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thespookiestparker · 10 months ago

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The Price Of Freedom

A/N: hello everyone!! it feels very weird to be coming back to this blog with a new fic but I’ve been trying to put this together for months, I’ve finally torn myself away from the game for long enough to write about it lol enjoy!

p.s. I also made this playlist after I romanced him for the very first time and it was what I was listening to if you want some ✨mood music✨

Summary: Astarion struggles with his newfound livelihood now that he isn’t bound to Cazador

Pairing: Spawn!Astarion x GN!Tav

CW: Angst (That gets resolved), blood mention/description (kind of inevitable with a vampire but 🤷🏻‍♂️)

Over your time traveling with your newfound friends, you and Astarion had grown to be what you considered close. When everyone else had bedded down for the night, the two of you would more often than not find each other.

It had taken time, and you honestly weren’t sure it would happen. For a while, you were left to wonder if Astarion even liked anyone at camp, let alone you. Sometimes, he’d let things slip, though.

Like when you threw a pile of shit at that goblin’s face, he’d let out a soft chuckle. Short and sweet, something you’re sure he didn’t mean to set free, but he did nonetheless before the fighting had broken out. Or, a week later, when you’d started to catch him sneaking glances at you over the campfire as you spoke to Gale or Wyll. You could’ve sworn that a flash of jealousy flashed in his eyes from time to time, but you’d never tell him that you noticed. You didn’t want to embarrass him, even if he would never admit to feeling that kind of emotion.

It all came to a head at the party that was held at your camp with the tieflings from the emerald grove, when he’d asked to sneak away with you for the night for some ‘fun’. Something about him had seemed…off that night when you looked back on it. Astarion had seemed too composed for someone who’d been drinking. The vampire hadn’t said much about his past by then, other than that he’d had a master in Baldur’s Gate who had treated him like he was less than nothing. You could tell that pity wasn’t the answer here, that he would only take offense to something like that, so instead you showed him respect. He was a formidable ally, after all, you couldn’t afford to lose him, even if you hadn’t developed feelings for him.

Now, you were almost inseparable. Every time you fell in battle, he was the first to rush to help you up, and at first you weren’t sure if it was because he’d smelled your blood or if he was genuinely trying to help. That was, until you saw his eyes widen in a way you’d never seen before and only a few times since, vulnerable concern etched into his pale face. It made a pang of guilt explode in your chest that you’d ever thought any less of him.

Every day seemed to allow you to peel away at his prickly, impatient, and overall grumpy layers to get to the man beneath. The softer, more broken elf that had been hiding behind all these nearly impenetrable walls that he only seemed to let down around you, though it had been only partial to start. Even if someone else in the party was able to take a glimpse, you were slowly piecing together the whole picture.

Or at least, you thought you were.

It was the night before you were to reach Baldur’s Gate when the next one of those walls came crashing down around him, startling both of you.

You sought him out in the night, as you usually did, but when you peered into his tent, it was empty. Before you had time to process that, you heard his voice in the form of a deep growl behind you,

“What are you doing?”

Your body whipped around to face him, immediately noticing how he was towering over you. The blood on his chin glistened in the faint light of the moon, catching your gaze before his eyes of the same piercing red did.

You must’ve had a fearful look on your face because he seemed to snap back into his own mind, his expression going from a feral sort of anger to something akin to the familiar loving and vulnerable look you’d come to adore. But this was different. There was a deep sort of pain in his eyes, it made you instinctively extend your hand to him before he tore himself away.

“Don’t touch me.” he spat, his voice guarded and icy. He nearly pushed past you to get to his tent, to shroud himself in the familiarity of complete darkness and isolation.

“Astarion, wait—“ you tried, your hand hesitantly floating between the two of you as he angrily gripped the flap of his tent.

“Just. Leave me be. For tonight.” His voice was nothing more than a whisper just before he disappeared behind the red burlap of his tent.

The heaviness in your heart was devastating and cold, but you left him alone for now and decided to sit by the fire instead. Keeping watch over your sleeping friends as tears spilled silently over your cheeks.

All you could think about was comforting him, holding him in your arms until the pain seeped out of him in waves. But you weren’t about to go against his wishes, so instead you let your emotions run free until you fell asleep. You didn’t mention anything to the others in the morning, and you didn’t want them to notice. Astarion’s business was his own to share, not yours, so you weren’t going to let your emotions get in the way of that. He deserved privacy after all this time, you weren’t about to get in the way of that.

The next days distanced the two of you as your group explored the city. He seemed just as closed off as when you’d started your adventure, if not more, and you were afraid that nothing could get him to open up to you again. It seemed like the others may have noticed as well, though it wasn’t exactly a secret. The silence between the two of you was loud enough to be heard miles away.

“OOO! A circus! Can we go?!” Karlach squealed, gesturing to a sign that displayed a brightly colored poster for something called ‘The Circus of The Last Days’.

Maybe not everyone had noticed. No one else had said anything to contradict you, so you didn’t touch upon it.

“Sure, we can go.” You chuckle, trying your hardest to seem normal right now, for Astarion’s sake if not yours. You lead everyone into the circus, past the elf and the ghoul at the gate, and you all end up splitting off until it was just you and Astarion. You half expected him to distance himself from you again, since he’d seemed to need to be alone, but then his words from last night echoed in your mind.

