Work Text:
They had camped in some bleak places so far, but the Underdark wore on Gale in ways he wasn’t prepared for. Not a glimpse of green as far as the eye could see, and the utter lack of sun- or starlight made it impossible for a surface dweller to tell his night from his day. If Gale’s insomnia kept up, he feared he would be of little use to anyone in a fight. He was almost desperate enough to reach for a sleeping draught and get it over with; but one of those was strong enough to knock out a hook horror, and who could say how many more of those foul creatures were lurking in the many—so, so many—dark crevices of this land.
A walk, he thought, would do him some good. Some light physical exercise away from the pages of his books usually worked to quiet his racing thoughts long enough for slumber to take him. He wouldn’t be going far, and if he met with any trouble, he could always turn himself invisible.
Before long he found himself beside an overhang with a view of the docks. Beyond the reach of the torchlight, the river was bathed in darkness so deep one could almost imagine it flowed off the edge of the world. But the sound of the boats gently knocking against the piers would have been right at home anywhere, even in Waterdeep.
He wasn’t the only one wide awake at this hour, either. A lone duergar, out for a stroll of his own, moseyed down toward the water’s edge, now whistling, now warbling a chanty in an exaggerated basso buffo.
“Something catch your fancy?”
Gale all but jumped out of his skin at those words uttered right next to his ear.
He spun, back up against the rock, ready to hurl a firebolt in the face of— “Astarion?”
Gods damn that man. Gale breathed a sigh of relief, urging his racing heart to calm. Glad most of all that he hadn’t shouted in alarm. “What in the Hells are you doing?” he hissed.
“Hunting. What else? Alas, aside from a few anemic bats I haven’t found anything worth my while.”
Astarion sounded as though he were miles away. And by the look of it, the view over the ledge interested him far more than any bats. His nostrils flared, lip curling ever so slightly over his fangs as if he wanted to hail the duergar. Gale had to tug him back away from the edge before he had a chance to be spotted.
“I meant frightening me half to death, sneaking up on me like that! Are you trying to send me to an early grave?”
If Gale was hoping for an apology, he wasn’t likely to get it. Astarion only puffed up with pride hearing his sneaking had had the desired effect. “My dear, I realize you’re human and all, but a wizard really ought to be more aware of his surroundings if he is to have any hope of surviving in the wild.”
“Oh, would you please shut up?”
Thankfully, Astarion did as requested, and crouched down beside Gale near the ledge, listening to the singing in silence. They’d managed to strike a fragile truce with these duergars yesterday through some clever persuasion—and a little help from their tadpoles—and while that by no means made them allies, Gale was in no hurry to make enemies of them just yet.
“Now, admittedly my Undercommon is a bit wanting,” he whispered through a wry grin, “but if I’m not mistaken, that is an exceptionally filthy ballad.”
“Would you like me to translate for you?” Astarion purred, and Gale could feel the vampire’s gaze raking like fingernails down the side of his neck. “It would make your hair curl.”
Mystryl, what an enticing thought! There was no doubt in Gale’s mind that, with nothing but the inflection of his voice, Astarion could turn even the sweetest lullaby to complete and utter debauchery.
But “Some other time perhaps,” when their position was a bit less conspicuous.
“Your loss, darling. Ahh,” Astarion groaned melodramatically, clearly fishing for sympathy, “I’m too starved to sit here listening to this caterwauling all night!”
“If you have another suggestion, I’m all ears.”
“As a matter of fact, I do.” And Astarion gave Gale’s shoulder a quick shake. “Let’s have a bit of fun.”
“I’m almost afraid to ask what your idea of fun entails. Unless you happened to pick up a lanceboard somewhere in all your scrounging about, in which case I wouldn’t say no to the chance to show you a thing or—oh, fucking Hells.”
It was then Gale realized he was talking to himself, as Astarion had slipped away as silently as he’d arrived.
To make matters worse, he had already dropped down to the level below Gale, and was quickly gaining ground on the duergar. Kicking himself for taking his eyes off the vampire, Gale had no choice but to follow now, if only to make sure none of the duergar’s friends caught Astarion in the act.
