Star and Quill

He catches Eleanor off guard, he can see that. She rather looks like he shot her in the chest, but is trying to hide it. How relatable. That’s one of her charms, isn’t it? Being relatable.

He’s botching this.

“Are you okay?” she says slowly. Trying to soothe. Him or her, he’s not certain and it’s likely both.

“Oh yes, of course,” he says on instinct. Flippant, even. Habit. Admitting otherwise could never end in anything but pain and humiliation.

But she sounds frightened. (For good reason.)

“I just,” he says. He was a magister. He’s talked his way into the trousers of thousands of people, and now he stands in front of one foreign woman, and each word tumbles clumsily out of his mouth, tearing at his tongue and smacking into his teeth on the way out. “I feel. Awful.”

Everything in him screams. This is a terrible idea. The worst he’s had, and that record is long and distinguished. Doing this is stupid. Dangerous. Leads to pain and it’s not safe.

But this. This is Eleanor. Those dark eyes watch him so carefully. If anyone could…surely…

More words tumble out. Faster and faster as he goes. “Look. I had a plan—a nice, simple plan: seduce you, sleep with you, manipulate your feelings so you’d never turn on me.”

He’s laying it on too flippantly, now. Her shoulders hunch up. The subtle flash of wide eyes and hurt before she slams on her own mask.

“It was easy,” he says. “Instinctive. It’s what I’ve done for two-hundred years. All you had to do was fall for it.”

She trusts him. Let him closer to her than she’s ever let anyone because she thought he cared. That he was interested in her. She’s so wary of that. And he used it against her.

He can’t look at her anymore. Gaze shifts to her hands, where she pinches and tears at the skin of her cuticles. It makes his chest tight.

“And all I had to do,” he says. His mouth is so hideously dry. More than the usual thirst, more even than that tomb, somehow. His swallow sticks in his throat. “Was not fall for you. Which is where my nice, simple plan. Fell apart.”

He risks a glance. Just one. Has to see, has to know.

Eleanor. Were he a living man, her expression would have stilled his heart in his chest and killed him on the spot.

There’s nothing on her. An eerie blankness, almost placid. But he knows masks and he knows her. She’s shuttered herself. Cut herself off from him completely.

Ice water seems to fill him.

“Why,” she says. “Why start…all this.”

“I needed protection,” he says. It comes out too forcefully. He needs to walk it back. Paint on a smile—not a threat, darling, he must always be amiable. He doesn’t want to spook her. “People don’t trust vampires, perhaps understandably. I needed someone on my side. And seducing you…was not easy, to be honest. I’m not used to a challenge like that. So, imagine how stupid I felt when I started to, ah, genuinely feel something. For you.”

The nights outside her tent, sitting over her and counting her breaths as she slept in those damp, dark caves. Keeping an eye on her during their various scuffles. Trying his best to get a laugh out of her just because the sound is so warm.

Realizing that’s what he’s doing.

The way she watches him, listens to him. No one does that. Not like her. He wants, gods damn him. Aches. A ragged hole of a wound long-infected, finally lanced and starting to drain and opening something raw and tender and savaged inside him. Something he’d gotten so used to ignoring, he forgot it was even there.

She’s a flicker of gold in the night. A snipped of a familiar song on the air. A warm hand in his and soft breath on his neck not grasping, not demanding, not taking anything.

Gods, he wants.

Her mask holds firm, though. He’s losing something. Losing her. No, no.

“I,” he says. He has to explain. Has to find her again. “I spent two-hundred years using my body, climbing onto my back so I could lure pretty things back to him. What I wanted, how I felt about it, it never mattered. It shouldn’t matter. But you. You’re…different, somehow. I can’t…you deserve better.”

Deserves more than him.

Her jaw clenches. She blinks a few times, and when she speaks, it comes out in a near monotone. “You. Seduced me so you could feel safe.”

Yes! She understands. Of course she would, clever, practical darling!

“Exactly,” he says, feeling a weight start to slide off his shoulders.

But she doesn’t look any more relieved. Instead, she blinks fast. Because her eyes are…wet. Because she’s trying not to cry.

