#Short response today cause I now have BG3

[cadrenebula]

Prompt #4: Off the Hook

Alexois sighed softly as he carefully baited the hook for some fishing. Shadow was busy winding around between his feet where he sat, the cat eager for fish. Finally getting the line ready before throwing the line out into the water.

"Learn some patience, cat." Alex rolled his eyes as Shadow now decided to sit at the edge of the pier to watch the fishing line. "Don't make me have to fish you out of the water instead."

Earning him a yowl from his companion. The black cat wasn't quite scruffy anymore. At least definitely not scrawny. Still missing a tip of an ear of course since that wasn't something that could be fixed. But food and living with the Jackals had fixed what could be fixed for the once stray cat. Tail lashing back and forth as golden eyes peered back towards the duskwight.

Alex leaned back in his seat and made sure his sunglasses were comfortably situated. He didn't expect any immediate bites but didn't mean he had to sit hunched over waiting. The fish would bite soon enough. An once they did he would have fresh fish to try a new dish for dinner. As well as he'd make sure to catch some to feed the cats. Shadow wouldn't forgive him if he didn't give Shadow and Tyranny some fish for dinner.

[12thhouse-sun]

you came back with gravity

Chapter 2: i hate you for what you did and i miss you like a little kid (AO3)

Chapter 1 AO3, Tumblr

Gale x female!Tav

4.7k words

Mature

On one Waterdhavian spring day a chance encounter brings two old friends back together for the first time in almost ten years. Gale Dekarios is the last person Poppy wants to see but when confronted with his affliction, Poppy is forced to make a decision that will define both of them for the rest of their lives. – A Canon-Divergent AU where Gale still has the orb but the events of BG3 don’t happen.

Tags: Angst, Grief, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Discussions of Death, Discussions of Suicide

banner from @firefly-graphics

“What the fuck do you mean you’re staying with him? Taking care of him? That fucker doesn’t deserve even a second of your time why—”

The Sending cuts short at the word limit and Poppy restarts a new one with “Go on”, anticipating Holly’s barrage to continue and doesn’t want to interrupt her more than that.

“Fucking spell. Why are you even bothering? Let him fucking rot for all I care, for all you should care. Fucking piece of shit wizard—”

Casting another sending and another “go on,” she lets Holly rant until she’s done. Choosing her words carefully, Poppy finally responds. “Hols, you didn’t see him. Tara was desperate. I couldn’t leave him like that.”

“So where’s Morena? A godsdamned cleric? Literally anyone else. Come on, I thought you were the reasonable one out of the two of us.”

Poppy takes a steadying breath, trying to walk the line of what to tell Holly and what to keep from her but she can’t help her voice cracking at her response. “He’s dying, Hols. It’s too much for a Sending. I’m sorry. I’ll be back in Baldur’s Gate another time. I’ll write.”

“Fucking hells.” Silence. “You better. Love you. Talk soon.”

She drops her head into her hands, exhausted. Holly has always been fiery, the sun and spark to Poppy’s icy, grounded nature, which has admittedly been melting as of late. It took a tenday before she could pluck up the courage to Send her best friend, anticipating exactly what just occurred. Holly is right, she normally is the reasonable one: ice and stone and holding firm. But in this situation, Poppy is finding it hard to do just that. 

In these first few days, Gale moves around her like a skittish animal and Tara is constantly underfoot, battering Poppy with questions about her life and travels since they last saw each other. This is fine when Poppy is merely trying to settle in, but what makes this difficult is when it comes to tending to Gale. Just this morning the orb needed to be fed again and he didn’t tell her, not wanting to bother her. She told him off again, pleading with him to just accept her help, but he can be just as stubborn as her.

After using so much magic already today, she feels as though she needs another cup of coffee. Upon exiting her room, she finds Tara on the landing, giving her a look.

“Having fun listening?” Poppy needles tiredly. 

“I know this has not been easy for you, but your effort hasn’t gone unnoticed. Miss Smith will understand eventually. She is not entirely unreasonable once she calms down.”

Poppy can’t help but snort as she starts down the stairs, Tara joining her. “Does she ever?”

