#i have so many astarion whump brainworms yall

[kingthunder]

beautiful one

When death came for Astarion, he was looking the other way.

It was almost poetic, he thought as the second Gur knife plunged into his back. He’d been looking the other way for so many years as Baldur’s Gate’s most crooked magistrate. Why not die like that too? After they were done brutalizing him, they left him laying in the fetid alleyway outside the wine bar, soaking in a pool of his own effluvia. A despicable little part of him thought, At least they didn’t touch my face. He was far past fear. Far past pain. Floating somewhere empty and cold. Two breaths away from the end.

“Hello beautiful one. How would you like to live forever?”

A cold voice. A cruel voice. Familiar?

Astarion opened his eyes. Found two red fires staring back at him. Exhaled for the last time.

“Please.”

The teeth at his neck barely registered.

~*~

After some timeless time of blackness, Astarion claws his way out of his own grave.

Knuckles broken from punching through the lid of the coffin, nails torn from the digging, mind reeling from the panic of waking up six feet underground with no heartbeat. By the time he heaves himself out into the moonlight and collapses he’s sobbing, big choking gasps that have him clutching his belly, making sure it’s whole (it is), because the one thing he remembers is the slice of a blade and the wet drop of his own intestines onto his feet.

“Took you long enough,” a high, cold voice says. “Get up.”

Astarion gets up.

He retches as he does, vomiting dirt and congealed blood into the grass. He feels queasy, empty, wrong.

"What am I?" Astarion says, cradling his useless hands. He has to inflate his lungs on purpose first because besides having no heartbeat, he has no breath. Half the air escapes through the holes in his neck and his words come out weak and wheezing. 

"You are mine."

At that, Astarion looks up. There is a man before him, short and slender like a dagger. His clothing is finer than anything Astarion has ever owned, all velvet and satin and intricate lace. It looks horribly out of place in the ivy-choked tangle of this graveyard. When he smiles, his teeth are too sharp.

"Let's not mince words," the man says. "I am Cazador Szarr, vampire lord of the night court of Baldur's Gate. I am your master. You are my spawn."

Cazador Szarr. Astarion knows the name. He thinks he knows the name. He gropes for a context, but the memories of his life before waking tonight are fracturing like a broken mirror, endless small reflections that show nothing at all, and he can't find the right shard.

He inhales, wheezes, inhales again. "I'm a vampire?"

"No, my beautiful one," Cazador says. 

He steps close enough to run the back of his hand down Astarion's cheek. Astarion shudders. He can smell the blood thrumming under the other man's skin. A deep emptiness yawns in him and he licks his lips, his tongue catching on his teeth, his… fangs. Merciful hells. Mindlessly, he turns his face into Cazador’s touch, seeking the thin skin of his wrist and the blood singing there, it smells so good, better than wine, better than anything he’s ever tasted—

"Hungry?" Cazador says, an edge of menace in his gentle tone.

Astarion whimpers. Hunger. The emptiness is hunger.

"Thou shalt not drink the blood of thinking creatures," Cazador says as if he's quoting something. "This blood is not for you. Never for you. Do you understand, my beautiful one?"

Astarion doesn't understand, not really. He shakes his head. Cazador pulls his hand back and slaps him.

"You will answer me when I speak to you."

"Yes," Astarion says. His head is ringing. Cazador slaps him again, and he feels his skin part where the heavy signet ring glances off his cheekbone.

"You will address me as master."

"Yes, master."

"Be still."

Cazador thumbs thoughtfully at the wound he's just made on Astarion's face. Leans in and licks it. Astarion can do nothing. His master told him to be still and his body obeys even as his mind rebels. Cazador's tongue is cold and wet. Like a worm. Astarion wants to scream.

"You're bone dry, beautiful one," Cazador says. "Come, let's get you home and fed."

Kill him, Astarion wills his broken hands. Snap his neck. Bite his tongue off so he cannot speak or ever put that flaccid worm on your body again.

"Yes, master," Astarion says. He follows meekly behind as Cazador strides off.

He never even sees his own headstone. Looking the wrong way, as usual.