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petit-etoile · 5 months

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i need you when i'm falling apart

pairing . ⊱ astarion x tav wordcount . ⊱ 3,489 part one . ⊱ here . content warnings . ⊱ mentions of canon compliant temporary character death, spoilers for act iii endgame other tags . ⊱ canon compliant, character study, introspection, p.orn with plot, pwp, vignette, re-establishing relationship, blood drinking, m.issionary position, tav is gender neutral archiveofourown . ⊱ here .

taglist . ⊱ @azrielshadows1nger, @pandimoostuff, @faevi, @microskies, @foreverthemaraudersera, @queenofthespacesquids, @claryvoyantfray, @6doodlaang14, @anne-isnotokay, @itshimbotime, @yeeteth-the-raven, @sessils,@8-opossums, @worryknotdear, @abirdaboxandachippedcup, @ghosts-and-ink, @b4um3pfl4um3, @gunslingerorchid, @hypopxia, @m0ssytrees, @erysione, @odette-attackattack, @catching-fire-in-the-wind, @ashrio20, @wills-mental-illness, @queenofcarrotflowers-s, @kirahlene, @lavenderslemonade, @candyladycry, @chonkercatto, @foxxyhun, @nyxmainex, @angelmawss2, @godoffuckedupcats, @raviolixxx be added . ⊱ here .

summary . ⊱ You have learned to be good. It's time Astarion learns to be forgiven.

During the heart of spring, Astarion spends more time trying to avoid you than he does trying to catch up with you. You’re not even sure why he agreed to travel alongside you — but you do not ask. You press your lips together and push on anyway.

His eyes are cold, and red.

The first night when you set up camp in an abandoned temple, Astarion moves his tent to the other side of the sanctuary as if he cannot bear to be around you. Like you smell. You’ve never cared much for the thoughts or opinions of others, but an inkling of self-doubt creeps back into the depths of your mind. What is the cost of being good if no one treats you kindly?

Every interaction you have with him is like pulling teeth. You want to fight for the tieflings, and Astarion wants to leave them behind. You want to help Wyll find his father, and Astarion snorts. Any good deed you suggest, he finds the need to punish.

When the cambion Raphael reaches and touches your cheek with a promise of opulence and salubrity, you're reminded of a night two hundred years ago. You stumble out of the House of Hope as fast as you can.

You don’t stop walking until daybreak. One night, you explode on Astarion. Your feelings bubble up like bile in your throat.

‘I tried to look for you!’ you snap at him. ‘You can sit here, and you can be bitter, but if I had known, I would have looked for you! But I didn’t know — I didn’t know and it isn’t a crime!’

Astarion’s look of surprise is one thing. He furrows his eyebrows as if properly scandalized, and his frustrated scowl turns to ash when you throw his old cravat at him. You had kept it tied around your neck for two hundred years. You wouldn’t keep it a day longer.

It’s a horrifying mistake to go wandering off in the Underdark by yourself with nothing but a hunting knife at your side, but you never really gave much thought to how you would cope with the gravity of the situation. The fact that you knew Cazador only made matters worse. You stumble past the ruins of the Selûnite Outpost in hopes of running away from your past.

You don’t run into your past in the dark, but you do run into a Spectator.

You’re immediately thrown into darkness and narrowly avoid being petrified, but you have no idea what you’re going to do about this situation besides hide beyond some poor stoned soul. You might should have considered thinking it through. You might should have thought anything through but you didn’t, and that’s the only crime you’ve committed in quite some time. It isn’t a crime is something you’ve begun to repeat to yourself often.

You manage to defend yourself for quite a while in the darkness, but by the end, you’re nursing a nasty wound and bite from the Spectator that will take some time to heal. You’re tucked under some petrified Drow bastard when you hear Karlac’s battle cry and see Gale’s ice spell come from the cliffs. The one that catches you off-guard, the one that will always catch you off-guard, is Astarion flipping through the air with nothing but an elven bow like a prince from your dreams.

Defeating the Spectator is easier with allies, and even the Drow protecting it goes down without much of a fight. You nurse your wounds as best you can, sitting against the cliffs with a bleeding thigh, and try not to frown when Astarion approaches.

‘Give me that,’ he says quietly, snatching one of Halsin’s potions from your fingers. ‘Even after all these years, it seems like you still need protecting.’

You frown and pick at your torn breeches. ‘I know how much you hate that, your honor.’

Astarion looks at you for the first time in several tendays, eyes rimmed with red. ‘I never hated it,’ he says. He dresses your wound like it pains him to see it. ‘I don’t hate it even now.’ Astarion crashes into you full force the night you arrive at the Last Light Inn after you’ve talked to Jaheira but before you’ve talked to anyone else. You’re in your room, and the next thing you know, you’re not alone.

Two hundred years of loneliness are erased at that moment.

His teeth clack painfully against yours as he shoves you into the wall, too uncaring or too pent up to care about the force. He cradles the back of your head to keep you from cracking it on the wall, but other than that, Astarion doesn’t care about hiding the full force of his strength. He kisses you until your mouth is swollen and then he’s tearing your night shirt open with both hands like he can’t get enough.