The air squeezes out of him.

“And, uh,” she says. Has to clear her throat. “When you were, were with me. That was just, habit?”

“Being with anyone was a performance. I’m used to that. But it’s different now.”

She inhales deeply. Through her nose. Looks up and, she’s biting the inside of her cheek hard by the looks of it. He longs to reach for her. Touch her. Get her to stop because that hurts, he’s hurting her and that thought fills his head with screaming.

“I,” he says. Gods, he needs air. He’s dead and doesn’t have to breathe and he still needs air. “That’s why you agreed, that first time. I saw it in your memories; you told me.”

She nods, even as her lips tremble. “I know. That’s what makes this…did you, at all, want to sleep with me?”

Of course he did. He’d planned it, hadn’t he? He needed her on his side. But when he tells her that, she closes her eyes.

“Last night.” Oh gods, her voice breaks, and that snaps something delicate inside him. He needs to run. Needs to stab something, bite something. “Last night, Astarion. Did you actually want to do any of that or were you just…you asked if I wanted to, but you never said if you. That you wanted.”

“I said I needed a distraction.” He thinks he did, anyway. It was something along those lines, a final push to get her where he needed her.

“Why sex?” she says.

He…liked giving her pleasure. Thrilled at her hand, her mouth on him. When she gagged…he hasn’t laughed like that in ages.

But he also watched the door. And he sat, sick and sour, on the floor as she slept.

“I,” he says. “I don’t…know.”

This is what twists her lips into some nightmare visage of a smile. It’s a crumpled, wrinkled thing that hurts him in a way he’s not sure he’s felt before. Not within the last few decades. Tears finally spill over her lids and she wipes at her face. Nods silently.

Oh shit. He’d done this all wrong. He never should have hoped. Never should have thought for one moment that this would end in anything but dust and ashes, because his life is pure shit. Why should that change now?

(She could have changed it.)

But he’s ruined that. Ruined her. Ruined them.

Stupid, useless boy.

“I, I get why you did it,” she says, voice thick. “I do. I ain’t mad about that, Astarion. But. But I’m sad. You shouldn’t have to do that. Not with me and not with nobody. But I didn’t see it. Fucking virgin. I couldn’t tell and I, I…used you.”

Well, yes, but everyone does.

“Centuries playing the rake,” he says. “All the promiscuous jibes paint a picture of someone who would relish the deed. You couldn’t have really known.”

She shakes her head. “I’m too new at this. I don’t…I don’t think…”

She’s ending it. It’s over. They. Whatever they could have been, is dead. His fault. He can only stand there, all but stripped bare, and wait for his sentence. For his exile. His punishment.

“If I said that this all felt real shitty but make-up sex would help, would you do it?”

It’s so unexpected he physically startles. The sick twist in him is nearly violent; he almost stops the flinch. But he searches her gaze. Is that what she needs? Carrying on with the both of them knowing now, would that make it different?

“Would it?” he says.

It’s the wrong thing to say. Hits her like he used a fist. She takes a step back and all but drops onto the rock she’d been leaning on earlier.

Her mask shatters.

Their capable leader, his darling, is all pain and misery. Teeth bared. She runs both her hands through her hair and grabs and he can’t tell if she’s pulling at her scalp or clawing into it, but he lifts a hand as if to stop her, try to…to comfort her.

Stops himself. Because he did that to her.

To think he’d fantasized about this very moment a time or two, early on. Cracking her with the truth just to watch her break so he could gloat about it.

It’s horrible. He hates it.

(Hates him.)

“That,” she says. Has to swallow. “That’s why. We can’t.”

Because he hesitated? Fuck, he knows better. He should have pushed through that as always. Stupid boy. Pathetic nothing.

“We, could work it out?” His voice is feeble, even to his own ears. Weak. Simpering. All but groveling again (longs for the leash).

But she shakes her head again. Takes a shuddering breath. Looks at him, her eyes wide and wild and hurting. “No. No I don’t think we could.”

