🩸Just Astarion Things🩸

Despite his weariness, he was desperate to please Cazador this time around. The last few innocent souls he had lured back to the palace had put up a fight and caused havoc, which had rather displeased the merciless vampire Astarion feared most. It was the whole reason he was now not allowed back to his usual spot. He was not at all prepared to be on his bad side for another day in the shadows if he did not bring the man what he wanted peacefully.

His crimson eyes rapidly flickered from face to face as he scoped out tonight’s target. As much as he despised this cruel task of leading people to their doom, this was all a game of survival. It was what kept him from irreversible punishment at the hands of Cazador.

He had to do this, just like every other night.

In a rather dark and sadistic sense, he was usually pretty nifty when it came to the art of seduction. He knew all the right things to say, the perfect places to rest his hands and the most irresistibly tempting way to look at his prey. If he wasn’t doing such a terrible thing, he’d likely be more impressed with himself.

His lingering gaze on a man he deemed suitable enough to deliver to Cazador was abruptly interrupted by a tap on his shoulder. Turning almost defensively, he came face to face with a rather attractive woman behind him, smiling at him sweetly.

“Could I just squeeze myself past you please,” she requested kindly, her shimmering eyes flickering across his features before landing back into a lock with his own.

Astarion wasn’t entirely shy or someone who struggled socially, in his own opinion. Yet something about this woman had caused him to hesitate, stopping his train of thought about the fate of the glum looking man sitting at the bar.

The glum ones were always the easiest.

This woman on the other hand smiled so brightly that it almost instantly felt like physical affection. He could feel a warmth within him, something he had never felt in his years as a spawn. The soothing feeling was throwing him off completely, and all he could do was stare at her like he’d never seen a woman before in his life.

Her comforting smile dropped ever so slightly as her brows furrowed a little in concern. “Are you alright?”

Astarion cleared his throat, his conscience giving him a stern telling off for allowing himself to become so distracted by a simple smile. “Yes. Apologies,” he said monotonously, stepping out of her way and into the tavern.

“It’s no bother,” she reassured him, her beautiful smile returning to a full beam once again. “Would you like a drink? You look like you need one.”

There it was again. Hesitation. Almost insecurity in fact. All he had to do was say no and walk away. He didn’t even need to be polite about it, he wasn’t there for niceties, he was there to ruin someone's life. Those two things did not go hand in hand.

And yet he was standing there, staring at her intently once more while his mouth refused to let the simple little word of rejection out. He found himself to be completely drawn to her, and not in a luring her to her death kind of way. Nobody who was completely sober ever spoke to him first, usually put off by his blood red eyes and pasty skin. But she seemed interested in him, and her smile was just too much of a precious sight for sore eyes for him to reject her.

Supposing a quick drink wouldn’t completely ruin his plans, he simply nodded, his tongue stuck firmly to the roof of his mouth. Her eyes lit up at his acceptance before she turned to lead him through the crowd. 

At the bar, Astarion placed himself beside the man he had set his eyes on earlier. He seemed particularly upset upon closer inspection, holding what appeared to be a wedding ring in his hand as he weeped quietly. The man truly couldn’t have been more vampire bait if he tried, and Astarion only hoped he would stick around long enough for him to make his move once he’d shaken off the cute lady ordering him and herself a glass of red.

Once they were perched on bar stools and sipping their wine, the woman spoke up again. “I’ve never seen you around here before.”

“First time,” he responded simply.

“Well, welcome. If you like a rowdy atmosphere, this is the place for you,” she joked, the flickering light from the candelabras above casting a golden hue over her beautiful features.

Astarion merely sipped his wine, trying to keep the main part of his focus on ensuring that the sad sack behind him wasn't going anywhere. And yet his focus couldn’t be shifted from the woman before him. He’d never described another as lovely before, but he could just tell that she had a pure heart.

Another easy target, if he played his cards right.

