#a note for the viewer wyll is a flawed character and i am eriting from his.... overly optimistiv and romantic imagination

[limpfisted]

@moonlitdelirium [ REGARDING FATHERS, LOVERS, CONQUESTS, PRIDE. I love my gay son and the worm in his head / that keeps the vampire and the tentacles out of his bed. ]

It's strange, sharing a space with your Father and someone you consider a.... lover is much too generous considering you haven't touched except to dance. A fancy, perhaps. A mutual crush. A fling, if you're kind and flippant about it. They could always, always be more, and yet, there's such an abundance and yet a lack of space and boundaries between them that could only ever end in "yes but"---"no ands and no us."

But the affection Wyll feels for Astarion is so real. So overwhelming. If not for his fear for his Father's life, he may have done something terrible, something awful, something drastic and evil he felt so much bloody care and affection strung high and loaded low in his chest.

He almost told Astarion he loved him.

It was just so heroic. So beautiful, to Wyll. So brave. To take responsibility for all those spawn. To be better than his.... Father? Wyll's not quite sure what they were to each other really, only that they were a family the same way the House of Healing were reputable surgeons.

It made Wyll so grateful. To see Astarion grow like that. Far beyond Wyll's reach, really. How could he hope to compare? He'd never faced such hardship. He had hoped, once, and honestly believed---that no one in Baldur's Gate ever had to.

Wyll had bought flowers with his Father here, to place on his Mother's grave here, and the wishing tree where Wyll now will forever dream of taking Astarion was here, and the fishing spot he snuck away to between lessons was here, and he stole a peach here, and he LOVED watching Dribbles the clown here, and he played swords and magic against imaginary goblins here, and he had gotten in trouble in the Flophouse here for loitering around and trying to peek inside a place Astarion had spent hundreds of years in, countless thousands of nights. Fuck.

When would their paths have crossed on the map, if not for the tadpoles? Could Wyll have saved him, pulled him from Cazador like he pulled him from out of the ritual so he could stay his Father to death? He was only a boy, when he left. How old was Astarion, when he died the first time, but no, never the last.

The Duke looks at them funny. Looks at Wyll with his sad, soft eyes towards his... Something or Other... and half-cringes, half-sighs, and then looks away. And when he keeps looking... He just. Well he looks at them funny.

Not with hate. Wyll knows that look. Its burned in his retina, hotter than the Hellfire in his veins.

But one of confusion. Judgment.

That one, Wyll is used to. But it has never felt... good.

How can he explain? To Astarion, to his Father?

Why does everything have to be so much more complicated than fighting goblins for the adoration of the common folk?

Wyll isn't sure----isn't sure if Astarion heard it the first time. Or if he notices.... all The Duke's looks, when Wyll looks at him.

"I don't know if you heard it the first time. A lot was happening. You must have been.... overwhelmed. But I'm proud of you, for making the choice that you made."

And I'm sorry. I'm so so sorry this happened to you. I'm sorry no one protected you, and no one loved you, and no one stopped it. I'm sorry bad things happen in the world and there are monsters and villains and people who hurt people. You didn't deserve it. You never deserved it. Not after the first spawn, or the second. Not after the hundredth spawn. If you had gone through with it---I would've understood. Its too much to bear, and I wish. I wish I could help you bear it. I can't give you the world, I can't give you safety, I can't even give you my love without scaring you away. But please don't think---because of my Father---that I don't---that I won't try to understand you---after everything we've been through together.

"I... honestly don't know what choice I would have made, if I was in your shoes."

Thank Gods he wasn't. Hopefully no one ever will be again. If Astarion's pain is a solitary sin, a blight against the world's goodness, a testament to the power of evil and wrong---then let his healing be its greatest triumph, proof that good things can happen, to those who deserve it most.