There it is. The words he knew were coming. The words he’s always known were coming. He was an idiot to think it could end any other way. He’s rotten. A moving corpse, feeding off the living. A could touch. A decaying thing. All he can bring is pain and suffering. He can make her, Eleanor, cry. He knows she hates that.

“I can’t really blame you,” he says. Gods below, it’s been ages since the corners of his eyes prickled. He’s stolen enough life from her that he’s now capable of it again. How fitting. “We’ve enough to worry about, eh? Midnight chimes and all.”

He needs to leave. Get away. For her best interest and his own.

She frowns a second, before she stands. Approaches.

He doesn’t think she’ll strike him. She never has, even when he truly deserved it. That doesn’t mean he can stop himself from tensing and leaning away. The moment he does, she stops. Looks at him with such pity he nearly gags.

“Astarion,” she says. “I care about you. A lot. If you still want it, I’ll do whatever I can to help you. With the brainworms, and with that fuckface vampire I mean to help you kill.”

But. He can tell there’s a “but.”

Only…it doesn’t. She looks at him. Seems to be waiting for something, though he’s not sure what and so stands there, unsure of what to do with his arms.

She takes a breath. Says, “If. If we wanna start over, as friends. I’d, if you don’t mind, I’d like that.”

…friends. A glimmer of light in the tunnel he’s fallen down.

“That, um,” he says. Eloquently. “That almost sounds like a challenge.”

“Good or bad?” she says. Because she’s practical and direct when she’s not deliberately misleading something and she just asks things like that. Like that’s something normal people do.

Not abandoning him. Not throwing him to the side now that she’ll no longer let him provide for her. She’ll…keep him. Without sex. Just as a, a person.

“Good,” he says. “I think.”

She’ll still be here. Perhaps not with him. But he doesn’t even know how to be with someone. Not really. Not an exchange that ends with a victim—he’s always imagined—screaming and thrashing and dying in the clutches of an insane monster.

Astarion is, above all things, an idiot. But he’s a selfish one. And if she extends her hand to him in this, he’ll take it.

“I’ve had a thousand lovers or more,” he says. “But, em. Never a friend. I. I think I’d like that.”

Be with her in a way he’s never been with anyone. Be genuinely with a friend. No manipulation, no lies, no disgust to shove through.

He’ll take it.

She smiles at him, still shaking. Touches the back of his hand. So he takes her warm, living hand in his own and holds it a moment.

Eleanor. His darling. His very first friend.

Or when you learn about Mystra asking Gale to sacrifice himself; Astarion seems to genuinely care, even though he immediately deflates it with irony.

(the last one is from Origin Gale)

Or even in the creche, if you use the zaith'isk.

There are probably a few other instances showing that he begins to care about you and your companions, but he’s still his own prioprity and you can’t really blame him for that; It actually makes a lot of sense, since we all know that no one had ever cared about him before.

Besides when he dared to care about someone else (the sweet boy he tried to save from Cazador, for instance), he was terribly punished for it.

So yes, in Act 1, he doesn’t want to be a hero, and he won't sacrifice himself for others. And he seems to associate being kind and showing sympathy as a form of danger/weakness. His bias make him believe that being kind would probably make him look "too precious", a vulnerability which was mocked/punished by Cazador and probably his siblings (I talked about it at the beginning of this post)

And what’s interesting is that the selfless, uncaring aspects of his personality already coexist with a genuine will to connect with people; He’s not pushing you or your companions away (unless you treat him like shit, of course) – he shows interest in you, in them, but he doesn’t want to get too much involved. Which again, makes perfect sense to me. He's self-centred but he doesn’t want to be alone, he reaches out, but he doesn’t want to get too close either, because

that would be too dangerous (trust issues included)

2. he wants to remain in control of you, of his own feelings

3. he doesn’t really expect anything from anyone.

Astarion doesn’t pretend to be selfless, and he doesn’t pretend to be caring. He’s used to violence and he himself is rough around the edges because of the violent environment in which he’s been evolving for so long. Which can make him difficult to like when you meet him for the first time. He's not gentle. And I like it, it's very good writing, spitting in the face of the 'perfect victim trope'.

