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slothquisitor · 1 year ago

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Dying Star

In which Astarion decides to one-up Mary Shelley. This is graveyard smut. It's been literal years since I wrote smut. Please be nice to me lol. Astarion x Liv, 4k. Not angsty for once!

Also on AO3.

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There is little time in the days following Cazador’s defeat for Liv to even catch her breath. Astarion remains quieter than usual, pensive at times. Their companions ask him how he is to try to check-in, but he shrugs off their concern with a joke or a haughty jut of his chin. Their group is well-versed in his fake smiles, in his cutting remarks, in what they hide. Still, no one presses him. They instead leave that to her.

She knows that this is a complicated thing. Astarion did the right thing, and she’s sure he knows it, but he gave up a lot in the process. Which is what makes it all the more noble, not that he’d appreciate hearing that. Ever since their night on the roof, he has spent every night in her bed, they fall asleep tangled together, but she always wakes alone. He spends every sunrise on the roof. She hasn’t asked, but she’s suspecting he’s counting how many he has left.

Perhaps they will still find a way for him to be able to walk in the sun even without the tadpole.

But that is a problem for later. For days when they’re not saving Gondians from the Iron Throne or blowing up the Steel Watch Foundry. Their group eats a celebratory dinner, loud and happy, and while there is still much to do, today has felt like a victory. Astarion even stays, drinking and joining in with their friends.

As the night winds down, he leans over and in a voice low enough that only she can hear, says, “There’s…something I’d like to show you, if that’s all right? Something out in the city.”

She takes his hand in hers. “Of course.” And they slip out of the Elfsong into the dark streets of the lower city.

As they walk hand in hand, it’s easy to pretend that they’re just another couple out in the city. That there is no Chosen of the Dead Three to deal with, that they can just be themselves. She’s struck with a vision of a future, of an after . She’s not really allowed herself to consider what it might look like or that they might have some chance at survival, but with him, she thinks that maybe there might be more than just a chance. That there might be something really worth fighting for.

“I should probably start getting used to the shadows again, to dark streets and moonlit nights,” Astarion sighs, face upturned to the cool light of the moon. The moonlight suits him, casting his hair in liquid silver, his eyes a deep purple. He is a dying star, bright even in the darkness. But this is not the light he loves.

“Perhaps,” she squeezes his hand in reassurance. “But who knows, maybe we’ll get lucky? Find a way.”

His answering smile is a soft thing. “If anyone could, it’s you. Assuming we survive of course because a horrible death is always just around the corner with you.”

She huffs a laugh at that. “Unfortunately, it's true.”

“I’d still follow you anywhere,” he whispers into her hair before kissing the top of her head. The words feel like a promise.

“How are you feeling, now you’ve had a little time?”

He sighs. “It feels ridiculous to still be thinking of Cazador. He’s gone, I’m here, I won. But I still keep reliving what happened. Playing it over and over again in my mind. And yet, I feel invigorated and terrified. And I’m still trying to understand it really.”

“I’m sure it will always be a complicated thing. I’m sorry.”

“I came so close to losing everything back there. To losing myself. Back at the ritual, all I could see was the power on offer and the safety it promised. I was so blinded by it, just as Cazador was. But you saw something else in me - someone else I could be. Someone who could break the cycle of power and terror that started centuries ago. You saved me. I may not have appreciated it at the time, but I do now. Thank you.”

They had been close to losing him, but he had chosen differently. “You saved yourself. I just gave you a push.” She knows that the temptation of that power had been so difficult for him to turn away from, but she had always believed he could do it on his own. As selfish as he often pretends to be, he cares too much and too deeply.

He stops, turning to her fully, shaking his head. “You did more than that. You believed in me, believed I was enough just the way I am. When I look at my future, anything and everything feels possible now. And I get to share it with you, as a partner, an equal. You saved me from myself, and let me walk a new path where I can be free, truly and honestly free. This is a gift, you know. Thank you - I won’t forget it.” She has never seen him this unburdened, this open, so very different from the man she’d met just a few short months ago.

She grins. “Partners, huh?”

He tucks her hand in the crook of his arm as they continue walking. “If you’d like.”

She leans into him, squeezing his arm. “I’d like that very much.”

He covers her hand with his. “Good.”

They’ve walked far enough that she realizes now where Astarion has led them, it’s the cemetery. It’s quiet, peaceful even. Astarion lets go of her hand, stepping forward to a vine-covered grave. For all his casual ease from before, he seems a little stiff now, nervous even, before he approaches the grave and clears the dirt and ivy away. She realizes even before the name is fully legible, that this gravestone is his.

