Work Text:
The little vampire paces amongst the black briars of the shadowed lands like a panther in a cage.
It’s the second night they’ve camped here. The rest of their companions sleep, varyingly restless. The faint silvery light of the wizard’s alarm spells encircles the camp, allowing at least a modicum of security. The cold already eats at Halsin’s bones, sharpened by a century of regret. He sits with a spark of the Oak Father’s light in his palms, seeking some memory of peace before he enters his trance. Elf-dreams may be lucid, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be haunted.
Neither elf seems like he wishes to enter his trance any time soon.
The spark is small, flickering, a prickle of light outlining a leaf, and minute by minute, even after he’s settled his spells into his mind, Halsin cannot make it congeal. The endless darkness is draining. These nine lives, human to elf to dog to owlbear, with their seven parasites, are the only ones for miles. Not so much as a seedling that is not mired in the shadow of death.
Eight of them sleep.
Astarion is an echo in Halsin’s awareness, a paper cutout, lifeless. Though with a soul yet animating his flesh, unlike the corpses that stir in the distance. Halsin wouldn’t even begin to guess what Withers is, motionless and humming to himself at the fringe of their camp, except that he is hardly alive.
He wonders if the emptiness eats at Astarion as well. A druid seeks life for the power of communion; a vampire for the power of consumption. Either way, there is nothing here for them.
To his shame, he does not realize how caught up he is before a single twig cracks, almost deliberate, under the rogue’s soft boot.
“You’re staring at me,” Astarion drawls. “Am I really that lovely in the moonlight?” His palm to his chest, fingertips light claws. Eyes all innocence, voice sharp-edged. “Or are you contemplating how to banish the undead curse from your camp?”
“Neither,” Halsin says, frank. He stays seated, tilting his head back to study the vampire standing over him. The spawn, to be accurate. The difference is vital, after all, in so many ways. Fear lines the hunch of Astarion’s shoulder, the cower that he so desperately tries to unbend into a swagger. Halsin turns over possibilities of what to even say to the man, and settles on what he might need to hear. “If you are asking if I consider you the Oak Father’s enemy, I don’t.”
“Oh, there’s a pleasant surprise.” The delight in his eyes, red shaded to gray in the colorless night, is glassy, hollow. “And here I thought druids were all—” and he mimes a dramatic flourish “—sworn to combat perversions of life.”
“Some would take you as an enemy without question,” Halsin says, because it is true, and wrapping such a truth in reassurances would hardly help someone as prickly as Astarion. Some would take anybody as an enemy without question, he thinks; and then he carefully tucks away his anger at Kagha. “And if you were fully fledged and soulless, it would likely be different. But your existence as a spawn is not your fault, and I dislike the idea of striking down somebody with a mind and a soul simply for what they are.”
Astarion freezes for a split second, eyes widening. Then unbends with bravado. “Well, then. If not my beauty, then what?”
As if lust or hatred are the only things anybody could possibly want.
“To be honest? Idle thoughts. I was wondering how you perceived the lack of life in this place. If it weighed on you.”
“How I perceive it?” Astarion snorts, bitterness flaring. “Ugh. I can hardly subsist on poisonous zombies and malevolent balls of thorns, you know.” He glares at the gnarled horizon like a hiss could banish the curse. “It’s maddening. I suppose this is how a caravan in the desert must feel, surrounded by wastes.”
“There is far more life in a desert,” Halsin murmurs. “Lizards, hares, the big-eared foxes. Birds in the sky. A coyote laughing at night. A million seeds sleeping underground, ready to bloom at the first drop of rain.”
“I’m not sure a lizard is good eats,” Astarion grumbles, though Halsin could all but see his mouth water at the mention of hare.
“Mm. Probably not. Reptile blood runs thin and cold.”
“You seem remarkably calm about the idea of me hunting in your precious nature.”
“You are a predator,” Halsin says with a shrug. “If a panther who was not born in my lands passed through, I would not bid them leave for sating their hunger, even as I laid their prey to rest. It is the way of things. Only if they killed without need would I intervene.”
Astarion frowns, nose wrinkling. “Are you unusual for a druid? Or am I simply ill-informed?”
Halsin can’t help a bit of a smile. “Perhaps both. Please. If you wish to speak, you do not need to pace.”
“I don’t know what we could possibly have to speak about.” Astarion waves it off with an airy laugh. “We have nothing in common.”
And yet still, in the wake of his departure, the possibility lingers, turning over and over in Halsin’s weary mind.
For a third night, they camp in a ruined battlefield with nothing but hundred-year-old corpses for company, and Astarion hungers in the dark.
He could also laugh at himself so hard he split a rib. Hunger. Gnawing, aching, and yet what could he possibly have to whine about? He’s drunk living blood. Living blood. Mere days ago, even. After two hundred starving rotting shitstain years, shouldn’t he be able to live off a few goblins for a while? A stray githyanki warrior? An exsanguinated boar or three? Tav’s uncertain donation after he’d spent entirely too long staring at their neck in the night and lost his cool? Nine hells, he should be glutted. Fat as fallen-off tick. Not lusting now that the gates have been open.
