longing-and-heartache-and-lust - Tumblr blog

longing-and-heartache-and-lust · 30 days ago

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the kind of love I've been dreaming of

Relationships (romantic/platonic/etc): Astarion/Reader, Astarion/Tav (Gender-Neutral) Rating: Explicit Content Warnings: None Additional Tags: Hurt/Comfort, there was only one bed but you're already in a relationship, dirty-ish (?) talking but no actual sex Summary: The pain in your hand makes itself known, once again, and you are forced to sit at the edge of the bed, laying out the bandages and the potion next to you. As you reach to unwrap the blood-soaked fabric around your palm, Astarion moves closer, his slender fingers covering yours. “Here, allow me,” he says. Crossposted on ao3 here, please leave a comment, I thrive on them 💞

You make it back to “The Last Light”, against all odds, in one piece. Mostly, at least.

Gale is still limping from a hard blow to the thigh that he managed to get from an animated corpse, and you’re nursing a cut on your hand that makes it impossible to hold any sort of weapon. You’ll heal fast, especially once you take a proper healing potion, but until you’ve had proper rest at the very least, the wound will have an unpleasant impact on your life.

In truth, you’re lucky to have made it out of that fight with two hands to your name. To block one of the attacks, you had no choice but to stop the enemy’s blade with your hands, pushing it out of the way. Your left hand suffered only a minor scratch, while your right — and dominant, — hand was dealt much worse cards. A deep, but clean cut runs from the base of your index finger and all the way down to the bend of your wrist in a diagonal like. The bandage wrapped around your palm is completely soaked through with blood. But it could’ve been much worse.

The tiredness is weighing down on you as you step into the now-familiar common room of the inn, but it’s comforting, being back in the safety of the protection dome. Here, the shadows don’t claw at you as much as they do out in the darkness, and you don’t feel as cold. With conversations and activity all around you, you feel safe. Comfortable, even, though only to an extent.

“You look like you’ve been dragged through all the hells,” Jaheira says after taking one look at you.

“Something like that,” you reply, but getting into the details of it doesn’t sound like something you’ve got the energy for right now.

The woman studies you, critically, like she’s searching for something in your appearance. Then, she nods to herself, apparently having found it.

“There are more challenges and fights ahead,” she says. “The day is fast approaching when we march to the Moonrise Towers, and seeing that you’re our best chance at success, I will see you well-rested and ready for the fight. Take the rooms upstairs, you should be able to rest properly there.”

You’re not the biggest fan of getting orders, especially seeing that you’re the leader of your group, but this order, you obey gladly. You can barely remember what it feels like to sleep in an actual room and not in a tent or simply under the stars.

“Thank you,” you nod, feeling even more tired now that you know you’ll finally be able to sleep properly after so long. “I will see you in the morning.”

“Take your time to recover,” Jaheira says. “That wound seems to be quite unpleasant.”

With that, she turns her attention away from you and leaves you once again to your own devices. Thankfully, you know which rooms she’s talking about, and so, you don’t need to ask any questions, heading straight for the stairs. Your companions follow you as one.

On the second floor, you split up into pairs without a single word of debate. You suppose that it would’ve been so even if you weren’t already in a relationship with Astarion. Had he been left alone with Shadowheart for the night, they would’ve found reasons for petty bickering until the sun rose; had he been left with Gale, they would’ve killed each other over the wounded pride of one of them.

That is all to say, they both loved him, just in limited amounts.

You, on the other hand, have taken a liking to the vampire pretty much from the moment that he put a dagger to your throat on the day of the nautiloid crash. And since then, your feelings have developed into something much stronger, infinitely deeper and more complex. Your head still reels a little at the thought that Astarion feels the same. The words of his confession you’ve replayed a thousand times in your mind.

“Remember what Jaheira said,” Gale calls after you as you’re about to open the door to the room that Astarion had claimed as yours before anyone could protest. “She needs you well-rested , so do try to get some sleep. Or, at the very least, let us get some — the walls here are thin.”

You roll your eyes and already open your mouth to say something but, naturally, Astarion beats you to it.

“Don’t be so jealous, darling,” he says to Gale, shining a charming smile full of sharp teeth. “We haven’t yet given you a reason to be.”

Before you can say anything that would redeem your virtue, the vampire opens the door and pulls you into the room, shutting it behind you. Then, he lets go of your hand and smiles, almost apologetically, not quite meeting your eyes.

“Sorry,” he says. “Couldn’t help myself.”

You can see the slight tension in his shoulders despite the smile, and you don’t have to ask to know what he’s thinking about. You remember every word of his confession, including those about how intimacy is difficult for him, how it feels tainted because of how long he had to use it as a weapon, a trap. In all the time you’ve spent together, he’s never been more vulnerable, nor has he been more open than he was when he told you that. And you will never forget the way his eyes lit up when you told him that you cared for him no matter what.

Now, in this moment, you know that a part of him thinks you will expect him to act on his words to Gale. The part that has been broken the most times in those two hundred years. Your heart refuses to beat for a long, painful moment at the thought.

“Let’s get some rest,” you say, gently, coming closer to Astarion to touch your lips to his shoulder. “I’ll get something for my hand from downstairs and come back. Do you need anything?”

Astarion stays silent for a moment, frozen as he looks at his shoulder, as if expecting to see an imprint left by your lips. The tension in him holds for a second longer before, finally, it breaks, everything in him catching up with the fact that you’re not expecting anything from him that he’s not ready to give you.

“I— no, I’m alright. Just a few cuts and bruises that will heal by morning.”

He smiles, again, with more warmth than apology this time, and before you can leave, he intercepts your uninjured wrist, pulling you closer to leave a soft, fleeting kiss on your lips. An easy, almost domestic display of affection that neither of you are used to but that feels incredible to learn. When Astarion lets go of you, you could swear that there’s a dusting of colour high on his cheeks, but before you can point that out, the vampire sends you on your way. It does unspeakable things to your heart — the way he can get overwhelmed by something so simple as a touch, a word. With all his self-confidence, ambition and charm, he can still get overcome with emotions, like the two centuries behind him don’t exist, and he is, at the very most, in his thirties.

You leave the room with the kiss still sweet on your lips, and have to make a very big effort over yourself to hold back a smile that would let any passerby know just far gone you are. Astarion is… like no one you’ve ever met before. And while it’s true that he’s not the easiest person to be with, sometimes, you fit together better than you could’ve imagined. Better than he could’ve imagined, too, it seems.

You make your way back downstairs, moving easier now that your pack and weapons are off your shoulders, and find the chests with the medical supplies, taking a clean bandage and a healing potion for yourself. You could, of course, ask Shadowheart or one of the healers for help, but you’re too tired, and from time to time, wounds should be allowed healed the old way. The potion will turn the cut on your palm into nothing but a memory, by the time morning comes, anyway. In the worst case, it will leave behind a thin scar.

Before heading to your and Astarion’s room again, you make another stop on the upper floor. You don’t know what the room used to be, and if it’s always been like this, but now, it’s been equipped with pretty much everything one needs to wash the blood and dirt off themselves after another day of trying to survive amidst the darkness of the Shadow Curse.

You know that a couple of rooms have their own bathing corners, but you’re just fine with sharing, as long as there’s hot water, clean towels and a lock on the door. Not that you’re shy, you’re just not as open-minded about the importance — or lack there of, — of clothes as Halsin.

