A Part of Him

by AlpakaAlex

Summary:

It has been almost two years since Cazador has been killed. But Astarion is still not comfortable with others touching the scars on his back.

Notes:

This is another story that has been on my hard drive for a long while, because I did not want to upload it during the months where there were already so many uploads. So... This has ended up being very delayed.

It is another one of this stories about Astarion generally being avoidant about his trauma - while Tav's way of dealing with trauma is to tackle it once head on, and then bury it deep while promising everyone that he is alright. Both are not healthy. But it is the blind leading the blind between the two of them xD

“I almost forget how quiet this place can be,” Astarion noted, raising his eyebrows as he looked at Tav. “It’s rare for us to be alone.”

Tav chuckled at this. “You are not trying to jinx it, are you?”

“Jinx it?” Astarion had just come home from work and had found Tav sitting on the sofa, tuning his violin. “No, my sweet. I am not going to jinx anything.” He came over to the bard, his mind half filled with some ideas. He was careful, as he sat down on the man’s lap. “You are not too busy, are you?”

“Hmm…” Tav looked at him with this little smirk on the corner of his lips. Then he put the violin into its box to have his hands free. He raised them, cupping Astarion’s face. “No, there is nothing I necessarily need to do now.” With a simple gesture he beckoned Astarion to bow down and kiss him.

Of course Astarion just could not deny that request, could he now? He kissed the man, wrapping his arms around Tav’s neck. Even after more than two years he still loved to kiss the man. There was something almost addictive to it. The bard’s lips almost seemed sweet every time – and in some rare moments they made Astarion almost miss the ability to drink the man’s blood. He did not miss needing blood to live, but he missed this certain kind of intimacy that the bite would bring.

Without the bite, he could just kiss the man, and could kiss him over and over again.

He could feel Tav smile. The man’s thumbs were caressing Astarion’s cheeks in a rather soft manner. Like so often, he let each kiss last until they were panting. It was one of this man’s specialties: those soft, breathless kisses. Astarion could get lost in them.

“Do I sense some deeper desires?” Tav asked softly after a while.

“You are rather good at wakening those,” Astarion replied. He leaned a bit back to be able to take in the other man’s face. “And I do not have to ask you, whether you have such desires, do I?”

Tav chuckled once more. “Probably not, no.”

“Really, my sweet. I have to say, that you are the most formidable actor there is, leaving me in the believe for a good year that you are not in fact a horny bard.”

That earned Astarion just another smirk. “Let’s be frank. The fact that it took me about eight days of our journey, before I started fucking Lae’zel – as well as the fact that you only needed so much as suggest sex to me should’ve been enough of a hint, though.”

“Don’t forget. I did consider myself quite seductive,” Astarion said.

“I know. I mean, you managed to seduce me,” Tav replied, and now it was Astarion’s turn to chuckle.

“Only that I do realize now, that a stone pillar could seduce you with near to no effort.”

Their foreheads touched as they were laughing, though in the end Tav shrugged. “Might be.” He ran his hands up and down Astarion’s sides now. Over the fabric first, then underneath it. Softly, he pushed up the shirt and Astarion was all-too eager to raise his arms over his head to allow Tav to strip him off the shirt entirely.

Again Tav ran his hands along Astarion’s sides. His touch was so warm and soft – and especially welcome now, that the autumn was making the outside world a lot chillier. Astarion could not help a little sigh as the man caressed him. Just as he could not withstand the temptation to kiss the man again.

Another kiss that lasted longer and longer, while Tav’s hands were gliding over Astarion’s back. And it was that gesture that made Astarion tense. “Please.” He broke away from Tav’s lips. “Please, my sweet.”

A sigh came over Tav’s lips as he looked at Astarion. “Is it still that bad?”

Astarion paused for a moment. The question was a complicated one, wasn’t it? Because technically speaking he rarely had actual flashbacks just from Tav touching the scars – but exactly because of that he tried to avoid being touched there in the first place. Just to make sure that those flashbacks would not come.

