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Ketheric was dead. Their little band of heroes had survived, just about, and, after dragging themselves from the hell-hole that was Moonrise Towers, they had collapsed at camp for a night’s rest before their onward trudge towards the city. Gale was staring rather pensively at his sack of cooking supplies, which someone had abandoned near the fire, but Astarion shot out a hand to stop him before he could make for them.
‘Darling, I rather think that this lot can fend for themselves for one night,’ he muttered, pulling the wizard back towards the log they had both slumped on. Reluctantly, Gale let himself be moved, glancing up at Astarion with a sheepish but accepting smile.
‘I suppose so,' he said with a a sigh. 'Tent assembly should probably be a higher priority,’ he muttered, stretching out his shoulders and then starting to stand up and move away once more, this time towards an empty space a little way from the others’ slowly rising structures.
Once again, Astarion stopped him.
Something had happened in that tower, and down in the colony below it. Something that made the idea of Gale being more than a few steps from him make Astarion’s skin crawl. When the man looked up at the elf with a questioning expression, glancing pointedly down at the pale fingers gripping his forearm rather more tightly than could ever be deemed casual, Astarion swallowed and cleared his throat with a shrug.
He looked around them. Wyll had quickly made up his tent and then disappeared into it, no doubt pondering his father’s fate. Halsin had disappeared back to the inn on some personal business, but had promised to return as soon as he could. Karlach was angrily setting up her own little sleeping quarters, muttering under her breath just as she had been since she laid eyes on the Banist politician. Shadowheart and Lae’zel were quietly talking some way from them, likely debriefing after their stint in Shadowfell, which had been a day or so ago, but it felt like there had not been a moment to breathe since. While they were all clearly occupied, they were also perfectly well within sight, meaning that Gale and Astarion were also in theirs.
No one was looking at either of them, but Astarion felt watched in his very bones, like there were eyes on him from every direction. Without a word, he squeezed Gale’s arm and stood up, dragging the protesting wizard behind him as he marched away from the main camp and off into the tree line.
‘Astarion, what are you- ow, shit!’
‘Pay attention, wizard,’ Astarion muttered, but picked a more careful route through the undergrowth anyway.
‘I can’t see, Astarion!’ Gale, petty human, protested.
‘Put the damned ring I gave you on then,’ Astarion hissed back, not slowing down as he beelined for a small clearing he’d found some nights earlier. Space, that was what he needed. That would fix whatever this was – space, and his wizard.
‘Where are you taking me?’ the man asked, more curious than alarmed by the hungry bloodsucker dragging him through pitch-black, cursed woodlands. Astarion liked it when Gale was interested in things he really ought to run from. It felt like trust. It also made him want to shake the idiot, but that was the lesser of the two feelings.
‘Just keep up,’ he muttered back. ‘It’s not far.’
At that, Gale, in a highly uncharacteristic move that would have worried Astarion if he didn’t know how exhausted the man was, kept quiet and allowed himself to be guided through the trees and bracken.
When they arrived at the clearing, Astarion cleared his throat and waved an arm.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘We’re here.’
‘And here is where exactly?’ Gale asked, a trace of amusement in his voice, still facing a little to the right of where Astarion was standing, his eyes unfocused and squinting in the darkness.
Astarion looked around them. It was a reasonably nice clearing, or at least it was for the shit-show that was the Shadow-Cursed Lands. The grass underfoot was quite soft, the trees lining the small area were less menacing than many of their cousins that he had seen of late, and the stumps that littered the ground were only half-rotted and did not have any mysterious mushrooms growing out of them. This did not mean that Astarion had any words beyond here with which to describe it in his current state. Certainly, none that might make Gale inclined to stay.
Presumably taking his silence for the uncertainty that it was, Gale muttered something and flicked his hands upwards in a complicated gesture. Several orbs of light began to circle them overhead, lending a soft glow to the region.
‘Are you going to have to do that every minute?’ Astarion asked with a raised eyebrow. He’d decided that this particular spell was a largely useless one.
‘Until you build us a fire, yes,’ Gale replied, choosing a stump to settle on. ‘I assume you wanted us to linger out here for a little while, and otherwise I’m likely to freeze off some vitals.’