‘Astarion — ’ you try to say, startled.

But you would be lying if you said you didn’t miss him too. You let Astarion push you around, until you’re both stripped of your clothes and he’s lying flat on his back on the hard wooden floor with you pulled into his lap, his cock pushed deep inside you, and his hands unable to stop wandering the planes of your body. Astarion all but sobs into your mouth as he fucks you. He holds your cheeks in his hands like you’re the most precious thing he’s ever seen.

When you’re both finished, no one moves from the wood floor despite there being a bed. You lie on your side next to him, memorizing the slope of his nose while you still shiver with little twinges of pleasure still racing up your spine and between your legs. Astarion’s eyes are closed. He’s pretending to sleep, or pretending to be dead so you don’t have to talk about what’s happened, but you’re curious anyway.

You reach across the distance and touch his chest. You know there’s no heartbeat beneath his ribs, but you like to pretend. You close your eyes and dream it has been nothing but two hundred years of happiness and bliss in Astarion’s home.

‘When I first saw you,’ you say quietly, ‘I thought you were a ghost come back to haunt me.’

‘Are you often haunted by ghosts?’ Astarion asks. He still doesn’t look.

‘I’ve been properly reformed while you were away,’ you tell him. You stare at his neck. ‘There was only one ghost I was running from.’

He smiles. ‘And now you’ve found him. What do you think about this haunting?’

‘I am happily haunted,’ you say honestly. He opens his eyes then and turns toward you, lips pressed into a firm line. ‘But you are not happily haunting.’

Astarion sits up then and you follow him, legs sticky and wet. You reach for his hands and pull them into your lap. You watch as he struggles to accept a kind touch. In a way, you understand that. You remember how kindly he treated you when you didn’t deserve it. You hold his hands even when he tries to run away.

‘I was ashamed for you to see me like this,’ Astarion explains. He looks away, hesitant. ‘My condition isn’t one that I’m proud of. It isn’t fair to say I was tricked, but — ’

‘Wanting to live doesn’t make you a bad person,’ you say.

‘Perhaps not,’ he says. ‘But I became what I often chastised you for. I am greedy. I am prone to lying and bouts of theatrics. I’ve killed. It was embarrassing to fall so low.’

‘And now you rescue orphans,’ you say, shrugging. ‘You helped the gnomes. You helped the tieflings. You’re going to help the gnomes and tieflings again. There’s still good in you, your honor, beneath all that vampiric avarice you despair over.’

Astarion laughs and turns away from you. He’s looking for his clothes, and your heart squeezes so tightly in your chest that you move before you can stop yourself. You drape yourself over Astarion’s back and pull his arms away from his smallclothes. You can tell by the musculature of his arms that you only succeed because he lets you.

‘Please don’t leave me alone again,’ you whisper against his shoulder. Your wet eyelashes tickle the nape of his neck. ‘I waited for you that night and… I don’t want to be alone anymore.’

Astarion stays that night.

He stays every night after that too. For what it’s worth, your third visit to Baldur’s Gate is hardly better than the first two.

Between fighting cultists, saving children, and trying to convince most of your party that they’re not going to become mindflayers, you’re beginning to run a little thin. You feel like you’re going to shrivel up and die. You feel like the world is spinning and falling apart. You’ve killed Gortash and you’ve killed Orin and you killed Ketheric ages ago, but now you’re trying to keep the Emperor from betraying you and sacrificing Orpheus, and Cazador’s invitation is sitting pretty in your hands, and —

Well, that’s just it, isn’t it? Cazador’s invitation is in your hands, and you don’t have the heart to show Astarion. You’re afraid of showing Astarion. You know that as soon as you show him the invitation, he’ll lose his mind. You’ve only just recovered him and you’re already worried about losing him again.

You bury the invitation in the garden behind the inn like you’re a dog with a bone. You shovel the dirt with your hands until they’re cracked and raw and bleeding and the invitation is buried six feet in the ground. It should scare you that Cazador knows who you are, but it doesn’t. You aren’t stupid enough to run headfirst into his trap. And Astarion isn’t stupid either, but he’s scared, and being scared makes you do stupid things. Astarion almost does a very stupid thing like you predicted he would.

The Rite of Ascension was right there in his hands, and he had almost consumed it. You aren’t sure what changed his mind at the last minute but you’re thankful. Astarion crawls into your arms that night and sobs for hours. ‘What are we going to do about tomorrow?’ Astarion asks you softly.

He’s been tracing patterns into your spine all evening. If he moves his hands now, you’d still feel his fingertips against your skin. You’re hiding your face in your arms so you don’t have to think about it. You can’t stop thinking about it.

‘We’re going to fight the Absolute,’ you say.

‘Like it’s that simple?’

‘I am going to look another god in the face,’ you say, ‘and I am going to tell it to fuck off back to Avernus.’

‘Do Netherbrains come from Avernus?’

