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nelliama · 10 months ago

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If you haven't checked it out already

Tell me where the hurt is

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Pairing: Astarion x FemaleTav Pov: Tav (undescribed) Summary: Astarion and Tav face Cazador and fight him. They had known each other for years before Astarion was brutally assaulted, and Tav lost sight of him. While they defeat the Vampire, Tav remembers their memories together before and after he became a vampire. And at the end of the day, they finally talk about everything... Words: 9,226 Warnings: NSFW part (more tags on the AO3 post, link bellow)

I see you, thirsty b*tches. And Astarion sees you too.

I have written a fanfiction about this dear gentleman right here and would like for you to discover it.

Make sure to read the tags so there are no surprises here. It's a one shot, wrote it in a day and enjoyed every second working over it.

Leave a comment on here or AO3 if you liked it! (you have to be registered on the site to read)

There is a part SFW (acurate from the game) and a part NSFW (invented), will be split with a little something.

IF YOU HAVEN'T FINISHED ASTARION'S OWN QUEST IN THE GAME, THIS PIECE IS A SPOILER.

“Who stands before us? Is this truly our prodigal son?”

Cazador’s sceptre fiercely brandished in front of us, his ornamented dark costume with a red collar and silver chain over his shoulder, pointy ears and teeth, red eyes burning from power and greed, I thought Astarion would simply jump over his throat and slither his neck in a swift and precise cut of his dagger. But as I dared a side look toward him, his face was torn with so many emotions, it broke my heart in little pieces. Rage, sadness, fear, bitterness, determination and hesitation. Two hundred years resolving to this moment. Two hundred years wasted, two hundred years of constant pain, of manipulation, of tricking, of pretending to be someone he’d never been.

Astarion was a noble, was a man of dignity, principles and values. He might have always thought highly of him, imagined himself promised to a future of wealth, power and happiness, these years with Cazador, becoming a vampire, had turned him into an insatiable monster despite what he truly believes in.

I knew him. Before he was changed by that hideous character facing us. We had been friends so fast and aspired to the same yearnings in life. We had spent so much time together it was hard for our families to even imagine us apart from each other. So many had imagined us as a couple, thought of a family, children, marriage, love, and I would have lied if I had said I wasn’t a part of them. But I never dared impose my deepest desire on him, when he had such a grandiloquent vision for himself, even so early in age. Never had he talked about us, or included myself in these schemes - for at least I had not noticed - and I couldn’t bring myself to hear him refuse me, reject me after all these years planning our ascension. So, I had stayed quiet, and had left for my home the night he had been beaten to death by a group of Gur. When I could have implied that I wanted to stay, spend a little more quality time with him, I once more punished my egotistic craving for him and took the door, watching him write his letter with an impeccable execution, with his perfect straight nose, round, full and red lips, his majestic profile I never could have grown bored of.

And that night, he disappeared as the Astarion I knew. I fell so deep into pure desperation that my whole life crumbled. Fled from Baldur’s gate, as every corner, every pub and library we shared opened up the wound and bled for eternity. I thought he was gone, had been declared dead, had a tomb fabricated for him, he had been ripped out of my heart and I couldn’t bear to stay one more minute between the walls of that city. I had learned later on he had been reborn as a vampire, slave, whore, captive.

It took me about a hundred years to forget about him, or at least to shun the ache and sickness I had felt whenever his face unravelled behind my closed lids, or his name floated among the words of my mind for any reason that could have reminded me of him. And another hundred years to start feeling like myself again, seeing other people, let myself imagine I could really live my life without him, without his presence, his haunting scent and voice and smile.

But then everything happened. The mind flayers, the tadpole inside my skull and him, asking me to approach as he could see one of our enemies down below, his back facing me, his hand begging me to come close. His long and dexterous fingers I always had wanted over my skin, calling my body and soul to him. And when he had turned around, when I was finally inches from him, he had lifted his dagger to my throat, froze, his bloody irises riveted on mine, his pointy smile fading ever so slightly, and his other hand grabbing my neck. I had not moved, couldn’t barely breathe. I was seeing a ghost and he was seeing someone from a time he must have forgotten about. Everything he lived was flashing before his eyes and I could see it as vividly as if I had lived them. Lived them through him, lived them as him, the shock and hurt of the process so terrible we had to part from each other, holding our head as though it would explode. This time, we realized he had been infected by the same virus and had decided to pair in order to get rid of it.

“Do not slouch before me, boy! Have you no respect for yourself?” Cazador shouted, his brows frowned but not as strongly as Astarion’s. The latter’s features were shattered by disgust and anger. “Look at you, crawling back after abandoning your family. You should be begging our forgiveness.” The patron continued.

Astarion stayed weirdly silent when I thought he would burst into flames by the mere sound of his torturer’s voice. The days after our reunion had been complicated and awkward, as I had not recognized the man before me and he had not known how to operate after two hundred years acting like a completely different person.

There was the night I understood what he had become. When I had felt his lips and teeth over my neck, and for a second, I thought I was dreaming, imagining a lustful night under his arms, his smooth and creamy skin over mine, his fingers holding my jaw to the side, so the flesh of my neck would be displayed for him. Only the jolt of pain from his bite had woken me up and I had watched him dumbfounded from my bedroll. “Shit…” he had murmured. “No, no, it’s not what it looks like,” he added. “I swear. I wasn’t going to hurt you! I just needed – well, blood.”

