Chapter Text
Variation was the spice of life.
Astarion did enjoy his little mage on his knees, debauched, crying and absolutely unable to form any words. Which was why this had been his default status for the last three months. But in the name of trying new things, he had offered a day out.
It went well for about two hours. Gale was…cute. It was a strange word for a grown, bearded man with broad shoulders and grey in his hair. He was flitting around like a magpie playing dress-up, gathering books over books over books. “Oh, this is a first edition! Isn’t it marvelous?”
“Depends. If you want to eat it, I do understand that you want the right vintage.”
He missed Gale’s blush. His wizard ducked his head instead and brushed his hair behind his ear, displaying the nervous ticks of a teenage girl. It wasn’t as good, but a nice enough consolation price.
Astarion took in the book. There was a faint magical aura around it. “My dear wizard…could you still?”
Gale ducked his head. Licked over his lips. Not only "could" then. He wanted to. Of course he did. Consuming power in this form was a pleasure that only Gale really knew. It had been a hunger once, a nescessity. Now it could be an indulgence. Like Gale’s blood for Astarion. “I don’t have to any more, don’t worry.”
“Darling. Do I look worried?” He showed his fangs, leaned forward, to whisper into Gale’s ear. His endearing little consort still shuddered whenever he bit it. “Did you have your eye on something special, that you might want to consume?”
Gale looked at him, shy, a bit taken aback, then bit his lip.
Astarion wanted to drink him dry once again. This was, why he should sometimes just give nice and mundane things to his pet. He got presents out of it, golden opportunities. “I will make you a deal, Gale of Waterdeep. You get whatever precious trinket has caught your fancy and I will get these over there and you will wear them for me.”
Gale followed the arch of his finger and when he recognized, what Astarion was pointing at, he turned stiff. It were bracelets, beautifully made, out of a black metal that seemed to eat the light around it. Anti-magic-bracelets. Put on the wrist of any wizard, they would hinder him from doing even the simplest of tricks. There was a moment, when Astarion knew that his pet was going to say no and so he put his free hand in Gale’s hair and pulled. The wizard gasped. He started to smell aroused like the good, trained puppy he was. “I will feed the item to you. You will be my good, precious boy while feasting.”
Gale swallowed. He tried to look at him, then looked away, ashamed, probably from the lust crushing over him in waves. He nodded.
“Use your words, pet.”
“I will wear the bracelets. I will be at your mercy, helpless. I will love it.”
“You are already helpless and at my mercy.” He let go of Gale’s hair, so he could brush his finger over the other’s neck, let them toy with the scarf, that hid his bite marks. “But you will be cut off from her. Totally.”
No Mystra. Not watching, not stretching out a hand. Astarion remembered how Gale had taught him magic, the first tentative little steps. He remembered feeling Mystra near and for a moment even liking it.
He wanted her GONE. He needed her gone. Every time Gale used a spell, Mystra was close, touching his shoulder. Every spell was an act of worship. Astarion wanted the magic gone. At the same time that would have meant to make Gale give up Godhood, near infinite power and that would have been quite stupid.
Gale blinked and turned his head. He was lovely, if one happened to like buff wizards with a twinkle in their eyes and a swagger that was all bark, no bite. It had not been Astarion’s type when he had still been alive, he was quite sure of that. But death had opened his eyes to a few things. How lovely brown eyes could be while crying or begging was one of them. How delicious it was, to see them tainted red, an obvious sign of ownership. How one could get lost in the scent of paper and tea and blood was another.
Gale had a look on his face that didn’t sit well with Astarion. He wasn’t gone on arousal or shame about said arousal or was fearing what would happen to him. Instead he looked as if he was trying to solve a puzzle that had him slightly worried. He licked his lips. “Astarion, you do –“
A commotion at the entrance of the shop stopped him from asking whatever question had taken his fancy. Us came running through the door, something white and fluffy carried in front of it via telekinesis. For everyone else it looked like a cat, carrying it’s meal in it’s mouth.
“We caught something! Kittys catch a lot of little prey. We did not yet feast on this one. It has a pretty bow. It would look good on us! Kittys often display signs of their master’s affection!”
“I think you misunderstood something, Us.”
“Nonsense! Pretty bows for pretty kittys.” Astarion threw the books behind him and grinned as Gale hastened to catch them all with a spell. He went to his knees and loosened the bow from the small dog and put it on the devourer’s tentacle. The illusion made it look as if he had put a few strands of hair on the cat’s hair together with it. “My. What a dastardly good looking kitty you are.”
