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atsadi-shenanigans · 6 months ago

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What Shall We Become 9 - Kate Winslet

You get the old "fished out of the northern Atlantic" experience.

On AO3.

You can’t stop shivering. From the cold, from the adrenaline, from the lungful of water you already coughed up. You ain’t sure. It don’t really matter.

Your boots is gone. Your trousers is gone. Your stupid fucking breechcloth is gone. You’re winnie the poo all over again, stumbling around in nothing but your tunic and them stays (thank fuck you fell asleep in them stays).

Then you think about that, and have to stop and slap a hand to your chest. Please, please, fucking please still be there, Gale told you what’d happen if you lost that goddamn fucking soul jar—

Cord around your neck. The cold, metal flask still buried between your tits. Saved by them girls getting squashed together by them stays, and your legs almost give out. If you even get back to Earth and hear anybody bitching about them being “tools to oppress women” you’re gonna full on slap them in the face.

Astarion says something.

He fucking saved you. That fucking river took you right off your feet, and the only thing that kept you from getting swept off and drowned was being tied to him. And then the fucking rope gave out and then your fucking bitch bag tried to drown you—

Oh fuck. Fuck. Your bag.

It got stuck on something. Held you under as the water closed over your head and you tugged and tugged and that bitch wouldn’t give. You were gonna die. Gonna fucking die and then haunt this fucking cave forever as some dipshit ringwraith with your bare ass hanging out for eternity.

And then cold hands. A jerk. And Astarion hauled you up so you could vomit up a milk carton of nasty cave water.

The two of you stagger up the bank. The ground is stone for a narrow portion—but not sandy and fuck all the ducks, that should’a rang some mental bells in your head. The whole path was smooth. It wasn’t just some kinda “natural erosion” that wore down them rockfalls. It was motherfucking water because you’re in a motherfucking cave and them bitches are known to motherfucking flood.

So fucking stupid. There’s probably a storm above, and water always sinks down as low and as easy as it can. Caves is the fucking plumbing pipes of the world.

You think you’re in the same cavern as before. But the ceiling is taller here, the walls further apart. And they’re completely covered in that glowing, blue moss. Not a single stripe at the top (because the flood waters routinely scrape it off everywhere they touch, Ripley) but a plush carpet of the stuff coating the ceiling, the walls, coming down to a foot or so from where you stand. That’s probably some kinda cave version of a high tide mark.

And it wriggles. Little tendrils drop down along the ceiling, the tips fanning out like a dandelion head. The mist from the water, you realize. It’s watering itself.

Which don’t mean it won’t turn out to drink, like, people juice.

You spot an alcove along the side and up another short wall. It’s absolutely thick with the glowing moss tonguing the air.

“D-d-d’you got a-a b-blanket?” you say, and almost bite through your tongue at least two times.

Astarion hovers right near you. He cocks his head to the side and says something you don’t—ah fuckity doo.

Your dirt potions was in your bag. You woke up to water lapping at your feet and no time to go digging for a potion. And now it’s fucking gone and you’re stuck and freezing and your vocabulary is in the low double digits.

Astarion peers just over your shoulder. His expression brightens. He says something, pats his shoulder, and gestures around. He…did have his bag. He carried it over his head as he made it across the death river. But he don’t got it no more. Your stomach lurches down to your asshole; if y’all both lost all y’all’s gear…but he’s pointing. Very vaguely. Kinda sweeping around. Then mimes taking it off and…tossing it. He tossed it.

You don’t see nothing around but the vaguely creepy moss. You definitely drifted. But you ain’t sure how far. You think y’all are in the same cavern?

“We w-w-walk?” you say, adding in the bit at the end that makes the sentence a question. You can say “see” as a verb, but you ain’t sure if it’s the same one as “I will look.” Learning languages sucks. So you try, through chattering teeth, “I eyes-s-s.”

Astarion squints approximately four inches too far to the right. And then sort of stands there.

So you nudge around him. Spot the rope still around his waist, and reach for the slack just to give him a soft tug to follow…

The very short slack. That ends less than two feet off him.

…that ends very abruptly two feet off him. Either the rope had some fatal weak point at the same length in every strand of it to snap so cleanly, or…or it looks cut.

“We walk,” you say and take a few steps. Make sure your bare feet slap so he can track the sound. Which he does, and he starts to follow. Your own rope trails after you. You start to gather it in as you walk.

But then he says something, and reaches for the length trailing after you. Has his masking smile on as he starts to coil it, blurry-fast, around his arm. Like he’s doing you a favor. Not like he’s trying to keep you from doing it because you might see the flash of your side, and the very, very clean break there to match. You catch only a glimpse, and it’s begun to fray as all ropes do, but it’s still far too clean, far too uniform.