My eyes had tripled in size, and I had stayed with my arms along my body, incapable of doing anything besides ogling at him, his canine achingly showing, his irises even bloodier than before, and by the tadpole inside our brains, a swift wind of his hunger burning inside his stomach reverberated inside my own body. In the dim firelight, I had seen the remorse in his face, the desperation, the surprise from his own debauchery, the pain he was about to inflict on me, his best friend, his confidant, his…

“How long has it been since you fed? Days? Hours?” I’d asked, concern flooding inside my veins instead of treason, fear, or any other feeling one could experience in front of a vampire. A second of bewilderment flashed over his features and he straightened his body, dropping his hands. He lifted his chin up in a proud motion, as I had seen him do a hundred times.

“A couple of nights ago. I try to be discreet about it. Whenever I can. But it’s not enough, not if I have to fight. I feel so weak.” He had been angry at this, angry for the condition he had not chosen, but was forced into, a slave for sanguine hunger. Being out of control had always been the one thing he despised. Compassion and devotion crawled beneath my skin and I had been ready to accept even before he had asked. “If I had just a little blood, I could think clearer, fight better. Please.” He added. And that word only had been my undoing.

His downward smile and puppy eyes had pierced my heart for the umpteenth time. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I’d queried. His secrets had been new. Before, we would share anything, even our conquests, and I would never let himself know of my true feelings. We had been like the two sides of a coin.

“At best, I was sure you’d say no,” he answered. “More likely, you’d ram a stake through my ribs.”

“You know I would never do that,” I retorted immediately, hearing him saying something so far from the truth tickling my pride and ego. Had he forgotten all that we lived? Had he forgotten about me?

“I needed you to trust me…”

“I do. I believe you.” I interrupted, as to remind him of who we were before all these years, before what he had lived without me, without his right hand by his side. He could have asked anything, I would have done it.

“Thank you. Do you think you could trust me just a little further?” he simpered with a lusty voice I had never heard from him before. Something out of pure sin, sensual and hypnotizing. Vampires were known for their persuasion capabilities, but Astarion always had the charms, too. And with his new condition, it had been just impossible to refuse him. “I only need a taste. I swear.”

The way he had been imploring me, the fact that I was the only one that could help him, the only one that trusted him enough to offer such a gift to him, it had been enough for me to cave in. I knew he had been holding the reins from the very beginning, maybe he had been certain I would accept and willingly gave myself to him, I wanted to believe, at this moment, that he would truly see the length of my devotion for him. That I would let him feed on me, day and night if he had asked, and that he would become infatuated with me in the process. “Fine,” I’d said. And I added a little something so my game wouldn’t be too obvious. “But not a drop more than you need.”

“Really?” he had responded, truly surprised. As if we hadn’t spent almost thirty years together before all of this happened. As if we had not shared beds next to each other, hugging through the cold nights to keep us warm, despite his family’s richness. “I – of course. Not one drop more.” His smile was ravishing, his pointy teeth my demise. “Let’s make ourselves comfortable, shall we?”

And as he pointed my bedroll for me to lay down on it, my heart beat had accelerated deeply. It was like having an angel and devil on each shoulder, the former reminding me I was better than this, deserving more than a man - a vampire - that didn’t even remember who I was and what I had been for him, and the latter convincing my poor little soul that anything he would give me I would sufficiently feed from it. And thank him.

He didn’t look at me before he had driven his canine into my flesh and had bitten hard. It had been like a shard of ice into my neck – a quick, sharp pain that had faded to throbbing numbness. My breath had caught, my pulse had quickened, and I hadn’t known if it had been side effects of my blood being drunk or the diversion of him so close, doing something so sinful, of giving myself up to him and his desires. I didn’t want to stop, I had wanted for that to last days and nights and days again, his scent different but close to my memories, close enough it had stirred the dormant butterflies in my stomach. I had leaned into him, losing myself. I had felt my blood racing, coursing through both our bodies, a gentle, numb feeling had started to spread. And the angel screamed inside my ear that a few more seconds would permanently end me from his caress and presence. “That’s enough,” my voice had emerged from the crackling of the fire and the noises of suction.

“Mmh?” Astarion had gently stopped, even licked the wound and I almost fainted from the thrill. “Oh, of course.” He had stood up, not without difficulty, dizzy from the blood he had swallowed and the bliss he had clearly enjoyed. “That – that was amazing,” he revealed, his breath distraught, his pupils dilated. He had even cleaned the blood from his lips with his middle finger and watched mindlessly the horizon as he had sucked it. “My mind is finally clear. I feel strong. I feel… happy!”

He had sighed in a way I always thought I would hear after a full night of fuckery, of laughs and strokes, of pure delectation and adoration. Only he had done it for the blood I had given him, for the power I had ceded to him. He had mumbled some words afterwards but I had been so disgusted in myself, as much as aroused that I had not understood them. When I had seen him turning his back at me, I had shaken my head, tried to gain my composure and he had said over his shoulder, “this is a gift, you know. I won’t forget it.” The slice of hope he had given me that night had held me until this moment.

“He doesn’t owe you anything,” I hissed between my teeth, as I decided if Astarion wouldn’t want to say something, I would. I couldn’t stand seeing Cazador’s gloating face after all I had learned on him, on what he did to Astarion, to his subjects, to his pawn, only for him to become the Ultimate Vampire, something so wrong, so powerful, the laws of the universe shouldn’t even accept the ritual to happen.

