“Just look at them.” Astarion snorts. “Drinking and singing as though they’ve reached Baldur’s Gate already. Like dispersing the goblins means safety, when it just means they’ll be slaughtered elsewhere along the road.” He snorts. The vapid celebration annoys him more and more with each passing minute. The naive little bard with her saccharine tunes, the aged Hellrider with his fatherly concerns, the destitute refugees with their mundane hopes and dreams. Ugh.
Shadowheart swirls the wine in her cup, then sips delicately. “So, I’m not the only one doubting that they’ll make it there alive. At least, not all of them.”
“The druid knows,” Astarion says, leaning deeper into the nest of cushions the two of them built outside Shadowheart’s tent. “See how he forces himself to smile, and raises his cup to his lips but never tastes the wine?” The only moments when he seemed himself were those he spent shamelessly flirting with Talven.
Everyone, the damn dog included, is shamelessly flirting with Talven. And he flirts back, expertly. If Astarion didn’t know better, he might suspect him for a professional.
“Do you suppose he’ll leave his grove to join us on the road to Moonrise Towers?” Shadowheart asks.
It takes Astarion a moment to remember they were talking about the druid. “He left his grove to join that pitiful gang of illiterate thugs, didn’t he?”
“And look where it got him.”
Astarion takes breath to argue in favor of the obvious superiority of their party, but just then the tiefling wizard casts some obnoxiously loud, colorful cantrip to everyone’s cheers. Talven too whistles and claps, like he can’t do the same, just bigger and better, in his sleep. Then a woman—the married one—it’s always the married ones, isn’t it?—falls in his arms, laughing, and he confidently twirls her around as the crowd parts to give them room.
Astarion lifts an eyebrow.
“Where’s Wyll, I wonder,” Shadowheart says. “I’m surprised he hasn’t jumped at the opportunity to show off his own dancing skills.”
“Hiding his horns, most like.”
Shadowheart turns to look at him. “What do you mean?”
“These people revered the Blade of Frontiers,” Astarion mimes Wyll’s signature salute. “They may not recognize him in a fiend.”
“He’s not so changed that they wouldn’t know him.”
“He’s changed enough to be questioned and gawked at. The Blade might’ve enjoyed the attention. But the fiend?”
“Hm.”
The woman in Talven’s arms seems to swoon, and he sets her down gently next to her husband, who also seems to swoon. Astarion makes a mental note to watch out for Wyll, in addition to the druid, and the wizard. Not that he’s concerned. Tonight, at least, he has something none of them does. A promise.
“Say please,” Talven had said, smiling that slow, knowing smile of his. Like it hadn’t been him, practically begging for it, from the night they met. Hmpf! Cheeky little pup.
Karlach jumps at the opportunity Wyll has missed. She’s been jumping at every opportunity since they discovered that Talven can withstand brief contact with her. She offers a hand and he spins under her arm to the clapping of the crowd, then gives her a charming little bow. Her glee blazes from the vents on her shoulders for everyone to see.
“She’d better cool down before she sets the tents aflame,” Shadowheart says. “Or the whole forest.”
“She’s knocking on the wrong door.”
“How so?”
Astarion allows himself the tiniest of self-satisfied smirks. “Not his type.”
“I see,” Shadowheart says, brows rising. “Good for you, I suppose.”
But instead of widening, the smirk slips off as Astarion spies Talven walking out of the circle of torchlight towards the river. Probably in search of the hidden Blade. For a moment, Astarion’s tempted to excuse himself and follow. He could sneak through the rushes and listen in, ready to conveniently appear out of nowhere if it starts to look like Talven might forget he’s already spoken for.
“Look,” Shadowheart says, pointing towards the ruins. “That small child is making off with another bottle of wine. You don’t suppose she and the other children are… drinking it?”
“Goodness, no. That’s one of the urchins who tried to swindle us in the Grove. No doubt she’ll sell the wine back to the revelers when the barrel runs dry, or later along the road. A keen sense of commerce, that one.”
