one fem!reader, 2k
“Mummy and Daddy’s evening off though, love? Really?”
“Oh shut up, you horrid thing. I know.”
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astarion is a newly-minted girldad. that's it. that's the plot.
word count: 2,028
an: fluff, fluff n more fluff. no smut this time. soon. promise. parts ONE and TWO linked respectively but can be read alone.
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“She’s asleep, Astarion!”
You are wide eyed, furious; speaking in a whispered shout at your husband.
His pale hands flit across the ties of your shirt, frisking every which way they turn. You slap them off like flies on fruit.
“Even more reason to take advantage of the situation, if you ask me.” He murmurs hungrily in your ear, hands now circling down to your waist to tug on your waistband.
“It’s a fine job I didn’t ask you then!” Gritted teeth. Eyes aflame. Cornered against the dresser.
The crib beside your bed holds your infant daughter - skittish and fresh to a world wholly unknown in every sense of the word. She rests rarely and wails often for company in these early months of being alive with you both. Pallid and red-eyed yet beautiful beyond comparison and entirely yours.
Seeing you together brings him joy unparalleled.
He has, genuinely; never been prouder of anything of his doing - saving the Sword Coast is a drop in the ocean that is completely and utterly awash with love for your youngling. The mistaken mess of his own bastard elven vampiric genetics now born unto another. This time it would be right. The hunger, the rot; the abuse and neglect, they were hundreds of miles away.
He would make it right.
But it was already so. She was here, and you all cried together in that dark, sweaty birth chamber. His great guttural sob at her birth, wracked with emotion he never knew he could possibly be permitted to feel on this immortal coil. Your genuinely feral howls of pain turned weeping with pure joy.
Two full days of agony unlike any you’ve ever endured and she had arrived, breathing; wailing; skin of a changeling in birthing viscera and lungs keen to rival any bellow of the Gods.
Astarion weakly clinging to you both; tears salting your lips and wetting her tiny head for hours on end.
The great weight of another being on your shoulders. His sincere - yet cliche - fervently whispered oath to her just moments after being placed in his arms.
She is home. She is loved beyond any unit of measure. She will want for nothing, and she will never know anguish like that of her parents and their complex lives. No matter who she is or what she becomes, she has two people who are in her corner. She will be fierce if she so desires. Cunning. Witty. Roguish. Barbaric. Horrid.
It didn’t matter. It never would.
She was yours, and his; and she would always have a choice.
He had spoken with her for hours, the nurse whispered to inform you once you had awoken from the deepest slumber of your life. Even then when you looked he was hanging over her small form in her cot, running his lithe fingers over her tiny hands and feet in a repetitive soothing pattern.
When you queried the topic of conversation he simply looked at you with a grin so lovesick it would flip your stomach completely. Butterflies.
-
“We deserve a bit of fun though, darling. Mummy and Daddy’s evening off? No?”
Astarion pouts, wrapping his arms around you - still pinned against the dresser - and inhaling your scent deeply.
You return the gesture and cough reactively.
“You stink of Noblestalk. I know your tricks.”
You playfully shove him away and tiptoe from your room to the landing, the pale elf hot on your heels.
“I have never stunk in my life, thank you.” He sulks.
You pointedly stop to look at him, before picking up a basket of waiting laundry and descending the stairs. He follows.
“I’m trying to fuck you, dear. Don’t make it weird.” He rolls his eyes and huffs.
You hum.
“Corpses tend to smell awful.”
“Warning.”
“You started it.”
“Touché.”
A beat of silence.
“Mummy and Daddy’s evening off though, love? Really?”
“Oh shut up, you horrid thing. I know.”
“You’re getting rusty.”
He captures you in a kiss as you reach the bottom of the stairs, slow and patient. Holding your free arm to keep you close.
“Look at me. I’m the epitome of the fatherly jester!’
Waggles his free hand.
‘I have been blessed with brains and humour anew by the birth of our daughter, clearly.’
He grimaces.
‘Not necessarily superior versions of either, but I - am - changed.”
From the moment of her conception you’d felt it. An old wives’ tale. The night you’d agreed to mother a brood alongside him, you knew she was there. That she was her. That she was brewing as something brilliant deep inside you and nothing would be as it was ever again.
He’d called it ridiculous, gestured wildly and rolled his eyes to the deepest hells, but a hazardous hope never left them until you’d far missed your bleed and it was confirmed to be true.
From that moment onwards, something shifted even further in Astarion.
The domestic tether to your townhouse in the city - no longer just a convenience to remain a steady base for you both, but a fundamental part of his scene setting, to plant roots and grow together. Two centuries of rot and abuse, and his reward was finally nearing completion.
His nesting phase began far earlier than yours and with greater intensity than you could’ve matched even without the issue of your later-heaving belly. Entire pinboards tacked with decadent fabric swatches for every occasion - be it swaddling or nursery curtains. Tailor’s tape around his neck each morning and notebook in hand to note your measurements and take inventory of your wardrobe; ensuring you never looked awry or felt anything less than wholly comfortable.
Because gods forbid ill-fitted clothing stand in the way of you and your brutal vomiting spells, obviously. A pointed click of his tongue as he fixes your sleeve.
