#also astarion continues to be relatable by scrolling the internet to avoid doing actual work

[slothquisitor]

Invisible String: Chapter Four

A Baldur’s Gate III Modern AU.

Chapter Summary: In which both Liv and Astarion learn something new about each other. And I make my case that Gale would love Kafka.

Read from the beginning.

Read on AO3.

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It’s a beautiful day in Baldur’s Gate, and Astarion hates it. The autumn sunshine is out in full force, and the leaves are just beginning to turn. Summer wears on him, the long sun-filled days a constant reminder of everything he’s lost and can’t have. Winter is easier. Not only does he prefer the fashion of a good winter coat, the days are much shorter and darker, it’s almost easier to pretend he’s not a vampire spawn. 

But they’re not there yet, so he spends the daylight hours pacing the empty apartment and wishing Liv was here to provide some measure of entertainment. He’s not sure when he went from avoiding her to looking forward to her being home, but it happened sometime between morning chats and movie night. 

Books>People has been largely quiet today, and he finds he misses that too. He can’t quite be productive because he keeps checking his phone, willing a message to come through. He’s ‘working’ when one finally does, though today that seems to involve more mindless scrolling of Chirper than actual work. 

Books>People: Is there a point where one ever gets used to seeing a man passed out over a trash bag full of spaghetti on the evening commute? 

FangtasticLover: Is there a point where you want to be the type of person used to seeing a man passed out over a trash bag full of spaghetti on the evening commute?

Books>People: Is that the Baldur’s Gate sanity test? 

FangtasticLover: Yes, that and knowing that you never go to Wyrm’s Crossing on a summer Saturday. 

Books>People: Good to know. I learn things about this new city of mine every day. 

FangtasticLover: Wait, you’re new to the city? 

There’s a pause then at his question. There is some sort of unspoken agreement between them, they don’t ask identifying questions. They are happy to banter and tease each other, but they don’t delve deeper than that. He likes it that way. He likes that she wants to know his opinion on movies and books and that she wants to know if he’s having a good day or not. It’s all surface level, all comfortable. There’s a reason he cuts these connections off before it can turn into anything more. 

Books>People: I thought my surprise at subway spaghetti man revealed that.

FangtasticLover: It didn’t. How do you like it?

Books>People: I still feel like I’m learning it, but I love the way it feels almost alive all the time. The bells ringing in Old Town are my favorite. Do you like living here? 

FangtasticLover: I’ve never really lived anywhere else. 

Books>People: A true local! You’ll have to teach me your Baldurian ways. 

FangtasticLover: Ugh. First, you want my gold-digging techniques and now you want me to show you the local customs?

Books>People: And I better still be getting all your mind flayer erotica recommendations too. 

He smiles at the joke from their first conversation. She does that a lot, these little things she refers back to that already feel like theirs. It makes him want to pay attention to follow these invisible strings weaving between them. Perhaps that’s why he is so lost when he cuts someone off on the app, the severing of those fragile threads must be like a wound. But he’s good at surviving those. 

FangtasticLover: Where’s your favorite place in the city so far?

Books>People: There are  a few good places, but that one pedestrian bridge just south of the Wide is pretty spectacular. I was there today with a friend. 

FangtasticLover: I know the place. Great views. But you have friends beyond me? I’m hurt.

Books>People: Oh is that what we are? Friends? I thought of you more as my gold-digging-dating-app-pocket-comrade.

FangtasticLover: That’s a lot of words for friend, but sure, if that’s how you want to talk about me to other people.

Books>People: Awfully presumptuous to assume that I talk about you to other people.

FangtasticLover: *Did* you tell your friend about me?

Books>People: Maybe. Would you prefer I didn’t?

Astarion smiles. She definitely told her friend about him. There’s something about knowing she might have that lights up something within his chest. She doesn’t even know his name, and he doesn’t know hers either but the idea that she might be telling someone about their conversations makes it all more real somehow. He’s not sure how he feels about that, how he should feel about that. 

FangtasticLover: I don’t mind at all. Just nice to know I’m being thought of even when we’re not messaging.