Gentleness and tenderness are alien concepts to Astarion. Even if we consider the few gentle target-lovers - like Sebastian - he might have met during those 200 years, I don’t think that would be enough for him to give into gentle love-making.

Dissociation is easier, with mechanical responses to his 'lovers' - be they violent or not, especially since he knew they were doomed anyway. And if most of them were rascals so, better get used to violence and reproduce it to better protect himself.

I can’t imagine the first nights with Astarion in act 1 being particularly tender, and if they were, I’d tend to imagine that Astarion was performing. After all, there’s no cuddle in the morning, he won’t give into that kind of gentleness because he associates it to 'vulnerability', and it makes sense.

I can imagine a few cuddling nights in act 2, but I think it would be quite exceptional, and would never last long if only because Astarion isn’t used to that kind of intimacy and might quickly feel quite uncomfortable with it.

Still, it could happen. And he probably starts to enjoy it at this point. But he needs time. He needs more assurance.

As for support and care, he's capable of it in Act 2 - it shows in the Durge scene for instance, when he explicitly says "you will get through it. I'll be there to make sure you do."

On the other hand, he's still his old harsh self too in Act 2, sometimes cruel, accepting the darkest choices the PC can make.

Also, the way he talks to you if you don’t get the confession scene by the beginning of act 3 is revealing in terms of how harsh he can be even with people he trust(ed).

But with the confession scene, something entirely new and genuinely softer emerges, not just in his words, but also in his body language; the way he holds your hand is most explicit.

But if you choose the hug, it's even clearer.

Obviously, this episode doesn’t instantly change him and turn him into the sweetest partner ever. His kisses are gentle yes, but it's no peak of tenderness. Not only because he’s not ready for being 100% soft and vulnerable, but also because he doesn’t know how to. Tenderness is uncharted territory, and intimacy is way too appalling for him to give into that kind of open fondness (yet).

Things begin to change a little in act 3, but again, it takes time. He's capable of showing care, support and affection. He can be vulnerable with you when you show your trust. He wants to be there for you, to be real with you.

...but that's not the main aspect of his personality. He hasn't completely changed overnight.

After the meeting with Petras and Dal he returns to his old patterns of manipulation and pretended indifference. I says "pretended" because it's easier for him to think he doesn't care - it's coping mechanism. One could even say that he's gaslighting himself into believing that he doesn't give a fuck about his siblings as long as he can ensure his own safety.

Desperate situations call for drastic remedies, right? But is it what he really wants? (I'm not saying that he secretly adore his siblings, but I still believe that he's capable of feeling some empathy for them - he feels 'pity' for them, and it's made clearer later.)

His issues with his siblings is that it reminds too much of who he used to be, and the risks of being like them again:; controlled by Cazador. So he plays indifference and bitterness, to keep all those feelings away.

Likewise, when the spawns attack your camp, he’s distant again – a defence mechanism triggered by the presence of his siblings.

(My two cents on this line here)

And yet, we can already see a few changes in his behaviour after you reached Baldur's Gate; he's much more prompt to openly show genuine concern and support to you, when you consider taking Araj’s potion, for instance.

Or the way he worries about you if you accept Haarlep’s deal:

But that's because it's you. And in spite of this, the selfish and cruel parts of him still exist, because it's his personality and that won't disappear. Funny what he says here of you have low approval by the way:

If you're not close friends, he doesn't actually care, but still warns you. Interesting.

Anyway, if you're his partner, he can explicitly show in public how much he cares about you. And to a lesser extent, he also cares about your companions, especially when he can relate to what happens to them.

The first signs of a growing empathy for others. It's not just about himself anymore.

As for tenderness, it’s also growing little by little. First, through words...

...but probably in gestures too. Of course, this point relies on headcanons because the game doesn’t give us much before the graveyard scene. But I tend to believe that Astarion is progressively learning tenderness (in private settings) throughout the third act. I like to imagine both my Durge and Astarion learning about gentle gestures together; holding hands, a kiss that lasts a little longer than usual, a look that leads to a quiet hug, restinig in each other’s arms, etc.