You don’t know. You’re too worried to think too hard about the simplest details. So far, you’re every plan has been to go in, stab whoever is the loudest, and then leave before things get worse. It’s hard to keep your head above the waves as they keep crashing down on you.

You don’t want to talk about tomorrow. If things don’t go well, you’re all going to die anyway and all that planning will have been for nothing. You turn on your side and appraise Astarion’s expression. He’s looking at you with muted disbelief. You choose to ignore it.

‘What are we going to do after tomorrow?’ you ask.

Astarion opens his mouth to chastise you for changing the subject, but he closes it almost immediately. He doesn’t want to talk about it either. It’s a scary thing to walk into the end of the world with a sword and a dagger. At least Dame Aylin will be there. You hope she can just stomp the Netherbrain to death and then it’ll all be over.

‘I could always go back to being a magistrate,’ Astarion says conversationally.

He picks at a thread coming loose on his blanket.

‘If you go back to that, I’ll go back to being a criminal,’ you muse. ‘We can have nasty sex on your desk again. You always did look damn good in a cassock.’

Astarion laughs. He laughs like the sunlight that peeks through the window on a sunny morning. He laughs like the moonlight that splays on the cobblestone of Baldur’s Gate long after everyone else has already gone to bed. It’s hideous — it’s melodic and intoxicating, and you reach across the distance and touch his cheek without thinking.

You slide your finger across to his nose. You press your finger against the wrinkle between his brow, and Astarion starts laughing again so you do too. You kiss him while he laughs, and then he holds you and you both laugh together. He will never be a judge again. Your connections with the Zhentarim will die out.

Astarion brushes his fingers against your hip bone. He rolls out of bed like it’s the easiest thing in the world to do, and you miss him. Already without him, the bed is much colder. You dramatically crawl across to his side and press your nose into his pillowcase to smell the faint traces of whiskey that are left.

When he returns, he presents you with his old cravat which has been neatly restored almost to perfection. He had sewn it back together himself. You had worn it for two hundred years as a good luck charm against evil, and the wear and tear had nearly torn it to shreds. You’d never had the heart to try to tailor it yourself. Sewing wasn’t your strong suit, and you had never cried over Astarion’s death until the day you thought you had lost it.

Astarion neatly ties the cravat around your wrist like a promise. He kisses your skin and inhales as though in a dream, nose brushing against the fabric, like the touch of a ghost against your veins. Your throat tightens.

‘Wherever this takes us,’ Astarion says, eyes burning. ‘I want to be there with you in the end.’

You tuck inside your bed with Astarion that night and watch the moon disappear through the window. It’s barely daylight when you’re finally too exhausted to stay awake, and Astarion almost lets you both miss the final showdown. Lae’zel, however, doesn’t. ‘I don’t mind what we do,’ Astarion is saying, ‘once we get to the — ’

You watch with muted horror as Astarion’s skin begins to glimmer in the sunlight. The fire begins cracking under his skin, brimming against his cheekbones and nose and throat and hair much like Karlach when she overheats. You watch as the tips of his ears ignite, and then he’s searching for you frantically between all of your friends.

‘I have to go,’ he chokes out. ‘I have to — ’

There is a world where you let Astarion run alone, where you both get separated on the docks and never find one another again. He runs from the sun as he bursts with radiant energy and as stars pour from his skin, you forget what Wyll is saying, and you run after him.

Astarion finds sanctuary in melting shade beneath a set of boxes. He’s curled up into himself when you arrive, and you drop next to him, pulling your cloak over your heads. He looks up at you, bewildered.

But you have lived through losing Astarion once, and it has haunted you for two hundred years. You had known loneliness and fear and anger, and the thought of surviving it for even a day more makes your stomach roll. You press your forehead to Astarion’s and stand as tall as you can so the sun can’t touch him ever again.

‘Won’t your arms get tired?’ Astarion asks you faintly.

He watches you with a sense of wonder. His skin slowly returns to normal, no more flickering stardust and ash, and you grin. He slowly smiles too, nervous but you shake your head and keep your cloaked raised.

‘Never,’ you say. ‘Not when it’s you.’

‘My reform worked, then?’ he says.

‘I’ve learned about your stuck-up decorum,’ you say. ‘It’s true. I can confirm.’

‘A sense of propriety?’ Astarion asks, and if his voice goes any softer, you’ll melt too.

‘Let me carry the weight of your sins,’ you tell him sincerely, laughing a little. ‘And if we need to find another desk then we will. But I’ll be your knight in shining armor, your honor, and carry a parasol above your head as a proper chamberlain would.’

Astarion snorts. ‘That isn’t quite the job of a chamberlain.’

You hold the cloak up for two hours at least while Astarion recovers from the damage. You can’t help but notice that he looks happy and content even in the shadows. It must be because you’re there, although you’re hesitant to take credit for all his happiness. When you let down the cloak, the sun has set. When Astarion rises, he kisses your cheek sweetly. ‘The silence stretches on — I’m all alone,’ you muse, ‘Please, can I hold your hands, just for a while?’

