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Til Death Do Us Part | Epilogue

Series Masterlist

Astarion x f!reader, Arranged Marriage AU

Word Count: 13k

(CW: SMUT 18+, face sitting, cunnilingus, overstimulation, blow jobs, fingering, unprotected p in v, some cute role playing, Astarion really likes the sound of his own voice)

Summary:

You feel Astarion’s hand move, his thumb running along the length of your palm up to brush against the ring on his finger.

“We met at my ball. A year ago, tonight.”

Though the beat of your heart is missing and it no longer flutters away inside your chest, a familiar warmth spreads through your veins all the same.

“Happy anniversary,” you say and you feel a goofy smile spreading across your face.

“Not yet, my love,” Astarion says, but he smiles just as wide. “Not for another two days.”

Read on ao3 here

You could watch Astarion sleep forever. His mouth hangs open slightly and his gentle breathing mixes with the sound of waves. His face is so soft when he’s asleep and with the sun shining off his hair, he can only be described as angelic.

The two of you are still on the beach, laying on the blanket spread out over the rock. Your feet are tangled with Astarion’s as you curl on your side to watch him doze. Touching. Always touching. The thought makes you smile.

When he wakes up, his long, pale lashes blink open slowly and his arms reach out to pull you tighter against him. You shower his face with kisses and he basks in your affection.

By the late afternoon, the two of you decide to finally head back to the cottage. There had been a tentative plan for your first day in the sun which most certainly did involve you and Astarion making love on the beach, but which did not account for how long that would take. You probably should have woken Astarion up if you wanted to stick to the schedule, but he was sleeping so peacefully beside you and it seemed like a crime to disturb him.

And besides, it’s not like the two of you were in a rush- being immortal meant there would be endless time for you both to explore the abilities that Mephistopheles had returned to you.

As you watch Astarion lazily pull on his trousers and shrug back on his shirt, you can’t help but think that he can be a little right sometimes- it is rather devastating to lose sight of his perfect body.

After watching him dress, you push yourself up from sitting on the rock, sliding your chemise and your loosened corset over your head.

“Help, please,” you say, turning your back to Astarion so he can help lace up your corset.

“Now, why would I do that? Helping you back in your clothes doesn’t benefit me in the slightest.”

“Astarion,” you whip around to face him with narrowed eyes. “If you aren’t going to help me, then you’re the one that’s going up to the house to fetch Shadowheart because there is no way I am walking back up there with my corset in hand like some kind of cheap harlot. And you know Shadowheart is going to be exceptionally ill-tempered if you bother her since I gave her the day off.”

You watch as he weighs out which option he finds more annoying in his head.

“Turn around,” he grumbles. He drops a kiss to your shoulder and sighs. “You know, I have a love-hate relationship with this thing. I can’t deny that it makes your breasts look wonderful, but if you’re wearing it, that means I can’t actually see them, which is a travesty.”

“Poor Astarion,” you tease. “For he cannot always be touching his wife’s perfect breasts.”

“No,” he teases back, resting his chin on your shoulder. “Sometimes, I have to touch her cunt instead.”

“You’re too clever for your own good.” You playfully shove his head off your shoulder and he laughs, hands finally moving to help with your corset.

You know he does a purposefully bad job lacing it up. It doesn’t bother you too much because you also know that Astarion would likely be encouraging you to shed the offending garment from your body almost immediately upon your return to the house.

You reward him for his troubles with a peck on the cheek. Astarion seemingly deems it not enough payment for his efforts because he grabs your hips and dips you back into a bruising kiss that leaves you a bit weak in the knees. After a few more kisses, the two of you take your time walking back up to the cottage, your entwined fingers swinging loosely between you.

When you enter, there’s a lavish spread of food in the kitchen- meats and cheeses and fancy chocolate desserts. The two of you had told the kitchen staff to make everything but evidently you had underestimated how much everything there was.

When you sneak a peek at Astarion’s face, he looks a bit too overwhelmed by all the choices so you take over, instructing the kitchen staff to bring wine and to load a tray full of berries and sweet little tarts and the fancy chocolate desserts and deliver it all to your and Astarion’s bedroom. You aren’t sure why, but you have the sneaking suspicion that Astarion has a bit of a sweet tooth.

When the staff ask what to do with the rest of the food, you tell them to throw a feast of their own tonight.

And as you expected, the moment the door is shut to the bedroom, Astarion is pulling his shirt back off and helping you strip back out of your clothes to pull you onto the bed with him.

As the two of you lounge on the bed together, you press different fruits to Astarion’s lips for him to taste. It hadn’t been that long since you’d eaten, but watching Astarion was something special. The way his eyes closed in pleasure. The way he would let out a little moan when he tasted something he really liked. The way he would lean over to lick the up the juices that ran down your arm when you fed him a particularly juicy strawberry.

Eventually, you both grow bored of the food and the tray lays discarded on the other side of the room. The two of you curl into one another, sated and content.

Astarion’s hand rests on your stomach and you absentmindedly roll his wedding ring around his finger as you watch the curtains swaying in the breeze. The sun dips back down over the horizon.

Astarion knocks his head lightly against yours to guide your attention back to him.

“It’s been a year now, you know.”

You turn your head to look at him quizzically. “A year?”

You aren’t even sure you know the date, let alone why it holds any special significance outside the fact that it was your first day in the sunlight. You had unfortunately lost track of time in your haze of being a newborn vampire.

You feel Astarion’s hand move, his thumb running along the length of your palm up to brush against the ring on his finger.

“We met at my ball. A year ago, tonight.”

Though the beat of your heart is missing and it no longer flutters away inside your chest, a familiar warmth spreads through your veins all the same.

“Happy anniversary,” you say and you feel a goofy smile spreading across your face.

“Not yet, my love,” Astarion says, but he smiles just as wide. “Not for another two days.”

You roll your eyes affectionately but the two of you continue smiling at one another until Astarion leans over to kiss you. The sweet press of his lips against yours deepens as his tongue slides into your mouth. You whine when he pulls away.

“Always so needy, always so desperate for me,” Astarion murmurs.

You huff out a laugh and stretch lazily, playfully elbowing him. “Keep talking like that and I’ll rescind the comment I was going to make that I like you better now than I did at this time last year.”

Astarion simply smiles at your insincere taunt and props his head up on his hand, looking down on you with the hungry eyes of a predator playing with its food.

“I don’t know, I found it rather amusing when you held that butter knife up to my throat.”

“That’s just because you thought I didn’t know how to use it. You know better now.”

He gives you a condescending, arrogant smile. “It’s cute that you still think you can get the upper hand on me.”

And because you like nothing more in this world than proving people wrong, you reach out, quickly wrapping a leg around Astarion’s hip and pressing on his shoulders to push him backward so you are sitting on top of him, straddling him. You catch his hands with yours, lovingly threading your fingers together before you wrench his hands over his head.

He doesn’t even try to fight back, which is boring.

“Still don’t think I have the upper hand?” you ask.

“No, I know you don’t.” Astarion’s arms flex underneath yours, pushing back against your hold. There’s a hidden strength there.

“And yet, I’m the one who came out on top.”

You squeeze his hands to accentuate your point, a silent reminder that he is the one at your mercy right now.

“Cute,” Astarion says and you shoot him a glare.

And then, with the graceful elegance of a cat, Astarion manages to flip the two of you so that he is the one pinning you down on the bed.

“But just know, darling, the only reason you were there is because I adore having you on top of me.”

You test his hold on your arms but he’s stronger than he looks and your hands are locked in an iron vice.

“Fine, you win,” you admit reluctantly.

“And what do I get as my prize?” Astarion’s got a mischievous little gleam in his eye that spells trouble.

“What do you want?”

He drags his nose down your throat, inhaling your scent. For a moment, it seems like he’s going to ask for a bite. A silly request considering you had never refused him in the past. But Astarion simply retraces his path up your neck, gliding his tongue along your skin.

“Touch yourself,” he rasps, tongue skimming the shell of your ear. “Let me watch.”

Astarion rolls off you, sprawling among the pillows on the bed. His gaze trails along your body like a caress. Down the curve of your shoulder, over the valley of your breasts. Perfect, he had called them earlier. His eyes continue lower, staring expectantly at the juncture of your thighs.

“Well,” Astarion says impatiently. “I’m waiting.”

Beneath his cocky veneer, you recognize that this is Astarion asking your permission, presenting you with the opportunity to deny him. But what idiotic person would ever do that? Who wouldn’t allow the moon and stars to worship them?

You sit yourself up to lean back against the wall of pillows on the bed and you spread your legs open before him. Astarion inches closer ever so slightly, staring at you with the same awed fascination of a man looking upon the divine.

You really put on a show for him, too- taking the time to let your hands wander your skin. His tongue darts out, wetting his perfect red lips, almost as if he is already fantasizing about the taste of you on his tongue.

When your hand finally makes contact with your cunt, you move your fingers in the way that you have taught yourself over the years, chasing after climax in moments of pent up frustration. Straightforward. To the point.

“No, slow down,” Astarion instructs. “I want to watch you struggle. Only when you have reached the heights of your desperation, only when you have gone delirious with need, only when you beg for it, will I grant you the release you so desire.”

You slow your movements. It’s a poor imitation of what you know Astarion is capable of- all clumsy where his hands are deft, all amateur where he is pure grace.

“Tell me how it feels,” he orders, propping himself up to move closer to you.

“Good,” you tell him, honestly. Because it does feel good. Just not as good as you know it could.

Astarion’s eyes narrow when he senses your hesitance. “What else?”

“Not the same as yours…” you confess in a whisper and you feel your skin flushing with heat. “Gods, the things you can do with your hands could bring the world to ruin.”

“Would you like that?” Astarion’s fingers stroke along your ankle, sending streaks of pleasure curling up around your legs, straight to your aching clit, which you roll slippery circles against with your fingers. “Would you like for me to bring you the world, bloody and bruised in my hands, and present it to you as a token of my love?”

You aren’t entirely sure whether Astarion genuinely means this or if this is a role he is adopting for this moment. All you know is that the desperate whine that forces its way from your chest is agonizingly real.

“You liked that, did you, pet?” Astarion chuckles, all dark and deep and sending a chill down your spine. “You want to hear how I’d burn the world for you? How I’d take the charred remains and mold it in your shape?” His thumb traces little circles around your ankle bone. “I would have blotted out the sun for you. I would have made it rain death and darkness and chaos if we had not found our cure. I would have drowned the world in corruption and laid the soaking remains at your feet.”

And you know he’s not lying- that in another life, all these words are true. It shouldn’t turn you on. It does anyway.

Astarion’s hands burn where they brush your calf. He touches you possessively, as if your body was simply an extension of his own.

And if he will not touch you where you need him the most, you will let yourself drown in his voice. You will let his words caress your skin where his hands will not. You will hear more of how this man you love would destroy the world, if only you asked.

“More,” you plead with him and he grins arrogantly.

He speaks with a newfound confidence, fingers running up and down your calf, but never any higher.

“Just think of what we’re going to do to them, my beloved. All those fools… They think they know what true power looks like, but we’ll show them. We’ll rule from the shadows. And you, my queen, only need to point. I shall be your weapon. I shall be the one to enact your ruthless judgment upon the world.”

Astarion is relishing in the sound of his own voice, as well. His other hand falls down to languidly stroke his cock. There’s a lovely bead of moisture at the tip and your mouth waters, you want nothing more than to lean over and take him in your mouth, to let his hands thread in your hair as he guides your mouth along his hard length…

Astarion gently nips at your thigh, drawing your attention back to him.

“And do you know how I plan to begin my crusade?” he asks, but doesn’t give you any time to answer. “I’ll start with all those men. Anyone who ever looked at you as less than the goddess you are. Any of them who spoke- No, dared to even think of you in a degrading, vulgar manner. Any of them who merely wasted your time by boring you with their presence.”

Astarion’s hand curls around your knee, slender fingers brushing the sensitive skin along the back and making you shiver. He wrenches your leg open wider, giving himself a better view of the way your fingers slide along your cunt.

His gaze stays transfixed on your cunt as he speaks. “I’ll kill them all.”

You shouldn’t want that but oh, you do. That bloodthirsty, hungry part of you wants nothing more than to watch Astarion rip those men limb from limb, to watch him bathe himself in their blood and allow you to lick it clean from his skin afterward.

You reward Astarion by sinking one of your fingers into yourself and his mouth hangs open in awe. Slowly, his head has moved closer to you and your obscene wetness makes you acutely aware of each panting breath he releases. His grip tightens desperately around your knee, as if he is having to clutch onto you to hold himself back from reaching out to touch you.

You move your finger slowly, letting the palm of your heel continue to graze against your aching clit. It’s not enough. It’s not Astarion- you aren’t full enough, your fingers don’t curl and hit that spot Astarion always manages to find.

“Gods, you’re perfect,” Astarion whispers in breathless praise and you feel the way your cunt tightens around your finger. You know that if he was buried deep inside you, that would have made him moan and his hips would stutter before he rutted into you even faster, even harder.

“What did I ever do before you?” He turns his head, kissing the inside of your thigh. “Do you have any idea how it feels to gaze upon perfection?”

Yes, you think. You know that feeling intimately as perfection is gazing up at you right now, his head resting in your lap as his blood-red eyes devour you.

His voice is low and dark. “For months, I kept myself away from you, spent my time longing and pining and waiting for you to return to my arms. For months, all I had to sustain myself on was the memories of your silken skin. Of the pool of nectar hidden between your thighs. Of the noises you make. Oh,” Astarion cries out and his hand picks up speed where it strokes his cock. “Those pretty noises. I missed those the most.”

You make one such noise now- a desperate, gasping moan.

Astarion’s eyes are ruthless when they dart up to your face. “If you ever left me-”

“Never,” you cut him off.

You’ll speak with him about that insecurity later- assuage him and assure him until every doubt has been killed from his mind. But not now. Now is the time to feed into this wonderful power fantasy the two of you are discovering together.

You let out another sound, a pitiful whine, annoyed that your hands have brought you teetering so close to the precipice of bliss with no hope of falling over it.

“Do you need me that badly, pet?” Astarion chides, his hand mercifully moving higher up your leg, closer, so close, almost right there, nearly at the spot you need him to touch you. He stops. You nearly sob.

“I wouldn’t have let you leave me anyway,” he hisses, fingers digging into the flesh of your hip so hard that you worry it would leave bruises if you were still human. And thank the gods you aren’t if it means Astarion can clutch at you with such desperate abandon with little to no consequences to you. “Besides, if you had, I would have followed you. Anywhere you went, to the ends of the earth. Understand?”

You nod.

You know there is a metaphorical truth to his words. If you wanted, Astarion would have let you leave. But his heart would have followed after you. Just as surely as yours would have stayed with him.

“You have to say it if you want me to touch you.” You feel Astarion smirking where his mouth rests against your thigh. He has enjoyed this- has enjoyed watching you back yourself into a corner. Now, it was time for him to pounce.

“I understand.”

Astarion descends with the ferocity of a man whose very last shred of control was hanging on by a thread. He sucks your fingers into his mouth, messy and ravenous, as if he doesn’t want to waste a single drop of your arousal. His own hand quickly takes over, slipping a finger inside you and curling it so good. Your hands claw desperately at the sheets.

You come almost immediately. After so much build up, it was little wonder it would happen so quickly. What is a wonder is that Astarion immediately pulls his hand and mouth away from you rather than driving you repeatedly to the brink of madness like you had expected.

For lack of a better term, the whole thing is anticlimactic.

Astarion, seemingly sensing your disappointment, reclines back on the pillows behind him.

“Well, come on, then.” He gives your ass an affectionate pat, silently instructing you to move on top of him. “I’ve given you one. You’ll have to work for the rest of them.”

You crawl over to him, moving to sling your leg around his hips, wanting nothing more than to grind yourself against his cock and guide him into you.

“Not there, pet,” he catches your leg, reflexes still somehow lightning quick even when you know he has to be distracted by how hard he is.

“Sit on my face,” Astarion says, using his grip on your leg to pull your knee up by his shoulder.

And out of everything that has happened today- from making a deal with an archdevil to watching a breathtaking sunrise to discovering Astarion has a penchant for blackberries- this request is what has shocked you the most.

“But what about you?”

Astarion laughs, his soft fingers stroking along the back of your leg. “My motivations are not selfless, if that’s what concerns you, little flower. Your cunt is my favorite meal. I need to spend time appreciating it with these new taste buds. And besides, this bed is just so comfortable. You’ll forgive me if I want to lay back and relax while I feast for once.”

“But I want you to feel good, too,” you pout.

“I assure you, I do.” Astarion tugs more insistently on your hip and you move, knees framing either side of his head.

“You can stop whenever you want.”

“I know, my love,” Astarion’s face softens and he catches your left hand, bringing it to his lips so he can press a kiss to your knuckles, right under your wedding ring. “Now, as much as I appreciate you checking in with me, you’re keeping me from my plans of drowning between your thighs.”

His arms, soft and surprisingly strong, wrap around your hips and pull you down. His nose brushes along the thatch of hair on your pubic bone before he continues to move it lower. And for a moment, the two of you sit like that, with you shivering in anticipation and Astarion simply breathing against your cunt.

And then, his mouth is on you and there’s lightning running through your veins. He presses an open mouthed kiss to your cunt before his tongue flattens and he licks.

You feel his strangled groan reverberating in your own bones as he continues lapping. His nose brushes against your clit and you have to reach out one of your hands to steady yourself on the headboard. Your other hand winds its way into Astarion’s hair, tugging at the white curls whenever he does something especially wonderful. Which is… pretty much always.

When the gods made Astarion, they surely started with his tongue.

The whole time, his hands stroke and knead along the flesh of your thighs and ass, guiding you to start rolling your hips. It has his nose moving against your clit in a way that has you seeing stars and gasping for air.

Astarion leads to climax again. And again. And again.

Astarion plays your body like it is a violin and he is your virtuoso. He plucks and pulls at the strings, creating a symphony of music that threatens to overwhelm you. Your thighs ache and burn and still you continue rolling your hips against his face. Still, he continues to lap at your cunt with the fervor of a dying man.

At some point, you have transcended your corporeal form. Nothing else exists but these waves of pleasure- constant, unending.

Surely, the ringing you hear in your ears is some form of holy communion. Surely, the gods in the heavens have finally noticed Astarion missing from their ranks and have come to summon him home.

Your grip in his hair slackens. Your head bows in reverence.

It takes you far too long to register that Astarion’s mouth is no longer upon you.

“There you are,” He says, voice a low rasp. “You were missing from me for a moment.”

His beauty is stunning. His chin is glistening, his lips are red and swollen, his white curls are messy and wild. And best of all, he’s got that pretty, pink blush on his cheeks.

Astarion’s hands continue rubbing soothingly along your thighs, anchoring you back to your body.

“Too much, too good,” you slur out.

Your whole body feels all delightfully fuzzy and light as air.

Astarion slides out from underneath your legs and gathers you in his arms. You’re sure that you are very moldable and easy to move around right now since you think you might have turned into liquid.

You feel Astarion lips brush against your forehead as he wraps his arms tighter around you. Faintly, you register him praising how good you did, how you listened so well, how you gifted him with yet another lovely moment to cherish forever. The whole time, his fingers knead gently into your muscles, easing away the dull aching in your hips. You simply sigh and curl further into him.

“We should have a ball,” you say, tracing your fingers in little heart shapes over his chest. “To celebrate.”

“Celebrate what?”

“Our anniversary.”

Astarion’s lips press against your forehead. “We’ll have as many balls as you want. Gods, you can have whatever you want, you only need to say the word and I’ll get it for you. Or, well- I’ll have someone else get it for you, more likely.”

You giggle. “What about a kiss?”

“Hm, I think I can handle that by myself.”

—-----------------

FOUR YEARS LATER

The dress you're wearing tonight truly is breathtaking. In the past, the price of the red silk alone would have nearly made your jaw drop, but you had gotten used to prices like that after years of Astarion waving them away like they were nothing.

‘What’s the point of money if you aren’t going to spend it,’ Astarion had said.

After the dressmaker had finished construction, Astarion had spent weeks embroidering the material. The front of the gown only hinted at the masterful craftsmanship- just a delicate chain of flowers along your waist, but the long train which followed you was decadent to the extreme. The lovely red had been nearly covered in the shimmery gold thread, a garden following behind you.

Astarion had said it was some of his best work to date and had praised you as his muse.

And the past few months, you had gotten to enjoy a lot of time watching him as the two of you sat out in the gardens in the sunlight, entranced by how his fingers were able to move the tiny silver needle so easily, spinning gold seemingly out of thin air. He never pricked himself, like you and the roses.

And of course, Astarion had insisted that the two of you matched. His waistcoat was the same blood red fabric covered in flowers that he had embroidered.

Astarion had even humored you by letting you sew some little stars onto the inner lining of his waistcoat, right over his unbeating heart. He had feigned that he had been doing you some big favor, allowing you to put your mark on his body, but you caught how his eyes went a little misty when he saw your work.

“You look wonderful, darling,” Astarion slides up behind you as stand before the mirror, attempting to clasp the ruby necklace behind your neck. His hands meet your own and he deftly clasps the chain into place before wrapping his arms around your waist and pulling you back against his chest.

Your reflection grins back at him.

“We can see our reflections and still, the mirror doesn’t do you justice,” Astarion says, nose trailing over your collarbone to the juncture of your neck where he always likes to bite down. He surprises you by redirecting instead, coming up to whisper huskily in your ear, “The way this fabric hugs your body, the way the silk brings out the red in your eyes, the way the diamonds in your hair shine like stars in the night sky, those are all things too lovely to be captured by a simple pane of glass.”

You turn your head toward him and Astarion lips move closer and closer to yours with each word until they are just a hair’s breadth away. The anticipation is killing you, but you hold steady, daring him to meet you.

He brings his hand up to gently cradle the back of your head-

“Don’t mess up her hair!” Shadowheart yells from across the room, where she’s fiddling with all the leftover hairpins. She huffs quietly to herself, “I spent forever on that.”

You and Astarion are shocked out of your trance, his hand immediately dropping away from your hair. Astarion is so startled by her presence that his cool facade even slips for a moment as he mutters out a quiet ‘sorry.’

“What’s she still doing here?” He whispers to you just loud enough that you know Shadowheart can hear and roll her eyes.

You use the opportunity to slip out of his arms and continue getting ready.

“I asked her to stay,” you tell him, pulling the gloves up your arms. You watch the twin marks on your wrist disappear as you slide on the silken white fabric. “I don’t trust myself around you and I’m determined to get down to the ball on time this year.”

You hold out your wrist so Astarion can clasp the slippery little buttons along the side. He just stares at you for a moment, giving you a look like ‘you know this kind of task is beneath me’ and you jut your wrist at him a bit more insistently and he rolls his eyes as he grabs your arm.

“I assure you, little flower,” Astarion says as he buttons your glove, placing a delicate kiss to your wrist before he moves on to the other. “You would have made it to the ball on time.”

“That’s what you said last year. And then we ended up being an hour late.”

No, if you were allowed to be alone with Astarion, he would surely have already bent you over your vanity by now and your throat would be decorated by a necklace of his bite marks. And as beautiful as blood and jewels go together, it would have certainly distracted from the ornate ruby necklace Astarion had given you as a fifth anniversary present.

Five years. Has it really been that long already? Or have you simply been too happy to notice the time passing?

“I don’t recall hearing any complaints from you last year, my love. In fact, I do believe you said ‘more’ quite a few times,” Astarion’s hand drops and rests heavily on your hip. “And besides, who cares what those idiots think?”

“We have to at least pretend to care about propriety, darling,” you remind Astarion and he rolls his eyes. You know he’s going to say something like ‘fuck propriety, let the world know how a true man satisfies his wife,’ so you gently rearrange the folds of his cravat as you speak, “There’s going to be a lot of important people here tonight. We need to uphold their high opinion of us if we hope to continue to use them.”

“I love the way you think,” he says with a wicked gleam in his eye, pulling you back into his arms.

Shadowheart loudly clears her throat and Astarion glares at her but steps away from you.

“Don’t be upset, husband, there’s still plenty of time to let you plant your seed in my garden tonight,” you say, giving Astarion a big wink at your double entendre.

He looks mortified for a moment before he’s practically falling over in laughter. “Be honest, little flower, how long have you been waiting to use that line?”

“It just came to me.”

Astarion tilts your chin up, a devilish smirk on his beautiful face. “That won’t be the only thing coming in you tonight.”

“You two are strange and… off-putting.” Shadowheart has a look of disgust on her face that has you burying your head in Astarion’s chest to laugh.

“Speaking of strange, Lae’zel is going to be here tonight. I’m sure she’d love it if you made an appearance downstairs long enough for her to ask you for a dance,” Astarion says and Shadowheart’s face turns bright red as she tries to excuse herself from the room as quickly as possible.

“Look at what you did!” You cry out. “You chased off a perfectly good Shadowheart!”

“Yes, but now I can finally do this.”

Astarion leans down to kiss you, careful to keep his hands resting on your hips and far away from your ornate hairstyle. You sigh happily against his lips and he presses a soft kiss on the corner of your mouth before he pulls away.

“You ready?” he asks, holding his arm out to you.

You tuck yourself into his side and the two of you make your way down to the party.

Of course, because this is a ball hosted by Astarion, there’s a big fanfare at your entrance as your names are announced. The two of you descend down the stairs with the grace and elegance that only two vampires can possess. When you reach the ballroom, people are swarming the two of you immediately, begging to speak with you and offer their congratulations on your anniversary.

The gentry were practically throwing themselves at your feet and what were you supposed to do? Stop them? No, not when it was so much more fun to encourage them.

You and Astarion make your initial rounds, but your eyes continue scanning the crowds. You hope your father comes again this year. It always fills you with glee, the fact that he shows up every year and is forced to celebrate your anniversary with Astarion. Forced to watch you be happy and in love and thriving. That he continues to grow old and wither away while you and Astarion retain your youthful glows.

You spot him over by the wine and you’re filled with the wicked thought that maybe one year, you would kill him, make it look like a drunken old fool had stumbled out into the woods and been attacked by an animal.

Astarion’s hand comes to the small of your back. Touching. Always touching. His breath whispers against your ear, “Oh, I’d hate to be on the receiving end of that glare. Tell me, wife, who do you want me to kill for you tonight?”

“No one,” you think for a moment. “Yet.”

A sly grin spreads across your husband’s face. “Only speak the words and it shall be done. I am yours to command.”

“Oh, I know you are, pet,” you tease him, trying to sound like him. You even give him a little pat on the cheek for added effect. Astarions bares his fangs playfully at you.

“Come dance with me, I’m bored,” you tug on his hand.

You let Astarion wrap you in his arms and spin you around the dancefloor.

“Should I be hurt that you aren’t tripping over your feet at the sight of me anymore, little flower?”

“No, I just have expensive tastes now,” you giggle. “I fear I’m growing too used to awe-inspiring beauties such as yours.”

Astarion’s hand moves down your back, just a bit too low to be acceptable. “Sounds like you’re getting too spoiled.”

“I’m not the one to blame for that problem, star. Not when you insist on buying me far too many lavish gifts.”

“You might be right,” Astarion agrees with a chuckle. “I just can’t help myself. My gifts always look so beautiful on you and your face always lights up so bright. It’s addictive, your smile.”

You smile brightly up at him and Astarion looks upon you with adoration.

“Pardon the intrusion,” Wyll interrupts with a friendly hand on Astarion’s shoulder. “But I believe I was promised a dance?”

He bows elegantly and extends his hand out.

“Wyll!” You cry out happily. “You know that I always save a dance for you!”

“Who said I was asking you?” Wyll playfully holds his hand out to Astarion, who feigns a delighted shock. “Lord Ancunin, if I may.”

“Cute,” you say, looking between the two of them and pouting. “But you can dance with Astarion later. Right now, it’s my turn.”

They both laugh.

“Have fun.” Astarion drops a kiss on your cheek and passes you off to Wyll. “I’ll go speak with Lord Idril about our stance on the upcoming council vote. He’s the last person we need to sway.”

The upcoming vote was about providing relief to farmers after a particularly long and harsh winter. You and Astarion really did try to use your influence for good from time to time honestly.

The two of you simply had your own methods for doing good that others might qualify as ‘morally questionable’ and ‘deeply manipulative.’

Astarion glides away with a charming smile on his face, waving at adoring nobles as he passes by like he’s the king himself.

“I can’t even imagine the size of his ego by the end of the night,” Wyll says.

You don’t mind too much, Astarion with an ego in public turned into a mouthy Astarion in the bedroom later. The ego boost of the ball was most certainly worth it if you were the one to reap the rewards at the end of the night.

But you’re fairly certain that Wyll doesn’t want to hear about your methods for taming a wild Astarion so you turn the conversation back to him with a friendly smile.

“How have you been?” you ask as the two of you begin to step in time to the music.

“Can’t complain. Karlach and I have been traveling along the Sword Coast, as of late.”

“Ah, yes, the formidable Blade of Frontiers,” you tease but you catch the way Wyll’s chest puffs out proudly at the nickname. “That’s what they’re calling you now, right? I’ve been keeping up with your adventures through Volo’s books.”

Wyll rolls his eyes. “Volo… If I fought half as many battles half as valiantly as he writes, I’d wholly be dead.”

You laugh. Volo was always known for his exaggerations, but you had been so proud when he decided to start following Karlach and Wyll since it kept you up to date on their valiant adventures.

“It’s good storytelling. His books are always best-sellers for a reason,” you say with a shrug. “And besides, I quite like to imagine you and Karlach out there slaying dragons and hunting down devils.”

Wyll laughs, “Yes, devils have become a bit of a speciality of ours.”

“Where’s she at by the way? I haven’t seen her yet this evening.”

“She’s here, but she’s doing her own dancing,” Wyll grins when he speaks of Karlach and you wonder if his smile is a bit too affectionate to be considered friendly. “She doesn’t like all the stuffy rich-people small talk.”

“Gods, and who could blame her?” You groan when you and Wyll hear the couple next to you discussing how they think you and Astarion sourced the shrimp. “They seem to be exceptionally dull this evening.”

The two of you giggle together and Wyll spins you in a delightful twirl.

“So,” he asks when he brings you back from the twirl, “How are the renovations on the Szarr palace going?”

“Ancunin palace,” you correct him.

In the interests of venturing into the political landscape of Baldur’s Gate, you and Astarion had decided to renovate the old Szarr palace to use as a secondary base. It had been sitting vacant in the years since Astarion had left and a couple bands of rogues and thieves managed to find their way inside, tearing the place apart.

A part of you was almost glad when you and Astarion had discovered the disrepair- it felt like poetic symbolism of how his life as a spawn was dead and behind him and that now, he could build something beautiful in its place.

You and Astarion had spent a long time hiring new staff to work at the palace and even longer working on plans for the renovations. Astarion leaned toward opulence and grandeur in all areas of life, so his ideas were rather… ambitious. It had taken a while to find guild artisans who met his high standards of craftsmanship (and that’s not even mentioning the headache of how few people specialize in gold metalwork, which Astarion would still complain about at length when the mood struck him).

But aside from your husband’s expensive tastes, the whole process had been mostly fun. The two of you had spent many afternoons laying out in the gardens, swapping fantasies of how you pictured each room in the palace looking. It felt like the two of you were building a home together.

A very expensive, very gold home, but a home, nonetheless.

Your visits to the palace were still infrequent, however. Astarion still had nightmares and episodes that always seemed to get worse after a visit. You hated to see him in pain and you knew he was frustrated at the fact that he couldn’t simply will himself out of those moments.

You both knew it would still take time. Luckily, time was the one thing the two of you had in abundance.

“It’s been slow progress,” you answer Wyll. “There’s lots of memories there, so I think it will take us a while. Though, we are planning another trip to the city soon. How’s your father doing?”

“He’s well,” Wyll smiles and you know he is grateful you asked. Both he and his father adored talking about one another. It was wonderful to see a family with that much love, even as the two of them attempted to navigate past their previous differences.

Astarion had told you about Wyll’s complicated relationship with his father soon after you had met him. Since you and Astarion were beginning to make a name for yourselves in Baldur’s Gate and Wyll’s father was the Duke of the city, it only made sense to introduce yourselves. It didn’t hurt that Duke Ravengard was surprisingly refreshing company in a city full of pompous nobles.

“He’s sorry he couldn’t make it tonight but he wanted me to extend an invitation for you and Astarion to dine with him again next time you visit Baldur’s Gate,” Wyll says. “Father said that he’d be sure to buy more wine this time so Astarion doesn’t bleed him dry again.”

“I do apologize, bleeding people dry is a particularly nasty habit of mine,” Astarion interrupts.

You know your face lights up when you see him, even if you have only been parted for a few short dances.

“If you’ll excuse me, Wyll.” Astarion’s hand rests on your lower back and you lean into his side instinctually. “I think I’d like another dance with my wife.”

“Of course,” Wyll smiles at the two of you. “And congratulations on your anniversary.” He leans in to whisper conspiratorially to you, but loud enough that Astarion can overhear. “Somehow, you’ve made Astarion considerably less insufferable to be around. We all owe you our thanks for that.”

“I’m not insufferable,” Astarion pouts, pulling your body against his far tighter than most of the other married couples dancing together.

“No, darling,” you reassure him. “Not unless your feet are cold.”

He was a particular sort of monster when he was cold. It was lucky that you knew a few good ways to warm him back up.

“Little minx.” He pinches your hip affectionately. “You’re far too much trouble. I’m not sure why I bother to keep you around.”

“Cause you love me.” You move your hand up from his shoulder to cradle the back of his head, stroking your thumb along the sharp line of his jaw.

Astarion’s eyes soften. “I do, don’t I?”

He looks so handsome, you think to yourself. The red in his waistcoat really does bring out the shade of his eyes and when he’s staring at you like this, his heart nearly bleeds out of them. You let your hand drop from Astarion’s face when it is time for Astarion to twirl you in the dance. He pulls you back into him, your back against his chest.

“Got the vote by the way,” his voice is a whisper in your ear.

He means to disguise his true intentions of political scheming as a loving husband whispering words of affection in his wife’s ear. And he really did whisper in your ear often enough that his actions hardly turned any eyes.