If anyone else had said it, Astarion would have scowled and shot back something about the petty troubles of the living being none of his concern. Alas, his wizard looked particularly soft in that moment. The man was tired, with shadows beneath his eyes, and his horrible purple robe was stained and rumpled. However, he was still not irritated or afraid. Gale chose a stump, dusted it off, and sat down to watch Astarion stalk the nearby area, collecting sticks and logs and tossing them onto a pile at Gale’s feet. He watched him with a fond smile and a faint shiver, which only made the vampire work faster. Not that he would have admitted it.
It wasn’t that he wasn’t tired. Astarion was - good gods, he was. The rest of the Gauntlet had been exhausting, the attack on the inn had been enraging, their climb up Moonrise Towers had involved rescuing far too many gnomes for his liking, and had then also seen him harassed by a drow with a fang fetish – and none of that was to mention the horrors of the Mindflayer colony that lay beneath it.
But throughout all that, there had been Gale. He’d been the only reason that Astarion hadn't left the little bastards there to rot, the only reason that the drow had eventually backed off – with a bloodied nose at that! – but he’d also been the reason the lot of them had very nearly not walked away again, which Astarion wasn't sure the rest of their little adventuring party had noticed.
All their talk of him deciding not to blow himself up, no matter what the divine bitch-face herself said about it, had nearly gone out the window. Astarion had seen it in the man’s eyes as he’d stared at that enormous aberration underneath the tower.
So, Astarion resolved that he'd gather all the damned firewood that the wizard needed and keep him in sight at all times, just until he could trust the idiot not to go chasing down the big brain and try to explode himself at it after all, leaving Astarion, cold, hungry, and alone, to deal with the pitying glances of the others. Not to mention that he'd be, you know, dead. Which would be miserable.
At this thought, Astarion gave himself a little mental pat on the back. He felt that it had almost been a relatively normal and healthy feeling to have, and he'd even gone and thought it. Well done him!
Pondering this, Astarion assembled an impressive hoard of firewood and then returned to Gale.
When the man looked up at him with yet another question on his face, Astarion tutted at the slowness and wiggled his fingers mystically.
‘Are you going to light it then, or do I need to go looking for flints too?’ he drawled.
With a smile and a flick of his fingers, Gale sent a bolt of flame into the pile, and it began to smoulder promisingly between them. He watched as Gale let out a breath of relief, and the tension in his shoulders dropped a little as he stared into the flames.
‘Better?’ Astarion asked quietly, coming to sit on the stump beside him. There wasn’t quite enough room for both of them, but he made it work.
‘Much. Thank you,’ Gale muttered, one of his hands flinging out to grab at Astarion’s knee and squeeze. Up above, the orbs of light fizzled out, and Gale relaxed a little more, leaning on Astarion’s shoulder, a warm and reassuring weight against him.
‘Thank you for helping me with the gnomes,’ he added after a moment. ‘I know you aren’t their greatest fans-’
‘I would have let them rot and been happy about it,’ Astarion replied plainly. ‘But you were quite determined. Thank you for dealing with the blood-freak.’
At that, Gale winced.
‘Not my finest moment,’ he groaned, flexing his hand and examining the bruised knuckles in the firelight.
‘On the contrary, darling,’ Astarion said, turning so his lips brushed Gale’s ear as he spoke. ‘You were magnificent.’
At that, Gale snorted and shook his head, swatting at Astarion’s knee again blindly. However, this did little to disguise the faint shiver that ran through him, which plainly had nothing to do with the cold.
‘You, my friend, are a terrible influence,' he murmured through a soft chuckle.
‘Your friend?' Astarion shot back. 'I thought we’d moved past all that nonsense,’ he teased, some of his own tension seeping away as they fell into a familiar patter of bickering and chatter.
Gale hummed thoughtfully and tilted his head to rest on the vampire’s shoulder, the column of his neck stretched out and tempting, just a few short inches away. Astarion wrapped one arm around Gale’s back and let his hand rest on the man’s shoulder, one finger trailing small figure-eights over the soft skin there.
‘You’re certainly my something,’ Gale replied. ‘But I like to think you remain a friend despite what else you may have become.’
‘A friend you still almost turned into a smoking crater earlier today,’ Astarion muttered back, but regretted it the moment that tension returned to Gale’s shoulders.
But, when he glanced down at the man’s face, it wasn’t regret or shame or any of the other emotions he had expected. Instead, Gale was looking at him with a look of pure offence.
‘You thought I was going to do it?’ Gale asked. ‘With you there in the firing line? All of you? You truly thought there was a chance that I’d do it, after everything?’