Bernard’s arms wrap around you gently, and you wrap your arms around his steel ribs. You’ve taken up residence in the old Arcane Tower in the Underdark. You appreciate the permanent nighttime, and if you admitted you only did it because Astarion wanted to be close to his family, it wouldn’t be entirely true. With a bit of help from Gale, you’ve managed to turn the tower into a comfortable fortress. Sometimes Omeluum comes to visit you. Occasionally, there’s word from Shadowheart from the Selûnite Outpost. She’s hoping to restore it. She wants you to come visit.

‘Are you still playing with that dusty old thing, my love?’ Astarion hums from the doorway.

‘You be kind to Bernard,’ you warn him. ‘He’s my friend.’

‘Of course, of course,’ Astarion says, holding his hands up. ‘I’ll be kind to the scrap metal.’

You roll your eyes and step away, touching Bernard’s chest briefly. Astarion has just arrived back from a trip. There are spawn all over the Underdark now, and they treat Astarion as though he’s some sort of prince. They heed your word too, but none so much as his. Their eldest brother, their favorite. They tolerate you if it means getting to see Astarion.

You’re a jack-of-all-trades and master-of-none now. You leave your handiwork for the day or night or whatever it is to go down to your bedroom and recline in bed. Astarion lights each candle one by one until the room is illuminated. You smile and watch as he works.

‘Having responsibility suits you well,’ you say, resting your cheek on your palm. ‘Although it’s funny how our positions have changed somewhat.’

‘I’m the contracted killer,’ Astarion says with a laugh. ‘Are you a magistrate now?’

‘I have at least four hundred years of life left,’ you snort. ‘I, Magistrate Judge Stick-Up-My-Ass, sentence thee to fifty years of community service!’

Astarion rolls his eyes at you dramatically and throws himself into bed, kicking off his boots as he does so. He smells of fresh oils and mist. You bury your nose in his hair. You practically burrow yourself into him, wrapping your arms and legs around him like a mindflayer. You squeeze him tightly in your arms.

‘We have a sprawling manse and all you can think of to do all day is mock me for a position I have not occupied in two hundred years?’ Astarion pouts.

You kiss his hair. ‘What else should I do?’

‘Well,’ Astarion says, tone turning conspiratorial. ‘There are a certain amount of fuckable places here. Several desks, I’ve counted them all, and couches.’

You contemplate it, but after several tendays on the road and a wiggling visitor in your head, you think the bed is the best place. You pull Astarion up to kiss him, arms wrapping around his neck so he can’t leave you. You never want him to go again. You bump your nose against his and hide a smile in his coiffed hair when he melts against your chest.

You sigh prettily when Astarion takes you in your velvet sheets that you float as though in a dream. Your troubles are long over, and that person you thought you lost — your immortal soul — has returned to you as beautiful as the day you lost him. When you shudder, Astarion brushes hair out of your eyes adoringly and tastes your pulse at your jaw. You dig your fingers into the small of his back.

It’s like you’ve found a family. A very bitey, very competitive family. Still, you wouldn’t change any of it for the world. You hold Astarion’s face in your hands and see the man you knew and the man he’s become. Slowly, you pull his mouth towards your neck and feel your heartbeat jump in your chest.

He bites you for the first time that night.

#astarion #astarion ancunin #astarion bg3 #astarion x tav #astarion x reader #astarion x you #astarion x oc #astarion smut #bg3 smut #from ，carcosa .#my fic #YOU GUYS CAN STOP MANIFESTING SNAKES IN MY HOUSE NOW #I LAID DOWN TO SLEEP & ALL I COULD DREAM ABOUT WAS CRAVATS #honestly patch 5 inspired a lot too #learning about astarion becoming A Dad to a bunch of vampire spawn really like........................... fired up the brain

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send-me-a-puffalope · 4 months

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twirling my hair, kicking my legs thinking about scooped!Vanessa :333

(process photos under cut)

#fnaf vanessa #fnaf vanny #vanessa afton #vanessa shelly #five nights at freddy's #tw gore #tw body horror #breaking news: your local nat posted fully rendered art for the first time in forever #peep the vanny patches sewn onto the skin and the ennard hat :33333 #no no one day i’ll make vanessa happy i swear (<- lying)#my poor poor friends watching me go insane learning digital art… this whole drawing is me winging it #and it turning out decently so i never actually learn the process correctly #anyways im proud of this one :33 #puff art

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hallowclave · 5 months

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She para on my humans till I [GRUESOME SOUNDS OF BUG FUELED VIOLENCE]

Redraw of a skitter design I did a little over a year ago, comparison under the read more

And the sketch. As a little treat. Just for you.