Shadowheart snorts, then leans back and produces a bottle of Amnian Dessert from inside her tent. “I meant to keep this for… later. But now I’m of a mind to open it at once. Interested?”
“About as much as you might be in a cup of blood. But I appreciate the offer.”
Hearing an edge in his own voice, Astarion forces himself to relax. Talven has said yes to his proposal, and it isn’t his way to go back on his word. So what’s with the anxiety? At most, Wyll may score a romantic little dance on a moonlit shore and a chaste kiss or two—he’s too principled to be serious competition. Yet the longer Talven stays out of sight, the more Astarion doubts himself. Is it wise to bed him? What if his interest in Astarion fades once he finally gets what he wants and then he turns it to someone else? Someone who can offer more than sex? Astarion needs Talven’s interest to endure till they get back to the city—possibly even after they have rid themselves of the tadpoles. Seducing him hasn’t been the least challenging so far, but Astarion has no idea how to go about keeping one seduced.
There’s more to it, though, now that he has poked at it. He wants this. His body hasn’t been so awake in half a century. Not since poor Darius, and Astarion had barely known him. He’s become genuinely fond of Talven—no doubt owing to the shared triumphs and dangers, but all the same. He remembers the bite with relish. How responsive Talven was. How shockingly passive and pliant, surrendering despite his fear. Astarion knows all too well the flavor of fear in the blood of victims. But he had never tasted arousal before. Now every time he allows himself to think of it, faint arousal washes through him too. A craving for more than nourishment. He thinks of their stolen kisses on the night they met, and how good he felt, if ever so briefly, and he fears this hope he’s developed, that he might find the same feeling again in Talven’s arms, will only lead to disappointment. Yet he can’t put it out of his mind. Neither the memories, nor the hope.
“It looks like Gale had a bit too much to drink,” Shadowheart says.
Looking up, Astarion finds the wizard spilling wine all over Talven’s hand, trying to fill his cup. The spillage continues as they touch—well, slam—their cups together and upend them. Red wine trickling down Talven’s neck looks nothing like blood on his dark skin, but it sends a pang of hunger and desire through Astarion’s gut all the same.
“I hear he lived with his mother most of his life,” Astarion volunteers.
“I heard he had a goddess for a lover.”
Interesting. Talven didn’t mention that. Astarion turns his gaze to Shadowheart. “But no longer?”
“No. She judged him overambitious and left him.”
“What a shame. It would’ve been useful to have a goddess on our side.”
“We do have a goddess on our side. My Lady Shar.”
“Well, forgive me for being unimpressed,” Astarion says, watching Gale drape an arm around Talven’s shoulders, apparently recounting some lengthy tale. “I’m yet to see your Lady do anything besides making bizarre demands of her followers.”
And Talven, the flirt, drapes his arm around the wizard’s broad, padded waist, nodding and grinning like he isn’t dying of boredom. Is he drunk? Drunk enough to forget? Or worse, change his mind?
Focused elsewhere, he fails to notice Shadowheart bristle till she suddenly switches to common. “I pity your lack faith,” she says stiffly. “My Lady might embrace a creature of the night such as yourself, if only you were capable of devotion.”
Astarion’s body tenses up involuntarily as his mind is momentarily flooded with the memory of Cazador, saying something eerily similar. Before he knows it, he’s up on his feet, pointing a finger at Shadowheart’s flushed, petulant face. “I’m not a creature,” he hisses, and stomps off towards his tent.
Halfway there, he curses himself and turns back. “These are mine,” he says, taking an armload of cushions. Then he stomps off again.
He has had enough of this “party”. He picks up the bag with supplies he prepared earlier and makes for the woods. Passing the last torch, he pauses to take one more look at the camp, just in time for another burst of fireworks. Lit by all the colors of the rainbow, Talven stands on his own near the bonfire. Their eyes meet. Talven smiles at first, then grows serious. He points at his eyes, and then at Astarion. I see you.
Astarion’s stomach flips.
