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sprout-fics · 8 months

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Rotes Mädchen: Chapter 6

(Werewolf! König x Red Riding Hood! Reader)

(Art by the lovely @zwienzixes)

(Masterlist)

Word count: 4.2k Rating: MDNI, Explicit Tags: Werewolf! König, Fairytale AU, Monster Hunters TF141, Traditional German Fairytale setting, World Building/Lore, F! Reader, Sexual tension, Slow burn, Domesticity, Literal sleeping together, Bed sharing, Angst/Comfort, Fluff, Soft smut, Love confessions, Bonding bites Warnings: None

You're running.

Through the woods, under the full yellow moon. It hangs heavy in the sky, obscured by ink-black clouds that roll past the distant glimmering stars. The chill of the Hunter's moon crawls deep into your veins, escapes from your chest with every gasping, fogging breath of air. Your legs pump under you, boots colliding with the soft earth as you desperately hurl yourself further into the forest. Thorns snag at your crimson cape, and you yank it free, the scarlet fabric torn to ribbons as you flee.

A lachrymose howl cuts through the sky, shudders the trees around you. You pause just long enough to listen, to try and discern the impossible direction of the sound. It echoes all around you, engulfing you, unable to be stifled with the roaring hunger that craves for your flesh.

A scream then, but not yours. It curdles in your veins, shrieks high against the heavens, and you know the sound of the voice before your own call cries out desperately through the mist.

"KÖNIG!"

A scream again, and this time of pain. You throw yourself towards it, duck and weave through the trees and call once again for your friend, chest cracking with terror. Yet Konig's voice merely echoes out to you in a desperate attempt to ward you away.

"Rotty!! Rotty RUN!!"

Heedless of his warning, you skid to a stop in a small clearing just as the clouds reveal the full, haunting light of the golden moon.

König is splayed on his back, his mask torn, arms crossed in a vain bid to shield himself. Atop him towers a creature made of shadows, a massive form that summons every inch of fear in your form to a blaring instinct.

Run. Run. Run.

"ROTTY!" König calls, and his hand reaches for you- a plea, a warning, you aren't sure. You want to reach for it, haul him to safety, but the monster before you merely lifts its blood streak muzzle towards the sky, stands on its hind legs so it towers taller than the trees. The howl seems to crack apart the sky, fragment the tender edges of your soul in primordial horror.

You can't move.

König reaches for you again, and the warning he calls out to you is muffled by the thunder of your heartbeat. You catch his eyes, his gaze bright with fear. Gone are the soft green irises that speak to you with warm familiarity, replaced down with an eerie, glowing, gleaming gold that mirrors the light of the moon above.

The werewolf crouches low over his form, opens its gleaming fangs to slowly seize against König's throat. A killing bite, not yet pressing down. König watches you helplessly, an arm still stretched out as if to graze against the tattered remains of your crimson cape.

"Rotty."

Yet the sound comes not from his mouth, but from the jaws of the creature who holds him. You turn your horrified gaze to it, meeting moss green eyes eclipsed by drowning black pupils that suck you down.

"Rotty."

The wolf's jaws snap shut.

-------

You awake with a gasp, body bowing off the bed and trying to summon you upright. Your limbs seize in a violent twist, instinctively running from the horrific crunch of teeth that chases you into wakefulness. Yet a heavy weight is settled across your middle, preventing your struggle. You pull at it blindly, try desperately to free yourself from the iron grip that encircles you.

When it tightens you only squirm harder, chest heaving with quick little gasps of air. A voice, a befuddled murmur does nothing to soothe you, until at last you are released with a concerned, confused mumble of your name.

"Rotty?"

Your arms curl around your frigid form, trembling as you try to shake the remainder of the nightmare. The warmth of a familiar voice gently chases away the shadows, and after a long and heavy pause you feel the body behind you shift, drape something thick and soft across your shoulders. You blink at it, finger the worn edges of the scarlet cape you'd worn the night prior, when you'd curled in his arms and let tears fall from your eyes until he'd hushed you to sleep.

"König." You whisper, and the man at your back shifts closer to you, hesitantly letting a hand lay upon the one clutching your cape.

"It's just a dream, Rotty." He whispers, soft and worried, as if somehow you'll tremble under his touch. "You're safe."

You look over your shoulder then, glazed eyes seeing him for the first time, taking in the crease of his brow partially hidden under his hood. The same one torn in your dreams to reveal the open despair of his expression as he reached for you.

"I saw you." You whisper, scarcely audible. "I saw you die."

It's the wrong thing to say, and you don't realize it until it's too late, because König's worried eyes turn into bright fear. They catch the misty light of dawn that spills through the window, and you swear for a moment they gleam gold.

Yet König says nothing, and you know no words are enough to fill the emptiness of your premonition. The weight of it hangs between you both, an omen that beats closer to the midnight of tomorrow with every pulse of your heartbeats.

You turn to him then, shifting so your hands press flat against his chest, through the thin shirt you sewed for him, still too large for his massive frame. The cape slides from your shoulders, pools around your hips as if you arise from a sea of red. Your fingers splay across the laces, feel rigid muscle underneath. His heartbeat flutters against the pads of your thumbs.

"Hold me." You tell him, muscles still shivering in the aftermath of terror.

König obeys as if your words are a sacrament handed down by the divine, arms reaching for you, hauling you against him with such fragile care, as if you'll shatter under his broad hands. A thing made of glass, something that reflects the misty light of dawn with a dove-gray sigh. You fall into him as he falls onto his side, an arm pillowing your head, the other pressing you to his chest.

"You're safe, Rotty." He tells you gently, and you nod into the thick bicep of his arm, listening to the coo of larks resting atop the eves of your cottage. Slowly, the terror of your dream is released in slow, steady breaths, form relaxing into the sanctuary of his embrace. König seems more than comfortable to keep you there, his own chest rising with slow, even inhales. It feels almost as if he's drinking in the scent of you, trying to memorize the shape, sensation, and smell of you in his arms.

"I should light the hearth." You murmur faintly, and it doesn't budge him from where he lays, back to the rest of the cottage so he crowds you against the wall protectively. Tangled in the blankets, your cape, the layers of your skirt you'd never shed, it feels much like a warm, comfortable den, one you are hesitant to leave.

"Stay." He tells you in a hushed whisper, voice low, deep like the hollow of a tree. "Just a little longer."

You can't find it in yourself to complain, comforted by the weight of his arm slung across you, the warm press of him across your front. You surrender, nuzzle deeper into him with a languid sigh, allow a hand to gently entwine with the shoulder of his shirt.

There's words you should say, you think. A confession to be made. Here, in the soft light of morning, you feel affection blossom in your chest with springtime flowers, unfurling in the damp ethereal break of dawn. You wonder if you speak them like an April headwind they'll somehow carry him away from you, forcing him to draw back as he always does, with secrets hidden behind the moss green of his gaze.

One more day, your mind whispers once more. A prayer, a warning, a plea. One more day before your world is eclipsed by the full moon, before a howl splits the sky, before the thing from your nightmares prowls beyond the lantern light of your beloved home.

