#wheee!

Thick fingers and cold metal, practiced and delicate so as not to damage but callous enough to push deeper, probe the dark, wet spaces he once thought inviolable. He would push him away, but his hands are as heavy as iron. Somewhere, a child is sobbing. One moment the sound is muffled and the next its keening bites into his brain with sharp teeth. And then it soothes. You are loved, it seems to say. There is love in this violence. Right?

“A beautiful weapon,” the dark cleric repeats, those pretty lips fluttering against his throat. She is right. He was born of his mother’s blood and he spills blood in his mother’s name. Her Beloved’s love and unending devotion, sinking into fertile soil.

His mother’s blood spills from him now. Wasted.

In this oddly stretched and twisted space, he is frozen—pinned and held taut somewhere between the cold, unfeeling slab beneath him and the shadows that swim across the distant ceiling. Tendrils of something that perhaps he was not meant to see. What—or who—had they belonged to? Or perhaps he had simply imagined them.

“Open it further; I’d like to inspect its chest cavity.” The distant voice is light, conversational. “Yes, those will do.”

A hand presses over the hollow of his breast as cold teeth sink into him and he—

Deet wakes with a choking gasp and collides with a cool weight above him; he turns to see the pale elf stumble backwards. They stare at each other in breathless silence for a moment and then:

“Shit,” Astarion says. There’s a smear of red on lips.

Deet puts a hand to his throat and it comes away bloody. A vampire. Shit, he agrees. Still agitated by a dream he can now barely recall, the growl rolls up from his belly on instinct and he watches the creature’s throat bob and he readies himself to fight or flee.

“Now, now,” he begins, his lilting voice barely above a whisper. “No need for that—I didn’t even get anything.”

Deet does not care. With the smooth grace of a stalking panther he keeps his pale eyes ahead and readies himself to strike.

“I—I’ll wake the others.” Astarion’s voice shakes. “With your teeth in my neck, who do you think they’ll believe?”

That gives him pause. Someone—the wizard, by his weight—shifts behind him. He hates that the vampire is right. Sensing the shift in his favor, Astarion’s smirk is sharp and bloody.

“Good boy. I think you’ve got something to hide yourself.” He taps a finger against his breast, over his undead heart. “Your blood runs hot and—eugh—sickly sweet, but there’s nothing beating in that chest of yours. I felt it myself.”

“What of it?” Deet asks through clenched teeth.

“Well, we could help each other,” he replies as though this were obvious. “We’re both… some kind of undead—we aren’t exactly popular amongst the, uh, rabble.”

Perfectly still but for the silent rise and fall of his chest, Deet’s eye catches the slight tremble in the vampire’s fingers.

“Oh please, I’m not blind. You barely remember to eat and I rarely see you sleep. You’ve driven me to this, you know; how am I supposed to hunt with you up at all hours of the night?”

Deet’s lip curls. “I am no walking corpse.” Deet is as alive as the forest he calls home. The wind through its leaves is the breath in his lungs and its waters are the blood in his veins. His life is as eternal as the earth and sky. As immortal as his mother—or, he was. He scowls at Astarion, who only seems to grow more smug at this declaration.

“I beg to differ, my boy—your blood is positively rotten. Heady stuff, to be sure…” He trails off a moment, red eyes glassy, then shakes it off with a trace of disgust. “But biting into you was like biting into an long overripe peach.”

He opens his mouth to reply, but nothing comes except for the sudden taste of copper, loam, and fermented fruit. It coats his tongue and he stumbles over it, speechless.

“You won’t catch me dining upon you again,” Astarion offers, pale lips tracing out an amiable smile that only just touches his eyes. Eyes that flick every so briefly in the direction of the cleric’s bedroll.

Deet shakes off his stupor and lunges forward with the beginning of a snarl, catching the vampire off guard. He jerks backwards with wide, fearful eyes, but when Deet does not pursue him, he stands tall and begins to straighten his clothes. His bloodless face is carefully blank. Nothing seems to be out of place, and his hands are shaking again as they fiddle uselessly with the ruffles at his throat.

“Your loyalty is certainly cheap, isn’t it? Fine,” he huffs.

Deet narrows his eyes, unsure of what Astarion means by that; he’s simply being practical. The dark cleric may have eyes that remind him of mountain pines and kind enough words for him in the evenings and at mealtimes, but she is a healer—she’s already saved his life. If he were more himself, Deet could manage fine on his own but it seems he cannot. And he cannot afford to lose the vampire, either.

Astarion is quick and clever in a scrap, almost ecstatic, and Deet would be lying to himself if he said that it didn’t bring him back to his younger years—days of lighter heads and, well… hearts.

And he supposes Astarion was right that they have something in common: blood is life.

“You can hunt all you need on my watches,” he says. His offer is quick and blunt and the vampire gives him an unimpressed look.

“Oh? Thank you, how generous of you.” His reply is dripping with sarcasm. Still, a bit of tension slips from his thin shoulders.

“You—you could also finish. If you needed to.” Deet instantly regrets the offer, but stands by it; he figures he could stomach the vampire feeding from his wrist. Mother will never find out. Probably.

Now, Astarion really looks at him, naked astonishment on his face. Immediately followed by a grimace.

“No, thank you,” he says with what might be a shade of actual sincerity. “I’m not quite that desperate. No offense,” he adds as an afterthought, not particularly caring if he’s offended.

There’s a moment of awkward silence between them as the hostility evaporates off them like stale sweat. He may be wrong about Deet being undead, but the vampire was right about one thing: they are two kindred spirits.

Two bloodthirsty predators.

“I won’t breathe a word,” Astarion whispers. “If you don’t.”

Deet nods. “I won’t.”

“I… suppose I’ll go hunt, then.”

“I’ll take your watch.”

“Kind of you.” Astarion gives him a stiff little bow before slinking off into the night.

Deet doesn’t return to his bedroll. It still reeks of whatever nightmare had him in its grasp before the vampire woke him. He leans against a nearby tree and scans the edge of camp, his eyes penetrating deep into the darkness. Nocturnal eyes flash in the darkness, winking in and out like stars, and the underbrush writhes with life. He hears the stutter of wings in the canopy and creatures of the forest calling to each other, some alerting their brethren of their camp, and others crying out in warning of the vampiric hunter now on the prowl.

Deet tunes them out; there is nothing out there that frightens him as much as whatever was waiting for him in his dreams. Somehow, he is certain. The cleric shifts in her sleep nearby, but does not wake.

He tenses, waits for a few breaths, then sighs. She is turned away from him, so Deet cannot see her close her eyes.