The nice ones were always his second choice, but he usually led the conversation and bought the drink to charm them. The way this woman had approached him made him wonder if she was trying to lure him somewhere terrible.

“So, what brought you here?”

Astarion snapped himself back into the present, clearing his throat again to slip into his default setting of synthetic confidence. “Oh nothing in particular. The eye candy was becoming a bit…scarce, at my regular,” he responded convincingly.

The woman laughed, a sweet and innocent giggle. Astarion found himself drawn to the way her nose wrinkled up as her cheeks were splayed with a rosy pigment. Her laugh extracted a smile of his own, the only real smile he had managed in a very long time.

What was she doing to him?

“You’re funny,” she assessed, still giggling into her drink. “See anything you like here?”

Her head cocked to the side as she asked this question, her eyes trailing up and down his body subtly. Soft locks of her hair swayed to the side with her head, revealing her collar bone and the smooth curve of her neck. The woman was hitting on him, and he had no idea what to do about it. It had never happened like this before.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” he teased quietly with a smirk, his gaze fixated on her glistening eyes.

She laughed again, the sound hitting his ear like an angelic song. The woman was truly refreshing, like a ray of sunshine in the shadowy night. He hadn’t felt something so close to the luxury of the day time for many years, and it instantly made him feel unhappy again.

Here he was again, searching for some poor and innocent soul to rip away from their life and into the hell he’s had no choice but to call home, so they can die at the hands of a sadistic bastard that he cannot escape from. He wanted to live a life. A real life. Going on real dates and enjoying the fresh air in the afternoon sun like everyone in the tavern but himself could do.

A fever dream by all accounts.

“Are you alright?”

He snapped himself out of his thoughts once more, his almost watery gaze meeting her concerned eyes. Clearly he had let his emotions overtake him enough that she had picked up on them, something Cazador would have given him absolute hell for. He was so wrapped up in the terrifying thought of being a slave of the night forever more that he could almost feel himself beginning to panic.

He set down his drink, standing from the stool rather quickly and putting on a fake smile. “I’m fine. Thank you for the drink,” he said sincerely, turning away from her and making his way to the exit.

Air was what he needed in that moment, his sense of hearing tuning out as the woman called out for him to wait. Recklessly elbowing people out of his way, he barged through the exit and back out onto the cobbled road, practically gasping for breath. Even outside, he felt the immense feeling of being trapped. Damned for all eternity.

There was a ringing in his ears and a tingling in his hands as he swallowed every bit of oxygen he could fill his lungs with. He didn’t want to do this anymore, every look of betrayal on every face that he had lied to presenting themselves in his mind, rightfully haunting him for manipulating them so heartlessly. And for what?

For Cazador. Always for Cazador.

When a hand rested on his shoulder from behind, he spun around quickly, ready to defend himself whilst his breathing remained quick and shallow. The same sympathetic and concerned eyes of the beautiful woman widened in shock at his reaction.

“It’s okay,” she said with a slight shake to her voice, holding her hands up. “You’re okay.”

Something about her voice made him believe her for a split second. He most certainly wasn’t okay, but he was by all means going to ensure that she was going to be.

She smiled softly at him, holding out a hand. “I only live a mile away if you need somewhere to calm down. Come back to my-”

He cut her off, grabbing her wrist to pull her towards him a little roughly and clamping his hands on her shoulders. She gasped, the smile dropping from her attractive face immediately and replacing itself with a look of fear. Her larger than life eyes were flickering between his red ones quickly, likely searching for any bad intentions.

“Listen to me,” he warned quietly, almost in a whisper. “If you ever come across another with red eyes and pale skin like myself, promising you an unforgettable night of love and pleasure, do not go anywhere with them. Under any circumstances. Do you understand me?”

The woman froze up for a moment, trying to digest what he was saying to her. Her mouth opened a few times to speak, but nothing came out. He gave her a little shake, his eyes burning into hers to relay the severity of his request.

“Do you understand?”

