#despite that hope it brightens someone’s day 🩵🩵🩵

[imagineitdearies]

~ A Flawed Eternity ~

(AKA drabbles set in the Perfect Slaughter universe.)

In which Astarion and Halsin discuss intimacy.

~

Astarion was getting frustrated with himself. 

In the midst of one of the most heated embraces they’d had in a long while, his body pressed down over Tyrus’s lean frame on an actual bed, his hand entangled in those soft, snow-white locks, his erection rubbing against the seam of Tyrus’s thigh and groin—in the midst of heaven, Astarion’s thoughts dragged him back into hell. 

It was something so simple. Just Tyrus’s hands, already gripping his back and hip, squeezing a bit tighter. And then Astarion’s mind suddenly decided to translate the enthusiasm into obligation. 

All at once he felt used, dirty. Out of control. 

Objectively, he knew Tyrus expected nothing. Astarion was the one who had the inconvenient drive for sex, the one whose body quite physically yearned to touch and be touched like this by Tyrus with such a force he pushed himself into discomfort. But that knowledge didn’t stop the unsettling feeling chilling his spine now as he felt the grip pulling him closer. Like he’d once again become nothing more than a thing to be used.

Was he not allowed this anymore? Astarion silently lamented whilst kissing Tyrus harder in defiance. Did he not deserve both freedom and pleasure? Was this the gods’ petty punishment, some final penance for his supposed wrongs?

Fuck that, Astarion inwardly growled, and didn’t think further before he reached down, grabbed the grasping hand at his hip, and pinned it above Tyrus’s head.

Tyrus broke from their kiss, staring up at him with wide eyes as they both caught their breath. Clearly confused—though not frightened yet, at least.

Astarion let go of his wrist before that could change. Then pulled back entirely and faced slightly away from his partner, swallowing down a small portion of guilt. He hated being restrained, even for a moment, and Tyrus surely carried a similar sentiment. 

“A bad memory?” Tyrus said softly, as they had taken to asking each other.

If only it were that simple. 

��Let’s trance,” Astarion sighed. Throwing Tyrus a tired smirk, before nodding at their surroundings, “Who knows how long we’ll be invited back into this cozy little inn, after all.” Half-grateful, half-bitter when Tyrus didn’t press him further about the reaction, just held his hand with a bit more carefulness than usual as they tried to rest.

The following dusk he headed to the lapping river shore early, using the cloak in hopes to get a moment alone before Halsin showed up and they had another of their ‘talks’ prior to the night’s quests.

But Halsin was already there, to Astarion’s annoyance, trying and failing to skip stones whilst humming a tune under his breath.

“Waiting all day for me, darling?” Astarion teased as he approached, trying to shrug off his annoyance. “Good thing Cynda doesn’t seem the jealous type.”

Halsin turned and smiled at him. “Not at all. She has a voracious appetite herself,” he replied—and then let out a low chuckle at Astarion’s grimace.

The half-drow girl had somehow wormed her way into his affections with the same speed Tyrus once had, if in a sisterly way. While objectively he would support such a thing, Astarion felt how he imagined Tyrus would at the implication of her sexual exploits. And maybe a tad jealous, too, of how easy Halsin and Cynda’s affections seemed to be.

“Well, you two can make up for Tyrus and I, then,” he huffed, waving a dismissive hand before looking out at the vivid sunset.

“You seem bothered lately, every time you mention your relationship with him,” Halsin mused. “Why is that?”

Astarion felt his hackles raise, along with another flash of guilt. “Bothered? He is—we are—our relationship is the only good I hold claim to,” he sputtered. “It’s the reason we’re all free, alive—he’s wonderful, perfect, deserving of whatever he—” Astarion cut himself off when he realized Halsin wasn’t trying to argue. He let out a slow breath and finished, “If I’m bothered, it has nothing to do with him.”

Halsin slowly nodded. “Understood.” 

There was a minute of silence, the large elf managing a single skip from one of his four next stones before Astarion felt the urge to explain further. Half to defend Tyrus still—but also because, after the last few tendays, he’d found with some begrudgement it was helpful to get things off his chest. Allow them to be spoken, examined by an outsider, validated or questioned so he could articulate what he was feeling to himself.

“I told you we haven’t had sex since our freedom,” Astarion started eventually. “And I suppose that is beginning to bother me.”

Halsin paused mid-way through throwing a stone, raising a brow. “Have you talked more about it together?”

Astarion grimaced but nodded. “A little. He likes it but doesn’t need it—his sister must have stolen all his ‘voraciousness,’ I suppose, I didn’t think for years he’d even want to try it. But it’s me, who really wants to and keeps . . . stopping us. I did it again earlier today, before our trance.”

He paused, waiting for one of Halsin’s insightful questions or interjections, but the elf stayed silent. Just held out a smooth, flat stone for Astarion to take.

Astarion huffed but did, rolling the rock around again and again in his hands. The older elf at least knew how to pick the right ones for skipping, even if his execution was dastardly. 