Astarion frowned, replaying in his mind the way Gale’s eyes had glazed as he’d seen the creature, the way his breath had hitched. He’d taken it, at the time, to be doubt or anticipation. He supposed that it could have been something else. Astarion narrowed his eyes and considered the possibilities, a slow realisation dawning on him as he saw the conflicting emotions in Gale’s face now. He remembered the crackling of magic and power in the air around the brain – specifically around the crown that topped it. He remembered the word that Gale had breathed out as he saw it. Karsus.
‘Gale, my darling,’ he began, a smirk overtaking his own features. ‘Were you pondering something else when you looked at that enormous, ugly brain-monster? Were you thinking about the great Gale of Waterdeep, by chance?’
The wizard had the good grace to look ashamed, which was a pity, really. The idea of that crown on Gale’s head – though it might need resizing – and all that power crackling around Astarion's wizard, well. It was doing things to him.
‘It was a fleeting thought,’ Gale muttered, turning back to look into the flames. ‘Not one I’d seriously consider.’
‘Whyever not? Omnipotence would look rather good on you,’ Astarion all put purred in his ear, failing to stop the grin that spread over his face at the little shiver it elicited.
Gale chuckled and shook his head, glancing up at Astarion with a fondness that the vampire wasn't sure anyone had ever shown his way before. Perhaps there had been a family, once, who'd glanced at him with a soft smile like that, who'd ruffled his hair and teased him. If there was, he didn't remember it.
‘Fine,' Astarion continued with a sigh. 'Perhaps all that magic would just go to your head. It likely would mine,’ he added with a slight scowl. It was probably for the best that the rest of the group were against using the tadpoles too much, even when it would make their lives easier. The little taste of power it gave felt almost addicting to Astarion, who had craved even an ounce of the stuff for as long as he could recall.
‘You give yourself too little credit,’ Gale replied, his own arm snaking around Astarion’s back and pulling him in closer. ‘My arteries can attest to that – I’ve been in your head, remember. I know what that hunger feels like. If it were me, I’d be sneaking bites out of everyone I walked past,' he added with an almost wistful sigh.
‘Well, you’re a glutton,’ Astarion muttered dismissively, ignoring how tempting that idea sounded and instead rummaging in his pockets for a moment. With a hum of triumph, he pulled out a couple of handfuls of assorted pilfered items, among them a hunk of bread and a wedge of cheese. ‘Speaking of, eat something.’
‘Thank you,’ Gale said again, taking the food but pointing at something else in Astarion’s little hoard. ‘Don’t wear that,’ he said through a mouthful of bread.
‘This?’ Astarion asked, holding up the ring to the light of the fire. The golden band glinted around embedded amythests. Something in his elven blood felt the faint thrum of magic in the metal, but there were no ominous tinges to the sensation. ‘It looks harmless enough,' he said, tossing it up and catching it deftly.
Gale, however, shook his head as he chewed.
‘Too risky. It was with Araj’s wares, wasn't it? I noticed it at the time. I do hope you didn’t buy it, because it’ll take just as much as it gives. The harder you'll hit, the harder they'll hit you back,' he explained, taking it from Astarion's open palm. Would he have allowed anyone else to take something from his collection? Not without a little drawn blood first, that was for certain.
‘I took it when she was looking for something to bleed into,' Astarion said with a smile. 'It really was quite the punch.’
‘Good,’ Gale said, and then tossed the ring into the fire. A little flare of annoyance rose in Astarion's chest, but it hardly even reached the level of his generalised anger at the world. He had plenty of slightly magic rings in his pack back at camp. He had one more in his little hoard from today. Instead, Astarion watched Gale's fingers as they flexed again at the memory of his rare display of physicality. ‘Blood magic’s always felt a little tasteless to me,’ he grumbled after a moment's thought.
‘I’m afraid I’ll have to disagree with you there, darling,’ Astarion said in his best drawl, his fingers returning to their spot at the juncture of Gale’s neck and shoulder as the man laughed. It was a brighter noise this time, as though a weight had been lifted.
‘Very good, well done.’
‘I certainly thought so.’
‘Though, I’m afraid if you’re angling for a bit of dinner yourself, I’m not sure we’ve any potions left, and I doubt you want to be carrying me on the road tomorrow.’