The man cut you loose.

There’d been a jerk in the river, shortly after you got swept off. The rope pulled horrible tight around your ribs, and you thought of them hikers on that Washington volcano and why roping together can mean everybody dying. And then it went loose and you got torn downstream again before your bag must’a caught up on some jumble and pinned you halfway to drowning.

He’s soaking wet. But that could be from him coming in to drag you out. Except you see wet tracks ahead, leading towards y’all. He must’a got pulled in after you. And grabbed something, or got caught himself.

So he cut the rope.

He left you.

He reaches the end of the coil. Only the small bit remains between him and you. He smiles, and says something you think is encouraging. Your fingers is almost too damned numb to work, and it takes way too long to get the goddamn thing untied. Then he’s looping up the last of it and securing it in his right hand—on the side facing away from you—and carrying on.

He cut you loose.

You walk beside him as he unties himself and disappears his end, neither of you talking. Soon, you do spot his bag lying in the moss, and his wet tracks disappears into the rising water. He plucks it up and the two of you head higher—that moss squishes very unpleasantly under your bare feet and gives off a scent a lot like…licorice, for some godforsaken reason. Then he sets the bag down so he can rummage around (and tuck the cut rope inside).

He cut you loose. He saved himself.

But you dragged him in. Because that’s how accidents work, when people are roped together. You read disaster stories, and a lot of mountain climbing deaths are people taking each other out when one slips. It’s so dangerous that on them real, real high mountains, they just leave the dead. Cause roping a corpse to other people to try to get it down is a good way to feed the mountain even more bodies.

That probably applies to rivers. He’s a vampire. He can’t drown. But he can get dragged and bashed to pieces. Maybe literally, depending where that river goes. You heard stories of people having to make a decision like that. And you thought it’d be an easy decision. Logical thing is to save at least one.

But it feels real different when you’re the one cut fucking loose.

Astarion makes a noise. Pulls something out of his bag with a flourish, and holds it up in your general direction.

It’s a bottle of dirt potion.

Why does he even have that?

“Why d’y-you g-g-got that-t?” you say after downing it.

“It seemed a good idea to keep some in reserve,” he says.

Which it was. And you tell him so. And you watch the real interesting way the man takes compliments: reluctant, like he’s being handed some stray critter that might end up biting. But at the same time, he perks up, because the critter is awful cute.

He left you to die.

Then he found you and hauled you out.

You are entirely too cold and tired to think right now.

He watches your direction. Frowns, like he’s trying to work something out. Then realization blooms on his face.

“You’re cold,” he says, like he’s discovering some new beetle species and he gets to name the thing Buttface Beetlanus or something.

All you got is your dripping shirt, your sodden stays, your soul jar, and a couple shreds of dignity in that he can’t see you walking around ass out. Again.

The sensible thing is to strip it all off. Water wicks away body heat way faster than air. You cannot afford that right now. Especially without something to burn to help you build your internal temperature back up.

“Y-you st-t-till got a-a tent?” you stutter.

The moss lights everything in a dim, soft blue. It’s just enough for you to make out the surging river below. The reverse waterfall upstream. That bottleneck y’all crawled through really was a big sink trap, the tunnel beyond must be flooded mostly to the ceiling to shoot water that high. Damn thing is the mouth of a soda bottle shaken up half to hell, spraying a torrent out in a wide arc.

The moss in this chamber covers everything at your level. There’s a flatter area up a ways, and you tiptoe through that weird moss. Spot what looks a lot like a sheer, white potato bug crawling along. You’d bet the water don’t get up here all that often. The moss wouldn’t be this thick if it got shorn off by floodwater on the regular.

Y’all should try to find that passage you spotted before you passed out, the one that led to another chamber. But hypothermia catches people way faster than they realize. So long as that river don’t start lapping up any further than it is, you reckon it’d be better to try to recover first.

You shiver and drip miserably as Astarion follows you up and begins to set up his tent that didn’t get washed away. It takes longer than usual, on account of him not seeing and all. You try to help, but he bitches and shoos you away when your numbed, trembling fingers fumble around.

Soon enough, he’s got it all set up. Disappears within to set out his bedroll and stuff. And then climbs back out. Looks to you (seven inches too far to the right). And the two of you stare at each other.

“I’m normally the one who needs an invitation to enter, darling,” he says.

You almost smile. Your emotions don’t know ass from up right now, everything blurring into an exhausted haze.

