#m!tav

As you promised him he could still feed from you that night before wandering off to help Karlach find Clive after moving camp, his mind wandered to all the nights you had spent staying awake with him, even when your eyelids got heavy with sleep, just because you had realised on the off chance that he wasn’t a fan of sitting alone with his thoughts – only needing four hours of trance wasn’t always a benefit, he realised. 

He was so sure he had you under his thumb. Even exhausted, you would offer your neck to him, letting him feed from you to feel stronger, despite you having to limp to Shadowheart the next morning and deal with the reprimands on top of the headache and bloodloss. You had even listened to him about Cazador without interrupting – really listened to him, for the first time in his life. Why on earth would you do all that for him if you didn’t want something in return?

Everything came at a price, and he knew that better than most. 

Instead, all you asked for was his company. Why his company he wasn’t sure, but you seemed satisfied enough tucked into your bedroll in his tent on the odd nights that you struggled to get to sleep, or tucked in against against his chest on the even rarer nights that your nightmares kept you awake, despite his lack of soothing heartbeat or warm embrace. 

Feather-light touches and the occasional stolen kiss, taken in the depths of the night when you were both exhausted and the others were long since asleep were all he managed to draw from you. Whenever his lips began to trail downwards, playing with the edge of your collar and ghosting over that oh-so-delicious pulse point of yours, you would simply shift to lay before him, neck bared for him to feed. He very rarely said no, but never did he ask why? Were his intentions not obvious? Your pulse always quickened when he touched you, your blood pumping infuriatingly just below his lips as the fine hairs across your body stood on end and your skin heated under his touch. Had the tadpole removed his charm and appeal just as it had removed the need for him to stay in the shadows? How would he ever survive if he didn’t have his charms? 

Nevertheless, he continued to try. 

Tonight was not unlike the other nights the two of you had stayed up long past the others turning in, sitting comfortably beside one another in front of the fire in silence. You watched the flames as he flicked through the tattered pages of a book he had subtly borrowed from Gale’s bag earlier in the day. Despite how enthralling it was, his eyes kept glancing over to you as you seemed to zone out, the gentle glow of the dying firelight bringing your irises to life. He sometimes wondered what they had looked like before they had seen so much death and destruction. He wondered if he also carried that signature dullness that came with a fight for survival. 

“You can drink from me tonight if you want,” you spoke up, eyes not moving but still aware of his lingering looks. 

“Darling, I thought you’d never ask,” he forced a coy smile as he closed the pages of his book. That wasn’t why he had been looking at you, but it was hard to deny he was hungry after a day of fighting. You stood slowly, brushing the sandy soil from your trousers before nodding to his tent,

“Yours or mine?” you asked with a small smile, but it was more weary than relaxed. 

“Wherever is more comfortable.”

You moved towards your shelter, pulling the tent flap back for him before settling down on your bedroll, laying stiffly again and turning your head away for him to access your vein. 

“You needn’t make it so clinical, you know,” he breathed a laugh, kneeling beside you and watching as you shifted, pulling yourself up onto your elbows. 

“I just thought it was easier,” you spoke softly. He paused for a moment before gesturing for you to sit up and turn away from him. A little awkwardly in the small space, you did as he asked, instantly relaxing as he pulled your back against his chest, situating you between his thighs. 

“I think we are beyond making things easy,” he chuckled, nose brushing against your cheek as he brought his mouth to your neck. Instinctively you tilted your head away to allow him closer. How you longed for him to be closer.

There was something about this that felt so much more intimate than anything you had done before. You might have spent night after night asleep beside him, stealing the occasional coy kiss as he leaned in to feed, but this was different. Every inch of your skin was on fire, but every muscle was tense. 

Breathing in deeply, you prepared yourself for the stab of fangs and the steady draw of blood, but it never came. Instead, his soft lips planted themself carefully against your pulse point, lingering for a second before repeating the motion again and again, trailing beyond the scarring that had begun to permanently etch itself into your skin. 

“‘Starion, wait…” Your voice halted his movements down your neck. He didn’t miss how your pulse quickened and your muscles tensed beneath his lips. Had he been misreading your signals again? He sat back, evidently hurt – bewildered about how he could have gotten it sowrong yet again. 

“I’m sorry, I-I’ll leave you be,” he fretted, starting to move backwards despite the sweet scent of your blood just below your skin begging him to move back in closer again. 

“No, wait, you can stay!” you pleaded, eyes sad as you looked up at him from your spot on the floor. Subconsciously, you pulled into yourself, arms wrapping around your legs as they tucked against your chest. 

