#FINALLY | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

atsadi-shenanigans · 2 days ago

Text

What Shall We Become 36 - Closer

The rogue gets a taste. 😈

On AO3.

Astarion pulls the last out of the drow he can manage. The man is starting to cool in the fingers and face. He’s been struggling to get a mouthful the last few times. Finally, regrettably, he has to declare the wretch entirely drained and let the limp body slide off to be left behind.

His leader considers her own, empty potion bottle, but tucks that into the saddlebag.

Her soul flask is once again looped around her neck and tucked away into her cleavage. From what he’s gathered, the priestess took direct ownership of that and tucked them away into her bag, still strapped to the magnificent lizard they sit atop.

The drow had also stashed the foreign phallus in there. He’d teased his recovering leader about that as best he could through the tadpoles (after she finally opened the frazzled and sparking connection to the others to assure them all of her safety).

Astarion had taken his time draining that drow. The man fought at first. Astarion’s bite hurts, at first. He’s felt his dearest leader wince. But where she volunteers herself and lets herself sink into his embrace (pulling her close, she would feel so good held tightly to him), this one hadn’t wished to depart with his blood.

Which had ripped his neck open more than what Astarion would have preferred. Still. He hadn’t died quickly. Or easily. Judging from the over the shoulder glances his leader shot back at him, Astarion was correct in his deduction on identifying her tormentor.

So he let the drow fight a little, as he fed. Just so he would know how useless it was. Let him have the full cognizance of what was happening to him.

His leader had merely turned and left him to it.

But now that’s done and their lizard has slowed and his recovered leader starts to fidget. They’ve found the stream again. She’ll likely follow it; all water leads to the same place, and all.

“Are you alright?” he says. She doesn’t answer. He starts to reach for her, but then she pulls the lizard to a stop. Slips one leg over the side. Staggers as she lands.

He’s off and after her before she can fall. Grabs her arm to steady her, but she yanks free, jerks away.

They stand there as her heart races.

Her eyes are wide. Astarion knows all the ways a person can be afraid. All the tells, big and small, and the flash of terror in her eyes he’s seen in his siblings countless times. She smothers it swiftly. Straightens herself, points to the river, and mimes splashing herself.

“A bath,” he says.

She repeats it, waits for him to nod.

Blood wasn’t the only thing he’d smelled on her. Sometimes, after a correction, that bastard let him wipe himself down with a wet cloth. Only when there was time enough for Astarion to go lure back some pretty thing. Only so as not to spook them (though sometimes, as extra punishment, he was put out as he was specifically to try to lure the exact type of person who saw a broken and bleeding man wandering the streets and saw an opportunity).

“Of course,” he says.

She nods to the lizard. He’ll need to, what, secure it? Somehow? At least this beast doesn’t spook as he steps close. It only stares at him with one eye.

His leader makes her way over to the stream. Starts unlacing her stays. Her hands are still mottled, fingers puffy. They move stiffly as she undresses herself. She’ll need a new set of stays. A new outfit entire. Between the flood and the rivers and the cave mud—to say nothing of what she’s acquired in the last two days—that outfit of hers really ought to be burned.

He wishes he could have found that birdshark sooner. Ran just a little faster. That it did more damage before it retreated.

Then, as she reaches to pull her tunic over her head, his leader stops. Glances back to him and blinks owlishly.

“Um,” she says.

He waits.

“Astarion’s eyes,” she says.

“Yes?”

“Astarion’s eyes. Good eyes. No bad here now. Um, is well.”

The same “well” used to ask if someone is injured. She must mean healed?

It’s not until she makes a twirling motion with her hand that it dawns. He can see her now, and she doesn’t want an audience.

He has a notion—small though it may be—to tease her again (listening to her and imagining the water sluicing over her bare skin is fine, but gods forbid he actually sees it). But she still wears that hint of…broken openness. So he gives her a small bow and does as she asks.

She moves quickly. Strips efficiently, from the sound of it. He can imagine her face blank and focused, tossing her clothing into a ruined pile as water sloshes around her legs. She swears—the water is no less cold closer to the lake than it was in the tunnels. Astarion studies the lizard. Wanders along its side—keeping it between him and his bathing leader, and he stops at the saddlebags.

Drow, like their elven counterparts, tend to be of slim build. Nothing in that pack will likely fit her. He can modify any trousers he finds, and far better this time, but he finds nothing in there to suit her for now. Save a chest piece of light armor. He’ll have to loosen the straps, but he may be able to open it up enough to awkwardly fit her for the time being.

He knows how badly he wished for armor after bad nights.

