Work Text:
Lifelong residents of the Gate were easy to distinguish from newcomers. They were a stubborn sort, staying the course through a life that ground people to dust beneath its heel every day. Chin up, chest out, back straight — pride sanded off hunger’s worst edges when bread was in short supply. Years in the city could be marked by the tricks one picked up along the way. Once you knew the best hour to visit the harbor for the freshest fish and the best glaziers to hire to keep the steady roar of the Chionthar from robbing you of your sleep, you were home.
Wyll was born and bred of this city. It had called him its own since he drew his first breath, even when he was far from its walls. He was made of the stern stuff that lined every street, and he was at a loss. He had no tricks, no tactics, no strategies. There was no window thick enough to block out the rushing waters when their source was inside your skull, churning louder by the second.
“Wyll?” Halsin asked. “Did you hear me?”
Wyll blinked and shook his head, but the image remained the same. Halsin still towered benevolently over him. He still wore disheveled traveling clothes from the last-minute journey from Reithwin, and his eyes still drooped under the weight of his sympathy. Wyll stood before the same pit as he had moments ago, and all the Baldurian tenacity in the realm didn’t give him a way of clearing it.
“No, I must have…” Wyll said. “I don’t understand.”
“I wish I had better news for you,” Halsin said. “Any news other than this. I’m sorry, my friends.”
“But you said…” The words swelled in Wyll’s throat, inflated with shock and refusing to emerge. “When we spoke last month, you said everything was normal.”
“It was.”
“Then what changed?” Wyll asked. “What went wrong? Was it the starvation? The vampirism? We talked about all of this and I thought…”
“I don’t know,” Halsin interrupted. His comforting hand on Wyll’s shoulder barely registered through the thick layer of wool separating him from the world. “I don’t have an answer for you. These things just…happen. They’re cruel, and heartbreaking, and they happen every single day no matter how prepared you are to circumvent them. This is already a terrible burden to bear. Don’t add to it by trying to find sense where there is none.”
Wyll nodded with no real idea what he was feigning agreement with. There must be something he could have done differently. If he had sent for Halsin earlier or spent more time at home doting on Astarion. There must be a fault line somewhere for this tsunami battering against his temples to have sprung from.
“Wyll,” Halsin said, squeezing hard on his shoulder until it was impossible to focus on anything else. “Please believe me when I say there is nothing either of you could have done.”
The silence that met his words didn’t seem to surprise him. He simply rose to his feet and began gathering his things. Wyll glanced to the side, wishing for Astarion to offer a snide comment of some kind, but found only more unsurprising silence. The porcelain mask over his features was a relic from years past, and not one that had been missed. His hand slipped away no matter how desperately Wyll tried to grasp it; in the absence of anything anchoring him to their bed, he walked Halsin to the door.
“You need to come to terms with this,” Halsin muttered. Wyll didn’t bother reminding him of sensitive ears nearby; he doubted Astarion cared to listen. “Or at least begin to. He’s going to need you. You’re going to need each other.”
“I don’t know how,” Wyll admitted. “We’ve come through so much, but this? How is anyone meant to navigate something like this?”
“I have every faith that you will,” Halsin said. “I’ll be at the Elfsong. Take your time. Talk over what I’ve said, and send for me when you’ve made a decision.”
Wyll scrambled for anything to reel Halsin back from the top of the stairs. The weather, reconstruction efforts, his disdain of the city that ran through Wyll’s veins — anything to put off the impending conversation. It was a shameful thought, but there was no staving it off any more than he could stop himself from plummeting over the rapidly approaching cliff. As prepared as he could ever be, Wyll turned around.
Astarion hadn’t left their bed in the minute it took Halsin to leave. He leaned against the headboard in his usual spot, draped in his finest silk dressing gown. The curtains were drawn to block out the sun; in the dim glow of lantern light, a single wet streak from Astarion’s eye to his chin stood out prominently. He didn’t acknowledge Wyll’s return. The only sign he had registered anything at all was the hand that shifted from the center of his chest to his belly. It rested gingerly on the barely-there swell, now as big as it would ever grow.
“Love, I’m so…”
“Can we not?” Astarion interrupted. “Can we just…not do this?”
“Would that we could,” Wyll said, “but we have to talk about it.”
“We don’t, actually,” Astarion said. “I can’t think of a single thing we could possibly need to talk about.”
“Astarion…”
“Gods, but of course, you’re going to talk about it anyway,” Astarion muttered. One hand scrubbed furiously at his watery eyes while the other pressed harder to his stomach, clenched in the fabric of his robe as if seeking to fuse to the skin underneath. “You heard him as well as I did. It’s done. It’s done, and there’s no saving it. We can dither about it all day long, but it seems to me there’s only one thing we can do.”
“I know,” Wyll said. “You’re probably right. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t discuss it.”
“I disagree,” Astarion said. “I think the matter is as closed as it could possibly be. You can’t fix this, Wyll. For once in your life, just leave it.”
