Everyone's Running From Something (ch. 4)
A Baldur's Gate 3 University Professor AU
Rating: M
Quick Summary: Astarion and Gale are two University English professors precariously mentoring a troubled 19-year-old and falling in love.
💖Main Pairing : BloodWeave,(Astarion/Gale) 💕Side Pairings: Shadowheart/Nocturne, Karlach/Dammon, Wyll/The Dark Urge, Tav/Tav 💔Past Pairings: Gale/Mystra, Astarion/Sebastian, Astarion/Tav
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**Please see Master List Entry for Full Content Warnings**
⏰Chapter Warning⏰ None
The all-hands meeting for the beginning of the semester went the same way every all-hands meeting at the beginning of semesters go. Every professor and TA in a humanities field got squeezed into a conference room that wasn’t quite big enough, had a powered sugar donut or a couple cubes of assorted melon with half a Styrofoam cup of burnt coffee, and listened to the departmental dean give an un-rousing speech about being on the same page with the other departments. Then he talked at nauseam about school policies and ran a quick training session over a new time-tracking software that would be implemented in 3 weeks’ time.
Gale scribbled down notes on a big yellow legal pad and tried to ignore Jen and Astarion, making faces at each other as he wrote. He’d been in academia long enough to know they’d both be crying to him in a few weeks when they messed up their timecards.
As the meeting drew to a close, a dapper man with slicked-back chestnut hair and a car salesman smile stepped into the room. Astarion went stiff like a cat puffing up to defend itself. The dapper man just gave him a plasticky, knowing smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
The dean perked up a bit as he noticed the man lingering in the back of the room. “Raphael, what a pleasant surprise! I had no idea you would be joining us,” he exclaimed, “We were just finishing up. Are there any words of wisdom you’d like to impart to our humanities faculty?”
“Oh, nothing so important,” Raphael said, and suddenly Gale understood why Astarion was so on edge. Everything about the man oozed with a disingenuous charm that made Gale’s hair stand on end. “I just realized I forgot to send out a notice about the upcoming donor gala the next coming Friday. I realized you were all in a meeting right now, so I thought I’d pop in and remind you in person.”
Raphael’s eyes landed directly on Astarion as he spoke his next sentence. “There is a reasonable expectation that faculty attend these events.” Out of the corner of his eye, Gale saw Astarion’s expression go steely. “After all, we want to show up and show out for the people who allow us to do so much.”
“Of Course!” The dean chirped. “I know I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
The meeting adjourned, and Astarion immediately made a break for the door. Gale hurriedly gathered his things in one arm, instinctually following after the only person in the room he really knew, like a baby duck.
Raphael stepped into Astarion’s path before he could get out of the meeting room. “Ah, we meet again, Dr. Ancunín!” Raphael’s voice dripped with sugary contempt. “I will see you at the donor gala, won’t I?”
“Perhaps. Are you thinking about calling in that favor I owe you?” Astarion’s voice was clipped, his face unnervingly blank.
“I think I’d like to wait on that a little longer, but I would like you there in case I change my mind.” Before Astarion could respond, Raphael’s gaze slid off him and onto- “Dr. Dekarios! Wonderful to see you. Are you settling in well?” He reached out a hand to him.
Gale stuffed his legal pad into his work so he could shake Raphael’s hand. “Exceptionally well!” he replied. “Everyone’s done their utmost to make me feel very welcome!”
“Oh, you don’t have to fib on your new colleagues’ account, Dr. Dekarios. I’m more than familiar with how surly certain members of the English department can get.” Raphael laughed congenially, but Astarion shot him a poisonous look.
“I’m not lying to you, sir,” Gale replied. “Astarion’s been nothing but professional.”
“Well, perhaps he’s going a bit soft.” There was a flash of something dangerous behind his eyes. He turned to Astarion. “I shall see you next Friday.” It was a command more than a farewell, but he walked away all the same.
Astarion muttered under his breath. Gale didn’t catch what he said but could make an educated guess. Astarion exhaled a deep breath like he was equalizing pressure.
He turned to Gale and said, “Thank you.”
Gale blinked. “Of course.”
Astarion opened his mouth to say something else, but the words couldn’t or wouldn’t form.
Shadowheart stepped in between them, too concerned with responding to a text message to notice the weird tension. “Karlach wants to get drinks.” She said. “She got stuck in traffic and doesn’t want to drive all the way down here for nothing.”
“Roveer’s?” Astarion asked, a very weary resignation in his voice.
“Yes, probably.”
