18 | mostly sfw

But perhaps it had been the first night he tasted you – well, your blood, that is. The night he’d awoken from a nightmare of Cazador and in his vulnerability, had chosen you as his victim of yet another experiment. A test to see if he was truly free. One drop of a thinking creature’s blood, that was all he needed. But you’d given more than he’d bargained for, and your cloy ichor had coated his taste buds so addictively, and he had just known that night was only the beginning. It was the first time, but certainly not the last. 

He thinks he could drink in whatever you offered him, and only that, for the rest of his days while still finding some sickly, twisted version of reprieve regardless. Not a drop more than he needed, always vying for more. 

He’d be okay with that type of hunger, that type of yearning, and that might have been his first real mistake. 

Or maybe, just possibly, it had been that very first meeting. Maybe he had doomed himself from the moment he’d pressed a blade to your neck, when he had dragged you to the ground with him and felt all that warmth, all that fear, radiating off of you. So frightful, and you still had offered your help to him when it was all said and done. Perhaps that was when he had well and truly screwed himself over. One simple introduction, void of his usual wine and flowers, and he’d locked himself in for pure trouble. 

Not even the fun kind, at that. What a shame. 

At the end of the day, or rather the beginning of the day as it is now, it doesn’t matter where his threads had started to unravel. All that matters is that they were – every carefully thought out line of his plans had all frayed, all detangled from the bigger picture, all because of you. 

Heart of gold, blood of honey. You were far too sweet for him, and he knew it. 

“Having fun, are you?” 

“I am, it’s hard not to with you.”

You’d taken each of his tactics in stride, hadn’t you? Whereas his face had nearly crumbled beneath the weight of that beautiful lie, insides twisting uncomfortable as the humor had slipped through his fingers, your eyes had only glittered as you bit back a smirk. To so lightly tease him, to banter right back with him, instead of see the truth behind it all. He didn’t know if you were simply that naive or if you were another kindred soul – Perhaps you were finding just as much safety, just as much sanctuary, in whatever dance he’d dragged you into. An entanglement of lies, a blithe facade, a daring smile that whispers come now, play with me. 

And play with him, you had. 

You’d played with him, you’d drank with him, and you’d now slept with him. Twice. 

“You’re up early,” your voice murmurs, silken tone cutting through all his racing thoughts. 

He hadn’t even noticed you had stirred, rousing yourself out from underneath his stolen blankets to peer at him curiously as he perched on the edge of the bedroll. As far from you, and as far from your sweetness, as possible. 

“Oh, you know what they say, my dear,” he chirps, rolling his shoulders as the act wraps him back up. The charismatic charmer. The illusive rogue, trained impeccably to coax you in and secure his safety, “No rest for the wicked.” 

He’d awoken before you last time, too. Had watched the sun rise and enjoyed the warmth of it plastering across his skin long before you’d ever woken up. He half-hopes you’ll be less talkative this time; he half-hopes you’ll try to rope him into whatever discussion you can, if only for a few extra seconds of your attention. 

You were too sweet. Too sugary on his tongue, too soothing in his chest. He shouldn’t entertain you – he shouldn’t let this go further than necessary. 

You hum thoughtfully, the blanket slipping and exposing more of your chest. With the light flickering in from his tent’s entrance, he can easily spot those two scarring dots along your jugular where his fangs fit perfectly, “I don’t know if I’d describe you as wicked, lover.” 

“No?” Roped into discussion, it is. “How would you describe me then?” 

He’s not comfortable in this lighting. He feels feverish beneath your steady stare, the way your eyes take their time as you look over every inch of him. The languid observation has him convinced you’re seeing right through him – your glance can pierce right through all his armor and expose every flaw. You see him for the monster he is, you see him for the bitter soul he’s become, you see him as the unworthy spawn he believes himself to be. 

He almost swears that you even see right through his nice, simple plan at hand, not so easily fooled as he had believed you to be. 