‘I’ll live,' Astarion reassured him. Then, after a thought, he added: 'Well, sort of.’
‘Pity really,’ Gale said, ignoring the terrible joke and tugging Astarion a little closer. ‘Wouldn’t mind a little of your magic venom right now,’ he teased, and Astarion raised an eyebrow.
‘Now who’s angling for something?’ Astarion said, but when he glanced over at Gale, the man looked genuinely confused. Dense. ‘Gale, darling,’ Astarion began, his voice as condescending and sing-song as he could make it. ‘Do you remember your theory of where exactly that so-called venom is?’ The wizard's cheeks coloured a little, and his throat bobbed with a swallow.
‘Right. Of course. Erm-’
It was far from the first time that Astarion had kissed him, but it seemed to shut down all of Gale’s higher brain functions every damned time. Their lips met gently, cool and smooth against warm and chapped, but both so very soft. Foreheads resting together, they parted, and Astarion watched Gale’s eyes linger shut, his mouth turning up into a small but delighted smile. That wasn’t the face of a man who might be about to blow himself up, Astarion decided, nor of one who might be about to sell them all out for god-like power. So, Astarion relaxed and kissed him again.
This time, there was a little struggle between them, a crush of nose against nose, a wince-inducing clatter of teeth, and a slightly delicious mishap involving a fang catching Gale’s lip. They parted again, huffing out breathless laughter as Astarion moved to kiss Gale’s cheek and jaw, chaste, gentle presses of his lips, trailing down towards his neck, but not lingering, not nipping, no matter how much the blood pulsing beneath the skin called to him.
Soon, Astarion told his hunger. No rush, no starvation on the horizon, no need to turn into an animal. Next to him, Gale let out a content little sigh, shifting to get closer and promptly slipping from the stump, nearly to the ground if Astarion hadn’t caught him.
‘Clumsy wizard,’ Astarion chided, dragging him upright again.
‘Hardly my fault. I was distracted!’ Gale protested, about to sit back down on the stump, but hesitating, a little glimmer of something mischievous in his eye. ‘You know, I’m not sure there’s enough room for us both on there.’
‘No?’ Astarion asked, feigning innocence. ‘Perhaps you should find a more suitable seat,’ he added, smiling up at him with a raised eyebrow and spreading his legs a little wider.
He had not, in actual fact, genuinely expected the man to do it. This was why he let out such an ungainly little yelp when Gale swung a leg over his lap and settled down onto it, facing Astarion, his arms circling the elf’s shoulders, their chests pressed together, their everything pressed together, and a shit-eating grin on his face.
‘Like this?’ Gale asked. Astarion swallowed.
‘I suppose if you can’t find anything else,’ he replied as dryly as he could in an attempt to regain some dignity. His own hands came to rest on Gale’s hips – his hips which were so very close to Astarion’s own. Gale was warm, too. The vampire’s hands began, of their own accord, to work their way between the layers of Gale’s ridiculous purple robe, finding and revelling in the body-heat beneath them.
They’d kissed a fair few times, and hands had gone on little wondering journeys across torsos and even down to grope an arse here and there. Gale had moaned and writhed his way through most of their evening feeds since the moment things had shifted between them, and Astarion had loved every second of it. However, at no point had he had Gale in his lap facing him. There was something a little… different about that. Astarion felt scrutinised as Gale studied him, half of his instincts screaming at him to shy away, to push him off, to maintain his distance. This was too close, too dangerous, too vulnerable.
The other half of him preened as Gale’s fingers brushed gently through his hair, mussing his carefully arranged curls.
‘Is this alright?’ Gale asked, his voice now low and careful. Astarion nodded slightly, his hands gripping Gale a little tighter and noting the way his pulse sped up a little as they did.
When Gale ducked his head to kiss him, Astarion felt the days of stress and violence melt out of him, replaced with that pent-up ball of pressure that had built with each night spent wrapped in Gale’s arms and scent, pressed against him, his mind filled with his words and his veins with the man’s blood. It felt, in that moment, with Gale’s hands on him, thighs bracketing him, lips on his, that the dam was close to breaking.
He’d drawn it out and revelled in each moment of it, savouring each groan he’d elicited from the wizard, filing each heated look and muttered curse away for later inspection and consideration, when he had a little time alone with his imagination and his own hand.