The poor fellow never saw it coming. He paused in his slurred chanty long enough to take out his cock, and slipped right back into verse while he relieved himself in the river. Never the faintest inkling that an assassin was slinking up behind him, pale and silent as a crag cat, licking its whiskers as its muscles bunched beneath it, tensing for the killing pounce.
When Astarion did make his move, it happened in the blink of an eye. A flash of his dagger and a dark geyser of arterial blood spurted from the duergar’s neck. Astarion clamped his mouth over the wound, wrapping his arms tight around his victim’s chest and shoulders, while the duergar could only jerk in surprise and pain.
Silence leapt from Gale’s hands and tongue to envelop the two. If the duergar started to scream, he would bring the whole place down on the two of them.
But more than that, Gale didn’t want to hear the dwarf’s struggles. The sick rip of teeth into flesh, the awful deep gulps his mind filled in as he watched Astarion drink. He’d imagined how Astarion’s hunts might unfold, ever since he’d been on the receiving end of his bite. But that—quickly aborted—experience had been a seduction by a patient lover by comparison. Gale’s imagination had failed to capture the sheer speed and single-mindedness with which a properly motivated vampire could overpower his victim.
And yet he could not deny there was a mesmerizing beauty to the whole horrible spectacle. The duergar’s knees buckled under him as he spasmed, his boot heels thumping soundlessly against the pier. In desperation he tugged and clawed at Astarion’s arms, but he hadn’t the strength left in him to make them budge. If Gale hadn’t seen the dagger descend, if he didn’t know what Astarion was, he might have thought he’d caught the two men in the final throes of a singular passion, rather than witnessing one lose a lopsided battle with death incarnate.
By the time he caught up with them, the duergar had ceased moving altogether in Astarion’s embrace.
“Are you actually insane!” Gale railed at him with such force it left his throat raw, knowing full well Astarion could hear none of it through the magical silence. “Would you like to try that again and see if you can’t get us and our friends killed!”
Astarion just stared through him with eyes even heavier than usual, and daintily wiped the trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth, savoring every drop.
It was downright obscene. Gale had to force himself to look away.
And started searching for rocks to fill the duergar’s pockets. “Well, don’t just stand there. We’ve got to get rid of him before someone comes looking.”
Whether he read any of that on Gale’s lips or not, at least Astarion had the presence of mind to clean up after himself. Together they hauled the body to the edge of the dock. It fell into the river with a splash that made no sound, and quickly vanished into the depths.
Only when the water’s surface had returned to calm did Gale feel it safe to drop the bubble of silence. Astarion turned to leave as if nothing had happened.
Vampires! The bloody nerve of him. “Is that it? You have nothing to say for yourself? If you ever do that again—”
Gale reached for Astarion’s arm, but it slipped from his grasp like water as Astarion spun around.
“You’ll what? Incinerate me? Drive a stake through my heart? We both know that ship sailed long ago.”
Cocky bastard. Just because he was right didn’t mean he had to say it like that, with that know-it-all smirk on his criminally pretty face. Astarion’s cheeks actually appeared to be flushed beneath the specks of blood, his pupils blown. Nothing Gale said to him in his current state was going to stick. But that didn’t mean it shouldn’t be said.
Before Gale could do more than open his mouth, however, voices approached from the next room.
Astarion seized him by the shirt and in an instant had them both flattened up against the wall of the docks. There was no overhang here, just the staircase and the balustrade over their heads. The two duergars’ footsteps drew closer, stopping on the landing above them, and suddenly Gale remembered the blood sprayed over the docks. He could only hope the wood was so stained already that no one would be able to tell fresh blood from old.
Never did he lament his own need to breathe more than while they waited for the two duergars to pass. He felt Astarion nudge his side and glanced down to see the elf had his hand on the hilt of his dagger. And like a fool, Gale had backed himself into this proverbial corner armed only with his spells and wits. Various possible moves raced through his mind as if he were contemplating a game of lanceboard: how quickly and cleanly could he and Astarion dispatch the two dwarves should they prove hostile. At one man apiece, theirs weren’t the worst odds, but could they overpower their opponents before they raised the alarm. . . .
