thirsted | SALTBURNT

You were right about the wedding.

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On a scale of 1 to 10 ...

[ how bad was it. ]

11, easily.

I’m covered in blood (not my own, mind you) and frosting. The professor who expressed an interest in Shadowheart [ hen and half-elf versions ] may very well be concussed. I intend to see to him before turning in for the night.

[ A pause. What he wants is for Gale to return posthaste, to forget about anyone else and come back to him. But that's not like him, not when there are people still nominally in need of his help. ]

Let me know if there's anything you need, either to be brought to you or to have waiting here.

And don't dally more than you really need to.

[ Gale’s beginning to recognise that undercurrent of concern for what it is. ]

Of course.

And I won’t. I intend to leave the worst of this to the healers and the heartbroken. I’ve had rather enough of everyone but you for the week.

Have you, now? It seems romance isn't dead after all.

[ Then, momentarily: ]

❤️ I'll see you soon.

[ And he sets about doing what he can, i.e. setting on a kettle for tea in their office space as he paces between their two rooms, finding more and more things to fidget with (the exact placement of Shadowheart's crate, the corner of the duvet, the alignment of a desk chair) until Gale's return. ]

[ ❤️?????????

‼️ ]

❤️❤️❤️

[ As requested, he doesn’t dally, seeing to Giles and no other (though he’s tempted, when some revellers linger, wondering if he ought to stay just in case — or check on Spike and Alina both—) No, no, he has someone waiting for him. Worrying over him, though hopefully less so than the last time he found himself in a spot of trouble.

To wit, Gale arrives somewhat disheveled, waves made uneven by how often he ran his hand through it during the initial ceremony. Dress shirt flecked with cake frosting and bloodspray from Jinx’s shots, Alia’s knives, and whatever that most unsettling young man was up to. Rolled to his elbows, in the aftermath, jacket left behind.

No chance of sneaking up on Astarion, so he doesn’t try, though he sounds almost shy when he speaks up, ]

However did you know what I needed, without my answering you?

[ The implication being that he didn’t need anything but Astarion waiting for him, this time, hands already flitting to his waist. ]

[ The — very carefully prepared and practiced — expression of disapproval on Astarion's features dissipates the moment Gale comes into view, replaced instantly by a cocktail of fondness and concern. As Gale's hands draw him closer, his own fly to his face, fixing his hair, his collar, fussing in the absence of anything more concrete to do. ]

Don't praise me too soon, [ he says, missing the subtext of Gale's question in the blinding light of his concern. ] I only put the kettle on.

[ The frosting, the blood — chaos in miniature. It'd be funny if anyone else had been caught in the spray. But there's no cut, no wound, nothing but the dirtied shirt and— ]

We'll have to get your jacket back, [ he mumbles, as if their closets aren't fit to burst. ] Maybe tomorrow. Or perhaps the staff will bring it up, once the mess is taken care of.

[ The thing is, he could clean himself up with a wave of his hand, but he’s finding that he prefers to be taken care of — or, at least, to allow Astarion to do it. Accepting it isn’t some terrible burden but rather something desired and appreciated. A gift.

Gale follows every nudge of his hands. Pliant, Astarion’s to check and manoeuvre, apart from where he sneaks in a quick kiss to the palm of his hand. ]

[ dutifully, ] I’ll make a note of it. [ head bowed in acquiescence (and to bend that bit closer, with their slight difference in height). ]

We can check tomorrow, if we haven’t heard. [ shyly, then. ] I’d rather like your take on the leftover decor, anyway. Particularly if we ever — if you were so inclined —

[ aha. ]

[ For all that Saltburnt is filled with the unexpected, nothing about Gale's return — about the wedding — really surprises Astarion until that delicate silence, space left for him to fill in the blanks. His gaze flickers up and then down, only registering that something's been said, before shooting back up again, this time to fix solidly upon Gale's face, surprise prompting a jump in his brow. He hasn't dared think this far, even if he's pictured them both in Waterdeep (even if his thoughts have touched on what happens to any mortal after long years, and where that will leave him). Too intimate, maybe. Too nice. Undeserved, somehow, in his struggle to reconcile his worth with the blood that stains almost every other aspect of his life.

