Astarion sauntered over to Elamir, hands behind his back. 'Ahem. Well, that was all very awkward for both of us, wasn't it?' he said with a stiff smile. 'I got you killed, you stole my chance for revenge and received powers beyond mortal comprehension… I think we are even now, don't you?'
They were up on the Elfsong's roof terrace, where Elamir had been spending quite some time during the days since the ritual. It was a bloody sunset, intense and vibrant. It should have been humming, but all was quiet aside form a few drunkards squabbling on the downstairs terrace. Elamir glanced up at Astarion, who looked no less handsome when he was squirming in discomfort and wringing his hands.
'For the second time. You got me killed for the second time,' Elamir said.
'I don't think that first time counts, does it? Yes, I got a little eager and drank too much of your blood, but Lae'zel had you up and running in no time with a Revivify scroll!'
'I slept in a pool of blood for days before we realised that Destroy Water works on blood too.'
'Well, there's no need to dredge that up. It was over a month ago, and I hardly knew you back then,' Astarion huffed. 'You know, when we first met, I only saw a useful idiot in you. Ran the usual routine and charmed the pants right off you, didn't I? And you proved most useful. Somehow, you got us all the way to Baldur's Gate with our limbs and lives all intact. The only problem is that somewhere along the way, I started to actually care about you, and by the time I realised, it was too late. Now the damage is done. I made a mess of it all.'
'Is that an apology?'
Astarion sat down in the pillows next to him and reached for his hand, his expression sincere and his touch gentle. 'The last time I killed you, you forgave me. You told everyone you trusted me when I had given you every reason not to.'
'Mh… I only kept you around because your face is nice,' Elamir murmured and leaned in closer. 'And your voice is delectable. Your legs are fantastic, and your laugh sends a pleasant shiver down my spine ever time.'
'Oh, stop it you,' Astarion laughed. 'Go on, keep going.'
'And you are fun, and clever, and I have been hopelessly smitten since the moment you held a knife to my throat for the first time.' Elamir's smile vanished and his voice grew cold. 'I knew you were full of shit when we met, but I thought we had built something real. I don't blame you for killing me when I was a complete stranger, but for you to betray me now, after all this time?' His grip tightened around Astarion's hands. 'You never cared about anyone but yourself.'
'That isn't true. I thought there was a slim chance, if I gave up the one person who matters the most to me in this world, maybe Cazador would accept the offer and let me go.'
'You are so full of shit,' said Elamir. 'You wanted to go through with the ritual and claim the power for yourself. I made you a promise, that we would kill Cazador and secure your freedom. I was your best chance.'
'Well, what if I simply didn't believe that you were capable of killing him?' asked Astarion, raising his voice in frustration. 'What if I was so terrified of failure, of being enslaved again and ultimately sacrificed, that this seemed like the better option? And not even because I value my life above yours, but because I could not possibly deserve your love. It felt like the ending I was destined for: alone and afraid.'
Elamir barked out a derisive laugh and shook his head. 'You gave me up, and you want me to believe that you did it because you care so much about me? This is like an entirely new level of bollocks from you. I can understand doing something insanely irrational out of fear, to a certain extent, but I do not understand how you lost faith in my ability to see us through.'
'It made sense at the time,' said Astarion, soft and sad. 'But I don't think you rightly understand what it's like to be tortured and toyed with by Cazador, made to feel like nothing, made to feel like dirt. Completely powerless and alone.'
'I had a taste of it the other night,' said Elamir.
'And now you have all the power, while I once again have none.'
Elamir looked down at their joined hands. He had seen the other path, the one where Astarion obtained this power. He knew what Astarion would have done to him if he were the one to ascend. But, if what the tadpole showed him was true, there had been another option, one where everyone lived, where they could afford to be tender and trusting. Thanks to Astarion's betrayal, however, that future had become an impossibility. Astarion had no idea how much he had stolen from them.
'Usually, I have to be the one who comes to you,' Elamir noted.
'And you do look beautiful, sauntering up to me all eager to discuss the latest events of our adventures, but I thought I owed you one.'
Elamir pulled him closer, pressed him flush against his chest and buried his face in soft, white hair. 'Or you fear what I might do with these new powers that you so desperately covet for yourself,' he murmured, brushing his lips down Astarion's neck.
'A-absolutely not. I have nothing to fear. You understand why I did what I did, and nothing has to change. I forgive you, you forgive me, and it's all peaches and parades from here on, love.'
'Oh, I think there will be a great deal of change.' Elamir parted his lips and pressed his teeth against Astarion's neck.
'Mph.' Astarion furrowed his eyebrows and hunched his shoulders up. 'Darling? That's not how you… They will not go in at that angle. You have to…' He sighed and let Elamir try to bite him for a while longer before he pushed away and wiped spittle from his neck. 'Oh, you poor, sweet thing, no one taught you anything, did they?'
'I was turned and immediately thrown in a cage,' said Elamir, his cheeks darkening in embarrassment. 'Sorry if I don't have this supreme overlord vampire thing down to a science just yet.'
'Oh, don't be so prickly. Even a veteran like myself would need time to get used to such powers,' Astarion said, suddenly all smug smirks again. 'But we are going to have to teach you how to feed. Have you eaten anything at all yet? With technique like that, you must be starving.'
