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Astarion is, to put it bluntly, broken.
This is not a new or unexpected revelation. He has been broken in every possible way, physically, emotionally—probably spiritually, if one bothers to care about such things—for the past 190 years at least. The tomb changed him. The tomb changed everything, as assuredly as Death, and perhaps even more permanently.
But today Astarion has found himself broken in a new way: a way unexpected and mundane and confounding; a way that caught him so thoroughly off-guard he isn't even sure if he can call it alarmed. He wants to shriek, to shout, to—show someone, if only to have the experience of his eyes confirmed as fact. He wants, almost, to be frightened.
What he does is stare at himself, perplexed and unfocused, prodding a finger at the tender place. The only thing to have startled him this badly in recent memory was the protection of the tadpole, and while the kiss of sunlight is a more impressive boon, this is far more baffling. And it isn't from the tadpole, either, unless the damn thing had taken a better part of a week for this particular side-effect to make itself known.
In short:
He has a boner.
An erection. A gods-damned rock-hard cock, sitting pertly between his legs as if waiting for instruction, as if asking him what he plans to do with it.
Astarion is somewhat of an expert when it comes to other people's hard-ons. The sight of a pallid, hairless, erect phallus between his legs would not seem at all out of place were it not attached to his own body.
He has, in the past two centuries, had perhaps as many erections as he could count on two hands with most of the fingers still attached. Every few decades or so, it had amused his master to compel him into something approaching hardness. Very occasionally it had even worked. Vampiric compulsion is limited by the physically possible, after all—Cazador could compel Astarion to sprout wings and fly and the most that would happen is a splitting headache, or a humiliating attempt to jump into space. There was only so much compulsion could do against the limitations of reality; only so much it could do the perpetual starvation of two hundred years.
Arousal—in the physical sense, at least—was as impossible as freedom, and honestly, significantly less wanted. The times Astarion was made to enjoy his torment stung worse than any torture could.
And he did, sometimes. Enjoy it. A lack of the typical outward signs of interest didn't prevent him from experiencing a kind of satisfaction all the same.
Not that it happened often. Or that he much cared to repeat the experience, whatever Cazador claimed to the contrary.
But here he is now! Sporting his very own blunt instrument, standing needily between his legs. He's not at all certain what set the stupid thing off. He'd been doing nothing especially exciting, unless one happens to be excessively aroused by bathing alone in a swampy forest river.
Is his cock really that invested in the mildest bit of friction? That certainly tracks with Astarion's experience with many of the cock-possessing targets he'd lured over the years—at least of those sober enough to walk in a straight line and say his name without slurring—but it's more than a little surreal to experience it for himself. He barely remembers anything of his life before vampirism, much less before the tomb. This feels like an experience from another life, almost literally.
But for all that he is shocked, confused, even a bit repulsed by the inexplicable resurrection of his most disagreeable organ, Astarion finds himself unable to ignore it.
This is another thing that Cazador stole from him, he realizes: a basic, banal bodily function that has eluded him for two hundred years of performing every possible sex act that did not require possession of a body capable of much beyond lying down and ambivalently wishing for death. There were times he had gone out hunting while so starved for blood that he had barely had the capacity to breathe, his mind so erased by hunger that entire days, months, years are now nothing to him but a hazy smear of pain and boredom and hunger.
But his mind is clearer now. Days of frolicking in sunlight and sating his fangs in the bodies of fluffy little woodland animals have changed him. He feels almost as if he's alive again—this must be what being alive felt like, he thinks, this ability to hold an entire conversation of thoughts inside your head and stay awake for hours without once involuntarily drifting into unconsciousness. He feels stronger, bolder; his feet are steady, and his hands no longer shake.
And apparently now he is capable of maintaining an erection.
Does that mean he's capable of pleasure, too?
Real pleasure. Not the sick facsimile of it he'd felt against his will, but a true ecstasy of the kind he remembers more in theory than in practice—the kind he'd given to hundreds of grunting unfortunates shortly before they expired. The tadpole had given him back the sun, his mind, and the blood of thinking creatures—could it give him back his body, too?
The question rankles. It burns noxious fumes beneath his sweaty, blood-flush skin.
So, he does the unthinkable—what he had scarcely ever bothered to do, even when deathlessly bored and trapped in the manor and more-or-less alone. He kneels down by the side of the stream, takes himself in hand, and jerks off furiously.
It's not any sort of transcendental experience. Compared to the earth-shattering bliss that was his first taste of mortal blood only a few scant hours past, this is a much more fleeting—and chafing, frankly—test run of his newfound freedoms. But it feels—so much more than he was expecting. So much more than it ever has. The sensations feel crisp in his mind, clear and bright in vibrant strokes of his own practiced hand. Not a vague muddy smear of mingled discomfort and half-remembered pleasure, but a searing heat that brings him to the brink in minutes. He's astonished at how fast his body responds, at the tightness in his chest, the way his lungs grasp at unneeded breaths, his thighs shake with building need. He is so close to tipping over the edge—how can he possibly be so close already? There isn't room for thoughts about his next meal, or the consequences of his actions, or anything but pleasure. He thinks only of the slide of his own hand and the briefest, faintest image on the edge of his periphery—a half-formed memory of a body against his, warm and willing, hot blood spilling into his mouth—
And Astarion comes like he hasn't in two hundred years.
Afterward, he lies on his back in the cool dew-damp of the mud at the side of the river. Half-naked and debauched, his feet still submersed in the licking stream, he laughs. He laughs loud and hard enough to shake owls and bats from their perches, to mimic the shrill calls that sound like banshees but (he's been assured) are only foxes fucking in the distant underbrush. He laughs with the manic certainty that has so far defined his new un-life away from Cazador.
It's not the tadpole that fixed him, he realizes. Two hundred years of being the half-wit, half-dead, limp, listless, useless whore—and this whole time it wasn't his body that was broken, nor his mind.
Vampirism isn't what made him into such a wretch. It was hunger.
Starvation debased him. None of what he suffered was inevitable; it was Cazador's work at deprivation's hand. Now there is finally blood—human blood—in his veins, his body has responded in kind, his corpse now flush with the reality of just what that much stolen life can do. What a thrill. What a steal.
What a joke.
What else can he do but laugh?
He rolls himself to his feet eventually. Clothes himself again in shirt and trousers, still damp from washing out the bloody stains of tonight's revelry. He wanders back to camp, drunk on power and human and boar, a red flush blooming from his chest to the tips of his toes.
There's such a power in having control over oneself again.
That feeling of control is short lived. It quickly becomes clear that his cock has decided that if he's now capable of arousal, he might as well indulge in it as much as physically possible.
In the morning, he wakes before the others—his trances now last only a few scant hours, as opposed to a listless interminable unconsciousness that he wakes from only when disturbed—which means he is now the latest to bed and the earliest to rise in this campsite of full bloody humans. The privacy of morning allows him to wank quietly in his tent before the day truly begins. At night, he slips away to feed on the creatures of the forest, and gets off once or twice or thrice more, depending on how often he's fed and whether or not he feels in risk of chafing his dick directly off his body. Even that isn't always enough. He finds himself, on occasion, spacing out throughout the day, his mind vacant but for thoughts of pretty necks and supple thighs and fucking, fucking, fucking.
It's like puberty. It's like a disease. For decades he had prided himself on his indifference, on how little a pretty face ever stirred in him, on getting on his back again, again, again and never feeling much of anything about it but tired and sore. Cazador could accuse him of sluttish depravity, Petras could call him a whore, Violet and Leon could turn up their noses at the sight of him, but Astarion knew: he knew that he hated it every time. None of them could take that truth from him.
He felt nothing but relief each time someone came to their end from him, inside him; nothing but exhaustion and the desire to bite into the feast of fucked-dumb flesh he was allowed to do nothing but paw at. The blood pumping under the skin of his victims was the only enticing thing about any of them.
But now that he's been fed, that skin itself holds a bizarre appeal beyond the thirst-quenching contents beneath.
In the close-quarters of his newly-found comrades, you might assume that his newfound obsessions would be scattershot; that his attentions would fluctuate between each of the warm, living, passably-attractive bodies that he gets to watch bloodily eviscerate their foes on a daily basis. And while to a certain extent, that's true—gods help him, there's even a time when Gale turns his head after a while-timed firebolt explodes a gnoll beside Astarion's hiding spot in the scrub—more and more, his fixations are centered around a particular name and face.
And that is, of course, Wyll Ravengard.