“Now I wouldn’t deign to comment on that, Miss Lyons, she is your friend after all.”

Poppy sighs. “Love you, Tara.”

“I love you, too.”

—

A month goes by, and things improve gradually. Every few days the orb gets hungry and so she feeds it, having to ensure she rations her magic so that it can be fed something suitable that day. On the occasional very bad day when feeding the orb doesn’t cause immediate relief in the other side effects, Poppy casts a Lesser Restoration over him which does seem to help. Gale is nothing but gracious but continues to shrink himself around her, never asking for spells to ease his pain even when she can tell he needs it.

Feeding the orb makes Gale more physically mobile but it doesn’t clear his mind. He’s spent a year locked in his tower with just Tara for intermittent company and thus has turned into himself. Poppy is fortunately or unfortunately familiar with the feeling; she is prone to bouts of melancholy herself, but navigating how Gale would prefer to be treated when like this is new for both of them. Poppy tries to offer assistance in any direct or indirect way, looking to distract, solve, or listen to whatever he needs, but the second she offers up even that kind of assistance Gale brushes her off, saying he can manage on his own. She gets it. But it’s hard. 

So she helps in other ways, food being one of them. She visits the markets a few times a week and becomes one with Gale’s kitchen, cooking up foods that will hopefully fill him out. That is, if he even eats. When he’s asleep (or pretending to when she walks in, hard to tell) she’ll leave him a bowl but it’ll be untouched come morning. To prevent this, Poppy has taken to getting him meals whenever he’s awake and eating with him. 

The first time she did it, he froze up and refused to look at her, but eventually did begin eating. And as the days went on, Poppy insists on eating with him at every meal, Gale finally taking the hint and eating whenever she arrives with food. It takes two tendays, but eventually he starts making his way down to the kitchen to eat whenever he can smell Poppy cooking.

Conversation comes more slowly. They don’t talk much during meals but one day Gale is curious to his core and actually asks Poppy about her recent travels, the shock of the moment making Poppy drop her spoon. It’s while she focuses on stumbling through an answer that she doesn’t notice how her heart soars at him opening up.

—

Poppy isn’t quite sure she trusts this fishmonger. That should be enough for her to ignore his wares but unfortunately he’s the only one selling littleneck clams today and she needs a quart of them for dinner. Combine that with the fact that she’s pretending to look like she knows what to look for in good clams has resulted in her standing at this stall for far too long. 

Just when she’s about to say “fuck it” and pick something else for dinner, she can grill Gale when she gets home on how to identify quality shellfish, she hears her name called out to her in a desperate and familiar voice.

Oh shit, Poppy thinks right as Morena Dekarios rushes up to her and pulls her into a suffocating hug. 

Poppy is ashamed to admit to herself that she had not forgotten to visit Morena in the few weeks she’s been in Waterdeep, but has in fact been purposefully avoiding her. That first day in the tower she had begged Tara to not tell Morena that she was even in town, let alone living with Gale, and the tressym reluctantly has been keeping her word. All that left Poppy to do was avoid Morena as best she could in the largest city on the Sword Coast.

Apparently Waterdeep isn’t big enough. Her and Gale had always joked that his mother was “inevitable” but it held more truth that one would think.

Morena shudders in her arms, overcome with emotion at seeing who is essentially the daughter she never had for the first time in years. Poppy doesn’t usually avoid Morena when she comes through Waterdeep, knowing that if Morena ever found she was there without visiting her, Poppy would be dead in a ditch less than a day later. But she tried to keep those past visits short as Morena would always push her about forgiving Gale.

It’s something that had always baffled Poppy; the only other person more upset than Poppy and Holly that he had missed her mother’s funeral was Morena, her mother’s best friend. While Poppy wasn’t there for it, she knows that Morena laid into him about it after the fact. But the baffling part is years later when Morena came to her to ask her if she would consider forgiving her son. That he’s truly sorry and that she hates seeing the both of them no longer on good terms. It always left a bad taste in Poppy’s mouth. 

And so it’s more than embarrassing to run into her when Poppy is clearly running errands as if she’s staying a while instead of just passing through.

