Chapter Text
“I will be seeing you.”
Those were the last words you’d heard from Astarions lips before watching his back as he walked out of the Elfsong. Your friends around you, hackles raised in your defense. The argument had started the night you’d defeated the Netherbrain. In the middle of celebration and ale, he’d come to you, offering again the chance to be by his side.
“Forever, my pet, forever with me.” He practically begged you, but you’d come to know this new version of him far too well, the begging was a pretense, just what he thought would be most convincing in the moment.
“I’m not letting you turn me, Astarion.” You’d rebuffed him, plainly and clearly, same as before.
“I don’t have to ask, you know.” He narrowed his eyes predatorially.
“Excuse me?” You let your voice rise over the din of the crowd, alerting your friends to the conversation. You weren’t sure how progressed his powers had become, but right now in this crowded pub, even a vampire ascendant, whatever it was, would be completely overpowered.
He leaned back, disengaging from you, and signaling his exit from the tavern. “You’ll hide behind others, but eventually, there won’t be anyone to shield you.”
“See you, Astarion.” You spoke through clenched teeth. Your hackles stayed raised until you felt Wyll clap you on the shoulder, mug of ale in hand. Halsin, Shadowheart and Gale quickly surrounded you with smiles and uplifted spirits. Astarions words lingered in your head for a few hours, and again days later.
Weeks passed, no sign of him. Your friends all scattered off into their own adventures. First was Karlach and Wyll, off to Avernus to keep her safe. Quickly followed by Halsin, eager to be done with the hustle of Baulder’s Gate. Months pass, you settle into life in the city, finding the power vacuum left behind, and fitting yourself neatly into the hole. You aid in reestablishing a City Watch. You broker deals with local guilds and merchants. You finally find yourself sitting on the newly established council, one of just a few whose voices make the major decisions in the city.
With the work you put in, you begin to plan to set down roots, a mansion in the city, a keep even. But for now, you remain comfortable in the Elfsong, and it remains comfortable with you. You return home one night after an extensive session with one of your favorite barristers, and the barkeep waves to you.
“Visitor in your rooms, ma’am.” He says, wiping the same spot on the counter repeatedly. You feel a twinge of contempt.
“You’re just letting anyone in anywhere now?” You question, finding comfort in the hilt of your dagger.
“Said he knew you. Some magistrate from the upper city.”
You sigh, thanking him reluctantly. It could be one of any 600 magistrates vying for your attention. A house call wasn’t the best way to go about it. You open the door of your rooms, not seeing anyone immediately, you remove your cloak and return it to it’s place near the door.
“Hello?” You call, with no response. You step through your rooms. “I appreciate a go getter, but this is my private-”
Sat in the corner you’ve come to use as an office, draped languidly in the chair, sits Astarion, devilish smile painted across his face. In his gloved hands, a large envelope.
“Hello darling.” His voice drips with mockery, or is it a false modesty?
“A magistrate.” You mutter to yourself. It’s obvious to you now. Your hand moves back to the hilt of your dagger, not by instinct. “What do you want?”
“Well now, is that anyway to greet an old friend?” He chuckles, standing. He seems taller, or maybe he’s just more imposing. You cross your arms in response.
“Anyway, I’m simply extending an invitation to dinner. As a property owner and prominent figure with interests in the city, I think it’s past time I was treated to a visit by the city's newest up and comer.”
He extends the envelope to you, sealed tightly with string and wax. A part of you is intrigued at this obvious non-invitation, another part wonders if it’s a bomb set to go off once you open it, and yet another part wonders what his gloved hands would feel like gripping your thighs-
“I’ll see you tomorrow, 7.” He grins as you take the weight of the envelope in your hands. “And darling? Wear something white.”
He makes his exit. You don’t watch him leave this time, setting the envelope on your desk and attempting to recover your senses. He’s always been a character, but now his presence felt like a force, oppressive and thick.
A clock on the wall ticks away the minutes, your eyes stay glued to the envelope. Either it explodes or it doesn’t, but he was never the type not to use explosives. And if he wanted you dead, he could have and would have done it while here, and left no trace behind.
You open the envelope, on top, a letter, written in his elegant script, but before you can read it, the second page catches your eye. It’s a correspondence, or a copy of it, between you and a certain watch captain, promising to let a select few burglaries get lost in the fray of paperwork. You start to feel sweat build on your forehead. The page after that, records of transfers between you and a guild contact, your pseudonym prominently displayed along with documentation tying it directly to you.
Your mind races. Page after page a testament to what you’ve done to gain your say in the city. Every bribe and threat and back alley deal printed in black and white.Each one more damning than the last, and if anyone found this-
Astarion.
