Archive of Our Own

Lukan can’t believe how far he’s come. Here, in Baldur’s Gate, in the aftermath of the Elder Brain’s destruction, his whole life is so unlike what he envisioned that it verges on overwhelming. He has friends, a family of his own, a room in Elfsong Tavern whenever he wants it. People call him a hero. Him. A hero. They clamor at the sight of him. He doesn’t have to sleep with his pack in his arms so that no one will rifle through his things at night (but he still does, sometimes). It’s like a dream, and he still expects, sometimes, that he’ll snap awake in an alleyway to discover his mind had conjured it all up. But he’s awake, moving nimbly through the streets of Baldur’s Gate, to the tavern that, at least for now, he’s been calling home. The barkeep greets him by name, tells him a grateful friend has settled up his tab again, and leaves him to ascend the stairs, feeling lighter than he ever has in his life. He unlocks the door to his room, and standing in the window, looking out at the city, is the one person who could bring all of this levity crashing down. His father.

Thindulion Vanvathar hasn’t changed since the last time Lukan saw him. The same fiery red hair, the same upright bearing. If the strange, slow aging of the Elves was unknown, they might have looked more like brothers, than father and son.

“You’ve come quite a long way from petty murder, I see.” He turns, pinning Lukan with an icy grey stare, assessing, contemptuous. Lukan can’t move. He wants, at once, to disappear. Thindulion had never wanted him anyway.

“Figures you’d show up, now that I’ve made a name for myself,” Lukan retorts. Thindulion doesn’t blink at the barb, graceful even when he’s still, his expression masklike, as though his features had been cut in porcelain.

“I don’t care about that,” he says, as if Lukan had mentioned that his doublet had a loose thread. “What you’ve done with your life has nothing to do with me.” That’s certainly true. Thindulion seems only ever to appear to make certain that Lukan remembers that he has been well and truly abandoned, or that his misdeeds would not reflect on the ancient name Vanvathar. “I am here,” he continues, looking at a spot just below Lukan’s left ear, “at the request of my daughter, who mistakenly regards you as kin.” Even his father’s disgust looks fixed in glass, without a wrinkle. A perfect expression of revulsion. Lukan’s stomach twists. Of his father’s features, Lukan has inherited little beyond the sharpness of his cheekbones, the fullness of his lower lip. His eyes, his hair... He’s always been his mother’s son. And she’s been gone a long time, now. The thought that he might have more family, family beyond the one he’d made for himself...

“I have a—” Thindulion lifts a hand, and the gesture is enough to kill the word before it can touch his tongue. Somehow just at the sight of him, Lukan is a child again, afraid, as he had never been even when confronting the Elder Brain, even when he’d thought he was transforming into an illithid.

“Your exploits have drawn attention,” Thindulion tells him, “and Morwen is... Inquisitive. Intelligent. She wants to meet you. I’d like you to honor her request, and when you meet, I expect you to disappoint her. Do you understand?” It takes him back to when they’d met the first time, when Thindulion had bent so that their eyes were level, and said something that had left him devastated.

You are not, nor will you ever be a son of mine. Never. Do you understand?

That pale stare is like the depths of winter, and Lukan is unprepared to weather it. He wants to retort, but he’s powerless. He just nods, every argument strangled inside him before he can get the breath to start it. Thindulion is merciless. If he sees how this pains Lukan, it doesn’t seem to move him.

“Good. Morwen will find you here. When she does, I expect you to make sure it is the first and last time. Be callous.”

“At least I know where to find inspiration,” Lukan says, finally able to find it in him to retort, to shake off the child he becomes when his father reappears in his life.

“Take care of this, Lukan.” It’s the command that wakes him back up, that sets fire to the coil of outrage in his gut. He has his words again.

“I never said that I would. I understand what you want. And if my sister—”

“ Half .”

“If my sister comes to meet me, do you really think I’m going to do to her what you did to me?” Lukan stalks forward, and for a moment, he doesn’t know what he might do. He wants to shake this man, disrupt that flawless composure. “Did you abandon her mother too? Or do you only turn tail when things get too difficult for you?” Thindulion’s jaw goes tight.

“Ymeria was a tragedy,” he says, which is as close as he comes to relenting, “but she is gone. Do this thing, and we need never discuss it again. You have prospered, as I have. Apart. I would have it remain that way, but Morwen...” He sighs. “I can deny her nothing, but were it in my power, I would deny her this. Cut her off, and we can be finished.” And there would be no amends between them. Lukan can’t begin to think of what he wants from this. To go back to the merciful silence of Thindulion’s absence. The cost is simple. The sister he’d never even known he’d had. Could he simply go back not to knowing? Could he see her, and go back to not knowing? Pretend that she never existed?

“Please leave,” Lukan says, and in that moment, he realizes just how alike he and his father can sound. “It seems like Morwen will find me whether you want her to, or not. It’s no secret that I stay here.” Thindulion’s smile is cruel. Lukan has never seen what it looks like when the expression is a genuine one.

“Very well. I can see that this is as far as we can go.” He brushes past, and out, the sound of his footsteps feather-soft and soon disappearing. Lukan is immediately aware of the effort it has taken to hold himself together. He clamps a hand over his mouth, breathing steadily in and out through his nose. And it’s then, at last, that Astarion finds him.

“Darling, who was that?” At first, he seems almost excited, expecting fresh gossip, but his expression sobers when he sees the state that Lukan is in. “Are you—” He doesn’t need to finish asking. Lukan is far from all right, transfixed between the urge to break things, to roar in outrage, or to simply sob.

