It is in the end— after the blood had been shed, the world nearly ended. When you are once more alone, companions returning to their new obligations or new plights when you are left with kind consolation and heavy goodbyes.
The city sleeps, yet often you do not. Residing at differing inns from night to night, you attempt to lead a life nameless once more. A lack of sleep, a predilection for forgetting. Perhaps that is also what led you here, entering a tavern prevalent in profound impropriety and bottomless drink.
The ale is a warm rush of current down your throat, a haze settling inside your mind. The scintillating fireplace of licking flames cast rhythms of shadow across unfamiliar faces.
You're here on business… or rather, pursuing a whisper of opportunity. It isn't unnatural to be stood up in this line of inquiry. Not many mages boast of wish spells, and even fewer know how to get their hands on one.
You had managed to not resort to needing Gale this long… so. Other avenues became necessary.
At least that is what you keep telling yourself as you keenly monitor the door.
One door close, and you pick lock it open, but your years in this line of work were hells bent on survival. Not miracles.
Yet, your miracles are not here. At least, one of them doesn't show. The other you hope won't.
You groan, cradling your head with your hands, then kneading balled fists against your eyes. The man eyeing you from across the bar coughs to conceal his sudden disinterest. Who can blame him? You're pathetic.
"The deal is still on the table. You play your part just like you used to, and I help. The hero act wasn't going to last, you know. Coming here is a testament to the matter."
You grip the handle of your mug, your drink swishing to and fro. It all but topples over onto the front of your undershirt as you raise it to your lips. You take deep gulps, liquid dribbling down your chin. You smear it away.
You cannot get drunk quickly enough.
However, as the hour plays on, you begin to curse your tolerance of drink, as well as everything else gone wrong in the past months.
Fuck.
Gods, surely there is no use to this anymore—
A honeyed voice pollutes your buzz. It is a suave soliloquy, with syllables like rose petals. It wafts in the air, laughter silk soft with an undercut of severity. It prickles up your posture, and you are shrouded in thorns.
Fuck.
As sly as you may, you cast a glance over your shoulder, and there he is.
Without the tadpole's defiance of the sun, Astarion was thrust into the night once more, cavalierly caviling at the young man draped under his arm. The man is of noble build, with embroidered robes adorned in maroon and amethyst gems. The noble's cheeks are a flush delight fueled by the splendor of Astarion's charm.
The sight is the sea collapsing into you, wave after wave. Breath sealed in sinking lungs. You will drown if you don't look away.
There are two awful realities to unfold before you.
One, how dismayingly odd the noble is for someone of Astarion's taste. Just met his prime, early twenties, broad shoulders, and bright-eyed. These types were the kind Astarion would toy with until they bristled and cried. Not the kind he'd be involved with.
You swiftly shift to stare into your half-empty glass. A shiver stills your sigh.
Unless of course, the context of taste meant something entirely different.
Then it was most certainly his type.
You take a swig.
Second.
Astarion is philandering.
With your intended mark.
You shouldn't look again. But you must be sure. On first inspection, the noble fits the bill all right; medium height, thin build, pale eyes, hair, and skin. The description checks out, everything but the—
A cacophony of swooning laughter manages to reach your side of the tavern.
"He laughs like a hyena."
You turn, slow as if that will help conceal your gaze. It doesn't.
Crimson eyes meet yours, and dread pollutes your surroundings, your thoughts, and your breath. Your stomach drops, the skin of your arms pebbling as a chill slinks its lips down your spine.
This is not how you planned the night to go.
There it is again, the clutch of your gut, the crater burrowing itself into the trenches of you.
You had not died— screaming, as he had last proclaimed. The reminder of those words, dripping in contempt, brazen in believed betrayal. They had marred your thoughts and sought to spoil the solace of your soul. The severance of your last encounter had sunk its teeth into you, chewed sinew, and spit out the scraps.
Astarion.
He whom you had given everything— anything— for. Gone. Never to be seen again.
But he is here— and you… you realize you really shouldn't be.
You can't be.
The mark can wait. There will be other nights.
Within a fluid movement, you set your mug aside, reach into your pouch, and spill gold coins across the counter. You make haste from the bar to the entrance. You slide behind shoulders and wade through strangers cackling and clinking cups unaware.
Even so, you feel him watching you.
