Chapter Text
Insolence. Noisome thing.
He turned the pages of his book. He turned the pages, and Cazador watched.
And it wasn’t just his hand, where it rested on the corner of the page; his eyes. Oh, those eyes, of which Cazador had been envious. Red eyes, white hair—
“You’re staring,” Astarion snapped. Not even looking up from his book. Flipping a page he couldn’t possibly have read. And that small, insolent scowl on his lips.
Cazador stared at him. Unmoving with his fingertips poised over a lanceboard piece.
“You know I hate your staring, darling.”
Darling. Cazador did not move an inch. But it was the way he said it. The way he always said it. With poison dripping from his haughty little tongue.
And Astarion had not looked up. Had turned one more page of his book. Was sitting with his legs crossed primly.
And they were both silent. Cazador put the opposing king in check.
The fire crackled, and Astarion turned the pages of his book. Cazador looked contemplatively on his lanceboard game, the armchair opposite him empty. The wine on the table undrunk. A teacup beside Astarion, full, cooled.
Astarion tucked a strand of his hair behind his ear. His lips working with concentration, as though what he read made him angry. The elegant way he wore his hair parted down the middle, now, the texture of his curls smoothed but not totally controlled.
Wear your hair as it was.
Oh, but now you’ve admitted to wanting something. Darling.
Astarion’s lip curled in a scowl. As did Cazador’s.
Cazador tucked his hair behind his ear. His hair, long and dark. Scented with oils. And he was almost sure Astarion wasn’t looking, but for the way his brows quivered slightly. Cazador paused. His hand still lingering over the lanceboard. He let his hair fall. And then, he tucked it behind his ear again.
Astarion shifted uncomfortably, the furrow in his brow increasing. He crossed his legs the other way. Cazador watched him flip two pages at once.
Cazador quietly knocked the king over and placed it beside the board. The corner of his mouth drawing up.
Something in the fire popped loudly.
Both of them jumped. Astarion dropped his book; Cazador bumped the table. Scowling down at his game, he puzzled over how to put the pieces back where they’d been. Working at it for several moments, he nearly forgot.
Forgot where he was. Forgot everything.
He looked up at Astarion suddenly. Where he bent to retrieve his fallen book, and that strand of hair had fallen into his face again.
Ascension had sharpened him. The thought passed fleetingly across Cazador’s mind, with a painful admixture; disgust, envy.
Grief.
It had sharpened them both. And now, they sharpened each other like iron. Sharpened each other, until they were shards, filings on the floor.
“Pathetic,” Cazador murmured.
Astarion looked at him now. A certain rotten anger in his eyes. That of passing each other in the halls and not even averting their eyes, of their shared mornings without even the pretense of caring for the other’s belongings, their necessities. Cazador could practically feel it—the casual way in which Astarion knocked over the bottles of his hair oil. How Cazador would open Astarion’s hair creams and leave them there. Use his special hair towels to dry his hands.
Of their two-hundred years. Three-hundred.
But now, abruptly, Astarion was smiling. His nails long, sharp, hard where they tapped on the retrieved book.
“Yes?” Cazador enquired.
“I love watching you play Lanceboard,” Astarion said.
Cazador raised an eyebrow. Surely he wouldn’t—
“It reminds me that even vampire lords can, from time to time—”
Cazador felt something in his chest. He straightened his back.
Astarion’s grin deepened. “—Possess the intellect of a kobold child. A slow one.”
Cazador sat up. His teeth sharpening in his mouth, his fists balling on his knees. Insolence!
But Astarion was still smiling. Still tapping his nails against the spine of the book.
Cazador scowled. “Can you not see that it is not my preference to play lanceboard alone?”
“Oh, no,” Astarion said, his eyes mockingly wide. Putting his hand to his throat in false shock. “Oh, no, might Lord Cazador like a little game? Oh, dear, I wonder who might provide it?” And he opened his book with an exaggerated gesture, pretending to read.
Cazador ground his teeth. This Lord business—
Astarion was tapping his nails louder. Grinning more widely.
“If you do not wish to play,” Cazador spat, “Why is it you’ve chosen to spend time with me?”
