Chapter Text
You didn’t need the powers of your former parasite to know who was responsible for the daggers currently being glared in your direction. You just know damn well that if you don’t finish getting your thoughts down on paper fully this time, they are going to end up lost to the ether of your memory AGAIN.
Hence why you haven’t bothered looking up from your work yet… even though what seemingly had started as general annoyance was growing into palpable ire the more the minutes ticked by where the only sound in the room was that of your quill scratching furiously against parchment.
It wasn’t that you were ignoring his presence out of malice…. Quite the opposite actually. This was just the closest you’d been to a breakthrough in your collective research in months. So for the moment you were perfectly content to let Him and whatever reason for his disapproval continue to wait.
You finally finish your notes with a satisfied flourish of your quill. Setting it off to the side for the moment, you pick up the parchment and give everything a quick read over before feeling content with your stopping point. It is only then that you finally look up; to where one Gale of Waterdeep stood in the doorway of your shared study with his arms crossed over his chest in a posture that spoke to deep irritation.
You smile sweetly in the face of his unknown displeasure. “Can I help you?”
“Tav…” The wizard said slowly. “What are you doing?”
You furrow your brow in confusion. “What do you mean what am I doing?” you ask, sounding more indignant than you meant to. You gesture to the piles of books and scrolls covering your desk and floor. “What does it look like I’m doing?”
“It looks like you are ignoring your well-being in favor of research,” he said as he made his way across the room to you. “Again.”
“Oh, for the love of… I haven’t even been here that long this time! It’s only been a few…” You stop and try to recall when you had actually entered the study in the first place.
“Days, Tavera,” he said, looming over your seated form. “You have been in this room for days.”
You scoff before turning yourself back to the mountain of materials still in front of you. “Gale, don’t be ridiculous,” you said, picking your quill back up. “It’s been a few hours at most. You obviously haven’t even left for Astarion’s yet.”
“Oh really?” he retorted. His tone annoyed you for some reason. “And what makes you say that?”
“Because you’re wearing your traveling robes,” you reply as though no other reason could possibly exist.
Gale gives you an exasperated look as he crosses his arms again and shifts his weight to one leg. “That’s because I have literally just returned from traveling.”
You pause your quill again and look up in confusion. “What? No, you haven’t…”
“Yes, I have,” he said, sounding as though he was desperately trying to keep from sounding patronizing. “For four days. Astarion says hello by the way.”
Surely, he was exaggerating, right? He had just come in here this morning to kiss you goodbye, hadn’t he? Sure, you’ve had a habit in the past of losing track of time when you got sucked a little too far into your studies or research, but you’d never lost days like that before.
Granted nothing you've ever worked on before has been as important to you as this is but still... There was no possible way you’d been sitting in one spot for four days. At some point you would have gotten hungry or needed to rest by now. Wouldn’t you?
Unfortunately your thoughts come to a screeching halt as horrified embarrassment settles in. Your locked in over drive brain had finally slowed down just enough to survey your surroundings properly, only to find evidence of Gale’s claim strung about the entire study plain as day. It looked like a hurricane had touched down. A layer of rejected crumples of parchment were piled up in the corner behind you. Piles of note covered papers and abandoned or opened books were strung about haphazardly all over the room. Out of the corner of your eye you see a blanket and pillow piled up and half slipping off the chase lounge in the corner. You vaguely recall allowing yourself a small rest there before jumping back into your work again but how long ago had that been?
You also spy at least half a dozen goblets abandoned on various surfaces around the room, all of them having been drunk to various depths. You take in Gale’s form thoughtfully for the first time and realize indeed that his attire did in fact show signs of traveling. There was exhaustion behind the annoyance, and dried mud caked onto both his boots and various parts of the travel cloak he’d obviously yet to remove. You turn to finally catch a glimpse of yourself on a nearby reflective surface and grimace at the obvious dark circles under your eyes and completely disheveled appearance. Oh hells…
“…um… welcome home?” you flash the unamused wizard glowering down at you a smile that you hope doesn’t look as guilty as you clearly are. Gale pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Gods preserve me…. You truly haven’t moved once from that desk since I left, have you?”
“Apparently not,” you admit begrudgingly. “How was Astarion?”
“He’s doing fine. He wants you to come visit soon though.”
“He said that?”
“…technically he said ‘Why does she keep sending the boring one?’ but we both know that’s just Astarion for he misses you.”
“I’ll put it on the calendar then. Did he have the books we needed?”
“Thankfully yes so we should be able to start with… wait, wait, wait!” Gale stopped midsentence, waving his arms in front of himself as if trying to ward off your attempts to distract him “Stop changing the subject! Have you even eaten since I left?”
You shoot him an affronted look, “Of course I’ve eaten!” you snap.
“Oh, you have, have you?” He sounded less than convinced. “Go on then… What was the last thing you ate?”
…sh*t…
“I don’t exactly keep a catalog of my daily meals, Gale. I had food at some point.”
You hope you said that with enough conviction to sound believable, or at least enough for him to drop it, but fate was not on your side this evening. Tara, who had apparently been lounging silently this whole time on her usual bookshelf perch overhead, landed gracefully near the door. “Five Stay Awake Potions and a decanter of Elvin coffee is not food, Ms. Tavera,” she called over her shoulder as she swished out of the room.
You open your mouth to argue at her retreating fluffy self, but when a twinge of hunger pain induced nausea darts through your stomach, you decide to refrain. It didn’t help that right then, as if timed by the gods just to f*ck with you, your stomach suddenly gave a loud angry growl.
Gale ran a hand down his face, “Let me guess, you haven’t slept this whole time either?”