They never had to find out. The duergars’ conversation faded back into the distance without incident. Even so, it was minutes before either Gale or Astarion dared to move from cover.
When they did, both concluded without a word passing between them that a hasty retreat to camp was overdue.
“I trust this little incident will stay between us,” Astarion said only when he was satisfied they would not be overheard. “You have to understand, darling, I’m a predator. This is what I do.”
That sounded remarkably like an apology. At least, as far as the concept existed in Astarion’s vocabulary. If he weren’t grinning like the gremishka who got the goblin, Gale might have almost believed he meant it, too.
“And if I hadn’t made my peace with that a tenday ago, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. But a little more discretion, or at very least some forewarning would have been greatly appreciated.”
For someone who didn’t need to breathe, Astarion sure had the long-suffering sigh perfected. “Fine. Next time I get a hankering for murder, I’ll tell you first. Now can we put this all behind us?”
Not so fast, they couldn’t. “We had an agreement, Astarion,” Gale reminded him. “You would only feed on sentient creatures if they were going to die anyway.”
“But that’s just what he was! This whole Grymforge is a powderkeg, literally and politically speaking. When our would-be allies turn on us—and trust me, they will turn on us—well," he blinked, "now there's one less to worry about. No sense crying over spilled duergar, my dearest Gale.”
Maybe if these duergar hadn’t treated their prisoners worse than animals, Gale might have felt a modicum more pity for Astarion’s victim. What that said about his own conscience was something Gale would have to wrestle with himself.
But it in no way excused Astarion’s actions. Some magistrate he must have been. “Gods, you actually believe you did us a favor, don’t you? No. Forget I asked. It’s pointless to argue ethics with you while you’re so clearly blood-drunk.”
As if the extra bounce in Astarion’s step as he kept pace with Gale wasn’t proof enough of that. Yet he insisted, “My dear, I’m happy.”
“Ghouls to ghasts. Call it what you like, it looks the same from where I’m standing.”
Without warning, Astarion grabbed Gale’s arm and dragged him off the path into a dark alcove. Gale’s heart hammered, fearing Astarion had heard or seen some new threat that had escaped his own notice.
But those fears vanished from his mind when Astarion’s mouth crashed into his. The phrase “between a rock and a hard place” never felt so fitting as where Gale found himself now, with the unyielding stone of the Underdark against his back and an equaling unmovable vampire pressed tight against his front, slowly kissing him into a state of hypoxia. It must have been the infusion of fresh blood running through his veins that lent Astarion his newfound strength, for his grip on Gale’s shirt was like a stone giant’s, and every bit as cold. He’d manhandled Gale into the corner with so little warning Gale’s feet slipped for purchase on the loose rubble, but Astarion’s thigh between his legs propped him upright with little effort.
And speaking of upright, gods was Astarion hard. His erection digging into Gale’s hip was all Gale could focus on. Wondering if it was simply the blood, the adrenaline of the kill that had brought it on, or if he was meant to take it as a more personal evaluation. Perhaps he had been too rash dismissing Astarion’s advances at the party in the druids’ grove as an insincere product of boredom.
Then Astarion forced his tongue between Gale’s teeth, and with it came the rock-salt and old-coin, sweet-in-all-the-wrong-ways taste of someone else’s blood.
Gale wrenched his head away, suppressing the urge to gag. “Gah, you taste like an abattoir!”
”At least one of us does.” And judging by the vengeful gleam in his eyes, Astarion had been looking forward to this very moment for the better part of a tenday.
Every minute shift of his weight only made Astarion’s arousal more embarrassingly apparent, and Gale was sure his own face must have been redder than a cambion in a sauna. He wished it weren’t so easy to respond in kind, but the friction of Astarion’s thigh beneath his balls was unavoidable. And entirely too tempting, considering Gale had been living like a hermit since ruining things with Mystra. But it wouldn’t do to reward Astarion for bad behavior.
“A word of advice?” Gale bit back. “You may want to wait until the end of a melee, next time you decide to treat yourself to a tipple straight from the vein. I can’t imagine you’d be able to walk straight, much less sneak up on anyone unawares in this condition.”