“Spend time—” Astarion tutted at him, his mockery of shock now tinged with the real. “Oh, yes. I suppose I could have spent this last hour in the stairwell. Perhaps clinging to the outside wall.”
“Boy,” Cazador said.
Now, Astarion’s features sharpened with rage. True rage. He gripped his book page and tore it, inelegantly tossing the book onto the side table.
And Cazador didn’t have time to shout no! before seeing Astarion take his clawed fingernails, in a practiced way, and plunge them straight into the side of his own throat, where his two bite marks stood. Sitting there, still, his legs crossed. With a prim smile on his face as his blood ran into his shirt.
Cazador clutched his throat and fell from his chair, rolling onto his back on the floor. Already his cold, sticky blood gouting in his hand. The pain was tremendous—
Vellioth—
Astarion marched up to him and, as though crushing an insect, put his boot on Cazador’s neck. Still smiling that same smile.
Vel—
And, despite the consequences, Astarion pressed his boot further into Cazador’s neck. Still holding his twin clawed nails into the bleeding mess of his throat, watching Cazador squeal in pain. Making himself wince, hiss, his own neck cricking and bruising with an invisible bootprint. But he pressed on. “That’s right,” Astarion said. “Vellioth.”
Cazador groaned torturously. Twisting in agony to hide the—
Oh, but Astarion was hard, too. Hard now because of Cazador’s own miserable want. Cazador could feel this taut flesh as though it was his own. Knew Astarion’s exasperated panic at the feel of it, oh that reminder in the sweet flesh below his jaw, the bleeding, the sharp sensation in his throat, Vellioth, Vellioth, Master—
Astarion sat down now. As though forced by some internal pressure. He sat on the table where Cazador had played lanceboard, scattering the pieces to the floor, and took his boot from Cazador’s neck. And Cazador could hear his grunts of pleasure. The guilt with which he poorly disguised them. Could feel how the blood deserted his body to urge madly between his legs. And he felt, through his own snared flesh, Astarion press his clawed nails further into his throat.
“Astarion—” he tried to protest. He tried to stand. His stupid spawn’s name coming out in a breathless, angry moan.
But Astarion pressed his fingers further. Now moaning openly.
“You vile creature!” Cazador cried. And he stood, with his hand clapped into his throat, uselessly.
But he found he couldn’t lay a hand on him.
The look of his spawn there—his trousers tented with obvious want, spread out on the table. Looking up at Cazador with disdainful mischief, insolence, his fingers pressed into his bleeding throat.
And the smell of his blood. Oh—
Astarion drew his fingers out of his throat, with a smart gesture. Flicked his hand, so that his blood spattered Cazador’s face. He put his fingers in his mouth, rolling his eyes. And he skipped off the table, and as though he hadn’t a care whatsoever for their physical separation, he sauntered off down the hall.
“Get back here, boy!” Cazador screeched. Suddenly envy and pain and chary desire and grief rising in him like hot bile. Hatred. Oh, hatred. Oh, hatred, yes. And he ran, as though it were his choice, after Astarion down the hall.
-
He recalled quite clearly the first time he and the boy had coupled.
If it could have been termed such.
There wasn’t much time, after the Ascension. But in their shared tent—
Cazador looked at the way he canted up his knee and pulled his sock up to his ankle. Astarion was preparing for sleep. His rough hands. Those filthy little blankets he somehow hadn’t had time to throw out. And he felt his teeth sharpen with irritation. Venom, hot in his mouth. “You kept yourself for me,” Cazador hissed.
And watched Astarion look up, as though disturbed at some task. The tolerance in his expression already thinned. “What in the wretched hells do you mean, I kept myself—”
An urge to pull at Astarion’s sleeve. Cazador leaned forward. To whisper between them in cunning fashion. To bother him with the closeness of his mouth. To feel Astarion fidget, the irritation vibrating just below his skin. “That dark-skinned warlock child is interested in you,” Cazador shrilled, his voice low. “I can smell it. And if you can’t—”
“Of course I can smell it! But he wouldn’t stop making jokes about my—”
But now, Cazador felt his lips pique with a smile. He smiled too much. Yes, he smiled too much, he thought—while the boy was with him. While they could not but be hardly a room apart.