Out of all of Astarion’s companions, it's plainly obvious that Wyll is the most attractive. Frankly, he is attractive enough that it irritates Astarion simply to contemplate. Wyll with all his warm smiles and warm bronze-brown skin, his dimples and soft not-quite-condescending chuckles when he laughs—and of course his ass, it's not as if Astarion hasn't noticed it, pert and well-formed atop muscular thighs and shapely calves and, really, it is offensive that someone so determined to play-act the role of the fairytale prince should come complete with the kind of looks that wet dreams are made of. Wyll doesn't seem to realize that the horns and tail have only added to his mystique, which would almost be cute, if it weren't so infuriating. He hadn't seemed so self-conscious of his looks before his devil left her mark on him; curious that he bothers to be self-effacing about them now. In private, Karlach had confided in Astarion that not only does Wyll have one of the finest racks of horns she's ever seen, but she can't stop thinking about the fact that he won them by sparing her. In a way, they're a monument to his good deed.
More like a monument to nigh-suicidal self-sacrifice, as far as Astarion is concerned. But he'll get himself off to the thought of them either way.
On his back, in his tent, adorned by nothing but his cooling sweat and spend, Astarion plays out the thought behind his eyelids. It's enticing—a would-be hero who is just as self-sacrificial as he seems, willing to risk it all for a stranger. If Wyll set himself up for a fate worse than death for a woman he'd scarcely met, what might he do for a friend? Or a lover?
Astarion already knows the man would sell his own soul in exchange for a candied apple if one of those tiefling brats mentioned being a bit peckish—and Astarion knows this without doubt, because Wyll has already sold his soul and refuses to admit that he regrets it, which most certainly means he did it for some selfless act of heroic nonsense.
("I've solved it," Astarion said to him a few days after Mizora showed herself in their camp. "You sold yourself to your devil to save a bunch of starving orphans in the undercity, didn't you." Gods know how there are always so many orphans down there with so much to prey on them. They seem to self-replicate like rats.
Wyll only grimaced. "Please stop playing this guessing game," he said, which was as good as a confirmation. The lack of a confession has never saved a fugitive in the face of literally damning evidence, after all.)
Besides. Wyll let a vampire sup from his neck. And after said vampire attacked him in his sleep, no less.
True, Astarion considers himself quite proficient at conjuring a sob story when necessary. But what a strange thing it was not to pretend at being some poor whore one step away from the gutter, or a down-on-his luck gambler with too many debts, but to display himself as exactly the wretch he is and still have someone open up a vein for him.
Wyll has a soft spot even for things without a pulse. His sympathy extends from dirty dogs to thieving brats to vampire spawn, so long as they look at him with that same hunger.
Astarion does wonder if his growing sexual obsession with Wyll is a side-effect of a different kind of hunger altogether: if drinking his blood has made some kind of perverted bond between them. Cazador had always liked to play with his food, after all.
But it isn't just that, Astarion argues with himself as he attempts to self-justify his third wank on the subject of Wyll's thighs (and horns, and upper back, and raggedy little midriff shirt) in as many hours. For one thing, Wyll is certainly much better looking than most of the victims Astarion brought back to Cazador. If Astarion is going to be blessed—or cursed, or perhaps simply afflicted—with the re-emergence of a sexual appetite, he might as well direct it towards the best-looking of their lot (Astarion himself exempted, of course.)
On top of that, there is something… interesting about Wyll. For all that the man is one of those uptight sorts too concerned with facades of morality to have even a little bit of fun, Astarion can't help but feel they are—what's the phrase—kindred spirits?
Something about the way that devil spoke to him. The way Wyll turned still and silent whenever she drew near, the way he half-flinched whenever her name was spoken. The way he cursed her bitterly, but only after she was gone.
Astarion knows a fellow prisoner when he spies one. And unlike Cazador's other spawn, this one need not see him as competition for the master's favor.
What's the difference between a warlock-turned-devil-man and a vampire spawn, anyway? Other than that one is mortal and has been granted powers beyond imagining, and the other has only recently discovered what it feels like to be anything other than starving.
Still. There are similarities. There can't be so much of a difference in station between one enslavement and another—at least, not now that the both of them have this tentative, temporary freedom in the tadpoles. How strange it is that the two of them were both snapped up by the same slimy invaders and crawled out of the same wreckage, side-by-side.
The more he thinks about it, the more Astarion begins to entertain… thoughts. Thoughts that extend beyond the boundaries of the private wank and the internal fantasy.
Astarion had declared impulsively that first day on the beach that he would never whore himself out again. And, certainly, he will never whore himself out for Cazador again. Any benefits will be his and his alone, and maybe his chosen target's if he's feeling magnanimous.
But old habits die hard. He soon found himself instinctively, unconsciously probing his newfound companions for signs of a familiar interest even before his dick recieved on a new lease on life. There was a certain logic to the idea of securing an ally against Cazador via the only means he was sure would work. He'd lead hundreds of fools to their deaths for the promise of a piece of him; surely he could lead one more into Cazador's lair.
But now… now it's not quite so much of a chore, is it?
Astarion is no longer contemplating whether a guaranteed ally is worth a night of theatrical moaning and a few sore muscles. Now, Astarion is contemplating pleasure.
After two centuries of Cazador being metaphorically—or, often, literally—in the room every time he's had anything that could even generously be described as sex, Astarion is now free to chase his own desires however he likes. It isn't fair, frankly, that he should be spending this new freedom wringing his own cock alone every night, when just across the camp, their tents adjacent, a beautiful man straight out of the pain-hazed dreams Astarion had in his first decades of spawnhood bids Astarion a pleasant evening and sometimes lets him suckle at his wrist for an extra meal.
Wyll is so hot for self-sacrifice he's let Astarion bite him five times.
It feels almost indecent, the way it keeps happening. Seeing someone naked is one thing, but getting to explore the inside of their veins is something else entirely. Surely Wyll is well-aware of it, with the flirtatious way he undoes the trappings of his wristband—the way he sits with legs outstretched before beckoning Astarion in. Just the thought makes Astarion salivate—and, yes, a little bit hard.
If drinking a person's blood doesn't inherently create a kind of sexual obsession, then surely this is Wyll's fault. The number of times that Astarion has had to hurriedly run off to his tent to wank after biting Wyll is—well. It isn't more than five.
The more Astarion thinks about it, the more reasonable the idea of offering Wyll a night of passion begins to sound. However tiresome Wyll's moralizing can be, he's pretty, and interested, and probably stupid enough to pledge his life in service if Astarion can show him a good enough time. There's no doubt in Astarion's mind that Wyll wouldn't jump at the chance—not only is he a young man with appetites of his own, but Astarion is a certified expert at knowing the effect he has on others. He knows Wyll likes the look of him.
Besides. Wyll has just been made into a monster by the devil holding his leash. He must be feeling the desire to have some fleeting bliss of his own that his master can't touch. Not that Astarion would be crass enough to say it out loud.
Truly, Astarion thinks, as he chucks another soiled rag to a corner of his tent and curls up on the piece of driftwood that has been his bed for the past tenday, he has already made up his mind. All he's waiting for now is an opportunity.
The perfect opportunity arrives with a surprising amount of fanfare at precisely the perfect time.
He and Wyll have continued to dance around each other in all ways but the literal—and not for lack of trying on Wyll's part, judging from the way Wyll waxes rhapsodic about the balls of his not-very-long-ago youth.
("I've never been one for dancing," Astarion purrs. "But for you, darling? I think I could make an exception for a private dance."
"Glad to hear it," Wyll says, in a steady way that almost does not betray how fast his heart is beating.)
But no matter how overt the overture, Wyll never quite seems to pick up on what Astarion is suggesting. Whether his apparent stupidity in the field of innuendo is innate or by choice, Astarion is hesitant to spell it out until he's certain he's got Wyll in exactly the right mood, with no more-pressing business to distract from what's on offer.
Which is what makes the night a group of beleaguered refugees throw them a party such an unexpected blessing.
Absolutely everyone seems to be in a festive mood, which is to say that absolutely everyone seems to be drunk. Not merely drunk either, but the kind of profoundly-sloshed state that Astarion mostly associates with the rowdier holidays and the recently divorced. The little tiefling brats are out in full force tonight, upcharging for the swill that they've stolen directly out of other people's unattended baggage. Irritating as they are, Astarion does respect the hustle. If nothing else they've had the sense to leave his tent along after he gives several of them a good look at his fangs, though he could do without the way the younger ones skitter away from him afterward, teary-eyed and jittery in their movements.
Children are appalling.
Wyll isn't in a festive mood. He's sulking alone by the water's edge, but he did at least bring wine.
Astarion also brought wine, of course, some of it already coursing through whatever remains of a vampire's circulatory system. He's neither an amateur nor an idiot. The way Wyll turns and smiles at his approach is both gratifying and a bit of a relief—a promise that this won't be a futile endeavor after all.
The tone the conversation takes immediately after is less promising.
"You should go back to the party. Enjoy yourself," Wyll says.
"Darling, that's exactly what I want to be doing," Astarion wheedles, pulling on Wyll's hands as if to physically drag him back into the festivities. "It's no party without you!"
Wyll remains unmoved, but he does smile in a way that makes Astarion's unused insides shiver and writhe.
"It sounds like everyone else is having a grand time without me," he says.
