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Astarion wants something from you.
He's not exactly obvious about the fact. You're just generally good at deducing his behaviors. Not exactly a second sense-- more like a gut feeling. A gut feeling that lurched as he draped himself over you from behind and mumbled,
"Up to anything interesting, my sweet?"
You wanted, desperately, to ask him the same thing. "Just watching the fire."
"Must you?"
"I must."
"Ugh. How utterly boring." He sighed, ticking your ear with your curly black hair. "Brooding, thinking. So banal."
"It's my brooding and thinking that prevents us from dying."
"Do keep telling yourself that."
His arms tightened around you. He was being touchy. And so, given the man was unusually generous with his affections recently, you determined that Astarion--who dodged every healing hand offered to him, who hissed and snapped don't touch me at anyone within arm's reach-- wanted something. Nay, he wanted something very, very much.
"How are you doing?" you asked, turning your head until you could rest your eyes in the crook of his neck.
"Hm? Oh, I'm fine, my dear. Was just curious. You don't... happen to have any plans for the evening. Do you?"
You frowned. You had a few things to do. Namely, sharpen steel and wash your armor. Blackened guts of the Shadow Cursed undead did not make for a pleasant next-day smell to your armor. Or you, for that matter.
"I wish I didn't. Mostly just housekeeping," you admitted. "Better clean viscera off my armor. Been putting it off since we got back from the outpost."
You felt Astarion tense. If he weren't draped over you like a vampiric cloak, you wouldn't have noticed. But he was, and you knew him well enough now to feel it when he started to draw away.
"Ah. Of course," he said, almost as if to himself. He left you, and you instantly loathed the cold air that took his place. "I-- well. Should've expected that."
"Tomorrow night--"
"No worries, my dear. I'll be busy with tomorrow night's adventuring party, scavenging ruins for coin. Hardly anything to eat around here. It's expensive to have to rely on trade with our friends in that doomed Harper caravan. Not to mention embarrassing."
Resisting the urge to groan and grab him by the shoulders for a good shake was monumentally difficult. "Astarion."
Turning to look at him didn't help you understand what had just happened at all. His eyes were glimmering amber, his smile wavering yet true, and his posture was entirely relaxed. You couldn't read him hardly at all, but you could feel tension between you. Something had shifted in him.
You decided just to be direct. "Did I do something wrong?"
"Of course not."
"You're acting strange."
A muscle in his jaw jumped. "Strange?"
"Like you want something."
"I always want something, darling. I'll give you three guesses as to what that is. And the first two don't count."
At that, he turned and swanned off, leaving you in a world of confusion and something adjacent to frustration. Astarion was difficult enough to puzzle out when he was in one of his regular moods. This was a whole new minefield.
--
After that, Astarion found every excuse to be near you and every last reason not to tell you why he suddenly wanted you physically around him.
He glued himself to your side when you trailed behind your other companions to get a look at some interesting ruins. He followed you to your tent that evening, too, and when you asked him if he wanted to come inside, he declined with some half-decent excuse.
His fingertips brushed your knuckles at every damned opportunity, whether it was handing him a bit of gold you'd plundered to help him pay for food, or simply him speaking to someone else while you stood next to him.
Once, just after fighting off a horde of crows, he even wiped at a drop of blood drawn from a talon across your cheek. Didn't even lick it off his thumb. He seemed too unwilling to let you go, to stop holding you.
It was nice, sure. You did genuinely like him, and you wanted to respect him. He had already told you he wasn't interested in sex, given all he had endured and suffered. That he thought even a small bit of hand-holding was nice.
So why in the nine Hells was he constantly touching you?
--
You finally reached the limits of wondering in silence when you explored the house of healing, a ghastly hospital nestled in an old church. He practically plastered himself to your back on the lift taking you up a floor after your party dealt with Malus Thorm and split to cover more ground before returning to camp.
You paused before the arched entrance to a gloomy, eerily-lit library. He was so close to you that you could practically feel the anxiety pouring off of him, even through your steel and his leathers.
"Astarion."
"Yes?"
"You're very close."
He stepped away from you, leaving a forearm's width between the two of you. When he made to stride past you, you held your arm out, giving him pause. Despite that he could surely tell you were studying him, he kept his gaze averted to the other side of the lift.
"Is something wrong?" You asked gently.
"No. Or, nothing much." He shifted anxiously from one heel to the other. "Just... those women. The nurses. They reminded me of..."
Himself, you assumed. It wasn't hard to guess.
He shook his head slightly and pushed past you.
"Nevermind."
--
You retired to your tent early that evening, intent on reading a few of the books you rescued from the rotting upper floor of the church. You lit candles, adjusted your cushions and fur, before settling in for a long night of reading by flickering dim light.