But, after all, it had been a self-imposed period of teasing. Astarion had loved it – he’d loved feeling his own desire build after so much numbness for so long. He’d loved feeling Gale’s own desperation constrained only by his respectful awareness that sex was not exactly an uncomplicated area in Astarion’s mind and past.
So, when his hand snaked around and pulled Gale closed by the small of his back, when Gale gasped against Astarion’s mouth, when they both groaned at the first press of Gale’s cock, its slowly growing hardness hardly concealed by the loose fit of his robes and the trousers beneath, against Astarion’s, far more constrained in tight-fitting and increasingly uncomfortable leather, he knew that there wouldn't be any going back.
The fingers tangled in Astarion’s hair tightened, tugging a little against the roots as Gale’s head dropped down onto Astarion’s shoulder. He let out a shaky exhale as their hips seemed to take over without any instruction from above.
It was a slow grind: tantalising, electric, but far from enough.
‘Clothes,’ Astarion hissed ou,t and Gale nodded wordlessly into his neck, making, naturally, absolutely no effort to help with the ensuing fumble with those flaps of fabric and ridiculous toggles that kept them upon Gale’s person.
‘Stupid wizard dress,’ Astarion grumbled, and Gale let out a bark of laughter before flicking his hand in a precise but meaningless – to Astarion, anyway – manner with a mumbled phrase.
A chill ran over them both as Astarion realised they were both in nothing but underwear. He couldn’t help but laugh as he spotted the neatly folded pile of their clothing resting on another stump a few feet away.
It was just so very Gale. Impatient? Yes. Showing off? Absolutely. Completely unnecessary? Why, of course. Nevertheless, quite considerate and careful? Certainly.
‘You’re mad,' he muttered, pulling the warmth of his wizard closer and pressing a kiss to his shoulder, humming at the sparks of pleasure as Gale mouthed just below his ear.
‘You love it,’ Gale replied between kitten licks which slowly rose.
‘You know,’ Astarion began, his eyes falling shut as he let the sensations wash over him. ‘I just might.’ It had never been like this, after all. Even with the forest all around them, the cold of the air, the impending doom of their situation, the faint noise from the camp not entirely absent, he felt wrapped in a bubble of carefree peace.
And then Gale licked a strip up his ear, from lobe to tip. A trail of bursting lightning strikes followed it. Astarion's nerves lit up as they never had with a pleasure-pain sensation just on the right side of far too fucking much.
Several things happened in quick succession, and none of them felt remotely within Astarion’s control.
He let out a strange, guttural noise from somewhere in his chest, and his hips bucked up and into Gale with far more force than they had been shifting. In fact, the force of it nearly knocked Gale off his lap, and would have done so were it not for the iron grip of his hands around the man’s back.
Instead of knocking Gale to the ground, the movement sent the pair of them careening to the ground, Astarion still moaning as he landed on top of a cackling Gale with an oof.
‘What,’ Astarion demanded, ‘was that?’
Beneath him, the noise coming from Gale could only be described as a breathless cackle.
‘I read a somewhat suspect book about elf anatomy,’ Gale replied, grinning through his compressed chest and laughter. ‘I thought it was nonsense, but apparently not!’
As he propped himself up a little on one elbow beside Gale’s head, his own superfluous breathing not yet calmed, Astarion weighed up two options. He could make the man promise to leave his damned ears alone – his ears which had been poked and prodded plenty in both life and death but had never done that to him – or he could demand that he do it again, and again, until they both died of malnutrition.
In the end, his body chose for him. When Gale’s kisses began to trail from Astarion’s lips to his cheek, and then closer to their target. The man moved slowly, clearly waiting for objection or welcome. Astarion’s head moved of its own accord, turning to give him access.
This time, his tongue moved slowly over the sensitive skin. It tore another noise from Astarion, this one higher and far more embarrassing. He ground his hips forward and heard Gale swear breathlessly in his ear, the soft brush of his lips seemingly direct contact with his nervous system. In a last-ditch effort at self-control, Astarion tore himself up and away from Gale’s embrace, panting for the first time in his undeath.
‘Darling,’ he said, staring down at the delighted grin on Gale’s face, the flush that had spread all across his tempting neck and soft chest, scattered with dark hairs, the occasional silver one sparkling in the firelight. ‘If you keep doing that, I might die all over again.’
‘Too much?’ Gale asked, still grinning. ‘I’d apologise, but I’m not even slightly sorry,’ he added, smugly.
