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xalygatorx · 8 months

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Unbound | Chapter 16, "Full of Surprises"

Áine Ts'sambra—a wayward half-drow bard with a painful past—has her world upended when she's snatched up by a Nautiloid ship and furnished with a tadpole to the brain. In her journey to remove the infestation before it can turn her and her newfound companions illithid, she not only finds that their solution has more layers to parse through than she can count, but that a particular vampire in her party does as well.

Unbound is an ongoing generally SFW medium-burn romance based in the world of Baldur's Gate 3 between Astarion and a female OC. Any NSFW content will be marked in the Warnings section. Contains angst, fluff, explorations of trauma, spice, graphic fantasy violence, and a guaranteed happy ending.

For anything additional on what to expect (and not expect), check the preface post.

Summary: The party sets up camp with the myconids, resting before doing the Sovereign a favor. They meet the other colony guests—a hobgoblin, a mind flayer, and a sanguine alchemist. Astarion is put in a position to stand up for himself (and Áine has an opportunity to stand up for him as well). Astarion is honest with Áine about his complicated relationship with intimacy and about what spurred their affair in the first place. The pair decide where they’ll go from there.

Pairing: Astarion x Fem!OC

Warnings: Descriptions (in-depth but not graphic) of Astarion’s sexual trauma; early Araj appearance (we will still probably run into her at Moonrise later); fluff; comfort/hurt; angst; trauma; flashbacks and descriptions of physical anxiety responses and feeling triggered; blood & blood-drinking; lightly proofread

Word Count: 8k

Listening to: Quiet the Monsters - Victoria Carbol

A/N: Just want to quickly say thank you so much for all the comments, feedback, and kind words on Unbound, it helps the headspace a lot and it means the world to my sappy little heart. x

Áine’s heavy rucksack hitting the ground caused a blossom of tiny, glimmering bioluminescent spores to rise in a small puff from the base. The cloud also subsequently caused Áine to sneeze. The bard frowned at the discovery, shaking her head as she rifled through her bag for a health potion, thinking how she’d never live it down if she was half-drow and somehow allergic to the fungal flora of the Underdark.

“That was precious,” Shadowheart remarked on the sound of Áine’s half-muffled sneeze, earning a glower from the bard. “Have what you need to heal up?”

“I should,” Áine said, her fingertips skimming the side of one of the glass bottles she was searching for. She plucked it out and checked it before uncapping it to take a long sip. “I just got knocked around really. I’ll be glad when that burrowing monstrosity stops retreating every time we almost kill it.”

“Indeed,” she sighed, rubbing her hand along her arm as a turquoise glow emitted from her palm. “Between that and the minotaurs, a clan of agreeable mushroom folk was a welcome find. Although I could do without the strange voices that keep projecting into my head.”

“Other than the usual ones, you mean?” Áine teased her, earning an eyeroll.

The bard glanced across the little foothills they’d stumbled upon, the different levels connected by toadstools as big as trees. It felt like a sort of haven, perhaps because it was the first time since they’d left the Selûnite outpost that she’d felt like she could relax a little. Unless that godsdamned bulette came back, but the myconids seemed to maintain this area firmly for themselves and she hadn’t seen any evidence of the thing disrupting the dirt through their settlement.

“Tell me you didn’t pick up another ‘hero’s quest’ side job from that creature on the roll,” Astarion grumbled as he walked to join them, already exasperated because he knew Áine and of course she’d said they’d help someone else. Yet another useless venture for gnomes this time of all things.

“Astarion,” she murmured, her tone scolding. “It won’t kill us to help her.”

“Well, it might,” Shadowheart posited with a shrug.

“See?” Astarion griped, gesturing toward the cleric. “Someone with sense. Imagine.”

Áine glared between them, her lover and her best friend teamed up against her. Unbelievable. “We’re going that way anyway to cull those slavers for Spaw,” she pointed out. “And it’s not like I take these things on for free. We need the extra coin.” She sighed as she set her bag back down, placing the empty potion bottle next to it. “Especially after I suck it up and stock us back up on supplies.”

“And where do you plan to do that?” Shadowheart asked, glancing around and finding the area just as shopless as she’d first assumed.

Áine nodded toward the side of the settlement where a studious hobgoblin worked over a table. “I’d like to see if he has anything to trade. There was a drow over there too who might be worth speaking to. She looked like she had some alchemy equipment,” she said as she got her coin pouch from her hip and took a tally, mentally preparing herself for inflated Underdark prices.

“You’re going back over there? Where the mind flayer is?” Shadowheart demanded.

“Sure,” Áine said, shrugging when she met Shadowheart’s skeptical eyes. “They seemed perfectly fine for being a mind flayer. And vegetarian.”

“Ugh, fine,” Shadowheart sighed. “Just be careful. And here.” She took a handful of coins from her purse and put them in Áine’s palm. “To help with the potion restock.”

“Thanks,” Áine said, looking at a pouting Astarion. “You coming?”

The vampire made a noncommittal grunt in his throat, which she just took to be a yes.

“Can I come?” Karlach piped up nearby. “I’m bored to tears.”

Áine laughed as she led the way from their campsite, ending up with an entourage of Karlach, Wyll, Astarion, and Scratch. She dropped her hand to her side and stroked Scratch’s ears as he trotted alongside her, just pleased to be among his friends. As she drew close, she said, “Erm, Blurg? You wouldn’t happen to have anything you’d want to trade, would you?”