His brow pinches as his gaze drops again, at odds with the awkward laugh and smile that accompanies it. ]

Oh. I—

[ He looks at his hands, his fingers curled into the front of Gale's shirt. ]

You know, I never thought about it, but—

[ But maybe with you. Definitely with you. Always with you. Not buoyed so much as he is suddenly aware that this is hardly the response anyone would want after floating the topic of marriage, he sniffs, blinking away any residual appearance of uncertainty with a shake of his head and a straightening of his shoulders. ]

Well. I wouldn't trust either of them with— [ A? My? ] —our wedding if my life depended on it. But I suppose we could have a look.

[ Gale gives him a sheepish smile, earnest but not expectant. Curious, always, waiting out Astarion’s reaction with a few gentle strokes of his fingers. He nods, encouraging that initial response.

(Nervous, perhaps, over asking for something like this to be considered — a human and frightfully mortal desire, unsuited to a heavenly partner. Something he thinks he wants, now that he can consider it at all, but would be rendered unappealing if Astarion found it restrictive. He’s prepared for that answer, at any rate, or he tells himself that he is.)

But, Astarion says, followed by our wedding. What a phrase, in his perfect mouth. Gale’s entire expression lifts, ever the eager pup by the door. ]

You can think on it more. You should, I mean.

[ That’s all he’s asking, with his lashes dusting the pink in his cheeks. He may not be the wisest of wizards, but he knows Astarion well enough to wager he’d hate to disappoint. For want of pointing that out (and the corollary, that he could never disappoint Gale if he stayed with him, happy and hale), he plays along: ]

—And tell me precisely how gaudy you find their taste. [ with the utmost seriousness, ] You wouldn’t believe the palette.

[ Nevermind that they both tend toward extravagance in their own ways. ]

[ He knows, by now, that there's a rosy symmetry to their happiness. Each little token of love is matched by a smile, a laugh, a reward in its own right, setting off a seemingly endless back and forth. When Astarion sees the set of Gale's expression light up and blossom, his lips press together in a futile attempt to suppress the smile that comes automatically to him, diffusing the click of his tongue and the roll of his eyes that follow. ]

And here I'd meant to dedicate at least a good hour to scolding you, [ he says, entirely unconvincing. ] Yet here you are, decidedly un-scolded and back in my good graces.

[ His shoulders rise and fall in a sigh, his gaze falling to the long lashes that star Gale's eyes, the faint blush that colors his cheeks — his smile, handsome and sweet and kind, unlike anything else in this world or anything he's seen in over two hundred years of death and living. (No wonder, he thinks, that he would catch the eye of a god. That he would ever lose favor is just one more strike in his tally against them.) ]

You should think about it, too.

[ Delivered as he keeps his gaze averted, boyish for having to pick through a topic as novel as this. ]

What'd you'd want. Besides me, of course.

[ At the mention of a scolding, Gale ducks his head, trying and failing to hide his grin. Too soft at the edges to be roguish, but close, with its crooked slope. A boy who’s gotten away with a misdemeanour charge. Hand in the cookie jar — or accidentally conjuring a horde of rabbits in the house, for want of a pet. He knows that he finds more trouble than Astarion deserves, but this wasn’t so bad, in the end.

And it seems he hasn’t fumbled the asking he’d thought about since arriving at the venue, refined over hours and then promptly forgotten, on seeing Astarion’s glittering eyes and teasing mouth. Surer now, he shakes his head. ]

Besides you? [ Brows lifting in disbelief. ] Because of you.

[ A gentle correction, as he slips his hand under the curve of Astarion’s jaw, tipping it to catch his eye. Because of you, I want to live. Because of you, I want to go home. Because of you, I want I want I want. ]

But I’ll think on the set dressing. [ Since that’s all it is, in his mind. Extraneous to the heart of the play. A two-hander, still to be written. ] Waterdeep or Baldur’s Gate or England. A ring in the Waterdhavian style — or a wreath, all its own.

