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atsadi-shenanigans · 6 months ago

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Feeding Alligators 59 - Plans Within Plans

You deal with a couple of problems.

On AO3.

As y’all don’t got no bear around to announce yourselves, y’all decide stealth is the best option. You start on the peripherals, catch stragglers or small groups here and there. Gale can actually silence a whole room while the others move in and take them out. Astarion is as efficient with his knives as usual.

Y’all find a guy in a cage, lamenting the new cult. Goblins, turns out, have their own god. One this codger (you can’t actually tell his age, but little dude’s talking like an old-timer) refuses to abandon.

Gale lets him out, too.

Eventually, y’all wind up in the main hall at the front, where some goblin version of a biker granny tries to brand you. And then tries to mind-whammy you. So she’s got a parasite. She calls you a “true soul” like them people you fed to the owlbear, and she’s one of them leaders Halsin mentioned, so you suggest y’all talk in private and she goes right along with you.

You barely get the door shut when Lae’zel skewers her. Literally. Sword punches clear through her back, out her front as she gasps, and then Lae’zel kind of flicks the blade. And biker granny falls to the ground in pieces.

“Jesus,” you say.

“We waste our time,” she says.

Biker Granny has a bedroom with another ogress in it (you wonder if it’s the same one hooking up with Man-Wolf, but she don’t seem to recognize you when she spots y’all). The fight is short but mean, and as y’all are looting around, Karlach busts down a door that opens to a spooky hallway. Which leads to an inner temple that puts a sneer on Shadowheart’s face.

“Not a fan of this goddess?” you say, looking up at a statue of a woman in some ancient robe ensemble.

“Selune,” Shadowheart says like a curse. A moon goddess or something. Shadowheart calls her followers hypocrites and a few other choice insults.

Huh. You notice Gale eyeballing her all speculative, but he don’t say nothing.

And then Karlach finds and presses a button that opens a wall. Faerun really, really likes the whole “secret hallway behind a fake door” bullshit.

Below is a fuck off chasm with a ladder disappearing into the gloom.

“Hell no,” you say.

But Gale surprises you by offering to float himself down—y’all watch until he’s swallowed by the gloom—and then fly himself back up. “It’s a Selunite outpost extending into what I heavily suspect is the Underdark.”

You zone out a little. It ain’t murdering the two other ringleaders, and it ain’t getting the worm outta your head, and it ain’t fixing whatever inter personal fuckshit is going on between you and…and everyone and each other.

You ain’t sure how to deal with the other two leaders. One is their general—something called a drow, and the others looks real grim about that—and the other guy is holding a fucking pep rally with another dozen goblins in a room around a dead squidward.

“Fuck,” you say.

Which is when you catch the words “spark powder barrels” and “enough to light the whole place up.” You turn. Find two goblins chatting in the corner.

“What’s this about barrels?” you say.

***

The thing about modern Earth warfare is that people got real, real good at killing other people from a distance. Sometimes even killing people who ain’t in the same room, or continent, as you. Faerun ain’t primitive—that word is loaded with all kinds of racist undertones anyway—but they’re still more used to killing with blades and arrows and spells.

Y’all find a way into the bomb room through Biker Granny’s quarters. You give her cooling body a wide berth.

You and Astarion have been ignoring each other since he chose the lookout option, and he now stands at the edge of the group, cleaning his knives. But you seen him sneak, and you seen him climb, and he’s the best man for the idea brewing in your brain.

And maybe he’ll take it as an olive branch?

(You got nothing to apologize for in snapping at him about Rack Guy. You stood up for yourself, and for Rack Guy. Anybody who’s got a problem with that is the problem.)

“Astarion,” you say.

And he ignores you like a petty bitch. So that’s going great.

Losing your shit ain’t never accomplished nothing. So you reign yourself in, walk over to him, and stop right in front of him. You try to keep your body relaxed and your tone professional. “Astarion.”

He deigns to look up. Give you a smile. “Ah, our illustrious leader. What may I do for you now?”

Murder or lockpicks. His only contributions.

Your righteous huff deflates just a little. That part was uncalled for. Breaking people down to what they can be used for is fucked up farmstead shit.

You really look at him, the minute hunch to his shoulders, the flat eyes, the tiny tilt of his head. He’s a bitch, but that don’t mean you have to be.

Fuck. Damn.

Well, no time like the present. You breathe deep and slow.

“I’m sorry,” you say, trying to ignore the others around you. “About what I said earlier. You’re a lot more than I gave you credit for, and it was outta line for me to suggest otherwise. It won’t happen again.”

Y’all might not be friends, but he’s still a member of the group, and you’d feel like a giant fuckhead going around and making bad feelings.

