#I just need some astarion angst to heal me its fine

[missblissy]

Bitter

Summary: A little drabble that takes place after the events of the game. In an intimate moment, Astarion has feelings of disgust within himself, and can't help but break down, talking to you about how he feels in his own skin. You stay supportive and help him through it.

Warnings: mentions of sex/domestic trauma, and panic attacks, but no actual smut. :) Only angst. Just angst. :)))

A/N: Hey hey! This is my first Astarion X Reader! I have been sucked in and now I'm just another one of his girlies :') I used a GN!Tav with no mentions of race/class/gender whatsoever. I really wanted to explore Astarion's sexual trauma, how he deals with it, and how he feels about it. I like to think Astarion desperately wants to be whatever he thinks "normal" is, and that he has a lot of shame and pained feelings towards not being able to be whatever this "normal" is. So I wanted to give him some angsty love/hurt and comfort. Enjoy!

Bitter. Like sour brandy. A perpetuating ick that crawled with insect-hooked feet into his skin. The itchy pain of ghostly memories was hot on his flesh. The crawling and coiling were unconditional. The buzzing of past words, actions, and regrets all flooded his mind. His body moved with a mind of its own in a sheer thought of panic. Moving. Repulsed. Unwanted even. But it still happened. Bittering the moment, souring the taste in his mouth, clutching at his undead heart with a rage he didn’t know he had, so soft and subtle that it built like a breeze over the ocean, hitting him like a typhoon. 

But no sign foretold that in the sudden jerk and pull back of his own hand from yours. No longer interlocked. The recoil of his body from instincts rather than thought or sound mind. How he fell away from you, not into you. Both surprised him, his internal rage, and his body betraying him. A breath hitched in his throat as he was pulled back to the dimly lit room of reality.

Where was he again...? His mind was foggy, far way, but yet still brim and bright with paranoia. Flush and festering with one too many distant memories.

“Star-bite?” Your voice was always soothing… Enough to pull him from his mind. The fog far from leaving his eyes traveled with ease across his face in the dark room. No light was needed for you to see that.

The honey worry in your words where enough for his eyes to meet yours despite his shame to look away. It pained him even more with the love welling in those sweet pearls and staring up at him with nothing but patience. Seemingly something he didn’t have. A tender hand lifted to his head, “Are you okay?” You asked. He flinched away. Again. Not even twice now in five minutes. You didn't pull back, however, but rather left your palm open with patience.

Astarion closed his eyes and leaned his cheek into your hand for only a second as he tried to ground himself. Self-hatred bubbled in him. Embarrassment. Shame. It was all the same feeling at this point and it was unbearable.

He sat up and back on his legs, no longer looming over you as the moonlight bathed him in a glow. Glossy with an otherworldly shine you stared up at him, skin exposed to the night. And watched as his shoulders fell with a deep sigh of frustration as he threw his hands to his face as if to hide while shaking his head, “I’m sorry-” He started. You slowly sat up as well, a blanket bathing over your own equally nude body in a half attempt to cover up.

“I’m sorry.” He said it again, “I.. I Don’t know what came over me,” He tried to laugh it off, the fact he blanked out, flinched from your very touch, and found himself disgusted even with the person he loved most. You understood… This was hard for him. Sex. Intimacy. Anything that related to his body. So you so desperately wanted to comfort him.

Which could be a hard thing to do sometimes. Despite that, you tried to reassure him. This wasn't the first time this has happened, “You don’t have to do this, It’s fine-”

“It’s not fine!” Astarion snipped with a whisper that could have been a scream, “I’m… not fine.” 

Bitter. It was always bitter on his tongue even when he laughed like it was as sweet as syrup before it turned into wine, “I don’t want to be… like this,” His voice carried on as he gestured to his entire being, “Every time. Every single time it doesn’t matter how much you love me I still feel disgusted in my own skin and that’s not fine!” He finally snapped out with a subtle sob, “I want to be able to do more than look and love you from an arm’s reach without wanting to burn my bones and erase the memory of everything I’ve ever been through every time I’m simply just touched by another!” 

There wasn’t an easy way to hide the pain on your face. The bitter truth. Even you knew it and it still stung fresher than a wasp’s stinger on a knuckle. No amount of love you gave Astarion could fix the damage done to him over two centuries of torment. No kind words, no simple nothings, or gestures could undo any of it. Nor erase it. Even dead, Cazador would always be with him.