'What do you propose, then? Since you are the expert.'
Astarion's eyes lit up with malicious glee. 'I propose we go hurt someone.'
By now, Elamir was ravenous. Since his true powers were still coming in, he could still experience a trace of the hunger that had plagued Astarion for most of his life. The Black Mass allowed him to eat regular food, but his body nevertheless yearned for blood. The pair of them went out into the streets to hunt for criminals, and in the lower city of Baldur's Gate, it did not take them long to run into a pair of would-be robbers in an alley. Once they were beaten into submission, Elamir and Astarion dragged them into a derelict building and tied them up.
'Well?' Astarion made an urging motion towards one of the bandits. 'They may not look young and rosy-cheeked, but they are a mite better than anything I had for a first meal.'
Elamir looked at the bandits in disgust. They were gaunt and filthy, and he really wished that he had brought the Rain Dancer staff to this event. 'They are extremely unappealing,' he complained. 'Would it be weird if we… Give them a bath, or something?'
'Rude,' one of the bandits muttered.
'Oh, the big, powerful slayer of Cazador Szarr is not having the glamorous experience he expected from life as a vampire?' Asterion jeered. 'You asked me some time ago what my hunts are like, and this is it, darling. We could be crawling around in the woods looking for boars, if you prefer that.'
'Yes, remind me of another time you almost killed me,' said Elamir sweetly. 'I should have taken a hint back then.'
'Only almost, my dear.'
'Right. Then you perfected your technique.'
'Oh, my techniques are already perfect, and you love them,' Astarion shot back.
'Should we give you two some privacy?' a bandit asked.
'Can we just get back to eating?' Elamir groaned.
'I don't know, can we? Should I lend you my silken handkerchief so that you might daintily wipe his neck before you savage him?' Astarion pulled a piece of cloth from his breast pocket and waved it in front of Elamir, who snatched it.
'Actually, that would be helpful. But I am still waiting for you to show me how. You are a terrible teacher, Astarion.'
'I never did have the patience for children or idiots.'
Astarion grabbed one of the bandits by the shoulders and ripped his throat out in one violent bite. He drank greedily and messily, and Elamir handed him the handkerchief back without comment.
'I sense that you are holding onto some anger,' Elamir said.
'Angry? Who's angry?' Astarion shouted. 'I can possibly forgive you for stealing the powers that were rightfully mine, but you stole my revenge. Everything I would have done to Cazador, you took that away from me.'
'You took my life from me.'
'No! It might have been my fault—'
'It was definitely your fault.'
'—but Cazador stole that from me as well. If anyone was going to make you a vampire, it should have been me. You were supposed to be mine.'
'And yet you gave me up.'
'Because I had a very understandable moment of weakness,' Astarion lamented. 'Are you ever going to let that go?'
'Not in the near future,' said Elamir.
'Are you going to eat me or not?' asked the remaining bandit.
'Yes, are you going to eat him?' asked Astarion, equally frustrated.
Elamir glanced down at the unappealing bag of bones and filth. There was something more holding him back, though he was not willing to voice it just yet. He grabbed Astarion by the belt and pulled him close.
'Ugh, surely not here?' Astarion complained.
Elamir grabbed the handle of Astarion's dagger and pulled it from its scabbard. 'Take this. And imagine that bandit is Cazador. I know it will not sate your thirst for vengeance, but it might soothe your rage ever so slightly.'
Astarion's fingers slowly closed around the hilt of the offered blade, his eyes gliding back to the bandit. 'Well. This is one of your brighter ideas, Elamir.'
The bandit had no time to protest before Astarion began to stab him like a loon. Elamir watched fondly, reminded of why he fell for Astarion to begin with. He truly was handsome, especially when splattered in blood and gore. There was a version of Astarion that was wide-eyed and vulnerable, genuine and tender, but fate would have it that they walked this dark path together. With Cazador dead by someone else's hand, healing Astarion's heart might be an impossible task.
'Oh dear. I seem to have spilled your dinner all over the carpet,' Astarion said once he had worked himself into exhaustion and the bandit was reduced to mince.
'Never mind. I was not going to eat some stranger for my first meal. Remember what you told me, after you drank me dry that night?'
'That you were my first,' Astarion murmured, his pale lashes lowered. 'And that was true, you know; you were the first sentient meal I ever had. A fine wine after two centuries of swill.'
'Yes, I remember. 'Elamir wiped the blood from Astarion's bottom lip with his thumb, then held his chin as he gazed into his eyes. 'You are going to be my first.'
'Once you figure out how to do it,' said Astarion, smirking.
'Until then, let's find a rat. So that I might understand the life you had a little better.'
'In a strange way, that is sort of sweet. I think. Yes, let us find you some hideous vermin to snack on.'
Either of them could easily have leaned in and kissed the other, and for a moment they both considered it. To fill the silence with a small sign of intimacy was almost a reflex by now, and the wound between them had to be truly deep in order to break such a pleasurable habit. It hurt not to touch, and it hurt to be this close. They each tore away at about the same time, but as they walked side by side back to the Elfsong, neither pulled away whenever the other's hand brushed against his.