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bosspigeon · 8 months

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see me bare my teeth for you

i know i'm not the only one who thought it was incredibly stupid to let the amoral vampire twink stick his teeth in your neck, so i thought i'd do a rewrite of the bite scene with a Tav who doesn't have the self-preservation instincts of a ham sandwich~

The tiefling’s eyes burn like embers in the dark, and set deeply in the ashen-grey of his skin painted blue-black by the night’s shadows, he looks very much like a vengeful spirit risen from his grave to smite those who wronged him in his life.

But Astarion is hungry.

And now his face hurts, to boot. He didn’t expect the big devil-spawn to be able to move so damned quickly.

But, well, sore jaw or no, the cat’s out of the bag, so he has no choice but to resort to his usual means of survival, however much it rankles–he grovels. He simpers and plays up the pitiful creature, weak from hunger, with all the best puppy eyes he can muster, pouty and sweet.

The tiefling–Pyre–he’s a veteran soldier, with the discipline and strategic mind to match. Astarion watches those glowing ember eyes as they take him in, flickering over him top to bottom, as if ascertaining what sort of threat he is, and how quickly he could eliminate that threat. He hasn’t even bothered to stand up, still sitting on his bedroll, not quite relaxed but as close as he ever seems to be. He doesn’t seem to be so paranoid as to sleep in his armor, but his massive broadsword is lying conspicuously close to his hand. Astarion curses that he didn’t have the foresight to kick it away before he tried to snack on the big bastard.

He wants to snarl, but he hides his fangs the best he can, however much his stomach protests, however much he wants to sink them into the brute’s stony flesh and feed.

“You tried to bite me,” Pyre rumbles, and finally something in his expression shifts with the slight quirk of one scarred brow. Astarion follows the line of the scar down over his cheekbone, narrowly missing his eye. It is one of many. The man’s face and–as one can only assume–his body are mapped with scars, wicked blade slashes and puckered burns and jagged claw gouges. A lifetime of battles fought carved into his skin like a mountain battered by storms. Still standing, against it all. “How can I trust you?”

“Because we don’t have a choice!” the vampire retorts, with perhaps more desperation than he’d ever care to admit. “Not if we’re going to save ourselves from these worms…” He flails his hand a bit, looking at the ground between the tiefling’s splayed legs and staunchly not at his damnably expressionless face, his burning ochre eyes. From what little he knows of Pyre, he is a man of action. Of practicality. Of making necessary decisions with what little they have. Astarion is an asset to the tiefling, same as the tiefling is to him. “I need you alive. You need me strong.” He meets Pyre’s eyes again, and he almost regrets it. The heat of them settles deep in his belly, making him feel unsettlingly warm and… seen. “Please,” he ekes out, refusing to be consumed. He does the consuming, thank you very much. “Only a taste, I swear. I’ll be well, you’ll be fine, and everything can go back to normal.” It’s all he’s got. He’s already weak. For all his bravado, if Pyre decided to attack him now, he’s not entirely sure of what sort of fight he’d be able to put up.

Pyre is implacable, his expression as blank and unmoving as a grey cliff face from which he seems to have been hewn. He looks to be completely immune to Astarion’s game.

The vampire tenses, preparing for a fight.

There’s a long moment of silence, and in it Astarion swears can hear every pulse of the stolen blood he does have coursing sluggishly through his corpse-cold body.

The mountain of a tiefling shifts. His gaze does not falter. But he nods, once. “Fine,” he rasps, and Astarion will never quite be over how strangely soft his voice is. “But not a drop more than you need.”

“Really?” He reels back, surprised, almost sure the man would either send him on his merry way to fumble through the underbrush until he stumbled across a sickly deer, or put him out of his misery then and there. “I-” He’s certainly not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, however. He smooths his expression, reigns in his untoward eagerness.“Of course. Not one drop more.”

And then they stare at each other, for a beat, then two. Astarion standing, Pyre sitting up, watching him, eyebrows slightly raised and the dim firelight flickering across the contours of his damnably blank face.

“I… Wouldn’t be easier if you…” Astarion purses his lips, eyes flicking up briefly and then back down again. He gestures awkwardly to the rumpled bedroll. “Had a bit of a lie-down?”

“You’re not touching my neck,” Pyre says simply. His gambeson’s high collar is very firmly buttoned. To be quite honest, Astarion’s not sure how he thought to get past it without either waking the tiefling trying to get it out of the way, or gnawing through a mouthful of wool. Before Astarion can ask what he’s meant to do, then, Pyre extends a hand. Without his gauntlets, it is as callused and scarred as one would imagine of a veteran swordsman. His nails are thick and black and look as if they have been filed down to utilitarian dullness from naturally sharp points. He turns his hand palm-up, unbuttoning the cuff of his sleeve and pushing it over the swell of his muscular forearm. There, a prominent vein snakes through the tough grey flesh, pulsing temptingly at the thin, vulnerable skin of his wrist. There are scars there, too, but older. Faded to a dull white. Neat lines in a row almost up to the elbow.