“A curious mind would never refuse to peruse,” the hobgoblin said amenibly. “What are you looking for? And what can you offer?”

“Some basic supplies and medicinal tonics are what we seek,” Áine explained. “To trade we have a bit of gold, some odds and ends, and at least one charming smile.” When he looked at her, she jokingly gestured to Wyll and said, “That’s his specialty.”

Wyll smirked, laughing when Astarion gave a disgruntled huff in Áine’s direction that she ignored.

“In the way of supplies, I do tend to overstock for myself so I would be happy to trade something of that ilk with you,” he suggested. “Let me have a look at the ‘odds and ends’ and if nothing strikes, gold always sits well.”

Áine got out the items she’d collected for bartering purposes to let him have a look. As he stooped over the array to have a gander, she heard Karlach hiss to get her attention. “‘Ey, soldier,” she said, nodding just down the wall toward the female drow that Áine had seen earlier. “She looks more like the potiony type. Might be worth asking her?”

Wyll pulled a face when he followed Karlach’s gesture. “Hmph, an underelf?” he mumbled.

“Gods’ sakes, Wyll,” Karlach chastised him, making Áine smirk to herself. “You do recall that Áine’s half-drow, right?”

Wyll blushed with the appropriate amount of chagrin. “Right. Sorry, Áine,” he mumbled.

“That’ll be Araj over there,” Blurg said absently as he picked out a couple of things from Áine’s stash and gathered some supply packs to offer for compensation. When Áine agreed to the trade, he pocketed the trinkets and said to Karlach and Wyll, “She would be a good ask for your tonics and elixirs, but she does follow more of a…specialty than most alchemists I’ve met.”

“Hopefully she’s not opposed to half-bloods,” Áine sighed, already readying herself to be condescended to. “Thank you, this helps us a lot.”

“Thank you,” he said. “And good luck with your tadpole dilemma.”

It was refreshing to not be balked at for having a parasite in her brain, which wasn’t a thought or feeling Áine had ever thought she’d experience before her abduction. Karlach and Wyll led the way to Araj’s setup while Astarion fell in step with Áine, lowering his voice to chat with her as he was curious as to what she’d decided to part with. They paused their conversation with murmured “later”s and a sneaky brush of hands when they caught up with Wyll and Karlach, who had just gotten the drow’s attention.

“Ah,” she huffed, looking at Áine with undisguised speculation. “Half-human, I assume?”

Here it comes. “Indeed, but I prefer to go by Áine,” she said dryly. Astarion and Karlach snickered, both trying to hide it at least until they got whatever potions they could get from her. Their efforts only grew more difficult when they made eye contact just to see the other in equal shambles.

“How lovely,” the drow alchemist purred and Áine wasn’t sure if Araj referred to her name or her genetics. Either way, it was preferable to another person telling her that she’d muddied her lineage. “Araj Oblodra, trader in blood and the sanguineous arts. It is a pleasure to stand before a True Soul if what I caught of your conversation next door is accurate.” Her garnet eyes slid toward Astarion. “And your pale companion, of course.”

A blood alchemist? she wondered, both intrigued and alarmed. She’d never heard of such a thing. And, it seemed, an Absolutist nut at that. “You know of the Absolute?” Áine asked, playing into the narrative seamlessly. She tried to ignore how Araj took in Astarion like he was on offer with the rest of their wares.

“Who does not, this side of Faerûn?” Araj mused. Based on everyone they’d met, Áine couldn’t disagree with her. “I’d like to offer you my services if you’re willing?”

Áine’s expression turned bewildered. “If I’m willing? What exactly are you offering?”

“As I said, I trade in blood and the potions that can be wrung from it,” the drow said. “I’m more than happy to make one for you…if you’ll honor me with your blood. With one drop, I can brew a potent potion just for you. The rest, I keep for myself.”

“What sort of potion?” Áine asked, considering it more now that she knew the alchemist was only after a drop. Although she did wonder what she’d want with the “rest” she mentioned keeping. Research probably.

“No idea!” Araj exclaimed, enthused by not knowing. “But it will be unique to you—your blood essence and the Absolute’s blessing intertwined. We can learn exactly what that means together.”

“Hmm…,” Áine hummed, her curiosity getting the better of her. “Alright.”

“Just a little prick and it’s all over,” Araj assured her as she reached for Áine’s hand. She created a tiny incision in her fingertip, methodically milking the wound over a vial.

Áine shifted uncomfortably, flicking her eyes up toward the ceiling to ignore the procedure. It was wild how blood didn’t bother her whatsoever when it was on a battlefield but as soon as it was something as sterile as a medical process, her stomach turned. She’d even gotten used to Astarion drinking her blood somewhat, but just barely. Half the time she had to just pretend he was necking her a little too roughly. She supposed that wasn’t not the case.

Araj took the vial and turned to her tools and glass implements, the gurgling of boiling, steaming liquids amplifying as she started to create a brew. Subconsciously, Áine popped her bleeding finger into her mouth to hasten the clotting, only glancing toward Astarion after she did. He was giving her a withering look that made her smirk around her fingertip.

“Later,” she mouthed after freeing her digit and Astarion’s annoyed glance faded, satisfied with the compromise.