The tavern bell chimes. You cringe with the acknowledgment it calls forth to you. The breath in your lungs constricts, the agony in the urgency to flee from his line of sight too much to endure.
Why is he here? Shouldn't he be in the Underdark?
Did recognition pass across his countenance? He could have seen you but not see you.
This is the only comfort you can indulge in as you quicken your pace, the city lamp yellow hues sluicing and splaying across the street.
You've sobered up. Yet, everything is spinning. Swaying. Turning inside out.
You're panicking.
A bell chimes and footfalls patter behind you. You don't even need to look. The thought is nauseating. How well-versed you are in the sound of his steps.
"I hope you die screaming."
It resounds in your mind just as he calls your name. It sounds foreign. It sounds like a memory. Like a dream, you never wake from.
You have half a mind to keep walking, roaming further into the city and into the surrounding, comforting dark.
He could want to make his past proclamation true.
Perhaps you'd let him if only to be rid of this ache.
This burden you bury beneath your smiles and behind your eyes, the loss of him you carry in your voice.
How it is known by all who know you.
"I didn't think I would find you alone, in my time of the night. Where are your companions, darling?" His tone tinged in disdain; his darling laced with ridicule. There is a slow decline in breath. It staggers still in your lungs, like tangled strands caught in dragging dingers. Is it dread? Is it grief? Perhaps it is a touch of mourning.
You know now what you knew the last you spoke— you are the bearer for all that did not come to fruition. You are the reason he won't say our companions. Our friends.
And though you loathe yourself for losing him, though you blame yourself for all the things you previously thought you were sheltering him from. You cannot endure this in silence any longer. Not when the chance to confront him is here.
Who are you to run away? You have spent your whole life running.
This isn't imprisonment. This isn't a life sentence.
Yet… isn't it?
You can't go on like this. You haven't been.
You whip around, and Astarion stumbles into you. As you collide— his scarlet eyes widen, and a flash of recollection startling your pulse. The effect of being this close isn't lost on you. You can see, even under the dim lanterns glow the crease of his brow, the wrinkle in his nose, the dip of his cupid's bow. But just as sudden, he steels himself, stepping back and straightening, a glint in his glare, wrath warping his mouth and brandished on his tongue.
You muster the will to speak before he can.
"They were your companions as much as they were mine," you bite back, though the spite of it makes you hesitate. Whatever you feel doesn't matter.
"But…" you sigh, then start again, "that matters not…" you offer.
Your companions who watched you wither away the moment he left. Companions who offered you condolences yet spoke in passing of how things may have been different— for Astarion's fate. It was blameless yet… how could they have not blamed you? And maybe that is why when it was over, you pushed them all away.
That is why you offered goodbyes in place of being a part of the next journey.
Karlach's hand on your back, Shadowheart's curt smile, La'zel's tense jaw, Gale's exasperation, Wyll's sorry nod.
You'd never known family—let alone friends. So why grieve yourself over it?
Even if you gave all you could, even though you had killed yourself to keep the world.
It means nothing now.
All you can do is make him see sense. All you can do is convince him to listen, to hear you. You just didn't think it would happen this soon when you are unready. When you are still angry— at yourself, at him, at everything.
"What matters is that I am sorry," you plead, and Astarion teeters on his heel, bombarded by your insistence. But you can't stop. Even if he thinks you are pathetic—distasteful or blunt.
Your hurt is too deep. You remember the vitriol in your supposed lover's voice. You remember scrubbing your skin raw after the battle with Cazador. You remember numbly thinking if that was all you always were to him. A plot for protection. A ploy for power.
Hadn't he said as much?
"I'm sorry how things ended. Now if that is all you wanted, let us be on our way," you bitterly retort. You mean to turn your back on him, on all of this.
But just as sudden, the verses of carved intent burn at the inside of your wrist.
Dammit.
A contract is a contract.
Even if you walk away. Your past self has condemned you.
Abruptly, his cold, nimble fingers curl around your forearm. His filed nails nip into your skin— though the pain doesn't end there. His touch burns through you fields of forlorn faith of anything different than the vile sure to leave his tongue.
He is incredulous.
"You're sorry? You're sorry? That's all you have to say to me? Are you sorry to be reminded of how you refused to help me despite stating you would? How you ruin any chance of me ascending, of being more than my captor? You're sorry?!" He bellows out, the way he does when things are far too outrageous to constrain within a reasonable decibel.