When was the last time his stomach flipped with anything but dread?
He swallows and mirrors the signal.
* * *
The clearing he’s chosen isn’t far, just at the spot where the stream starts to look more like a river. He checks the ivy thriving on the soft soil for sharp stones, snakes and scorpions, then spreads the blanket over it. A nice, clean, wool blanket he stole from one of the tiefling carts. He kneels on it to lay out the props. The bottle of Baldur’s Grape he squirreled away days ago. Two goblets. The little vial of scented oil gives him pause, though. Will it seem too forward? He decides to leave it in the bag. But he takes out the book: “The Flight from the Underdark”, a somewhat romanticized account of the early life of Drizzt Do’Urden he found in the defiled temple. Astarion catches himself smiling as he imagines his friend’s grateful reaction. Ugh.
Now, the big decision: leave the shirt on, or not? There’s something to be said for the erotic allure of disrobing one’s partner, especially when that partner is Astarion. Plus, with the shirt on, he won’t risk appearing to be desperate. On the other hand, seeing him shirtless is sure to leave Talven stunned, which gives Astarion an advantage. And if he notices the scars, all the better. Astarion knows that sympathy is one of Talven’s major weaknesses, and he’s here to exploit every weakness he can find. Right?
Off with it, then. He tosses it and it lands on the wine. With a sigh, he picks it up and folds it into the bag. There. Everything in order and ready for the show. These shivers are quite uncalled for on a warm night like this, especially when you’re dead.
Really, the anxiety is absurd. He’s done this a thousand times.
He takes a centering breath, closes his eyes, and pictures the boudoir. The carvings on the wardrobe, as intricate as lace. The glint of the setting sun on the polished bedposts. Lifting his mind’s eyes, he can see the balcony, with its white marble balustrade and the ivy creeping over it like bloodstains spreading on clean sheets. The sun burns a fiery trail over the lake, already touching it on the horizon.
“This is nice.”
The words are soft enough but they startle Astarion into complete disorientation. He’d slipped into reverie. For a moment, he can’t recall where he is. Not in the dormitory, not in the kennel. No, of course not. That’s all in the past.
“I’m sorry,” Talven says, even softer, from somewhere behind Astarion’s back. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Astarion realizes he’s up on his feet. “It’s all right,” he says, turning around. Talven stands in the shadows on the other side of the clearing, quite a bit farther than Astarion imagined, and looks anything but certain he’s in the right place. Astarion stretches his lips into a smile and makes his voice soothing. “I’m glad you’re here. I was starting to think you wouldn’t come.”
“I’m sorry about that too. I had too much to drink, I think, and lost sense of time.” Talven steps into the moonlight, but keeps his grip on the slim trunk of a young beech like a man daring himself to let go down a slippery slope. “You wouldn’t believe the conversation I had with Lae’zel. Did you tell her we were to meet?”
“She must’ve guessed it. You and I have made no secret of our mutual… attraction.” Astarion takes a few steps forward. “Not that it would be below me to brag about my conquests,” he adds, spotting the glint of amusement in Talven’s eyes. “It’s not every night one wins a prize as shiny as you.”
Talven laughs and finally lets go of the tree, free-floating into the middle of the clearing, where he stops. “Won’t you come and claim me, then?”
A strange reluctance drags at Astarion’s feet as he approaches. Unequal to miming a convincing smile, he holds Talven’s gaze from under his brow, and the cheer slowly fades from Talven’s features too, replaced by a kind of… innocence Astarion remembers so well from the night they met. An… openness, a… vulnerability that almost breaks Astarion’s resolve. His friend is here in good faith, suspecting Astarion of no ulterior motives, just like that time he turned his back on him, putting himself in the way of alleged danger while Astarion plotted his demise next to the broken pod on the beach. And just like then, Astarion is about to pounce on him.
At least, he reassures himself, he’ll make it pleasant this time.