He had this. You scramble to find his letter among the mess of papers you have created, ripping the seal and pouring over the refined script.
‘Seven o’clock sharp.
Be on time, my treasure.
-A’
You gather every piece of paper that came from the envelope, including his condescending letter, and toss it in the fireplace. A quick snap of your fingers and all the evidence is up in smoke, ashes in your chimney.
The clock chimes the hour, and you force yourself to calm, slip into bed, and spend a restless night preparing your plan of attack. He’s gotten you on your back foot, but that doesn’t mean you can’t come back swinging.
You spend most of the next day pulling leads and calling in favors, searching for any hint of his plans. But he’s a ghost, no one has heard of him, nor have they done dealings with him. Before long you realize you have to get changed, or you’re going to be late.
“Fuck.” You rush out the door, then think better of following his instructions, and force yourself to move across the city at a leisurely pace.
The clocks are well past 7 when you arrive on his doorstep, the evening air filling your lungs and helping focus your mind on strategy.
A pretty young tiefling takes your cloak, her eyes the bright red of a spawn. Her lips part then clamp shut as she takes in the healed over scars on your neck. You wonder if he’s been feeding them. She avoids your eyes as she leads you deep into the mansion. He’s certainly wasted no time in redecorating, stripping the reds and blacks in favor of blues and purples, gold and silver accenting every door. You have to admit it’s an improvement.
You finally reach the dining room, laid with a large, long table, two chairs at each end. The tiefling leaves you there alone, closing the door and giving you a chance to snoop. The walls are ornately decorated with paintings, Astarion always seemed to have good taste in art, even if he couldn’t produce it himself. And for the pieces that weren’t good, they at least looked expensive.
A door clicks behind you, Astarion enters, frowning for only a second as his eyes travel to your dress, red, a subtle middle finger. You see him force a smile.
“Darling.” He says, voice dripping with false familiarity.
“Astarion.” You nod. You’re not about to play his game and let him forget how he got you here. He studies your face, gaze lingering on your lips, then on the puncture wounds on your neck.
“Come,” He beckons you to a corner of the room you hadn’t explored yet, a wine cabinet. “I’ll let you pick the libations for the evening.”
You hesitate, narrowing your eyes. The Astarion you’d broken up with wouldn’t let you make the choice to bring ruin to the world, let alone the choice in wine. A voice in the back of your mind screams at you to leave. You ignore it, if only for curiosity's sake.
“This one.” You present a red from a farm north of town who’s owner happened to owe you a small sum, under the table, of course.
“Excellent choice dear.” You try not to watch his hands expertly pop the bottle open, the way the muscles twist beneath his skin pulling the cork. A glass is passed to you, and you force a smile. One sip and it burns the back of your throat, an unpleasant fume filling your sinuses as you swallow. If the farmer was a good wine maker, he wouldn’t have needed your help.
Astarion pulls out a chair gesturing you towards it. You study his face, looking for some weakness, some answer, anything to grip onto that would tell you tonight will go your way. He studies you back.
Soon, spawn flood the room, laying out plates of fresh food, lavish and expensive fruits and vegetables. It’s more than you can eat, and more than he could ever need. You wonder if he eats like this every night.
Despite your stomach urging you to eat, you hold your fork still.
"Please," he says, noticing your hesitation. "eat."
"So you can poison me?" You ask, poking at a pheasant breast with your knife.
"Do you really think so low of me?" He asks. He gives you the big round hurt eyes that used to melt your knees. Now they only arouse suspicion.
"I think lower of you every day since you ascended. So no, poison is not off the table." You remark, finally taking a bite. You watch his reaction to this comment carefully, will he erupt like he so often had? Or does he feel petty remarks as useless as arrows on a steel plate?
A twitch at the corner of his mouth gives away his otherwise composed demeanor. That one hurt, and he has a million responses to hurt you back. But he doesn’t rise to it. Odd.
"Well, seeing it through your eyes, literally, it was an excellent move." He smirks. God that awful smirk. You loved it and hated it.
"I’m not sure I know what you mean." You sip your wine.
"Why, for your plans, of course. You got a powerful ascendant vampire to help you destroy the Brain, and you put an expiration date on our friendship by turning me into a monster.”
You choke. Your eyebrows raise. "I only did what you'd asked of me."
“But when I asked for you to stay by my side forever, you suddenly had a say? Were you frightened that I finally had more power than you? That I no longer needed to come to you for help?”
"You're assuming a lot about me, Astarion." You spit, trying to keep your voice from raising.