The water in the large basin turns out to be just as hot as you’d hoped it would be, and the pleasant, herbal smell of the soap calms your mind after a long day and an even longer fight. Your thoughts slow down, drifting now, rather than racing, and by the time you leave the room, you feel like you’re ready to sleep for the next twelve hours. The thought that you’ll be sleeping in a proper bed nearly makes lightheaded. The thought that you’ll be sharing it with Astarion does much more.

When you enter the bedroom, you find the vampire already in bed, his frilly shirt half-way unlaced. He’s got a book in his hands, one he probably found in the room, but you can tell from his face that though his eyes are moving over the lines, his mind isn’t. He’s nervous, though not necessarily in a bad way, and is distracting himself, waiting for you. As the door closes behind you, he snaps back into reality, meeting your eyes.

“This is definitely not the best bed I’ve ever slept in, but it absolutely feels like one,” he says, closing the book without marking the page and sitting up straighter, looking at you. “Come, get in.”

He pats the space next to him, and all you want to do is drop everything you’ve holding and do exactly as he says. But the pain in your hand makes itself known, once again, and you are forced, instead, to sit at the edge of the bed, laying out the bandages and the potion next to you. As you reach to unwrap the blood-soaked fabric around your palm, Astarion moves closer, his slender fingers covering yours.

“Here, allow me,” he says.

His voice is soft, and so are his eyes, as red as the blood in your veins. Blood that you share with him, again and again, the pain of the bite on your neck now a familiar, welcome feeling.

You nod, extending your hand towards him, and allowing the vampire to help.

With quick, careful fingers Astarion unwraps the bandages around your palm, mindful not to stain the bedsheets with a stray drop of crimson. Then, with the precision of an elven archer, he throws the soaked-through bandages into the hearth, where they quickly catch fire. The whole time, his eyes stay focused on your palm.

Holding your hand in one of his, supporting its weight, he reaches over with the other one, taking a clean rag you brought with you and dipping it into a bowl of warm water you also brought. You did consider the option of dealing with your wound while you were bathing, but there was not enough light in the room for you to properly see what you’re doing. You didn’t bring all the supplies back to the bedroom expecting Astarion to help, and it melts your heart that he offered to.

“I was worried that the bastard was going to slice you in two,” the vampire says, chucking quietly. “If my heart was still beating, I swear it would’ve stopped at that moment.”

“It will take much more than some bastard with a greatsword for you to be rid of me,” you say, echoing his chuckle. “We’re yet to make it back home and find that “proper wine” you keep telling me about.”

The words make you think of Baldur’s Gate. Of home.

You picture the endless little merchant stalls, the inns where the music never stops and neither do the drinks, the breathtaking views of the harbour and the ships sailing across the river. And for a moment, you allow yourself to imagine being there with him. Hunting for the best weapons in town or the finest clothes when he decides that he needs a new doublet, even more unnecessarily decorated than the one he’s got now. Spending the evening watching a traveling bard perform for an audience only to convince the vampire to dance with you once you’ve drunk enough to feel like it. Coming back to a home that is yours, to a bed that is yours.

After so long spent travelling together, being there for each other through all the fights and challenges, you cannot imagine parting with him. Even if it means risking everything to kill Cazador, even if it means risking even more to perform the rite that he needed Astarion for, but turning it in Astarion’s favour. You want to be by his side, and stay there for as long as you can after that. For the first time in your life, you seem to want a forever.

“You’ve gone awfully quiet,” Astarion says, pulling you from your thoughts. “Does it hurt?”

Coming back to the present, you drop your gaze to your palm. The cut left by the edge of the sword is long, even longer than you thought, but as Astarion dabs and wipes away the blood with careful fingers, you see that it’s not as deep as you feared. The sensitivity in the tips of your fingers is definitely compromised, but you’ll regain it in no time.

“Not too bad,” you reply. “It should heal quickly.”

“It will,” Astarion says. “Though it will do you good to refrain from slicing shadows and demons into ribbons, at least for tomorrow.”

His hands are covered in your blood as he finally wipes away the final red streaks from your palm and leaves the stained rag in the bowl of water, now crimson. He’s concentrated on his task, but you can hear the slight quickness of his breath, can see the dilated pupils of his eyes.

“Are you not— “ you say, but fall short, not quite knowing how to finish the question.

Astarion’s gaze flicks up to yours for a moment, then goes back to your palm as he wraps a clean bandage around it. The first layer immediately blooms with crimson.

“Tempted?” he asks. “Oh, I am. I can’t smell anything other than your blood. But what are two hundred years of self-control worth, if I can’t keep my hunger at bay to help the one I care for the most?”

Oh, he is merciless to your heart.

Trying very hard to fight back a smile and failing abysmally, you lean in closer to him, rubbing your head against his shoulder like a cat. The most sacred display of affection.

Astarion freezes for a second, surprised, but then laughs, softly, indulging you and rubbing his cheek against your hair in return. He smells of the same herbal soap that you do.

Without moving away, he finishes bandaging your hand and lets you go. Instead, he wraps one arm around your shoulders, trying not to touch you with bloodied fingers, and pulls you closer, for a moment, breathing in deep. Whether he’s doing that to calm himself or to get even more of your blood’s scent into his lungs, you don’t know, but you’re happy for him to do either.

“There, you’re all patched up,” he says, letting go and sitting up straighter. “Who needs a cleric in their party when Astarion the Healer is here?”

Grabbing the potion bottle with his index and middle fingers, like a frog by its leg, he hands it to you, getting up from the bed.

“Drink up, my love,” he says. “And get under the covers. The side next to the window is mine.”

Of course, he claims a side of the bed, and even if you wanted to argue, you would never be able to win. But you don’t really care which side of the bed is yours, as long as he’s happy.

You drink the healing potion in one go, wincing at the bitterness, and then, finally, crawl under the thick, heavy blankets, dropping your head into the pillow. It takes you a lot of self-restraint not to moan at how good it feels.

Then, you make yourself more comfortable and, from your new vantage point, watch Astarion as he cleans the blood off his hands by the hearth.

He’s got nothing but his underwear and frilly shirt on, the hem brushing just below the middle of his thigh. You’ve seen him naked more than once, you’ve held him and kissed him and felt him inside you, but still, you study his long pale legs shamelessly, as if you’ve never been allowed such luxury before. Your grandfather had once told you that seeing a woman’s ankle used to be the height of a man’s fantasies. That’s just about how you’re feeling right now.

“Like what you see?” Astarion asks, nonchalant, without turning to face you.

And suddenly, you’re a novice thief in the night, caught in the middle of trying to pick open a lock.

“Hard not to,” you say, because denying anything is pointless. “You know how you look.”

“I don’t, actually,” Astarion points out, dropping the stained rag into the fire and turning to you. “With not having a reflection and all.”

He waves his hand in a generalizing gesture, then frowns at a crimson drop that he didn’t wipe away. Without much hesitation, he licks it off.

“But I’m sure you’ll give me all the details, someday,” he says, coming closer and getting back into bed. “And you know what I’ve always wanted? A portrait of myself. Not out of petty narcissism, though that too, but out of curiosity. I really do wonder what I look like now, with the red eyes and everything.”