“And there we are!” Araj proclaimed as she turned around and offered a corked flask to Áine. “All of your best traits in a bottle. Use it well.”

“Thank you,” Áine said, smirking as she added, “I think. Maybe we should wait to see what it does before I thank you.” Araj chuckled and Áine asked further, “Would you have anything pre-brewed that you’d want to sell? I know it’s not your focus, but we’re hoping to restock on some basic stuff for the road.”

She gestured toward a cluster of bottles set aside from her workspace. “I have a hodgepodge of elixirs and potions just over there if you’d like a look,” she suggested. “Some extra stock from my journey. Some of that gold back would be a positive.”

“I’ll take a look, thanks,” Áine said, pocketing her pricked hand so she didn’t touch anything that might infect the little cut before she could clean it back at camp. She stepped over to the cluster of potions, lifting a bottle here and there to check for labels. With her back turned, Araj’s attention drifted again.

Astarion noticed Araj’s hungry stare and his eyes narrowed, glancing fleetingly toward his companions. Áine and Karlach were hunched over the bottles and Wyll stood nearby, staring down the path while lost in thought. Astarion cleared his throat and continued to avoid Araj, but he could feel her eyes on him, rooting him to the spot and peeling him apart. He hated it.

Áine, not seeing a wink of what was happening just over her shoulder, was a little startled when Araj spoke again. And then deeply unsettled by what she said. “Perhaps there is one more thing we could discuss…,” Araj mused, her eyes still hooked into Astarion. “Your friend.”

Astarion’s jaw tightened, his posture rigid. Áine, Karlach, and Wyll all looked over from what they were doing but Áine was the one to speak. “Um… Excuse me?” she asked.

“He’s a vampire, no? One of their spawn at least.” She spat the word like a curse.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Astarion swiftly said, his mask fully up. “We’re all friends under the Absolute. I won’t bite.”

“Oh, I’d prefer if you did,” Araj countered. All their eyes had gone a little round at that and Áine’s expression remained bewildered as Araj turned to her. “He belongs to you, I assume?”

Astarion faltered, hiding it well. Suddenly he was little more than a slave again and that old, familiar dread started to creep in. Meanwhile, something in Áine began to unhinge.

Her eyes narrowed, hoping she was just being dense and misunderstanding the woman’s question. “...He belongs to himself. If you have questions for him, you can direct those questions to him,” she said in a hard voice. Astarion’s eyes darted toward Áine’s bristling tone, vulnerability flashing through his eyes faster than light.

Araj gave an amused hum. “I’m sure he really believes that… How utterly adorable.” She slanted her gaze back to Astarion. “Do you have a name, spawn?”

“A-Astarion, but hold on!” Astarion stammered, holding his hands out in front of him.

“Good,” she purred back to him for, as she saw it, following her order. “Now, Astarion, I’ve dreamed of being bitten by a vampire since I was a young girl.”

“I’m sorry,” he muttered, his voice creeping a note higher in disbelief, “you want to be bitten?”

Áine was watching the exchange with discomfort. Araj had struck her in odd ways when they’d first spoken, but now she felt genuinely disturbed. And oddly a faint twinge of jealousy. Maybe because most of the times Astarion had bitten her at this point had been mingled with something more intimate or maybe because it would be the first time outside of a quick chomp during a fight that he elected to drink from someone that wasn’t her.

It was an odd train of thought, so she abandoned it and continued to listen in while she placed a couple of bottles she’d set aside to buy back into the original cluster. She’d scrape up ingredients and make her own healing draughts if Araj was their only option for the stuff.

“To feel your life’s blood slipping away?” Araj mused, her tone painting the experience as a sensual one. She’d heard of a vampire’s bite being fetishized but it was something completely different to see it in real time. “To dance on the edge between life and death? Yes. I want it.”

Infuriating Áine further, Araj turned to speak to her again as if she were Astarion’s keeper. “I’ll even compensate you. Whatever vials you require from that pile plus a potion of legendary power that forever increases the strength of the one who consumes it.” She slid her gaze back to Astarion, who stiffened beneath it. “It’s not for sale. But it’s yours…if you bite me.”

Áine wasn’t entirely sure what he’d do, but it did surprise her a little when Astarion said without a second thought, “I will have to decline.”

“Excuse me?” Araj laughed, incredulous. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and you’re squandering it.”

“I gave you my answer,” Astarion gritted, something disgustingly close to fear rising in his chest. The compulsion to obey his master. The demand to use his body, his entire being, in bent form to his sire’s will. This wasn’t the same, but he felt its echoes.

Offended and blustering, Araj directed her next words at Áine. “Ugh, can’t you talk some sense into your obstinate charge?!”

Astarion dared a look at his lover. Áine’s eyes were colder than he’d ever seen them as she inhaled a deep, steadying breath and leaned away from the table to face Araj. Her anger was barely contained. “He said no,” she growled.

“How very disappointing,” Araj murmured. “Right. Well, then I suppose gold will—”

“Keep your wares,” the bard muttered, leading Wyll and Karlach back toward Astarion and Araj. His tension eased a bit once they were back in his proximity. “And keep to yourself. Come near him again unbidden and that dealing, you will have with me.”

Araj tsked at Áine. “I’d always heard half-breeds were feral,” she spat.

A dangerous smile crossed Áine’s mouth, her eyes boring into Araj’s. “Would you like to find out for yourself?” she asked, positively saccharine.

