Chapter Text
Astarion doesn’t feel guilt about drinking blood. No, it’s what he needs to survive, and most people don’t miss it anyway. He especially didn’t feel guilt once he discovered how good it could make him feel. Years of fog had parted after drinking the blood of a thinking creature for the first time, thoughts suddenly coming rapid fire, his senses no longer clouded and dull, his mind honed to a razor sharp point.
What he does feel guilty about is the sex. Hundreds of years as a hunter, and sex was his only weapon against the citizens of Baldur's Gate. At first, Astarion tried taking them back by force, but Cazador didn’t like his meals bruised like some rattled fruit. A few weeks shackled to a wall, rats nibbling on his toes, had taught Astarion that violence wasn’t a tool available to him when bringing back prey for his master.
Of course that just left persuasion, and what easier way to convince people to follow one after dark than sex.
And so Astarion’s wretched body became a tool.
He tried to avoid using it as much as possible. He hated the nefarious weapon he’d turned into. But the risk of not bringing back a meal for Cazador was far too great. Each night, sidling through swanky inns, through the upscale fetes of Baldur's Gates’ elite, Astarion was forced to use his body as a lure; on his face, facsimile of lust and passion as he brought that night’s victim to climax. Years of refining his act did not make Astarion feel less filthy each time he did it. How could pleasure ever be anything more than manipulation? And sex anything more than a means to a vile end?
His body did not belong to himself, it belonged to Cazador, and likewise, his pleasure did not belong to himself.
But now, Astarion crouches over the sleeping body of the sweet girl, taking quiet, ragged breaths. He's absolutely blinded by thirst, with edges of his vision blurred, and his movements are twitchy and uncoordinated. Instead of quietly and discreetly sliding his teeth into her neck, his entire body jerks, and his mouth crashes into her. His hands unconsciously find her shoulder and wrist, pinning her down. Blood bursts into his mouth and, oh, gods, Astarion feels alive. And then suddenly the blood turns to ice in his mouth.
He had been thinking about it all night, you know. It wasn't an impulse, he had considered whether or not to do it. The thought of doing something for himself, of breaking Cazador’s rules sent chills down his scarred spine and clamped like a vice around his stomach. Cazador wouldn’t know, would he? Surely he was actually free of his master now. But gods, if that vile man found out that Astarion had disobeyed his orders… It was a possibility that Astarion could not even entertain, though the fear of Cazador lurking around every corner was constantly with him. He decided to believe that the tadpole would keep him safe, though his entire body was frozen with fear of the alternative.
Astarion bit her out of spite of his master, and it was his first selfish act in 200 years.
But now he realizes, through the pleasure of the blood, and through the ice of his nervous system, that his meal is wriggling.
And, shit, all of the experiences in his body are colliding all at once. He drinks, and his thoughts sharpen and become clearer as the drudgery of processing stimuli is lifted. And as his brain clears, the thoughts of Cazador finding him and knowing that Astarion has broken his rules become sharper—razor blades swirling around his mind and cutting and slashing his mind. The ice in his veins freezes thicker, and acid prickles on his tongue and sours the blood in his mouth. Astarion jerks back from her body, but not because he cares about her wellbeing. His muscles have seized. and he can’t swallow. The blood gurgles in his mouth and drips down his front. His heart, though it hasn’t beat in two hundred years, feels as though it’s turned to iron, a dead weight in his chest.
Astarion’s brain lies to him: Cazador knows; Cazador found out that he drank human blood. He is sure he’s come to his end, his true death. Astarion’s eyes widen as he frantically scans the dark of the camp for his master.
Astarion isn’t just scared, he’s mortified, he’s filled with dread and doom and horror.
“..the fuck—“
He gasps and sputters, spitting up blood, and thoughts of pain pain pain torture darkness isolation control pain pain flood his mind with frightening clarity. Astarion looks at the girl with such fear in his eyes that her anger and confusion find themselves joined by pity.
Astarion stumbles backwards out of his crouch, nearly crawling back to his own tent, the only thing nearby which provides any semblance of safety to him. He shakily lowers himself to his bedroll. He can’t control his body, his mind is taken over by blackness. he runs his hands up and down his arms, seeking comfort, but finds that his hands can only twitch and lurch uncontrollably.
He can’t stop scanning in the dark, convinced that his master’s cruel eyes will appear at any moment, come to snatch him away from his newfound freedom, as if his excursion outside of Baldur’s Gate had been a sick, highly-engineered bit of torture.
He is as scared as he’s been on the worst nights with Cazador. and maybe more.
What in the seven hells is happening to him? Does Cazador know? Cazador knows. Cazador knows. Cazador knows. Astarion has broken his rules. Astarion will be punished.
The thoughts spark a fresh wave of icy fear as he succumbs to full-body shivers.
Eventually, Astarion doesn’t know if it’s minutes or hours, the time between spasms lessens and his nails unbury themselves from his palms.
His thoughts clear to a clear inky black, a void that leaves him nothing else to do but enter a trance until daylight rouses him.