That earned him a bark of a laugh. “Oh, alright! No need to worry your pretty head over it, darling. It’ll go away on its own. Eventually.”
But Astarion did get the hint and remove his leg.
He was in a rare mood. “You’re not just happy.” And not just blood-drunk either, Gale would wager. “You’re absolutely soused.”
Astarion’s eyes were swimming just like they had been the morning after he’d caught a bear, although Gale had his doubts there was enough blood in a duergar’s veins to induce this level of euphoria.
“The duergar did reek of Blackstaff, now that I think about it,” Astarion said, swaying on his feet and leaning too close to Gale for his comfort. Blackstaff would have been a vast improvement over Astarion’s current stench, which had more in common with the backroom of a butcher shop. “ ‘Waterdeep in a bottle’. Huh. You know, that was going to be my nickname for you.”
“So this is what that secondhand inebriation you mentioned looks like in action. It seems I learn something new about vampires every day I spend with you.”
“Yes yes, we’re such a fascinating area of study, I’m sure. Think of all the fun experiments you missed out on by making yourself inedible.”
Gods above, Gale was never going to hear the end of that, was he? As if it was his choice to have an unstable mass of raw Weave that could level a city stuck in his chest, put there for no other reason than to torment Astarion with undrinkable blood.
“And speaking of food, I got you something. Look what the duergar had in its pockets.”
Astarion dangled his prize between them: an amulet swinging from a gold chain, like a hanged man in his noose.
Deep gnome in manufacture, by the style of the workmanship, inlaid with a particularly bloody bloodstone. No doubt the duergar had pilfered it from the pockets of one of his own victims, thrown to their death when they proved no longer useful, or possibly just for sport. The magic encapsulated in the amulet may have been powerless to save its owners, but it was strong nonetheless, refined.
And exactly what the coiled mass of primal Weave inside Gale hungered for. His heart lurched at its pull, a cold sweat breaking out on his brow. Of course, with all the excitement tonight, the thing would be as wide-awake as he was, like a restless kitten eager to sink its teeth and claws into anything that bore a fleeting resemblance to prey. Before Gale knew it the amulet was in the palm of his hand, and he with no memory of reaching for it.
Astarion thrilled at his reaction, raking Gale with his eyes so as to take in every quickened breath, every fluctuation of pupil, every leap of muscle in Gale’s jaw. Before settling on the dark ring that marked his skin like a glyph of warding, a warning, just below the hollow of his throat.
“Well? Don’t be shy,” Astarion said, his honeyed voice sinking into even darker hues than usual. “Eat up.”
Leaving Gale, who had always taken such pains to cover up the symptoms of his affliction, feeling stripped before the naked expectation in his gaze. “What, now?”
“Tit for tat, darling. I showed you mine. And I think I deserve some reassurance all the gold we’ve poured into your little problem so far has been well spent.”
Gods, Astarion was practically slavering. Just what was he expecting to see? “I’m not going to swallow it, if that’s what you’re waiting for.”
“So our Gale is a spitter! Good to know.”
“I was talking about the amulet,” Gale chastised him. “Clearly. As to the other matter, I’ll thank you to let me keep some mysteries of my own.”
But all this talk was a distraction, delaying the inevitable. There the amulet sat in his hand, waiting for him to make a decision. Gale couldn’t expect Astarion to understand his hesitation. The respective hungers that tormented them were not the same. If Gale was lucky, he still had a few days before the arcane want reared its foul head again.
And while it might be better to head it off before it arrived, and left him feverish and drained and panicked he was going to turn everything around him into a smoking crater, was it worth risking the consequences further down the road? He was already feeding the thing he called an orb with greater frequency than when it first came to him, and its power demand only increased. He feared each time he fed it prematurely, he was shortening not only the time he had between feedings, but the time he had left. How long could he reasonably expect to keep doing this?