Araj’s face flickered with a twinge of fear and she huffed, looking toward Karlach and Wyll. Finding no sympathy on their faces, she muttered a few choice words in elvish and turned away from them, back to her work. Áine had half a mind to teach her a lesson, but she forced her burning gaze away from the alchemist’s back and whistled for Scratch before leading them all back to camp.

Astarion was more than relieved to be away from the drow, his jaw finally unclenching when they were a few paces back down the path.

“The audacity!” Wyll was exclaiming, absolutely floored by what had just happened. “What a horrible woman!”

“Proud of you for sticking up for yourself, Fangs,” Karlach said, equal parts agitated and fired up in her protectiveness. “That was fucked.”

Astarion found himself relaxing further at Wyll and Karlach’s praise and validation, his gaze lingering on Áine walking just ahead of them with Scratch. Her shoulders were still rigid, proverbial hackles still up, and her hands were balled into fists at her sides.

He would’ve done it if she’d asked, he realized, even with his autonomy returned. Even if he’d been left to Araj wearing him down, he may have buckled despite how positively fetid the drow’s blood had smelled. He’d had so little opportunity to make his own choices unpunished in this life that the word “no” had felt foreign on his tongue every time he’d said it back there.

Even at the offer of a potion that would’ve arguably been quite useful for their cause, she hadn’t hesitated. Hadn’t questioned why he didn’t want to bite the drow. Hadn’t expressed an ounce of disappointment or inconvenience when he’d opted out. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen her so deadly angry either.

They arrived back to camp and Scratch immediately bounded off to find the owlbear cub, who was sitting next to Halsin with a dopey expression on its young face. They’d become fast friends and it was adorable. It did little to calm Áine’s ire at the moment, but only because the flames were burning so high.

How dare she?! Suddenly she could empathize with Astarion’s impulse to go back out to the woods and kill Gale after originally deciding not to—not because of anything to do with Gale but because it was taking everything in her not to go back to that table and reduce Araj to resemble her own nasty spread of potion ingredients. Half-breed comments be damned, she wanted to kill her for placing Astarion in even a semblance of one of the situations he’d finally escaped.

Muttering under her breath, Áine slammed the supply packs down next to her rucksack. Methodically, she started to paw through the pack to put back the bits that Blurg had passed on and do some updated inventory. It was necessary and it gave her something to do. The stuff she’d gotten from Blurg seemed good and that would get them through their trip to track down the duergar at least. If they rationed a little more harshly, then—

“Ahem.”

The meek intrusion jarred her from her scattered thoughts, and she looked up over her shoulder, finding Astarion lingering behind her and fiddling with his fingers. “Do you have a moment?” he asked, obviously anxious.

“For you?” she suggested, getting to her feet and brushing off her pants as she turned to face him. “Any moment you’d like.” Had she ever seen him so timid?

“I, uh…,” he began, faltering. His voice was soft and emotionally raw. It did funny things to her heart. “I want to thank you.”

Áine’s brow creased. “For what?”

“For what you said,” Astarion replied, “whilst I was in front of that vile drow. All my years serving under my master, what I felt about what I was doing…it never mattered.” He sighed. “You could’ve asked me to do the same just then. To throw myself at her, what I wanted be damned. I likely would have done it, you know.”

Áine frowned. “Astarion, I would never.”

“I know,” he reassured her, his voice gentle. He was silent for a long moment, seeming quietly overwhelmed. “...And I’m grateful.” He made an impatient sound as he waved his sentimentality away and, gesturing, said, “It would’ve been so easy just to bite her! To just go along with what I was being told to do. A moment of disgust to force myself through and then I could’ve carried on, just like before.”

Áine’s brow crumpled. “Isn’t that what you’ve been hoping to leave behind?” she ventured to ask. “What could possess you to repeat the motions now?”

“Repeat the motions,” he repeated in his head. You’ve no idea how close you are to the truth. The thought made him sullen and panicked for their eventual conversation about just that.

“Habit perhaps,” Astarion said on a sigh. “It was all I knew for a very, very long time. Even still, amongst, well friends I suppose, it’s difficult not to expect a trap in every question. A punishment for every wrong answer. The illusion of choice. In any case, that made me realize that despite being ‘free,’ I’ve still been living as if I’m not in many ways.”

Áine listened, nodding slowly as she processed his answer. She remembered her first couple of years out in the world on her own.

Everything had felt like a trap. She’d been utterly paranoid out of her mind. Every too-friendly face she met, she’d met with suspicion. She’d run any time someone got too close to her and veered firmly away from anywhere that could’ve been described as “bustling,” but she’d been terrified when she was completely alone too, a sickly member of a herd to be picked off.

It had been the worst those first few months, her old strength and left shoulder shattered along with her sense of identity. He was in one piece physically, but he was only about a month or so out from his escape. She couldn’t imagine he’d felt safe a moment since. And in Áine’s experience, she wasn’t so sure he’d truly feel safe for quite some time. Ten years later, she still didn’t.

Astarion watched the understanding soften her features and could only hope that it would carry over into harder topics. Knowing he’d back down if he didn’t, he asked, “May we talk later tonight?”

“Later?” Áine asked, tilting her head. “We can—”

“Later would be best, if that’s alright, my dear,” he suggested, knowing she would offer to have their conversation now. He could see in her face that his request worried her.