Perhaps their wizard—should they ever find a bleeding waypoints stone—can enchant it to resize for her.

Though part of him does think to swap it for his own. It has a delightful spider motif along the collar and centered on the chest, and it would look quite handsome on him. But he manages to squash that (barely). She might not even catch the difference, but he’d wager the gold in his bag that this armor belongs to the priestess herself, and if she ever learned that not only a surface-dweller, but a non-person surface dweller wore it…

Priceless.

He finds a few more potions—ooh, drow poison, excellent. Among them is a greater healing potion. She’s going to drink that next.

Soon the splashing stops. He shakes out a spare tunic he finds. Probably too skimpy for what he knows of her, but she might appreciate wearing something not crusted in blood?

No more water splashes. No wet feet patter on stone.

“Darling?” he says.

No response.

If he were still blind, he could tap his way over to where he last heard her. Now?

He taps gently at her mind. And out loud, she sniffles.

No question to it. He pops up just fast enough to locate her, and then slaps a hand over his eyes and marches down towards her. This time, he’s careful to make noise so she doesn’t startle.

“Darling,” he says.

She takes a shuddering breath. Then comes a large splash. A gasp and a sputter. Did she just submerge herself?

She says something. Nudges across that she wants him to wait.

So he does. For a long, long moment. Lets her gather herself. And finally, she sloshes back and he holds out the tunic he found.

She takes it. Pauses for a few heartbeats. It’s small and won’t fit her (the image of a strange, paper tube splitting along the side and dough bursting out along the seams).

“No blood,” he says in Chondathan. “And I have this.”

He’s never seen her in armor. He’s not sure it’s something her world even uses. At least, not in a way that’s familiar (how could earthenware stop an arrow).

Cloth rustles. She grunts. The fabric stretches alarmingly, a few threads snapping. Then she moves past him to gather up her castoff hip wrap.

He did not find any of the panties he made for her. She must be lacking in that area again. As soon as they’re clear of the drow, he’ll fix that, and much better than the last time (well, one of them might be embroidered with a suspiciously phallic mushroom, best not disturb tradition too much).

He can open his eyes, now. Just as she all but snatches the chest piece from him. She’s got it over her head before he can really catch so much of a glimpse of her (save for one flash of cleavage pressed tight and shoved up). Then the collar of the armor covers all that from view as she slips her arms under the shoulder straps and fiddles with the sides.

Her face is puffy. Not from injury—the lesser healing potion took care of that. No, it’s not from physical injury. She’s careful not to make eye contact as she tries to lace up the first side. Keeps her face turned from him.

“Allow me,” he says. Comes up behind her and takes the leather cording from her fingers.

Her hands fall to her sides. Until he taps the left one, signals her to lift it so he can get her secured.

He works in silence. She stands in silence.

She’s tense. Shifts her weight back and forth. Water drips from her shaggy hair to run in rivulets down the back of her neck, and he has thought to lick it. Lick a whole stripe up to her ear and nuzzle his face into her warm skin just to bury his face in her scent. Safe and alive.

He must still be hungry (he’s always hungry). She’s so full of delicious blood.

He finishes. Shifts to reach the other side and she obediently lifts that arm without him asking. Yes, he’ll need to see how useful their wizard can truly be, because once he finds a full kit for her (and for him), they’ll both be stunning in this outfit.

Then he’s done. Clears his throat. Expects her to step away, only she doesn’t. She just stands there, hands clenched but for her pointer finger tracing a pattern over her thumbnail.

“I,” she starts. “Thank you, Astarion.”

“Of course.”

She still doesn’t move. He taught her that phrase, didn’t he?

“Er, you’re welcome,” he says in case he didn’t.

And then, slowly, she turns.

He’s seen her up close. When they first met and he had a knife to her throat and she stared up at him so blankly he thought she was a simpleton.

The night he fed from her, her heart racing, blood pumping hot and thick and so, so rich into his mouth as she shivered under his tongue.

The night he seduced her. Nearly seduced her? The disastrous seduction. When he had her against a tree and he started to remove himself from his own body, but not before he did, truly, appreciate how her body felt against him. What a novel change.

In all that, he’s never really looked at her this clearly. She has the faintest freckles dusting her skin, invisible until he’s close enough to count her eyelashes. And one eye looks just a touch paler than the other, until he realizes she has the tiniest band of amber around the pupil. The smallest sliver of sunlight caught in her dark gaze.

She stares at him, perhaps an inch shorter with her bare feet and him in boots. She still has that air of…vulnerable about her. Brow furrowed slightly. Gaze darting about. But she inhales and squares her shoulders and forces herself to look him in the eye. Down to his mouth. Her gaze flits about his face.