“Have you fallen so far that this speaks for you?” Cazador replied, his loathing visible all over his face, but I had plastered the same look on my visage. High elf or tiefling, Cazador would discriminate against anyone that didn’t match his perception of perfection.

“I don’t need anyone to speak for me,” Astarion answered, and I winced at the pain his sentence imbued in my heart. Although I did understand why he would say such a thing, he always had been independent, strong, fierce. He never asked for help nor pleaded for something, which was all the more confusing when he was doing it with me. Before he was turned, it had merely never happened. I had, on multiple occasions, given my time and energy without having him demanding, I knew him well enough to comprehend his struggles, and the moments he needed me. Each time, he thanked me with words, soft kisses on the cheek or a round of beer in our favourite pub in Baldur. And after he became a vampire, it happened twice. When he needed to feed, and the night he was feeling the scars on his back.

He had been in his tent for most of the evening, and I had discovered him, bending his arm around, brushing the bumps and healed cuts with his fingers, talking to himself as he had tried to make sense of what he was feeling. “A line with a fork and one – two – three dots?”

The mere sight of his back, his sculpted shoulders and biceps, I had taken a minute to think if I really needed to interrupt him, as he would probably turn around and ask me to leave. It had been hard for me to realize how much torture and pain he had experienced, the ire twirling inside my body every time I had watched him on his bedroll, alone with his thoughts and demons. I wanted to believe I could be a distraction for him, some fun to forget about the horrible things he had endured. “Bloody infernal – how is anyone meant to read this garbage?” he spitted for himself as I stayed back, my arms crossed over my chest.

“Want me to take a look?” I had said, not without fear he would just tell me to go to hell and be gone.

His response was close to what I had imagined. “Ah! What are you doing?” His tone was harsh, protective. And I could only start to imagine why.

As I didn’t want him to be uncomfortable, I figured that night wasn’t the right time to share some minutes together, and I answered with a light and shy voice, already heading back to my own tent, “sorry, I’ll leave you alone.”

“Wait,” he hailed. “I’m sorry. You caught me by surprise, that’s all.” No more harshness, but delicateness, explicatory. He had a smoothness in his tint, I never could have gotten tired of. “I’ve been tracing the scars on my back with my fingers, trying to read them by touch, but I can’t. They may as well be written in Rashemi.”

Like old times, he wasn’t clearly asking for anything but I wanted to help, wanted him to rely on me and I proposed, even after several nights and days together, the fact he was now a vampire so far away from my instinct. “Want me to get a mirror?”

“… That had better be a joke. I can’t read it with a mirror and I can’t seem to read it with my hands either.” His grimace in front of my ignorance had taken the best of me, and as we would fight in the past, really just bickering, I wanted him to realize I could just help him, if he’d ask. I smiled, and waited for him to speak. One of his brows lifted. “So… I was wondering if maybe – perhaps – you might be able to…”

His uncomfortable stance and pathetic attempt to ask for my help was a delight to witness. This had felt like before all of this stumbled into awkwardness and mistrust. When we would gently enter a dispute but each and every single one of them resolved into laughter and sane communication. Watching him, with his staggering words and his unwellness through aid was too fun to avoid. I purposefully frowned, pretending I didn’t understand what he was asking, until he couldn’t restrain his impatience and erupted as he had done so many times in the past, “can you read what’s on my damned back?” and he added a little something I had heard once before. “Please.”

I almost felt bad when he pleaded, as I never liked playing with him. “Of course, turn around.”

He obeyed, slowly, firstly turning his head, as if he couldn’t bear to see my reaction towards his scars. The only thing I felt was anger, so terrifying and powerful I clenched my fingers into my palms. What he had traversed, what he had to submit to was too terrible. I had wanted to raze the entire world just to make sure Cazador would have died among the rest.

The carving was precise and thin but for the skin to mark this way, it had to be deep and slow and excruciatingly painful. His shoulders slumped just a bit and I tried concentrating on the symbols and the language so Astarion didn’t have to stay so vulnerable too much longer. I couldn’t read the text but I recognized the script. It was Infernal, the language of the Hells. “And? What does it say?” His voice disrupted my focus and made me jump just a little.

“I’m not sure. Hold still, I’ll draw it for you.” I said as I kneeled on the ground and started recreating the script in the dirt with my finger. Minutes floated by and it took me more time than I realized as I was constantly savouring the sight of him above me, so intimidating and complex after all these years spent apart. He coughed and sighed loud enough for me to quicken the pace and stand back when I was done.

As he didn’t hear the scratches on the ground anymore, he turned and murmured. “What in the hells…” His shock and horror were moving. “What did he do to me?” he added with a tinge of rage.

“What does it say?” I’d asked, seeing him zoning out into his own thoughts.

“I have absolutely no idea. But it’s no poem.” He said, his eyes clashing with mine as I tasted his anger through the tadpole sharing our emotions. Could he feel how sorry I was for him? If he did, he didn’t let me know. “Two centuries carrying this, and I can finally see it.”

“You really have no idea what this is?”