She nodded quickly, her now frantic breathing matching his. He wasn’t sure what had possessed him to do such a thing, but he leant in toward her, pressing his cold lips to her soft warm ones for a feeling of comfort. Surprisingly, she didn’t pull away in sheer panic, and Astarion could feel her relax a little beneath him. When he finally pulled away, he let go of her shoulders, taking a step back.

“Please remember what I said,” he almost begged, not wanting this pure soul to become a victim to Cazador.

He turned to walk away, but was stopped when her melodic voice finally spoke up.

“Tav.”

Turning back, he gave her a funny look, not knowing what she had even said. She cleared her throat, speaking up again.

“My name is Tav,” she repeated quietly, looking at him with an expression that he couldn’t read. She looked down at the ground awkwardly for a moment, before glancing back up at him with a bit of hope in her eyes. “Maybe we’ll meet again?”

Astarion furrowed his brows, utterly perplexed by the woman he had just intensely and cryptically warned about his kind mere minutes after meeting her. He couldn’t help the little curl of his lips. She was cute, and definitely the type of person he would have courted if his life was his own.

“Goodnight, Tav,” he concluded, turning back in the direction of the palace and leaving her there.

He wasn’t up for fake interest and meaningless sex to please his heinous master tonight. Tav had made him feel something he’d never felt before, and he gruesomely thought it best to let Cazador punish him for not doing as ordered to get him back in check. After all, this was all just a game of survival, and he needed a fresh reminder of why he had to do such terrible things.

The faces that flashed into his mind were never happy ones, but her smile was one he was never going to forget.

He truly hoped he would see her again someday.

.

It seemed there wasn’t an end in sight, their days repeatedly starting and finishing the same way. The worst part about it for him was his confliction when it came to the matter at hand. One minute he was determined and dead set on finding someone or something that could remove the tadpole, and the next minute he was absorbed by the actuality that the tadpole had given him the happiest moments of his prolonged life.

One of those moments being the warmth of the sun on his cold skin.

He couldn’t imagine being stripped of such luxury again, locked in the shadows until the harshly cold moon replaced the flourishing gold beams that it blessed upon the world. The very thought left him in a slight state of panic if ever he dwelled on it long enough. Everyone else was yearning for the solution to their infections, which was fair. It hadn’t brought anyone but himself any joy, just a disruption to their lives.

Which was why these thoughts were always kept to himself. He didn’t want to hear about how ‘everything would be okay’ or the irritating default ‘cheer up’ phrases. It wasn’t as simple as just seeing the bright side of ridding himself of the tadpole. Sure, it would eliminate the chances of being turned into something he didn’t want to become, but removing it would turn him back into his old self, something else he didn’t want to be.

The very thought of avoiding the daylight made him feel ill. He hadn’t expected to be so attached to it when he first realised the warmth on his skin wasn’t cooking him alive. Two hundred years of darkness was what he had no choice but to be used to. He knows how to live out his life that way, but he didn’t want to.

He just wanted to be free.

So as he could hear the rest of the camp making their attempts at cheering each other up, Astarion sat in his lonely little tent, slowly waving his hand in the strip of honey-like light that had invited itself in through the gap of the tent’s entrance. He almost wanted it to start burning him, just to prepare him for his impending intolerance to the beauty cascading a rich bronze hue across his deathly pale skin.

Judging by the deep shade of the soothing beam, the sun was beginning its daily journey to another part of the world. The nights were always a little difficult when he got in his head like this. Every glance at the stars shimmering in contrast to the ebony sky made him wonder if that had been his last day in the warmth before someone excitedly presented him with a cure he only half wanted.

Just as he felt himself starting to spiral uncontrollably, his tent was suddenly deprived of its sliver of warm light. Before he could tell whoever had come to bother him to leave him alone, a familiarly soft yet strong hand clasped itself around his, tugging him out of his solitary as his knees crashed into the hard ground. He was ready to start shouting at whoever had the sheer audacity to pull him around like that, but as he looked up from his knees he was met with a contagiously joyous smile.

