Absolution
༺Summary༻
Astarion and Serafina have an argument and Astarion does what he thinks is necessary to keep her with him. Set before his Act 2 confession.
༺Pairing༻ Astarion x Serafina (Female Tav/OC)
༺Warnings༻ PiV sex, oral sex, all occurring while Astarion disassociates.
༺Word Count༻ 2441
༺A/N༻ Although most of my reader fics are based my Tav, Serafina, and my experience playing the game as her, this is the first fic I've written featuring her as a named character. And it's my first BG3 fic in 3rd person. I hope you all enjoy it. Thanks to @satanicspinosaurus for the wonderful beta.
The scene from earlier plays over and over in his mind.
“You don't know anything about me, Astarion! So just leave it be.” Sera, sweet, kind, gentle, patient Serafina, had yelled at him. Not once since they'd met on that beach had their erstwhile leader even raised her voice slightly at him. And today she shouted at him. All because she couldn't read Elvish and he'd reacted with the same humor she’d claimed to enjoy. Turning it on him as though he’d been the one in the wrong.
They'd been seated around the fire while Wyll took his turn “cooking”, going through some papers and books they'd found in the wake of a goblin attack. They were looking for any clues into the cult's movements or plans. Sera had plucked a small, neatly bound journal from the pile and turned it over in her hands. It was a thing clearly well-made and cared for. She'd opened it gently, respectful of the fine binding holding it all together.
Her brilliant blue eyes had scanned a few pages before she gave out a frustrated sigh. “Elvish,” she muttered, snapping it shut violently and thrusting it at Astarion. “You'll probably have better luck with that.”
He wasn't sure why he did it. The half-elf’s reaction was disproportionate to simply encountering a foreign language, that was obvious. Maybe it was because he’d become too used to teasing her since they’d started their “relationship.” Their easy back and forth banter giving him the foreign feeling of acceptance.
Or maybe it was his own way of trying to deny those irritatingly tender feelings that had started to creep in whenever he caught her glancing his way or their hands touched, or she laughed at one of his jokes. The need to push back against them, sharpening his tongue and drawing out ancient bias.
Whatever caused it, he should’ve thought before opening his mouth. “Can’t read Espruar? Someone got forgotten by one parent. Is that why you threw a tantrum and ran-”
“Shut up!” Sera leapt up from the log she’d been seated on and glared at him. “You don’t know anything about me, Astarion! So just leave it be.”
With that, she’d stormed off and left him silently stunned, as though awaiting a reprisal that didn’t come. Around him, their companions pretended to look away and he caught a few whispers on the air. “What are you all looking at? It’s not my fault she suddenly can’t take a joke.”
He’d sulked off to his own tent, waiting until her tantrum had passed and everyone forgot his misstep. He’d assumed Sera would cool down and come out for dinner, but instead she’d remained stubbornly locked away. Karlach had brought her a bowl of what they were generously calling stew.
Everyone had eaten and retired for the evening and she was still pouting. Which brought him to now, slinking his way across camp toward her tent. He had to do something, he couldn't watch his hard won protection slip away. It absolutely had nothing to do with the fact that Sera gave him a little kiss and wished him goodnight every other night lately and it had been noticeably withheld tonight.
The way the moonlight filtered through the trees, one solid beam pointing down on her tent, a poet might say that Selune was guiding him. Poets were idiots. Parting the flap just the smallest amount, he starts to slip inside, intent on waking her to settle things if he needed to, when a sound stopped him. A strangled cry, was it directed at him? He froze, half inside, the errant moonbeam that slipped around him haloing her with soft illumination.
Another wordless cry. Only a nightmare, nothing to be concerned with. Stepping in, he lets the tent shut, plunging them both back into darkness. With a predator’s stealth, he approaches her bedroll, kneeling down, eyes subconsciously glancing at the healing puncture wounds on her neck.
“Let me out.” Her sudden words startle him.
Stumbling backwards, he nearly loses his balance to go sprawling across the floor. His skin suddenly heated, as though the breath that carried those words could burn him.