[ One of a kind, like the man who made it. None — not his dalliances at the Academy or the goddess who moulded him in her image — have known him as Astarion does. They certainly never cared for him so well. ]

[ All it takes it that touch to alight something a little lovestruck in Astarion's manner. The line of his mouth pulls helplessly into a smile, eyes glimmering as he allows himself to be pulled into the fairy floss cloud of fantasy. A wedding by the sea. A ceremony in the vibrant green of spring or the pale glow of winter, flowers picked to complement the wreath that hangs on their door. Rings to match the tokens they already wear. He doesn't realize that his hand has wandered to the pendant he wears until it's already there. ]

Tell me, then.

[ Of anything, he thinks, so long as he could listen to the perfect timbre of Gale's voice. Loveliest when he speaks of love, but warm no matter what, even when addressing the most mundane of details.

Still, a clarification: ] About Waterdhavian custom.

[ Though he pauses, having said it, as another thought occurs to him. ]

Or perhaps just how to impress your mother.

[ He chuckles, the sound lightened by surprise, at the thought of Astarion trying to impress Morena. ]

You’d hardly need to do a thing, with your charm — but she loves her flowers, for a strong start.

[ He tips his head this way and that, considering how to convey her sure relief at his having found an earthly partner, when she feared she would lose him to the stars for so long. For want of all that, he squeezes Astarion’s hip, slipping his thumb beneath his shirt to rub circles into his cool skin. ]

There was a time when she hoped to turn my eyes from the heavens with the help of a pretty botanist, but I’m afraid Clara spent more hours tending my mother’s frostroses than she ever did speaking with me. [ A beat. ] I’m certain the indefatigable Morena still considers her ruse a victory.

[ At least for the garden. ]

As for Waterdhavian custom — [ Gale sweeps his fingertips over the round of Astarion’s cheek, adoring, a parting gift before he shifts to cover Astarion’s hand, doubly protective of him and the gifted pendant. ] — you and I would each pick a ring for ourselves, but we would visit our city’s finest smith together. They’ll halve and combine our choices, you see, until two become one, [ with two taps to the back of his hand, for emphasis. ] a seamless, perfect match.

[ Like the slot of his fingers between Astarion’s knuckles now, or the way he tucks into the hollow of his throat in their bed. ]

For the duration of the engagement, the rings are worn as pendants.

[ A quick flicker of his gaze down, so he needn’t watch Astarion comprehend the significance of his seemingly casual gift in real time. The thought renews his flush, heat travelling from his cheeks to his ears. ]

It’s, ah, meant to be a symbol of the care we have for each other. [ The pendants. ] That I would keep your ring safe, and you would guard mine, until the day of the ceremony.

[ Only once, as Gale speaks, do Astarion's lips move, though no sound comes out, the line of his mouth shifting so slowly and so slightly that the thought could very easily be lost. I must be dreaming, each syllable dotted by a blink of his starry amber eyes. It must be a dream, one he'll wake from at any moment. Gale is too beautiful, as are the words he speaks, as is the tenderness with which he touches him, too good to be true. Loving, caring, warm. And all for him. Inconceivable.

The reverie breaks only when Gale's gaze falls. His pulse would jump, he thinks, if he had one. Instead, Astarion stares, dazed and disbelieving, as he realizes the significance of the thread of gold around his neck. A half-moon, a half-ring — Gale's half of a promise they've yet to speak aloud. His fingers tighten in the lattice they form in their joined hands, thrumming with what feels like a resurrection.

He can't quite pinpoint the moment in which he loses his words entirely. All this time, lost on a breath. Are we, curtailed because the myriad thoughts that could follow behind are too dizzying, even as they discuss a future in which such things are a given. ]

Well, I—

[ He stammers, laughs, pink to the tips of his pointed ears. ]

I always used to know what to say. Never lost a word or a turn of phrase. But I daresay you're a defter thief than I am.

[ His thoughts, his breath, his heart. Spirited away not without effort but by the tangible presence of it. ]

It seems I've been remiss.

[ With a little effort, he raises himself up onto his toes, bobbing at the level of Gale's eyes in a bid to recapture his attention. ]

I owe you a ring.