The words stick like tar and taste of arsenic. He must have rehearsed a version of these lines before, as he always made sure to hone his skill of slights. They puncture the air with each consonant, every vowel, as he draws you in closer.
His presence encircles you, a predator playing with its prey. He could end you here and now, drain you of all you are.
As if he hadn't already.
You yank your arm away and vociferate back.
"I ruined your chance at becoming Cazador. You couldn't see it. You wouldn't. The spawn aside, you would have been damned. I love—" a near concession you barely manage to conceal, "I loved you," you finish.
Dammit! You love him. His mean proclivity. His budding vulnerability. His gentle rebuffs. The sly quips, the grandiose turn of phrase, the sharp smiles, the soft uncertainty of palms alleviating parts of you that were left derelict. When the others slept, you'd glide your fingers through his strands of hair, humming quiet, close, gentle. You never knew if he truly saw you in the same way— as if you were precious as if you were his new comprehension of eternity.
It is why you'd been willing to risk your reputation to pay repentance. To earn some semblance of forgiveness.
Even if you had to become what you once were…
He wouldn't have to.
And that is enough. Yet—
Yet, you blink and blink it back.
You can't cry- not like this. Not now.
"I was trying to…" it almost tumbles from your tongue. Save you. That is what you mean to say. But it feels wrong to say it— it felt wrong even then, even if that is what you meant to do, even if it was done with intent rife with compassion, with desperation to help him. You know, deep down, he will despise you further if you admit it. You hadn't wanted to fix him, but in that moment, you knew love would never heal him. Nor power. Not vengeance.
It was through choice— a choice you seemingly made for him.
So, you halt yourself. Shake your head, and turn away.
"Love?!" He sputters at your confession in disbelief. You hadn't told him that before. It was never the right moment, or perhaps you feared rejection. Even if you had said it countless times, like the mantra pounding in your heart, would he have ever believed you?
He grips your wrist this time, preventing you from even daring to leave.
"I needed you. And you went back on your promise." He says indignant. "I should kill you for what you took from me." He gestures towards the blade sheathed at his hip and for an instant you… you wouldn't mind if he did.
You've been beaten, bloodied, beguiled, spurned. What is left of you after the fight for the city? Victories wrought with death, a closure that did not fulfill. All of it was done with a broken heart.
Deep within, you cave.
How did we become this?
Your features crumble, brows pinching together and tears beginning to burn, threatening to descend your cheeks. You'd never let him see you cry. He'd heard you before… held you as you shook beside him. But never would you show your face. It was too much. For anyone.
Except… the night he left. In front of the others— you wept.
You cannot retreat into the night, for he knows the dark better than you. You had thought he'd known you better.
In the thralls of morality, you finally had the chance to do right by the world. So, you tried. Always.
It's why he disliked you once. It's why he cared for you later. It's why he detests you now.
"Then go ahead Astarion, kill me if you must. But I... I love you with all of me. I promised I'd help you defeat Cazador. I never said I'd aid you in ascending. And you know— you had known I wouldn't."
It is a dagger through your heart, the tears have come, yet you cannot hide.
You'd said it.
Love. Not loved. Not the past tense, but the current, the now, the always, the evermore.
For a moment you think he didn't hear you, didn't believe you, or thought it a lie. With his proficiency in deceit, shouldn't he recognize the absence of it?
Astarion's resolve begins to crack. His lips twitched downward, his jaw tense. The watery remorse seeping into your voice makes him shutter, makes him step back. He clenches his fists, his eyes shutting tight. It's as though he's fighting— against what you say— against what has become of you both.
He opens his eyes, on the verge of tears.
"You had no right to refuse me," he jabs his finger toward your chest, his words are crumpled, falling apart, "you said you would do what I needed."
"I thought I was doing what you needed," you insist, hands puncturing your wavering intonation, "That I— I couldn't do what you wanted. And for that— I am sorry… I am sorry."
You begin to cradle yourself, backing up, treading away from this… demise of you.
You mutter while meeting his eyes again.
"I know what you want now. I promise you will never see me again."
Just as the others.
As soon as it leaves your lips, his hands are on your arm, at your wrist. He drags you down the dim alleyway between the tavern and the inn. He seizes you against the opposing wall, your body caged by his, your spine straightening to the cool press of brick.