“Nothing like running into your students at a sports bar a week before classes start…” Astarion grumbled. “Fine. Let me finish here, and I’ll meet you there in, oh… 15 minutes.” He turned to Gale. “Are you coming?”
“To the office?”
Astarion gave him a perplexed look. “To the bar.” He clarified. “You should take the opportunity to meet Karlach.”
Gale could feel himself going bright red as Shadowheart snickered. “Right. Yes. I would love to.” He replied.
“I’ll let Karlach know you’re coming. She’ll be thrilled.” Shadowheart replied, giving Gale a warm smile. “I’ll go lock up. See you in a bit.”
“Come on then.” Astarion replied, nodding for Gale to follow him.
***
The all-hand meeting was on the third floor, so by the time they’d returned to the basement and back up a floor to leave, Gale was starting to fear his knees wouldn’t survive the week- let alone the semester. “There has to be an elevator in this building.” Gale huffed and puffed as he hoofed it up the last flight of stairs. He didn’t want his new colleague’s first impression of him to be of him on his hands and knees wheezing. “I can’t take much more of this…”
“There is, but personally I don’t like chancing it unless I really don’t want to be in a meeting.” Astarion slowed to a stop at the top of the stairs to wait for him. He didn’t seem any worse for wear, but he also seemed much trimmer than Gale was- or at the very least, his shirt accentuated the pleasing nip of his waist. Gale wondered if Astarion was a swimmer. “A history adjunct got stuck in it overnight a few years past, and it still reeks a little bit when it gets hot enough.”
Gale laughed, but Astarion very pointedly did not.
The conversation lulled a little bit.
“Do you mind if I ask you something?” Gale asked.
“That entirely depends on what you want to ask.” Astarion stepped into the hallway, taking a moment to slip into his grey wool peacoat before they ventured outside.
“Raphael, is he always…”
“Such an ass?” Astarion finished his thought. Gale wouldn’t have used such a strong word, but Astarion had gotten the spirit of the question right, at least. “He’s usually much worse.”
“Oh?”
“He’s a glorified middleman with too much power and time on his hands.” Astarion scoffed. “He enjoys putting things in people’s way and watching them try to wriggle their way out of problems he created. My advice is to deal with him as little as possible.”
“Is he who you went to talk to earlier?”
Astarion gave him a poisonous look that only confirmed Gale’s suspicion.
They walked across campus in uneasy silence. The bitterly cold wind whipped and whistled, tossing the last remnants of fall leaves across the concourse. The few student residents who’d gotten in that morning had either decided to hold up in their rooms or were enjoying their free time in more exciting corners of town. Gale found himself wondering what Xenia was doing... He hoped she wasn’t all alone in an empty dorm.
“Does Xenia have many friends?” Gale asked as they approached a crosswalk leading to the block of shops across from campus.
“Hm?” Astarion tapped the pedestrian-call button, which commanded them to ‘wait!’ in a mechanical voice. “I think she probably has more friends than she realizes she does. Kids like her tend to think they’re alone in everything.”
“Poor kid… Seems like she’s been through enough.” Gale sighed. There was something heartbreaking in the phrase ‘kids like her.’ It was sad to think that there were more 19-year-olds out there carrying emotional burdens far too heavy for their age- sadder still to think that if there weren’t, then Xenia would be alone.
“She’ll figure herself out eventually. She’s not like…” Astarion paused, seemingly a little shocked by what he was about to say. He leveled a wary glance at Gale. “She’s not a quitter, I mean.”
“I’m sure she’s not. I just hope she doesn’t run herself ragged.” The walk light flashed, and they hurried across the street.
***
They were comedically out of place in Roveer’s Roadhouse. A group of grown adults in Oxford dress crowding around a sticky Bud-Lit branded high top surrounded by a bevy of flatscreen monitors playing every sports broadcast under the sun. Shadowheart was already nursing a syrupy cocktail out of a chipped margarita glass.
An extremely tall woman with a red tipped mohawk and smiling eyes bounded over to Gale and clapped a firmly friendly hand on his shoulder. “You’re the new Adjunct, I take it?” She asked. “I’m Karlach, Professor Cliffgate, if you’re nasty.”
“Gale Dekarios.” He reached out to shake her hand. She fist-bumped him instead, and Gale got a glimpse of a nasty burn scar peeking out from the sleeve of her jacket. “It’s a pleasure!”
“Aw, I have a great-aunt named Gale!” Karlach replied.
“I get that a lot…” Gale sighed. “I like your hair!”
