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rosieofcorona · 10 months

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All We Do Not Say

Hi beloveds! I have crafted a soft little Gale fic for you because it's my firm belief that everyone's favorite wizard deserves all the warmth in the world. 😌 Also on AO3, if you prefer. As always, thank you for reading. 💕

There was a time in his life that Gale could sleep anywhere, provided he had a good book and a space to sit down.

In Waterdeep, he might wake in his armchair or on his balcony with the weight of an ancient tome still resting in his lap, or at his desk, his cheek pressed against parchment. The smell of it, of ink and lignin, would bring him back to his senses before his eyes were fully open, and he’d recall what he’d been studying, and begin reading again.

At home, in his tower, he could do this night after night and still feel mostly rested come morning.

But he is far from his tower, and farther each day.

Perhaps it is the orb that keeps him up as of late, with its insatiable, unnatural hunger, or perhaps it is the tadpole that wriggles and pulses impatiently inside his skull. Or it could, he supposes, be the simpler and less curable matter of aging– an affliction that seems, on occasion, more frightening than either of the others.

Whatever the cause of his recent insomnia, it pulls Gale into a rather distressing cycle– he cannot sleep, so he cannot focus, so he cannot read, so he cannot sleep.

Instead, he finds himself offering to keep watch over camp in the evenings, if only for the distraction. The far-off gibbering of a newborn gnoll, the crunch of foliage under goblin feet, an animal scream– each night a fresh and distant horror calls his mind away from greater threats, from illithids and tadpoles and gods.

It’s an odd remedy, he knows. But the alternative is lying awake in his tent, turning death over and over in his mind until the thought is worn smooth as a river stone.

It works well for a time, keeps his mind on the present and off of some vague, future doom.

That is, at least, until they reach the Underdark.

Deep beneath Faerûn, there is something profoundly disturbing about the lack of…well, everything. They find no grand cities or quaint little villages, few animals and even fewer people.

No trees, no light. No sky.

Most nights spent underground are so quiet that Gale may as well stay in his bedroll, staring up at a canopy of fabric, dark as the velvet earth above them.

He thinks, It is like being buried alive, without even the stars to bear witness.

On these nights he can feel the stones in his head turning over.

Even so, come the evening (or what he guesses is evening), Gale volunteers to stand sentinel for the fifth time in a tenday.

He always asks them after dinner, when his companions are most likely to agree, after his cooking has warmed them and filled their bellies and made them want nothing more than to close their eyes and dream of somewhere, anywhere else.

Tav is the only one who protests with any frequency, the only one who seems to notice that the circles under his eyes are half a shade darker than they were yesterday, when they were half a shade darker than the day before.

Even on nights when she convinces someone else to take his place, he will relieve them after Tav has gone to sleep.

It starts the same way every time.

Gale walks the perimeter in an infinite loop, looking for life in the darkness, illuminated only by the fire in the center of their camp. It makes him feel like a distant planet, nearly untouched by the sun. How strange to think that he’d once felt like the sun itself.

He continues in his orbit until the subterranean cold gnaws at his limbs. It bites down hard on his nose and ears and fingers, chases him back to the fire, back to the light.

Hypnotized by the flames and their radiant warmth, he does not hear the quiet stirring in the tent beyond his own, doesn’t hear the soft approach of nimble feet.

A voice comes to him out of the darkness.

“I hope you’re not keeping watch again.”

“Mystra,” Gale gasps, startled, the goddess’s name invoked in equal parts a prayer, a curse.

“Forgive me,” Tav says, through a laugh she cannot help. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.” If it were anyone else he might be annoyed, or even a little embarrassed– but the sound of her laughter bubbles like seafoam over sand, rushes over and around him. Coupled with the relief that she is not some dreadful creature of the Underdark, he finds it difficult to feel anything besides affection.

“It’s quite alright,” he recovers, with a shake of his head. “You surprised me, that’s all.”

“Then I really hope you’re not keeping watch.”

She is teasing him now, just lightly, a familiar spark of warmth behind her eyes.