He scoffed quietly, “everytime I stay I seem to read everything wrong – not something I am accustomed to, I must say. I think it’s best if I hunt for something else tonight. Save us both a little embarrassment.” 

“No, no it isn’t that, it isn’t you – I swear,” you rushed to soothe him, the lines of his anxiety noticeable on his face. “I-,” you paused for a moment, wondering how to put it in a way he might understand. Against your will, tears sprang in the corners of your eyes, a burning heat rolling down your cheek as one fell, your breathing feeling harder as your chest tightened. Everything always ended like this. “I’m sorry,” you forced out with a breath, trying to calm your emotions as your body tore itself between grief and self-hatred. 

“What on earth for?” It was rare for Astarion to sound so thrown off balance, but as the tears continued to fall down your cheeks, he was left jilted, not knowing if reaching out to touch you would make everything better or worse. Instead, he just watched on. 

“I struggle with stuff like this. With intimacy. I don’t know why, or when it started. I just find it hard to connect to it, no matter how much I want to. I used to be fine. More than fine. But then one day… It’s like what is between my ears and what is between my legs don’t quite communicate anymore. Even if I want you, and by the gods I do, not everything responds how I might want it to…” you trailed off as you pushed the tears from your face, aware of how pathetic you must have looked before him. Your cheeks burned as you let the tears roll down them. You had lost track of how often you had cried over not feeling normal, the hot droplets now simply rolled in their usual tracks rather than stream from your eyes in wracked sobs. 

He stood quietly for a moment as if taking your words in. Then, in a moment that confused you, he laughed, pushing out a harsh breath and sat back down in front of you in disbelief. Your furrowed eyebrows must have given away how confused you were. 

“Well,” he began before pausing again. “We are perhaps more similar than I thought.” You looked at him quizzically. 

“But you were always looking to instigate and I-” he shook his head,

“Darling, I thought that was what you wanted. You have always been so… nice to me. Why on earth would you do that if you didn’t want anything satisfying in return.” 

It was your turn to scoff, “I can be nice to you just because I enjoy your company, you know,” you rolled your eyes, looking bashfully down at your hands through blurry tears as they fiddled with the cuffs of your trousers. “You don’t have to do anything for me in return just because you feel obliged too.” An awkwardness sank in your chest as you worried all the nights he spent holding you to help you sleep were only because it would make it easier for him to drink. The idea of him forcing himself to try to please you for the sake of maintaining you as an acquaintance. 

Much to his annoyance, his own chest tensed at the sight of you so anxious – but how could he deny himself? You were the first person to ever care for him without the demand for sex. How could he not love you for that? 

“I think you misunderstand me, my love. I did that because I thought you wanted it, because I wanted you to stay by my side. I -” he faltered, “I didn’t want to lose you.” he nearly whispered. He coughed awkwardly, “And now, knowing that you weren’t in it for my devilish good looks, well, that makes me the fool, I suppose. I’ve never had anyone who listened to me just because they wanted to. Hells, I don’t remember the last time someone actually listened to me at all. 

“You see, I had this plan. A nice, simple plan – seduce you, sleep with you, manipulate your feelings so you’d never turn on me. It was easy – instinctive. Habits from two hundred years of charming people kicked in. All you had to do was fall for it and all I had to do was not fall for you. But then you went and derailed it all and I fell for you anyway. My nice simple plan fell apart.”

You took in his words for a moment. You felt like you should have been hurt by his confession, but you felt nothing but love as you looked at the elf before you, being vulnerable for the first time in his waking memory. Your heart melted. 

“I still want you, Astarion. I love you too. And if you are okay with my issues then I want something real with you. If you will have me.” Your eyes searched his as you waited for him to respond. 

“Issues?” he quizzed, “these so-called issues aren’t issues to me,” he breathed. “Being close to someone – any kind of intimacy – was something I performed to lure people back for him. Because of that it all feels… tainted. Disgust, loathing… No matter how much I’d like to, I don’t know how.” 

A fresh assault of tears burned in the corners of your eyes again. All you could do was collapse forward into his arms, wrapping your arms pathetically around his waist as you practically sat in his lap, hands fisting into the loose material of his shirt. His hands found your back hesitantly, hovering just above the fabric of your well-worn night shirt before finally closing in on your warm skin. He could feel your steady heartbeat through your ribs, drawing him back into you as he rested his sharp chin on your shoulder, his nose buried in your neck as he accepted your warmth again. 

“Can I kiss you?” you murmured softly, against the shell of his ear as you leaned back slightly, stifling a laugh at how it twitched ever so slightly as your breath fanned across it. 

“Please.” 

Your lips met his tentatively as his hand reached to cup your face, his rouge-like touch instinctively light.

