It was in the pre-dawn hours that Astarion realized spending the night with Tav was making things worse.
He was finished with his four hours of elven reverie and needed to be up – washing and styling his careful curls, reapplying the face-paints that made him look less "obviously undead", mending his clothes, placing cologne to mask the aroma of ashes and dried blood that followed every vampiric being around – but his body would not leave Tav's embrace. He kept telling it to get up and move, and it just … refused. Not even the webs of the Phase Spiders beneath the Blighted Village had immobilized him as thoroughly as Tav's strong arm around his back, Their shoulder beneath his cheek, Their rhythmic breath flowing down his face like a sweetly-scented breeze.
Perhaps it was also due to how warm he felt. Two hundred years of bone-deep cold that could not be banished by a roaring fire or any amount of clothes had turned out to be no match for snuggling under a blanket with a Sun Soul Monk.
Astarion vaguely recalled Dalyria, who had been a doctor before her turning, saying that heat was simply molecules moving faster because energy had been added to them. Was that what was happening? Was Tav's Radiant energy agitating Astarion's undead molecules on a microscopic level? He'd have to keep that information to himself or the other spawn would be falling all over themselves to get to Tav, and not for the usual reasons. Yousen in particular never stopped bitching about the cold.
If he was going to lie here in Their arms for the rest of the night, he should at least be teasing Tav's thighs and lower stomach with his fingertips, subtly enticing Them toward waking in an aroused state. Then maybe They would roll toward him and kiss him for the first time, and The Plan would be back on track.
But he didn't.
He found that he could not bear to manipulate Tav's body while They were unconscious. He'd had far too much of people pawing at his flesh while he was helpless to stop them, and he couldn't bring himself to visit the same indignity upon someone who – if he were being honest – was precious to him.
Precious, even though Their very existence meant the last two centuries had really happened, and thus there had been no point to his suffering.
Astarion had half-suspected for many years that he was actually in one of the Hells, or wandering in a pocket of the Fugue Plane under the delusion that he was still in Faerûn. There was good reason to believe he had died in that alleyway, beaten to death by the Gur, and was now a Lost Soul doomed to suffer by the elven god of death, Naralis. How else could one explain the horrors that had been visited upon him in the alleyway, and after? Why else would the city he'd once loved suddenly be filled to bursting with people eager to use and abuse him? Surely there had not been such rampant corruption when he was alive, so many people who were sexually excited by humiliation and pain, or he would have seen signs of it during his duties as a magistrate.
Many, many times while being tortured by Godey, Cazador or one of his "friends", Astarion had clung to the idea that it was a type of penance. 'Penance,' he said to himself while being passed from orgy patron to orgy patron like an open bottle of wine. 'Penance,' while luring another misguided soul to their death beneath Cazador's fangs. Perhaps if he simply suffered enough, endured enough, loathed himself enough, then Naralis or Jergal or Kelemvor or whoever was orchestrating his torment would deem him sufficiently repentant, and allow him to move on to the afterlife.
Tav – Their goodness, Their kindness, Their quiet strength and unconditional devotion – was proof that he'd been wrong. A beautiful soul like Theirs could not have originated in the Hells, and would not have been allowed to comfort him in the Fugue Plane; this was Faerûn. This was the real world. Everything that had happened to him was true.
He both loved and hated Them for taking away his dark fantasy that the last two centuries had meant something.
Tav began to stir just before dawn, with sufficient warning that Astarion had time to quell his existential angst and place a few beguiling curls across his forehead.
Eyes in Tav's particular sea-green shade shouldn't be able to appear "warm", but They managed it.
"Mmm," They said in greeting. "Morning." Their arm around Astarion pulled him closer.
"Morning, love," he responded, rubbing his cheek against Their shoulder and letting his eyelids half-close seductively. Astarion ghosted the backs of his fingers across the pulse-point in Their neck, something he had not allowed himself to do when They were asleep. It had seemed too … exploitative … for a vampire to do with a sleeping person. Too similar to other things he could be doing to Their neck.
Although it would almost be worth the face-melting Radiant damage to have his bite marks blatantly displayed on those strong, corded muscles where the whole camp could see them.
"Did you meditate well?" Tav asked.
"After a fashion." He used a fingertip to boop the end of Their nose. "You snore."
Tav's eyebrows shot up. "I do?"
Somehow it gave Astarion a sense of pride that no one else had been close enough, long enough to share this information with Tav.
"Not excessively, mind you," he assured Them. "Just every now and again when you're lying on your back. It sounds like someone indecisively sawing a piece of balsa wood. Nothing vulgar, I promise."
Tav chuckled, Their voice still rough with sleep. "I'll have to remember to sleep on my side, then." They withdrew Their arm from around him and sat up.