#taylor Herbert #parahumans #parahumans worm #worm #my art #I’m sorry it’s so dark her hair being black and her suit also being black is so irritating to me #eyes changed to red to mimic a fly. face mask had a minor change to mimic the head of an ant better #antennae got a little extra prong to mimic ant pincers and also bc hollow knight fan #boots got a steel toe for maximum violence potential #suit padding was actually referenced off of motorcycle armor instead of just winging it #no skirt or belt because I don’t think the former looked good and I didn’t want to draw the latter #even if it’s not canonically accurate she needs some form of armor. Taylor your vital organs. they’re in danger.#iirc she DID put knee pads and stuff on when she first started out. and yet she refuses to wear a helmet. inevitable TBI moment.#in terms of general art stuff the posing looks so much better. look who learned about contrapposto.#and improved (a little) at anatomy. not really on costume design but we’re taking baby steps.#I’d like to thank the wormblr fans for recirculating the og post every three months or so for getting me out of my art block #nothing will make you draw faster than seeing your old art go around.#i promise I’ll finish worm one day 🫡#end of patch notes/ted talk/etc

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naycelium · 10 months

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Patch and POS tracking down a Signal Range Booster Chip..

#nay draws #nay ocs #patch #pos #i hope someday i can learn to do backgrounds to help bring their story to life in a little comic or something #she/her

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travelling-hydaelyn · 1 year

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I too would thank y’shtola for teleporting me far away from work and forcing me to live in the wood for a few months

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soobinies · 7 months

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beomgyu + pink for @backformores

#txtnetwork #beomgyu #choi beomgyu #txt #tomorrow x together #tomorrow by together #gifs #not using mutuals bc im just experimenting #super super quick gifs #im juat messing around and learning new things #anwyas sheild your eyes #ignore that patch of grey? in the background ?? lol im still learning #ANWAYYYYYS pink for lua

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starry-bi-sky · 3 days

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I'm so annoyed. @kingcrow01 tumblr ate your ask about Danny's opinion on the League. tumblr i pressed 'save draft' why didn't you sAVE DRAFT.

ANyways I'm making a post instead. For everyone else, the ask was in summary:

What was Danny's opinion on the League now that he's left it? If he missed the familiarity of it, if he recognized the cult-like behavior inside it, and if he now detested his grandfather.

And to answer (again, grrr): It's complicated! We love complicated <3. Yeah, Danny does miss the familiarity of the League, it was still his home for the first ten years of his life and he has a lot of memories there. Plenty of good along with the bad, and while he's less homesick than he was when he was 10, it still hits him like a truck at random intervals.

Sam, Tucker, and Jazz are great, and he likes the Drs. Fentons enough that he's contemplated murdering Vlad for his meddling, but if he wants to eat the same food his mother used to make him and Damian, he has to do it himself and he can't get the taste right. No one knows arabic so he speaks it to himself because he doesn't want to forget his mother tongue, and he has a few books too. Frankly? He genuinely misses training.

Getting to use Sam's gym helps with his restlessness, same with training with Maddie, but he has no one on or above his level to go against other than his mother. And he only sees her twice a year at most. He knows that he's getting stagnant and he fucking despises it like a bad itch he can't scratch.

He feels conflicted about missing the League, however, since by now he recognizes the flaws and what was wrong with it, and he recognizes that it was cult-like. But even that is kinda, hrm, complicated? If this was a fic I would be able to go better into depth about what he has and hasn't unlearned because cult deprogramming is hard and Danny's doing most of this on his own.

Sam, Tucker, and Jazz have helped with the more obvious stuff: like the ecofascism, the disregard for human life, his emotional constipation; the more obvious stuff that shows in his behavior and personality. But none of them are professionals nor do they actually know the full extent of what Danny's life in the League was like. They only have snapshots since Danyal is very tight lipped about it. So they can only help with what they see themselves through Danny's behavior or word of mouth.

But in summary: He sees, for the most part, what's wrong with the League and disagrees with some of the stuff they do now. But he's very conflicted, and trying to dissect his feelings on the League confuses him. His protests about it whenever Sam and Tucker joke about it have at this point become mostly empty (altho it still causes him some discomfort), and its an inside joke between them three.

As for Ra's? Despises him. If only because Ra's wanted him to kill his little brother -- thinking about his motives with the League confuses Danny, cognitive dissonance and stuff, -- a lot of his hatred stems from "He wanted me to fight my baby brother to the death. I destroyed my relationship with Damian because of him, I had to fake my death and leave my home, and I will never meet my father or see my brother again because of him. Fuck that guy."

#dpxdc #dp x dc #dp x dc crossover #dpxdc crossover #dpdc #danny fenton is not the ghost king #danyal al ghul au #starry asks #demon siblings au #danny's opinions on the league is rather complicated but he knows that some of the stuff that happened inside was wrong. and while he's #always known that his upbringing wasn't normal -- and he took pride in that -- its only in recent years that he's learned that #this was a *bad* thing. that his upbringing was wrong. he's still kinda grappling with that.#danny's homesickness hits the worst when he's patching himself up from a ghost fight alone. stitching up his throat in his ghost form when #he gets hit with a deep child-like grief and the unwitting 'i wanna go home'. he's exhausted and sad and hurting and fucking *tired*#good mom talia al ghul supremacy. she's trying her best.#but yeah sam and tucker did a lot of good for Danny by becoming his friend. he's a lot better off than he would've been if he remained alon #'a child not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth' type of stuff. danny's aware of this and is incredibly grateful #for sam and tucker. and as a result can and will get violently protective. his moral code on killing can be summed up as: i dont kill bc i #value human life and it's inconvenient. but i will do it without remorse if i must.#vlad is only still alive because he's incompetent. but the ice is thin #catch me about to make an incorrect quotes post about this au. i am so close.

