Astarion had waited, of course, until Sara was out of earshot to say such a thing. She would no doubt have been very displeased to hear such words. But she was currently up on the ramparts of the Szarr palace, scouting it out while the men waited below. And while he and Halsin were standing a little apart from Gale, Astarion had to know perfectly well Gale could hear him. He probably preferred it that way, preferred to make Gale bristle.
"I would make no such assumptions about what might happen so far from now," Halsin replied, a little more quietly, but Gale could still hear. "In a century's time, we are both likely to be fairly different people than we are now, and any number of things could happen with one or both of us. Or Gale might not live that short a life. We all know how long his friend Elminster has lived, and if he does regain Mystra's favor, he might do the same, or merely extend his life to live as long as Sara does."
So far, Gale knew he was not going to do the former. Whatever else happened, he did not want to outlive Sara by any significant amount of time. Which probably meant he'd get no help from Mystra in extending his lifespan. She would want him to agree to live until she said he was done. That, for obvious reasons, was absolutely out of the question.
Whether or not he would use other means of extending his life, and for how long, he was less certain. He was starting to realize how the thought of godhood had affected him, and he wasn't sure who he'd become, by becoming longer lived. All in all, it was a matter to be considered carefully, not a choice to rashly make either way right now.
Though if he then chose to leave Sara behind, he didn't really have the right to object to how or who she found love with again. And she'd have to, really, and he'd certainly never want her not to. Not when he was now aware that she wasn't truly happy when she didn't have someone to hold her and love her when the day ended. He wasn't sure she herself even realized that, but he had learned it from having her turn into his arms and react under his hands and reach hungrily into his kisses, his knowledge of it so intimate even he couldn't articulate it, not even to her, but he knew it all the same.
Halsin, he supposed, would be the ideal choice for her to move on to. He would, Gale believed, give her exactly what she needed, and while he was old enough he would likely still predecease her, he could at least take care of her for most of the second half of her life.
But having it talked about like that still rankled him. As if he was a mere inconvenience to be waited out, who would stop mattering once he was obliging enough to die. He'd been that already, recently. And when he was now certain this was going to be the great true love of his life. Surely that had to mean more than that, in the grand scheme of things. It was disrespectful towards Sara as well, towards her choosing him.
Halsin looked uncomfortably over at him, and their eyes met. At least he had the decency to look guilty when Gale glared at him.
Sara has asked him, that morning, if he'd be all right with her bringing both of them to fight Cazador along with her and Astarion that day. "We'll need someone who can cast sunlight," she'd said, "but we can take Jaheira or Shadowheart." To which Gale had firmly told her that if she thought Halsin was the best choice for this, he refused to let that be a problem.
They'd resolved their fight over him by then. More or less. By him pinning her to their couch and fucking her hard and rough, the way he'd never done to anyone before, and her letting him. And when he knew exactly what she thought of those who viewed her as something to be conquered. But not only had she made no objection, but he was pretty sure she'd very much enjoyed it, and not just physically. (She'd certainly gotten her physical pleasure; part of his point had been that she needed noone else for any of that.) She'd started that morning walking a little funny, though of course she'd also still been suffering the effects of Astarion feeding on her the previous night, and she'd been fully back to normal after Shadowheart had gotten rid of all that.
The others didn't know about that part, he hoped. He'd even blocked the sound out, and they'd been alone in the suite after Astarion had fled. But clearly he'd told everyone about the start of their quarrel.
So it wasn't much of a surprise when Halsin walked over with that sad look on his face and said, "I want to say, I am very sorry I have caused difficulties between the two of you. I very much never wanted that."
Gale believed him, but wasn't impressed. "Then you never should have spoken to her. You caused her nothing but pain when you did. I think she's still sad she couldn't give you what you want, and that's something she would have had to live with even if I had never found out."
"I would not have, had I known there was no hope," said Halsin. "If I'd known you were so set against it, or that she feared what would happen if we tried. But when I had reason to hope she would be open to the notion of it...well, I had to ask then."
Perhaps, Gale thought, he could have asked him before asking Sara. But he doubted he would have been able to keep his mouth shut about it, and he knew she wouldn't have appreciate them going around her like that, any more than he had appreciated her going around him.
So instead he said the other thing he had to say to that. "You don't know her as well as you think. Sure, she might have been brought up to think sleeping around is perfectly normal even when you've got someone. But she admitted to me last night she eventually lost interest in it when she did, and then matured. Just because she's hopped around a few beds when she hasn't had a better option doesn't mean she isn't actually happier being monogamous."