“Thanks!” Karlach tussled her own hair. “Told my kiddos they could pick what color I dyed it if they all passed their benchmarks.”
“Does Balduran give benchmarks?”
“Oh, no. Teaching university is my side gig,” Karlach replied. “I’m actually a full-time middle school teacher.”
A spindly girl with bleach-blonde hair pulled into space buns sidled up to the table, clutching a notepad. “Can I take your order?” She seemed quite put upon being asked to do actual work on a slow day.
“Vodka Soda,” Astarion replied, holding his ID out to the server.
She took it and dropped it in her apron, jotted something down on her notepad, and turned to Gale with an expectant look.
“I’ll, uh, take a Corona,” Gale replied. He’d never ordered a Corona in his life, but it seemed like an acceptable ‘getting drinks with colleagues’ kind of an order.
The server stood there staring at him a moment long before she asked, “ID?”
“Oh, um…” Gale patted for his wallet and realized he left it in his desk drawer. “I didn’t realize I would need it…”
“You didn’t realize you’d need an ID at a college bar?” Astarion asked dryly as he turned to the server. “Just put it on my tab.”
The server nodded and walked away without asking if they needed anything else.
“Wow Gale, just one day on the job, and you’re already bumming free drinks off the department chair.” Shadowheart teased. She took a sip of her drink crinkling her nose at the taste.
Gale flustered. “I-I was going to pay with my phone, I swear! I wasn’t planning this.”
“Relax. We’re not so underpaid that I can’t afford to buy you one beer.” Astarion rolled his eyes. “You can return the favor when you get your first paycheck.”
Gale blushed. “Alright.”
The server brought them their drinks without another word, then plopped down at the end of the bar to scroll on her phone. Gale pushed the lime through the neck of his beer bottle and watched it fizz as it sank to the bottom of the dubiously golden liquid.
“So, did I miss anything important at the all-hands?” Karlach asked idly, stirring her bourbon and coke.
“You know you didn’t,” Shadowheart replied. “We’re changing timecard systems, and Raphael and Astarion are in another one of their weird power struggles-there, I saved you an hour and a half.”
Karlach’s eyes lit up, and she turned towards Astarion. “Before the semester even starts?” There was a conspiratorial glee in her voice. “What the fuck could he have possibly done this time?”
“Why spoil the mood by ruminating on that rat bastard?” Astarion said. He picked the lemon slice out of his drink and laid it on a napkin. “I’ll tell you later.”
“Fair.” Karlach shrugged. She turned back to Gale and fixed him with a warm smile. “So, Gale, what brings you to the wonderful world of higher education?”
Gale had thought a lot about what he would tell people when they asked him why he wanted to teach college. He’d written little speeches in the shower about the joys of teaching language and the satisfaction of helping students reach their goal, but sitting in a group of other English professors, that suddenly all felt very trite.
“I was a public librarian, but I had to step away from my last position when I got divorced.” He admitted. “I found a job at a community college teaching database management, and I realized I’d just always missed teaching.” He took a long pull of his beer. The sour of the lime battled with the bitterness of the beer on his tongue.
“Library science might be a harder industry to break into than academia. It must have been tough to leave that behind.” Astarion mused.
“I do miss it terribly sometimes… but my ex helped me get into graduate school and got me my first library job. If I stayed, I would never be able to make anything that was truly mine.” Gale sighed. He could see the wheels spinning in Shadowheart’s head as she tried to figure out his age.
“You talk like you’re as old as this bag of bone,” Karlach pointed a thumb at Astarion, who glared daggers at her. “But there’s no way you’re that old.”
“I’m 35.” Gale clarified.
“That’s a little bit older than I thought, but still nowhere near as old as Astarion,” Shadowheart said.
“You are barely two years younger than me.” Astarion snapped.
“Barely a decade older than Gale, too.” Shadowheart shot back.
Astarion rolled his eyes and muttered something into his drink. “Did you go to get your master’s straight out of undergrad?” he asked.
“Yes, why?”
Astarion shrugged. “That’s just quite young to be with someone that well-established in their field.”
“Oh, we didn’t get together until I graduated.” That wasn’t entirely true. They didn’t get together publicly until he graduated. He didn’t know why he was still defending Mystra. It wasn’t like any of his new colleagues would ever meet her.
“I wasn’t trying to imply anything…” Astarion lied.
“Of course not.”
They both took a sip of their drink, holding awkward eye contact.
“Well, here’s to making something for yourself then,” Shadowheart said, holding her drink out to Gale for a cheers.
Gale clinked the neck of his beer bottle against her glass. “I’ll drink to that.”