yes." The word tore out of Gale. "Yes—always—please—"
"Going to be good for me?" Astarion's hand slid from his hair to his jaw, tilting his head back. "Going to come again? You'll be such a good boy, so open and willing for me, won't you?"
Gale sobbed something incoherent.
"Tell me." Astarion's hips snapped harder. "Are you going to be good?"
"Yes—" Gale was babbling now, the word falling from his lips on every breath. "Yes, yes, yes—"
The second orgasm hit him mid-word, seizing every muscle, his whole body convulsing around Astarion's cock. Barely a dribble left to spend, but the release rolled through him anyway—full-body, devastating, a wave that crested and crashed and left him wrecked in the best way.
Astarion drove in one final time and came with a broken moan, filling Gale with pulsing heat. He collapsed forward, draping over Gale's back, his weight pressing his wizard down into the cool earth.
They lay there, tangled and trembling, faces pressed to soil and leaves.
Gale's cheek rested against the ground. His breath came in ragged gasps. Somewhere above them, an owl called into the darkness.
Astarion's lips found the bite mark on his neck, pressing a tender kiss to the healing punctures.
Astarion pulled out with a slick sound. Gale hissed as his oversensitive body protested the sudden emptiness.
"Still with me?" Astarion's hand found his hip, steadying.
"Mmph." Gale's eloquence had apparently fled along with his higher brain functions. "Yes. Just—give me a moment."
"Here you go, darling." Astarion had retrieved his robe, spreading it next to him so Gale could collapse without pressing his thoroughly used backside into the mud. The thoughtfulness of the gesture, even now, made warmth bloom in Gale's chest.
He rolled onto his back with a groan, staring up at the canopy of leaves overhead. His limbs felt boneless. His mind floated somewhere pleasantly distant from his body.
"Right." He lifted a hand, summoning the will to cast. "Cleanup. Let me just—"
"Wait." Astarion caught his wrist. "Not yet."
Gale turned his head, squinting through the darkness. He could barely make out Astarion's silhouette. His pale hair caught what little moonlight filtered through the branches, the rest of him lost to shadow. "What?"
"Dancing Lights first." Astarion's tone was odd. Nervous, almost. "You can't see what I want to show you otherwise."
"There's more?"
"I did say two things, darling. You've had my cock. Now comes the second reveal. Such as it is."
Gale's brow furrowed, but he spoke the incantation. Four globes of soft golden light bloomed into existence, drifting upward to hover among the branches like captured fireflies.
The illumination revealed the full extent of their debauchery.
Astarion sat on a corner of Gale's robe, trousers bunched around his ankles above his shoes, his silk shirt hanging open and smeared with dirt. His softening cock glistened wet in the magical light. Mud streaked his knees, his palms, his brow where he must have tried to wipe away sweat.
Gale suspected he looked worse. His own trousers had tangled around his ankles, his shirtsleeves were absolutely caked in dirt, and spend cooled on his thighs and stomach. When he touched his face, grit scraped against his cheek.
They were filthy.
Astarion's lips twitched. "Quite a picture we make." He rose on unsteady legs, pulling up his pants over muddy knees and tucking himself away. "Come. It's just over here."
He extended a hand. Gale took it, letting Astarion haul him upright and pull his trousers up. His legs wobbled.
Astarion led him a little deeper into the wild tangle of the property's edge, where a collapsed stone wall had surrendered to creeping ivy. The dancing lights bobbed along overhead, casting shifting shadows through the undergrowth.
Then Astarion stopped, and Gale saw it.
A small hollow of disturbed earth, partially sheltered by overhanging branches. Neat rows of plants—no, not neat, but arranged. Deliberately placed in the soft soil, their roots carefully buried, their leaves reaching toward the gap in the canopy where sun would find them.
Purslane. Chickweed. Dandelion. Clover.
The weeds from Morena's garden.
"I know." Astarion's voice had gone wry, self-deprecating. "It's absurd. I've gone completely cracked in the brain, and I thought you should know before you commit to eternity with a lunatic who rescues weeds."
Gale said nothing. He couldn't. His throat had closed around something too large for words.
"I just—" Astarion crouched beside the little garden, running a finger along a dandelion's serrated leaf. "They'd fought so hard to live, hadn't they? No one planted them. No one watered them or nurtured them. They found their way on their own, grew despite everything, and then..." He gestured vaguely. "Pulled up because they weren't wanted. Tossed in a heap to rot."
The dancing lights caught the sharp angles of his face. The vulnerability there, for once unmasked.
"I know gardens need weeding. I understand the principle. I've killed people and fretted less over it afterward than I did while pulling up a few plants." A harsh laugh. "But I couldn't stop myself. It had been nagging at me all afternoon, and then Dal and Aurelia arrived early and everything felt—" He shook his head. "Crowded. Complicated. And I kept thinking about the fucking weeds."
He stood and shrugged elaborately.
"So here they are. Evidence of my deteriorating mental state." Astarion’s smile didn't reach his eyes. "In the interests of full disclosure to my affianced, before he binds himself to me forever."
The midnight bath. Understanding clicked into place. "You scrubbed off before coming back to bed last night in the attic."
"Obviously. I wasn't going to track half the compost heap into your sheets."
Gale studied him. The defensive set of his shoulders, the careful blankness of his expression. Astarion wasn't bracing for rejection. They'd been through too much together to think Gale would toss him aside for this. But he was waiting for something. Concern, perhaps. A gentle suggestion that this was an issue to discuss with a healer.
Instead, Gale took Astarion's filthy hand in his own equally filthy one.
"Dandelion," he said, pointing. "The leaves are a digestive tonic. The roots can be roasted into a passable coffee substitute, and the flowers make an excellent wine."
Astarion's brow creased. "What—"
"Chickweed." Gale indicated the delicate white-flowered plant nearby. "Topical poultice for skin irritations, internal remedy for inflammation. Also quite tasty in salads, if you're the sort who eats salads."
"Gale—"
"Purslane." Gale bent to touch a thick, succulent leaf. "Highest levels of heart healthy oils of any leafy vegetable. The Calishite cooks prize it. And this—" He brushed a clover blossom. "Blood purifier, respiratory aid, and the honey bees adore it."
Astarion had gone very still.
"These plants aren't weeds by nature," Gale continued. "They're weeds by context. In mother's garden, they're unwanted not because they're inferior, but because they're stronger. Her tomatoes and basil can't compete. They need sheltering, protecting, constant intervention to yield their returns." He met Astarion's eyes. "The flaw isn't in the dandelions. It's in the other plants that can't survive without coddling."
Astarion frowned. "Oh. I didn't know any of that, though, when I perpetrated this lunacy. It was just…this feeling. A foolish fellow-feeling, I suppose."
Gale blinked back tears at the thought of Astarion's quiet pain in the darkness, his rescue trip while Gale slept, oblivious to his distress.
"You're not a weed in the context of our family, Astarion." Gale squeezed his hand. "Your resilience, your defiance, the sheer bloody-minded determination that kept you alive for two centuries—those are what I love most about you. I'm not ashamed of your history. I'm proud of it. Proud that you survived. Proud that you're here, choosing me, despite everything that tried to destroy you."
Astarion's throat worked, and Gale used their linked hands to pull him closer and wrap an arm around his waist.
"You belong," Gale said firmly. "To me, with me. And those you want to make part of our family—they belong too. Their strength isn't a flaw either." He lifted Astarion's hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to the muddy knuckles. "And neither is your empathy."
"Empathy." Astarion quirked a dubious eyebrow. "Is that what this is?"
"What else would you call it?"
A long pause. Then Astarion sighed, the tension draining from his shoulders, and leaned into Gale's side. "It's a bit awkward, isn't it? That my seedling empathy has apparently developed around purslane and dandelions rather than, say, my sisters."
Displacement, Gale thought, but for once he resisted the urge to lecture. "Growth starts somewhere."
"Yours is rather further along." Astarion's voice softened. "The rings for Dal and Aurelia. You anticipated that of course they'd want the sun too, without anyone having to ask. That's not seedling empathy. That's fully grown."
The words were meant as kindness. Gale knew that. But all he could focus on was the fact that the rings weren't ready. Weren't finished. Because he'd failed to—
"While we're confessing things," he heard himself say.
Astarion tilted his head.
"The reason the rings weren't done on time." Gale closed his eyes to force the words out without meeting Astarion's gaze. "I didn't have the coin to pay going rates for the components. Moonstone of that quality, silver thread with the right conductivity—it's not cheap. Tara's been bargain hunting for weeks. Selling off some trinkets from our adventures to cover the difference."
Shame heated Gale’s cheeks. He pressed on anyway and forced his eyes open again.
"If I'd secured the Blackstaff position already, the hiring bonus alone would have… I could have claimed research funds for the initial experimentation, justified the expense as academic inquiry, and—"
"Wait." Astarion pulled back, frowning. "Is that what this is about?"
"What is what about?"
"Blackstaff. The professorship. The entire—" He waved a hand. "—production. Is it about money?"
Gale struggled for the words to explain.
"I promised you curtains and sitting rooms and silk sheets," he managed. "A life of comfort. I mean to deliver on that promise, but the tower renovations drained our adventure funds faster than I'd anticipated, and I couldn't work while I was researching, and the enchanting supplies, and—"
"Gale." Astarion held up a hand. "Stop. Just—stop."
Gale stopped.
"You just finished telling me I don't need coddling." Astarion's tone had gone flat. "That you admire my strength. And yet you've been—what, exactly? Scrambling for a prestigious position to keep me in style?"
"I promised—"
"If we needed money, I could have gotten it a dozen ways. Theft, grift, mercenary work, selling information to the right people. Maybe a bit of tailoring work, if you insisted on legitimate employment." Astarion ticked options off on his fingers. "I've been lazing about while you did all the experimentation, assuming you were enjoying yourself, not realizing you were—" He broke off, running a hand through his hair. "Gods. How was I supposed to know? You never said."
"I didn't want you to worry—"
"And I thought you had some mad wizardly pile of gold squirreled away! The way you spent on magical components, on new clothes, on—" Astarion gestured at nothing in particular. "I assumed the Dekarios coffers were bottomless!"
"They're not." Gale's voice came out small. "Quite bottomless. There's rather a defined bottom, actually. Approaching visibility."
Silence stretched between them.
"I didn't agree to marry a golden goose, Gale." Astarion's voice softened. "I'm marrying a man who'll let me fuck him silly in the mud and whom I trust enough to show my secret garden of rescued weeds. A man who'll make a family with me. Who'll accept me—weediness and all—and have my back, and protect my right to choose."
He reached out, cupping Gale's mud-streaked cheek.
"That's you. It's always been you. Since our first kiss, I knew. The silk sheets were nice. The curtains were appreciated. But they were never the point."
Gale's eyes stung again. He blinked rapidly.
"I—" His voice cracked. "I thought—"
"I know what you thought. You thought you had to earn me. I told you once that I did not know how to be with someone who didn’t want to use me. Do not make me figure out how to be with someone who only wants to be used." Astarion smiled, crooked and fond.
Gale laughed. It came out wet.
"Is Blackstaff all about the money?" Astarion asked. "Your plan to fund my lifestyle? Because you know you could make more wizarding for hire. We could both make plenty adventuring again if it suited us. We don't need institutional prestige to survive."
Gale opened his mouth to protest, to explain, to justify—and found he had nothing.
"Do you actually want Blackstaff? For yourself, not for my benefit?" Astarion waited as Gale turned it over in his mind, examining it from angles he'd avoided for months.
"I don't know," he admitted. "It was my dream once. When I was the boy in the attic, surrounded by star charts and ambition. Blackstaff seemed like the pinnacle of everything I wanted to become."
"And then?"
"And then my ambitions ran in... loftier directions."
They exchanged a loaded glance. Neither of them said Mystra.
"Now..." Gale shook his head. "It seemed like the right-sized ambition? A return to what that boy wanted before everything went spectacularly pear-shaped. Safe. Respectable. Achievable. Prosperous."
"Those are not the same as wanted."
"No." Gale exhaled. "They're not."
Astarion's thumb stroked along his cheekbone, smearing dirt. "If it's what you want—truly want—we'll make it happen. If Hanna hasn't already given up her plot as a lost cause, we'll all rally. We'll scheme. We'll destroy her socially if necessary; you know how much I'd enjoy that."
Gale snorted.
"But if it's not what you want..." Astarion's voice gentled. "I didn't fall for 'Gale, Blackstaff Professor.' I didn't fall for 'Gale, Chosen of Mystra.' I fell for the disaster wizard who showed up with kindness and improbably good sex and the worst self-preservation instincts I've ever witnessed."
"Improbably good?"
"Don't fish for compliments; it's unbecoming." But Astarion was smiling. "My point is—I'm not sitting around waiting for you to achieve some milestone before I can be happy. I'm happy now. I chose you when you still had a bomb in your chest. I'm glad our circumstances have improved since then. But I'd have you just as you were then. You must know that."
The words sank in slowly, filling cracks Gale hadn't realized existed.
"I want to think about it," he said finally. "Blackstaff. What I actually want versus what I think I should want."
"Take all the time you need."
"And we should talk more. About what kind of life we want together. Openly." Gale gestured at the weed garden, at their disheveled state, at the absurdity of the entire evening. "Teenage wank stashes and midnight weed gardens aside, these seem like the sort of things fiancés should discuss before committing to eternity."
"Agreed." Astarion leaned in, pressing their foreheads together. "Full disclosure. No more hiding. Even the embarrassing bits."
"Especially the embarrassing bits."
Their lips met. The kiss was soft, and Gale melted into it—
—and then pulled back, sputtering.
"Ugh. That's a lot of mud," Astarion spat.
Gale laughed, wiping his mouth with the back of an equally muddy hand, which accomplished nothing useful whatsoever. "Can I please clean us up now?"
"You may." Astarion stepped back to give Gale room to work. "But I don't want to go back to the inn."
"No?"
"The walls are thin, Tav's stamina, as we both have cause to know, is legendary, and I refuse to spend the rest of my night listening to Hanna Kumar's sex sounds." Astarion wrinkled his nose. "Besides—you conjured a bed out of nothing once. In the middle of the Shadow-Cursed Lands, with darkness pressing in on all sides and undead lurking in every shadow."
Gale remembered. An act of romance in the darkest of days.
"Could you do it again? Here? It would be romantic, don't you think?"
Gale looked around. The wild hollow, untamed and unmanicured. The little garden of rescued weeds. The canopy of stars visible through gaps in the branches above. The dancing lights still bobbing among the leaves like patient guardians.
"It would," he agreed.
The Prestidigitation came first—a whispered word, a gesture, and the mud and sweat and other fluids vanished from their skin and clothes. The relief was immediate. Astarion sighed as the grime disappeared. He primped his curls back into place with clean hands.
Then Gale reached deeper, pulling on threads of creation magic that hummed beneath the surface of reality and guided them to snap around the clarity of his internal vision. The bed materialized. A proper mattress, thick and yielding, covered in layers of soft blankets. Pillows plumped into being at the head. The frame grew around it, simple wrought iron that gleamed in the magical light.
Astarion's breath caught.
"Not silk sheets," Gale said. "Since that seems to have become an unfortunate symbol of our misunderstandings. But comfortable enough for one night under the stars."
"It's perfect."
They fetched Gale's robe from where it had been left at the site of their tryst, and Gale cleaned it as well. They undressed, piled all their belongings at the foot of the bed, and climbed in together. Gale dismissed the dancing lights with a thought. Darkness rushed in, softened by the moonlight filtering through the leaves.
Astarion's head found his shoulder. The night sounds of the wild wrapped around them—rustling leaves, distant owls, the whisper of wind through branches. Cool fingers interlaced with his own.
They held on tightly.
Gale
For the second morning in a row, Gale woke with Astarion in his arms.
This time, though, the crimson eyes were already open. Watching him.
"Good morning, darling." Astarion's smile was soft in the early light. "You drool in your sleep. Did you know that?"
Gale's hand flew to his cheek, found it dry, and narrowed his eyes at the quiet laughter that followed.
"Cruel," he muttered. "Waking a man with lies."
"I'm waking you with kisses." Astarion leaned in to prove it, his lips cool and unhurried against Gale's sleep-warm mouth. "The teasing is merely a bonus taste of my inimitable humor."
The top layer of blankets were damp with morning dew, but beneath them the conjured bed remained warm and dry. Sunlight filtered through the branches overhead, dappling Astarion's pale skin in shifting patterns of gold and shadow.
Something stirred against Gale's thigh. Not subtle.
"I see you've brought a guest to our morning conversation," Gale murmured against Astarion's lips.
"I've been waiting very patiently for you to wake up." Astarion rolled his hips in lazy demonstration. "Reward my consideration?"
They shifted onto their sides, facing each other. Gale whispered the incantation for conjured slick, and Astarion used his hand to press their cocks tightly together, sliding his hand up and down their joined lengths in long, unhurried strokes.
The sunlight caught Astarion's silver curls and turned his pale skin luminous. And the sight of it reminded Gale of Dal's demands the night before. The cure. The question of whether he should have offered one without being asked.
His thoughts must have shown on his face.
"Out with it." Astarion's hand never stopped its rhythm. "What's occupying that magnificent brain of yours that isn't our cocks on this very fine morning?"
"Nothing. It can wait until—"
The grip loosened to something teasing. Maddening.
"Astarion—"
"I can do this all day, darling." The stroking slowed further. "Talk to me."
Gale groaned. "It's about the cure. Dal's question. Whether I should have asked you, instead of waiting for you to—"
The grip tightened again, rewarding.
"No." Astarion's voice was certain, his hand moving with renewed purpose. "You shouldn't have."
"But—"
"I don't know what I want." The words came out uneven as their pleasure built. "That's the honest answer. Maybe one day I'll... think of it the way Dal does. Want what she wants. But right now—" He gasped for breath to finish his thought. "—right now I don't."