“Turns out Idril really doesn’t want his wife to find out about the bastards he’s left around the Lower City. Thanks for that bit of gossip by the way.” Astarion twirls you out again and you miss the cool line of his body pressed against your back.

You give him one of your ‘I told you so’ smiles. “I knew that damned sewing circle would feed me something good eventually. It’s all about playing the long game for you and I.”

“Be honest, darling,” Astarion smirks, “you really just like taking credit for my embroidery, don’t you?”

He’s only partially right. You mostly like showing off his work because you’re proud to have such a talented husband. It’s a very small part of you that does enjoy passing it off as your own since your own attempts at needlework were typically abysmal.

You laugh. “Oh, don’t pretend you aren’t listening through the walls as they praise your work.”

“Do you really think so little of me as to believe I need the approval of a group of old married hags?” Astarion gasps in faux offense. You giggle and he drops the act to laugh along with you. “Did you enjoy your dance with Wyll?”

“I did. Wyll’s an excellent dancer,” you answer. And then, because you can’t resist teasing Astarion, you add, “Some might say he’s better than you.”

“Oh, really?” Astarion raises his eyebrows.

“Some might. But not me.”

Astarion looks so pleased with himself, like he could exist off your praise alone.

“It’s all about the right partner,” he says, repeating one of your favorite phrases back to you.

“And I’m lucky that I found mine.”

The smile he gives you is radiant.

Over his shoulder, you catch sight of Gale, trying to get Astarion’s attention. “Looks like Gale is here with your little snack.”

You give both Gale and the woman standing next to him a friendly wave. Now that you are a more experienced vampire, you have better control over your bloodlust and so, about a year ago you had started feeding from the townspeople that you and Astarion payed. It has allowed you to develop tenuous friendships with a few of them.

But tonight, the two of you had a plan. This snack was for Astarion alone.

Astarion kisses you in a way that is far too scandalous for public eyes. Over the years, that kind of behavior has come to be expected from the two of you, so people simply avert their gazes. And anyone that is staring at you in shock, you simply ignore, choosing instead to enjoy the way Astarion’s fingers curl underneath your chin to tilt your face up to his and the way his lips slide sweetly against yours.

“See you in a few minutes,” he murmurs before he’s walking over to Gale.

You mingle a while longer before you leisurely make your way out to the gardens, following Astarion. The warm summer night doesn’t feel quite as hot against your skin as it did when you were human. It’s easy to find Astarion now. You know the path in the garden and, more than that, you can smell him. You can practically taste the sharp metallic sting in the air from the woman he’s drinking.

But it’s not your job to find him easily tonight so you wander, slipping your gloves down your arms and discarding them on a bench to be picked up later as you let your hands brush along the delicate rose petals. You need to make Astarion a new bouquet soon, you think absentmindedly, the one currently in his study was starting to droop.

Eventually, you round the corner to the spot where you know Astarion will be.

He has the woman in his arms, his mouth on her throat. You think back to that first night you saw him, when your heart had shuddered with fear and dread and beneath that, some carnal desire that you couldn’t yet name. You make sure to step loudly so Astarion will hear you but deep down, you know he is just as aware of you as you are of him, even if he is a bit distracted by feeding right now.

His eyes tear up to look at you, all crimson red and blood dripping down his chin. The shiver that runs down your spine is caused by elation rather than terror, like all those years ago. Looking at him, you cannot help but be filled with love and warmth.

Astarion practically drops the other woman to the ground as he moves to chase after you.

You laugh, a twinkling, sparkly thing that belongs like a star in the night sky, and you have to stop yourself from practically skipping with delight back up to the manor. You remind yourself that you’re supposed to be acting scared as you sneak a peek at Astarion over your shoulder.

He catches your wrist in his grasp just when you’re about to slip inside and he drags you to that familiar closet. It’s cozy and it’s dark and there’s not much room inside unless Astarion’s body is pressed tightly against your own. His arm presses deliciously against your throat to pin you in place.

His eyes are ravenous as they flit across your face. “Tell me, sweet flower, what’s an innocent thing like you doing out in the gardens all by herself at this time of night?”

“My husband left me all alone,” you say demurely, looking up at Astarion from underneath your lashes.

“He must be a stupid man, indeed, if he ever dared to leave a treasure as precious as you unaccompanied.”

“Yes, he’s very stupid,” you say, poking at his ribs. It’s just so hard to resist teasing him when he presents you with so many wonderful opportunities.

Astarion rolls his eyes, moving his arm from your neck to rest his hand on the wall, next to your head. “Well, that’s not fun, pet. That’s just being mean.”

“I’m playing along! Like you told me. It just gets too self-referential and confusing if I think about it for too long, star. Somehow you’re both my husband and the seductive vampire that lures me into dark corners.” You whine, your hand moving to squeeze his ass and pull him closer to you. “Just tell me pretty things and fuck me, please.”

Astarion’s hand cups your cheek. “I do that all the time, my love. I was trying to make tonight memorable.”

“Every day with you is memorable in its own way, even without the role playing,” you promise him. You nuzzle into Astarion’s hand and his thumb strokes softly along your cheekbone.

“You’re sweet,” Astarion says and his face melts into a soft smile.

“I think I just need more rules about what I’m supposed to say. I’m not you- I can’t just whip up seductive lines full of dirty innuendos at the drop of a hat.”

Astarion laughs. “I am rather gifted at that, aren’t I? We don’t have to do it if you don’t want to. I can take you upstairs and make love to you like I normally do if you’d prefer.”

It’s a tempting offer. Astarion making love to you was likely one of your favorite activities. You liked it almost as much as when Astarion went on a bit of a power trip and whispered lovely, depraved things to you while he fucked you like you were his entire reason for existing, which was exactly what he was offering you tonight.

Besides, when Astarion had brought up this idea, he had been so excited to try it out, so excited to recreate the night you first met in a space where the two of you could act on all the perverse desires you had been holding back.

And you truly loved seeing Astarion enjoying and having fun with intimacy, watching his comfort zone expand with time and listening to the new desires he whispered that he wanted to try.

Sometimes, he didn’t end up liking the outcome nearly as much as the idea. There had been that… unfortunate time where Astarion’s hands had only been bound to the bedposts for a few minutes before he was already pulling himself free from the loose restraints, pleading with you that he was sorry. You had simply wrapped your arms around him and held him against your chest, reminding him that he never needed to apologize for setting boundaries.

No, from then on, restraints were saved solely for you.

“No, let me try again.” You drop your hand from his ass and smile sweetly up at him. “Can we go back to the beginning, please?”

Astarion presses a quick peck on your lips. “Just follow my lead. I’ll make it easy for you.”

He takes a moment to compose himself before he’s pressing his arm against your throat again, looking down at you with dark, hungry eyes. It sends an immediate spark of arousal straight to your cunt.

“Tell me, sweet flower, what’s an innocent thing like you doing out in the gardens all by herself at this time of night?”

You look at him with your best impression of wide, scared eyes, like you are a rabbit caught in the jaws of a wolf. You speak, voice barely a whisper, “Chasing after monsters, it seems.”

“A monster?” Astarion laughs, all dark and condescending. “Is that what you think you saw?”

He presses his leg between yours, pinning you to the wall with the full weight of his body and your cunt is aching and it would be easy, so, so easy, to just grind yourself down against his thigh.

“I don’t know what I saw,” you say and your voice comes out surprisingly breathy and naive. You tilt your head up a bit to look at Astarion, exposing more of your neck and your hand clings desperately to the hem of his coat, pulling him tighter against you. “All I know is that you’re simply too beautiful to be human.”

And in another life, perhaps these are the exact words that you would have said to Astarion in that closet when you first met. Perhaps if you had put up less of a fight or been brave enough to say what you were truly thinking, you would have confessed how you thought he was a beam of moonlight come to life, how you thought that there was no way that the perfect man in front of you could exist because he had to be the embodiment of all your childhood fantasies.

“And yet, I was not the most beautiful person in that garden tonight.” His voice is smooth and silky and feels like a caress on your skin.

His arm flexes where it sits across your neck and his fingers brush along your collarbone, just the hint of a touch. You roll your hips down upon Astarion’s leg and apparently he’s feeling benevolent tonight because he pushes his thigh into you a little bit harder and it provides just the amount of friction you need.

“Yes, the woman you were with was very pretty.”

It’s a bit too boring if you just feed Astarion compliments. He deserves to do some work here, too.

“Don’t go chasing after compliments. It’s unbecoming of you.” Astarion’s arm presses harder into your throat and he narrows his eyes at you. You don’t even need to breathe but the slight impact on your airflow has you feeling dizzy. Or maybe that’s just Astarion’s scent, all bergamot and rosemary and the hint of blood on his lips.

“I’m sorry,” you murmur and you both know that you don’t mean it because your hips don’t even stutter where they grind against Astarion’s leg.

“You already know that I meant you,” he continues, ignoring your insincere apology. “All those roses, all those flowers, and they looked pale and lifeless compared to you.”

His voice is low and hungry in your ear. He licks along the shell of it before he whispers, “Don’t all the great poets compare cunts to flowers? I fear they’d run out of words if they ever saw yours. I’d have to kill them all, obviously, but at least they would gaze upon perfection before they died.”

Yeah, that line was a little too ‘your husband’ Astarion and less ‘vampire cornering you in a dark room’ Astarion. It sends a victorious trill singing in your veins because you know he’s fighting just as hard as you to keep himself composed.

Astarion takes a shuddering breath and corrects himself. “It’s truly a shame that I’m going to have to kill you.”

“No, please. Perhaps I can find some way to convince you that I’m worth keeping alive.”

You really play it up, too- pouting your lips, looking up at him from underneath your eyelashes, tilting your chin up to expose your neck just so. Astarion loved to spoil you normally, but he was always so especially susceptible to your begging.

Astarion releases his arm from where it had been pressed against your neck, tracing one of his fingers down his favorite artery. You can feel Astarion’s cock where it presses into your stomach, hard and heavy.

And although his body betrays his desires, Astarion manages to keep his voice flat and unimpressed when he speaks, like this negotiation is beneath him. “I already have more than enough blood, my sweet treat. I’m afraid you’ll have to be more creative about what you can offer me.”

“I’ve been told that I have a very talented mouth. Let me show you. Maybe that will change your mind.”

And thank the gods Astarion released his arm from your neck because now you have more freedom to move. He moans when you catch one of his earlobes between your teeth and his hand comes back up, wrapping gently around your throat and pushing you away from him.

Gods, you can only imagine how wonderful his hand looks wrapped around your throat, accentuated by the lovely ruby necklace he had given you. Maybe you would have to ask him to do it again later in front of a mirror, so you could actually see it.

“Hm, you’re a clever one, aren’t you?” Astarion asks. He shifts his hand so his thumb presses heavily against your bottom lip. His eyes feel like they’re burning into you. “Go on, then, show me.”

You part your lips, letting his thumb slide into your mouth. You suck on it greedily, letting your tongue swirl around it teasingly in that same way you know he always likes around the head of his cock in a silent promise of what is to come. You can feel Astarion’s hips grinding subtly against you as he watches your lewd display and it makes your cunt move so wonderfully against his leg.

“Very well, pet, you’ve proven your point.” His breathing is ragged as he slips his thumb out of your mouth. He leaves a wet trail as he slides it along your chin, all the way down your throat. “Now it’s time for you to really convince me.”

Astarion’s hands fall down to your hips and he pulls you with him, moving until his back is against the wall and your body is leaning into him. His mouth grazes yours as he purrs, “Your lips are going to look so pretty wrapped around my cock.”

He continues to trail teasing almost-kisses along the length of your neck before he bites down. You gasp at the shock of cold, but his mouth retracts from your skin almost immediately. You whine in protest- the bite was too quick, you didn’t even get to really enjoy it.

“On your knees, darling,” he commands, voice all deep and heavy with desire.

You obediently sink down to your knees in front of Astarion and look up at him as one of your hands reaches out to run along the outline of his hard cock straining against his trousers. Your touches are light and fleeting and his hips jolt involuntarily as he tries to press himself harder into your hand.

You’re the one on your knees for him and yet you are the one who will control his pleasure. What a lovely dynamic.

“Promise you won’t kill me?” you ask, acting timid as you fiddle with the fastenings on his pants.

“I don’t know,” Astarion’s eyes glint dangerously in the darkness. “Perhaps a little death is in order tonight.”

It’s a cheesy double entendre but he sells it with the way he’s looking down on you like he can’t wait to devour you. You feel electric, like all your veins in your body are sending molten fire straight to your cunt.

You make quick work of the fastenings on Astarion’s pants and he helps you push them down enough to free his cock. He hisses when your hand wraps around his length.

It’s up to you now, whether you want this to be quick and messy or whether you want to drag this out so long that Astarion is crying and begging to come. Or maybe a mix of both? You’ll see where the mood takes you, you decide, as you lean forward to kiss the base of Astarion’s cock.

You trace a line of teasing kisses along the whole length and when you reach the head of his cock, you let your tongue slip out to run along the slit. Astarion groans, his fingers threading into your hair as a silent request to finally take him in your mouth. You ignore him, content to trace another line of kisses back down his cock.

“Right now, I’m leaning toward killing you,” Astarion says and you can’t help but laugh. You apologize by licking a stripe along the underside of his cock before sucking the tip into the soft, wet heat of mouth.

“Gods, your mouth,” Astarion groans.

You hum in response and Astarion’s hips give a little buck. You take the cue and begin bobbing your head slowly, swirling your tongue around his tip a few times in between each drag of your mouth up and down his cock. You’re trying to take your time, you want Astarion to enjoy this as long as possible, want to make this moment good and special for him.

You take more and more of his cock into your mouth as you move, hollowing your cheeks and bringing your hand up to assist where you’re unable to fit him in your mouth. Quickly, too quickly for what you have planned tonight, you’re able to get a good rhythm going and Astarion’s cock pulses in your mouth in response as he lets out a long string of curses.

Because you are a bit selfish and you don’t want this to end just yet, you pull your mouth off Astarion with a gentle pop. You keep pumping your hand up and down at a slow pace- enough to feel good, but not enough for him to come. Not yet.

With Astarion’s fingers still loosely threaded in your hair, you sneak a peek up at him. He’s breathtakingly gorgeous, of course. His head tilts back against the wall, eyes closed in rapture, and his beautiful pink lips are slightly parted as soft gasps and breaths escape his mouth.

Gods, you want nothing more than to bite him, to taste his little snack from earlier for yourself.

You grab his wrist with your other hand, bringing it toward your mouth. Pushing up his sleeve, you run your nose along the veins in his wrist.

“Let me taste you,” you plead. And then because you know Astarion is weak for you, especially when you’re on your knees for him, you add a breathy, “please.”

He looks down at you with half-lidded eyes and his voice is so deliciously condescending when he says, “Only since you asked so nicely. Drink up, pet.”

With his permission given, you sink your teeth into the soft flesh of his wrist. It tastes divine. You let your tongue lick away the blood until his wounds have closed and then you set back to work on his cock with a renewed vigor.

When you take him back in your mouth, you lift your hand up to pat on Astarion’s thigh three times, the signal between the two of you that it was okay for him to start moving however he wanted.

His fingers curl in your hair a bit more insistently as he starts guiding your motions and you relax your jaw, letting him fuck into your mouth as he chases after his orgasm. You wish you could get to your cunt more easily around the skirts of this heavy ball gown because you’re practically aching with need.

“That’s- fuck, so good, my love,” Astarion pants out.

His hips quicken and you know he’s close so you move one of your hands to cup his balls and you feel them tightening beneath your fingers.

“Fuck, I’m going to-” Astarion gasps. “That okay?”

And it would make you smile, if your mouth wasn’t currently otherwise occupied. It was sweet, how even in the heat of the moment, Astarion still found the time to check in with you. Even now, after years of assuring him that was unnecessary.

You pat on his leg thigh again, another okay, and it only takes a few more thrusts before his cock is twitching and he’s coming in your mouth.

When you finish swallowing, Astarion is guiding you to stand again, pressing his mouth to yours in a messy kiss. Gods, are you ever grateful that Astarion is not shy. It certainly helped you over the initial awkwardness you felt at moments like this very quickly.

Astarion groans into your mouth as he tastes himself. The metallic tang of the woman’s blood still remains faintly on his own lips. You find yourself fighting against Astarion as you both try desperately to chase after the taste in the other’s mouth.

Between your messy kisses, Astarion ungracefully works to bunch the gorgeous fabric of your dress up to your hips, shifting again to push you against the wall.

“Hold,” Astarion instructs you, passing your bunched up skirts off to you. You collect them in your arms and hold them up around your waist. His lips slide slowly and deliciously against yours before he murmurs, “I can smell you. I can practically taste in the air how wet you are. And we don’t want you making a mess out of your pretty dress, now do we? I imagine someone worked very hard on that.”

Astarion’s leg presses against you and for a moment, you wonder if that was his hidden plan for the night all along- if he was going to make you rut against his leg in the dark closet, guiding you to ecstasy with just the sound of his voice. You start rolling your hips again and the relief you feel at finally giving your cunt some attention nearly makes you sob.

“Now, now, pet,” Astarion tuts. “I know your cunt is just aching for me, but now is the time for patience. If you can wait just a little longer, I promise to reward you handsomely.”

And oh, how you adored being rewarded by Astarion. It usually involved at least a few orgasms that left your legs shaking and your mind spinning. Astarion accentuates his words by kicking your legs a bit wider apart with one of his own feet. His hand moves down between your body, fingers brushing against your cunt.

“Just like I expected, you’re practically dripping. You like sucking my cock that much, don’t you?”

Your eyes fall closed as you let yourself drown in the soft strokes of Astarion’s fingers along your folds. It feels like you might very well burn alive.

Astarion’s other hand gently weaves through your hair. You’re sure the rubies that Shadowheart spent hours weaving into your hair have long since been scattered across the floor. You can’t bring yourself to even begin to care.

“Answer me when I speak to you, pet,” he commands in that wonderful low voice.

It’s accompanied by a sharp tug on the roots of your hair that have you offering up your neck to Astarion. His mouth dips down to suck at your throat and you mewl in delight when he finds a particularly sensitive spot.

“You know I love your cock,” you tell him.

You’d add how much you love the rest of him, too, but that doesn’t seem to fit the mood right now. No, you’d save that for later tonight while you rode him, forbidding his hands from roaming your body. With his hands tightly gripping the sheets, you would shower him in praise and be those lovely, pathetic whimpers he made as he fought to keep his hands off you.

Astarion hums, tilting your chin up to press another deep, slow kiss to your lips. “And you know I adore your mouth.”

His hand keeps moving in maddening, feather-light patterns along your cunt, occasionally moving up to brush against your clit before his fingers are darting away again. It seems Astarion has not finished having his fun with you tonight.

He speaks against your lips, “You look so pretty on your knees for me. I’d keep you there forever, pet, but I think I’d grow tired of not being able to properly kiss you.”

And if anyone else said that line, you’d be rolling your eyes and grimacing about how corny it was. But this is Astarion and he commits and says it in the low, hungry voice that has your toes curling and heat pooling in your cunt.

His mouth is hovering just centimeters away from yours. You can feel each panting breath on your lips. You move forward to kiss him, but Astarion tugs on your hair again, keeping you just a hair's breadth away from what you want.

Trying to outsmart Astarion, you use your free arm that is not holding your skirts to pull him down by his cravat and seal his lips against yours. He actually seems rather glad that you managed to work around his grip in your hair as he hums happily into the kiss.

And either Astarion is extra observant tonight or you’re just being extra obvious about the way you chase after the taste of blood in his mouth.

“She tasted divine,” Astarion says, his thumb making a slow circle around your clit before it’s gone again. “But I doubt you want to hear about that, do you, pet? No, I think you’d much rather hear about how she paled in comparison to you.”

He dips just the tip of one of his fingers inside you before pulling it out again almost immediately.

“She was nothing. They’re all nothing,” Astarion hisses. Gods, how did that even manage to sound attractive coming from him? “No one else has ever made me feel as good as you.”

For a moment, his pure, unadulterated love breaks through on his face and your chest burns with love- you know how devoted he is to you, you know how much he adores you.

For a moment, it is just the two of you in a little bubble of love. And then Astarion finally, mercifully pushes a finger into you, working it in and out so agonizingly slow. You whimper and Astarion smiles wickedly down at you.

“They all bow to us, you know?” Astarion asks, knowing you are in no state to answer. “They bow to me. To you.”

You pull his lips down to yours again and slip your tongue in his mouth. He knows exactly what he’s doing- he knows this line of speaking always works you into a state of frenzy. And you know that arrogant side of him enjoys the sound of his voice just as much as you do.

It had been so easy, too, to work the nobles onto your side, to start poisoning their minds with your and Astarion’s ideas. A few carefully placed smiles, a few favors promised and repaid, a few veiled threats. The two of you worked together so easily- Astarion charmed and you schemed.

Astarion chuckles, slipping another finger into you and curling them in a way that makes you unsteady on your feet. He seems perfectly content to keep his other hand threaded in your hair, delivering your mouth to his whenever he wants a kiss.

“Oh, you liked that, didn’t you, pet? You like thinking about them on their knees for you, just like you were for me a few moments ago.” The heel of his palm brushes against your clit. “Do you want to hear more? Do you want to hear about how even the sun herself bows her head in deference to your light and beauty? About how even I bow down to you, surrendering myself to you in worship?”

“Show me, then,” you pant out, pulling on the back of his neck to press his forehead against yours. “Show me how you intend to worship me.”

That has Astarion cursing under his breath and reaching down to give his cock a few pumps before he’s pushing into you, already hard again.

The fullness and the stretch of him finally inside you soothes the ache that had been plaguing you all night. And when he moves, you can’t help the barrage of moans and gasps that fall from your lips.

“Quiet, little flower. We don’t want everyone to hear, do we?” Astarion asks, bringing his fingers up to your mouth. They’re still wet with your arousal and you follow his silent cue, sucking them into your mouth.

“Good girl,” he purrs and it sends a spark straight to your cunt. You feel yourself tighten around his cock and Astarion groans in response, his hips thrusting into you with even more desperation.

The thought of who’s the one being loud now? passes through your mind as Astarion groans and tells you how good you feel. And then, because deep down, you’re a little bit vindictive, you let one of your fangs scratch along the skin of Astarion’s fingers in your mouth. You greedily lick up the blood, enjoying the way it mixes with the taste of your wetness on your tongue.

What was it that Astarion always called the combination of your blood and your cunt? The nectar of the gods? He might be onto something there.

Astarion’s eyes lock in on you with a single-minded focus before he’s wrenching his fingers from your mouth, capturing your lips with his own. He sucks your bottom lip into his mouth and bites down, lapping up the blood until your wound closes.

“I love you,” you whisper when he pulls away.

His cock pulses inside you and his hips stutter a bit before he can recover his rhythm. You would never get tired of that- of reminding Astarion of how deeply you loved him and watching how he never failed to viscerally react to those words.

“Love you, too,” Astarion says, pressing a peck to your cheek. You can feel him smiling against your skin. It’s a total contradiction to the obscene way his cock drives into you.

You grab Astarion’s hand from where it had been gently cupping your face and drag it down between your bodies.

“Need your hands.”

“I know just what you need,” he assures as his magical fingers begin circling your clit.

There’s that lovely heat building low in your stomach, rising into a great inferno that surrounds you. And with Astarion’s whispered promises of how he loves you, how good you feel, how you shine brighter than the sun, you come.

Astarion fucks you through your orgasm before his fingers fall away from your sensitive clit and his hips continue to drive into you as he chases after his own high.

“Come for me,” you tell him, half a command and half a begged request. “Want to feel you inside me.”

Astarion’s forehead rests against yours as he comes.

He keeps you pressed to the wall with the full weight of his body for a few moments longer as the two of you fight to steady your breathing.

Frankly, it’s a miracle that you managed to hold up your dress the whole time. You had been so worried about damaging the lovely needlework that Astarion had spent so long embroidering that you had kept the fabric clenched to your stomach in an iron-vice the whole time.

Astarion ensures you are steady on your feet before he shuffles around the closet in search of a rag to wipe between your legs. He finds one and helps you to clean up before throwing it in a bucket with the other dirty rags. You finally release your skirts and flex the muscles in your aching arm as you lean back against the wall, grabbing Astarion’s wrist to pull him back toward you.

“I love you.”

“I’ll never get tired of hearing you say that,” he murmurs, wrapping his arms tightly around you as he pulls you into a hug. “I love you, too, now and forever.”

“‘Til death do us part,” you tease, because the idea of death to a vampire seems nothing more than a joke.

Astarion laughs, pressing a kiss to the top of your head. “And even after then.”

----------------------

Notes:

Me? Ending a fic on the title? It's almost like I planned that from the beginning... This chapter could alternatively be called 'I let Astarion have a delusions of grandeur as a treat for working on himself.' He's still the Astarion we know and love and of course he's still a little bit evil, but now he's got a wife to help him channel all that energy in healthier ways!

Wow, I can't believe this story is over and this is my final note. I'm getting a bit teary eyed as I write this. Know that I will never be able to fully express my appreciation to everyone who has read/liked/commented on this story. This whole experience has been so much more fun that I ever could have imagined and I have all of you to thank for that!!!

As always, hugest thank you to my beta-writer (and real life friend) AliensNSuch on ao3. She has put up with my insane text rants about obscure details and she has logged many, many hours editing this thing and hyping me up over the parts I hate. I owe her a lifetime of boba for her service!

I've also got some plans for a new fic that I'm gonna start. I'll have a follow up post on my blog talking about my plans if anyone is interested in that. I'm not quite done with Astarion yet!

Thanks again. I love you all!

Taglist: @ayselluna@idkbrodontaskme@maruichio@fanfic-share@the-littlest-bruja@asterordinary@divineknightmare@fandomarchiveilyd

#astarion #astarion x reader #astarion x tav #astarion ancunin #astarion bg3 #bg3 #baldurs gate 3 #baldurs gate #bg3 fanfiction #x reader #til death do us part

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fettuccinealfred0 · 2 months

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Okay, final little sneaky peaky for the upcoming epilogue of Til Death Do Us Part. I mean... it's an epilogue guys, the whole thing is basically gonna be smut. This is a preview, so I'm not gonna give too much away or it's not fun, but it is lightly NSFW so she's going beneath a cut this week.

(CW: SMUT 18+)

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And you know he’s not lying- that in another life, all these words are true. It shouldn’t turn you on. It does anyway.

Astarion’s hands burn where they brush your calf. He touches you possessively, so familiar with every inch of skin as if your body was simply an extension of his own.

“More,” you plead with him and he grins arrogantly.

#the alternate title for this chapter is:#I let Astarion have delusions of grandeur as a treat because he's been a good boy and his wife has been making him go to therapy #astarion #astarion x reader #astarion x tav #bg3 #baldurs gate 3 #sneak peak

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fettuccinealfred0 · 2 months

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This mans got me in a chokehold ahahahaaa 🫠

don't tell him I said that

#just so we're all on the same page here i need everyone to look at drawing number 2 #I got ideas....#(the ideas are that I think he should be allowed to rob trains for fun)

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fettuccinealfred0 · 2 months

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Jooo I just discovered your ff "Til Death Do Us Part" and it's incredible omg it's 3am in my country rn and I binge read all of the chapters. Your waiting style is fr so good!

I just wanted to ask if you planned on writing more chapter?

Ah, yes, the classic 'staying up too late binge reading.' I'm honored that my fic kept you awake lol.

I've had this fic plotted out since the beginning, so it was always going to 10 parts (that got stretched into 11 because I don't know how to stfu), so the final part will be the epilogue which will be posted this coming Sunday!

We'll see what happens in the future. I might post a couple little side bits and blurbs from Til Death Do Us Part of scenes that I cut for time? It depends on how busy I get and how much I end up missing this AU as I move on to new stuff.

But this certainly won't be the last from me! I have plenty of other ideas and I don't see my obsession with Astarion dying out any time soon since this game is pretty much all I think about.

#the ideas are: i see astarion in that cowboy hat in the game and my brain go brrrrrrrr like a microwave #the upcoming fic I'm planning will probably be shorter and posted less frequently as I get busier in the semester but I swear I have plans #asks

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fettuccinealfred0 · 2 months

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Til Death Do Us Part | Part 10

Series Masterlist

Astarion x f!reader, Arranged Marriage AU

Word Count: 13.4k

(CW: SMUT 18+, unprotected p in v sex, Astarion deserves to feel so good he cries during sex so I let him)

Summary:

“I was so scared to love you at first,” Astarion says softly. He hardly knows what sentiment he is trying to convey other than his earth-shattering love for you, but the words are burning at his throat, forcing their way out before he can think. “I was so scared that you would make me weak and powerless. I know better now. In truth, you are the one who encourages me to be strong. You are the one who showed me the light after so long being trapped in the darkness.”

“If I am your sun, then you are my moon,” you say. “There is not one without the other. All my beauty, all my love, reflects and shines off you. You are the stars themselves, Astarion, shining and shimmering against the blackness of night. Always recognizable, always able to guide me home.”

He dips down to press a slow kiss to your lips so you do not keep saying beautiful words that make him want to cry.

Read on ao3 here

There is no feeling in the world that could compare to the feeling of being wrapped in Astarion’s arms, even if you are still sitting uncomfortably on the edge of the desk Astarion just fucked you on. Your whole body is warm and relaxed and the moment could nearly be described as perfect.

Nearly, but not quite.

Because when you had been baring your heart to Astarion earlier, there had been one teeny, tiny, miniscule, little detail that you had neglected to mention. And when he’s looking at you with soft, gooey eyes and you feel a guilty pit in your stomach, you realize that you probably need to be honest with him about everything.

“Wait… I have something I need to show you, too.”

You push Astarion away from you so you can clamber off the desk. The cool air on your sweaty skin makes you shiver and you retrieve your chemise from the floor. It will take too long to redo your corset and you doubt Astarion will want to help you put it back on, so you settle for just the chemise. It’s not that long of a walk to your room and you’re sure Astarion will threaten to gouge out any servant’s eyes should someone happen to see you.

“Alas, I miss the sight of your perfect body already,” Astarion sighs, leaning against the desk as he watches you.

Astarion’s pouting at you with big, sad eyes like you have just given him the worst news in the world and not as if you have simply covered yourself in a thin layer of cotton.

He’s already slipped his pants up back around his hips and shrugged his own shirt back on, though it’s loose and untucked. The flowing, open collar leaves the top of his chest on display and the combination of his pale skin coupled with the pink blush staining his cheeks leaves you breathless for a moment. No matter how long you look at him, study him, memorize his features, his beauty will never grow old. It will always continue to amaze you that this man exists and that he chose to love you.

“Come on, casanova,” you giggle, grabbing his hand to tug him in the direction of your room.

Astarion digs his heels into the ground and tugs you back to him, anchoring you against the line of his body with an arm around your waist. He appears uncharacteristically shy as he looks down at your interlaced fingers and gently runs his thumb over the back of your hand.

“Does this mean you’re going to move back into our room now?” Astarion asks in a quiet voice.

Our room. Your stomach flutters when you hear him call it that.

Astarion rushes to explain when you don’t give him an immediate answer. “I mean, I know it’s not like we need to sleep or anything and you deserve to have your own space and I understand completely if you don’t want to yet. Or ever. I’m not-”

Astarion cuts himself off and takes a deep breath.

“It’s your choice,” he says and for the first time it feels like he’s actually heard you. That he’s actually trying to do better. “But I will tell you that I miss holding you.”

“I miss holding you, too,” you confess to Astarion. “And thank you- for letting this be my decision, although I do believe our interests align on this issue. I’d love nothing more than to join you again in our room.”

You give Astarion’s hand a reassuring squeeze.

“But I do like having my own space. Maybe we work on getting me a room like your study,” you offer up as an idea. So far, you had been rather neglectful of your duties as Lady Ancunin, so perhaps it was time to actually start attending to those now that your life was relatively stable.

“Pick whatever room you’d like, and it’s yours,” Astarion says. “We can start buying new furniture as soon as tomorrow.”

“Maybe we could look at getting me a desk to match yours,” you tease Astarion, wrapping your arm around his neck and pulling him down closer to you. “Maybe next time you bend me over it instead.”

“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” Astarion chuckles, pressing a lingering kiss to your lips.

You sigh happily into the kiss, content to spend the rest of your day making up for all the sweet kisses you had missed out on while you and Astarion were spending time apart. Astarion pulls away from you far too soon.

“You had something to show me,” he reminds you, nudging his nose against yours.

“Right.” You detangle yourself from his arms and tug on his hand again, leading him out of his study and down the hallway to your room.

“Do I get a hint?” Astarion asks as you walk.

“Um…” you trail off, trying to think of a good answer. You never meant to spring the gems on Astarion, but it seems like it will be so much easier to explain if he just sees them and hears your full explanation at the same time. “It’s nothing bad. At least, I don’t think so.”

“Ominous.”

When you enter your room, you lead Astarion over to your bookshelf before dropping his hand. He watches you curiously as you take a deep breath and pluck the book off the shelf. You can’t help but worry that Astarion is going to feel betrayed that you haven’t told him about the gems yet.

“Please don’t be mad at me?” you ask.

“You’re not off to a strong start, my love.” Astarion teases, but you can tell your words have made him uneasy by the way his brow creases and his whole body tenses. He glances down at the cover of the book in your hands. “A Study of Balduran Flowers? I believe you will find that I don’t have nearly as many opinions about gardening as you do. Not unless it involves those pretty bouquets you used to bring me.”

“It’s inside the book,” you explain.

“Well, yes, that’s normally how books work.”

You’re both deflecting. It was always easier to fall back into teasing rather than sit in uncomfortable moments. You could play this off as some silly joke and slide the book back onto your shelf and keep these gems for yourself forever. But you and Astarion were equals now and he deserved to know information that involved him.

You steel yourself for what you need to do, but you want to get your explanation out before Astarion sees the gems and either grows distracted or angry.

“It’s never really felt like the right time to bring this up. I tried back in- Well, I didn’t really try that hard. I didn’t want to play our hand to Raphael. And after, I’ve just been a little preoccupied.”