“None at all… Cazador was only figuratively hellish,” he rejoined, the irony of his tone didn’t transpire on his expression and his attitude, “there were never any devils hanging about the crypt. Whatever he’s left carved in my flesh, it’s a mystery to me.” He had lifted his chin up finishing his sentence and I had missed his sufficient air as much as it had always irritated me. I knew he was more than what his family had taught him, more than the way he had been educated, better than what most people were waiting for him to become, to accomplish. He had a heart, he wanted what was best for him, but also for the ones close to him. Now, his heart had stopped beating. And I didn’t know what he wanted anymore.

“Thank you, by the way. This is… well, it’s something.” He slurred out, bluntly. His red eyes showed what his high chin tried to conceal; genuine approbation.

“We’ll figure it out, I promise.” The words had left my mouth before my brain had time to process it. It had been on instinct as I relished the occasions where we could be close, and he might have become a vampire, he was still Astarion to me. My Astarion.

“Will we? How… sweet.” And the way he had looked at me, with a new interest, as if – finally - he remembered our sweet time together, two centuries ago, and was willing to, maybe, catch up on old times. His sensual gaze and his bare chest made my cheeks reddened and I had left his sight as quickly as I could that night, fighting the urge to be transparent and admit the feelings I had surrendered to for years.

I shook away the memory while Cazador spoke again, condescendence tanging every syllable. “No, you always had a gift for words. I fondly remember your empty boasting, your tired jokes, your endless prattle…”

“No! Shut up!” Astarion shouted. It was more and more difficult to stand by and watch, as he and I wanted to annihilate the monster with the bat of an eye. Painful, to listen to Cazador humiliating him after spending two hundred years torturing and manipulating him. This had been his way of protecting himself. It had been his way to avoid facing the horrifying truth of what his life had become, the fact that he couldn’t stand the hunger, the orders, the use of his body to lure credulous people into the hands of Cazador, the one and only he detested the most. Had to obey him, to submit to him, to accept his advances, to play the pretty little spawn for his master, everything about this misery was unbearable and he had to preserve his sanity. Had to humour the atrocity, to keep his humanity from truly disappearing.

“I suspected you would return to me changed. Never did I imagine you would be so wretched,” Cazador continued. “Oh, thankless child. Did I not bless you with our immortal gift? Did I not make you what you are?”

I almost giggled. Astarion loved power and wealth and having an easy life for him to enjoy the contentment of what his environment could offer. But he never searched for disproportionate yearnings. Eternity, he despised it. Wanted to make a difference while he lived, a huge impact, even, but never he wished for immortal gifts. He had wished for a family and a lineage. He had wanted to be happy and loved and cared for. He had wanted everything anyone could expect, although usually bathed with a glint of spiciness. But Astarion didn’t laugh. He launched forward. “You son of a bitch.”

His fist aimed for Cazador’s face but the latter imprisoned his wrists with blood magic and Astarion’s face wrinkled with stupor. “You truly forgot my power. You truly thought our bond as creator and creation was all that stopped you from killing me.” The vampire’s face bore a smile from the hells and I watched powerless Astarion getting controlled by his master. “You are weak, my child. You are a small, pathetic little boy who never amounted to anything.” His eyes glowed like a devil in disguise while he used his powers. The way he pronounced some letters showed how old he was and for how long he had been alive, which had been too long for my taste.

Astarion’s screams were unbearable to hear, and I wanted to reach for him, to ram myself that stake into Cazador’s heart, damn his need to be the one killing him to truly feel free of his grasp. I knew he would eventually thank me for the gesture, but I would probably witness his wrath after I would take his ultimate blow away from him.

Around the platform, the spawns appeared, each one bound to Cazador’s power, draining all seven of them from their essence, only one spot left; Astarion’s. “But today, you will finally do something worthwhile. You will burn, and I will ascend.” Szarr concluded.

With his spectre, he moved Astarion to his place like he was weighing nothing more than a piece of paper, and kept him immobile with invisible shackles. His clothes imploded into bloody ribbons and the mark on his back, his contract, glimmered with the same red the magic all around had imbued the room. The seven spawns to be sacrificed, for the vampire to ascend. They all grunted, suffered, restrained in the air, their bodies covered in blood, their own blood, and their backs heating as a fresh burn where Cazador had carved all of them. I stood so still I thought time had stopped. But Astarion’s voice carried to my ears and echoed loud and clear. “No! Stop him! And get me out of this!”

Even under the lines of his orders, I could hear the desperation, I could hear his begging, the ‘please’ he wanted to say so badly, but his madness and anger had gotten the best of him. He hadn’t watched me. His eyes were solely on Cazador. “Witness the birth of the Vampire Ascendant! Ecce dominus!” The latter proclaimed, his arms up, towards the heavens.

I rushed toward Astarion and dodged the attacks the old vampire tried to wound me with. If it wasn’t blasting lightning, he was summoning beasts and bats along my path. These, I could easily stab with my dagger, but Cazador was behind me now, and escaping his blows wouldn’t be so evident.

As Astarion was seeing me coming for him, he warned me of the blasts and I just had time to duck before a pillar that crumbled through the power of the shot. I covered my head so the stones wouldn’t knock me over and continued towards my friend. “Come on!” he shouted, encouragingly.

I casted a shadow spell, filling the area with a thick dark haze, giving no exact indication of Astarion’s and my own position and I grabbed his hand, forcing him out of his invisible cage. He fell on his knees, fighting for his breath. “Are you alright?” I dared ask, afraid of what he could respond, of how hard he could reject me. But I had to ask anyway. For my own sanity.