“Astarion,” she says. Oh, her heart thunders in her chest. And his lips suddenly feel too dry. “Astarion kiss?”

He blinks. Oh yes, he’d taught her that, hadn’t he? Before the drow took her. She’d stood there, speckled in gore in the soft, blue light of the magical tree that returned his sight, and he’d ached to lean in and taste her lips.

“You and I kiss?” he says. Taps his lips. Reaches across the narrow space dividing them and carefully, a hummingbird alighting on the edge of a night flower, touches her bottom lip.

“Yes,” she says.

He moves in. Slowly. Gives her time to stop, to step back, to change her mind. But she, the walking contradiction, the bold virgin, she leans in and meets him halfway.

He’s kissed her before. The disastrous seduction. And then she revealed that he had been her first. But that kiss doesn’t matter. Chaff in the wind. This, this is a first kiss proper.

It’s slow. Soft. Incredibly chaste. The kind of kiss he dreamed of receiving when he was a thirteen-year-old boy.

He hadn’t known, that night. He would have altered his approach. Taken his time and eased her into it. Made it memorable for her (though he supposes he did just that) (his guts slither in his belly).

He leans back and opens his eyes, a little amused she follows. Quite the greedy thing, he’s learning. Fish and potions, gold and weapons and magic scrolls. She hoards them all.

Then she blinks her eyes open. Stares at him rather dazedly.

Doesn’t move away. Just watches him, takes in all of his face.

He knows this. Finally, territory he can navigate.

He takes a half step closer. Reaches up with his very naked hand and brushes the tips of his fingers over her cheek.

“Kiss?” he says, voice low and breathy.

She nods.

Her lips are on the thinner side, but no less warm or soft for it. He keeps it innocent. No tongue. Just the brush of lips. Lets her feel him as he feels the shivers racing through her. One of her hands comes up to latch on the edge of his shoulder piece. Such a shy creature, even now. He nearly guides it up to his neck, or encourages her to bury her fingers in his hair. That can feel quite nice.

She mimics him as she did that first time. Clever thing. She has the sense to breathe through her nose, until he eases back to let her catch that breath more properly. Notices she exhales to the side, as if she doesn’t want to bother him.

Then he hooks the fingers of his other hand into the lacings he just tied up the sides of her armor, and guides her closer. Not quite pressed to him. And she makes a soft sound against his lips.

He almost bites her then and there. Almost cradles her head in his hands so he can open her mouth and properly taste her.

But he retrains himself. That’s not the script for someone this new.

But what would it be like to teach her? To feel her improvements—she’s hesitant and a touch clumsy, but committed to the deed. What would it be like to taste her increasing boldness as he worked confidence into her? Coaxed her to bloom against him, beneath him, around him? Untouched but for him. Something of his own after so, so long.

Gods, he wants it. Wants her. Finds himself pulling her the last distance against him. Flicking at her mouth with his tongue, because he has to taste her, wants this for himself. Something of his own before he has to take her back and hand her over to—

Something sours in his gut. He pulls back. Wants to fling himself away from her, but that spooks the mark and he must not, must never do that. He manages to keep his face soft. Barely. Fingers loose and jaw unclenched.

She comes out of it slower. Innocent thing. Trusting thing. Looks up at him and blinks slowly, as if she’s drunken another bottle of wine on her own.

“Sorry,” she says.

That must simply be an instinct for her.

He forces on an easy smile. Brushes some of her hair out of her eyes. “No sorry.”

She blushes. Not out of awkwardness as she did that night in the clearing. This is a proper flush running from her cheeks, down her neck, probably all down her hidden cleavage.

(Would her skin taste differently flushed like that? All the blood so close to the surface?)

He should shove her away. Rage at her. Bare his fangs and command her to run as he could never do after that once.

He should keep her against him. Bury his face against her and hold her tight and never, never let her go.

“Come, darling,” he says. Motions to the lizard watching them in the bored manner of farm beasts.

She nods. Starts to follow him.

He catches the smallest flicker of movement as she touches her fingertips to her own lips.

***

Notes:

A ha ha ha! It only took like 200k to get to a real first kiss!

I'm gonna take Wednesday off, because I need to catch up on typing out the next chapters, and the later ones start getting long again. But I'm currently drafting the last chapter of this fic, and plotting out the next part. See y'all next Saturday.

#what shall we become #these two shitheads #the burn is burning #finally #tavstarion #astarion #astarion fic #bg3 fic #we got there lads #sort of

27 notes · View notes