The damn druid might be boring a hole in his back with his eyes again. He doesn’t want to check. It would be so much easier if he could write the man off as a stupid wall of muscle, wouldn’t it? Or one of those do-gooders with his head shoved so far up his ass that he’d stake anything that flashed a fang without giving a damn about everything he’s—
Well. Astarion doesn’t need Halsin knowing everything he’s been through, does he? Maybe he could actually keep his damn mouth shut, for once, instead of blurting the most embarrassing things to Tav.
The damn druid is boring a hole in his back again, once he gives in and checks.
“Still contemplating the void?” Astarion asks brightly.
“The past,” Halsin answers. “More than the void.” He stirs a little, focusing on Astarion. “You’re weakening, aren’t you?”
“Ff. Of course I’m weakening. I may be able to survive on nothing, but there’s no use in a starving thing, and I’m not a camel. It’s been days.”
Halsin makes a thoughtful noise, still not stirring from where he sits cross-legged by his tent. “Then come, if you wish.” And he reaches out a hand, palm up. Wrist up. “Let me feed you.”
Astarion most certainly, absolutely, does not hiccup in surprise.
He might let too long a moment pass, there in the cold gray moonlight with Halsin’s hand oustretched.
“What,” he blurts, “out of the goodness of your heart?”
Halsin makes some little noise of—annoyance, he’s not sure. “You may think that absurd if you must.”
“Yes,” Astarion says airily, because he needs to hold onto some shred of pride, especially because his mouth is watering so hard that a quick swallow is all that keeps the drool from his lips. That man. The sheer hot bulk of him. He wants to sink his teeth into those biceps and, hah, that wouldn’t even give him that much blood. He wants to dig his fingers into the swells of muscle under that horrifically unfashionable homespun. He wants to devour him. “I must.”
“But I do not offer what I do not mean,” Halsin says, and Astarion’s brain can barely even manage to connect it to whatever was said before. He must have gotten better at managing his hunger, he supposes. He musters a dim shred of pride. He had managed to set all this aside, so that his stray bloodlust need not hound him without an invitation. With the invitation, though—
Blue veins snake down Halsin’s bare arms, pressed tight between skin and muscle. He can see the slight pinch where those leather straps sit. He can practically see his pulse. The line of tendon in his wrist—even his wrists are huge, and the vein sitting next to it, just so, and—
He’s probably supposed to say something.
He’s probably supposed to demurely lap from his wrist and babble his thanks.
The thundering emptiness in his own veins drags him forward in one rush of better-to-beg-forgiveness-than-ask-permission, and he slides past Halsin’s arm, catches his strong jaw in one hand, and goes for the throat.
Halsin inhales once, sharp, and then relaxes, not throwing him off. Astarion doesn’t notice. Cazador could tear out his spine and pour acid into his brain and he wouldn’t notice. He’s drinking liquid gold. The sun itself is in his mouth—the sun as it is now, the sun that warms and doesn’t scorch, the thick smell of the forest, throbbing animal warmth, bliss. Absolute bliss.
He might have whimpered.
Time stops. The world stops. He could sob.
A broad hand squeezes his shoulder, gentle, burning warm. “It will soon be more than I can heal,” Halsin rumbles.
Astarion could beg like the whore he is for one more swallow. Would. Instead—soon, this absurd man says, like he wants Astarion to know to savor the last bit of his meal. Like he wants to make it easier to let go. It’s—it’s probably good that he warned him. He’d like to think he’s getting better at knowing how much he’s taking from somebody. How much of a cup he’s drained. Drinking from Halsin is like opening his throat to the entire Chionthar. An endless well of life. He can’t find the bottom.
He manages the tiniest nod. Slows the working of his throat. Slides his tongue along Halsin’s skin to lick up every single drop. His whole body is thrumming. He must look wrecked. He feels—
More alive than he has in—far too long.
Halsin’s hand lingers on his shoulder, holding him, and he can’t even bring himself to mind. One more squeeze, and Astarion slowly pulls his fangs free of his skin. It’s almost painful. Even then, he doesn’t yet pull back. Every drop, every single smear. Halsin breathes, relaxed, as Astarion cleans his neck inch by sucking inch. Which is definitely making it weird. Halsin isn’t commenting.
There’s gold in his veins.
Astarion feels lighter, almost, as he finally, grudgingly slinks free of Halsin’s hand. His chin is damp, and he drags the heel of his hand up and licks it clean like a damn child with syrup, just in case there’s a little more blood there.
“You,” Halsin says quietly, and his hand hovers. Not touching. Astarion still feels, somehow, like he’s nudging his chin up. He follows it, mostly so that he’s not stuck there licking his own hand. Mortifying.
Which means he does have to look at Halsin’s face and see how much he—doesn’t seem to loathe him, apparently. Tender? Thoughtful? His pupils are blown even behind the reflective sheen of his night vision. Is there gold light pooling in the creases of his face and the shadows of his hair, as if he was casting, or is Astarion simply ecstatic enough to hallucinate? He really can’t rule either one out.