“Charming, certainly,” you suddenly sigh, sitting up and keeping your body mostly covered still with that knitted blanket. He’d only snagged it because the shade of the wool nearly matched your eyes – not that he was paying attention to your eyes, of course, “But then again, you’d have to be to have bedded me twice now, wouldn’t you?” 

“We can always make it thrice,” he banters back, ignoring the bile that builds at the insinuation. But if that’s what it takes – laying on his back over and over again – to guarantee your protection, he’ll do it. He’d do it a thousand times over to keep himself as far away from Cazador’s chokehold as possible, “Does that entice you, love?”

When he turns his body fully, beginning a carefully and calculated crawl up the bed roll, ready to slot his body back between your thighs and encourage you to have his way with him, you stop him. The heel of your foot delicately presses against his chest, your head tilted curiously before you shake it. 

“Who’s the eager pup now, Astarion?” 

He likes the way his name drips off your tongue. Almost as if he might be made of the same sugar and spice as you, the same pure honey flowing through your veins also inhabiting his. You say it like a song, articulate it like the sweetest fruit. 

He shouldn’t like it. It shouldn’t be able to overpower his lingering disgust with himself so easily. 

“It’s hard not to be eager when it comes to you,” he says the line with good practice, beckoning a purr to his tone that had always won over the victims he’d entrap in dark taverns back in the city, “I said the Gods had made you just to ruin me, and I meant it.”

He’d meant it more than he’d realized. It wasn’t just your body that had been sculpted to draw him in – it was everything. Your entire aura, your entire glacé demeanor. All that innocence and all that geniality enticed him more than he could ever admit. You were certainly going to ruin him, so wholly and so entirely. You’d already started to, really. 

You don’t respond at first, and he swears he has you. You’re locked in on his distraction, caught up in his web, just as he needs you to be. One lithe hand lifts to your ankle, cool fingers wrapping around your warm skin as he begins to lower his lips, ready to pepper kisses up your leg. Prepared to offer you his mouth, his body, in return for the one thing he needs. Self-loathing be damned. 

Old habits die hard, right along with pride, and he’s not quite ready to bury either at your grave yet. 

But just as he presses the first chaste kiss to your skin, nearly taken back by how your sweetness still breaks through the salty surface, you’re pulling the limb away from him. Your knee draws back and a disarming smile has risen on your cheeks, eyes glittering at him just as they had the night before. 

“I suppose I’ll have to come find you when everyone is asleep, then.” 

“I’ll be waiting.” 

What exactly had he been waiting for? You, of course. But had he been waiting for you to find him solely for what had transpired? To explore your portfolios of talents once more, as he had put it? Or had it been for something more… precarious? 

Was he nothing more than a prey, waiting for you to be his demise? 

Had he actually been waiting for this? 

The challenging look in your eyes as they reflected back stars, the warmth of your skin so close to him he nearly melts into you. The upturn of the corners of your mouth, outlining the way you certainly know something that he doesn’t. A look you wear well, a look that shakes his foundations and rattles his bones. 

“As tempting as you are, I’ll have to decline. Duty calls, as they say.” 

Can you see right through him? 

He should be more deflated when you start going through the motions; he should be pouting or overthinking it all as he watches you gather your clothes once more, covering up the few bite marks of his that litter your skin. Every moment you prepare to leave his tent should be one spent overthinking where he’d gone wrong – why didn’t you want him? Was his plan even going to work? 

Were you truly too sweet for him? Would he have been better off trying to romance the likes of Gale for the safety just shy of his grasp now?

He doesn’t, though. For once, his mind is quiet as he watches you patter about. The bile retreats, the disgust fades. For the first time in a very long time, Astarion is leaving this interaction not feeling used. 

Maybe it’s in the way you cheekily snatch one of his shirts as you both pretend he doesn’t notice it, or maybe it’s in the gentle caress of your fingers through his hair as you pass him to pick back up your discarded weapon. Maybe it’s in every shy glance you offer him, or maybe it’s in your ever present grin. 