The warmth began to fade from his body. Ah, so he hadn't been imagining it; prolonged exposure to Radiant energy was having a physical effect on him. Astarion linked his hands together so they wouldn't clutch at Tav, the way so many would-be lovers had clutched at him when he got up to leave in the middle of the night.
Cazador's memory-voice invaded the cozy tent. 'Remember to say, "I love you," after the first really thorough rutting. It takes at least five good fucks and three I love yous before they'll agree to follow you back to the palace. Make each one count. Why, your newest brother Leon can do it in three fucks and one I love you!'
'Leon has a child to protect.'
'What was that, Astarion?'
'Leon has it all down pat … Master.'
'Then perhaps you should also "get it all down pat", my boy. It's been an entire tenday since you last brought me a meal.'
Tav whisked open the back flap of Their tent, startling Astarion with the first ray of morning light.
"Oh, sorry," They apologized. "I wasn't trying to spook you; I didn't want to miss my dawn prayers."
"That's quite all right, love. I'll take as much sun as I can get." He watched while Tav secured the back flaps of Their tent to let the dawn inside, then offered Them a large, flat cushion for Their meditation.
Astarion arranged himself on another wide cushion as Tav sat cross-legged in the growing colors of morning.
"All right if I watch? Or do you require solitude?"
Tav closed Their eyes, shaking Their head. "I've prayed with five hundred other monks at the same time. I can keep focus."
"Really?" he purred. "Exactly how much 'distraction' would it take for you to lose focus?"
Tav's mouth curved, eyes remaining closed. "I'm certain you have charms enough to distract even the most stoic monk from their meditation, Astarion."
"Hmm," he said in acceptance of the flattery. "We'll put that to the test another day. This morning you will remain unmolested. For science."
Tav's smile grew wider. "Of course. For science."
Astarion let half a dozen other quips go unspoken as the multicolored dawn brightened Tav's features. They seemed to hold the sunlight of previous mornings in Their tanned skin, the lighter streaks in Their dark hair, the rosy tint across Their eyelids.
Even without knowing Their power, he would have been moved by Tav's beauty, had he seen Them in a tavern or nighttime marketplace. And then lamented that Cazador would demand Them for a snack. Somehow the bastard always knew when Astarion had chanced across a particularly fine specimen. Miles away from the palace, he would feel the iron hand clamping onto the back of his neck, the cold breath in his ear. 'Bring them to me. NOW.' Those were the few occasions when Astarion was allowed to drug the target and call another spawn to help him transport the unconscious victim. Or alternatively: he could fail and be flayed alive, then have a healing potion forced down his throat when he finally begged for beheading.
He was getting lost in the dark spiral of his own thoughts when Tav's chant pulled him out, like a log drifting toward a drowning swimmer.
Astarion had heard it before, in battle or during Tav's morning prayers. As before, the low, buzzing reverberation seemed to resonate in his very bones, shaking loose the darkness that clung to him and shredding it like spiderwebs in a hurricane. He felt strong, purified, invincible, like nothing and no one could touch him. Then it faded away, along with the glow in Their hands and feet. Just as his thoughts began to wander, the chant returned, deeper and stronger, to bolster him.
He could have listened to Tav chant for a century.
When the sun had risen completely above the horizon, Tav opened Their eyes again, and smiled to see him still sitting nearby.
He wrestled down the compulsion to plead for an encore, and asked instead, "How do you do that?"
"Hmm?"
"Chant without moving your mouth. Or your throat. I am a connoisseur of throats, my love, and I can't even see your voicebox move when you chant. It should be impossible."
Tav looked at him with a touch of awe, as if he'd saved an entire orphanage of children instead of asking a simple question.
"I like impossible things. Shall I teach you?" They asked, Their eyes glinting in the morning sun like polished turquoise.
"Me? Darling, surely you jest. The entire pantheon of the gods would implode from sheer indignation if I were to play at being a monk."
"What if I were to play at being a wizard? Do you think Mystra would strike me down with Call Lightning?"
Astarion copied Their grin. "I'd love to see her try."
Tav moved Their hands in motions that weren't quite as fluid as Their monk gestures. "Veni et iuva me." A blue hand solidified in mid-air, with an almost negligent manner about it.
"You've learned Mage Hand as well! Fine form." The hand wobbled in a light breeze. "Oops. Or not so fine, it would seem."
"Gale said it fairly gives him a heart attack when I jump over lava to get something, and he'd rather I 'pursued a less flammable method for acquiring loot'."
"Finally, something on which we can agree."
Tav's ephemeral Mage Hand drifted over to a clump of flowers, made two or three tries before successfully plucking one, and shakily wove its way to Astarion.
"For you," They said simply, holding up Their hand in a gesture that the Mage Hand imitated.