Astarion’s voice picked up, another twisted, sad, and painful laugh, “It sickens me… It kills me,” He sighed, “That even no matter how much I love you, adore you, want you, and need you…” Silver-flowing tears trickled along his cheeks, flicking with faints of pink, betraying his true nature. A vampire’s bloody tears never lied. A sour sniffle sucked back up into his nose as he spoke again, “No matter how much I care I can’t be fixed. I’ll always fucking be like this!” 

He felt so trapped in his own skin. Disgusted with his own body. Hateful towards the person he was forced to become and betrayed by the thought of the person he could have been. It was a bitter cycle. And to think… This all started as a lovely night. But Astarion could just add this to the long list of many other things he’s ruined.

You sat on your knees, scooting just an inch ever so closer, “Astarion?” You held out your hand for him, palm up, open and there for him to take if he wanted. And of course, he did, “You will always be broken.” His eyes shot open and he stared at you, surprised by your honest take, “But you will also always be loved and cared for even if you are broken,” You squeezed his hand lightly and gave a soft smile, “And I don’t mind that you’re broken,”

Something told him you were lying but Astarion knew better than to believe that. It didn’t stop his little scoff as he averted his red gaze, “Even if I can’t fuck you?” Bitter. It was in his voice, the way he spat the words and laughed by adding, “I know I’m supposed to be this amazing, beautiful, and skilled piece of work but I’m no-”

“You’re not supposed to be anything,” You softly interrupted him, knowing exactly where he was about to go with this tangent, “You’re only supposed to be whatever you want to be. Not what others have made you out to be.”  

He still couldn’t meet your gaze, but you could see the doubt in his eyes and the subtle pout of frustration on his lips, “Even if I don’t know what I want to be?” He spoke more softly this time, like it was mostly to himself so he could finally speak it out loud, “... Or who I am?”

“Absolutely,” You promised him. It broke your heart every time he had these moments, how hurt and torn he must feel inside you could only imagine. You leaned a little closer, enough to still give him his space, “I’m not with you for the sex, Astarion, it was never about the sex. So I could go the rest of my life waiting, or not waiting, or simply just being there,” You reached up and cupped his cheek again and pulled ever so gently to get him to meet your gaze, “You… Do. Not… have to have sex with me to keep me to stay with you,” A little glimmer in your eye sparked with affection, "I'll say it as many times as you need to hear it, you are enough just as yourself. And I'll say it forever, I love you for you, and that includes even when stuff like this happens."

That got the littlest smile out of him. He brushed his cheek deeper into your palm and found himself even leaning into your embrace, “You know I want to,” He huffed, “I just don’t think… I can… not without this feeling being there, that is," It was still bitter. He closed his eyes, head resting by your shoulder, nearly hiding in the crook of your neck, “I don’t want to be this way. It’s like I'm not even free. Like my time in the sun was worth nothing in the long wrong,” He quickly looked up at you and corrected himself, “I know that’s not true,” A bitter smile, “It just feels that way, sometimes,” 

Your smile, bitter too, but sweet, with a sad nuzzle of your nose against his in a loving and comforting gesture, “I know, Star-bite,” Then a little kiss to his nose for reassurance, “But this,” And a tight squeeze of his hand, referring to just this simple act alone as you spoke, “You can do. And this is more than enough,”

[whitewolfandthefox]

The Call of the Wild: Part 8

Summary: Astarion is delight to discover your true nature. The pack begins it hunt.

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Words: 2.1k

Warnings: mentions of torture and injury, whole lotta angst, some panic and looots of unhappiness, implied suicidal tendencies

A/N. This is a little later than I had wanted to get it out, but I spent the entirety of my day sanding and raking. We are renovating my kitchen, so that’s fun. Enjoy this next chapter, we’re about halfway through babes! Thank you to everyone who has been with me since the beginning, and welcome to the many, many people who have joined me along the way! As always, come yell at me in the comments or reblogs, I love it!

Chapter 8: Breaking Point

A sharp pain brought you back to awareness as you lifted your hand to your neck. Your fingers felt something warm and sticky, your breath catching in your throat as you pulled them away to see blood coating your fingers. You hadn’t been wounded on your neck, where was the blood and pain coming from? 

You remembered striking, burying the stone in the guard’s neck, feeling the hot blood spray from his neck as it covered your hands, running down to stain his tunic. You remembered the power that had surged through you before you collapsed, remembered directing it to the pain, wanting to help, to heal. 

Again your hand lifted, finding the wound at the same place you had injured the guard. You thought back to when you had healed Geralt, waking up to find new scars on your side. Maybe this was part of your powers, you healed others by taking the wound onto yourself. You struggled to sit up, feeling the warm blood trickle slowly down your neck, bleeding into the cloth on your chest. 