‘Yes,’ Astarion replied, ‘I can rather tell.’ He punctuated his words with a roll of his hips, which drew a gasp from both of them. With the more overwhelming sensation of Gale fellating his traitorous ear removed, Astarion was reminded of the pressing issue between them. ‘Tell me, why exactly did you leave the smalls on?’ he asked, as a slight breeze revealed to him just how damp they were becoming.
‘Felt a little presumptuous,’ Gale answered, his hands raking down Astarion’s back, leaving a trail of gooseflesh in their wake. They settled on the swell of his arse, squeezing firmly, encouraging the steady rock of their clothed cock’s together. Gods, he was so warm. Astarion rolled his eyes and fixed Gale with a stern look.
‘If you make me get up to get rid of them, I’m going to be unreasonably cruel to you,’ he warned, but the man beneath him just laughed.
‘Is that a promise, my love?’ he chuckled, and pulled Astarion back down to kiss him before the words could be processed. My love. Gale was muttering something else into Astarion’s mouth, and suddenly all words vanished. The cold and the crackling of the fire disappeared too, along with the feel of the grass and dirt beneath his knees and elbows. There was just the warmth of Gale’s body, the softness of his flesh, the hardness of his cock, the hitches in his breath, his hands urging Astarion to rut faster against him, and the echoes of Astarion’s own noises of pleasure ringing around the clearing.
Then, he felt one warm hand leave its perch and work its way between them, fingers curling gently around them both, and Astarion nearly sobbed.
Gale’s lips captured his own again in a soft kiss as his hand slowly slid over their lengths, his steady rhythm and the surprising strength of his arm around Astarion’s back all helping to calm the frantic movements of the elf.
No rush, no need to panic, not going anywhere.
Astarion let the pleasure wash over him: the soothing way Gale’s palm was pressed to his spine, the gentle slide of his hand, the way made easy by the slick that had been trapped between their stomachs, the slow tease of his tongue against Astarion’s lips, the flick of it against his fang and the sharp burst of flavour as Gale licked into his mouth. He tasted electric, like he had these last few nights together, but so much more so. It was heady and intoxicating. He felt his mouth water with the urge to bite, to sink his fangs into that soft and pliant neck, to drink until he burst from that divine mix of endorphins and pure Gale.
Next time, he told that hunger – but it wasn’t just hunger, it was desire too, and something more, some need to more than just fuck or feed from the man beneath him.
My love.
‘’Starion,’ Gale panted out in between deep kisses, his hand moving just a little faster. ‘Fuck, I’m so-’
‘I love you,’ Astarion garbled out, never before feeling his mouth quite so beyond his control – he was an artist with words, he knew that, it was the only thing that had kept him alive for this long, but something about the soft, warm, hairy, squishy and vulnerable human in his arms was turning him into a gibbering mess.
Gale’s eyes widened, and he nodded with an edge of hysteria to the movement.
‘Gods, yes, I love you too – fuck, bite me, please, would you-’
Astarion had never needed to be asked twice. A growl ripping itself from his throat, Astarion turned Gale’s head with one hand and pinned it there, his other bracing over Gale’s chest, pushing him down into the earth. It should have been mundane by now, the feeling of his fangs piercing Gale’s skin, the hot gush of blood in his mouth, but it was far from it.
A warning in the back of his mind reminded Astarion of just how exhausted they both were, how weak Gale was, how little he could do if Astarion lost control, the lack of any nearby potions to help if things went wrong, and that sensible little voice was just loud enough over the tide of GaleGaleGaleGale that was flooding the rest of his senses. In fact, Astarion had been so overwhelmed by the taste, the warmth, the satiation of something far deeper and more primal than mere lust, he’d almost missed the sharp cry from Gale’s lips as he’d bitten down, the litany of swears and pleas that had followed, the way one hand had sped up further and the other had began to scrabble at the back of Astarion’s head desperately.
When Astarion’s higher functions finally returned, he paused, tuning back into the noises around him. The hands were giving him rather different signals, after all. But Gale was not begging for mercy or trying to push him away.
‘Don’t stop, fuck, Astarion, you feel incredible – please, just a lit- gods-’
It was tempting, it was so tempting to bury his face back in that neck and give him what he wanted, to drain him until he was hardly more than a blissed-out husk – Gale wouldn’t mind, in fact, he’d love it. But Astarion pulled back with a gasp as awareness of everything that was not Gale’s taste came back to him. Weak as it was, Gale’s hand was still moving between them, still stroking steadily. The man’s brow pinched as Astarion moved away, a complaint on his lips, until Astarion kissed him again, his tongue still coated with Gale’s blood, and moved his own hand to take over between them.
