Chapter Text
“Fuck, that hurts,” Miriam muttered. Morning had come far too quickly, and with it, the pounding headache of sobriety as she perched on the bathroom counter with Yurgir crouched awkwardly between her legs. She kicked her feet idly against his back as he peeled a square of gauze free and pressed it against the ointment covered burn currently blistering on the inside of her left thigh.
“Quit moving and it'll hurt less,” he grunted.
“It'll also hurt less if you give me head, probably,” she pointed out blandly.
“Not in the job description, princess.”
She shuddered. “Don't fucking call me that.”
He shrugged. “Suit yourself. It'll be easier if you get used to hearing it sober.”
“What would you know about that?” she snapped in a sudden surge of irritation.
He ignored her and nudged her legs back apart. “Quit moving,” he repeated.
“Fuck off,” she grumbled, but she leaned back on her hands and begrudgingly did as she was told. “Why are you helping me anyway?”
“Because Rosier complains less if his merchandise is in one piece. He's gonna be pissed enough about this already, if that burn gets infected I can kiss my next vacation goodbye.”
She closed her eyes and tipped her head back against the mirror. “That's fair,” she muttered.
“Trust me on that. I've dealt with his bellyaching about Gortash for the last four goddamn years. It's almost as annoying as dealing with the fucker himself.”
“Oh, yeah, sounds like the worst.”
“Sarcasm ain't a good look on you when you're covered in this many bruises.”
“Shit, I wonder where those came from?” she shot back venomously.
“Maybe think twice before you start throwing punches next time.”
“Have you considered you have a very punchable face?”
“Heh.” He huffed an unsettling giggle. “Been told that a time or two in my life for sure.”
“You don't have to sound so fucking proud about it,” she grumbled.
He didn't answer, choosing instead to gather the trash on the floor into a neat pile before dumping it unceremoniously into a bin.
“How’s the nose?” she ventured cautiously, if only because the prolonged silence made her want to scream.
“Pity’s not a good look on you, either,” he said.
“You're a certified dickhead,” Miriam said.
Yurgir chuckled as he helped her hop unsteadily off of the counter. “Yeah, I know that already too.”
Gale heard the angry footsteps clunk against the linoleum lecture hall floors long before someone called his name.
“Dr. Dekarios.”
He frowned and turned around as he slung his bag over his shoulder. “Can I help you with something, Mr. Helani?”
“What the hell did you do to Miri?”
Gale blinked as he slowly processed the words. “I beg your pardon?”
Rolan’s face twisted in anger, his hands trembling with barely concealed rage. “I know you were paying her to fuck you. And she hasn't picked up her phone since Friday when she went to see you.”
A surge of defensive anger welled up in Gale's throat, enough even to override the panic also building in his gut. “If you have something relevant to the program to speak with me about, visit me during office hours,” he said curtly. “What goes on in my private life outside of this campus is, quite frankly, none of your business. I suggest you take this highly inappropriate conduct elsewhere—”
“I know you hit her,” Rolan interrupted.
Gale's blood ran cold. “What?” he whispered.
“You aren't even denying it. Gods, I pegged you for a pompous arse, but you really didn't give a single damn about her outside of getting your bloody cock wet, didn't you?”
Gale slammed his bag down on the nearest desk as the emotions he'd been burying the past few days finally reached their breaking point. “You don't know anything about what went on between Miri and me,” he snarled. “You think you can stand there and judge me based on crass assumptions? Bit hypocritical from someone who also partook in the hypothetical devil's sacrament, don't you think?”
“She's my friend, you miserable arsehole!” Rolan was practically shouting as he took another firm step forward. “I wasn’t paying her, I wasn't sleeping with her, but I care about her, and it's clearly obvious you don't judging from how you don't even look the least bit bothered by the thought that she could have come to harm—”
Something snapped in him, some wall he'd been desperately keeping in place for the past few days crumbling into dust. “I loved her!” Gale shouted angrily. “I loved her and I hurt her and I couldn't be what she needed and now she's gone back to Baldur's Gate with someone who can give her whatever she really needs. Is that what you wanted to hear?”
