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finnxxtt · 20 days ago

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Gale, Halsin, and Astarion Falling in Love with a Quiet Tav/Reader [Imagines]

{~Masterlist~}

Word Count: 4.3k

Gale

Ever since the moment Gale met you after plummeting out of a rock and face-first into the dirt he knew there was something quite special about you. An air of grace so very few held that captured him in a way he least expected among such company. Though, you were quite a timid thing. It was a wonder you'd taken the reins of this group of…interesting individuals all on your own, collecting a new strange ally around every corner and taking them under your wing like a silent guardian. At the very least that's how Karlach had described you, a light in her eyes that told him he was far from the only one to admire your quiet ways. But while it was true the other held an unspoken respect for you he imagined it wasn't quite to the extent he did.

There was this gnawing need he had every time he caught your glance to speak to you endlessly. To fill the silence you left with unending pools of knowledge and watch the subtle ways your eyes told him you were listening. Because that's just it, he always knew you were listening. Even when you would turn away, even when others would try to capture the attention he perhaps selfishly hoped to keep for his own, you were always waiting on his every word. At first he thought you were merely humoring him, after all with such dire circumstances at hand he imagined he was at least a nice bit of white noise. A way to help drown out the deeper worries that could plague the mind in such a hopeless place. And he would happily oblige if just for the chance to know that his thoughts weren't solely his own, even if they became mere whispers on wind, left to the void of time.

But then you did this thing. This horrible, shocking, wondrous thing. You dared to ask a question. And that alone would have been enough for him, to know that you were even just paying half a mind to his sometimes endless rants. But the question you asked him was far more than that. It was thoughtful, deep. It required you to have been listening to him all along, it required you to actually care about the random babblings that left his tongue.

He had been so incredibly caught off guard when the soft words left your lips, surprised to hear you speak let alone engage with him on such a level. He was hardly proud of the messy string of incoherent sounds that showed his utter astonishment, but even less so at how quickly he jumped at the opportunity to answer your thought provoking question with a wild wonder that he was sure made him look utterly insane. All wide smile and obsessive eyes, though he only knew the extent of it when he calmed down enough to notice a few weirded out stares from the others, some even tossing you a bit of concern. His face began to burn with embarrassment when he realized and he could feel it spread all the way down to his neck as his words slowly trailed off. Too much, he told himself, I'm being too much.

But then he finally looked at you- truly looked at you. And it all seemed to so suddenly fade away. Because you looked back, staring at him with such intense curiosity that he couldn't explain it away as anything else. You acknowledge him in that moment not as a passing oddity or minor entertainment, but as someone you would listen to until the earth turned to ash and cinder and his voice could no longer carry him. And for the first time possibly ever he could find no words fitting what he wished so desperately to describe. A feeling that weighed heavy in his chest as he realized someone was finally hearing him, that someone was trying to truly and genuinely understand him. That you, the lent ear he was sure would forget him in a heartbeat, were instead the heart that was trying to beat in time with his, searching for the meaning in his words that would allow you to do so. And for what it's worth you didn't so much as have to try. He already sped his heart to your pace a long time ago, hoping that he could keep the illusion that you might care, entirely unknowing that the mismatch in tempo was purely his doing. That he searched for something you were already trying to give. That he was outrunning your open affection, unaware that the quiet was where you lay. He was so used to reciting poetic lines, used to professing an undying devotion and pleading until someone listened that he hardly thought to look.

But there is where he found you, eyes focused on his, goading him to continue. To him that was a deeper profession of love than any written poetry. You didn't need flowery words or recited lyrics, but instead only indulged in the sound of him, however mundane. It was something he hadn't known before, something that clung him to you tighter than you could have ever imagined, tying his soul with yours in the silent devotion he wasn't aware he so desperately craved.

Halsin

Halsin was a man of many words, but he was also one of contemplative silence if given the chance. A chance you often gave him. You were a moments reprieve from a downpour, an oasis in barren desert land, a beacon held for those lost in stormy seas. It was easy to get swept up in the winds of duty and purpose, of desperate needs and survival. But you stood firm against all that the world threw at you and somehow even managed the strength to hold others with you. A steadying hand outstretched to all who would take it. It seemed it was just what your particular band of boisterous souls needed. While their loud voices made their intentions and actions known across the chorus of others, it was a silently held belief that you were the one in control here. Even if you didn't speak much, few dared question you in the moments you did, and for good reason. You held a conviction few could parry, and a quiet understanding for others that often lowered their guard.