Watching you leave should worry him, but it only feels like a breath of fresh air. A wind that comes sweeping in with the promise of next time just as you pull back the flap to his tent. 

And he hadn’t realized he’d been waiting patiently for you to turn back to him until you do just this, offering him one final glance that sets him aflame, “Oh, and before I forget – you can feed on me tonight, if you need to.” 

Heart of gold, blood of honey. He couldn’t say no even if he wanted to.

“Then I’ll see your delicious self tonight,” he takes a pause, one big and unnecessary breath filling his chest alongside that warmth you bring to him. The fearless leader, the kindest soul. His most apt nickname for you yet falls off his lips in a content sigh, “My sweet.”

He shouldn’t entertain you – he shouldn’t let this go further than necessary. 

But he’s going to. Gods, he is going to. 

Since you were fifteen, you’ve been taking drops of Satoru’s blood on your tongue, day by day, week by week. The process was rigorous, painstaking. It left your eyes a strange color, your body sensitive and aching until the effects wore off (then you were yourself again, no longer some horrible chameleon of a person). Your body could not simply replicate his techniques as it had others—you were forced to make it submit and you paid for it by the permanent white streaks at either of your temples.

He was there with you, too. Always right there when you collapsed against him because the technique was far too much. Always hovering, always ready for you when you turned to him, Eventually, you tamed it, honed it with his help.

The higher-ups had been the ones to suggest this laborious idea. Should Gojo Satoru fail, they had said, you will be his faux successor. Satoru hated them for what they placed on your shoulders.

He hates them now for how you’ve been forced to limit yourself, but he supposes he’s grateful for it as well.

“Put up your infinity, let me see if you’ve improved,” he says.

You glower at him, turning back to your laptop to continue revising a report. Satoru leans closer. He can see that the barrier is up, though he still lifts a hand to press at the air around your face. He can’t touch you; he can’t reach you.

He almost tells you to let it down, you’ve showed him your strength, bared your teeth and claws enough at him today. Satoru would like to be close to you now, even if you were to nip and bite him, he thinks he wouldn’t mind.

Prodding at other areas of the infinity, he realizes that you truly have gotten better. You’ve adapted his habits and advances; instead of wasting energy on protecting your whole body, you pinpoint the limitless to only where he reaches.

“Good. You’ve gotten good at that.” He leans back before an idea strikes him. Satoru casts his infinity around himself and moves his hand toward you again.

This time, he touches you.

You start when his fingers brush your cheek and turn toward him. There’s a look of absolute disbelief on your face, a smile so wide on Satoru’s.

“There wasn’t a hole there.” You shake your head. “There…I had it up…”

“Have you heard the statement that two parallel lines will meet at infinity?”

He has completely bypassed your barrier, years of training with and without him to strengthen it. Satoru is still smiling like he’s in awe, long fingers dipping underneath strands of your hair.

One parallel line next to the other, always separated by some unseen force, despite Satoru’s six eyes that see all. He can feel that space getting smaller and smaller, meeting somewhere in a shared infinity.

Something squirms and stretches in his chest at the realization that only he can touch you when you’re like this, only his to covet and hold. It’s a dangerous awakening within him, but it is so utterly pleasant. He thinks he will crave it when it’s gone.

Satoru squeezes your cheeks and the tension is alleviated, replaced with your usual back-and-forth.

“Stop that!” You bat at his hand. He laughs.

A discovery like this should have never been found, it should have been impossible as no two limitless and six eyes users can exist at the same time. Yet here you, and here he is, sitting together in his nice, scarcely lived-in living room.

And despite the many times he has done this before, the shame is not easier to swallow, being stripped naked by a man. The enemy prince, the throne heir that only existed in conversation and counsel, represented by a little marble figurine on your general’s drawn maps and plans. But he is so very real.