"I don't care about them." Astarion—giving up on dragging Wyll along—pushes into him instead, skimming a hand down the length of Wyll's arm, stepping close until they're almost chest-to-chest. "I'm here for you. We don't have to brave the crowds and get beer slopped on us by the rabble, you know. We could always steal away. Make our own fun, together."
"Oh?" One of Wyll's hands comes to rest on Astarion's waist—neither suggestively low nor high enough to bring him in for a kiss. Extremely rude of him. "What sort of fun were you picturing?"
Astarion is not at all certain if Wyll is being thick on purpose or if making Astarion spell it out in explicit terms is his idea of foreplay.
"Tonight is a time for celebration, don't you think?" Astarion murmurs. "What could be better celebration than finally getting to taste you—and no, I don't mean your blood, darling."
Wyll's hand stiffens against Astarion's back—with anxiety or desire Astarion can't yet tell, but he pushes his advantage before Wyll says anything they'll both regret.
"You want it too, don't you? A night of total ecstasy, passion of the kind only an experienced lover can deliver." The practiced words almost trip over themselves on their way out of his mouth. "I can make you feel things you never have before—I can make every inch of your body sing for me. Isn't that what you want?"
The hand is still on Astarion's waist, dropped almost to his hip. But Wyll is pulling away.
Fuck. Fuck, he's losing him.
"I… think I've drunk too much for this," Wyll says, quiet.
"Oh, I doubt that," Astarion says quickly. "You seem sober enough to me! Honestly, it's not like I'd be scared away by a bout of whiskey dick." Maybe it would even be for the best—maybe the Wyll-shaped sexual obsession tormenting his mind and body would finally evaporate if Wyll proves to be just as disappointing in bed as so many of his previous conquests. "It happens to the best of us. We could still—"
"Astarion," Wyll says, "no."
Astarion yanks his hands away like he's been burned.
"Fine." His face is stinging like he's been slapped. Teach him to reach for something that he actually wants. "Suit yourself. Enjoy your private misery parade and rot for all I care—"
Astarion turns to make his retreat, but Wyll catches his hand. It takes Astarion off guard—he almost rips away from the touch before he remembers himself.
"It isn't—" Wyll takes a breath. Seems to steady himself, against some unseen, internal struggle. "It's not a no forever, Astarion. Just… a no for tonight."
Astarion stares at him, uncomprehending.
"I am not immune to your various charms," Wyll says with a quirk of his lips, as if Astarion's ire can be diffused with just one of his awful dimpled grins. "I'd be damned twice over if I said I was not sorely tempted. But…"
"But?" Astarion prompts, watching Wyll closely.
"I'm not one to rush things," Wyll says—which is a pathetic excuse for an excuse if ever there was one, no matter how earnestly Wyll says it, with his round red eye so serious and sad, and his voice pitched lower than the crackling fire. "Give me the time to think it over? Please?"
Gods damn Wyll Ravengard and his ability to say things that make Astarion want to say yes, no matter how infuriating he's being.
"I just don't understand what there is to think about." Astarion knows he's whining—knows that shameless begging hardly ever gets anyone into bed, but damn it, he's tired, and he wants, and Wyll is infuriatingly sexy, and Astarion is maybe, actually, just a teeny bit drunk. He had just a few squirrels before he got here, just to settle his nerves, and he's not entirely sure what was in those goblins he had this afternoon, nor the goblin rotgut that Karlach dared him to try.
It just doesn't seem fair that he has to seduce Wyll before he can sleep with him. He doesn't want to seduce him, he just wants to fuck him. Why can't Wyll let it be easy?
"You do want me, don't you?" Astarion, having lost control of his mouth, says in a tone somewhere between an accusation and a plea. "Don't you?"
"Y—yes," Wyll says after a deeply unflattering half-second pause. Astarion wants to shriek. "You're a very attractive fellow, Astarion. I should love the chance to know you better—"
"Carnally, you mean."
"Not only that," Wyll chides, gently, all but wagging a finger at him like some pretentious—self-righteous—insufferably romantic little—Gale. "I would love to know more of who you are, Astarion, beneath the pomp and fangs. What thoughts are there in that well-coiffed head of yours?"
"S-sexy ones," Astarion breathes, with all the foresight to attempt to strangle the words before they come out of his mouth, but not nearly enough to replace them with anything better.
The look Wyll gives him in response somehow, simultaneously, makes him want to shrivel up like that ghastly gold-crested mummy they found in the crypt and kiss Wyll directly on the mouth. Astarion doesn't even like kissing, normally. It's sloppy, and boring, and somehow more degrading than your average alleyway blowjob, and Astarion wants it anyway, with Wyll.
He is going insane. His revitalized cock is sucking out what little intelligence he has left and replacing it with fantasies of snogging.
"You may think me naive," Wyll says, still in that warm, rich, enveloping voice that blots out all remnant of thought and dignity when Astarion hears it. "But I want more than pleasure from a partner. I believe in love, Astarion. Love, like in the tales of the bards. I would not carelessly promise any part of myself to another."
It's so fucking patronizing. Astarion knows full-well that he is not the sort of person anyone would dream of marrying, much less the sort that a bleeding heart romantic in love with the sound of his own voice would spend more than a single night on. He doesn't need Wyll to spell out the truth to him, nor to sound so delectable while he's being condescending.
"That's not—there's no promises necessary, I assure you," Astarion says. His tongue feels stupid in his mouth. He can't stop thinking about the stubble on Wyll's cheek and the way it might feel against his lips—or other places, for that matter. "I'm not proposing a relationship—"
"And what if I was?" Wyll says the words as if they aren't a joke—as if he means them. It's absurd. It's upsetting, actually. Astarion chokes on nothing.
"What if I wish to get to know you, Astarion," Wyll continues, lacing his fingers through Astarion's. "What would you say then?"
Astarion says nothing. He makes a noise of great indignity—something like the sound of a goose strangled to death inside of a whistling kettle. It is the cry of frustration made manifest; the sound of his hope that Wyll should be as easy to con into sex as any number of young hotheaded Baldurians going up in a flash of hot air.
Hot air that unfortunately seems to inflate Wyll's ego even further, because he uses Astarion's moment of stunned stupidity to reel him in by the still-clasped hand in the smooth motion of a man who spent his squandered youth on sarabandes and scandalous waltzes when all the other noble sons of patriars were out screwing whores.
"What say you, Astarion?" Wyll murmurs, lips almost brushing the back of Astarion's still-clasped hand. "Is it only a dance you want, or a partner until the music stops?"
Astarion gapes at him. This confounding lunatic. This gorgeous, un-fucking-fairly charismatic dork.
In lieu of answer, Astarion mashes their faces together.
Wyll is—as he'd predicted—a remarkably tolerable kisser, even when caught off-guard. He doesn't go shoving his tongue all about or slobber on Astarion's tonsils. His plush lips cup Astarion's politely, and—ah, yes, his stubble burns just so when Astarion's skin scrapes it, an abrasion that sends something shivering down his spine. Good gods, but it's good.
Is this how his marks felt? Is this what drove those pawing hands to delve under his clothes, seeking his skin like desert wanderers stretching open their mouths to catch the rain—it's hungry, this feeling, this fumbling ache that leaves his hands shaking with desires too crass and unfamiliar to be named.
He's wanted violence all his life—all of it he can remember, anyway. He's wanted to tear open skin, to watch bodies burst and bleed, to bow his head and drink until the hands go limp and cold on him.
But it's not blood that he wants, now. He doesn't want to bite, to break Wyll open and frolic in the marrow of his bones. He just wants—touch. Touch. Touch and touch and touch until he could scream from it.
He wants it gentle. Wants it hard. Wants Wyll to hold him as soft and secure as an eggshell in his warm wide palm.
He wants it bad.
His hands are in Wyll's hair. Wyll's hands are warm, gentle, heavy; one on Astarion's back and one between them, on Astarion's chest, as if to keep them separated by just that much, a silent plea for breathing room when Astarion has nothing in his lungs but the breath from Wyll's mouth.
Pressure. Wyll pushes him away gently—always gently, with that palm against Astarion's chest. Astarion obeys the silent command—mutinously, as ever he is, but obedient. He unlocks his lips from Wyll's and leans away, taking a shuddering breath of night air.
"You should—I, we can still—sex?" Astarion begs: the last, desperate gasp of his remaining synapses, smothered by the press of Wyll's hand into the small of his back.
Wyll's chest rumbles with his laugh.
"Ask me another time," Wyll says.
What a line. Gods, what a line! Astarion has so many lines—dozens, hundreds, maybe thousands of them, one for every possible seduction, even for turning away the wrong sort of clientele (those rich enough to be remembered if they went missing, mostly.) Astarion has memorized the words until they flowed like honey from his tongue, and the first time he has reason to use any of them for himself he finds himself as dried-up as his own desiccated corpse.