You open the book. The inside is hollowed out and inside the paper edges sit the three gemstones. Astarion’s mouth hangs open in shock for a moment before he’s pulling the book from your hands, picking out each gem to hold them up to the candlelight for inspection.

He looks at you in disbelief. “You- how did you get these?”

“When I was young, my mother had a necklace,” you explain. “I used to always think the green gem was so pretty. She gave it to me right before she died and I was lucky that my father never bothered himself enough with me to care what trivial possessions I owned. It was sent here with the rest of my belongings.”

“Your mother…” Astarion looks stunned.

“She was from Baldur’s Gate, you know,” you say. It had never occurred to you how little you had shared about her with Astarion. “She was a direct descendent from one of the original families that founded the city.”

Astarion finally tears his gaze away from the gems. “How did you get the other two?”

“Oh, that was easy.” You grin. “You left me alone for a bit. Do you remember? You went over to the inn to tell Shadowheart to draw me a bath and I just… slipped them into my skirt when no one was looking. They seemed too important to just leave there."

And then, still staring intently at gems, Astarion is just walking out of the room with a single-minded focus.

“Where are you going?” You call out after him but he doesn’t slow down or turn around to answer you.

You huff, grabbing your dressing robe from the chair at your vanity and chasing after Astarion, frantically trying to pull the robe over your arms as you try to catch up to him.

Eventually, he comes to stop at the library. Gale is sitting at a table in the center of the room, surrounded by books, and Astarion drops your hollowed out book with the gems on the desk next to Gale with a loud thump.

“What’s-” Gale sputters at the intrusion before he sees the gems hidden inside the book. “The gems! But there’s three of them? How?”

And Astarion just starts laughing- a full body, side-splitting laugh that has him wheezing and holding onto the table to support himself. Gale just looks at Astarion as if he’s lost his mind.

“The whole time.” Astarion finally manages to choke out in between laughs. “She had the last gem this whole time.”

Gale’s mouth hangs open in shock as his attention turns to you. He spends another moment looking utterly perplexed before a wide smile fills his face and he starts chuckling, too.

“Oh, that’s just too good,” Gale says. “I couldn’t have written that better myself.”

With two grown men giggling like children in front of you, you can’t help but succumb to the infectious mood, laughing at the absurdity of the situation, as well.

“If you would have just told me,” you wheeze out at Astarion, which sets all of you off laughing again.

Gale bangs his fist down on the table while he tries to catch his breath in between fits of laughter and your sides are aching and you’re just so relieved that this weight has been lifted off your shoulders and that Astarion isn’t upset with you.

It takes minutes for the laughter to finally die down. You think you catch Astarion wiping tears away from his eyes.

“So, all three gems,” Gale says. He looks a bit awestruck as he examines each gemstones. “How did you have one?”

And as Gale looks up at you for an explanation, no longer distracted by the shiny gemstones or Astarion’s manic laughter, his eyes widen and his face turns bright red when he finally recognizes you are only dressed in your chemise and dressing robe. Gale awkwardly clears his throat and his eyes quickly dart back down to the gems and you pull the robe tighter around yourself.

Astarion just shoots you a smirk and it occurs to you how disheveled you both look. Astarion’s shirt is hanging open and exposing half his chest. His normally meticulously styled hair is messy from where your hands had held tightly onto his curls as he’d eaten you out like you were his last meal. And you’re sure your own hair is a mess and wait- is that a bit of leftover blood that you feel drying on your chin?

It’s all rather damning evidence that the two of you had just had sex. Which, you had, but Gale didn’t need to know that.

With your arms crossed tightly over your chest and Astarion staring at you with a smug grin, you quickly explain your mother’s necklace to Gale.

“Makes sense,” Gale hums, sliding the pair of glasses he is wearing down his nose as he closely inspects each gem. “When the gems were originally taken from the crown and split up, I believe they were given to three of the founding families of Baldur’s Gate as a safety precaution. The history behind the gem was probably lost with time as it was passed down, or as a strategic move so that people like Raphael would have a more difficult time finding them. I believe that’s how Cazador had one in his possession, as well, as heir to the Szarr family. The other was sold and stolen, several times over before we found it with Gortash.”

You recognize Gortash’s name. As a member of nobility, you were not completely unaware of the gossip coming from society in Baldur’s Gate. You had heard whispers of the man fighting to make a name for himself and about his subsequent untimely death.

“Ugh, Gortash,” Astarion groans, his nose wrinkling in disgust. “I hated him. He was too full of himself.”

You and Gale shoot each other little snickers because it’s a bit ridiculous to hear Astarion describe someone else as ‘too full of themselves.’ Pot, kettle, and all that.

And Gale does not seem to be done having fun at Astarion’s expense.

“So, the two of you made up?” Gale asks.

Your face feels hot, but Astarion preens.

“Yes, we did,” he says. “Though I believe we have a more pressing issue at hand. We have all three gems. Now the question is- what can we do with them?”

An unfamiliar, hungry gleam has entered Astarion’s eye. You thought you had seen all types of hunger from Astarion, but this look is different. This is something far crueler.

“I’d urge caution,” Gale says, his voice slow and calm, as if he is trying to talk Astarion from jumping off a ledge. “This is a powerful relic. It is not to be trifled with.”

Astarion ignores Gale’s warning, laser focused on an idea. “There was a ritual that Cazador was attempting before Raphael killed him. It was a sacrifice of spawn to Mephisopheles in order to become a higher being- the vampire ascendent. He would no longer be bound by the restrictions of a vampire- it would have allowed him to taste, to walk in the sun.” Astarion’s voice grows cold and unrecognizable. “It would have granted him unfathomable power.

“Why are you bringing this up?” You ask, weary.

“What if Mephistopheles wants these gems to recreate the crown himself?” Astarion asks, like this is the logical conclusion that anyone would have drawn from his explanation.

And you can’t lie, a part of you is tempted by the idea of this ritual. Of being able to see the light of day again and no longer being trapped in an eternal night. Of not constantly being burdened by this hunger and this incessant hyper-awareness of everyone’s blood rushing through their veins.

But in your time married to Astarion, you knew intimately when Astarion was purposefully withholding details. There was no way that this level of power was granted without paying a price.

And you know Astarion. He looks out for himself, first and foremost. To a lesser extent, Astarion also looks out for you, though whether his actions are motivated by true love or his own selfish desire to stay in your good graces, you will never know.

While in less dire circumstances, his disregard for consequences could be tolerated, the gleam in his eye betrays his hunger. You had hoped that he learned his lesson about dealing with devils, but evidently the power of ascension was too appealing to him.

“What was the sacrifice?” You ask quietly.

“The souls of 7,007 vampires and spawn.” Astarion hurriedly answers without turning to look at you, as if the death of thousands of people was a mere pittance. “Or, well, 7,008 if you include the person performing the ritual since they would lose their soul, as well. But I don’t know if we would have to do that part since we already have something Mephistopheles wants.”

You’re mildly relieved that Astarion didn’t actually just propose murdering 7,000 people.

Another question nags at you. “Would you still lose your soul?”

“Not just me, darling. We.” Astarion finally turns to you, cupping your face in his palms. “The vampire ascendants. King and Queen.”

You frown. “It doesn’t seem like a good idea to go around making deals with devils again.”

“This isn’t a deal, it’s a transaction,” Astarion says, voice hard and unimpressed. You don’t really understand the difference. He seems disappointed in your lack of an awed reaction at his idea. “It’s something given, something gained and we all part ways at the end with no contracts lingering over our heads.”

“You don’t even know if it will work,” you say, treading lightly. Astarion seems fragile and a bit manic right now and you had to be careful not to push him into becoming defensive. You bring your hand up to wrap around his own, where he’s still cupping your face.

“But we can try,” Astarion practically begs you.

Why was he so insistent upon this idea? Surely, this couldn’t all just be about gaining power.

“Maybe think about it a while longer. I’ll do some research,” Gale implores.

“Fine,” Astarion drops his hand from your face. “I’ll be in my study. Come find me when you realize ascension is our best option.”

You watch as Astarion storms off in a huff.

“I’ll talk to him once he’s calmed down,” you reassure Gale.

“You don’t want to do the ritual, right?” Gale asks you uneasily.

“No.” You laugh. “That whole thing sounds like a recipe for disaster. But we need to let Astarion realize that for himself. He gets argumentative and defensive when anyone tells him that he’s wrong.”

“So do you,” Gale points out.

“That’s why he and I work well together. I’m the only person more stubborn than he is.”

When you make your way to Astarion’s study, you find him pacing and muttering to himself, no doubt attempting to concoct the perfect, elaborate argument that will point out every flaw in the opposition’s argument and convince everyone that Astarion is right.

He stops pacing when he sees you.

“We have an ace up our sleeve and Gale isn’t letting us play our hand. He’s squandering this once in a lifetime opportunity for us,” Astarion gruffly complains.

“My love, he’s not squandering it,” you say, approaching Astarion and calmly running your hand soothingly down the length of his back. He’s too worked up right now, you’re not sure he will listen to you. “Gale is simply reminding us that we shouldn’t rush into a decision without thinking through all the potential consequences.”

Astarion’s eyes narrow in suspicion. “Oh, not you, too! Look, you two can sit in your moral superiority and accuse me of being power-hungry, but I am the one taking actionable steps to ensure our safety.”

“That’s not- Look, Astarion, you proposed one idea. Sometimes, the first idea is the best idea and sometimes, it isn’t. I want us to be thorough before we throw away such a powerful bargaining chip.”

You can feel the muscles in Astarion’s back relaxing when he realizes that you are not trying to argue with him.

“You’ll come to see my side of things in time,” Astarion turns away from you as if the matter has been settled.

“You do realize that you’re making choices without asking me what I’m thinking again, star,” you say, voice flat.

Astarion’s whole body tenses. “But I haven’t actually made the choice yet.”

“No, but you’ve already made up your mind,” you tell him. “And you’re acting like you know what’s best for me better than I do.

“That’s- I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. Please don’t be mad at me,” Astarion stumbles over his words, rushing to apologize. His hand comes up to rest on your cheek. You are sure this is him seeking to ground himself, fighting to alleviate the panic that he has already committed a grave mistake so soon after the two of you had reunited.

“I’m not angry.” You dip your head to press a quick kiss to the inside of his wrist. “We’re having a discussion. That’s what married couples do.”

Astarion nods and you catch the relieved sigh he releases. Evidently, there were still some insecurities you needed to reassure Astarion about if he was still concerned that you would flee at the first sign of an argument.

“Can I ask why you seem so intent on using the gems for this purpose?” you ask him softly.

His thumb stokes along your cheekbone and he looks at you with wide, soft eyes.

“For us, little flower.”

And then, because Astarion knows you better than anyone and knows exactly what arguments will pull at your heartstrings, he asks, “Don’t you miss the sunlight? Don’t you miss the gardens?”

Damn it all if that doesn’t give you pause for a moment. Because you do miss the sunlight. Desperately. When you had first been turned into a vampire, there was still snow on the ground and now, gentle summer breezes were beginning to roll in during the day. You had already missed the entire spring. You had missed stretching out in the sunlight in the gardens and reading, with Tara curled up next you and beautiful blooming flowers surrounding you.

“Just think, my love, you could walk in the sun again. You wouldn’t be limited by your bloodlust. We’d be free. I’d-” Astarion cuts himself off, a slip of the tongue. “We’d finally be safe.”

So, there it is. That’s what he was so worried about. Safety. Freedom.

Astarion has not had power over himself in a very long time and he believes that if he’s given this power, no one can ever hurt him again.

It’s all about fear. It was always about fear. Fear of being too weak and becoming enslaved again, fear that he will never be able to escape from Cazador’s shadow, fear of not being worth more than what he can offer others.

He’s wrong, of course, but you can’t just tell him that.

“I’m a bit worried about the whole maybe having to sell my soul thing,” you say, instead, bringing up one of your many valid concerns while also trying to infuse a tiny bit of humor into the situation. You knew Astarion did better in that space, that he didn't shut down quite so quickly.

“I’ve done it before.” Astarion gives you an arrogant smirk. “It worked out all right in the end for me.”

“Because we killed Raphael. And he wasn’t even a full archdevil like his father,” you point out. “But a soul is not something you can carelessly toss aside. It’s a part of you.” You reach out, letting your fingers slip beneath the open collar of his loose shirt and trace over where his undead heart sits inside his chest. You look up at him under your lashes. “And I love you. All of you. I don’t want you to change.”

“All of me?” Astarion asks, a bit incredulous.

“Even the parts of you that you don’t love. Though there aren’t many,” you tease, before you go back to being genuine. “I love that in spite of everything that has happened to you, you still love with the full force of your heart.”

“I don’t have a heart,” Astarion says, with a cheeky little grin.

You roll your eyes. “Metaphorical heart. Now, stop interrupting if you want me to keep saying sweet things to you.”

“I’m sorry, please continue.”

“Let’s see- what else do I love about you? Well, you’re certainly easy on the eyes,” you say and Astarion laughs. “And you’re surprisingly funny for someone who used to study law. You have me smiling or laughing at just about everything you say. And you’re cunning and shrewd, you don’t let people take advantage of you or get away with anything. And you’re so strong. You have lived through the worst tortures anyone could imagine and you survived. You were the one that came out of that situation victorious and fought to make a new life for yourself.”

With that, Astarion melts into your arms, tucking his face in the curve of your neck and wrapping his arms tightly around your waist.

“But mostly, I love your hair,” you say with a grin, because you can’t resist.

“Thank you,” Astarion says, but his voice cracks a bit, letting you know how much your little speech truly impacted him. “People don’t compliment me on my hair nearly as often as they should.”

You hug Astarion tighter. “Sounds like a job for your wife.”

You let Astarion sit in that comfort for as long as he needs, keeping your arms wrapped so, so, so tight around one another. Eventually, you turn your head a bit, whispering into his soft hair. “I know you’re scared. I’m scared, too. But that’s okay. We shouldn’t let ourselves be ruled by our fear.”

“You’re right, little flower.” Astarion finally pulls his face out of your neck to look at you, pushing a strand of loose hair behind your ear. “I have been a slave to this fear for too long. It’s time to stop letting it control me.”

You smile at him. “So, no ritual? We’ll find something better to do with the gems?”

He sighs. “You’ve managed to convince me. No ascension.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.” Astarion threads his fingers through your hair and pulls you toward him for a kiss.

“Besides,” you kiss along his neck to whisper in his ear. “If power is what you want, there are much easier ways to get it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nobles are idiots. They’re practically begging for someone to lead them. And really,” you murmur, ghosting your lips over Astarion’s. “Who is better suited for the job than us? They can come and go. We’ll remain.”

Astarion groans. “There aren’t enough words for how deeply I love you.”

He closes the distance and kisses you.

—----------------

The nightmare happens when you least expect it. You and Astarion were lying in bed together and you were so comfortable and relaxed that before you noticed, you had just… drifted off to sleep.

Suddenly Raphael’s cold, dead stare bores into you. His empty eyes are underlined by the ragged laceration where his throat had been slit. The congealed blood soaks the devil’s shirt and the air reeks of eternal, rotting damnation. Even in death, his face emotes- twisted in surprise, his mouth stretched in a silent scream.

But it’s the eyes. It’s always the eyes that rip the breath from your lungs and inject a horrible sense of dread into your veins.

You don’t jolt yourself out of it or wake up screaming. It’s not like one of Astarion’s disorienting nightmares which leave him unable to tell the difference between memory and reality. There’s just the devil’s dead face and then suddenly, you’re blinking awake. You stare at the pale scars on Astarion’s back, trembling. The image of Raphael weighs too heavily in your mind.

You can tell by the sound of Astarion’s rhythmic breathing that he’s still asleep. Your arm is still slung over his waist and his fingers are still loosely entangled with yours.

Good, let him sleep peacefully for once, you think.

The last thing you want to do is disturb him, but you need to do something. You can’t just let your mind sit in this image forever or it might wind up getting stuck there. Wrapping your arm tighter around Astarion’s midsection, you rest your forehead against his back, letting yourself sniffle as quiet tears leak from your eyes.

“What’s wrong?” Astarion asks almost immediately, as if he has some supernatural ability to sense your distress. His voice is still soft and low with sleep as he turns around to gently brush away your tears.

“Raphael,” you choke out.

“Oh, my sweet girl,” Astarion comforts you, pulling you tight against his chest and pressing a kiss to your forehead. His fingers run soothingly through your hair. “He’s dead. I promise you that he’s dead. We’re safe. He can never hurt either of us again.”

“I’m sorry,” you apologize to Astarion. “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

It felt like an intrusion- after all the chaos of the last few months, life had finally fallen into a rhythm again. You couldn’t have nightmares if you weren’t sleeping and now, there was always so much to do. Especially since Astarion had actually started performing the duties as Lord Ancunin that he had been neglecting while he was searching for the gem.

No, now sleep was saved for the quiet moments like this, where you and Astarion were just so comfortable and relaxed that your eyes couldn’t help but shut.

Quiet moments that were ruined by your inability to just get over Raphael.

“Never apologize for waking me,” Astarion says. You open your mouth to point out that he always apologizes when he wakes you, but Astarion shushes you before you can speak. “That’s rather hypocritical coming from me, I know.”

“How do you get past it? Because the dreams seemingly come to me at random and I fear what I might see every time I try to sleep.”

“Baths… reading… writing… talking to someone…” Astarion slowly lists, as the answers come to him. “If you can get your mind out of the hole it’s dug itself into with a good distraction, I think you’ll find that the images aren’t quite so visceral when they come back to you later. I mean- it’s usually still bad, but it feels further away. The emotions feel removed.”

Nightmares were one of Astarion’s area of expertise, so you should probably listen to him. You choose to try to distract yourself while talking.

“Would you ever want to be mortal again?” you ask Astarion, attempting to focus on tracing along the veins inside his wrist rather than the image of Raphael’s lifeless stare in your mind.

It was a question which had been plaguing you a lot lately as Gale researched a way to use the gems to help you and Astarion walk in the sun again. The gems were tied to the magic of the gods, so you all agreed it only seemed natural that they should offer some solution to your predicament.

But, as Gale worked and worked and worked and still came up with nothing, there was a part of you that was wondering why you didn’t just cut your losses and search for a cure to your vampirism as a whole.

“Would you?” Astarion deflects by turning the question back on you. “I’d do anything that would make you happy, my love.”

You frown. “That’s not what I asked, star. I don’t want to know if you’d just go along with my desires. I want to know what you want.”

And Astarion looks confused, like he has never been asked to think about or plan for a future, like the concept is so foreign to him that he doesn’t even know where to begin. Astarion had been trapped in survival mode for so long, he didn’t know how to look further than a few days in front of him. Even marrying you had been an unplanned, spur of the moment idea.

“You know what?” He sounds almost in disbelief of his own answer. “I don’t think I would want to be mortal again. I like being better than everybody- stronger, sharper, more powerful. And sure, some of the limitations can be a nuisance, but it’s not enough for me to want to throw away all the benefits.”

“And that’s not because of fear?” you check with him, studying his face.

He shrugs. “Maybe part of it is. Maybe it isn’t. I don’t know. I just know that being a vampire is what feels right for me. I’m not the same man I was before. I like the man I am now, the man you’ve helped me become. I don’t want to do anything to change that.”

The man you’ve helped me become.

Oh, he was so sweet.

“Would you want to be human again?” Astarion asks you again. “I know that this transition has been… less than ideal for you.”

“It would be easier, wouldn’t it?” you ponder aloud. It would be the easy solution, but not the solution you truly desire. “But no. Even before I died, I knew that I would want this. I just… my death was a bit more traumatic than I hoped.”

Astarion must sense that you are beginning to stew in hazy memories of that unfortunate moment, growing dangerously close to those images of Raphael’s dead stare. Astarion distracts you again. “You know what my first thought was when you reawoke?”

You shake your head and Astarion grins, shifting his weight on top of you. His forearms frame either side of your head and he runs his nose along the artery in your throat that he always used to adore so much, back when you were alive.

“I thought you looked ravishing. I wanted nothing more than to be your first victim.” Astarion drags his fangs gently along the skin of your throat as he speaks in a low, rasping voice. “It drove me half mad to see you like that. And right away, you knew what to do. Pure instinct, no hesitation. Not all vampires are gifted with that capability. But you were made for this. My perfect vampire bride.”

Astarion bites lightly at your skin to accentuate his point and you moan.

“You’re a good distraction,” you say, a bit breathless.

“The best distraction.”

Astarion’s hand snakes down, beginning to drag the hem of your dress further up your leg. You can feel his cock hardening where it rubs against your hip.

Insatiable, your husband.

“We don’t need to rush, dear,” Astarion reminds you, though you catch the dual meaning in his words. You do not need to rush for answers. And he will not rush when he fucks you. He will take his time, enjoying every delicious moment of pleasure he can wring from your body. His lips brush along your jaw, back toward your mouth. “We’ll find the answers when they come to us.”

You sigh. “I know, but I was just hoping they would come to us before all the flowers start dying. Halsin said the sunflowers are especially beautiful this year and they just aren’t the same at night.”

“It’s too bad we can’t just trade the gems to walk in the sunlight again. Two birds with one stone. Or, well, three stones. So, six birds?” Astarion jokes.

But that would be too easy, right?

… Right?

“You’re a genius!” You cry out and pull Astarion’s head down to press a big, wet kiss on his forehead.

“What did I-” Astarion starts to ask before you watch the idea form in his own mind in real time. “It can’t be that easy, can it?”

“What if it is?” You ask, reinvigorated. “What if we don’t become mortal again or go through with that frankly insane Ascension ritual idea, but we just ask Mephistopheles to maybe…”

“We change the rules!” Astarion finishes your thought with an excited cry. “We decide which parts of being a vampire we hate the most and we just… get rid of those parts.”

You both sit up in the bed, facing each other, giddy with the new idea.

“Okay, so, sunlight,” you say, attempting to start forming your list of requests. Though, Astarion probably has a better idea about which parts of being a vampire were the most insufferable after his centuries living as one. “And what else?”

Astarion thinks for a minute.

“It’d be nice to at least be able to taste food again. We don’t even need it to sustain us or anything but just… not have everything taste like piss and vinegar.” His nose wrinkles in disgust.

“That’s a good one,” you say when he looks at you for confirmation.

“And mirrors. I know we have our portraits, but I’d like to be able to see myself again,” Astarion adds in a quiet voice, like he’s almost embarrassed at the admission.

“So, sunlight, food, and reflections,” you count them all on your fingers. “That feels like a good list. Three gems, three requests. It seems fair.”

“Oh, Gale’s going to be devastated that we beat him to an answer,” Astarion teases and you can tell how genuinely gleeful he is at the idea of holding this over Gale’s head.

You laugh and your dream about Raphael fades like a distant memory. For the first time in weeks, you let yourself have a little hope that together, the two of you might figure this out.

—-----------------

“Stop pacing, it’s making me nervous,” you tell Astarion.

He just keeps walking along the patch of sand in front of you- back and forth, back and forth, back and forth- on a loop. It was almost making you dizzy.

“Sorry,” Astarion comes to sit on the rock beside you but he starts fidgeting nervously almost immediately. You hold out your hand for him and he grabs it greedily, tracing the lines in your hands over and over and over again just to give him something to focus on other than his nerves.

The chilly water brushes over your toes as the gentle sea waves roll in and out. You continue watching Gale as he crouches in the sand, drawing the summoning circle with an impressive stick he had found along the shore.

Apparently, the summoning circle was an intricate ritual which required all of Gale’s focus. It doesn’t really seem that hard. It kind of just looks like he’s playing in the sand. But whatever, you didn’t really want Mephistopheles breaking free and raining hellfire upon you, so you were choosing to listen to Gale and stay out of his way so he could concentrate.

Shadowheart holds up a lantern for Gale so that he can double check his work with the pattern in his book and she keeps shooting you annoyed looks that have you giggling. She was already huffy enough about the fact that you made her come out at night to participate in the summoning, but then you had the audacity to not even give her something exciting to do?

You and Astarion had actually dragged everyone out here, just in case. Best case scenario, this whole trade goes according to plan and everything works out perfectly. Worst case scenario… Well, you really didn’t want to fight another devil without some backup.

Everyone else is scattered around the rest of the beach. You faintly hear Karlach and Wyll laughing in the distance. They had all been giving you and Astarion your space, as if they could sense how nervous you both were. And also possibly because Astarion had been pacing all afternoon as if with enough walking, he might just be able to wear down the surface of the earth and appear in the hells, himself.

When you had first approached Gale with the idea of using the gems to rewrite the rules of vampirism, you knew immediately that you would need to summon Mephistopheles to perform the trade. The cottage by the sea had been suggested as an ideal location due to its remote landscape. And really, no one had been too excited about the idea of inviting a powerful archdevil inside the very opulent, very flammable Ancunin manor.

“You ready?” Gale interrupts your quiet reflection and Astarion’s nervous fidgeting. “I triple checked the summoning circle. Not like it was necessary. I had it right on the first go, of course, but I am nothing if not thorough.”

Astarion drops your hand and jumps up almost immediately. You stand up, as well, walking over toward Gale and the circle.

“You both remember the plan?” Gale asks.

“Yes, sir,” you salute him. You know Astarion is probably giggling behind you.

“That’s- whatever,” Gale sighs. “If the two of you die now, it will be because you’re both annoying.”

You grin.

Gale speaks in the weird, chanting language that you had heard from Raphael and the circle appears to glow before a giant, winged man is materializing before you. The air reeks of sulfur and rotten eggs.

Mephistopheles looks down upon you. He shares an eerie similarity to Raphael, though his features are distinctly less human- his horns are bigger, his wingspan is wider, his eyes are black, burning holes.

“Weak, pathetic mortals,” Mephistopheles growls and his voice sounds deep and ancient. “What do you want?”

“It’s not about us. We have something you want.” Astarion purrs as he saunters closer to the circle. It had been so long since you’d seen this persona, you had forgotten how charming he could truly be. “All we expect in return is a small finder’s fee.”

Mephistopheles laughs and it crackles like fire. “What could you possibly have that I would want besides your souls?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” you pull one of the gems from the pocket in your skirt, laying it flat in your palm as you show it off to Mephistopheles. “Doesn’t everyone like pretty gems?”

You don’t miss the way Mephistopheles eyes blaze in recognition when he catches sight of the gem.

“One gem?” He spits out at you, trying to feign indifference. “That’s nothing.”

“Who said we only have one?” You tilt your head, passing the first gem off to Astarion as you pull the other two from your skirt.

Mephistopheles snarls at you but he’s practically drooling over the gems as he eyes them possessively. “And what stops me from simply killing you where you stand and taking them?”

“The circle?” Astarion flashes his gaze down to the intricate patterns at the devil’s feet. The way Astarion’s smiling is all dark and corrupt. Oh, you like watching him like this, especially if you know he’s on your side. “It was made by the foremost scholar in arcane arts and I can assure you, his work is correct.”

It’s weird to hear Astarion complimenting Gale. You’ll have to tease Astarion about that later.

Mephistopheles pushes up against the edges of the summoning circle and is stopped by the invisible walls trapping him inside. He looks annoyed.

“So,” he says. “You have the Netherstones and you’re willing to give them to me. What could you possibly want in return? Immortality? Wealth? Power?”

Astarion asks innocently, “You don’t believe we’re doing this out of the goodness of our undead hearts?”

Mephistopheles studies the both of you for a moment before he barks out another laugh. “Two vampires. Let me guess. You want to ascend.” He says the word like it’s magical, like it’s the solution to all your problems (you know it is not, even if Astarion might still partially believe it is). “You should know that the Ascension ritual is very specific. I’m not going to let you both ascend for just a couple of measly gems.”

It’s funny to hear him call them ‘measly gems’ when you know how desperately he wants them- he had been chasing after them for hundreds of years, ever since they were stolen away from him by the families who originally founded Baldur’s Gate.

“We don’t want to ascend,” Astarion answers. The air of authority surrounding him nearly knocks you off your feet. You had gotten so used to soft, goofy Astarion that for a moment, you had forgotten how commanding, how chilling and utterly vampiric, he could truly be.

“Three requests from us. Three gems for you,” you say. “An even trade.”

Mephitsopheles looks less than impressed, as if he is going to leave before even hearing out your offer. And for a second, you lose hope. But then his gaze catches on the gems again.

“What are the requests?” He asks, through gritted teeth, as if this whole affair is beneath him.

Astarion clears his throat, reciting the carefully practiced requests. The two of you had spent a lot of time ensuring that the archdevil could not trick you, that the wording could not be twisted into something unrecognizable. Astarion’s experience with contracts had been invaluable. “First, we want the ability to walk in the sun without damage, the same as we did before our turning. Second, we want the ability to taste food in the same way we had before our turning. And lastly, we would like the vampiric effects in regards to mirrors removed. We should be able to see our true reflection in any reflective surface.”

Mephistopheles laughs again. “You’re asking for too much.”

You shrug, feigning nonchalance as you attempt to not betray your very acute worry that Mephistopheles was going to turn down the deal completely. “Those are our conditions if you want the gems.”

“Fine. Gems first,” Mephistopheles holds out his giant hand expectantly.

“Uh uh uh,” Astarion tuts in disapproval and both you and Mephistopheles stare at Astarion in surprise. Astarion- arrogant, asshole Astarion- had the audacity to condescend a devil. You hate the fact that there’s a sweet heat of arousal pooling low in your stomach as you watch him.

“That’s not fair, devil,” Astarion continues. “One gem for each ability. That seems more than reasonable of us, doesn’t it?”

Mephistopheles growls in anger. “Fine.”

You toss the first gem into the summoning circle and watch as Mephistopheles has to dig around in the sand to pick it up. That sight shouldn’t give you nearly as much twisted satisfaction as it does, but there’s something funny about seeing a supposedly all-powerful being drop to his knees in weakness for a silly gemstone.

Mephistopheles touches the gem and it lights up, disappearing back to the hells for him to collect later. He rises to his feet again and speaks in the weird chanting language, holding his hands out to you and Astarion. There’s a tingling in your mouth. Out of the corner of your eye, you catch Astarion awkwardly moving his tongue around in his mouth.

“There,” Mephistopheles says. “You can taste again. Now, my second gem.”

You toss the second gem and Mephistopheles catches it this time. He repeats the same process- gem disappearing, him chanting and waving his hands.

“That granted you back your reflections. Now, your precious sunlight for the final gem.”

Astarion hesitates for just a second, as if he’s reluctant to pass over this final piece of power, before he tosses the gem to Mephistopheles.

This time, the chant seems to take longer and when Mephistopheles holds out his hands to Astarion, you watch as Astarion’s skin seems to glow for a moment.

At least it seemed like everything was working. Mephistopheles repeats the spell for you and you are momentarily surrounded by a painful, searing heat. When you emerge from your cocoon of sunlight, Mephistopheles has melted back into the earth. The sand is glassy where Gale had carved the symbols earlier.

“We did it,” you cry out, a gleeful smile on your face.

“We did,” Astarion says. He laughs in disbelief before pulling you into his arms, burying his face into your hair.

Waiting for the sun to rise is the longest hour of your life.

The rest of the group had departed from the beach after the deal was finished, content to let you and Astarion enjoy your moment in private. The two of you spread out a blanket on a large rock on the shoreline. Your shoulder presses against Astarion’s as you sit, the sea-breeze dancing against your skin.

And there, on the horizon, the sun crests, and the dark of night gives way to the pale light of dawn.

—------------

Astarion watches the sun rise with a lump in his throat, dangerously close to crying. The only thing that holds him back is that he knows the tears would spoil the beautiful view in front of him. He wants this memory to be crisp in his mind forever.

Not that it really matters, he supposes. Now, he could spend every day for the rest of eternity watching the sun rise if he wanted to.

And with you by his side? Well, there’s really not much more Astarion could ask for.

Astarion had been apprehensive at first. When the first rays had touched his skin, he had flinched. It was an instinctual reaction after centuries relegated to the darkness. But when his skin didn’t light up in flames, when he didn’t smell the horrible odor of burning flesh, he had to remind himself that this moment was real.

He didn’t need to be afraid any longer.

No, there was only the lovely warmth of the sun and the line of your body pressed comfortably against Astarion’s side. Eventually, he brings his arm up to wrap around you, tucking you further into him. You lean your head against his shoulder and he rests his head on top of yours as the two of you continue watching the brilliant orange and reds on the horizon fade into a sunny, pale blue sky.

Astarion cannot remember a time that he has ever been happier.

Maybe he got close the night that the two of you repeated your wedding vows on the floor of your bedroom, but that moment had still been covered in the darkness of night. The light of a fire is nothing compared to the full force of the blazing sun.

And said sun continues to rise, completely unaware of this momentous occasion, as you and Astarion sit together in silence.

Your soft voice shocks Astarion out of his contemplative silence. “You’re doing good, right?”

Astarion’s arm drops from around your shoulders as you move away from him. Out of the corner of his eye, Astarion can feel you studying his profile, likely checking for any signs of sadness or uncertainty.

You will find none, of course.

Astarion simply leans back on his palms and lets his eyes fall shut, basking in the feeling of the sun upon his skin.

“Astarion.” You press your knee into the side of Astarion’s leg, trying to get his attention. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“I’m thinking that this is the happiest I’ve ever been,” Astarion confesses. “I never let myself dream of a moment like this and it still feels better than I could have possibly imagined.”

He cannot hide the vulnerable shake in his voice. Nor does he feel the need to. There is no need to perform. Not around you.

When Astarion opens his eyes, the way that you are smiling at him rivals the radiance of the sun itself. There’s a phantom fluttering in Astarion’s chest. His heart may not beat, but around you it suddenly feels as if it is fighting to come back to life.

You- his wife, his equal- with your strong will and your sarcasm and your compulsive need to have the final word.

“Why are you smiling at me like that?” Astarion bumps your shoulder.

“Dunno, just happy.” You hurriedly reach out to wipe away the tears that have begun to collect on your lashes. “That’s usually why people smile.”

Astarion huffs out a breath of laughter.