Just like in Act 2, I don’t think they would cuddle every night. I believe that kind of intimacy would progressively take place in their relationship. But before Cazador’s death, I can’t imagine them being constantly et overly tender together (but that's a headcanon).

Now the graveyard scene marks a shift. Again, he’s not overly sweet or dripping with tenderness during the discussion. He’s tranquil. He’s at peace. He doesn’t need to perform any grand declaration. But the gentle way he takes your hands, the way he tells you he wants you, he loves you.... The  gentle lovemaking. All of this seems to indicate a slow shift; he’s still learning, still discovering affection and gentleness, it's a reappropriation of his own intimacy, and he can do it freely now that Cazador is gone.

Baby steps.

Of course, even then, it’s not always easy to express that soft side in public – it’s all so new, there still must be a part of him that feels quite vulnerable about it. So he jokes, it's easier, safer.

And yet, he can do it, he can publicly show his attraction and love for his partner.

And he can even admit how good it feels to love and be loved - but again, he can't help jesting a little, just to look less vulnerable.

It takes time to get used to it, to learn how to enjoy gentleness and care, to learn how to show gentleness and care. It can be terrifying, destabilizing, and confusing. But I want to believe that Astarion and his partner will find their own love language through gestures and words. Maybe there will always be some kind of reserve in public, understandably. But by the epilogue, with that sweet hug, it's clear that he’s comfortable showing genuine affection in public.

And in the epilogue he feels bad for your companions who aren’t as free as you are, even if he doesn’t feel like talking to them.

Likewise, he’s genuinely happy for them and for the both of you if everything turned out well for everyone.

I could mention many other instances from the non-romanced epilogue that show how much Radiant Astarion cares about the companions.

And yet, as he says himself, darkness is part of him, and violence is still part of his life. He has not become an innocent puppy, he can still be cruel and violent, and he enjoys it.

And I tend to believe that Astarion is not the romantic type like Wyll or Gale, and that his demonstration of love and affection remain quite simple, quiet, even more meaningful in their temperance. Radiant Astarion, although capable of gentleness, remains someone who can also be harsh, with sharp remarks, sometimes hiding his vulnerabilities behind blunt irony. He has discarded the mask of the suave and charming lover and allowed himself to be true to his own personality, and I don't think the latter is the romantic, super kind type. I like my radiant Astarion caustic, sly and feral, while still being able to love and be loved by the few persons he trusts.

And that’s what I love about this character! The nuances, the subtleties of his narrative arc and of his personality, the way he learns and discovers himself and the gentle beauty of genuine love and affection without becoming an entirely different person. Even if he learns to care about others, he will still choose his own safety and sanity over others, he will not sacrifice himself. He's not that kind of hero.

But if you tell him how much he means to you, how much you care, he will support you and show his love and trust in you.

Of course, healing isn’t linear. There will be days during which being empathetic and caring and gentle might seem impossible to him. Some days he might be distant, and maybe even harsh. And it’s normal, not just because he’s healing but also because there is something selfish and violent in him. That’s the darkness which is part of him and which he has accepted.

 And I think the game manages to show it pretty well in act 3 – this nuanced and ambivalent mindset, between his affection for his partner or his friends, his genuine will to be tender and vulnerable with the person he loves, and the darkness, the violence, which are parts of his temperament.

His head still feels odd, now that he thinks about it. Which isn’t too bad, as far as coming back from the deceased could be. At least this time he awoke on his back under a supernatural haze with the faces of his team of idiots staring down at him, rather than inside a box, buried under six feet of dirt. He got to sit up and complain and didn’t even have to grovel at the feet of…well. It was better, this time.

He trails his oddly silent leader up the stairs. Her face was horribly blank last he looked. Not even in her usual way, when she’s thinking or bored or plotting a murder. There was a tightness about her eyes, and there’s a slow stiffness to her limbs as she climbs. But her pulse remains normal, so she can’t be too out of sorts.