“Two hundred years and I never came back. Not since the night I woke up down there. I had to punch a hole in the coffin and claw my way through six feet of dirt. And when I finally broke the surface, retching up dirt and congealed blood, Cazador was waiting. From that day on I was his. Until now.”

He spoke once about the pain of that transformation, about how his body became something that was no longer his. There was no reason for Cazador to allow Astarion to be buried, for him to suffer that way, except for the cruelty, the horror. Cazador deserved far worse. Two hundred years of suffering, but even afraid, he fought back and won. “You were never his. Whatever he had, he took by force.”

“Maybe, but he did take it. There’s almost nothing left of the person I was. Just a name on a rock. For nearly two centuries I stalked the streets like a ghost while the person I was lay here dead and buried. Now I need to figure out who I am. What I want.” He glances at her with a soft smile, with something that feels all the more precious for what they’ve been through.

“And what do you want?” she asks. It is a question she has been asking him even before she knew how important it was to him, and it is a question she will keep asking, keep pushing through her own fears because it is better to know than to wonder.

His response is quick, with no hesitation. “You. I want you.” He turns toward her more fully. “You were by my side through all of this. Through bloodlust and pain and misery. You were patient. You cared. You trusted me when that was an objectively stupid thing to do. I feel safe with you. Seen. And whatever the future holds for me, I don’t want to lose that.”

The words fill up something within Liv, some yawning chasm that has been empty for years and years. He wants her . And not because of anything she can do or be or her magic. “I feel seen with you too. Whatever comes next, I’ve got you.”

“Thank you.”

The moment hangs there, and she wonders if this is the moment she should tell him how she feels. But he’s clearly still working up to something, so she waits. He turns back to the gravestone. “Well, I should probably fix this.”

He approaches the gravestone, and for a time, the only sound is the scraping of his dagger on stone as he carves in a new epitaph. A life now his. He stands back after a minute, surveying his work before kneeling down on the grass. She joins him but doesn’t say a word, just holding this moment and all that it represents.

“I’ve been dead in the ground long enough. It’s time to try living again,” he says before turning to her and taking both of her hands in his own. “With everything life has to offer.”

The way he’s looking at her holds so much promise, hope. Her heart speeds up. “Meaning?”

“If a night of passion is on offer. I could be persuaded,” he says with a sly grin. She recognizes it for the gift of trust that it is. That he wants to try again, try with her.

She smiles. “I’d like that.”

He looks relieved. “You know, I didn’t care for you when we first met.”

She rolls her eyes. “Yes, I know. You made it very clear with every complaint and criticism of my-”

“I love you.”

She stops mid-sentence, looking into his eyes. He loves her? She grew up in a house where there were words missing. Words like love always sound funny in her mouth, as if she isn’t forming the words quite right. She has been cradling these words within her, holding them carefully as if they are fragile, unsure if she’s allowed to give them to him when she’s not positive she knows exactly what they mean.

“You do?” Her voice sounds small, full of disbelief.

Astarion’s eyes soften, his voice gentle. “I love you. I love this. And I want it all.” He reaches out, cupping her cheek, as he leans in.

“I love you too,” she says, just before his lips meet hers. And the words feel exactly right.

***

Liv is not the first person to tell him that she loves him, but it is the first time he has believed it to be true. It certainly isn’t the first time he’s said the words, he’d even said them to her once, in a streak of meanness following their first night together that he now regrets. He regrets saying the words to her the way he had, flippantly, and in a way to wound and hurt. This time when he says them, he’s cutting her off, surprising her. Her green eyes go wide with realization, and her whispered question tells him he needs to say it again.

He holds her hands gently, her warmth seeping into him. “I love you. I love this. And I want it all.” He cups her cheek, reaching for her has become instinctive, easy.

Her eyes are soft as he leans in, and he feels her words more than hears them. “I love you too.” The words light up something within him, casting some long-hanging darkness away. She loves him. Him. Not what he looks like or what he can do, certainly not his power. Him.

He closes the distance, capturing her lips. This kiss is deliberately not careful in the way so many of their kisses have been since Moonrise. Tonight, he doesn’t want to be careful. He wants to be brave, to throw caution to the wind. He wants everything she is willing to give him, and he is willing to give everything over to her.

He pushes her back into the grass, settling over her as he drags her bottom lip between his teeth. Her answering gasp is a lovely thing, and he drinks it down like starlight, hand skating down her side to her hip as his fingers pull her close. Her hands are tunneled in his hair, twisting in his curls, but they do not pull or direct, instead, they just anchor him here in this moment, with her. Like with so many other things in their relationship, she seems to be waiting for him to make the next step, to take the lead.