He only stood up, watched me straight into my eyes, a small rictus forming over his gorgeous lips, revealing his fangs, and said, “Never better.”

The fog vanished and another blast grazed my skull, finishing its course into the wall in the back of the crypt, the power of it unleashing a tremble under our feet. Astarion yelled, “try reaching for the others! If he’s not connected, he won’t perform the ritual!”

“What about you?”

“I’ll handle him.” And he raced to Cazador, that made himself disappear so he wouldn’t be too easily targetable. My body, legs and arms obeyed Astarion's demands, and I forced my way through the monsters, stabbing, piercing, slashing any of them coming through until I grabbed another spawn’s hand and withdrew him from the ritual. “No!” Cazador shouted and emerged from his darkness, right when Astarion attained his body. The Master couldn’t try to avoid the punch his spawn inflicted on his jaw and he stumbled back just a little before striking his sceptre onto the floor again and winnowing elsewhere inside the crypt. Astarion’s laugh rumbled inside my own body, the tadpole binding us sharing the overflow of emotions he was perceiving. The laugh grew louder and louder and I just saw how liberating this all was for him. How important it was, how therapeutic. His nerves were lashing out and he savoured it. “Keep going!” He screamed and I motioned for another spawn to liberate.

One by one, we were driving them away from their spot and Astarion continued hitting Cazador, not without handling some strikes himself, his skin stained with his blood, his face splattered, his hands caked. He was magnificent and terrifying. His red eyes were injected with blood and his horrible smile couldn’t recede. Until there were no more spawns in Cazador’s grasp and Astarion landed the final blow for Cazador to fall on his knees. “Get you hands off me, worm,” he dared say, barely looking up.

“I’m not the one in the dirt,” Astarion responded, his fangs showing. He slowly grabbed the dagger on the floor, walked in front of his master, and said, more to himself than us. “One last thrust and I’ll be free of you. I’ll never have to fear you again.” His voice cracked and the despair, the realization of where we were weighed finally on his shoulders. “But if I finish the ritual you started, I’ll never have to fear anyone, ever.”

I froze, as I understood the words he had spoken. Him? Becoming the Vampire Ascendant? After all he went through, all the values and principles he had to soil because of that disgusting person?

“You think me a fool? That I could allow anyone to usurp me, speak the words, and ascend in my place?” Cazador responded, still on his knees and still adopting that superior tone. “The runes I carved into your flesh bind you and all seven thousand souls to the ritual. Complete it and those bearing the scars will be sacrificed – you included. You are simply a means to an end. I made you to be consumed.”

“I am so much more than what you made me,” Astarion hissed and I felt a tickle of pride against my skin. Yes, he was much more than a vampire, much more than a spawn, much more than just a man. He was extraordinary. Capable of so many things. So much greatness. But being the Vampire Ascendant wasn’t one of them. “I can do this, but I need your help.” He added, talking to me.

And I twitched. The very first time he would explicitly ask for my help would be for this? For becoming an abomination, a being so different from who he was he wouldn’t even recognize himself afterwards? I was seeing him. I was seeing Astarion as what he had been and could be. He rejected being a vampire for two hundred years, now was not the time to become something worse. To hell with his immunity for the sun, I would protect him, be his sunshade. To hell the sanguine hunger, I’d give my neck, my thighs, my breast, my whole body for him to feast on so he would never feel unsatisfied again. I would be his everything, if he could just let me.

His eyes and gaze changed for a second and he frowned, waiting for my response with his natural impatience. “If I help you complete the ritual, it will kill all these people.”

He almost interrupted, “These people died years ago, trust me on that. All that’s left are feral spawn, desperate for blood,” the anger filling all the pores in his body. “If we release them, how many people will they kill? Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands? But if I complete the ritual, think of the power I’ll have. With me by your side, we can save the city – we can save ourselves!”

His words found a familiar spot inside my heart but I was afraid they were not as genuine and sincere as I hoped. With me by your side. As I always wanted. Him and I. Together. Happy. This wasn’t happiness.

I reached for the tadpole linking us and watched inside his head, unperceptively wandering through his thoughts and wishes. Fear but also hunger. The thick smell of blood in the air and the promise of power being so close was intoxicating for him. All he could see was the power of the ritual, and the freedom that power would bring. The freedom to do anything – to be anything.

Many words came to mind when I searched for an answer. I didn’t really know which one would affect his soul more than another – if there was any soul left. But I had seen it, during the nights. After the grove’s save. When we had fought the goblins. Even though he had wanted to pair with that drow woman to destroy the druids, I had managed to change his mind. And that night following the celebration, I had seen it in his eyes, that interest peaking through. His invitation was on the tip of his tongue, the lust lurking over his face, where I knew where to look. When his lids were dropping more than usual, when his mouth couldn’t seem to bring itself to close, when his smile couldn’t leave his face, when his eyes kept darting over my lips.

Something could have happened that night. But with the bottle of wine swirling against his fingers, I had not wanted to take advantage of his disinhibition. And hadn’t wanted to think he considered me because of the alcohol. So, I’d let him see how much I did, wanted him, but left for my tent, and didn’t reach out until the following morning.

I looked him straight in the eyes and hoped my words would suffice. I would suffice. “I want you to live a life you’re proud of. You can’t be proud of this. I know you think this will set you free, but it won’t. This power will trap you, just like it trapped Cazador.”