It doesn't make sense. It is illogical even to Astarion's own brand of irrational hysterics—Wyll has rejected him in every possible way tonight, has even had the gall to say that he would only want Astarion if Astarion somehow managed to become the chaste and virginal waif that would agree to a prolonged sexless courtship with a hopeless romantic, and yet—
Astarion doesn't feel the desire to snap at him. He doesn't feel belittled, despite all the belittling condescension of Wyll's words. He just wants—well, he wants Wyll's lips on him again, mostly.
Gods, maybe Astarion is too drunk for this. If not drunk on blood or wine, then too drunk on Wyll's touch, his presence, his—Wyll-ness.
Astarion butts his head into Wyll's chest. "You," Astarion says, "are hopelessly boring. Sorry to say, darling, but I think it's terminal."
Wyll laughs again.
"Lucky for you, I'm feeling very boring myself tonight," Astarion announces. "I'm going to stay right here—no, I mean it, Wyll. If you want me to go, you'll have to take me to bed yourself."
"You'll be wasting a perfectly good evening," Wyll warns him, though Astarion can still hear the smile on his lips.
"And whose fault is that?" Astarion picks up one of Wyll's arms, draping it around himself more comfortably, like a fur stole about his shoulders. Distant music, filtering in from the ongoing party somewhere over the ridge, blows in with the balmy summer breeze. Wyll sways with it, rocking them both to that faraway beat.
Astarion is an elf, of course, and elves do not sleep, thank you very much, no matter how well-fed or drunk or beset by besotted curses they are. But Astarion does lose track of himself, for a moment or two, in that warm circle of Wyll's arms and the unasked-for presence of the half-erection that Astarion does his best to smother before Wyll can take note of it, because the only thing more pathetic than being permanently limp-dicked is to get over-excited by a bit of clumsy snogging.
And when Astarion is aware of his surroundings again, he finds himself horizontal—still clothed, strangely—and tucked into his own bedroll, in his own tent, surrounded by the cloths and rags and beaded throw-pillows that Astarion has brought into his makeshift nest, though he is lying on his side, and not on his back, as one typically trances, and the board he normally rests on has been replaced with an odd pile of cushions beneath his bedroll. He rolls over, baffled, and finds the mouth of his tent half-open. As if, perhaps, someone had entered, and left, without knowing how to hook the flap of the tent closed from the outside.
"Gods," Astarion murmurs, "you really did take me to bed, did you?"
The cheek of that man.
Astarion ought to be rightly put-out that Wyll so brazenly entered Astarion's tent and rearranged things as he saw fit before tucking Astarion into bed like one of those simpering tiefling brats, but Astarion finds himself far too tired to care. His mind is already drifting back into a pattern of foggy memory—recollections so ancient he recalls the absence of them more than their shapes, the faintest flickers of feeling. And, strangely, the sensation of a comfort too ancient to name.
"Soooo," Karlach says, stretching the simple syllable into an interminable length. "You and Wyll."
Astarion should probably not deign to give such an obvious leading question a response. However, he has learned from experience that attempting to ignore Karlach only leads to her trying to "get your attention" in increasingly destructive outbursts.
"What about me and Wyll?" Astarion asks, finally.
"Are you, you know—" Karlach does something very dramatic with her eyebrows that somehow conveys a certain amount of eroticism despite being one of the silliest expressions he has ever seen on the face of an apparently-sober adult.
Alas, Astarion knows what she's asking. Frankly, he's surprised she had the restraint to wait to ask him until they are in the relative privacy of a secluded bank of the Chionthar. The rest of the party is somewhere over the hill escorting yet another parentless brat back to the xenophobic druids who most certainly will not thank them for the trouble, while Astarion and Karlach wash harpy blood off of their skin. Or, that is, Astarion washes the blood off of all the places he is unable to surreptitiously lick, and Karlach jumps off of every nearby rock and treetrunk and cliff-face, hooting and splashing and getting him in the eyes with stinging droplets of water. Even now, her arms and face and are steaming as water hisses and pops on contact with the engine in her chest.
Evidently the siren call of gossip has finally taken precedence over her desire to splash about like an overgrown child.
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Astarion lies.
Karlach frowns. "C'mon, fangs," she says, doing a strange little paddle on her back. "I'm literally dying over here. Least you could do is throw me a bone, yeah?"
Astarion sighs. His feet clench, toes digging into the loamy sand beneath him. It's something of a novelty still, standing in water without it scalding him. Were he with anyone else, he would wonder if she was trying to get him in a good mood on purpose before springing this question on him. It's impossible to imagine Karlach having the foresight to manipulate him properly, though.
"What is it you want to know, exactly?" he says, finally.
"You snuck off with him at the party the other night, yeah?" Karlach splashes closer, making another significant eyebrow waggle as she does. "Manage to talk him into something a little more fun than drowning his sorrows? You both had a bit of a spring in your step in the morning."
"That is a terribly personal question," Astarion says. "And for the record, no. Wyll was determined to be miserable, and he wasn't exactly open to suggestions otherwise."
While his attempt at seduction was an abject failure, Astarion is clinging to the fact that it was due to Wyll's stubbornness, and not any mistake on his part.
"So you're not—you know." Another indescribable hand gesture of Karlach's. "Together?"
"Absolutely not."
Karlach purses her lips. "That mean you don't mind if I make a move on him, then?"
Astarion startles. Karlach keeps a straight face for about three consecutive seconds before bursting into laughter.
"Aw, I'm just kidding, fangs! You don't have to give me that look, I know when I've been beat." She pauses. "It's cute, you know, how you look at him."
"What are you—what?"
"S'just—sounds silly saying it out loud," Karlach says, in the same careless, brazen tone with which she says everything, "but I didn't really know if vampires were capable of love, you know? But now I do."
Astarion is spluttering even before she gets him in the face with another gigantic splash of her arm.
"I'm teasing!" she says. "I'm teasing. Gods you're an easy one! But seriously, as long as you don't hurt him, we're good. Want me to teach you how to swim?"
Baffling and mildly invasive questions from overly-nosy companions aside, Astarion has been forced to ask himself some similar questions. Not about love, obviously, he is not nearly that delusional. But about what, precisely, Wyll wants from him.
Wyll has not repeated his bizarre offer of a sexless courtship. He has also not kissed Astarion again, or given him come-hither eyes, or even a little grope of his ass. And yet! The awful man has continued to offer Astarion nibbles at his arm and neck, and has sat close to him every night when they make camp, and made cheeky comments about Astarion's mending and his collection of knives and whatever else they've done during the day.
It's been almost three entire days since the party. Exactly how long is the man planning to wait before throwing Astarion against the nearest hard surface and having his way with him?
Astarion almost thinks Wyll's patience has met its limit on day four, after they run into their first sign of civilization since the Nautiloid crash—an inn, which just so happens to have the misfortune of burning to the ground moments after their arrival. Here, they learn that the reason why Wyll acts so much like a prince is because he is one, or at least the closest thing a cesspit like Baldur's Gate has to real royalty. Astarion never bothered to keep much attention on politics—few people want to discuss the intricacies of import tax before bending him over a bed—but he remembers the vague rumors about the Grand Duke having son who disappeared under mysterious circumstances. He'd assumed, at the time, that some amount of attempted patricide was involved.
Evidently not. Instead, Wyll seems as happy to hear news of his father's whereabouts as he is devastated to hear that he's been captured by goblins. Or drow. Or goblins and drow. Astarion stopped paying much attention after the first few minutes of exposition.
That night, Astarion wastes more than a few hours he could've spent filling his gullet with fresh prey hanging around camp instead, certain that this combination of daytime revelation and long-repressed daddy issues will be enough to put Wyll in the mood.
He is wrong, of course, because Wyll is some kind of celibate freak of nature. All he does that night is test Astarion's patience by confiding in him some of plans for their upcoming days of travel and slinging his arm around Astarion's shoulders to point out some of the constellations overhead.
Astarion wanks miserably in his bedroll that night, thinking unspeakable thoughts about Wyll's arms and his voice and his horrible dimples and wishing he had never met the man at all. There's no point trying to get off while thinking about anyone else. Astarion's stupid cock has developed a fixation that neither time nor conscious effort can cure. It's Wyll or nothing at this point, and if nothing was still on the table Astarion would hardly be in this mess.
It would be fine if Wyll simply wasn't into men. Astarion has met those who are quite particular in their preferences before, for all that Astarion himself prefers an equal opportunity approach to debauchery and its consequences, even before it became the means by which he saw himself fed. But there is no denying Wyll's interest, or the way he'd kissed Astarion that night on the beach. This puzzle is far more complicated, and Astarion is afraid that the solution will take so much dreadful effort that he'll have chafed his cock clean off by the time he finally approaches an understanding.
