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When Halsin had ducked into his tent after returning from his jaunt in the nearby woodland with Wyll, he knew something was different. The air held an unspoken ‘otherness’.
The fact that Astarion was still sprawled out on the blankets fast asleep was a big enough tell that today their adventures would have to be placed on pause. The man laid tangled in seemingly every fabric the tent housed, a hand wrapped tightly in his blanket was tucked up against his face and Halsin could see the small damp spot forming from where the spittle gathered as Astarion held the fabric between his teeth, suckling at it while he rested.
It appears that they would be visited by an eagerly awaited young visitor that day.
It was an occurrence that Halsin had found out early in their relationship when he had come back and found Astarion in just this position. He had cared for the visitor for the couple of hours it took for his Astarion to resurface where they then had a long and eventful discussion about age regression.
The rest of them accidentally discovered Astarion’s little secret after a too long and stressful day. The boy had resurfaced again and had run out of the shared tent while Halsin had disappeared to relive his bladder. They all had accepted that this was just something that would occur from then on; reasoned that stranger things had happened and thus their resident vampire regressing a few couple hundred years was nothing.
Everyone had taken to the boy’s reoccurring appearance naturally and awaited his company ever since; much to ‘big’ Astarion’s mortification.
As it turned out, caring for a regressed Astarion wasn’t too dissimilar to caring for Astarion on any other day. Sure, they probably had to keep a closer eye on him; make sure he wasn’t trying to touch the fire or wondering too close to the lake, and the sort. But he was more than willing to continue his antics of purposely trying to get on people’s nerves and poking fun at them as far as his limited vocabulary would allow. Poor Gale was often on the receiving end of the little’s attentions. Although, the fact that he was unfairly cute may have made forgiveness that much easier.
Halsin had been trying his hardest to be quiet as he moved around the tent, fully intending to allow Astarion to sleep in for as long as his body allowed it. But at the sound of snuffling behind him clued him in to the fact he had failed.
“mmnn” A tired murmur sounds and Halsin looks down at the wide-eyed stare of the vampire.
“Good morning little love. Did we sleep well?” Halsin smiles at the sleepy grin he gets in return. The boy holds his arms up to him and Halsin would rather kick himself than deny the boy what he wants, but first, clothes.
Halsin instead crouches in front of the boy and Astarion frowns dropping his arms down as his request being denied.
“No need to pout little one you’ll be picked up in a minute.” Halsin shakes his head when Astarion’s brow furrows and he pouts, he turns to grab two soft cotten shirts and holds them up for the boy to look up.
“Blue or bats?” He asks but Astarion tilts his chin up and away, lip sticking out in defiance.
“Astarion, you can be picked up after you are dressed.”
The boy ignores him. “Well, if you don’t want to look around, you’ll miss what daddy has.”
It’s a cheap trick, but it always works. Astarion never did like being left out.
Halsin watches as Astarion huffs and dramatically looks at him, he winks once he has the boy’s attention and Astarion titters lifting his hands to his mouth.
“Are you ready to pick a shirt?”
He settles on the plain blue shirt and once dressed, Halsin wastes no time on bending down and hooking his hands in the boy’s armpits, he stands with a grunt and arranges Astarion on his hip laughing as he pats his cheek in thanks.
Before leaving, Halsin makes the quick decision to hook his foot in Astarion’s blanket and kicks it up so he can grab it, he tucks it in the space between his chest and Astarion’s stomach and steps out of the tent.
Just as Halsin expected, everyone immediately knew their Astarion had taken a mental step back and allowed the little boy to resurface.
Astarion is greeted by others in different ways as Halsin carries him through the camp to say hello.
“Good morning Astarion.” Wyll greets pleasantly as he would every morning, but the way he crouches slightly to meet Astarion’s eyes gives away the fact he knew he was regressed. Halsin liked that about Wyll, he didn’t really make a big fuss or go out of his way to interact more with the man, instead he would slightly adjust how he would go about doing so.
Shadow heart politely greets them, aiming it at Halsin more so before walking off. She was never sure how to interact with the boy, the usual banter the two held on any other day was gone. Astarion had been eager to “talk” with the cleric in the beginning, and poor Shadowheart had tried her hardest to politely escape the onslaught of nonsensical babble, backing away while Astarion was distracted. Onwards, Halsin would try to steer the boy away.
“The child is back.” Lae’zel says as greeting. Halsin hadn’t been sure of how the Githyanki would react if he was being honest. She was usually so brash and quick to dismiss any form of perceived weakness. And in the beginning, she was. Halsin had been weary of even leaving the boy in the beginning, but he had an errand to run so reluctantly he had left. Upon his return, he was greeted with the sight of Astarion sat cross legged in the dirt against her leg with her hand petting his hair as she struggled to sharpen a dagger with one hand.
Halsin looks down at Astarion when the boy squeals, eyes wide when Lae’zel bends down to greet him properly.
“Hello child.” Despite the serious voice, Astarion grins, sticking a fist in his mouth as he kicks his feet in response.
“Halsin!” The druid looks in the direction his name is called from and sees Gale rushing over, arms full of papers.
He blinks as the wizard begins rambling too fast for Halsin to follow. He thinks he catches something about druidic spells and scrolls.
“Gale, could this wait until-?” Halsin inclines his head down to Astarion and Gale’s eyes widen as if he had only just realised Astarion was there.
