Work Text:
I know there's pain
Why do you lock yourself up in these chains?
No one can change your life except for you
Don't ever let anyone step all over you—
Wilson Philips blasts from the stereo as Astarion tests out his new ride.
A matte metallic red Cybertruck is the perfect vehicle for the Vampire Ascendant. It’s big, it’s flashy, and it tells the people around him to look out because they’re in the presence of someone with no fucks to give and enough money to run them over and walk away scot-free.
Running someone over isn’t the sort of murder that’s on Astarion’s mind, though. The same under-the-table agreement that allows him to keep Ancunín (née Szarr) Palace and the bevy of spawn inside without being harassed by social workers states that Astarion will conduct his feeding outside of Baldur’s Gate proper. Politics and whatnot.
Just open your heart and your mind
Is it really fair to feel this way inside?
He’s cruising along the Sword Coast Freeway—windows up because he can’t figure out how to roll them down—just about to belt out the chorus to “Hold On” when a loud, prolonged beep interrupts. He frowns.
“We interrupt this station to bring important news. Lord Ao has once again deemed it necessary to depower the gods to mortal form. It is unknown at this time what the gods have done to displease Ao, but listeners are encouraged to keep on the lookout for Bhaalspawn and discouraged from making any attempts to connect with the Weave at this time—”
Despite having a modest chuckle at the gods finally getting their just deserts, Astarion finds his mood souring. He quickly turns off the radio and opts to listen to the hum of the pavement and the rattle of the Cybertruck’s bumper. It’s normal, the salesman assured him.
Even with the broadcast gone, his mind becomes stuck thinking about someone he tells himself he hasn’t thought about in centuries: the God of Ambition. A face that comes to him often when he trances, but that’s not really conscious thinking. It’s not as if he cares.
Truly, Astarion couldn’t give a shit less about any of the gods.
But this one was just ‘Gale’ once, and Astarion wonders whether that’s just become true again. His view of the road ahead hazes as he ponders.
There was a time long ago when Gale’s fate would have been more than a curiosity, when Astarion would have truly cared. He can’t remember what that felt like anymore, just the facts. Gale didn’t approve of the way Astarion spoke to him after becoming the Vampire Ascendant, and then had no use for him once he himself ascended to the Outer Planes. That was that.
HONNNNNNNK.
A deep gnome flips Astarion the bird for cutting them off.
“Oh, fuck off!” Astarion responds in kind, his rage briefly swerving him into oncoming traffic before he regains control of the steering wheel.
This sort of thing happens all the time. It’s why he’s on his third new vehicle this year. Usually he has a better reason for getting worked up, though, like a lane closure turning into an hours-long delay because no one knows how to zipper merge. A single middle finger shouldn’t do it. It’s almost as if it’s something else entirely that’s bothering him.
He turns the radio back on.
I know that there is pain
But you hold on for one more day
And you break free from the chains
A green sign on the side of the road says he’s just 300 miles from Waterdeep, and—gods damn it—Astarion hates when his mind gets to pondering. Dragonspear is the next exit. He’s been planning to pop in, drain a dwarf or two, maybe scrap with a water elemental, then head home. Now he’s thinking that if Gale really has been returned to Toril, he’s probably in Waterdeep.
Who fucking cares? There’s no reason to go there. It’s been over five hundred years since the breakup. The God of Ambition is a prick, just like all the others.
Gale, on the other hand…
Has it really been five centuries since someone’s been kind to him?
HONNNNNNNK HONNNNNNNK.
Astarion drives straight through the exit only lane, cutting off a Haste delivery van in his effort to keep driving on the freeway.
He doesn’t need someone to be kind to him. That sort of thinking would be pathetic and wholly unbecoming of someone with Astarion’s power. No, that can’t be his motive for continuing along.
It’s curiosity. It’s also smart politics.
He’ll go seek out Gale, see how he’s handling mortality, and be back in Baldur’s Gate by nightfall to report his findings to the Council of Four. He continues providing valuable information, they continue ignoring his slaves and what happens to missing pets in the Upper City. It’s a win for everyone.