As days pass, Astarion's desperation grows to unfathomable heights. It is almost offensive how Wyll continues to be so placid and polite, acting not only as if nothing at all has transpired between them, but as if nothing is ever going to transpire. Astarion is tempted, almost, to ask him outright if there's some particular endpoint after which he'll be available for a long-awaited ravishing, or if he intends to keep Astarion in a kind of sexual limbo until he has no choice but to strip naked in the middle of camp and beg.
But no. No one ever got anywhere by talking about these things. If Wyll is too shy or too proper to take what he wants, then asking him outright will certainly just scare him off. He must be approached delicately—and Astarion is, in fact, capable of delicacy when the situation requires it.
So he goes about forcing the issue in the most delicate way he knows how: he pours a cupful of lake water into Wyll's bedroll and waits.
As expected, when Wyll retires to his tent that night, he emerges again a few moments later, bedroll in hand, making a tired but somehow still cheerful joke about the dew and the damp night air.
"Oh that's too bad, darling," Astarion purrs. "I suppose you'll have to share with someone else tonight."
Wyll gives him a strange—and, in Astarion's opinion, unwarranted—look. "No need," he says. "It's a nice enough night. No harm ever came from sleeping out beneath the stars."
Now it is Astarion's turn to stare. "Yes, obviously harm has come from sleeping out under the stars," he says. "That's why people invented tents."
"I know you're a city man, Astarion, but on a balmy night like this, surrounded by fellows? There's no reason to worry. You'd be surprised how cozy a little moss and a dry patch of ground can be," Wyll says, as if that sentence is reassuring and not in and of itself a cause for alarm.
Before Astarion has the chance to say anything to that effect, Gale comes by and dries Wyll's bedroll with a snap of his fingers.
Gods damned wizards.
Astarion refuses to give up so easily. He would hardly be one of the Gate's most accomplished whores if he let such a small impediment discourage him—and yes, his previous experience might have stressed more the quantity than the specifics of the people he seduced, and rarely if ever did he make a second attempt on the same target after being rebuffed, but he is still an expert! This is perhaps the only area of his (un)life in which he could be considered to have genuine expertise.
As they head into the mountains, Astarion takes advantage of the slight drop in temperature to claim (while flouncing into Wyll's tent, arms full of his own bedding) that it is far too cold to spend the night alone, and he is surely at risk of hypothermia if he continues to bed down without a source of warmth to keep him from freezing.
He's not entirely certain if Wyll buys the excuse, as he does ask a few pointed questions about how a vampire with no pulse and no internal temperature to speak of could be at risk of hypothermia, but Astarion settles the matter with a detailed account of the winter several decades ago when the floor of the Kennels froze over and Astarion and Yousen both froze to it, and left a good portion of skin behind when they were eventually pried away. Also, the cold makes his joints sore.
Wyll asks no more questions after that, thank the pitiless gods.
It's something of a partial victory. Wyll does agree to let Astarion stay in his tent that night—and what a maddening experience that is, trying to trance in a place that smells of Wyll, his sweat, his perfume, his musky human sulfur-tinged yet somehow tantalizing scent, his warm back against Astarion's, his beating heart a steady thud thud thud as reliable as a ticking clock in the quiet—but the man steadfastly refuses to so much as cop a singular feel of any part of Astarion's anatomy whatsoever. He doesn't even wake in the morning with any spontaneous erections that Astarion might offer to help with, nor was his insufferable snoring during sleep punctuated by any sign that he might be having the sort of dream that could be made all the better by a hand tucked into a strategic location or the strings of one's trousers loosened. And anyway the thought of setting upon Wyll, as he lies so lax and vulnerably human in his sleep, makes Astarion feel oily and unwashed inside.
When they trudge back down the mountain a few days later, still tadpoled, and now with the ire of a goddess-lich and a cult of militaristic aliens from space upon them, Astarion is no longer able to keep up the ruse of huddling for warmth. He returns to spending nights in his own tent, restlessly suffering. He had been restless and unable to trance deeply when he was so close to Wyll, unable to focus on anything but the body beside him and the many things they could be doing if Wyll was not so gods-damned determined to sleep for six entire hours straight, and now that is alone, he is still unable to rest. Because he has grown used to Wyll's overpowering stench, and his touch, and evidently the feeling of pinching his own dick between his thighs to keep it from making an unwanted surprise appearance every time Wyll rolls over in his sleep.
Astarion tries to solve the problem by surreptitiously stealing one of Wyll's wretched, ratty little undershirts to huff before bed. The less said about that attempt, the better.
("Why are you smelling my clothes?" Wyll asked, in a tone of polite curiosity.
"Because I'm… going to… mend them," Astarion had said, patiently, and slowly, and not at all like he was coming up with an excuse on the spot. "The first step in mending is to—smell—for structural weaknesses. In the cloth. Obviously, Wyll, how do you survive not knowing these things?")
So now Astarion has twice as much mending to do as before—which is unfortunate considering one of the unexpected consequences of being re-hydrated is that now if stabs himself with a sewing needle he risks leaking precious blood everywhere—and on top of that, Wyll still refuses to sleep with him in all but the most literal sense.
The Underdark, with its alien flora, hostile fauna, and general air of mushrooms and depression, brings a few more opportunities for seduction. All of them go up in smoke the instant they make contact with the enemy that is Wyll's pig-headed refusal to understand a simple innuendo. Astarion tries, oh he tries to engineer a situation too blatant, too brazen for Wyll to find some platonically heroic way to breeze past. Not even wandering outside of camp into a tangle of magically-writhing vines and getting artfully entrapped by them—with his shirt unlaced, of course—is enough to provoke Wyll to do anything dispel the enchantment on the vines and hack Astarion free. Astarion didn't even know he had the ability to dispel enchantments.
As they commit acts of murderous vengeance for the sake of a telepathic mushroom cult—gods, why is everything cults nowadays, it used to be that you would have at least the occasional mad wizard or crime syndicate running about without delusions of godhood or the need for all members to speak entirely in unison—Astarion's patience begins to thin. In the sweltering heat of a forge filled with Sharran architecture, devil skulls, and horribly crass little duergar, there is no possible way that Astarion can pretend he needs to huddle with Wyll for heat. In another life, perhaps he could claim the intense heat required him to walk around shirtless—but that's not much of an option when his skin is marred by the sick whims of Cazador from decades ago.
He curls up in the stifling confines of his tent instead, his clothes clinging to his skin from the ambient moisture of this horrible place, hating everyone and everything that has lead him to this place, starting with those stupid corpsey mushrooms and ending with himself.
None of this would be happening if he could just control his own unruly disobedient dick. If he could, perhaps, entice his thoughts in a direction that was not solely focused on Wyll Ravengard.
"Is there something repulsive about me?" Astarion asks.
As soon as the words leave his mouth, it belatedly occurs to him that Wyll might have been asleep. But when the man rolls over to blink and scowl at him, he looks more baffled than on the verge of unconsciousness.
"What?" Wyll asks.
"Am I repulsive," Astarion repeats. He has no heart to pound, but he swears he has just enough blood to flush his cheeks. "Is there something so disgusting about me that you cannot bring yourself to touch me, or are you, perhaps, waiting for some particular day of the calender before we can finally stop playing around and fuck already?"
It is—presumably, gods know in this sun-forsaken fire pit—the middle of the night. None of the others in camp so much as make a peep. But Wyll winces and says, "Come in, Astarion. And shut the flap behind you."
Wyll's tent is a tight fit for two grown men lying down. There is only just enough room for the two of them to sit facing each other without bumping noses and knees. The ambient glow of the forge outside paints the greens and blues of the tent interior in a strange red light. Astarion rests his hands on his knees and then, without thinking, curls up with his knees in front of his chest. It's a horribly childish way to sit, but it's not as though there's the room to look appropriately seductive in this cramped space.
Assuming that seduction is even still on the table.
An itch is creeping down Astarion's spine. It's a feeling he's felt many times before in the presence of Cazador, Petras, any of his siblings—not often around marks, but sometimes—a kind of mad energy that seizes him, makes the words fly sharp and skittering off his tongue before he has the chance to rein them in. Cazador liked to put him in these moods on purpose, he thinks—to rile him up, to layer order upon order in just such a way that Astarion would start to buckle under their weight, but be given just enough leash left over to hang himself with when his patience at last ran out.
It was always Astarion's fault—every punishment, every indignity, every privilege lost, it always came back to some mistake he made, some word misspoken, some situation where his sire told him to bend and instead, he broke.
Cazador is nowhere to be found, but still Astarion feels that restless creeping, a tingling in the palms—the unanswered question of what Wyll Ravengard, the apparent master of patience, will do when faced with such brazen disrespect.
Wyll is not his master. Astarion has no master, not anymore. Wyll is nothing more than a mark—not even as consequential as one of his spawn siblings.
Astarion tells himself, over and over. But the feeling doesn't go away as the silence takes its place between them.
"Well?" Astarion says when he can stand it no longer, flinging the word like a knife.