“You know,” he purrs, sliding a finger up Talven’s warm chest, “I’ve been waiting for this since I first set my eyes on you.” It’s not a lie. But it feels like it. Already he’s one foot back in the boudoir, watching the sunset from the threshold of the balcony. When his voice says, “Waiting to have you,” he hears it over the distant murmur of the lazy waves lapping at the lakeshore.
But then Talven laughs again and snaps Astarion right out of it.
“Relax,” he says. “No need for poetry. You’ve had me for a while now.” He reaches to touch.
Well-used to hiding discomfort, Astarion remains outwardly calm even though everything inside him coils with apprehension. But Talven ignores the expanse of Astarion’s exposed chest and brushes their fingers together instead.
It’s… all right, this hand-touching. Not part of Astarion’s usual repertoire, at least not at this stage of the game, but he doesn’t mind. It takes him back to the night they met, and how Talven tried to warm his hands. The memory brings a smile to his lips.
“Your hands are cold,” Talven says, grinning.
“Are you reading my mind again?”
Talven’s grin widens. “You warmed up when you drank my blood.”
“Yes.” Astarion caresses Talven’s palm with his fingertips. “It was quite extraordinary.”
“I’ve been thinking.” A breeze rises and carries a strand of his golden hair over his face, where it sticks to his mouth. Astarion gently pulls it off and smooths it behind Talven’s ear, watching with fascination the rise and fall of his golden scales. Talven shuts his eyes and sighs.
“Yes, my dear?”
“Right. I’ve been thinking—if you were to bite into muscle instead of a vein—the bleeding might not be so bad.”
Astarion laughs. “And there I feared you would never let me taste you again.”
“Would it work? Could you feed like that? From a less… lethal wound?”
“I don’t know. This is just as new for me as it is for you.”
They’ve graduated to feeling out one another’s forearms. It’s… nice.
“Can I ask you something else?” Talven says. “About your… condition?”
“Really? We’re here to talk?”
“Humor me. For just a bit.”
Astarion sighs dramatically. “You seem to know more about ‘my condition’ than I. But all right. Ask.”
Talven’s eyes sparkle. “Is it true that, when you cry, or sweat, it’s blood?”
“Rubbish.”
“Thought so. And uh…” He bites his lower lip. “Do you have… issue… when you, uh…”
“Fuck?”
Talven’s teeth glint in the moonlight as he laughs. “Yes. That.”
“Oh, dear. Don’t tell me you’re one of those people who can’t bring themselves to talk dirty.”
And now a dark blush spreads from Talven’s neck upwards. Emboldened, Astarion worms his fingers under the rolled-up sleeves of his shirt.
“I can,” Talven says in near a whisper. “When properly motivated.”
“Mhm.” Astarion moves closer till he feels the heat emanating from Talven’s body like the touch of sun on his bare skin. “And now you wonder what I’d taste like, on your lips.”
Talven’s throat works. “Yes.”
Astarion sniffs the air between them, the unusual, slightly metallic scent of Talven’s skin, the sourness of the wine on his breath, the smell of the river in his hair, the warm musk of sweat underneath it all.
“My turn,” he says. “What makes your scales rise?”
“Oh.” Talven watches Astarion’s fingers as they start to unlace the collar of his shirt. His breath comes in short, hot bursts. “Shivers. Like goosebumps. Being nervous, or too hot, or too cold.” He swallows loudly. “Arousal.”
“Are they sensitive?” Astarion asks, trailing a finger over the first, stunted row of scales just under Talven’s clavicle. They’re oddly attractive. Astarion has never bedded a dragonborn before—if draconic ancestry this diluted even counts as such. Still, nothing quite like novelty to spark the interest of an embittered immortal.
“Sometimes,” Talven breathes.
Taking the cue, Astarion lifts his face, but closes his eyes before they meet Talven’s. Their noses brush, their lips. He’s tense, stiff, and so is the kiss. What he feared comes true. It’s nothing like that night. He feels nothing. Nothing but grief and anger, but now’s not the time for that. He dutifully opens his mouth while his mind slips back into the boudoir with the ease of two centuries of practice. Something a bit different from his usual daydreams this time. He pictures Talven, shirtless, sprawled on the four-poster, writhing languidly amidst the white silks, in such stark contrast with his dark skin. Touch yourself, Astarion commands, half hidden by the drapings.