He wonders if he’ll be able to guilt her into something for him.

Then they reach the room—how very kind of the cleric to give him some privacy to get himself cleaned up (again). His dreadful, devoted dunce goes in first, leaving him to close the door behind himself.

She takes a few steps into the room. Stops. Stands there, with her back to him.

He regards her for a moment. Then crosses his arms, sighs, and says, “So, what have we learned?”

He only intends to bully her a bit. That beast of an orc killed him and he’s entitled to some retribution.

But she doesn’t answer. Her breathing stutters, as if she’s been kicked in the gut, a sort of ga-ga-gasp. She follows that with the tiniest sound. And promptly turns to face the closest wall, all but shoves her face against it, and chokes.

It’s not a loud sound. It’s actually very short. He might not have paid any attention to it were she not shoved against the wall like an imbecile.

“Dearest,” he drawls. It’s no fun if she doesn’t engage.

Her shoulders hunch in. As if she’s…making herself smaller. Which, given that she’s not a small woman, should be funny.

Except…except there’s something wrong about it. A wounded animal movement that draws his attention like, well. Like a vampire to an easy meal.

It nearly reminds him of how he’d try to curl in, chained on the floor of the kennels, because a dead part of him remembered the urge to shield his vulnerable middle.

“Darling?” he tries. He starts to reach for her when a new tremor shudders along the lines of her shoulders. She pants. Hiccups. Gasps again and goes quiet. She’s trying to hold her breath, but her lungs keep hitching. And she’s got her hands cupped around the sides of her face so he can’t see her expression at all.

But the tendons in her neck stand out as if she were lifting something heavy. Or if she were…screaming. Silently.

Because making noise attracts nasty things. She knows this. He knows this.

“Lover?” That one should get a reaction out of her. If only embarrassed hand flaps and a blush. But it doesn’t.

She tries to breathe a few times, stuttering both in and out. Manages a rough, “’Mfine.”

She. Isn’t fine. Is she. She’s not fine at all.

“Are, were you injured?” he says. He smells no blood. She didn’t have a limp and the cleric said nothing, but he was dead. Who knows what happened after that foul beast murdered him.

His leader makes another sound. It’s awful. Like it tears out of her, spilling through clenched teeth, high and tight and hurting.

Oh. Oh yes, he knows what this is. Has witnessed it in his siblings. Has done it.

It makes him…feel. It shouldn’t make him feel. But it does. His plan, his successful seduction, the way his chest tightens when he looks at her. If he doesn’t acknowledge that, then it can’t exist. Can’t be real.

There’s no reason (he will name) for her pain to affect him. He ought to wish her well and grab a set of clothing and head off to the bath to clean himself up. A month ago, he would have.

A month ago, he was barely away from that bastard, hadn’t tasted the blood of a thinking creature (hers, given freely, so practically). Hadn’t saved her or, fine, been (disgustingly) saved by her. Hadn’t seen her chew through the throat of a gur hunter who had all but captured him. Hadn’t watched her turn down a burgeoning god of seduction (melting the thing in the process). Hadn’t found her in the stumbling dark of a magical blindness and trekked halfway through the Underdark with her stories filling the horrid silence around them.

He hadn’t kissed her (and rather liked it). Hadn’t held her (soft and warm and too afraid to touch him back). Hadn’t sat next to her, fully clothed in the first bed they’d found since the ship crashed, and done nothing but read a book to her. About a plague.

He does not leave her to her own misery. He doesn’t even laugh at her. He just…stands there. His skin itches on the inside. His muscles twitch with some nameless need to do something. He’s not even sure what. He looks to the door. Tries to will himself to take a step. Just one.

But his treacherous feet stay bolted to the floor (like a command, like an order and that is why he can’t do this, can’t be this, can’t feel this).

She gasps again. The tiniest scrap of a sob on her voice as she thumps her head against the wall.

Shit. Shit bloody hells.

“Eleanor?” he says so softly he’s sure her mortal ears won’t catch it. But he mistimes it—of course he does—and it lands right in the middle of her holding her breath again.