“Oh! Yes, of course.” He bends down to face Astarion, reaching up to pinch the boy’s cheek ignoring the way he glares. “Hello Astarion. How are we feeling to- Hey!” Gale rips his hand away from where it was resting on Astarion’s face when he spots Astarion move to try and bite him.
Halsin bites the inside of his cheek to stop the growing smile from reaching his lips.
“Now Astarion, we don’t bite.”
Astarion makes a grumbled noise and looks up at Halsin as Gale continues to try and lecture him, a finger wiggling in his face.
Halsin takes pity on him and lowers him to the floor, patting his behind and telling him to have fun.
Gale yells a quick ‘You think about what I said young man’, earning him a scowl as Astarion walks off.
Halsin watches as Astarion leaves, already knowing where he was heading.
Aside from Halsin, Karlach was Astarion’s favourite person. The large tiefling was quick to adopt the role of somewhere between mother and fun sibling to the little and always kept a watchful eye on him when Halsin couldn’t. Well, when she wasn’t too busy seeing what mischief, they could get up to while everyone else was busy.
Halsin was just glad that she could tire the boy out. Somewhat.
She looks up when she hears the shuffled feet of her temporary charge.
“Star! Come give Mama K a hug!” She greets, throwing her arms out in invitation.
She watches as Astarion’s face lights up and he all but races into her arms, stumbling along the way.
Kalrach harrumphs when his frame crashes into hers excitedly but is quick to squeeze the boy eliciting a happy squeal.
Now that the boy was in the relative safety of the Tiefling’s arms, Halsin turns back to Gale, the man still rambling about something or other.
“Unf-” Halsin grunts as a weight collides into his back almost sending his supplies flying. A hand grabs his ear, and he winces at the combination of the grip and the cackled laugh that follows.
“Hello Astarion, have you been enjoying yourself?” Halsin looks over his shoulder in time to catch Karlach’s eyes as she caught up to the boy. The woman was out of breath, a feat within itself, and Halsin knows that Astarion had to have been running circles around the Tiefling.
Halsin raises his eyebrow as Karlach folds forwards, hands on her knees as she tries to catch her breath.
“Little Man-” she takes a breath vaguely waving her hand in Astarion’s direction, the boy currently trying his hardest to put his face in front of Halsin’s for attention. “Was missing you.”
“Boy, does he get into everything- and I mean everything, Halsin. My tent looks like a rothé has trampled through it.”
Halsin smiles, nodding, “Ah yes, we are working on that habit. Astarion feels as if anything neatly tucked away is much better suited strewn out on the floor.”
Halsin lifts his arm out of the way as Astarion climbs over him, foot landing heavy on his thigh as the boy slips.
“Ack- Astarion.” He warns, hooking the spawn around the waist and pulling him into the nook his crossed legs created, Astarion squealing as he gets dragged down. “Sit still please little one.”
“I apologise about your belongings Karlach, I will get Astarion to clean them up when he resurfaces.”
Karlach laughs, waving him off, “It’s cool big guy, I can’t imagine fangs being pleased about being put on clean up duty anyway.” She watches as Halsin tips his head up and away as Astarion reaches for him, grinning,
“Looks like you have your hands full, I’ll leave you to it.”
“Enjoy the rest of your evening Karlach.”
“You too Halsin. Bye Astarion!” She waves, grinning when Astarion excitedly waves back narrowly missing Halsin in the nose in the process.
A half hour passed since Karlach had offloading Astarion on Halsin, and the boy had finally settled down, quietly sitting in Halsin’s lap as he watched his Daddy’s hand glided across the paper, leaving behind careful scratches of charcoal.
“Mmm”
Halsin blinks when a hand slaps down in the centre of his journal, his pencil hanging loosely between his fingers as Astarion takes over the page.
“Is everything alright Astarion?” Astarion’s head tips back, eyes wide and unkempt curls hanging in his face. Halsin lightly blows to move them out of the way and the action brings a bright smile to Astarion’s face and he looks away bashful.
Halsin smiles and looks around the boy sat in his lap to see his hand still planted on the journal, blocking access to what he was drawing.
Astarion hums again, tapping the page and Halsin nods in understanding.
He was curious about the man in the picture.
“That’s you Little Star.” Halsin answers and watches as Astarion tilts his head inquisitively.
Astarion pats the page again before patting himself on the chest, still staring up at Halsin.
“That’s right, it’s you.” Halsin watches as Astarion smiles again, nose scrunching and he makes a series of pleased noises as he settles down again, resting his back to Halsin’s chest content to watch his Daddy go back to drawing.
It’s not long before Halsin feels the boy’s body slump more against him, knees drawing up and forcing the journal to slide to the side as Astarion attempts to curl further into Halsin’s chest.
He sighs, balancing his journal and charcoal on Astarion’s stomach before he stands with a grunt, shifting Astarion’s weight in his arms as the boy whines before settling back down with his cheek pressed to Halsin’s shoulder.
Putting the boy down on the bedroll proved easy as he was limp in Halsin’s grasp and as soon as he hit the surface Astarion curled onto his side hand subconsciously reaching for his blanket which Halsin promptly untucked from his waistband and pressed it into the boy’s grasping fingers.
Halsin kisses his fingertips before laying them in Astarion’s curls.
“Rest easy little love.”