[ For all Gale talks and talks, he often skirts the plainest of truths. Each gift offered with loftier affections than even he could admit at the time: The sunstone that catches beneath his fingerprint, the opals that glitter in the half-moon of Waterdeep, of the Dekarios House, of a promise.

As Astarion leans up to reach him, he takes Gale’s heart in hand. Whether he knows what to say or not — and a certain wizard would argue he does — he knows Gale. His habits, his tells, the levers that trigger his confidence or shyness. It’s the logical corollary to Gale’s own in-depth study of Astarion (the loveliest creature on this plane or any other), and yet it still surprises him. How simply Astarion answers him. How easily he wraps the invisible tether between them around his hand, tugging his attention back to its guiding star.

Unable and unwilling to deny him, Gale slides his hand to his lower back to help him tilt up, palm firm at the base of his spine. Eyes saucered, as if he can’t believe his luck. Enamoured with the flick of Astarion’s fangs, the fine angle of his jawbone lifted just so. ]

You— [ Don’t owe me anything, do me a great honour, don’t think it too much. All unworthy of the gift of Astarion’s company, let alone the promise of having it evermore. Instead, Gale kisses him, soft and sweet. Breathless, then: ] You’ve upstaged me terribly.

[ His tentative probing of the topic seems so clumsy and inadequate compared to Astarion’s surety. A ring! How little he says is more telling than anything he could vocalise, amazed by his lot, his luck, his love. ]

[ At that kiss, Astarion feels the array of his giggly, bubbling thoughts shift from a scattershot spread to something more like morning mist, a sheer curtain of loveliness settling over the boyish excitement the former archmage stokes in his chest. All it would take is that bright look on Gale's face, or the tenderness in his touch, or the sweet words he spins out of a seemingly bottomless well of affection. Just one thing. That he gets all of them— that's another kind of gift, one he's learned to accept, not in the typical droll way of being handed a colorfully-wrapped box, but in the manner of opening a window to let in the spring breeze. ]

Oh, please.

[ Still no reproach, still nothing but a happy haze. He relaxes against the support of Gale's hand, letting his weight shift off of the balls of his feet. (Even this is a rarity, isn't it? Someone he'd trust not to let him fall. Someone he'd let hold him this way. Someone he'd let speak to him about bonds that last forever.) He feels like something held, dandelion seeds kept attached by the careful cover of a cupped hand. ]

You're still the main act.

[ His fingers travel idly over the splatter of frosting and blood on the front of Gale's shirt, the source of it suddenly thousands of years away, not a problem even as smears of sugar cream transfer over. Not mess, but evidence of closeness — as is the fact that he means what he says, that all he's done is follow Gale's lead. He can feel it, sticky and sweet, in his palm as he pulls Gale closer again, kisses him in a silence that draws out for what he wishes would be forever. ]

I'm just the applause.

[ He’d argue — he really would — if Astarion didn’t kiss every counter from his mouth. Thoughts stalled by the flick of his tongue and the weight eased against his hand. Gale loses himself in the intimacy, so perfect it could be a dream, kissing him deep enough to drown. Madly, he thinks he belongs here, in the guiding warmth of Astarion’s hold, wherever it may be. With his hands split between two points, supportive at Astarion’s back and indulgent in his curls, carding through the softness.

But even pink-mouthed and kiss-stupid, he shakes his head when they part. How strange, that he might have craved such adoration before Astarion looked upon him. To be exalted above others now seems a lonesome thing. ]

—Does applause alter the narrative irrevocably? [ At once awestruck and assured. He tucks a curl behind Astarion’s ear, then drags a finger along the length of it. Mesmerised by every part of him. ] Does it lead our protagonist back from oblivion? [ hushed, ] Does its presence change everything?

[ Gale kisses the centre of his forehead, affection overflowing. Nowhere to go but out. ]

Make it a doubt act. A two-hander. [ Anything, as long as they’re in the story together. ] For even applause from on high wouldn’t be lovelier than the sound of your voice each morning, drawing me from the dark.