“Do you miss it?  Your home?” Rolan deflects his flirtation with a question.

The drow tilts his head to the side and purses his lips as he considers his answer.  “Yes…” he says haltingly.  “Of course I do.  I miss my sisters, and in some strange, demented way I even miss my mother.  But this…” He takes Rolan’s hand in his and softly smiles.  “This type of freedom is intoxicating.  Being able to use my magic for something other than K’tarai’s schemes.  Not being forced to entertain whichever matriarch my mother wishes to align herself with in the moment.  I haven’t had to kill anyone I didn’t wish to in days!”

Overwhelmed by these, quite frankly, odd admissions, Rolan grasps onto the safest topic of conversation.  “May I ask about your magic?”

Drakul momentarily stiffens next to him but quickly recovers.  “Of course, my beauty.”

Rolan mulls over his question, trying to think of a tactful way to phrase it.  “When did you break your oath?”

Drakul peeks at the wizard out of the corner of his eye.  “You’re an observant little kitten, aren’t you?”

“Your magic feels similar to Zevlor’s just…”

“Just?” Drakul arches one eyebrow at Rolan’s reticence.

“Darker.  More… all-encompassing.”

“You make me sound positively dangerous, little wizard,” Drakul practically purrs, taking hold of the front of Rolan’s robes and tugging him closer.

Rolan stumbles a bit and throws him arms around the paladin’s shoulders to steady himself.  “You are dangerous,” he gasps as Drakul leans down and nuzzles against his pulse point.  “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing.”

Drakul laugh and kisses the tender skin behind Rolan’s ear.  “And what am I doing?”

“Attempting to distract me…”

“Attempting?  Not succeeding?” Drakul murmurs, nipping at the shell of the tiefling’s ear.

Rolan shudders, a soft moan escaping his lips as he clutches Drakul tighter.

“Maybe I should elaborate on everything I wish to do with you, would you find that sufficiently distracting?”

Rolan whimpers faintly, one hand coming up to tangle in the drow’s hair.

“I wish to have your hands in my hair while my face is buried between your thighs, my mouth on your perfect cock,” Drakul growls, peppering the tiefling’s neck with kisses.  “I want to hear you scream my name when you spill in my mouth.”

“Drakul…” Rolan timidly whines his name, grinding his hardening cock against the paladin’s thigh.

“Mmm, you can be louder than that lovely one,” the drow teases, gripping a handful of Rolan’s arse and sighing in pleasure.  “I want to edge your pleasure with pain, showing you delights you never could have dreamed of.  I want you to mark me with your teeth and claws, and then when your cock is hard again I want to ride you while your hands grip my thighs, guiding my pace, making sure I take every inch of you…”

Drakul grips the back of Rolan’s head, tearing loose the tie holding his hair up and claiming his mouth in a brutal kiss.  Rolan’s lips part on a gasp and Drakul slips his tongue inside, groaning as he tastes Rolan for the first time.  He tugs on Rolan’s hair, pulling the wizard’s head back, and kisses up the exposed column of his throat, licking and biting his skin with soft lips and sharp teeth.  Drakul slots his leg between Rolan’s thighs and grips Rolan’s hips, urging him to grind down against him.  Rolan whimpers at the contact, even with several layers of fabric between them. 

“Gods, you are beautiful like this,” Drakul murmurs.  “Wild and undone, just for me.”

“Drakul…” Rolan sighs out his name, gripping the paladin tight.

“Let me taste you, my lovely one,” Drakul begs, his voice broken and husky.  “Let me feel the weight of you on my tongue.”

Rolan blushes and stammers at Drakul’s request.  “I… I…”

The drow nips at Rolan’s earlobe.  “Answer me, beauty.”

“Yes!” Rolan gasps.

Drakul gives Rolan one last, lingering kiss before backing him against the trunk of a large oak tree and dropping to his knees in front of the tiefling.  He tears at the wizard’s robes, hurriedly bundling them out of the way so he can yank down his breeches.  Rolan sighs as the cool evening air caresses his heated skin, and looks down at Drakul through slitted eyes.

Drakul takes a long moment to appreciate Rolan’s thick, ridged cock, hanging heavy between his thighs, before giving the head a teasing flick with the tip of his tongue.  Rolan groans and closes his eyes, letting his head fall back against the tree trunk as Drakul caresses his thighs and presses warm, wet kisses along his length.

“You make such pretty noises, little wizard,” Drakul mumbles against Rolan’s hip.  “But can I make you sing?”