“Gods, darling it’s been so long how are you? You’re looking so well–ah, are you staying a while?” she asks, gesturing to Poppy’s bags. 

Always gets right to it, Morena. It’s something Poppy always appreciated about her but right now she wishes she could misty step away and crawl into a hole.

“Yeah, I am. It’s great to see you, too.”

“Incredible! Tell me, where are you staying? You don’t need to rent a room, you know you can always stay with me, all the empty space I have and whatnot.”

Another gut punch. 

She braces herself. Poppy can’t lie to Morena. Can’t and won’t. Can’t, because Morena knows all of her tells–given that Poppy inherited them from her mother–and won’t because she can’t bear to. But not everything.

“I’m…staying with Gale,” she replies hesitantly. 

A wash of emotions spread over her face: shock, pain, excitement, grief. Grief that Poppy hasn’t seen on Morena’s face since her mother passed. Fuck.

“You’re staying with him? Tell me, is he alright? Please tell me what’s wrong with my baby boy.  I haven’t heard hide nor hair of him, Tara has been especially tight-lipped which is so unlike her—she kept you a secret, too! Oh, but you two have made up haven’t you? If you’re staying with him that must be true, oh that warms my heart but I wish I could just see him too…” 

The bombardment of questions overwhelms Poppy and so she guides Morena over to a spot between two stalls for a semblance of privacy. When Poppy looks back up at her once they’ve stopped she sees tears streaming down Morena’s face and her resolve shatters, her own tears falling freely now.

“I’m sorry, I—” Poppy takes Morena’s hands in her own and gathers herself. “We have made up.” Not a complete lie. “I’m helping him at the moment. I can’t say much more unfortunately, but I will be staying in Waterdeep for the foreseeable future. I’m so sorry I didn’t come see you sooner.” She feels so ashamed and afraid, like a child about to be scolded. Poppy loves Morena with her whole heart and she could have handled this better. Should have handled this better. Then she wouldn’t be crying with her in the middle of the Markets. 

Morena pulls her into another bracing hug and they cry together, the older woman rubbing soothing circles into Poppy’s back. She’s missed being comforted and being held and she drops her bags and clings to the back of Morena’s dress like a toddler.

After a few minutes they break apart, Morena handing her an extra handkerchief to dry her face. “You truly can tell me nothing more?”

Poppy can only plead another apology and hope it’s enough. 

“Well, what are you doing the rest of the day, my love? I’m out running errands myself and we can take a stroll together. Maybe take tea in the garden after? You can fill me in on all you’ve been up to.”

Poppy smiles a little at the thought, wiping her tears. “I’d love that. Actually, could you help me with something?” She pulls Morena over to the fishmonger whispering the questions she would have asked Gale once she returned to the tower.

Upon returning home hours later, Poppy drops all of her bags onto the kitchen table, feeling completely wrung out. The rest of the morning and early afternoon with Morena had truly been a pleasure but she had to continue dodging questions left and right about Gale, his mother doing everything she could to try and get even a smidgen of information out of her. In the end, Poppy held firm, but agreed to a weekly tea with her every Seventhday and the occasional market run together.

It’s at that moment that Gale pops into the kitchen, finding Poppy hunched over the table. “Oh! You’re back! Did you happen to acquire the—”

“I ran into your mother today,” she interrupts, wanting to get this over with.

That stops him short and he pales. “Oh?” he replies weakly.

“I didn’t lie to her. But I withheld so much and you know how much I fucking hate doing that to her.” She feels the tears coming on again, that feeling of being so very small. “She misses you. She wishes you’d at least write.”

“Poppy I can’t…”

“I know why you say you can’t I know! I know it hurts, it’s what I’ve felt all day today having to withhold from her. I did everything I could to not hurt her more at the reveal of your condition. Everything. I don’t know how Tara does it.” Gods, the tears. She turns her head away from Gale, scrunching her eyes closed and willing the tears to stop their assault. 

