Chapter Text
Astarion saw a pale elf standing before him. He was tall, gaunt, fingers straining into claws. His body was contorted, hunched and shivering. His eyes — red, blood red — looked haggard and desperate, ringed with dark purple shadow. His pupils shook with an untamed frenzy.
Astarion recognized that expression with an innate clarity, had seen it worn by his siblings countless times before.
I have a mole on my cheek, he thought, dazed, before razor-sharp fangs tore into the flesh of his neck and ripped — warm. Bursting with blood.
Wyll shivered like a puppy that had fallen into a river. Astarion could imagine it clearly — wet fur sticking to its feeble frame as the dog trembled pitifully and looked outward with round, shiny, pleading eyes.
Of course, Wyll was wearing Astarion’s body, so the whole thing was filtered through a layer of strange, apprehensive awkwardness, but even with Astarion’s — Wyll’s — whoever’s blood dripping down his chin, staining his shirt, covering his bone-pale arms and hands and claws, the poor man seemed to be practically swimming in tears.
“Astarion,” he said, his voice sounding strange filtered through Astarion’s vocal cords, the accent tripping and stumbling through a more slender throat, “I am — I am so…”
Astarion, on the other hand, held a palm up to the torn flesh of his neck and felt blood, warm blood, pulse against his skin, gushing down his collarbone. Really, if it hadn’t been so dangerous, it would have been quite fascinating. He took a step backwards, staggering, his mind racing.
Is this what he’d looked like, two hundred years ago? Is this what Dalyria had seen when Cazador brought his pathetic, starving self into his manor for the first time — some rabid, feral thing, mindless and monstrous? He hadn’t been present for his other siblings being dragged into the fold. He wasn’t exactly the welcoming, housewarming type.
Astarion suddenly felt glad for never having seen this display — it was pathetic, really.
He wondered, for a brief second, how things might have been different if he’d met a gentle hand that night in the graveyard. If he’d been held and comforted and fed with loving, soothing fingers laced in his hair, walked through his change with care and the reassurance that things would be alright.
Astarion stared into the frantic scarlet eyes before him, filled with fear, filled with worry, weeping with guilt — and snarled.
“What in the Hells is wrong with you?” he snapped.
Wyll recoiled as though he’d been slapped, a harsh flinch. He took a step back, his feral red eyes filled with terror and shame.
Astarion felt a flicker of power course through him — some sickening rush of adrenaline that felt good, and he put on the most terrified expression he could muster and watched Wyll’s face twist.
“You could have killed me,” Astarion whimpered. His voice sounded particularly vulnerable, colored by Wyll’s innocent tone, and he relished the potential there.
“I—” Wyll’s voice tripped and stumbled and cracked through Astarion’s vocal cords, sounding weak and scared and young. His face was the epitome of horror.
Astarion could barely stifle his own laughter.
“I’m so sorry, Astarion, I — oh, Gods,”
Astarion pulled his palm back from his neck, and held it in front of Wyll’s face, showing him the damage he’d done — red, dripping down his skin and onto the forest floor. Astarion watched as Wyll’s vampiric pupils contracted, a predator locking onto prey. Astarion could see that Wyll was shaking, his control over his bloodlust so sloppy, so unrefined.
Astarion knew he was playing with fire, but he didn’t care — the blasted monster hunter could walk a mile in his loafers and then some.
“Look at what you’ve done to me,” Astarion said, making sure to waver his voice near the end of his sentence, contorting his face into a mask of terror. “You monster,” he whispered.
Wyll tore his eyes away from Astarion’s palm, away from the scarlet blood that dripped onto the ground, and staggered backwards. He stumbled like a newborn fawn, not used to Astarion’s thin, gangly limbs, not used to the power and the hunger, and retreated, sprinting, to the woods.
Astarion snorted and pressed his palm back to his neck. His head felt heavy, his balance wavering. Spots began to bloom in his vision, the warm blood still flowing through his fingers. It was strange — all this blood, and found that he had no desire to drink it.
I should probably get this looked at, he mused, and then crumpled to the ground.
“Wyll, what in the Hells is going on? Gods — you’re almost dead.”