And he took not so much time to deliberate, which was unexpected considering how the delusion had taken place into his heart. “You – you’re right. I can be better than him.” The sigh I was holding resonated inside the crypt. And I advanced one step toward Astarion before he spoke again. “But I’m not above enjoying this.”

The dagger firmly wielded in his hand, he grabbed Cazador by the hair, fangs out and eyes wide, and drove the blade into his chest. Once. Twice. Thrice. Again, and again and again, until Cazador was covered in blood and punctured by fifteen cuts. Astarion yelled, evacuating all the frustration, all the traumatizing memories, he shoved them inside his former master’s body and destroyed them with him. He savoured that one last breath and screamed at the world his anger and sadness, before falling onto his knees, the pain visible on his beautiful visage, even when covered in all this blood.

I just couldn’t move. Couldn’t bring myself to reach for him, to cradle him into my arms and repeat to him that everything was going to be alright, although I was dying to do so. He was crying, his body bent in two, his forehead almost kissing the floor and his lamentation had frozen my whole body. He was howling and whimpering and all his emotions flooded inside my own brain as I shed myself some tears, for the power of his sorrow was impossible even for an immortal to bear. No one should live such atrocities, no one should experience that much torment, and the fact that he didn’t – himself – ram a stake into his heart was a bloody miracle. He was free. Finally. “Is it… is it over?” One spawn demanded, fear still crippling behind her stare.

And Astarion stated, with a trembling voice, “Yes. He’s gone.”

†

(NSFW starting)

I had just finished showering, removing all the blood and dust, and really washing away the events of the day, when footsteps resonated inside the small cabin we constructed for the bathroom to be. “There you are,” Astarion’s sultry voice emerged from behind me. After the battle we had fought and the emotions I had shared with him, I wasn't so sure I would be able to handle him. Or whatever he wanted with me.

“You were looking for me?” I asked, my hands still struggling with the buttons of my long robe I would wear for sleeping. Since they decided to render my life complicated, I gripped them tighter and almost ripped the whole cloth open before thin and cold fingers interrupted the motion. I lifted my eyes to him and my heart skipped a beat watching him so closely. I knew my cheeks were red and I couldn’t cover myself.

His soft smile revealed his fangs. “May I?” he proposed and looked down while he gently reached for the buttons, the stroke of his knuckles over my breasts creating fire all over my body. He was delicate, meticulous, like he was manipulating the most fragile element. And my very soul reacted to his attention. He could sense it and enjoyed seeing me squirm. When he was done - and he took a damn long time on purpose - he sat over the rim of the table right in front of me and rested his hands on each side. “Can we talk?” He looked devolved.

I simply shrugged my shoulders, still trying to silently extinguish the brazier that had become my skin. “What’s on your mind?”

“I – wanted to thank you. For persuading me not to go through the ritual. It was the right choice, although I didn’t see it at the time.” His face was unreadable, even if he bore an expression much more approachable than his usual scowl over everything. He seemed sincere.

“It’s nothing,” I answered and turned around, as I couldn’t stay one more second with him near me.

“It’s not… nothing.” He grabbed my wrist and pulled on it firmly enough I knew I had no other choice. His fingers wriggled their way inside my palm and stroked where the skin was very thin and sensitive. “You were right. About what I wanted for me. And I needed you to remind me.”

I wished his words would have ended just a bit sooner. “You’re welcome, then.”

“I didn’t forget, you know?”

He replied so fast, I knew he had waited and wondered whether it was wise to admit it or not. If too many years had passed, if the moment had vanished. My blood was burning, my cheeks had adopted a yet to be discovered shade of red, and my legs were wobbly standing right between his, I realized. My eyes drifted from one place to another, couldn’t rest over him, couldn’t hold his powerful gaze. “Forget what?”

“Come on, darling, don’t play silly,” he chuckled and I sensed my panties watering at the mere sound. “We are connected, remember?” he added, tapping his temple with his index finger before sliding it to his chin. “I had to see what that pretty little head of yours was thinking, watching me so eagerly all the time.”

“Don’t you dare go into my head,” I frowned.

“Oh, because you haven’t? Don’t think I couldn’t feel you penetrate my walls,” and his smile widened at his allusion. I didn’t think it was possible but my temperature’s body augmented yet again. I lifted my hands and tried withdrawing them from his grasp, reaching for his shoulders to punch. “No need to be violent, my sweet!” he laughed again.

“Don’t call me that, we are not…” I started.

“What? Together? Lovers? Isn’t that what you wish for?” he goaded, talked slowly for his words reached their destination, his fangs showing but with an extremely serious expression on his face. I was torn apart, my heart was about to burst out of my chest and my skin was burning from inside out, the only dress covering my body yet enough to be uncomfortable over my scorching flesh. “I’ve seen your desire. All these years ago too, without that worm inside our head. I saw it in your eyes, you wanted me to be yours, and wanted yourself to be mine. Didn’t you?”

This was another form of torture. He was playing with me, playing with my feelings and my emotions and I couldn’t handle a tenth of what he was doing right now. I needed to leave and be far from here, his scent suffocating, his contact perturbing my hormones, his stare undressing me. “Stop…”

“Be honest with me, love. Be honest with yourself. Tell me. Did you want me?” he insisted and this was too much, he was too much.