He is all-consuming, a tidal wave. The moonlight combs through the waves of his hair and coruscates in the gleam of crimson irises. You inhale the aroma of his skin, and it riddles you speechless, the notes of rosemary, the undercurrent of bergamot and cinnamon intoxicating.
Anchoring you to the spot, Astarion is seething.
"No," he pauses, squeezes his eyes closed, and shakes his head in contention before clenching your wrists tighter, pale red ringlets sure to form. "You don't get to cry… you betrayed me. Maybe I didn't become Cazador, but that doesn't mean I didn't become much worse." A mirthless smile snags at the corner of his lips. He scrunches his nose, as if in disgust.
"Don't look at me like I'm the one who did that to you. Don't tell me you love me now."
You steel yourself. You know the game he is playing all too well. You can't let him see the wound he's prying wide open, even if your heart is plummeting to the abyss inside your chest, even if your stomach churns.
You step into his space, causing him to flinch, his sneer slipping from his smug face. You murmur quiet, kind.
"You were afraid. I know. But power would not have quilled your fear. No one would hurt you more than you would have hurt yourself. You would have become everything you despise, and I couldn't watch it happen."
His grip has lessened. He looks at you with timid uncertainty.
Your voice hardens.
"You can hate me for it. You can kill me for it. But I never wanted to hurt you."
What you say lingers in the air for a long moment. He regards you with an inscrutable expression.
But it shifts. It morphs. It becomes impenetrable, unknowable. Astarion does what he does best. He withdraws within himself. He counters with defiance.
"The path to the hells is paved with good intentions, my dear."
You gasp as he releases your wrist, then bring his deft fingers to glide over the underside of your jaw. You shiver, ensnared by the sensation of his sharp nails, his thumb pressing against the seam of your lips, parting them ever so slightly. He drags his thumb over the plush of your bottom lip, and the breath strangled in your lungs releases in a broken sigh, his touch igniting a memory, only known by your skin.
He surveys you with a raised brow, with prowling eyes. His eyes peruse your body as his other hand descends your forearm, nails tracing an aimless motif. Fingers flow from there to the bend of your waist, featherlight over the fabric of your blouse. He curls his palm snugly on your side, thumb positioned beneath the underside of your breast. He can feel your inhale beneath his splaying fingertips. You exhale shakily slow, clinging to the façade of indifference. He tilts his head with a tsk of disapproval, then gently grips your chin.
He flattens his palm over part of your cheek and jaw, slanting your head. He brushes your hair aside, unveiling your neck, then skims his lips over the shell of your ear. He is so close, so familiar. The sanctuary of this nostalgia overcomes you. His cashmere voice is a susurration for surrender.
"Say you'll let me," he coos, and the sweet redolence of his presence pervades your senses. Yet, you must try to resist, even when his fingers at your side wade up and down, soothing, and — tempting. When his lips press beneath your ear, then over your pulse, warmth cascades down inside your core, and your knees buckle. You feel the heat bloom between your thighs, your sanity yielding from this all-encompassing yearning.
He drags his fangs over the nape of your neck yet does not bite. Instead, he hallows his cheeks and begins to suck, a violet blossom blooming into your skin beneath his mouth.
You tremble against him, another gasp fumbling from your lips.
"Oh."
You feel him smile as he hums against the hollow of your throat in approval. Your hips jolt toward his, and you inhale brokenly as his arousal presses to your stomach. It is straining against the fabric of his trousers, firm and full.
Your lust threatens to unravel all sense. Your mind is in the mist.
Latching onto your heavy gaze with his own, he repeats himself.
"Say you'll let me."
He says it with resolute intonation, yet an inkling of doubt tinges the end of his sentence. It is not a command, though not a question either. Perchance, he is not sure for which he implies. If he is struggling with who he has created himself to be, or if he is still the Astarion you knew.
Never treading too far, too close, without reassurance. Yet, here, and now, he treads the line of persistence in proving to you the error of your ways. The error in endeavoring to see him, to know him for all the beautiful, the soft, and the gentle. For forgetting who he was made to be. For thinking ascension would be the thing that would break him when he, himself, is too far gone.
You ache with the love you have for him.
"Show me the kind of man you've become," you reply, calm, "Why ask for permission?"
He hesitates for a moment, doe-eyed and dazed.