And he was no different, in fact he might even say he was particularly vulnerable to your strange charm. You lead with a kind heart, allowing your actions to speak for you. Even if you shied away from the evening campfire every now and again or lost your tongue in the occasional conversation you more than made up for it with an observant eye. The small things people didn't think of often didn't pass your scrutinizing gaze. You were always the first to notice a missing friend by the fire or when someone wasn't quite themselves. But instead of reassuring words or grand, inspiring spiels, he found that you showed your voice in other ways. Food left on a nearby table when a meal was missed, silent company offered when most needed. Your heart sang with your care in even the way you glanced, eyes held in a silent acknowledgement of all who stood before you.

At first he found your way of communication...difficult for him. Not because your lack of speech was hard to parse, no he actually much enjoyed seeking the meaning in your every movement. But more so that you didn't give him a way to escape you. When his mind drifted to deep regrets and deeper pains he often tried to face them alone, content in how the world seemed to ignore him in the face of his strong facade and dismissive hand. He was fine, he often said, just bone-weary. But you didn't allow him a way to shoo you off because you didn't ask anything of him. Not for words, not for help, not for anything. You would sit by his side when he least believed he deserved the company and he soon found that he almost couldn't do without.

It was a painful realization at first, just how quickly he'd fallen for someone who hardly even uttered a word to him. For a time he wondered if it was his mind seeking comfort where there was none, that he was ascribing more meaning to your lingering stares and quiet worry than you had meant him to. Yet even still he found that every move you made enchanted him; how you so effortlessly guided without the complication of noise and sounds and explanations. You just understood. Always knowing when to let be and when to stand strong beside.

He didn't tell you of his affections at first, hells he hardly had the vocabulary to tell you just how you'd captivated him. How your sweet face glowing under the firelight burned him, how your soft smile and deep gaze told a story before it even left your tongue. It was a perplexing thing for him. He was a man of open affections; of words and affirmations. The lovers he took were often intense, brazen; warriors of mind and body. Ones that would meet his intense passion and explore it tenfold, ones that had very little use for quiet moments. Ones that often had very little use for him, outside of the primal affections he gave. Only natural, of course. What he was good at, they told him.

It stirred something deep within a forgotten part of his soul when that wasn't what you searched for with him. Your hands never betrayed a need when they laid a gentle comfort on his shoulder, but instead sought to soothe. You would let him speak endlessly, often pointlessly, with a smile that told him you would gladly hear more. It-...It had been a very long time since someone had taken interest in the parts of him that didn't give, the selfish parts, the ones wounded with regret and shame. As a leader he had grown accustomed to solving the issues of others, as a friend he'd become a steady shoulder to lean on, and as a lover he believed in serving the one who had managed to capture his heart, in whatever way they might need him even if that included not wanting him. It was entirely unheard of for those strategies not to work, for those expectations to not be set. Yet as time went on and you helped him rid his greatest worry without so much as a need for thanks he felt himself quite out of his element, taken by a silent force that asked for nothing in return.

It was just before you went to defeat Ketheric, when he was almost sure that the shadows would finally be dispelled and this horrid chapter in his life would be behind him, that he felt a sudden heavy weight of dread in him. He was supposed to feel relieved, but a thought had captured him completely as the end neared. Of what he would do after, of the gnawing affections for you that plagued him in a way he'd never known. For the first time in longer than he can remember he found himself with no one left to save, nothing more to do. He was free. And freedom had never felt so utterly suffocating.

He tossed and turned that night, unable to find peace enough to meditate, let alone sleep. What would become of him, with no duty to fulfill? What would become of you, his unknowing heart? You had precious little time left if that tadpole took you, that he knew. Could he bear to watch you go? Should he follow? Is that what you wanted? That last part in particular scorched through him. It was the one thing he never quite knew. What did you want from him? Did you want him at all?

When morning came he was beyond exhausted, beyond spent. Decades upon decades of planning and hoping and praying and hardly living had gone into this one moment, only to be blanketed by a love he would never have expected to find. When the mumble of waking life began to return to the camp and he finally grew tired of tossing and turning in his endless thoughts, he decided it best to distract himself with the fight ahead. To do anything to rid him of the exhausting endless wonder of what your mind kept locked away.

And when he did, moving about his routine with a groggy eye, grabbing herbs and boiling water to make his morning tea, a little something caught his eye. On his table sat a small trinket he was sure he hadn't seen before. Picking it up he has to look closely for a moment before realizing the shape of a duck carved roughly into wood, hardly a pebble in his hands, a small note attached to the bottom. Confusion knit his brow as he blinked his groggy eyes to read.