Your hand lifts to cover your breasts, wanting a sense of security; Getou grabs it just as quickly. His long fingers encircle your wrist and place it back by your side. You know better, his actions chastise.

When he speaks to finally break his silence, he instructs you to get in the broad bathtub. The porcelain bowl is much too big for you, tepid water swallowing around your body. You prepare yourself for how he will bathe you, gentle but invasive. He will clean beneath your arms, under your breasts, everywhere; he will make you turn around and spread your legs while you bury your face in your arms, and he reaches beneath you to wash front, then back.

There is nothing and nowhere to hide from him like this. It is how he prefers it. (You could say it is for his own enjoyment too, but that would not be quite true. It is for your betterment, he would correct you, there is a difference between care-taking and pleasure-taking. He is your provider; he is your caretaker, he takes care, he does not ask for it, just like he has taken you.)

But he is not reaching for the fresh cloths brought by the servants earlier. You give pause—Getou never breaks his habits, he loves predictability here with you because he can never have it anywhere else.

An odd look passes across his face when you catch his eye. He begins to undress himself too.

The implication has your heart beating like a little rabbit’s, frantic and desperate. Not once has he undressed himself in front you. You stay ever still in the water, as if hoping he’ll forget your presence and, ultimately, forget you. Is this how he will have you? By force, in cooled water drawn by servants when it had been scalding an hour before? Hidden deep within your chambers where no one can hear?

He must be planning to kill you when he is done, surely he will have no use for you when he realizes that you will not submit so simply. He’ll drown you afterward, that’s what he’ll do, that’s how you’ll die.

“Such a skittish thing,” he sighs quietly, removing the last piece of undergarment and standing nude. He lets his hair down last, ink-black tumbling down strong shoulders and back.

His body is gouged with scaring new and old, bruises dusting tan skin, dried blood flaking from his stomach where it had seeped through clothes. He is muscled and wide-shouldered. There is no doubt that, in a test of strength, you would not win.

Getou steps into the bathtub, causing you to curl to the other end.

“I will not touch you,” he says, settling into the water and leaning back against the tub lip, arms resting on either ledge. His head tips back as he closes his dark eyes. Black hair, long and thick, swirls in the water around him, ink bleeding from paper.

He will not touch you.

You have no reason to believe him, but he has never gone against his word. Even now, he still adheres to the first promise he made you: You will be in my care from this point onward.

Water breaks as you shift in the tub. It is enough to draw his attention again.

His chest rises and falls, the pigments needled into his skin seem to move as well: bold patterns of symbols and animals, horned demons with wide eyes and forked tongues, serpents that coil and constrict, all intercepted by knotted scars shiny with age. Each tattoo serves a purpose to represent a feat this man has completed, similar to the silver ring threaded through his left nipple: a symbol of accomplishment, strength and virility.

He is watching you again, then, “Will you wash me?” A demand poised as a question, this silver-tongued prince.

He will not touch you, but he will make you touch him.

Your eyes flit to him. He must be toying with you, though you know that if you do not heed him, there will be a punishment of some kind—something subtle, painless to the body but infuriating to the mind. You believe this is his exchange: he will not touch you but bathing him will be the price you pay. Such a twisted man, such a cruel one.

He plucks a cut of soap from the side table, folding a wet cloth over it and pressing the fabric against the soap. His movements are methodical, slow…they are almost perverse, thumbing at the cloth gently, massaging it between his wide hands. Getou is giving you something to focus on other than his bearing eyes; he hopes you’ll appreciate this reprieve.

Finally, he removes the soap and holds out the sudsy cloth. You take it, tight-mouthed and hesitant, to which he makes a noise of appraisal. Smart girl. He spreads his legs to allow you more room to perch between them, to bare himself further, to allow you closer (an act of submission from him, rare as it is). Careful, you listen to the unspoken command, tucking your calves beneath you, still trying to curl into yourself even as you sit in the space he creates for you: close, so close. Wise girl. He props an elbow on the ledge, pressing his temple against a fist, head tilted like a tired lap cat. At the first swipe of cloth to his body, you see him swallow. Good girl.