She flinches as if he struck her. And he can’t let himself examine the feelings that thought dredges out of the muck of his soul.

“Darling,” (yes, much safer), “perhaps you’d be more comfortable moving away from there, hmm? Since we do have a bed?”

She doesn’t answer. Unless one counts “a barely controlled collapse to one’s knees while hiding one’s face” as an answer.

His palms tingle. He has that thought again, of doing something. That isn’t stealing her pack while she’s distracted. He doesn’t like her like this. She should be, well, she’s usually quiet. But in a judgmental kind of way. A silent watchfulness. The furrow between her brow and the slight arch when someone is being an idiot and she’s trying not to say so.

Not…this.

Damn all the hells. He has no idea what to do. His body—usually so lithe and maneuverable—encases him in dead muscle and rotting bones. It’s an awkward thing, suddenly. Unwieldy.

He thinks of kneeling beside her and patting her shoulder and saying, “There, there.” As they do in mummeries or copper novels.

He searches his tattered memories for something better. Finds nothing suitable. Ends up kneeling beside her and patting her shoulder and saying, “There, there?”

She does not lift her face, wet with the pretty kind of tears maidens in mummeries do. She does not throw herself upon him to weep delicately over his bloodied armor (it’s coagulating and starting to dry off into large, disgusting flakes).

What she does do is make a sort of bleating sound. A laugh, he realizes after a moment.

And then. She lifts her face, finally. Turns to him.

No, she’s decidedly not a pretty crier. Her face is swollen and mottled, her wet eyes bloodshot. She swipes at the spit on her lips and gives a broken, painful looking smile.

Says, “I know, right?”

Which, what in the hells is he supposed to do with that? So he does nothing (looks again to the closed door). But she catches it, this time. Her face crumples even as she nods.

“You go on,” she says, voice thick and lungs still stuttering. “Probably needs to be warmed up, but I gave all my money to the Walking Dead.”

It takes several moments for that to mean anything. Withers.

He doesn’t quite remember being dead? Not in any detail. Remembers only dark and silence. And an ancient voice thrumming through him, “By doom and dusk, I strike thy name from the archives. Rise.”

Then breathing. Clawing. His body jerking to (un)life for the second time and the churning, screaming panic as he searched for those polished, leather boots, for the awful, crushing vice on his mind of the master.

The cleric had mentioned his leader had given the desiccated corpse all her gold to revive him. As she should, seeing as it was her foolish decision that got him killed.

They’d gotten that gold from the tollhouse, after the wizard exploded that awful creature. She had a ring, near the beginning of their little fiasco. A child’s toy, with a child’s cantrip on it. She’d said it was the first jewelry she’d ever owned. In her entire life. And she gave it up to the wizard’s consuming orb.

She has nothing but the clothes on her back and some potions, doesn’t she? She gives away everything else. Sometimes to vagabond children, but the rest of the time…

“Go ahead,” she says. Turns her face away and scrubs at it with her sleeves. “I’m good. I’ll get my shit together while you get cleaned up.”

Dismissing him. He’s free to march over to that door and not come back until she re-secures her own mask.

She would know better than anyone her own state. Her capabilities. And there’s no reason for him to stay (there isn’t, and that traitorous voice inside him will kindly shut up if it knows what’s good for it).

But.

But…

Damn it all. She’s not good. He knows she hides her emotions. He even knows why. It’s a perfectly sensible reaction, amongst people who would take advantage of such a weakness.

Yet the thought of him being someone she needs to hide that from (no). It, it prickles (no). He doesn’t care for the notion (he mustn’t dare, it’s not real, it’s not).

That bastard is leagues and leagues away. Astarion has an illithid tadpole nibbling at his brain, but it also keeps that brain free of any crushing orders. He can make his own decisions. He can choose to stay here, if that’s what he wants to do. No one can stop him.

“Please go,” she says. Gods, she sounds hollow. Pained. “I got you killed. You don't gotta s-stay here.” The stutter worsens. “D-don’t gotta coddle my st-tupid ass. You fucking d-died.”