Wyll doesn't flinch. Not openly—not precisely. But there is a change in him, visible and then gone, that makes Astarion think that Wyll is not as unaffected as he is trying so hard to seem.
"I… think there's been a misunderstanding," Wyll says, voice low.
"I should say so," Astarion snaps. "Ever since that night by the beach I have been waiting, and waiting, and I am starting to feel distinctly unwanted—"
"I'm sorry," Wyll says, taking the wind from Astarion's sails as sudden and unexpectedly as an errant fireball. "It was never my intention to—lead you on. I thought I had made myself clear enough, but… evidently not."
"Evidently," Astarion murmurs, feeling a new uncertainty bloom in his guts. He hadn't really expected—well, he hadn't thought about Wyll's reaction at all, quite frankly. If he had he surely would've kept his mouth shut out of simple self-preservation. But this chagrin, almost… could it be guilt on Wyll's face? Astarion has no idea what to do with that at all.
"If I was unclear before, then let me now make it plain. I am not waiting for some particular date or time before consummating our relationship. I am not waiting for anything in particular from you—nor do I find you wanting in any regard," Wyll adds before Astarion can interject. "You are as enticing as anyone could dream of. I am just…" Wyll lets out a breath, not quite a sigh, "not easily enticed."
Astarion stares at him.
"At least, not into more than what we've done already," Wyll adds; again, just a little too fast. "I have come to value your companionship, and the nights we've spent in each other's company. Kissing you was… a pleasant diversion. But I can't honestly say that I want any more than that. Not now. And perhaps… not ever."
Astarion continues to stare at him. He feels, a bit, like one of the many times Violet pushed him down the front stairs—or like looking out of a window, thinking it was near midnight, and discovering the first rays of the sun slipping over the rooftops. The world has taken a sudden unpleasant shift, and now Astarion is looking at it sideways, wondering if he'd ever really seen anything the right way round at all.
"Ever?" he repeats. The word is mostly a breath.
In the dimness, the redness of that strange rosy light, Wyll looks—uncomfortable. That's the word—so nondescript as to be euphemistic, but there's no other phrase Astarion could possibly use to describe the set of Wyll's jaw, the way he turns ever-so-slightly away, the muscles of his brow and shoulders braced as if for some kind of scorn.
"I told you I believe in love," Wyll says to the wall of the tent, slightly to the side of Astarion's head. "I do. I believe in it the way a bard believes in music, or a cleric their god. But I have never been one to—seek dalliances with others. To put it bluntly, what desires my own hand could not satisfy were always more… ephemeral things. Matters of the heart, rather than the matters of physical pleasure."
Astarion rubs the skin of his arms, unconsciously gripping the paper-thin protection that keeps him from being more than skeleton and rotting meat.
Bodies—that's all he knows. All he is, really: a body, with nothing of any great interest inside.
"Sometimes, when I was a youth," Wyll says—Astarion would scoff, as if he's so much more than a youth now, if he could only find his voice again, "a certain person might turn my head, or I might entertain a fancy for an evening. I am not entirely without desire. But since…" He gestures, vaguely, at his face, or possibly at his stone eye and devil's horns. Or maybe at the specter always looming in the shadow of everything he does, lurking just out of sight. "Desire has come to me less and less."
"Oh," Astarion says, the sound as hollow as the inside of his skull.
"I'm not entirely uninterested." There is a certain manta-like desperation to the phrase, as Wyll finally looks Astarion in the eye again. "It's just… it's not an easy thing to explain. I'm sorry."
No. No, from Astarion's perspective, this is all quite easy to understand.
He'd thought, in his stupid, short-sighted assumptions, that he and Wyll were alike. That Wyll, straight out of the clutches of his patron and the transformation she bestowed on him like an unwanted gift, would feel at least something of the desperation that's been running through Astarion's mind for days and days. That he might desire to have something, some thin moment of pleasure that no one, not even their masters, could warp and ruin with their touch.
But Astarion was wrong.
He and Wyll are nothing alike. Wyll's rambling about romance hadn't been him being coy or playing hard to get or drawing out the anticipation of the act. It was a warning. One that Astarion was simply too besotted to see for what it was.
"Well," Astarion says, stiffly. "Thank you for telling me now, before I wasted anymore time on you."
If Wyll is shocked, hurt, offended by this declaration, Astarion doesn't wait around to see it. If he could he would turn on his heel and stomp out before this horrible conversation could be dragged through its death throes any longer—instead he is forced to crawl out of the tent, on his hands and knees, like the worm he is.
There simply isn't time to lay around feeling sorry for himself anymore. How strange to think that not even a month ago, that was almost all life was—either curled on his side in a hateful haze of starvation, or lying on his back, hating things much more acutely. Now he is obliged, at the urging of the band of fools he is obligated to share a campsite with, to join them on their mad bids for money and glory, when he'd much rather spend his afternoon digging a six-foot pit and lay down at the bottom of it just to get a moment's peace.
But time, that disagreeable hussy, continues on passing him by no matter what he does. And Wyll—that worst of heroes, two-faced, silver-tongued, despicably generous idiot—has apparently told no one what happened last night.
Which is not to say the others haven't noticed anything amiss. Despite the stifling heat of the forge, there is nothing comfortable about the frosty chill that runs down Astarion's spine when he is forced to acknowledge Wyll's presence. He is certain that Karlach, at least, has been trying to ask him questions about this sudden change with her eyebrows, though she hasn't yet resorted to asking via the tadpoles, thank the rotten gods.
Well, if she wants the gory details she'll have to get them from Wyll. Astarion would much rather pretend that nothing had happened—that the past tendays of Wyll's attention had been nothing more than an oddly vivid hallucination.
He supposes Wyll probably feels a certain amount of embarrassment about it himself. Astarion certainly hopes he does—if Wyll feels embarrassed, then he's less likely to tell anyone that Astarion isn't just a whore, but a stupid one. That out of all companions he could've chased after like an unfixed mutt, he chose the one who was resolutely uninterested in anything Astarion had to offer.
It's Wyll's fault things ended up this way, isn't it? Astarion had been extremely clear about what he wanted. He's certain he'd said as much. It was Wyll who had gotten him all twisted around with nonsense about courtship and true love and—how was Astarion supposed to know he meant any of that as more than pulp and platitude? How was Astarion supposed to suspect that Wyll's virginal attitude was more than a facade?
Why did Wyll put up with him so long, if a chaste courtly love was all he wished?
Astarion might be a dab hand at suppressing his own disgust, at swallowing down the bile and faking a smile. But he can't imagine anyone looking at him and seeing more than what he is, what he's been since Cazador remade whatever he used to be into a fishing lure for the dirty and desperate of Baldur's Gate. Surely Wyll did not seriously think that Astarion had anything to offer but the obvious.
No. For all that Wyll is foolishly devoted to his morals and his daydreams, he isn't that naive. And Astarion isn't that good of an actor.
Because the alternative—that Astarion, without even realizing it, really did somehow convince Wyll that there is more to him than sex and shallow compliments—cannot be contemplated.
Because that would mean Astarion had sidled up to that sweet man, gotten close to him, held and kissed and flattered him, lied to him, sweetly and often, all for the sake of seducing someone who didn't want him. Had never wanted him. Had never wanted sex at all.
Those nights in Wyll's tent. That warm, sleeping, living body next to him—how Astarion had contemplated, idly, the ease with which he could undress him. Wake him with a hand around his cock or a tease of soft lips, how he could probably bring the man off before Wyll so much as fluttered an eyelash. He'd thought of it as giving Wyll the reward he was apparently too stubborn to accept while conscious, but—was that really why Astarion had tossed the thought around inside his head? Or was that all just an excuse to satisfy his own lusts, still bubbling away under his dead, cold flesh.
The instant that thought occurs to him, Astarion bites his hand—an old trick to stop himself from plunging too deep into dark thoughts.
Like most of his tricks, it doesn't help worth a damn when Wyll is involved.
Astarion finds himself perversely, suddenly grateful that their days are so busy—that they escape the blistering heat of the forge into a numb, cold, dead wasteland of scattered cultists and surprisingly violent foliage. The good thing about having things to do during the day besides wallowing, it turns out, is that he can sometimes distract himself purely by occupying his mind with whatever tasks are at hand.
No such luck when he's alone in his tent.
His idiot cock still insists on making its desires known. It perks up at the slightest opportunity, the barest brush of friction. It feels like it's tormenting him on purpose, taunting him while he fights to clear his head long enough to trance. He hasn't touched the thing since his conversation with Wyll. It's what got him into this mess, after all. And every time he touches it he gets the same feeling—a nauseous splinter digging directly through his stomach.
It was, he realizes now, a sick sort of mercy that he was denied most any satisfaction from all poor sods he took to Cazador's bed over the years. Lying on his back, taking their cudgels and indelicate spears, Astarion could hate them easily and openly, could feel mostly nothing about the grunting brutes who would be hollow corpses as soon as they finished their rutting. He could forget the ones who were gentler, the ones who tried, however clumsy and unwanted, to please him. He could forget the ones who were shy. Reluctant. Who he coerced with silver words and promises he forgot as soon as speaking them, who he called love and darling and dearest so he wouldn't have to worry about forgetting their names.