The stalk of the dull white flower was crushed by the Mage Hand's clumsy grip and it oozed clear green sap. It was more of a weed than a flower. He took it anyway.
"What a lovely gift on this fine morning," he enthused, threading the flower's stem into the collar of his nightshirt in imitation of a boutonniere, and was rewarded by Tav's gentle chuckle.
"While you're finishing up your little chat with Lathander, would you like me to make some of that Turmishan tea that Shadowheart picked up in town?"
"That would be perfect, thank you."
Tav's soft smile followed him out of the tent.
The usual early birds, Shadowheart and Gale, were sitting around the cookfire at the tree-stump tables Halsin had fashioned. Shadowheart bid Astarion good morning as she arranged her meal along one of the wooden boards they used as trays. Gale hunched over the board across his lap and pretended he could not speak due to the mouthful of bread and jam he shoved in his gob. Neither of their keen eyes missed that he was wearing a set of Tav's sleep clothes.
Astarion lifted the lid off the kettle to see if there was water for the teapot. "Tav would like some of your new tea if you're willing to share, Shadowheart."
"Certainly, help yourselves. Do you need Gale to warm it up for you?"
He cut his eyes toward the wizard without moving his head. Another opportunity to stick it to his biggest rival. Thank you, Shadowheart.
"No, my dear. Not until he's had a bit more practice with fine control."
Gale swallowed sharply and looked contrite. "Listen, I am sorry about that. Are your hands all right?"
"Right as rain, my friend. I'm fortunate that Tav has learned some non-monk magic. Healed my palms before any of the skin sloughed off." It was much, much harder to heal an injury with magic if the body part had become detached.
"Sloughed off? What?" Shadowheart's eyes looked comically wide in her raccoon makeup. "Gale, did you burn Astarion?"
Gale tried the puppy eyes, which the women in the camp fell for with disgusting regularity. "I di–"
"It's all right," Astarion said magnanimously, waving away the wizard's explanation in mid-syllable. "I've been healed expertly. Tav's got just as much of a gift for manipulating magic as They – ahem – as they say monks do with ki." He pretended to be preoccupied searching for the tea leaves among the breakfast items. "I simply must buy a gift for the kind soul who taught him Mage Hand. There are so many creative uses for that particular spell between two consenting adults …"
Gale slammed down his breakfast board with such force that bits of food leapt off its surface and landed hissing in the fire.
Astarion held a scandalized hand to his chest, doing his best to look as shocked as Shadowheart while the wizard stormed away into the woods.
"Well, now. Where is he going, I wonder?"
"Off to soothe his wounded pride, if I don't miss my guess." She gave him a stern look. "You shouldn't rub it in his face like that. You know how he feels about Tav."
"I'll stop rubbing it in his face when he stops flushing bright red every time Tav bends over to rummage through a crate." He belatedly softened his cutting words with, "My dear."
"The heart wants what the heart wants."
"And what does the dick want, hmm? Does it get veto power, or is it supposed to settle down when its owner tells it Tav is no longer available?"
Shadowheart wordlessly handed him the Turmishan tea.
When Astarion steeped and poured only one mug, she asked, "You're not going to have some, too? It's rather good."
"I'm afraid it would be a waste, my dear. You see, most of the taste from food is in the aroma, the odors that hit the back of the palate while it's in your mouth. For vampires, ordinary food simply evaporates. One taste, and it's gone from the universe forever. No aftertaste, no mouthfeel, no satisfying crunch, nothing. That's what makes wine so hideous. Half of the bouquet simply vanishes into the ether, and you're left with a swig of expensive vinegar that doesn't even make it to your stomach."
"Really? I didn't know that."
"It's not generally something we advertise, or it would be easier for mortals to spot us by the disgust we have for what should be delicious food." He spread his hands to indicate the generous selection that Halsin had procured for them. "I could eat every scrap of this bounty, and get nary a morsel of sustenance from it."
"That's terrible," she said sympathetically.
He rolled his eyes at her as he added a drop of honey to the tea. "Vampirism is a curse, sweetheart, not a gift. No matter what the Sharrans might have told you."
"What about blood pudding? Or blood sausage? I seem to remember those are delicacies in the Lower City."
"I … my siblings and I weren't allowed real food, so I genuinely don't know."
"Well, let's keep an eye out when we make it to town."
"That would … be fine, I suppose."
Shadowheart smiled in reply, seeming pleased with her newfound freedom to be generous under Selûne's guidance.
Astarion left before the conversation could pry more evidence of past deprivation out of him.
Back at Their tent, he found that Tav was gone.
Astarion's gaze shot back to the cookfire.
Gale was gone, too.
The soft tin of the tea mug bent under extreme pressure from his fingers.
If those two were off fucking in the woods – no, if they were so much as holding hands in the godsdamn woods – he'd kill them both, proving once and for all that this was Hell.