You didn't get more than a quarter of a chapter into the book before a pale hand parted your tent flap from the wall. The motion drew your attention just as Astarion let himself inside, unannounced and--
He rubbed at his cheek, smearing glittering tears away.
"Oh," you said intelligently.
"Shut up," he muttered. He crawled over to you, lacking grace and form. "Not another word."
Before he buried his face in your chest, you saw his eyes were over-bright, and his cheeks were an unusual blush pink, shining wet. Your arms came up around him, holding him to you as his body shook against yours.
He was not loud. That didn't surprise you, however it did make you want to murder anyone who might've caused the vibrant and finicky personality of his to all but disappear when in crisis. The silence in your tent, broken only by his occasional shivering inhalations, felt about as wrong as the deadly curse outside.
Still, you didn't utter a word. Though unsure of why he was here, and not hiding somewhere safe and secluded as his behavior indicated he might have otherwise, you tried very hard to pretend all of this was perfectly normal.
Except it wasn't.
Have you ever seen him cry before? You didn't think so. You couldn't see him now, really. Just his curly silver hair, which you wanted to bury your face in (but didn't dare).
You didn't want to pry. He told you not to talk.
So, you picked up your book and began to read again. You rubbed his shoulder absently, only stopping to turn the page.
Eventually the shaking stopped. His breathing evened out, and his body incrementally relaxed. You only noticed halfway through the second chapter because Karlach started guffawing outside of the tent. On her way to the fire for supper, no doubt.
It was on page eighty-two that he said,
"You make a lovely mattress."
You huffed a laugh, hand pausing its idle petting. "Thanks."
"You're just very sharp in some places."
"Mhm."
"Will you put that blasted book down?"
You closed it, dogearing the bottom corner with your thumb, and wrapped your arms fully around him.
He swallowed, then relaxed against you. You could practically hear him thinking something over. With him it was always best to be indirect, and let him bring up difficult subjects, you learned. Besides, you weren't one to cause more pain where you could help it. If he wanted to avoid things, that was usually fine with you, so long as he wasn't trying to crawl into your armor like he had been recently.
You didn't mind. Quite the opposite. But you did worry for him, and his behaviors were confusing you. He didn't want to be touched and usually didn't invite it. Now, however... you weren't sure what to make of him.
"You know," he began, a hint of a smile in his voice. "I found a little betting pool in the church. Apparently, someone sticking something unlikely up their arse is a common medical phenomenon."
You groaned. "Oh, Gods. Why doesn't that surprise me."
"Mm, it didn't particularly shock me either. I was rather tickled by their perverse guesses. Girls after my own heart, it seems."
Something shifted in him. Whatever it was that changed made the tent seem colder as he continued on,
"Just... made me realize, before they gouged their own eyes out of their sockets they were probably very sweet. Made me wonder what Dal might've been like. What I would've been like, before Cazador turned me into a monster. The thought that I could've had my own betting pool on what crime I'd hold judgement over, amongst my colleagues or my friends. Gods, can you imagine? Me, having real, honest-- well, perhaps not entirely honest-- friends. And a career. Something outside of..."
He took a shuddering inhale. "Outside of dooming sweet girls to a painful death. Not as painful as a stabbing, mind. But still. Painful enough for there to be screaming. And a lot of pleading."
Your heart ached as he concluded, very softly,
"I'm not sure which was worse."
You twisted a strand of his soft silver hair around your finger, and when that wasn't enough, you carded through his hair. You wished he'd never been turned. Wished those two hundred years were filled with sunlight, laughter, and high society soirees. Wished that his age showed not through his cruel indifference and clenched teeth, but instead through laugh lines and satisfaction.
"I am sorry." You knew your words wouldn't convey exactly how you felt, but you still tried to make him feel less... devastated. "I should have you know I'd wanted to strangle nearly every young girl who approached me, back when I was still at home."
He scoffed a slight laugh. "I do pity you. Though the dying gets old rather quickly. Of that I can assure you."
With his ensuing silence you assumed you'd said something too light, and instantly regretted what you said. You made to apologize. He spoke before you could.
"I... don't deserve this," he whispered. "This gentleness."
"Because you consider yourself a monster? Or because the world hasn't been kind to you, and you can't trust a gentle hand."
"Both, perhaps?"
"I was too forward."
"No. You-- I'm glad you spoke your mind."
"Truly?"
Astarion hummed and readjusted, propping his cheek on intertwined fingers to look up at you from under dark eyelashes.
"I am of a world leagues different from yours. From anyone's. How I am shouldn't come as any surprise to you."
He had a beauty mark below his eye. You adored it. In fact, you adored him. You reached out and pressed your knuckle to that mark, making his brows furrow and his lips purse in a pout.
