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justporo · 8 months

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A Night of Song and Laughter

Well, Baldur's Gate and Astarion have me by the neck, more than I'd like to admit... So I wrote fanfiction to get my love out for this vampire. It's about Astarion and Tav settling down in Baldur's Gate, trying to enjoy some domestic peace as couple but also getting into some trouble that always seems to find them. And also I thought, wouldn't it be nice if they showed each other their favorite spots around town? So they go to a tavern, drinks are had, lots of fluff and some smut happens, knives are held to throats, exes (Tav's) are met... A whole lot of fun. Read here under the cut or directly on AO3!

Rating: Explicit (especially for later chapters)

Pairing: Astarion/Fem!Tav (You)

Summary: Set some time after the events of Baldur's Gate 3 Astarion and you (Tav) decided to settle down in Baldur's Gate and see what the city has to offer for you. You enjoyed some domestic peace but you didn't seem to be able to shake off the trouble that surely always came looking for the both of you - and maybe you delighted in that as well.

One night you decide to show Astarion one of your favourite places in the city hoping to enjoy some drinks, maybe dance; just have some fun. Fun comes in very different kinds of flavours though as you two should know: from being twirled around endlessly in your lover's arms or stealing naughty kisses and maybe even more in dark hidden alleyways to holding a knife to someone's throat who's threatening what you love the most in this world.

Spoiler warning! (Gif from here)

Part 1: Down, down the cobblestones...

You convinced Astarion to stop the ritual so the vicious cycle of heedless and cruel power might be broken. You believe you two can figure out whatever life may throw at the two of you, you’ve already had come so far, haven’t you? So you settled with taking everything you could gather from Cazadon’s estate and liquidate it to kickstart a new life together in Baldur’s Gate. You bought a small but quite luxurious town house in the better part of town which you'd probably gotten criminally under it’s market price, but the two of you could be quite the convincing duo.

You’ve spent the weeks after your long and exhausting adventures with the mundane aspects of life. Since Astarion has yet again become a creature of the night you decided to adapt to his daily cycle. After all you also once were very keen to keep to the darker times of day when survival for you meant a quick sleight of hand and even quicker feet even you didn’t mean to get caught.

You decorated your new home with an assortment of different things: thick brocade curtains for every one of the tall windows to keep Astarion safe and dark, a bed of course – the largest one you could find - , books, trinkets, more furniture. For the time being the two of you were perfectly fine with being settled down and just enjoying slow and relaxing days, making love every night. As long as the gold from your adventures lasted you were more than happy to just focus on the two of you.

You also made a habit out of it to show each other your favourite places around town, since you had such different experiences – even though both pretty dark and traumatizing – living in different areas of the city. It could have been two different cities altogether. So this night you decided to show Astarion your favourite tavern in the city.

You were walking down the cobblestone roads of the upper city. It was a pleasant night in late spring. Summer hadn’t really grasped the city yet, but it was already delightfully warm but the nights still long: in other words, perfect for a night out for you and Astarion.

You had your arm hooked into his and your head leaned on Astarion’s shoulder.

“So, tell me again please, darling, where exactly are you taking me?”, Astarion said while softly patting your hand you had nestled in the crook of his arm.

“Maeve’s”, you answer, lifting your head up and smiling brightly at him. You knew exactly you were at this terrible lovebirds stage of your relationship where everything in the world is pleasantly pink and warm – except everything in the world was possibly very grossed out because of your lovey-dovey demeanor. Neither of you could have cared less, this was the first shot both of you ever got at just being happy in life.

“Oh, please spare me with all the details, my love”, Astarion replied, sarcastically raising his voice and leaning his head to one side. Humour glinted in his ruby eyes.

“It’s a tavern”, you replied dryly and shrugged your shoulders. You untangled yourself from him and walked backwards while facing him. Then you tugged at the sleeve of his dark shirt he picked out this evening and dragged him along to move quicker. “Come on, we’ll be late.”

“Late for what, darling?”, he asked mockingly getting more desperate as you pulled on his arm. You just grinned at him more broadly and shrugged your shoulders again.

Astarion sighed, lifting his gaze to the clear night sky. The moonlight reflected in his light hair. Sometimes you still felt overwhelmed when you looked at him – like getting to be with him in this way was still a dream you could only wish would become true.

You stopped walking and just looked at him. So did he, his sharp rogue senses not wasting a split second to react. You put a hand on his chest, lowered your head to one side and said: “It’s ‘Maeve’s most exquisite drops and pops’. Me and the crew hung out there a lot when we had the coin for it and got shit-faced.” Astarion lifted his eyebrows and smiled appreciatively at you, having finally bribed you to answer his questions.

