Astarion follows Gale’s double out to the edge of a beautiful illusion. Where the trees still hold their green, and the wind does not smell of death and rot. Where it brushes softly over the grasses beneath a starlit sky. Colours dance across it - it takes Astarion a moment to recognize this as the Weave, played by a gentle and practiced hand. If he closes his eyes for a moment, if he listens very carefully, he can almost hear it singing.
That beautiful harmony.
That exquisite loneliness.
Gale is nothing more than a light-kissed form beneath it all… but still, to Astarion, he is anything but small. He approaches quietly, but not soundlessly; he wants Gale to know he’s coming. That he’s not alone. Gale conducts the Weave carefully, fingertips dancing as if putting each star in its place, but he lowers he arms when Astarion draws near.
There is resignation on his face, and a touch of sadness.
“I wasn’t sure you would come.”
Gale is never sure of others, their capacity to answer to his needs. It makes Astarion want to show up every time. Prove to him that he isn't something so easily discarded, that Mystra was wrong.
“Of course I came,” Astarion sighs, lowering himself onto the ground beside him, “leaving you here alone would only make the whole thing more tragic.”
Gale hums, turning his gaze back to the sky as he leans back on his hands. Astarion watches him for a moment. The way his hair curls at the ends, in sore need of a trim. The touches of grey that he’s sure have become more prominent since entering the shadow-cursed lands, or perhaps since Elminster’s visit. The way the tendrils of Netherese magic soften and begin to fade as they drift up his throat. The way the creases at the corners of his eyes suggest a life of kindness, even laughter.
“I assume you’re going to tell me the point of this?” he gestures to the beauty that surrounds them. It’s unusual, to have to ask Gale to elaborate, and Astarion isn’t quite sure he likes the feeling of it.
“I wanted one last night of magic. To take it all in. To remember all of the things that have made mine a life worth living… to feel the Weave one last time, knowing that tomorrow I will finally answer to my folly. I thought perhaps I could… leave a part of myself here. Cradled within it. And hold it in my mind when I trigger the orb.”
His voice is as steady as ever. As certain as ever. It makes Astarion feel sick, and for a moment he hates the scent of summer on the breeze, and the cool press of the grass beneath his palms. He pulls at a clump of it. The illusion is complete enough that it tears away in his hand, roots and dregs of dirt.
“It’s a useless sacrifice,” he counters, “as I told you before: a waste.”
They’d sat for hours, all of them, trying to convince Gale not to go through with it. Astarion isn’t sure he even heard them at all. Nor did he remember their words when they found the heart of the Absolute at Moonrise. When that distant, determined look came over his face. The one that’s still there now.
“What is death but a new adventure?” Gale asks, taking on a philosophical tone. Astarion wonders how many times he’s said these words to himself, trying to qualify his end. Trying to make it into something more than the cruel, ugly thing it is. “A new beginning? And to know that my name could go down in history as a savior, rather than a disappointment… or, worse, nothing at all.”
Perhaps Astarion should let him go ahead with it. It would take care of the Absolute, for one. Maybe free them of the tadpoles. Stop the destruction of an entire city, the subjugation of an entire world. But, if he considers his own selfishness, the fact remains that Cazador still is not dead. He still is not free. He would sooner die next to Gale than go back…
He would sooner live, though, with Gale at his side.
It’s become harder to imagine evenings without the quiet rustle of pages turning. Without the murmurings of spells and the scratch of the quill. Harder to imagine a world in which that genuine, warm smile doesn’t find him across the campfire, even if it’s often too kind, too pleasant, and Astarion has to tear his gaze away to temper the feeling in his chest… and then there is the newness of Gale’s awkward attempts at flirtation, the way he blushes, the way he sometimes touches Astarion’s wrist in a show of support or comfort - a touch that, for the first time in as long as he can remember, doesn’t make him want to pull away.
And how dare Gale? How dare he take this new, fledgling chance at happiness away? How dare he desire to become just one more, fleeting thing that Astarion will have to forget how to miss?
He doesn’t know how to put this into words.
Instead, he says, “if you go through with this, I will remember you as an idiot. And, being immortal, I will ensure that the story of your idiocy prevails until every last star in the galaxies dies.”
Gale tears his gaze away from the sky to look at him, finally. To Astarion’s great annoyance, his eyes are soft. Like he understands.
How dare he understand the parts of Astarion that Astarion himself is still learning to contend with? And then threaten to take that knowledge with him into death.
“What would you really remember me for? Indulge me in that, if nothing else.”
Astarion scowls at him, and then pointedly lifts his gaze to the same sky that so preoccupied Gale. Trying to organize his thoughts into something made less of emotions , more of words. Trying to find the right way to say it - the honest way, because he knows that’s all he has left. Gale won’t be won over by sarcasm and wit. Nor will he be swayed by cruelty and ire. Astarion has tried it all, as they cut their way through the shadows. As they grew closer despite his best efforts. As they came to share books and murmurs by the fire.