You vainly try to ignore it, try to instead imbue yourself in the way König sighs and props his chin on the crown of your head, on the pine-laden scent of him, of musk and cedar the faint smell of smoke that hails destruction. The worries of the world whisper in the air around you, frosting against your senses with chilled fingertips. The warmth of him alleviates it, cradles you in blissful comfort. You, like him, memorize the sensation of this moment, wind it like ivy into your veins as if somehow it will shield you from the things to come.

"This could be our last day together." He says then, thoughts an echo of your own, and you pull back to gaze up at him in grief, expression tight with a desperate worry.

"Don't say that." You whisper, your voice strained as you say it once more. "Konig...don't say that."

His eyes meet yours, and there's a distant sort of grief there, as if somehow he's already accepted his fate. It makes something inside you flare with alarm, and you find yourself gripping him with a sudden ferocity that startles you both as you shift to straddle him, stare down into his eyes.

"We're going to be fine." You tell him in a trembling voice, as you try to convince him as much as yourself. "Price and the others- they'll catch the wolf and kill it. They'll make sure it never touches us, a-and-"

You swallow, unsure of your words, watching the way the grief deepens in Konig's eyes, as if he doesn't believe you. It threatens to catch in your chest with a distant cry.

"We'll be safe." You tell him in a whisper, trying to force prophecy into your words. "and you'll stay. I'll protect you."

König's eyes widen for just a moment, and you watch a flash of realization pass across them. it softens the fear there, the grief and acceptance into something achingly tender. The warmth of it flutters across your chest like the quick pulse of robin wings, startles you so you suck in a breathy gasp from where you sit atop him.

"My brave Rotty." König purrs, and his hands raise to gently rest on your thighs, hidden by the folds of your skirt. "Sweet, gentle Rotty."

You shiver at that, feeling warmth rush across your exposed flesh despite the chill of dawn. You want to chase it down into him, let him warm your form, let the heat of his body alight the cold, lonely corners of your heart. If he does, if he burns a way inside you, you know you won't be able to bear it if he leaves you.

It's a thought that's haunted you this entire time, that König has stolen your heart he will run away with it, that you'll awake the morning after the full moon to find him gone, your bed empty. The hearth cold. There's a prophecy that whispers a warning in your thoughts that despite your tenderness for him, the man before you is made of mist, of a softness that will slip through your fingers and dissipate in the light of dawn following destruction.

It only makes you cling to him harder, hands splayed against his chest, bunching his loose shirt between your fingers. He must see the despair on your face, because König lifts a massive, worn hand to your cheek, knuckles grazing across soft skin.

"Liebling." He murmurs sweetly, and his eyes are aching with adoration from where they look up at you under his hood. "If only you knew what I'll do to protect you."

Show me. You think. Show me everything, the lengths you'll go to, the secrets you keep. Show me how much I mean to you, show me that you won't disappear.

Instead you nuzzle into his palm with an unsteady sigh, cupping it to your face and looking down at him once more.

"I wish..." You whisper despite yourself, thoughts spilling outwards before you can stop them. "That I could kiss you."

It's a selfish thought, and you know it. König refuses to show his face, even after all this time. He's desperately protective of the hood that shields him from you, refuses to show you even a glimpse when you eat together, your back turned to allow him privacy. Yet here you are, once more wishing for the things you're not sure you can have, wanting desperately to vanquish the barriers that stand between you both.

König's eyes widen under the hood, and your face falls, knowing you've made a mistake. Yet then he blinks, and shifts under you, gently scooting you off his form. You think it's a refusal at first, especially when Konig slides from the bed away from you. There's an apology ready on your lips- one that hesitates as the man before you kneels at your feet tossed askew over the bed.

König is surprisingly delicate as he cups your foot, still hidden in its warm stocking, and for a moment you're reminded of the tale of the girl with the pumpkin and glass slippers. Like the prince, König lifts your foot onto his thigh. Yet instead of offering you a crystalline glass token, he instead reaches a hand under the hem of your skirt to drag the top of your stocking slowly down the length of your calf.

You suck in a breath, heart thumping as you feel the fabric slide down your skin, curious as to his intentions. When he finally divests you on the garment, he raises himself up, scooting between your legs and peering up into your face bent towards him.

"Do you trust me, Rotty?" He asks, and there's something different to his voice now, a distant rumbling purr that sounds not unlike a growl.

"Yes." You whisper back, and your hands itch with the urge to raise to his shoulders, somehow bring him closer.

Closer he comes, because König takes the stocking in hand and lifts it to your eyes, tying it swiftly around the back of your head. Blinding you.

There's a stab of disappointment that is quickly erased by daring hope as you hear the rustle of him removing his hood. You press forward eagerly and hear the soft rumble of a chuckle when König takes note of your enthusiasm. He lifts himself with a breathy sigh, lips brushing against yours in a chaste, delicate kiss.

It's just as you imagined in your dreams, tracing your lips in the darkness when he slept above you, wondering if he was gentle with you there too.

You chase after him eagerly, wanting to memorize the sensation of him against you, and König takes only a moment before he too cedes to the desire. Hesitant though he is at first, he eventually allows a sigh to escape his parted lips, mouth moving eagerly against yours as his arms come to wrap around your waist.

"Rotty..." He groans, and you feel his desire bleed into you, crimson and bright, tantalizing against the passion of your thoughts. "Schön Rotty..."

He lifts you then, into the bed, brackets himself above you and dwarfs you with his massive form. You can't see him, senses entrenched in darkness, but the blindness only makes your remaining senses blossom scarlet with sensation, drinking in his scent, his touch, the murmured endearments his whispers onto your lips when he kisses you.

You hook an arm around the back of his neck, pressing him down into you, wanting the warmth of him to be your own. You want the edges of him to bleed into you, to be unable to discern where you stop and where he begins.

"I want this." You whisper to him blindly, fingers reaching up to graze through his surprisingly long strands. He shudders almost violently at the contact. "I want to keep you."

"Rotty." He growls then, and you shiver at the need, the possessiveness that flares abruptly in his words when he answers you. It feels like the distant snap of some forbidden tether, the shatter of some restraint that holds back a beautiful, dangerous creature. You feel almost akin to prey, with his fixated gaze that seems to watch you like a doe in the glade. Respectful, entranced, but hungry.

You wonder if this was his secret, the depths of his desire for you, untamed but gentled for your domesticity, gleaming eyes reflecting the warmth of your hearth even as he hungers for the moonlight. Perhaps he's something different than what you imagined, an animal that eats willingly from your palm, but will swallow you whole if only to slake his yawning desire for your flesh.

You want him to devour you.

Your bare calf peeks from the ruffle of your skirt, hooks over his hip so you spread open for him- willing, eager, wanting. It summons a growl from his lips, a rumbling groan that sounds like the bend of aged aspen against the wind. You long after it, want to carve it into your thoughts just like the touch of him against your skin.

You feel it when he divests himself of his shirt impatiently, and you try to imagine the planes of his body you can't see. Instead your hands try and map out his skin, tracing the indents and silvery tissue of scars you find littering his chest. You want to ask him about them, about why they feel like the claw marks of something wild. Yet König silences your queries with a kiss, hands tugging at the laces of your bodice to reveal you to him.

"I want to see you." He huffs, warm breath curling against the planes of your face. "I want to see all of you, Rotty."

I'll let you see anything you want, just as long as you stay.