What if it had been different?
What if Astarion had taken them all to bed as he is now—insatiable, lust-blinded, taking every pleasure he could wring from them before giving his Master his share? Would he have been more of a whore? Would he have been more of a murderer?
Would it have mattered if he dragged them back to Cazador kicking and screaming—if he violated them as so many of them violated him. What did it matter if they went with him willingly, if he was leading them to their deaths all the same. What did it matter if he took pleasure in their deaths, if he had no choice about it either way.
Stupid questions. Stupid and sticking to him like tar, filling his mouth, filling his mind in every idle moment. None of it matters but all of it, suddenly, feels like it does—like drinking Wyll's blood has infected him with Wyll's propensity for pointless moral quandaries.
He imagines the world where he ran into Wyll not on the sundrenched beaches of the Chionthar, but the backroom of an Outer City flophouse. Where Wyll was the sweet thing he lured with a kiss to the back of his hand and a smile. Where he told Wyll all the usual lies to slip him into that horrible manor, into that horrible bed, into his horrible body, where he told Wyll sweet nothings right until Cazador crept up behind him and—
Astarion gnaws on his hands often enough that he's certain the others have started to notice. It used to be he was too dry to bleed, but now he can feel the burst of blood in his mouth when his fangs break skin. It still isn't enough to make him stop thinking.
Worse, it's a reminder of another shameful reality: he is going to have to beg someone to feed him.
The further they go into the Shadow-curse, the less fresh prey there is to spare. The occasional cultist is not enough to sate him. He considered trying to bite some of the zombies they've come across, but the smell of them is rotted enough to make him know that even if he could stomach whatever fluid is left in them, he wouldn't be able to force himself to bite down. He is spoiled on decadent, palatable meals now—no more putrid rotting flesh to worry between his teeth.
He knows there is an awfully high chance—key word being awful—that someone in this bloody group of martyrs will volunteer to be his dinner if he asks. But if he does, that means all of them will know for certain that there is (ha) bad blood between him and Wyll. And Astarion might, in fact, prefer starvation over having the others stick their noses into that private affair.
Perhaps starvation is preferable, anyway. Perhaps there is something to be said for letting himself wither again, if it means no longer having to feel that pull every time Wyll stands close to him, tracking the way the blood of Wyll's enemies splatters so prettily on his cheeks and wishing he was allowed to lick them clean.
How nice it might be, not to want anymore. Long, long ago, before Astarion gave up on the delusional respite of gods, he had spent a few months feverishly praying to Shar. Not even for salvation—he just wanted oblivion. She is, as Shadowheart says with that feverish zealot tone, a goddess who grants the mercy of nothingness. True, final, silent peace.
Shar had, of course, granted him nothing but bruised knees for his pleading. Astarion doesn't know if it was his personality she found intolerable, or if, perhaps, in his desperation, Shar simply found that he wanted too much. Perhaps a goddess of oblivion only grants her mercy to those who are suitably indifferent. If so, Shadowheart is certainly out of luck. For all she pretends at disinterest, she's really quite bad at it. If Karlach claims that Astarion is terrible at hiding his vampirism, Shadowheart must be even less subtle about her faith.
Astarion had prayed for the cessation of pain, for the end undeath denied him. He'd thought of himself as a monster, in those days. But Astarion has never felt as monstrous for his hunger for blood as he does, now, for his hunger for touch. For sex. For Wyll.
At the heart of it, under the longing, the guilt, the pointless hypotheticals—there is another feeling. Slick and oily, a noxious tug at the back of his throat, in the pit of his stomach. Envy.
Wyll—perfect, indefatigable hero Wyll—may have suffered any number of indignities. He may have been transformed by his patron, may have the marks of her claws on his skin, may have been made to service her in all the tiresome ways—Astarion can just picture it, from the way she touched him, spoke to him, reshaped him—but Wyll could never be mistaken for someone who wants it. Not even a devil could hook a finger under his chin and croon in his ear about how obviously he desires his own debasement. No one could ever confuse or convince him about his own lusts, not even devilish new body designed to Mizora's specifications.
Meanwhile, the only thing that separated Astarion from the slavering whore Cazador always claimed him to be was a few pints of fresh blood.
It's remarkable, really, that he and Wyll manage to avoid each other to any degree whatsoever considering the small size of the camp. But after only a few days of trekking through the Shadow-curse, that avoidance comes to an end as most things do: abruptly and painfully.
Astarion is not attempting to pay any attention to anyone else. He is attempting to see if there is literally anything for him to eat in the outskirts of their camp larger than a spider, the key word here being attempt. He'd stolen one of the glowing orbs Gale summoned by wrapping it up in a rag, which he's now tied to a stick as both a precaution against becoming a shadow zombie on top of the vampirism, and as a hopeful lure for a small edible creature. Crouching behind shrubbery that he is at least 90% positive is not about to come to a facsimile of life and stab him through the chest, he has just settled in for what is likely to be a long and fruitless wait when his ears perk at the sound of voices.
Actually, first they perk up at the sound of something like a oversized bat being squeezed through a too-narrow tube. Then there is a heavy beating of wings, and a sharp voice that cuts across the Shadowlands' moaning quiet like a razor.
"Playtime's over, pet."
Oh, Mizora. Lovely.
Astarion is, again, not trying to pay attention. None of this is his business. He has learned from experience that bearing witness to someone else's punishment rarely brings about favorable results, anyhow. If he could, he would creep away into the underbrush and find a better, quieter hunting spot somewhere else—but he can't, because any movement will likely only draw attention to himself in this land of dry branches and hard soil.
And because he can hear, just on the edge of his periphery, Wyll's low, tired voice in response.
"Drop the attitude and stop sniveling at me." There is a shift—Mizora's voice seems closer, though it's impossible to tell if she's approaching Astarion's hiding spot or simply raising her voice. "It's time for your next assignment, pup."
Mizora outlines the task—something about rescuing an asset of Zariel's. Which is rather rich of her, considering she'd just tried to get another such "asset" killed and bedeviled Wyll in the process not a month ago. Astarion wonders if Zariel punished her for that. He rather hopes she had.
Wyll mumbles a response Astarion can't catch. Astarion strains his ears, but finds himself accidentally straining something else instead—the reach of the tadpole.
Suddenly, he has a clear image of exactly where Wyll stands. Mizora really is close by, only a few scant feet from Astarion's hiding spot. Which is a shockingly difficult piece of information to focus on, because much of Astarion's attention is instead caught by the feeling of deep-seated exhaustion beamed into him from Wyll's mind.
Mizora tuts. "Now is not the time to be testing my patience, Wyll. You know the rules. Surely you don't need a reminder?"
A sharp sensation—sharper by far than exhaustion—zips from Wyll's mind to Astarion's, so cold and powerful it feels like the air around has dropped a few degrees. Fear.
Despite this, Astarion is shocked to hear Wyll raise his voice to her.
"I know what's at stake," he says, loud enough this time for Astarion to hear him clearly. "But I can hardly go haring through these lands all the way to Moonrise by myself. Zariel will have to wait until—"
The words cut off as sharply as if a hand had just covered his mouth. Which, Astarion supposed, might very well be what just happened.
Astarion, despite himself, creeps forward, silently parting the dry shrubbery to catch a glimpse of what's happening. A lean lilac leg is visible, and a strip of a dress-hem, but even his sensitive eyes can't make out any part of Wyll. Mizora seems to be blocking him from sight.
"Zariel has waited long enough." Mizora's words seem to curl through the air like hooks. Astarion wonders if she is smiling—or more likely, sneering. "As have I. I was so merciful with you once already, Wyll. Do you really think I have more mercy in me now?"
A rustling. And then a strange, muted, hollow gasp.
"Oh, there there, stop fussing," Mizora says, mock comforting, as Astarion realizes that the faint noises of struggle are Wyll, trying to breathe. "You already know what I'm going to say: it's not my responsibility to figure out how you'll do the job, it's your responsibility to hop to it on time with bells on. Oh don't give me that look. Be a good puppy, Wyll. I'm sure if you show those big sad eyes all your little friends will drop everything and run away with you off to Moonrise Towers."
A loud, dry coughing. Painful as it sounds, it sends an equally-acute relief through Astarion's husk of a heart: coughing means that Wyll is breathing again.
"And if—they won't?" Wyll manages between coughs.
"Then that's your problem, isn't it?" Mizora snaps, suddenly sharp. "Stop pussying around and put out for that vampire of yours, maybe he'll take pity on you then! I don't care what lies you tell or what cocks you have to suck, just get to Moonrise and—"
Mizora stops talking. That's because, Astarion realizes, a few moments after the fact, that he has burst out of the bushes like a banshee and driven his knife through her throat.