Gale, for all of his understanding, misinterprets the pause. He is always so blind when it comes to himself.
“Would it be this?” he asks softly. “I could give you all of this, you know - a thousand suns. Every star in the sky, and then some. You could remember me; you could know that some part of me is with you, always, in them.”
A thousand suns.
Astarion thinks of the warmth of that. Hazy dawns, with the birds singing. Lazy afternoons that turn his skin golden. There is a sharp pang of wanting within him. That deep, incessant ache.
He thinks of the way the touch of the sun leaves freckles on Gale’s cheeks and shoulders. How it brings out a whisper of red in his hair. How he talks about watching the sunset each evening from his tower in Waterdeep, Tara on his lap, book in hand - a life that Astarion has begun to wonder if he might some day fit into.
Even the sun would hurt, if Gale were gone. Even the sun would remind Astarion of him. Even a thousand of them.
Astarion shakes his head.
“They’re not enough for me, I’m afraid.”
He can almost feel Gale deflate beside him. It was cruel wording, he knows; digging at one of Gale’s deepest insecurities, and almost without meaning to. It’s something he would have to work on, if he had time for it. If they had time to become more than two souls who fell into each other by happenstance, and circled one another for a brief time before one of them burnt out. Leaving the other to continue on in the cold, inescapable night forever.
He pulls his knees in to his chest. His body offers him little comfort.
Gale clears his throat quietly.
“…may I ask why not?”
He supposes he does. He supposes there’s little left to lose, now. He’s already tried everything else.
He forces himself to look at Gale. His voice breaks of its own accord over the words.
“Because they wouldn’t be you.”
Astarion wasn’t aware that he was still capable of crying.
Gale’s eyes widen in shock, and Astarion feels almost as if he could laugh. It figures that this, of all things, would surprise him. When he was so stoic. So prepared for whatever else Astarion might have tried to throw at him. He never expected the pure, unwavering truth.
“Your goddess may be willing to sacrifice you for the greater good. Your Elminster might agree that it’s all for the best. But I am not, and I do not. There will be another chance, another way. Look at you…” Astarion shifts to face him, sincerity pouring out now that he's opened the floodgates, “you fill in the gaps between us. You always have the answer. You make your… stupid little jokes. You make camp feel like home . There is still so much life for you - you… you haven’t read every book yet, have you? You haven’t puzzled your way through every mystery. You haven’t said goodbye to your Tressym. Even - this,” he gestures to the sky, but his eyes are locked on Gale, “this is beautiful. More beautiful than any of your explosive battlefield antics, certainly more beautiful than your death. Wouldn’t the world be a lot less beautiful without you, Gale Dekarios?”
Gale opens his mouth, always ready with a quick word. Except this time, none seem to come.
After a moment, he closes it again.
“You haven’t even given us a chance,” Astarion adds. Before he can talk himself out of it, he reaches for his hand. Intertwining their fingers. Unsure if Gale is even aware of the touch until Gale’s grip tightens, as if he’s finally found a tether in all of his madness. “With you, I forget my heart is still. If you won’t save yourself, at least stay for the sake of saving me.”
Gale’s brow does furrow at that.
“Astarion, you don’t need me to—”
“But I want you to,” Astarion cuts him off, desperately trying to make him understand, “I want you.”
Finally, Gale cracks.
He brings his free hand, the hand that isn’t clinging to Astarion’s, to his face, wiping at the tears that spill over. For a long moment there is just his sniffling, and all Astarion knows how to offer of his heart laid bare.
Finally, Gale finds his words.
“I… you must know, I brought you out here to tell you that I love you,” he admits quietly, bashfully, “I never dared to hope you might… reciprocate. But I needed to tell you, before I went. I suppose it was the last thing I felt I had left to do.”
“ Gods ,” Astarion has to groan at the melodrama of it all. Irritated at the idea that Gale would have sought to leave him with that admission, too. How selfish. How thoughtless.
But Gale is looking at him, now, and he can see the way hope has taken a hold of him. How dull he’d become, without it - but now there’s the glimmer in his eyes, and the flush in his cheeks, and that uncertain smile. And, within all of it, a question.
“I’m not going to kiss you for the first time if it’s also the last time,” Astarion tells him firmly.
“We’ll find another way,” Gale says, and then clarifies, “to save the world.”
Idiot wizard. Balancing life and death on a single confession. Willing to risk the fate of everything, not for himself, but for something as small as a kiss.
Or, perhaps Astarion could accept that there is a magic stronger than that which Mystra weaves. Stronger than the Absolute. Stronger, he might some day believe, than the scars on his back or the man who wrought them.
He kisses Gale, there beneath the starlight. When Gale touches his cheek, his hair, his fingers are as gentle as the melodies they inspire.
Astarion finds safety in his hands. A home in his lips.
Certainty in his promises.
There is hope enough borrow.
There is the warmth of a thousand suns.