Slowly, Áine nodded. “Sure. I guess…just come get me when you’re ready.”

“I will,” he promised and it held none of his usual sensual spin he liked to put on everything. He nodded toward her pricked finger. “How is your hand?”

Áine smirked as it all came around to blood again, extending her hand and raising her fingertip for his inspection. “It’s fine, but I do wish I hadn’t given her a damn thing now,” she said, the edge back in her tone.

Astarion’s eyes flickered down to the small clotted cut on her finger, leaning in closer to examine it and taking her hand in his to bring it to his eye level. Áine smirked, expecting him to reopen it and take a sip—she’d promised after all—possibly with the addition of making it an innuendo.

However, when she braced for the sting of his fangs as he dropped his mouth to her cut, she was surprised when all he did was kiss it. She saw his craving in the way his pupils dilated and his nostrils flared at the scent, but he didn’t try to partake.

“Perhaps get a salve on it, darling,” he suggested while Áine still watched him, bemused.

“Sure,” she said, watching him step away with a mix of confusion and affection. He was acting strangely, but she didn’t quite feel as if it were the sort of “strange” he’d be acting if he intended to end things later.

But, if not that, then what?

Reassuring herself that Astarion’s wasn’t the behavior of someone who was soon to end a relationship sufficed to steady Áine’s nerves through the evening. There was no “breaking up” when they’d never been exclusive, she kept reminding herself. Even if she’d felt exclusive with him the moment she’d realized there was a mutual interest between them, nothing had been spoken into existence. She’d just leaned in too far and fallen.

She knew how she was with these sorts of things—at the inception of a crush, she was all-in. That wasn’t the norm.

Áine did her damnedest to not let her anxieties creep out in the open, too. As much as this was eating away at her, something had eaten away at Astarion enough for him to ask her specifically for a time that they could speak. There was something on his mind, too.

Knowing she’d just wear a rut on her tent floor, Áine took up her usual spot near the fire. She was without her lute, but the myconids’ melodies interwoven in the spores around them felt like more than enough of a nightly treat for the ears. She laid back on the dirt, her fingertips tracing faint patterns in the deep earthen soil and her eyes cast toward the black ceiling overhead serving for a sky. She marinated in her thoughts and the interesting flow of the unearthly music in her mind until Astarion’s beautiful face peering over her blessedly cut her overthinking short.

She smirked up at him and shifted one of her hands behind her head. “Huh. A star in the Underdark,” she mused aloud, making him smile and roll his eyes. “How poetic.”

“Aren’t the romantic advances and suave pickup lines meant to be my job?” Astarion asked as he sat down next to her, his gaze following hers to skim the towering caverns.

“Mm, we can take shifts,” Áine said, nonplussed by his grumbling. Subconsciously, she moved one of her hands over to gently rub his back, but she stopped herself shy of his shirt when she remembered his scars. When she looked at his face, she saw he was already observing her dilemma. “Sorry. Instinct,” she said as she started to tuck her hand back under her head.

“What instinct exactly?” he asked.

“Uh,” Áine mumbled, suddenly flustered at having to put her silly little notions into words. “I was going to rub your back. Didn’t fully think it through. Unless…that sounds interesting?”

Astarion was amused by something, whether it was her tone or her wording. He thought over her offer before giving her a measured nod. “You may try if you’d like.”

With care, Áine laid her hand against his clothed back, feeling the faint shudder that rippled through him. “As ever, just say the word,” she murmured, her voice and her touch tender as she began stroking his back, beginning with small predictable circles. Her heart broke as she felt the raised lines of his scars through the fabric of his shirt. “True vampire” rules be damned, she’d bleed Cazador on his own palace steps if they ever crossed paths.

He interrupted her ferocious thoughts when he said, “I think the others have all taken to bed… I mentioned it earlier, but I think we need to talk.”

Áine’s hand stilled against the small of his back, almost feeling stupid for having it resting there now. Her throat suddenly dry, she asked, “Is here okay or did you want to go somewhere else?”

Astarion shook his head. He wanted to keep this on neutral ground rather than in one of their tents. Just in case. “No, here is fine.”

Áine’s brow creased, her eyes speculative. “...Are you alright?”

“Oh yes, I’m fine,” Astarion quickly said. “I just… Well, I feel awful.”

Áine’s chest felt like it was constricting. Here it comes, she chided herself. You got in too deep, as always. Well, actually opposite of always. Regardless, just as much of a fuck-up. She drew a breath and sat up, pulling her knees toward her chest and looking at his profile. “I’m listening?”

Astarion seemed almost scared to look at her, which she couldn’t comprehend. But he still made himself do so, sitting on his knees and turning his entire body toward her. When he met her eyes, she read the precise fear there that she’d anticipated, but she couldn’t imagine the why of it. His attention faltered for a split-second as he studied her face and seemingly without thinking, he mumbled a dumbfounded, “Gods, you’re beautiful…”

He cleared his throat too harshly and coughed against his fist, creating even more confusion in Áine than before along with a bright blush in her cheeks. “Mmf, no, that’s—it’s true but that’s not what I mean to discuss,” he scrambled. He was so uncharacteristically scattered that she may have laughed were she not frightened of whatever he was about to drop on her.

Astarion found the wherewithal to continue after searching himself for that singular selfless bone left in his body. He couldn’t bear to lose her, but it wasn’t solely his choice in the matter. Not anymore.