Talven—the real one—pulls away with a breathless little laugh. “Slow down,” he whispers, drawing a thumb along Astarion’s jawline. “I want to try something.”
“Hm?”
Talven gently pushes his chin down.
“What are you doing?”
He pries his eyes away from Astarion’s mouth to give him a look full of devilry. “Let me.”
Astarion leans back. “You’re being weird.”
Talven grins. “Let me.”
“Fine.” Astarion lets him pry open his mouth, affecting annoyance but inwardly delighted by this oddity. Talven gently lifts Astarion’s upper lip… and feels the tips of his fangs with his thumb, testing their sharpness, eyes keen on the experiment. Amused into forgetting his discomfort from before, Astarion lets his fangs extend. Talven’s eyes widen. He presses harder on the tip of the left fang and inhales sharply when it breaks skin. Astarion’s mouth waters at the heady scent of blood. He touches the probing fingertip with his tongue for a rewarding taste of salt and iron.
Desire rises in Talven’s eyes like flame from kindling, and Astarion feels something other than hunger stir in him. A trickle of warmth pooling in his gut.
Talven says, “Keep still,” as he closes in to test the fangs with his tongue.
The strange feeling bubbles up from Astarion’s gut into his chest, like the flutter of wings. Spooked by it, he pulls back just as their tongues meet. “You wouldn’t… put a spell on me without asking me first, would you?”
Talven blinks the haze from his eyes, almost black now with how wide his pupils have grown. “What spell?”
“A glamor. To make me more… biddable.”
“You? Biddable?” Talven laughs. “That would require sorcery far above my level.”
“I’m serious.”
“All right.” Talven clears his throat. “Casting requires either words or gestures or both. Some spells I can whisper. Others I can weave with fingers alone, so I might conceivably hide it under a table or inside my clothes. But when we’re close like this, when you can see my hands and hear my breath, I couldn’t cast without being noticed.”
“You could’ve done it earlier.”
“You can ask Gale to give you a look-over.”
“The wizard is smitten with you. He’d hardly be objective.”
Talven grows serious. His hands slide back down Astarion’s arms, and the places they covered just a moment ago feel oddly cold and exposed now. Astarion makes his fingers into hooks, to hold on lest the contact is lost there too, and his anxiety flares up again. He has gone too far, and spoiled it.
“Do you truly suspect me of it?” Talven says. “Because of my slip-ups with the tadpole? Use it right now, if you don’t believe me.”
It’s tempting. But if the atmosphere hasn’t been ruined already, it certainly will be if Astarion agrees. Instead he deflates and makes an apologetic face. “No. Of course not. I’m just…”
“Nervous?”
Not used to doing this of my own free will, more like, Astarion thinks. Even less used to… liking it. The idea makes him dizzy, and not in a good way. In the vertiginous, nauseating way, a lot like how he felt while falling from the nautiloid. But nervous will do. It’s bound to earn him some sympathy, and besides, it’s not entirely untrue. “I… yes, perhaps. A little.”
Talven’s fingers finally curl around Astarion’s hands again. “They say there’s courage in the bottle,” he says conspiratorially. “Or in this case… well.” He seems to lose his nerve there, or possibly find some at last, and dives into the side of Astarion’s face with a hot whisper. “Drink from me.”
That feeling bubbles up again. This time, Astarion gives into it, pressing his nose to the thrum of Talven’s quickening pulse. His heart would be racing too, if it were able. He closes his eyes. Of all the things he’s done for, and to his targets—things boring, things strange, things horrible, even some things sweet—here’s a thing he’s never done before. Drink from one. “Take your shirt off,” he murmurs.