“Just for tonight”

You weren’t sure why he’d suddenly wanted the distance, but you didn’t want to question it. He was well within his rights, but you couldn’t help the worry gnawing in your stomach that you were constantly pushing down.

All of it was interrupted when he slipped his hand in yours, a discreet maneuver that would’ve gone unnoticed by anyone looking at the two of you, before you felt him squeeze it. A wordless apology, which you happily accepted for now. You could talk later, for now, it felt safe to be enjoying the circus amidst the chaos that was your lives.

“Darling, do you think a statue of me would be too much for our little camp?” He asked, his normal smug confidence radiating from him as he posed next to a nearby tent. It was owned by a mud mephit and his wife, who were conveniently named Boney and Stoney, and advertised statues made of the likeness of any passersby willing to pay their price.

“It costs 5,000 gold!” You laughed, shaking your head at him as you tugged on his arm in a vain attempt to pull him away from said tent.

“So? Don’t you want something to immortalize my beauty for all of eternity?”

“I don’t need it, I already have you.”

The love and care you shower him with never ceased to take him off his guard, but he smiled regardless and continued on with you through the circus, enjoying the frivolous nature of the it all.

Days of traveling later, once your party had not only found Cazador, but made sure he was good and dead, you decided to at least attempt to breach the subject when he seemed to be more stable. Your relationship was so fragile that something this deep and painful could shatter it, which was exactly what you didn’t want.

That night, you found him just as you always did on nights like these, sitting by the dying fire as the rest of your friends headed to their separate corners of your dwelling for the night.

“May I join you?” You ask softly, gently touching his shoulder now that he’d been the first one to make physical contact earlier that day. You always let him take the lead on things like that because you wanted to let him be the one to make the choice of whether or not he wanted that kind of affection, knowing he had so little of his own autonomy for so many years. Even if he had expressed to you that it was becoming easier to differentiate you from those sorts of feelings.

“Of course, darling, always.” He responds in a similar tone, turning his head to look at you as you sat yourself beside him which made some of his stark white curls fall into his eyes.

“There have been times when you seemed to…” You pause, considering your wording for a moment, “...disagree with that statement.”

“That was different, I was…not myself.” He seemed almost disgusted by something, presumably something about himself or the way he acted last night.

“I’ve never seen you that way, it was almost like you were—”

“A vampire?” he interrupted, and you rest your hand over his where it lay on his knee,

“Someone else…You know that I see you for more than what you are. That I always have.”

“Regardless, I am lucky that you saw me in that state and not anyone else. I haven’t been that disheveled since I was first turned, and anyone else would only see a monster, which frustrates me all the more,” without letting you speak, he continued. Seeming to be fueled by the traumatizing anguish that lies within him, or at least some of it, “because it isn’t fair! I didn’t ask to be a monster! No one told me that I’d be cursed this way, and I regret not dying that night on the street—“ he exploded into a rage, though it was like the one you had seen the night he came back to camp. The same deeply seeded pain behind his eyes was ever present as he roared such hurtful words. He stood quickly, turning away from you as shame diffused from his being.

“Astarion…” You cried, holding out your hand for him only to see him flinch away. As if he was afraid you would hurt him, which made a burning pain spread through you emanating from your heart. It felt wrong, like you’d only made things worse without intending to. The tears that welled in your eyes came without your permission but you were helpless to do anything but keep them from falling.

“What?!” He whirled around to face you, his face spattered with tears. A level of distress and anger you hadn’t seen from him since Cazador’s passing. You’re suddenly reminded of the image that was him, kneeling over his former master’s lifeless body as he sobbed. Shirtless and covered in blood.

It had broken your heart to see him that way, but he’d needed that moment to let what had just happened wash over him. To finally be free.

You snapped back to reality when Astarion seemed to realize what he’d said, and how it had affected you as he roughly rubbed at his tear-stained cheeks.

“I…I don’t really think that way. This…all of this…has been… a bit much for me. Knowing that he forever changed me. That I’ll never truly have a chance to be something other than a monster in the eyes of most–”

You step forward, once again extending your hands but stopping just before you make contact with his skin to ask silent permission from him. He nodded with little to no hesitation, urging you on before you gently cupped his cheeks and continued to speak, “I don’t think that you’re a monster…You’ve said it yourself, you are so much more than he made you. I, for one, fully believe that. If you don’t believe it yourself right away, that’s more than alright, because I’ll be here to remind you. Every step of the way.”

He almost can’t look at you, more salty tears threatening to spill from his red and puffy eyes.

“I…don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t need to right now. All that you need to do right now is to rest. We both should.” You answer gently yet firmly, starting to pull your hands from his face before he grabbed one of your wrists.

“Don’t,” he started, an air of desperation in his words, “I…I haven’t been the kindest to you, and I apologize for that, but I don’t want to be alone. Please.” You hadn’t planned on leaving him, but usually touch was something that had made him uncomfortable so you were simply ending the contact even though he seemed to take it a different way.

“You won’t be alone…I’m here.” You reassure, moving your hand to his shoulder instead while letting him hold your wrist. “But I stand by my statement. Come on,” You lead him inside his own tent, bedding down with him for the first time since the night he’d come back to camp covered in something else’s blood, though it would be far from the last.

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