I am no expert with a whittling knife and I have little experience with your favorite fowl, but making this helped me sleep a little better and I figured you would enjoy even the poor attempt. Your smile has eluded me the past few days. I hope this might help it return.

With loving regards,

Tav

His heart could have exploded in his chest in that moment, his thumb brushing the letter with an obvious fondness. It was the most he'd ever heard of your thoughts and after growing so used to trying to deduce your meaning in the movement of your hand or the shape of your brow it was something he found himself utterly elated by. And more so that you would do so for him. That you had noticed his recent behavior was no surprise, but that you had sought to remedy it with a gift so thoughtful nearly destroyed him, tearing apart his being in the sweetest way. Your words were rare, but he knew now that it only made them more meaningful.

He swore then that there was no one he'd rather follow to the ends of the earth and beyond, that there was nothing more he wished to dedicate his life to. Because even in these dark times, filled with a strife that tore through weaker men and burdened the living with their memories, you had sought to bring him even this small peace. You had thought of him in his darkest moment, once more holding out your willing hand to pull him from the depths of shadow. You had stolen his heart before he'd ever realized and had cherished it with a kindness that made him wonder how he ever survived before you.

Astarion

Astarion was sure that he had you completely figured out after about the first week, which was already an impressive record for any of his targets- or erm, potential allies. But your quiet nature was hardly an uncommon display, especially around someone as absolutely breathtaking as he was. He was so sure that he had you exactly where he wanted you, that he knew just the right strings to pull. You were a bit of a shy one, or at least not so openly affectionate. You took his cooing words and suave attempts at your love (or at least what you would believe was love) with a warm face, a curt nod, and then a scurrying to somewhere where you thought you were free from his gaze. Adorable, really, and all too easy. He knew you shy types well and he was sure it would hardly be a moment more before you would fall helplessly for him and he could use you and your quickly growing pack of weirdos to his bidding.

Or that was the plan, at least. But then you had to go and ruin it, what with your silent grace and annoyingly sweet presence. Gods, it was almost sickening the way you wormed into his heart. For a while he believed that you possessed some stranger version of the tadpole that already squirmed in his brain and you were using it to pull at emotions he was sure weren't there. Because he most certainly didn't lay at night thinking about the soft way your eyes fell on him, no he would never. And he definitely wasn't replaying images of the small laugh he had managed to get out of you earlier. A brief sound, as soft and quiet as you were, a strange contrast to the harsh nights he'd come to dread.

No, no he…oh hells who was he kidding, you practically enraptured him. He had thought you this weak, vulnerable, pathetic thing begging to be played with, but had found that there was a depth to you he had unknowingly plunged himself into. Your quiet wasn't like the blushing of a timid lover attempting their first kiss, nor was it the awkward prolonged silence of someone too full of themselves to learn to relax a little. No, yours was an all-encompassing understanding, a calm steady force reaching out in an unending storm, reaching for him. Because despite his very open and rather obvious attempts to so thoroughly seduce you it was never his more audacious attempts that ever drew a smile. Instead it was those moments of stretching quiet that seemed to draw out a part of you rarely ever seen, not for lack of it being there but because no one dared look. But he saw that in you, in the empty air you seemed so keen to inhabit. He saw a wanting in you, subtle as a shadow firelight cast into the night. You waited in the darkness not for peace, but for reprieve from being the steadying force he'd recently come to know. He learned, more so from observing than anything you'd tell him, that you had been like this a long time. You reveled in the isolation like a wandering soul without a home, finding some strange comfort in that at least here there was no one left to break your perfect silence, no one left to pick and prod at your quiet nature and ask from you more than you were willing to give.

The thought softened him to you along with the strange ways in which you spoke without so much as parting your lips; in the recognition of your glance, in the small kindness you bestowed when you believed no one was looking. There was a vast knowing you held in those calm moments you deigned him worthy enough to share that was almost addictive. He had become so used to smooth words, quick hands, flurries of promises he knew he'd never keep, that your complete silence in the face of it all left him perplexed, curious, wanting. Where he once tried to find any way to draw a rise out of you, a word, a sound, anything, he instead found that words only served to disrupt the sanctuary you were building, that you were trying to invite him into, that he was sullying.

He felt guilt begin to creep through his chest when you had stopped leaning away from him, instead enveloping him in your small moments like it were where he always belonged. When he began to join you in your nightly rest by the river, away from the others. It had become somewhat routine for the both of you, a ritual he was annoyed with at first. After all, the place was covered in sand and he always ended up with a bug crawling on him. He only did it at first because it was the perfect place to strike, to twist your mind exhausted by the days events into what he wanted. But it had become something more, something he didn't even wish to admit to himself.