It takes more doing than it should. Talven struggles to pull the shirt tails out of his tightly laced britches, then fumbles trying to get it over his head, and Astarion wonders how much wine he’d had, and if it will affect him too. His ever-present hunger blends with the first stirrings of lust into a pleasant, quiet ache. Talven’s chest, covered with sparse scales where a human might have hair, is finally revealed, rising and falling like he’s been running. Animal instincts scream at Astarion to go for the neck, right into the bulge of the artery, where his thirst will be quenched the quickest. But he suppresses them and laps at the breast instead, teasing the nipple till it hardens.
Talven sighs, then hisses when Astarion bites, then moans when he pulls out half-way and bears down at a new angle, searching for a vein. A hot gush of blood floods his senses. The flavor is incredible. Complex beyond anything he’s ever tasted, in life or unlife. Rich and deep, like copper and fire and so much more. Like the wine Talven drank, the bread and meat and apples he ate. Like the innocence of his anticipation, the tenderness of his longing, the warmth of his arousal. Like the dark legacy of obscure, old grief. The blood pulses in Astarion with Talven’s rapid heartbeat and for a sweet, stolen moment, he feels alive.
Cautious fingers twine gently with the curls at the back of his neck and a shiver runs through his entire body till his toes curl in his boots. Talven’s other hand is laid lightly on his hip, away from naked skin. Can he sense Astarion’s feelings through the blood they now share the way Astarion can sense his? No later than he thinks it, a gust of hot breath caresses his ear and Talven’s lips fall on it, soft but solid, soothing, not teasing. Is that proof enough? He has forgotten to breathe entirely, lost in the blood. He has no notion where his own hands are, how vicious their grip. Just one more gulp, and he’ll pull away, he swears. Just one more.
The effort is monumental. His eyes firmly shut, he turns his face, seeking the moist heat of Talven’s mouth. This time, the kiss is just like those he remembers from that distant night of unexpected reprieve. Even better! Blood makes everything better. Talven doesn’t seem to mind having a taste of it. His lips latch onto Astarion’s with breathless ardor. His tongue sinks between them in a steady, slick slide, slow and savoring. His arms close around Astarion’s bare back yet still somehow avoid the dreaded teasing touch, with one of his hands still in Astarion’s hair, and the other encircling his waist. His erection presses into the hollow of Astarion’s hip. They sway in the embrace, clinging to one another like lovers parted by distance or danger and reunited again. Astarion breaks the kiss to throw his head back and laugh. “Delicious!”
Talven’s eyes are hooded, unfocused. His hair is ruffled and the blood around his mouth, like smeared makeup, adds to his disheveled appearance. It’s delectable. He touches the side of his breast, scooping the blood that has trickled from the wound, and brings his dripping fingers to Astarion’s mouth. Astarion opens up gladly. He slides his tongue out in welcome, then closes his lips around the offering, all the while brazenly holding Talven’s drunken gaze. The fingers glide in, then half-way out, then back in again, in the unmistakable motion of fucking. A pang of arousal forks through Astarion, calling his attention to the pleasant pressure between his legs.
“You barely had a sip,” Talven says, voice deepened by desire.
Astarion sucks his fingers clean and leans back, the better to smirk. “Are you offering more?”
A silent nod.
“Well.” He runs his hands down Talven’s chest, feels the tremors in his lean stomach, and pulls on the laces of his britches. “I better offer something in return.”
Talven’s only answer is a shivering sigh as Astarion uncovers him and takes him in hand. They both bow their heads to watch. The golden scales taper out above the navel, splitting into strips that run down Talven’s sides and hips and over his thighs. There aren’t any around his crotch. Sparse, pale hair grows there in silken little curls. His shaft is hard, hot and heavy in Astarion’s hand. Foreskin wrinkles on top, fine and soft but reluctant to part when he strokes down. A trait of a young man, ill-matched with the lines on Talven’s face. Astarion puts a bit more force in his grip and the head pops out from between the folds, glistening like wet obsidian in the moonlit twilight.