Us preened. It glowed and jumped up and down and then started to look at Gale with clear expectation simmering around it. The wizard had just brought order to the books, making them fly around them and then stared down at the mind devourer. He had never quite understood, why Astarion had kept it or at least he pretended he didn’t. He had a soft spot for everything if you let him get away with it. Sweet, helpless, guileless thing that he was.
Us put one claw on Gale’s boot. The bow wipped up and down. The small dog started to cool between them. Gale sighed deeply. “You look very pretty indeed.”
Us hummed and hopped around, full of energy, the cute little thing.
Of course, someone had to try to rain on their parade. The woman was of either noble birth or had married someone with a title and lots of money. Human, in her fifties. Her blood would have been ghastly, overly sweet and thinned with cigarettes and alcohol. “There is that beast!” she pointed at Us, so the guards behind her knew what she meant. “It took off with – oh! PUMPKIN!”
She ran past them and cradled the dead dog against her chest. Tears started to smear her face. It was such a pathetic display that Astarion made a step away from her, just so it wouldn’t rub off on him. Ugh. He just had a moment. The impertinence of people.
“THIS BEAST KILLED MY DOG!”
“Such a shame.” Astarion smiled. It probably did not reach his eyes. He had long since given up on trying to charm everyone. It just wasn’t worth the hassle anymore. People should try to impress him, earn his mercy, not the other way around. Sadly, some humans did have to be taught that lesson. “Us must have mistaken it for a rat. You have to see how this had to happen at some point.”
She blinked, not unlike an owl. Her fingers were clatched into the furry beast.
“It was tiny and ugly. Are you sure it WASN’T a rat?” If you had to spell out your jokes they really lost all their proverbial bite. The woman screeched and jumped forward. She hit an invisible wall just in front of Asterion. He grinned. One of the guards stepped up and pulled her back. She started crying, wailing really. Quite the ugly sight.
Gale stepped up to him, one finger raised to keep the wall up. It was probably more to save the woman from Astarion than the other way round. “That was needlessly cruel” he whispered, something of admonishment in his voice.
“Oh, don’t pretend. If Tara had eaten her parrot, you wouldn’t.”
“I would not call the parrot ugly though. Or a pigeon.”
“Why not? It is not as if you need the likes of her to accept you. Look at that little pest and tell me, that Us did not lower their standards to feast on it.”
Us came closer, put one claw on Gale’s foot. The bow on its tentacle whipped up and down. It didn't even change it's tactics a little bit. “Did we do bad?”
One could watch how the resistance drained out of the wizard. His heart was still so soft. One could punch it and squeeze it and strangle it and it just plopped up, right back into the old shape. It was one of Astarion’s favorite games.
“No,” Gale said and crouched down to pet Us. It was always a little funny to watch him trying to not gag while brushing his fingers over quivering, slimy brain matter. “You did quite well. And you do look exceedingly pretty.”
“Sirs.” The one guard who wasn’t consoling the crying woman stepped forward. “We need to speak with you about your…cat.” He seemed taken aback by that. Us sprang into Gale’s arms and watched him. The illusion showed a big, fluffy cat with soulful eyes. It also had blood on its fur. “If it kills pets, you need to keep it inside. Do you have a permit to have an animal of prey?”
“It’s a cat.” Astarion put a hand on his chest. “And that beast down there attacked us! Our cat only protected itself and us. It is normally calm as a cup of chamomile tea.”
Gale snorted and then tried to hide it by getting the blood off of Us. Guileless. He could talk circles around anyone if he didn’t want to answer a question, but getting him to actually lie about something was like pulling teeth – just without the fun part.
Astarion enhanced his own words with magic, just so he could get away from the interruption. He was in the mood to kill something or fuck Gale or maybe just both.
„Look at our cat. It is quite distraught itself. And I can assure you, as a Lord of great renown, if I wanted to walk around with a predator I would get myself an owlbear. Us is quite clearly distraught. I think the rat – pardon, dog – smelled the treats I keep for her in my pocket. It tried to jump at me and Us went in between. Quite the hero, if you ask me.“
The guard nodded, dazed, then went over to the woman to talk with her.
Gale came closer, stood behind Astarion, so he could whisper. He still hadn’t quite mastered their new connection and never managed to speak into Astarion’s mind if Astarion did not initiate the conversation.
“Why do you want to buy the bracelets?”
“Darling. I do remember how you taught me magic. The embrace of Mystra. I do think we would do quite well without her constantly hovering over us, luring you away. You are bound to stray, my weak willed little pet.”