Gale's hips rolled into Astarion's grasp. He used a knee to make a gap between Astarion's thighs and reached past his balls to massage Astarion's taint. Astarion moaned in pleasure but managed to keep talking.
"What you said last night," Astarion continued, his rhythm growing ragged, "about my vampirism being part of me. About not wanting to change me without my... my consent." A small laugh. "Gods, if you'd asked before I sorted through all this weed business, I might have said yes. Trying to be a perfect rose instead of a—a dandelion. And then I'd have regretted it once I actually—fuck—once I actually worked through my feelings."
They were both close now. Gale could feel it in the tension of Astarion's thighs, in how his balls drew up tight against his wrist.
"I love your body," Gale gasped, "exactly as it is. The coolness of your skin. The strength. Your bite—" He lost the thought as pleasure crested. "But I'll love you however you choose to be. I swear it."
Astarion's hand flew, and they tumbled over the edge together—spilling over pale fingers, onto conjured sheets, gasping into the morning air.
For a long moment, they lay tangled and breathless.
Then Astarion raised his head and grimaced at the state of the blankets.
"We have an entire day of work ahead of us," he said. "And I refuse to face it without a proper bath."
Gale laughed, gathered their damp belongings from the foot of the bed, and Teleported them directly from the conjured bed into the real one at the Darling Dahlia.
The copper tub, it turned out, was exactly large enough for two.
***
The rest of Thirdday passed in a blur of arrivals and shared work.
Their friends descended on the Dahlia and the homestead in groups. Karlach arrived first, bursting through the barn doors with Wyll at her side and immediately demanding someone hand her something heavy to lift. At the end of their adventures, Wyll had chosen to accompany Karlach to the hells rather than stay with Tav, whose interests continued to wander where Karlach's did not.
Dammon's genius and Avernus's own blueprints had finally yielded a functioning repair a month ago, allowing Wyll and Karlach to return to the Gate and make a home together there. The infernal scars on her chest no longer vented smoke.
Gale was glad his friends got what they wanted.
Karlach swept Gale into a hug that threatened to crack his ribs and declared the engagement "the best news since I punched Zariel in her smug face."
Wyll, well loved and visibly lighter for it, shook Gale's hand before being dragged away by Karlach to help hang lanterns.
Jaheira arrived from Baldur's Gate with Dammon, Barcus Wroot, and Minsc in tow. She surveyed the half-decorated barn with a critical eye.
"You require someone to coordinate," she announced, not asking. "As a very special engagement gift, I will coordinate. You two are looking very well together. Do it over there, please."
And so Gale and Astarion, having been relegated to the sidelines, spent their time in the kitchens with Morena and Tara.
The most dramatic arrival came at midday, when a red dragon landed in Morena's front yard and deposited Lae'zel and Shadowheart—Gale mostly thought of her as Jen now—before launching back into the sky with a roar that summoned Gale and Astarion to greet their newest guests.
"Voss sends his regards," Lae'zel announced, striding toward the house with her hand resting on her sword hilt as though she expected the engagement party to require tactical intervention. "The war against Vlaakith proceeds well. I have three days before I am needed."
Jen followed at a more measured pace, her white-dyed braid swinging against Selunite robes. She caught Gale's eye and smiled—a rare, genuine expression that transformed her sharp features.
"She's been counting the days," Jen murmured as she passed. "Don't tell her I told you."
Halsin arrived last, portaling from the former Shadow-Cursed lands with the Hallowleafs, Dame Aylin, and Isobel.
"Your mother's gardens are exceptional," Halsin told Gale, genuine admiration in his voice. "The biodiversity of her compost heap alone—"
"Please don't talk to Astarion about the compost heap," Gale interrupted. "It's a sensitive subject."
Halsin's brow furrowed, but he nodded agreeably and went to help with the final tidying of the gardens and arranging of bouquets and wreaths.
Through it all, Hanna Kumar drifted at the edges. The previous night's events had clearly rattled her. She kept glancing toward Tav with an expression caught somewhere between mortification and reluctant interest. Her usual pointed observations emerged blunted, distracted, until Madam Kumar arrived to lend her own hands to the preparations, and the remaining fight went out of Hanna.
Gale supposed he'd get his professorship, if he still wanted it.
By evening, the barn had transformed. Fairy-fire lanterns cast shifting rainbow light across polished floors. Tables lined the walls, waiting for tomorrow's feast. The stage stood ready for music, for speeches, and for whatever chaos the night would bring.
At the Darling Dahlia, their whole party took over the taproom. Dal was caught in conversation with Halsin about the medicinal properties of Underdark fungi, unable to escape his genuine interest long enough to poke at Astarion, much to Gale's relief.
Then Aurelia took the stage.
The first notes from her lute silenced the room. When her voice joined in—a rich alto that seemed too large for her slight frame—everyone stopped their conversations to listen.
She played for an hour. Old ballads, silly drinking songs, a haunting melody in Chondathan that made several patrons weep into their ale. The applause, when it finally came, was thunderous.
Later, when the party began to disperse toward their rooms, Gale caught Astarion's eye. A silent question.
Astarion glanced toward their suite, where the thin walls would transmit every sound from the neighboring rooms. Tav was already steering Hanna toward the stairs with unmistakable intent.
"The barn," Astarion said flatly.
They slipped away into the night.
"I suppose," Gale said as they climbed the ladder to the hayloft, "You're angling for a 'roll in the hay.'"
"I will push you off this ladder."
Gale was undeterred and continued to pun aggressively just to aggravate Astarion and make him laugh until he rode Gale's cock like a temple dancer and Gale could pun no longer.
Afterward, picking straw from his hair while Astarion adjusted his rumpled clothing, Gale reflected that perhaps silk sheets were overrated after all.
***
Fourthday dawned bright and warm.
Gale spent most of it in Morena's kitchen, sliding prepared dishes into ovens, dressing salads, and conducting the final symphony of culinary logistics that would feed all their guests. His friends wandered in and out—stealing bites, offering commentary, getting underfoot in ways that somehow made the work lighter.
As sunset approached, the kitchen emptied. The guests who had spent the day in the Dahlia's taproom, or who were arriving from Waterdeep, made their way to the barn. Dal and Aurelia arrived shortly after true darkness fell.
And the party began.
The tables groaned under tureens of soups, platters of roasted pheasant, three kinds of bread with herbed butter, salads dressed in Morena's signature vinaigrette, and enough pie to feed a small army. The fairy lights shifted their color to suit the mood of the songs the band played in the background.
Gale surveyed his domain with deep satisfaction from his chosen vantage to the side of the stage.
"You're preening," Astarion murmured at his elbow, a goblet of warmed pig's blood cradled in one elegant hand.
"I'm savoring the fruits of our labor." Gale gestured toward the tables packed with guests. "Look at them. Happy. Well-fed. Celebrating us."
"Well, who can blame them? We're a couple for the ages, darling."
Across the barn, Halsin had cornered Dal near the punch bowl, standing close enough that Dal had to tilt her head back to meet his eyes. Gale wondered if his former adventuring companions just had an instinct for bedding troublemakers, or if they were choosing their targets deliberately, to keep them out of Gale and Astarion's hair.
"She's behaving," Astarion observed, following Gale's gaze.
"Suspiciously so."
"She wants the ring." Astarion's tone was matter-of-fact. "She'll maintain this veneer of civility until you hand it over, and then she'll launch her campaign to push you toward archmage status so you can cure us properly."
"You think so?"
"I know so." Astarion took a sip of his blood. "She's patient. She's strategic. And she's absolutely certain she knows what's best for everyone."
Gale considered this. "I do plan to continue advancing my magical skills. On my own timeline."
"I know."
"And if that timeline happens to align with what Dal wants—"
"Then she'll claim credit, and you'll let her, because you're irritatingly magnanimous." Astarion's shoulder brushed against his.
"As long as you know your choice is your own, I can manage Dal's machinations. The sunlight might soften her. Given time."
"Optimist," Astarion said fondly.
"Realist. She's spent centuries in darkness. The warmth will work on her whether she wants it to or not."
Before Astarion could respond, a familiar figure approached through the crowd.
Hanna Kumar had dressed for the occasion in severe navy robes, her Blackstaff pin prominently displayed. Her hair was pulled back with its usual precision, but something in her bearing had shifted since the previous night. Less certainty. More caution.
"Gale." She stopped before them, her gaze flicking briefly to where her mother sat beside Morena, before settling on Gale with determined focus. "Might I have a word?"
"Of course, Hanna." Gale smiled—genuinely, without effort. "What can I do for you?"
She straightened, adjusting her lapel pin in that familiar, reflexive gesture. "I wanted to inform you that I've decided to recommend your application for approval at the next committee meeting. Given your... unique experiences and the potential value of your research to the Academy, I believe the institution would benefit from your expertise."
The words emerged stilted, rehearsed. She was waiting for something. Gratitude, probably. The acknowledgment of her power to grant or withhold this prize.
Six months ago—six days ago—Gale would have given it to her. He would have smiled too widely, thanked her too effusively, promised to be a credit to the Academy. He would have let her feel magnanimous in her mercy.
But Hanna had missed her moment.
"That's very kind of you, Hanna." He met Astarion's eyes rather than hers and found nothing but support in them before he turned back to Hanna. "But I'm afraid I'll be formally deferring my application."
Hanna blinked. "I'm sorry?"
"Deferring. Withdrawing it from consideration, at least for now." Gale gestured vaguely with his wine glass. "I've realized my current research demands my full attention. Private commissions, independent study, that sort of thing. The institutional constraints of Blackstaff just aren't a good fit for me at this stage of my career."
Hanna's mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. "But the position—the prestige—you've been pursuing this for months—"
"I have." Gale nodded agreeably. "And I've reconsidered. Priorities shift. I'm sure you understand."
She didn't understand. That much was plain from the way her hand kept reaching for her pin, adjusting something that didn't need adjusting. All her careful maneuvering, her bureaucratic leverage, her plans to make Gale grovel for approval—none of it mattered if he simply declined to play.
"I... see." Hanna's voice had gone thin. "Well. If you change your mind—"
"I'll be sure to reapply through the proper channels." Gale's smile never wavered. "Do enjoy the party, Hanna. The blackberry tart is exceptional, if Karlach hasn't finished it."
He turned away and took Astarion’s goblet from his hand, placing it on a nearby table. Then he settled one hand at the small of Astarion's back and guided them both toward the dance floor.
The band shifted into something slower, and Gale pulled Astarion onto the floor. Other couples made space—Wyll and Karlach, Lae'zel and Jen, Isobel and Aylin. Morena watched from the refreshment table with Tara perched on her shoulder, both of them wearing identical expressions of smug satisfaction.
"You really don't want the professorship?" Astarion asked as they moved together. "You're not just... performing indifference to spite her?"
"I really don't want it. Not right now." Gale spun them past Halsin, who was now teaching Dal some sort of wood-elf folk dance with more enthusiasm than grace. Dal seemed charmed. "I want to research at my own pace. Perhaps pursue work we can do together. I think we make a remarkable team, and I think I'd rather spend my days with you than in a classroom. At least for the next bit."
"How terribly romantic."
"I thought so."
The music swelled, and Astarion let himself be dipped to scattered applause from their friends.
When the song ended, the hired band announced a short break. Before the silence could settle, Aurelia climbed onto the stage with her lute.
The first notes rippled through the barn, and conversations died mid-sentence. Her voice rose—that impossible alto—weaving through a ballad about lovers separated by war and reunited by starlight.
Gale watched his guests fall under her spell. Even Dal had stopped lecturing Halsin, her rigid posture softening almost imperceptibly as her spawn-sister sang.
By the third song, Cal and Lia had moved to the edge of the stage, conferring with Rolan in low voices. When Aurelia finished—to applause that shook the rafters—they approached her with obvious intent.
"They're offering her a job. Bard in residence at the Darling Dahlia," Astarion murmured. At Gale's raised eyebrows, he clarified "Vampire hearing."
Gale studied his fiancé. "How do you feel about that? Having her here in Waterdeep?"
Astarion considered. Aurelia was nodding at whatever Cal was saying, her red eyes wider than Gale had ever seen them.
"Relieved, actually." Astarion's voice was thoughtful. "Aurelia needs... someone to follow. She's the eldest surviving spawn, you know." Gale had not known. "She was Cazador's long enough that I'm not sure she knows who she is without someone telling her. It's not healthy, but it's where she is. And if she's going to attach herself to a strong personality regardless, I'd rather it not be Dal. Cal, Lia, and—apologies, darling but it's inevitable with the proximity—your mother will be much better for her."
"Mother will fuss over her constantly."
"Morena will teach her to follow her passions as she taught you to follow yours." Astarion's lips twitched. "It's not freedom, but it might be the next step before freedom. A gentler master while she learns she doesn't need one."
Across the barn, Aurelia was shaking Cal's hand with visible confusion and growing enthusiasm. Morena had already descended on the group, no doubt offering opinions about repertoire and performance schedules.
The band returned, launching into something lively that sent guests flooding back onto the dance floor. Gale caught Tav's eye across the room—they were leaning against a support beam, watching Hanna fumble through small talk with Jaheira, looking quietly pleased with themselves.
"One more dance?" Gale said, extending his hand.
Astarion took his hand. "As many as you'd like, my darling."
The fairy-fire lanterns shifted to gold as the music swelled, painting everything in warm, celebratory light. Their friends spun around them—this chaotic garden of family and former rivals and complicated siblings, all the weeds and flowers tangled together in something that shouldn't work but somehow did.
Gale pulled Astarion closer.
"I plan to abuse the privilege."
Astarion - Epilogue
The tent canvas rippled in the evening wind as Astarion sank down, inch by burning inch, onto Gale's cock.
His eyes fell closed. His head tipped back. His mouth dropped open as he breathed through the stretch—slow, hissing inhales that did little to prepare him for the relentless pressure splitting him apart.
He was certain the expression on his face was hardly flattering. Probably something between constipation and religious ecstasy. But he wasn't going to do anything about it, because right now he was rather occupied being impaled on his husband's frankly unreasonable cock, and because he'd learned—through months of patient repetition—that what Gale needed from him wasn't polish.
It was the opposite.
Gale needed to be shown, over and over, that Astarion wanted him so much that he couldn't put on a show. That the pleasure was too all-consuming for performance. That every contortion of his features was genuine and involuntary and real.
Which was true. So Astarion let his overwhelm reshape his face however it wanted.
His thighs burned. His hole stretched wider than should be comfortable. The head of Gale's cock pressed against places inside him that forced his hips to stutter. Astarion breathed and bore down through it, sinking lower, feeling gravity do most of the work as his body slowly, reluctantly yielded.
Eventually—finally—his ass met Gale's hip bones. His balls, already slick with a rivulet of precum, touched Gale's groin. He settled his full weight down and let out a shuddering exhale as his eyes fluttered open to the peaked canvas above.
The tent was modest. They'd set up camp in a sheltered hollow between two hills. But it was theirs, and it was warm, and it contained his husband's cock currently reshaping his insides, so Astarion had no complaints.
Beneath him, Gale was panting hard. His hands gripped Astarion's hips with white-knuckled intensity, clearly resisting every instinct to thrust. Even so, he managed the check-in—two quick taps against Astarion's hip bones.
Ready?
"Not yet," Astarion murmured. "Give me a moment."
He needed the pause. Needed his body to stop tightening quite so desperately around the intrusion, needed the sting to fade into something closer to pleasure. Gale was—well. Generously proportioned was the polite term. Hung like a centaur was what Astarion usually said when he wanted to watch Gale turn interesting colors.
He tipped his head forward to look down at his husband.
Gale's hair was in spectacular disarray from Astarion's pawing earlier—he'd spent a good twenty minutes just running his fingers through those chestnut waves while Gale opened him up with patient, slicked fingers. Now it spread in a wild tangle across the bedroll, catching the faint glow of the magical lights Gale had conjured in the tent's corners.
They'd layered two bedrolls beneath them, but the ground was still hard under Astarion's knees.
Astarion tried for a sultry smirk but ended up biting his lip as his ass spasmed around the hot, thick length of Gale's cock. The movement sent a fresh wave of too much and not enough warring through his nerve endings.
"You know," he managed, breathless, "taking your magnificent cock is quite the challenge. I really ought to get an award for it."
Gale blinked up at him, pupils blown wide and face flushed. His brain was clearly too overwhelmed with desire to process the setup. "An... award?"
"Mm. For my efforts." Astarion shifted his weight experimentally, savoring the way Gale's breath caught. "I'm very lucky, you see, that there is an award."
"There is?"
"Of course." Astarion clenched deliberately this time, watching Gale's eyes roll back. "The award is having your magnificent cock in my ass."
The laugh that punched out of Gale was half groan. "That was terrible."
"You love me."
"I do." Gale's thumbs rubbed circles on Astarion's hip bones. "What are you planning to do with your award, now that you have it?"
Astarion tested a roll of his hips.
The drag was intense—Gale's cock pulling against the stretched ring of muscle, the thick head catching on every sensitive ridge inside him. When it pressed against his prostate, he made a sound that was definitely not dignified. The pressure sparked through him, satisfying in a way that made his toes curl.
But his thighs were trembling. The position was demanding, and he'd been holding himself carefully still for long enough that his muscles were starting to protest.
Gale noticed. He always noticed.
His hands left Astarion's hips. He made the new gesture—a complex series of finger movements he'd developed somewhere before Triboar—and two shimmering, translucent hands materialized in the air beside them.
Gale's Helping Hands. Two Mage Hands for the price of one, and substantially stronger than the original spell. Since they'd returned to adventuring, Gale's power had been growing in leaps and bounds, fed by constant use and creative necessity. He'd invented several new spells along the way, but this one was Astarion's personal favorite.