“Don’t do this to me…”

“Because I want you,” he faltered, his hand on the small of my back, pulling me even closer to him. His lips caressed the skin under my ear and he murmured against it. “For more than two hundred years, I’ve been wanting you. And now that I have you back, I am not letting you go.”

It sounded like a dream. The same dream I was having before I realized he was trying to feed on me, but everything was too real, and too palpable, he was nudging, and kissing my neck and whispering dirty terms inside my ears. All I had ever wanted, he had wanted them too. "Why didn't you say anything?" I asked, among the relief, another feeling insinuated.

His eyes searched for mine when I was purposefully avoiding him. These unsaid emotions were hard to acknowledge after so many years repressing them. And his gaze had always been the hardest to handle. "I was a coward..." His fingers clenched over the fabric of my gown, fidgeting uncontrollably. "Everything was perfect. You by my side, our family promising us the most luxurious future we could have hoped. I was afraid it would change our complicity, our chemistry. And when I understood it would only transform for the better, it was too late."

I hung on his lips for all the words I had hoped to hear for decades and didn't want him to stop. He reached for my skin. “I should have made you stay that night,” he licked my neck where he had kissed. “This is why I had been out so late. I realized what you meant for me. How wrong I was." His voice was just a whisper cooling my flesh. "I’m sure I would not have needed much for you to accept, am I wrong, darling?”

I only answered with a sigh, as my brain couldn’t think of any words and my mouth was too occupied restraining itself from kissing his salacious lips. His voice was suave and coated with honey and I stuck to them like the oxygen I needed to breathe and the water I needed to drink to survive. “Did I render you speechless?” he smiled over my still burning skin. His teeth played with my earlobe, his laugh rumbled like thunder in the night sky and my legs couldn’t support my body anymore. He giggled at the sight of me on my knees. “As much as I would enjoy myself in this position, let’s not make a mess out of you just yet.”

Never would have I imagined him behind so voluptuous and debauched. He had always known about his good looks, and relished using them for personal purposes, but as he had stayed very friendly with me, I had never seen this side of him. And when I imagined him being… rather explicit with me, I thought he would be gentler and more tender. The glint of spiciness shimmered in the corner of his eyes, and his dropping lids couldn't lie about his eagerness, especially when his focus revolved around my mouth. He was so determined, and ravenous... And I liked being the center of his desire. I liked feeling his undisciplined lust against my skin. And mostly, I loved his appetence for dominance.

He grabbed me under the arms and lifted me as if I weighed nothing, made me sit onto the table, opened my thighs and paused his waist between them. My back was stiff and I stood straight and tall. His fingers grazed my spine and triggered shivers all over my body, which nonetheless didn’t cool my skin. His other hand grabbed my chin and forced my gaze to fall upon him. “What do you want, sweetheart?”

Was he truly asking me? I never had been the one to say, always the one to act, to obey. Without even knowing, I entered his mind and travelled around his most devious thoughts. All of them were about me. All of them evolved around the places he could sink his teeth into, where he could kiss, all the pleasure he wanted me to feel. But one of them echoed deafeningly. I could eat her up upon this table.

“Well, aren’t you snooping around, now? Found something you like?” he purred and I was nothing more than a ball of pure thirst, desire and fearless craving. My mouth fell hard upon his and I sensed his smile, his canines poking my blood-filled lips and he groaned slowly, loudly, as I imprisoned his own lip between my teeth. Our kisses were harsh, thirsty, feverish, as all these years of waiting, of fantasizing had created such an irritable appetite. He was all I ever wished for, and he couldn’t even try to be disappointing. His hands travelled all over my body, and I couldn’t remember where I started and where he ended, as we had become one, swallowing each other’s moans, growls, thrusts. Astarion tugged on my hair and exposed my wounded neck from his previous bite. His eyes glimmered with passion, and his pants rubbed against my core, made me gasp so loudly, he lifted his brows, inquisitive. “Did I hurt you?” he asked, breathless.

I shook my head with frantic fervor, he understood precisely what I thought. “Do you want me to hurt you, my love?” Yet I couldn’t bring myself to admit it, to express the words of everything I’d like him to do with me, starting with what he had thought of moments ago.

His smile was feral and my downfall. Everything about him was so intoxicating, I would have done abhorrent things for him, accepted the most unpleasant of fates. Becoming a vampire had intensified what he was so good at. His looks, his charisma, his persuasion. I was inflamed by this man and I was forgetting myself. “I want to taste you,” he said between kisses over my delicate flesh, licked the two punctures he had inflicted and hummed at the reminiscing. I closed my eyes and waited, as he not so gently pushed over my chest so I would lay on the table, my dress barely covering my legs and my entrance anymore, his fingers still fisted around my hair and his breath warming my blood a little more. “Do you trust me?” he asked, his mouth still parted in a large smile as I could hear in his tone, his amusement, the enjoyment doing all of this.

And I was afraid he wouldn’t be, enjoying as much as I was, after everything he had to endure for the sake of his tormenter Cazador. All the people he had wrongfully touched and teased and caressed. People he didn’t like, and felt guilty manipulating this way. “Dearest…” his voice brought me back to the present and I felt the wave of his own excitement, his urgent arousal regarding my person, when his mind had found a way to my own, and he showed me what he saw, a beautiful woman he had always known and always respected highly, there was no room for hesitation anymore. He wanted this. “Do you trust me?” he repeated. And I nodded. Closed my eyes and nodded, captured the strap of my dress and glided it across my shoulder to bare my neck even more, so he could taste, he could savour and devour all that he wished.