It is the same look she gives him when she brings him a new book, or when he cooks for her, or when he tells her about Waterdeep. It is the same look she gave him earlier in the day, when she had offered to brew him a tea that might help him to sleep.

Gale has trouble remembering the last time another looked at him this way, so interested and inviting and earnest.

Perhaps, he thinks, another never has.

“Are you alright?” Tav asks, when he’s been quiet for too long.

“Of course,” he says with the sincerity of a promise, offered with a smile that he hopes will be convincing. “Just lost in thought.”

There is a part of him that doesn’t want to leave it there, that wants to share his every thought with her, his every terror, every dream. She must know that there is more to it, must’ve learned by now to recognize when Gale isn’t telling her everything, but he is grateful that she doesn’t press him, never presses him.

Instead she breaks into a grin and says, “You’re lucky I’m not a bulette.”

“I’m lucky they’re not so light-footed. What are you doing up, anyway?”

“The cold always wakes me, sooner or later,” Tav sighs. “If I’d known it was so godsdamned frigid down here, I might’ve nicked a fur or two from the Zhent.”

It’s Gale’s turn to laugh, though she’s only half-joking.

She’s drawn near to him, to the flames, her palms outstretched, her fingers spread wide as if to grab hold of as much warmth as possible.

“But it’s alright,” she continues, “So as long as I’m close to the fire.”

“Any closer and you’ll be in it, I’m afraid. Perhaps I can help.”

Tav tilts her head and quirks an eyebrow in a curious little expression. “Can you?”

“If you’ll allow me.”

Gale turns to face her fully, and she mirrors him out of instinct.

“Hold out your hands to me,” he says. “Palms together, just barely. Like you’re praying.”

“Like this?” “Like that.”

The spell is one his mother taught him, among the first he’d ever learned.

He still remembers that winter in Waterdeep, when the snow fell hard and fast. When the ice in the harbor kept the ships at arm’s length and the frozen streets shone like glass. He was young then, six or seven, but even now he can feel his small hands in Morena’s, warmed by a word and a touch.

Warm and fed, she used to tell him. That’s how you show someone they’re loved.

Gale cages Tav’s hands lightly in his own, the way he might hold a butterfly. He pushes all thoughts of winter away and calls to mind the rippling heat of summer, an orchard grown fat with peaches, the silvery shimmer of sweat on skin.

The rose-petal flush of a cheek cradled in a hand, her cheek, his hand…

“Calor aestas,” he says quietly, when the image comes into clear view. He feels the cold melt from her fingers, hears the comfortable sigh that follows. “Better?”

“Yes,” she murmurs. “Much.”

She is looking at him now with an intensity he has not seen since the night he first showed her the Weave, all that time ago. The night he saw her thoughts laid bare, had all but felt her lips on his.

Had she seen them now, the visions he had conjured? Had she felt him pull her close in his own mind?

Tav clears her throat softly and he comes back to himself, his heartbeat thrashing wildly in his chest. He realizes with some urgency that he has not let her go and pulls back suddenly, but not without reluctance.

“I hope,” he swallows, trying to compose himself. “I hope it helps you sleep.”

“Do you want me to stay up with you?”

Yes, he thinks selfishly, Yes. Stay up with me, stay close to me, always.

He shakes his head instead. “You should rest while the spell holds.”

“And how long is that?”

“As long as I’m able to concentrate.”

He will think of her hands and their pull on a bowstring, their pluck of a lyre, their grip on a sword. How they weave her own magic, how they cradle a book. How they felt clasped in his, soft and cold.

A focus worth holding, at last.

“Only if it’s no trouble,” she says.

“None at all.”

Gale is grateful that he manages to stop himself, for once, from saying the rest of the thought as it enters his head. I would think of you anyway, magic or no.

Tav takes his hand in hers again, this time to squeeze it fondly.

For a moment, he feels that if he were to die just now– from the orb, from the tadpole, in the jaws of a hungry bulette– it would all have been worth it, for this.

“Thank you, Gale.”

Her smile is warmer than any summer he remembers, brighter than any star he can name.

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