Astarion drops to his knees with a pout. “Alright, alright. Ruining my fun…”

“The blood is all the same,” Pyre says flatly, “Don’t complain about where it comes from.”

“Fine,” the vampire huffs, taking the proffered arm gently. As he draws the wrist in, saliva pooling in his mouth the closer that tantalizing vein comes to his teeth, he feels Pyre’s other hand at his shoulder. He freezes when it shifts, and strong, scarred fingers curl firmly around his throat.

His eyes flicker up to meet Pyre’s, staring at him with a coolness that belies their fiery hue. The fingers flex, but don’t squeeze.

“An assurance for me,” the tiefling rumbles, the grim line of his lips firm and implacable, jaw squared. “And a reminder for you.”

He’s not sure what he expected of his first time feeding from a thinking creature, but the reality is… more than he could have imagined.

It’s nothing short of rapturous.

There’s a squirmy weight of anticipation in his belly that sinks deep, and before he can make even more of a fool of himself, Astarion sinks his teeth into the tender skin, and a gush of dazzling heat floods his mouth. He almost moans at the taste. Almost. It feels almost too hot, like it’s going to leave his mouth feeling numb and tender, the skin peeling. And so rich. He drinks, and drinks, and drinks, wanting to lose himself in the taste, the heat of it, and never stop drinking until there’s nothing left, but he can feel the weight of Pyre’s hand around his throat every time he swallows, his thumb against his pulse, can feel yet more heat radiating from the man’s stout body, not touching his beyond the necessary points of contact, but still so close.

He takes another long, languorous pull, eyes rolling back, and when he swallows the hand on his throat squeezes hard, and he jerks away, blood rolling down his chin.

For a moment, he sits there gasping and dazed, staring wide-eyed up at Pyre, who has him by the neck. His own hand rises almost of its own accord, trembling, to his lips, fingers hungrily pushing the stray droplets of blood into his mouth, eyelids fluttering with bliss. He does moan then, and Pyre jerks his hand away, as if he’s the one who’s been burned. As if he’s the one with a burgeoning, blistering heat working its way from his belly to his extremities until his fingertips are tingling with it.

Astarion licks his fingers shamelessly, and the scalding weight of those eyes doesn’t feel quite so stifling now that he’s full of warmth. “Apologies,” he pants around the finger in his mouth, “I was just… swept up in the moment. He stumbles to his feet, head light and floaty and bright with the fresh blood slowly working its way through his body, waking it up. “But it worked!. I feel good. Strong. Happy!” He offers a mocking little bow.

Once again, Pyre looks at him as if nothing untoward has occurred between them, even as he pulls a ragged scrap of fabric that might have once been a piece of an old shirt from his pocket and wads it up to press over the wound in his wrist. He doesn’t offer any response.

“I didn’t kill you, did I? That’s what matters.” Astarion happily chatters in his stead, rushing with newfound energy, feeling as if he could take on the world. A part of him (perhaps several parts of him) are struck by the urge that he could pounce on the tiefling now, and have a fairly good shot of taking him down. Astarion would be out a powerful ally, but oh, what a meal he’d be…

He shakes himself and beams, hands on his hips. “And look what you’ve gained! Together, we can take on the world!”

Finally, finally, Pyre cracks something that could almost be called a smile. Just a slight twist of the mouth, a touch wry, and he lowers his heavy lids a bit more. “I hope so,” he almost chuckles. “I look forward to seeing you fight.”

“Shouldn’t take long,” Astarion chirps, delighted. “So many people need killing.” He offers another stilted little half-bow. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, you’re invigorating, but I need something more… filling.”

And he turns on heel and struts out of the circle of the fire, off towards the woods. There’s a swagger in his step. He feels ready for anything. But he stops, and turns back slightly, the weight of those eyes fair burning a hole through his doublet. “This is a gift, you know,” he offers. “I won’t forget it.” And then off he goes, disappearing into the trees, and only when he is certain Pyre can no longer see him does he lean heavily against the trunk of a nearby tree until he can convince his damned knees to stop trembling. He raises a hand slowly, and brushes his fingers against his own throat, eyes closing and exhaling a shaky sigh.

#baldur's gate #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #astarion #bg3 astarion #pidge writes #oc: pyre #pyre is a 'tiefling' on paper but in reality! he's a cambion <3 #i love him dearly #also yeah i have not played the game and i will not be able to for a while #but that's never stopped me lmao #uuuh ask to tag ig?#special skill: giving vampires a crisis #i think you're a bit touch-starved mate #unprompted #been sitting on this since early access and finally decided to throw it out there yeehaw

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