Briefly, he contemplates jerking the foreskin down hard enough to break it, and the sweet, sweet blood-bath that would ensue.
It happened surely a dozen times at least in his vast experience. He even remembers the last. A boy of seventeen, or so he’d said, with a fine jaw and finer mouth and tanned, freckled skin, off some galley or another for a night of affordable debauchery after the slim payout. He confessed in a trembling whisper to have never been with a man before. After they kissed a while, he tried to keep Astarion at arm’s length. Ashamed of his erection, Astarion thought. But that wasn’t it. The boy had come in his britches, untouched. It took some effort to talk him into undressing after that. His cock had that mushroom-like shape: a smooth, straight shaft with a large, bulbous head so red it looked raw. It also had that mushroom-like odor common for sailors, and tasted richly of salt. He pulled out of Astarion’s mouth abruptly, about to come again, and his foreskin tore. Blood and seed sprayed Astarion’s face and he bit into his cheek till his own cold blood wet his throat, struggling with the hunger.
And it was all for nothing! Mortified, pale and light-headed from the tragically wasteful blood-loss, the boy stumbled away, tossing a few coins on the ground like alms for a beggar. Dawn was near. The city was falling asleep and there was no time to find another mark. So Astarion stayed there a while, kneeling on the filthy hay in some unoccupied barn, and stared stonily ahead as silent tears joined the mess on his face. It was one of the very few occasions in recent memory when he cried outside the kennel. Not because of what happened, of course. It was an entirely harmless, if humorless, incident. Because of what was about to happen, when he returned empty-handed for the third night in a row.
How odd to think—his “brothers and sisters” must be out hunting right this moment. Or perhaps, searching for him. Most likely, both. Why, one of them might even be sitting on the same barstool he occupied not a month ago, when he met Talven, on his last night in the city, and sweet-talking or threatening poor Herbert into recollecting when he has last seen Astarion and with whom. If not for the mind flayers—if not for Talven—he’d be out there too. Prowling the Gray Harbor for young sailors like that lucky boy or batting his eyelashes at wealthy merchants and fine craftsmen, clerks, clerics, and the occasional patriar in the Elfsong, all while suffering the pangs of hunger like blades twisting in his gut.
Instead he’s here, in this charming little glade, pleasuring not some stranger, but the closest he has ever had to a friend. Not because he was compelled, but because he chose to. Not in fear of dawn, already showing pale blue in the east, but looking forward to it. Feeling not desperate, but… hopeful?
Yet some things remain the same. He has taken more nourishment in the last tenday than in fully a half of his entire existence as a vampire. His skin has grown lush and supple, his mind is quick and clear, his body brims with superhuman vigor. He gorged on four different species of blood of thinking creatures today: goblin, human, drow, and now the fiery, golden, draconic. But still he craves for more.
Oh, yes. The bloody fantasy has stirred the hunger and sharpened his arousal into need. But he’ll take what was offered, and no more—so that another offer may be made on another night. And who knows? With Talven’s peculiar eagerness, and provided nothing horrible befalls them all, of course—perhaps he may have this every night. Another dizzying, novel concept. Every now and then, he was permitted to invest a few days into a single mark: to meet them, even sleep with them, more than once. But it has been so long since he last felt optimistic enough to allow himself the fantasy of permanence, that he can’t recall when, if ever, he had even weaved one.
Talven’s sighs turn to quiet moans as Astarion works him: firm, slow and steady. Wouldn’t want him to spill too fast. He seems on the cusp already, the poor thing, judging from the twitching of his muscles and the tightness of his sack, all drawn up and ready. Astarion slows down to a halt and uses his thumb to smear the little globe of clear fluid over the slit, cradling Talven’s sweaty forehead in the crook of his shoulder. Hot groans and blunt teeth graze his neck. He longs to bury his own teeth into Talven’s throat, have more than a sip, drink his full! But the promise of… a future… easily prevails.