A small flutter in his chest suggests there’s more to it than that, so Astarion cranks up the volume on the radio for the next song. One of the speakers emits a loud POP then stops producing sound. He probably should have upgraded the sound package.
So no one told you life was gonna be this way
Your job's a joke, you're broke, your love life's DOA—
Then again, maybe not. No one needs to hear The Rembrandts.
Astarion’s mind tunes out the song and pulls up memories he wishes he’d forgotten. Just like in his trances, he sees a shimmering, star-filled sky in the middle of a lifeless wasteland. Two forms mingling beyond time and space. Not the crude skin slapping of sex, but something more. Broken, incomplete souls finding wholeness together. He almost remembers what it felt like.
No, that’s fucking stupid.
There’s no reason to miss the wizard-turned-god. In the time since their split, Astarion has taken thousands of lovers, had thousands more orgasms. Gale wanted him chained to the darkness, but Astarion chose to be free. His life is everything he always hoped it would be.
Rich. Powerful. Loveless?
An intrusive thought. Gods don’t love, and Gale has been dead for centuries.
He presses the gas pedal to the floor.
Maybe it is more than curiosity and smart politics. Maybe he misses Gale. So what? He also misses when Sharess’ Caress didn’t mandate condoms, and when there wasn’t a loud-ass elevated train running outside his bedroom window. It doesn’t mean anything except that he’s been alive for a very long time. He’s tired, maybe a little bored.
The announcement comes again.
“We interrupt this station to bring important news. Lord Ao has once again deemed it necessary to depower the gods to mortal form—”
In five hundred years, Astarion hasn’t found a mortal form that pleases him as much as Gale’s once did. He remembers the big brown eyes, the soft beard, the slight greying of the hair at his temples. How silly. Drizzt Do’Urden once walked Toril. Objectively, Gale Dekarios was nothing special.
Was? Is?
Astarion sighs and thinks about a purple robe, wavy locks, a delectable derriere. He can picture Gale so clearly that it looks like he’s standing in the middle of the freeway. Gale is there, looking right at him like a deer in headlights, holding his hands out in front of his body.
THUNK.
A faint spray of deep red coats the Cybertruck’s windshield. Its automatic wipers kick in, streaking what is clearly blood back and forth with a harsh squeak.
Astarion slams on the brakes and throws on his hazard lights. Not that he cares who or what he’s just run over, but it would be a shame to let good blood go untasted.
His stomach churns as he takes in the sight of the gore on his hood. A bloody, bracer-clad arm stretches toward him, its fingers twitching. If Astarion isn’t mistaken, the fabric beneath the blood is purple. The arm slides backward as whatever it’s attached to drops to the pavement.
No. It can’t be who he thinks it is. He swallows hard.
Stepping out of the vehicle, he’s met with the potent smell of viscera. Glancing back in the direction he came from, he sees the bottom half of a humanoid body. Two legs in a pool of blood. Suddenly, it’s not so tantalizing.
Astarion fears nothing, but as he moves to the front of the Cybertruck, the closest thing he has to a fear becomes reality. He’ll never know whether he and Gale might have rekindled their romance because there is no more Gale. What’s left of his long lost love lies in a pile of gore, halfway between Baldur’s Gate and Waterdeep.
At least it’s a final answer rather than a lingering question.
“Well then,” he mutters, kicking the rocker panel beneath his door.
It falls off.
Should he take the body with him? Leave it? If there’s no Weave, there are no resurrections. Would anyone want the bloody, bisected corpse of a fallen god? Would he be willing to hand it over to anyone who did?
There’s no good thing to be done about this, and even if there were, Astarion’s never been good. The only person who ever thought he might be is smeared on the pavement. This isn’t his problem.
Feeling more tired than ever, he forces himself back into the passenger compartment.
“—we now understand that the gods are appearing before those who worshiped them most—”
After five hundred years, Astarion weeps.