“Right. Look. I had…a plan. A nice simple plan. And that plan…well, it’s been my most solid strategy for the past 200 years. Never played for myself, but for Cazador.” As ever, he sneered the name like a curse. The shadows beneath his eyes seemed to darken further as he spoke. “We’ve spoken of the torture, of the compulsion, of the rancid vermin and insect-based diets… There was…much more.

“My ‘duties’ to Cazador entailed bringing him the most beautiful souls I could lure his way from the streets of Baldur’s Gate,” Astarion explained, his eyes far away. “I was meant to do so…with my body. With sweet words and promises and sex. From a tavern corner, from an alleyway, it didn’t matter. What happened to me, what I wanted…none of it mattered. I was a puppet with my orders and I served those souls on silver from the time I could be let off the leash to prowl the city proper. I was told time and time again that my body was all I was good for until I believed it. I still find myself believing it. It’s my only token of trade.

“I may have been free of Cazador from the time the mind flayers snatched me up, but I’ve been realizing that I’m working in the same patterns. Less and less over time, but my survival instincts still default to those old methods. Whatever worked, whatever kept me alive since I wasn’t permitted to die.

“All that to say, I…needed help. When you found me, I needed protection. And therein hatched the plan,” he drew a sharp, anxious intake of unnecessary breath. Áine sat stone-still and just listened, dread still coating her stomach.

“My ‘simple’ plan…was to seduce you. Sleep with you. Manipulate your feelings so you’d never turn on me. At least until I didn’t need your help any longer,” Astarion said, a panicked chuckle passing his lips. “It was easy. Instinctive. Habits from two centuries of charming people kicked in. All you had to do…was fall for it.”

His voice cracked as he forced himself to keep looking at her when he wanted to run and bury himself back in the grave. “And all I had to do…was not fall for you. Which I think we both know is where my nice, simple plan fell apart.”

Astarion’s throat worked as his hands rose from resting against his knees and gestured toward her as if pained. “You… Áine, you are incredible. You deserve something real,” he said, swallowing hard. “I want us to be something real.”

He stopped speaking and Áine knew that he was waiting for her to say something now. She could feel the preemptive tears pooling against her lashes, her nails picking anxiously at her shirt sleeve. She was relieved that it wasn’t over, that she hadn’t done something wrong, but…there was still that sense of betrayal, too.

The signals she’d gotten from him since that night had been real, she knew that, but before… Well, she’d just been stupid before then, was that what she was to take from this? Shadowheart had been absolutely correct in warning her against his advances at that time and she’d just hopped too-willing and wine-flushed into his lap. And she realized the gutting feeling she was experiencing wasn’t necessarily betrayal or anything to do with him, it was embarrassment at her own actions. It was shame. More than that, she was devastated for him and his past.

Áine drew in a shaky breath and asked slowly, “...So the nights we spent together… They didn’t mean anything?” Gods above, don’t you dare cry now, she chided herself. Her inner voice almost didn’t sound like herself in that moment. You weak little thing, why must you always cry?!

“Of course they did, that’s the point!” he said emphatically, his hands twitching like they ached to take hers. “Or…part of it anyway.” Astarion pushed down a grumble of frustration. “Áine, being close to someone—any kind of intimacy—was something I performed to lure people back for him.” His brows canted upward and she saw the heartache in his eyes unmasked. “Even though I know things are different between us, being with someone still feels…tainted. It still brings up those feelings of disgust and loathing. Sporadically, most days. Other days, constantly.

“I don’t know how else to be with someone… No matter how much I’d like to,” he confessed. “And I would like to. It terrifies me sometimes how much. But I fear misjudging my own capabilities after being so thoroughly broken and taking us down a path leading to ruin. I fear hurting you in trying to do the opposite. But I want to…if you still do or ever did.” Astarion sighed again and it sounded a mix of morose and relieved. “However, I couldn’t keep this from you any longer, as much as telling you felt like a form of sabotage. It would have been unfair to you for me to keep this up.”

Áine’s musings to Shadowheart that night at the party bubbled up in her memory. Of fretting over a similar yet completely different fear. That she would ruin what was between them before it ever began. And now here he was, fretting he’d ruin what they had after it had begun but before it truly blossomed. They were quite a pair.

The bard leveled her gaze at him, unable to help the tears that she tried to manage by swiping her sleeve against her face. “I care about you,” she murmured, the tension in her throat coming through in her tone. “Deeply. But you know that.”

Astarion frowned. He did know that. Firsthand thanks to the tadpole. And in every gesture, every compliment, and every kind touch she’d graced him with, romantic and platonic both. “I do.”

“What do you want?” Áine asked him point blank, sniffling a little as she tried to get her weepiness under control.

The question, as ever, took him off guard. “I…,” he hesitated. “I don’t know. It’s been so long since I’ve had to decide what I wanted.” Astarion’s resolve seemed to renew in the square of his shoulders and the intensity in his gaze as he said, “I—I want to try. With you. If you’ll have me after all this, that is.”

Áine tilted her head a touch. “Astarion, if this is too much for where you’re at right now, I’ve told you before that those ‘friend-based feelings’ exist,” she said. “They’ve been well and truly archived, but I could dig them back out. I hate the idea of worsening the things you’re feeling because you mean to appease me with this.”