“Gone?” Rolan repeated. “What — what do you mean, gone?”
“Oh, did she not tell you?” Gale said bitterly. “Isn’t that interesting?” He grabbed his bag and slung it roughly across his shoulder. “I'll see you in class tomorrow.”
Rolan grabbed him roughly by the sleeve. “Dr. Dekarios. What do you mean, she's gone?”
Gale reflexively yanked his arm away. “Touch me again and I will contact campus security,” he said. “This conversation is over.”
He didn't look to see if Rolan followed him when he let the door slam behind him, but he sagged against the wall when he rounded the corner and took a shaky breath. Closed his eyes, rubbed at the headache brewing in his temples.
Ariel's voice jolted him back to his senses, harsh on his ears, without a trace of the warmth she’d shown him that morning before they'd taken deliberately separate routes to work. “Dr. Dekarios, see me in my office please.”
He followed the ominous click-clack of her heels to the front of the building and into the administrative office with a numbness in his chest. “What have I done this time?” he said tiredly.
When he finally looked up, she'd locked the door behind her and pointed beyond it. “That cannot happen again.”
The whiplash was dizzying. “What?”
“Blowing up on a student?” she hissed.
“Now, wait just a moment,” he protested. “I don't know how much of that exchange you heard—”
“It doesn't matter, and I do not care,” she said abruptly. “I don't care what he said to you, about you, or if he insulted Mystra herself in front of you. You are a distinguished member of this faculty, and you will behave yourself in a manner appropriate of your station.”
He shook his head and let a hysterical chuckle fall from his mouth. “I don't know what I thought would have changed,” he said finally. “I suppose that's on me, expecting you to have grown too much of a heart. Can't tarnish that reputation of yours, can we?”
“That isn't fair,” she whispered. Her expression softened, and she took his hands in hers with a sad frown. “I heard exactly what he said to you,” she said quietly. “And you are hurting and it was neither right nor fair. But you cannot let that sphere of your life follow you here.”
“What was I supposed to say to him?” Gale scoffed. “’I'm sorry you feel that way, take it up with the administrative board?’”
“Yes!” Ariel pressed her lips together in a thin line. “I know you miss her, Gale. Believe me, I … know that better than you think. I know you have suffered loss after loss, I know you likely think your life is once again grinding to a standstill you don't know if you're going to recover from.” She squeezed his hands tightly. “Life doesn't stop. Life never stops. You have a good thing here. Don't rip holes in the only tapestry you have just to watch your fingers bleed.”
His neck still ached from the way the two of them had fallen asleep on the couch last night, slumped against one another with the steady rhythm of a Mulhorandi nature documentary playing on the TV. He could still catch whiffs of her perfume on his shirt. A thousand old wounds were stitched across them both, but she was right. Life didn't stop.
“Gale?”
“That's twice you called me that now.”
“It's your name, isn't it?”
She still hadn't let go of his hands. He didn't know what that meant anymore. There had been a moment last night when she'd been so close, impossibly close, close enough that all he'd have had to do was tip his head forward to meet her lips, just like old times. He hadn't, of course, coward that he was.
He did this time. Ariel didn't move a muscle at first when he pressed his lips to hers, still as a statue and twice as cold. There was a time when he would have pulled away and apologized, let the moment end, and moved on.
He didn't know how long he really stood there, only that after what felt like an eternity of uncomfortable silence he felt her arms wrap tentatively around his waist. There were no words, no fireworks, no passionate sighs or declarations of anything resembling romance.
There was only the fact that she tightened her grasp and didn't pull away. Somehow, that meant more to him than anything else.
It was well past midday when Yurgir poked his head into the bathroom with a brisk knock. “Change of plans, princess.”