Slowly, Astarion forced out the words, “I don’t want him to think about me in terms of sex. I don’t think I want anyone to . . . and I know of all people, Tyrus doesn’t want me for that, but every time we get more intimate the prospect of the act itself clouds my reasoning. I feel used, like my body is being exploited, even though I know rationally otherwise. I was the one who initiated it!” he finished with a bitter laugh. 

Halsin hummed. “Do you feel the same when you masturbate?”

Astarion felt his insides jolt in fear, for some reason. “I lived as a sex slave for nearly a century,” he growled, barely resisting the temptation to throw the rock in his hands at Halsin instead. “Why in the Hells would I be doing that?”

“Self-pleasure can be a very healing thing,” the elf replied in that sage, even tone of his, unbothered by Astarion’s blunt words or scathing tone. It made Astarion wonder a lot of things about the elf’s background.

“I don’t—” Astarion sputtered, then recovered, “There’s nothing about sex that feels like pleasure anymore. Not unless it’s with him.”

Silently, he questioned his own words. Nothing about the sexual acts he performed for and with his victims for Cazador had given him any sort of pleasure, after the first few years of doing it. Hells, even kissing felt like a burden until it was with Tyrus. But seeking pleasure alone?

Cazador had found him the last time he tried, Astarion remembered with a sudden nausea. Which explained his initial fear at Halsin’s question. It was a hazy, old memory his mind clearly didn’t want to hold onto—but in investigating the pieces of it that remained, the bastard’s words came through much too clear: “I always knew you were a slut, boy, but a deviant too? If you’re so desperate for it, then . . .”

“Astarion?”

He blinked, realizing he had been staring ahead at nothing, white-knuckling the stone. “I don’t think it would be any fun, for me,” he recovered in a hoarse voice, trying and failing to smile.

Halsin didn’t respond right away. The older elf spent a minute looking around for more stones to throw, leaving Astarion to recover from the harrowing memory in silence. 

Finally, once he’d gathered a handful, Halsin nodded at Astarion and said, “You might be right—especially at first. But there’s a lot of things you two have and do, that you’ve said used to be triggering or considered impossible. Perhaps this is another thing you might . . . reclaim, in a sense.” When Astarion just frowned, the elf added, “And it might help you feel more comfortable with your body in the future, if you want to try engaging in sex with Tyrus again.”

Sex with Tyrus. Truly, Astarion had gone too long without it. Just the words brought up a dozen delicious memories—the dual sensation of Tyrus kissing at his neck and kneading hands into his ass, the little whimpers that left Tyrus’s parted lips when Astarion gave him pleasure, the warm tightness of him encompassing Astarion’s cock, that last time—and Astarion had to look away, glad he couldn’t blush and that Halsin would have no way of knowing his cock had just twitched in his trousers.

Back when Cazador caught him, Astarion had just been trying to self-soothe and give himself one small good thing in the midst of hell. When he and Tyrus were intimate, it felt like a way of giving each other comfort or providing distraction from their terrible reality. Even a method of cleansing himself of what he did on other nights without Tyrus.

But now? He was simply desperate, just like Cazador used to goad him about. 

The smallest look, word, or action could have been used against him—pointed to as signs of interest, framed as evidence to why he’d asked for whatever torture happened next. Nine years ago, just failing to hide his benign interest in the drow had earned them one of Astarion’s worst punishments to date.

His desire, perceived or real, had always been used and weaponized against him. 

Maybe that was what made it still feel like a dirty, dangerous thing now.

Astarion distracted himself from all the painful realizations with an insult: “You really have no idea what you’re doing, do you?” he huffed, watching another of Halsin’s stones plunk into the water.

Halsin chuckled. “Ganyl’s given me pointers, but I wouldn’t mind a few more.”

Technically, Astarion had only tried out this pastime once on a slower night in Rivington—but his accuracy had yet to fail him in most things. “Step aside, darling,” Astarion smirked, lifting the rock and getting into position.

He threw it with unerring form. Astarion’s smirk broke into a true smile as they watched it skip along the surface of the calm waters, something close to four dozen times before the stone sank just a few meters off from the opposite shore.

Halsin made a low whistle, shaking his head. “I’ll keep practicing,” he said around a hearty laugh.

Astarion gave one more smirk before dusting his hands off his trousers, turning to go.

But the older elf was never one to leave him without some call to action, in the six times they’d met thus far. “Will you consider the idea?” Halsin asked behind him. When Astarion paused, glancing over his shoulder, he continued, “It doesn’t have to be a specific act, or with an end goal in mind, you see. Self-pleasure can mean a lot of things.”

Like what? Astarion wanted to ask. But he had a bit too much pride still, to admit to just how lacking his knowledge was in this area. “If I ever get a moment alone with all this ‘infiltrating the Gauntlet of Shar’ talk, perhaps,” he conceded with a huff.

A thrill of both fear and anticipation shot down his spine, however, as Astarion walked away. He knew if he tried to touch himself and keep his mind blank, his thoughts would end up crowded with a thousand terrible memories. But if he could manage to fill his mind with only what he wanted to do—be with Tyrus, at least in his imagination . . .

Then Astarion might look forward to a bit of alone time, soon.