For obvious reasons.
The magical hands slid beneath his hip bones, taking his weight as he lifted up enough to let Gale's cock pull almost entirely free. Just the head remained inside, stretching him open. Astarion let himself sink back onto the conjured support with a sigh of relief.
"Better?" Gale asked.
"Much."
Gale's real hands stroked up and down Astarion's thighs—long, soothing passes that worked out the tension until the trembling stopped. Then he planted his feet on the bedroll, knees bent, and looked up at Astarion with dark, wanting eyes.
"Ready?"
Astarion nodded.
The first thrust punched the air from his lungs.
His head fell back. His eyes fluttered shut again. His hands, which had been braced on his thighs, went loose and dangled at his sides as Gale set a pace that was steady and deep and relentless. The Helping Hands kept him exactly where Gale wanted him, supporting his weight so that every upward snap of Gale's hips drove his cock directly into Astarion's prostate.
His face probably went weird again. He couldn't bring himself to care.
Who could be fussed about expressions when it felt this good?
He relaxed fully into it—let the pleasure wash over him in waves, let his body be used exactly how Gale wanted. Each thrust punched a grunt from his throat as the thick head of Gale's cock caught on that sensitive ridge, coming and going, the friction building into something molten and inevitable.
It was decadent. Far more decadent than the finest sheets in the finest tower in all of Waterdeep.
"You feel incredible," Gale breathed. "Like you were made to take me like this."
"Fl-flatterer." The word came out broken. "Keep—ah—keep talking."
"I think about this constantly. When we're tracking through the mud, when we're fighting off bandits, when you're haggling with merchants who don't know the value of what they have—" Gale's voice was ragged but somehow still managing full sentences, the bastard. "I think about getting you alone. Getting you like this. Watching you fall apart on my cock."
"More. L-like that. Keep going."
Gale did.
They fucked for a long time after that—long enough for Astarion to lose track of minutes, long enough for the magical lights to flicker and resettle as Gale's concentration wavered. The pace varied: fast and desperate, then slow and grinding, then building again as they murmured affections and check-ins between gasps.
Good?
So good.
Harder?
Yes—there—perfect—
Eventually, Gale's thrusts grew erratic. His hands found Astarion's thighs again, gripping tight.
"Do you want to come as badly as I do?"
Astarion managed a laugh. "What do you think?"
"I think—" A sharp thrust that made stars burst behind Astarion's closed eyelids. "I think yes. Untouched, or shall I...?"
The question hung in the air as Gale continued his relentless pace. Astarion considered it, turning the options over in his pleasure-fogged mind. He was spoiled for choice, really.
"Hands," he decided. "Your hands."
Gale obliged immediately.
One hand wrapped around Astarion's cock, the grip tight and sure. The other cupped his balls, tugging with exactly the right pressure—they'd spent months learning each other's bodies, and it showed. Astarion's own precum slicked the way as Gale stroked him in counterpoint to his thrusts, sensation layering on sensation until Astarion couldn't tell where one pleasure ended and another began.
It didn't take long after that.
"Close," Astarion warned, the word barely audible. "I'm—"
Gale dismissed the Helping Hands.
Astarion dropped—his full weight slamming down as Gale bowed upward with a broken cry. The sudden depth, the angle, the way Gale's cock pressed hard against his prostate while Gale's hands kept working him—
He came with a shout that probably scared the wildlife for miles around.
Ropes of cum spurted up and rained across Gale's belly, catching in the dark hair there, painting his chest in streaks of white. Astarion didn't care about the mess. Couldn't care about anything except the way his body was pulsing in waves, the way Gale was twitching inside him, the way warmth was flooding his insides as Gale poured himself into Astarion.
He folded forward when Gale released his cock, collapsing onto Gale's chest, uncaring that he was smearing his own release between them. His body kept twitching—oversensitive, wrung out—and each spasm made Gale groan as the stimulation met his own post-orgasm sensitivity.
They lay like that for a while. Breathing together. Gale's heartbeat slowing.
Astarion drifted, awareness fuzzing at the edges, until Gale's hands stroking up and down his spine brought him back into focus.
"You there?" Gale murmured against his hair.
"Mm.."
He pulled off with a wince—Gale's cock sliding free of his well-stretched hole, followed by a trickle of cum. The usual cleaning spell followed, Gale's fingers tracing the necessary gestures, and the mess between them vanished.
Astarion rolled Gale onto his side, one hand sliding down to rest against the curve of his ass.
"Let's get this out of you, shall we?"
He pressed two fingers to the spot just behind Gale's balls—the external trigger point—and felt the faint hum of magic respond. Inside, the stimulator would be releasing its grip, the enchantment that held it snug against Gale's prostate finally relaxing.
Morbinder's Marvelous Egg had been marketed as "dwarven engineering meets elvish enchantment," which sounded like nonsense but had apparently delivered on its promises. No flared base, no harness, no risk of popping out or shifting in too deep during vigorous activity. Just a smooth, egg-shaped device that anchored itself exactly where it needed to be until someone told it otherwise.
"Ready?" Astarion asked, and at Gale's drowsy nod, he eased two fingers inside to hook the retrieval loop and draw the toy free. "How was it?"
Gale made a contemplative sound that ended in a soft grunt as the widest part stretched him briefly before slipping out. "Not as good as getting fucked properly. But a very welcome addition while topping. I can see why you didn't haggle much."
"High praise." Astarion cleaned the stimulator with a whispered cantrip of his own—one of the few bits of magic he'd picked up over their recent months together—and tucked it into its silk pouch. "We'll have to experiment with the settings next time."
"There are settings?"
"According to the instruction scroll, yes. Seven of them. Size, vibration patterns, intensity levels, that sort of thing." Instructions were normally Gale’s sort of thing, but Astarion had plans for this little device. He’d learned it was new, made in Citadel Adbar, and hadn’t found its way south to the major markets. Yet.
Gale blinked sluggishly, but the academic curiosity was already breaking through his heavy-lidded haze. "We used it wrong? Just putting it in and not activating anything?"
"We've used it conservatively. Always time to work up to more. It stayed in place, though, despite your exertions?"
"Perfectly positioned the entire time. Didn't shift once. I'd love to know how they managed that. Some kind of spatial lock keyed to internal pressure, perhaps? Or a charm that responds to the wearer's intention to keep it seated..."
They arranged the blankets and pillows into something approximating a nest as Gale theorized and Astarion plotted importing more of them to Waterdeep. After they’d given this one a thorough testing of course. There was more than one way to make one’s fortune on the road. Exotic sex toy imports might make their short list.
The bedrolls overlapped, the wool blankets layered for warmth, and Astarion's silk-lined travel pillow (because he refused to rough it entirely) provided a comfortable surface for his head. Gale pulled him close, and Astarion went willingly, fitting himself against his husband's side like he'd been designed for it.
The tent was cozy despite the chill outside. Between their handy haversacks and Astarion's bottomless trunk, and Gale's Unseen Servants to handle the hauling, they had everything they needed to set up a proper camp each night. It was hardly deprivation, but there was still something freeing and fun about it all.
It turned out that materials for seven thousand magical rings could make quite a dent in even the deepest coffers. Even with Rolan and Leon agreeing to help with the actual crafting. When the coin ran thin, they'd had a choice: steady employment in Waterdeep, or hitting the road again.
The road had won.
"Do you think we're close?" Gale asked, his voice drowsy. "To the cache?"
Astarion considered the clues they'd pieced together from the journal of a very dead adventurer. They'd found it for sale in Neverwinter, where they'd gone to sell the loot from their previous quest. Hill with a clump of trees like they're giving you the middle finger wasn't exactly precise cartography, but it was supposed to be south of Calling Horns.
"Another day east to reach the town, maybe? Then south into the hills."
"We could stick to the road. Spend a night at an inn in Calling Horns, resupply, then head south properly."
"Or," Astarion countered, "we cut cross-country south of the road through the hills. Perhaps we'll spot it along the way."
Gale hummed thoughtfully. "Cross-country it is. Though if we end up fighting more trolls, I'm blaming you."
"I'll accept that blame. Let's see how high you can upcast fireball these days."
Outside, the wind picked up, rattling the tent stakes. Somewhere in the distance, a wolf howled.
"I should check in with Aurelia," Gale said, not moving. "I still have a spell left, and we haven't talked to her in a bit."
"Should you? It's late."
"She'll have performed for that noble party. She mentioned they were arriving today—potential patrons for a tour."
Astarion made a vague gesture of permission, and Gale fumbled for the components he needed without actually getting up. The Sending spell required minimal movement, which was fortunate given how thoroughly Astarion had tangled their limbs together.
The reply came thirty seconds later. She'd performed three encores. One of the nobles had commissioned a ballad about his great-grandmother's heroic stand against orc raiders. She was fairly certain she'd be receiving formal patronage offers by morning.
"Good for her," Astarion murmured after Gale relayed the message.
And he meant it. Aurelia had flourished under Cal and Lia's steady guidance—and, yes, under Morena's enthusiastic meddling. She still needed someone to follow, but she was learning to choose her leaders more carefully. To recognize the difference between devotion and submission.
"What about Dal?" Gale asked. "Have you heard from her recently?"
"Last tenday. She's back at the hospital in Baldur's Gate." Astarion carded his fingers through the hair on Gale's chest. "Apparently my heroic reputation and the ring made it possible for her to practice medicine again. She's keeping busy establishing some kind of reign of terror over the interns."
"That does sound like Dal."
"She still pesters you for a Wish, doesn't she?"
Gale sighed. "Monthly, like clockwork. Though I think the sunlight has softened her somewhat. She's less... urgent about it."
"Mm." Astarion considered his complicated spawn-sister, with her rigid certainties. "Perhaps that, and the puzzling attentions of Halsin."
"I still don't understand that pairing."
"Neither do I. But then, I suppose we don't make much sense to someone looking in from the outside either." Astarion pressed a kiss to Gale's shoulder.
"I disagree. We're extremely well suited."
"Yes, the bookseller's stalls are full of vampire-wizard romances."
"It's called opposites attract. And it's extremely popular."
Astarion laughed. "One of your favorite tropes, I suppose?"
"Obviously."
Astarion had spent two centuries forced to be whatever his master wanted. Then he'd spent months learning to be whatever would make him safe. And then considering how he could be what Gale's family wanted. And now, finally, he was learning to just... be.
It helped that Gale didn't want him to be anything. Not a polite society house-husband hosting dinner parties in the tower. Not a reformed villain proving his worthiness through good deeds.
Gale wanted him. Weediness and all.
"I'm glad," Astarion said quietly, "that you don't expect me to stay home and arrange flowers while you go off professoring."
"I don't think professoring is a word."
"It is now." He propped himself up on one elbow to look at Gale properly. "I mean it. I'm glad we chose this. The road. The uncertainty. I think I'd go mad if I had to be respectable all the time."
Gale's smile was soft in the dim light. "I can't imagine anything worse than a predictable life right now. The idea of knowing exactly what every day will bring, of having everything scheduled and planned and safe—" He shook his head. "I spent years chasing the approval of others. No, not just approval. Esteem. Admiration. And it nearly killed me."
"To be fair, many things have nearly killed you. Are still trying to kill both of us, on the daily."
"True. But academic politics was shaping up to be the most tedious of them. I want to chase rumors and hunt treasures and get into terrible situations that require creative problem-solving. I want the journey more than the destination."
"That's very philosophical."
"I'm a very philosophical man." Gale stretched to press a kiss to Astarion's cheek. "Tower, tent, inn room, forest floor—I don't much care where we end up each night, as long as we're having fun."
Astarion considered the list. Tower: comfortable but confining. Tent: practical but rough. Inn room: pleasant but often distressingly public. Forest floor: memorable but muddy.
"I agree. Though I'm ruling out your attic bedroom, for what it's worth."
Gale laughed. "That's fair."
Tomorrow they'd break camp and head cross-country through the hills. They'd search for a clump of trees arranged in an obscene gesture, hopefully find the abandoned cache, and then turn toward home for the winter. Months of crafting and reading and gossip-collecting and, yes, more loud adventurous sex awaited them.
Spring would bring new rumors. New treasures. New terrible situations requiring creative solutions.
Astarion was looking forward to it.
"Good night, husband," Gale murmured, already half-asleep.
"Good night, husband," Astarion replied.
Outside, the wind howled. Inside, wrapped in blankets and warmth and the steady presence of someone who wanted him exactly as he was, Astarion closed his eyes and let himself drift toward trance.
My original fiction pseud’s debut MM Romantasy novel ebook is FREE for one day! If you like my fanfic and are curious, now is a great time to check it out. It’s very Bloodweave coded.
Gale blinked awake to find Astarion still in his arms—eyes closed, features slack, the faint flicker of movement beneath his lids betraying the trance state that served elves in place of sleep.
This almost never happened.
Astarion's trances were half as long as Gale's beloved eight hours of sleep. He typically rose hours before Gale stirred, occupying himself with sewing or reading or prowling the tower's rooms like a restless cat until Gale emerged. To wake first, to have Astarion vulnerable and still in his arms—
Gale sighed with the pleasure of it.
The dawn light touched Astarion's face, gilding the sharp planes of his cheekbones, catching in the silvery curls that spilled across Gale's shoulder. No burning. No smoke. No screaming. Gale still felt a thrill of pride every time the sun touched Astarion's skin and found it merely pale rather than combustible.
I did that, Gale thought, and immediately felt foolish for the self-congratulation. The ring had taken weeks of research, careful enchantment, three failed prototypes that had cost him sleep, much coin, and no small amount of frustration. But what was that compared to freeing Astarion from two centuries of darkness? A pittance. A start.
He pressed his nose to Astarion's hair and breathed deep—
And frowned.
His mother's soap. The herby blend she made herself from her garden's bounty. Astarion smelled of it, fresh and clean, as though he'd bathed recently.
But when? Gale had fallen asleep with Astarion in his arms, and here Astarion remained. Had he risen in the night, washed, and returned to bed to trance beside Gale? That seemed... odd.
Something had been off last night. Gale replayed the evening's events: Astarion returning from the inn with that brittle brightness in his voice. Gale had asked, of course. But Astarion had mastered the art of deflection, and Gale, excited to show off his teenage stash, had let him get away with it.
The meeting with Dal and Aurelia clearly hadn't gone well, but in what way? Gale had been unsuccessful at getting Astarion to talk much about his feelings regarding the freed spawn at the best of times. They existed in a strange liminal space—family and strangers, fellow survivors and living reminders of everything Astarion had endured. Gale understood, intellectually, why Astarion kept them at arm's length even as he'd given in to Morena's insistence on inviting them to the engagement party.
They both should have foreseen the chaos that Aurelia and Dal would bring with them. Not through malice—Gale was fairly certain of that much—but through desperation. Through the unpredictability that came from centuries of trauma and a sudden, disorienting freedom, and what was surely a precarious existence in the Underdark.
He remembered how Astarion had been in those early days of their acquaintance. The constant performance. The reflexive seduction. The way his eyes had darted to every exit, cataloging escape routes even in moments of apparent safety. It had taken months of patience, of consistent kindness, of refusing to rise to provocations designed to push him away as their relationship had deepened, before Astarion had begun to truly trust that safety could be real and lasting.
Gale didn't begrudge Astarion's siblings their foibles any more than he'd begrudged Astarion his. It was all so understandable. Survival mechanisms didn't dissolve overnight simply because the threat had passed. Unlearning centuries of conditioning required time, gentleness, and resources that the spawn, scattered and struggling in the Underdark, simply didn't have.
He wished he could have sent help. Coin, supplies, perhaps even arranged passage to somewhere safer. He believed—truly believed—that a bit of security and kindness would help them in the same way it had helped Astarion.
But alas.
His return to Waterdeep had been less triumphant hero's welcome and more prodigal son's awkward homecoming. This wasn't Baldur's Gate, where the party's names were sung in taverns and their deeds had become the stuff of legend. Here, Gale was simply the Dekarios boy who'd gotten too clever for his own good, courted a goddess above his station, and nearly exploded. The Netherese orb incident hadn't been forgotten. The year of isolation, the whispered rumors of instability, the spectacular fall from Mystra's grace—all of it clung to him.
Thus what savings remained after his year of consuming magical artifacts, combined with the new wealth from their adventures, had been focused on immediate necessities. The ring had required rare components, rarer tomes, and countless hours of research that couldn't also be spent wizarding for hire. The tower had needed renovations to become Astarion's home as much as Gale's—closets expanded, blackout curtains initially and filmy translucent ones later, the promised sitting room refurbished to Astarion's initial specification and then later transformed into a sunroom where he could bask like a contented cat.
The coffers were growing thin.
And the professorship that should have been a formality—his credentials were impeccable, his knowledge vast, his practical experience unmatched by any candidate in recent memory—had somehow become mired in committee reviews and bureaucratic delays that no one would explain.
Humiliating, Gale thought. Infuriating.
He'd made promises. In the heat of passion, yes, but also in quiet moments of genuine intention. Curtains and sitting rooms and silk sheets. I'll make you happy. He intended to keep every one of them. Astarion deserved luxury after two centuries of deprivation. He deserved comfort and beauty and the knowledge that he would never want for anything again.
But all of that was a problem for another day.
Gale pushed the anxieties aside and focused on the man in his arms. The flicker beneath Astarion's lids was slowing, the trance drawing to its natural conclusion. Gale arranged his features into his warmest smile—the one Astarion claimed made him look like a besotted fool, which Gale considered accurate—and waited.
Astarion's first breath was reflexive, an old habit from his living days that his undead body no longer required but performed anyway upon waking. His eyes fluttered open, unfocused for a moment, then sharpening as consciousness returned.
"Good morning," Gale murmured, and kissed him before the fog had fully cleared.
Astarion made a small, pleased sound against his lips. "Mm. Morning." His voice was rough with disuse, and he stretched languidly, his body arching in ways that made Gale's thoughts scatter. "You've been staring."