A sound drew your attention outside of yourself. You looked up to find Astarion staring at you, a delighted look on his face. His expression unnerved you, his happiness was always associated with pain and hurt for you. 

“You’re a healer,” he breathed. “This is amazing, you’re exactly what I’m looking for. I’ve always found fighters or strategists, you’re the first healer I’ve studied. Someone like you could have saved my family from dying.”

As he spoke, he stood and started pacing, hands waving excitedly in the air. “That wound would have killed him, but you, you will be fine! You will heal and be on your feet in no time. You could have taken the sickness that killed my mother, my siblings. You could have saved my father when he was attacked by your wretched kind. None of my spells could, they were too complex, needed too much energy. But your healing ability wouldn’t need that much. You saved a man from death, and it only cost you a few moments of consciousness. Once I find where your power comes from, no one will die needlessly!”

Your heart sunk as he continued his manic rambling, speaking about how he would be able to save humankind, how you were the answer to all of his questions. Despair filled you, devouring every other emotion and leaving a bleak void in its place. You weren’t getting out of here alive, not unless someone came to get you. And no one would. Your friends had turned on you, your family dead. No one knew where you were. You were all alone. 

The world shrunk, all that you knew was your pain and your despair, nothing else mattered. You would die here, that you were certain of. As Astarion left your cell, you curled into yourself on the floor, tears running down your face. You let yourself fall into darkness, your only escape from the hell that was your present. 

**~*~*~*~**

Geralt pushed his pack hard, no longer hampered by waves of pain. The lack of hurt worried him, feeling only exhaustion and misery leaking from you, a bleak emotional landscape full of hopelessness. He tried to push hope back to you, but any attempt to reach you was blocked. 

As the days pass, the pack slowly loses speed, Geralt growing increasingly frustrated at their lack of progress. Yennefer finally snaps at him as they are gathered around their campfire. 

“Geralt, we can’t keep going at this pace!” Geralt glowered at her as she spoke, not acknowledging her words. “Ciri is exhausted, and the rest of us are close behind! Just slow down a little bit, we will still get there.”

The large man didn’t look up, refusing to discuss any changes to the fast pace he had started off with. “If Ciri gets tired, she can ride on my back. We need to move fast.” 

Yennefer scoffed, “And the rest of us? What happens when we can’t keep up? Are you just going to leave us behind? And what about when we get there? Geralt, we need to have the strength to actually be able to defend ourselves. Or are you just sending us to our deaths?”

Geralt rounded on her, “She’s dying, Yennefer!” he roared. “Every day I can feel her slowly getting weaker! She won’t respond to me anymore, she’s given up. I can feel her fading; she won’t last much longer.”

His chest heaved from his outbreak, fear glistening in his eyes. The camp was silent, Yennefer lowering her eyes at his words. With a growl, Geralt spun and stalked away into the woods, dropping into his wolf form as he took off running. Yennefer drew a hand over her face, a sigh escaping her lips. 

“Who are we searching for, Aunt Yen?” Ciri nestled herself into Yennefer’s side, looking up at her with wide eyes. “I know it’s another shapeshifter, but Papa seems so worried.”

Yennefer stared down at Ciri, violet eyes concerned. At last, she looked away as she responded in a quiet voice. “Sometimes shapeshifters find people who they have an instant connection with. Y/N helped your papa when he got hurt while he was away, and they have one of those bonds.”

Ciri was staring at her with wide eyes, Jaskier trying to look as if he wasn’t eavesdropping on the other side of the fire. Yennefer managed a wan smile at the two of them. “You’ll have to ask Geralt if you want to know more, though. For now, we should get some sleep though.” 

Yennefer ignored the sounds of protest as she stood, ushering Ciri off to her bedroll, Jaskier close behind. She tucked the blanket around her, smoothing her hair off the child’s forehead as she placed a gentle kiss on her head. “Will Papa be back soon?” 

“Yes, sweetheart, he just needed to run for a bit. You will see him in the morning.” The sorceress placed a gentle hand on Ciri’s cheek, pushing a gentle sleep suggestion at her. She sat with the young girl until her eyes fluttered closed and her breathing evened out before getting up and finding her own bedroll, setting a spell to alert her when Geralt returned to camp. 

**~*~*~*~**

The pain continued, though you no longer felt Geralt’s presence. It was getting harder and harder to return to your human form after a change was forced upon you. You’d given up hope of rescue after overhearing two guards as they passed your cell. 

“It’s been two weeks since the most recent one got here, which means we’ll probably be looking for a new one soon.”

“Yeah, they don’t last much longer than that. Just look at it, it’s stopped moving. We don’t have to beat it as much to get it to change.”