"König..." You mewl instead, raising your fingers to comb through his surprisingly long hair. He shudders hard for a moment at the contact, an unsteady breath loosening from his chest before he returns to kiss you with a sudden ferocity that steals the air from your lungs.

"What sharp teeth you have." You murmur curiously, and he stiffens for all of a moment before returning:

"The better to bite you with."

Bite you he does. Gently, with his whole mouth, Konig clamps down on the arch of your neck where your throat meets your shoulder. An indent, not hard enough to bring blood, only to lay a lasting mark you wish to keep there always as a reminder of him.

It feels somehow like a claim.

More. You think, senses growing hazy with lust. Show me. Show me how much you want me, how much you want this, what you'll do to keep me.

You moan as his hand grazes up the inside of your thigh, rucks your skirt up to your hips to reveal the tender flesh to his touch. You arch into him greedily, beckoning him further against you, offering yourself like a lamb to slaughter if only it means it will quench your desire.

"Rotty." He growls again, voice deeper, somehow feral. "My Rotty."

He kisses you like he means it, and you surrender willingly to his rolling, roaming touches, to the impatient tugs of his hands as he sheds you both of your clothes, to his husking groans that drag in his chest at your pliant mewls. His hands grope at your chest, your hips, drinking down your desperate little keens when you plead for him to touch you properly.

His broad fingers fill you like nothing else, and you let your head flop into the pillows helplessly when he croons at your arousal pooling over his palm. It's clumsy, a little stilted, but it's good, his enthusiasm clear in the way he drags insistently at your silky walls, coaxing wanting murmurs to him.

"J-just like that, oh God. König..."

The pleasure multiples, draws higher inside you, stretches for the sun in the shade of the forest, seeking a higher warmth. It remains just out of reach, a tantalizing reward that you cry out for with no reprieve.

"Shh, gently, Liebling." He murmurs with restrained tenderness as he arranges you carefully on your side in his arms, lifts a leg with his broad arm and begins to push inside. You whimper at the stretch, feel your walls eventually ease and allow him entry. The drag of him forces the air from your lungs, and you go limp just so you can take it, take all of him, everything he has to offer and more.

He splits you open, drags his teeth along your jaw like he's searching for a vein, hauls you to him like he's afraid you will escape. You're forced into docile willingness, submitting with wanton little moans as he rolls his hips against yours, forces you higher into bliss.

"Scheiße-" He grunts, hugging you close so he can thrust into you, hand flexing as he holds your leg aloft, parting you for him. "So good for me, Rotty. Want to stay here, just like this, in your bed, listening to you. Just like this."

It doesn't take long for you to crest towards the peak of your arousal, the angle of him inside you grazing against the clutch of your heat and making the spool of desire tighten across your thighs. It unfurls in low, rolling waves, spreading through your limbs, your veins, the marrow of you that's picked clean by his teeth.

König takes you in the way of wild animals, snapping jaws held back only by your delicate touch, offering apologetic little whines when he forces you into overstimulation. He growls and huffs into your shoulder, teeth nipping with scarcely contained ferocity at your bare shoulder. It makes you wonder if he's holding back far more than he lets on, that there's a danger to him that might drown you should you release it.

He hauls you flush to him after several wild thrusts that make your voice ring out in the quiet solitude of your cottage, forever echoing inside the stone walls of this moment where he's claimed you. It's with a snarl, a curse that he spills inside you, warmth curling your insides as his hips jerk, and his voice descends into something akin to a whimper.

You lay in a sweaty heap in his arms, and König hauls the blankets atop you both, nestles you into his embrace, peppers fluttering kisses across your face, your blindfold.

"Dearest Rotty." He murmurs with tender affection. "Beloved Rotty."

There's an affection that floods your chest, sharp, almost painful at the clear adoration in his words. He pets at your back, hums a low, satisfied purr into your ear that speaks of contentment. It's in this moment that you wish you could stay, that you wish you could keep him.

"I love you." You confess at last, unable to see him but feeling his heartbeat flutter in his chest where you lay your cheek. "Do you have any idea how much I love you?”

I don't need to see you. If you just tell me, if you just stay, I'll go blind for the rest of my life just to keep you here with me.

König pauses for a moment, and at last he sighs. It feels like the final breath of winter giving way to soft spring, a surrender to you as much as himself, no longer able to deny his feelings for you.

"I love you too, Rotty." He tells you, voice full of emotion. "Since the day we met, I think I have loved you."

You think of that, of the day all that time ago when you found him in the forest, on the misty morning in the aftermath of the monster that chased you through your dreams. He appeared there, hurt and broken in the ways you were, and were not all the same. Lonely, needing, hoping to be found. You, you found him, not knowing then that he had found you too.

You should tell him, you think. You should convince him to retreat to the safety of Laswell's with you, to appease Price and the others even if they remain suspicious of him. You know if he denies you that you'll stay, and you'll face the darkness of the luminescent, heavy moon together.

In this moment, in the dawning darkness of what lies ahead, you instead kiss him, and pray it won't be the last time.

"Promise me you'll stay." You whisper against him blindly.

"I promise." He tells you, and once more that prophecy lingers with taunting whispers at the back of your thoughts. A festering doubt not abated by his touch.

You kiss him, and you hope it's not a lie you taste upon his lips.

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fourraccoonsinacoat · 28 days

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Fall for Me | One Shot

Pairing: Astarion x Dark Urge

Rating: Explicit NSFW18+

Chapter Count: One Shot | Read on AO3 Word Count: 8,048

Title: Fall for Me - Sleep Token

Summary: Takes place during the events of Baldur's Gate 3 during Act 2. Explores the romance between Astarion and the Dark Urge as Astarion realizes there's a depth to his feelings that he's been trying to deny. Tags: Smut, Explicit Sexual Content, Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Fluff, Humor, Idiots in Love, Mentions of Violence, Soft Astarion, Spoilers for the Dark Urge and BG3 in general, Dark Urge as Original Female Character.

Author Note: Well…this got a bit out of hand. It started as me wanting to write about the moment Astarion realizes he's in deeper than he thought with this relationship, then morphed into me wanting to explore his headspace while being intimate, and then just devolved into absolute filth. I have no excuses. This fic precedes another of my fics called "Faint of Heart," which can be found on my account.

Astarion woke to a cold and suffocating darkness. A scent of wet decay hung in the air, eerily familiar, and all around him the silence screamed.

The night was distinctly void of the mundane sounds that had become commonplace during their journey. Even as they trekked through the Shadowlands towards Moonrise Towers, their nights usually bristled with distant howls and the whispers of skeletal trees as their limbs tangled and clacked in the wind. Now, however, there was nothing but a heavy and stifling quiet that set his nerves on edge. An anxious sense of wrongness stirred in his gut as he tried to get his bearings.

Where was he? Last he remembered, their group bedded down on the outskirts of an abandoned town called Reithwin. They intended to explore the decrepit buildings and shadowed ruins the next day as they pushed towards Moonrise.

Astarion sat up and blinked into the clawing darkness, squinting as if that would somehow bring the world around him into focus. Even with his darkvision, nothing manifested except the ever-expanding gloom all around him.

He ran a hand across the damp floor and shivered against the deep chill that engulfed him. He cast about for his belongings but found none, only a cracked tile floor slick with mildew and grime.