Whatever Tav was so happy about must not have reached the others, most of them sitting around the start of a fire and barely looking any happier than he felt. The misplaced display of glee was almost irritating him, but the irritation was fizzling out quickly, as it always seemed to do with his partner.

Gods he was getting soft.

Doing his best to be stern after being so unexpectedly manhandled, he put on his best frown. “What on earth was that for?!”

Still, the look of delight before him did not falter. If anything they looked even more pleased that he was in a bad mood.

The same hand that had kidnapped him from the confines of his tent reached out to help him up. Being the ever so petty man that he could proudly be, Astarion completely ignored it and dragged himself up to his feet, being sure to scoff as he brushed the dirt from his knees.

“Come on,” his over excited companion commanded.

Astarion raised an eyebrow at them. “Come on, what?”

Before his tongue had even hit the roof of his mouth to exaggerate the T at the end of what, he watched his partner turn around quickly, darting off into the woods surrounding the camp.

Although their actions hadn’t exerted any will within him to now go and spend time with them, he wasn’t prepared to let them scurry off into the woods alone before it got dark. He quickly grabbed a small dagger from a stool outside his tent and hastily set forth to catch up to them. Sure, he was a little pissed, but he was too protective of them to retreat back into his tent and stew in his misery.

It didn’t take him long to catch up, despite how quickly his partner was speed walking through the trees. Wherever they were going, they were clearly in some kind of hurry.

“Will you slow down,” Astarion hissed. “Where in the hells are you going?!”

Tav simply continued without a word, stopping very suddenly at the edge of the forest. There was quite a drop only a few feet in front of them, and Astarion found himself automatically reaching out to grab the back of his partner's top, despite the fact that they had already come to a halt.

“I knew this would be the perfect place,” Tav exclaimed with an accomplished grin.

Astarion couldn’t help but hope that this wasn’t what he thought it was. He wasn’t entirely in the mood to try and be interested in sex right at this very moment in time, nor was it the most comfortable looking place for it.

“Look, I enjoy your body a great deal, but I’m not really-”

Tav’s gaze shot straight up to him, the smile dropping from their face. “I…I didn’t bring you here for sex, Astarion,” they explained innocently. “You know that’s not all I want from you…don’t you?”

Astarion didn’t know how to answer this. He had spent so much of his life being used to lure people to their doom with sex that he still couldn’t decipher between being appreciated and being used. It was a difficult area in their new relationship that they both knew would take time and plenty of reassurance. He trusted his partner a great deal, more than he had ever been able to trust a person before in his life.

After a few awkwardly silent minutes went by, Tav cut the tension by pointing out towards a body of water in the distance. “I wanted you to watch with me,” they murmured quietly, crossing one leg over the other to sit on the hard ground.

Astarion watched as the deeply orange sun was slowly approaching the water, reflecting itself on the surface like fire dancing over ice. It was a rather breathtaking sight, one that forced his legs to follow the same crossing motion to sit beside his partner and bask in such a beautiful sight.

Despite the earlier downward spiral into his fear of sun deprivation, he had never felt so soothed and relaxed by such simplicity. He hadn’t yet watched a sunset, which was usually down to missing it whilst journeying back to camp. The brightest star in the sky was sinking away, emanating a golden sheet across everything that surrounded them. It was almost hypnotic just how fascinating the sight truly was.

Any resentment he had for being dragged out of his tent against his will had dissolved almost instantly. This relationship thing was still all very new to him, and his biggest obstacle was understanding, which was difficult as there were so many things he just didn’t understand. The main one being Tav’s interest in him.

Even he couldn’t deny that he could be a bit of a negative bastard at the best of times, and yet this ridiculously patient person he found himself to be enamoured with wanted to share such a beautiful and intimate moment with him without the obligation of intercourse. They really did care about him.

But for how long?