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tackytigerfic · 10 months

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Fledgling

Some scrap words I won't be using for another fic, repurposed for the @drarrymicrofic prompt Hatch. Anyway, this is another dads Drarry piece (i know i know). Newborn Albus and newborn Scorpius, tired fathers, both recently separated. Harry struggling a bit with life as a parent. No major warnings that I can think of but do please let me know if there's anything. Unbetaed

ETA: actually re CW there is mention of an unwanted/unexpected pregnancy. Pls do proceed with caution if that's a tricky topic as I don't delve into it with the nuance it deserves. As to my stance, i am firmly pro-choice and it's not the sort of topic i usually take lightly.

Harry hadn’t thought the sling thing through before he left the house, and now his whole back is aching and he keeps whacking people with the unwieldy changing bag that won’t stop slipping off his shoulder. Albus is weeping noisily, one side of his tiny face pressed against Harry’s t-shirt, his new-blue eyes shutting and opening in bewildered exhaustion. Looking down into the sling, Harry can only see the fluffy top of his head, the fuzz of eyelashes, the slack weight of his plump cheek, but he can feel the tear-wettened patch of fabric spreading. They're both exhausted, the heat of summer making Harry's back prickle with sweat under the straps of the sling.

Harry's at the farmers market off Diagon, trying to buy vegetables. He doesn’t actually want to eat a vegetable, or indeed anything that involves chopping or cooking or making any sort of effort at all. In fact, what Harry wants is to go home and lie alone, in total silence, on the sofa in the back parlour, where the air is always cooler, and drink a very cold beer, and eat nothing but Monster Munch and Dairy Milk for dinner.

However Harry has to buy, cook, and eat vegetables, not just because he has to set a good example for his children, but also because if he dies of scurvy then he’ll be no better than his parents were, having a kid they were too young for, then going off and getting themselves killed. Though at least Harry's boys would have the Weasleys, which means they’d be loved at least, which is more than Harry was, and now his eyes are prickling with self-pity and guilt, and Albus is crying so hard he’s hiccuping, and god, Harry needs some sleep. But he won’t get any, because Molly can only keep James for another twenty minutes, and Harry has to get his grocery shopping done, and then it’ll be bathtime and bedtime and another broken night, and so the cycle continues, a relentless loop that might feel like a time-turner is involved except that Harry somehow manages to find brand new things to feel absolutely grim about every single day.

He sighs, pokes at a flabby-looking aubergine, then remembers how much work he’d have to do to make it taste good and just grabs some carrots instead. His hands are already full, the changing bag swinging and banging against his hip. Albus’s little legs are squirming in rage now, his whole body in muscular rolling motion against Harry’s chest.

“Please, baby,” he whispers, kissing the damp little head. “Please just calm down.”

He reaches for a butternut squash, and the bag swings forward and drops into the crook of his elbow, hitting the vegetable stall. Somewhere below him, a point he can’t actually see over the lump of screaming baby, he hears the hollow thumping noise of something falling and hitting the ground. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a cabbage trundling onto the footpath, then another and another. The man who works at the vegetable stall gets his wand out and starts Accio-ing the fallen cabbages, giving Harry an unimpressed look which he extends to the baby in the sling. Harry feels suddenly enraged, and he drops the carrots so he can bring his hand up in front of them, a protective shield against the horrible man’s disapproval, and now the other shoppers are staring too, a woman with a bored-looking teenager giving Harry’s strewn carrots a pointed look as she bends to pick them up off the ground.

Harry can’t bear it anymore, hating himself, hating the people shopping like their worlds haven’t come to a standstill like his has, hating the great fucking changing bag and the carrots and even, for one awful shameful moment, the crying baby, and he moves further down the street to where there’s a break in the stalls, a mercifully unoccupied bench, and a busker playing some sort of multi-horned instrument that is making enough noise to drown out Albus’s wailing. He sits, carefully, so Albus is higher on his chest with one plump cheek against Harry’s fast-beating heart, and closes his eyes.

“Here,” a voice says, and Harry opens his eyes to see a plume of green feathery leaves, a hand clutching… is it the bunch of carrots? And then he looks up, beyond weary now, and it’s Malfoy there, because of course it is. “I saw you dropped these.”

Malfoy sits down uninvited, just sags down onto the bench next to Harry and lets the bunch of carrots fall on the seat between them. Harry hasn’t seen much of him since school, though he knew Malfoy had got married, and he’d definitely seen something in the papers when the baby was born. He looks awful, Harry thinks, too pale even for him, with sickly blueish shadows under his eyes. His hair is long, curling round his ears, slightly damp at the temples from the heat. He’s wearing a shirt that has some sort of greyish white stain all down the front, and the points of his collar are soft and floppy in the heat, like a puppy’s ears.