“Darling, I don’t mean to appease you. Or at least that’s not my sole reasoning,” he said, his rebuke gentle. “I’ve meant all I’ve said. I want us to be something real. If you can forgive me.” Something crossed his mind then. “Most of my unpleasant reactions arise when it comes to sex specifically. What we’ve done otherwise, I never needed or felt compelled to do before. That’s all new to me. And it’s wonderful.”

Áine nodded slowly, thinking. “So it would be helpful to you if we didn’t for a while? Have sex, I mean.”

Astarion pulled a face. “That seems a poor bargain for you, doesn’t it?”

“Not if it’s not for you,” Áine answered in kind.

“I think I just don’t want you to think of me in terms of sex. I don’t know if I want anyone to,” he admitted, giving a frustrated tsk at his own verbiage. “I don’t quite know what I’m saying anymore, I don’t know how I can expect you to understand if I—”

“No, I…,” Áine murmured, “I get it. More than you might expect.” She held his gaze, searching and vulnerable. “You’re more to me than your body, Astarion. You always have been. And if you don’t want to, then we won’t.”

Astarion looked a mixture of guilty and unsure. “I want to be clear that I do find you unbearably attractive,” he murmured. “And that every time that we have slept together thus far, I’ve wanted to. Even the first time got swept into an emotional affair for me as soon as it started. I just tried to deny it. Clearly, that didn’t work.” He chuckled. “But I do feel awful when those memories resurface while we’re together. So…as tough as it may be to abstain…”

Áine nodded in agreement. “It sounds like perhaps you need some time. And that’s okay. Have as long as you’d like.”

“Does that mean then that you’ll stay with me?” he ventured to ask, hope laying bare in his eyes. “Despite everything I’ve put you through? Everything I’m unsure I can give you?”

“The original intention set aside, you’ve not put me through much of anything,” she pointed out. “The rest unfolds with time if we let it. Believe me when I say that the pause on sex doesn’t bother me. I’ve always been strange in that way. At least it’s finally working to someone’s benefit.”

“Strange?” he repeated. “In what sense?”

Áine shrugged and it was her turn to be embarrassed again. “Most people seem to want more in that regard than I ever have. I’ve spent years trying to understand it, but it’s just how I’m wired,” she explained, her gaze falling to her kneecaps. “I only want to do those sorts of things with someone I care for. I don’t really experience attraction otherwise. Things like one-night stands or romps with strangers have never appealed to me. So, at least in comparison to everyone else I’ve ever met, I’m a bit strange.”

Astarion measured her response. It added more context to his understanding of how she liked to navigate her relationships at least—he’d thought she was just one for long-term love interests in a general sense, but she couldn’t feel attraction unless she was invested, it seemed. And now knowing that her “yes” that night at the party had also meant she already cared for him so much…

“I see,” he said, pensive as he looked her over and noted the way her eyes timidly shifted away from being studied. “I may not have always felt that way, but at least now, after everything… I find that relatable.”

She offered him a faint smile. “You’d be the first.”

Astarion inched forward, cautiously reaching out and taking one of her hands. He looked at her to ensure that he wasn’t doing anything out of turn, reassured as she squeezed his hand. “Honestly,” he murmured, an almost giddy smile touching his lips, “I have no idea what we’re doing. Or what comes next.” He smoothed his thumb against her knuckles, his other hand coming to stroke along the veins lining the back of her hand. “But this? This is nice.”

Áine’s features softened. “It is.” She sighed and gestured toward herself with her free hand. “Come here, you sweet man,” she mumbled, pulling him into her lap when he shimmied forward, starved for affection but not sure what she wanted him to do.

Astarion laughed, wary of letting his full weight rest against her. “I’ll crush you, you cheeky little pup,” he mumbled, but ultimately relaxed and let his cheek rest against the top of her head. He was infinitely grateful for the comfort of her arms around him. She still wanted him. He could hardly fathom it.

“I’d like to see you try,” she muttered in response to his fretting, gratified when he leaned into her and nuzzled her hair. It almost brought tears to her eyes again how adorable he could be when it was just them. He’d already come such a long way in opening up around her and she only wished that it would continue, more for his sake than hers. She just felt honored to witness it. “I’m pretty sturdy still, even if I’ve been out of rank for a while.”

“No doubt,” he murmured against her crown. “But could you take a vampire? Now that, my darling, is the most interesting question.”

Áine tilted her head back to peer up at him, a challenge gleaming in her eyes. “Spar with me some time and find out. Just for fun.”

Astarion snorted softly and dropped a kiss to the tip of her nose. “Deal.”

It still sent him reeling that he could engage in physical affection, in touch, without it needing to be sexual. It was intimate yet not carnal. When what held him back or sent him into quiet dissociation wasn’t a years-old trigger or that familiar bile of self-loathing, he sometimes found himself holding back because he defaulted to sex as a means to express all degrees of affection and wanting. He didn’t want to “default” to anything with her—he needed to form new inclinations like seeking a handhold (which he was getting better at) or a hug.

Astarion briefly remembered telling Karlach just weeks ago that he wasn’t a hugger and scoffed softly at his foolishness. Perhaps he wasn’t with anyone but Áine, but at least in that regard, so far he was. As if to prove it to himself or practice new motions, he raised his arms from his lap and looped them around her shoulders, pulling her close. Her arms tightened around his waist, one of her hands tracing up and down his side.

