#but instead i just obliterated myself repeatedly and now i am a giant pile of sad feels :( | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

blackjackkent · 4 months

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(Jarringly, if you go straight to a long rest from Gortash, the game forgets about all the Karlach drama and she's all like "HEY! ^_^" when you go to chat with her, but then the next morning she has an exclamation mark over her head and is plot-appropriately sad again. As I mentioned in that drabble earlier, I'm just leaning into this and deciding that Karlach basically didn't come back to camp all night, wandering around the city and finding someone private to cry/process/scream at the sky. Hector, meanwhile, lies alone in their tent and has an incredibly unsettling interaction with the Emperor and his own meltdown.

So we will say this is the next morning, with a slight tweak to Karlach's opening line to reflect this.)

"Hey, Soldier. I'm back..."

The sun has barely crested the horizon when Karlach comes wandering back into camp. Hector is the only one awake, having given up on trying to get any rest an hour or so earlier; he's sitting next to the campfire with a mug of tea and staring into the flames; the raw emotion of the night before has faded and he's conscious only of a sort of empty hollow feeling in his chest.

But empty as he feels, the warmth that floods him at hearing her voice is unchanged. He looks up with an involuntary slight smile, meeting her gaze in the morning half-light, though his eyes still hold something of the haunted look that he's had for the last two days.

"I've been worried about you," he says, and his voice is ragged but steady. "Are you all right?"

She smiles slightly and walks over to sit down next to him, putting a hand gently on his knee. "Yeah," she answers. "Despite my best efforts." She manages a soft laugh; it's shaky but sends light through him anyway. "I kept trying to flop over and give up, but Karlach just wouldn't let me."

He feels a little tug of a smile at his lips in response. She really is the strongest person he's ever known by far - even when everything feels so terribly dark, even when she is so beaten down that it seems impossible to rise, she is still always looking for something to smile about, something to hope for. Even when the world hasn't deserved her good opinion of it.

He puts his hand over hers, and she shifts to interlace their fingers together; he feels the familiar steady pulse of heat through her palm and it soothes him a little in spite of all the things it implies. "Did I miss anything important?" she asks softly.

He shrugs. He wants to tell her about the Absolute's scream in his brain, about the Emperor's taunting in the Astral Plane... but what good would it do? It changes nothing and would just make her feel worse. "Not really..." he says quietly. "But I missed you." He lifts her hand and presses his lips against her knuckles.

"I missed you too." A long pause. She looks at their interlaced hands against his mouth, and her throat convulses around a sharp swallow. "You know, I wouldn't have bothered falling in love with you... if I'd known saying goodbye would be so hard." She tries to laugh but it doesn't quite come out.

He looks back into the fire, lets out a heavy breath. He knows the right thing to do would be to joke back, to show her that he is being strong, that he is ready to play this the way she wants to, no matter the cost. But he doesn't quite have the strength in him just now. "I know what you mean," he says softly. The tears are gone; he won't break, he won't cry. But the words are as empty as he feels. "I'm scared of you leaving me behind..."

She gives a sharp shake of her head, and her grip on his hand tightens abruptly. "I don't want to leave you behind," she whispers. "Not ever." A long pause. Her eyes close, squeezing out reality for a moment. "If I had my choice, we'd do it all together. Life - a long life. And then we'd slip away one night... side by side... wrinkled and grey, warm in our bed..."

The ache that rises in his chest at this mental image is almost more than he can take. He tries to take a deep breath and feels it catch in his throat. Gods... I would do anything... anything to wake up next to you for the rest of my life...

"But that's not in the stars for us, my love..." She leans sideways against him, rolls her head so her face is pressed into his neck. "Ours is a short story with a few good twists... and a banger of an ending..."

He wraps his arm around her shoulders, pulls her fiercely against his side. "Karlach..." He hesitates. He knows the answer already, before he even asks it... but he can't help himself, one last try... "Would you ever consider going back to Avernus? Just for a while, just to buy yourself more time?"

He knows why she won't say yes. He knows, even, why it's right that she not say yes. But he has to ask... just one more time...

"No," she says at once, muffled into his neck. "I can't. I'd rather die here in Faerun -- my home -- than live in service to a devil."

He nods slowly, his cheek rubbing against the top of her head. "I understand," he mutters. And he does. He wishes he didn't; he wishes he were a more selfish man, who could demand she think about him and not herself. "I just... wish there was another way..."

"So do I," she mutters. "I've done the calculus a hundred times. There's no permutation I can find that doesn't end in me dead, or wishing for death..." Her arm slips around his waist, her fingertips dusting over his hip, his arm, his upper thigh. "This is it. This is all we have. Each other, and all the moments we have left..."

He says nothing, but turns his head to press a gentle kiss into her hair. For a long few moments they sit in silence, while the sun slowly rises over the camp.

After a while, Karlach stirs and speaks again. "Speaking of which... there's something I wanted to ask you..."

He grunts softly, questioningly.

"Will you stay with me? When it's time. For me to go..." Her voice is suddenly thick, hoarse with emotion. "I think I can do anything if you're there. Even die..."

His heart twists in his chest with the stab of grief that goes through him, somehow fresher than it has ever been. He squeezes his eyes shut and his arm tightens around her, crushing her into his side.

He wants to run, to run far away from all of this, from everything she is making him feel. It's not admirable, it's in fact horribly unfair. But nothing in his life has ever prepared him for what she is asking him for now...

Gods, what if I am not strong enough?

But what can he say, other than yes? How can he be anywhere but at her side, right to the very end?

"Of course, my love..." he whispers. "Of course..."

She draws an unsteady breath, lets it out heavily. He can feel some of the tension go out of her as she sags into his side. "Thank you..." she says softly.

A long pause that seems to hang heavy with all the feelings they have no words for.

When she finally speaks again, her tone is lighter, though he can hear the effort behind it. "Now. Enough tragedy. I'm not gone yet. And our schedule is packed with important heroics, isn't it?" She laughs shakily. "Plus, if I cry any more, I'm going to run out of tears and start leaking motor oil."

She sits up, not pulling from his embrace but turning in it a little so that she can cup her palm against his cheek and kiss him-- soft, slow, lingering. "Thanks for everything, darling," she mumurs, and rests her forehead against his. "I love you. A lot."

#bjk plays baldur's gate 3 #hector carlisle #y'all this weekend was supposed to be time for me to decompress from the househunting #but instead i just obliterated myself repeatedly and now i am a giant pile of sad feels :(#hector is so sad and tired and i'm just #i want them to be happy :(

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