You had been in your fox form at that point and you hadn’t moved as they walked past. You lifted your head to glare at them, pulling your lips back from your teeth as a weak growl rumbled out of your chest. They had laughed and kept walking, leaving you behind as your heart sunk, laying your head down on the floor and closing your eyes, letting the defeat that had been gnawing at your edges sweep over you. 

You didn’t bother changing back to your human form; you weren’t sure that you even could if you had wanted to, you were so tired. Astarion entered your cell early that morning, guards posted at the door as he entered in case you decided to attack. 

You lifted your head mournfully, ears pressed against your skull, but other than that you didn’t move. Astarion grinned sharply. “Ah, finally. Your spirit is broken, my sweet. You’ve realized you have nowhere to run and no one is coming to save you.”

Your thoughts briefly turned to Geralt before you scolded yourself sharply. No one was coming to save you, you were on your own. This was where you were going to die. You remained passive as the sorcerer manhandled you, a whimper passing your lips as you felt the knife pierce your skin. 

Astarion shushed you, a hand stroking your fur possessively as you squeezed your eyes shut. “You were so strong, my sweet, you did so well. I have done so much research, learned so much from you. Your contribution to my studies is greatly appreciated.”  You yowled as you felt a bone in your front right paw snapped, the pain shooting up your leg into your shoulder. You collapsed as the man continued speaking. “The pain will end soon, little creature. I am almost done with you and then you can rest.”

You fell into a haze of pain, the words fading into the background as you let yourself drift. The only coherent thought you had before you fell into the familiar darkness should have frightened you, but it didn’t. The phrase repeated itself over and over again, consuming any other thought you had. Please just let me die.

**~*~*~*~**

The pack has stopped for a brief lunch, a companionable silence falling over the clearing. They had been moving fast, though not as fast as when they first started out. Geralt had realized Jaskier and Ciri couldn’t keep up with him and had adjusted his pace. This didn’t ease his worry though; he had tried reaching out to you again, only to be rebuffed. The pain you were experiencing had only grown, blocking any attempt he made to reach you.

Please just let me die. 

Geralt shot to his feet as fear flashed through him. The others stared at him as he threw things into their bag with no regard as to where they landed before slinging it over his back. 

Yennefer spoke first, concerned at the frantic motions coming from the Witcher. “Geralt, what happened?” Her tone was urgent, breaking through the haze of panic that had consumed the man. 

“She wants to die; she won’t live through the night.” he managed to get out, gesturing at Ciri to stand. “We have to run, we have to save her. Quickly, shift. We must go.”

At his words, the other three flew into action. Geralt fell forward as he shifted into a white wolf, a golden lion cub falling into place beside him. Yennefer shrunk into a black raven, flying high in the sky to scout as a honey badger pulled itself onto the back of the wolf, winding its claws into the silver fur to secure itself. 

Geralt looked at Jaskier on his back, receiving a nod before turning to Ciri who was growling low in her throat, claws kneading the ground as she waited to run. The wolf threw his head back as he howled, the lion next to him adding her voice to create a discordant sound. The forest around them went silent as the predators began their hunt, their fast lope eating up the ground beneath them. 

They ran for hours before finally arriving at the dark clearing that housed the keep. It was an intimidating structure, towers reaching high into the sky, grey stone framed against the skyline. The pack could see guards scattered around the entrance and along the roof. Staying low in the trees, the honey badger leapt off the wolf’s back before the two animals were replaced with the figures of Geralt and Jaskier. Ciri quickly followed, creeping into the underbrush to watch the dark structure as Yennefer, in her raven form, looped back from over the keep, landing and shifting back to her human form. 

They stayed silent, waiting for her to approach. The keep was mere meters away, the forest having been allowed to reclaim its stolen space as the years past. As she regained her equilibrium, the small group quickly shed their extra gear, cinching their armour tighter and ensuring their weapons were within easy reach. 

“There’s definitely a shapeshifter in there,” she spoke as soon as she had knelt next to the two men. “I can hear a faster heartbeat, it’s not a man’s rhythm. That must be her.” 

Geralt shifted, staying silent as Yennefer continued to speak. “We should be able to enter through the back gate, it’s not as heavily guarded. That’s where they’re keeping her as well. I think she’s on a lower floor; we might even be able to find a closer entrance.”

As Geralt opened his mouth to answer, a scream tore through the silence. The Witcher went rigid, a look of utter terror crossing his face. Before anyone could react, he shot out of the treeline with a roar, sword seeming to leap from its sheath to his hand as he raced towards the guards. 

**~*~*~*~**

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