Then, he decides.
He tilts his head, looking at your lips.
"I wasn't." Astarion states, with a cadence of wavering insistence, and with it, you sink lower into the surrounding night.
Your body tensing, your pulse quickening.
His fingers leave your side and weave into the strands of your hair. He pulls your head into a slant once again, causing the nape of your neck to become completely and utterly exposed. The markings of his kisses are scattered along the skin, like that of his own design.
The moonlight swims in his half-hooded gaze, glints off his fangs, and fills you to the brim with trepidation.
There is a sudden, stark stillness in your body.
He mutters, insouciant, "I'll bleed you dry."
His breath is a warm flush on your skin, and then his fangs delve deep.
"Ahh!" you hiss, sagging into the adjacent wall. His lips enclose, as he begins to suck a stream of your blood into his voracious mouth. He is harsh in his thirst, his Adam's apple bobbing with every thick swallow of your blood he takes, the tug of your hair eliciting a dull pain.
Despite this— a sinful sense of pleasure saturates the pain, as it always does when he feeds. Your pulse, heightened, like an orchid in full bloom, beating a deafening rhythm. It is reverberating in your ears, in your temples. Your fear once formidable now fleeting, flowing away with each draw of your blood to his lips.
The euphoria of feeding envelops you in a lukewarm embrace, milky mind a mirage. His grip eases on your hair, and he steadies your jaw with caressing fingers, the rush of your blood now a slow, steady pull from your veins. The effect of drinking entrances him, and you feel the hum of his moan, the lulling of his languorous lips.
It is as though you are being anointed, touched by phantom palms in all the places you yearn— the heat building beneath your skin like a fever that will burn you alive. Your voice, a lilt of his name, shivery and silver. He hmmms against your neck, and your fingers find their way into his curls, trailing your nails through his strands and over his scalp.
He groans, deep in his throat. It is just like the way he used to, those many months ago.
It is like your head is floating, the fever a flavor you sought to forget— but there is no forgetting, not when it is etched into the marrow, into your soul. You want him. So much, you are distraught with want, the heat coalescing at your core, seeping down your inner thighs.
He unlatches his mouth, just to mutter, voice drenched in desire, "I can taste it. You're so eager for me."
"I— I don't—" you whimper in response, biting your lip. But as you try to deny—
Astarion holsters your wilting body up and shifts his knee, pushing it between your thighs. The friction is not nearly enough, yet all too much. You try to resist, yet all sense has vanished. You succumb to him, rolling your hips against his knee, aching for relief. Astarion's breath catches in his lungs, and though your eyes have fallen shut, you don't know if it's to solely focus on the chase of a teetering high or to escape the city's midnight mussitations. Maybe it is to memorize the motion of hips, the silk of his sigh, the bend of his fingers clenching and unclenching on your waist. It's building and building, a relentless sea in the mellow meringue of his dipping vowels, the thrumming of this heat enough to drown in.
His knee drops, and despite yourself, you let out a faint whine. You think it is on purpose, a cruel way to deter your relief, yet he grips your hips and pulls you flush against him.
He feels so good, heavy, and thick, snug against where you need him most.
He grinds into you with every sashaying sigh, his head drooping into the crook of your neck. His dulcet exhales tremor through you, showering your head from toe. Your toes curl inside your boots, and your hands clench in fistfuls of his hair.
You don't know how far this will go— especially here, only concealed by nightfall.
If it remained like this, insatiable, yet… safe. Not crossing the line…
Just as the thought nips at you, Astarion is wedging down the sides of your trousers inch by inch, your mound of curls peeking out from your underwear. He means to feel you, to know the wetness between your thighs. You clench them together, suddenly shy, sheepish at him having evidence of how eager you truly are, how completely he's undone you with only this continual grazing of his hips, a brush of his lips to the shell of your ear.
You part your thighs, just barely enough for him to flatten his palm and curl his knuckles around your cunt, fingers a touch away from delving between your folds. Yet— he doesn't. He hovers his fingers there. He is waiting for something yet can't quite admit.
You know.
You nod, ever so slightly, and give in, letting him set the pace, letting him ascertain what he needs from you.
"Please," you say, trying to withstand shifting into his touch.