Well, he can certainly do that.

He rolls his hips into hers as he inches her shirt up, cupping one of her breasts. She hums into his mouth at the contact, and he breaks away to kiss down the column of her throat. She shivers as his teeth worry the skin at her neck, not enough to puncture, just enough of a promise that perhaps they’ll get there this evening. Her hands span the length of his chest, before deftly undoing the fastenings of his doublet, but then her fingers pause and she pulls back.

He leans back to meet her gaze, ready to provide her with whatever reassurances she needs that he does in fact want this. “Everything alright, love?”

“You, we….” She is so very rarely fumbling, and it’s rather adorable. “Here?”

Is she serious? “Well, this late our other option is with our nearest and dearest friends in the same room. And as much as I enjoy voyeurism as much as the next person, I think I’d rather not have them participating tonight,” he says, fighting a laugh.

“We could get caught!” she whispers. Her eyes are wide and guileless. She’s really not kidding.

He collapses into the crook of her neck, laughter overtaking him. “That, my dear, is part of the appeal. Could, but won’t. This place is quite dead this time of night.” He hates himself a little as he says it, but it’s worth it to get her laughing too.

It earns him a swat of her hand against his shoulder. “I just mean if we get caught, we could get in trouble!”

“I’m sorry, are you concerned about getting in trouble for public indecency on the same day that you blew up a government facility?”

“Apparently?” But even as she says it, she sounds far less sure than she did earlier.

He brushes her hair back behind the tip of her pointed ear, looking for some hint that this hesitancy is part of something bigger. “If you’re not comfortable, we can go, but I have every confidence that the very powerful wizard who destroyed the entirety of the Steel Watch can protect us both from anyone who might catch us here.”

Her eyes are bright, and she shakes her head. “You’re a terrible influence,” she says, kissing him fiercely.

“Gods, I hope so,” he murmurs as she eases his doublet from his shoulders and greedily seeks his skin with her hands. He melts into her touch, lets the world narrow to this moment and this moment alone, enjoying the feel her hands against his skin. He is surprised at how hungry he is for more, more of her, more of her skin against his. He wants to feel her. The genuineness of the desire catches him off guard, makes him feel unsteady.

There is nothing choreographed about the way they undress one another, sneaking kisses between discarding items of clothing. The fumbling gives way to a silliness and laughter he didn’t realize could be present in moments like this. He presses her back against the blanket of clothing they’ve made on the ground, unable to keep the smile from his lips as he kisses her deeply, tongues twining together. His cock is hard against the warmth of her stomach, and he presses his hips into her just to feel her intake of breath.

“I want to touch you,” he says against her lips.

She tightens her hold on him, as if she can’t get close enough. “Please.”

He reaches between them and gently parts the lips of her vulva before gently circling her entrance. She is wet and waiting, so he slips a finger inside her, his thumb circling her clit. She moans against his lips, back arching. He adds another finger and pumps his fingers, adjusting the pace while she falls apart in his arms. He kisses down her chest and over the swell of her breast, circling her nipple with his tongue while he continues to work his fingers inside of her.

For as difficult as Liv is to read otherwise, he has never had any issues reading her like this. Her sighs and moans, the way her body responds to him. He hooks his fingers as he circles her clit, is rewarded with a moan that sounds suspiciously like calling on the gods.

She tightens around his fingers as she comes, her cheeks flushed, eyelashes a dark smudge against her cheeks, his name a string of broken syllables as he strokes her through her orgasm. It’s a beautiful sight to see her undone like this, unburdened by responsibility or worry, simply here with him. Her eyes are dark, slightly unfocused, and she kisses him hard, teeth and lips meeting with an urgency that is still somehow careful.

Her hand is on his hip, fingers brushing closer to his cock, but not quite touching. He’s aching for her to touch him, to wrap her delicate fingers around him. “Yes,” he manages to ground out, his hips stuttering into hers.

Her gentle touch is his undoing. He buries his head into her neck as her fingers wrap around him, her thumb brushing over the tip of his cock before slowly, torturously sliding along his length. He shudders at the contact, melts into the sensation.

Against his ear he feels her lips. “I want to taste you.”

Gods, yes. He flips them so that she can crawl down his body, kissing down his chest and his stomach as she goes. She pauses just before she reaches his cock, eyes locking on his, waiting for confirmation. His chest is heaving with breaths he doesn’t need, but feels like he’ll drown if he doesn’t. He nods, and she smiles, pressing a kiss to the tip of his cock before taking him into her mouth.