“Please, make yourself comfortable,” Harry says.

“I just want some rest,” Malfoy says, and he stretches his legs out in front of him and tips his face up towards the sun, closing his eyes. His throat is one long bared line, and in the crisp afternoon light Harry can see the fine glint of stubble all along his jaw where he clearly hasn’t shaved in a while.

“This doesn’t quite seem like the right place for resting,” Harry says. “This one won’t shut up, for one.” He looks down at Albus, his throat tight, then back at Malfoy. “Sorry. For the noise, I mean. I’ve tried everything and he just won’t stop.”

“Oh.” Malfoy waves his hand vaguely in Harry’s direction, eyes still closed. “I can’t even hear him, really. It’s practically a holiday for me, hearing a baby crying that isn’t my own. Not my problem, for once. No, this one here is the reason I need a rest.” He opens his eyes as though it costs him effort, and jerks his head to the side. There’s a pram parked there, the old-fashioned silver chassis winking in the sun, gleaming hood drawn up to shade the baby inside. Harry can barely see through a haze of brightly coloured sun protection charms, anti-hex shields, and elaborate cushioning charms. The pram looks like something Harry had seen in old photos Petunia had, like a relic of some half-forgotten time, but Malfoy puts a hand out almost proudly and rests it on the handle, rocking the pram back and forth slightly.

“He’ll only sleep if the pram is moving,” he says, sounding grim. “And I’ve only just got him to doze off. If he wakes up now, I don’t think I’ll be able to bear it.” He looks at Harry, eyes wide, and places a hand to his mouth as though he wants to snatch the words back.

“Give us a proper look, then,” Harry says, and Malfoy gently lifts the shielding charms for a moment as Harry leans over a little to peer over the edge of the pram to see the baby. He's small and pink and not at all pointy, just a soft squidgy-looking bundle under a light summer muslin, with an almost invisible sheen of hair the same silver as Malfoy’s on his little head.

“That’s Scorpius,” Malfoy says, and he’s grinning a little, gazing distractedly into the pram as though he can’t quite help himself. Harry feels abruptly and surprisingly fond towards him. He’s seen that expression on his own face in countless photos of him with the boys.

“He’s cute. Interesting name.”

Malfoy goes pink, which makes him look a bit more like his old self, Harry thinks.

“It’s a family tradition,” Malfoy says stiffly. “And I happen to like it. And anyway, you can’t exactly talk, naming your child Albus.”

“Hey, no,” Harry says. “I wasn’t being— I mean, sorry if I sounded sarcastic or something. I really do like it. There were three Harrys in my form, at my old school before Hogwarts. I would have loved something different. I always wanted a cool name like Rocket or… Trent or… McGuyver, or something. I’d have loved to be called Scorpius.”

“You’re making it worse,” Malfoy says, though his lips are twitching. “Trent? Honestly, Potter.”

Then, as if compelled by curiosity, he leans over towards Harry and gently eases down the side of the sling so that he can look in at Albus from the side. Harry wonders what the baby must look like, in this heat, having been crying for so long, but Malfoy’s eyes soften and he smiles into the sling like he’s forgotten Harry’s even there, and Harry feels that irrational glow of pride he gets whenever anyone admires his babies. He’s mine, he wants to say. I made him.

Albus, as though sensing he’s being looked at, takes in a huge gulp of air with a sweet little wheezing sound and then, miracle of miracle, falls silent.

Harry and Malfoy look at each other over the baby’s head.

“Oh my god,” Harry mouths, and Malfoy mouths back at him, pointing into the sling, “He’s asleep!”

Harry isn’t sure how long they sit there. He thinks he might doze off for a while, though he can’t be sure. When he opens his eyes, Malfoy is still there beside him, resting his head on the back of the bench, pushing the pram wheel idly with one foot so that the whole thing rocks gently back and forward. He must sense Harry moving, because he yawns hugely and then blinks at Harry, or maybe into the sun, which is now setting behind Harry. At some point, the street musician must have moved on, because everything has the quiet, winding-down hum of early evening.

“This idea might be utterly mad,” Malfoy observes in a whisper, since both babies are, miraculously, still asleep. “I don’t know, since I’m so sleep-deprived I think my sense of reason has been affected. But would you possibly like to do this again sometime?”

“What, present each other with root vegetables and then fall asleep next to each other on a public bench?” Harry asks, amused. “No one could ever say we don’t know how to have a good time, I suppose.”

“Are you lonely?” Malfoy asks abruptly. “You seem lonely. Is that okay to say? I was watching you, you know, trying to buy your vegetables, and you looked about as miserable as I feel, and guess what? I was glad. That’s why I came to talk to you. I don’t think I’d have got the courage up if you’d been just standing there in the sunshine all golden and dewy and— and healthy looking—” He waves a hand dismissively in Harry’s general direction, the gesture somehow taking in every exhausted cell of Harry’s body. "Which, by the way, you do. Which is bloody unfair. But you also looked absolutely bloody livid and like you were about to cry.”