His chest rises and falls. His ring finger slides over the seam of your lower lips, thumb a featherlight swirl around your clit. He teases his middle finger between your folds, sinking slowly until he is knuckle-deep. Your hands leave his hair and find purchase on his shoulders. Your head sways and you bite your bottom lip, stifling a moan.
"Mmmn—"
"You like this?" He says, not unkind. He gently pumps his finger in and out, in and out. A leisurely tempo of sweet torture.
"Yes."
He lifts his head to look at you, crimson irises a thin ring, his pupils blown wide.
"You want more, don't you darling," he encourages you in a sly teasing tone, with a lilt of consideration.
"Yes—"
His ring finger pushes in, and you adjust to the width of them both. Your heartbeat is like a crescendo, as his fingers glide, soaked in your arousal. Again, and again, they pump into you, increasing in pressure, in pace. His thumb twirls over your clit, lazy circles compared to his fingers.
Your nose scrunches, your nails dig into his shoulders. He coos into your ear, praises of you sound so insatiable, such a good girl.
It's coming, you know it when your hips begin to jut forward sporadically, the coil tightening in your core about to snap. Sizzles of stars pepper behind your eyelids, and stream down your spine.
But can you be quiet enough? What if someone hears you? Sees you?
The inkling of worry must show on your face.
"Just focus on my fingers," he soothes, "on my voice."
His thumb massages over your clit, and you gasp out a fragmented version of Ah—starion.
"Let me make you cum, sweetheart," he susurrates, "you're so beautiful like this. Clenching on my fingers, whimpering my name."
His reassurances are relentless, and you tip over the edge of oblivion, rashly muffling your moans into his shoulder, into the fabric of his shirt. Waves of white wash over you, pulse thrumming in your chest.
It is pooling in your core, soaking his fingers, and dripping down his wrist.
You hear him give a shaky breath, wrought with longing and saccharine anguish by your release.
"I want you… I… I can't— I need you," he admits on impulse, his fingers sliding out from you, drenched. You tremble at the loss of them, nearly delirious in your post-high. His words make your core clench, make you feverish once more.
Does he mean to take you? Right here? Right now?
A concoction of concern looms over you, and you lift your head from his shoulder. You glance at him, then dart your gaze from one side of the alley, a dead-end brick wall, to the other side. The street before you is devoid of life, no Flaming Fist patrollers, no drunkards huddled in dusk. The lanterns give a dim glow, swaying in the cool breeze. Nevertheless, the light cannot reach you here. Though, surely someone will leave the tavern once the hour's shade dissipates, to flee home from a brawl, or to sluggishly crawl into bed.
You look to him once more, and again it is as though he reads your mind.
"I know," he sounds pained, head drooping. By the tension of his trousers, the shut of his eyes, perhaps he is.
"I won't… we don't have to," he quietly assures, and it is so unlike the bravado of before. It is delicate.
You see him, the Astarion you had once been devoted to. Ready to fight for, to die for. And although it may lead to disaster, to the unraveling of your very being, you have never been surer.
This evidently wasn't only about lust. If it had been, he'd have left you by now for your mark in the tavern. He wouldn't have followed; he wouldn't have touched. To be this close had always been a rarity done out of a need to be cared for, adored, to be cherished. Though he may never love you, though he may be planning to hurt you in a way worse than death, you… if only for tonight…
Your palm caresses his cheek, and you meet his eyes.
"I want you," you murmur, "I'll be quiet."
A breath and his eyelashes fall over his eyes as they watch your lips. He leans in close.
"Let me hear you," he states, then his lips are on yours. The seal of his lips eases the weight of hesitation from your skin, his honeyed mouth in harmony against yours. His tongue slides over the seam and you part your lips, tangling your tongue with his. His needy palms are at your waist, gripping and pulling you nearer as he angles his head, deepening the kiss. You nip at his bottom lip, and he groans in his throat.
You briefly come up for air, panting with the metallic aftertaste of your blood lingering on your tongue. A chill hits your exposed skin as he anchors his fingers at your pants once more, tugging them down until they fall to your knees. You step out of them, a flourish of fear amalgamating with shameful escalating arousal. He pulls you in for another kiss, as his fingers begin to fumble with his waistband. You aid in his endeavor, dragging his pants down until his cock can spring free.
You taste his steadying inhale. He breaks the kiss, then hooks one of your legs over his arm, pushing your back further into the wall, deeper into the cocooning shadow.