“Fuck.” The sensation is almost too much coupled with the way she watches him, honed in on his every reaction. He has been on the receiving end of partners before, enthusiastic lovers who hoped his enjoyment might mean deeper feelings on his part. This is different, an offering, a focus on him, his pleasure. It’s something he’s allowed, so he leans his head back, letting the sensation, the pleasure wash over him without worrying about what might come next, what’s expected after.

And it is good, so very good, until it is almost too good and he stops her with a gentle hand in her hair. “Careful, love, I’d still like to be inside you.”

Her answering smile is a smug thing, as if she is proud of the effect she’s had on him. He kisses her then, groaning as he tastes himself on her tongue. He rolls them so that she is back beneath him, and thrusts forward, his cock dragging through her wetness. They both groan, and he reaches beneath them positioning himself at her entrance, forehead pressed to hers. She cups his cheek, eyes meeting his, a silent question within them.

She is staying so very still, and he knows it is because she wants this to be entirely his choice, entirely up to him. He could stop things here if he wanted, they could go back to the Elfsong, and there would be no consequences. She would still love him either way. He slowly, carefully presses into her.

“Oh,” she breathes, eyes fluttering shut as he begins to move. The rhythm is slow at first, her fingers pulling him closer, as if she could eliminate all space between them. Her hips meet his every thrust as they move together at a languid pace, as if they have all the time in the world.

He can feel the way her heart races, the rush of blood in her veins. She is so vibrant, so very alive. He kisses down her throat, and isn’t at all surprised when she twists in offering. Some part of him wonders if this should have a place her, but she’s never shied away from his true nature, all of him. So perhaps, he shouldn’t either. He tries to be as gentle as possible, as he sinks his fangs into her neck as he thrusts into her, hoping the sensations might balance. Her small gasp tells him he’s been successful. He savors the taste of her blood, the way her warmth spreads through him, her fingers in his hair.

His hips stutter as her walls tighten around him. He knows she’s close, and he picks up his pace, sliding as deep as he can. He takes another sip of her blood before pulling back, tongue catching the excess. His face hovers over hers, breaths mingling.

Her eyes are soft as she brushes his curls from his face. “I love you,” she says before capturing his lips in a deep kiss. She orgasms with a shudder, and he follows her over pleasure’s edge, hips stuttering to a stop as he comes.

She’s breathing hard, sweat forming on her brow, but they stay there bodies entwined. Her nose brushes softly against his. “Feeling alright?”

But the problem has rarely been the actual act, but how he feels after. There is nothing about tonight he would change, but he finds himself still bracing subconsciously, awaiting the regret and the shame. Perhaps it will not come. He kisses the tip of her nose. “Yes.”

But she has always seen him, even when he wished she didn’t. “What do you need?” she asks, gently running her fingers through his curls.

“I…” he pauses, wondering what it is he needs, now in this moment. This is, for him, new territory. There were not often afters in sex that didn’t include putting clothes back on immediately or other far worse endings for his lovers. “I don’t know.”

“Perhaps we just stay here for a while?” she says, the backs of her fingers brushing his cheek.

“And here I thought you were worried about getting caught,” he says, trying to mask how out of his depth he is here. It would be very nice to stay like this, to just be held.

She smiles. “I think you put it best when you said -”

He presses a finger against her lips. “Don’t repeat it. And if you tell anyone I said that, I will deny it. Vehemently.”

“Come here,” she says, pulling him in closer. He lays his head against her chest, where he can hear her heartbeat. She runs her fingers through his hair, nails lightly dragging against his scalp, for a long, quiet time. He focuses on her heartbeat, on her steady breathing. He waits for the wave of shame or disgust, for his mind to twist this around into something else, but it doesn’t come, instead, there is…nothing, and it is a relief. He is sure that it will not always be this way and that there will still be days and moments where he cannot bear even her touch, but tonight, tonight he has reclaimed back a piece of himself.

“We should get you to a real bed,” he says after he notices Liv’s breathing begin to deepen, sleep making her eyes heavy.

“I think I’d prefer not to be discovered sleeping here by some poor mourning person come to pay their respects,” she says around a yawn.

He grins at the image as he begins gathering discarded clothing. “But it would be funny.”

“You’re terrible.”

He kneels back over her, brings his hand to her neck, and runs his thumb along her jaw. “And you love me.”

“And I love you,” she smiles against his lips.

And this, this is real.

#astarion #astarion x tav #astarion x liv #baldur's gate 3 #bright lost things #tosses smut your way and runs #slothquisitorwrites

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