He climbs over you, unapologetic, to get to his side of the bed, and finally lies down, stretching his arms over his head.

“ Gods , it’s good to be in a proper bed,” he sighs before throwing one arm over the pillows invitingly. “Come here.”

Without a second of hesitation, you move closer to him, into his open arms, and as Astarion wraps them around you, gentle if a little unsure, you breathe easier than you have for weeks. You lay your head on his shoulder, trailing fingers through the ruffles of the vampire’s shirt. Under your bandaged palm, you can’t feel a heartbeat but you’ve gotten used to it by now.

“This feels— very nice,” Astarion says after a while, slipping his fingers into your hair.

He turns from his back to his side, cautiously pulling you closer, fully enveloping you with his arms. It’s all new to him, you know, and so, you don’t rush him, allowing the vampire to try things at his own pace. You can’t imagine it being easy for him — doing something he’d done a thousand times before but only really experiencing it now. The fact that you’re the one he chose to do so with, the one he trusted enough to show such vulnerability makes you think that if someone were to ask directly, you would say that you’re in love with him.

And though you do want more, though you wish you could reach up and kiss him, get your hands under his shirt, let him take you apart piece by piece, reveling in the comfort of a shared bed, you take, instead, what he is ready to offer. Everything else, you will gladly wait for as long as you need. It stops your heart, thinking about how it will feel, when the closeness will be as genuine as the embrace he’s holding you in.

You hide your face somewhere on his chest, where his own scent is stronger, not so overpowered by the herbal soap, and allow your hand to move to his back, the scars tangible through the fabric of his shirt. You almost expect him to tense up at the touch but instead, Astarion relaxes into it. After a while and some silent contemplation, you dare to slip your hand beneath the vampire’s shirt, and even though the sensitivity in the tips of your fingers is heavily compromised by the wound, you still feel his skin, perfectly smooth everywhere where a blade hasn’t touched it.

This time, you do feel a slight tension run through Astarion’s shoulders, but before you can ask if you should take your hand away, it fades, the vampire relaxing once again. His lips brush softly over your temple. He breathes slow and deep, twisting a lock of your hair over his fingers idly.

“Can’t keep your hands to yourself?” he teases, moving away just slightly to give you a theatrically disapproving yet benevolent look. “You do know that I can smell your emotions on you, don’t you?”

You did not know that.

“You absolute bastard ,” you say, under your breath, shoving the vampire in the shoulder with no real force and feeling like you’re about to burn alive. “How could you have never told me?”

Astarion laughs, self-satisfied and revelling in your mortification.

“Oh, that I am,” he says. “And I am very flattered that you feel that way about me, even though we haven’t— in a while now. Trust me, my love, there’s nothing I would like more, and when I finally figure all this out, rest assured that I am not letting you out of bed for three days, at the very least.”

The words sink into you and, Astarion be damned, dissolve liquid fire in your blood. You make an effort over yourself to keep your breathing even, but it’s very hard, when he’s this close, his intoxicating voice right over your ear.

You can all but feel the revelation dawn on him as he catches your reaction and realises what he’d done.

“Now that’s intriguing,” he says, his voice suddenly lower, breathier.

You keep your eyes steadily downcast, studying the frills of the vampire’s shirt very carefully. You feel suddenly very hot, conflicted about your own feelings, and nothing seems more like a death sentence than looking into Astarion’s eyes. You can hear it in his voice — his self-satisfaction, his curiosity about seeing just how far he can push this newfound leverage; but at the same time, you don’t quite know where that falls on the scale of your unspoken agreement of not crossing a certain line for some time.

Astarion, however, seems to be enjoying the ardour.

“Do you want to know, darling, what exactly I would like to do then? With you, to you .”

His fingers are still in your hair, running softly through the locks, but now the touch feels suddenly more seductive, like you’ve gotten into a trap without realising.

“Astarion,” you say, and his name is all but a sigh on your lips. “Are you sure that we—“

“I can’t— touch you,” Astarion says, after a slight pause. “Not just yet. But I can talk. I’m notoriously good with three things: daggers, charm and words. Of all people, you know that.”

He’s right, you do. And he really is good with all three.

“Shall I tell you then?” he asks.

The fire in the hearth burns low and warm, casting the room in a soft glow but keeping the shadows in the corners deep and dark. Through the half-opened window, a slight breeze gets in, pleasantly cool here, beneath the protection of the dome, and not bone-chilling like it is outside of it. Combined with the glow of the fire, it makes the room feel detached from the world beyond, like there is nothing else left in the universe aside from the bed you’re in, the sheets soft and clean.

The atmosphere feels intimate but also indulgent, like you can trust it with your secrets and come morning, no one will ever know.

“There are easier ways to kill me, you know,” you say, but it’s in no way a refusal. “Especially for you.”

You can tell that he genuinely wants to give you this, wants to share the kind of closeness that he must’ve never experienced before and that, by extension, isn’t as tainted by the past as other forms of it. And it’s a fine line, but you would be lying if you said that the thought doesn’t make you feel lightheaded, pulling at every desire and every need that the vampire awakens in you.

After all, you suppose, he’s much older than you and knows better where the limit of his comfort lies. If anything, you can always stop.

“Tell me,” you say, finally.

Your hand is still on his back, and you catch yourself tracing the lines of his scars absentmindedly. You barely feel them beneath the tips of your fingers, but when the realisation hits, your first instinct is to pull back, not knowing if it’s overstepping on your side. Astarion, however, doesn’t seem to object.

“You can keep your hands under my shirt,” he says. “And I don’t mind about the scars. They’re already a part of me either way, so I might as well let you enjoy yourself, don’t you think?”

It’s all the permission you need, really, and something in your chest blossoms wildly as you allow yourself to press your bandaged palm closer to his skin, run your fingers over the raised scars, this time consciously.

You’re not about to tell him, but in the back of your mind, you’ve had a thought, for a while now, of touching your lips to them. Not as an attempt to erase the pain caused or somehow alter the meaning of them, but as a simple, affectionate gesture. Not singling them out as a part of the vampire that needs to be treated somehow differently, but rather simply giving it as much attention as any other. You’ve kissed his shoulders and chest and neck before, so why would you avoid his back?

“Oh, this is quite exciting,” you hear Astarion say, a thrill in his voice. “For some reason, I never thought you’d be the one for this sort of conversations.”

“I never thought I’d fall for a vampire’s charm, after all the warning tales I’ve been told, yet here we are,” you reply, and even if on some level you want it to sound accusatory, because he deserves as much with his self-satisfaction, it comes out absolutely adoring.

He laughs, softly, his free hand coming up to scratch the back of your neck, gentle and slow. It sends a shiver down your back.

“Once we would find ourselves alone, and the door would shut behind us, I would kiss you,” Astarion says, voice low and intoxicating. “Gods know everything in me would want to get you out of whatever you’ll be wearing right at that moment but more than that, I’d want to savour the moment, so at first, it would be slow. I’d pull you close to me, so our chests touch, our hips touch, only the fabric of our clothes separating us.”

He’s talking without a hint of the coyness that you’re now almost used to seeing in him whenever he’s overwhelmed by his own emotions, like tonight, when he kissed you before you went downstairs.