“Ah, so I am to learn something of your past tonight, hm? Delightful”, he replied and smirked at you in his signature way. You stole a quick peck on his lips before you turned and entangled your arm once more with his and started walking again. “Pops?”, he simply asked then, raising a single eyebrow.

“Yes, pops – you know, as in popular songs?”, you answered. Astarion just looked confused. “Ugh, I forgot I am basically with an ancient relic. Get with the times, Astarion”, you joked and then laughed as he frowned and mumbled something about the youth and their useless need to shorten perfectly good words.

“Are the many words meant to make it seem more… exquisite? Because I don’t feel like it is working”, Astarion chuckled. “It might just be. I can assure you it is not though. The beer is cheap, and the wine is even cheaper. And keep away from anything edible there unless you wanna be sick for three days straight. And that” – you point a finger at him – “includes necks, my dear. But that’s how you know it’s a great place”, you kept on explaining.

The vampire raised a pale eyebrow at you: “Help me see the reasoning here, my love.” A shit-eating grin split your face once more: “Because no one’s going there for the drinks or the food but the entertainment makes more than up for it.”

Astarion looked at you as if you might have gone slightly insane but simply let you talk and lead him on in the darker, meaner, and much poorer parts of the city.

“It’s quite a famous place where travelling bands and bards come to play for a night or two. And not the talentless yappers, like Volo and the such, but the ones that really know how get a room full of grumpy and mean Baldurians going: singing, dancing, getting their blood pump. If there hasn’t been at least three fights at closing time it was a dull night”, you kept on as your eyes glossed over for a moment as you remembered days long gone by. Not exactly happy days but happy little memories, nonetheless. A slight smile danced on your lips while you remembered.

The vampire looked at you warmly and put his hand over yours on his arm once more. His heart filled with warmth at the sight of your easy smile and honest joy. His thumb slowly brushed the back of your hand: “That indeed sounds like a lot of fun, my love, maybe I’ve been to quick with my judgment. Let’s see what the night may offer to us tonight. As long as it ends with you naked in my bed, I shan’t complain.”

“Our bed”, you corrected him and teasingly poked him with your other hand.

“Of course, our bed, beautiful”, he repeated correctly. His smile grew and you led him further down the streets of Baldur’s Gate.

#astarion #astarion x tav #baldur's gate 3 #baldur's gate iii #baldurs gate astarion #astarion x reader #astarion x mc #astarion x oc #wood elf ranger oc #fanfic #fanfiction #baldurs gate #astarion and tav being cute #but also teasing is their love language #also being nasty and naughty in front of others #astarion ancunin #a night of song and laughter

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merge-conflict · 1 year

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catch for us the foxes

cyberhanami day 3: "love is blindness"

content warning: none, just pure fluff :)

Valentine/Goro

summary: Five times Valentine and Goro ignored each other's flaws, and one time they didn't.

The Coffee

If there was one thing about Abernathy that V could still appreciate, it was her commitment to stocking her conference room with the best array of coffee Night City could offer, freshly ground and pleasingly presented. Their weekly status meeting was immeasurably improved by the aroma alone, and it was the one day of the week that she was eager to reach work early. Still, no matter how early she managed to arrive, Goro was nearly always there before her, looking well rested and without a hair out of place.

This morning was much the same, and V slid into her chair, trying not to stare at his back as he busied himself making his usual cup. Once, he had talked at great length about the virtues of tea, from the plant to the processing to the ritual of consuming it, and so it was only with great difficulty that she endured the sight of him configuring the machine to brew the ugliest, thickest, oiliest brew of coffee it could create only to cut it with an obscene amount of milk and sugar. That he viewed even the finest coffee only as a convenient source of caffeine was endurable, but to watch him produce such a monstrosity in front of her was too much to bear.

V dove into the sanctuary of her interface instead, opening her neglected inbox and sorting through the newest wave of emails. So distracted was she that the sound of a heavy mug clinking onto the table made her jump. She dismissed her interface to find her preferred blend steaming gently in front of her. It was brewed to perfection, smooth and with just the barest hints of chocolate, without being muddled by pointless additives. Goro, settling into the seat across from her, returned her smile, the corner of his eyes crinkling momentarily before Abernathy entered the room.

2. “Food”

The past few weeks had been illuminating in several respects when it came to understanding the daily life of office drones, but Goro sometimes wished he had remained ignorant. He didn’t often have a reason to spend much time in the special operations war room, thankfully, and so was able to avoid the pervasive aura of stress and body odor– but what time V did not spend cloistered with Abernathy in her office she spent here. It gave him the opportunity to observe her in her natural work environment.