She hears Gale shuffle forward and lay a gentle hand on her back, the first touch he’s initiated between them since she’s lived there. Poppy recalls Morena’s hug from earlier and finds herself yearning for that comfort again, yearning for Gale of all people to wrap her in his arms and let her cry but she’s still so mad at him and both thoughts living together in her mind are so confusing.

“Your efforts are most appreciated, and if you’d like to leave I’d understand…”

“Gods, not that shit again, Gale,” she sniffs, wiping the snot off her nose with the handkerchief Morena gave her. Through her tears she looks to Gale and finds him looking bereft and ashamed. “For the last time, I’m not leaving you alone here—”

“I have Tara—”

“Who leaves for days at a time to find you magical items! That’s not a life to live. We’re managing it, Gale. You and I, together.”

“But this is hurting you, too and I will never forgive myself for hurting you again.”

The elephant in the room. They haven’t talked about it yet and she doesn’t want to now. All it’ll result in is her getting mad and him retreating into himself, anyway. 

“Gale, is your worry about me that much more painful than the long days you go in between items?”

“It’s what I deserve,” he states a little too resolutely for her liking.

“Fuck that, and fuck Mystra for all I care. Just because this is difficult it doesn’t mean I’m going to leave for fuck’s sake.”

Gale is quiet for a moment, taking in her words, still looking more than a little shame-faced. She can’t look at him, can’t be in the same room as him.

“I’ll get started on dinner shortly,” she says, turning to the bags on the table and focusing on putting them away and only that.

After a moment, she hears the shuffle of Gale exiting the kitchen and walking upstairs.

An hour later, everything is put away and dinner is ready. Poppy is anticipating another quiet and uncomfortable dinner tonight. Maybe she’ll grab a bottle of wine for herself later, to take her mind off everything. She would rather get high but has yet to find a reliable seller of halfling weed in the city, her old connection long moved on.

Bracing herself outside of his door, she takes a deep breath and enters his room, but Gale is nowhere to be seen. Not in his bed, or in the armchair by the window. She wonders if he’s up in his study when she sees that his ensuite bathroom is shut, which is only ever shut when it’s in use. Poppy sets his bowl on his bedside table and sits in the armchair, digging in. 

Minutes pass, and Poppy has finished her dinner, and Gale hasn’t appeared. Tired of waiting, she approaches the bathroom door and knocks. 

“Gale? Everything alright?” she calls. She presses her ears to the door and hears a quiet groan, not the usual kind you’d hear in a bathroom. “Gale?” she calls again, worried now.

He doesn’t respond. Poppy declares she’s coming in and casts Knock on the door, only to find Gale crumpled on the bathroom tile in his bathrobe, arm clutching his chest as the orb glows menacingly. She rushes to him, pulling his head in her lap and pouring her magic into the orb, begging for it to stabilize. It takes a few moments, but the orb finally quiets, and Poppy rests her hand on his chest above the orb, confirming that it is no longer roiling.

She feels movement against her other hand and craning her neck more she sees her other hand clutching Gale’s cheek, not remembering having done so. He looks up at her tired and pained. His eyes are too much for her so she looks elsewhere, inspecting his head for any sign of injury but finds nothing. 

“I’m sorry,” he chokes out, barely a whisper.

It’s a loaded apology. It is like Gale to apologize for things he doesn’t need to, like needing her help after a fall. But Poppy knows this is more than that, it’s an apology for something else and many other things all at once. She’s still so mad at him, but she also can’t bear to see him in pain, the conflicting emotions inside her making her nauseous. So she ignores it, focusing instead on helping him.

“You didn’t hit your head, did you?” she chokes out, struggling to keep her voice even.

“No, fortunately,” he whispers weakly. “Thank you, again. You didn’t have to.”

“Don’t mention it,” she forces out. “Your dinner’s in your room but it’s gone cold, I can reheat it for you if you’d like.”

Gale looks up at her and she anticipates the usual “oh don’t worry” or “you don’t have to” but he seems to catch himself, considering her. “That would be most appreciated. Thank you, Poppy.” He shakily raises one hand and places it on top of the one that holds his face, 

She smiles down at him, easier than expected given everything. “Come on, let’s get you on your feet.”