Tav put one of his hands onto Astarion’s cheek once more. “Astarion…”

“It’s alright, my sweet. I mean…” Admittedly, Astarion did not even really know what he meant. He just knew that he had made his peace with it – with not being touched on his back.

For a long, long moment, Tav was silent. He pursed his lips, clearly considering this. Then he ran his thumb over Astarion’s cheek. “You trust me, though.”

“Yes, of course, I do,” Astarion said. “I just don’t trust my own mind.”

“It’s been more than two years.”

“After two hundred years of that…” Astarion could see it in Tav’s eyes. That softness, but the pain too. It was a kind of pain that Astarion did not quite understand. “What is it?”

“Would you just once allow me to touch you there?” Tav asked. “Just once.”

“Why?”

“Because I think, that you might be surprised if you do.” Tav pushed himself to kiss Astarion once more. “Please.”

In a way Astarion knew he was a coward. He feared those memories too much, and hence tried to avoid them. He tried to not remember those things. The things Cazador had done to him. And those scars had been Cazador’s signature on him. “I just don’t want to remember…”

“What if you actually won’t?” Tav replied. Again he kissed Astarion – this time his cheek. “You know how it is, with all the new memories, I mean.”

Astarion sighed. “Yeah.”

“Trust me.”

“As I said, I trust you. Just not my own mind.” Astarion leaned his forehead against Tav’s. He was never quite sure how to deal with this man’s optimism about those things. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Tav said. “I am fairly certain. Just give it a chance.”

Astarion drew a deep breath. He was still afraid, though the fear might never quite go away. In the end, he closed his eyes. “Alright.”

Of course Tav smiled at this. The man liked to smile after all.

Astarion sensed the man tensing, and already wanted to get up, but the man did not let him. Instead he pushed one arm underneath Astarion’s knees, while putting the other around his shoulders. With a surprising ease he picked him up only to carry him over to the bed chamber.

“You are getting stronger, aren’t you?” Astarion muttered, hiding his face to the side of Tav’s neck.

Tav grinned. “I don’t know. Maybe I am. But you elves tend to be pretty light.”

“With the exception of Halsin…”

“Yeah, I doubt I would lift him that easily,” Tav agreed. Then he put Astarion down on the bed, before leaning over him to kiss him again.

Those kisses were always the best thing that Astarion could imagine. He would love to just get lost in them and forget about everything else. But of course that would not quite happen like that now. Would it?

When their lips parted, Tav caressed Astarion’s cheek once more. “Turn around.”

For just a moment Astarion was tempted to protest, but in the end he just did what Tav wanted, rolling onto his stomach and showing the man his scars.

Tav just sat there next to him, looking at the scars for a long moment.

Astarion still wished he could just make them go away. Most of the things Cazador had ever done to him had never left scars after all. Of course they had not, given that wounds healing within a few hours only rarely ever left scars. It was the reason why Tav’s body was not covered in scars either – between the things that had been done to him as a child, and the things he had willingly allowed to happen, while he had been with the Loviatans: Those wounds always had been healed on time. The scars now remaining were those he had wanted, and those where the healing had come too late.

Tav leaned down, pressing a kiss onto the nape of Astarion’s neck. Then he let his lips wander further down, kissing the outline of the scars.

By now Astarion had even seen them, being able to see himself in the mirror once more. He had seen those scars that were covering his back, had seen the infernal letters. A part of him wondered, if anyone could use those scars to still sacrifice him to Mephistopheles. He was not sure.

A shiver ran through his body, as he felt Tav’s lips follow those scars. The touch of those sweet lips was gentle and caressing, and for the moment it was less the memories, than it was just the knowledge that those scars were there, and would maybe never really go away.

“Are there any memories now?” Tav asked.

“No,” Astarion admitted. “Not really. Not that kind of memories at the very least…” The one that were intrusive, that once stirred up would not that easily go away, would linger in his mind and try to take him over.

He closed his eyes, feeling Tav’s breath on his skin. “Why do you even want to touch them?”

Again Tav pressed a kiss onto Astarion’s back – right in the middle between his shoulders. “Because in the end, those scars are a part of you,” he said. “And I love you. You know I love you.”