Astarion’s lips had formed the word rat. The “rat diet” jokes. Cazador had heard them. And, Cazador could see how Astarion had paused midsentence to prevent himself from saying it. His eyes wide and his hair rather undone-looking, that piece of it hanging in his eyes.
Cazador’s smile deepened. “Have you not the skill to summon the rats, boy? Surely an Ascendant may procure his preferred diet.”
Astarion growled in earnest now. Cazador, watching, felt satisfaction flush hot within himself. Like the relief of hunger. But, there was something unusual in the way Astarion was moving his body. Cazador had never seen him move like this, his spawn; a kind of blushing frustration in his whole body, which he was obviously trying to hide. As though he relished his soreness from travel and fighting. Cazador had long been forced to admit Astarion’s prowess in battle, however—oh, yes. Their accompaniment. They would be young forever. But, there was something rapacious about the way the little rogue fought. They were together in battle like twin blades, their bodies answering each other in a wordless, liquid speech. For a moment, Cazador’s mouth felt dry. As though something in his flesh longed for Astarion. Spoke with him in the guttural language of muscle and sweat. As though something in Astarion longed for—
Astarion slapped him square across the mouth.
Cazador recoiled. Felt immediate rage light his veins. He collapsed back onto his elbow, into his insulting bedroll; a spare pulled from that monstrous tiefling’s pack, which stank of mortal food and of the hells. Which was not even very warm. Was, in fact, despicably thin, nearly devoid of insulation. A better accommodation for the Vampire Lord Ascendant had, apparently, not been on offer. Astarion’s own bedroll had been replaced with something quite costly by that repellant little warlock child. And oh, the smile on the warlock’s face as he did it. Worse, the smile on Astarion’s. And when he had found Cazador trancing in it, he’d thrown him bodily into the Chionthar.
At great personal cost, of course. As he’d had to dive in after him.
Cazador’s face smarted where Astarion had slapped him. He bore his teeth as he prepared his acid retort, his body ready to tackle Astarion across the tent.
But, strangely, he found he couldn’t.
Astarion was staring at him.
And for several months after this, he would try to determine whether this, just this, was responsible for what had happened.
Astarion was staring at him.
Staring, with his cheek in his hand, in disbelief. His mouth open. Pressing at his face as though it, too, smarted. Just as Cazador’s.
Cazador looked at him. And then he drew back his hand.
“Hells—” Astarion cried, his face full of exasperation.
Cazador slapped him.
And felt his own cheek smart afresh.
Now, he had to try not to laugh. Gods, when had he laughed? The petulance on his spawn’s face—
Astarion drew back his hand, and defiantly slapped himself in the face.
“Ow!” Cazador shouted. And then looked at Astarion with cutting rage. Gripping his own cheek in angry disbelief. Boy—he was about to say.
And then he saw Astarion draw his dagger, grinning from ear to ear.
“No!” Cazador shouted. Lunging at him, his feet still caught in his bedroll.
He crashed, inelegantly, to his chest. Onto the dirty tent floor. Scrambled to be free of his entangled feet.
But Astarion was above him, crouching. Wheezing as though he, too, had just gotten his breath knocked out. An undeniable smile, in his ragged breath. But he still held the knife.
“Insolent boy!” Cazador shouted. He had finally untangled himself, just in time to watch Astarion slip out the back flap of the tent. He was running around the camp, laughing. Giggling. His dagger clutched happily in his hand.
“Fiend!” Cazador shouted. Began stumbling madly after him.
Astarion overturned the wine. All the dirty plates left on the table, as he vaulted it, just evading Cazador’s grasp. He had knocked a pair of still-lit candles into the grass.
“Oh, what fun!” Astarion was shouting. Giggling madly as he danced through the clearing. “What fun! Master,” he intoned, his voice dripping with hate.
Cazador watched him. Feeling suddenly drunk and far from his body as he stumbled after his stupid spawn. His stupid, lovely little thing.
