#some mention of blood | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

leighsartworks216 · 8 months

Text

My Moonlight

Astarion x gn!Tav/Reader

This is a part 2 to My Sunshine. You'll need to read that one first for context. Tumblr link - AO3 link

I play with the headcanon that white is not Astarion's natural hair color. The general consensus was dark, possibly black hair, and brown or hazel eyes. Check out the post I got this hc from here!

I don't know if there'll be another part to this. School is kicking my ass rn

Beta read by @big-armed-mar Thank you again <333

Warnings: graphic descriptions of drinking blood from rats, grief over past friendship, anxiety and nausea mentions, descriptions of blood, drinking blood, hurt/comfort, some fluff

Word Count: 1,596

Masterlist

AO3

Astarion was cagey around you. He played nice, of course. Polite smiles, and violent tendencies disguised as friendly advice. Maybe, with his facade of sweetness, he thought you wouldn’t notice the way he stayed toward the back of the group, or set up his tent just a little further from the fire.

Part of you wishes for the simple way things were, before all this. Side by side in front of a fire, drinking wine and sketching him while he reads to you, with the sorrow of parting for the day sweetened by a kiss on your foreheads. It was so simple, then. So easy and carefree. You were young! You had the whole world ahead of you! And then…

And then he died. And so too did those times.

Maybe they came back with him, came a stray thought. It hurt to dismiss it. Those times would not be coming back soon, if they ever did.

You’re too scared to ask to draw him. The fear of being rejected outweighs the possible rewards. So at night, when everyone has settled and everything is quiet, you sit away from everyone else, you pull out your journal, and you sketch. Seeing him again has refreshed the image in your mind. It is much easier now to put a face to the sketches. You’re never happy with them - his eyes are off somehow; his mouth doesn’t hold the right expression - but you refuse to stop your tradition now.

There are little differences, you’ve noticed, from the old drawings to the newer ones. Aside from the obvious of your style and confidence improving throughout the years, there were details then that didn’t exist now.

His hair before was shaded dark, with simple highlights indicating where the light was coming from. Now, his hair was mostly white space, lightly shaded to give it volume. It had been so long - was his hair darker back then? It was hard to picture him with anything darker than his now bright-white curls, and yet…

His eyes were also different. They were still dark, but in a different way. You’ve picked up numerous ways to give off the impression of specific colors over the years - blue and green were intricate displays of mid to light tones, hazel mixed dark and medium tones, brown were deep with little-to-no variation in shading. The old sketches had his eyes closer to brown than your current ones, that mixed deep shading with lighter tones to portray their deep crimson.

Had you really forgotten so quickly what he looked like…? Your best friend?

After his death, you’d taken up sleeping. It had provided an escape, however temporary. Now, though, you didn’t want the Astarion in your dreams to hold you and comfort you - you wanted the real one to. It hurt to see one so warm and welcoming and the other so distant and reserved.

Tonight was no different. Anxiety swelled in your chest. Nausea poked at your stomach. You’re on edge, like a deer that knows it’s being stalked. Dreams and reality faded in and out, taking their turns. In one, Astarion walked beside you, playfully bumping into your shoulder as you made your way through Baldur’s Gate. In the other, Astarion leaned over you, teeth bared.

When he sees your eyes open, half-lidded, tired eyes staring up at him in a daze, he immediately backs away, caught red handed. He stands with hands outstretched to show he was unarmed and harmless. Well, mostly harmless. He’s shocked when all you do is sit up on your bedroll.

“It’s not what it looks like, I swear!”

You raise an eyebrow.

He stammers as he tries to explain himself. “I wasn’t going to hurt you! I just needed - well, blood.”

The firelight is dim, but the moon lights him up clearly. You see him, now. Pointed canines and two scarred punctures on his neck, with hollow cheeks and too-pale skin. “You’re… a vampire.” He bristles when you say it. “That’s how you’re alive.”

He barks out a mirthless, bitter laugh. “Undead, my dear,” he corrects. “But… yes.” He doesn’t let you get a word in before he launches into his next defense. “I was only going to have a nibble, I swear! I feed on animals, usually. Boars, deer, kobolds - whatever I can get. But it’s not enough. Not if I have to fight. I feel so… weak. If I just had a little blood, I could think clearer. Fight better.” He pauses for a moment, a pleading look on his face. “Please.” And you can’t tell if it’s genuine or not.