Now, he’s every bit the hunter that you’ve always heard vampires described as. Confident, seductive, dangerous. You’ve fallen for his charm a long time ago, but it’s like you’re doing it all over again, willingly walking into an ambush that you’ve got no chances of escaping once you’re in.

“I would guide you towards the bed, blindly, never breaking away from your lips and instead parting them to deepen the kiss,” he keeps running his perfect nails over the back of your neck, the touch so soft that it’s barely perceptible, and you can do nothing to suppress the shivers that it sends down your spine. “And once your breath quickens enough for you to start feeling lightheaded, I would allow myself the pleasure of a bite. Just enough to make a cut on your lip and taste that incredible sweetness of your blood on my tongue. We’d share it between us, like heady, rich wine.”

You don’t know if it’s the illithid connection between you or simply the incredibly close proximity, but the picture that Astarion paints for you plays out in front of your closed eyes in such vivid colours that you all but feel his lips on yours, all but taste your own blood in your mouth. Though the vampire barely touches you, you feel more desired than you have with anyone else. It makes your breath quicken, makes your lower abdomen heavy with want.

Astarion’s words about him being able to smell your emotions on you never leave your mind but any attempt at hiding them would be as fruitless as trying to stop the heat spreading through your blood.

Astarion knows exactly what he’s doing, and if his price for it is knowing exactly what you feel for him, as well, then it’s a price you’re more than willing to pay. After all, it’s not like he doesn’t know already.

“I’d sit you down on the bed, revelling in the height difference that would grant us, and only break away from your lips when there is no more breath in your lungs.”

He’s already taller than you — something that you both enjoy endlessly, — but the thought of looking up at him with that height difference increased is exhilarating, thrilling. You’re not the one for giving up control, usually, but with him, it sounds like all you could ever want.

“I’d tip your face up by the chin, hold your gaze for a moment before leaning down to your gorgeous, beautiful neck,” Astarion’s fingertips brush just under the sharp of your jaw, and you lean into the touch without realising, your body attuned to his every touch. Your breath shakes, just a little, when it leaves your lungs. “It would take me everything I’ve got to hold myself back and not sink my teeth into you immediately, but you do tend to make self-restraint worth it. So instead, I’d run a line of slow, open-mouthed kisses all the way down to your shoulder, undoing the ties of your shirt as I go. As I slip my hands beneath it, I’d move back up, my lips right above the artery in your neck to feel the quickening beat of your heart.”

It’s hard to keep yourself still when every word he says makes your blood run hotter and hotter, the heavy covers on your shoulders suddenly too warm.

Your breath comes heavier, quicker, and you press your thighs closer together, face hidden somewhere on the vampire’s chest, his familiar, intoxicating scent all around you. Beneath the herbal soap, he smells of vanilla, and woodsmoke, and rich, warm alcohol. One of your party members told you, recently, that Astarion’s scent lingers on your skin, and now, in his arms, you think that you never want to smell of anyone else.

“You know my blood is yours for the taking whenever you want it,” you hear yourself say, like a confession.

Astarion’s breath brushes your hair as he exhales, sharp and hot. His fingers slip back into your hair and he tugs on the strands, soft and painless but enough to make your heart skip a beat. It’s maddening, how bad you want to kiss him.

“You’re going to be the death of me,” Astarion breathes, pulling you closer. “You don’t even know how perfect you are.”

His other hand is on your back, palm resting just beneath your shoulder blades, and you can feel the vampire crumple the fabric of your shirt beneath his fingers, tightening the embrace even more before relaxing it again.

Your entire body seems to reach for him, driving you slowly mad.

“I’d spend so, so much time like that, all my attention on your neck as my hands touch anywhere they can reach. Would you allow me the pleasure of leaving behind marks, my love?”

You’ve never left marks on each other, safe only for the puncture wounds on your neck that always heal overnight. Travelling with other party members, you’ve always adhered to the unspoken rules of common decency. But that in no way means that you didn’t want the marks.

“As many as you want,” you say.

“Then you’d be covered in them by morning,” Astarion assures, the laughter in his voice shadowed by the increasing heaviness of his breath. “It’s dangerous, giving me this kind of freedom. I’m not necessarily proprietary or possessive but I am territorial, and seeing my marks on you would only make me want to leave more, until there are patterns all over your neck and chest and thighs.”

The image of him sucking a blood-red mark into your inner thigh flashes through your mind, and your body aches from the lack of physical feeling.

You run your fingers over the curve of the vampire’s back, from his shoulder blades and all the way down to the small of it, past the raised edges of the scars. You still barely feel it but allow yourself the pleasure of running your nails over his skin, as gentle as he ran his over the back of your neck. In response, you are rewarded with a hot, shaky exhale, as Astarion both leans into your touch and shies away from it.

He leans into you, unbearably close, and as his thigh presses against the both of yours, he moves closer still, pushing his knee in between your legs.

“Fuck,” you mouth, almost inaudible, losing all control over your breathing.

Pleasure sparks up your spine, and you hold onto the vampire tighter, trying and failing to find your way out of the trap that you willingly walked into.

Your entire body is his for the taking.

“At one point or the other, I’d push you down onto the bed, running my hands all the way from your shoulders and down to your thighs, touching everywhere at once and enjoying finally being able to do it with no rush. Gods, once I get you truly all to myself, with nowhere to be in the morning and no one to keep our voices down for, I don’t know how I will ever get enough,” Astarion continues. “I’d get you out of the rest of your clothes, if there are any left by then, and move down, slowly, trailing kisses and marks and bites over your skin until I’m in between your thighs.”

If there is still air in your lungs, you can’t feel it. The focus of your attention is split into two, one part listening eagerly to every word, and the other crumbling into pieces at the pressure of Astarion’s thigh between yours. Neither is concerned with your breathing.

You’ve never wanted anyone like you want him.

Without thinking about it, you reach up, slipping your fingers into the vampire’s soft white locks, and Astarion shudders in response, an exhale turning into a soft, suppressed moan on his lips. That’s all the motivation you need to run your hand up through his hair, pulling softly at the strands, always perfect no matter how long you’ve been travelling and how many fights you’ve fought. As you brush your thumb over the sharp point of the vampire’s ear, he shudders again.

“That’s— new,” he says, breathless surprise in his voice. “And horribly distracting.”

Before you can touch him again, as if reading your thoughts as well as emotions, Astarion intercepts your wrist, holding it in a firm but painless grip. Your eyes lock for a moment, the bright-red of his irises darkened with what you can only hope is the reflection of your own feelings.

Without looking away, the vampire brings your wrist to his lips, places a long, hot kiss on the delicate skin, his sharp teeth a promise of a bite.

You stay like that for an endless moment, caught up in each other, bodies pressed together as close as your clothes allow. In the silence, broken only by your quickened breath and the soft crackling of the fire, you think, albeit quite distractedly, that you’ll do anything to spend every night like this, his skin against yours in a shared bed.

“In my two-something hundred years, I’ve learned a thing or two about how to make someone feel good,” Astarion says, his fingers slipping up your arm, to your elbow and all the way to your shoulder. “All of them, I would show you.”

He props himself up on one elbow, just enough to shift your positions until you’re half-under him, and the suddenly increased pressure of his thigh in between yours makes you gasp, softly, moving your hips against it. The line of boundaries that you tried to keep in mind this whole time seems, all at once, completely out of sight.