Astarion blinked awake to the sound of Shadowheart’s piercing voice, her hand glowing with the soft blue of healing magic over his neck, the flesh knitting itself back together.
“Where is Astarion, did he do this to you?”
It was strange — humans really did slumber with true abandon. In two-hundred years, Astarion had never felt such a deep unconsciousness to the world.
“Mm?” he whined.
“There’s some strange magic going on here, I can feel it in the Weave. And it’s not something Astarion would be able to cast, that’s for certain.” Gale’s voice lulled through the air. The sound of it almost made Astarion want to knock himself out again.
“I’m a bit more focused on the puncture wounds on his neck, Gale,” Shadowheart snapped. “Though I can’t say I’m surprised that our vampire broke his little promise and bit one of us... especially after that absolute display in the bog."
Astarion frowned, finally deciding to speak. “Do you really think so little of me, darling?”
Shadowheart grimaced. “Oh, Lady of Sorrows guide us — Astarion, is that you?”
Gale’s eyes lit up — like a child in a bakery, or a vampire spawn in a bloodbank, or a gnoll in a field of orphans, or what have you. “What a fascinating situation we have here!”
Astarion groaned.
“I’ve never seen a — a body-swapping technique work so effectively! And between different species, no less! An undead and a… what, is Wyll a devil now, technically speaking? I can only imagine what kind of advanced arcane study must have gone into concocting…” Gale’s brow furrowed, his gaze flicking up to Astarion’s face. “What was it that caused this in the first place? Was it a spell? A potion? A mushroom? Was it something to do with the tadpole, perhaps?”
Astarion’s head throbbed. “Gods, Gale,” he griped. “I’m not sure what is more painful, the wound in my neck or your endless prattle.”
“It is rather important to know, Astarion,” Gale said, brushing off the slight. “It will make fixing this whole problem far easier.”
“In all honesty,” Astarion said, dry, “I was rather more focused on Wyll tearing out my throat instead.”
“Ah,” Gale said, intelligently.
“Gods,” Shadowheart said, looking off into the distance. “Someone has got to find him. Who knows what he might be doing out there in the world?”
Vampirism really didn’t suit a pure soul like Wyll. Astarion watched with bored eyes as Karlach brought him back into their camp, a leather gag stuffed into his mouth, his ruby eyes wide and glossy with guilt.
Astarion mused, idly, a slight stain of bitterness coloring his thoughts, how it hadn’t been the first time that body had been paraded around in such an unseemly way. Fangs pushed into hard leather, strapped around his skull so he couldn’t bite. Docile. Available. Ready to be —
No, I don’t want to think about that.
If Wyll had a tail, it would be curled between his legs right now. It was pathetic, such a feeble, woeful display. Did the man have no dignity at all? The monster hunter, the proud, righteous hero?
Was just a teensy little bit of hunger enough to tear down all of his walls?
If the same hunger Astarion had endured every day of his wretched unlife was enough to send Wyll, the Blade of Frontiers, into a frenzy, if it was enough to make him attack one of his allies with barely any hesitation, then Astarion must have been the pinnacle of chastity and self-restraint before he’d been turned.
Astarion snorted. As if.
Karlach led Wyll with a gentle but firm hand to the center of camp. Astarion used this moment to take a long, deep, gluttonous pull from his goblet.
For all that could be said about Wyll’s questionable taste in novels, Astarion had to admit that his taste in spirits fit his noble upbringing. Of course, it could have been the fact that all wines had tasted of vinegar and ash for the past two centuries, but in that moment the tannins danced on his tongue — rich, astringent, layered with flavor.
It was glorious. Delicious. Literally intoxicating. Astarion could understand why the monster hunter seemed drawn to it every night.
Astarion played disinterest. He held a book in his hand and swayed his weight from foot to foot, pretending not to notice as Wyll nodded to Karlach, allowing his — Astarion’s — arms to be tied behind his back, allowing himself — allowing Astarion — to be humiliated and bound in front of the entire camp.
And the worst part was, everyone seemed to look at him with concern.
Gods, Astarion couldn’t stand it.
Karlach murmured to Wyll, soft, gentle. She untied the gag, pulled the leather from his mouth, she was careful around his fangs, even as Wyll’s eyes trained on her neck.