Books>People: At least every now and again, pocket comrade.

Later that night, when his nighttime wanderings take him across the city he knows so well, he finds himself on that bridge. The lights of Baldur’s Gate twinkle in the night, brighter than any stars. He snaps a picture on his phone of the skyline, and sends it to Books>People without a second thought. No comment, just the picture. 

Books>People: Wow, it’s even better at night. Were you just passing through or did you go all the way there to think of me?

FangtasticLover: Why not both?

This is why he likes the Weave. The way it collapses the distance between him and other people, but always within his control. He likes that he stands here on this bridge in the same place she was earlier today. He wonders what other spaces they’ve shared, knowing even now, he wouldn’t be able to pick her out of a crowd. 

Sometimes, he worries that he only likes people in the abstract. More in love with the distance than any connection he could make. He feels made up of only jagged edges that will never quite fit without wounding. He’s sure he wasn’t always like this, but years upon years of abuse and violence drown out the other memories. There is the before and the after, but the before feels slick, like trying to grasp at water. Now he’s just a jumble of memories and an after that he can’t quite navigate.

Books>People: Where’s your favorite place in the city? 

He doesn’t respond, not yet. Instead, he leaves the bridge and jumps on the train, riding it to the oldest part of Baldur’s Gate where the university crouches, its spires lit up against the dark navy of the sky. As he walks the empty cobblestone paths, he is filled with a certain wistfulness. This is the only place in the city that feels untouched by the passage of time. It’s the only place he thinks he might be able to forget the years spent beneath Cazador’s thumb. He snaps a picture of his favorite building, the large domed library beside the tall tower of the nearby tabernacle. The photo makes the stone buildings look more buttery orange than they are, but the sky is darker too, and it’s like the buildings are aglow. He sends it off. Her response is immediate. 

Books>People: That is coincidentally my other favorite place in the city. 

FangtasticLover: Oh? 

Books>People: Well, it is a library. 

***

It begins with him. With his pictures that night, and it’s like he’s crossed an invisible threshold of their relationship, and now they send little pieces of themselves back and forth across their days. Small things: a coffee order or the cover of a book. But to Liv, it feels like a window. He feels more real now like showing the city back to her has sharpened his outline. She looks for him everywhere now as if she might find him in a crowd. 

But she doesn’t bring up meeting. There’s a comfortability to this, to the way they spend their days messaging. She is grateful for this connection, for having someone she feels like she can talk to, even if it is mostly meaningless. She worries about breaking the spell, at pushing whatever this is along too quickly toward their inevitable demise. And it will be a demise, that much she is sure of. 

And yet, with every message from him that comes through, she hopes a little bit harder. For what exactly, she’s still not sure. 

When she gets home from work on Wednesday afternoon, she’s surprised to find Astarion working in the living room. She catches a glance at his laptop screen while she deposits her bag in her room only to find the man has a truly ungodly number of tabs open on his computer. 

“Everything alright?” she asks, stepping back out into the kitchen. 

He sighs. “I’m trying to capitalize on a particularly viral meme while one of the stupidest patriars in the city held a press conference dressed in a suit that looks like it came from his grandmother’s attic. And not in the nice antique way…literally it looks like it was made for a woman thirty…fifty years ago…?”

Liv sinks down on the other end of the couch. “Is it like a marketing thing to capitalize on a meme?”

Astarion looks up at her from the glow of his laptop with confused disdain. “Marketing?”

“That’s what Gale said you did?” Liv says, suddenly mistrusting her memory of that initial conversation about Astaron. She feels like a bit of an asshole now because he’s mentioned working but hasn’t talked about it much if at all, but she’s talked about her job plenty. She’s lived with him for almost two weeks now, and is it really possible she doesn’t know anything about his fucking job?

Astarion’s answering laugh is high-pitched and delighted. “Karlach would tell people I’m ‘in marketing’. I owe her a drink.”

Liv has seen enough of Astarion not to be overly concerned that whatever he does will be a deal-breaker, but she is wondering if it’s strictly legal at this point. “Okay, so what do you do then?”

“Oh, I’m the GlamReaper, darling,” he says with a slight giggle bubbling out of him. 