He heard a metallic clatter in the darkness as he shifted around and suddenly tuned in to a weight around his right ankle. An icy dread began to rise in his throat like bile as he hesitantly reached out and touched the shackle, fastened tight.

No…

Panic shot through his heart like a stake and his mouth went dry. He realized with a vile shock why he recognized the scent of old rot which saturated the air. It was the smell of stale rat blood mixed with years of filth and dirt.

He was back in the kennels. Back in Cazador’s grasp.

The realization nearly made him vomit as terror and confusion twisted in his stomach. Astarion hadn’t needed to breathe in over 200 years, and yet that didn’t stop his chest from tightening nor his lungs from seizing. Panic swept through him. He tried to gulp down air as a constricted and choking feeling pressed over him. Eyes wild, Astarion desperately tried to catch sight of something…anything in the relentless gloom.

How? Why? What in the hells had happened?

His mind wheeled, fueled by a horrifying sense of upheaval. He didn’t recall being attacked, but that didn’t change the situation he now found himself in.

He had to get out. He couldn’t be here. This couldn’t happen. This wasn’t right.

Except…it was. Because this was how his life had always been. He’d never escape. Never be free. Cazador would always find a way to drag him back. His master would never let go. He would always find Astarion, no matter how far he ran.

Thou shalt know that thou art mine.

Cazador’s fourth rule burned in Astarion’s mind, haunting and vicious. He stifled a sob, swallowing it back down and gritting his teeth until his jaw ached. He needed to figure out what had happened, because if he was here then…

Eli…

His stomach lurched as a fresh wave of dread nearly choked him. Where was Eli? If Cazador had been able to seize Astarion, had he taken her, as well? Guilt flooded his mind as it raced, trying to piece together some sequence of events that made sense. None of it seemed logical, but he was too panicked to dwell on the irrational nature of it all.

If Cazador had Eli…

But Cazador didn’t know, he couldn’t know…how Astarion felt about her. Hells, Astarion didn’t even understand his own emotions when it came to Eli. She was…something to him. More than nothing, so much more than nothing.

If Cazador had her…if he turned her…hurt her… Gods, what had Astarion done? He’d put a target on her, and of course Cazador would find her and take her. Because that was what he did. He destroyed anything that brought Astarion even a moment of happiness. How could he have been so stupid?

“Eli?” Astarion called quietly into the darkness, unable to mask the distress that clawed at his throat.

The voice that answered struck him numb with fear.

“Foolish boy. How easy it was to deceive your weak mind.” The cruel mockery in Cazador’s voice caused Astarion to flinch as if he’d been hit.

“What did you do with her?” Astarion hissed through bared teeth, dreading the answer.

“Nothing. Because she is nothing.” Cazador’s voice reverberated in the darkness as if he were everywhere at once.

Astarion didn’t understand whatever game his master was playing, and so he remained silent; shivering, though not as much from the cold as the trepidation.

“You’ve always possessed such a feeble mind, so easy to bend and break,” the voice bit from the shadows. “Did you honestly believe you’d escaped? That you’d been abducted? I planted such an absurd fantasy in your head that I had my doubts as to whether you would believe it. But your incompetence never ceases to entertain.”

Astarion’s eyes went wide and he froze like a prey animal that had only just sensed a trap. A slow, creeping horror slithered up his spine at the thought of what Cazador was insinuating.

“None of it was real, you pathetic little wretch. You’ve been here, the whole time, trapped in an illusion of my design.”

Astarion was going to be sick.

“I thought it was time to pull back the curtain, before you got too attached. To remind you that you are mine, and that will never change. Because who would want something as miserable as you?”

He couldn’t breathe. He didn’t need to breathe, and yet he couldn’t. His throat burned with bile that came up from his churning stomach. Hot tears seared the corners of his eyes and his brain felt as if it were on fire.

It hadn’t been real… None of it… He’d never be free…

You are mine.

_______________________________

Astarion gasped awake, as if he were a man drowning who’d finally come up for air.

His chest heaved as sweat cooled against his skin in the night air. He rolled onto his side, coughing as the memory of vomit receded. He felt tears pricking at the corners of his eyes and wiped at the ones that had already trailed down his face.

Sitting up, Astarion shivered as the nightmare withdrew, glancing around his darkened tent anxiously as the ghost of Cazador loomed in his mind. He was alone, and though night in the Shadowlands was grim, it was not nearly as oppressive as the darkness in his dream.

A feeble hazy moonlight leaked through the murky tree canopy outside, casting a dim sheen through the pitch of night. Shadows bobbed and weaved on the walls of his tent, cast by drooping and swaying trees. The snarl of an animal sounded somewhere far off in the distance, and Astarion sighed as he tried to settle himself.

His nightmares were dipping into parts of himself he’d rather not acknowledge, preying on fears he wasn’t ready to face. He frowned, stomach knotting as residual feelings of fear and loss flashed through his mind like grease catching alight in a cook pan. He ran a hand through his white curls, recalling the anguish he’d felt in the depths of his dream. He’d felt so small. So fearful and alone. It made him restless.

Astarion stood and exited his tent, stepping into the chill of the night. Their campfire had burned to embers, the light barely able to cut through the murky darkness. The hour was either exceptionally late or achingly early, and the camp was still. Astarion was the only creature stirring in the gloom.

Memories, unbidden, jerked into his mind. Nights spent lurking in silent shadows, looking for a hapless target to bring back to the mansion. The endlessness of his putrid life was the only thing he thought lay before him. More decades of pain, torture and misery. The uncaring hopelessness of it all crushing every scrap of faith and every desperate prayer he had within until all that remained was a broken shell. Unfeeling and brittle.

He hated how wretched and pathetic he’d been. Used up and miserable. He never wanted to feel that way again. And so he fled from those memories, seeking distraction and solace, until he came to stand at the entrance to Eli’s tent.

Astarion paused just outside the mouth of the tent, apprehension twisting in his gut. He was being silly and foolish, he knew. Eli was fine. She’d be asleep in her bedroll and Astarion would feel like an idiot who’d allowed himself to get worked up over a godsdamn nightmare.

Gently, he pulled back the curtain that hung across the tent mouth and peered inside. As predicted, Eli was fast asleep with her back to the entrance. Astarion watched her shoulder rise and fall slowly as she breathed and felt the gnawing tension inside himself loosen its grip, just a bit.

Stupid. This was stupid. He was stupid. Gods, he wanted to hold her…

He wanted her to look at him like he meant something, like he was worth something. He wanted to lose himself in her, like that first night when they’d created their own pocket of nowhere. Free from Cazador and all of his miseries, free from the pain and the fear. Just them, wrapped up in hushed whispers and sweat and lust…and something else. Something different and needy and fragile. Something he’d never felt with anyone else.

“Astarion?” Eli’s voice pulled him back into the world and he blinked, focusing on her as she turned over to face him.

Of course she was awake. Eli’s sleep had become even more restless and fleeting since the night she’d woken him in a panic and he’d had to restrain her. He’d watched over her as she writhed, witnessing her loss of control as the thing within clawed for the surface. It had reminded him of how Cazador would wrest control of his spawn, forcing them to do as he commanded without resistance. He’d realized then that he feared losing her. That he cared and desperately wanted her to overcome whatever this monster was.