Normally she always knew when he walked into a room unless his interface was running silent, but it had been twenty minutes and she was still oblivious to anything outside of her computer screen. From the looks of her and her companions, they’d been working in the room since the previous night, no doubt poring over the data that had recently been recovered.

V stood abruptly, as though summoned by something, with the same determined look in her eyes that she had when she had decided to stab someone. Her aim today, however, was the small table shoved in the far corner of the room which served as a mini-canteen, stacked with all manner of plastic-wrapped garbage, all of which could scarcely be called food. She walked by him twice without noticing him, returning to her workstation with a plate stacked with two grayish lumps, which he supposed were intended to resemble burritos.

He could not help but watch in fascinated horror as she sat back down and proceeded to methodically eat both, one after the other, with exactly the same number of bites– as though it were something she had done many times before. It was entirely revolting, and yet, when she had finished she sat back with a privately satisfied smile which reminded him how she had stolen his heart. If he tuned his hearing and listened closely he could just pick out the faint sound of her humming, and he had to look away, or risk breaking into his own smile.

3. User Experience

After the fourth time Goro frowned at the tablet in his hands, tapping at it with growing frustration, V had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep herself from saying anything. No matter how long he wrestled with technology, he was incredibly resistant to even the gentlest suggestion of assistance– the only way she’d found to help was to intercept him before he became entangled, a point which had long since come and gone. If they had not been within the confines of an office, she was almost entirely certain he would have snapped the tablet in half, and only his strong sense of dignity and propriety was keeping him from doing so now.

He swore under his breath, and then looked up too quickly for her to pretend she had not been watching. “Whoever made this software should be retired.”

“The menu options aren’t laid out very well,” she said, diplomatically.

“The menu?” he repeated, as though she had said something incredibly stupid. He managed to rein himself in somewhat, although he was still over-enunciating, which was a clear sign of his anger. “It is not the menu. I cannot get the blueprint to correctly rotate.”

V’s hands twitched, and she raised them enough to show him the gesture as she said, “Perhaps the screen is glitchy?”

He frowned deeply, inhaling before he set his jaw, the muscle at his temple jumping. To her great surprise he held the tablet out to her, although he looked like he would have preferred to hurl it into the nearest wall. “Show me.”

She kept her face neutral as she took it from him. The diagram he was looking at was rotating around some arbitrary point rather than the center, which was causing some strange behavior because of its size. Although the fix was rather simple she deliberately slowed her taps as she sorted through the menus and locked several of the settings to prevent the same sort of mistake before she corrected it and handed it back to him.

“What did you do?” he demanded.

“One of the techs must have configured it wrong,” she lied, with a dismissive gesture. “Happens more often than you would think.”

“Hm.” He exhaled through his nose. “Thank you.”

“You’re the one getting me out of that office. She’s in a fine mood today,” she said, which was only partially true. “I should be thanking you.”

His expression softened, annoyance dissolving. “Of course. I am happy to be of service”

She bit the inside of her lip, practiced smiling with only her eyes. “Of course.”

4. Laundry

The room in Konpeki that V had been provided was much smaller than Goro’s own, and perhaps half the size of the apartment she had used to rent– but it did have the advantage of not being located on the same floor where Yorinobu was being held, which meant it was much less closely watched. Unfortunately, while it was not nearly as disorganized or cluttered as her previous home, it seemed to be only a matter of time before it reached such a point. The bed was clear, at least, and he could safely sit on the edge without disturbing the expanding pile of tools and hardware piled between the far side and the window.

“They’re going to miss you, aren’t they?” V asked, as she stripped off her undershirt and tossed it into a growing pile of similarly discarded clothing that blocked the bottom drawer of her dresser from opening. “Oda will.”

“Mm. Not for an hour, at least.”

“Oh.” She turned sharply on her heel, blinking as she met his eye. “This is your dinner?”

The concern in her expression was so genuine that he felt a surge of guilt for his judgment. But right on its heels was a bloom of appreciation. Once, she had been hesitant and uncertain to bare herself before him, afraid he would condemn her as Arasaka did. She still flinched occasionally under others scrutiny, but right now she stood handsome and comfortable in her own skin: the thief with his heart in her hands.

He rose. “I am not hungry.”

The corner of her mouth tugged upwards. “No?”

He hummed, pulling her a little closer so he could run his fingers up the back of her neck and be rewarded with her ravenously barbaric smile. “Perhaps I am.”