Astarion wrapped his fingers around them both, feeling the heat of Gale’s cock against his own, Astarion’s skin now slightly warmed from the feed – warmed with Gale’s blood – his arousal taking over, letting his eyes fall shut as he chased the sensation building in his gut, aware that Gale’s hips were twitching beneath him with a probable attempt to do the same.
He was so close, from the surprise of it all, the comfort he craved, the realisation, the feed, not to mention the frankly astonishing feeling of someone he actually liked - let alone the rest of it - touching him, not to mention the beautifully desperate choked-off gasps from Gale. He pried his own eyes open and stared down at Gale with his jaw slack, his tongue still swiping traces of blood from his teeth, and in the face that looked back up at him, Astarion saw nothing short of awe.
My love. I love you.
It was more than just the slide of warm pressure over his cock and the ecstasy of living, breathing, thinking blood in his cold, dead veins that overwhelmed him as his head dropped down between his shoulders and a low moan was dragged from his throat.
‘Gale, fuck, darling, I’m-’
But words abandoned him again. Whatever strange metaphysical membrane had existed somewhere within him – taut and stretching with each brush of fingers, press of lips, scratch of nail against his scalp, thinning out with exquisite tension until that very moment – whatever it was, it snapped.
He felt himself lurch forward, his mouth pressed to Gale’s chest, gasping through each spasm of white-hot pleasure as he spilled over Gale and his own hand, hips still moving of their own accord in stuttering thrusts, his lips parted with wordless moans.
Slowly, the motion and sparking waves that seemed to cascade through his body stopped. Astarion let his elbow give out and let his weight fall against Gale, who grunted and huffed out a slight chuckle, his arms shakily coming up and around to encircle him.
‘If you give me a moment,’ Astarion mumbled through a mouthful of chest hair, ‘I can-’
‘Truly no need,’ Gale sighed. ‘Not sure humans my age can ever do two that quickly.’
‘Two?’ Astarion asked, peering up at him.
The man laughed again. It was a rich rumble in his chest.
‘I came the moment you bit me,’ he admitted fondly but with a hint of embarrassment, his fingers tracing slow circles into Astarion’s skin. ‘The rest was just an exceptional bonus as far as I’m concerned.’
Astarion scowled and muttered bitterly: ‘Couldn’t have waited a moment until I was coherent?’
‘I’m afraid the two may have been related,’ Gale muttered sheepishly. ‘You should have heard yourself. The noises you make when you feed,’ he sighed.
‘You should have tasted yourself,’ Astarion replied, turning his head so his ear was resting over the wizard’s heart, listening to the faint by steady thump-thump of its beat. He hadn’t even fed all that much from him, just a mouthful or two really. Enough to make him lightheaded and woozy, but not utterly useless come morning if he didn’t manage to scrounge a potion from Shadowheart or Halsin when they stumbled back to camp.
As if sensing these thoughts, Gale’s arms squeezed him.
‘Let’s stay out here. We can go back at dawn.’
‘Since when has there ever been a dawn in this blasted place?’
‘You know what I mean,’ Gale chided, then reached over to his robes, fumbling in the pile until he found a pocket, then fumbling some more.
‘What are you up to?’
‘I know you’re only interested in nature if you can eat it, I wouldn’t expect you to spend the night on the ground,’ Gale explained, making a small noise of triumph when he withdrew a little pouch. There was more fumbling and then a crunch above his head. Astarion felt small pieces of something fall down onto his back.
‘What was that?’ he demanded, but Gale just snorted as he began to mumble something incomprehensible. It went on for a little while, there was some arm waving, and he was aware of a few flashes of light. Then, rather suddenly, it stopped. As did the cold breeze that had been wafting over them. The earth under their tangled legs became smoother and more comfortable. A soft glow of light emanated from all sides.
‘Have you magicked us a tent, wizard?’ Astarion asked.
‘Hut, technically. Anyone who stumbles upon us will find a small opaque dome that they cannot penetrate.’
‘One night of hand-stuff, and he’s talking about penetration? How forward,’ Astarion muttered as he stretched out his shoulder, which was stiffening where he had collapsed.