Another sob comes as she thrashes around a bit. “Please, I won't run,” unintelligible sounds follow the small plea. “Let me out.”
Locked up. She'd been locked up too. Regaining himself, he crept toward her again, as she shook and cried. Someone had hurt her. But who would want to do that?
She was Sera, unfailingly kind; who aided refugees, saved children, fought monsters, and foolishly fed manipulative vampires.
The sobbing becomes frantic and without thinking he reaches out to gently grasp her shoulder. “Sera,” she struggles against his touch with a whimper. Growling in frustration, he shakes her a little more roughly. “Serafina!”
Eyes snap open to behold him with wide pupils as her chest heaves. “A-Astarion?” Sitting quickly, she pulls away from him, and he feels a sudden sting in his chest. “What are you doing here?” She hisses, apparently still angry with him.
“You were having a nightmare.” He replies, trying to soften his voice, to be the lover she had come to expect.
“Hmm,” her eyes focus across the tent to an empty lantern, “fiat lux.” Small little motes of light appear in the lantern, swirling gently in their prison, as Sera draws her knees up to her chest. “Well, I'm awake now, you can go.”
The forlorn gaze and empty voice were nothing like the Serafina he'd come to know and the unsettled sensation in the back of his mind grows. He cleares his throat, trying to get the words moving. “I didn’t come just to wake you up, I wanted to…apologize. For earlier. I’m sorry, the joke was in poor taste.”
Turning her head, she glances his way from where it rested on her knees. She looks so small like this, so far from the fierce woman who’d led them from the moment of the crash. “Apology accepted, I probably took it too personally.”
It didn’t quite ring true, but he plows on anyway, hoping maybe those blue eyes would light back up for him. “The truth is, I’m actually a bit rusty with Espruar myself. But maybe I could teach you and it would be good practice for me.” He affects the warmest smile he could, sure the gesture would win her over.
Instead, she shrugs. “Don’t worry about it. It doesn’t actually matter all that much. Thanks for the thought though. You can go, I’m not still mad at you. I’ll see you in the morning.”
That was not his Serafina. He has to do something, to fix this. To keep her on his side. Reaching out, he wraps his arms around her and pulls her into his lap, lips closing over hers. “What’s this about?” She huffs as her skin began to flush a pretty pink.
“Pleading my apology some more,” his voice drops to the low sultry tone that made her pulse jump in a way he could hear.
“I said you were forgiven.” Despite her protest, her arms encircle his neck, pulling him closer.
“Your words said that, but your eyes spoke differently.” His lips trace a line of kisses from her lips to the lobe of her ear, making her sigh.
This was what he could do for her, what he did best. It was a skill honed by two hundred years of unwilling practice, and like so many before, a skill she was willing to make use of. At least it was easy enough with Sera, she was sweet and gentle, and he knew she'd never harm him. And it wasn't as though a part of him didn't want her, she was a pretty little thing. That part was just bound up with all the other parts that hated what his body had been used for. If he had to open his pants for anyone, he supposes he was glad it was her.
“I meant it, but- gods Astarion!” He runs his tongue along the point of her ear, less sensitive than his, but still enough to start driving her mad.
“In that case, we'll call it making up for my behavior earlier.” Guiding her to face him, legs straddling his, her warm core settles against his hips. He kisses his way back down to her throat, already feeling his mind growing distant from his actions.
Lips linger near the marks on her neck, and she squirms in his lap. “Do you want to?”
He could never say no to that offer. Without hesitation, his fangs sink into her flesh, and succulent liquid pours into his throat. It adds to what little pleasure he’s able to wring from what he was about to do. Sera whimpers and writhes in his lap, grinding down on his growing erection. She hadn’t started out allowing him to feed on her as some form of pleasure, but she had given him her neck as often as the rest of her body, and the two had become inextricably tied together.
Just a sip for tonight, after everything that had happened, he couldn’t ask too much. Too soon he pulls his fangs away to lap at the remainders and kiss the wounds. Blood and a distant mind, this was good as it would be for him. “Let's get this out of the way.” Fingers grip the hem of her shirt and guide it over her head.