It takes her a moment to remember why that would be familiar to her. Then it dawns on her. “The guy who roasts badly dressed men on Chirper?” 

He grins. “You’ve heard of me.”

“Yeah, you’re pretty popular on the internet…this isn’t information you typically lead with? It seems like a tidbit you’d be sharing with most people you meet,” Liv replies. Astarion loves attention, that much she’s figured out in the past two weeks. 

He clicks his tongue. “Judgy.”

It’s her turn to sigh. “I didn’t mean to make it sound like such a bad thing…you’d just think that you’d want people to know that about you.”

Astarion shrugs. “Anonymity is part of the job; it’s why it works.” 

“Don’t you have like a million followers?” 

“1.2, but who’s counting? And nearly half of them have tagged me in a video of this ridiculous patriar so my notifications are a mess.”

Liv considers what it might be like to have over a million people choosing to listen to what you might say at any given moment. “How do you manage to post anything knowing that many people will see it?”

“Easily,” Astarion says, pushing publish on his post to prove it. “There’s money involved, after all.”

“That’s…wild to me. Do you like it?”

He considers that, seemingly surprised at her question. “I’m quite good at it, so…yes. But I do like other aspects of my job a bit more. The virtual closet consulting is a bit more fun these days, actually.”

“Well, I live with the GlamReaper, who’d have thought?”

He pushes the laptop away and twists in his seat so that they’re facing each other properly. “It is something I’d prefer you not broadcast though.”

She rests her elbow on the back of the couch, propping her head on her hand. “Your secret is safe with me.” She means it. 

He looks like he believes her. “I…appreciate that.”

She scrubs a hand down her face. “I feel like an asshole for not knowing your job when I’ve told you at length about mine.”

“Are you looking to make it up to me?” He leans in toward her, flashing a grin that tells her he’s not truly bothered but willing to take advantage of it anyway. 

This close she can see the ruby red of his eyes and the fine lines in the corners. She’s not entirely sure of his age, but he feels older than her and probably has an enviable skin care routine. “That entirely depends on what you want.”

He taps his chin exaggeratedly in mock seriousness. “How about we just settle on a future favor?”

“That feels ominous,” she replies. But she knows she’s going to agree because he’s her roommate, and of course she’d do him a favor any time. Assholery or not. “But sure. A future favor it is.”

“Excellent. How were the books today?” 

Liv smiles. “As always, better than people.” He looks a bit confused at her statement, so she presses on. “The library is looking for a new exhibit for the spring, and I’m thinking of writing a proposal for it.”

“About?”

“I want to do something to show off the archives and all of the cool and rare things we have there, but also something that would be interesting to library patrons. I was thinking of an exhibit on the editing process. We have some really rare manuscripts and unpublished works marked up by the authors.”

He considers that for a moment. “That does sound marginally interesting.”

She sighs. “It will need to be more than marginally interesting to win out. I’m pretty sure Gale has a true winner with his idea for a Kafka exhibit. He wants to bring in actual bugs.”

“Kafka? Really?”

Liv shrugs. “Gale loves him.”

“I have only ever heard about Gale from Karlach, but he would.”

Liv laughs. “Kafka did want his work burned after his death rather than actually shared with the world, but after he died, his literary executor still published it. There’s an interesting moral quandary to explore there.”

“If you say so,” Astarion replies. “Your idea sounds more interesting than that.” The way he says it, voice dropped lower, filled with a certainty she doesn’t quite feel in herself makes her cheeks warm. 

Suddenly, it’s hard to look at him, and she looks down instead at the stretch of couch between them. “Thanks.”

***

Astarion is enjoying a rare evening home, alone. According to the shared calendar he still hasn’t bothered adding anything to, Liv is at dinner with her library coworkers in what sounds like the most boring dinner party imaginable. He’d been looking forward to having the apartment to himself for the evening. He and Liv have been spending most evenings together watching Crown of Shadows , and while enjoyable, sometimes it’s nice to be able to just be alone at night drinking blood without worrying about an audience.