It had seemed the grass was too wet. But now, it was catching; Cazador didn’t have time to put it out. Astarion danced easily behind a tree, around it, and, bare-chested, sliced himself. He made a foolish cut above his heart. A deep one. Still running and giggling as though he was wine-drunk.
Cazador screamed in pain. Doubled over to clutch at his suddenly bleeding chest.
“Oh, look at me now, Master!” Astarion hatefully laughed. “Oh, how sweet your screams are!” And Astarion began dancing toward the burgeoning grassfire.
“Don’t—!” Cazador shouted. His voice a great deal more plaintive than he’d intended. And he knelt and reached for his spawn, as he watched him press his hand into the flames.
He howled in pain as his flesh blistered.
Astarion was crowing with laughter. “Oh, Master. Let me hear you scream!”
Something in Cazador imploded in an awful welter of sorrowing fear, as he watched Astarion preparing to hurl himself, bodily, into the flames. “Astarion!” he heard himself shout. Crawling forward, his burnt hand dirty in the grass, his other hand outstretched—
The warlock child tackled Astarion bodily.
Cazador heard Astarion’s breath release in one great woof. The warlock on top of him, looking at Cazador angrily. And, when he was sure Astarion was away from the flames, he marched toward Cazador, who was now scrambling inelegantly backward in the grass. Trying to keep his burnt palm off the ground.
“You!” the warlock seethed. “You put him up to this. I’ll kill you!” he shouted.
“Don’t—!” Cazador cried.
“Dolor!”
And Cazador felt himself skid sickeningly backward in the grass, a green grass stain painting itself up the back of his trousers and coat. The nauseating, tearing feel of eldritch magic gaping in his belly. He choked back nausea, sat up to see Astarion—
Vomiting in the grass. Clutching the exact place in his gut where Cazador had been struck.
And the warlock standing there, looking between them with a combination of shock and disgust.
“Oh—” the warlock growled, gritting his teeth in rage, and Cazador could have sworn he saw his eyes flash red. He marched across the clearing and simply picked up Cazador by the back of his coat. Dragging him as he howled, through the grass.
“Unhand me, boy!” Cazador screeched. Too disoriented to call on his magic.
Astarion was laughing. Between bouts of vomiting.
“Stop vomiting, you little wretch—!” But, it was too late. The sensation of it overcame Cazador, and he found himself emptying his guts just before the lakeshore.
The warlock unhanded him, disgust written on his face. Brushing his hand rapidly against his shirt as though to clean it.
“Boy?” Astarion called. Trying quite hard to stop giggling. “Oh, Master, I assumed that was a little treat just for me!” He turned to the warlock, grinning. “How lucky for you!”
“Silence!” Cazador crowed. “The Vampire Ascendant demands your—”
“Can it, ass-bat!”
He turned. That was the monstrous tiefling wench. Storming out of her tent wearing not terribly much other than a battle axe which weighed as much as Cazador. In a way which made his guts go unfortunately liquid.
He vomited again.
Astarion laughed. That was, until he gagged, too.
“Have you no sense of self-preservation?” Cazador demanded of his spawn.
“Oh, darling, but I love seeing you absolutely worthless in the grass! It’s wonderful! All the pleasures of Ascension couldn’t compare!” Astarion pantomimed gagging, and began to stick his finger down his throat.
“Fie!” Cazador shrilled, and lunged toward Astarion.
The warlock kneed him in the balls.
“Oh—!” The two of them cried. Spawn, and… not-so-spawn. At once falling. And he had come so close to Astarion that it was as though they fell together.
Meanwhile, the wizard (who Cazador had judged, quite sensitively, in his opinion, to be at once terrifyingly brilliant and mentally slow) had called down water to put out the grassfire.
As for the bard, he was in the corner, and had been dancing around strumming his lute for some time.
Cazador snapped its strings with a nod of his chin.
“Oh, I say,” the bard complained. Stamping away with his broken instrument.
“Boys,” the wizard sweetly implored. “Could we have some shut-eye? A wizard needs his beauty sleep.”
“There is no amount of sleep which would make you beautiful,” Cazador retorted.
“Oh, darling, be nice,” Astarion giggled. And he tried to stick his finger in his mouth again.