"I'm admiring."
"Are you?" Astarion's smirk was sleep-soft, lacking its usual sharp edges. "And what, pray tell, are you admiring?"
"Your beauty. Here in my arms. The sun not murdering you." Gale traced a finger along Astarion's cheekbone, following the path of the light. "I never tire of it."
"Sentimental fool." But Astarion leaned into the touch, his eyes drifting half-closed.
They lay tangled together for another few minutes, trading lazy kisses and whispered observations about each other's states of morning arousal that devolved into stifled laughter when the bed groaned ominously at the slightest shift.
"I hate this bed," Astarion announced, sitting up with exaggerated care. The frame creaked in protest anyway.
"It's an antique."
"It's a torture device." Astarion swung his legs over the side, and the bed shrieked like a dying animal. "I'll be glad to exchange it for a more polite bed."
They dressed in companionable quiet, Gale stealing glances at Astarion when he thought he wouldn't be caught. The strange midnight bath still nagged at him, but he filed it away for later investigation. There were more pressing matters to discuss.
"I was thinking," Gale said, buttoning his shirt, "that perhaps you might pack our things and move them to the inn this morning? I'll be helping Mother with the barn—magical cleaning, moving the heavier items—so she won't need you for a couple of hours. You could settle us in, and..."
He trailed off, watching Astarion's expression carefully. A flicker of something—relief?—crossed those sharp features before being smoothed away.
"And check on my wayward siblings," Astarion finished. "Make sure they haven't burned the inn down or scandalized the innkeeper beyond repair before taking to their own beds."
"I was going to say 'pick up more pig's blood,' but yes, that too." Gale crossed to him, catching his hands. "Some for the inn, some to replenish the pantry here. I know last night was... difficult. You don't have to tell me what happened, but I want you to know I'm here when you're ready."
Astarion's gaze shifted to trace the grain of the floorboards. "Nothing happened. Dal was Dal—disapproving and superior. Aurelia was Aurelia—eager and oblivious. The usual family dramatics."
It wasn't the truth. It wasn't even close to the truth. But Gale recognized the set of Astarion's shoulders and the way the easy amusement vanished from his eyes, replaced by a defensive shuttering. He knew that pushing now would only make things worse.
"All right," he said, and kissed Astarion one more time. "I'll leave an Unseen Servant to help with the packing and to carry the trunk when you're ready."
The kitchen smelled of toasted bread and something savory when Gale descended the stairs. His mother stood at the massive stove, her silver-threaded hair pinned up in its usual practical twist, a clean apron protecting her deep purple morning dress.
"There you are." Morena turned with a smile, gesturing to a plate already waiting on the butcher-block island. "Eggs, toast, and those little sausages you liked as a boy. Eat. We have a barn to civilize."
Gale settled onto a stool and picked up his fork. "You're too good to me."
"I'm exactly as good as you deserve, which means I expect that barn to sparkle by the time we're done." She poured herself a cup of tea and settled across from him. "Where's your sweet man?"
"Packing. We're relocating to the inn today."
Her eyebrow rose, but she said nothing, taking a sip of her tea with an expression of elaborate disinterest that fooled absolutely no one.
Heat crept up Gale's neck. "It's—we thought it would be easier to look after Dal and Aurelia if we were closer. The inn is only a short walk, but at night—"
He stopped and swallowed the rest of the sentence.
Blaming the spawn for the move would do Astarion no favors. If Morena repeated it—and she wouldn't mean to, but mothers talked—it would only reinforce whatever narrative was already forming about Astarion's monstrous family and their disruptive presence. Astarion was anxious enough about how the spawn would reflect on him. Gale refused to add to that burden.
"Actually," he said, setting down his fork, "that's not entirely honest. We'd simply like a bit more privacy."
Morena's knowing look intensified. "The walls are thin. I remember."
"Mother."
"What? I raised a son. I'm aware that sons have... needs." She waved a dismissive hand at another outraged, reflexive Mother! "I certainly don't begrudge you wanting a room where the bed doesn't announce your every movement to the entire household."
Gale covered his face with his hands. "Can we please discuss the barn now?"
"In a moment." She reached across and patted his arm. "I think it's sweet, actually. You want time with him. You've barely had a moment alone together since you arrived, what with the party preparations consuming every waking hour."
"That's... yes. Exactly." He looked up, guilt flickering through him. "I hadn't foreseen it, truly. I was so excited to cook the feast myself—to feed our friends again, properly, the way I used to during our travels—that I didn't consider how much time the preparations would take. And now we're separated all day, every day, until the party itself."
"And the nights have been interrupted by creaky beds and thin walls and a mother with inconvenient hearing."
"You're enjoying embarrassing me far too much."
Morena smiled serenely. "I'm enjoying my son being happy. If that happiness requires a change of venue, the inn is a perfectly reasonable choice." She stood, collecting his empty plate. "As it happens, I have a little surprise that might help with the separation problem."
"What kind of—"
"A surprise, my dear. A surprise I refuse to spoil. Finish your tea. We have work to do."
Gale sighed, recognizing the brand of maternal stubbornness that had shaped his entire childhood. "Fine. Keep your secrets."
He called a goodbye up the stairs as they left, and winced when Astarion's reply floated down with perfect clarity. Gods, he really hadn't remembered how sound traveled in this house.
The inn couldn't come soon enough.
The barn stood at the property's edge, a massive timber structure that had once housed hay and farm animals, but had been largely unused for decades after the Dekarios clan had taken over and focused the homestead on gardening rather than animal husbandry. Dust motes swirled in the morning light streaming through the high windows, and the air smelled of old wood and dried grass.
"Right," Morena said, rolling up her sleeves. "The loft stays as is—we'll simply rope off the ladder. But this main floor needs to become a proper event space. The old stalls have already been knocked down, so it's mostly a matter of cleaning and arrangement."
They worked in tandem, Gale's Prestidigitation handling the accumulated grime while Morena shifted things out of the way. It was meditative work, the kind of simple magical application that let his mind wander while his hands stayed busy.
An hour passed, then most of another. The barn transformed gradually from dusty storage to a blank canvas ready for Morena and Astarion to decorate later.
"Morena? Are you back here?"
The voice came from outside—female, pleasant, oddly familiar in a way Gale couldn't immediately place. His mother's face lit up with delight.
"The surprise!" She clasped her hands together. "Oh, wonderful—she's early. We're in the barn, dear!"
Footsteps approached, and a figure appeared in the doorway, silhouetted against the morning brightness. Gale squinted, trying to make out features, and then the woman stepped inside and all the air left Gale's lungs in a single, painful rush.
Hanna Kumar.
She looked almost exactly as he remembered. Dark hair pulled back severely. Sensible robes in muted slate gray. A posture so correct it made his spine ache in sympathy. But there was something different too, something in the set of her shoulders and the slight upturn of her chin that spoke of authority earned rather than aspired to.
"Gale." She smiled, the expression not quite reaching her eyes. "It's been too long."
"Hanna." His voice came out entirely flat. He forced a smile, trying to inject a warmth he didn't feel. "I—yes. Quite some time."
"Isn't this wonderful?" Morena swept forward to embrace Hanna with the enthusiastic affection she showed to everyone. "I knew you'd want to see your old friend! You two were such dear companions as children, always playing together when Hanna's mother brought her to visit."
Dear companions was not the phrase Gale would have chosen. Tormentor was closer. The girl who mocked my shyness and hid my books and told the other children I smelled weird. But that had been decades ago, and he'd barely thought of her since Mystra had swept him into her orbit and remade his world entirely.
He'd forgotten Hanna existed.
Apparently, the sentiment had not been mutual.
"I was so pleased when your mother reached out," Hanna said. Smooth. Reasonable. The voice of someone who never raised their tone because they didn't need to. "An engagement party! How lovely. And to think, after everything you've been through, you've found happiness."
After everything you've been through. The words landed like small, precise knives.
"I didn't realize you were coming to the party." Gale kept his voice carefully neutral. "And you're here to help?"
"Oh, I insisted!" Morena beamed, oblivious to the undercurrents. "When I learned Hanna was still in Waterdeep, I simply had to invite her and ask her to come early, so you two could catch up while lightening your load. I've offered to cover her room at the Darling Dahlia so she won't have to travel back and forth from the Academy each day."
"From the Academy," Gale repeated.
Hanna's hand drifted to her lapel in a gesture that was clearly habitual—and clearly deliberate. Gale's gaze followed, and there it was: the enameled Blackstaff Academy pin, its silver-and-blue crest catching the light.
"Hanna is a professor at Blackstaff now," Morena continued, pride evident in her voice as though this were somehow her accomplishment. "Tenured, if you can imagine! Transmutation, was it?"
"That's right." Hanna adjusted the pin fractionally, ensuring it remained prominently displayed. "I've been there for... oh, fifteen years now? Committee work, mostly. Rather dull stuff, but someone has to maintain standards." Her smile sharpened. "I'm actually on the hiring committee. We review all applications for new faculty positions."
Fuck.
Gale pasted on a polite, vacant smile, though pure panic was suddenly ricocheting through his mind. The committee. The delays. The endless requests for additional documentation and references and explanations for gaps in his employment history. The vague responses about additional concerns that no one would specify. Insinuations that there was more trouble than the Mystra debacle to consider.
Hanna. It had been Hanna all along.
"How fortunate," he managed. "I've actually submitted an application myself. Perhaps we'll be colleagues."
"Perhaps." Hanna's eyes glittered with something that wasn't quite malice—it was too controlled for that, too carefully pleasant.
"Isn't it marvelous?" Morena clasped her hands together, practically glowing with self-satisfaction. "You'll have two days to reconnect before the party. I thought to myself, 'Who better to help Gale navigate the Academy's politics than an old friend already on the inside?'" She caught Gale's eye and gave him a subtle wink, the conspiratorial gesture of a mother who believed she'd just handed her son the keys to his future on a silver platter.
Gale's cheeks ached from the effort of maintaining his smile. His mother meant well. She had no way of knowing that she'd just invited the fox into the henhouse and asked it to please make itself comfortable among the chickens. He had never told her about Hanna's small cruelties. Morena had always been so happy that he had had at least one friend. He hadn't wanted to shame himself by admitting he hadn't even the one. Not really.
"What fun," he lied. "I can hardly wait."
Astarion
Astarion kept his pace measured as he walked toward the Darling Dahlia. The bottomless trunk floated obediently behind him courtesy of Gale's Unseen Servant. The day was practically a portrait of bucolic tranquility, but he was already compiling increasingly catastrophic scenarios that all ended in a torch-wielding mob forming in the courtyard while Dal and Aurelia barricaded themselves in the wine cellar.
By the time the inn's gleaming half-timbered facade came into view, he'd worked himself into such a state that the cheerful bustle of the courtyard felt like a personal affront.
No mob. No screaming. Just the ordinary chaos of a coaching inn in the morning hours. Merchants loading wagons, horses being led from the stables, a pair of children chasing each other around a carriage while their mother called after them.
The Darling Dahlia stood exactly as it had the night before.
Astarion wasn't sure if he was relieved or suspicious.
Inside, the taproom hummed with the energy of departing guests. Lia stood behind the bar, her dark hair swept back from her face, counting coins into a merchant's palm.
"—and we do hope you'll choose the Darling Dahlia again for your next journey."
Astarion waited until the merchant had bustled out the door before approaching. The trunk bobbed behind him, drawing a few curious glances from the remaining patrons.
"Astarion." Lia's smile warmed. "Back so soon?"
"Couldn't stay away." He leaned against the bar, aiming for casual and landing somewhere closer to tightly wound. "I don't suppose you could tell me—that is, last night, after I left—Dal and Aurelia, they didn't...?"
Astarion trailed off, unsure how to finish the sentence. Terrorize your guests? Traumatize your staff? Eat anyone inconvenient?
Lia's expression became knowing. "They went to their room about half an hour after you left. Haven't heard a peep since." She glanced toward the windows, where sunlight streamed in golden bars across the floor. "They'll be down for the day now, I expect."
"They just... went to bed?"
"Seemed tired from their journey." Lia's amber eyes crinkled with amusement. "Honestly, Astarion, you looked more worked up about them than they were about anything."
From somewhere behind the bar, Cal snorted. Astarion hadn't noticed him there, crouched over a crate of bottles. "Siblings," he said, not looking up. "They like to wind each other up. Lia does it to me all the time."
"I do not."
"You do, and you enjoy it to a truly childish degree."
Their easy banter left Astarion disoriented. He had braced for impact and found only empty air. All that anxiety, all that catastrophizing, and Dal and Aurelia had simply... gone to sleep?
He didn't trust it. But he also couldn't deny the tension unknotting between his shoulder blades.
"I hate to be a bother." He sighed. "Again. But I was wondering if you might have another room available? On top of what we reserved for the party guests. For Gale and myself. We'd like to relocate here for the next few days, if possible."
Lia's face lit up. "For you two? Always." She was already reaching for a key from the board behind her. "We've got the best suite open—sitting room, bedroom, private bath. Best view in the house."
"That sounds perfect. Thank you."
"I'll have fresh linens sent up." Lia pressed the key into his palm. "End of the hall on the second floor. Take your time getting settled."
"Actually, I was planning to run to the butcher after I drop this off." He gestured vaguely at the floating trunk. "We need to replenish the blood supply here and at the homestead, and—"
"Already handled." Cal straightened from his crouch, wiping his palms on a rag. "Sent the order along with the morning shopping. Kitchen boy should be back within the hour."
"You—"
"Would have done it last night if the butcher hadn't already closed." Cal shrugged, his horns catching the light as he moved. "Plenty for your guests, and enough extra for you to take back to the Dekarios place whenever you need it."
Astarion froze in surprise.
No one had asked him to arrange this. No one had extracted promises or negotiations or carefully calculated favors. Cal and Lia had simply... handled it. Because it needed handling. Because they were—
Friends, his mind supplied.
"Thank you," he managed. "Both of you. I'll—I'll just get settled, then."
He fled up the stairs before his gratitude could embarrass him further. Unlocking the door at the end of the hall, he found the suite nicer than he had expected. The sitting area held two deep-cushioned chairs angled toward a small fireplace, currently unlit. Beyond it, the bedroom featured a bed that looked blessedly solid. The bath was tucked behind a door in the corner, and Astarion could see the gleam of copper fixtures through the gap.
He directed the Unseen Servant to deposit the trunk at the foot of the bed, then crossed to the windows and threw them open.
Spring air rushed in, carrying the scent of flowers and horses and bread baking somewhere nearby. The sun fell warm across his hands where they rested on the sill, and he stood there for a moment, letting it soak in.
Maybe it would be fine.
The thought felt dangerous, like tempting fate. But as Astarion unpacked—hanging Gale's robes beside his own clothes, arranging their toiletries in the bath, tucking their intimate products into the drawer of the bedside table—he allowed himself to consider the possibility.
Dal and Aurelia had behaved themselves. The blood supply was handled. He and Gale would have privacy here, real privacy, without thin walls, creaky beds or the specter of Morena's knowing coughs.
He was hanging the last of his shirts when a flutter of wings at the window made him spin, dagger drawn before conscious thought caught up.
A familiar tressym pushed through the curtains, feathered wings tucking against her sides. "It's only old Tara, Mr. Ancunín. No need for violence."
Astarion sheathed the blade with a sheepish flourish. "Tara. You're back."
"I am indeed." She alighted on top of the wardrobe, her tail curling around her paws. "My errand was successful, though I haven't come to brag about it. Yet."
"Perish the thought."
Her whiskers twitched—amusement or irritation, impossible to tell. "There's trouble, Mr. Ancunín. And I thought it best you not walk into it unawares."
His mind went immediately to the spawn. Had they snuck out of their rooms while Lia and Cal weren't looking and caused chaos further abroad?
Tara's amber eyes were narrowed in what Astarion recognized as annoyance. Anger even. But not at him. "There's a woman at the homestead. Hanna Kumar. She arrived this morning, invited by Madam Dekarios as a surprise for Mr. Dekarios."
The name meant nothing to Astarion. "Should I know her?"
"She was a childhood acquaintance of Mr. Dekarios." Tara's tail flicked. "A bully, if I'm being precise, though I doubt he'd use the word himself. She made his early years rather miserable in small, cutting ways."
Astarion scowled. "Charming."
"I should have told Morena years ago. Warned her that Hanna wasn't the friend Gale pretended. But it seemed..." She paused, an uncomfortable expression crossing her features. "A delicate balance. Being his friend and familiar while also serving as something of a second parent alongside Madam Dekarios. I chose to keep his confidence and let sleeping dogs lie, and I thought it had all worked out for the best. But now she's returned, with institutional power at her back, and I wonder if I chose poorly."
The vulnerability in her voice surprised him. Tara was many things—opinionated, meddlesome, fiercely loyal—but uncertain was rarely among them.
"What kind of institutional power?" Astarion asked.
"She's on the hiring committee at Blackstaff Academy. The one reviewing Mr. Dekarios's application for a professorship." Tara's eyes met his. "The application that has been mysteriously delayed for months."
Oh.
Astarion sank onto the edge of the bed. Gale's professorship. The one he talked about with such determined optimism, brushing aside the delays as mere bureaucracy, insisting it was only a matter of time before everything sorted itself out.
"He didn't tell me the application was having difficulties," Astarion said.
Tara's whiskers drooped. "Ah. How awkward. I assumed—" She ruffled her wings in what might have been embarrassment. "This is precisely what I mean about secrets. It would all be so much simpler if people simply told each other things."
"Would it?"
"I should have known better, back then. Mr. Dekarios should know better now." Her gaze sharpened on him. "I hope you have more sense than both of us."
Oof.
Astarion thought of last night. The compost heap. The trowel in his hands and the earth beneath his fingernails and the desperate, inexplicable need to save something that had been deemed worthless.