"She is happier in the embrace of a proper lover, you mean," replied Halsin. "That I did guess at. But surely you cannot pretend I did not merey offer her more of that?"
That sent a surge of anger through Gale. Wishing he wasn't shorter than Halsin, he leaned in as hard as he could towards him, and hissed, "Are you just going to assume you know what's best for her, that you know better than her own lover...I know you must view me as unforgivably possessive, just because I want to keep one single part of my beloved to myself..."
Now Halsin looked angry, too, as he started to growl out, "I do not..."
"Excuse me, gentlemen!" Astarion called out from nearby. "Fun as it would be to watch the two of you claw at each other until you possibly fell into an embrace and solved all of your problems that way..."
"Oh," Gale whirled on him, "are you really going to believe I just want to fuck this druid? Why would I want anyone but Sara?" He made his voice sharp on those last words, and threw them partly at Halsin as well.
"But," Astarion continued, ignoring the outburst, "please remember who we are going to face once we get in there," he gestured at the palace, "so maybe don't hurt each other too much, or spend too much of your magic?"
After the briefest of pauses, Gale turned fully back to Halsin, and when their eyes met now, they knew they had found one thing to agree on: they didn't want to give Astarion the satisfaction. Gale took a deep brief, and tried to draw on all the calming exercises he'd studied in the past year.
Halsin took a moment to calm himself as well, then said, "I'm not saying I know what's best for anyone, and while it may seem otherwise, I'm honestly not judging you for what you want in your relationships. I know the way I live isn't for everyone. And certainly," he added with a wry smile, "I would not think the one fortunate enough to have Sara Tully would have need for anyone else."
Would he really have been contented to have only her, Gale wondered, even while she still had someone else? The lopsidedness of that felt even more incomprehensible to him than the rest of it. In all his three and a half centuries, had he never seen or experienced anything to show him the problem with a relationship being unequal?
But he was finishing up, "Much as I wish you had found it in yourself to share Sara, if to do so would inevitably make you unhappy, and I think that it would...I would not demand such a thing of anyone."
"Well," Gale huffed, feeing maybe a little better, "I'm glad you understand that much."
Halsin might say that, but the truth was, he was now feeling guilty, as this conversation forced him to face what he was depriving not only him of, but Sara as well. Oh, she might have initially said no anyway, out of the worry that he might be more likely to blow himself up if she had someone to fall back on, but that was only a worry for right now. Had he been a different man, he believed, she might have brought this up once all that was over.
And while he might have shrugged just that off, reminded himself that Sara had made her commitment to him and that should still be that, he also know that, thanks to him, she and Halsin now wouldn't even be able to be as close as they'd been as friends. Oh, he wouldn't make any demands of her there, or say anything to either of them at all about that. It wasn't something he'd want Sara to lose. But he knew her, and she knew him, and that he wouldn't be able to help feeling jealous now, and she would restrain herself, regardless of what any of them said on the matter.
Then Halsin said, "I do have one request of you. It is for something I should not even need to request, because you ought to do it umprompted, but I will ask for it anyway."
"Really?" Gale asked, in the same tone.
Until Halsin continued, "If you must put yourself and Sara in a walled garden, cut off from the rest of the world, and she loves you enough to stay with you there, I ask only that you make that garden the most beautiful, most fruitful garden you can. The one she deserves. If you must be the one to give her everything, then please, for all of our sakes, give her everything."
It came across half as a plea and half as a demand. It was also one of the few things anyone could demand of Gale and he would never be upset with them in the slightest. Indeed, at Halsin's words, he felt his anger at him melt away. Here, at last, the two of them were on common ground.
"That I will do," he said to him. "I can promise you that. I hope that you need not ever fear for Sara's happiness."
He found himself smiling as he said it, and Halsin smiled back as he replied, "I do not think I will."
And it made Gale feel better, still, to remind himself that he'd be doing that all this day. Not only would he be by Sara's side for this upcoming fight, but when it was over, she, regardless of how things ended up going with Astarion, would likely be worn through emotionally and in need of comfort, and he now knew how to comfort her almost certainly better than anyone else still alive.
From up above they heard footsteps, before Sara's face appeared as she leaned down towards them. "Coast's clear," she called down to them. "You can come up through the watch tower."