He doesn’t mention that for centuries, his smile was nothing more than a strategic ploy used to disarm and charm others. That was the past. It was time to let go of those memories. He deserves to rewrite them with moments like this- moments of pure happiness, moments where he knows that if he tries to speak, he will surely weep with joy.

“Come on,” you say, turning your back on the sun to face Astarion. “Let me get a good look at you.”

And it seems silly that you would choose to look at him over this beautiful sunrise, but Astarion won’t complain. It feels wonderful to be seen by someone. To be finally, truly seen by someone whose only motivations to look at him are love and appreciation.

Astarion even shows off for you a bit, puffing out his chest a bit and shaking his head as if to move his hair out of his face even though the rather embarrassing amount of pomade he requires to tame his unruly curls ensured that his perfectly coiffed hair hardly moved with the motion.

He had perfected this hairstyle long before he was turned. Even now that he could see his reflection again, he could still do his hair blindfolded, with one hand tied behind his back.

Astarion watches as your eyes trace along his face, down the column of his throat, over his chest and shoulders, down the line of his arms that he casually reclines back upon.

He had already shrugged his jacket off and rolled the sleeves of his shirt up to his elbows before the two of you sat down. And Astarion fancies himself a bit of an expert on you. He knows you adore his forearms. He flexes them and is rewarded with your throat swallowing hungrily.

“Well, how do I look?” Astarion smirks. “It’s no fun if you don’t tell me how beautiful I am.”

One of your hands reaches out to run along the inside of his wrist.

“The sun makes your skin practically glow.” You bring your gaze back up to his face. “And your hair!” you say with glee, reaching out to touch it. “It’s so much whiter in the sun! You’ve nearly blinded me with how handsome you are.”

You playfully shield your eyes.

“I do apologize,” Astarion pulls your hand away from your face and plants a tender kiss on the inside of your palm. “I tend to have that effect on people.”

You laugh and Astarion’s chest blooms with warmth.

“And what else?” Astarion breathlessly begs you to continue.

Who needs a mirror when he has you sitting in front of him, outlined against the backdrop of a sunny day, with beautiful words of praise dripping from your tongue, sweet as honey.

“And these,” you run the pad of your thumb along the lines around Astarion’s mouth. “These are lovely.”

Astarion holds your hand against his cheek and leans into your touch.

“You know, I used to hate my smile lines,” he shyly admits to you. Your smoldering red eyes carefully study the way his muscles move under your thumb as he talks. “I mean, I couldn’t actually see them, but I had people point them out over the years and I always hated it. Before I was a spawn, I had a happy life and that happiness etched itself upon my face. And then after I was turned, happiness was nothing more than an act I put on to lure people back to Cazador. I had almost forgotten what a true smile felt like before I met you.”

“I’m selfish. Nowadays, you give them to me so readily and yet, I still crave more,” you say. “Though I hope you never feel the need to smile for my sake.”

“No,” Astarion assures you, tilting his head to press another quick kiss to the inside of your palm. “This is as real as it gets.”

The look of pure adoration on your face leaves Astarion speechless for a moment.

“One more compliment?” Astarion requests and you roll your eyes affectionately.

“And your eyes,” you say dreamily, brushing your fingers along the ridge of Astarion’s cheekbone. “They sparkle in the sunlight like rubies.”

“You stole my line,” Astarion pouts.

“You’re a bad influence on me,” you tease. “I would have never dreamed of saying something so cheesy before I met you.”

“It’s not about the quality of the line, it’s about the delivery,” Astarion says. “Watch and learn, my dear.”

Astarion clears his throat and looks up at you from under his pale lashes. When he speaks, his voice is low and smooth. “My dearest heart, the way your eyes sparkle in the sunlight puts even the most expensive of rubies to shame.”

He watches as your lashes flutter and you bite on your lower lip in an attempt to fight yourself from physically swooning. There’s a proud thrum in his chest that his words are causing you to react so viscerally.

“I already knew you were beautiful in the sun, but this,” Astarion continues, leaning forward and planting his hands on either side of your hips, caging your body between his arms. His eyes dart down to your lips before he drags them back up to your hungry red eyes. “This is better than I could have ever imagined. Far better than watching you in the gardens while I was locked away in my tower.”

“Oh, my poor damsel in distress. It’s a good thing I saved you,” you say in a playfully mocking tone, reaching out to curl one of your arms around Astarion’s neck.

Astarion knows that your words are trying to guide him into offering you a kiss as a form of repayment and although he wants nothing more than to press his lips against yours, your words have struck a chord with him.

Astarion already feels so vulnerable, so seen in the sunlight- what more is ripping his heart out of his chest and placing it in your hands? He trusts you with it completely.

“You did save me,” Astarion’s voice is serious and he watches your eyes soften and turn gooey. “I know you’re joking but you did. From myself, from Raphael, from a life in the darkness. You have shown me love and kindness when I believed they were all but gone from the world.”

“You saved me, too, you know.” Your fingers curl in the hair at the nape of his neck. “Saved me from that horrible man that my father was trying to sell me off to. Saved me from a loveless, unhappy life. You have given me everything I could have ever wished for.”

And how wonderful it is, Astarion thinks, to have found someone who has given him hope for a future again. To know that he, in turn, stole a future for you that would be far happier than what you were originally destined for.

He steals a quick kiss before he pulls away from you, standing up to pry off his boots.

The water glistens in the sunlight and Astarion is struck by a memory of swimming in the sea when he was so much younger, when his family used to come to the cottage over summers and he would spend his days swimming with another boy his age. They would lay out on the rocks on the shoreline, swapping soft kisses as the sun dried their skin.

And now, Astarion has the ability to do that again, to live like that again. To exist in that same carelessness as his youth and share that moment with the person he loves.

“What are you doing?” you ask as he pries off his other boot.

“Going for a swim,” Astarion answers, pulling his shirt over his head. He shoots you a flirty smile, trying to tempt you. “Care to join me?”

You nod eagerly and Astarion stops pulling off his own clothes, entranced at the sight of you lifting up your skirt to roll a stocking down your leg. It faintly registers in his mind that you are putting on a show for him, taking your time to bare the skin of your calf inch by painstaking inch.

It’s truly an award-worthy performance.

Astarion’s mouth salivates as he pictures the soft skin of your inner thighs. It really had been too long since he’d treated himself to a bite there.

When you have set your shoes and rolled stockings off to the side, Astarion grieves as your dress falls down and covers the beautiful skin of your legs once more as you push yourself up to stand in front of him.

“You’ll have to help me out of my clothes first,” you tease, turning around and moving your hair over one of your shoulders.

“Oh, gods. Yes, please.” The words fall out of Astarion in a rush as he nearly trips over himself to stand behind you. He loosens the ties at the back of your dress. “You made it easy on me today. No buttons.”

You shoot Astarion a wink as you pull your dress and petticoat over your head, tossing them carelessly on the ground next to Astarion’s discarded shirt. You turn around again and Astarion dutifully begins helping you out of your corset, unlacing the pretty ribbon holding it in place as quickly as his dexterous fingers allow.

“You know,” you say, shrugging the corset off when Astarion finishes, “It’s a wonder why I even bother to wear clothes at all when you always seem determined to get me out of them.”

“I often wonder the same thing,” he sighs wistfully, leaning down to drop a kiss to your shoulder and wrapping his arms tightly around your waist, practically draping himself over your back. He bites your ear lightly. “You should probably just stop wearing them altogether to save me time.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” You turn your head to shoot him a coquettish smile.

“Very much so,” Astarion growls, his lips grazing down your neck, following along your collarbone. “Your body is a wonder, darling. It’s meant to be appreciated.”

You kiss Astarion’s cheek and disentangle yourself from his arms. “I’ve got it from here, smooth talker.”

“But I’m so helpful,” Astarion pouts.

You roll your eyes at him but you’re still smiling, so Astarion knows you are amused by his antics. “Just take off your pants.”

“You’re just as incorrigible as me, darling,” Astarion jokingly scoffs as he slips out of his trousers.

You shoot him a flirtatious smile in response as you pull your chemise over your head, depositing it in the pile with the rest of your clothes.

But Astarion does not miss your wary glance back in the direction of the cottage. He holds his hand out for you and you instinctively entwine your fingers with his. “It’s private out here, little flower. I assure you, no one will see us.”

“I know,” you say, uncharacteristically bashful. Your gaze falls down to where your fingers are laced with Astarion’s and you bring your other hand up to fidget with the ring on his finger. “Besides, you’d threaten to kill any unfortunate soul who did manage to wander down here and I think I’d rather enjoy that.”

It’s quite a bold confession from you.

“Oh, you like that, do you, pet? You like when I’m possessive of you?”

“Not possessive. Protective.” you correct him. “I like that you respect my boundaries and are willing to discipline anyone who is disrespective.” Your voice drops low and silky. “Plus, you have to know how attractive you look when you protect me.”

“Keep talking like that and we aren’t even going to make it into the water before I fuck you,” Astarion growls.

You just grin at him and tug on his hand, pulling him to the edge of the large rock the two of you had been sitting on. The tide had risen in the time that the two of you had spent watching the sunrise and the gentle waves now reach the rock. You both wade deeper and deeper into the water, letting it climb up- to your knees, to your hips, to your chests.

“The water’s colder than I remember but it feels good,” you say, closing your eyes and tilting your head up to the sun. “Sun feels nice.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” Astarion agrees, but he keeps his eyes locked on you. He can’t help but admire you like this, all peaceful and content.

And then, out of nowhere, an errant wave of water hits Astarion in the face. He sputters while you cackle next to him.

“My hair!” he cries out.

You continue laughing at him, raising your hand like you’re going to push another wave of water his way.

“Don’t.” He narrows his eyes at you. “I’m not the type of man you want to mess with, darling.”

“Yes, you’re very scary,” you say sarcastically.

Astarion reaches out like he’s going to grab you and you laugh and swim away from him. He tries to chase after you, but you’re graceful and quick like a mermaid. Somehow, you always manage to glide away from him just when his fingers are about to brush your skin.

“You’ll have to be sneakier than that.” You roll on your back to playfully kick water in Astarion’s direction. He strikes while you’re gloating- grabbing hold of your ankle and sharply dragging you back toward him.

“Gross,” you complain when you resurface, spluttering and spitting water out of your mouth. “I hate the taste of saltwater.”

And Astarion just stares at you- at how the water drips down your skin and your wet hair sticks flat against your head and the way your nose scrunches up in disgust as you try to get rid of the taste of saltwater in your mouth.

“What?” You ask when you turn and catch him staring at you. “Is there something in my hair?”

“This view is one of the most beautiful I have ever seen and still, I can’t pull my eyes away from you. Still, it is you that pulls the breath from the lungs and renders me speechless. Still, you are the siren that has bewitched me with her song.”

That beautiful soft smile returns to your face and you reach out, winding your arms around his neck and leaning up to press a kiss to his lips.

Astarion lets out a content hum and smiles because he can taste it. He can actually taste the salt and seawater as your lips slide against his.

It’s a sweet, slow kiss that leads to a whole series of sweet, slow kisses that gradually deepen. Astarion hopes that kissing you more, kissing you deeper will quench his thirst. It doesn't. Each kiss only serves to stoke the raging inferno deep within him, the blaze set alight by the sun in his veins.

His hands move over the soft skin of your belly, tracing down over the curve of your ass, giving the soft flesh a little squeeze that has you mewling into his mouth. His hands continue lower, wrapping around the back of your thighs as he lifts you up, wading back in the direction of the large rocks on the shoreline. Somehow, he manages not to trip and drop you, even when you do distract him by peppering kisses along the curve of his jaw.

Thankfully, the blanket had not blown away in the wind, and Astarion eases you down onto it, carefully resting his weight on top of you. His hair is wet and surely a mess from where your fingers have threaded through it. So much for all his careful styling earlier.

“See,” Astarion says, kissing down your sternum, “it’s a good thing we got those pesky clothes out of the way already.”

Astarion feels your laugh reverberating in your ribs as he licks away the drops of saltwater that run along your chest. He continues sliding his tongue along your skin, relishing in the way you squirm underneath him. It has his cock aching where it presses between your bodies.

With a slow grind of his hips, Astarion tongue traces a wet line along the underside of your breast, moving upward to gently suck one of your hard nipples into his mouth. He swirls his tongue around it.

You let out a happy sigh and Astarion’s feels your whole body relax beneath him.

“You really do have the most perfect bosom I’ve ever seen,” Astarion says, when he releases your nipple from his mouth with a lewd pop. One of his hands traces upward along your ribs to cup and knead at the flesh of your other breast.

His mouth follows soon after, sucking at the skin of your chest while his fingers circle and tweak your nipples. His efforts to mark you are in vain, he knows, but he’s at least momentarily rewarded when he pulls away and gets to watch the angry, red mark fade from your skin.

When Astarion finally looks up from his handiwork, you’re watching him with hooded eyes, pupils blown so wide that your red eyes nearly look black. Astarion presses up, catching your mouth in a kiss and sliding his tongue against the seam of your lips. You open eagerly for him and his tongue slides into the wet cavern of your mouth.

Your fingertips ghost along Astarion’s arms, tracing lines over the muscles and inching their way upward until Astarion feels them slip over his shoulders, moving gently along the raised skin of the scar on his back.

“Is that okay?” you murmur, pulling away from the kiss.

“Yes,” he answers, “but I don’t know why you’d ever want to touch it. That thing is hideous.”

Astarion would let you touch him anywhere, would let your soft fingertips glide and press upon any part of him that you wished. But why did you always insist upon finding all the ugly, hidden parts of him and holding them up to the light? Why did you always insist on loving the pieces that Astarion himself hated?

“No, not hideous. It’s a part of you and nothing about you could ever be described as hideous.” Your fingertips continue stroking and soothing along the circular pattern. “And you deserve to have some new memories associated with your scar. So now, when you feel its weight upon your back, you will not think of the night you received it. You will think instead of the day that the woman you love gave you the sun.”

“You gave me the sun long ago,” Astarion confesses, the pad of his own thumb moving to touch your soft lips. “When you smile… It feels like sunshine against my skin.”

You smile and it puts the sun to shame.

He dips down to press a slow kiss to your lips so you do not keep saying beautiful words that make him want to cry.

Astarion gently sweeps the wisps of your drying hair away from your face.

“For once,” he pleads, “let me caress you with the sun, beloved wife, so you might know how it feels to be loved by you.”

“Then take me, husband.” You twine your fingers into Astarion’s hair and press his forehead against yours. “Take all of me. With all that I have and all that I am, I am yours.”

Astarion lets his hand trail down your stomach in swirling, looping patterns, relishing in the way your skin tightens in anticipation beneath his fingertips. Today, he doesn't feel the need to rush. Today, he will enjoy every little thing that life has to offer him- sunlight and food and pleasure.

Astarion traces swooping cursive along your skin. ‘I love you’ and ‘little flower’ and ‘wife,’ over and over and over again. Surely, you are not following the words he has written, but Astarion believes that the meaning has bled through his fingers and landed straight in your heart.

When he finally grows too impatient, Astarion’s fingers lower between your legs to stroke along the soft heat of your cunt. You let out a shuddering breath, closing your eyes as you relax into his touch.

“You’re so wet,” he whispers, pressing a kiss to your stomach.

Astarion will never grow used to this, to how your cunt begs for his every touch.

He knew he was able to inspire lust in people. He was a handsome man with a talented, silver tongue- lust was a given. But that had all been an act, a performance. None of them ever saw anything deeper. And here you were, dripping over his hand after having just touched his scars, the part of himself that Astarion hates the most. That someone would love all of him- hideous, ugly parts and all- was a fact that Astarion still finds unbelievable.

“Course I’m wet, we were just in the water,” you tease him, raising your leg to poke his ribs with your toes.

“I’ll leave if you’re going to be difficult.” Astarion pulls his hand away from you and sits up.

“No,” you whine, sitting up yourself so that your arms can lock around his neck and drag him back down on top of you.

“All bark and no bite, aren’t you, my cheeky little pup,” Astarion purrs.

You pout for just a moment before you use the arms you have laced around Astarion’s neck as leverage to pull him down into a kiss, gently tugging on his bottom lip with your teeth. One of your fangs scratches lightly against his skin.

“Some bite,” you murmur into his mouth, lips still grazing his.

“You keep stealing all my best lines,” Astarion nudges your nose with his own and he feels your lips pull up into a proud smile.

“Still sounds better when you say it,” you sigh and Astarion’s cock throbs at your praise. He’s half out of his mind with how badly he needs to be buried inside you.

“Your voice goes all low and husky,” you continue, dragging Astarion’s hand back down to your cunt. “You should feel what it does to me.”

You encourage Astarion to push a finger inside you as you wrap your hand around his hard length, swiping your thumb over the tip and sending white-hot pleasure radiating up his spine.

“Gods, pet, you’re going to be the death of me,” Astarion rasps and sure enough, he feels your cunt clench around his finger. He drags it out before pushing it back in and you arch into his touch, drawing his finger in deeper, as your hand languidly pumps up and down Astarion’s cock.

“That’s all for you, my star. Always for you.” You speak, quiet and breathless, and Astarion can hardly hear you over the obscene squelching of his finger sinking into you. He adds another and curls them and you shiver with delight beneath him.

Astarion groans, forehead pressed tightly against yours as you breathe into each other. With time, the two of you find a rhythm in your dance, your hand begins to move in time with Astarion’s fingers.

And when Astarion finally eases his cock into you, he is gentle and deliberate. He takes a moment to just stay fully seated inside you, letting the silken heat of your cunt hug him so, so tightly. He grinds his hips against yours slowly, barely pulling out before he’s thrusting back in, enraptured in the way your walls pulse and flutter around him.

“Gods, look at you,” he says, punctuated by a roll of his hips.

It feels like he’s seeing you for the first time. And perhaps, he is. Even candlelight and superior vampiric senses did not allow for the fine level of details of daylight. There’s so much to look at- the curve of your eyelashes, the faint lines around your eyes, the tiny scar right by your hairline.

“You’re so beautiful,” Astarion says with awe. “You’re always so beautiful, but like this…” Another roll of his hips. “Spread out underneath me with your lips swollen from my kisses. The way your hair fans out.” He catches a piece of your damp hair between his fingers. “The way you look up at me with such love and adoration that I fear my heart may somehow return to life.”

“Astarion.”

His name falls from your lips with the reverence of a prayer.

“You say my name so beautifully, little flower. Please, say it again.”

“Astarion,” you whisper, over and over and over, until your tongue is tripping over the syllables and the only sounds that escape your mouth are strangled gasps.

There is no sense of urgency, no rushing. Time melts away. There is only you and Astarion and the warmth of the sun drying your wet skin and the gentle sea breeze blowing salty air around you.

“Do you like that?” Astarion asks, when a particularly deep thrust has your nails digging into his skin.

You nod vehemently.

“Use your words,” Astarion urges, repeating the same motion. The knowledge that he’s making you feel as good as he does right now somehow makes him impossibly harder. It has his cock twitching within you.

“Star…” you pant. “S-so good.”

And Astarion just feels so warm and good and safe.

There’s this wave of something that feels like relief washing over him as he realizes that the rest of his immortal life is going to be filled with this feeling. There will be no more darkness and agony. There will be no more fear of punishment or stewing in his hatred for Cazador.

The muscles in your cunt tighten around Astarion, beckoning him closer, welcoming him deeper. It’s too much. It’s not enough.

It’s everything Astarion has ever wanted. A person who knows him, knows the real him- secretly romantic and sappy and a little bit wicked and vindictive, deep down. He had found someone who challenges him, who always has a quip to return to his jokes, who sees his flaws and encourages him to do better.

Astarion continues thrusting into you, deep and hard, and the gasping whimpers you make are so lovely and your nails feel so wonderful where they lightly scratch his scalp and Astarion can’t fight back the tears any longer. He buries his face into your neck and closes his eyes, letting the tears dampen your skin as he loses himself in you.

“Let go, I’ve got you,” you reassure Astarion, pressing a soft kiss to the corner of his jaw.

His whole body trembles as he comes.

There’s nothing but bliss and you as Astarion fucks into you, long after his orgasm has washed over him and left his cock so sensitive that it’s nearly painful. The whole time, you just keep running your fingers through Astarion’s hair, whispering soft, soothing praises as he continues to weep into your shoulder.

“You didn’t come,” Astarion eventually sniffles, pressing a long kiss to the hollow of your throat in apology.

“S’okay,” you reassure, running your fingers along his face, chasing away any remaining wetness. “Felt good anyway. You always make me feel good. But let today be about you, for once. Just you.”

And Astarion knows you mean this- that his pleasure is just as enjoyable as your own. He knows this because he thinks the same.

“I’ll make it up to you,” he promises.

“You don’t need to,” you laugh softly. “We have an eternity together, little star. We don’t need to keep score.”

“If we did, I’d be winning,” Astarion teases and he feels your thumb trace along the line by his mouth again when his lips tilt up in a grin.

“Only because you normally insist on making me come at least once before you even dream of fucking me,” you say. “But it’s fine. Losing that competition still feels like winning to me.”

Astarion thinks that maybe it’s not fine, that maybe you’re a bit more competitive than you’re letting on. He laughs and finally pulls out of you, rolling on his back to face toward the sky again. The sun sits high in the middle of the sky. The two of you must have been out here for hours now.

Astarion stretches out, muscles all loose and relaxed. His eyes flutter shut and his breath calms to a slow, rhythmic pattern. And with the bright, warm air surrounding him and you curled up next to him, watching over him, Astarion lets himself drift off to sleep.

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Notes:

As usual, this part started at 5k words and I just KEPT adding more words until it was yet another behemoth of a chapter. And deep down, this chapter was sponsored by my personal agenda to make Astarion feel so happy and safe that he cries. And I'm not gonna lie to you all, next week is just like… 90% smut (as any good epilogue should be).

Huge thank you to my beta-writer, AliensNSuch on ao3. Somehow, she manages to make what I am trying to say sound even better.

And as always, thank you to everyone who has read this far! I'll save my final sappy farewell and thank you's for the epilogue next week, but just know that all your love has meant the world to me. This is the first fic I've ever actually been brave enough to post and what a wonderful experience it has been!

Taglist: @ayselluna @idkbrodontaskme @maruichio @fanfic-share @the-littlest-bruja @asterordinary @divineknightmare @fandomarchiveilyd

Feel free to let me know if you would liked to be added/removed from the taglist for future chapters!

#astarion #astarion ancunin #astarion x reader #astarion x tav #astarion bg3 #bg3 #baldurs gate 3 #baldurs gate 3 fanfic #x reader #til death do us part #baldurs gate

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fettuccinealfred0 · 2 months

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Here's a little sneak peak of the upcoming chapter of Til Death Do Us Part!

I really went back and forth this week on which excerpt I wanted to pick as the teaser. There's a... pretty big spoiler in one of the lines here but whatever, I just loved this moment too much!

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“Is that okay?” you murmur, pulling away from the kiss.

“Yes,” he answers, “but I don’t know why you’d ever want to touch it. That thing is hideous.”

“You gave me the sun long ago,” Astarion confesses, the pad of his own thumb moving to touch your soft lips. “When you smile… It feels like sunshine against my skin.”

#astarion #astarion x reader #astarion x tav #bg3 #baldurs gate 3 #astarion ancunin #sneak peak

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fettuccinealfred0 · 3 months

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Til Death Do Us Part | Part 9

Series Masterlist

Astarion x f!reader, Arranged Marriage AU

Word Count: 12.5k

(CW: SMUT 18+, brief descriptions of gore, vampire biting/blood drinking, unprotected p in v sex, cunnilingus)

Summary:

“You turned me into a vampire?” You practically shriek at Astarion. You keep your palms pressed firmly into the ground, fighting against your instinct to immediately rip his throat out. It’s hard to restrain yourself. You feel like a wild animal.

There’s a flash of panic that passes over Astarion’s face before his brows knit together in confusion. “You’re angry?”

You huff out a humorless laugh, eyes turning up to the sky to check if this is some sort of cosmic joke. “Yes, I’m fucking angry, Astarion! What did you do to me? You killed me!”

“Raphael killed you!” He shoots back defensively. “You were dying! I didn’t have a choice.”

Read on ao3 here

You can’t focus on anything other than this hunger.

Oh. If this was how good blood tasted, how did Astarion ever manage to pull himself away from you?

You want to fall into him and drown. You want to devour him whole.

The aftertaste of his blood sticks heavy in your mouth when he finally tears his wrist free from your tight grasp. You need more. You never want to stop.

“More,” you croak out and your throat feels like it’s burning.

“There are bodies everywhere, my love. Take your pick,” Astarion says. You’re cradled in his arms, and you can’t even think to question how you got there because your entire being is consumed with this burning desire for blood.

After freeing yourself from Astarion’s arms, you crawl on your hands and knees to a downed guard a few feet away. He’s still alive, but barely. You can smell the blood pouring from the gaping wound on his thigh and can hear how it rushes under his skin. You salivate.

It’s too much work to pull off his gloves to get to his wrist, so you go straight for the gap between his helmet and his chest plate, digging your teeth into his neck. His blood is sweet and rich and so good that you can’t think straight.

The whole thing is messy and crude and violent. You can’t even bother to care right now.

You hear yourself let out an angry growl when you’ve drained that man. More, still more. You crawl a few feet to the next body on the floor. This one is dead and their blood is stale. And still, you drink until there is nothing left.

The more blood you consume, the more your mind clears and the sharper your senses become. Has the world always been so loud? So bright?

When you finish draining that man, still on your hands and knees on the floor, you look up to the rest of the group. You can feel the blood running down your chin and neck, staining the front of your dress. There’s blood all over you, in various stages of drying- the rusty tear tracks running down your face from the energy wave Raphael had unleashed, the thick clumps of your hair that are matted and still wet with blood from when your head had been bashed into the wall.

Everyone's faces are painted with varying shades of displeasure and horror. Shadowheart has big, sorrowful eyes and Wyll is looking down at you as if you were a rabid animal.

All except Astarion, who is kneeling on the ground and staring at you with a wide smile on his face, like this is the embodiment of his wildest dreams.

You had just died and he had the audacity to be happy about it?

You burn with an anger that doesn’t fully belong to you. It’s uncontrollable. You’re scared of yourself. Everything is too much; your emotions all feel too big.

What sort of monster had Astarion turned you into?

The two of you had agreed that you would get to decide when you were turned into a vampire- that you would pick when and how, and it would be a lovely memory that you would get to cherish forever.

This is most certainly not that.

“You turned me into a vampire?” You practically shriek at Astarion. You keep your palms pressed firmly into the ground, fighting back against your instinct to immediately rip his throat out. It’s hard to restrain yourself. You feel like a wild animal.

There’s a flash of panic that passes over Astarion’s face before his brows knit together in confusion. “You’re angry?”

You huff out a humorless laugh, eyes turning up to the sky to check if this is some sort of cosmic joke. “Yes, I’m fucking angry, Astarion! What did you do to me? You killed me!”

“Raphael killed you!” He shoots back defensively. “You were dying! I didn’t have a choice.”

There’s genuine sorrow in his voice as he practically pleads with you to understand. And you do. But there’s something itching at your throat and you just died and you’re angry and you’re upset.

It feels like you are watching yourself react, trapped away in a haze. There are tears rolling down your cheeks and desperate, heaving sobs choking their way up from your throat that have you curling in on yourself to weep. Astarion must have come to sit by you because you feel his hand run soothingly down your back. You wrench your body away from him.

You did not want comfort. Not now.

“You took away my choice, Astarion! Again!” You yell at him between your sobs, too aware of the way each tear feels as it rolls down your face. Everything was just too much. Everything felt wrong in your body. “My whole life, I knew I would have little control over who I married. But you took away the choice of whether I lived or died!”

“You were human, we would have gotten to this point eventually. We had already talked about turning you.” Astarion’s hands have fallen in his lap and he looks at you with such melancholy. It makes your skin itch, to think he pities you in your current state.

“It’s about autonomy, Astarion! It’s about choosing what happens to my body and when that happens. You of all people should understand that!”

If you were thinking clearly, you would never have brought up his past. The part of your mind that is still you and not this monstrous new version of yourself shatters as you watch his face scrunch in pain and anger.

“So, you’re allowed to always be angry at me, but I’m not supposed to have my own feelings?” Astarion asks. “I’m just supposed to immediately forgive you and forget the fact that you invaded my privacy by reading my diary? Am I not allowed to be scared after I just watched your skull practically shatter in front of me?”

He struggles in vain to steady the underlying shake in his voice. “Was I not supposed to do everything in my power to save you? Please, do not treat me like I have been completely unreasonable or like you have never done anything to hurt me. You know as well as I do that you would have made the same choice if I were the one lying in a pool of blood in front of you.”

And you simply sit there, powerless, as the person who knows you most intimately in the world calls your bluff.

He’s right. He has seen right through you in the way that only he can. You had made that same exact choice when he returned home from a previous trip with that gaping wound in his side. You had not thought, you had not hesitated when you cut your hand open and fed him your blood. In that moment, all that mattered was saving Astarion by any means necessary.

“Well, if you would have told me everything, we probably wouldn’t have even been in this mess in the first place, would we?” You shout back, trying to deflect from how Astarion had just exposed the flaws in your anger.

To be fair, only you can comprehend the full weight of your question. Astarion still doesn’t know that you have the final gem. Nevertheless, it rings true. The communication issues have compounded on themselves. If Astarion had let you help in his search, you would not have read his diary and he would not have sent you away to be kidnapped. And if you were not kidnapped, you would not have had to fight Raphael. You would still be alive.

Astarion’s crimson eyes flare with anger because he knows that you are right, too. You both just stare at each other, challenging the other to back down. In the background, you hear someone awkwardly clear their throat, but you and Astarion stay fixated on one another. Apparently, a side-effect of vampirism was unwavering focus.

You break first, though, when you begin to grow impatient.

“You say that you are not allowed to have your own feelings, but the minute you set your mind on something, my feelings on the subject become completely irrelevant. It’s all you, Astarion. It’s always about you and how you feel,” you snarl. “I have given you every opportunity to listen to me and to be honest with me and you have fought against me at every turn.”

Astarion opens his mouth like he is going to interrupt, but you cut him off.

“No. Even when you promised that you would tell the truth, you still carefully selected what insignificant information would placate me without giving me any of the meaningful details. How am I ever supposed to trust you if I doubt every word you say?”

“I have never once lied to you,” Astarion defends, his jaw locked tight.

“A lie by omission is still a lie. Evading my questions with half-truths is still half-lying,” you point out, “Astarion, I don’t know how I can be with you if you’re unable to understand why your actions hurt me.”

“Are you-” Astarion stumbles on his words, unable to even finish the thought. But his eyes betray him, asking are you done with me?

“No, never. I-” you cut yourself off, bringing your hands up to cover your eyes and block out all the too-bright lights. Have candles always burned so brightly? “I think you were right. I think we need some space so we can both process for a bit. I need time to be angry at you. I need time to adjust.”

“My love, I’m so sorry, but that can’t happen.” He sounds so genuinely remorseful. His hands wrap around your wrists, gently pulling your hands away from where they shield your eyes from the overwhelming, flickering candlelight. You can tell Astarion wants you to be looking at him while he speaks and his eyes are soft and round with concern. “You need me now more than ever. You’re going to be hungry, going to need to feed. There’s so much I need to teach you.”

“So you’re making this decision for me, too? That’s wonderful.” You rip your hands out of his grasp.

Why does he keep insisting on reaching out to touch you? Does he not see you struggling? Does he not remember how disorienting it was to first wake up all those years ago? You’re so aware of everything and it makes his touch against your skin practically hurt.

Some distant, detached part of your mind reminds you that he is probably looking to ground himself. Touching. Always touching. Astarion needed that comfort and you weren’t able to provide him with that right now.

You feel guilty and angry at yourself that you somehow keep hurting Astarion without even trying. You’re mourning your life and the loss of everything normal that you once knew. And you hadn’t even begun to fully process the fact that you had just killed people. It was all a blur when you had jammed your knife into Raphael’s throat but his blood was caking uncomfortably on your hands and that poor man who you had just drained on the floor might have been at the brink of death, but it was still you who killed him.

You lean over and throw up. Bile and congealed blood force their way up your throat and leave a dirty, metallic taste in your mouth. Astarion reaches out again, and this time you let him hold the hair away from your face as you vomit on the floor. Over the sounds of your sobbing and heaving, you faintly hear a discussion before everyone leaves the room.

And then, it is just you and Astarion and it’s finally quiet. Astarion whispers soothing words to you in a smooth, low voice that doesn’t make your eardrums feel like they’re splitting open inside your head.

When your sobs eventually diminish into little sniffles, Astarion lets go of your hair. He makes a motion like he’s going to stroke your face before he hesitates and pulls away.

“Are you okay?” He asks softly. “The transition can be… a lot. I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking. It’s been so long since I was turned.”

“Why can’t you just leave me alone?” you ask.

Astarion’s face falls. “Is that really what you want? I’ll leave if you tell me to.”

“No,” you say, almost immediately. You look at your hands in your lap, stained an ugly, rusted brown. Your first instinct isn’t repulsion, but rather that you want to bring them up to your mouth and lick them clean, even if the blood is stale and dry. You feel disgusted with yourself. “What happened to me?”

Astarion seems at a loss for words.

“I want to go home,” you say.

Let there be some comfort, some sense of familiarity, in this tidal wave of foreign sensations.

“We can’t yet,” Astarion says. His voice is so forlorn, as if it is hurting him to see you like this. “It’s about to be daybreak and we can’t travel in the sun.”

It’s yet another reminder of everything you have lost.

“Great, just what I needed,” you scoff.

“There’s an inn across the street. The others went over to get us rooms.”

So that’s where everybody else went. How long ago was that? How long had you been curled in on yourself on the floor, weeping and sick and desperately craving blood?

Astarion must have been trying to give you privacy. Even now, he was still taking care of you- allowing you to grieve without the other’s prying eyes and helping to take away some of the overwhelming stimulation in the room.

“I can go tell Shadowheart to prepare a bath for you, if you’d like me to?” Astarion asks, almost as if he can sense that you are getting lost in your own mind again. He offers you a little smile, “I find those help.”