“Astarion,” you say, again, the syllables of his name turning into a breathless moan on your lips. “This is—”

Though he can’t read your mind — or he hasn’t told you, — he seems to know exactly what you’re going to say, and cuts you short, once more, biting into your lips with a kiss. And you are absolutely powerless against him.

With another suppressed moan, you pull him closer, one hand on his back, beneath the soft fabric of his shirt, and the other one back in his hair, the strands soft as silk beneath your fingers. Immediately, his tongue runs over your lips, and you part them, allowing Astarion to deepen the kiss, one air shared between you. It’s heated and hurried, full of impatience and almost painful need. Before either of you can reel your emotions back in and stop, you allow yourselves to get lost in each other, the night around you letting the lines to blur.

Without breaking away, you bring your knees closer together, increasing the pressure even more, and roll your hips once, twice, three times, until you find a rhythm. With every move, pleasure sparks up your spine like electricity, your every soft, breathless moan dissolving on the vampire’s lips.

Astarion doesn’t move with you, nor does he touch you, but he doesn’t move away, only breaking the kiss for a heartbeat, both of you gasping in half a breath before his lips are back on yours, again and again. It’s heady, intoxicating. Like you’ve only got each other for this one night, and after, no one knows what will become of you.

In a way, it’s true.

From your shoulder, Astarion’s hand slips further up, to your neck, thumb pressing into the sharp of your jaw, guiding you, making you tilt your head to the side, opening up more access. The familiar thrill of anticipation runs through you in a wave of suffocating heat, your heart skipping what feels like several beats in a row. Your blood is liquid fire in your veins.

“I cannot keep you off my mind, no matter what I do,” Astarion’s voice is hoarse and low as he breaks the kiss, moving down to your neck. “Falling asleep, I listen only to your breathing next to me. In the middle of a fight, when I’ve got my own life to think about, all I worry about is you. What in all the hells have you done to me?”

It’s a confession in the same way that you telling him all your blood is his for the talking was. And you take it, pulling the vampire closer still, neck open for a bite. The rhythm of your moves against him wavers, breaking up, but the pressure doesn’t lessen, and that’s all you need. Rolling your hips again, you can feel the knot in your lower abdomen tighten, almost at the verge of snapping. If Astarion really can smell your emotions on you, you wonder, distantly, what scent you hold now.

The pain of the bite comes, as always, as a quick shock before it’s drowned out completely by familiar heat that spreads, pulsing, all over your neck — a sharp contrast to the calming cold that runs through the rest of you. Caught up in that contrast, you barely notice as the tension in you grows suddenly sharper, the pressure between your thighs becoming too much to take.

Astarion makes a choked, broken sound in the back of his throat, the most beautiful one you’ve ever heard, and sinks his teeth in deeper just as the first shiver runs through your body. You can’t feel your fingers when you find his shoulder, blindly, gripping so tightly that you’re afraid there will be bruises in the morning.

You can feel as your blood drains out of you, faster than usual, Astarion’s hot lips against your neck, and that feeling alone seems enough to make you come again, despite your body still trembling. How long the moment lasts, you’d never be able to tell, all brackets of time blurred beyond comprehension. You forget about everything that isn’t this room, caught up completely in this closeness, the kind of which you’ve never experienced before.

You’re not given the chance to even your breathing out, the pain in your neck flaring up once more as Astarion pulls away only to bite into your lips again, sharing with you the taste of your own blood. Demanding and nearly painful, the kiss leaves both of your mouths stained crimson when the vampire breaks away, finally allowing you to gasp in a breath. Then, he kisses you again, and then again, each new time more gentle than the last, the fire in the both of you slowly subsiding.

Finally, Astarion breaks away, resting his forehead against yours as your breathing evens out.

Running your fingers through his hair, you allow yourself the pleasure of also running them over the sharp point of his ear, making the vampire twitch his head, shaking your hand away. You still hear the way his breath hitches in his throat.

“Oh, you’re never going to leave me alone now, are you?” he says, nothing but benevolence in his voice as he lies down next to you again, pulling you closer to his chest to hook his chin over the top of your head.

You don’t reply, head still reeling with pleasure and blood loss. The bite on your neck pulses with a dull, familiar pain, one that you’re used to falling asleep to.

You already start drifting off when Astarion laughs, softly, his chest vibrating beneath your palm.

“Gale will certainly have some words to say to us in the morning,” he says. “But then again, I did promise to give him a reason to be jealous, so all he can really blame me for is being a man of my word.”

Note: It was not easy at times to keep the story on the right side of the implied boundaries but as someone who also has severe intimacy issues, I went off of what I would've been comfortable with, had I been with someone I loved and trusted enough to try and overcome past trauma. Never thought Astarion would hit me that deep.

#I swear this was supposed to be rated T but then I blacked out and now we are here #astarion/tav #astarion/reader #baldurs gate astarion #astarion #calton writes

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longing-and-heartache-and-lust · 1 month ago

Text

drown myself in someone like you

Relationships (romantic/platonic/etc): Astarion/Reader, Astarion/Tav (Gender-Neutral) Rating: Mature Content Warnings: None Additional Tags: Blood Sharing, Blood Drinking, very minor spoilers Summary: You have a final quiet afternoon before heading out towards the Moonrise Towers, and Astarion steals you away from the other party members to enjoy the sun together. You might or might not be hopelessly in love with him. You also might or might not find sharing blood the hottest thing in the universe. Crossposted on ao3 here, please leave a comment, I thrive on them 💞

The Ancient Sigil Circle spits you out, this time more gentle than some others, in the now-familiar greenery of the Emerald Grove Environs, and after days spent in the Underdark, the light hurts your eyes. You throw your arm up instinctively, shielding yourself from the blinding sun, and your companions do the same, cursing under their breath. Regardless, it feels good to be out of the darkness, and though Shadowheart could probably argue on the matter, she doesn’t, instead squinting at the clear blue sky and throwing one of her unamused remarks — they never fail to make you laugh soundlessly, — at Gale.

Next to you, Astarion hisses quietly at the bright light, his fangs showing, but you can see his shoulders relax for the first time in a while. The territory around the Grove is now familiar, and even relatively safe, while the Underdark proved to hold danger at every turn. In the days that you’ve spent there, you never once saw Astarion relax, despite him keeping up his usual flirtations and displays of vain narcissism. Now, he seems to finally breathe with his chest.

“Give me a break,” he says, frowning, noticing you looking. “I did spend two hundred years in a crypt, you know. I’m still getting used to the sun.”

You shake your head, smiling at him with adoring benevolence. His frown shatters against it, and the corners of his lips curl up in response, just a little. He hates it when others see even the slightest weakness in him, immediately building up walls, but you’ve learned to see through them, find your way around. And he lets you, opening up from one day to the next, slowly trusting you with little pieces of himself.

Sometimes, his first instinct is still something sharp and dangerous, like one of his daggers that he — quite literally, — sleeps with, but you offer him softness, instead, and every time, he lowers his defences almost instantly.

“Come on,” you say, your eyes finally adjusting. “We didn’t scour all those chests and boxes in Grymforge for nothing. Arron will be happy to see us.”