Wyll drew up short, suddenly very unsure whether it was wise to erase the remaining distance. It had been a long while since the terrain between them had felt so precarious, or since Astarion’s voice had been so unaffected, playing at flat boredom he couldn’t quite reach while actively bleeding from the heart.
“Radiating emotions across the room counts as talking, you know,” Astarion said. “I can practically smell the sadness from here.”
“Would you expect anything else?” Wyll asked. “This is our child, and we’re choosing not to have it. Of course, I’m sad. That doesn’t mean I disagree.”
“Choosing,” Astarion scoffed. “Is that what you call this? Kill it now or hope I stay alive long enough give birth to its corpse? Some choice. How can I possibly stomach such a buffet of tempting options?”
“Astarion, please.”
The man Wyll loved was scarcely a few paces away, yet he couldn’t remember the last time he had felt so alone in this house. There should be three of them tucked away in their cozy chambers and marveling over the miracle of each other’s existence. Instead, there was one, adrift in the rapids and no longer confident enough to reach for what he had assumed to be an unshakable life preserver.
The mattress dipped beneath Wyll’s weight as he sat, but still, Astarion barely moved. His face was unlined, disconcertingly placid in the wake of news that should have torn it to ribbons. What few wrinkles remained might as well have been ancient runes. No matter what Astarion might be feeling, Wyll wanted to be in it together. There had never been an issue with assuming they were before. He slipped his trembling hand out of his pocket and rested it on Astarion’s knee, intending to dig one thumb into whatever lines of tension he could find and soothe any pains still within his power to soothe.
“Don’t touch me,” Astarion spat, slapping Wyll’s hand away. “Honestly, haven’t you done enough?”
“…What?”
“This is your fault,” Astarion said. “All of this…this is all because of you. I never expected this. 200 years of contingencies and I never once thought to plan for this.” He gestured at the curve of his stomach as if it were a cursed object rather than the most beautiful thing Wyll had ever seen. “Corellon doesn’t throw his blessings around left and right. He gives them to those capable of being devout enough to earn it, not to those bound to end up as crooked magistrates bleeding to death in the fucking gutter.”
“Don’t say…”
“And if it wasn’t a concern when I was alive,” Astarion barreled on, giving Wyll no space to brace against the onslaught, “it certainly wasn’t one after I died. Do you think Cazador ever would have let this happen? That he ever would have let me become something that could have this? Hundreds of bodies and I never once worried that any of them might have left something behind because it. Wasn’t. Possible. But you…”
Astarion’s eyes finally lifted from the covers; Wyll would have given anything for him to look away. He had always witnessed the full force of Astarion’s hatred from the outside, never as its recipient. It cut more sharply than any blade, leaving his outstretched hand dangling limply on tendons no longer connected to the whole.
This was wrong. It was all wrong with no way of making it right in view. In the heart of his home with his feet on known ground, and he had no way of charting his course — what corners of the Gate would claim him now?
“You did this,” Astarion said. “Halsin might not have any idea how we made this happen in the first place, but we did. You did. You made this possible. You made me think this wretched, fucking body of mine could grow something instead of killing it. You made me excited for this, and now it’s…”
Astarion sobbed just once, all the despair Wyll expected punching through in a single blow before he locked it away. He curled in on himself, hiding his stomach behind his legs and wrapping his arms around his knees. Wyll vibrated with the urge to coax Astarion out of this shoddily constructed foxhole that he might shelter him against his body instead, but his hand still stung where it had been knocked away.
“Astarion,” Wyll whispered, one last-ditch effort to not feel useless in the wake of the worst news he had ever heard.
“I wish you’d never touched me at all.”
The roaring between Wyll’s ears was too deafening for anything else to break through — a mercy, for another harsh word from the lips he loved would have disintegrated him. All the gravity that normally pulled him toward Astarion shifted violently into reverse, lifting him off the bed and away from the strained keening of sorrow kept locked inside someone’s throat. A closed door between them did nothing to quiet the noise. Wyll slid down to sit on a heap in the floor, staring at the opposite wall and surrendering to the currents.
It was over. For just a moment, the world had been perfect. Every cage was broken, every threat was vanquished, and their family was going to grow. Wyll woke that morning with one arm curled around Astarion’s stomach, holding him close while he enjoyed the deep sleep that came more easily in his condition, and now he was unwelcome in their bed. He was the enemy, the cause of his beloved’s agony, and soon, he wouldn’t even have the consolation of calling himself a father. A new day would rise and their son — or daughter; it had been too early to tell — wouldn’t.
Wyll didn’t know how much time passed before another hand landed on his shoulder. He dared to hope that Astarion had left his vitriol behind to come mourn as a team. When he wiped the sheen from his eyes, though, the only features that greeted him were his own.