If they were to eventually find a cure, Astarion was almost certain that he’d lose something far more valuable to him than the sun. Why would such a bright soul want to spend the rest of their life with him in the shadows?

He tore his gaze away from the descending sun to glance at his partner, only to find them already looking at him.

“Isn’t it lovely,” they whispered quietly, as if raising their voice would scare the beauty away.

Astarion swallowed a hard lump in his throat, not knowing how to answer that question. It was lovely, but he wasn’t just thinking that of the sunset.

Before he could catch his tongue, he blurted out a question he wasn’t sure he wanted the answer to. “Are you going to leave?”

Once again, Tav’s content smile faded into a small and confused frown. “Leave? Leave what?”

He could hear his conscience shouting at him to just shut up and quit being so pathetic, but his mouth seemed to overrule it. He needed some sense of security.

“Me.”

The hurt look on the face that had recently become his favourite caused his cold heart to squeeze in his chest. He didn’t want to come across so accusingly, but he wasn’t exactly accustomed to loyalty. Nobody had cared for him the way they did, yet as much as he was afraid that they would eventually grow tired of him, he wouldn’t ever be surprised if they did as he just didn’t expect much from people.

Judging by the sudden sadness in those fascinating eyes, Tav hadn’t actually thought about it in the way he had. “You think I’m going to leave you when you can no longer walk in the sun,” they questioned, though it came out as more of a statement.

Astarion didn’t verbally respond, but the way his body tensed up at the thought was enough of an answer for his partner. Tav shuffled over a little, sitting closer to him and placing a comforting hand on his leg. Their piercing stare bored into him, but he couldn’t bring himself to meet their eyes with his.

Still, Tav spoke so softly that it almost made Astarion uncomfortable. “If I had plans to leave you after these tadpoles are gone, then I wouldn’t have bothered with you in the first place. I know what you are, Astarion. I know what comes with being a vampire. That’s not going to change how I feel about you.”

He couldn’t suppress the frustrated sigh that escaped him. “That’s easy for you to say now,” he said, surprisingly calm. “But when you’re confined to the darkness-”

“I’ll still love you.”

It was the first use of the word between the couple. A word Astarion didn’t have a lot of experience with, which was why he couldn’t decipher between whether the feeling in his chest when he heard the intimidating word was a reciprocating feeling of love or whether he was dying on the spot. His eyes snapped back to his partner, but they were now staring off towards the water again, watching as the sun disappeared into the horizon and took its warmth with it.

Yet he still felt warmth. It was growing almost painfully in his chest as his heart thumped at an alarming rate. Any time he had heard someone explain what love felt like, the word warmth had almost always come up.

“The sun’s gone,” Tav whispered quietly, taking his hand. “And I don’t feel any differently. I mean it, Astarion. I love you.”

Astarion’s whole mouth felt like cotton. He did love them, he could physically feel it within him. But he was afraid that the words could not form yet. Sure, he’d falsely told people he loved them for manipulation purposes, but real love was a huge step for him, and he felt he needed to truly understand its meaning before he could declare such a thing back.

“You don’t need to say anything,” his partner reassured him softly, picking up on his dilemma.

He swallowed hard. “It’s not that I don’t-”

“I know.”

Their eyes finally met, something different presenting itself between them. It felt as though their relationship had taken on a new meaning, one that slightly soothed that voice in his head telling him he was going to end up alone when their mission was over. He just couldn’t believe he had found such a remarkable soul in such a strange and life threatening situation.

Though he couldn’t use the word love just yet, he couldn’t let this moment end with his silence. He knew that he could feel it, and he needed them to know that.

“I’ve always heard the phrase that home is where the heart is…and I never really understood it before now,” he began to conclude. “Nothing ever felt like home to me. Not Baldur’s Gate, and certainly not Cazador’s palace.”

He reached his free hand up to cup Tav’s cheek, his thumb absentmindedly brushing across their slightly blushed skin as they melted into his touch.

“But you…I have a home in you.”

.