Then one night after a particularly exhausting day he didn't show up, too annoyed and tired to make that walk to the river with you. It was only one night, after all, he was sure you'd survive. You probably rather liked him gone, to be honest. He was sure he only ruined your peaceful evenings. But then most unexpectedly he heard feet approach his tent before a light knock on the wooden chair outside asked for entry. He groaned in annoyance, hoping to be left alone for the evening. But he opened his poor excuse for a door all the same.

He hadn't expected to see you, eyes as tired as his, with the most expectant stare you'd ever given. He was almost sure you looked panicked for a moment, like you had expected a much more grim sight. Yet still you said nothing, though you didn't have to. He knew what you were waiting for, he just couldn't bring himself to believe it. Instead he made some sideways comment, something akin to “if you just came to stare then you can do that in the morning”, or some other smarmy response to your unspoken request. A defense against the truth, a wall he built as if it would save him from the sickening warmth that built at the thought that you would look for him, that you had missed his presence.

He watches you hesitate, pulling away, closing him off from the comforting void he hadn't realized he was pulled toward. You look at him then with an uncertainty you'd never shown, a hand held up almost as if you were reaching out from a receding tide, hoping to find his hand doing the same. But, ever the man so keen on destroying what little good he had before anyone else could beat him to the punch, he let you fall away, carried adrift. You only give a nod to him, too quick to be sincere, before leaving without a single word. He retreated back to his tent, though even less at peace than before. A dread gnawed at him, a nauseating feeling building at the back of his throat. His mind rewound the strange look on your face over and over, searching for something that told him you were being insufferable, annoying, not worth his time. But instead he found that those words only came back around to him, biting with a quickness. For a time he tried to ignore it, the petty feelings were beneath him.

But gods how that look in your eye made his undead heart sink to his stomach. There was an expectation there, a promise written in the silence that he had broken. You weren't just hurt by his lack of company, but betrayed. Like he had told you a million insults between a harsh glance and unassuming words. Eventually he couldn't bear it, guilt already warm in his chest and now spreading thickly on his tongue. As bad of an idea as he knew it was he finally leaves his tent, taking the walk down to the river where he knew he'd find you.

And there you sat, tucked into yourself with those harrowing eyes he was still trying so desperately to understand. Your gaze along the water was emptier than he'd ever seen, mind anywhere but the current moment. You don't turn to him as he approaches, perhaps for the best. He imagined so much as a glance might actually kill him, given that your very presence exuded an infinitely empty void searching for something that would fill it. He imagined your eyes just might take what you sought after, and that he wasn't going to have the will left to escape. That he wouldn't want to.

He hesitates before he sits, his body moving with a careful step, afraid to ruin the quiet you had woven. But all the same he finds a spot next to you. For a moment he feels unwelcome, unwanted, like the first night he had taken this spot beside you. A familiar emptiness that would have once been a hurdle to jump over now a wave of regret and self-loathing. He found that words seemed to die before they ever left his throat, nearly choking him. The quiet without you was daunting, familiar in a way he never wished to recapture. The memory of cold endless nights, of complete utter isolation and dead silence.

But then he feels a soft weight, one that sends a crashing wave of comfortable warmth through him, that dispels the crawling memories like a balm against his lost soul. And when he turns, eyes gazing at the sight, he finds your head lying gently against his shoulder. He does not feel a craving to your presence, a desperation for closeness or a trick to lull his defenses. He instead feels as if a careful trust rests gently against him, no further request given, no way to turn this any further in his favor. Just a comfortable, careful touch, one that suddenly weighs heavier when he notices your tired eyes shutting lightly and hears the agonizingly slow sigh that leaves you. You lay against him like he was the only relief you'd ever known. And slowly, surely, the thought whispers in his mind that the feeling is all but one-sided, all but yours alone to carry. He fails the fight against himself when he finds his head lying gently on yours, tense at first. But you don't pull away, instead only melting against him further as if to mimic his feelings back at him, to show him trust when you couldn't bring yourself to speak the words.

And he, against every bit of his growing anxieties, crumbles under the pressure of your silent promises, your unspoken care, your perfect peace. Despite knowing he was just making things that much more complicated, he couldn't bring himself to regret the moment of weakness. Not when the void of your unspoken words seems to steal his thoughts into your own in a way that tells him you never plan to leave.

#bg3 #bg3 x reader #bg3 x tav #baldurs gate 3

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