It’s just a tent. Just his tent. You was the one who suggested it, and if you don’t get your ass inside, you’re even more likely to keel over of exposure.

So in you go. He’s laid a natty blanket over…is that a big plank of wood? Why the fuck does he sleep on a plank of wood? But you don’t say nothing. Only shuffle over to sit on your knees (you ain’t gonna be able to do that for long, between the bad knee and everything aching from cold).

It…smells like him in here. For some stupid reason, that makes your cheeks warm. Of course it smells like him; the man fucking sleeps in here. And it ain’t even his perfume or whatever. There’s something else, a kind of cool, earthy scent that…that reminds you of your grandpa’s basement for some reason.

…that’s him. His actual smell. Like, just on his skin. You can smell him.

You stop breathing through your nose. Scent is suddenly too intimate (and what else might you pick up).

And then he’s ducking in after you.

In retrospect, that shouldn’t be no goddamn surprise. It’s his goddamn tent and he fucking lives here. But you still freeze up.

His face turns to you a moment—his gaze don’t quite land, but you can tell that he can tell where you are. Then he shuffles over to the opposite side and folds himself down.

For a long second, neither of you talk.

There ain’t much to look at except him. In camp, with the others, he sets up all kinds of nice things outside: plants and pillows, a stool and a small table to hold a goblet and a stack of books he’s found and, for some reason, some fancy fuck mirror. You thought the inside would be just as cozy. Man would be lounging around on a pile of pillows he stole from goddamn refugees and like, the nicest sheets y’all have seen so far.

But there’s just this plank of wood, that raggedy blanket, and the two of you.

You live like this? part of you wants to say and absolutely does not. Cause that would be so rude you might just implode and die. And because your tent is just as barren, except you got a bedroll and not a fucking plank of wood.

“You’re still cold,” Astarion says.

Your teeth chatter and you can’t feel your fingers. “I-I’ll w-warm up ev-ventually.”

He still got that thinking frown on. His mouth opens, but he don’t say anything and the furrow in his brow deepens. Then, “I may be wrong, but I’ve heard many a tale from an adventurer falling into your situation. And they all agree that wet clothing did no one any favors.”

He wants you to strip.

He’s right. You’re actually already halfway there, not that he’s got any idea. But you’re in his tent and he’s here and you ain’t never been naked in from of a man (or anybody) (but men was the danger drilled into your head over and over and over on the farmstead).

Even though he can’t see.

“S-still trying to g-g-get my clothes-s off?” you say because if this is a joke, you don’t got to feel so goddamn fucking vulnerable about it.

“Trying to make sure your little human body doesn’t give out. Navigating this situation in my condition would be a challenge, darling.”

And he cut you loose. And then came back.

Self-preservation. So much of human cooperation is all about making your own survival easier. That makes sense (and ain’t got nothing to do with sitting with the man in his tent surrounded by the smell of him) (or with him cutting that rope). It’s just psychology and sociology.

You look to him. The glow from outside reveals him only as a shifting outline. “Y-you got a-a spare bl-blanket?”

To which he makes an awkward sound. “Not…really, no.”

He must’a stolen at least eight pillows from them tieflings. Did he just…use them to decorate the outside? Why the fuck?

Then he moves, reaches down and says, “If you’ll allow me?”

The blanket you kneel on. Holy fuck, that is his only fucking blanket? A dozen pillows outside and not even some nice quilt for him to actually sleep on.

The fuck kinda psychology is going on here?

You take the offered thing and he sits back. Blind. Having left you to die and then come back and now, like, caring for you. Sort of. Waiting for you to strip and he can’t see and he makes no move towards you. Just sitting there. Having given you his literal only bedding in the world to protect your modesty from a blind man. This guy who cut your fucking rope.

“Can you turn around?” you say.

He sort of leans back a little. You think it’s a startle move. Stares in the dark for a long moment. “You know I’m still blind, yes?”

You do know. Logic brain is super aware. But the only times you ever been even halfway naked in the direct presence of somebody was a doctor for an exam, and you chattered the entire fucking time and she was decent enough to drape your little medical cape over one tit while she felt around on the other (they gave you a blanket to cover your top half while they went between your legs and that’s about when you started making the really bad jokes).

Astarion is the only other person to see you like that, for a couple’a minutes out in the woods. He’s the only person to ever put his mouth on you.

“I-I know,” you say. “I mean, it’s j-just…”

His head only tilts to the side all slow because he wants you to know you sound like a damn teenager. Like some shy girl all flustered by stripping down in front of a blind man.