“That was my father,” he says finally, and his voice sounds as fragile as he feels. “I have... I have a half-sister, and he came here to make sure I’d abandon her.” Astarion takes this in, brows arching more dramatically the more Lukan reveals. He doesn’t say anything, and Lukan can’t blame him. It’s too much to take in. Astarion takes his hand, squeezing gently, and when Lukan pulls him in, he opens his arms, catching him up tightly.

“Oh, my dear, what a miserable turn of events.” Astarion kisses Lukan’s hair gently. “I could probably catch up with him, you know. Plenty of good alleyways in this end of town to drag him into, get him acquainted with my nice new boots. Sturdy enough to kick a man entirely to death.”

“You got new boots?” Lukan can’t help a watery smile, desperate to redirect the conversation. He doesn’t want Thindulion killed. It had been bad enough to bury his mother, and as much as he wants to hate his father for abandoning them, he hates the thought of being orphaned even more. And now he knows he has a sister, and he couldn’t put her through that.

“That’s beside the point,” Astarion says. “I’m asking if a little spot of patricide might cheer you up.” Lukan shakes his head.

“It’s not like that,” he says. He wants to try to make light, to play along with Astarion’s flippant turn of phrase, but it’s just too heavy. It doesn’t go unnoticed.

“I might have another idea, in that case,” Astarion tells him. “Why don’t you have a sit on the bed, get those boots off, and I’ll be back, having done precisely no murders, I promise.” He waits, expectantly, while Lukan wrenches his boots off, throwing himself down onto the end of the bed.

“All right,” Lukan says, “staying put.” Astarion seldom looks hurried, but he moves with intent, very nearly forgetting to close the door behind him. Alone in the quiet, Lukan becomes keenly aware of the sound of his own breathing, his own heart, but he refuses to let it overwhelm him, refuses to cry, but when the door opens again, and Halsin comes through it, that resolve crumbles. He rushes into the druid’s arms, into the strength and safety of him, and knows he doesn’t have to explain it.

“My poor heart...” Halsin squeezes him gently. “Talk to me.” Astarion is a quiet presence, closing the door softly and locking them in so they’ll not be disturbed. The two of them are like the sun and the moon, each shedding their own beautiful light into even these dark corners of Lukan’s life. It takes him a long time to get through it all, his father, his family... He hadn’t meant to keep so much back, but in the past, secrets had protected him, and it’s hard to lower that shield, even in front of the two men he loves most in all the world. By the time he’s finished, his throat aches with the sobs he’s so desperate to keep back.

“But I don’t mind,” he says roughly. “I don’t mind, because I’ve managed this far without him. I can keep going from here without him.”

“You can,” Halsin agrees, “but I’m sorry that you have to, my love. I am sorry that your father isn’t bold enough to face you, when no doubt he sees so much that he’s lost, in you. And no doubt, he sees just how much he stands to lose, in pushing you away, and I am sorry for that, too.” Clinging to him, Lukan feels as if the strength of his lover’s arms might be enough to bear his sorrows away too.

“I just... Sometimes I wish... I wish it were different.” Lukan buries his face in the broad expanse of Halsin’s chest, breathing in the earthy scent of him. It mingles pleasantly with Astarion’s meticulously curated colognes. His other lover’s touch is cool, soothing, and Lukan feels as if he could simply dissolve, never to feel another awful thing again.

“You know, I understand that feeling,” Astarion tells him. “There are a lot of things that I wish had... Well, it would have been nice if I’d gotten the better version of them. But then, I might not have had you, Lukan. And I’m so glad that I do.” Squeezed between the two of them, the pain he feels just can’t last. “And you know, you can always lie to the man, and do what’s in your heart whether he wants you to do it or not.” It’s Halsin, funnily enough, who chuckles as the suggestion. Warm and sweet like honey in fresh tea.

“Astarion is eminently practical as always,” he says, “but he is right. I think you’ve long outgrown the days when your father could simply tell you what to do. And your sister’s life will be better for having you in it, just as mine has.”

“Well, and whatever you decide, you won’t be alone. I can promise you that.” Astarion presses a kiss into the base of Lukan’s neck. “So, what d’you think? Any better?”

“Much,” Lukan agrees, though he’s barely able to pry himself away from Halsin’s comforting embrace. Halsin leans down, his warm breath ghosting over Lukan’s ear.

“Need the bear?” Lukan nods, almost helplessly, and though he has to let go so that Halsin can shift, he finds immediate comfort, nestled into Astarion.

“Between us,” Astarion says, as Halsin’s eyes spark with druidic magic, “I rather find myself in need of a little bear time too.” Halsin settles his enormous bulk before the fireplace in their room, hazel eyes expectant, welcoming. Astarion is reluctant to let him go, and he sighs with mock annoyance. “Suppose I’ll earn my keep,” he says. “Go to him.” Lukan doesn’t need any encouragement to settle on the floor, leaning his head against Halsin’s side. He can hear the great bellows of his breath, in and out, in and out, and he breathes in time with him, letting each exhalation push out the grief, the rejection he’d felt. It takes Astarion a minute or two to get the fire going, but that done, he joins them in the pile. “Ugh, just when I thought I’d gotten the stink off me,” he complains, and Halsin chuffs. Amusement looks strange in the eyes of a bear, but it’s plain as day. Lukan has to laugh.

“Don’t be ridiculous. You love it.”

“Not as much as I love you , darling, and don’t you forget it.”

“Never could,” Lukan murmurs. “Don’t think you’d let me.” Curled up against Halsin, Astarion pulls Lukan close and kisses him, kisses him, kisses him, and before long, the knot in his heart untwists. He won’t be alone, and there’s more peace in that knowledge than he had ever imagined was possible. He can’t believe how far he’s come.