“It is not like that. Not anymore.” Gale looked wistful for a moment. Astarion did not care for it. “I wield the Karsus Weave now. Or. Well. Maybe the Gale Weave. Waterdeep Weave. The naming is still inconclusive. As it stands though, it is… Separate to the original Weave. Wielding it is exceedingly lonely.”
Was it now. How delicious. His little mage looked quite desolate while saying it too. “Show me.”
Astarion opened the connection between them, so he would be able to feel what Gale was feeling, would know if there still was even a slither of Mystra.
“Alright. Let’s do some lights again, shall we?”
“Oh no. Nothing so mundane. Let’s have fun with it. How about…” He looked over to where the now ratless woman was standing, trying to persuade the charmed guard to arrest them, to do something. “A little fire, maybe…”
Gale followed his gaze. His face scrunched up, adorably devastated by the idea. He still knew that it would be impossible to argue against it. And he would never not go along with what Astarion wanted. He couldn’t have, of course. As his dark consort, he had given Astarion all the reigns, the leash. But Astarion never had to use them. It was it’s own kind of power and he relished it.
“Haven’t we tortured the poor woman enough?”
“Oh hush. You love it.”
“I really don’t.”
“It will make me smile. You would burn down the world for that, wouldn’t you pet?”
The “yes” was quiet and broken and a little lost. Astarion put his fingers on Gale’s neck, curled them. He pushed down, under Gale’s shirt and the collar. He could feel his wizard going boneless and pliant. He was so easy. Hungry.
The actual steps were very close to what they had done back in camp, when they had both been different people. But when the magic swelled, when the connection to the...no, to a weave…was established, there was no warm embrace, nor touch or barely there kiss. It was just his wizard and him, alone in a vastness that felt like a night which had lost all its predators.
Astarion could feel Gale’s devastation, the way he himself started to expand, to try to fill this vastness. How the darkness itself hungered. Gale truly was his own God. How miserable it had to make him.
The whole weave became Gale, stretched thin, latching onto Astarion’s presence like a moth to a flame. He was even more needy than usual. He would probably beg and cry for the vampire to not leave him alone in his kingdom of power. A kneeling, desperate God.
“Magnificent.” Astarion whispered it and closed his fist. Flames sprang up all over the coat of the woman. When she smelled the smoke, she turned around, started to scream and ran out of the door, the guard on her heels.
Beside him, his wizard couldn’t decide if he wanted to look blissed out or deeply ashamed. A combination of both won, until Astarion grabbed his hair and pulled him close. His wizard was easy enough. Astarion bit his ear, ignoring the whispers around him. “Well, darling. You should have told me before, don’t you think?”
“I… I did not think… It seemed to be evident to me and –“
“It wasn’t. If it had been, we would have had this discussion much sooner. You will teach me how to use your weave, won’t you? How to tap into your power and wield it?”
“Yesssss.”
“Very good, pet. You also will seize to ever teach anyone else again. No more disciples.” He put his fingers against his little god’s temple. “This is mine. It is only fair. I get no spawn. You get no disciples.”
The thought alone, of someone being in Gale’s head, of tapping into that power… It was an intimate thing. And it would be using him. Of course Gale would let himself be used. He would always seek to be of service, so he would be liked. So he would, maybe, be enough for the moment. A goal he would never achieve. It was a pleasure, of course, to have his consort this gift wrapped for use. But it also stirred something in him – an ancient feeling, unsettling and biting. Quite like hunger. Or an itch. He wondered if it would lessen, if he painted the floor in red. Just whose blood to spill…
Gale did not say no. As if he ever would. He did look doubtful though, avoiding eye contact. It could have been the whispers and stares around them. He had yet to take to that, to be able to leave the world behind and only see Astarion. It happened for short moments but Astarion had to help.
It could have been that. It could have also been, that he did not want to give up disciples, as if that was something that had ever really worked for him.
Astarion licked over his neck. “We will still get the bracelets, of course.”
“Why?”
“Because. I will feed you that book and then we will put them on you. You will be helpless. And I will devour you. You will be my good boy. My good, powerless boy.” He grinned. Gale’s arousal smelled of burnt cinnamon. “Don’t get hard, pet. We are in public.”
Astarion left him there and bought everything. Feeding Gale power was a heady thought. He cherished it. He would still have to hear him say, that he wouldn’t teach anyone else ever again. When he turned around, Gale stood in front of him, a cocksure smile on his face, that meant, he was insecure about something trivial.