He was struggling with the realization, but that didn’t make the truth of it any less real.

“I’m sorry, my dear.” Astarion spoke quietly, shaking his head as if that would rid his mind of its cluttered thoughts. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

Without pausing to dissuade himself, he crawled forward into Eli’s tent and sat next to her bedroll. He had allocated absolutely zero thoughts to what he would say or do next, but that wasn’t necessarily uncommon for him these days. Things had been working out for him so far, so why shift strategy?

Eli sat up and watched him curiously. “Is everything alright?”

“Oh, yes,” he said, waving off the concern that was growing in her eyes. “I’ve just been unable to sleep, what with Gale one tent over and snoring like an ogre with swamp lung. So, considering our current arrangement, I thought I might share your tent for the remainder of the night.”

Astarion’s words flowed with well-practiced ease and charm, as if he hadn’t just made that entire excuse up on the spot. He smirked at Eli, who was still fixing him with a skeptical stare, and fought down the sudden anxiety that was rising in his chest and urging him to back out of the tent.

Eli had become rather versed in reading Astarion and it was something he had not quite come to terms with yet. On one hand, it stroked the egotistical part of him that desired attention and affirmation to have someone so attentive to him that they could peak behind the pomp and bluster he so often put forth. On the other hand, he felt as if a part of him was at risk of being snatched away or trapped if someone was able to pull back the roguish mask he’d so carefully crafted. He felt unbalanced, oscillating between moments of vulnerability with Eli and moments where he slammed his walls back in place.

A part of him wanted to tell her why he was really there. That the thought of her, the thought of them, not being real had shaken him to the point where he physically needed to see her. Just to put his mind at ease. He didn’t understand it, himself; the feeling that had driven him to seek her out after he woke. And so he kept his mouth shut and didn’t elaborate, fearing that Eli may think him rather pitiful.

Eli continued to watch Astarion, dubious yet silent, before she sighed and shrugged. “Alright then. If you don’t want to tell me what’s really going on, that’s fine,” she said, then patted the space next to her on the bedroll. “You’re always welcome, you know.”

Astarion felt a strange pang of…disappointment twist in his chest. He’d honestly expected Eli to press further for an explanation that wasn’t clearly pulled out of his ass. But she didn’t. It was disarming.

He moved to her side and situated himself as Eli laid back down. She watched him for a moment as he fluffed a pillow and settled, then she closed her eyes with a deep breath and said nothing more.

“Thank you,” Astarion said quietly as his eyes danced across her restful face.

He felt a sense of unease, unused to having his boundaries respected in such a way. Eli had never been the sort to prod at him for explanations, or to prod at anyone, for that matter. As someone with their own menagerie of secrets and internalized darkness, she tended to allow others the leeway to decide how much or how little they wanted to share. Still, they’d been…indulging in one another rather frequently these days, and Astarion was realizing that while their nights together were a lot of fun, he wanted something…more.

The problem was he hadn’t any idea what that “more” was. And gods did it frighten him. The last thing he wanted to do was give someone else control over him, not after he’d so recently regained a taste of freedom. Over the past 200 years, every relationship he’d ever been involved in had been nothing more than a means to an end with Astarion either playing the role of manipulator or the one being manipulated. Attachments were leverage, giving someone a hook they were able to dig their claws into in order to gain ground. Isolating himself from connecting with others was how he had survived.

And yet, as he watched Eli drift back into sleep, his eyes found her hand resting near her pillow. A longing came over him and, carefully, he reached out tentative and slow until his fingers brushed gently against her own, quietly connecting. Questioning.

Eli’s eyes opened, sleepy but curious. She watched his fingers lightly caressing her own, and with a small smile took his hand and tenderly wove her fingers in between his. Moments like this, made up of soft touches and careful affections, were becoming more common between them. And the intimacy of these moments never ceased to fascinate Astarion.

To Astarion, intimacy had always involved passion and lust. It was created in the pressed spaces between fervent bodies as they worked one another towards ecstasy. It was fleeting and vanished just as quickly as it emerged.

This, however…this was different. This was calm and soothing, and it lingered almost like a promise. Always available to be restoked and explored.

“I…” Astarion began, hesitating for only a second before he steeled himself and pressed on. “I dreamed I was back at the mansion. Back under Cazador’s control.” The name was spoken on the edge of a growl, his red eyes fixed on their joined hands.

He paused, thinking through what to say next, and Eli allowed him the silence to collect his thoughts and continue. “He mocked me,” Astarion spat. “Saying that all this was an illusion. That I hadn’t escaped. That you were an illusion.”

He glanced cautiously to her face, and when his eyes met hers, he found understanding there.

“Well, you came to the right tent,” Eli smiled, voice playful though not dismissive. “I’m something of an expert on nightmares. We can even compare notes, if you like.”

She squeezed his hand lightly and repeated his words from the night when he’d kept vigil over her as she fought against the dark madness within herself. It was unexpectedly touching and Astarion felt something twist where his dead heart was.

“As for whether or not I’m an illusion,” Eli said as she propped herself up on her elbows, slinking closer to him, eyes locked in to his own. “We can thoroughly investigate that claim, if you’d like,” she whispered, a sly question lingering in her gaze.

Astarion smirked, rising and leaning in to close the space between them. He untangled his fingers from her own and placed his hands on her shoulders, fulling intending to roll her to her back and ravish her while she squirmed beneath him. Astarion had come to Eli’s tent with no expectations beyond wanting her close, but he certainly wasn’t about to turn down the opportunity to get even closer. They were good together. Really. Fucking. Good. And already desire was clouding over his mind as he bent to capture her mouth with his own. He had tasted her many times before, and yet every time they came together after a prolonged absence it felt fresh and raw. Rejuvenating and wild.

In all of his time as a thrall to his master, Astarion had never bedded the same person twice. Every night was a new conquest, new prey for him to stalk and tease until he’d gathered just enough information to get him through the evening and to get his target back to the mansion. The encounters always played out very tactically on his end as he gathered just enough surface-level drivel to ensure his quarry was seduced into the trap. Once Cazador came for his prize, Astarion would never see the poor wretches again, and that was fine by him.

With Eli, though, it was so different. There had been nothing tactical about any of it after that first night, and even during. The ecstasy of freedom, of choosing to give of himself rather than being forced, was intoxicating. They would explore one another, finding comfort in both familiarity and discovery, honing in on the things that drove the other mad and had them coming undone in the throes of rapture. They were becoming known to one another, intimately and completely. Perfecting and exploring and discovering every time they were together.

It was both enthralling and terrifying, being known like that. Being laid bare as Eli unraveled him just a bit further every time, uncovering parts of himself that had been left dormant and untouched for so long.

The anticipation of it all was already causing a firm swell to build below the waistline of his trousers as he pressed into the kiss. His tongue darted and teased at her lips, gently prodding between them and beckoning her closer. One of his hands had slipped to the small of her back as the other pressed into her shoulder, gently guiding her so that he could tuck Eli below him and crawl on top.