“I was,” Harry admits, because if Malfoy is oversharing, he might as well too.

“And I was glad,” Malfoy finishes, with a vicious satisfaction, and sits back. “I would have assumed you’d be really good at this, like you are at everything. No, no, I don’t mean you’re not a good father, Potter, anyone can see you’re hopelessly devoted to your offspring. I just meant, you looked like you were struggling. That you weren’t enjoying yourself. It was… refreshing. Reassuring, in a way. Like I’m not the only one who’s not a natural at this.”

“Albus was an accident,” Harry blurts out, covering the baby's ears carefully with his hands, though he's so deep in sleep he doesn't even stir. “Ginny and I were already separated. She had taken the job in Wales. She didn’t even realise she was pregnant for months, because she was training so hard she thought that’s why she felt tired all the time. And when she told me, I was so happy. She was crying and crying, she hates crying, I don’t know if you know that about her, probably not. But she just couldn’t stop, these big tears sliding down her cheeks. She was completely in shock, and I didn’t care at all. I wanted him, so badly, straight away. I could barely believe I got to have him. It felt like everything I had ever wanted, and that was all that mattered to me at that moment. And now he’s here and it’s like I’m being punished for it. It’s so hard, Malfoy. I’m on my own most of the time. Ginny was meant to have them at weekends, but she’s so busy and I don’t really want them going all the way to Wales without me just yet. And Ginny can’t fly after a week of broken nights, it would be too dangerous. So it’s just me, most of the time, and I’m so bloody lonely. Some nights when I’m up with one of the boys I just stand at the window and look out, just to see if I can find another house with a light on, so I feel like I’m not the only person in the world.”

“Wow,” Malfoy says. “That is a lot to be carrying around with you. Emotionally speaking, I mean, though it looks as though you’re overburdened physically too.” He eyes the changing bag with distaste. “Honestly Potter, are you a wizard or not?” He swings a hand over the bag, and Harry sees the tip of his wand sliding into his hand before Malfoy does a complicated little shivery wand movement over the bag. Then he sets his wand tip to the shoulder strap of Harry’s sling and performs a mild sticking charm, giving the sleeping lump of Albus a little pat before he sits back again. “There, that should hold until you get home.”

“Home…” Harry feels a familiar lurch in his stomach, the knowledge that he has forgotten something crucial but can’t quite put a finger on it. “Oh my god, Malfoy. I was meant to be at the Burrow to collect James at five o’ clock. What time is it? No, don’t tell me, I don’t want to know. If I’ve made Molly miss her Witches’ Institute meeting she will hex me sideways.”

Harry stands, Albus wriggling and grumbling at the sudden movement and then subsiding back into sleep. The sling feels secure, more comfortable around the tired muscles of Harry’s shoulders. He grabs for the changing bag, which he lifts easily with one hand, the dead weight of it now lightened.

“Wow, Malfoy. What was that charm you used on the bag? It’s actually manageable now.”

“It’s a variation on the Feather-Light charm. Same principle and same incantation but a slightly different wand movement. Makes the results a bit more stable.”

“Nice.” Harry slides the strap of the bag onto his arm. “You’ll have to show me. Next time?”

“Next time,” Malfoy said, then grins, a sudden and charming smile that shows his nice teeth and makes him look younger and somehow softer. He has a dimple, Harry notices, tucked right into the dip next to his lip, easy to miss unless you’re really looking.

“Great, I’ll owl you. And Malfoy— Thanks. For the bag, and listening to me, and… well, everything.”

“And for the carrots.” Malfoy picks up the bunch with a flourish, the delicate green fronds quivering at the movement as he hands them to Harry. “You mustn’t forget those.”

“Well, I think I’m going to get a takeaway,” Harry confesses. “But I shall make sure to put these carefully into the salad drawer of the fridge so that they can moulder away gently there for a few weeks.”

“As is right and proper,” Malfoy replies, very seriously, then the slight quiver of his lips turns to a grimace as a squawk arises from the pram.

“Once more unto the breach,” he says, already moving towards the pram, reaching in to where the blanket is rippling from tiny kicking legs. “I’ll see you soon, Potter.”

“Good luck,” Harry says, tempted to pat him on the back or shake his hand, but catching himself at the last minute and realising how odd it would be to just start touching Malfoy all of a sudden.

He sets off for the Leaky, hoping that that queue for the Floo won’t be too long. At his chest, Albus sleeps on, and Harry feels the tension leave his shoulders, somehow unburdened.

#Not to start going on and on about craft #but it's incredible how much i've learned about writing in the few years since I started creating fics #i feel much more in control of my process #and also find it easier to work and rework a piece #it's been so useful since i started writing original work #good for patches of writer's block too #as i can go back to older pieces and see how I can tweak and mould them into something closer to what i want them to be.#i mean it's a constant learning process right?#but it does feel like i *am* learning #which is very fun #anyway #drarry #drarry microfic #rowing and writing

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