Arron is happy to see you, and, as usual, he is even more happy to buy everything you’ve managed to find, steal and earn but don’t really want. As usual, the trade process includes everyone in your party frantically trying on all the armour you’re looking to sell to see if anyone actually likes anything, and weighing up weapons in their hands. Why you can never do it before you get to a merchant, you don’t know.

You are, however, quite content with both your armour and your weapons, seeing that you’ve changed them out quite recently, and so, while everyone else is busy, your eyes, almost of their own will, scan over the heads of your friends to find the familiar winter-white locks.

Astarion, more than happy with his two daggers and the colourful clothes — it is beyond you how he manages to be the best at stealth out of all of you, though it might have something to do with him being a vampire, — watches the party from a little ways off, leaning against one of the stone walls.

The sun has now started to slowly set, and the light plays on the golden circlet he now wears on his forehead. You’ve gotten it for him. The gold matches the threads on his clothes, and the gem in the middle nearly seems to reflect the vampire’s mood, the hue shifting subtly from time to time. But then again, maybe it’s just your eyes playing tricks on you.

The circlet looks beautiful on him. The ability to cast a complex spell that it grants is but an added bonus.

As you approach, Astarion’s red eyes focus on you, and he tilts his head, just a little, smiling at you.

“Hello, beautiful,” he says, moving slightly to the side to indicate making space for you. The wall has more than enough room, but that little movement tells you he wants you to stand close to him. “I do hope you haven’t come here to try to persuade me to try on the armour with everyone else. I don’t think I fancy putting on something that was taken off a corpse.”

You shake your head, raising your arms in quick surrender. You were never planning on trying to talk him into picking a new armour, but you indulge him, nonetheless.

“I prefer you without it, anyway,” you say, coming to stand next to the vampire, one shoulder leaning against the rock.

Astarion’s eyes gleam with satisfaction at your words. Over the time you’ve spent travelling together, the easy flirtations between you became almost habitual, to the amusement (often) and horror (also often) of the other party members. You’ve long lost track of all the times one of the others have approached you only to pester you about falling under Astarion’s charm. You don’t really care though. They do it all in good faith, and never out of any malice, and well, you have fallen under the vampire’s charm, so you suppose you’ve earned it. Gale, at one point, seemed jealous that you'd chosen Astarion over him, but lately, you’ve settled into a comfortable friendship again.

You stay silent for a little while, basking in the sun, and had you had a little more courage, you might’ve reached over to hold the vampire’s cold hand in yours, just so his presence can feel a little more acute. During one of the fights in the Underdark, you really thought you might lose him. That is, until he’d somehow gotten back on his feet and dealt the final blow to the quite menacing enemy.

But as much courage as you have facing just about every evil you can think of, you don’t seem to have enough when it comes to even the slightest admission of your feelings. You don’t think Astarion would mind, seeing that you’ve taken to sleeping next to each other almost every night, yet something stops you. Perhaps, it is how it always is, the first time you find yourself caring for someone this much.

“Are you ready to head for the Mountain Pass?” you ask, finally, turning your head to look at him.

Astarion’s discerning eyes meet yours, and you wonder if he’d been watching you the entire time.

“I— the closer we get to Baldur’s Gate, the more I find myself turning at every shadow,” he says, at length. “We’ve already run into one hunter looking to drag me back to Cazador, who is to say how many more will he send after me? But trying to postpone the moment will not lead us anywhere, and the hunters will come one way or the other. So while I am not trembling with excitement to head for the Mountain Pass, I am ready.”

The honesty in his voice does something to your very heart. Ever since you’ve learned about Cazador, you couldn’t quite fight the burning urge to rip him apart with your own bare hands. You’ve never told Astarion, of course, but you have a feeling that he knows. And tries to protect you in turn.

“Anyways,” he says, perking up suddenly. “Before we all march to what is probably our certain death, I think we should enjoy this moment of peace. It’s not often that we get to have one.”

Before you know it, your hand is already in his, somehow, and your heart does an unbidden acrobatics check in your chest. His fingers are cold to the touch but on your suddenly burning skin, they feel better than you dared to imagine, just minutes ago.

“Come with me,” Astarion says, stepping away from the wall.

Everything in you wants to oblige immediately, and it’s hardly the vampire charm working its magic. But as the leader of the group, you have to think your actions through with a little more farsight, especially considering that it’s you that’s trading with Arron.

You steal a sideways glance towards the group and overhear Gale suggesting letting those left at the camp see if they like anything, as well. Maybe, he says, Wyll will like the leather skirt of the Bloodguzzler Garb, what do they know?

Astarion follows your gaze, brushing his thumb over the underside of your wrist and sending a shiver through your entire body.

“You do know that they pay us no attention when we’re not on the road, don’t you?” he asks, voice sweet as honey. “And don’t you worry about the trade, Shadowheart drives a hard bargain.”

She does, you have to give him that. However—

“They do pay attention to us,” you say, because self-importance is your well-earned right as the leader of the group. “At least—”

“Alright, watch,” Astarion says, cutting you short. He puts his other to his mouth, so his voice carries, and turns towards Gale and Shadowheart, caught up in the middle of bickering. “I am stealing away our leader to drain the blood from their body and usurp their place in this group!”

Arron gives the two of you a slightly concerned look out of the corner of his eye, but your companions don’t seem to pay you any mind at all. Without turning his gaze away from Shadowheart, Gale waves a dismissive hand at you, way too busy trying to prove some kind of point.

“Have fun!” he calls after you.

“See?” Astarion says, turning his gaze back to you. “Now come on, I don’t want to stand here all day.”

***

You follow him, hand in hand, deeper into the Grove, without the slightest idea of where you’re going or with what purpose. A part of you suspects that he didn’t even lie when voicing his intentions to your friends, but you find that you’ve already accepted your faith should it come to pass.

Astarion moves quickly and soundlessly, following a path known only to him, and refuses to say where you’re headed until, finally, the two of you duck under low-hanging tree branches, and find yourselves greeted with a little clearing full of tall grass and sun. It’s shielded from the rest of the Grove on all sides by lush greenery, but to the South, where the trees are a little more sparce, you can just about make out the view of the rocky cliffs below.

Astarion lets go of your hand and heads to the middle of the clearing, where he flops down happily into the grass. Without turning his head, he pats the space beside him. Then, apparently having given it some thought, he sits up and sheds his colourful doublet to reveal the half-unlaced white chemise underneath.

You’re used to seeing him like this, every evening, and you’re also used (almost) to seeing him without any clothes at all, but something about the gesture, easy and relaxed, makes you all but sway. Controlling the functionality of your knees very carefully, you come to sit next to him, putting your weapons on the grass next to you.

“I never knew this place existed,” you say, casting another glance all around you. “How did you find it?”

Astarion puts one of his arms behind his head, looking up at you through dark lashes before closing his eyes and turning his face to the sun, still warm.

“Hunting,” he says. “After the nautiloid crash, I was ravenous, to tell you the truth. When we made it here, on our first day travelling together, I had to find at least something for myself. Of course, I did not yet know of your delicious generosity.”

The last two words are a purr in his throat, and you can feel another shiver run through you. For weeks now, you’ve let him feed on you, and you would not be able to deny the bond of shared blood even if you wanted to. You’re now completely used to feeling a little lightheaded from the blood loss, and it barely even impacts your ability to fight. Astarion’s happiness, however, improves his ability to fight drastically.