‘Incorrigible,’ Gale replied.
‘You love it,’ Astarion shot back with a grin. ‘My love,’ he added smugly.
‘Ah,' Gale said, a pink tinge coming over his cheeks. 'You heard that, did you?’
‘And the rest.’
‘Good thing I meant it then,’ he said, his voice dropping to a whisper as he pressed a kiss into Astarion’s curls. ‘I might not know what exactly we’re doing and what it will look like after all this nonsense with the tadpoles wraps up, Astarion, but I do know how I feel about you right now, and I see no sign of it changing any time soon.’
Astarion considered this carefully, wrapping his mind around the idea.
He did, at least, believe that Gale believed it. However, he foresaw problems.
‘If we survive our trip to the city,’ he said slowly.
‘Yes.’
‘If we manage to stop the big brain from eating everyone,' he continued, still frowning into the darkness of their magical hut instead of up at Gale.
‘Not sure that’s its plan but-’
‘Shush, wizard. If we manage to save the day and get crowned heroes of Faerûn, if I manage to escape my own little situation back home-’
‘Situation?’
‘Presumably you have sensation in your fingers, Gale, which are on my back.’
There was a beat of silence as Gale's hands twitched a little, his fingertips brushing a ridge of scar tissue.
‘Well... yes. I wasn’t going to ask you about that. Thought you might tell me when you were ready,' he said carefully.
Astarion smiled to himself and rolled his eyes as he looked up at Gale, whose brow was now pinched in worry.
‘Very decorous of you, darling, and I shall,' he promised, pressing a brief kiss to his chest. Then, he paused. The man didn't even ask any follow-up questions. Astarion liked that. Trust, all this time, he'd wondered what it felt like. 'But there is, I believe, a situation attached,' he continued, thinking back to Raphael's words back at the inn. Damned slippery devil. At least he hadn't stripped Astarion publicly like he'd threatened to. 'If I manage to survive, save the day, and resolve it – there are a lot of ifs here, aren’t there?’
‘There should be a few more wes and a few less Is, too,’ Gale muttered and Astarion flapped a hand dismissively.
‘Alright, alright, if we managed to do all that, to do the, quite frankly, impossible, then I suspect I do know what this,’ he said, waving a hand over his general existence, ‘looks like.’
‘Do share,' Gale said, and Astarion could hear the smile in his voice, though he did not entirely share it. A litany of mental images from mere weeks earlier flashed through his mind.
Astarion sighed and buried his face further into the soft warmth of Gale's chest.
‘Dark,’ he grumbled, his fingernails picking bitterly at the skin around his thumb. ‘Without this damned tadpole, Gale, it’s all just dark and cold. It's tedious, and it's violent, and it's lonely. It’s really not a life at all,' he hissed, feeling his muscles contract and hating the way a mere memory of that red-eyed bastard's face could still, even miles away, even out from under his thumb, set Astarion's nerves to static and chill his borrowed blood. Even without that sadistic fucker in the picture, Astarion was still a thrall – just a thrall to his hunger and his weaknesses, if not a man. 'It's not a life, Gale, let alone one you want to start attaching yourself to.'
The wizard continued to run his hands over Astarion’s back, not hesitating in the slightest as his fingers brushed over gnarled and scarred skin. The elf gripped him all the tighter for it.
‘You know, there are months at a time,' he began slowly, 'back home in Waterdeep, where the sun hardly rises at all,’ he said. ‘They’ve always been my favourite,’ he continued. ‘The city is filled with lights and bustle from sundown to sunup. Fairs and markets are set up in every district, determined to brighten the darkest depths of the year.’ Then, with a soft kiss to Astarion’s hair, he added, ‘It's just a few months away. I’ll show you.’
Some other membrane, far, far deeper than the last, within Astarion snapped in that moment. He’d cried in that damned library trap, he’d cried in the tomb Cazador had locked him in, he’d cried a few times scattered across the centuries. But he wasn’t sure he’d ever sobbed quite like he did then.
All the while, Gale kept running his hand over his back, muttering quietly in his ear promises of candlelight, warm fires, ornate Lanceboard sets, not to mention research. There are protection spells, he explained, enchantments, rumours of vampires who could walk around at noon on midsummer's day without a care.
Astarion hardly beleived a word of it, but he did believe that Gale believed it, and that was enough to keep the tears flowing.