Books>People hasn’t messaged him back in over an hour, so he half watches, half scrolls his phone while a movie he pressed play on and then promptly forgot the name of drones in the background. 

He’s surprised at how empty the apartment feels without Liv in it. She’s only been here about two weeks, but already her presence has become a sort of fixture of the place. He likes having her around. She’s easy to be around, and seems happy, if a bit bemused, to give him her undivided attention whenever he asks for it. Beyond her work though, he knows so very little about her. But she’s not home, and her room is open, and well, he could just poke around a little bit. Couldn’t he?

She’d never know. 

He doesn’t bother stopping the movie as he pockets his phone and approaches the darkened threshold of her room. From the light of the kitchen, he can see her neatly made bed with no less than three blankets draped over the duvet. She’s a rather tidy person, he’s gathered, and her room doesn’t look anything like his often cluttered, strewn about one. 

It’s bad form to go into her room and through her things, and he knows he’d be furious if she did the same to him, but the thought doesn’t stop him. He steps forward full of confidence and curiosity, and headlong into….well something quite solid. 

He can’t enter her room. 

He presses his hands up against the invisible barrier blocking him, full of confusion. “But I own the entire apartment!” He exclaims this to the empty air, not sure who exactly he’s talking to. 

He petulantly kicks the barrier, which does nothing beyond earning him a sore foot before returning to the couch and his movie. Well, it seems that he won’t be unrepentantly going through Liv’s things until she invites him into her room. That ought to be easy enough to orchestrate. He’s ignoring his movie while thinking through how to make that happen when his phone finally pings. 

Books>People: What movie did you settle on? Sorry for the delay, was out to dinner with some coworkers. 

He stares at her message for several moments. That’s odd…Liv is out to dinner with coworkers tonight too. Oh fucking hells. No, no, no, no, no. This can’t possibly be happening. It must be a coincidence. He fires off a text immediately. 

FangtasticLover: I’m unsure if I should offer encouragement or condolences. I guess that depends entirely on what you and your coworkers do.

She told him she worked for the university once…and…and now he remembers what Liv had said earlier…about liking books more than people. No. This isn’t happening. But no response arrives…for several whole minutes. 

Books>People: I think most people would assume that a dinner with a group of archivists would be boring, but we made do.

He reads the message through at least three times before tossing his phone on the couch and jumping up and away from it as if it’s a snake poised to strike. He begins pacing the room, mind filtering through possibilities. Perhaps it’s not Liv…maybe it’s just someone she works with. Oh hells, it’s not Lae’zel is it? She had been in the apartment once, so the app might have clocked their proximity. For all he knows Liv doesn’t even use the app. But Books>People had said she was new to the city. 

Oh gods. Oh gods. This is bad . 

Or is it? He’ll just sever the connection, go about his life and never tell her a damn thing. It’s fine. It’s absolutely fine. Nothing needs to change here and he gets to keep his roommate and not make things weird. It’s a win-win. 

It hasn’t even been two weeks since he matched with her, but the thought of cutting that connection off, of losing the ability to talk to Books>People. He doesn’t like that. Ugh. It’s a coincidence. Probably. 

He’s not going to panic. Not right now. When she gets home he’ll simply send a message to Books>People and if Liv’s phone goes off, he’ll know. That’s all. It’s fine.

The door to the apartment opens, and he stares at it, unmoving from his place standing in the middle of the living room. Liv walks in dressed in a dark green wool coat, frowning at her phone before looking up. 

“Oh, hey.”

He strides over to the couch, as if he had simply been on his way back instead of uselessly pacing the room. “Hi.”

He picks up his phone. And types out a message. 

FangtasticLover: Archivists? Well, that does sound dreadfully dull.

He presses send and doesn’t look away from Liv as she hangs her coat in the hall. The passing seconds feel like an eternity, and for a moment, he believes that it might have been long enough that he’s safe. It is a coincidence. But then her phone vibrates on the table. 

 No, no, no, no no. NO. But he knows, and no amount of denial will make it go away. Books>People is his fucking roommate. 

He can’t do this, not right now. So the moment she’s in the kitchen proper he strides right out of the apartment without another word.