She shivers as the night air caresses her skin and leans into him. It was almost enough to make him laugh, there was nothing about him that could provide any warmth. Instead he continues kissing his way down her chest, nipping lightly until her back arches into him and she makes a needy noise.
“Patience,” he chides her, releasing his grip on her to remove his own shirt.
Hands encircle her waist in an iron grip, holding her firmly in place while tongue and teeth tease her rosebud nipples. Fingers trace his back as she pants, trying to contain all the noises that could wake the camp. Her nails ghost along his flesh, and he senses she longs to dig them in.. She hadn’t even attempted to ask about it. Why did she afford him such gentleness, was she wary that it would be too much on his scarred flesh?
Lips leave off her hardened peaks to capture hers again, and she grinds against him even harder. No doubt her small clothes were soaked. “You drive me mad,” she whispers, lost in desire.
Just as he’d wanted, Serafina, hurt feelings and nightmares forgotten. “You enjoy it.” He captured her lip between his teeth for a second and nibbles. “Stand up, take your pants off for me.” He awaits her on his knees, as a penitent seeking their absolution.
She’s so occupied, she doesn’t notice as his gaze finds the dancing lights in the lantern, and watches them swirl aimlessly until she’s naked before him. Gripping her thighs, he pulls her in, holding them apart so his tongue can swipe along her sex, as soaked as he predicted. Sera’s not a bard, but she sings for him anyway. Fingers grip into his curls, not too tightly. Sometimes he wishes she wouldn’t be so damn gentle, that she'd be like everyone else, someone easy to use, instead of, whatever all this was.
“Astarion,” she keens as he slips two fingers inside her, tongue running over her clit.
He laps and suckles at it almost as fiercely as he does the wounds he leaves in her neck. The fingers inside her find the spot that causes her knees to buckle and another cry to leave her. She’s close, just a little more, and he could leave it for the night.
“I want you inside me.” He stiffens, inhaling deeply.
“Do you now, my sweet?” He nips her thigh playfully with his fangs while his stomach drops. “Then come down here.”
As soon she hits her knees, he's positioning her on all fours, he can’t look her in the eyes right now. He tears his pants open, eyes finding the lights again, concentrating on them as he pushes inside her. She’s warm and wet as she pushes back against him, eager to have all of him. Because she chooses him. No matter how many of his rough edges and dark corners she finds, she wants him. Would she still want him if she saw it all?
Forget it, he tells himself, pushing that thought away. He clears his mind until there’s only the moment, the sensation left, hips slapping against hers, the way her body clenches around his cock, how she eagerly sucks the fingers he puts in her mouth so she has something to absorb the moans.
It’s almost enough to completely lose himself, his cock twitches. It’s spectacular, the way she meets every thrust and takes everything he has to give. “Touch yourself,” he urges, eager for her to come undone.
Her own fingers slide between her folds, working feverishly. It’s not long before the noises muffled by his fingers become frantic and she tightens around him.
“That’s it, my darling, let go.” With another deep thrust, he allows himself a release. “Sera,” he gasps, knowing it will please her to hear her name on his lips.
They collapse next to one another on the bedroll, Sera quick to snuggle up in his arms. It takes longer than it should to embrace her, his body wanting to run. “Is everything alright?” She asks, innocently, from where she lays, head on his chest. Maybe there are merciful gods, she can’t see his face.
“Of course, love. I think I may have worn myself out after all the walking today.” Softly, he kisses her head, he can’t let her suspect.
“Well don’t complain tomorrow, Lae’zel will blame me for sure. I don’t think I was very discreet.” She laughs, sounding like sleep is already returning to her.
“But you are to blame. If you weren’t so irresistible.” He tries to laugh as well. This stupid, sweet girl, why does she lay in a monster’s arms and giggle?
With a yawn, she gives him an out. “You should probably go, I’m going to fall asleep soon and don’t want to trap you here.”
One more kiss, even as his mind insists on fleeing. “Goodnight my love, rest well, and I’m sorry again.”
“For what?”
“For earlier.” For everything.
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