Eli, however, seemed to have other plans in mind and resisted his direction, pushing back into him and maneuvering the both of them until he was on his back with her legs straddling his waist. She never broke the kiss, rocking forward on her knees as she took his hand from her back and pinned it to the ground above his head, her fingers lacing in between his own. He growled into the kiss and playfully ghosted a fang over her bottom lip, causing her to hum needfully into his mouth.

And then her lips were gone, leaving only the hot impression of longing against his own as Eli trailed her lips from the corner of his mouth to the shell of his ear. Her breath was tantalizingly warm, brushing against the sensitive skin there, causing a shiver to course down his spine before it pulsated up into his firming dick. His free hand came to rest on her hip and he fingered mindlessly at the hem of her pants. He wanted her to sit back onto his groin so he could roll his hips up into her and rut his straining cock in between her legs. Hells, he wanted to be free of their clothes so he could sheathe himself inside her warmth and watch her ride him while he speared her over and over as she screamed his name until her throat was raw.

But then all thoughts and wants were lost to a white hot flash in his mind as Eli bit down on the tip of his ear, careful not to break skin but sharp enough to fire lightning off into his veins. His hips snapped up, needing to feel her as his cock throbbed. His left hand was still pinned above his head by one of hers, and he felt his nails digging at the skin of her knuckles while his right hand desperately tried to pull her hips down against him. He choked off a whine in the back of his throat and closed his eyes as his head rolled back against the ground.

She laughed breathily into his ear, and oh gods it was undoing him already. This was dangerous. She’d been paying attention, noting all the things that set him off and applying them expertly until she had him writhing. It was a wholly new experience for him and beneath his fervor and lust was a seed of trepidation.

When it came to sex, there had always been two ways the experience would play out. Either he would maintain control over the situation, or he would disassociate as his various partners had their way and used him to their satisfaction.

But this. This was new. And while it wasn’t unwelcome, the fact that she’d worked him into this position so easily was setting off alarm bells in the back of his mind. He felt exposed. Vulnerable. He hadn’t realized how freely he’d given of himself these past few weeks, how far he’d let her explore and how attentively she’d done so.

How known he truly was.

And then she was letting go of his hand while her lips returned to his own, pressing soft and affectionate kisses into them. She carded a hand into his hair, careful to avoid his ear which was still tingling and overstimulated. He felt a shudder of both relief and disappointment roll through his body as the high passed, missing the sensuality and hunger of it all while relaxing into a more settled state of mind.

Astarion’s eyes were still closed, and the throbbing in his dick had not subsided. He felt her breath back at his ear, though not as close as it had been earlier.

“I just want to make you feel good,” he heard her whisper, sending sparks back through his veins. “Show me how.”

His eyes fluttered open to find hers gazing back at him, sweet and attentive. He felt her fingers twining through his hair and sighed contently, a small smile on his lips.

“You’ve been doing a magnificent job so far, darling,” he crooned before pulling her back down into another wanting kiss.

He smoothed his hands along her sides, repositioning her atop him until she was flush against him. He ran one hand down her spine, firm and slow, while the other gripped the back of her head, encouraging her to melt into him as their tongues explored each other’s mouths and their bodies squirmed, searching for friction. The hand at her back moved to squeeze her ass before he pressed her down against him, desperate for pressure against his groin.

“My only critique so far is there are entirely too many clothes between us,” he breathed against her lips. The hand on her ass gripped tight as he pressed and rubbed his thick erection into her hips, driving the point home.

“Allow me to remedy that,” Eli said with a quick kiss.

And then she was gone, hiking his shirt up and licking warm and wet kisses down his belly towards his waistline. Her hands were undoing the fastenings of his trousers and his head was beginning to spin with the implication.

That wasn’t… She didn’t have to…

He felt Eli slip her hands beneath his smallclothes and tug, pulling both his trousers and underwear down until his erection was free. He sighed from the relief, feeling the fullness bob and twitch expectantly. Eli was dragging her tongue down from his bellybutton towards his aching cock and fuck…he couldn’t remember the last time someone had offered to do this for him.

His hand was in her hair, then, tugging gently for her to look up at him.

“That’s not what I was implying, my dear. You don’t have to…” Astarion’s protests trailed off when Eli’s eyes met his, full of lust and playful longing.

He’d sounded almost sheepish, even a bit apologetic, as a sting of guilt wormed its way into his gut. Astarion should be the one giving pleasure, that was how these things always went. That was what he was good at…what his master had made him for…

The thought struck out at him unbidden with a nasty sense of shock and disgust. Cazador had created him for the pleasure of others, taking every opportunity to viciously remind him that what he wanted and how he felt never mattered. It was a belief that had been bolted to his soul after decades of torment, and one it seemed he still carried, even when he wasn’t in his master’s grasp.

“Astarion,” Eli said, softly pulling him out of his spiraling.

He blinked and refocused on her as she pressed her lips gently against the taunt skin over his hip bone, drawing an eager hiss from between his teeth as his dick jerked. Images of her mouth around him, warm and so godsdamn wet and tight, were firing off in his brain and…fucking hells, when had he fallen so completely for her?

“Right now, in this moment, nothing would make me happier than to get you down my throat and thoroughly satisfy you.” Eli smirked at him, hands on his bare thighs and lips a mere breath away from his cock, red and full and beginning to leak.

Her eyes were glittering with a mischief that was intoxicating, but there was affection there, too, soothing and comforting. He shivered, furiously trying to shut his brain down as thoughts collided in explosions of need, guilt and desire.

He’d thought himself so smart, charming and seducing her into his bed. Laying a trap and then walking her into it with such confidence and glee, only for him to find himself just as ensnared. He’d used her, manipulated her, and then drowned himself in her and gods above, if he didn’t want to do it again and again.

“But if that’s not what you want…” He stiffened at Eli’s words, catching the undercurrent of concern in her voice as she shifted and began to move back up his body.

He stopped her, sliding his hand from out of her hair to cup her cheek while he brushed a few silvery strands from her eyes with the other. Now was decidedly not the time for him to have an internal crisis of feelings. Not in the middle of the night with his dick out, pants halfway down his legs and Eli saying such obscene and beautiful things to him. There’d be time for personal reflection later.

He wanted this. Wanted her.

“I want it.” He almost felt embarrassed at the raw desire that slipped through his voice, heavy and breathy. “Gods, you have no fucking idea how much…”

He stopped himself before he could elaborate more and completely mortify himself.

“It’s just been a long time since anyone offered,” he concluded. He wouldn’t admit he couldn’t remember the last time someone had pleasured him like that.

Eli considered him for a moment, expression thoughtful, and for a brief moment of panic Astarion wondered if she had changed her mind. About him and about all of this. But then her lips twitched up into a tender smile and he felt his soul shudder.

“Please.” Astarion breathed.

Eli ghosted a few featherlight kisses near the base of his cock before whispering, “Well, when you ask so sweetly…”

And then her mouth was on him and Astarion’s head rolled back as he made a noise he was entirely too obliterated to be ashamed of.

She took only the tip at first, sucking down onto the head as her lips slid back and forth over the swollen ridge. Her pace was slow, and it was both agonizing and exhilarating. His thighs clenched as a heavy pressure throbbed deep in his groin, sending shivers and tingles spasming out through his legs and up into his belly. His hand was back in her hair, grabbing and encouraging, careful to not be forceful, while his other hand fisted the bedroll.