[ Under the pad of Gale's finger, the knife-shape of Astarion's ear twitches obligingly, mirroring the brightness that crests on his features, sunny in his gaze and then soft in the crow's feet at the corners of his eyes.

They always find their way here. Not to compromise but to a point it feels like they've already agreed upon, as though they were scaling opposite sides of a mountain and then met upon the peak. They're learning to find each other on that mountain more quickly, joining hands on the path and coming to the summit together. ]

A double act, [ he agrees, pecking Gale on one cheek and then the other. As he is, still on his toes, he leans in, pressing their foreheads together. H'es a little nervous to speak again — but he needn't be, when they've essentially covered this ground already. ]

Like a marriage, hm?

[ And there it is, the answer Gale had at the start brought into relief by the clarity of Astarion’s sunset gaze. Gale would not have mentioned it if he didn’t want it — indeed, if he didn’t think if might suit them both — but to hear Astarion reach the same conclusion on his own sets his mortal (bruised and battered) heart aflutter. His breath catches in his throat, though he doesn’t blink, watercolour eyes made darker by their intensity.

Surely no twist of fate or illusion of the house could keep them from one another, not when Astarion’s attention lights the way more clearly than the stars overhead. ]

Like a marriage. [ agreed with a faint lift of surprise in that final syllable. Reconciling the words in Astarion’s mouth in real time. His smile splits, helplessly wide. ]

—Have I told you lately just how clever you are?

[ Quicker than Gale in so many matters, despite his bookishness and brilliance. He fits his other hand at Astarion’s waist to tip him further into his arms, lifted that bit off his feet. ]

Sharper than any dagger and twice as quick. Canny as well as radiant. Moreso than even Evereskan diamonds and Moonsea rubies. Than the crown jewels of Underhome.

[ He could (and will go on), having never been bluffing about his near endless thoughts on Astarion’s appeal. Reams of poetry, still to be written. ]

[ He ought to demur, or at least tease — to goad Gale into hours more of sweetly spin tribute, or tell him he could do better, or even say he still expects a real proposal — and yet, as his feet lose their purchase on solid ground, he can only smile, any evidence of cleverness momentarily lost. (Possibly, he thinks, never to be found, so long as he's transfixed by that adoring stare.) In lieu of a verbal response, one of his hands finds Gale's face, his fingers ghosting over the corners of his mouth as if to memorize the angles, to burn not only the look of his smile but the shape and feeling of it into his mind.

A shame it isn't permanent. A shame it isn't an object he could hold onto and keep. Then again, he doesn't want it to be unchanging. He wants to see it through each season, see it fill with so much more love, because he has so much more of it to give. ]

Will you always smile like that, for me?

[ His voice is small, a little shy, so unlike the mockingbird's call he's perfected over centuries. He could fill his nest with the jewels Gale describes — none would bring him half so much joy as the sight of him, happy and hale, in love. He must have been a fool not to recognize it earlier. Gale is chosen, not by the gods or by fate, but by what Astarion would call a miracle, to coax a dead thing back to life with nothing more than care. (Nothing more than, as if care weren't something monumental in and of itself.) ]

This is precious, [ he adds, thumb catching on the uptick of his expression. ] The most precious thing, I think, I've ever stolen.

[ It’s a wonder that after months of intent observations, copious mental notes, and advances in understanding, Astarion can surprise him. A new tone of voice, light as the sea breeze. A touch that doesn’t quite conform to any previous patterns, long fingers mapping his features, the topography of his still curved mouth. Gale, in turn, tips into his hand (the safest place in the manor, despite lacking the wards and spells that would make that an empirical truth). ]

Always.

[ The only response needed — or, indeed, manageable — under the blinding rays, the impossible warmth of his attention. Any other answer would seem boyish and inadequate.

He tries to kiss Astarion’s fingertips, then the center of his palm. Eager to prove his affection, when words have failed him. Precious, it turns out, is the exact right thing to say — but reversed, truer of Astarion, so light in his arms. Gale folds into him, beard brushing his cheek, as though even the smallest distance between them is
unacceptable. ]

[ with a happy sigh, ] How I love to share that word with you.

[ to keep and be kept, whether by thievery or any other mechanism. ]

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