In his euphoria, he felt some startling words start to bubble up from his heart, but he stalled them before they could tumble out. Red eyes widened and, out of her view, Astarion found himself reeling all over again with new things to fret over. Gods, she truly has been sent to ruin me.

“I would stay like this all night,” Áine said, jarring him from his panic, “but I don’t think my back would ever recover if we did.” Her features grew serious as she pulled back to look at him. “Thank you, by the way. For trusting me. Again.”

Awkwardly, Astarion inclined his head, his mouth opening and closing like he’d considered something to say and thought better of it. Áine took his silence with grace—it was hard to open up. He huffed a sigh and surprised her when he said, “Well, thank you. For… Well. Everything.” Astarion met her eyes, his expression a bit more dreamy. “You’re…well, you’re full of surprises. Aren’t you.”

It wasn’t particularly a question and it made Áine’s blush return. They sat like that a while longer until it was clear that Áine wasn’t long for this conscious world and Astarion finally moved and let her up. She was brushing herself off when she glanced up and found Astarion hesitating near his tent, looking like he wanted to say something again. She took a glance around and guessed at what ailed him, asking, “Do you…want to cohabitate tonight?”

“I do,” Astarion said, combing a nervous hand through his curls. “But just…that. I’m sorry, I just…think we’re correct in taking a break from sex.” He sighed, his brow furrowed in pained frustration as he looked at the ground. “I’ve made this far more difficult than it should be.”

“You haven’t,” Áine assured him gently. “Even if we weren’t holding off, it’s not like that’s something we have to do every night anyway.” He peeked at her, looking unsure. “Just get comfortable, I’m going to grab a couple of things and I’ll be in. Alright?”

Astarion nodded and cleared his throat before he ducked into his tent. He hardly knew how this was helpful, he was just finding new ways to hate himself by putting her through this. No matter what she said, the guilt still hung over him, thick and suffocating. How long until she realized he wasn’t all she seemed to think? How long until she saw the full extent of the baggage he brought with him everywhere he went?

Áine didn’t take long to return to his side and he looked up to see her toting a few of the plush pillows from her tent and her blanket. He smirked at her, but the expression didn’t touch his eyes, and he could only be glad that her darkvision didn’t seem to be as good as his.

“Moving in?” he teased her as she set down the pillows and arranged them to accommodate them both.

“Problem?” she countered, collapsing on her work when she was satisfied.

“I suppose not,” he allowed. In reality, his dead heart was full to bursting.

“Good,” Áine remarked through a yawn as she got comfortable. She’d staked her spot confidently, but in truth, she’d worried about overstepping. His teasing put her somewhat at ease, but she still wasn’t sure what he was comfortable with. They were firmly back to testing the waters, which was always unnerving, but she didn’t mind because it was him.

They were silent for a while after Astarion laid down next to her and Áine was sure he’d gone into reverie until she heard him tentatively say her name. “Yes?” she asked, her immediate worry apparent in her voice.

“I…,” Astarion began and then retreated. “Hm, nevermind, darling, I’m sorry.”

Her brow furrowed. “Um… You sure?” she asked.

Another long pause. Astarion cleared his throat and murmured, “Would it be alright if… If I held you again? The way we did the other night?”

Áine smiled, blinking back tears as she turned on her side to reach out and pull him close. They adjusted around each other until they were in a perfect tangle again. This time, however, because Áine sensed perhaps he was the one needing to be held, she gathered him into her arms and kissed his forehead. He rested his head against her chest and felt something close to peace as he listened to her heart.

Gods above, she’d broken him. He considered that with some measure of horror as he felt tears well up in his eyes, tears he buried against her chest and in the crook of her neck. Her warmth and her pulse sang to him like her evening serenades and he sank into her with all the reverence of a prayer.

He was almost startled when she spoke again, pausing in tracing his little patterns against her back. “You can still drink from me tonight if you want to,” she mumbled, sounding utterly content and almost half-asleep.

Astarion’s brows rose. “I can?” he replied, giving an embarrassed cough to belatedly cover how shocked he sounded. “I mean, I… I just thought…” I’m not holding my end of our bargain anymore, he finished in his mind alone, not sure how to speak the words. How is this possibly fair to you?

As if reading his mind, Áine laughed softly and kissed his hair as her fingertips traced against the nape of his neck and the finer hairs there. “Nothing about this has ever been transactional, darling,” she murmured and he noticed that she didn’t put her usual spin of mimicking his drawl on the endearment. Perhaps she was too tired, but it sent a little thrill through him nonetheless. “And it certainly isn’t going to start being transactional now.”

A sigh eased from his chest. He considered thanking her but thought better of adding yet another one to the pile of the night, wary of those words of gratitude growing overused. Instead, he kissed across her neck before he bit down across his old marks, his eyes rolling back and his snowy lashes fluttering in ecstasy as her essence wept past his lips.

He was careful to stop well before he would’ve even caused her to feel lightheaded, but after licking the wounds closed, he drew back just to make sure she was okay…only to find her sound asleep.

Bleeding Hells, I refuse to start crying again, he swore inwardly, raising his fingertips to gently trace her features. To trust him enough to doze off while he was fangs-deep in her was…

…well it felt hardly deserved, but he’d never before felt such a tender ache in his chest.

Next chapter: Chapter 17, "Get Up"

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