“Don’t you think, this would be the perfect opportunity to visit Waterdeep with me? I have a glorious, well stocked kitchen. I could offer you the meal of a life time! Well. More than one lifetime. Unlifetime. Existence? I sound like I am bragging, but I do assure you that I had a lot of time on my hands and it only seems fair. Seeing as you are providing for me in different manners.”
“Gale of Waterdeep…do you want to bring me home? Shall I introduce myself to your mother?”
He was joking, a hand on his breast. When he saw Gale’s eye twitch, he laughed. He couldn’t help it and didn’t try. “Oh darling! You jest, surely? Even in your romantic, befuddled mind you need to see how absurd that is.”
“Yes. Quite absurd, indeed. I assure you, I was merely thinking of showing you around. And I would like to look at all the mail that must have amassed in my absence! There is probably quite the formidable wall of paper in front of my tower!”
“Is that so.” It would have its advantages. Until now, the tower – and to an extent Waterdeep – was something, that belonged to Gale alone. Nothing should belong to the wizard and not be touched, formed by Astarion. It was an oversight that had to be corrected at some point. Why not now? “Well. I wouldn’t want to let your mail pile up to the first floor. Just remember to be grateful.”
Gale nodded, the smile warming up his hole face. He took Astarion’s hand and then teleported them away.
*~*~*
It was a strange thing, having Astarion in his tower. In his city. He looked right at home, which was, what Gale had anticipated. Astarion was king, God, wherever he went.
He looked around, touched everything with these long fingers of his. Gale had started to form an obsession with these. He saw them and imagined them in his mouth. It was exceedingly unnerving. It was even worse when he should be angry with the man or disgusted with himself for allowing to happen, what had happened in that shop. Neither the woman nor her dog had deserved their fate and Gale wanted to think about them, feel bad for them and about himself and instead, he was highly aware of the tome under Astarion’s arm, the weave licking over it. The words “good boy” ran on repeat in Gale’s mind. He was easy, it seemed. At least in Astarion’s hands he had always been unnervingly easy. And sometimes he looked at Astarion, watched him watching him, saw the hunger in his eyes and felt at peace.
His dead, cold heart gave a little flutter, watching Astarion in this space. Thinking about cooking for him, feeding him. Astarion sleeping in his bed.
Tara and Us were running upstairs already. The tressym probably wanted to show her charge where the best place for catching pigeons was. They had noticed that Us could devour brains and Tara the rest and they tended to hunt together.
Astarion found his way into the kitchen and onto a chair. His gaze found Gale’s. “Well then. Cook, dear.”
Gale stumbled forward to do so. He was already nervous. Only at camp had there been people to watch him cooking and then it hadn’t been quite the affair, he was planning now. He started to open cupboards and arrange utensils on the countertop, when Astarion stopped him.
“Little love.”
Gale could never, ever tell anyone how much he liked that particular nickname, how it made his stomach clench in anticipation and spread warmth, that would have heated his cheeks, had he been a mortal man.
“Yes?”
“Loose the shirt. I want to have something to look at.”
Gale scratched his nose. His skin prickled with an invisible blush. He knew better than to make Astarion wait, so he shrugged of his shirt – he still missed his robes – and put it over a chair. It felt uncivilized to prepare food with a bare torso. It felt like he should be doing something else, the way Astarion was watching him, hunger and amusement evident on his face. Gale knew he looked good – different than Astarion, sure, but good. He still never felt quite right in his own skin, when he was naked and people were looking at him in a sexual way. What he and Mystra had had, had been done in a status of bliss, religious fervor. Even when it had been somewhat corporal, Gale had felt close to being drugged by magic and that certain kind of closeness and intimacy magic allowed him.
He felt flustered way too easily, he had noticed. And being watched by Astarion had the unnerving side effect of reminding him of all the things they had done. Things that all were…well. Marvelous in the moment. And seemed nothing like him an hour later.
Astarion watched him with that lascivious grin that meant he was preparing a special kind of treat for later. Or that he imagined where he might make Gale bleed to lap it all up. Gale shuddered and started to prepare the food, trying to ignore that he was half hard, as if he were an inexperienced youth on his first outing.
“I am preparing a pan seared, honey glazed duck breast with hoisin sauce and a bed of spring vegetables. I can promise you that this will be the best thing about becoming a vampire lord. The flavour will be like nothing you ever had before.”
“I don’t know. Your blood has always had a flavor that was hard to beat. Especially when you are close to death and aroused by it.”