Those words sounded so familiar… It takes you a moment to place that you had read them in his diary. Astarion had not meant his jab as a jab but it still makes you painfully, acutely aware of how cruelly you had betrayed his trust. You want to start sobbing again.

You simply nod at Astarion, accepting his offer, unable to find the words to say anything else. He seems reluctant to leave you, but he finally pushes himself up from the floor.

“I’ll be back in just a minute, okay?” His hand stretches out awkwardly between the two of you and when you don’t reach out to grab it, he drops it. With a shake of his head, he turns on his heel and leaves.

“Wait-” you call after him and Astarion turns to regard you curiously. You look down at your hands in your lap, feeling a bit silly that you don’t know the first thing about vampirism, despite all the months you spent married to one. “Will I need more blood? I don’t- how do I even know when I’m hungry? I don’t want to accidentally hurt someone.”

“You won’t, little flower, precisely because even now, in the peak of your bloodlust, you are still aware enough to worry about others.” Astarion’s eyes soften. “Though, it is probably a good idea for you to drink a bit more while I’m gone. Can you promise me that you’ll try?”

You nod and Astarion gives you one last fleeting smile before he is leaving the room.

And for a moment, you close your eyes and let yourself sit in nothing but darkness. You sit until you can no longer deny your unquenchable thirst. You don’t even need to look, don’t even need to open your eyes as you drag yourself to a new source of blood.

Only, when you open them again, you are met by Raphael’s cold, dead stare and the deep gash in his throat, nearly severing his head from his body. That is not an image you will ever forget. You fall backward on your hands in horror, trying to back away from him as quickly as possible.

Wrapping your arms around yourself, you pull your knees into your chest. You are too aware of the devilish body sitting just a few feet away from you. Raphael’s face stays at the front of your mind. His eyes had not even been that different than when he was alive, looking at you with pure nothingness behind them, like you were so insignificant that you did not even deserve to be seen.

But you had promised Astarion that you would try to drink something and the idea of blood is slowly consuming you, pushing away that horrible image. You scan the room and find another dead guard to drain.

And you do feel marginally better after drinking some blood, so you finally pick yourself up off the ground. It feels too cold in the room. You hadn’t even realized that you were shivering.

Out of the corner of your eye, you catch the familiar shimmer of one of the green gems, still encased in glass on their pedestals, completely unharmed by the commotion.

You step closer to them, reaching out a hand to press against the glass covering. From this close, there’s no shred of doubt in your mind- your mother’s necklace had contained the final gem all this time. But why? How did she even get one?

It seems foolish to just leave them there when Raphael had gone through so much trouble to find them. Lifting up the covers, you slide the gems off their pedestals. You’ve just tucked them into your skirt when Astarion’s voice surprises you.

“Are you ready, darling?”

You try to gauge whether Astarion had caught you slipping the gems into your pocket, but he simply leans against the doorframe on the other side of the room.

When you come to stand a few steps in front of him, Astarion asks,“Did you treat yourself to a snack while I was gone?”

You nod but you can’t help the way your gaze darts nervously over to Raphael’s body at the mention of a ‘snack.’ His dead eyes feel like they have followed you as you walked across the room.

“Oh,” Astarion’s smile drops instantly. He holds his hand out to you. “Come, let’s leave. We never have to look at him again.”

You know Astarion means to be reassuring but you fear the image of Raphael’s cold, dead face has been burned into your retinas.

Attempting to clear your mind, you give your head a little shake and take a deep breath before reaching your hand out to grab Astarion’s. You do not miss the subtle way he squeezes your fingers, as if he is afraid that you will drop his hand again.

When you finally leave the room, it feels like a weight has been lifted off your shoulders. With your hands laced, you let Astarion lead you through the maze of Raphael’s house to the inn across the street, where a warm bath is waiting for you. Astarion shows you to a room. Shadowheart is there and when she sees you, she gives you the same melancholic little smile that had been painted on Astarion’s own face all night and it makes you want to roll your eyes in disgust. How long would everyone insist on treating you like you were made of glass?

“You’ll tell me if you need anything?” Astarion asks. He’s trying to keep his voice measured but there is a pleading, desperate undertone. You know he is only trying to help, but that is of little comfort to you right now. You just need time by yourself.

You nod stiffly at him and he awkwardly clears his throat, finally dropping your hand.

“I love-”

“Don’t,” you cut Astarion off. “Please, don’t do that to me right now.”

Astarion’s brow creases in displeasure and he turns on his heel to leave immediately. You stare after him, watching his figure retreat to the room next to yours. He shuts the door with an angry slam.

Where there would normally be a heavy ache in your chest, there is nothing. Just a deep dread settling in your stomach.

When you close the door to your own room, Shadowheart’s back is turned. Seizing your opportunity, you quietly tuck the gems into a drawer in a dresser. You aren’t entirely sure what possesses you to keep them a secret, but after so long of being kept in the dark by Astarion, it’s only fair you get to have a secret of your own for a while.

Shadowheart helps you peel off your dress, which is stiff and hard where the blood has dried into the fabric.

“I sent Gale into the city to get us all new clothes. I fear this dress is beyond repair,” Shadowheart says, wrinkling her nose in disgust. “Hopefully, he’ll come back with something at least somewhat presentable for you to wear on the ride back. You never know though. It is Gale, after all. He only ever wears purple.”

There’s a small smile on her face and you can tell she is trying to raise your spirits. It was usually easy to goad you into poking fun at Gale. But this time, you just hum in response. The idea of laughter seems too foreign, too impossible right now.

In the tub, you let her scrub the dried blood off your skin as you numbly stare ahead at the wall. The water surrounding you turns an unpleasant shade of red.

After your skin has been cleaned, Shadowheart gives you a towel and instructs you to stand behind the dressing screen in the corner of the room. She calls upon some of the workers from the inn and they refill the tub with fresh, clear water.

You climb back and sink into the warm water, watching the steam curl around the edges of the tub. Shadowheart lets you sit there as long as you want and you stay until long after the water has grown cold and started to make you shiver.

Shadowheart helps you into the dress Gale brought back from the city (which is indeed a rich, deep purple). You’re too aware of the way the once-soft velvet scratches uncomfortably against the skin of your arms.

It’s only after you’ve dressed and Shadowheart has put your hair into a simple braid down your back that you pass by a mirror. You don’t see yourself. Immediately, you try to conjure the last glimpse of yourself that you had gotten in the mirror before you left on your trip. Even then, the image in your mind is fuzzy- you had not been paying attention to details. You had not known it would be the last time you would ever see yourself.

Tears begin welling up in your eyes again.

“Let’s just cover that, why don’t we?” Shadowheart says, turning the mirror around to face the wall.

You spend the rest of the afternoon just sitting in your room in the inn with the curtains drawn and the lights all turned off. It should be silent and dark. It isn’t. Somehow, your new senses cause you to hear every creak and groan of the building. You can hear the mice in the walls, smell the blood of all the other bodies moving in the building.

How did Astarion manage to live like this?

Eventually, Shadowheart knocks on your door to let you know the sun has set and it is time to leave. You follow her outside, down the cobblestone streets of the city to a stable on the outskirts of town.

Everyone else is standing together. They all look better- washed and free of grime and dressed in fresh clothes. You would almost be relieved to see them if they didn’t all immediately fall quiet in your presence. It makes you feel murderous.

“Glad to see you’re feeling better.” Halsin breaks the silence with a friendly smile.

“I may look like it, but I certainly don’t feel better,” you hiss back, even though you know Halsin does not deserve your anger. “Just because I am no longer vomiting blood on the floor doesn’t mean that I’m not in constant agony.”

Everyone’s eyes dart around nervously, like they’re unsure what to say in such an awkward situation.

Astarion laughs, with a roll of his eyes. “Oh, stop being melodramatic, you’re perfectly fine. You’re adjusting.”

Of course, Astarion looks beautiful in the moonlight. His hair is silver and incandescent, shining brightly against his dark, black coat.

“You don’t get to tell me how I feel!” You snap at him, crossing your arms over your chest in defiance.

“So, what?” Astarion asks you. “You’re just going to keep behaving like a-”

“Ehem,” Gale interrupts. “Not that… this isn’t fun to watch and all, but we need to leave if we want to make it back by sunrise.”

You and Astarion lock heated gazed for a moment longer before you’re shoving past him to the rest of the group. Everyone else is standing next to horses, which have been saddled and prepared for the ride back to the Ancunin manor.

“Horses,” you say, a bit surprised.

“They were quicker than carriages,” Astarion answers, coming to stand by your side. His gloved hand brushes against your own for just a moment. “I wasn’t about to leave you with that vile man a second longer than was necessary.”

“There’s not enough of them for me or Shadowheart to have our own,” you observe.

“You’ll ride with me and she can ride with Lae’zel,” Astarion says, as if the answer was so obvious.

“No, I will not be riding with you!” You look at Astarion, incredulous. “You’re not allowed to make decisions for me anymore.”

Since Shadowheart already has a riding partner, you turn to your next closest friend, Halsin. “Can I ride with you?”

To put it bluntly- you’ve never seen cool, collected, go-with-the-flow Halsin look more uncomfortable and unsure in his life. He obviously doesn’t want to be in the middle of your and Astarion’s argument. Astarion is glaring daggers at Halsin. That selfish, monstrous part of you which has grown louder since your turning feels a bit vindicated that Astarion is jealous.

Halsin clears his throat nervously. “I’m truly sorry, my lady, but propriety dictates that you can’t ride with a man that’s not your husband.”

Of course. Silly you, thinking that a friend would be willing to help you in your time of need. Could this day get any worse?

You turn to your backup plan- the only other woman who does not already have a riding partner.

“Karlach, please.”

“Not a good idea.” Astarion interrupts. “We don’t know if you can control your bloodlust, darling. I’m the only person here you can’t hurt.”

Selfish bastard. Why does he now suddenly feel the need to control even the most minute details of your life, like who you ride on a horse with? Does he no longer love you enough to offer you this small sense of comfort in what has been an obviously distressing time?

“Please,” you ignore him, begging Karlach again.

“Alright,” she agrees warily. “But if I catch you staring at my neck for too long, you have to get on with him.”

“Deal,” you say, reaching out to shake her hand.

Which, maybe, is not the most sensitive thing to do the day after you had just resolved Astarion’s deal with a devil. He shoots you an annoyed look.

The first half of the ride is quiet and contemplative. Every time you turn to look, Astarion’s eyes are already on you and he’s got this distant, faraway look that tells you he’s a bit too lost in his thoughts. You can feel everyone else watching you carefully, as well, like you are a ticking time bomb bound to explode at any moment.

It does not occur to you until hours into your journey that perhaps Astarion had been so insistent on you riding with him because he is worried that you are going to leave him the moment that you get home. In his mind, perhaps he was simply trying to spend one last moment with you. Perhaps he even believed he could convince you to stay. It was just the kind of foolishly insecure thing that Astarion would think. He should know better by now- you were not so easy to chase off, even if you had complicated feelings about him at the moment.

And the ride continues in silence until eventually, Karlach nearly bursts with the need to talk. The two of you start chatting, with others joining in occasionally. Everyone seems to start relaxing around you, now that you have proven that you are not completely feral.

Ultimately, the ride home is uneventful. Karlach talks and by the end, her mood is so infectious that she even gets you to laugh a couple times. You’re so grateful for her humor, it was just the amount of levity you needed.

You’re sure that you’ve never been more happy to be home before and you're desperate to be inside. As you walk from the stables back toward the manor, you find yourself fantasizing about how wonderful it will feel to lie down on your bed, even if you don’t need sleep anymore.

Lifting your foot, you move to step over the entryway. Except, you’re stuck. It’s as if there’s some sort of invisible wall barring you from entry.

Of course, because vampires can’t enter a residence without permission.

Astarion’s got a little smirk on his face as he stands in the hallway, looking back at you stuck outside.

“I’m waiting for you to ask nicely, little flower,” he teases.

“Can I come inside?” You spit out through gritted teeth.

Astarion looks like he’s considering it for a minute before he frowns. “Not nice enough, try again.”

“Oh, beloved husband, can I please come into our house?” You ask, voice dripping with sarcasm. But you plaster a sweet smile on your face at the end and Astarion seems to have had his fun with you, anyway.

“Welcome home, darling. Please, do come inside. You’re keeping everyone waiting,” Astarion says, sweeping into an overdramatic, elegant bow.

You make sure to shove his shoulder with your own when you pass him.

Shadowheart has already drawn the heavy curtains for you when you enter your room.

The first thing you do is carefully tuck the gems away in the hollowed out book on your bookshelf. You could deal with that problem later. For now, it was time to wallow.

For hours, you lie in bed, staring up at the mahogany panel on top of your four poster bed. It all feels wrong. You’re so tired, but no matter how hard you try, you can’t will your body to sleep. You wish you had some book, like Essential Knowledge on Being a Vampire, to teach you how to solve this issue.

Later that evening, there’s a knock on your door and you open it to find Astarion.

“I have something for you,” he says, producing a jar of sloshy red liquid from behind his back.

“It’s not fresh,” you say with a twinge of disappointment.

“You’re too spoiled, pet.” Astarion laughs. “I lived on nothing but rats and bugs for 200 years. I assure you, many vampires would kill for stale human blood.”

You pout, hoping that trick still works and Astarion will give in to you. “Why can’t you just call up one of your snacks for me? Why do I have to drink it like this?”

“Now, now, darling,” Astarion reprimands you as he finally steps past you into your bedroom. “It took me a very long time to curate such a wonderful collection of vintages. The last thing I need is for you to drain one of them dry and scare the rest off.”

“So, I’m stuck with that then?” You ask, pointing to the jar of blood in his hand.

“Or drinking from me,” Astarion shoots you a flirty wink. “I’m more than happy to drink enough to sustain the both of us.”

That hungry, lustful part of you runs wild with the idea. You and Astarion could spend your nights wrapped together again, but now it would not just be him biting you. Now, you could bite back. You could finally taste him.

But that doesn’t seem like a good idea with the current state of your marriage- it would just add confusion and more unnecessarily complicated emotions.

“I don’t want anything else from you, Astarion.” Your harsh words aren’t filled with the normal tenacity behind them.

It’s all too much, the constant smells and having to hold yourself back from sinking your teeth into everyone around you. You collapse into a chair in the corner of your room.

“I’m so tired, but I can’t sleep,” you confess in a quiet voice.

You know Astarion heard you. Now that you are a vampire, you understand the sensitivity of vampiric hearing.

Astarion places the jar of blood on the table next to you. You’re reminded of so long ago, that first day you were here, when Astarion kept sending you food even though you were determined not to eat. He was too good at this- at caring for you even when you were determined to be difficult.

“That comes with time,” Astarion assures you, sinking to his knees in front of where you sit. He looks unsure for a moment before he reaches out, grabbing your hands in his own and pulling your attention to him. “I know that you’re stubborn and impatient and you just want everything to go back to normal, but things have changed. It will take time. I have learned the hard way that you cannot just rush past all the hardships in life, no matter how desperately you wish to.”

Astarion’s thumb traces soothing circles on your hand as he continues speaking, “We’re both here and we’re both safe. And I know you need time to be angry at me. And though I know I will forgive you, I’m still hurt by your invasion of my privacy. So… let’s just… spend some time apart. And know that whenever you decide you’re ready, I’ll be waiting for you, okay?”

Astarion reaches out, ghosting his thumb along your cheek as the corner of his mouth quirks up in a half smile. “And don’t rush, we have all the time in the world, my love.”

You nod, unable to speak in fear that tears will start welling up in your eyes again. Gods, was this some sort of horrible symptom of vampirism that you just kept crying all the time? If so, you need to figure out how to deal with that quickly, because these constant tears were a nuisance.

Astarion gives your hand a little squeeze before he’s rising from where he kneels on the floor, turning to leave your room.

“I- thank you, Astarion,” you say when he’s in the doorway. He pauses but doesn’t peek over his shoulder to look back at you, as if he knows that will cause you to lose the nerve to continue speaking. “I don’t say that to you often enough, but know that I am very grateful for all that you’ve done for me.”

—------------

The next evening, there’s another gentle knock on your door but no one is there when you open it. The only thing you see is a leatherbound book propped up next to your door.

It looks remarkably similar to Astarion’s diary and it must have been left by him, but there was no way he was just… giving you his diary, right? Not when it was still such a sore subject between the two of you.

What, was this some sort of weird way to test your loyalty?

You debate whether you should ignore the gift completely but as usual, your curiosity gets the better of you. After grabbing the book, you curl up on your bed and open the front cover.

The first thing you see is your name, your actual name, which Astarion called you so rarely. It’s written in his beautiful, looping cursive and it nearly pulls the breath from your lungs when you see it.

Underneath your name, the first page is a letter to you.

My dear wife,

I know that you are inquisitive by nature and I am sure you are filled to the brim with questions about being a vampire. It seems unfair of me to turn you into one and then send you off into the metaphorical dark, so I thought I might offer you some advice. As you have learned, I have grown to find writing rather cathartic, so I thought it fitting to write to you about my own experiences as a vampire. I hope this will help ease your transition.

Please, forgive me if I have forgotten anything. I have tried hard to think of everything you might ask and I like to think that I know you very well, but I am not nearly as creative in my curiosity as you are.

With all that I am, know that I love you.

Your husband,

Astarion

When you turn to the next page, a loose sheet of folded paper flutters out. There are only two sentences scribbled hastily on the paper.

I told you I would give you your space. I intend to honor that promise.

Oh, how unexpected and perfectly timed. Just yesterday, you had been wishing for a book exactly like this. It was as if your husband, Astarion, had read your mind.

Your insides feel warm and fuzzy as you hold the book to the chest, over the spot where your heart used to beat. For the first time in a long time, you have hope that everything will be okay again, that your anger will fade and love will bloom in its place, a love that was far more radiant than ever before.

—------------

Slowly, you lose track of time. You spend a little time feeling sorry for yourself and a little time feeling sad. But mostly, you spend a lot of time not really feeling anything at all. There’s just numbness and staring at the hypnotic, swirling patterns of the wallpaper in your bedroom.

Time moves. You don’t.

You feel dead. Guess that makes sense.

You settle into a new routine. Sometimes, you and Astarion bump into each other around the manor and you’re both cordial and polite, scared of intruding in the other’s space.

You miss him. You spend your evenings rereading the book he had written for you, tracing your fingers over his lovely handwriting. But at times, the anger inside you still flickers back to life. You do not dare to approach Astarion until you are sure the flames of anger within you are long dead.

“You know, he could have turned you into a spawn,” Shadowheart says one day. It’s enough to finally shock you out of the monotonous routine of self-pity that you had found yourself in.

“What’s the difference?” You scoff.

You were faintly aware of the difference between true vampires and spawn but the subject had not been discussed in any great detail in the book Astarion had written for you. You know this is due to the traumatic nature of his own life when he was a spawn.

“He gave you his blood,” Shadowheart answers. “You’re a full and true vampire. You aren’t bound to serve him; you aren’t forced to obey his commands.”

Shadowheart is purposefully avoiding your eyes while she continues to braid your hair.

“You know, I thought he was going to make you a spawn,” she says. “Trust me, I’m happy that he made the right choice and didn’t. But for a second, it really looked like he was considering…” She trails off and sighs. “Well, I guess I didn’t think he would be able to resist guaranteeing that you could never leave him.”

“Why are you bringing this up now?” You ask. “Are you just trying to point out that my life isn’t as bad as it could be?”

“No, stop being difficult,” Shadowheart punctuates her statement with a tug on your hair that is a bit rougher than what is necessary. “I’m just trying to paint a full picture for you. What you do with that information is up to you.”

She falls into a contemplative silence for a moment before she finally says, “Though, it is rather annoying when the two of you are fighting. I have to go out of my way to avoid two places. When you’re together, I only have to avoid one room.”

You roll your eyes at her comment.

“Something still feels wrong,” you confess. “It still feels like he’s controlling every aspect of my life. He decided we would be married. He decided that I was not allowed to know any details of his past or about his deal with Raphael. He was the one who decided that we would go on the trip which got us kidnapped. He decided to turn me into a vampire. He confined me to this house and made me a prisoner of the sun.”

Shadowheart sighs. “Have you tried telling him any of this? Tried explaining how you’re feeling? Have you asked him what he’s been thinking and feeling?”

“I already made it perfectly clear what I think.”

“No, you yelled at him,” Shadowheart says. She finishes braiding your hair and moves to lean against the vanity to look down at you.

“How do I explain…” She looks off into space as she thinks for a moment before she turns back to you. “Look, Astarion has had a long and traumatic life. Have you really not noticed how he shuts down when people raise their voices around him? Same as how you start spewing insults you don’t always mean. You fight, he flees. Neither of you are capable of listening to the other in that sort of state.”

Damn her. That’s a good point. When did she have time to notice all this about the two of you?

The realization washes over you like a wave- for all your anger about Astarion never listening to you, you had neglected to see that you had been ignoring Astarion’s needs, as well.

This intervention from Shadowheart was good. This was what you needed- someone to shake you awake from the haze you had been trapped in so you could finally see all the damage you were causing.

“Oh gods, I’m a horrible person, aren’t I?” you groan, letting your head fall into your hands. “I’ve been a terrible wife.”

You hear Shadowheart’s twinkly laugh and her voice is amused. “Stop being so dramatic all the time. You’re just as bad as Astarion.”

You shoot her a look of warning between the fingers covering your face, even if you secretly relish the fact that she brought up your and Astarion’s similarities.

“And you’re not a horrible person.” She pats your back in a comforting, reassuring motion. “You’ve been through a lot of very big life changes in the last year. You’re adapting. You’re learning. And I wouldn’t even say you’ve been too harsh on Astarion. He can get a bit too full of himself. He needs someone like you to keep his head screwed on. The two of you just need to talk and actually listen to one another for once.”

“You’re strangely wise, when you want to be,” you tell her.

She shrugs, but you see her smile.

—-----------

Astarion’s faces away from the door when you approach the study, focused on the stack of books next to him. For a moment, you silently watch him hunt along the different rows in the bookshelf before he places a book and grabs a new one from the stack. He must be reorganizing.

You reach out and knock on the door to draw his attention.

“You don’t need to knock if the door is open, Gale,” Astarion says, annoyed. He doesn’t even bother to turn around.

“Oh, I- I’m not Gale,” you stutter out nervously. You fear that he will be disappointed when he sees you- that the beautiful smile that used to light up his face whenever you entered the room will be gone.

But instead, Astarion’s head whips around to look at you. He nearly drops the book that he’s holding, but he manages to catch it before it clatters to the floor. It’s a clumsiness that is so uncharacteristic of Astarion, who always moves so gracefully and elegantly. You have to hide your smile.

Here’s this man, this vampire- so powerful and so strong- and your mere presence makes him so nervous that he nearly drops everything he is holding.

“And thank the gods for that. One Gale is already bad enough,” Astarion jokes and you manage a soft laugh at that. The smile on his face is lovely and you’re struck by the urge to just stand and watch him for hours, to study him how you used to. He tilts his head a bit to the side, in question. “What are you doing here? I thought you still weren’t speaking with me.”

“I came to apologize,” you tell him.

“Whatever for? You haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Well, that’s not true at all. I’ve done plenty wrong. And I’ve actually been a bit of a tyrant as of late.” You laugh, though you are sure Astarion made his comment earnestly. You were starting to realize that he viewed you as far more infallible than you actually are.

“You’ve been going through a big change,” Astarion continues to defend your actions.

“Please, don’t make excuses for my bad behavior. Will you just hear me out for a couple minutes?” you ask. “After, you can tell me to leave or stay or say whatever you’d like but right now, I need you to be quiet and let me speak, okay?”

Astarion nods.

You take a deep breath and ready yourself for the speech you had prepared in your head. You had been working on it for the greater part of a day, trying to sort through your thoughts and figure out how to vocalize everything in a way that could be easily understood. You had even forced Shadowheart to listen to you practice it earlier, though she was a rather unwilling participant.

“First of all,” you begin. “I’m sorry I read your diary and I’m sorry I haven’t given you a heartfelt apology yet. That diary was yours and I know that I never should have touched it. It’s as simple and as complicated as that. And I kept giving excuses to justify my actions rather than actually apologize, but I fully recognize that any frustration I felt about you not being upfront with me never warranted invading your privacy. I truly, sincerely apologize. It will never happen again.”

Astarion surveys you curiously, though his face remains soft and open. It’s a good sign, at least, that he seems receptive to your apology.

You continue speaking. “And when you confronted me, rightfully angry, I got upset and yelled at you because I felt guilty. I need to stop doing that- I need to learn to take a break when I feel myself getting upset. I know that I can be mean when I’m provoked and I lash out and hurt other people. It happened when you tried to distance yourself from me, it happened when you found me with your diary, and it happened again right after you turned me.”

“I won’t apologize for what I said after you turned me. I stand by all that. I’m allowed to be frustrated and angry at the world. But I am sorry that I took that frustration out on you. That wasn’t fair of me.” You can feel yourself growing more and more impassioned the longer you speak, so you try to tamper yourself down to a calmer level.

“I promise that I am going to do better at listening to you Astarion, but I need you to promise me that you will do the same. I need to see changes,” you implore. “I feel like I have made it perfectly clear by now, but let me be overly explicit for a final time- I don’t like when you make my decisions for me. I know that it is supposed to be my place as a woman to defer to your judgment, but frankly, I think that’s stupid.”

The corner of Astarion’s mouth tilts up in a grin- he always did love your pluckiness.

You feel a phantom heart beating in your chest as you continue speaking. “I have a mind and a will of my own and it is unfair to make me do things that I don’t want to do. A part of me will always be sad that I wasn’t able to enter into our marriage or choose to be a vampire of my own free will. I don’t want my memories of you to be tainted by that. I value and respect your opinion, but please, trust me to be the one to make my own choices from now on.”

“And lastly, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” You look up to the ceiling, trying to force down the tears that you feel brimming in your eyes. This was the part of your speech you had been dreading the most, the part that you had not rehearsed with Shadowheart because it felt too personal. But if you had ever inadvertently contributed to Astarion’s pain by being too forward in your intimacy, you needed to apologize to him. “It’s not a valid excuse but I didn’t know about your past, Astarion. You have to believe me. I know that I probably pressured you into uncomfortable situations because I was so insistent. Please know that there will never be enough words to tell you how sorry I truly am.”

“And… I miss you, Star. I can’t tell you how many times I've reread the note at the beginning of the book you gave me. I think I practically have it memorized at this point.” You breathe out a shaky laugh. “Okay, that’s… I think that’s everything I wanted to say.”

You pull your gaze back down from the ceiling to gauge Astarion’s reaction. He just looks stunned. Which is fair, you did just dump a lot on him.

And then Astarion just keeps staring at you, like you have broken his brain completely. The longer you wait, the more nervous you get and eventually, you have to close your eyes, terrified of the rejection that you are certain is coming. You can feel yourself start to panic a bit as you prepare for Astarion to tell you to get out and how could he ever love someone as weak and stupid as you?

Instead, you feel his arms wrapping around you. You cling to him, burying your face in his chest and letting the tears that had been building finally leak out.

He’s so much warmer than you remember.

Astarion tilts your chin up so he can look at you and he brushes away the tears that have fallen down your cheeks.

“I don’t know where to start,” Astarion says, at a loss for words. He gives you a sweet smile. “For what it’s worth, I already forgave you long ago for reading my diary.”

The crushing weight that had been sitting on your chest for so long finally lessens. You feel so light now that you can breathe again.

Astarion’s thumb continues tracing along your cheek and his eyes watch the motion, rather than stare into your own. You are too familiar with the fact that it can be easier to get your feelings out without the pressure of eye contact.

“I see now that I was wrong, too. I’m sorry that I didn’t fully trust you. It’s just-” Astarion huffs and his brow furrows, “How do I explain this? You saw me as the man I am now, detached from all my trauma and background, and you loved that person. And for so long, I was scared that if I admitted my past to you, you would no longer see me as the man you knew and loved. I didn’t want to ruin the illusion for you. I realize now that I was mistaken.”

You’re stunned, partially because Astarion just admitted he was wrong and that was a minor miracle in itself. But also, you had never considered that Astarion might have been afraid that his past would make you see him differently.

And you do, but not in any way that matters. He just feels like a more complete person now. All those little reactions and details you could never place finally make sense.

Astarion wipes away another stray tear rolling down your cheek. “And I need you to trust me, little flower. I need you to hear me when I say that I love you and I want you. I like having sex with you. Believe me, I don’t do anything that I don’t want to anymore. I’m past that point in my life.”

And with his words, Astarion continues to quell any shadows or doubts in your mind. It feels wonderful to finally speak so freely with each other.

“And now, it’s my turn to apologize,” he says. “You’re right. I haven’t been listening to you. Throughout our whole marriage, you’ve basically been shouting from the rooftops that all you wanted was to make your own choices and I kept making them for you in fear that you might choose to leave me. That’s not fair of me, either- I need to trust that if you love me as much as you say that you will choose me.”

Astarion pauses, sighing gently, “And I’m sorry for the circumstances surrounding your death but I won’t apologize for the outcome. You know that I am a deeply selfish man. I wasn’t going to lose you- not now and not ever. I will not apologize for what is done, only that my actions have caused you pain. I know nothing I can say will make this… right. And it probably wouldn’t help you feel better, anyway. But know that I am here with you, every step of the way; as a mentor, as a friend, as a lover. However you want me, you have me.”

“What about as a husband?” You tease.

“Well, that can certainly be arranged,” Astarion says as a devilish grin splits across his face.

“I love you,” you tell him. “Thank you for waiting for me. Ever since you caught me with your diary, all I’ve wanted is to go back to how it was before.”

“I don’t think we ever will be able to go back to how it was before,” Astarion says, and his words fill you with a deep sadness. Your face falls but Astarion is still smiling. A real one, not a performative one. “It will be better this time; we’ll be true equals.”

“Equals. I like that.” You smile back at him. His knuckles stroke lovingly along your jaw.

“And now I should probably tell you that I actually kind of like that you get a bit nasty when you’re angry,” Astarion says with one of those smirks that makes you want to get into all sorts of trouble with him. “Maybe just direct that at other people in the future.”

You laugh. “Just point and I shall destroy your enemies with my vicious mockery.”

“Oh, yes. Yes, please.” He giggles in delight. “That sounds wonderfully entertaining.”

And it feels so good now that everything is out in the open. Like you and Astarion are truly seeing each other for the first time as you embrace, grinning like love-struck fools.

“How have you been?” Astarion interrupts the moment, his voice turning more serious. “I feel like I’ve hardly seen you.”

“Um, it could be worse, I guess? I could be dead.”

Astarion frowns at your joke. Note to self- don’t joke about your death with Astarion.

But you’re not sure how exactly to explain the fog that it feels like you’ve been trapped in for the past… Actually, you don’t even know how long it’s been since you’ve been turned. You lost track of time. Has it been weeks? Months?

Now doesn’t feel like the time to unload all that on Astarion. You had just gotten him back, you weren’t about to go chasing him away again with new issues. You would wait until later. Maybe even bringing it up as you cuddle in bed so you do not have to watch how his pretty face twists with worry at your confession.

You deflect by turning the attention back to him. “Thank you for all that you’ve done for me. You must have been pretty busy trying to get all that blood for me.”

For a moment, Astarion looks like he wants to pry into what’s on your mind, but he resists. It was time to trust each other and that involved having faith that the other person would bring up issues when the time felt right for them.

“Ugh, you don’t even know, pet. It’s more work than I’ve done in years,” Astarion complains. “I have to think about what I want and then go and ask Gale for it and that always takes forever. I was made for looking pretty, not for organizing blood draws.”

You giggle at his theatrics. “Well, if you’re going to be so dramatic about it, I’ll go offer my thanks to Gale instead.”

You move to pull away from Astarion but he catches your wrist and pulls you tighter against his chest.

“Don’t you dare.”

Is this Astarion initiating?

He’s looking at you with hungry, red eyes and the way his hand rests just a bit too low on your back isn’t entirely innocent.

You chew on your lip, debating in your mind whether you should just lean forward and kiss Astarion. You haven’t fully adjusted to the new sharp fangs inside your mouth and you found yourself forgetting them constantly. You let out a little hiss at your mistake and your finger comes up instinctually to dab away the bead of blood from your lip.

You stare at the drop on your finger, entranced, former train of thought completely lost. The room fades away and for a moment, there’s only blood.

And then, Astarion reaches out to grab your wrist and he sucks your finger into his mouth with a moan that should send him straight to the hells. Your brain goes blank, yet again, as you watch how he slides your finger out his mouth, never breaking eye contact with you.

Your whole body feels like a live wire. Reaching out, you tug Astarion down by the back of his neck to press your lips against his. You had been without him for so long and now, you’re ravenous.

This isn’t one of those sweet, loving kisses that you and Astarion share so often. There is nothing loving about this kiss- only hunger. As if you can make up for lost time by consuming one another whole.

Your lips crash against his, two sets of fangs ripping and tearing into one another’s skin. There’s blood everywhere- coating your lips and electrifying your taste buds and trickling down your chin.

And just for a second, you hesitate. Did he want this? You hadn’t checked. You had pulled him down and kissed him and, sure, he had kissed you back, but that doesn’t mean he wants more. Despite his words earlier ensuring you that he enjoys physical intimacy with you, your doubts are still present. You aren’t sure how to act anymore.

Astarion, sensing your moment of hesitation, pulls away immediately.

His voice is low and hoarse. “What’s wrong?”

You try to find the right words. “I just- I’m sorry. I should have asked. Did you want me to kiss you?”

Astarion chuckles. “I always want you to kiss me. But please, no doubts, my love. I promise I’ll tell you if I don’t want to do something. But this-” His hand traces along the curve of your ass as he moves his lips down to brush against yours, “this is me initiating. Trust me, I’m nearly out of my mind with how badly I want you.”

His words send a shock straight to your cunt.

“Get back here, then,” you practically growl, pulling him down by the collar of his shirt.

Your lips collide again and the world closes in around you- there is nothing but you and Astarion and this impossible need to be closer. You can’t think past the hunger itching at the back of your throat and the molten fire pooling in your cunt.