With a shuddery breath of his own, he bites into the hard muscle linking neck to shoulder. Talven whines, leaning on Astarion with a considerable part of his weight while his thighs tremble. Astarion’s mouth fills with blood once more, its taste even richer than before. His head swims. As his eyes close, the boudoir opens in front of him, and now he’s on the bed too, fucking Talven into the silken sheets sprinkled with crimson as he drinks, and drinks, and—
Talven convulses. But it’s not his cry, nor the digging of his fingers into Astarion’s back, nor the closing of his teeth on Astarion’s shoulder, that shocks him out of the daydream. He’s been through worse—occasionally, through better too—uninterrupted.
No. It’s Talven’s pleasure, seeping into Astarion, through his blood.
He slurps and breathes it in and chokes. Blood sprays from his nose. The weakness in his legs is momentary but enough. He loses balance and they collapse on their knees as if shot by the same arrow.
“I’m sorry,” Talven mumbles. A thick rope of spittle hangs between his mouth and Astarion’s mauled shoulder. “Gods, I’m sorry.”
“It’s nothing,” Astarion says. His voice shakes. “Are you all right?”
“I think so.”
Astarion looks down. His hand is slick with Talven’s seed, his stomach and chest too, but the blood mixed with it is from the breast wound and what he spat out, not from broken foreskin or any such unsavory nonsense, thank Gods.
“What happened?” Talven asks.
“I… You startled me, that’s all.”
Talven touches Astarion’s shoulder. “It’ll bruise.”
“I had worse, I’m sure.” In truth, he barely felt it. He was too busy processing everything else that was happening. Gods below. Did he… come? He’s still hard, but that’s neither here nor there. If there’s any telltale moisture he can’t feel it yet. “What?” he says, suddenly aware of Talven’s eyes searching his face.
Talven smirks with a corner of his lips. “You look like you fought a bear.”
“I feel like I won.”
“Was it truly enough?”
“Honestly? No. It’s never ‘truly enough’. But it was—” he leans forward, close enough for a kiss—“exquisite.”
Talven looks unconvinced. “Do you… want me to uh…”
“Tempting,” Astarion lies, settling back on his haunches. “But you seem… a little drained, if I do say so myself. Next time, hm?”
“Next time,” Talven repeats dreamily.
* * *
And there he is now, in the dappled light of dawn, curled up on a bed of moss and ivy with his crumpled shirt for a pillow and the good blanket hiding the scales on his bony shoulders. Fast asleep. Oblivious of the hungry vampire sitting cross-legged in the middle of the clearing like some forgotten, broken statue whose sharp edges have been smoothed by centuries of wind and rain till it lost all semblance to its original form.
Astarion stares at his friend, unblinking—he doesn’t need to blink, he only ever does it to reinforce his masquerade as one of the living; unmoving—he can stay perfectly motionless for days, months, possibly years, possibly forever; unbreathing—he doesn’t have to breathe, and sometimes, more and more often as the decades pass him by, forgets to. He spoke true: what blood he’d taken wasn’t enough to make his limbs warm, to paint a blush on his cheeks. Not like the first time. But in every other way, this… encounter… was even more extraordinary.
He had not spilled into his britches untouched, like that seventeen-year-old, after all. And what a relief it was to assure himself of it! He didn’t even realize how resentful of the prospect he’d been. And then rage rose in him like a blood-tide, for all the times he’d had no choice in the matter. For all the times things happened to him whether he wanted or not.
But it didn’t happen tonight. It only felt like it. He’s not sure yet what to make of it.
The hunger is sure, though. Already, it twists his guts in knots, urging him to crawl into the warmth under the nice wool blanket, seeking more blood sweetened by arousal. It calls to him, gently at first, like a lover’s whisper, then demanding, like a silk scarf tied around his neck, till finally the mask drops and the monster inside snarls and drools and growls, snapping its maw.
But it can’t compel him. His will is his own, getting stronger every day.
Rising sun creeps up his back. He rises too, silent, casting a long shadow over his sleeping friend.
For Talven doesn’t like the sun.
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