Only he didn’t reach my neck. He laughed, proud of his little scheme, and uncovered my robe up until my stomach, kneeled and widened my legs for him to taste. One lick and I gasped, another one and my eyes were inside my skull, my back arching through the rapture. He used his lips, tongue and fingers and I was petrified by the way he was feasting on me, his moans vibrating over my core and his filthy words bringing me closer to my orgasm. “I knew you would be exquisite,” he admitted, rhythmed by the strokes of his tongue against my clit, and I couldn’t hold it back anymore. Everything about him was participating to my pleasure bursting from every pore, astonished in front of his sex appeal, I sensed the fire ascending, leaching the walls, going up and up and up, until Astarion decided to stop.

“What are you doing?” I drawled while watching him stand up, his pants and shirt already gone, his beautiful and perfect body on display for me to relish on. He squeezed my thighs and caressed them, reaching for my waist that he firmly grabbed and approached to the end of the table.

“Oh, you’re not coming just yet, precious,” he explained, no longer laughing. His eyes were decided, his stare tenacious. “I want us to come together.”

He drove himself to my entrance and teased, the noises of slicking so vulgar and obscene, I covered my face with my hands. But Astarion swore, and penetrated me in one fast motion, my moan getting stuck inside my throat. He stayed deep inside, letting myself adjust to his girth, to his length, to the sight and the feeling of him inside me, finally inside me. “Astarion…” I whispered and he started moving, finding back my voice enough of an invitation for him to proceed.

“Yes,” he answered, but I wasn’t so sure he was responding. His eyes were closed and his body rolled majestically, the muscles of his abdomen glistening for the pearls of his sudation covered his cream-coloured skin. He was waving so gracefully inside me I could have climaxed from the view of him alone. But it was his gaze over mine and my hand he grabbed and tangled between his own fingers, his thrusting more cadenced and vigorous, that unleashed my orgasm. He bent over me, kissed me, as if he wanted to swallow all that I was releasing into the world, and he continued his movements, his groans more and more unbearably indecent and exciting. “Can I keep going? Please, I want to keep going…” he whined against my lips, his hips incapable of staying immobile and I almost begged him to continue, to never stop. The feeling was too good, too liberating, too immensely impeccable, his body, his face deeply deformed by the satisfaction he experienced, I couldn’t get enough of this, I never would, not even in an eternity.

“Fuck… please?” he asked again and straightened his spine, looked at me as if I had been the oasis in the desert, his fingers trailing between my breast, on my stomach, until the apex of my thighs, that he rubbed slowly, torturously. He was still throbbing inside me, so delicately, waiting for my approval. His other hand closed around my ankle and lifted my leg, so my foot would be right next to his mouth. He kissed it, without taking his eyes off me, still anticipative for my response, his fangs taunting the side, and I jolted at the sensible rub. “You’re not focused, my sweet. And I’m getting impatient.” he complained with his voice low and his eyes reproachful.

My body struggled descending the first climax he had given me, and my breath was still very much distraught, but he could have everything. My head nodded as I closed once again my lids, trying desperately to find back the sense of myself. And his next move did the work.

As he used my leg to pivot, he entangled his arm around my waist and lifted, while the rest of my body turned, the wooden table now scraping my aching breast, my toes barely touching the ground. Astarion’s cock twitched against my thigh and he didn’t wait another second to plunge back inside, a beautiful sigh of relief escaping his mouth. He didn’t say more.

His groans and moans were the most perfect sounds I’d ever heard. I didn’t imagine him so vocal. He’d always been in control of himself, of his emotions and feelings, and seeing him like this, so dishevelled, so bold and comfortable with me, it almost brought tears to my eyes, and I was glad I was not facing him.

His thrusts were fast, mighty, dominant, and I loved it. He groped me everywhere, kissed me, bit me but never to the blood, only to mark, and I was so desperate for him to be mine, I let him. If he wanted my body to be a representation of who I was to him, if he needed me to be physically wounded to imprint his belongings, I would gladly give myself to the pain. He grabbed my nape, my hair, my ass, changed his attention as if he couldn’t get enough of everything that was displayed for him to enjoy, and I felt the orgasm reach for me yet again, knowing the fulfilment he was having enough of a motor to make me yell between these four walls, scream so loud, the entirety of Baldur would hear us.

“Shit…” Astarion cursed and I sensed it wouldn’t take long before he would give in to the blissful delight of his own release. He clenched my waist with one hand, the other one disappearing through my hair and acknowledging himself climaxed sufficed to make my body join him, with impressive force. Our yells and cries united and the walls even shivered. "Gods..." he whispered, his face buried inside my neck, that he bit gently, linking our bodies in more ways than one. We breathed loudly for minutes, stayed laying down on the table, incapable of moving anything else than our busts for the oxygen to come in and out. But he finally withdrew himself from me, and lifted my upper body to him, cuddling my burning skin against his cold flesh. His lips found my hair, my temples, my neck, my shoulders, he planted his kisses like he would sow a field of flowers and shower them with love. He hummed against my ear, his hands solidly attached to my belly, and murmured, “that’s right, darling. I love you.”

Thanks for reading!! Tell me if you liked it, that would be much appreciated. Sweet dreams...

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