“It’s not an assumption at all. You pushed Wyll into another pact, giving him the power to fight the Brain and, wouldn’t you know it, had him sent to Avernus right after. You forced Shadowheart away from her goddess so you could have an assimir at your beck and call. I think she lives at home with her parents now. The second Gale got a chance at the power he’d always wanted, you convinced him to give it all up in the end. Every decision you made was calculated to use our talents for your own gain, while proverbially neutering us after. I was a fool to think you wouldn’t use me as you’d used others, even when I could see you were always a power hungry bitch.”
“Enough!” You yell, rising to your feet, your knife flies across the room, landing squarely where his head was, because he of course dodged it, his speed astonishing as ever.
There’s a silence as you try to quell your emotions. He gives you a cruel smile. This was part of the game. You’d just lost.
He yanks the knife from his chair and meanders down the table, studying the damage to the steel. “Why don’t we talk about why you’re actually upset? That nasty little dossier I made for you?”
You stare at the table in front of you, hands pressed firmly against the dark mahogany. Anger roars through your ears. You fight to focus on the words, anything really, that can bring you an advantage in this verbal battle. He so easily manipulated your emotions. You knew he would do it and yet it still worked.
He lifts your chin, pulling your attention to his eyes, his face, that soft pouty lip. "Tsk tsk, pet, did you really think I’d allow you to traipse around the city accumulating power, my power for yourself? You think I’d let you put your face on fucking recruitment posters across my city?”
You pull away, putting distance between you two.
He takes your glass of wine, sipping greedily and turning towards a large violent painting of an eagle downing a sparrow.
"Who do you think funded all those bribes?"
Your heart sinks. No.
"Who do you think pointed all those merchants and magistrates in your direction?"
Tears threaten the brims of your eyes.
“Who do you think put you on that council that you’re so proud of?”
You shake your head. He’s lying. You put in the work to get where you are. Every late night deal, every vote, every handshake. It was you. “I made those deals.”
"Oh, poppet" he sighs, half leaning, half sitting on the edge of the table. "Did you really think you'd climbed the ladder in the Gate so quickly on your own? No, dearest, I made you."
You realize the only way for him to have all the evidence he had was for this to be true. All the work you’d done, precision cuts to concentrate power into the hands of a few especially receptive individuals. It was all his deep shadow manipulations. And now he’d brought you here to gloat, to show you how much he could still control without your input.
"But not to fret," he smirks. "I don't intend to stop you now. In fact, I need you to keep going."
He set down your glass, having drunk half of it himself. "You see, I think I learned something from our tentacled friend. There is something to be gained from working in the underground, having a hand in all the pots without anyone else seeing your hand. While he had Duke Belynne, I thought who better than my beloved herself?"
Your stomach turns.
"Now, you've made a few choices I don't agree with. The City Watch plans, your face on posters, not my first choice. As your gracious benefactor, I thought it prudent to inform you of my dissent."
Your throat burns from holding back tears. You try to wrap your brain around why. You can't come up with a reason why he'd put so much effort into you. He needs you still, otherwise you'd have no doubt he'd have already killed you.
"What do you want?" You want him, need him to get to his point, so you can leave, so you can scream into your pillows and bang your fists and curse his name.
He looks down his nose at you, calm, too calm and too gently. "You."
A feeling rushes over you, a warmth, looking at him now, you can almost see him as he was on the night you'd first touched his lips, and felt his skin on yours. That was a manipulation then. This is a manipulation now.
"Wrong answer. What do you want?"
His lip twitches, forehead tense. You’ve displeased him. Good, you think. He grabs your arm and pulls you closer, pinning your arms between your bodies.
"I never lied to you, my treasure." His breath hits your skin, sweet from a combination of the wine and the scent of blood. "I wanted you and me, until the end of the world. And after that too. I still want that."
You wriggle free, backing against a wall, as far from him as you can get.
“You were right to give me distance,” He says, closing the distance between you, one barely perceptible step at a time. “You knew I needed it to clear my head, to remember what we were, together. All I want now is to keep you safe, keep you happy, which is why I’ve done this all for you.”
"I have to go." You mutter, moving towards the door.
"Stay, please?" he catches your wrist in a stone hand. It’s the most vulnerable you’ve seen him be since his transformation. It sends a shiver down your spine. You shake your head, inching towards the door.
"Then just one night.” He begs. “Forget everything else. Just one night here. With me.” He plants a kiss on your forehead, fingers gently holding your upper arms.
“I’ve missed you.” A hand wraps around your back, sliding up your spine and burying itself in your hair. You can't help but sigh, tension melting from your shoulders. The cool of his skin seeping into yours is familiar and strange. He smells like sandalwood and campfire, filling your senses with cherished memories.
Hugging him back feels odd, you remember the first time, he'd been slow to adjust, but had accepted it so fully, so gratefully. It had broken your heart the way he gripped your shirt, holding on as long as you would allow. The memory wraps itself around the present, filling your heart again.