He thought of how he'd answered Gale's gentle questions this morning. Nothing happened. The usual family dramatics.
They made quite the pair, didn't they? Each trying not to burden the other and complicating everything in the process.
"Perhaps," he muttered, "I haven't been as open as I could be."
Tara tilted her head, waiting.
"Having Dal and Aurelia here—" He stopped. Started again. "It's making me… feel things I wasn't expecting. Things I don't know how to explain, even to myself. And rather than burden Gale with my confused mess of emotions, I've been..." Deflecting. Performing. Hiding. Inexplicably starting weed gardens in the woods. "Less than forthcoming."
"I see." Tara's voice held no judgment, only that patient, steady observation that made her such an effective familiar. "Might I suggest speaking sooner rather than later? In my experience, the longer secrets sit, the heavier they become."
"Sage advice from someone who just admitted to keeping secrets for decades."
"Which is precisely why I'm qualified to give it." Her tail swished. "Now. I've put my paw in it rather badly with this Hanna business, but I wonder if you might still be willing to fight the good fight."
Astarion blinked. "Fight?"
"A battle of words, Mr. Ancunín. I hasten to clarify." Something gleamed in her amber eyes—mischief, perhaps, or the satisfaction of a schemer finding an ally. "Ms. Kumar has made herself quite comfortable at the homestead, 'helping' Mr. Dekarios in the kitchen while making pointed observations about his struggles and recovery. I believe she intends to spend the next two days undermining him under the guise of friendly concern."
"And you want me to..."
"Do what you do best." Tara's whiskers twitched. "You see through pretense. You recognize manipulation. And you are, if I may say so, rather skilled at dismantling people who believe themselves untouchable."
A slow smile spread across Astarion's face. "Tara. Are you asking me to destroy Gale's childhood bully?"
"I'm asking you to ensure she doesn't destroy him first while not giving her any further ammunition to use against Gale. A delicate balance, but I'm sure you're more than capable." Tara stretched her wings, preparing to depart. "I'll fly back now and keep the woman in line until you can make your way to the homestead. Today, I'll help Madam Dekarios in the barn instead of you. You can stick with Gale in the kitchen."
"Help Morena how? The work is mostly lifting heavy things, isn't it? Things that require hands?"
"We'll figure it out." Tara hopped to the windowsill. "We always do."
She launched into the sky before Astarion could respond, her grey-and-brown form shrinking rapidly against the bright morning blue.
Astarion sat for a moment, processing. A chance to play the knight in shining armor for Gale while wielding all his dirtiest tricks would be delicious. He'd be damned if he'd let some petty childhood bully stand between Gale and his dreams. Hanna wouldn't know what had hit her.
Astarion stood, straightened his doublet, and headed for the hallway. He hit the bottom of the stairs and turned toward the kitchen to see if the boy had returned with the blood—
—and nearly collided with a figure stepping through the front door.
"Astarion?"
He froze. He knew that voice. Knew the particular cadence of surprised pleasure, the way his name sounded in their mouth after months of shared camps and battles and the peculiar intimacy of nearly dying together repeatedly.
And, of course, of having been lovers for a time.
Tav stood in the doorway, pack slung over one shoulder, looking exactly as road-worn and capable as they had during their adventuring days. Their eyes widened at the sight of him.
"You're early," Astarion said, before his brain caught up with his mouth. "Why is everyone early?"
Tav's brow furrowed. "I'm... what? I thought arriving today would give me time to settle in before—" They stopped, studying his face with that unsettling perceptiveness that had always made him feel too seen. "What's going on?"
What isn't? Astarion wanted to say. Vampire siblings arriving early and making me question my entire existence. Gale's childhood nemesis appearing to sabotage his career. A secret garden of salvaged weeds that I'm definitely not going to explain to anyone, ever.
But Tav had always seen through his performances. During their travels, they'd been one of the few people who'd looked past his deflections to the rawness beneath and given him the space to make his own decisions. There was no point in putting on a show now.
"It's a good thing you're here," Astarion said instead, letting his smile grow feral. "How do you feel about some heavy lifting?"
Gale
The knife moved so fast it blurred.
Gale stood at the island, the ball of dough he'd been shaping forgotten in his hand, watching Astarion reduce a pile of root vegetables into identical ribbons. The blade caught the afternoon light streaming through the kitchen window—flash, flash, flash—each cut landing with precision while Astarion maintained unwavering eye contact with Hanna across the room.
He hadn't blinked in at least two minutes.
"I just worry, Gale." Hanna was stirring a simmering stock. Her tone dripped with manufactured concern. "That returning to the rigid structure of academia after... everything... might be too overwhelming." She adjusted her Blackstaff pin with her free hand. "The committee wants to ensure you're stable."
Gale opened his mouth to respond—to defend himself, to minimize, to do the desperate dance of appeasement he'd been performing all morning until Astarion had arrived—but Astarion, once again, beat him to it.
"Oh, Hanna, we completely understand." The knife never stopped moving. Ribbons of parsnip cascaded onto the cutting board in perfect spirals. "I kept telling him, 'Darling, you've commanded the Netherbrain and danced with the Weave itself; don't you think grading freshman evocation essays is going to bore you to actual tears?'" Astarion's smile was radiant, sharp, and absolutely lethal. "But you know Gale. He's so deeply philanthropic. He wants to give back to the little people."
Hanna's stirring faltered for half a beat.
Gale ducked his head to hide his expression, pretending to focus on shaping the loaf. When Astarion had appeared in the kitchen doorway three hours ago—having dispatched Tav to the barn with Morena after the briefest of reunion greetings—Gale's stomach had threatened to return his breakfast.
Before Astarion's arrival, Hanna had spent the morning dissecting him while paying scant attention to her kitchen tasks. Her concern-trolling landed blow after blow while he stood there and took it and wondered what he could possibly say to rescue either his application or his dignity. Managing both seemed totally out of reach. The thought of Astarion witnessing that humiliation, of learning about the professorship complications Gale had carefully minimized...
None of it had materialized.
Instead, Astarion had tied on an apron, picked up a knife, and proceeded to fillet Hanna Kumar like a fish.
Verbally, of course.
Though part of Gale wouldn't be surprised if the woman abruptly fell into her component parts in a spray of blood. Astarion's tongue was sharper than his knife.
"You must understand the committee's need to be so thorough in their review," Hanna tried again, recovering her rhythm. "Eight months is quite standard for applications of this... complexity."
"Is it?" Astarion's eyebrows rose in theatrical surprise. "How fascinating. And here I thought the delay was because you wanted to savor the moment." He swept the parsnip ribbons into a waiting bowl and reached for a turnip. "We're grateful you're on the committee, Hanna. Truly. It must be so thrilling for you."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Sitting in the same room for fifteen years. Looking at the same brick walls. Reviewing the same lackluster applications from the same eager young mages, year after year after year..." Astarion's voice dripped with something that might have been admiration if admiration could curdle. "And then Gale's application crosses your desk, and you finally get to touch a piece of real history." The knife paused. Astarion cocked his head. "The moment Gale Dekarios, hero of the Absolute crisis, would add his legacy to Blackstaff's. Don't worry. We won't tell anyone you delayed the process to drag out the excitement."
Hanna's face went through several colors in rapid succession.
Gale busied himself with assembling a pie filling, biting the inside of his cheek hard enough to hurt. He shouldn't find this arousing. He definitely shouldn't find this arousing. But watching Astarion dismantle his childhood tormentor with nothing but aggressive politeness and weaponized pity was doing things to him that were entirely inappropriate for his mother's kitchen.
"I hardly think—" Hanna started.
"Of course you don't, darling. That's not really your department, is it?" Astarion resumed his cutting, the blade singing against the board. "Gale, love, shall I julienne the carrots or would you prefer a rough chop for the stew?"
"Julienne," Gale managed, his voice only a little strangled. "For the slaw. The stew needs a larger dice."
"As you wish."
The afternoon continued in that vein. Every time Hanna attempted to steer the conversation toward Gale's "struggles" or his "recovery" or the committee's "concerns," Astarion redirected with the grace of a master fencer, treating Blackstaff Academy like a quaint hobby Gale was taking up for charity. Such a relief to enjoy ourselves longer in the wake of our triumphs before he takes up all his time with teaching. We've been so busy recovering the Netherstones, you understand. Reforging them and returning the Crown of Karsus to Mystra. You've probably read about it? No? Well, we wouldn't expect the academic journals to keep up with current events...
Hanna's composed facade cracked a little more with each exchange.
She couldn't report Gale for having an unstable partner—Astarion was being nothing but supportive and cheerful and humiliatingly nice. There was no complaint to file, no ammunition to gather. There was only the slow, excruciating realization that she was being pitied by someone who genuinely found her life tragic.
By the time the afternoon light began to slant toward gold, Gale had stopped feeling guilty about burdening Astarion with this mess. His beloved was having far too much fun for guilt to survive.
"I think," Hanna said stiffly, setting down her stirring spoon, "I should return to the inn to freshen up before dinner."
"What a wonderful idea." Astarion's knife continued working through the carrots. "The walk will do you good. All that fresh air, all that... space to think about things."
The door slammed closed behind her.
Gale exhaled, sagging against the counter. "You," he said, "are absolutely brilliant."
"Thank you, darling." Astarion set down the knife and stretched, rolling his shoulders. "She'd been tormenting you all morning, hadn't she? Tara mentioned something about childhood difficulties."
"Tara was right, and I'm glad she warned you. Though you should have heard it from me." Gale rubbed his face. "I should have told you about the application. About the delays. I kept saying it was just bureaucracy, but—"
"But you didn't want to worry me with your problems while I was busy drowning in my own?" Astarion's voice was dry. "Funny. I believe I employed a similar strategy last night."
Their eyes met across the kitchen. Something passed between them. The shared absurdity of two people who loved each other trying so hard not to be burdens that they'd both become liars.
"We're rather terrible at this, aren't we?" Gale said.
"Definite room for improvement." Astarion's mouth curved. "But I'm told practice helps."
The light shifted again, amber deepening toward rose. Outside the window, the sun touched the horizon. As darkness fell, they put the fruits of their labors in the chill pantry and frozen pantry to await the party.
Gale straightened, moving to check the roast for dinner. "Dal and Aurelia should be arriving soon. Mother set the formal dining room already, and she and Tav will both want to get cleaned up from the barn work." He paused, glancing at Astarion. "Are you... Will you be alright? Having them here?"
Something flickered across Astarion's face, too fast to read. "I'll manage."
"You don't have to manage. We could—"
A knock at the kitchen door interrupted him. Gale crossed to open it, and there they stood: Dalyria in plain, practical clothes; Aurelia hovering behind her in a frilly pale blue gown, wringing her hands.
"Mr. Dekarios." Dal's voice was cool, suspicious. "We were told to arrive at sunset."
"And so you have. Perfect timing. Call me Gale." Gale stepped back, holding the door wide. "And please, come in. Mother and Tav will join us shortly. We have blood warming on the stove in a bain-marie. We can all dine together."
Dal's red eyes narrowed, as if searching for the trap. Aurelia's widened.
"You... warmed blood?" Aurelia's voice pitched high with surprise. "For us?"
"Of course. You're Astarion's family. That makes you our guests of honor." Gale gestured toward the kitchen table, where three blue glass goblets waited beside a warming pot.
The formal dining room glowed with candlelight half an hour later, the long table set with Morena's best linens and the eclectic collection of guests arranged around it like pieces on a board. Morena presided at one end, resplendent in deep purple silk, while Tara perched on a cushioned stand beside her, wings folded primly. Tav sat across from Gale, looking road-worn but comfortable, already deep in conversation with Morena about some creature they'd encountered on the journey. Hanna had returned, freshly powdered and composed, positioned as far from the vampire spawn as the seating arrangement allowed.
The dinner passed like a three-sided diplomatic summit where all parties had agreed to a ceasefire without anyone admitting there'd been a war.
Gale and Astarion let Morena and Tav carry the conversation—Tav regaling the table with tales from their new adventuring party while Morena peppered them with questions about road conditions and whether they'd been eating enough. When Hanna attempted one last sally, something pointed about "the committee's responsibility to consider the appropriateness of candidates as role models for youth," Astarion had parried with a breezy observation about how refreshing it must be for someone in Hanna's position to finally have an application worth deliberating over at such length.
Tara seized the opening. "Indeed, Professor Kumar. One imagines the deliberations must be reaching their natural conclusion by now? Eight months of careful consideration for a candidate of Mr. Dekarios's credentials seems quite thorough."
"And I'm sure your mother will be delighted to hear how closely you've been following Gale's career," Morena continued, her smile knowing. "She always said you two would find your way back to each other professionally. All those afternoons you spent together as children..." She sighed fondly. "I do hope the committee reaches a decision before the party. It would make such a lovely announcement, don't you think? Something for both our families to celebrate. Together."
Gale's fork froze halfway to his mouth. Morena knew.
Hanna's mouth opened and closed twice before she managed a reply. "Mother is coming to the party?"
Gale glanced at Tara. The tressym's whiskers twitched.
You told Morena.
Tara' curled her tail around her paws, utterly unrepentant.
Morena smiled warmly. "Yes, of course."
Hanna stared blankly for all of three seconds, and then nodded vaguely. She hadn't spoken again except to compliment the roast.
Dal had watched the exchange with sharp, assessing eyes, but Gale gave her no opening. He'd asked about her medical background with genuine interest, ensured their goblets stayed full, and even managed to talk Aurelia into singing at the engagement party. When Dal's gaze had flicked between him and Astarion—searching, perhaps, for cracks in their united front—she'd found none worth exploiting.
Trouble simmered beneath the surface there. Gale had caught the way Astarion's shoulders tensed whenever Dal spoke, the careful distance he maintained. He wished he and Astarion had discussed what had happened between them. But good manners held the truce, and the evening ended without disaster.
The night air carried the scent of Morena's lilacs as the party filed out the front door, a strange procession of vampires, adventurers, and one increasingly flustered professor.
"Such a lovely evening," Tara called from her perch on the windowsill, wings rustling with satisfaction. "Do sleep well, everyone."
Ahead of them, Tav fell back to walk between Gale and Astarion, voice pitched low. "Is she always like this?"
"Dal? Unfortunately." Astarion's mouth twitched. "She's like a scalpel that learned to talk."
"Not her." Tav jerked their chin toward Hanna's retreating back. "The professor. Does she always look like she's swallowed a lemon whole?"
"Only when she's losing," Gale murmured.
Tav's grin spread. "Interesting. I wonder what happens when all that tension unwinds."
Alarm bells rang in Gale's head, but they had arrived before he could pull Tav back and ask them what they thought they were doing.
The Darling Dahlia's taproom wrapped around them in golden light and the hum of evening patrons. They claimed a corner table.
Tav ordered drinks for the table, then leaned back, studying Hanna with undisguised interest.
"So." Tav's voice carried that warmth Gale remembered from the road, a tone that frequently preceded either violence or an invitation to bed. Oh dear. Gale considered warning Hanna about Tav's rather mercurial passions but decided it was hardly his responsibility. "Professor Kumar. You must have fascinating stories about our Gale's childhood."
Hanna blinked, caught off-guard by direct attention that wasn't hostile. "I... well. He was very... intense as a child."
"Intense." Tav's smile deepened. "I love intense." They shifted closer, and Gale watched Hanna's composure flicker. "I bet you were intense too. Tell me everything."
Three drinks later, Tav had migrated to Hanna's side of the table, their knee brushing hers, their full attention a spotlight she'd clearly never experienced. The rest of the table made polite conversation about the musical instruments in which Aurelia was proficient and tried to ignore the blatant seduction in progress.
Gale kept one ear on Tav's machinations and wondered if everyone was better at managing Hanna than he was. Every pointed observation about Gale's "struggles" had been redirected into breathless confessions about committee politics, academic pressures, the loneliness of being the only one who truly understood proper procedure—
"You know what I think?" Tav leaned in, voice dropping to an intimate tone. "I think you need someone who appreciates how hard you work."
Hanna's cheeks flushed. "I—that's—"
"Let me buy you something stronger. At the bar." Tav stood, offering a hand. "It's quieter there."
Gale watched them go. Tav's hand settled on the small of Hanna's back as they guided her toward the bar. Within minutes, they'd migrated toward the stairs, Hanna's protests growing increasingly half-hearted.
The table fell silent.
Aurelia's head swiveled between the departing figures and Astarion. "Did... did Tav just..."
"Yes," Astarion said, lifting his goblet. "Yes, they did. You might say their tastes are…eclectic."
Gale's gaze met Astarion's across the table, and their eyes crinkled at the faint residual awkwardness of two men watching their shared ex ascend a staircase with new prey.
Eclectic tastes indeed.
Astarion's mouth twitched. Heat crept up Gale's neck.
Looking at Astarion now, Gale couldn't remember why Tav's approval had ever mattered so much. It felt like a fever dream from another life.
"Well." Dal's voice cut through the moment. "Now that that awkward and inexplicable pairing has left the room."
She fixed Gale with those flat red eyes. The candlelight caught her silver hair, and for a moment she looked eerily like Astarion's actual sister, if Astarion's actual sister had been carved from ice and disapproval.
"Gale. May I ask a rather bold question?"
Beside him, Astarion's posture shifted. Not quite defensive. Bracing.
"Of course." Gale folded his hands on the table, keeping his voice pleasant. "What's on your mind?"
"You crafted that ring." She nodded toward Astarion's hand. "The one that lets him walk in daylight."
"I did."
"So you have immense skill. Power." Her gaze sharpened. "As we've heard Astarion brag about to Hanna all evening. Yet you've chosen to give him a trinket instead of a cure."
Aurelia made a small, distressed sound. Astarion's jaw tightened, but Gale held up a hand before his beloved could leap to his defense.