In the middle months of your gestation, the typically discerning clientele who visited you and Astarion in your tailor’s store at the dead of night were the first to become privy to the news. Rounder by the week, flushed; brimming with a deep fatigue and yet somehow absolutely aglow.
Children to be fitted for yet another presentation evening placed sleepy hands on your belly with a saccharine softness. Their parents jostle you - sometimes in congratulations, sometimes to whisper in sheer curiosity. Dhampir are a notoriously rare breed, and you’re certain there were rumours of a third party involvement in the process.
‘No, no. We just tried really, really hard.’ You’d smile, as if in a blissful stupor from just the recollection. He’d turn to you with his ridiculously brilliant hearing; needle between teeth, brow raised; lips upturned in a slight quirk. Devilishly handsome, never anything less.
-
You drop the laundry basket in the kitchen corner. A stuffed bear falls from it. Clive.
A pause.
“You never asked what I did with that shirt, you know.”
It takes you a moment to recall which shirt he’s referring to. He sits at the table and watches you lazily.
“Which? The one for Mr. Chugley? I didn’t think it needed much by way of adjustment, at least?”
A stale piece of burnt toast sits on the counter untouched. You bite and chew and bite and chew like a woman who has never once tasted a morsel so divine; so untainted by the evils of hot butter and a filling bronze crunch.
“Oh - Bunt? Gods, no.’
He sips his stone-cold tea. A fresh film wobbles on top.
‘Bunt Chugley.”
A snort of laughter sends it straight back through his nose and out onto the table. You begin to choke on your toast.
“Bunt Chugley.” You giggle, crumbs spilling from your mouth.
Astarion stands to wipe himself down, creasing over with an escalating laughter.
“Bunt Chugley.”
He waggles his hands, eyes heavy lidded with lack of rest.
He looks purely maniacal.
“That’s- that’s what we should-’
You stop for breath, cackling now; hands over knees for a brief moment.
‘We should call the next one Bunt Chugley.”
He launches into a wheezing fit.
“How- How would that even work, darling? Like Bunt Chugley Ancunín, or- or-”
“No! No, no. Just that. Bunt Chugley.”
You hold both hands to your eye as if framing a canvas, looking through the gap at the ludicrous proposition in front of you.
He takes a moment to still. Smiles at you dopily.
Crosses the floor and brings both hands down to your waist with a gentle grasp.
“I am so sorry, my love.” He grins and holds his forehead against yours.
You look at him, dazed.
“Hmm?’
He simply looks up.
A profoundly gut-wrenching wail becomes apparent to you from above. Your face falls.
‘Oh for fuck’s sake, Astarion.”
-
He’s up the stairs before you can comment further, swiftly darting back into your chambers and grinning with an unbridled joy - though, you note, with lack of rest that grin is beginning to look more insane by the hour.
“Sweetheart! My darling girl. Shush now. You’re sounding something absolutely wicked.”
You watch on from the doorway, arms folded; stale toast in hand and jaws meeting in a firm chew.
He’s far too good with her.
It somewhat surprised you at first just how innately fatherhood came to him, but as he picks her up and cradles her intently it’s as if there are fractures of his own childhood coming back. How he was loved, how he was held.
A piece of him, now alive and breathing again after all these years of death.
He coos at her, bouncing her small frame gently in his arms and hushing her with each wail. It takes very little for soft mewls to take their place as she reaches aimlessly in his direction.
He leans towards her grasping fingers and allows her to take one of his ringlets from the front of his head as he kisses her tummy. She’s enthralled by him; recognises him. She wants to know more of him.
As he lifts his head her grasp remains firm.
“We have some work to do on your sleight of hand, I think. Not to worry.”
Ever so gently, he unpicks her fascinated fingers and kisses them all in tow. Her face looks almost ready to crumple before he reaches for one final kiss on the very top of her head.
“There, now. All better. Back to sleep?’
A gurgle. A puzzled blink.
‘Absolutely. Mummy does look particularly radiant today, doesn’t she? I’ll be sure to send your regards.”
He catches the smile on your face. Winks your way.
“You’re getting the baby to flirt on your behalf now?” You tease.
“That’s the lady of the house to you. She was simply passing on her praises.” He whispers as he places her back into her crib and steps back fondly. Sidles over to you as you finish the last bite of toast and pulls you in for a soft kiss.
“Stop playing coy. I know you feel the same way I do.’
He whispers down at you.
‘You want another one, don’t you?’
A kiss on the very top of your head.
“You’re projecting.” You smile.
You can’t deny him for long, he knows this. You don’t particularly want to.
Since becoming a mother you’ve taken to parenthood almost as naturally as he has; and when the topic has come up since you’ve struggled to say no and mean it.
“Think, though. The sooner we try again, the sooner we can begin building our little mercenary force.” He looks at you with the face of a man who thinks he’s just had a really good idea.
“Oh! Yes! You’ve sold me!’
You pull him into a long kiss, the kind that still makes you swoon after all this time together. He tastes like cold tea and smells so clinical you can’t help but laugh heartily as you pull away.
‘That Noblestalk is getting to me. Have a bath and try again with a little less?”
He scowls before narrowing his eyes in thought.
“Does that mean what I think it means?”
“It just might, my darling dearest.”
You wink this time.
The bath starts running before you’ve fully made it back down the stairs.
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