Every time you watch him rip into someone’s throat, you can’t help but compare it to the way he sinks his teeth into your neck — gentle and deliberately slow, turning the whole act into something much more than just feeding. He never takes more than he needs now, it’s not like it was that very first night, when he could’ve easily killed you, had you not stopped him. Now, you sometimes find yourself unwilling to let him go, and though he tends to oblige, for just a moment, in the end he always pulls away despite your weak protests, laughing under his breath and placating you with a kiss.

Despite all his defences, he’s incredibly easy with his affections.

“Who knows what awaits us further down the road,” Astarion says, pulling you out of your thoughts. “I wanted to spend what might just be our last chance of a truly peaceful evening here.”

Before you can stop yourself, the words are already out of your mouth.

“With me?”

Astarion doesn’t bat an eye. “Of course.”

You mean to say something, you really do, but you find yourself too preoccupied with keeping your heart inside your chest, and by the time you manage to make sure it’s not going anywhere, Astarion is talking again, his fingers trailing idly over your side. You can’t feel the touch through the armour but it doesn’t stop you from watching the movement.

“Come on, take that off,” the vampire says. “It’s not for me to say that you should enjoy the sun.”

Oh, he will be the death of you.

You oblige, undoing the buckles of your armour with practised, easy movements, and once you shed it, remaining in a well-worn but all the more soft shirt, you really do feel the warmth of the sun more. It’s not too hot, not like during the middle of the day, but just enough to warm your skin, suddenly making you feel like you could lie down in the grass and just sleep. Maybe that is exactly what Astarion has planned, you would not mind in the slightest.

You wonder how long it will take the other party members to realise that the two of you are gone. Gale might’ve told you to have fun but you highly doubt that he actually registered you leaving. Of course, once they notice, they will hardly worry, seeing that you’re in the safety of the Grove and you’ve disappeared together with Astarion. By the time you get back to the camp, they will have probably gossiped about your relationship and every single aspect of it. You don’t really care, not when you get the single most charming creature you’ve ever laid eyes upon in return.

You catch yourself staring way too late.

“You do remember that I took that mind-reading potion earlier today, don’t you?” Astarion asks, also having caught you looking.

Immediately, you feel your cheeks burning, and instinctively bring your hands up, shielding your head as if you can somehow stop him from accessing your thoughts that way.

“Don’t you dare,” you say.

Astarion squints at you, his smile growing wider, showing his sharp teeth.

“Oh, I dare,” he says.

You’re too busy burning alive to even attempt to build a barrier around your mind, so you just look at him, defeated, lowering your hands. You’ve deserved it for staring, you suppose.

However, all you feel is the gentlest brush over your mind, barely enough to even register, and then it’s gone.

“I’m not going to read your mind! ” Astarion laughs, shoving you gently in the knee. “Besides, I don’t need to. I know you’re thinking about how lucky you are to have me.”

Well, maybe he did read your mind after all.

Your face must give you away, because Astarion’s suddenly changes, and he looks at you with the same adoring benevolence that you gave him, no more than a few hours ago, when he was complaining about the sun being too bright.

He sits up, reaching over to brush his thumb over your cheek and tip your chin up. There is a tiny flower stuck in his hair, right behind the point of his ear, and as much as you want to reach over, you already feel like the earth is about to split beneath you and swallow you whole.

“Oh, you are the sweetest thing I’ve ever met,” Astarion says, everything about him giving away just how utterly pleased he is. “How do you manage to be such a good fighter, if all you do is think about me all the time? Though… I must admit, you rarely leave my mind, too.”

Your cheeks feel so hot that you wonder, distantly, if you’re burning him, but Astarion spares you the need to reply, sliding his fingers into your hair and pulling you in closer. His lips are soft and warm when they cover yours, and the kiss is slow, as gentle as the sun above you.

You part your lips when you feel the hot touch of his tongue, and as the kiss deepens, you feel yourself melt into the vampire completely, tilting your head just a little to be even closer. One of your hands comes up to rest on his shoulder, the collarbone prominent under the soft fabric of his shirt; the other is somewhere on his thigh, helping you keep your balance even as you lean closer. Breathing doesn’t seem so vitally important anymore.

“ The sweetest, ” Astarion murmurs into your lips as he pulls back, just enough to break the kiss but nearly touching your lips still. “You put us both in terrible danger, you know. Allowing for this to continue.”

His lips are on yours again, still slow and soft, but now you can feel the heat hidden somewhere underneath, dormant for the moment but easily stirred. Your hand slips into Astarion’s soft hair, and you can’t quite deny yourself the pleasure of pulling softly on the white locks, coaxing the most beautiful little sound out of his throat. While he holds incredible power over you, you’ve also had time to learn about the things he likes.

“So do you,” you reply, when the kiss breaks again. “You’re as accountable for the danger as I.”

He could argue just to wind you up, you know. But instead, Astarion just chuckles in what seems to be agreement as his lips move down to your neck.

Immediately, your heart begins beating faster, familiar anticipation making you feel lightheaded. You lean forward, closer to the vampire, eyes fluttering closed.

Astarion moves closer in turn, your legs intertwining, and tips your chin further up, his palm moving from your hair to the opposite side of your neck, thumb pressing gently but firmly into the sharp angle of your lower jaw.

The kisses are hot but deliberately slow, Astarion knowing perfectly all the most sensitive parts of your neck and using that knowledge against you. Every time you feel the slight pressure of his fangs on your skin, your heart skips a beat, waiting for the familiar pain of a bite. But the vampire takes his time, making his way torturously slowly to the curve of your shoulder and moving the fabric of your shirt out of the way. Without even thinking, almost instinctively now, you crane your head further to the side, giving him better access to your neck, offering it to him. In response, you are rewarded with a sharp, hot exhale over your skin, almost a moan as he holds himself back.

Still, your disappointment with that must be palpable, for a moment later, Astarion pulls back, shaking his head and laughing softly. It makes the corners of his eyes wrinkle, but he tends to get defensive when you tell him that.

“Patience is a virtue, my love,” he says, but his blown pupils tell you that he could also learn a thing or two about it.

“I have plenty of others,” you reply, finding your way to his neck to repay the vampire with his own coin.

His skin is velvet-soft beneath your lips, and you have to make an unmeasurable effort over yourself not to leave a mark on it. You’re not sure how he would react and, well, you’re not fifteen years old to allow yourself such frivolities while travelling with others.

However, nothing stops you from biting him, not nearly enough to cause any damage but sufficient to make him gasp softly, tilting his head slightly to indulge you.

You want to pull him even closer, but limit yourself to brushing your hand over his back, the raised lines of his deep scars tangible through the shirt. You still don’t know what they mean, and neither does he, but there will be time to find out. There must be.

Mirroring Astarion’s path, you trace the column of his neck, place a kiss on his collarbone, making him all but purr with satisfaction, and hide your face in the curve of his shoulder, where his now-familiar scent is the strongest. He smells of heady vanilla, and expensive red wine, and the campfire, and you adore that smell more than any other in the world.

Without looking, you reach up to find the laces of Astarion’s shirt, pulling on the top one to slip it out of its eyelet, but before you can do the same to the next one, the vampire intercepts your wrist gently, pulling your hand away. His thumb brushes over the underside of your wrist, and you feel a shiver run through you, again.