“Cut it out,” the warlock said, swatting Astarion’s hand.
Astarion pouted. But wouldn’t take his eyes off Cazador, who still knelt in the grass, looking up at him with a foul expression. His hand throbbing madly.
The tiefling rolled her eyes and simply returned to her tent. And then the rest followed suit, after a few comments about enjoying their special bond. All given in various states of exhausted disgust.
Cazador dusted himself off. Astarion was laughing at the table, fishing for a few drops left in one of the bottles he’d overturned. His legs were crossed, his head thrown back.
And Cazador found himself lingering there. Watching him. With absolutely nothing to say.
Astarion had burnt his left hand. His good hand. Cazador noted this with some surprise. Now, he fiddled with the bottles with some difficulty.
Cazador sat down and retrieved a half-full bottle from where it had landed in the grass, with its cork still in place. He pulled out the cork and set it on the table.
Astarion looked at it. He looked at Cazador.
“A Vampire Ascendant—” He coughed. “A Vampire Ascendant shouldn’t fiddle so clumsily.”
“Oh,” Astarion crowed. He tossed his hair. “So I am the Vampire Ascendant.”
Cazador let his second set of fangs sharpen in his mouth. “You’re a Vampire Ascendant.”
Astarion snarled at him, with his own second set of fangs. Rolling his eyes, his posture sarcastic. And he drank the wine straight from the bottle.
They had reached a state of adjudicated calm when they returned to the tent. Cazador had even helped himself to a mouthful or two of wine. But Astarion was still moving in that voluptuous way. Sore, exhausted. Almost as though he was alive. Cazador could smell the flush of his blood.
“Are you sore?” he asked.
Astarion turned. He frowned distrustfully. “I burnt myself.”
“No,” Cazador said.
And he found himself looking all down Astarion’s body.
Astarion looking all down his.
Astarion scowled. Turned away. “Good night,” he spat.
Cazador pulled himself into his bedroll.
Their hands were healed; Ascendant healing was so much faster than that of ordinary vampiric regeneration. So it was not this pain which kept him from his trance. Another agitation. A demand which made his very breathing slow, almost pained.
And Cazador realized—he had not been touched since his second turning.
The thought hit him abruptly. His slaves. His servants. His spawn. All his family. No one. Never. Not even one single time. He touched his face. Touched the place where it had smarted with Astarion’s touch. His body—high and cold—
“Astarion,” he whispered.
No answer.
“Boy.”
Astarion snarled, sleepily.
And he turned over and at last slipped into his trance, which was why he was awakened most suddenly, Astarion straddling him. Palming the terrific hardness between his legs.
Cazador tried to contain his shock.
“Get off me,” He seethed. But already the ache between his legs was like hellfire, like brandy. Already the mad, torturous ache, so profound that even as he admonished his stupid spawn, his voice had descended into a desperate moan. His eyes closed as he fought to stop himself from arching his back.
And Astarion did not get off him.
“Oh—” Cazador gasped. Astarion was grinding his hips down against his, a mad smile lighting his eyes.
“I hate you,” Astarion whispered.
Openly, Cazador moaned. And then he covered his mouth.
He regained his senses for one brash moment. He snarled, felt his teeth sharpen in his mouth, and pushed Astarion off him. He felt the bruise he’d shoved into Astarion’s shoulder sink painfully into his own.
But now Astarion sat, panting, in the dark of their tent. The cold of night. And he was staring at Cazador with something like horror.
“Astarion,” Cazador whispered.
“Do we—” Astarion uttered. His eyes flickered down to the indecent shape between Cazador’s legs. His own.
And they came together in a desperate hurry.
From the first instant Astarion touched the cold flesh inside his hipbone, unbuckling and then turning aside his trousers, Cazador bit back gasps. Hatred flared in his chest like acid. And he was so hard it was all he could do not to thrust up toward this wretched touch.
But Astarion was nearly laughing. Something serious and terrible in the tone of it. His panting and their mingled breath in the heavy, cold air. Without looking, Astarion’s fingers slipped down the tender flesh inside his thigh and cupped each of his swollen balls. In a way that was just shy of unpleasant.