You urge Astarion backward until his back is pressed against the bookshelf. You must overestimate your own vampiric strength because a few books are knocked off the shelf and Astarion lets out a little exhale of ‘oof.’

“Sorry,” you apologize into his mouth, not bothering to fully separate your lips from his.

“Don’t be, pet,” he says in a breathy pant. “I like when you lose control.”

Fuck, you need to lose control more often if it makes Astarion talk like that.

Your hands move down, untucking Astarion’s shirt from his trousers and you ghost your fingers over his abdomen. It’s still shocking how warm his skin feels now that you have become a vampire. You had grown so used to the cold.

Astarion separates his lips from yours only long enough to pull his shirt up over his head and throw it somewhere in the room.

There are hands everywhere. Your hands move down the planes of Astarion’s chest, continuing downward to trace over the outline of his cock hardening in his pants. And his hands pull you so tightly against him- one follows the curves of your body and the other comes up to thread through your hair. He gently tugs at the roots, tilting your head back to give himself easier access to lick into your mouth.

Eventually, you part from his lips and they’re all swollen and bloody and wet. His beauty will always stun you.

Gods, and how does he smell even better now?

You run your nose along the column of his throat. There’s bergamot and rosemary and underneath that, the intoxicating scent of the blood sitting still in his veins. He must have fed recently. You can’t even bother to be jealous that someone else got to experience the ecstasy of Astarion drinking from them because he smells so good.

“Go on, little love. You can have a taste,” he murmurs against the shell of your ear. He’s a bit breathless, as if he can’t contain his excitement at the idea.

You take his permission and bite into Astarion’s skin, careful to pick a spot far away from the twin scars on his neck. This was meant to be a new memory, separated literally and metaphorically from the struggles of his past.

His blood is so fresh after so much time of only drinking blood from the jars stored in the cellars. Astarion lets you swallow a few mouthfuls before he guides you back up, crashing his mouth against yours again and chasing after the taste of himself in your mouth.

Astarion continues kissing you, but he presses forward, forcing you backward until your back hits the edge of his desk. You raise your hips to sit at the edge, widening your legs so he can slide between them.

He fiddles with the buttons on the back of your dress while he continues to kiss you senseless and you sigh into his mouth, picturing his wonderful hands at work.

“There’s too many-” Astarion cuts himself off with a growl and you hear a sharp ripping noise as he tears open the back of your dress. “Too many buttons.”

“I liked this dress,” you huff and Astarion leans down to press a kiss to your collarbone in apology as he begins bunching up your skirts.

“I’ll buy you a new one,” he says, as he helps pull your dress over your head. He presses his lips to yours again, slow and sweet and a complete shift in tone. He leans his forehead against yours, “I’ll buy you whatever you want.”

It’s a sweet sentiment. You’ll appreciate it more later when you can think clearly again.

Taking a moment to appreciate the sight of Astarion before you, you try to commit this moment to memory. You try to memorize the way that the rivulets of blood running down his chin highlight the lovely blush staining his cheeks.

And over his shoulder, you notice that the door is still wide open.

“The door’s still open,” you squeak out. You don’t love the idea of someone barging in on you and Astarion’s private moment, but you hate the idea of parting from him long enough for one of you to shut the door more.

Astarion must have a similar thought because he chuckles, deep and dark, as his hands grip the back of your neck, pulling your gaze back to his face. His thumb runs down the hollow of your throat and you feel yourself gulp. Astarion watches your throat move, entranced. “They all know better than to interrupt us. And if they don’t… Well, I wouldn’t say no to a snack, would you?”

The idea of draining someone dry with Astarion makes you salivate. Something to look forward to in the future.

Astarion kisses you again, pushing you to lean back at an angle on the desk and distracting you from the lovely images that you had concocted in your imagination. His mouth moves down to nip at your skin and kiss along your collarbones.

“You still have to get past my corset,” you tease. “Can’t rip your way through that one.”

“I can try,” he practically growls, one of his hands coming up to trace menacingly along the boned seams.

“Don’t,” you grip his chin and turn his gaze up to yours. His eyes light up at your command.

Astarion listens and helps you remove the rest of your clothing. Miraculously, your corset and chemise make it off your body without being destroyed like your poor dress.

The cool wood of his desk against your bare skin makes you shiver but you’re quickly distracted when Astarion brings your wrist to his mouth. His eyes lock onto yours and he presses a kiss to your skin before his teeth sink in. You had missed that rush of coldness when he first bites that sends electricity shooting through your veins and it’s almost obscene as you watch him. He drinks from you slowly and sensually and his eyes burn into you the whole time.

As he drops your wrist, a fresh streak of ruby red runs down his chin and you lean forward to lick it up, greedily pressing your mouth against his again.

You fumble with the buttons on his trousers, pushing them down so you’re able to free the hard length of his cock and wrap your hand around it. He groans as you pump your hand up and down his length.

“Missed you being inside me,” you whisper. “Missed how good you fuck me.”

“Then what are you waiting for, pet? Take what you want.”

You guide him into you and he lets you adjust for a moment before his hips are snapping against yours at a ruthless pace that betrays his desperation.

You had missed this- this closeness, this feeling of being whole and one and loved.

“I’m going to fucking ruin you,” Astarion promises, and he grabs the back of one of your thighs, lifting your leg up to wrap around his waist. It has him hitting that much deeper inside you with each thrust of his hips. Your eyes practically roll back in your head.

Astarion brings his lips down to ghost against yours before he teasingly pulls away. “Look at us. I belong to you just as much as you belong to me.”

You moan at his words, losing yourself in the sentiment and the feeling of Astarion moving inside you. Just him and you, like how it was meant to be. He is yours and you are his.

“Say it,” he commands, pulling your attention back to him. It sends a lovely shiver down your spine. You’d do anything he asked if he kept talking to you in that rough, low voice.

“Yours. Only yours,” you breathe into his mouth, chasing after his lips. He gives you a gentle tug on your hair that pulls you back so that your lips are still just a hair’s breadth away from his.

“And I’m yours,” he says, before he finally kisses you.

And Astarion’s hands are everywhere. As if he is determined to memorize your body by touch alone. It makes you smile. Touching. Always touching. You doubt that Astarion will ever let you out of his grasp again. Nor would you want him to.

The way he fucks you somehow feels even better, even more wonderful now as a vampire. All your senses are tingling and hyper-alert and it only serves to make you that much more aware of how Astarion feels pressed against you and how he moves inside you.

It’s carnal, it’s feral, it’s utterly vampiric.

His hand reaches down between your bodies, his magical fingers moving against your clit in a way that sends sparks through your cunt. It has you reaching the precipice far sooner than you had hoped. That aching desire pools low in your stomach, rising into an inferno.

You come and it’s like nothing you’ve ever felt before. Every nerve ending in your body is molten fire.

“So tight, so good,” he pants against your mouth. You whine at the way his hips keep driving into you at a pace which feels so good it’s almost painful. “Can you come for me again, little flower?”

Oh, this man was going to the death of you, wasn’t he? You nod frantically, unable to form words. Astarion presses open mouth kisses along your throat before he’s biting down again. The sudden shock of cold has you gasping for air and digging your nails into Astarion’s skin. You feel that coil tightening deep within you again, ready to snap at a moment’s notice. Astarion keeps moving his fingers against your clit.

You come.

Astarion manages a few more frenzied thrusts before he comes, too, spilling inside you.

And thank the gods you’re already dead because that second orgasm might have just stopped your heart entirely.

You’re just coming back to your senses when you Astarion sinks to his knees in front of you, lifting your legs over his shoulders. He’s staring at your cunt like it’s a four-course meal and you eventually have to tug at his beautiful white curls to pull his attention back to you.

“What are you doing?” you ask.

“You’re dripping all over my expensive desk,” Astarion says. “I’m going to clean you up.”

Your brain is already a bit slow after two overwhelming orgasms and the sight of Astarion on his knees before you, offering to lick away the traces of his come leaking out of you, has you practically feral with lust. Astarion squirms under your gaze the longer you continue to stare down at him, his confident facade dropping.

“Is that okay?” he asks.

You sigh out a breathy ‘yes’ and he’s back to smirking arrogantly at you. Astarion’s arms wrap around you so he can shift your hips to the very edge of his desk.

He devours your cunt. His tongue is everywhere- lapping at your inner folds and dipping deliciously inside you. You lean back on your hands to steady yourself, but that does little to help when Astarion moves to suck on your clit and your whole body trembles with ecstasy.

You aren’t entirely sure how this is helping to ‘clean you up.’ It seems much more likely that Astarion got distracted by all the noises that you are surely making and is trying to drag this out into some sort of religious experience.

“One more, please,” he practically begs, like it’s some big favor to him that you should orgasm another time. His chin is glistening with your wetness and he sounds practically breathless. “You’ve no idea how badly I missed watching you come.”

His words send another spark of heat straight to your cunt and you let out a surprised, strangled whimper. Astarion’s mouth quirks up in a haughty grin, so you simply reach out to tug his head back toward your cunt.

You feel Astarion’s laugh before he begins feasting on you again, sucking and licking and rolling his tongue in some unholy way that has you seeing stars.

For a moment, there is nothing but the white-hot waves of pleasure that roll through you as Astarion coaxes yet another orgasm from your body.

His mouth continues moving against you until you are shaking. He presses gentle kisses to the inside of each of your thighs before gently lowering them from where they sit on his shoulders and the small, caring act brings a goofy grin to your face.

How is it possible to love someone more with every passing moment?

Astarion surges back up to press a final kiss to your lips. It’s slow and deep and you can taste the combined taste of your releases on his tongue. Astarion gently traces down the column of your throat with his thumb, over the spot where he had bitten you just a few moments ago. You can tell your skin is already healed.

“No more marks.” He looks genuinely forlorn. “A pity.”

“I’ll always have this one,” you remind him, holding up your wrist. Astarion brushes his fingers over the twin bite marks on the inside of your wrist from when he had turned you.

You watch him study the marks and you wish you could hear what he was thinking.

“Speaking of which,” Astarion finally breaks the silence. He leans over you to pull open a drawer in his desk, shuffling around in it blindly. He gives a satisfied little smirk when he finds whatever he was looking for.

“You might want this back,” he says. When he opens his hand, your wedding ring is sitting on his palm.

“Give me that.” You feel the smile light up your face as you snatch the ring from him and place it back on your ring finger. “Are you still wearing yours?”

“Never took it off.” Astarion proudly displays his left hand as proof. Sure enough, the gold band glints enchantingly when it catches the candlelight.

“I love you,” you tell Astarion.

The way he’s looking at you can only be described as awe. He catches your hand and brings it to his mouth so he can press a lingering kiss to the spot where the ring now sits comfortably on your finger, once again.

“I love you, too.”

Somehow, you manage to smile even wider.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Notes:

So next week, we wrap up the plot (since we still have that pesky Crown of Karsus hanging around) and then the final chapter is the epilogue. I'm actually kind of happy that I decided to move things around a bit because now I get to add in an extra smut scene that I was originally planning as a fade to black since the epilogue was getting too long.

I loved seeing everyone's reactions to last week's chapter! Can't wait to see what you all think as we start wrapping this bad boy up!

As always, huge thanks to my beta-writer AliensNSuch on ao3.

Taglist: @ayselluna @idkbrodontaskme @maruichio @fanfic-share @the-littlest-bruja @asterordinary @divineknightmare @fandomarchiveilyd

Feel free to let me know if you would liked to be added/removed from the taglist for future chapters!

#astarion #astarion x reader #astarion x tav #bg3 #baldurs gate 3 #astarion bg3 #astarion fanfic #bg3 fanfic #bg3 fanfiction #astarion ancunin #x reader #til death do us part

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fettuccinealfred0 · 3 months

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Hiya!! Just wanted to let you know that I adore reading your fics on Sunday. Absolutely makes my week! ❤️💫

Ahhh, thank you so much anon, this absolutely made my week!

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fettuccinealfred0 · 3 months

Text

Yay! Little sneak peak of this Sunday's chapter of Til Death Do Us Part.

Since I write very out of order, I actually wrote this interaction way back at the beginning before I even started posting anything. Like, sorry, but no one can convince me that Astarion wouldn't take advantage of every situation like this to be a little shit. That's who is and I love that about him!

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You’re sure that you've never been more happy to be home before and you're desperate to be inside. As you walk from the stables back toward the manor, you find yourself fantasizing about how wonderful it will feel to lie down on your bed, even if you don’t need sleep anymore.

Lifting your foot, you move to step over the entryway. Except, you’re stuck. It’s as if there’s some sort of invisible wall barring you from entry.

Of course, because vampires can’t enter a residence without permission.

Astarion’s got a little smirk on his face as he stands in the hallway, looking back at you stuck outside.

“I’m waiting for you to ask nicely, little flower,” he teases.

“Can I come inside?” You spit out through gritted teeth.

Astarion looks like he’s considering it for a minute before he frowns. “Not nice enough, try again.”

“Welcome home, darling. Please, do come inside. You’re keeping everyone waiting,” Astarion says, sweeping into an overdramatic, elegant bow.

You make sure to shove his shoulder with your own when you pass him.

#like I also think it's so funny to think about astarion and reader going to a new place with the group and they're both just like...#hey we're waiting here and everyone else is like... *walks away slowly and leaves them stuck outside*#like what do you do when two of your friends are the most obnoxiously in love and annoying couple ever?#stick them outside where they can't bother you!#okay tag headcanon over lol i just think it's so funnyyyyy #astarion #astarion x reader #astarion x tav #bg3 #bg3 fanfic #sneak peak

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fettuccinealfred0 · 3 months

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Update

Okay, quick little update on Til Death Do Us Part. After consulting with my executive board (aka me and my friend who betas this fic), I have decided to split what was originally going to be chapter 9 into two separate chapters!

The good news is that this week's chapter is still super long!!!

The issue was actually that the entire chapter was getting SO long that I wasn't sure I was going to be able to finish editing/fully fleshing out all my ideas the way I wanted.

So, TLDR; Til Death Do Us Part is now going to be 10 chapters with an epilogue (as opposed to the original 9 and an epilogue). Chapter 9 will be out on Sunday, as usual, and it's angsty at first but I think everyone will be very happy by the end!

Hopefully, I'll post a little sneak peak sometime tomorrow.

#til death do us part #update #lol I am in grad school and I have homework that I need to be doing and it's eating up all my fic writing time (boooo)

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fettuccinealfred0 · 3 months

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Til Death Do Us Part | Part 8

Series Masterlist

Astarion x f!reader, Arranged Marriage AU

Word Count: 10k

(CW: allusions to previous sexual encounters)

Summary:

“A letter for you,” Gale interrupts Astarion’s thoughts, placing the crisp white paper on his desk.

Perfect timing. Shadowheart was supposed to send him a letter when the two of you arrived safely at the cottage and he had just been starting to worry about the delay.

Astarion rips into the letter greedily.

The air around him suddenly reeks of sulfur and Astarion’s stomach drops when he is not greeted by Shadowheart’s neat print.

The letter is brief:

“Dearest Astarion,

I formally request your presence at the House of Hope to renegotiate the terms of our contract. I’ve even gone to the trouble of ensuring that your lovely new bride is able to join us.

Remember, boy. I made you. I can break you just as easily.

-Raphael”

Read on ao3 here.

You had only been gone for a day and Astarion was already miserable.

This wasn’t what he planned for when he arrived home. He had missed you- the warmth of your skin, your little smiles that felt like sunshine, your sharp wit. In the best case scenario, he hoped you would already be naked and waiting for him so he wouldn’t have to waste time on removing all those damned layers of your clothing. You would fall to your knees for him again and he would get to watch the lovely tears gather on your lashes and run down your face as you choked on his cock like the night before he left.

He had replayed that memory many times in his head while he was gone. More often than he would have liked to admit since his attention should have been focused on finding the final gem.

More realistically, you would have ordered him to take a bath the moment you saw how dirty he was after days of traveling. He would have pulled you in with him, content to watch you move atop his cock as you straddled him in the bathtub.

Astarion was intimately familiar with sex and fucking and depraved, carnal lust. He knew bodies and taught himself how to perform and pleasure others so that the act could be over as quickly as possible. He had grown weary and disinterested- it had been so long since he had thought of intimacy as anything other than a manipulation tactic used to exploit people.

But you had reignited that spark in him, had fanned his desire into a flame that consumed him whole. You had awoken something primal, some inner beast which needed to be nurtured and fed by your touch. It all felt different with you. It felt like a disservice that the acts of worship the two of you performed should even be described using the same word as all those times before. With you it felt like love, it felt like devotion, it felt like coming home.

And he found himself enjoying the little moments after just as much as the pleasure itself- the way you would wrap around one another and talk or rest or read.

So after Astarion’s appetite for you was relatively sated (he doubted he would ever truly get enough of you), he would have given you the silly new romance book he had brought back for you as a present. While romance was not his favorite genre, he had started sneaking peeks at the covers of all the books you read very soon after the two of you were first married. At the time, it felt like an easy way to learn about you. And he had found that you loved a romance.

He was perfectly content to let you read the new book aloud to him. He would get to rest his head on your soft stomach and poke fun at the dark, mysterious love interest who was likely entirely too melodramatic and brooding. He would relish in the way that you would narrow your pretty eyes as you looked down at him from over the spine of the book. You would probably have some jab about him needing to take a look in the mirror before calling people melodramatic and brooding. He would get to wink at you and remind you that alas, he was so beautiful that mirrors could not capture his reflection.

Not that he had spent the entire ride home fantasizing or anything…

But in his wildest nightmares, he never imagined that his return would have ended in a fight.

He had hardly even gotten a good look at you before he saw that gods damned diary in your hands and everything was shredded to pieces. He should have expected something like this would happen soon. Everything had been going too well and the fates seemingly loved nothing more than reminding Astarion of his place at every opportunity.

But how could you- his perfect, flawless wife- have betrayed him like this?

Astarion is used to being mad. For centuries, little more kept him alive than the spark of rage which burned deep inside his chest where his heart should have been beating. But Astarion was not used to being angry at you. He had times where he got frustrated or upset, but most of the time that was because you were pointing out some fact about himself that he would rather stay hidden.

Even your last fight had not been your fault- he had been the one pushing you away, he was the one who believed himself to be using you, he was the one who was unequipped to handle the swirl of emotions inside himself.

And even now, Astarion does not know if he is more mad at you for prying into his personal affairs or if he is more upset with the fact that your opinion of him has certainly changed. Now that you truly know him, there is no reason why you would continue to love him.

He still shouldn’t have yelled at you and ordered you away but he just needed the fighting to stop. He needed to get out of there, needed to think. And he wasn’t able to do that with you staring up at him with big, tearful eyes.

Of course, in the end, he had only served to make it worse. That is all Astarion knows how to do.

And right now, he should be preparing himself for the worst case scenario, but he still can’t help but hope that the two of you would somehow manage to overcome this. That you would somehow manage to grow stronger now that everything was out in the open.

In time, he is certain that he will forgive you. But he does not know if you will ever forgive him. Your anger burns brighter and hotter than his ever could.

“A letter for you,” Gale interrupts Astarion’s thoughts, placing the crisp white paper on his desk.

Perfect timing. Shadowheart was supposed to send him a letter when the two of you arrived safely at the cottage and he had just been starting to worry about the delay.

Astarion rips into the letter greedily.

The air around him suddenly reeks of sulfur and Astarion’s stomach drops when he is not greeted by Shadowheart’s neat print.

The letter is brief:

“Dearest Astarion,

I formally request your presence at the House of Hope to renegotiate the terms of our contract. I’ve even gone to the trouble of ensuring that your lovely new bride is able to join us.

Remember, boy. I made you. I can break you just as easily.

-Raphael”

A phantom chill runs up Astarion’s spine and reverberates deep in Astarion’s bones. If he didn’t know better, he would think Cazador was the one who wrote this letter. How many times had Astarion had the same degrading, patronizing sentiments hurled at him by Cazador?

But at least Astarion had known Cazador- knew how he thought and how he would react. Raphael is a new beast entirely. Something far more terrifying, far more unpredictable.

Astarion had lived in a state of constant fear for centuries but he had never felt a panic like the icy hands that gripped his heart now.

Raphael had you.

—----------

They had gagged you almost immediately. Bastards.

To be fair, you had been screaming and biting fairly violently at your captors, but you still don’t think that warranted a dirty, old rag being shoved in your mouth.

Astarion would probably have a crude joke if he saw you like this.

Or, well- he probably would immediately kill these bastards and then make a comment about how he ‘had much better ways of keeping you quiet.’ The idea would almost make you laugh if your circumstances weren’t so dire.

After you had been subdued, your kidnappers had checked both you and Shadowheart for weapons. You, of course, did not have any and were biting and kicking whenever any of their hands threatened to slip beneath your skirt and check for hidden blades, which is what led to the subsequent gagging and binding of your hands and legs.

Shadowheart, however, seemed to have a variety of weapons hidden on her person. How did she even manage that? Did she just… carry weapons around all the time? And how did she even know how to use them?

It was as if everyone is determined to keep their backstories a secret from you.

The two of you are unceremoniously shoved into the back of the carriage after you are bound and deemed free of weapons. Two of the kidnappers sit in the back beside you and Shadowheart, sure to keep their knives in hand in case you get any ideas about escaping. Unfortunately, said knives are just barely out of your reach so you’re unable to steal one away. It’s not like you could anyway, with your hands bound.

You try to sort through some sort of an escape plot in your mind, attempting in vain to communicate with Shadowheart with just your eyes free. Whenever you look at her, she just shakes her head in warning, like she knows what you are thinking so you give up on that after a while.

The curtains to the carriage have been drawn to prevent prying eyes, but there’s a slight gap in the fabric that allows you just a glimpse out of the carriage. You focus on attempting to recognize any surroundings.

There’s… a wall? No. A gate!

Of course. You’re being taken to the city, Baldur’s Gate. You had always hoped to visit one day and explore that place where your mother had grown up. Admittedly, you had hoped your first visit would be under better circumstances.

When the carriage finally stops, rather than untying your hands or your legs, you are instead lifted over one of the men’s shoulders and carried like a sack of potatoes. You try your best to wriggle and kick and generally be difficult. Eventually, you do manage to get a good kick to the groin of the man who is carrying you over his shoulder and he groans and buckles at the knees.

Your little act of revenge immediately backfires when you are dropped harshly on the ground by the man who was carrying you as he cries out in pain from your kick. Your own hip collides roughly with the hard rock of the floor and it sends a sharp, bruising pain radiating through your bones. Since the man who was originally holding you is whining and cupping his groin, another man simply reaches down to yank you up over his own shoulder and resumes carrying you to wherever these kidnappers were planning to take you.

It’s extra annoying because you see that they’re letting Shadowheart walk behind you. Stupid model prisoner.

After being led down what seems like a maze of corridors, you are finally deposited in a filthy cell. The gag is roughly ripped out of your and you take deep swallows of fresh air for the first time in hours. The sides of your mouth are burning from where the rough material of the rag had been rubbing against your skin.

“Drink,” one of the captors commands.

“I most certainly will not,” you shoot back at him, voice hoarse and your throat on fire. Drinking unknown substances from kidnappers seems like an obvious way to get poisoned.

The man grabs your hair roughly, forcing your head back. When your mouth involuntarily opens in surprise, he pours the vial of liquid down your throat.

You try to yell at him and tell him off for horribly you have been treated, but your tongue feels too heavy in your mouth. The corners of your vision are starting to blacken and it feels like your head is swirling.

Is this how you were going to die?

—-----------

Your eyes feel so heavy.

Someone is brushing back the hair from your face and you hear a soothing, lulling voice urging you to wake up.

“A-Astarion?” You try to slur out but your tongue is barely cooperating with your brain.

Because surely, he will be there when you awake. Surely, the events of the past few days have all been some horrible nightmare and you will have woken up never having read Astarion’s journal. He will have just arrived home while you were sleeping and he will be kneeling at your bedside like he had before he left, greeting you with kisses and showering you with love.

“No, my lady,” you hear the twinkly, distinctly feminine voice say. You keep trying to blink your eyes open but you’re hardly able to see past your own lashes before they’re falling shut again.

You’re so tired.

It feels like an eternity before you’re finally able to hold your eyes open for a few seconds at a time. Shadowheart’s blurry, worried face is looking down at you.

“My lady, are you alright?” She asks, fretting nervously around you. You feel something cool being pressed to your forehead. It helps you focus a bit on reconnecting your mind to your body, but your head still feels so fuzzy.

“Wha- what happened?” you try to ask, but it comes out sounding garbled due to your lack of control over your tongue.

“They gave us sleeping draughts,” Shadowheart explains. “Easier to keep watch over prisoners if they’re unconscious.”

All your muscles still feel too heavy- like one of those dreams where you’re stuck in sand and can’t move. Yet, Shadowheart looks like she’s completely normal.

“Why are you awake?” you try to ask but hearing your own voice, it sounds more like gibberish. Shadowheart looks confused for a moment before she deciphers what you were trying to say.

“I had a… strange upbringing,” she says. “I know how to deal with situations like this. My body learned how to react to sleeping draughts. I would guess you’ve never taken something this strong before?”

You just hum out a yes, still too tired to try to speak. Like anyone, you had taken light sleeping elixirs and drank sleeping teas when you were sick but whatever the kidnappers had given you must have been hundred of times more potent. You can’t even tell how long you were asleep. One minute your eyes were closing, and the next they were struggling to open again.

What kind of upbringing would possibly lead Shadowheart to have been trained for any sort of situation like this? What- was she in some kind of cult?

��Drink water, it will help flush the rest of the draught out of your system,” she instructs, guiding a cup to your mouth. It seems impossible to try to lift your own arms so you let Shadowheart hold your head up and give you little sips of water.

“They gave us water,” you point out, finding it a bit easier to speak coherently.

“I thought the same thing,” Shadowheart says. “They want us alive. They’ve had ample opportunity to kill us by now.”

“Who-” you start to ask but you already know who. The answer is so obvious it’s almost funny. “Raphael?”

Shadowheart nods. “I assume. He’s the only one with the resources and motivations to pull off a kidnapping like this. The Gu-” Shadowheart cuts herself off, looking a bit worried that she has said too much.

“The Gur?” You finish her though. “I did read his diary, I know most of his past now.”

“I haven’t read his diary,” Shadowheart says with a sense of moral superiority that makes you want to slap that look off her pretty face. If only you were able to move your arms. “I don’t know what he writes about in there. But yes, the Gur would likely have simply killed us and sent your head back to Astarion.”

“Well, let’s be glad it wasn’t them who ambushed us. I’m rather fond of my head,” you tease. Astarion would have smiled or chuckled at that but Shadowheart just stares at you, solemnly, like you are an idiot who doesn’t understand the perilous nature of your current situation.

“I don’t think that Raphael is the better alternative. Sometimes death can be a mercy. At least with the Gur, we could have counted on it to be quick and relatively painless. But Raphael…” There’s an almost imperceptible shiver that runs down Shadowheart’s spine.

“So, why are we awake now?” You question, though you are sure Shadowheart is wondering the same thing.

The water has helped, your mind feels less clouded and you’re able to think again. You stretch out your arms and legs, trying to wake them up a bit before you push yourself up to sit, leaning against the wall of the damp prison cell.

“I don’t know.” Shadowheart’s brow furrows in concentration, like she’s trying to call upon a memory that doesn’t exist. “I have no idea how long we were even asleep. I only woke up a couple hours before you. But I’m sure this is all planned.” She gives you a look. “Raphael is a powerful man. You read about him, right? In the diary. I can only assume Astarion would have written about him.”

“Astarion’s got some sort of contract with him. Raphael’s some sort of devil or something,” you say, closing your eyes so you can focus on recalling what you had read about Raphael. It’s exponentially harder than normal to remember any details with the remains of the sleeping draught still running through your veins.

“You know about the gods, right?” Shadowheart asks and because your brain is still foggy, you’re having a hard time following her line of thought. You nod, anyway. Everyone knew about the gods. “Well the gods rule over the heavens. And because the universe needs balance, the devils rule over the hells. Raphael is the son of a very powerful archdevil, Mephistopheles.”

That sounds familiar to you. Astarion had written something similar.

Shadowheart continues, her voice a bit wary, “Due to his parentage, Raphael isn’t as powerful as gods or devils themselves, but he holds significantly more power than most mortals. He’s a… dangerous man.”

“And he wants the gems of Karsus to rule over the hells, right?”

“The gems from the Crown of Karsus were split up a long time ago so that no one person could rebuild the Crown.” Shadowheart explains. “But if Raphael can find the third gem, he has a chance of taking down the current ruler of the hells and seizing control of that realm.”

“Is that… a bad thing?” You ask hesitantly, unsure of the politics surrounding the heavens and the hells and how they relate to the mortal world.

“It really won’t affect us at all.” Shadowheart shrugs. “But Astarion is still looking for the final gem and I fear Raphael is growing impatient.”

And from personal experience, you knew it was never a good thing when power-hungry men felt impatient. It almost always led to death and destruction.

Shadowheart’s voice is grave. “And more than that, I fear that the more powerful Raphael grows, the more he will try to use Astarion to do his dirty work. Part of why so many people have fallen for Raphael’s charms is because he comes to them in their darkest hours and offers kindness and hope. It’s all a farce, of course, but it’s beneficial to him to maintain the idea that he is respectable. I worry he’ll ruin Astarion’s reputation and use him as the front for the unsavory bits of business he needs to conduct. And Astarion doesn’t deserve that, he’s already suffered more than enough.”

“So why does Astarion have to look for these gems? Why can’t Raphael?” You ask the question that has been bugging you since reading Astarion’s diary. Other than the fact that this is some sort of powerplay, you genuinely can’t figure out Raphael’s motivations.

“Raphael can’t move very far away from his hellmouth, which is where I assume we are right now. He becomes too weak in the real world,” Shadowheart answers. “And powerful men always have enemies. If he were to leave the source of his power, he’d be much easier to kill.”

Ah, yes- good old self-preservation. It’s a bit comforting to know that beneath it all, Raphael fears death just as much as anyone else.

“How do you know all this?”

Shadowheart is amazing at explaining everything to you, now that she is no longer sworn to silence by Astarion.

A little smile dances on Shadowheart’s lips and you can tell she’s amused at your disbelief. “I’ve worked for Astarion for many years. And before that, I used to belong to a group of devout worshippers of the goddess Shar. I learned a lot more about the true darkness in the world than most people do.”

Oh, so she was in a cult. That explains a lot, actually.

“Well, thank you for finally explaining everything to me,” you say sincerely. For once, you feel you finally have a grasp over the situation you had found yourself in. “You have no idea how frustrating it was to never know what was true and what was simply my imagination. I felt as if I was losing my mind.”

“Believe me, I wanted to tell you,” she assures you, grasping one of your hands in her own. “But Astarion begged us not to say anything. And I owe him my life, so I respect him enough to listen when he asks me to do something.”

“You owe him your life?” You ask, a bit shocked. Astarion was not the type to play savior.

“He rescued me and several followers of Shar when he came to us looking for information on the gems. I helped him find the second one and after, Astarion helped me escape Shar’s cult by offering me a position on his staff.” Her voice turns angry. “I had been… taken from my family by the followers when I was a young girl and groomed by their ideology. I never knew any different until Astarion and Gale came along.”

“And Gale?” You’re more than surprised that Gale is entangled in this, as well. He didn’t seem like someone who sought out danger.

Shadowheart looks a bit wary, “It’d probably be better if you asked him to share his own story with you.”

“Yes, but it will take less time if you tell me,” you joke and Shadowheart laughs.

“True. The abridged version is that he was a scholar at a very prominent university in Baldur’s Gate until he grew too ambitious and started doing research which involved godly and demonic artifacts. They said he was a risk to the students and forced him out. He lost everything and was completely disowned by society. Because of his research, one of the first things Astarion did when he began looking for the gems was to track Gale down and offer him a position on his staff. With access to the libraries at the Szarr palace and the Ancunin manor, Gale happily accepted.”

“I never thought Astarion would be so willing to help people.”

“He’s willing to help people if they’re able to further his own cause,” Shadowheart says with a wry smile. “But I think deep down he does like picking up strays. He married you, after all. None of us saw that coming.”

It’s strange. Another piece in the puzzle that is Astarion. The more you learn, the more you realize that you perhaps did not know him at all. You had studied him so carefully, but perhaps you still weren’t fully able to see the man beneath the mask. Where did Astarion end and the performance begin?

It’s too much to think about with your mind still clouded by the after-affects of the draught. You rub at your eyes as if that will help clear away your doubt and confusion.

But it doesn’t help at all to sit around and dwell on Astarion. You need to do something, need to find some way out of here before Raphael can finish whatever he’s planning to do with you. You’re lucky that a couple pins managed to survive the fray and are still hanging limply in your hair. You start to pull them out and move toward the door.

“We need to get out of here,” you say, bending one of the pins so you can shimmy it into the lock on the door.

Shadowheart stills your hands. “No. We wouldn’t get anywhere. It’s smarter to wait. Don’t play your hand before it’s time.”

Why does she always have to be right about everything?

Shadowheart pulls the pins from your hands and slides them on the cuff of your dress, by your wrist.

“There,” she says. “Easy access. And any man would be too stupid to notice them.”

You give her hand a gentle squeeze in thanks.

“You know,” she starts to say and her lips turn up in a mischievous smile. It’s a look that’s so uncharacteristically Shadowheart that you have no idea what she is going to say next. “Astarion bragged about you for days after you broke into his study. It was disgusting.”

As always, that part of you that feeds on Astarion’s praise preens.

“I thought he was upset about that.” You’re shocked. That day had been one of the many times that the two of you had pinned each other to walls and traded heated words in the early days of your marriage. It still makes you a bit flustered to think back upon, even now.

“He was upset that you saw something you weren’t supposed to, maybe.” Shadowheart chuckles. “But he was all pleased that you knew how to pick locks.”

“Why would he care?”

Shadowheart inspects you curiously. “You didn’t know? He’s the best lock picker I’ve ever met. Fast, too.”

You should have guessed that based on his beautiful, dexterous hands.

“Astarion’s good at picking locks?” You ask and you hear your own voice crack a bit at the end. A simple fact like that shouldn’t rattle you to your very core but it serves as yet another reminder of how little Astarion seemingly trusted you if he was withholding even trivial pieces of information about himself.