“Was it simply that you were hungry?” Halsin asks, infinitely soft. A gesture to take in his—state.
Astarion forces one deep breath with minimal shakiness. “Do you have any idea how good you taste?”
Halsin actually laughs at that, soft, for some reason. “It’s not come up. Not like this.” Astarion is ready to make some joke about oral sex and wave things along before Halsin continues, thoughtful. “I had a lover once that enjoyed bloodletting. But she was human. To her, blood was blood. She didn’t take nourishment from it like you do.”
Astarion blinks three times, yet again readjusts his mental map of the man, and tries to pass it off as a fluttering of eyelashes. “Bloodletting, oh my. Kinky. So it’s not just all making love in fields of flowers.”
Halsin’s lips quirk. “No. Sometimes it’s savage orgies in the night.”
“My kind of fun,” Astarion croons, flippant, because he needs to put some distance between himself and his leg-watering lust for Halsin’s blood. Not just blood. Gods, he wants to push him down in the withered grass and straddle him and—kiss him. Kiss him. Like a teenager making out. Not a damn bit of a strategic value to it.
“If I were to guess,” Halsin says, because he is always so stupidly thoughtful and serious, “it is because you, by nature, feed on life. And I, by nature, am fuller of its power than most.”
Astarion laughs, slightly scattered, and runs his fingers over the tattoo on Halsin’s face for absolutely no gods-damn reason. “So you’re saying druids are just delicious. And yet I can’t imagine the others I met taste half as good as you.” Halsin doesn’t bat him away. Halsin’s heart is beating fast; Astarion can see it in his neck. Still insanely tempting, but no longer drowning. He could have more. Or he could get high as a silkroot fiend on a few mouthfuls, apparently. He’s more than satisfied. “Did you enjoy that, or are you just being a very good sport?”
Halsin takes a careful little breath, brow knotting. His tongue touches his own lip, a small flicker. “For its own sake, the sensation was…mm. Not what I would seek in every mingling, but not unwelcome.”
Astarion could almost hiss. Every mingling. Damn the man for putting those thoughts in his head. Why does he just answer things, fully, like he’s so comfortable with the truth that he can let it all hang out there for every passing spawn to graze upon?
“Your pleasure, though,” Halsin continues, because of course he’s going to answer things fully. “Your satisfaction.” A bare hesitation, like he knows he’s opening a door neither of them are going to be able to close. “That I definitely enjoyed.”
Maybe he enjoyed it enough to do it again. Maybe he enjoyed it enough to do it again. It’s a screeching clamor in Astarion’s head, and he forces himself to ask, instead, “Did I weaken you?”
“Nothing I can’t…” Halsin trails off, closes his eyes, and the gold seeps into him again, lighting up his skin as he coats his hand in light and presses it to his own chest. It clings to his eyelashes. He gives a long sigh as the magic seeps in, open relief in the rounded bulk of his shoulders, and Astarion can’t think of anything but making him sigh like that again, more, for other reasons—would he let me fuck him, I want to see him on his hands and knees, I want to see him surrender—no, let go. I want to see him let go for a moment.
And why the hell does he care that Halsin holds all his duty and devotion and care so tight? Why should he want to watch those shoulders sag as he drive it all out of his head?
“I,” he says, a touch too fast. “That was. Thank you. Truly. I should bid you good night.”
And he, for lack of anything better to do, flees.
By the fourth night, they’ve finally made it to the Last Light.
Art Cullagh tosses and turns in the hour of the wolf, mumbling, sheets slick with fear-sweat. The bodies that line this guest-room-turned-barracks breathe and groan and snore. His Majesty sings the midnight song of lonely cats. Moonlight limns the knots in the wood, pouring in the window from the wall of light.
Halsin cups an oak leaf in his hand, threaded together strong and solid from raw magic, and breathes in the thrum of life.
Not far away, grudgingly relegated to a chair by the shortage of beds, Astarion sits like a statue, head tilted back just a little, hands in perfect mudra on his thighs. He looks younger in his trance, without the constant raw fear that creases his face even through his smiles. Still deathly pale in the moonlight. A touch gaunt, worn thin from the deep wounds he so clearly carries. Wounds that Halsin is only beginning to understand.
He’d barely looked at Halsin all day. But his shoulders were less hunched. He’d moved more freely, sliding between shadows, striking with vicious grace. Halsin’s own blood in his veins, bringing him life. It’s a strange thing to be aware of, and he probably should mind more than he does. And yet.
And yet he is drawn to nourish this man.
“Thaniel,” Art mumbles, pleading, and Halsin stirs, inhaling. Not that there’s anything new, yet still he pays attention. The same song, listless. He dries the man’s brow. Untangles his sheet where he’s kicked it and whimpered.
He cannot presume. Not anything. Especially not with somebody like Astarion, who does not accept kindness easily, and whose soul has been made into a trapped tomb, liable to explode at a misstep. But—regardless, he shall have to find some way to ask for time without seeming dismissive. He could not give what he would want to, not to any potential lover, never mind one like this. Not until these ghosts are laid to rest and his own failures are set back in balance.
In the meantime, though. In the meantime, he still has blood to spare.