"How can you be a monster and be such a lovely person at once?" You wondered, tracing over the sharp edge of his cheekbone. "You're so talented."
"Horrible."
"Horribly talented."
"Darling, you aren't going to convince me I'm not. I've killed people for knowing far less about me."
"I'll consider myself unfathomably lucky, then," you conceded, tucking a loose strand of hair behind his ear.
He sighed, put-upon, but allowed the gentle tracing of that very same strand. He seemed to be feeling better, which made you smile, and him grow suspicious. Before he could accuse you of being strange or gawking, you said,
"I'd happily die with your teeth in my throat."
A genuine laugh was startled from him, followed by a look you could only describe as fond. "Don't tempt me. It's already difficult enough, not draining you dry. No need to appeal to my baser instincts."
You desperately wanted to appeal to his baser instincts, but you did not say that, considering you didn't want to make him uncomfortable. Bringing up even the vague idea of sex wasn't something you wanted to do for fear of putting any pressure on him. You simply slid your hand to the back of his neck, scratching through his soft silver hair. His eyes slipped shut with a flutter, as if against his own designs.
A silly, romantic part of you hoped he might fall to trance. The other sensible part knew he likely wouldn't in any environment aside from that of his own tent. Didn't stop the first part from hoping.
With a sigh, you got comfortable with him half-splayed over your chest, shutting your eyes against the flickering of candles burning down.
--
When you woke, there was a heavy weight on your chest. You sighed, happy not to be alone, growing happier still as you realized there was a man lying on you-- the elf who came to you last night, shaking with grief, had fallen into a trance after all. It was still dark, and dawn was far off if lack of Lae'zel's rustling, creaking, and sword-thumping morning routine was any indication. Most of your companions rose before dawn as a result, Gale among the last to wake with the rising sun. You had a feeling Lae'zel made a ruckus on purpose.
A soft sound and tilt of Astarion's chin drew your attention to him. His arms had gotten tangled around and under yours, his cheek on your chest instead of his knuckles. He blinked sleepily, another rumble in his chest you were now certain was not purposely made.
You untangled an arm from his and caught his hand in the process, still curled from trance. You ran your thumb along the bones in the back of his hand, realizing for the first time his skin was rather soft. His palms were calloused from dagger-wielding and lock-picking. You wouldn't have his hands any other way, and slid his hand fully against yours, palm to palm, skin catching.
Gods, you loved his hands.
You loved him.
Oh.
Oh, shit.
"How romantic," he mumbled, not bothering to lift his head.
You swallowed as your face flushed. "Did I rouse you?"
"Mm. Your heart was beating faster."
You held your breath as he paused.
"Darling?"
"Sorry. It must be loud."
"It's..." He made another sound. Deeper. Considering.
He rolled fully atop you, heavy in his strength. He pushed his forehead into your neck, using his knee between your legs to propel himself up, graceful as any cat.
"Warm, darling," he whispered, the words tickling your throat. "You're rather warm."
"I just... realized something."
"Oh? What's that?"
"I like your hands."
Oh for the sake of the ninth Hell. There was damning silence in your tent. You were helpless to do anything about it. Helpless, until Astarion twined his fingers in yours.
"Is that all you like about me?"
"Astarion, I'm not trying to come on--"
"I'm not worried about that," he interrupted. "Your heart is racing and you're flushed. It's as if I've caught you doing something you shouldn't, but all you were doing was..."
The damning silence returned.
"Astarion."
"Yes?"
Oh Gods. He knew. He knew, because he was quiet, and you had just chased him away with one stupid confession.
"It's not what you think," you nearly pleaded.
"And what is it I'm thinking, love."
You opened your mouth to reply, but the endearment stopped you. You weren't sure what game he was playing, now. He knew, and he wasn't leaving. He was still vampiric deadweight over you. Deadweight you wished would never leave, but feared would dash out into the night, never to be seen again.
"You're very clever," you said, conceding the game before it could go any further.
"No need to sound so morose," he propped himself up over you, one of your legs between his, elbows up against your ribs. "I don't need a brain to deduce what's going on with you."
He slotted the hollow of his hip along your cock, and you jumped-- "No-- that's not. Gods, Astarion. I'm taking what you said about sex very seriously. I wouldn't ask anything of you that you do not--"
"And what if I do."
"What if--"
You stopped, unsure if you heard him correctly.
"On my terms." There was not a hint of uncertainty in his voice. With his dark eyes he traced the curve of your ear, down to your jaw, contemplative. "If I asked something of you, on my terms, would you indulge me?"
You were helpless to do anything but indulge him. You gave him one, short nod.
"Good," he said.