“I told you not to call me that,” Miriam said, surly as she sank deeper into the water. The Tegaderm on her thigh itched terribly.
“You'll forgive me when you hear the news, I'm sure.”
“Oh, I doubt that,” Miriam muttered.
“Gortash had fires to put out back home apparently. Your appointment tonight is cancelled. Meeting with some woman, never heard of her. Friend of Rosier's.”
Miriam sighed as she closed her eyes and tipped her head back against the lip of the tub. “That supposed to be reassuring or something? At least Gortash is the devil I know.”
“Sometimes those freaks are the ones you need a break from the most,” he pointed out. “Anyway she's downstairs, wants to meet you before she comes back tonight.”
“Isn't that nice of her,” Miriam muttered. She rubbed at the headache forming behind the bridge of her nose. “Tell her to wait until I finish rubbing one out. Unless you want to watch.”
Yurgir snorted. “You're a shit liar, princess.”
Miriam made a show of draping one leg over the edge of the bathtub as she dipped a hand between her legs with an exaggerated moan. “Real enough for you?” she said.
Yurgir closed the door behind him. “You got five minutes.”
She hauled herself upright and pulled the plug with a disgruntled groan. “Fucker,” she grumbled.
She arrived downstairs exactly six minutes later out of spite. The woman waiting for her in the sitting room was a willowy blonde in a dress of skintight red with long silky hair and the palest grey eyes she'd ever seen. “Aren't you a darling,” the woman cooed. “Miriam, I presume?”
“It seems you have me at a disadvantage, sweetheart,” Miriam said as she let the woman pick up her hand and plant a soft kiss on her knuckles.
The woman offered a brilliant smile and tugged Miriam down into the seat next to her. “Geri with a G. Cute, right?”
Miriam brushed Geri’s hair out of her eyes and draped her legs across the couch. “I don't think cute is the word I'd use,” she murmured. “But judging by the way you carry yourself, I think you already know how fucking gorgeous you are.”
“Well, sure.” Geri tugged Miriam in for a soft kiss. “Been told that my whole life. I'm sure you have too. Sometimes, though—” She punctuated her words with a soft kiss. “A girl wants a little bit of authenticity. A deeper connection.”
“Hmm.” Miriam nipped at her lip playfully. Her perfume smelled of lilies and something metallic she couldn't recognize. “You want authenticity and you come to a whore. That's a strange choice.”
“Sometimes the clearest truth comes from beneath the thickest masks,” Geri murmured. “Dig in the dirt for fun, clawing, scratching, fingers turning damp earth. Some people call it gardening. What if nothing grows?”
“Beautiful and a philosopher,” Miriam murmured with a smile. “Aren't you an interesting one?”
“I find it makes life more fun to be interesting when you're pretty,” Geri said. Her lips curled into a grin. “You never answered my question.”
Miriam hummed thoughtfully. “Do you always need a reason to play in the dirt? Maybe you’re burying something that's already dead, maybe you just like the way it feels between your fingers. Does it matter in the end?”
Geri laughed, soft and melodic as she ran her fingers down Miriam’s cheek. “Is that what you would rather? A life without any meaning at all?” She leaned in again, another kiss, another shared breath. “Awfully bitter water in that well, don't you think?”
Miriam’s heart stilled as she fought to keep her expression neutral. As hope bloomed treacherous in her chest alongside the sinking feeling that she was running dangerously out of time. She looped a lock of Geri’s hair around her fingers. “I think there’s a difference between finding meaning in meaningful things and digging too hard for things that aren’t there.”
“Clever,” Geri mused with a quirky smile. “I’m sure you are just marvelous at finding things. Whether they’re there for the finding or not.” She untangled herself from Miriam’s arms and stood up. “I'll be back at seven, sweet thing. We are going to have so much fun together.”
Miriam offered as dazzling of a smile as she could muster over the deafening pounding of her heart. “Can't wait,” she agreed.