"Go on," Gale said. He wanted to understand her position, although he hoped he had already foreseen this potential envy and had the solution in hand.
Dal leaned forward. "You bargained with Mystra herself. You held the Crown of Karsus in your hands. You've touched power that most wizards can't even conceptualize." Her voice remained perfectly level, which somehow made it worse. "And you're letting my brother rot as a spawn. Why? Is it convenient for you? Having him dependent on your magic? On your mercy?"
Gale felt Astarion coil beside him, felt the furious words building—but this wasn't Astarion's fight. Not this time.
"Those are fair questions." Gale kept his voice soft and steady. "May I answer them?"
Dal's eyes narrowed, suspicious of the lack of defensiveness. "Please."
"The ring is a permanent enchantment. My magic is unnecessary in maintaining it. My hope was to free Astarion, not control him. He could leave tomorrow and walk in the sun for eternity without me, though of course I hope he will choose to share that eternity with me instead." Gale smiled at Astarion and received a smile in return.
Dal scoffed, and Gale rushed to continue before she could derail his explanation. "But I think I understand where your frustration is coming from. You must also long for such freedom, and I hasten to explain it wasn't meant to be a singular gift." Gale reached into his robe pocket and withdrew a small velvet pouch—the one Tara had delivered that afternoon, heavy with components. "I've been working on more. For you. For Aurelia. For any of Astarion's family who wished to walk in daylight again."
Aurelia gasped. Dal went very still.
"Tara's spent several weeks sourcing the rarer materials," Gale continued, opening the pouch to reveal glittering fragments of moonstone and threads of silver that seemed to drink the candlelight. "I'd hoped to have the rings ready as gifts. A thank you for traveling so far to celebrate with us. A welcome to the family." He smiled, rueful. "Unfortunately, some of the components proved difficult to obtain." At least at prices he could currently afford to pay, Gale did not say. "But if you're willing to remain in the area for a week or so after the party, I should be able to complete them."
The silence stretched.
Gale watched Dal's face cycle through a fascinating series of expressions—surprise, suspicion, and then a dawning horror that Gale couldn't understand. What had happened between the spawn last night?
Across the table, Astarion's expression transformed. His eyes lit with vicious, delighted vindication. He had the look of a cat watching a mouse realize the hole it ran into was a dead end. His smile spread, slow and sharp.
"How generous of you, darling." Astarion's voice dripped honey. "Isn't that generous, Dal? Rings for everyone. Sunlight for the whole family." He leaned back, crossing his arms. "Of course, you don't have to accept them. If they're just temporary bandages to you. Workarounds. Not real solutions."
Dal's nostrils flared.
"Unless," Astarion continued, examining his own ring with theatrical interest, "you've reconsidered your position? Perhaps the sun is worth having after all, even if it comes in… trinket form?"
"The ring is not the point." Dal's composure cracked at the edges. "The point is that you have access to one of the most powerful wizards in Faerûn, and you're content with—"
"First, Gale is far more to me than access to power, and you will not reduce him to such again in my hearing. Second, content with what?" Astarion's voice sharpened. "With being able to stand in a garden without burning? With watching the sunset from somewhere other than the deepest shadows?"
"With half-measures." Dal pressed forward, redirecting her attention to Gale. "You have the knowledge. The resources. Why haven't you researched a proper cure? Why aren't you working to restore what Cazador stole from him?"
The question landed like a thrown gauntlet.
Gale felt the weight of it—felt, too, the uncomfortable squirm of his own inadequacy. He had thought about it. One day, he would achieve his former levels of power. One day he hoped he could literally offer Astarion whatever he wished. And it stung more than a little that today wasn't that day.
Part of him wanted to protect his ego by making excuses for his lack of current magical ability. But that wasn't what Dal was really questioning.
"Could I cure it?" Gale replied. "Not today, but one day, I think so." He paused, letting that hang. "But Dalyria... I wouldn't presume to unmake the man I fell in love with unless he asked me to."
Dal opened her mouth, but Gale continued, his voice gaining strength.
"Astarion has spent two centuries having his body altered against his will by powerful men. Carved. Controlled. Transformed to serve another's purposes." The words came from somewhere deep, somewhere true. "I flatly refuse to be the next one. I will do whatever I can to make whatever magic he wants, if and when he wants it." He met Dal's gaze squarely. "But if he doesn't ask? If he decides that who he is now is who he wants to remain? Then I am honored—honored—to walk beside him, in the sun or in darkness, exactly as he is."
The noise of the tavern around them filled the silence at the table as everyone caught their breath.
Aurelia's hand had drifted to her chest, her expression soft with hope. Dal's face had gone blank, a surgeon confronted with a patient who refused treatment.
And Astarion—
Gale turned to look at him.
Astarion was staring at Gale as though he'd never seen him before. His red eyes were wide, his lips parted, and his expression blazed so raw and fierce it made Gale's breath catch.
"Right." Astarion's voice came out rough. "We're leaving."
"Yes, we have." Astarion was already on his feet, his hand at Gale's elbow prompting him to rise. "You came, you saw, you interrogated my fiancé about his failings in your—frankly absurd—estimation. Congratulations. I'm sure it was very satisfying."
"Astarion—" Dal started.
"Good night, Dalyria."
"You haven't spent any time with us! We traveled twelve days through the Underdark—"
"And you'll be here for the party. We'll have plenty of time to chat about my inadequate life choices then." Gale tried to wave his goodbyes as Astarion towed him away from the table. "Aurelia, lovely to see you."
"Oh!" Aurelia brightened. "Thank you! When do you—"
But Astarion was already dragging Gale toward the stairs, leaving Dal sputtering protests and Aurelia half-risen from her seat, uncertain which authority figure to follow.
The staircase blurred past. Astarion hauled him up the wooden treads fast enough to steal his breath.
They hit the second-floor landing. Astarion fumbled the key into the lock, shoved the door open, and pulled Gale inside.
The suite was dark, moonlight streaming through the windows, and Gale barely had time to register the sitting room before Astarion's mouth was on his.
Astarion crowded him against the nearest wall, taking his lips with a bruising, open need. Astarion's hands fisted in Gale's robes, dragging him closer, and Gale went willingly, eagerly, his own hands finding Astarion's waist, his back, the sharp lines of his shoulder blades.
"That," Astarion breathed against his lips, "was the most arousing thing anyone has ever said about me."
"The part about refusing to cure you?"
"The part about honoring me." Astarion bit Gale's lower lip, sharp enough to sting. "Do you have any idea—any idea—how insufferable she's been? And you just—" Another kiss, deeper. "—you absolute bastard, I love you so much—"
They stumbled through the sitting area, into the bedroom, Astarion's fingers working at Gale's buttons with a speed that bordered on supernatural. No squeaking floorboards. No mother coughing through the ceiling. No childhood artifacts staring down in judgment.
Just them, a solid bed, and the emotional high of having just defended each other against their respective nemeses.
Gale's back hit the mattress. Astarion followed him down, and Gale reached up to trace the sharp line of his jaw—
Thump.
They both froze.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
The sound came from the wall. The shared wall with another room. A rhythmic, unmistakable percussion of headboard against plaster.
"Oh," Gale breathed. "Oh, no."
Through the painfully thin barrier, a voice rose—breathy, climbing, unfortunately recognizable.
"Yes—right there—oh gods—"
Hanna Kumar. Making sounds Gale had never wanted to imagine and would now never be able to forget.
Above him, Astarion had gone rigid. His expression cycled through horror, disbelief, and finally cosmic outrage.
"More—please—"
A lower voice responded. Encouraging. Familiar.
Tav.
Gale's brain short-circuited. He was lying in bed with his fiancé, listening to his ex fuck his childhood bully through an inch of plaster. The headboard's tempo increased.
"This isn't happening," Astarion said flatly.
"Don't stop—"
"This is absolutely not happening."
Gale covered his face with both hands. Through his fingers, he could see the ceiling—the ceiling of the suite they'd rented specifically for privacy.
The thumping intensified.
Astarion sat up. His hair was disheveled, his shirt half-undone, and his expression had shifted from outrage to determination.
"No." He grabbed Gale by the robes. "Absolutely not. I am not being denied a second night, Gale."
"The walls—"
"I don't care if we have to fuck in the dirt." Astarion hauled Gale upright. His eyes blazed. "We are going to find a place I can have you without listening to that in the background. In fact, I think I know just the place."
Work Summary: Astarion was replanting weeds at midnight. His fiancé was sucking up to a childhood bully. The engagement party was in four days. Nothing was wrong. Except the things that were—starting with why he's more devastated by a pile of uprooted garden weeds than he ever was about killing people.
Written for the BG3 Month of May Community Event Bring May Flowers 2026: Week 1 – In Bloom. “Weeds” keyword.
This is a sequel to Blind Spots but can be read as a standalone.
Work Content Tags: Post-Canon, POV Alternating, POV Astarion, POV Gale, In Character, Vampire Spawn Astarion, Non-God Gale, Hopeless Romantic Gale, Soft Astarion, Found Family, Erotic Comedy, Humor, Banter, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Domestic Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Imposter Syndrome, Struggling with Self-Acceptance, Happy Ending, Crack Treated Seriously, Established Relationship, Idiots in Love, Emotional Intimacy, Explicit Sexual Content, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Astarion's Past Abuse, Gale's Past Abuse, Explicit Consent, Enthusiastic Consent, Safe Sane and Consensual, Top/Bottom Versatile Astarion and Gale, Gale Has a Big Dick, Good Boy Gale, Frottage, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Creampie, Anal Gaping, Hands-free Orgasm, Aftercare, Post-Coital Cuddling, Praise Kink, Dirty Talk, Vampire Bites, Consensual Blood Drinking, Multiple Orgasms, Cuddling & Snuggling, Sex Toys, Prostate Stimulator, Dirty Sex, like actual sex in the mud, Locked Door Energy, Made up spells and magical sex toys, Engagement party shenanigans, Meeting the future mother-in-law, Tav is a menace, Sibling drama, Dalyria has no chill, Gale Wants to be a Sugar Daddy (He's Trying His Best), Astarion is Performing Respectability (And Hating It), Communication happens…eventually, Bring May Flowers, BG3 May Flowers,~28K words
Read this chapter below the break or on AO3!
Astarion
The morning had been perfect.
Astarion had spent nearly eight months in darkness after both he and Gale had rejected their respective opportunities for ascension in favor of a life together. Eight months after the tadpole's protection vanished, and he and Gale had moved to Gale's carefully curtained tower in Waterdeep. Eight months of watching Gale feverishly researching ways to give Astarion the sun back. Eight months of scheduling their existence around the sun's movements like a prisoner tracking guard rotations.
But now—
Now he had the ring. Dear, clever, wonderful Gale had spent weeks crafting it after he'd found whatever bit of lore he needed to make it work, weaving protective enchantments into the simple silver band until Astarion could stand in full daylight without so much as a tingle. And gods, had he stood in it today. He'd planted flowers alongside Morena while the sun warmed his shoulders, had felt the heat sink into his perpetually cool skin like a long-forgotten embrace. He'd made charming conversation about hydrangea placement and laughed at Morena's stories about young Gale while adult Gale did his thing in her kitchen.
Astarion had been normal. Useful. The kind of prospective son-in-law a mother dreams of.
The afternoon, however, had gone rather oddly sideways.
Not because of Morena. She remained lovely, the embodiment of warm bustling purpose as she knelt beside him in the apothecary garden, her purple sleeves rolled past her elbows and her silver-threaded hair escaping its pins. No, Morena was perfect.
The problem was the bucket.
"Now, you see this one?" Morena pointed to an unassuming green sprout wedged between two tomato plants. "Looks innocent enough, doesn't it? But that's purslane. Edible, but spreads like gossip at a noble's funeral if you let it get comfortable in the wrong spot."
Astarion grasped near the base as instructed, wiggled to loosen the roots, and pulled. The plant came up with a satisfying snick of broken earth, trailing thin white tendrils like desperate fingers.
Into the bucket it went.
"Excellent form," Morena said. "You're a natural."
"You're a good teacher." Astarion's voice was lighter than he felt. Another weed. Another pull. Another small corpse for the tin bucket.
Morena sat back on her heels, surveying their progress. "Tomorrow we'll tackle the barn. Gale and I will give the main floor a good going-over with Prestidigitation in the morning and then he'll retreat to the kitchen for his par baking and other preparations."
"Par baking?" Astarion seized another weed. This one had deeper roots. It resisted.
"He's making three kinds of bread and both savory and sweet pies." Morena shook her head fondly. "Par baking is partially baking something. You can freeze it and then finish the bake quickly later. It will save time in the ovens the day before the party when they'll be booked every minute. Anyway, that leaves the rest of tomorrow free for you and me to arrange the furniture and decorations," Morena continued. "Set up the stage, mark out the dance floor. I've got some lovely fairy-fire lanterns that change color based on the music—bought them off a traveling artificer two summers ago and haven't had a proper occasion to use them since."
"Sounds delightful." Another weed. This one was flowering—tiny white blossoms no bigger than his smallest fingernail. He hesitated.
"That's chickweed," Morena said. "Pretty, but aggressive. It'll choke out the lettuces if we leave it."
Right. Into the bucket.
"Thirdday the out-of-town guests should start arriving, so we'll have plenty of hands for last-minute preparations. Gale will be absolutely frantic in the kitchen by then, of course, but the rest of you can manage the last minute details, and I'll be in the kitchen with him for most of the day."
"And Fourthday is the main event." Astarion's bucket was half-full now. Half-full of pulled plants, their roots dangling pale and exposed, soil still clinging to the fine hair-thin tendrils that had anchored them to hard-won life.
"Engagement party time!" Morena beamed at him. "I can't tell you how pleased I am, Astarion. To have Gale home, to see him happy, to be planning a wedding for the autumn—" She pressed a dirt-smudged hand to her chest. "When he locked himself in that tower, I thought—well. Never mind what I thought. He's here now. You're both here. And we're going to celebrate properly."
"We certainly are." Astarion meant it. He did. This was everything he'd wanted: acceptance, family, a place in Gale's world that didn't require him to hide what he was. Morena had stocked pig's blood in her pantry without being asked. She'd insisted he invite his own guests, and fie to anyone who might balk at vampire spawn on the guest list. She'd treated him like a person from the moment they'd arrived, not a monster her son had inexplicably decided to marry.
So why did he feel like screaming?
He pulled another weed. And another. The bucket grew heavier.
"—don't you think?"
Astarion blinked. "Sorry?"
"I said, the lilacs should be in full bloom by then. The ones we transplanted this morning along the lane." Morena paused her weeding as she studied him. "Are you feeling alright? You've gone quiet."
"Perfectly fine." He summoned his best charming smile. The one that had lured countless victims to their deaths, now repurposed for influencing future mothers-in-law. "Lost in thought about how lovely everything will look."
"Hmm." She didn't look entirely convinced, but she returned to her weeding without pressing.
By the time the sun began its descent toward the treeline, casting long shadows across the flower beds, Astarion's bucket was full. His knees ached from kneeling on the packed earth. His broken fingernail—victim of a tragic incident with a fumbled trowel that morning—throbbed with each movement.
He hadn't mentioned the fingernail once. Let no one say he couldn't suffer in silence when the occasion demanded.
"Well!" Morena rose, brushing dirt from her apron. "That's a good afternoon's work. Let's get these to the compost pile before we lose the light."
Astarion lifted his bucket. It was filled with uprooted plants. Each one had been growing that morning. Each one had been alive, anchored, surviving in its small patch of soil.
Now they'd wither in a heap with the other garden refuse. Too stubborn. Too aggressive. Growing in the wrong place at the wrong time.
They're weeds, he told himself firmly. They don't belong here. That's rather the point.
The compost pile sat at the far edge of the garden proper, a massive earthen mound that Morena had clearly been tending for decades. The smell of rich, earthly decomposition hit Astarion from three steps away.
He upended his bucket onto the pile. The weeds tumbled out, tangling together, their roots already beginning to curl as they dried. Tomorrow they'd be wilted. In a week, unrecognizable. In a month, nothing but nutrients to feed the plants that did belong.
"There we are." Morena dumped her own contribution and stretched, pressing her hands into her lower back. "Thank you for your help, dear. I know it's not the most glamorous work, not as fun as the planting, but—"
"I enjoyed it." The lie came easily. "Fresh air, good company, useful labor. What more could I ask?"
The sun had dipped below the treeline now. The sky was painted in streaks of amber and rose. Beautiful.
Morena peered at him with a concern that reminded him uncomfortably of the way Gale looked at him sometimes. "You're sure you didn't get too much sun? You look a bit—"
"Gale's made absolutely certain that can't happen." Astarion touched his ring. The subtle hum of protective magic vibrated against his fingertip." He was terribly thorough about it. Tested every possible variable, made me stand in direct noon light for an hour while he took notes and fretted. You know how he is."
Morena's face softened. "I do know how he is. Always taking care of the people he loves, even when they don't ask."
"Especially when they don't ask," Astarion agreed. "He's rather wonderful about it, actually."
"Gets that from his father." Morena began walking back toward the house, and Astarion fell into step beside her. Morena’s homestead was on the outskirts of Waterdeep, not far off a trade road into the city but several hours walk from their tower in Waterdeep proper. The house was a single story with a high-ceilinged attic Gale had made his lair during his teenage years. It sat between Morena’s gorgeous gardens and a forest and had a large, unused barn they’d use to host the event, once they’d gussied it up.
They entered through the kitchen door, and there was Gale—aproned, flour-dusted, stirring something fragrant on the stove while simultaneously consulting a cookbook propped open on the counter. He looked up at their arrival, his face alight with a stunning smile.
How was Astarion supposed to be worthy of that smile? How was anyone?