Rolan shudders as the soft heat of Drakul’s mouth envelopes the entirety of his cock, slowly dragging up and then sliding back down.  One weapon roughened hand cradles his balls, gently rolling them together.  This sensation, in tandem with Drakul’s mouth, causes Rolan’s knees to buckle and his hips to thrust forward, shoving his cock even further into Drakul’s mouth.

“Drakul,” he whines as a tale-tell heat begins to climb up his spine and a familiar tightening begins low in his belly.

Drakul releases Rolan’s cock from his mouth and grins up at him wickedly.  “Tell me what you need, Rolan.”

“More,” Rolan whines, grabbing the back of Drakul’s head and attempting to urge him forward.

With his free hand, Drakul gives Rolan’s cock a long, slow stroke.  “More… what?”

Rolan grinds his teeth together as he realizes what it is that Drakul wants from him.  He clamps his mouth closed as Drakul strokes him again, teasingly licking the tip of his aching cock.

“You… you… sadist,” Rolan hisses, his hand gripping the tree trunk so tightly splinters dig into his palm.

Drakul slowly draws Rolan’s tip back into his mouth and suckles gently, one hand stroking the base of his cock while the other continues to tease his balls.  The sensations are somehow both too much and not enough, and Rolan finds himself crying out against his will.

“More!  Please, Drakul, please!  I need you…”

Drakul swallows his cock to the base, swirling his tongue around Rolan’s hardened length as his hands work in tandem to tease his balls and thighs.  Heat licks up Rolan’s back and stars spark behind his closed eyelids as his orgasm washes over him.  He’s faintly aware of Drakul groaning in pleasure as he spills in the paladin’s mouth, but everything else is lost to the heat of Drakul’s mouth and the rough touch of his hands.  Each lick of Drakul’s tongue on his sensitive cock sends a shudder through him, and Rolan falls back limply against the tree, breathing hard.

“Such a good boy,” Drakul murmurs hoarsely, pressing one last kiss to Rolan’s bare hip before tucking him back into his breeches.  After making sure Rolan’s laces are all done up and his robes are properly straightened, Drakul rises to his feet and smirks at the now blushing wizard.

Rolan fidgets under the drow’s crimson stare, unsure what to do. 

Should I offer to reciprocate?  That would be the polite thing to do, surely?

“Shall I… ?” Rolan hesitantly reaches out for the hem of Drakul’s tunic.

Drakul chuckles and stops the forward movement of his hands.  “No, my pretty little wizard, this evening is about you.  I can wait until next time.”

Next time?

Heat blooms over Rolan’s cheeks at Drakul’s insinuation.

“I think it’s time we got you back to Cal and Lia,” Drakul continues, dusting bits of bark and dried leaves from Rolan’s shoulders.

A pang of disappointment strikes Rolan at the realization that their time together is over.

“Don’t worry, lovely one,” Drakul murmurs, sensing the quick change in his mood.  “There will be more time for us, I promise.”

Rolan had long ago quit trusting in the promises of others, but something about Drakul desperately makes him want to believe that what he says is true.  That there will be more late night rendezvous in the woods, more stolen kisses and secret touches.

The pair walks back towards the camp in silence, each seemingly absorbed in their own thoughts.  When the glow of the campfire becomes visible once again Drakul wraps his arms around Rolan’s waist and pulls the tiefling back against his chest. 

“One final kiss before you leave me?” Drakul murmurs, his voice low and husky in Rolan’s ear.

Rolan turns to face him, not leaving the protective circle of Drakul’s arms, and tilts his face up to receive a gentle kiss from the paladin.  Rolan wants to stay there, warm in Drakul’s embrace, but the voices of his brother and sister float on the evening breeze, reminding him of pending obligations and promises made.

The two create some distance between them and walk back into camp, to a chorus of knowing smiles and thinly veiled innuendos.  The siblings quickly make their good-byes and make for the safety of the grove.  Only once Drakul’s camp is out of sight do Cal and Lia turn to stare at Rolan, matching grins on their faces.

“So…” Cal says slowly, eyeing his older brother.  “Did you have a nice walk?”

Rolan stiffens under their teasing attention, and attempts to school his face into some semblance of neutrality.  “It was quite nice, yes.  It turns out that Drakul is quite fascinating to speak to.”

“And how much talking did you two actually get done?” Lia asks, smirking as she leans forward and plucks a few twigs from Rolan’s unbound hair.

The wizard freezes, his hands flying to his hair as he suddenly remembers Drakul tearing out the leather thong that usually keeps his hair tied back.  He blushes as his siblings stare at him expectantly, waiting for the salacious details.  Rolan clamps his mouth shut and speedily marches away from him, determined to put as much distance between himself and his siblings as possible.

Cal laughs at his brothers retreating back and Lia calls out his name.