Unfortunately Mizora is not now gasping her last and bleeding all over the trodden ground. As soon as his knife cut through where her blasted neck ought to have been, she slipped out of his hold like a shadow. Now, she stands on the other end of the clearing from him, mouth agape, staring.
Wyll is also staring.
Astarion affects nonchalance, as if victims sliding out of his hands like water happens every time he ambushes an enemy. He spins the knife in his palm, keeping it pointed at Mizora.
"Seems like it's time for you to leave," Astarion says. Remarkably, his voice doesn't shake, despite the fact that he has clearly gone insane.
Oh. He's really rather angry, isn't he.
Mizora's look of shock transmutes into one of disaffected rage. "Excuse me, this is a private conversation," she hisses, in what she probably thinks is an intimidating sort of voice. Instead, it strikes Astarion as suddenly pathetic. She is so happy to bully someone who physically can't fight back against her, but her chosen defense against an unexpected threat is to get a little sarcastic?
"Hardly private," Astarion scoffs. "You were being loud enough for the dead to hear you—and I should know."
Before Mizora can respond, Wyll coughs.
"Couldn't be bothered to come here in person?" he says, raggedly, turning to Mizora—or to her, what, projection? Simulacrum? Hallucinatory specter? Gods, magic users are insufferable. "Zariel needs this asset so urgently, yet you can't even come here yourself?"
"Some of us happen to be busy with more than chasing our own tails," Mizora snaps.
Astarion can't help it: he laughs.
He laughs, despite the fact that there is still a white-hot ribbon of rage wrapped around both of his hands, and the only thing stopping him from driving the knife into Mizora's mocking and hideously tacky face is the fact that she isn't even technically there, and only a moment ago she had been choking the air from Wyll's lungs for no reason but a fit of fucking pique.
"Yes, so very busy you are! That's why you're here to harass a man who can't deny you anything—because you're busy."
"Do keep talking, spawn," Mizora says, icily. "I thought you'd have learned by now what happens when you mouth off to your betters."
Astarion can't think of a good reply to that, which is probably why, a moment later he finds that his knife has left his hand and thunked into the dead tree trunk where Mizora('s fake, illusory, cowardly self) stood an instant before.
This time, she does not reappear.
"Oh yes, run away!" Astarion shouts to the trees. "How very brave of you, I'm so very scared that the great and powerful Zariel's best middle-manager is a cowering old cunt!"
"Astarion," Wyll says.
"What in the hells is wrong with you!" Astarion yells, throwing another of his knives into the darkness. "If you're so desperate to get Wyll to rescue some worthless imp, why don't you give him a single fucking bit of help to get there, hm? Sounds like you're not nearly as powerful as you want him to think!"
"Astarion," Wyll says.
"And another thing! If you want someone to agree to your terms, perhaps you shouldn't choke them while they talk to you! And the gods-damned dog metaphors—"
Astarion pauses, because Wyll has taken hold of his arm.
"She's gone," Wyll says. His mouth is doing something strange, like it's trying to decide whether it should laugh. "She can't hear you anymore, Astarion."
Astarion rips his arm out of Wyll's hold. "I—yes, I know, obviously. I'm just—you—are you alright?"
For some reason, this question seems to take Wyll by surprise.
"All your organs are in the right place? She didn't—melt you again, or anything?" Astarion asks.
"No," Wyll says, slowly. "Thankfully, no."
"Good. That's… very…" Astarion struggles, and fails, to find a word other than, "good."
This is the first time he and Wyll have been alone together since he left Wyll's tent.
"I suppose you should go collect your knives—" Wyll starts.
"I don't want to have sex with you," Astarion says.
Wyll shuts his mouth.
"Anymore," Astarion clarifies. "I did. I—sort of do. But you don't have to—I wouldn't make you have sex with me in exchange for my help." He can't help scoffing a little at the thought. "Gods, no. I'm not that desperate. Or cruel."
"I didn't think you were," Wyll says, quietly.
Astarion scoffs again, because the alternative would involve having an emotion of some sort. "Well, good. I could always find someone else, you know, if I wanted to. If I really wanted to. I just don't—I don't think I actually want to. You know. With someone else."
Wyll's face does something subtle and nonetheless awful. "Astarion—"
"You know, I think you didn't actually lead me on?" Astarion says, loudly, because blurting out whatever comes to mind is somehow still a less frightening prospect than whatever Wyll has to say. "I—I just heard what I wanted to hear. Or what I expected to hear, at least, I—it just didn't seem plausible. No one has ever wanted me for anything but the obvious. Why should you?" The thought, named and spoken aloud, settles onto Astarion like the so-pleasant weight of a sack full of jagged rocks. "Why should you? I think it's fairly obvious that I'm not—I'm just an appetite on legs, really. I came onto you for an uncomplicated fuck and you asked me to court you. What's wrong with you?"
"If I ever find out, I'll be sure to let you know," Wyll says, in that handsomely self-deprecating way that makes Astarion want to kiss him and also scream. "I'm certain many aspects of my life would be simpler if my wants were more… commonplace."
"Oh, that's not the problem," Astarion says dismissively. "Common does not necessarily equate to simple, darling. I used to be rather, hm, disinterested myself, and gods know if that wasn't simpler. Dreadfully shit for other reasons, but simple."
Wyll seems somehow taken aback by this. "You—were?"
"Yes," Astarion snaps, "and now I've been wanking myself raw every night because of you and the damned tadpole. And that's what I don't understand! When I was starving in a gods-forsaken basement, I wasn't exactly eager to go out and strike up a relationship with the nearest whore I could find. But here you are, claiming you want something from me and it isn't sex and—why are you looking at me like that?"
Wyll is still looking at him as if Astarion had suddenly started dancing across the floor.
"Just because I spent two centuries learning how to solicit sex from strangers doesn't mean I wanted to do so," Astarion says, sourly, in answer to the question that Wyll is clearly too polite to ask. "Until recently! Except that it still isn't strangers, it's mostly just you. And now I—I don't even want to sleep with you. I thought, maybe, if I could just have sex with you all of this—wanting would go away, and maybe all of the other feelings with it. But that's not an option anymore and—I don't even know if it would have worked even to start with."
"That sounds… very complicated," Wyll says, diplomatically.
Astarion laughs—a hard, cold laugh that comes out of his mouth like a stone.
"I wish I could just—stop wanting things," he admits, quiet, between his teeth. "I wish it was something I could stop. At least, without starving myself."
"I have to say I'm not a fan of starvation either," Wyll says, with an adorable furrow of his brows as if even the concept of Astarion starving pains him. "I'm sure there are better ways to manage it without hurting yourself in the process. And anyway," he adds. "I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting."
"See!" Astarion can't help but screech. "This is exactly what I mean! There is something wrong with you. You're so gods-damned polite for absolutely no reason. You should be furious with me."
Wyll raises an eyebrow. "Should I? At this point, I think I just feel sorry for you."
Astarion squawks like a goose that's just realized why that nice man is approaching with an axe on one shoulder. There are likely many things that Astarion should not say in this situation, but near the top of the list is probably—
"Why?"
"Because I think I finally understand something about you," Wyll says. "At first, I thought this confusion was all my doing—that I'd misread some of our conversations, or mislead you in some way. Now, though, I realize what I should have known from the start: you're just a bit of an ass."
Astarion squawks again. And then goes light-headed, because Wyll pulls him in for a hug.
A hug. Like Astarion is one of those quivering tiefling children, soothed by the presence of a vaguely competent adult. It's absurd.
And it's nice. It's really rather nice, actually. Damn him.
"You're an ass, Astarion," Wyll murmurs, holding him tight. "But I like you anyhow. You say you don't know what I could want from you but sex, and the truth is, I scarcely know myself. I've never had the opportunity to meet anyone so—baffling and charming and deranged before we met, and I can't imagine I ever will again. I've never had the opportunity to court a person properly before either, outside of my own imagination. I thought that made me the inexperienced one, but it seems we're both grasping blindly in the dark."
Astarion finds his hands closing, as if on pure instinct, around Wyll's waist. "Well," he says, fighting for control around the great horrible lump rising in his throat. "I guess that makes us both fools."
With one final squeeze, Wyll starts to let him go. "I am happy to be foolish, if it means keeping such fine company," Wyll says.
Before Wyll’s hand can leave his waist, Astarion finds himself grabbing for it. "So, no sex," Astarion says. "Not for the moment anyway—but what about, hm, other things?"
"What do you have in mind?" Wyll asks—and oh, yes, he knows exactly what Astarion is thinking and is mocking him for sure.
For once, there is nothing to be done but resign himself to his fate.
"Can I kiss you?" Astarion asks, too desperate to protest having to spell it out.
Wyll gives him one of those awful dimpled smiles that makes Astarion’s chest constrict around a heart it no longer has.
"I thought you'd never ask."