"Perfect timing," Gale said. "Supper's nearly ready. Nothing fancy—just a vegetable soup and some bread. Sit, sit, before it goes cold."
"We're filthy," Astarion protested, gesturing at his dirty hands and knees.
Gale waved a hand, and a shimmer of Prestidigitation swept over both of them—dirt vanishing, clothes fresh, skin clean. The spell tingled across his broken fingernail, but of course it couldn't heal that, only clean the dirt from under it.
"There," Gale said, satisfied. "Now sit. Mother, there's a bowl for you. Astarion—"
He'd set out only a glass of wine at Astarion's place. A deep red vintage that matched the color Astarion saw every time he bit into Gale's throat.
"You're spoiling me," Astarion said, sliding into his seat. The wine meant Gale would be feeding him from the vein tonight instead of with the pig's blood in the pantry, and a keen ache of anticipation pressed in his groin.
"That's rather the idea." Gale ladled soup into Morena's bowl, then frowned as his gaze dropped to Astarion's hand on the wine glass. "What happened to your fingernail?"
"A trowel gone awry. The vicious beast attacked without warning. It's nothing."
"Let me see." Gale was already rounding the table, taking Astarion's hand in his own warm fingers. The nail had cracked horizontally across the quick, leaving an edge that caught on everything. "Ouch. That must have been bothering you all afternoon."
"I suffered bravely." Astarion gave Morena a wink to assuage the worry crinkling her brow while Gale examined the damage. "It's just a fingernail, darling. It'll heal by morning."
"Hold on." Gale released his hand and disappeared into the next room, returning moments later with a small leather case. Nail clippers. He knelt beside Astarion's chair and began trimming away the damaged portion.
It was such a small thing. Such a mundane, domestic, normal thing—having someone notice you were hurt and immediately move to fix it. Astarion had spent two centuries learning that pain was meant to be hidden, endured, survived. That showing weakness invited worse.
And here was Gale, kneeling on his mother's kitchen floor, frowning in concentration as he shaped Astarion's fingernail into something that wouldn't catch on the sheets.
"There." Gale sat back. "Better?"
"Much. Thank you." Astarion smiled down at Gale but caught Morena's approving smile from the corner of his eye. Well, quite. Who wouldn't be proud of a son like Gale?
"Always." Gale pressed a kiss to his knuckles before rising and returning to his own seat.
Astarion sipped his wine and tried not to think about the compost pile. About roots drying in the evening air. About creatures that didn't belong, no matter how hard they tried. Who didn't have anyone to trim off their rough edges.
The meal was nearly finished—Morena was telling a story about young Gale's first attempt at a fireball and the demise of the neighbor's roses—when Gale went peculiar.
His eyes unfocused. His spoon stopped halfway to his mouth. That distinctive someone's talking inside my head expression crossed his features.
"What is it?" Astarion set down his wine glass.
Gale's frown deepened as he listened to whatever voice was echoing through his skull. After a long moment, he blinked back to awareness. He muttered a quick "We'll take care of it," before turning to Astarion. "That was Rolan. Relayed from Cal, apparently—he used their paired sending stones to ask Rolan to contact me. Dalyria and Aurelia have arrived at the Darling Dahlia. Early. And they don't have the pig's blood we arranged for Thirdday yet."
The phantom taste of the wine soured on his tongue.
"Cal says—and I quote—'Get over here before they do something awkward.'"
"They're early?" The words snapped out of Astarion. "Two days early! We discussed this. We had a plan."
"Apparently plans are suggestions to some people." Gale rose from his seat. "It's fine. We'll just—"
"It's not fine." The words came out in a hiss. Morena's gaze weighed heavily on him. His performance was slipping, the careful facade of the perfect son-in-law fracturing with every passing second. He should stop. He should smile and shrug and be charming about it.
He couldn't.
Those damned spawn. His damned spawn, his damned responsibility, the creatures he'd chosen to spare when he rejected the Rite. He'd thought—stupidly, naively—that sparing them meant he was done with them. That they'd go their separate ways and he'd never have to deal with the walking reminders of his centuries of degradation again.
And then Morena had asked, with that maddening, oblivious warmth, if he had any family of his own to invite. Anyone who might want to celebrate with him. And Astarion had browsed his mental list of connections and found it devastatingly short: the party and friends from their adventures, who were already invited as shared guests, and... them. The other survivors of Cazador's cruelty.
"We have the pig's blood we'd stocked for you." Morena rose from her own seat. "Plenty for two for a night. The butcher can provide more tomorrow."
"You shouldn't have to—" Astarion started.
"Nonsense. You're family now, which means your family is my family. Even the complicated bits." She patted his arm. "The chilled pantry, third shelf, blue glass jar."
Astarion retrieved the jar. It was cold and heavy in his hands, sloshing with its dark contents. Enough to keep two hungry spawn from doing something awkward. From embarrassing him. From reminding everyone that he wasn't really the charming, witty, daylight-walking creature he'd been performing all day. That underneath the ring and the banter and the perfectly trimmed fingernails, he was just another monster from Cazador's collection.
Maybe, a vicious voice whispered, Morena had the right idea about weeds all along. Some things just don't belong in polite company. Some things need to be plucked out.
"I'll come with you," Gale said, reaching for his cloak.
"No." Astarion softened it with a smile that felt like glass. "I'll handle it."
"It's no trouble—"
"This is my garden to weed." The words came out before Astarion could stop them.
Gale's brow furrowed. "Your... garden?"
"Never mind." Astarion crossed to him, pressed a kiss to lips that tasted of vegetable soup and warmth and everything Astarion didn't deserve. "I'll see you in bed later."
He let his eyebrows do the promising for him. Bed would fix this. Bed always fixed things between them. The comfortable dark, Gale's hands on his skin, the sweet copper taste of blood freely given. He could survive an awkward encounter with his spawn siblings if he knew that was waiting for him.
Gale's expression softened. "Don't be too long."
"Wouldn't dream of it."
Astarion stepped out into the night, jar clutched to his chest, and let the too-familiar darkness swallow him whole.
Astarion
The Darling Dahlia Inn and Tavern glowed in the darkness, every window blazing with warm light that spilled across the cobblestone courtyard. A few months ago the windows would have been dark and the inn silent. The previous owner had passed on with no children willing to take over the operation.
At Morena’s recommendation and with Rolan’s financial backing—now that he had the resources of Sorcerous Sundries at his disposal—Cal and Lia had bought the heirs out. The better to be closer to Rolan without being too close. And so the inn, which lay on the trade road near Morena’s homestead, had come to life again in time to host the guests for their party.
Astarion paused at the edge of the property, jar cold against his chest. A well-dressed merchant couple emerged from a polished carriage. Their laughter carried across the night air—bright, careless, utterly oblivious to the monster standing in the shadows.
This is fine, he told himself. You've handled worse. You've handled Cazador.
The comparison sat wrong in his stomach. He wasn't handling an enemy anymore. He was handling... family? Friends? The words tasted strange, even in his own mind.
When he thought of family, he thought of the new one he was making, not the old mess he'd left behind.
He crossed the courtyard and nodded to the liveried groom who startled at his appearance out of the gloom. The massive oak doors of the inn stood open, releasing a wash of warmth, and the scent of roasting pheasant and expensive pipe weed. Astarion stepped inside, and the taproom stretched before him. It was replete with heavy tables, comfortable chairs, and a huge hearth with a fire banked against the mild chill of the spring night.
He made his way through the room. And there, at a corner table partially obscured by a support beam, sat his "siblings."
Aurelia hunched in her seat like a kicked dog, her crimson tiefling features almost comically miserable beneath her black horns. She'd dressed for the occasion in a frilly lavender gown entirely inappropriate for Underdark travel, now rumpled and dusty from the journey. Her flat red eyes—no longer glowing with Cazador's compulsion, thanks to him—darted between Dal and the bar, where Cal stood with his arms crossed and his amber eyes narrowed.
Dal, by contrast, sat up straight. Her silver-white hair had escaped its bun during travel, wisps framing a face that could have been carved from marble. She met Cal's glare with a cool, unblinking stare.
The other patrons had given them a wide berth. Of course they had. Two red-eyed women—one with horns, one excessively pale—weren't exactly the Dahlia's usual clientele. Sidelong glances and whispered speculation prickled against his skin. They sensed the air of wrongness that clung to his kind if not carefully disguised.
Dal wasn't disguising anything.
Cal spotted him first. Relief washed over the tiefling's features, his shoulders dropping as he uncrossed his arms.
"Finally," Cal said.
Dal's head swiveled. Her gaze found Astarion, tracked down to the blue glass jar in his hands, and her lips pressed into a thin line.
"Brother." The word carried no warmth. "What kind of welcome is this? Did you not prepare for our arrival at all?"
Brother. The title scraped against his nerves. They weren't siblings. They were survivors of the same catastrophe, nothing more. Bound by trauma and the lingering ghost of a monster who'd stolen their lives and carved a contract into their backs.
Well, Astarion was nurturing a new life now. And he'd do whatever it took to see it bloom.
Astarion crossed to the table. He kept his voice low and controlled despite the fury clawing at his throat. "Your invitation was for Thirdday. As was your reservation here." He slammed the jar down. "You're two days early. Cal and Lia had no notice, no time to complete the planned preparations, including—" he gestured at the jar— "no supply of pig's blood to keep you from doing something unfortunate to their other guests."
"We weren't going to—" Aurelia started.
"The schedule was very clear," Astarion continued, ignoring her. "I sent three separate messages. Thirdday arrival. Thirdday."
Cal picked up the jar and retreated behind the bar. Glass clinked as he poured the dark contents into two pewter tankards.
Dal's expression didn't flicker. "You should know how unpredictable travel through the Underdark can be. We left early to account for delays." A pause. "There were none."
"So you just... showed up? Two days ahead of schedule?"
"What were we supposed to do?" Dal spread her hands. "Lurk at the exit to the Underdark, waiting for Thirdday night to roll around? Sleep in a cave for forty-eight hours while the exit sat right there?"
The explanation was logical. Fair, even. Astarion hated it.
He could feel the eyes of the other patrons on them. A merchant two tables over had stopped mid-conversation to stare. A woman near the hearth clutched her wine glass like a talisman.
"Fine," he managed. "You're here. Drink your blood, go to your room, and stay out of sight until—"
"Stay out of sight?" Dal's voice sharpened. "We've been traveling for twelve days through monster-infested tunnels. I'd hoped my brother might join us for a drink. Catch up on the past few months. Exchange pleasantries like civilized people."
"Yes!" Aurelia perked up, her misery momentarily forgotten. "We haven't seen you since—well, since everything. Dal says you've been living on the surface full-time now? In a wizard's tower? That sounds so exciting! I have so many questions about—"
"It's been a long day," Astarion cut in. "I'm headed for bed."
Dal's eyebrows rose. "A long day? It's barely past sunset."
"Yes, well." He touched the ring on his finger reflexively and then tried to disguise the tell with a dismissive flip of his wrist. "Some of us have adjusted our schedules."
"Adjusted your—" Dal's eyes dropped to his hand. Straight to the ring, dammit. Her expression shifted, suspicion replacing irritation. "What is that?"
"A ring. Surely you've seen one before."
"Don't be glib." She reached across the table and seized his wrist before he could pull away. Her grip was iron-strong—spawn strength, the same as his—and her thumb pressed against the silver band. "This is enchanted. What does it do?"
Astarion yanked his hand back and sighed. Nothing for it, then. "Gale made it for me. It lets me walk in sunlight."
Silence.
Aurelia's mouth fell open. Dal's eyes narrowed to slits.
"You can walk in sunlight?" Aurelia's eyes widened. "Real sunlight? Not just... carefully timed dusk excursions through the shadows?"
"Full daylight. Noon, even." Astarion straightened his cuffs, aiming for casual. "Hence the adjusted schedule. I've been helping Morena—Gale's mother—in the garden all afternoon. I'm tired. I'm going to bed. And I have a long day planned tomorrow."
"A long day." Dal rolled the words around. "Gardening in the sunshine. With your future mother-in-law."
"Yes."
"After we traveled through the Underdark to attend your engagement party and showed up to a cold welcome."
"I didn't ask you to—" Astarion stopped himself. He had asked. Morena had asked if he had family, and he'd thought of them, picked two who were least likely to cause a disaster, and now here they were. His past made flesh. His weediest qualities given form and voice and an early arrival time.
Cal appeared with the two tankards of pig's blood He set them on the table with careful neutrality. Aurelia seized hers and drank deeply, but Dal ignored hers, her gaze still fixed on Astarion.
"A ring," she said. "A workaround. A... patch over the problem."
"It works perfectly well."
"For now." Her tone was chillingly certain. "But surely… You're engaged to an archmage, yes? A wizard of considerable power? Why settle for a ring when he could research an actual cure?"
The words bounced around and echoed in his mind.
Why settle for a ring. Why accept the workaround. Why not demand more.
"Gale isn't quite..." Astarion searched for words that didn't sound defensive. "He's still recovering. From the orb. His connection to the Weave was damaged, and while he's regaining his abilities, he's not exactly in a position to—"
"To prioritize his fiancé's fundamental condition?" Dal's eyebrow arched. "Interesting."
"He made me this ring. Weeks of research. Weeks of—"
"A ring is a bandage, brother. Not a cure." She picked up her tankard at last, examining the dark liquid within. "I've spent the past months continuing my research into vampire spawn physiology. I am convinced the condition can be reversed. It's difficult, dangerous, work—but you're marrying a wizard. A wealthy one, presumably. With connections. He could fix all of us."
Fix. Because of course we're broken.
He couldn't disagree. But Dal's assumptions, her expectations…
"It's not that simple."
"Isn't it?"
Astarion’s fingernails bit sharply into his palms, and the broken one stung. He forced his fingers to uncurl. The other patrons were definitely staring now. He could hear their heartbeats, smell their blood, feel the weight of their judgment pressing against his skin. Monster. Creature. Broken thing that didn't belong in their pretty inn with its pretty flowers and its pretty illusion of rustic simplicity.
"What are you going to do all night?" he asked, changing the subject with all the grace of a carriage wreck. "The sun won't rise until past five tomorrow. That's a lot of hours to fill."
A wicked smile curved Dal's lips. "Oh, I'm sure we'll think of something."
The smile sat wrong. Too knowing. Too sharp.
"What does that mean?"
"It means we're capable of entertaining ourselves, brother. We survived hundreds of years under Cazador. We can survive two nights in a luxury inn."
Before Astarion could press further, Lia emerged from the back hallway. The tiefling woman looked harried, her dark hair escaping its tie, but she managed a professional smile when she spotted him.
"There you are. I wanted to let you know—we've switched out the curtains in their room. Full blackout, not a sliver of light. Your guests are all set."
"Thank you." Astarion exhaled. "I apologize for the inconvenience."
"Inconvenience?" Dal snapped. "We're an inconvenience now?"
"That's not what I—"
"We came here to celebrate your engagement. To support you. To be family, however complicated that concept might be for all of us. And you're apologizing for our inconvenience?"
Aurelia's eyes darted between them, tankard clutched to her chest. "I'm sure he didn't mean—"
"I know exactly what he meant." Dal rose from her seat and drew herself up to her full height. She was shorter than Astarion, but somehow managed to look down at him anyway. "You're embarrassed by us. You think you're better than us now."
"I'm not—"
"You’re a spawn, same as the rest of us. A ring doesn't change that. A wizard fiancé—apparently, if mystifyingly—doesn't change that. Playing in gardens with humans doesn't change what you are."
She wasn't wrong. That was the worst part.
And there was nothing to be done about any of it. Except keep them away from the general public as much as possible.
"Rest tonight. As you said, your journey was taxing. Come to the house tomorrow," Astarion said, the invitation tasting sour. "After sunset. It's just ten minutes down the lane to the west. Morena wants to meet you."
Dal's expression flickered—surprise, maybe, or suspicion. "Does she?"
"She asked about my family. I told her about you." Gods, was this better or worse? Keep them out of Morena's sight or keep them from making a mess that would get back to Morena and Gale eventually? What a choice! "So yes. Tomorrow. After sunset. Try not to scandalize anyone between now and then."
He turned and walked out before either of them could respond, the night air cold against his face and the weight of their judgment heavy on his shoulders.
A perfect rose, he told himself as he headed back down the dirt lane toward the homestead. You're going to be a perfect rose. For Gale. For Morena.
For the family that counted.
Astarion
Astarion was a rogue and thief of no little renown. Moving quietly was a point of pride for him.
The stairs to Gale's attic bedroom had done their best to defeat him, but the house still lay quiet around him as he made the landing.
He paused outside Gale's door, hand hovering over the worn brass handle. A thin line of light glowed beneath it—magelight, soft and steady. Still awake, then.
The knob turned without sound, and Astarion slipped inside.
Gale sat cross-legged on the floor in his nightshirt, the corner of the faded rug peeled back to reveal a short plank that had been lifted free. A small wooden box rested in the cavity beneath, and Gale's hand was buried inside it. The magelight bobbed lazily above his shoulder, casting warm shadows across the angles of his face.
Beautiful.
When Gale looked up, the smile that spread across his features was pure mischief. Not the polished charm he deployed at parties or the earnest warmth he offered his mother. This was private. Conspiratorial. The smile of a man caught doing something he shouldn't be, and delighted to share it.
In the face of that smile, the confrontation at the Darling Dahlia receded, not quite gone but less immediate. Less important than the way Gale's eyes crinkled at the corners, the way his bare feet were tucked beneath him like a child's, the way he looked so thoroughly himself in this ridiculous attic room with its faded star charts and adolescent accolades.
"How was it?" Gale asked, voice pitched low.
"What are you doing?" Astarion countered, because he wasn't ready to talk about Dal yet.
Gale's grin widened. "Well." He gestured grandly at the hidden compartment with his free hand. "I thought, what with being affianced and all, I ought to reveal my remaining secrets before the big day. Give you the complete picture. Full disclosure. So you can make an informed decision before tying yourself to me for eternity."