“You know, I couldn’t help but notice,” Astarion says, looking down at your wrist and then finding your gaze. “How sensitive you seem to be here.”

The last time he said something like that, neither of you got to sleep at night. The thrill makes you momentarily postpone your plan of undressing him.

“ Delicious ,” the vampire says, every syllable dripping with perfect seduction.

He brings your wrist closer to his chest and leans down, pressing his lips to it. The kiss zaps electricity up your spine, making you lose all control of your breathing instantly. You bite your lip, hard, from the inside, watching in mesmerisation as Astarion trails a line of kisses towards one side of your wrist, and then moves back, to reach the other. Your skin burns under his lips, and in the back of your mind you think that this is yet another weapon that you are willingly placing into his hands to use against you. You don’t care. Not when your entire body shivers at every touch.

You never imagined you could react like this to something as simple as kisses, not to mention on your wrist, but Astarion seems to know exactly what he’s doing.

It’s easy to want him. With his looks, his sweet words and his undeniable charm. But he knows how to make you need him time after time, using all your weaknesses against you yet making you feel anything but defeated.

The slight pressure of Astarion’s fangs on the delicate skin of your wrist makes you press it closer to his lips without even thinking, and in response, you’re met with the red gaze of the vampire’s eyes, the tint of them leaning slightly more towards deep burgundy, betraying his own emotions.

He studies you for a long second, before his gaze flicks back to your wrist, and then to you again.

“May I?” he asks, voice nothing but pure honey.

Your own voice is hoarse in your throat when you say: “Please.”

The sharp pain of the bite comes almost immediately, and though you instinctively try to pull your wrist back, Astarion holds it in a gentle but firm grip, preventing you from hurting yourself. You can feel the delicate skin split beneath his teeth, and as the blood rushes forth, the familiar feeling of both heat and cold envelops you. Where Astarion’s lips are pressed to your wrist, a thin line of scarlet running down from the corner of them, your skin seems to be ablaze, burning hotter with every second, while everywhere else, a gentle, comforting cold spreads, slowing down your heart and thoughts.

Your breath comes quicker, heavier, making it harder to focus, but you cannot look away from the vampire, watching, enthralled, as he feeds on you.

A thought, already familiar but always kept under lock and key, crosses your mind, and it seems to flare with it, making you unable to think of anything else for what seems like an endless second. The thought of his blood, the taste of it on your tongue.

Before you met Astarion, you never even suspected yourself to be able to burn and crumble to pieces at an idea like that. But lately, you’ve been completely unable to get rid of the urge, stirring deep inside you every time his fangs are in your throat. It’s about the connection, you suppose. His blood mixed with yours, and yours — with his. You feel dizzy with how desperately you want it.

Astarion breaks away, his lips stained crimson with your blood. He wipes away at it with his thumb, then licks it off his skin. That alone looks hotter than most things you’ve seen in life.

“That was… incredible,” the vampire says. “As it always is with you.”

He leans in, pulling into a long, deep kiss. The taste of your own blood, shared between you, spills over your tongue, and you take it, barely suppressing a moan.

Your wrist is still bleeding, though the blood is stopping now, and Astarion holds it, gently, in his hand, supporting the weight and making sure you don’t move your arm. Even as he kisses you again, all but biting into your lips, he doesn’t let go. It makes your heart melt hopelessly.

“You’re thinking about something,” Astarion says as he pulls back, eyes dark. “And it’s getting so loud that you really are tempting me to see what it is”

For an endless moment, you’re caught between the urge to fall through the face of the earth and the urge to just tell him. The decision, however, is made without hesitation, because you feel too dizzy and too hot to second-guess yourself.

“Go ahead,” you say, because you’re not quite brave enough to voice your thoughts but no longer object to Astarion reading your mind. “See for yourself.”

He gives you a look, eyebrows lifting slightly in surprise, but Astarion doesn’t need to be asked twice, and a moment later, you feel the brush of his conscience over your thoughts, much more tangible than before. You make no attempts to hide any of them.

It only takes the vampire a second to find what he’s looking for.

“ That’s what you’re thinking about? My blood?” he asks, surprised but not at all displeased, leaving your mind to yourself. “Darling, you should’ve said earlier.”

Your bite has now stopped bleeding, and Astarion places a soft kiss atop it before letting go of your wrist. Instead, he pulls up his frilly sleeve and offers you his own. You never dared to imagine he would agree so easily.

“I can bite myself and give you my wrist, or, alternatively—” faster than you can track, he pulls one of his daggers from his belt, flips it to catch the blade mid-air, handing you the weapon hilt-first. “You can take the blood yourself.”

The second option sounds incredible but then again, so does the first. The only difference is that you currency trust Astarion much more than you trust your own trembling hands. so, you refuse the dagger with a move of your head, and the vampire slides in back into his belt. There’s a gleam in his eyes, a fire like you’ve never seen before.

“I cannot turn you, if you wonder,” he says with an indulging smile, bringing his wrist up to his lips. “So you’re free to take as much as you want.”

You watch him as his fangs sink into his own flesh, blood immediately painting his pale skin in crimson. Two thin trails of red run down to the side of his wrist and merge, dripping fast onto the soft grass. Astarion offers his wrist to you, watching carefully, hungrily for every emotion on your face as you take it into your hand, mirroring the way he held yours.

Your heart is beating out of your chest as you lean down, covering the two bleeding wounds with your lips.

The blood isn’t sweet, not in the way that the vampire usually describes it, it’s heavy with copper and salt, but when it spills over your tongue, your entire body reacts to it. Your fingers tighten on Astarion’s wrist, almost unbeknownst to you, and as your mouth fills with his blood, you swallow, drinking from him like he drinks from you. Somewhere above you, you hear the vampire gasp, softly, his breath shuddering, and all you want, other than this heady, intoxicating taste on your tongue, is to throw him onto his back and climb on top, pressing your bodies as close together as possible. If Astarion can still hear your thoughts, you don’t care.

You can’t drink like he does, and you can feel the vampire’s blood run down your chin, drip onto your shirt. Astarion is breathless next to you, and as you swallow again, finally ripping a moan out of his chest, he reaches for your chin with his other hand, gripping it hard and pulling you, forcibly, to his lips. He bites into them, demanding and hungry, slicing through the delicate flesh easily with his fangs and mixing his own taste with yours.

You’ve never been kissed like this, not once in your life, and you give in to him immediately, without even thinking, sliding one hand into his hair and staining the winter-white locks crimson. Your other arm, you wrap around his shoulders, holding the vampire close as he pushes forward, making you fall onto your back. Somehow, it’s even better than it would’ve been the other way around.

You kiss him back with just as much hunger, and the burning in your lungs from the lack of air does nothing to dissuade you. It’s only when Astarion breaks the kiss that you finally gasp a breath, your lips stinging from the bite.

“I knew I was lucky to have you,” Astarion says, his voice hoarse and breathless. “But I never could’ve dreamt of receiving such a gift.”

Before you can reply, he leans down to your neck again, hands reaching for the hem of your shirt, and all words die on your lips altogether, swallowed up by the heat of his lips.

#baldur's gate 3 #baldurs gate astarion #astarion/reader #astarion #calton writes #I don't know if it's clear from these 5k words but he is going to be the death of me #astarion/tav

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