When it came down to it, he found he did not mind when his own shirt joined the top of the pile.

5. Form

If it had surprised V that Goro had agreed to bowling, it did not surprise her at all that he was good at it. He had claimed not to be practiced, but whether that was modesty or the truth she hadn’t decided. She had lied and told him she had been part of a league, once– which had naturally brought out his competitive nature. Which was the reason, as the ball clattered into the pins for a strike, that he looked so morose her composure almost cracked.

“You’re catching up,” she told him, as he rejoined her at the table.

He gave her a withering look. “Do not patronize me.”

She had to get up then, or risk laughter. In truth he was bowling very well, but in another three frames she’d have a perfect game, and his own score was marred by several spares. He was a sore loser, but what was really eating him was not her victory, but the way she was earning it.

With an unnecessary flourish she pulled her ball from the return and lined herself up on the lane. The software she was running had been refining its predictions based on her earlier performance, and so with each frame her job had gotten easier. But the real trick was the correct stance, and when she had picked her line of attack she carefully dropped into a squat, and bowled from between her legs, sending the ball rolling along the exact line trajectory projected by the software. The speed left a little something to be desired, but by the time she had walked back up to the table to retake her seat, she heard the clatter of the pins and the celebratory chime that announced a strike.

Goro’s hands were relaxed, but he was tensing the muscles in his arms so strongly she could just make out their shape through the sleeves of his shirt. “I suppose you will be choosing where we eat.”

V raised her eyebrows in an imitation of his own version of a shit-eating grin. “I guess so.”

Catch for us the foxes / the little foxes / that ruin the vineyards / our vineyards that are in bloom.

While he still had not been cleared for active duty, Goro felt better than he had in weeks. He was still adjusting to his new pair of lungs, and while he was not up to his usual standards he was more than comfortable enough to spend some time on a surprise for V. And when he was finished, there was nothing to keep him from enjoying the comfort of her couch for a well-deserved nap.

He was awoken a few hours later when V flicked him in the forehead, looming over him with an intense expression that sparked a flame in his chest. She said, “Good morning.”

“It is evening.”

“Good evening,” she said, in the same tone, the muscles in her temple jumping rapidly. “You cleaned my bench.”

“Yes,” he agreed, carefully sitting upright.

“You–“ V repeated, grinding her teeth. She turned away, taking in a deep breath before she turned back and tucked her fingers loosely into his collar. He stood up and obediently followed her restrained pull, until they both stood next to the desk that took up one entire wall of her new apartment. She paused for a moment, clearly picking her next words carefully. “How long?”

“A few hours,” he said, trying and failing to keep the smugness from his tone. “First, I had to find the clips to organize.”

The surface of the desk, once buried under several layers of broken tech and abandoned projects, was now entirely clear save for the box of tools he had organized to make it suitable for display. The largest drawer, which she now had opened, was stacked neatly with various types and lengths of cables, all neatly secured with clips. He had been required to guess the various functions of some of the objects, but while his methods had been crude, they were now organized and easy to find. V looked as though she wanted to murder him and was just working out the details.

“You did this on purpose,” she said finally. Her restlessness was starting to win out over her attempt to remain unmoved, and she smoothed down his collar and tucked all his stray hairs neatly back behind his ears.

“Yes,” he agreed again, not bothering to conceal his smile.

She grimaced, and pushed him gently back against the desk. He sat obligingly, as she pressed up against him, hands braced on his legs. She spoke through her teeth with a smile that was anything but friendly. “For the love of all that is holy Goro, why?”

He put his hand under her chin, gently stroking her jaw with his thumb. “Do you remember the last time you chose where we ate? I believe you described it as ‘your favorite place for dumplings’.”

Instantaneously all of her fury dissolved and her smile turned coy as she looked poised to break out into the same cackling laughter as she had when he had first sampled what could not in any civilized manner be described as “food”. Even now she displayed not the barest hint of regret.

“Oh,” she said, leaning into his hand.

“Mm.” He pulled her in for a chaste kiss, lingering as her thumbs dug into the meat of his thighs. “I thought so.”

“Well,” she said, sounding reasonably chastised. “I suppose now we can call it even?”

He laughed, pulling her closer by the hips. "Yes, I think so."

#cyberhanami23 #valentine #goro takemura #my fic #cyberpunk2077 fic #i had most of this finished but the last two sections took a really long time #because i kept sending myself into fits of laughter imagining goro's grumpy face #one of their love languages is mutual trolling what can i say #coming in under the wire here so apologies if there are any grammatical or other errors

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