But…he just stands there for half a second. His face does something complicated—a frown, confusion, narrowed eyes—before settling back on his usual, fake smile.

“Ah, for that, I can only assume you require something outside of my usual repertoire?” he says.

Which…how the fuck does the dirt potion translate something into French??

And ouch. He really took that insult to heart, huh? Fuck.

You close your eyes. “I deserve that. Yes, I’m gonna ask you to do something. And leaving that guy was a dickhead move. But I really am sorry for, for implying that you’re only your talents. Which you have more than two, and that was me being a jackass. But I’m sorry, and you deserve to know it.”

Again, that careful blankness. It only lifts when you show him your baby bird of a plan, all small and ugly and shaking around in the mental nest. He snorts like he can’t help it, and for just a split second, something genuine skirts along the edge of his smirk.

“You’re forming a pattern, darling,” he says.

“If it works, don’t break it,” you say. “It’s how the empire back home deals with everybody.”

“That’s the second time you’ve mentioned something like that,” Gale says. “When this is over, you and I desperately need to have another sit down chat.”

So you can spill U.S. military tactics you learned from the internet to a wizard. Why not.

“And if I run into anyone else skulking about?” Astarion says.

You want to sigh, but don’t. “Still hungry?”

“Always, darling.”

“I guess as long as you ain’t dropping bodies outta the rafters…”

The man lights the fuck up, a kid handed a hundred dollars and let loose in a candy store. He scuttles up the closest ladder with what you can only describe as sheer glee.

“Turning a vampire loose in a den of goblins,” Shadowheart says. “I’m not sure which part is worse. Do you think he can drink himself into a stupor?”

“He got pretty sloshed the night when soldier here stuck her soul in a jar,” Karlach says. Catches your silent question. “While you went wherever it is you went to, old Fangs came back drenched in blood. Looked like he got in a fight with a bear. He couldn’t even stand straight. Then he saw you, well, dead, and he stormed off. Tripped over a root, too, which I only noticed cause he don’t normally do stuff like that.”

…huh. Okay?

Well, he seems to revel in your ideas (when they involve murder or being a shithead). He stopped when you told him to. He was an absolute bastard about it, and he later tried again. But when you told him no, he fucked off (which hurt, you’re beginning to realize, because you apparently have the emotional intelligence of a potato. It actually hurt).

“I think I trust him,” you say, looking up to where he disappeared. “With this stuff, anyway.”

***

Astarion returns with good tidings. There’s a path along the rafters right over to Door Rags and his pep rally. Gale has enough juice to help float up the barrels Lae’zel and Shadowheart can’t hoist up (Karlach looks on like a dog told to sit while you throw a ball). It takes a bit to get everything where you want, but y’all manage it.

You have to step over three dead goblins stuffed into a corner. Astarion catches your gaze and gives you a proud tilt of his chin.

See? it seems to say. Not raining down bodies.

You give him a thumbs up.

Then you sneak off with Wyll to a wall ledge overlooking the rally room. Spot another room off to the side with some magic, floating crystal ball.

“A watcher,” Wyll says. Up close, he smells of mint and some kinda herb—you ain’t sure if it’s soap, perfume, or something he uses in his hair. “Someone is keeping an eye on all this. We’ll want to take that out before any fighting starts. Blind whoever’s controlling it.”

“Can you do that?”

He gives you a warm smile. “The blade will strike true.”

You roll your eyes, but you’re smiling, too. Then you catch voices, and inch further out onto the ledge. Across a wooden bridge, somebody moves. A woman in armor. An elf? Only she’s purple with a shock of white hair.

“The drow,” Wyll whispers, sinking into a crouch next to you. “She’ll likely be a powerful fighter. They’re known for their strength in battle. They kill any of their own who show what they consider a weakness. Which generally amounts to being kind or merciful.”

Because that worked so well for the Spartans.

Wyll must catch a look from you. You say, “I’ll tell you later. It’s stupid and impractical, and usually ends with a couple of people slapfighting each other for status while their nation can’t support itself anymore and collapses.”

And another idea blooms in your head. Which you share with him.

He considers a moment. Nods slowly. “Alright, it seems a sound strategy. I’m beginning to see a pattern with you.”

Which, what the fuck does that even mean?

But y’all need to move. The longer y’all camp out up here, the more likely somebody gets spotted. You both sneak back to join the others.

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#feeding alligators fic #these two shitheads #astarion #astarion x tav #tavstarion #slow burn #putting the slow in 150k burn #they've made it to second base #once #demisexual tav #plus size tav #this ones got murder in it #the disclosure arc

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