How were you supposed to love someone who was so resistant to being known? It’s so unfair of him to expect you to have the resilience to continue poking and prodding at him until his defenses were finally worn down.

Your conversation is rudely interrupted by the guards returning and clanking their keys loudly as they attempt to find the correct key to unlock the door. You and Shadowheart side-eye each other as you watch them fumble with the key ring. These thugs were idiots.

When the door is finally open and they shove inside, one roughly grabs your wrists so he can secure them in heavy metal shackles. You hold your breath, trying to turn your wrist in a way so he won’t see the hair pins on the sleeve of your dress. As Shadowheart predicted, he doesn’t notice them at all. Like you thought- idiots.

They let you walk this time, at least. The guard’s hand digs into your shoulder as he steers you down a long hallway. The prison seems like an endless maze. You’re fairly certain that you’re underground based on the damp, musty smell that permeates the air.

And then, you turn a corner and the damp air is replaced by the horrific smell of death and rotting flesh. You try to bring a hand up to cover your nose and mouth and one of the guards uses the chains to yank it back down.

There’s so many cells- they continue down seemingly forever and they’re all filled to the brim with hundreds and thousands of people. It’s atrocious. Their mangled, bloody hands reach out to you as you pass, mouths open wide with desperate, soundless cries.

“Oh gods,” you whisper in horror when you get a good look at one person’s black, empty eye sockets. Is this what happened to all those people who promised their souls to Raphael?

“Don’t look at them.” The guard’s gruff voice calls out and he uses his grip on your shoulder to force you to look straight ahead again. You’re still working through the after-effects of the sleeping draught and the sudden motion causes your head to spin and your stomach to turn.

Just when you think these cages of people are never going to end, you thankfully turn the corner and are led through a beautifully ornate set of doors and up a staircase. The instant dichotomy of the new, fancy decor makes you acutely aware that the guards led you through that hallway of prisoners for a reason. It was a threat from Raphael- a reminder of what Astarion’s future holds after death.

You’re finally deposited in a large drawing room. The walls are filled with paintings and weird trinkets and artifacts that don’t look like they were made by humans. There’s a man standing with his back turned to you as he stares up at a painting on the wall.

“You’ve got quite the set of teeth on you, from what I hear,” the man says. “And here I was expecting your husband to be the only one that bites.”

So this must be Raphael.

He finally turns around to face you and he looks too human. He’s handsome. Not like Astarion, whose seductive, alluring beauty is meant to knock you off-guard and make you willing to offer up your throat to him in sacrifice. No, this man is handsome like a father might be- like he deserves your trust and knows what is best for you.

You snarl at him, baring your teeth. You had learned a lot about biting in your time married to Astarion and you were certainly willing to use that knowledge now.

“Very scary,” Raphael condescends with an amused grin. He waves his hand and the guards start pushing you forward again to the head of the room. “Now, come along. I do believe your husband has finally made it to the city, which means it’s almost time for the show.”

The show. That doesn’t sound good. You don’t like how planned out this all is.

Your arms are raised into shackles hanging down from the ceiling and it’s all so very blase. You would think a devil would at least be a bit original in his tortures.

Perhaps you had been spending too much time with Astarion… You were starting to grow appreciative of a bit of melodrama.

And they let Shadowheart stand in the corner of the room, surrounded by two men in shiny silver armor. Of course, she isn’t the bait- she isn’t the one forced to be put on display for a devil’s amusement.

Raphael levels you with a stern gaze that reminds you entirely too much of your father. It has you shrinking in on yourself in a way that you hate. In your life, your father had been the only person who made you feel so small and unwilling to fight back.

“I do believe your husband will be arriving at any moment. Do your best for me, will you?” Raphael asks, reaching forward to tuck a strand of loose hair behind your ear. It feels like a warning, as if he somehow knows about the pins on your wrist. You try to maintain his gaze even though your instinct is to look up and ensure the pins are still snugly tucked on the cuff of your dress. Raphael’s eyes are cold and lifeless and make you want to wilt away into nothingness. “If I don’t think you look scared enough, I’ll have to inspire some true fear in you. And neither of us really want that.”

The lightly veiled threat makes the blood drain from your face. You hate to imagine what actions a devil might employ to inspire true fear in someone.

And it seems as if Raphael has planned everything down to the second because he turns away from you and over his shoulder, you can see Astarion sauntering into the room almost immediately. He has daggers in both hands and blood speckling his face and he’s never looked more beautiful.

This is what Astarion was built for- gore and blood and revenge.

Karlach, Wyll, Lae’zel, and even Gale and Halsin, to your surprise, follow after him. All of them are armed to the teeth with weapons and covered in armor. You certainly wouldn’t want to cross them in a fight.

“I believe you happened to find my missing wife, Raphael. Give her back and we can call this a misunderstanding,” Astarion commands.

He’s radiant in his anger- eyes aflame with pure, unadulterated rage. They dart over to you momentarily and he seems to let out an almost imperceptible breath of relief when he sees you are mostly unharmed. You’d run to him if your arms weren’t in these damned chains.

“I don’t think my intentions have been misunderstood at all,” Raphael says, with an air of unrefined haughtiness. Astarion bares his teeth in response and his fangs glint dangerously- a silent reminder. Raphael simply ignores him, as if Astarion doesn’t even register as a threat.

“I’ve been a fairly… hands off boss. But in return, I expect reasonable progress. And you’ve been distracted lately, I think.” Raphael comes to stand behind you, using your body as a shield in case anyone decides to release an arrow or throw a dagger at him.

He grabs your chin roughly, turning you so he can inspect your profile. The way his fingers dig into your skin, you are sure you will be left with bruises along your jaw.

“I can understand why, she’s very pretty.” He leers down at you and you hate the way his eyes burn into you- like he owns you.

You spit in his eyes and use that distraction to stomp all your weight down on his foot. His grip on your chin loosens enough that you’re able to tear yourself free from his grasp, but your arms are still chaining you to the ceiling, restricting your ability to run away.

When you glance over to Astarion, he’s got a smug little look on his face like he’s all proud of you- like he counted on Raphael underestimating your will to fight back. And for just a second, as you’re staring into Astarion’s eyes, everything going on around you feels like background noise. For just a second, it’s you and Astarion and everything is going to be okay.

And then Raphael shatters that illusion by talking again.

“And such a fighter.” This time Raphael’s voice doesn’t sound quite so impressed as he wipes the spit out of his eyes. He turns to Astarion, completely ignoring you now that you have proven difficult and uncooperative. “I think Harleep will enjoy breaking her in, don’t you?”

You don’t completely understand the threat but based on Raphael’s voice, Harleep is not someone you want to meet. The warning seems completely directed at Astarion and his pale face drains and his eyes go wide in response. Okay, yeah, based on his reaction, Harleep’s not a nice guy.

“I can work quicker,” Astarion says, struggling to keep his voice calm in an attempt to diffuse the rapidly escalating situation. “We have a lot of good leads. I’ll find the last gem, I promise. Just let her go.”

Raphael laughs. “You’re in no position to be adding amendments to our contract, Lord Ancunin,” He says the title like Astarion is so far beneath him. “I much prefer to see you being obedient like the good little lap dog I know you are. No wonder Cazador took such special interest in you. You’re so delightfully pathetic.”

It enrages you to hear him talking about Astarion like that. It has you nearly ripping your arms out of these chains to wrap your hands around Raphael’s throat. And Raphael is just a bit too far away for you to stomp on his foot again. Evidently, he was smart enough to learn his lesson the first time.

“Your love for the girl will be your noose. The final nail in your coffin,” Raphael says, chuckling sinisterly at his own wordplay.

How very creative to mention coffins to a vampire, you think sarcastically.

Raphael steps closer to you again, petting your hair like you’re a pet. “And I think I’ll keep her. For now, at least. She’s lovely collateral. You can have her back when you bring me the final gem. Perhaps this will motivate you to work a bit quicker.”

Raphael moves away from you and you feel like you’re finally able to take a deep breath again. He strolls over to an imposing wooden chest at the head of the room, where a mechanism begins to hiss. With the release of steam, the chest opens, three identical pedestals emerging from within. Two pedestals showcase shiny gems, but the third remains empty.

“Look how lonely they are,” Raphael says, gesturing dramatically to the two gems with his arm. “They’re missing the final piece. I don’t know how much longer I can be patient.”

You finally get a good look at the two gems. They look so familiar- the intricate gold metal work encasing the shining green gemstones.

Oh shit.

Oh… shit…

You recognize those gems because you own their missing sister, carefully tucked away in a hollowed out book on your bookshelf.

Your mother’s necklace. How did she even get that gem?

Your panic and surprise bleed through on your face for a moment before you can carefully school your features. Out of the corner of your eye, you feel Astarion noticing you- and you can’t possibly hide your reactions from him. He knows you too well.

This whole time. The thing that Astarion had been looking for had been quite literally under his nose.

You don’t offer up this information. In no world were you going to let this Raphael guy get what he wants, not after he had kidnapped you and tormented Astarion. And he seems like the type of person that will keep using Astarion forever- continuing to find new, convoluted ways to keep Astarion trapped under his thumb.

And besides, if you keep this gem a secret, you might be able to turn this around in your favor. When people want something, they get desperate and they stop thinking. It was how Raphael had managed to trick Astarion into this contract to begin with and it was how Raphael was able to use you to lure Astarion into a rather obvious trap.

No, now you might be able to use your gem to get Astarion out of his contract.

“I’m not leaving here without her,” Astarion says, through gritted teeth.

“Then stay. You can join my other eternal debtors. I’ve got a lovely cell here just waiting for you.” Raphael adopts an air that suggests he’s growing bored with the conversation now that his threats have landed. “The way I see it, you have two choices- you can give your soul to me now or you can leave and pretend to be ‘free’ until your death. You’ll get your pretty wife back when you find me my gem.”

Raphael levels Astarion with a smarmy grin. He’s dropped all pretenses of being charming at this point. “And I’ll be nice. I’ll let you come visit her from time to time. Though, I can promise you that with each visit, she’s going to look less and less lovely until I get my gem. And as a sign of good faith, I’ll even let you decide whether you want your servant back or whether you’d like her to stay and look after your wife in your absence.”

What a nasty, vile man.

The idea of staying here forever seems miserable, for either you or Astarion. And poor Shadowheart- you know that if it comes down to it, Astarion will happily sacrifice her safety if it means you’re offered slightly more protection.

While Raphael continues talking, waxing poetic in an ostentatious villain monologue that serves no purpose other than to remind Astarion that Raphael owns him, you work on releasing your hair pins from where they were tucked into your sleeve. The angle is awkward and the chains are digging painfully into your wrists, cutting and rubbing against your skin. You feel your skin tear, the wet blood lubricating your movements as you try to work the pins into the lock over your head.

Astarion’s eyes dart over to you- the red tinged with fear and beneath that, hunger. He could smell your blood from where your wrists were rubbing the chains. You shake your head subtly at him to signify that he shouldn’t draw attention to you and he dutifully looks back to Raphael. Even now, it was as if the two of you still had your own hidden language.

It’s hard- your hands don’t have much movement and you’re starting to lose feeling in your fingers after so long of having your arms raised above your head, but you eventually manage to snake the pin into the lock on the chains.

You don’t let the chains clatter open immediately and give away your new advantage. Instead, you take a moment to survey the room and plan how you are going to move. There’s a stupid set of decorative crossed daggers on the wall to your left. It’s ridiculous- this whole room is filled with stupid artifacts but at least these you can use to your advantage. If you move fast enough, you can reach the daggers before the guards are able to descend on you.

You move. There’s chaos.

The guards try to catch you and everybody swings into action. There’s arrows flying and the clink of metal as swords hit against one another and you don’t look back. You just continue moving forward toward the daggers.

When you manage to yank one off the wall, you whirl around to survey the scene. Everyone is fighting. Astarion’s plunging his daggers into bodies left and right struggling to move closer to you.

And Raphael is right in front of you.

The good thing about your back being against a wall is that no one can sneak up on you. The bad thing is that you’re cornered.

“Drop the knife,” he says, his hand reaching out to take it from you. “We both know you don’t know how to use it.”

Condescending asshole.

It is probably a safe assumption on his part. Women weren’t trained in combat or swords. But you, for better or for worse, had been too curious as a child. You had snuck in to watch your brother’s sword fighting lessons. You had practiced with the wooden swords when no one was watching.

And besides, it was not in your nature to go down without a fight.

“Wrong,” you snarl. You fake a step that catches Raphael off guard and you’re able to plunge the knife into his side.

He grunts, doubling over in pain and clutching at where the knife sticks out of his stomach. You use the opportunity to knee him in the groin and push him to the ground. You aren’t sure how long it takes a devil to heal, but based on how quickly Astarion’s wounds heal, you’re assuming you have limited time before Raphael is coming back to his senses.

You need to move. And fast.

“You look so stunning covered in blood. I’ve never been so aroused in my life.” Astarion’s voice surprises you from where he’s standing right next to you. It was almost supernatural, the speed with which he was able to make his way over to you. He was far more adept at fighting than you would have ever expected.

“Not the time, Astarion,” you snap back at him, even though his voice sinks into your bones, soothing you.

“I was expecting a bit more appreciation at my rescuing you, darling,” he mocks with a little pout.

Apparently, he was content to ignore the perilous nature of your surroundings in favor of poorly timed teasing. Typical. Your heart nearly bursts with how much you love him.

Still, you roll your eyes at him. “I had it handled!”

Which, okay, is maybe a lie. But you did have at least some ideas on your escape plot. And a part of you, deep down, is still angry at Astarion, even if that anger is currently eclipsed by your relief at seeing him.

You’re pulled out of your moment with Astarion and acutely reminded of all the fighting surrounding you when a sword slices by you, barely missing your head. Astarion growls and reacts almost immediately, pushing you behind him. Astarion’s getting ready to attack the man with his daggers when an arrow lodges itself in the man’s throat and you think you hear Wyll let out a delighted cry that his shot landed so perfectly.

Despite all this chaos, you still needed to find a way to talk to Astarion. Somehow, you need to let him know that you have the final gem and that the two of you can use this as a bargaining chip.

“And I have something else, too. At home. Something you need.” You pull Astarion’s attention back to you by nudging him. You try to communicate with your eyes because you still don’t want to yell out ‘I have the final gem of Karsus.’

Astarion, the beautiful dolt that he is, doesn’t catch your meaning. He simply tilts his head a bit to the side and lets a wicked grin spread across his face, “Is now really the time to try out new lines on me, pet? I’m still a bit mad at you.”

“I’m still mad at you, too,” you shoot back defensively. Even in the midst of battle, the reminder that you have hurt Astarion makes you feel horrible.

“Good. Glad we have that settled.”

In the time that you and Astarion have been distracted by your bickering, you have wasted your precious time to escape. Raphael is standing again and you watch as he pulls the knife out of his abdomen, his face barely moving despite what you’re sure is tremendous pain.

Astarion adjusts his grip on the daggers he holds in each hand and you reach out, grabbing another knife from his belt for yourself.

“Newlyweds.” Raphael laughs- a deep, sinister thing that makes your skin crawl. “How sweet.” He spits out that last word in a way that makes you acutely aware that he means the exact opposite of what he is saying. “I have been more than fair, Astarion. I believe it’s time you paid for your insolence.”

You catch how Astarion’s spine stiffens at his words.

And then, quicker than you can blink, Astarion is darting forward to slice at Raphael.

It’s stunning to watch Astarion fight. If you couldn’t see the daggers in his hands, you would think he was dancing.

You would try to help, but you’d probably just get in Astarion’s way more than anything. Instead, you watch his back, carefully scanning the room. Over Raphael’s shoulder, you catch Lae’zel taking down the final guard near Shadowheart and working to free her from the shackles around her own wrists.

When Shadowheart is freed, the two of them loom behind Raphael. Good- you can use this to your advantage. Lae’zel gets a good swing at him with her heavy broadsword that causes Raphael to let out a grunt of pain.

He bends in on himself and you’re starting to think that Lae’zel may have injured him more than you thought when Raphael’s skin turns an eerie, unnatural shade of red. Giant bat-like wings unfurl from his back and he lets them spread out. You just stand watching, stunned, as his wings move and he lifts himself into the vaulted ceilings above you so he can retreat to a less occupied section of the room.

“Fucking wings?” you ask Astarion with disbelief.

“He’s a devil. What did you expect? Kittens and fluffy puppies?” Astarion shoots back.

“Don’t condescend to me,” you hiss. “I’m not stupid, I’ve just never seen a devil before.”

You stick behind Astarion and Lae’zel, letting them cut and carve through the foot soldiers as you struggle to regroup with everyone else. Astarion slits the throat of another guard, the blood spraying wildly. It speckles Astarion’s lovely white curls and a few drops even manage to land on your cheek. You catch the way Astarion’s eyes hungrily follow your movements as you swipe the blood away. In a less dire situation, you’d reach out and let him taste the blood on your fingers. He shakes his head as if to refocus himself.

“Never called you stupid, pet,” he says. “Naive, certainly. Reckless, definitely. Foolish… perhaps.”

You laugh. “You’re calling me foolish? Really, what was your plan here, Astarion?”

“Well, I figured we’d come here, and we’d rescue you.” Astarion narrows his eyes at you. “Not sure I needed many more details than-”

“Focus,” Lae’zel interrupts, her voice sharp and commanding. “This is a battle. This is not the time for your strange mating rituals.”

You feel your face heat up. You had not realized that you and Astarion were so obvious about the fact that both of you grew rather flustered and aroused by prodding each other. And while your verbal sparring still feels loving (everything involving Astarion had an undercurrent of love that would never go away), there was still a whisper of anger in both your words. Even after all this, neither of you would be so easy to forgive.

Close by, the rest of the group is holding strong. You think you hear Karlach shouting with glee. You’re not entirely sure what Gale is doing, but it seems to be working? One of the guards looks like they’re on fire.

You think you might be able to win this, that the tides might be turning in your favor. And then Raphael starts speaking in some foreign, chanting language and moving his hands in a strange way and more men in metal armor appear seemingly out of thin air.

Is this… all those people in the cells? Those who had sold their souls to Rapahel were then forced to bend to his will and obey for eternity? Astarion had escaped Cazador and now he was doomed to this fate when he died. There would be no freedom for him, not really. Not unless you killed Raphael.

All plans for escape are banished from your mind. You were getting Astarion out of here and in charge of his own fate for once even if it was the last thing you’d ever do.

There’s more fighting. More clashing of swords. A lot more blood.

Raphael seems perfectly content to watch the action unfold from his heavily fortified position at the front of the room.

“Chk,” Lae’zel makes strange, displeased noise. “We must get to the source and kill him. Otherwise, this will never end.”

Astarion, Lae’zel, Shadowheart, and you start working on moving closer toward Raphael while Karlach, Gale, Wyll, and Halsin remain cornered by the pillars at the entrance of the room. You aren’t entirely sure how much you’re actually helping, other than occasionally managing to slice out at guards who had entered another’s blind spots. Lae’zel does most of the heavy lifting and Astarion is sneaky and nimble, able to deftly take out guards twice his size.

The closer you get to Raphael, the more distracted he is, making him unable to summon more large quantities of more guards.

You can do this, you think. You can kill him.

And then, when you’re nearly in front of him, Raphael does that strange whispering chant again. You’re trying to decipher what he might be saying, staring intently at his mouth when-

Bang.

Some sort of wave of energy knocks into you and makes you sink to your knees. Your ears are ringing, and your head feels like it’s spinning and are you… crying? You reach your hand up to wipe away the tears and through your blurry vision, you see the red staining your hands. You were crying blood. And you feel warm liquid spilling from your ears and nose, too.

Through the ringing in your ears, you think you hear Shadowheart and Lae’zel fall down as well, impaired by the blast. You try to turn your head to look at Astarion, but it sends a wave of nausea through you that has you holding tight to the ground as the room spins around you.

Astarion looks disoriented, but he’s still standing. Good.

You hear heavy footsteps next to you.

“I guess she didn’t inspire the motivation in you that I had hoped.” You hear Raphael say, but he still sounds distant in your stunned state. “Let’s see how this works instead.”

Rough hands pull your hair at the roots and you let out a pained cry before your head is bashed into the wall.

Holy fuck, that hurts.

There are stars dancing across the edge of your vision. Your head feels like your heart is beating directly inside your skull, squeezing painfully against your brain.

You think you hear Raphael laughing and Astarion screaming in rage.

That’s not good. You don’t like when Astarion is mad. You want to make him happy forever.

Your head is bashed into the wall again.

—---------

The crack your head makes against the wall is sickening. And when you crumple to the ground, Astarion is sure that the blood rapidly pooling around your head isn’t just a trick of the light.

That’s… No… This is all wrong.

Astarion wasn’t supposed to watch you die right in front of him. He was supposed to rescue you and take you home and then you would finally apologize and mean this time and he would forgive you and the two of you would go back to your little world of bliss.

He’s in a blind panic, on a mission to get to you. Maybe there was still time? Maybe Shadowheart could still heal you? She should be an expert on working with blood loss by now.

Astarion fights like a man possessed.

On the ride to the city, he had imagined how he’d kill Raphael. Slowly, deliberately. He’d start with his fingers- cut them off one by one for ever daring to touch you. He’d pry out his eyes next, then his tongue. And then, just when Raphael lost consciousness, Astarion would finally slit his throat and kill him.

It all sounded so wonderful and bloody.

But whatever energy wave Raphael had unleashed had crippled you, Lae’zel, and Shadowheart. Astarion was disoriented, but he was the only one left standing. He was the only left that could fight. But even he is feeling the effects of the blast. He’s slow and sloppy. Astarion tries to attack with his daggers, but he misses completely.

“Come on, boy, you can do better than that,” Cazador taunts.

No, wait… that’s not right. Cazador is dead. This was Raphael- but for a second, he sounded so remarkably similar to Cazador. How many times had Astarion heard those exact words fall out of Cazador’s mouth?

Lae’zel and Shadowheart are both fighting to return to their feet and Astarion thinks he catches Shadowheart folding over to retch. They can’t fight like this. And your eyes are blearily attempting to blink open, but you look bad. Astarion is running out of time.

Raphael conjures a stake in his hand and takes slow steps forward, advancing. Astarion stumbles backward, still struggling to stay balanced on his feet after the combined shocks of Raphael’s energy surge and watching your head be bashed into the wall.

“A pity it had to come to this but you really were as much of a burden to me as you were to Cazador,” Raphael says, continuing to move toward Astarion. “He always hated you the most- that’s part of why I picked you. That and you always seemed the easiest to manipulate. You’re so scared. It makes you weak.”

Astarion’s back hits a wall. Dread settles in the pit of his stomach and Raphael’s entire face contorts with a ugly, devilish smile as he readies the stake to be plunged into Astarion’s heart.

“And now, you’ll die,” Raphael says menacingly. “Just another one of Cazador’s whores to be forgotten.” Raphael laughs. “Did you really believe that she loved you? I always knew you were stupid, but I never imagined you would be that naive.”

So, this was how Astarion was going to die… And no one would be able to save him.

And then, seemingly out of nowhere, you appear. A streak of silver flashes across Astarion’s vision and blood is spurting into Astarion’s face from where you had used the last of your strength to jam the knife into the side of Raphael’s neck. Had both Astarion and Raphael truly been so caught up in their confrontation that they had failed to notice you stumbling over toward them?

You look completely ethereal- his guardian angel, his savior. Astarion’s prayers were finally answered the day the universe gave you to him.

And you also look very unsteady on your feet as your eyes flutter shut again. You crumple, Astarion shocks himself with how quickly he’s able to move and catch you in his arms. Raphael makes a horrible gurgling noise as one of his hands comes up to claw desperately at his throat, but he can wait.

Astarion lowers you gently back to the floor before grabbing his daggers again. He slices Raphael’s throat open and plunges the other directly into his heart. He’d tell Lae’zel to behead Raphael later, just so to be sure he is dead, but right now Astarion’s main priority is you.

Astarion rushes back to you, falling to the floor as he pulls your head into his lap, attempting to coax you awake again. He hears himself screaming for anybody to help. Shadowheart is there, inspecting you with a critical eye.

“I’m sorry, Astarion- there’s not… Her head. I can’t do anything about that,” Shadowheart says.

And in that moment, Astarion doesn’t even think. You were dying and there was only one thing left that he could do to ensure that he didn’t lose you. He had to turn you into a vampire. He cradles your arm, biting into your wrist and draining the remaining blood from your body. There’s not much left, but hopefully it’s enough for the transformation to work.

Your heart stops beating.

The fleeting thought crosses his mind that he could stop here. He could find some patch of dirt to bury you and he could wait until you claw your way back out of the earth. You would be his spawn and he could make sure that you would never leave him.

But that feels all wrong. You were someone who resisted control and you would resent him forever if he did that. He would always be left doubting whether you truly loved him or if it was only because he left you with no other choice. Astarion tears his teeth into his own wrist and cups his hand gently around the back of your head, careful to avoid the spot where your head had been smashed into the wall, as he guides your mouth up to drink his own blood.

The greatest threat to a vampire is another vampire. Especially someone like you, who was already naturally drawn to suspicion and scheming.

Astarion doesn’t care.

If your first action when you awoke was to rip the heart from his chest and sink your teeth into the long-dead muscle, he would simply be grateful that his body could be your sustenance.

Astarion watches and waits. Your lashes flutter and your mouth latches around his wrist, suckling. He’s able to breathe again as a wave of relief washes over him. You would be all right, he had made it to you in time.

You look up at him through red, hooded eyes, teeth stained by his blood and Astarion knows that this is what you were meant to be. You always were a bit too wild to be human.

No, you were meant for this- for the carnal desires of flesh and blood.

It’s mesmerizing to watch you finally come alive.

-------------------

Notes:

That's right, we are now entering the vampire power couple era! But hey, good job Astarion for thinking about others and recognizing that leaving the reader as a spawn would have been a bad idea. I'm playing kind of fast and loose with vampire lore and rules (not like dnd or any other media is that consistent with the rules either lol), so in my mind you can circumnavigate the whole burying the person part if they immediately drink the blood of the vampire who turned them.

For not even being the longest chapter in this story, this one sure covered a lot! Hopefully, everyone remembered the mother's necklace from chapter 3. I try to be really intentional with the details I include, even if they seem a bit insignificant at first.

Next week, we get to deal with the fun repercussions of everyone's actions. How will the reader feel about being turned into a vampire? What will happen with the Crown of Karsus? Hehe everything will be answered in time, I promise.

As always, a huge thank you to my beta-writer, AliensNSuch on ao3. And a huge thank you to everyone reading- I hope you are all continuing to have as much fun with this story as I am!

Taglist: @ayselluna @idkbrodontaskme @maruichio @fanfic-share @the-littlest-bruja @asterordinary @divineknightmare @fandomarchiveilyd

Feel free to let me know if you would liked to be added/removed from the taglist for future chapters!

#astarion #astarion ancunin #astarion x reader #astarion x tav #bg3 #baldurs gate 3 #baldurs gate 3 fanfic #baldurs gate 3 fancition #x reader #astarion bg3 #til death do us part

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fettuccinealfred0 · 3 months

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Here's a little Friday sneak peak of the upcoming Chapter 8 of Til Death Do Us Part! That's right y'all, we've got our big boss fight with Raphael coming up!

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He grabs your chin roughly, turning you so he can inspect your profile. The way his fingers dig into your skin, you are sure you will be left with bruises along your jaw.

“I can understand why, she’s very pretty.” He leers down at you and you hate the way his eyes burn into you- like he owns you.

When you glance over to Astarion, he’s got a smug little look on his face like he’s all proud of you- like he counted on Raphael underestimating your will to fight back. And for just a second, as you're staring into Astarion's eyes, everything going on around you feels like background noise. For just a second, it’s you and Astarion and everything is going to be okay.

And then Raphael shatters that illusion by talking again.

#astarion #astarion x reader #astarion x tav #bg3 #bg3 fanfiction #sneak peak

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fettuccinealfred0 · 3 months

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Just got back from travelling for my conference and saw I'm at over 100 followers on this account??? Beyond my wildest dreams, I love you all sm

#bestest birthday treat a girl could ask for

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fettuccinealfred0 · 3 months

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Til Death Do Us Part | Part 7

Series Masterlist

Astarion x f!reader, Arranged Marriage AU

Word Count: 9k

(CW: brief descriptions of past trauma/sexual assault)

Summary:

And there, tucked deep in the back of the drawer, sits the object you had secretly been hoping to find- the unassuming little leatherbound book that you had spotted that day you had broken into Astarion’s office. You slide the book out from the drawer, the expensive leather binding soft and cool against your skin.

You shouldn’t open this, you think, as you carefully snap open the clasp on the book.

You aren’t entirely sure what you were expecting to find- perhaps some sort of ledger which describes Astarion’s shady dealings in excruciating detail or perhaps a simply written ‘this is what I am looking for and why.’

Instead, you are met with pages upon pages of Astarion’s beautiful, looping handwriting, overcome by a sense of guilt and dread and shame. You should not be reading this.

But your eyes are darting over the words on the first page before you can stop yourself.

Read on ao3 here.

Astarion was right- you did tend to get yourself into trouble when you were bored. And with him gone, you were completely consumed by that nagging feeling that he has still been lying to you.

You’ve been sitting at the chair in his study for the past half hour, just staring at that little locked drawer in the upper corner of his desk. You desperately want to open it but that little voice in the back of your head has been whispering that you shouldn’t- that it would be an invasion of Astarion’s privacy and would betray his trust.

The longer you sit, the quieter that little voice gets, until all that is left is the burning desire for answers.

You make a final deal with yourself- if you can pick the lock, you get to look at what’s inside. If you can’t, you leave this room and never snoop around in Astarion’s study again.

It’s a loaded deal. There are very few locks you’ve met in your life that you haven’t been able to pick with enough time and dedication. And sure enough, after you weasel your hairpin into the lock and wiggle it around a bit, you hear the telltale little click that allows you to carefully slide the drawer open.

The first thing you see is the drawing of Astarion’s scar that you had once found on his desk. After pulling out the paper, you trace along the lines and squiggles that you have long since memorized. It’s a poor substitute for the feel of Astarion’s cool skin underneath your fingertips- you don’t get to watch his whole body relax as you run your hands along the scarred tissue, taking care to chase away any knots and tension that might be present in his back.

Staring down at the sheet of paper, your chest aches with how badly you miss Astarion.

Gods, you were going insane. It had only been a few days, you needed to pull yourself together and stop fantasizing.

There’s a few other miscellaneous papers that you pull out next but they don’t tell you anything helpful. They mostly consist of brief notes and intel that only refer to whatever Astarion is searching for as ‘it.’

After moving all the papers to sit on the desk, your gaze catches a beautifully embroidered handkerchief that appears to be wrapped around something inside. Gently peeling away the edges of the silk, you reveal a little collection of rose petals. They’re dried and a bit shriveled and the vibrant red has faded to a rich burgundy but you would recognize those petals anywhere.

Had Astarion been saving these from the bouquets you had made for him?

After walking together in the gardens at night, you had been overcome by grief that Astarion wasn’t able to see them during the day. Without sunlight, he would never be able to fully appreciate the bright colors and the blooming flowers. In your mind, it had only seemed natural that if he could not go to the gardens during the day, you would bring the gardens to him.

At that time, months ago, it felt like a foolish way to feel close to Astarion while you were pining after him. It was a selfish way to bring that lovely smile to his face and know that you were the cause of it. So as you made Astarion bouquets, you had poured your heart and your love into every stem and flower you picked.

Admittedly, it had gotten a bit harder to bring him new flowers every week as fall continued to creep into winter and flowers became more and more scarce, but you made due with what you had. You were still determined to give him something pretty.

And Astarion always appreciated the bouquets. He always displayed them proudly in his study and always got a goofy little grin on his face when you brought him a new one.

You had never dreamed that your gesture meant this much to him. Your heart dances inside your chest.

The dried petals are just another reminder of how deeply the well of love that exists inside of Astarion runs, showing his innate need to keep you near to him at all times. He could be so secretly sentimental, as if he was afraid of scaring you away with the full force of his love.

And more than that, the petals are a reminder that this drawer was not for your eyes.

You feel a guilty pit in your stomach and chew on your lip- one of those bad habits that always managed to rear its head when you felt nervous or ashamed. You should just leave, should just close the door to Astarion’s study behind you and confess what you have done the moment he comes home…

But one more little peak wouldn’t hurt, right?

You just want a better look at the embroidery on the handkerchief. Astarion must have been the one who embroidered it and you simply wish to appreciate his talents. Surely, if you praise him enough about his masterful handiwork, his ego will be so inflated that he will completely forget to be mad at you for prying into his secrets.

Satisfied with your logic, you turn back to the drawer. You’re sure to be extra careful when you touch the thin cotton handkerchief so you don’t accidentally damage the delicate petals held inside.

Along one of the edges of the handkerchief, the beautiful white embroidery stands out against the sheer white cotton. There’s a collection of flowers whose stems are joined together by a lovely, sprawling ribbon in the corner. The flowers extend outward along the edges of the handkerchief and into the middle- it looks like there’s roses, some chrysanthemums, some little flower that looks like a daisy or an aster, and little clumps of tiny flowers. Oh…. Are those heliotropes?

Astarion had recreated the first bouquet you made him. The surge of emotion inside you nearly has you weeping.

When had Astarion even made this?

Perhaps it had been done in a moment of madness months ago, when he too had been overwhelmed by the depth of his longing for you. Perhaps he had sat down and let his emotions spill out through his fingers, interweaving them in the handkerchief alongside the thread.

Or maybe he had somehow managed to sneak away and work on this recently? But since you had confessed your love, the two of you had been so engrossed in one another that you hardly spent any time apart. And even before then, you had spent the majority of your days with Astarion- reading together in the library and offering him your blood and sleeping in his bed.

The only real time the two of you had been separated, apart from the past few days, was during the time after your fight, when Astarion had attempted to push you away. You picture Astarion, despondent, with messy hair and deep circles under his eyes, pricking his fingers as he continues to sew, as if in a daze. You don’t like that image.