"An informed decision." Astarion crossed to where Gale sat and lowered himself to the floor beside him. He pulled off his shoes and folded his legs to one side. "Darling, your mother has been providing me with a rather comprehensive education in Gale Dekarios's childhood secrets. The time you accidentally set fire to your tutor's beard. The incident with the levitating cat. That truly unfortunate haircut phase—"
"Morena doesn't know all my secrets."
Astarion arched an eyebrow. "No?"
"She never found my stash."
Now that was intriguing.
Astarion leaned closer, peering into the box. The magelight obligingly drifted lower, illuminating the contents: a collection of small glass vials with faded labels, a silk pouch that clinked when Gale shifted it, what appeared to be a well-thumbed booklet of illustrated poetry, and—
"Is that a dildo?"
"Two, actually." Gale's ears had gone pink, but he was grinning. "And a plug. And some oils that are almost certainly rancid by now. And—" He pulled out a slim scroll case. "Silencing spells. Self-scribed. I was rather proud of those at fifteen."
Astarion plucked the illustrated booklet from the box, flipping through pages of increasingly creative positions rendered in surprisingly skilled ink. "The Waterdhavian Wizard's Weekly Guide to Intimate Arcana," he read aloud. "Volume Seven: Advanced Techniques for the Ambitious Student."
"There were twelve volumes. I only managed to acquire seven through nine before my supplier graduated."
"Your supplier."
"A fifth-year named Hendricks. He had connections." Gale waggled an eyebrow suggestively.
Astarion dissolved into laughter, the sound escaping before he could trap it. Gale shushed him, glancing toward the floor, but his own shoulders were shaking with suppressed mirth.
"So." Astarion held up one of the glass vials, squinting at the murky contents. "Are you angling to revisit your adolescent explorations? Should I be concerned about the state of these... implements?"
"Gods, no. I'm fairly certain the oils have gone off—it's been literal decades—and nothing in that box has been properly cleaned since I left for Blackstaff." Gale wrinkled his nose. "I just thought you might appreciate knowing that even I had a sordid youth. Such as it was."
"A wizard's sordid youth." Astarion set the vial down and shifted closer, close enough that his thigh pressed against Gale's. "Self-scribed silencing spells and illustrated guides. How delightfully academic."
"I was very studious."
"Clearly."
Astarion leaned in, pressing his lips to the warm skin of Gale's neck, just below his ear. The scent that greeted him was of faintly herbal soap, the blend Morena kept in the washroom.
"Your toys might be dirty, but you've been cleaned quite recently," he murmured against Gale's pulse point. "If that fresh soap is anything to go by."
Gale's breath caught. "I may have... anticipated your return."
"Did you now."
He kissed a path along Gale's jaw, feeling the softness of Gale's beard against his lips, the warmth of living skin beneath, and the whisper of a pulse beneath that. Gale's hand came up to cup the back of his head, fingers threading through his curls, and when their mouths finally met, it was soft and sweet and exactly what Astarion needed after the sharp edges of the evening.
They kissed for long, unhurried moments. Gale's lips parted beneath his, welcoming, and Astarion let himself sink into the simple pleasure of it—the taste of tea and honey, the gentle pressure of Gale's palm against his skull, the quiet intimacy of this attic room with its squeaky floors and paper-thin walls.
Then Gale pulled back, cheeks flushed, and cleared his throat.
"I have to admit," he said, not quite meeting Astarion's eyes, "something about being in this room with my—with you—is making me a bit..."
"A bit what?"
"…Shy."
Astarion blinked. Then his cackle bit through the quiet, and he clapped a hand over his mouth too late to muffle it.
"Shy?" He wheezed through his fingers. "I thought I'd broken you of any shyness on our first day together. Remember? The lingerie and mirrors?"
"That was different. That was—we were in the midst of peril and—"
"You had to pull your tongue out of my ass to tell Tav to bugger off in the middle of it, which you did without so much as a stutter. Hardly shy." Astarion was properly laughing now, unable to stop.
"Astarion—"
"And what about that little escapade you insisted on with the—"
"Yes, all right, I take your point!" Gale's face had gone from pink to proper crimson. He grabbed the magelight from the air and extinguished it with a sharp gesture, plunging the room into darkness. "There. Better."
Astarion's laughter redoubled. "Oh, darling. As if that helps. I can see perfectly well in the—"
A polite cough drifted up through the floorboards.
They both froze.
The cough came again. A message, clear as any sending spell: I can hear you.
"Well." Astarion pressed his lips together, fighting back another burst of laughter. "Shit."
"Shh!"
"You shh! Are we doing this or no?"
They dissolved into muffled giggles, hands pressed over each other's mouths, shoulders shaking. Gale hissed "Yes, but quietly" against Astarion's fingers before pulling back to begin stripping off his nightshirt.
Astarion followed suit, and they tumbled together into Gale's childhood bed.
Which promptly announced their presence with a creaking groan of protest to wake the dead. Or at least the living Dekarios matriarch directly below.
"Gods." Astarion went rigid. "How did you not know this thing was a betrayer?"
"I've never brought anyone up here before!"
"Never?"
"This was my mother's house! Where would I have—when would I have—"
"You had illustrated guides and two dildos, Gale. And a stash of scrolls of Silence!"
"Those were for solo study! And I used those scrolls to keep my own…sounds from becoming an issue. Ah. And thus, never really paid any mind to the bed's creakiness. To be fair, I was a bit lighter back in the day. And the bed frame newer."
Another creak split the air as Gale shifted, and Astarion dropped his head back against the mattress, rolling his eyes at the ceiling. They lay there in loaded silence, neither daring to move, listening for any further communication from below.
Nothing. Perhaps Morena had retreated into merciful, willful deafness.
"Should we... stop?" Gale's whisper was barely audible.
Astarion considered it. They were used to having sex most nights. It had become part of their rhythm, part of how they connected with each other regardless of what nonsense the day had held. But they could surely hold off a night or two. It wouldn't kill either of them.
But he didn't want to stop. The day had been too strange, too full of wrong things—the weeds, the early arrival of the spawn, Dal's cutting assessment—and he wanted to feel normal again. He wanted Gale's hands on his skin and Gale's breath in his ear and the almost miraculous pleasure they created with each other.
"The scrolls," he murmured. "Your adolescent silencing spells. Do they still work?"
Gale's sharp intake of breath was answer enough. He extracted himself from the bed—which groaned its protest like a dying whale—and padded across the room back to the hidden stash. Astarion tracked his movements through the darkness: the rustle of fabric as Gale knelt, the click of the scroll case opening, the soft whisper of parchment.
"They should work," Gale said, returning to the bed's edge. "I was actually quite good at these. Possibly because I had considerable motivation to perfect them."
"Solo study."
"Indeed."
Gale's hand found his in the darkness, warm and certain. "Our old signal still good? Two taps for checking in, three to stop?"
They'd established that system during their very first kiss, when forced to hide from pursuing enemies under spells of Silence and Darkness, and their latent attraction had emerged into that bubble of sensory deprivation.
"Yes." Astarion squeezed Gale's fingers.
The scroll whispered and dissolved as Gale recited the incantation he knew by heart, and then—
Silence.
Complete, absolute, unbroken silence. Not just quiet, but the total absence of sound, as if the world beyond their bodies had simply ceased to exist.
Astarion exhaled. Fine. This was fine. This was, if anything, a romantic hearkening back to their beginnings. Right?
Gale's hands found him in the darkness, and he laid himself atop Astarion. They resumed where they'd left off. Skin against skin as their hips aligned and they ground against each other slowly. The bed must have been creaking up a storm beneath them, but the sound was swallowed by the spell's perfect void.
At first, it was fine. Good, even. Gale mouthed down his chest while Astarion arched into the touch. The silence meant no restraint, no performance, no worry about sounds carrying.
But the silence also meant no breath sounds. No rustle of sheets. No ambient creak of old timber settling. Nothing but the growing awareness that he was trapped inside his own skull with no external reference points at all.
The coffin had been silent too.
Astarion's chest tightened. His breath—unnecessary, reflexive—came faster. The darkness pressed in from all sides, and Gale's hands on his skin suddenly felt like restraints, the weight of his body a lid being lowered—
He remembered, distantly, the other bits of that first kiss. The kiss had been a surprise, unexpected and electrifying, but it had come on the heels of a panic attack that left Astarion gasping and shaking in the dark.
He'd forgotten that part. He'd remembered the kiss, the turning point, the beginning of them. He'd forgotten the terror that preceded it.
Three taps. Sharp against Gale's shoulder.
The spell ceased a breath later. Sound rushed back—their breathing, the bed's indignant creak, the distant hoot of an owl outside the window—and Astarion sucked in air he didn't need but desperately wanted.
"Sorry." The word came out ragged. "I'm sorry, I thought I could—"
"Shh." Gale's arms wrapped around him, pulling him close, and for a moment they just lay there, tangled together in the ancient bed. "You don't have to apologize. You never have to apologize for that."
"We have. And then it was fine, and now it isn't, and that's okay." Gale pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth. "Tomorrow we'll move to the inn. Get a room with proper thick walls and no maternal monitoring. Make all the noise we want."
"Your mother will think she's driven us off."
"My mother will be relieved she doesn't have to pretend not to hear us. Trust me."
Astarion huffed a weak laugh. He let himself sink into Gale's warmth, let the steady thump of that human heart anchor him back to the present.
"Here." Gale's voice was soft, and he tilted his head, baring the warm column of his throat. "You haven't fed today."
Astarion hesitated. "You don't have to—"
"I know I don't have to." Gale's fingers found the back of his neck, guiding him closer. "I want to."
Reassured, Astarion kissed Gale's throat to telegraph the spot he'd chosen, sank his fangs into familiar skin, and drank.
The blood hit his tongue—rich, warm, alive with Gale's particular magic—and some of the evening's aggravations dulled. He felt Gale's erection soften against his thigh as the bite's initial sting gave way to drowsy contentment, and guilt flickered through him. They'd been building toward something, and now—
But Gale's hand stayed steady on his neck. His breathing stayed even. And Astarion remembered, as he always did, that Gale had never once made him feel like this was a burden. I love this, Gale had told him once, half-asleep and loose-limbed after a feeding. Sharing my very life force with you. It's intimate in a way nothing else is.
Astarion drank until the guilt faded and only gratitude remained.
He sealed the wounds with slow strokes of his tongue, then pressed his lips to the shell of Gale's ear.
"Thank you," he breathed.
"Always. Rest," Gale murmured. "It's been a long day for both of us."
Gale's breathing evened out within minutes, his body going heavy and slack with the abandon of human exhaustion. Astarion remained still, watching the moonlight shadows play across the star charts on the walls, feeling the rise and fall of Gale's chest against his back.
He should trance. His body didn't require it the way Gale's required sleep, but the meditative state helped process the day's events, and helped file away the chaos into something manageable.
But every time he closed his eyes, he saw weeds. Purslane and chickweed, ripped from the soil, tossed in a pile, left to wither. And Dal's voice, cutting through the memory: A ring doesn't change what you are.
The minutes stretched. An hour passed, maybe two. Gale shifted in his sleep, mumbling something unintelligible, and Astarion used the opening to disentangle himself from the warm cage of his fiancé's arms. It took every rogue skill in his arsenal to shift his weight across and out of the bed without making a creak, and he stuck his tongue out at the monstrosity in triumph when he had accomplished it.
He dressed in the dark—a loose shirt, the trousers he'd worn earlier, his shoes in hand to avoid the floor's treachery. He descended without a sound, pausing at the back door to slip his shoes on before stepping into the night.
The night air was cold and damp, heavy with the promise of spring rain. The gardens lay silver-blue under the half-moon, rows of vegetables sleeping in their tidy plots.
His feet carried him to the gardening shed.
The trowel hung on its hook where he'd left it that afternoon. The bucket—the one he'd used to collect the bodies of the fallen—sat beside the door. He grabbed both, then filled a second bucket at the well.
The compost heap loomed at the garden's far edge, a dark mound against the darker tree line. Astarion knelt beside it, and with careful hands, began lifting the discarded plants free.
They weren't quite dead. Some had wilted, certainly, their leaves drooping and stems gone soft, but others—the stubborn ones, the survivors—still clung to life despite everything.
He placed them in the bucket, one by one. His fingers grew caked with dark soil as he worked to free each from the pile without further damaging it. His broken nail stung viciously.
When the bucket was full, he rose and walked past the cultivated rows, past the geometric perfection of Morena's domain, toward the wild edge of the property where the manicured grounds surrendered to forest. The moonlight guided him along the boundary until he found what he was looking for: a patch of soft earth in a slight hollow, partially sheltered by overhanging branches but positioned where it might catch some sun during the day.
He turned around. The house was invisible from here, swallowed by the curve of the land and the screen of trees. The garden, too, had vanished. This spot belonged to no one. Served no purpose. Grew nothing of value.
the thing about that weird stuff americans call cheese is that if you heat it a little it becomes an excellent burger condiment despite its failings in every other area. such is the fate of the american cultural product
the American 'cheese' slice was engineered by our best scientific minds (all borrowed from Germany ofc) to melt perfectly onto a burger and for nothing else. Its only purpose is to compliment the one true product of the American people. The hamburger. (also borrowed from Germany)
And somehow I, an American, am currently living in Europe, homeland of the originators of the Kraft Single, and the equivalent product here will not melt correctly on a burger. Even while molten hot at its core, it still stiffly retains an unmelted shape that is off putting and sad.
Idk what I did to deserve my old men as a bodice ripper, but I love them. All the little details are perfect, from Astarion's glimmering tracksuit to the ISBN (😏😏😏).
Err Apparent is now available! At last, at last, my baby is out there!
Thank you to everyone who pre-ordered or joined my ARC campaign and is leaving early reviews! If you want to read for free, request the book through your library (Libby, Overdrive, etc.) or borrow it through your KU subscription. Ebooks on Amazon only; print books available for order through your favorite bookstores 💕💕💕💕💕
Blurb and sensitivity details below the break :)
What happens when you kill the monster but inherit its lair?
Gabriel escaped his abuser by killing him and wants nothing from the wreckage left behind. Not the cursed manor. Not the noble title. And certainly not the corrupt aristocracy demanding he toe their line.
But this is Averdon, where the dead can cause just as much trouble as the living.
Gabriel’s inheritance makes him legally unable to marry Miles, the mage who saved his life and the only one Gabriel refuses to lose. Miles is determined to help him walk away from it all, but Rookgate Manor refuses to let its new master go.
To claim a future together, Gabriel and Miles must return to the city that broke them and pit their blades, spells, and most outrageous schemes against those who oppose them.
Gabriel has one choice left: destroy the monster's power forever or remake it as his own. Preferably before his taxes are due.
This witty, high-heat M/M gaslamp romantasy features a ride-or-die power couple, found family, and a haunted house with opinions.
Err Apparent is the first book in the Tenibrian Affairs series, delivering gothic atmosphere, banter-rich romance, and emotionally grounded spice. With an HFN, this is perfect for readers who enjoy the quasi-historical fantasy of Freya Marske, KJ Charles, and Jordan L. Hawk, paired with the trauma-aware relationships and explicit heat of Foz Meadows, Lily Morton, and Tavia Lark.
Content Warnings
Err Apparent is a trauma-informed romantasy. Please consider whether this content may be triggering to you and tap out now if you need to.
Explicit sexual content: High heat (5/5 chili peppers), emotional intimacy, semi-public/risk-of-getting-caught scenarios.
Severe Past Trauma: Recovery is a key theme. Includes past human trafficking by a parent/guardian (Note: trafficker did not sexually assault main character personally), past child abuse, and confronting past abusers. No sexual abuse/non-con is depicted on page. The main characters practice explicit, enthusiastic consent with each other.
Mental Health: Depictions of PTSD/CPTSD, dissociation, and trauma-induced destructive outbursts.
Violence/Gore: Graphic descriptions of corpses/decay, fantasy violence, disposal of bodies.
Social Issues: Classism, systemic oppression. Worldbuilding note: Tenibria is a queernormative world; homophobia does not exist, though other systemic oppressions remain.
Forced Deadnaming: The protagonist fights against adopting a legal name associated with his trauma (not trans-related).
For those of you who know me through my fanfic, this book is literally dedicated to you!
Oh, I'm so nervous and so excited to put this out there! It was so hard to get to OriginalBookLandia (I have 2.5 failed versions of my first book sitting on my hard drive), but I learned SO MUCH from my fanfic journey.
this piece isnt like my usual art. ive been struggling to find a reason for why i draw at all, and i feel like ive lost the reason i make art in the first place. none of my drawings inspire emotion in me anymore, and if they do, its only frustration at my lack of ability. all of the art/artists i adore cause me to feel great emotion. art is inherently an expression of the self. ive felt empty regarding my art for years now, and dont remember the last time i was proud of something. so, this was an attempt to create something that visualized how i see gale as a character. where he's alone, in solitude despite his circumstances, surrounded by the beauty of nature. i dont know— when i think of gale, i think of this. and that made me feel something.
i started this at 4 am and drew until 7 pm, i forgot to put on the timelapse, my apologies for most of the background being missing from it.
This is me in my original author guise. If you read my Bloodweave fanfic and like reading for free, here’s your shot to get a copy to read whenever AO3 is down lol!
It's really happening! If you like my fanfic (posted here and on AO3), give this one a go! If you don't have KU and want to read for free, consider applying to be on my ARC team (available until March 13).
I'm looking for a small, reliable team of advanced readers who are willing to read Err Apparent for free and leave a review! Learn more and apply here:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScQKotYrPgjTfhzl-nZMbsTz3WkcaoALyN3m1uVZVhGsVCeSg/viewform?usp=header