—

“Oh! There you are, I was—”

Poppy shushes him and beckons him over to where she kneels on the balcony. She’s currently ducked behind the railing and doesn’t want Gale to draw attention to her quarry.

Gale crouches next to her, wincing at his knees. Grabbing a cushion off the bench, she pulls it over for him to kneel on. 

“We’re going to be here a while,” she whispers conspiratorially. Grabbing the bottle of wine and glass she brought with her, she pours Gale a hearty glassful and takes a swig straight from the bottle. 

“What is this about?”

“Do you see that couple in the dinghy in the harbor over there?” she asks, gesturing towards the water with her head. Gale peaks over the railing with her to see exactly that: a young couple in a dinghy. What Poppy did not describe that Gale sees is a veritable garden of flowers filling the boat. “I think he’s going to propose.”

“At this time of day?” Gale says, a little too loudly. Poppy shushes him and he continues, quieter. “It’s supposed to be a cloudless summer day today, and quite hot at that; something that could have been seen with a simple divination spell from a cleric or druid. Neither of them are wearing hats, they could burn! She is also clearly dressed for something much nicer than a dinghy ride, that one doesn’t even look particularly clean! Oh how uncomfortable she must be. He clearly did not take her comfort into consideration. Does he even like her?”

Poppy can’t help but snort at Gale’s indignation, happy to see he’s immediately invested.

“I guess we’re going to find out. If she says yes, we can call out and congratulate them. But if she says no…” she turns to Gale and flashes him an impish grin. “I think that will be a different kind of enjoyable.”

Gale looks back over the railing. “Oh! They’ve stopped. Drat, I wish I had my binoculars at hand, they’re usually out here…”

Poppy wordlessly hands him the aforementioned binoculars she had taken with her when she originally crouched behind the railing and he takes them excitedly. Taking a sip of wine, he pokes back over the railing and begins narrating what he can see.

“He’s terribly out of breath…oh her arms are crossed she is not amused by this little excursion he’s concocted. Blimey, half the flowers are wilted. I wonder how long the boat sat in the sun…”

Looking over the railing herself she sees them sitting in the little boat but can’t make out much else. “Are they talking?”

“Indeed they are. I wish I had learned to read lips that would have been perfect for this very mom—OH! He’s getting down on one knee!”

The man does indeed get down on one knee and rocks the boat in his effort, the woman trying to stabilize herself and her squeal of her surprise and panic echoes across the water. Poppy swallows down another glug of wine but doesn’t take her eyes off of the trash fire she’s surely about to witness. 

“He’s speaking…” Gale continues. “Oh!” He exclaims and slaps a hand over his mouth in excitement, the binoculars almost slipping out of his grasp into the water. Poppy grabs the strap but she doesn’t need him to finish, she sees it clear as the day they’re sitting in: the woman has slapped the man square across the face.

“Oh my gods,” she effuses. 

Replacing the binoculars at his eyes, Gale replies, “Normally I’d hate to laugh at other people's suffering, but he could have done better. She can do better.”

They strain their ears for any taste of what they’re fighting about but they can only catch a word here or there as their volume increases and the fight continues. 

“...never cared..”

“...always…your mother!”

“...never supported me…”

“...and you’re still unemployed!”

“... at least I’m not a—”

The last few words are cut off by the woman slapping the man across the face one more time before turning around in her seat and pointedly not looking at him, thoroughly icing him out.

Both Gale and Poppy wince and “Ooooh” at the slap, this one apparently hard enough to make the man shut up. He pulls out a dagger, cutting off the blooms and ribbons to sink into the harbor, before taking up the oars once more and rowing back to shore. 

Turning so that her back is against the railing, Gale joins her, gulping down half his glass. He takes a refill without question even though she’s been drinking straight out of the bottle. Meeting the other’s gaze, the tension is broken and they both break out into a fit of giggles. Doubled over and clutching their sides, it’s a few moments before Poppy speaks. “You–you were so angry for her!”

“It seems like she needs someone in her corner! Besides, he clearly did not know her well or put in the needed consideration for a proposal. Anyone with eyes can tell that it was a rushed job.”

“How would you have done it? A mid-harbor proposal in a dinghy?”