All Wyll’s life, those who had known Francesca Ravengard declared him the spitting image of his mother. It was a lovely sentiment, but not, he suspected, an accurate one. He was his father’s son, through and through; the sword-callused palm keeping him steady and the sorrowful eyes looking down on him from above might as well have been his reflection. Wyll’s lower lip trembled. He made no attempt to quell it. If fatherhood had been stolen from his grasp, then a son was all he would ever be. It had come naturally to him once, and it did so again as he collapsed into Ulder’s embrace.
“Father,” Wyll cried. “Father, I can’t…the baby…”
“Hush, son,” Ulder murmured. “You don’t need to say it. Your friend told me everything. Come here.”
The broad expanse of his father’s chest was the softest place Wyll could imagine to land. He had daydreamed of someday providing the same — of being the safe harbor some unknown child sought out at their lowest moments. It would never be more than fantasy.
Wyll shook so terribly that only the strong circle of another’s arms kept him together. The comfort he wanted most was sequestered behind a door where he struggled to believe it could ever be reached, but it was difficult to mind when it was such a relief to let his father tell him what to do again. He was pulled to his feet. He was led downstairs. He was brought a warm drink and bade to breathe deeply until he calmed, and he allowed it. Decisions should be left to the competent, and he was no longer sure he fit the title.
“It’s all ruined,” Wyll said between sips. “There isn’t a way back from this. It’s ruined.”
“It isn’t,” Ulder said. “I promise you, it isn’t.”
“You didn’t hear him.”
“I didn’t have to,” Ulder said. “Astarion and I may be far from friends, but he doesn’t deserve this pain. Nobody does, and nobody bears it gracefully.”
“He said…”
“Considering he has a sharp tongue on the best of days, I can only imagine its bite on the worst,” Ulder cut in. “Try not to let it fester. People say unthinkable things when they’re hurting.”
“It’s not just him hurting,” Wyll said. “We both lost them.”
“I know, son,” Ulder said. “I know, and it isn’t fair. Be there for him anyway. You’ll regret it if you aren’t.”
His father’s tone was too knowing. Wyll frowned.
“Did you and mother…”
“You’ll regret it.”
Wyll lost count of nights spent longing for his father’s self-assured counsel after only a year in the frontiers; he was hardly going to ignore it now. Astarion was alone upstairs with only their dying child for company while he sat here, loved and tended to. Regret already nipped at his heels.
“Halsin is staying at the Elfsong,” Wyll said. “Will you send for him? The sooner, the better, I think.”
“Consider it done,” Ulder said. “Go be where you need to be. I’ll take care of the rest.”
The house was silent in the wake of his departure. Every creaking floorboard and whistling breeze echoed as Wyll retraced steps taken in grief, detouring only briefly to rummage through a bathroom cabinet on his way back to their room.
Astarion looked more peaceful in his sleep. Twin lines of dried tears still stretched down his face, but his slack features were blessedly free of the agony that contorted them in waking. It seemed a crime to disturb him, and an even greater one to lay a hand on him when he had been explicitly asked not to. Wyll sat against the headboard in the spot he belonged and stared out the window at the now darkened sky.
The lump beside him stirred sooner than expected, his love’s previously blissful sleep ravaged by horrible news. Astarion blinked groggily up at him.
“You’re here.”
“Of course, I’m here,” Wyll said. “I would be nowhere else.”
Whatever still waters sleep had wrought shattered beneath a loving word. Astarion’s face crumpled.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry. I was awful. I…”
“It’s already forgiven,” Wyll promised. He opened his arms in invitation, and Astarion filled them in a heartbeat. With one hand twisted in silver curls and the weight of another at his side, loss’s sting was duller.
“What is that?” Astarion asked, pawing at the oddly shaped lump in Wyll’s pocket.
“For when Halsin returns,” Wyll said. He pulled away just long enough to fetch a pot of scented salve and set it to the side. “To put under your nose — an old fishmongers’ trick. You can pick out the smell of blood from a mile away; for this, I thought you’d rather not.”
“Oh,” Astarion breathed. “I didn’t think of that.”
“That’s alright,” Wyll said. “Let me think for the both of us for a while.”
Astarion threw himself back against Wyll’s chest, weeping shamelessly into the unlaced neckline of his shirt. Shaken apart by the synchronized hitching of their breath was the steadiest Wyll had felt since Halsin opened his mouth.
“It’s alright,” Wyll repeated. “It’ll be alright.”
“It’s not fair.”
“I know it isn’t,” Wyll said. “I’m so sorry.”
“I wanted…” Astarion’s words barely merited the name, more faint impressions of warmth against Wyll’s collarbone. “Wyll, I really wanted them.”
“I know, love. So did I.”
The sky outside changed too soon, lit up from the bottom by a cheerful shade of orange that heralded the worst day this city had ever thrown them. Wyll shut his eyes and pulled Astarion closer, lowering their clasped hands to rest atop his stomach. For a few more hours at least, they could be three instead of two. It would have to be enough.