“Oh—” Cazador cried. In a breathy whisper.
Astarion’s smile sharpened.
In a fluid motion, he bit into Cazador’s throat.
Cazador’s eyes went wide. All that pleasure lighting across his vision in a white arc of pain.
His cock twitching viciously, where Astarion’s hand was mere inches from it.
He should have stopped Astarion from taking his blood. Because he knew what would happen. And could have warned him—
A few good swallows. Astarion feeding on him deeply, rapaciously. And Cazador was shaking now. Something not right in the hardness he fought against pressing into his spawn’s hand. His breath came in short gasps. Something that wasn’t terror catching in his heart. Astarion pulled away.
And with his blood running down Astarion’s chin, from his open mouth into his linen shirt, Astarion sat up, panting. Two puncture marks bleeding from his own throat as though he, too, had been bitten. Shock and a new understanding written across his face.
He looked at Cazador with an overwhelmed, plain affection. Confusion and calculation flowing beneath the surface of what was, for this instant, pure, sweet adoration. And Cazador could see the shock of this emotion competing with the pure intensity of it in his eyes. “Cazador,” he whispered. His voice thick.
“Yes?” Cazador asked. Forcing his voice to be still.
But he watched Astarion push the feeling away. With the kind of mental strength only available to the Ascendant. Still hiding it in his eyes, what he had felt in that instant—
He sat down beside Cazador. His posture haughty but unsteady. He turned his head and looked briefly to his erstwhile master.
Cazador made his face unreadable.
Touched, gently, the crease of Astarion’s trousers, between his hip and his groin.
Astarion exhaled. His whole body softening with want. A breathless moan Cazador was sure he’d tried to hide, a panicked quality in it. And he didn’t look at him. His jaw worked as he stared fixedly upward.
And then Astarion took his trousers down about his knees. Wordlessly but quickly, his jaw set with an expression which could only have said, silently: Fine. Not looking at Cazador even once.
Cazador looked to the tent wall. Fixing his jaw and setting defiance in his eyes. He took his own trousers fully down.
And then he took Astarion’s cock, which was as stiff as rail, into his hand.
“Oh,” Astarion exhaled. Weepily. But trying to preserve the haughtiness of his tone. As though the slight whisper had been painfully forced from him. And he left his eyes fixed at a distance.
Cazador didn’t know what to do. But, also, he knew exactly what to do. What he would do. They swept over each other like wind. The awful strangeness of this moment nearly forcing them apart. Nearly forcing them together.
He felt Astarion’s cool hand snake, hesitantly, to rest in that same piece of naked flesh at Cazador’s hip. His touch uncertain and madly forbidden. Cazador tried not to exhale in response.
But he remembered he had never touched Astarion. He had always watched with a kind of pleasant satisfaction as he was had, and had, and had. Parties, soirees. Private little disgraces. Watching. Never hard himself. Watching the stupid, mortal way Astarion got hard so easily. Blushed so fetchingly as his tight little hole was fucked by strangers, enemies. Those who would almost have been friends.
Now he heard the tidy little gasp from Astarion’s throat as he felt Cazador’s anticipation. Could almost feel it as Astarion bit his lip from desire that was like distress. Felt him shift his weight uncomfortably, but with that same voluptuous quality. Unsteadily accepting the raw vulnerability of his stiffened cock in Cazador’s hand.
Cazador stroked. Once, twice.
Astarion whined with embarrassed relief.
And Cazador felt his own cock swell unexpectedly with a pleasure so desperate he was worried he would finish, right there.
“Oh—!” Astarion whimpered. The pure, hot shock evident in his voice as he experienced Cazador’s pleasure. A pleasure which—impossibly—had come directly from his. As their minds traced over each other, like the slip of water over stone. And Cazador could almost see the high and delicate blush come into Astarion’s cheeks. Throwing his head back and opening his mouth. Panting with slight, desirous whines. The sweet spawn bucking involuntarily into his hand. Confusion dripping from his every word. “Cazador—Cazador, what is this—"
This was unnatural. Cazador could sense the both of them nearly in each other’s minds, sharing the shocked overwhelm at the stupid realization. Astarion’s pleasure was Cazador’s pleasure. Cazador’s, Astarion’s. It was like their pain, their injuries. Cazador was nearly senseless with it as well. And with each fisting of Astarion’s miserably hard cock from tip to base, Cazador felt his own bliss drawing up like a convulsion between his legs. It was easily as good as stroking himself. In fact, it was better. Far better. So that he would rather have done this than touch himself, ever again.