“Well, to start,” he points his finger in the air, “I would check the weather, as I previously stated. The flowers would be fresh and in season, and their favorite. Though not so many as to affect the seaworthiness of the vessel. I would make sure they’re dressed appropriately and comfortably. I would row us out there to a programmed illusion I would have prepared earlier in the day, if I had my magic of course…” the last of his words draw off as he stares into the middle-distance. 

Poppy nudges him with his foot, not allowing him to bury himself in a hole of self-loathing. “And then what?”

“And then I would confess my never-dying love for them, which they would already be aware of. But more poetically—I would have prepared something for that very moment. And if they say yes, we’d enjoy a small picnic which I would have packed and stowed in the boat beforehand. Only their favorite foods of course.”

“Of course,” she smiles. 

“Oh but then there would be the dinner afterwards with family back at the tower, a sumptuous meal cooked by yours truly.”

“Nothing done by halves, here.”

“Never,” he grins, eyes twinkling.

“Cheers to that,” she says, holding her bottle out to him. 

“Cheers indeed.” Gale clinks his glass against her bottle and they both drink their fill. Poppy smiles into her drink at the feeling that something has finally dissolved between the two of them.

—

“These just aren’t doing it for me,” she grumbles, tossing another cookbook to the side. She’s trying to figure out what to make for meals the next few nights and for some reason everything Gale’s cookbooks had to offer are uninspiring. Getting up from the table and leaving Gale to his breakfast and tea, she goes over to the shelves where he keeps the cookbooks and pulls out a recipe box she hasn’t perused yet in her weeks staying at the tower. 

Popping the lid off, she starts flipping through them, begging the gods to show her something interesting. Most of the cards are written in Gale’s hand with plenty in his mother’s as well. But one card for Chicken Piccata has her stop in her tracks.  

She thought she knew every existing piece of her writing. It took ages to go through all of her things, Poppy finding herself reading and re-reading her mother’s journals, notes, recipes, even to-do lists, just to feel closer to her. Taking in the literal marks she left on this world. She has most of them memorized at this point and as a result is intimately familiar with her mother’s handwriting. The swoop of the first leg of her capital A’s, the flicks of the dots of every i and j, and the looping swirls of every o into the following letter. 

¼ cp capers. She doesn’t think she’s ever seen her mother’s handwriting make that specific string of letters before. The s is a little wonky here, a tiny loop at the top where her pen changed directions. 

It’s been ten years and everyone had been right; the grief never goes away, never shrinks, but your love and your life grows around it. Poppy has learned to live without her mother and learned to live around the grief. The pain used to be constant until it wasn’t. Until she could go months sometimes without feeling the wrenching stab of grief cut her open once more. 

It doesn’t happen slowly but suddenly, Poppy hacking out a sob that unleashes a torrential downpour of salty tears down her face.

Gale is upon her instantly, pulling her into his chest and hugging her tightly. The card is trapped between them in one of her hands but she doesn’t let go, she can’t let go. The headrush makes her feel like she’s swaying but Gale keeps her upright. One of his hands is cupping the back of her head and he’s whispering, “I’m here, I’m here. It’s okay,” like a mantra. She feels her shoulder moisten from his own tears.

“Why weren’t you there?” she wails, the pain of his absence from her mother’s funeral pouring over her. “You were sup–posed to be th–there,” she blubbers.

“I have no excuses. I was impossibly stupid, Poppy. My reasons aren’t worth repeating because you’re right, I should have been there. And you had every right to shut me out afterwards. I am so, so very sorry. From the deepest depths of my heart and my soul I am sorry for all the pain that I caused you. You are my closest and dearest friend and I am so sorry that I ever made you think otherwise.” 

Pulling her trapped arm from out in between them she hugs him back, clinging to him like a lifeline. This is what she needed when her mother passed, this is what she needed at her funeral, for him to hold her and for her to hold him back. Adrianne Lyons was like a second mother to him and in the days they both needed each other he wasn’t there. But he’s here now. And these minutes they hold each other and cry together in his kitchen heal something inside of her that she thought was going to stay broken forever.