“Yes, I did. And I’d rather not go through that a third time, if you please.”

He means it to be a joke. He can make her laugh sometimes (what a marvel).

This time he misses entirely. She crumples again. Sinks down to her knees, shoulder against the wall, and tucks her chin in. She so badly tries to hide her face from him. “I’m so, so s-sorry.”

He…

Astarion has been hurt by others. All the time, really. Almost everyone, the rest of them being dupes or fools. He’s laid on his narrow bunk in the dormitory, or curled on his side, naked in the kennels, and dreamed of hurting people back. Grabbing them by the throat as their eyes bulged. Ripping their throat out with his teeth, their hot blood a phantom dream, as they gurgled and begged for mercy which he would deny them.

But she. Eleanor. She apologizes to him. Not even this time, but others. Even when he (fine) might have technically been the one at fault. She just hands them out like sweets at a festival. Like it costs her nothing.

Like he deserves them.

It upsets her when he’s hurt. Not because it denies her anything, but because…because…

She cares. For him.

She truly cares for him, doesn’t she? More than a target of lust, more than a convenient dagger or a set of lock-picking tools or even a good fuck.

She asks him to read to her, by the hells. She laughs at even his bad jokes. She listens to him. Values his opinion. Gives him her blood while refusing sex (until recently) (and even then, she didn’t even find him attractive until she said she knew him) (he can’t let his mind go there).

She’s upset like this at herself. Because she got him hurt.

She’s this distressed for him.

“I…I don’t know how to be here,” she says. Wipes furiously at her eyes and he knows that will only make it worse. “Everything’s so…so fucked. I don’t know what to do.”

She hurts for him. Hurts so badly she can’t even breathe right. She gave all her money for him (which, yes, is only fair, but still). She’s cracked apart like this and trying to hide it for his sake. To spare him.

How does she exist?

(why couldn’t this have happened centuries ago)

“To be quite honest,” he says, his mouth moving of its own accord because he certainly didn’t plan this, even now panics as he sucks in another breath to continue. “Neither do I.”

She sniffles. Poor thing desperately needs a handkerchief. But a quick glance around the room reveals nothing of the sort. And he suspects whoever is left to maintain this place will be cross should he take a knife to the bedding to fashion one.

“Are you okay?” his darling leader says. On her knees on the floor, blood vessels burst in her eyes from holding in her own agony, and she still seeks his well-being.

It warms him even as he fights himself not to recoil.

“Aside from being covered in my own blood and rather hungry,” he says. Means it, again, to be light-hearted. But her gaze sharpens.

“You need blood?” she says. Looks to her snotty sleeve. To the arm beneath, with the faint marks of his teeth still lingering on her wrist.

She's going to give up her blood. Even after all this. Her first thought, what she seizes upon is something to help him.

Gods, his plan has worked spectacularly.

Gods, he feels ill.

Yet blood is blood, and his gaze locks on the proffered arm. On the blood he knows pulses beneath that warm skin of hers. His mouth waters as his fangs ache.

“If you’re offering?” he says. Because he can’t help himself. Can do nothing about the hunger clawing apart his insides even as he wants to vomit.

She sniffs again. “Only seems fair. Since…”

She seems to want to finish that sentence. But it gets caught up. Starts the tears again and she seems so determined to avoid that. She instead clears her throat and attempts a smile. “Wanna let me clean off my face? And you can take a bath?”

To dine like civilized people.

(Take advantage.)

“If that’s what you prefer,” he says.

(Another target.)

She nods. Searches around, he suspects, for something like a handkerchief.

(Another victim.)

“I can forgo warming the bath water, if you can,” he says. “Spare the coin and all.” Only her shoulders slump in some fresh misery.

(Naive.)

“Maybe they’ll take an I owe you,” she says. Reaches for her bag. “Maybe I can pawn off something. There’s that merchant lady out front somewhere.”

(Foolish.)

She barely owns anything at all. Yet she’ll give up more? For him?

(Idiot.)

(Soft-hearted.)

(Gullible.)

(wonderful)