You are vibrating with anticipation, dripping onto the floor. He presses the head of his cock to you, and you quiver. He nuzzles it over your folds, then glides it back and forth, until it's slick, until it's ready.
You look at him, and the array of emotions passing over his countenance is like deciphering a blur of seasons changing. Your chest is heaving. You are fully bare, fully vulnerable, in more ways than one.
You need him so fucking bad, your hips push forward instinctively, the head of his cock nearly dipping inside you. He responds in a low, guttural grunt, hiking your leg a bit higher, bumping the tip of his cock against your sex once more.
"Say it again," he murmurs, half delirious, half desperate, rolling his hips into you.
His brows are furrowed, white lashes cast over closed eyes. The damask rose of his flushed cheeks, the pink tips of his pointed ears, pale skin incandescent under the moonlight.
He feels so good, so heavy, and thick sliding over your sex.
He looks so beautiful, the corner of his lips smudged with your blood, the scarlet trail disappearing down his jaw.
But it matters not— his body, his beauty. It is all of him, in every way. The meadows of his mind, the lilies of his laugh. The valleys of his voice, the lavenders of his language. The willows of his worries, the serene of sunrise in his smiles—
Your heart could burst outside your chest. Your vision is a stretch of liquid silhouette.
"I love you," you say, as if it is as natural as breathing, as simple as the sun rising at dawn.
He reacts in a tremulous exhale, nostrils a flare and the arm anchoring your leg falling a little.
A flush of embarrassment flames in your cheeks.
He probably didn't mean for you to say that again.
An apology is on the tip of your tongue when he repositions himself at your entrance and sinks in.
Inch by inch.
"Ah—!" You gasp, yet his palm is quick to soften the sound as he encloses it over your mouth. You whine into his hand; your eyes rolling back as he sheathes himself inside your wet, hot heat. You squirm slightly to adjust to the girth of him. He doesn't stop pressing forward until you are full to the brim.
Astarion pulls out almost completely, before slamming back inside. His hand falls a bit from your lips, and as if by instinct you part your lips, sucking his index and middle finger into your mouth. You peek at him with low-lidded eyes, and he curses the gods beneath his breath.
You hum around his fingers as he sets a sinful rhythm of a gradual outward pull, a heavy plunge in. The slapping of skin echoes softly in the alleyway, and it is downright disgraceful, yet you become lost in its soliloquy. He is undoing the tethers of your mind, diluting all sense.
There is no doubt he feels it too, his agonizingly slow pace increasing in intensity, his quiet pants becoming drawn-out moans.
"Gods, you feel so fucking good," he mutters, pumping himself in and out, over, and over. You think you may go insane. His fingers pop from your mouth, and he takes hold of your chin.
"Look at me," he instructs, and you comply, though it makes you blush, makes you boil hot in your blood.
"Say it again," Astarion commands, and you clench around him in astonishment, in a flare of pleasure. You whimper unintelligibly, glancing away, embarrassment steeping in your face as a surge of wetness coats his cock.
He nearly loses control.
"Say it," he growls out as he slams deep into you again. His hand clasps your jaw, fingers a curve over part of your neck, urging you to look at him once more.
"I love you," you confess. You feel tears beginning to prick your eyes, as an impending orgasm sears within you something fierce. Your cunt tightens over his cock, you feel him throb.
"Again." He orders through clenched teeth, thrusts now sloppy, uneven.
"I love... I—" You try to speak, yet the words are a jumble from your mouth. It's coming, oh fuck… it's…
"I love you," you profess, just as your orgasm consumes you in licks of flame, in rivers of euphoric relief, just as—
Fangs. Fangs delve deep into your neck, the shivery silk of your orgasmic high becoming static fuzz, as Astarion begins to drink your blood like he'd gone centuries without it.
You try to speak, but you are left speechless, as with each draw of your blood, you feel his cock pulse inside of you, his body shuttering, his groans vibrating into the hallow of your throat.
Astarion sucks hard, his hips slamming into yours as he reaches his climax. His cock spasms as he releases his seed inside you, droplets of his cum dripping to your feet. The rush of your blood being drained renders you weightless.
He is devouring you, mouthful, after mouthful.
"Astarion—" you plead, fingers clenching in his hair, tugging at his head. He won't budge, won't stop.
"Please," you beg, tears beginning to cascade down your cheeks.