He both heard and felt Eli laugh low in her throat, the vibrations of it tingling down his shaft and setting his nerves on fire. He’d managed to kick his trousers off, spreading his legs apart so she could nestle between them and absolutely destroy him.

Eli began sucking him down further, slowly sheathing himself into her mouth. He shut his eyes, growling as her warmth and spit enveloped him. He responded by hitching his hips up into her, wanting more, wanting her full of him. He felt her hands on his hips, directing him to rock up into her mouth at a languid pace. He fell into the rhythm, fucking into the suction. She flattened her tongue, applying pressure along his shaft every time he thrusted in before dragging her tongue tip along the sensitive skin when he pulled out.

The growl in his throat grew into a lewd moan that shamelessly filled the tent, leaving no one who was awake in camp to wonder about what was taking place. He could not have cared any less about who heard, and in fact he welcomed it. Let them all listen as Eli, savior of the Druid’s Grove, conqueror of Grymforge and scourge of the Absolute went down on him and fucked him senseless with her perfect fucking mouth. He was the only one she’d do this to, the only one she’d pleasure. No one else got to experience this, see her like this.

He was hers.

The thought set off a wave of arousal so potent that he felt his cock spasm in response, leaking precum that Eli’s tongue then swirled across his tip as he continued to rut into her. The pressure between his legs was mounting as a possessive and greedy emotion seized him.

“Darling…oh gods, darling, not yet…” Astarion wasn’t going to last like this, but he was not ready to be undone. Not yet.

He opened his lust-blown eyes and a feral groan tumbled out of him at the sight of Eli between his legs, sweaty and fervent and his. Leaning forward, he cupped her chin and encouraged her off his dick. Her eyes met his and the mixture of arousal and craving in her dilated pupils slammed into him so hard his chest hitched.

Nobody looked at him like that. Ever.

He needed more.

Wordlessly, he pulled her up to him and their mouths crashed together in a wild and wanton kiss that was all tongues and teeth. He could taste himself on her, salty and pungent and it drove him mad.

They only separated for a moment as Astarion pulled Eli’s shirt up and over her head before removing his own. Then, they were tumbling back onto the bedroll, Astarion still pinned beneath Eli as their hands greedily explored one another.

He began fumbling with the buttons of Eli’s pants, the last barrier between them, and licked into her mouth as she moaned desperately into their bruising kiss. She was writhing on top of him, bent over him and straddling his bare torso as her hips rolled against him shamelessly. Undoing the buttons, he slipped his hand beneath her underwear and ran a teasing finger between the lips of her swollen clit.

Eli whined and gasped as his touch and Astarion laughed with wicked mirth, gliding his finger back and forth between her wet folds but never going deeper. She was soaked, worked up into a frenzy and it emboldened his ego to no end.

“I didn’t realize sucking on my cock could make you so wet,” he purred with no small amount of self-satisfaction.

His finger traced a circle along the rim of her pulsating clit, earning a high-pitched moan that shuddered out of her throat and went straight to his dick. She tried to reposition herself, needing his fingers in places they weren’t.

He grinned at her distress, earning a reproachful bite to his lower lip that did nothing to dissuade him.

“Less working your mouth and more working you – oh fuck!” Eli cried out as Astarion pushed two fingers up into her, burring them deep.

She bolted upright, arching her back as her mouth fell open and her head fell back, a slew of profane and needful curses tearing from her throat. He felt her clamp down on his fingers, hands pressing on his chest for balance as she brazenly rode his fingers.

He gazed up at her as his fingers stroked and hooked at her throbbing walls, causing little twitches and spasms to filter throughout her body. Her skin glistened in the foggy moonlight that seeped in through the walls of the tent, sweat-slicked breasts bouncing with each thrust of her hips as her head lolled, eyes shut reverently as she worked to satisfy herself. His dick bobbed against his belly with each roll of her hips, and he could feel a warm trail of precum rolling down the edge of his hip. His erection was so stiff it verged on painful, and when he felt her walls begin to flutter around his fingers, he knew he couldn’t wait any longer.

He pulled his hand back from within her core and the gasping whine that erupted from her lips nearly choked him.

“I’m sorry, my sweet,” he crooned, wrapping an arm around her back as he braced himself with the other and sat up. “Bear with me for just a moment. I dare not make you wait any longer.”

Astarion tipped her back and laid her down, yanking both her pants and underclothes off in a swift motion. He settled his hips between her legs, the head of his cock pressing agonizingly at her entrance.

He hovered above her for a moment, drinking her in. She was a gorgeous mess, eyes blown wide with craving and skin flushed hot and pink. Her chest was heaving as she gazed up at him with a look that would have stopped his heart if it weren’t already still. Adoration beamed back at him as she smiled and Astarion felt a twisting deep in his chest.

He knew then, with absolute certainty, that whatever was between them was so much more than anything he had planned for it to be. It terrified and amazed him. Welling up emotions within himself he wasn’t sure how to grasp or understand. He didn’t want to hide from it, though. He’d been hiding and skulking and manipulating for too long.

He wanted something more. Something real.

Astarion bent down, kissing Eli deep and longingly. Hoping that even just a shred of what he felt could be communicated through the embrace. She sighed into it, eyes closing and hands carding into his hair before they slid down to his back. He shivered as her fingers traced tenderly over the scars there, careful and deferential.

Breaking the kiss, he hooked an arm under her left leg and rested it up on his shoulder, pressing it forward and stretching her apart. Lining himself up to her warm core, he rested his forehead against her own and felt her squirm impatiently beneath him.

“Fuck, Astarion, please.”

That was all it took. He pushed inside of her, body shuddering at the enveloping and soft warmth. He felt his abdomen clench, waves of arousal rocketing down his legs and up his spine as he sank into her to the hilt. Astarion groaned, pulling back before he buried himself again, then again, then again. Eli gasped with each thrust, arching her back and angling her hips for a better position. The leg he’d pulled over his shoulder tensed and squeezed, pressing down on him as he snapped his hips up and into her. A low growl rose up, unbidden, from his throat. He was throbbing and needy and she felt so fucking good. Warm, wet and tight as he pressed into her walls and felt her contract around him. Their eyes were locked in and a rapturous shudder ran the length of his spine as Eli’s face contorted in ecstasy, her mouth opening in a silent and delirious cry.

He pulled back again. Her eyes were begging. Another thrust, making her back arch up as she bucked her hips into him, needing him deeper.

He was entranced with her face and the raw longing he saw there. He plunged in again, drawing a high squeal from her that turned into a breathy rasp as she closed around him and shook against his body. Her eyes never left his, and he drank in every mewl and cry as she looked at him with so much affection and craving that Astarion was tempted to duck his head and hide from the level of vulnerability she was giving him.

But he didn’t. Couldn’t. No one else got to see this. No one else would see Eli – hero, warrior, leader, fledgling legend that she was – shivering and squirming underneath him as he pumped into her. This was all for him, and him alone.

She was falling apart, losing herself in the thrill and the ecstasy, every sob for more spurring him on as he stared into her enthralled eyes. Her hands were everywhere, desperately running up and down and all over, clutching and pulling him closer while she pushed at the small of his back, directing his thrusting pace into one she could match with euphoria-inducing turns and twists of her hips.