He moaned. He couldn’t help it. And felt, awfully, Astarion’s cock twitch in response.
“Cazador,” Astarion said again. This time in a moan which spoke far, far too much truth.
“Boy,” Cazador said. Forcing his voice to be smooth, neutral, with everything he had. Still looking fixedly at the tent wall.
Astarion whimpered. Whined in the back of his throat like a whore.
Cazador knew Astarion hadn’t wanted him to hear this. But, he’d heard it. Oh he’d heard it. And he almost couldn’t tolerate the deep, overwhelming ache between his legs now, even as he was, despite the incredible ache in his cock, untouched—
Astarion took Cazador’s cock into his hand. Quickly, as though snatching something, like stealing. Eagerly. And looked furtively at him, at his face.
Cazador drew breath. And, for as long as he felt Astarion would tolerate it, he gazed into his eyes. Wishing for one stupid instant never to look away. Oh, he had always been jealous of those eyes. And he and Astarion were both hiding their shock so poorly. Because he could feel Astarion’s delicious, horrified surprise. Watched Astarion fight not to look down, between Cazador’s legs. His hand was frozen with disbelief. The expression of a person who had reached into their pocket to find something they had not put there.
Cazador’s gaze sharpened into a flat expression that was not a smile.
“Cazador—” Astarion whispered. His eyes wide.
“Do you so enjoy saying it?” Cazador whispered.
Now Astarion did look between Cazador’s legs. His brows arching in disbelief. And his look made Cazador so hard that he very nearly moaned and went to his back.
Astarion didn’t have to say it. He looked up into Cazador’s eyes, and his mouth was open with such surprise that it would have been comical, if Cazador wasn’t trying desperately not to rut into his spawn’s hand and moan like a whore. Everything was written in Astarion’s expression: You’re huge.
Cazador let himself smile now.
Astarion looked away, bit his lip, and began to stroke him with abandon.
“Yes—” Cazador moaned. The word exploded past his lips involuntarily. He tried to swallow it back as soon as it had left his lips. But Astarion was thoughtlessly stroking him now. Whining with pitiful disgrace in his own throat, panic and helpless disgust underpinning his every exhale. The panic and pleasure twisting together as he, too, discovered the torture of their shared pleasure. Cazador kept stroking, Astarion kept stroking. And Cazador could feel the slick wet already beginning to bead and run from Astarion’s cocktip into his own hand. Even as this filthy feeling caused his own swollen cock to begin to leak as well. Astarion stroked Cazador faster, chasing his own pleasure, as though it was himself he stroked. Feeding on the sick quality of their shared bliss. Whimpering softly in a way that spoke of terror.
Cazador closed his eyes. Allowed his head to tilt back. Opened his mouth. Closed it again.
Gave himself up to the torturous pleasure.
He stroked Astarion madly, felt the spawn begin to involuntarily buck into his hand as he whined more openly, now. And he was bucking into Astarion’s furiously working hand as well— their arms crossed over each other and the both of them staring, fixedly, at the tent ceiling. Their mouths drawn in petulant denial of what was occurring. This denial— Cazador allowed a slight moan to breach his lips. Oh the denial was better than—
“Would you like to fuck me, Astarion?” he asked.
“No,” Astarion said. He had tried to say it flatly, but it was strained with so much obvious deceit that it was comical. Cazador didn’t look. But he knew what he would have seen. He had seen it a thousand times. Astarion’s brow knit with panic as his body gave him up to its own animal pleasure. Not caring that he didn’t want the fat, hard cock being driven into his ass, making him moan, making him dream of—
Cazador forced his thoughts to pause. Oh, this single idiocy. He forced himself not to roll his eyes.
Because, unfortunately, he had often fantasized that Astarion wanted to be pregnant.