So instead, you picture Astarion working on the handkerchief while you were sleeping beside him. He was probably leaning back against the headboard while he sewed, the blankets sliding low around his waist and his pale skin shimmering in the moonlight, sneaking glances over at you while you slept. You like that idea much better.

Now that you have seen and fully appreciated the craftsmanship of the handkerchief, you should be closing the desk drawer and locking it tight.

You don’t.

Spurred on by curiosity, you continue rifling through the drawer.

And there, tucked deep in the back, sits the object you had secretly been hoping to find- the unassuming little leatherbound book that you had spotted that day you had broken into Astarion’s office. You slide the book out from the drawer, the expensive leather binding soft and cool against your skin.

You shouldn’t open this, you think, as you carefully snap open the clasp on the book.

Instead, you are met with pages upon pages of Astarion’s beautiful, looping handwriting, overcome by a sense of guilt and dread and shame. You should not be reading this.

But your eyes are darting over the words on the first page before you can stop yourself.

I am unable to close my eyes in fear that Cazador might appear to me again. I hate that he still holds this power over me, even now.

He had control over my mind and my body and now he even owns my memories. I never know when one might return to me and leave me shaking and paralyzed by its stunning realness. There’s just so many to choose from- centuries of nothing but agony and pain and torture.

It happened again today.

I don’t know what caused it but suddenly, I was back in that place.

Gale found me huddled in the corner of the library. He said that I nearly ripped his head off when he tried to soothe me.

I don’t remember that happening...

All I know is that the idea of someone putting their hands on me makes me sick to my stomach.

Gale told me I need to start writing about the memories, that I need to get them out of my head and onto paper. He’s seen this same thing, he said, in soldiers and generals whose minds never return from the battlefield.

I can’t possibly imagine how war is worse than what I went through.

So these are Astarion’s innermost thoughts. You should respect that, should leave these words to belong solely to him. But there’s a dangerous thought wriggling in the back of your mind.

Isn’t this what you’ve always wanted- a glimpse inside his mind? To finally know the truth without doubting every word that comes out of his pretty mouth?

And it’s that nagging, curious part of you which seizes control and forces you to continue reading the first entry.

At this point, I’m desperate enough to listen to Gale, of all people. So, here goes:

I can’t even see my scar, but I constantly feel its weight upon my back. Yesterday, when I finally returned back to my body, I felt my fingers tracing along the marks that I can reach over my shoulder in a trance, as if that foolish action would help me free myself from the prison of my mind.

Cazador carved the scar into me over the course of a night and I constantly find myself stuck in that memory.

That night was agony. Every cut he made was careful. Deliberate. If I screamed too much or if I moved too much, he would start over immediately. He would wait, watching my skin stitch itself back together before he set to work again. He butchered me, over and over and over again.

For practice, he had said. He had wanted his ‘poem’ to be perfect.

And after an endless night of the worst pain I had ever felt, Cazador finally brought out the precious silver blade that he called his ‘needle’ and he etched this scar into my skin forever.

You would think that at a certain threshold, your brain would tell your body to stop feeling pain or that the pain couldn’t possibly get worse. I never seemed able to find that limit. The pain always got worse.

There’s a final note written at the end of the page. The handwriting is small and almost shy.

Warm baths help.

Oh, Astarion.

From the little pieces of information he had revealed to you, you knew that his past was filled with pain and torment, but you had no idea it was this horrific.

The idea of being cut even once has an unpleasant shiver running down your spine. Astarion’s scar spans nearly the entirety of his back. How many cuts was that across his skin? How many hundred and thousands of times did this man, this Cazador, mutilate him?

And that was just over the course of one night.

You can’t even begin to fathom the cruelty Astarion had suffered, the pain he had withstood. You feel your mouth hanging open a bit in shock and horror.

How terrifying it must be to live in a state of perpetual fear, to never know when your mind might betray you and transport you back to your most miserable experiences.

And beneath all that, Astarion was still trying- he was still fighting to learn how to live again after his trauma. He was still writing himself little hopeful notes like ‘warm baths help,’ that would help his future self know how to find his way back from those memories a little easier the next time.

It’s so easy to imagine Astarion, knees pulled up to his chest as he stares at nothing in the distance. It makes tears prick at your eyes. It makes you want to hold his head against your chest so he can time his breathing with the beat of your heart as you run your fingers through his lovely white hair and reassure him that he is safe now.

And you are faced with another, far more worrying, question. How often do episodes like these happen? The entry is dated a couple years ago but you are certain they have happened during the time you have been married. It is the only explanation for Astarion’s horrible thrashing and screaming when he was injured and in a state of blood madness.

The animalistic wails that tore themselves from his throat will be imprinted in your own memory forever.

And some nights, Astarion would jolt himself awake in such a state that it woke you up next to him, as well. He would practically scramble out of the bed, eyes wide and glinting a blood-curdling red in the darkness of the bedroom. And for just a moment, when he looked at you in a panic, you could swear he didn’t recognize you.

You are struck immediately by the thought that you need to do something. There’s an intrinsic desire to take this pain away from Astarion.

Isn’t that what marriage is supposed to be? A way to lessen your burdens by sharing them with the person you trust most.

But Astarion didn’t trust you. And a part of you is deeply hurt by the fact that he does not believe that you are capable of helping to carry the weight of his past. Did he view you as too weak, too naive?

Astarion should know that you had your own past- you know better than most the damage that an angry, manipulative man could do. It had not been an easy life being raised by your father.

And worse than the fact that you now have proof that Astarion doesn’t trust you, he had lied to you. You had asked him explicitly whether silver hurt him and he had deliberately deflected your question with some silly answer about how he preferred gold. A lie by omission is a lie, nonetheless. Silver does hurt him. Silver is what created his scars.

You aren’t sure if you keep reading out of spite or a desperate need to learn how to help Astarion.

The next entry is dated about a week later.

This house is a graveyard and I am doomed to be its crypt keeper.

Well… That’s bleak. And rather melodramatic. It’s so completely Astarion that it almost pulls you out of reading for a moment.

There are ghosts around every corner. At times, I could swear that I smell my mother’s perfume or hear my father’s booming laughter echoing in the halls.

Still, this house feels as barren and loveless as Cazador’s palace.

I was just a boy the last time I was here. An eager young thing, ready to set off and explore Baldur's Gate.

I always knew I would return here, but I never imagined it would be under these circumstances. I had dreams of becoming a magistrate, of making a name for myself, of finding love. And then, some day in the distant future, I would return home and my parents would welcome me with open arms. I would take over as patriarch of the family and allow my father to spend the rest of his days in peace.

But now, this place is too big. Too dark. Too cold.

Gone are the days of sunlight streaming through the windows. The gardens that my mother cherished so dearly have decayed into nothingness. A thick, suffocating layer of dust has settled over the entire manor.

Now this house is yet another miserable reminder of how much I have lost. It feels as if I am seeing someone who has died whenever I find traces of my old self. Even then, the memories I do have of my childhood are so mangled and fragmented that my past can only whisper to me and remind me that I am a stranger in my own home.

What has happened to me?

What have I become?

Cazador is always there in the back of my mind. Waiting and watching. There is no escape, no freedom- not really. Not when Cazador’s presence still follows me like a shadow.

I fear coming back here was the biggest mistake I could have made. I should have just stayed in Baldur’s Gate.

The aching and the sorrow in Astarion’s words has your stomach churning uncomfortably. It seems silly, but you can’t help but imagine the Astarion before- the young man who was so excited to go to the city and begin his life. He wanted love, even then. It fills you with a deep melancholy.

No part of you should be grateful that Astarion became a vampire- you should not celebrate that he suffered and was brutalized by that monster, Cazador.

And yet… if he had not been turned, you can’t help but wonder if your paths would have ever crossed at all.

It rattles you to your very core. Astarion had become a certainty in your life- there is no future that you could ever imagine that does not invovle him.

The more you read, the more you learn about the tortures that Cazador had inflicted on Astarion. You discover the punishments he suffered if he didn’t obey, like the time he attempted to escape and was buried in a casket underground for a full year. The way he writes about that time has you feeling claustrophobic, you’re practically clawing at your own throat, desperate for fresh air.

And you find out he had very little opportunity not to obey. For centuries, Astarion had no choice, no freedom, nowhere to run but his mind.

It’s horrific.

The life of a spawn has no real happiness. It doesn’t sound like much of a life, at all.

And through everything you read, you can tell Astarion is clearly struggling to deal with the aftermath of his trauma far more than he lets on. You follow his journey as he tries to find what events cause him to slip back into his memories and what rituals help pull him out of them.

An entry a couple months later makes you pause.

My body is my own. I choose what I do with it. I choose who touches me.

So why do some days feel as if I’m still in the haze of Cazador’s control? When I am trapped in a memory, why does my body still react involuntarily? Why do I feel as if I still have no power over myself?

I feel like a stranger in my own skin. I hardly even remember what I look like and the skin I’ve been left with is scarred and ruined. I can’t even look at my own hands without remembering what I have done with them.

I wish I could shed this body and start anew.

I’d still have to be beautiful, of course, because how else does anyone ever get anything done without batting their eyelashes and having others fall at their feet? Seems tedious.

Of course, even in his mind, even with just himself, Astarion has to deflect with petty vanity and a touch of humor.

You had not fully appreciated the horror of being unable to see your own reflection. No wonder Astarion didn’t like his portrait- he probably didn’t even recognize himself when he first saw it. It must still feel like a disembodied image, rather than a true likeness.

The next entry that catches your attention is a few pages later.

My bed is too soft.

Vampires don’t even need to sleep, so it’s ridiculous why that would even matter to me.

It was a nightmare today. I woke to phantom hands surrounding me, suffocating me.

Cazador demanded blood and us spawn were meant to bring him victims. By any means necessary. Cazador had said it should be easy for me, I already had such a pretty face. All I had to was make it seem real, make them believe it.

So I did.

I hunted for new victims in the dark of night. Taverns and brothels and gambling dens. I was never allowed to say no. Anything they wanted, they got.

I fear I have been treated as an object for so long, I have forgotten how it feels to be a person.

It feels as if your veins have been filled with ice. There had been hints or suggestions in other entries, but it was so much worse than you could possibly assume. There is only one thing which Astarion’s words could imply- he had been forced to use himself, to use his body and his sexuality as a means of luring people back for Cazador.

You hate how easily it explains so many of Astarion’s behaviors. No wonder he always fell back into that practiced, seductive tone when he felt he was losing control over a situation. It was what was comfortable, it was what he knew how to do, even if he was truly in agony.

How many times had he put on this performance for you? How many times had he placated you when he did not want to, simply because you were too insistent and he feared what would happen if he said no?

You had been the one to move his hand under your chemise that night. You had made assumptions based on his flirtatious nature and the hungry reverence with which he drank your blood. And now, you’re mortified that you might have put him in a situation where he felt he couldn’t refuse you in fear you might take away his easy access to your blood.

It feels horrible to know you might be the last in a long line of people who had taken advantage of Astarion. Your skin feels like it’s crawling.

You hadn’t known, you hadn’t known, you hadn’t known, you repeat to yourself but it does little to quell the bubble that’s building inside your chest.

You can’t breathe. Your mind races.

You think back to Astarion’s promise. It all makes sense- he was always so worried about you being able to say no. You had done the same, of course, always checking in with him and listening to him during sex. But you should have been more proactive. You should have given him more opportunity to decline your advances.

Astarion never writes too explicitly about those kinds of memories and you think it’s mostly as a means to protect himself from falling fully back into them. But past that point in the diary, there are enough entries on the subject to give you a rather… grisly picture of exactly what Astarion suffered through.

You read them all and weep with sympathy. You wish you could kill Cazador yourself.

And for a moment, you almost consider stopping and putting the diary away, but you catch an entry about how Astarion was turned and your interest is piqued.

Cazador always liked pretty things. I think that’s why he always liked torturing me the best.

I always wondered if that’s why he decided to turn me. Sometimes, I ask myself if that day was all orchestrated or if fate was simply laughing at me.

That night. The Gur. A useless, spiteful people.

Did those Gur that attacked me really take issue with my ruling that day or did Cazador simply pay them to ambush me in that alley? Did he tell them to beat me and taunt me or did they choose to do that on their own?

And when I was spitting up blood and could hardly move, they just… left me. And my stupid heart just kept beating and I wouldn’t die.

It felt like a miracle when Cazador found me, claiming that he could smell my blood. At the time, it felt as if he was my last hope.

It’s even worse that he made me beg for it. A torture to look back upon and know that I begged for the miserable life he granted me.

It was painful at first. My body warped and writhed with pain as death overtook me. For just a moment, it black and blissful and then I had to scrape and claw my way out of the earth. I was choking- drowning in an endless ocean of dirt.

And when I resurfaced, vomiting bile and dirt and congealed blood, Cazador was laughing. I could already feel the invisible string tying me to him. The eternal contract that he had neglected to mention.

Astarion had written the next part so hard that there were tears in the paper on some of his downstrokes.

Fuck him. Fuck him for turning me into this. Fuck everyone in the world for never caring enough to help me.

Fuck the gods, for I prayed to every one that existed and they all abandoned me.

How heartbreaking, you think- to believe yourself completely alone in the world. You can only hope that Astarion knows how adored he is now. There is you, of course, but you also see his friendships- with Gale, with Shadowheart, with Lae’zel, and Karlach, and Wyll. Any one of you would do anything in your power to keep Astarion safe and happy.

You had not expected that the story Astarion’s turning would be quite so excruciating. All the times you had talked about vampirism, Astarion had never mentioned how gruesome of a process it truly was.

It’s as if everything about his past is infinitely more unspeakable than you could have ever imagined.

There’s a pause of about two weeks before the next entry.

We found the second gem today. Luckily, that idiot Envar Gortash had been so terribly loud about showing off his new collectible. His house was far too easy to break into and he was annoying, so I don’t think anyone really minded when he turned up dead. The elite of Baldur’s Gate viewed him as a lowly wannabe who unsuccessfully attempted to infiltrate their ranks and the rabble viewed him as a class traitor. In the end, no one wanted to claim him.

But I hate that I must spend my precious time looking for these gems. Am I truly free if I’m just working as Raphael’s errand boy?

So that’s what Astarion is looking for? Gems for somebody else? It seems so completely out of character.

And now, with this entry, you have found the answers you were searching for. You should be shutting this diary. But why this Raphael character was forcing Astarion to look for these gems had unraveled a new mystery you need to solve. And that can only be done by continuing to read.

Raphael was lucky to find me at a time where I would have agreed to do just about anything to rid myself of Cazador. When he approached me, who was I to say no? It’s not as if my life could have gotten any worse.

And that one night, someone had approached me in dark brothel and lead me back to a room. It was easy, it was routine- I knew what they wanted.

Only, in the room, Raphael was there, asking me if I’d like to kill Cazador. He reassured me that the walls weren’t listening and told me that I could answer honestly. I didn’t believe him at first. Obviously. It felt just like the kind of convoluted trap that Cazador would set so he could have a reason to punish me. Or, even more likely, I’d still be tortured for not falling for it.

But Raphael gave me something that night- a little pouch of strange herbs that he slipped into my hand as I was leaving the room. ‘A sign of good faith’ he had whispered to me before I was passed along to the next customer, still searching for a victim to bring back to Cazador.

And later, when Cazador had asked what had taken me so long that night, for the first time in 200 years, I didn’t feel compelled to give him an answer. For the first time, I was able to lie to him.

And oh, how terribly I had missed lying.

I bided my time, then, waiting patiently for Raphael to bump into me again. Within a fortnight, he was sliding up beside me in a tavern, leading me away into some dark corner to talk.

He explained to me that he was a devil- the son of the demon Mephistopheles and born to a human woman. It was easy to believe that explanation. Vampires are real, after all, so why not devils?

Raphael had it on good authority that Cazador was preparing some sort of ritual using an artefact that Raphael wanted All he needed was someone with inside knowledge of the Szarr palace and detailed information about Cazador’s whereabouts.

In return, Cazador would be dead.

I expected he’d want something more from me, of course. Help is not offered freely- that is not how this world works. You are only good to people so long as you serve some purpose to them.

The question was why Raphael needed me. Why was he willing to go through the effort of killing a vampire lord just for my help? And why now? Why after 200 years of torture and misery was someone finally answering my desperate pleas.

He had purred my name so beautifully- Astarion Ancunín- with a wonderful emphasis on my last name.

My title, my birthright allows me to move in ways which are not available to him.

I gave him my conditions then:

I get to one the one to kill Cazador (and oh, how I intended to draw that out)

I get to drink Cazador’s blood before he dies and become a true vampire. No longer would I be cursed to live as a lowly, disgusting spawn. I would finally rise to the power that was owed to me after all my suffering.

Raphael had set his own conditions, too. And it really doesn’t seem like that bad of an idea to promise your soul to a devil when you’re an immortal vampire who is practically impossible to kill. His second condition was more of an inconvenience than anything- I wasn’t allowed to make any spawn.

In hindsight, I probably should have anticipated a bit more trickery from a devil, but I was so overcome by the idea of killing Cazador. And it really had been a long time since I studied law…

Honestly, I always just assumed the details would figure themselves out. Turns out, they don’t. Devastating.

And in the end, it had all been a misunderstanding. The ritual Cazador was preparing to perform had nothing to do with the Crown of Karsus that Raphael so desperately desired. When I had arrived with Raphael, Cazador had nearly laughed us out of the palace. The ‘crown’ that Raphael believed that Cazador possessed was nothing more than a single, useless green gem.

Raphael was enraged, but I was still the one who killed Cazador. Devils are bound to their contracts just as much as the person signing. And so I feasted on the way the dagger plunged into Cazador’s chest. I channeled all of my pain, all of my suffering into every thrust of my blade. There would be no doubt that he was dead- I would make sure of that.

And afterward, newly infused with the blood of my former vampiric master, I expected that I would be able to walk free as a true vampire. But my contract was iron-clad. I had signed that I would help Raphael find the Crown of Karsus, not the single gem that Cazador owned.

I would not be freed until I had helped Raphael retrieve all three gems.

And it wasn’t until after Cazador was already dead, when I was left to search for information on the remaining gems by myself, that I came across all the spawn caged in the bowels of the palace.

There were hundreds of them. Thousands.

When I told Raphael, he didn’t even have the decency to act shocked. He had known Cazador was amassing power, preparing to perform some sort of ritual. Raphael had originally assumed it was related to the Crown of Karsus- which would allow the owner of the Crown to unify and rule over the hells. But after we found that Cazador only had the one gem, Raphael knew instantly what ritual Cazador had actually wanted to perform.

Cazador has aspired to become the Vampire Ascendant.

All those victims that the other spawn and I had lured back to Cazador were turned into spawn, themselves. They, too, had been marked with scars like the one upon my back.

Cazador was preparing to sacrifice 7,007 vampire spawn to Mephistopheles in exchange for unprecedented power. And he had been growing dangerously close to the required number of souls.

And I was denied the opportunity to seize this ritual for myself because Raphael was a step ahead of me the whole time. Even after Cazador was dead, I couldn’t go about completing it on my own because that damned contract prevented me from creating the remaining spawn needed.

If only I had known before…

I could have walked in the sun. I could have tasted food and enjoyed wine again. I could have finally been safe. No one could have ever hurt me again.

And now, I am still stuck in an eternal contract. I am still not truly free. Even after I find this final gem for Raphael, he will still own my soul in death.

I resent ever giving Raphael power over me. He doesn’t deserve it.

It feels surreal. All the answers you have been desperately searching for were laid out before you in Astarion’s lovely cursive.

You’re stunned. Astarion believed he had a way to free himself and he got stuck in another bad contract almost immediately. It seemed to be a horrible, vicious cycle. You could completely understand the depth of Astarion’s lust for power. There is a false sense of safety when people are more scared of you than you are of them.

You continue reading through the next several months’ worth of entries. They are all short, scattered fragments of even more horrible memories that make your heart ache.

You slow down again when you recognize a date. The day of your wedding. Astarion had written about you.

I am to be married tonight.

My fiancée is less than pleased, to say the least.

There’s so much I wish to tell her that I will not ever admit aloud. She doesn’t need to know that her father was selling her off like cattle. She doesn’t need to know the disgusting, horrific things that decrepit old man was saying about her or planning to do to her when they were married.

It triggered something in me to hear them talking- it was so similar to the way people used to talk about me.

I don’t know why my brain proposed marriage as a solution. Perhaps I abhor beautiful things going unappreciated. Or perhaps I saw a part of myself in her. Perhaps I saved her the way I always hoped someone would save me. And at the time, marriage seemed the easiest way to do that- it would placate her father, who seemed desperate to sell her off, it would allow her to escape a fate married to a goblin of a man who would treat her horribly, and it would give me something wonderful of my own to look forward to.

I had a whole plan for wooing her that night and she ruined it and for that, I should have killed her. I have certainly killed people for far less. The logical answer is that I am growing weak and sentimental and that is unacceptable.

I do not cry for the plights of the sorrowful. Nobody cried for me.

There’s more in there about you. Pages and pages immortalizing all the little interactions the two of you had shared, things you had said or done that made Astarion smile, his feelings about you along the way. It all feels tainted now. You have betrayed him, continually. You have read his diary. You had essentially forced yourself on him. You had not done more to show him how loved he truly is if he still believes himself so alone in the world.

You can hardly bring yourself to read through the entries during the time after the fight where he had pushed you away. There are jagged tears where pages had been ripped out in a rage. It pains you to think of the vile, self-loathing thoughts that Astarion had written. You can only hope those words burned away in a fire, never to plague his mind again.

And even more recently, his entries are full of love and silly, flowery language about how pretty your hair looks in the moonlight or how it’s as if the gods made you just to ruin him. It almost seems like he’s writing out lines that he wishes to practice before he says to you.

And more than that, he writes about the burgeoning intimacy between the two of you.

The crushing guilt you had been feeling lessens a bit when, through Astarion’s own words, you are reminded that he was the one reaching out to you for physical comfort more often than not. He was the one who always wanted to hold your hand or wrap you in his arm or gently graze his fingers along your cheek. In his own words, it was a grounding force- a way to remind himself that you were here, and you were real.

I was wrong. Sex is wonderful. Apparently, it just depends on the person.

I’m not sure what makes it so different with her.

Love, you think to yourself. Trust. That’s the difference. Trust which you have broken.

All I know is that I’ve never craved another’s touch the way I crave hers. My mind has never felt clearer.

I can never let her see me for who I used to be- a pathetic, weak spawn.

But not with her, never that with her. She sees me as I am now. And it’s so wonderful to pretend for a while that my past doesn’t exist. I spent so long trying to escape my life that it feels entirely novel to exist solely in the present and to long for a future again.

And I had forgotten how I missed being touched. So many years without a hug or a gentle caress and now, I feel as though I need to make up for lost time.

If I can drown in her touch, perhaps I’ll be able to emerge a new man, unbound by my past.

“What in the world are you doing in here?” Astarion’s voice calls out, pulling your attention from the book.

Fuck.

This was going to be even worse than you anticipated because now, it is not you who is approaching Astarion with the truth of your wrongdoing. Instead, he has caught you in the act.

He saunters into the room, a bright smile on his face. “You sent me on a wild goose chase around the manor looking for you. And here I was, hoping to find you naked in our bed upon my return, little flower.”

“I’m sorry,” you say, because you can’t perceive anything else other than your overwhelming shame at having read his diary. You look up at Astarion from your place in his chair, your neck protesting the motion, sore from your hours of staring down at the leatherbound book. You can already feel the guilty tears sticking to your lashes and blurring your vision.

Astarion sees your distress almost immediately and his eyes are darting around the room to find the cause, his hand snaking down to one of the daggers on his belt. His voice is sharp and urgent when he asks, “What’s wrong? Did something happen?”

Oh. He had been so eager to see you, he hadn’t even bothered to change out his armor. And there’s not a speck of blood on him. You let out a breath you didn’t even realize you were holding.

He was home, he was safe.

“No, Astarion, I-” the words escape you. How could you even begin to explain what you had done to him? How you had violated him? It’s all too much and not enough.

You watch Astarion’s gaze fall to your lap. The pieces click into place in his brain as he sees the open drawer and the book in your hands and his eyes harden, all blood red and dangerous. He looks like a predator, ready to pounce and kill.

He crosses the room to you in quick strides, ripping the journal from your hands.

“I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t have,” you rush to explain, desperate for him to hear you through his fog of anger. You need to spin this, you think, make it seem like this is a good thing. “But don’t you see? I finally understand, now.”

“NO!” Astarion yells. His voice is booming and he’s practically vibrating with rage. He’s never been this angry before. Not at you.

“You had no right. That was-” Astarion’s voice cracks, his breath coming out in angry pants. “That was mine. That was the one thing I had. The one thing I could keep just for myself, and you took that one bit of comfort away from me. What, because you’re nosy? Because I didn’t tell you every painful detail of my miserable existence? Newsflash, darling, but we’ve only known each other a couple months. You hardly know me!”

The way he hisses the word darling at you makes it sound like an insult.

“I do, Astarion, I know you,” you’re crying and trying to reach out to him, but he keeps moving further and further away from you, like a wounded animal.

“Obviously not or you would have known how important it was not to read this!” He shouts back, throwing the journal into the drawer and slamming it shut. You hate to think about those lovely rose petals inside, which were surely damaged and cracked in the commotion.

“If you would have just told me what-” you start, trying to justify your actions to him in the hopes that if he sees reason, he will forgive you.

“How did that excuse violating my trust?” Astarion cuts you off.

He’s right, but you can’t help growing frustrated that he’s not listening to you, not trying to hear your side.

“You never tell me anything, Astarion!” You shout back at him, finally standing up so he isn’t towering over you quite so menacingly. You square your shoulders and challenge him, “You promised me honesty and yet you still brush me away with vague, insincere answers. You are still lying to me by omission.”

“I was trying,” He implores. “I would have told you everything, in time.”

But based on his last entry in the journal you read, you know this is absolutely not true. He would have kept you in the dark forever because some misguided part of him believes that he is protecting you in some way.

“No, you would not have!” you argue back.

“We’ll never know! You took that choice away from me.”

Damn him. For all your talk of being angry at Astarion for making your choices for you, you had just done the same to him. You are angry at yourself and the only way you know how to deal with that is by continuing to lash out at Astarion.

“I have known you at your worst, Astarion, and I love you, still. And now, you have seen me at my worst, too.”

Astarion chuckles darkly. “Darling, you couldn’t even dream of me at my worst.”

The two of you stare at one another, chests heaving, neither one of you willing to back down. Astarion is radiating anger, and you are swimming in a deep pool of regret and despair.

“I have loved you and you have repaid that love with betrayal.” Astarion finally snarls, fangs glinting in a purposeful reminder that he is a beast of prey, first and foremost. You know he’s deflecting and trying to hide behind a shield of power because he feels vulnerable.

But your heart catches on that one word.

“Loved?” You ask.

Past tense.

It threatens to shatter your already aching heart, to scatter the pieces so far and wide that you have no hope of ever piecing it back together.

“How could I love you now?” Astarion shakes his head, his lovely white curls dancing in the candlelight. The disgust and betrayal twist his pretty face into something hideous. “How could you love me now that you know what I am?”

What scares you most is that you do not know if he hates you or himself more.

You don’t know how to reassure him that his diary has not changed anything- that all it has done is given you a more complete picture of the man you love. But you are hurt, and you are angry and that is a dangerous combination that leads you to speak without thinking.

“And you’re unwilling to find it in your heart to ever forgive me?” you ask. “I know I have hurt you and I am sorry. But how many times have I forgiven you, Astarion? You threatened to kill me, you kept me locked in my room for days, you forced me to marry you, you lied to me constantly, you called me horrible names and pushed me away right after I had been vulnerable with you. I forgave you for everything! I loved you in spite of everything you did to me! I’d love you matter what!”

“I never asked you to do that!” Astarion’s brow furrows in frustration. “You can’t demand that I forgive you simply because you’ve chosen to forgive me.”

You hate him because he’s right.

You’re speaking before you can stop yourself. “Gods, you’re such a hypocrite. You act like you’re better than everyone, like you know what’s best for everyone, but you hate yourself. I won’t let you do this again. I won’t let you push me away as some form of self-punishment.”

“That’s not what this is,” Astarion says, and his voice is deep and cold. “This is me being rightfully angry that you have violated my trust.”

“I know,” you say, bringing your hands up to brush away the tears that have started rolling down your cheeks. “I am truly sorry. But how much did you really trust me anyway, Astarion? You were hiding so much from me.”

“I was trying to keep you safe!” He shouts back defensively. He takes a deep breath, bringing his hand up to pinch his nose and attempting to calm himself down. “I think it’s best that you leave, at least for a little while. I think we need some time apart so we can both cool off and we don’t just keep arguing in a circle. I have a country home in the South. You’ll like it. I’ll have Shadowheart pack your things, the two of you will leave in the afternoon.”

Astarion nods, his decision made. He doesn’t even wait for you to say anything before he’s turning on his heel to leave.

“No, that’s not what I want,” you say, catching his arm so he must turn and look into your imploring eyes, “We need to work this out, Astarion. You don’t get to keep making my decisions for me!”

Because he was the one who decided you would be married. He was the one who pushed you away and decided your relationship was over the first time. And now, apparently, he was deciding again.

“There’s nothing to talk about. I am your husband, and you will do what I say!”

And in that moment, all your fears about marriage have been realized. You had grown so comfortable with Astarion that you had become complacent. You had forgotten the control he could wield over you as your husband. You had foolishly trusted that he understood your innate desire to make your choices yourself.

And even after all this, after you had just read about the years he yearned for freedom and the ability to choose as he suffered under Cazador, he still had the audacity to give you orders. He still chose to use his legal authority over you as a punishment.

“Very well, husband,” you spit the word out at him and his body flinches at the jab. “I see I am forced to obey you.”

You take off your wedding ring and slam it onto a table before you leave the room.

—----------

As you sit in the carriage, stewing in your anger, you realize that up until now, Astarion had conveniently neglected to mention the cottage he apparently owned.

On your wedding night, when you had gone to confront him because he had not yet come to consummate your marriage, he had assured you that you were free to carry on with your life however you would like. You had told him that you had nowhere else to go. The cottage was not even mentioned. He had trapped you in his manor.

And yes, you know that he wanted you to stay with him because he was lonely, and he was drawn to you. But by not mentioning the cottage, he had not given you the opportunity to choose to stay with him. It was yet another example of how he kept making your decisions for you.

You and Shadowheart were loaded into the carriage that afternoon, just as Astarion had ordered. The past few days had been sunny, and the lovely snow was starting to melt away. You stare out the window as the carriage bumbles and rolls along the road. It’s funny to think that the last time you had been in a carriage was with your father on the way to Astarion’s ball.

So much has changed since then. There’s so much you wish you could tell your past self.

“Will you stop sighing? It’s getting annoying,” Shadowheart interrupts your thoughts.

“Well, I’m sorry my melancholy has brought down your mood. You do seem to get such joy from being complacent in my imprisonment,” you hiss back at her, not even bothering to tear your gaze away from the window.

“Imprisonment?” Shadowheart snorts out a laugh. “Don’t be so dramatic. We’re going to spend a fortnight in a lovely house by the sea. You’ll get some fresh air and some warm weather and some time to clear your head.”

Damn her and her good points.

“He had no right to order me around,” you say instead.

Shadowheart hums in acknowledgement. “Agreed. And I told him such. But he does have a right to be angry with you. And you seem to be forgetting that and rushing right to the ‘he needs to forgive me’ part.”

“That may be true. But he shouldn’t have sent me away against my wishes!” You say, turning to look at her with narrowed eyes. Whose side was she on here?

“Look,” Shadowheart says, her eyes softening a bit. “Astarion is just giving himself space to sort through his thoughts. He does it all the time. He’s a loner at heart. He’s not used to being around someone all the time.”

“But I don’t want him to be alone!” you exclaim. “I want to make him feel better, even if I am the one who caused him pain.”

“That’s quite the dilemma,” Shadowheart agrees. She looks like she’s about to say something more when-

Bang.

There’s a bump in the road. A nasty one, that causes your head to smash painfully against the window you had just been looking out of.

“What was that?” you ask, rubbing at the sore spot on your forehead, but Shadowheart is drawing a knife, gesturing for you to keep silent.

There’s a horrible, uncomfortable silence that makes you scared to even breathe. You can hear muffled voices and the sound of weapons clanging against each other outside the carriage door. For a moment, there’s nothing but silence. You almost have hope that you will make it out of this unscathed.

And then, the carriage door is wrenched open. A man roughly grabs your arm, pulling you out. You kick and claw and bite with everything you have, but it’s not enough.

----------------

Notes:

Oh no! Another cliffhanger! Sorry (not).

Ugh, this chapter was a SLOG to write. I tend to structure my outlines around dialogue and as you have all read, this chapter has very little dialogue. But since the beginning, this arc has always been where I've wanted to take this story. Hopefully none of this plot is coming too far out of left field, I really tried to drop breadcrumbs along the way. I know diaries can be a bit of an easy way out when it comes to solving a mystery in a story, but I genuinely don't see Astarion offering up any of this information willingly and I just love the idea that he has a healthy outlet for sorting through all his trauma. And I also wanted it to come across that tav/the reader isn't perfect, either. She's just as capable of making mistakes as Astarion and they're both challenging each other to do better.

Hugest thank you to my beta-writer AliensNSuch on ao3 for listening to my insanity and helping me to think through potential plot holes (hopefully we got most of them)!

And thank you to everyone for reading and sharing your comments and love! I cannot even begin to explain how much I appreciate you all- I genuinely get so excited to post every week and see your reactions.

Taglist: @ayselluna @idkbrodontaskme @maruichio @fanfic-share @the-littlest-bruja @asterordinary @divineknightmare

Feel free to let me know if you would liked to be added/removed from the taglist for future chapters!

#astarion #astarion x reader #astarion x tav #astarion ancunin #astarion bg3 #bg3 #baldurs gate 3 #baldurs gate #bg3 fanfiction #astarion fanfic #x reader #til death do us part

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