It is as though he can't listen, as if set in a trance. Your heartbeat starts to slow, your sight fading.
Your grip loosens on his hair. You don't pull— instead, you graze your fingernails over his scalp, like an ocean wave meeting the shore, trying to remind him, trying to—
BANG.
A door swings open, the sound emitting from the tavern. Astarion jolts, fangs yanking out of your flesh, blood spilling down his chin. His cock slips from you, and you sigh at the loss of him. Your consciousness ebbs in and out. You slump against the wall, almost unable to stand as he drops your leg to the floor.
You feel his frenzied hands at your ankles, yanking up your trousers. You numbly watch his flustered movements as he pries up his own pants.
Foreign voices ring out, an argument of sorts. You aren't sure.
You aren't sure of anything.
Astarion is mouthing words at you. His hair in disarray. His eyes glistening in the moonlight. He attempts to keep you standing, while scouring the floor for something.
"Please," he suddenly sounds so frantic, so afraid. You feel something bump against your lips.
"Please drink. Darling, please," he implores.
He tips the bottle and something familiar hits your tongue. You begin to gulp it down, the bottle trembling in his hold as you do.
A cool nourishment floods your body, and your senses and your surroundings return to you once more.
A potion of healing.
You drink until the bottle is empty. Though you feel rejuvenated, it is not enough to wholly quell the effects of blood loss. The skirmish down the street seizes your bones in realization, a welcome distraction from what just occurred.
You cannot get caught like this.
You hand the bottle back to Astarion wordlessly, avoiding his eyes. You double-check your body and find at least you are fully clothed. The sticky mess between your thighs and in the crook of your neck, however, brings anything but relief.
"We need to go." You mutter emotionless, attempting to brush past him.
Could you still scale the wall in this state? It's a miracle you're even breathing right now.
Astarion grabs your wrist and says your name.
"You can't," he states, and again, he knows your thoughts. It does anything but endear you.
He continues, "Not like this. We need to wait for them to leave."
"Why?" You bite back in a whisper. "So you can finish me off?"
He recoils with the stab of your words.
Good.
You yank your hand away.
It would have been one thing if he'd just had his meal, but instead, he made sure he had all of you.
You don't know if it's him you're more upset with, or yourself. A sob claws at your throat. You turn away from him, approaching the wall. You begin to scope out a path for your hands and feet.
"It's your fault." He declares, and you stiffen, unmoving. You peer back at him.
"Yes. All my fault," you move towards him, finger jabbing into his chest.
You take your wrist, and without forethought, smear it over the blood still wet at your neck.
You extend it out for him to see. A contract, made in blood, visible only in blood, illuminates in a yellow scrawl of initials on your skin.
"And I have done everything to make up for it."
His eyes widen in shock. He grips your wrists, inspecting the golden glow of letters.
"Why—"
"A wish scroll," you don't let him finish, "I complete the contract, and I get a wish scroll. It could… it could cure you… or at least allow you to live in the sun."
He drops your wrist, shaking his head in disbelief.
"How many?"
"Seventeen."
He lets out a breath.
"Only seventeen?"
"Of noble birth," you state, "though still far better than seven thousand."
He pinches the bridge of his nose in frustration.
A voice rings out from down the street. Someone is calling the nightly patrollers.
You tense and then turn away once more.
"You'll need me alive if you want that scroll. So, let's part from here. I'm sure I can find you once I get it."
"This isn't you," he argues, "the hero of the grove, the savior of Baldur's gate, of the world. You can't tell me your feelings for me are enough to inspire this."
"Astarion." You slide a palm down your face. This conversation is going nowhere, and you're running out of time.
"There are things about me I never spoke of. That our friends could never know. I wanted to be something different, and I was. But this is more to me than that. You are more to me than that."
He is silent. Your voice softens. You're about to cry.
"I'll see you when it's over."
Before he can respond, a CLANG clatters from the street. A rustle of feet, and voices rising. Someone is being arrested.
You don't waste time to find out. You begin to scale the wall, ignoring the throb of your neck, and the exhaustion of your limbs. You force yourself to climb until you've reached the top.
You don't look back at him. You slide over the other side, then hit the ground running.
You hear him call after you, yet you don't stop. You won't.
You run as far as you can, bitterly knowing that when morning comes, at least then you'll be safe from him.