“I do,” Astarion admitted.

“And that means I love…” Tav paused. “I love it all. This too. Though I don’t want you to be in pain. But that is part of it.” He sat up just a bit more before running the tips of his fingers over the scars now, making Astarion shiver again. “Those scars are a part of you, and you should not fear them. Even though… Even though they came from him.”

For a long, long moment, Astarion just laid there. He closed his eyes once more, feeling how Tav’s fingers were following the thin lines carved into Astarion’s skin. Only after a long moment lying like this did he speak up again. “I hate that those scars still… It feels like he holds some claim over me through them. And I hate it.”

“I understand that,” Tav said. He sighed once more, before stripping off his own shirt. “You know I do.”

Even without turning around or so much as opening his eyes, Astarion knew, of course. Tav’s back was covered in scars now too. Scars from a really bad whipping, and the strange form of a branding mark left on his shoulder. A heart of thorns. The sigil of that woman, Astarion had killed.

Other than Astarion, though, Tav never had been sensitive about being touched on those scars. They were only half a year old by now, and he had been alright being touched there from the very beginning. Because he was so different in how he tried to frame these things for himself. To Tav everything that was there was proof that he had survived.

“I know,” Astarion admitted finally. “I know, my sweet. I just…” He fell silent once more.

Tav’s touch on his back was soft. It was lovely. And had his fingers not moved with the curvature of those scars, Astarion might have enjoyed it. Like this, however, the anxiousness would just remain, would just be inside of him somehow.

He drew a few deep breaths, trying to feel it either way. Because he loved this man, too. And he loved the man’s touch. He loved how warm Tav’s skin was on Astarion’s own. And he loved how soft it all felt. It was… He did not have the right word for it. Because in the end, he was just that killer on the street, who had allowed himself to be turned into some sort of hero. He was not a bard for sure. He had not those fancy words that Tav would find from time to time.

“Can I ask you something?” Tav whispered.

“You can ask as much as you want, my sweet,” Astarion said. He looked at the man. “I will never guarantee an answer though.”

“Alright.” Tav paused for a moment. “I am just wondering. Why is it those scars that are too much? I mean, you still have the bite mark on your neck as well and you never seem anxious about that one.”

Astarion was silent for a while. “I don’t know. I honestly don’t. It’s just…” He wanted to say that those scars on his back had been Cazador’s claim to him, but it was not true. The bite mark was quite the same – and he remembered being bitten at the same place again and again.

With every bite Cazador had been able to enhance his control of Astarion. So on some days, when he had made Astarion torture himself, he would use the bite to make him more easily controlled. At times he would use it to force him to do other stuff as well.

Another memory that made Astarion shiver.

“I really don’t know.” He sighed. “I did not even think too much about the scars on my back, until I realized what they were. And ever since…” He stopped for a moment, then opened his eyes to look at Tav. “I am afraid, I think. I am afraid that someone else will use those scars to sacrifice me to some devil or something.”

“That won’t happen as long as I am around,” Tav promised. “I won’t let anyone ever do anything like that to you again.”

“And what if you are not around any longer?” Astarion whispered.

Tav sighed. He let himself fall fully onto the bed, lying down next to Astarion, his hand still caressing Astarion’s shoulders. “Then others will be there,” he said. “Kantei will be there for you, and Them. And… probably other people, too.”

Astarion was silent, looking into his sweet bard’s green eyes. A part of him wanted to question whether Kantei really would be there for him, but the truth was, that she probably would be. Like an annoying younger sister or something. “I am still so afraid.”

“I know,” Tav whispered, before putting on that soft smile once more. “But at the very least you should not fear this. Me touching you. I won’t hurt you.”

“I know you won’t.” Astarion closed his eyes again, just feeling the warm hand on his shoulders. “Admittedly, your touch feels nice. Even though… Even though I can feel the scars like this.”

Tav did not reply anything to this. He just smiled. “I love you.”

Astarion gave a little sigh at this. “I love you too.”

Notes:

 

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Series this work belongs to:

• Part 48 of Baldur's Gate Brainrot