As if there was a time, he was close to Astarion and not aroused in any capacity. He put on a beaming smile. “Well. Years to perfect a recipe will do wonders, believe you me. I could have opened a restaurant. “Gale’s scrumptious bites” or something like that. An explosive new taste! Of course we would only done pick-up. Which might be a concept you are not familiar with, but at university, we-”
He talked. He babbled. He droned. And Astarion let him, which made Gale slightly more nervous. It was never quite a good sign when Astarion was this permissive, indulgent even. To be fair, “not a good sign” also meant “an exceptionally good sign” because something in Gale’s brain had gone terribly wrong. The orb had probably fried some vital parts, that would have kept him from craving whatever a dastardly evil vampire lord had to offer.
Or maybe that had been dying. If it was dying, he would probably at some day, find out and rearrange his brain accordingly.
When he offered the plate with a flourish and a little ta-da, he tried to ignore the miserable, nervous flutter of his dead heart. He forced himself to not wring his hands.
Astarion looked it over. “This looks very nice, pet. What’s to drink, though?”
Shit. Gale turned around. “Uh, I have a very nice red downstairs, summer vintage, it should –“
“Pet.”
“Yes?”
Astarion patted his lap. “Sit.”
He said it in the way that told Gale, he could not very well say no. He reacted on instinct, sat down on Astarion’s leg and let the other man pull him close. The proportions were all wrong. Gale wasn’t a small man. He wasn’t a young looking man. He was broader than Asterion and – to be quite frank – probably manlier, in the classic human way. But Astarion’s arms were unnaturally strong and Gale had started to lose his inhibitions regarding this. He indulged, truth be told. Sometimes he felt, like he was gorging himself on Astarion and this strange spell he had over him. He devoured intimacy and being wanted. He yearned for Astarion to be mean, for himself to be reduced to nothing and still be enough for Astarion. It sated something in him that he had not known was hungry.
Still. He wanted to do something for Astarion too. He kinda… Sometimes he dreamt about how they were, back in camp. Astarion had seemed like a shy boy back then. A shy boy hidden behind a façade of a sexual predator, sure enough, but he had been there. And Gale had been smitten and shy himself and still not quite over Mystra. He dreamt about lost chances. About showing that shy boy the stars, of taking his hand. Of whispering to him, that he was beautiful and glorious and oh so very, very breakable. But everything seemed to have it’s time. And the time for that boy had been long over. Gale could not regret it too much. Not when he knew he never had had the courage to do something about it and when he needed Astarion to be the one to hold the leash.
Astarion brushed his teeth over Gale’s neck, the bite marks that had started to turn gnarly and ugly. If he had still needed to breath, his breath would have hitched. As it was, he squirmed on Astarion’s lap, already growing hard and hating himself for it.
“I was trying to be romantic, not –“
“I know, darling. And you succeeded. But you can’t blame me for wanting to devour you, when you find new ways to prostate yourself before me, offering yourself up. You love me so. It is adorable.”
Astarion took a morsel of meat between his long fingers, ignoring the utensil beside the plate. He put it in his mouth and hummed. “Very good. You are quite the little cook, pet. Get the tome. You too should have a meal.”
He obeyed without thinking about it, levitating the tome towards them and onto the table. Old threads of the weave pulsated out of it, surrounded it. They clang to paper and ink and leather, sticky like sap. They had grown powerful over the years, like mushrooms, drawing in more and more flavor.
Inside of him the Karsus Weave pulsated. It hungered. It was under control, it was tame, but oh, how it would feel to sate it, to watch it grow.
Astarion took up another morsel of food and pushed it between Gale’s lips. The taste exploded in his mouth. He hummed and groaned, still imagining devouring the weave. Still there was the taste of one of his favorite meals and Astarion’s fingers pushing in and out, forcing a bliss into him, that made it hard to think.
His master hummed, let him suck the last bits of sauce from his fingers. “What I want to know, little love, is: Can you suck my cock, while feeding on the weave?”
He probably could. He wanted to. He sighed and nodded.
“Well then. On your knees, pet. I will eat and you will eat and afterwards-“
Astarion was interrupted by loud bang from downstairs.
The door.
No one should even know where the door was, unless Gale opened it.
Under him, Astarion turned rigid. The hand, that wasn’t in Gale’s mouth grabbed his collar and pulled. “I will fucking kill whoever is disturbing us.”
From downstairs a well known voice carried upstairs. “Gale, my boy?”
Elminster.