“Please,” you say, and then want to punch yourself over how small and weak your stupid voice comes out.

But Astarion only says, “All right.”

And then shuffles himself around so his back is to you.

So you, naturally, turn yourself around, too. Too much mental bullshit. Too many years of sin and shame and “only whores uncover themselves.” You know it’s bullshit, intellectually. Emotionally too, on good days.

This ain’t been a good day for you. Hasn’t really been a good month for you, either. And all them bullshit feelings gets all caught up in your chest and your hands shake from more than cold as you unlace your stays.

It takes a minute to finish. Soon enough, you kneel on that wood plank, cooch out, in nothing but a dripping tunic.

You are so fucking glad them stays kept that cord around your neck and kept your stupid soul jar from getting washed away.

One last thing. You glance over your shoulder—Astarion ain’t moved, aside from lifting a hand and wiggling his fingers. The dim glow catches a flash of shine, and you realize he’s running a coin along his knuckles.

“Neat trick,” you say. And shuck off that tunic as fast as you can. Naturally, it ends up sticking to your skin and fucking cling wraps around your head as you try to wrench the last of it off.

Astarion snorts. “Having trouble?”

You fling the shirt down like the bitch called you ugly.

“Nope,” you say.

He runs the coin along again, and then his hand flicks and the coin twirls into the air. For him to catch it. One-handed and with no sight.

“Holy shit,” you say. “That was cool.”

“…cool?”

Dirt potion. Must’a translated that one all literal. “It means something, uh, impressive. Something the person saying it approves of. Like if your clothes are real stylish, people might say that’s cool.”

He doesn’t respond. You throw that blanket over you and wrap it as tight as you can. Put as many folds and layers between you and the outside air you can. You tell yourself it’s for heat retention. And then you make yourself turn to face it cause it seems rude not to.

“You know,” he says after a moment. “Orcish has fifteen different verb forms for the word ‘to hit.’ It all depends on how hard the blow is, how soft the target is, or if one of them is holding a weapon while hitting.”

That…don’t surprise you. “Huh.”

“The standard greeting also translates as ‘meat,’ so I suppose I’ve heard stranger.”

You both sit there a second while your teeth chatter. “I h-heard that ancient E-Egyptians—one of the e-e-earlier empires where I’m f-from—greeted each other w-with-t-t something translated as ‘b-b-bread and b-beer.’ Cause that’s what they l-lived o-on.”

He hums softly. “You are educated, aren’t you?”

“Informal. D-didn’t grow up going to s-school, and the h-higher schools was-s-s all too exp-pensive.”

“You taught yourself?”

“Chewed right on t-through the first p-public library I found, o-once I learned what-t-t it was. Then I found th-the internet.” Gale’s been pestering (affectionately) you about that one for a solid week and a half.

“So you’re good at learning, then?” Astarion says.

You tilt your head back and forth in a “kind of” gesture. Remember he can’t see. “I guess.”

That seems to settle something for him. He gives a slow, barely perceptible nod. “Then I have a proposition, darling.”

And you think to the last time he said them words, and how you’re now buck-ass naked in his tent, and your lungs seize up.

But he don’t lean forward. Don’t say nothing inappropriate. Don’t so much as lift a hand in your direction.

He’s been accommodating ever since the truth spilled outta you like a burst abscess. When he saw your memory of that night in the woods when he offered you sex. When you tried to make yourself go through it because you are thirty-five and you barely got allies and this world wants you dead and that seemed the surest way to get somebody on your side.

You truly…don’t want me.

His tone then was so wildly different from his usual, shaping them words. At the time, you chalked it up to him losing almost every drop of blood outta his body and the dripping chest wound where you pulled the stake outta him. Exhaustion and pain and all.

But the last week or so, you ain’t been so sure. He’s still a flirty bastard, but it’s changed. It’s more like…an inside joke between you. He’s says outrageous shit, and fucking winks, and you both know he don’t actually mean it.

It feels a little bit like…respect? That man don’t hardly respect nobody. Wouldn’t know a boundary if it bit him in the ass. But not this. This part, he don’t push. Not seriously.

He just cuts you loose in a flooded river.

The dampness of your skin is starting to seep to seep into the blanket. It don’t help that he can’t contribute any warmth to the air inside the tent.

“I can teach you Chondathan,” he says. “It’s a major language spoken in most nearby human settlements, including Baldur’s Gate, and, ugh, where the wizard is from.”

That…is a huge fucking offer. You frown. “Gale’s alread-d-dy teaching me y’all’s l-language.”