The wild and undone look in her eyes coupled with the unrelenting throbbing of his cock was near enough to drive him mad. Electric jolts shot down his legs from his groin with every plunge, and his muscles felt as if they would seize at any second. It felt amazing. She felt amazing, and gods she was looking at him like he was the gravitational pull of the universe. It tore at his seams and pulled a centuries-old ache from his dead heart.

He wanted to be someone to her. Someone important. Someone she needed.

It was agonizing and frightening, that feeling. The last time he’d even remotely felt anything near to it, he’d been locked away and isolated in a coffin for over a year. Punishment for such sentimental wretchedness.

Astarion grit his teeth, clawing his way back from the memory and pushing it all down. Those were things left for later. Not now. Not when Eli was crying out and babbling about how incredible he felt, wrapping her arms around his neck to pull him down for a kiss that he swore was going to set him on fire.

The pressure was building between his legs again as every muscle below his chest began to tense. His mind fixated on the lewd and wetly rhythmic sounds coming from between them and he could feel her slick arousal all over his groin and lower torso. His mind began fuzzing, triggered by all the erotic sounds and the building stimulation threatening to explode in his core.

He wanted this. He wanted to feel her cum beneath him. He wanted to feel himself truly and completely let go for the first time in centuries.

He pulled back from their kiss, the hair on his neck pricking in response to the small whine that left Eli’s throat as he did so.

He continued to pound into her, hard and measured, dick pulsating inside of her as the buildup became nearly unbearable. Beyond the pounding of blood in his ears he could hear himself grunting with each thrust, deep and animalistic and so fucking needy as the delirium mounted all around them.

Astarion leveled his eyes with Eli’s, face hovering above hers, and smiled at the unabated and desperate look she was giving him.

“Do you really want me that badly, darling?” he asked, panting and nearly out of his mind with wonder at the sheer amount of desire coursing between them.

There was no teasing in his question, no flirtatious overtones or hidden meanings. He needed to know.

“Yes,” she breathed, and the world narrowed.

“Gods, Astarion, I want all of you,” Eli nearly cried, arms tightening around him as she came near to climax. “Not just this,” she moaned, pressing her face into his neck as her back arched off the ground. She was shaking she was so close.

“I want you with me,” she whined into his ear and the desperation in her words was intoxicating. “In all the ways that matter,” she continued, her voice raw and teetering on the edge of bliss. “…with me. Please!”

Astarion clung to her like a man drowning, eyes closed and face pressed into her hair. The scent of her was everywhere and he reveled in the frantic intimacy of the moment, blindly grabbing at her upturned hips and bottoming out into her with a force that sent lightning zipping through his veins and stars bursting behind his eyelids.

The pressure between his legs released and Astarion came with all the subtlety of a smokepowder barrel blowing alight, all the muscles in his legs and lower torso seizing and relaxing in bursts.

“Gods, Eli. Fuck!” he cried out against her, swept up in the climax as the world fell away.

Eli followed, her inner walls contracting around him, bolstering his orgasm as she shuddered and cried out for him. She wrapped her legs around his waist and squeezed tight, wanting him full and solid as she came with him inside.

Astarion moved his hips in a circular motion, gentle and sensual, letting Eli ride out the last of her orgasm as the both of them came down. They were a tangle of arms, legs, sweat and ragged breath, neither willing to let go of the other as a hush fell over the tent. They rested in the quiet, laying in each other’s arms, content in the intimate sense of togetherness. He could feel her racing heart beat beneath her skin as he rested his head under her chin, her pulse lulling him into a comfortable daze. The scent of the blood in her veins was hot and sweet and he reveled in the thrum of life that surrounded her. A life he was growing more and more attached to…

Suddenly, Eli snorted and Astarion’s eyes snapped open curiously. He lifted his head and quirked a brow down at her as she tried and failed to suppress a fit of giggling. He tensed, unsure and more than a little confused by her bizarre response to what he thought had been a rather exhilarating experience.

She squeezed his bicep reassuringly, a delighted grin settling on her face.

“Sorry,” she laughed quietly. “I was just thinking, there’s no way anyone in this camp is still sleeping. We’re going to have to apologize in the morning.”

Astarion’s eyes softened as the corner of his mouth twitched up fondly. He then made a show of rolling his eyes before he buried his face back into her neck.

“You are quite mad, aren’t you?” he mumbled, unable to keep a smile out of his words. “I’ll go to my second grave before I apologize for what we just did.”

_______________________________

The sounds of muffled shuffling outside the tent woke Astarion the next morning. He tracked the sound with his ears, unwilling to open his eyes and rouse himself from his sleepy haze.

Eli lay pressed up against him in his arms, her head nestled near his chest. He’d pulled a blanket over them at some point during the night in an effort to retain the warmth coming off her body. Considering his undead nature, he could only sap her body heat from her, rather than contribute to it, and that fact bothered him a bit more now than it had in the past.

He traced a finger lazily across her back, feeling the ridges and divots of multiple angry scars she had no memory of earning. Eli’s body was a war story, just as damaged as her broken mind with twisted scarring and gnarled blemishes that held their secrets close. They were the remnants of a brutality that was difficult to reconcile with the person he’d come to know Eli as, and it made her all the more beautiful for it.

He didn’t mind her brokenness, and he was comforted by her imperfection. He knew all to well what it was like to be torn open over and over…

The clang of a cookpot being hoisted over the camp’s fire caused him to flinch, and Eli stirred, yawning into his bare chest.

Astarion opened his eyes, blinking as they focused in the gloom. Early morning shadows crept along the walls of the tent and he could now hear Gale’s distinct and nervous muttering as the wizard went about his morning routine, preparing coffee and some manner of breakfast near the center campfire. There was another voice, too, hushed and careful, as if the speaker didn’t want to be overhead.

“Oh, would you two stop squawking like a pair of gossipy hens!” Karlach’s voice boomed out over the hushed muttering, both scolding and amused in tone. “You both are just jealous it wasn’t either of you causing that racket last night. Hells knows I am,” she bemoaned.

“Is that what Gale and Wyll are prattling on about?” Lae’zel’s voice barked from over near her tent. “Sex can provide excellent relief from the stresses of our chaotic situation. It is both a healthy and helpful activity, though I am assuming neither of you have much familiarity with its benefits considering how you chatter like scandalized adolescents.”

Eli cut off a laugh in the back of her throat and Astarion smirked.

Gale and Wyll had begun to boisterously protest before Karlach interrupted, clearly directing her next statement in the direction of Eli’s tent.

“They might as well get out here so we can properly taunt them for not inviting any of us!”

Eli rolled onto her back then sat up, shrugging the blanket off and arching her spine in a fluid stretch, arms raised. Wordlessly, she then bent down, kissing him with a tenderness that made his chest ache, before she leaned away and stood, beginning to dress.

“Sorry, Karlach, but I draw the line at superheated engine that could melt my face off and angry unstable bomb that could level a small city when considering who I sleep with.” Eli pulled her shirt over her head and turned to wink at him before she unfastened the tent flap and stepped out into camp.

Karlach’s boisterous laughter greeted her and Astarion frowned as the tent flap fell back into place, leaving him alone with thoughts he needed to sort through.

Denial wasn’t going to work any longer. And gods, was he in trouble.

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