The tadpole behind your eyes wriggles. The sensation makes you shiver. You can feel hints of his mind touching yours. The hunger, the weakness. But it feels half-there. The worm says you can look deeper, know the truth behind it all. You want to ignore it, but your grief begs you to know.

You push into his mind, past the picked-out truths, to find the whole one. He’s startled by it, by you, but you can’t let this slip past your fingers. When his mind opens, you’re flooded with a barrage of memories and emotions. Fear, desperation, starvation, hatred - all surrounding a pair of dark eyes. They command him to feed, to drink from the rat squirming in his hands. You feel the gag at the back of your throat as his mouth becomes full of watery, rancid blood and fur. You can feel the rat still in his hands, drained to every last drop. It is all he will be given to eat. When you finally pull from his mind, Astarion’s face is full of disgust and hardship.

You swallow hard around the phantom feeling of wriggling in your mouth, urging it to leave. You can only imagine what it must have been like for him. It makes your heart ache.

“You ate animals because you were forced to,” you whisper. He can’t meet your eyes. “Not because you wanted to.”

“I-” He stopped. His voice became small. “Yes. Yes, I ate whatever disgusting vermin my master picked. So you can see why I’m slow to trust you.” Maybe he sees the flicker of pain in your eyes. Maybe he corrects himself for his own benefit. You can’t tell. His protective facade is back in place once more. “But I do trust you. And you can trust me.”

“I do. I trust you.”

“Thank you.” He shifts around, hesitant to ask his next question. “Do you think you could trust me just a little further? I only need a taste, I swear.”

You nodded. “Of course, Astarion. You only needed to ask.”

His eyes widened. “Really? I - of course. I’ll avoid the slinking around next time,” he chuckles. “Let’s make ourselves comfortable, shall we?”

You lay back once more. The stars are quickly hidden behind Astarion as he leans over you once more. His hands on either side of your head keep him over you. Like this, you feel small. A rabbit in the clutches of a wolf. But this is what you wanted after so long; to be close to him again.

His face softens. For a brief moment, it’s the face of the Astarion you once knew. Your heart rate spikes as he leans down, not toward your neck, but toward your forehead. A brush of a kiss, barely there at all. As he speaks, you can feel his lips moving along your skin and cold breaths of air.

“Thank you…” He sighs, finding the strength to say what was on his mind. You close your eyes, willing this moment to be implanted in your memories forever. “My dear moonlight.”

His lips brush against your neck. He can hear your heart racing, feel it just beneath your skin. Had you ever been this close before? Surely, you’d indulged in hugs and cuddling with him…right? His memory was so foggy. Trying to go back to those days hurt. But having this experience, right here, right now. He wishes he could lose himself in it.

And then there’s the frightening realization that you’re his first.

Before he can linger too long on how vulnerable that made him feel, he lined his teeth up, and bit down. You gasped in his ear. Blood rushed from the wound into his mouth. It was sweet. Sweeter than any rat or roach. And full-bodied like an exquisite wine. He wanted to drown in it - in you. Remain latched at your throat for another century, indulging and bloating himself on the saccharine ichor.

“Sunshine.”

It’s barely a whisper, but the softness of it pulls him from his feeding. He detaches his mouth from your neck and watches a few stray drops as they slide to the ground. Your face is relaxed; eyes closed and skin bathed in moonlight. Your hand detangles from his hair, and he wonders how long it had been there.

“Did I take too much?”

You shake your head and open your eyes, at last. They’re dulled and out of focus, lids fighting to close once more, but you look right at him. And you smile. “I’m okay.”

Tension leaves his shoulders. What had he been worried about?

He pushes himself up to his knees, and you roll over to face him. He thinks you might try starting a conversation, but all you do is get comfortable and give in to the exhaustion of blood loss.

“This is a gift, you know,” he says quietly. He’s not even sure if you can hear him. “I won’t forget it.”

253 notes · View notes