“He’s teaching you Common, darling. It’s fine for day-to-day conversation. But if you want any versatility, or be able to read something that isn’t merchant listings, you need something else. Chondathan and Common were derived from the same origin language; it shouldn’t be too difficult.”

To read. They got books, you already know. Gale’s got half a library in his magic bag. And Astarion’s always cradling a new one at camp.

“S-sounds like a lotta w-work,” you say. And not just for you. “Not like I-I don’t ap-preciate it or nothing?”

Your eyes are getting used to the gloom. Enough to make out the shift in shadows as he frowns.

“It’s just a l-lotta time,” you say. “I don’t wanna o-overtax-x you or nothing.”

And that frown twists into skepticism. “What else do we have to do while we trek through the Underdark, aside from contemplate all the gruesome ways in which me might die?”

Well there’s a point. It still ain’t like him, though. He so rarely offers to share anything but his commentary.

…guilt? Like he fucked up, he knows it, so now he’s throwing niceness at you in an attempt to make him feel better? Or just keep you from noticing.

“I,” you say. It ain’t gonna hurt nothing. And he’s got a point about needing a distraction. And maybe, in some fucked up way, it’s his version of a “sorry I left you to die, would you like a language in compensation?” You continue, “…sure. If it ain’t a-a bother to y-you. I’d really appreciate that.”

He nods and his face smooths out. Seems pretty pleased.

“And now, for my second proposal,” he says, and lifts his right hand. “Ignis.”

Fire bursts from his palm. He cups his fingers and it’s like holding a ball, only it’s on fucking fire.

“What the fuck!” you say.

Only it don’t immediately set the tent on fire like it did the torch. It just…sits there, dancing in his palm as the fucking goblin man smirks at you.

“Elf. Remember, darling?” he says. “I do know this cantrip.”

It’s about the size of his fist, and a warm orange. You look up to check for sparks against the very flammable material of a pre-industrial tent. But there ain’t none. It ain’t even producing smoke.

“Does that hurt?” you say.

He…blinks at you. Cocks his head like he’s trying to puzzle out what you’re saying. Again, that first wrinkle of a frown and his mouth opens, but no words come out.

Which only makes your heart lurch. Cutting you loose or no, if he’s trying to make up for that by… “Astarion, if that’s hurting you—”

“No,” he says. “No, it’s not. It’d be a poor spell if summoning it caught your own clothes on fire.”

Again, that smirk. You don’t know what to make of it. There was something there. Something in his reaction that churns low and nasty in you, that makes you want to set someone else on fire.

But he wants to play normal, and you don’t wanna spook him. So you scoot closer. Reach up, palm out. Gentle heat wafts over your skin. Goosebumps sweep up your arms and down your chest and thighs. You lean full in before you can think about it.

“How long can you hold that?” you say.

“A few more moments.”

And right as your exposed skin begins to soak up that small warmth, the flame goes out. The chill immediately surges for you again, but you still say, “Thank you. That was nice—”

“Ignis.”

Another burst of flame. You can’t help but squeak and jerk back. Until the warmth drags you in again and that shithead fucking smirks like he invented the expression.

“What’s fueling it?” you say.

“My mana. What the wizard calls the Weave. Don’t worry, darling, I can keep this long enough to keep your little, human heart beating until you warm back up.”

“That might take a bit.”

“Oh~” he says and leans forward. “I have plenty of stamina.”

Two weeks ago, he would have leaned much further in. His eyes would have been all half-lidded and his body language would have set off alarm bells (once he told you he was interested in you and you realized he wasn’t just screwing around). But now, there’s none of that. It feels like y’all’s bowing game. Like…fun.

Going through all this effort. Maybe cause of guilt. Maybe because, as he said, it’d be a big bitch to go this shit alone. He left you to die. And then came back. You got no idea what to make of it, what you should make of it. But it sure is easier to go on tromping alongside him.

“T-this feeble human would very much a-appreciate your superior, elvish stamina. D-darlin.’”

He huffs. Doesn’t lose that stupid fucking smirk though.

Gradually, very gradually, the air in the tent begins to warm. And as it warms, your eyelids get heavy. Soon, you gotta lie down. Your teeth stop chattering. You can stretch your legs outta that tight, fetal ball you curled yourself into. All the while surrounded by the warmth of Astarion’s cantrip and the scent of perfume and of him.

And all the while, he sits right there, staring off into nothing, not even complaining that you’re hogging his only blanket.

“Ignis,” he says quietly.

#these two shitheads #what shall we become #astarion #astarion x tav #tavstarion #astarion x eleanor #slow burn #lost in a cave #they're idiots #demisexual tav #plus size tav

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