You clean him with trepidation. You cannot hide your body from him when you work like this, and he is aware of that fact. Soap bubbles and falls away pink along his chest and throat and stomach and arms. You are rougher than he is with you, perhaps because you are rushing, or maybe to make it uncomfortable, but then he hisses, stomach clenching when your abrasive scrubbing reopens a scabbed wound beside his navel.

The cloth is pulled from him quickly as you create distance again. He bleeds beneath the water, a little trail of rust-pink diluted and carried away by the bath.

He does not chastise you, does not lightly reprimand. Instead, Getou closes his eyes like he might fall asleep. You’re learning, he thinks. You are still learning how to be gentle, how to take care of someone without the pain of teeth and nails to make them listen. And I will teach you. I will show you unconditional care that your motherlands and warlords and generals and monarchs did not give you.

sleepy! luocha who likes when you‘re as close as possible against him, in his own pair of thinking he finds the natural body wamrth you emit comforting and soul soothing. in one way or another was he fearful that he might appear too holding and glutinous to your own liking. fun fact— the blonde gets especially clingy during that time as well, although he starts it off a silver like awkward, honestly clueless on how to demonstrate it without being too much, he afterwards bundles enough courage to let himself loose and fully embrace his current state with you.

sleepy! welt who desperately tries to seem like he isn‘t actually tired and that it‘s you who‘s mistaking it as clearing fatigue. quite hilarious when he tries to argue with you while his eyes were clearly on their last straw, inch by inch closing off. you urge him to close his eyes for a minute and after a couple instances of playful, sweet bickering he agrees but says that it‘s, quote on quote, “only for a minute” and then he‘ll be back to his usual self, just you wait. well— you might‘ve guessed on how it ended because welt will then fall asleep immediately. he‘s snoring a little too but it only adds a certain charm onto him.

sleepy! dan heng who secretly adores when you play and fondle with his hair while he‘s laying all amply against your chest. it might be your pacifying heart-beat that throws him into a complete stupor of snugly dreams and memories about you— it didn‘t matter if it‘s the future with you he envisions or past fun activities you had participated in a few weeks ago. dan heng can‘t possibly explain how delighted and thankful he was to you, and for accepting him entirely, no ifs and buts, no reminiscing about his darkened past, it‘s the “now” that mattered to you.

sleepy! sampo who assures you he doesn‘t require for his eyes to be closed in order for him to rest. really, it‘s a given, he sleeps with his eyes open, you should believe him, he urges. but then— obviously, his eyes will turn low lidded until wholly closed while you can listen to the small, "only a little." or "just a second and then i‘ll open my eyes again." while he‘s, step by step, lulling himself into his sleep, drawing you so close to his body that you were practically crushed against his neck and lacking breathing room.

sleepy! gepard who only wants to sleep if you‘re napping too, no quarreling required, it‘s either the both of you or none. because frankly, he thinks it‘s embarrassing or disrespectful if he was to sleep right now even though the both of you actually met up to do some fun activities or take a walk around belobog as it was one of his rare off days where he had some time to spare. but the man truly forgot how precious sleep can be and who were you to force him out of his cushiony bed? if you were attempting to be honest for just a little too, there really wasn‘t anything better than lazying around all day with your soulmate.

i. bounty - 1k - fluff ⋯ a tense, late-night homecoming as vash and nicholas return to you following a bad hunt.

ii. bliss - 3k - immediate follow up to bounty - MDNI ⋯ nicholas enjoys his favourite meal upon returning home, just the way he likes it.

iii. bright - 2k - set in the days following bounty and bliss - fluff ⋯ in the wake of their unsuccessful hunt, you and nicholas contemplate how best to make ends meet.

iv. begin - approx. 8k - prequel ⋯ coming soon!