No, that way lay madness. He couldn’t think about that, couldn’t allow himself to contemplate all that failure to satisfy the hunger might spell. As long as he had something to feed it, he was the one in control. If it only bought him a few more days at a time, then those were a few more days he was himself. A few more days of peace. Not suffering under the weight of this cancer, but enjoying the illusion of living without it.
“A little breathing room, please?”
Astarion acquiesced, backing up a step, but his stare never wavered.
Have it your way, then, Gale thought as he tugged the collar of his shirt aside. If this is truly what you want, take a good long look, because you will never see it again. He no longer cared to hide how much he loathed this perverse demonstration. What would be the point? He had the orb’s attention now. Its desires droned in his head, froze the blood in his veins, and he knew without glancing down that the ring etched into his chest was already aglow. There was no going back.
All he needed now was to let it happen. The orb’s dark, greedy tendrils pounded against the inside of his ribcage, resonating to the amulet's enchantment, liquifying it, shaking it free from its elemental bonds. Then cold searing pain as magic in its rawest form pierced his flesh and bone, becoming one with the swirling, sucking mass of blackest Weave within.
And when the pain subsided, utter bliss flooded into the void, filling his veins with all the light and power of the Weave itself. Corrupted Weave, to be sure, taking a little more of Gale with it every time it fed. But for just one moment, his nerves sang as they remembered how it felt to be with Her, enveloped in her grace. For just one moment, he was happy.
Just one moment, then he was himself once more. Ordinary, human, mortal—painfully mortal, as his thundering heart reminded him. And a fool of a wizard who was going to have to do this all over again before the tenday was up.
“Feel better?”
The touch of cold fingers against his skin startled Gale back to the present. The mark of the orb had dimmed once more, for all appearances identical to a tattoo.
Now he watched as Astarion traced its circumference, and its flames whose arcing tail flowed up Gale’s neck and to the corner of his eye. Astarion’s touch pulled away before it could get half that far, but the gentleness of it lingered like a burn. A gentleness emboldened by the Blackstaff in his veins and tinged by a curiosity it would have been crass for either of them to mention after what just unfolded, but containing . . . something more as well.
Understanding. That was what it was. There was no easy answer to Astarion’s question, but he did not need to hear one.
“Of course, you do,” he filled in Gale’s silence. “It always hurts worse to ignore it.”
Not as much as it probably should have. Not as much as Gale deserved for what he’d done. But he wouldn’t be human if he didn’t cling to small reprieves for all he was worth.
He wanted to curse Astarion for dragging him through that torture when it wasn’t necessary. For using Gale’s hunger to teach him a lesson, or indulge Astarion’s own fantasies about his affliction.
Instead, Gale dropped what was left of the amulet back into Astarion’s hand. “It’s nothing but a mundane hunk of slag now, I’m afraid, but the chain should still fetch a decent price. As for myself, I have no doubt I’ll be sleeping easier knowing the hourglass has been reset. For a little while, at least.”
“No need to thank me, my dear,” Astarion said as he smoothed Gale’s shirt back over the orb’s mark. “After all, what kind of friend would I be if I let you starve?”
Keep you fed, in other words, and you’ll make sure to return the favor. A dangerous bargain if Gale ever heard one, and he had heard plenty of those over the last tenday. But he didn’t know how he could say no to this one.
“Now, we should probably get back, before the others start to talk.”
“And I will be one step behind you,” Gale told him. “I just need a moment to myself first.”
“Of course, my friend. We wouldn’t want to be seen walking into camp together. Who knows what sort of scandalous conclusions our companions might draw.”
And just like that, Astarion’s face was fixed. The aloof smile returned, the seriousness lifted from his eyes, chin held high. A bastion of nonchalance once more, not a fetching curl out of place. All an act, of course, but a flawless one. As long as no one came close enough to smell his breath.
But for a second, before Astarion slipped away without a sound, Gale thought he caught a glimpse of genuine respect aimed his way, and it shot through him like a witch bolt.
Mystra preserve him, he could feel his resistance waning each passing day he spent in that man’s presence. Even the lifeless chill of the stone at his back, which should have been a balm, only reminded Gale of Astarion’s touch. He could only hope he found some other way to calm the hunger within him before Astarion shattered that resistance completely.