You sheepishly point towards the lounge in the corner in all its rumpled glory. Two additional Stay Awake potion bottles sat on top of another stack of books. Gale’s eye visibly twitched. He turned back towards you sharply.
“Up.” He ordered. An undertone to his voice that didn’t invite arguments. You rise from your chair obediently, as though he had cast a compelling charm on your body. Gale wraps a hand around your wrist gently, but purposefully pulls you along with him out of the study. As you both turn into the hallway, he waves his hand over the door. In a second it slams shut just before dark pink runes start glowing on the wood. Your eyes widen in realization.
“Hey!” You shout, launching yourself back towards the door, hoping to open it before the runes finish forming.
“Oh no you don’t,” Gale catches you up and hoists you over his shoulder before carrying your flailing self away from the now magically sealed study. If your sleep deprived brain wasn’t so enraged, you’d be kind of turned right now. You sometimes forget that your learned love had cultivated his physical strength alongside his magical strength during your adventures together.
But now was not the time to pay the tingling of your lower regions any mind. You had research to finish. “Gale Dekarios, you put me down right this second or so help me!”
“As my lady commands.” Is the last thing you hear before being rather unceremoniously dropped on to your shared bed. You’d been too busy yelling to realize he’d carried your into the bedroom.
You bounce slightly and spend a moment to collect yourself before turning a wrathful look to the not so subtly smug man standing in front of you. “Unlock the study, Gale.”
“No.”
Angry tears prickle at the edges of your eyes, threatening to surface. “Gale, please,” you beg. “I’m so close to an answer… just another hour then I promise I’ll take a break.”
He crosses his arms, “I will not be swayed on this, Tavera.”
The fragile hold you’d been keeping on your temper finally snaps and you jump back to your feet from the bed. “Gods damn you, why not?!”
“Because you need to f*cking rest!” Gale snaps, his own temper starting to get the better of him as well.
“NO I DON’T!” you shriek, tears fueled by exhaustion, grief and rage finally spilling down your face “I NEED TO f*ckING BRING THEM HOME!!”
You realize a little too late that when you jumped back to your feet, you’d unintentionally locked your knees. As you go to try and step around him, the room around you starts to spin. It happens so quickly that Gale barely has time to grab you before the wave of dizziness tries to send you to the floor. Days of ignoring your body’s needs finally catching up to you.
Gale gathers you up again, but this time you don’t fight it. He lays you back on the bed, much gentler this time, before quickly ridding himself of the soiled cloak and boots and joining you on the bed himself. Gale pulls you back into his arms as you begin to cry again.
… Stupid treacherous body that needs sleep and sustenance… You just want your friends home and safe and cured… It wasn’t fair.
It takes several minutes before you're able to calm down. At some point he starts rubbing comforting circles into your back that you can't help but melt into. It’s the first time you realize how sore your muscles are from sitting at that desk for so long.
“Oh my love,” he whispers softly into your hair. “You can’t keep doing this to yourself.”
“I have to!” Your voice hitches through the tears. “What right do I have to rest while Wyll and Karlach are stuck in Avernus fighting for their lives? How are we supposed to have an autumn morning wedding if Astarion still can’t go in sun?”
“Well, I mean if he turned to ash at the reception, it would save us from having to buy confetti…”
“Gale Dekarios!”
“I’m just kidding! OW stop that!”
You stop attacking the sass filled wizard and give a defeated sigh, “I just feel like I’m letting everyone down until I find a way to fix everything.”
“Tav, you know good and damn well that any one of those three would gleefully kill you themselves if they saw you neglecting your health like this on their behalf,” Gale frowned. “Besides, if you keel over, who is going to save them then?”
You look downward, not wanting to admit that he had a point. “They’d still have you.”
“True… Although I will be sorely tempted to leave Astarion as he is if you die of stupidity on me. You know the second that obnoxious flying rat can go back in the sun I'll never know a moment’s peace again. You can’t leave me on this plane of existence with him alone, Tav. I don’t have the strength for his shenanigans like you do. The sword coast won’t survive.”
You snort a laugh and burrow yourself back against your lover’s chest. “That flying rat is your best friend, stop pretending otherwise.”
“Never."
You roll your eyes in mirth at his teasing. “I’m sorry,” you whisper as you curl yourself deeper into Gale’s arms. “You didn’t deserve me yelling at you like that. I know you’re just trying to help.”
“It’s alright,” Gale says as he presses a soft kiss to your forehead. “I’ll make you a deal. I’m going to go make us something to eat. In the meantime, why don’t you go take a bath and relax. We both could use a hot meal and a good night’s sleep.”
You nod in agreement, looking down again, still ashamed of your behavior.
“And…” Gale hooked his finger under your chin and forces you gently to look back up at him, a wolfish smile spreading across his handsome face. “If you are a very good girl and listen, I’ll even let you skim through one of the books I just brought back before bed.”
You perk up a bit, not just at the prospect of a new tome to comb through, but also at the delicious tone your love’s voice just took on. “Exactly how good do I need to be?”
Gale pretends to ponder for a moment, “A whole bowl of stew, some bread and at least three glasses of water.”
“Three!?”
“Do you want me to make it five? There are a lot of places in this tower to hide books from you.”
You snap your mouth shut, but the defiance shifts from your mouth to your eyes.
“Yes, Sir.”
Gale chuckles softly and kisses your lips before sliding off the bed, presumably to go start cooking. “Go get comfortable, Love. I’ll be back soon.”
You give a mock salute as he leaves but stick out your tongue at his retreating back. Three glasses of water indeed…