He plants a kiss on your neck, hovering his mouth over your scars where he'd feed so many times.
The feel of his nose pressed against your warm skin, his teeth carefully scraping over the muscles in your neck, it was all such a comfort. Back, when you didn't have any demands aside from defeating the tadpole in your head, this was your favorite reprieve.
"Come to bed with me." He commands in a soft voice, low and lurid. It sends a warm sensation through your core. You nod, letting him release you and lead you through the mansion, finding yourself in a large bedroom, bathed with rich purples and blues, golds accenting nearly everything.
He takes your hand, holding just your fingertips, and drags you to the bed. He sits, pulling you into his lap, his hands gripping your thighs. Your hands hold his face as you capture his lips in yours. His teeth scratch the soft flesh of your lower lip, a bead of blood rising to the surface. The moment his tongue catches the taste, a low growl emanates from his chest.
In one swift motion, you're on your back, Astarion over you. His hands work your skirt up to your waist, knees pushing your thighs apart. He abandons your mouth to settle himself on the floor, hands holding your thighs open while his lips explore their soft insides.
The cold air on your sensitive cunt forces you to take a deep breath, but it's his teeth sinking into your thigh that takes it away. A familiar warm sensation washes over you. A warmth and a want. Soon, you feel your hips buck involuntarily. He pulls away from your thigh and wipes his lips on the back of his hand.
He kisses the wounds until they've stopped weeping, then turns his attention to the other side, kissing and licking you, progressively moving up closer to the apex of your legs. A few times, you feel his breath hit your wet lips, and it drives you to whine and buck, hoping to get more contact.
Finally, after what feels like hours, he buries his tongue in your warm sex. His lips and tongue move in a practiced symphony, careful to avoid hitting your most sensitive areas with his teeth. He undoes you in a way only he knows how. His mouth traverses you as easily as a well known path.
Before your mews and moans can reach a fever pitch, he stops, using his sleeve to wipe your juices off his face and climbing up to meet your face.
"I've missed your sounds, my love." He unties his trousers, one hand making quick work and pulling his cock out to rest against your opening. Your breath hitches, your hips bucking towards it.
"Tell me you're mine" he says, brushing the hair from your face. "I want to hear it from those marvelous lips."
You swallow hard, the blood is no longer in your head. His crimson eyes plead with you.
"I'm yours-" you're cut off short as he enters you, slowly and fully.
You shudder. You'd forgotten how perfectly he fit into you, how when he moved his hips, he hit just the right spots.
"Astarion." You sigh, bucking your hips into his. He stands at the edge of the bed, watching you down his perfect nose as he slides in and out of you, his hands roaming everywhere before settling on your hips, holding you in place. You prop yourself up on your elbows, watching his beautiful form slam into yours over and over.
"Sing for me, little lark" he croons, using the pet name he'd give you in your first trist. It elicited a low groan and several moans. Soon, his own cries were matching yours beat for beat.
Your head falls back, the pressure building, his hand catches your throat, threatening your windpipe in the most delicious way. It pushes you closer and closer to the edge, until finally, you feel your orgasm rip through your body, squeezing him inside. He grunts and his own climax follows yours, his body shudders as you contract around him through your bliss.
He pulls out of you, soft with a wispy string of your cum clinging to both of you. You lay with your eyes closed, feeling the heat in your abdomen fade, your breathing slow, your heartbeat in your ear slowly quiets.
Astartion lays next to you, running his fingers through your hair, pulling at knots, unfastening the pins you’ve put in it and letting it lay pooled beneath your head. “Gods, you’re beautiful.” He mutters, turning your face towards him. You open your eyes, taking in his pale face, angular jaw, and eyes luridly taking you in. “Stay with me tonight.” He mutters, burying his face into the crook of your neck, dappling kisses along the soft skin.
“Yes.” You sigh, letting him pull at the lacing of your dress. He helps you up, unfastening each sleeve, undressing you from head to toe. As your dress slides down, the dagger hidden in your bodice comes into view, and you blush at the caution you’d taken hours ago. You hadn’t even known if it could kill him, but it was better than nothing.
“Naughty, naughty,” He rubs his thumb on your reddening cheek. You unfasten the blade yourself and lay it on the bedside table. Finally, you turn your attention to him, pulling him apart button by button, lace and eyelet, kisses peppered over his chilled skin.
As you fall asleep in his arms, you think of what tomorrow could bring. Another confrontation, another manipulation, another backstab. Any of it is possible with Astarion. But in this moment, you feel in your gut that you’re safe. For now, you can savor the space in his arms until you fall asleep.