Astarion could feel his pleasure around this thought, and Cazador knew it. He felt the mad, stupid heat drawing down between his legs, the aggressiveness with which he was now fisting Astarion’s cock from base to tip, the sinews of his forearm standing out like cord. Astarion, sweet, stupid, delicious, bucking up into Cazador’s fist. The sound of his breath indicating words he was holding back. His haughty bliss. The stupid, beautiful blush that always came into his face.
Dream of it, Cazador suddenly thought. The words burst upon his mind like flame. This was how compulsion used to feel, that delicious insertion into his stupid spawn’s waiting mind. Now they spoke together. Spoke though they hated to hear.
No, Astarion responded. Oh, no, no, I—
Cazador let himself smile again. He pressed his insistent thoughts into his spawn’s. Dream of it.
The last shred of Astarion’s composure vanished. He bucked shamelessly up into Cazador’s hand, his breath angry and whiny, even as Cazador gave himself up, thrusting into Astarion’s grip, their pleasure blooming together like poison.
Dream of your belly swollen for me.
Oh, gods—
Yes. Dream of it. Dream of how I’ll breed you, Astarion.
And, just like that, Astarion spent in his hand.
And Cazador spent in his.
They cried out together. Both of them hiding their intonation, trying frantically to cover it over with haughty disgust. Cazador thrust mercilessly into his spawn’s waiting hand as he felt the cool, wet slick of Astarion’s spend over his knuckles, wetting his palm; Cazador’s own cock was throbbing his pleasure in generous coursings into his shirt. His orgasm full enough to make his head ache. And he felt Astarion continue to indecently milk him, pushing him nearly to overstimulation, his thumb working greedily in Cazador’s slit to feel every last thick pulse of his pleasure.
He turned. He didn’t know why he turned. Turned, to look at his face.
Astarion was already looking into his eyes.
And somehow, for an instant which almost didn’t happen, everything between them fell away.
He watched Astarion’s lips part even as his own did. Astarion’s eyes liquid and soft.
Cazador took a breath. They fell toward each other, their lips parted, their eyes slipping closed—
Astarion stood up, screeching.
Rage sharpened itself in Cazador’s gut like a metal sliver.
And Astarion ran, indecently clutching one of his dirty blankets about his hips, toward the lake.
“Fie!” Cazador shouted.
As he was forced to run—entirely naked—after him.
Astarion threw himself into the water. He began frantically cleaning his hands. Looking over his shoulder with haughty guilt.
Cazador didn’t want to throw himself into the water. He closed his fingers subtly to feel the cool slick there as though it were satin.
But he walked into the lake, and didn’t look at his stupid spawn, bathing there. He didn’t look even once.
-
And now he chased him down the hall. From the library all the way to the first floor landing. Astarion was laughing. Oh, he was laughing. For the mean way he was laughing.
Something in Cazador’s chest. Had he not sat at Lanceboard a thousand times? Alone? Why—
“Yes, chase me, darling,” Astarion was calling, as he laughed. And Cazador could somehow hear what he was thinking, though it didn’t seem Astarion had allowed him in. Images flickering with unselfconscious, angry delight.
I am running down the hallway and the light is low. It is dawn. He takes me— oh, yes, he takes me—
Cazador almost stumbled.
He takes me, and I am bare against the wall, and I whimper desperately for him as he—
Dream of it—
Oh, gods, yes, I—
Dream of it, Astarion—
And as though they had planned it, Astarion was mist, and he was mist so that he could catch him, and Cazador aggressively enveloped the space where Astarion’s incorporeal body was, and in a moment they were both silently screaming, their nonexistent stomachs in barbed knots.
Astarion dissipated his mist form at once. Stumbling, sick. Coughing and holding his mouth. And Cazador fell out of his mist form on top of him, which he could have plausibly denied doing on purpose, and then for a moment, Astarion was under him.
Astarion looked up at him with his lips parted. His hair undone.
Cazador leaned forward—
Astarion spat in his face.
“Boy!” Cazador shouted.
But, Astarion had already raced up the stairs. And, growling exasperatedly as though this wasn’t the thousandth time or more, Cazador followed.