He leaned in, closer to you, as if thinking to kiss you.
No, actually, that's exactly what he was thinking. Whether or not he was actually going to do it, well. You left it up to him. It was all on his terms, as he came closer, hesitant or enjoying the anticipation of the moment, both, you weren't sure. Your noses brushed and he gasped, just enough for you to feel it against your stomach, feel the air vanish between you.
His lips brushed yours. Even that slight touch electrified you. He pressed in for a chaste kiss, then pulled away just far enough to still be so, so close.
For a moment you both were still. A precipice before the dizzying jump. You wondered if he'd fall, for all of that moment.
Then, in a quick, nervous movement, he slipped back in against you, as if he couldn't believe you were real. He kissed like you might disappear. His hand caught your cheek, thumb running along your jaw-- you held on to his waist and slid your hands inwards towards his spine.
He broke only to gasp, "Keep them there, don't move."
"Your terms," you whispered before he captured you in a burning, desperate kiss.
You could kiss him until dawn, and beyond. Through Lae'zel hissing at you through the tent wall to get up, through Gale puttering about for breakfast. You could have him like this against you while the world ended and nothing would draw you away from him.
He separated from you with a gasp, breathing hard, and you broke your promise just slightly to rub your thumbs around the lower muscles in his back. He groaned, lashes fluttering.
"Too much?" You asked.
He shook his head once, curls hiding his eyes. No. Not too much. "Just-- any further up. I only feel the ghost of touch. It's maddening."
The scars. You hummed, understanding. You had a nasty one on the back of your arm from the goblin camp and some delayed healing. Every time your clothes brushed against it, it twinged and itched. You could only imagine what his back felt like, even if he was used to it.
"Thank you," he said. "For indulging my... well. I'm not quite sure what that was, exactly."
"Please don't thank me." You slid your touch down towards his sacrum, smoothing tense muscle, but no lower. "Too far?"
"No. That's-- Gods, that's..." He hid his face in your shoulder. "Yes. More of that."
You gave him more, and curiously wondered if he didn't even know he wanted it to begin with, but now was more than happy to arch into your touch and make soft, satisfied sounds in his chest. You were less aroused and more... content. Warm. Simply because he was happy, arching his back into your hands, rolling his hips forward into yours--
Astarion gasped as you did.
You paused, as did he.
"Enough, for now," you said, patting his lower back. "I can always do this again for you later."
"It's..."
He swallowed. Nervous. He was nervous. Gods, you were nervous, too. You didn't want him to feel like you wanted to arouse him. You actually hadn't meant to, all you had wanted was to touch him.
"I'm sorry," you began, but he stopped you with another slight roll of his hips.
"Fuck, I-- I want more."
"Astarion," You held him by the hips but he pressed a kiss to your neck and your argument nearly abandoned you. "I know this is what you want now, but in a few moments-- in a few moments you might not. And I don't want to hurt you."
He stopped moving, nose pressed into the crook of your neck.
"The absolute last thing you are doing is hurting me," he sighed. "I am not known for promises, but this? This I can promise. What's an accidental climax in the early hours of the morning between lovers, anyway?"
"I only want it to be you, then," you told him, unable to hide your smitten amusement, running your fingers up and down his lower back. "You will have your accidental climax in the middle of the night. And tomorrow we can go back to being ourselves. As you wish it."
"I..." he did think about it, and in between his breaths you held yours. "Yes."
"Yes," you agreed. You paid attention to his body, gentling your touch along his spine, splaying your fingers so you might warm him more.
He arched his back, cock pressing into the dip of your hipbone, lips gracing your neck in a silent gasp of pleasure. You continued diligently touching his back, never staying too low for long before drawing back up again, never above the dip of his spine.
"When I-- when I come from this, you musn't tell anyone."
"I won't tell a soul."
He nodded sharply and shivered against you. You tilted his chin up to catch him in a kind, slow kiss as he chased his orgasm. Another, then another-- you lost count of how many times you kissed. Gods, you loved him. You loved the short, uncoordinated jerk of his hips, the throb of his cock through your nightclothes, the softness of his lips and above all you adored how sweetly he desired you.
His demure relationship with pleasure was one you'd keep protected and safe between you. You consumed his open-mouth panting, the sounds that spilled from him in uncontrolled, messy satisfaction as he found completion and shattered.
You held him to you, hands splayed over his lower back, as his hips slowed and his breathing calmed. He moaned, long and low, properly sated, as you pressed kisses to his brow and his hair.
"Beautiful," you whispered. "Astarion, I--" Your tongue tied itself in knots around the word you wanted to say. "You're wonderful."
He giggled. Actually giggled.
You brought your hand up to scratch through his hair, and he sighed heavily, completely boneless over you.