She held a felled rabbit above his face, slit the creature’s throat, let the hot, steaming blood trickle into Wyll’s hungry mouth, told him that everything was going to be alright, held it to his lips once the stream had stopped to let him suck from the wound, and — and —
Astarion snapped his book shut, turned, and stormed into the darkness of the forest.
Astarion breathed in deep.
It was strange, needing to breathe. Throughout the last two centuries, the only two functions of air in his lungs were to facilitate speech and to emphasize dramatics — a well-placed snort, a breathy sigh, a low, seductive moan. But in Wyll’s body, the rhythm was endless. Breath wasn’t a tool to communicate, not some way to pretend to live. It was natural. Completely organic, completely his own.
In and out, in and out. Mortal, living bodies used so much fuel. They consumed constantly — food, water, air, in one way and out in another.
Astarion could feel warm blood, hot blood, coursing through his veins. He could feel the strong beat of a heart in his chest, could feel the heat radiating from his abdomen beneath his clothes, could feel the cool breeze brushing that heat away into the air of the night. Astarion wanted to grab onto it, to hold that warmth and never let go.
Sure, Wyll’s body had been warped and changed by his cambion patron — the horns were a strange weight upon Astarion’s forehead, and the ridges across his arms and chest and hips and, ah, unmentionables, itched when they rubbed against his clothes, but being a monster and alive was far better than being a monster and dead.
Wyll had a strong body. Slightly shorter, wider, broader hands. He didn’t have the same jittery, undead strength as Astarion’s body, didn’t have the airy lightness of a bird’s hollow bones nor the spongy rot of useless organs. His muscles were firm, a healthy blanket of fat protecting them, and Astarion felt a burst of jealousy over just how sure and sturdy his form felt.
Of course, that’s what all of this was. Jealousy.
Two hundred years, and finally a heart was beating in his chest. Did Wyll know how good it felt, to feel that rhythmic pulse in his ribcage? To feel the warmth of his blood rushing through his body? To have motion in his body, assured, a given?
Astarion squeezed his eyes — his one working eye, he supposed, and a sphere of bloodstone — shut and pressed a palm to his neck where Wyll had torn his own flesh with Astarion’s teeth. It was almost instantaneous, once their minds had switched spots — Wyll’s resolve barely lasted a second. He was feral, untamed, starving, and Astarion was the closest warm body. It only made sense — Astarion couldn’t blame him, really.
Gods, Astarion thought. If only I could have tasted human blood as soon as I woke up.
Cazador hadn’t fed him for tendays after he’d crawled from the dirt. The only taste he knew for days upon days was the memory of mud and his own rotten, coagulated blood coughed up from his cold, dead throat. It slugged out of his mouth, cold and slimy.
He’d retched the sludge all over Cazador’s shoes, and Cazador had compelled him to lick them clean. And then, he’d received a swift kick to the stomach and retched the sludge all over the ground, instead.
Until Cazador brought him his first putrid rat, Astarion had tried to drink his own blood, sinking his fangs into the grey flesh of his wrist, but he was so dry that there was nothing to pull from his veins but brown-black muck. Cazador had laughed at his display of desperation, then smashed his face against the stone of the kennels, splintering his nose. Astarion had been so bloodless he didn’t even bruise around the shattered cartilage, and his flattened nose had taken days to straighten out again.
He hadn’t tasted human for two hundred years. Wyll had been a vampire for less than a second before he’d tasted human blood, and then he got hand-fed a rabbit!
Astarion wondered — if he offered Wyll a festering rodent, would he turn his nose up at it? At bugs and scraps and filthy flea-ridden fur? Would he refuse blood because it wasn’t up to the same standard?
Astarion scowled and kicked at the dirt with Wyll’s stupid, living, mortal foot.
Karlach was so gentle with him. Told him everything was going to be alright. Fed him, encouraged him, comforted him. Even the way Wyll had been gagged was kinder than any restraints Astarion had worn in the last two centuries.
Astarion kicked the dirt again, for good measure.
It was harder to keep hidden and blend into the shadows when Astarion needed to breathe. He couldn’t just will his body to be motionless — even his heartbeat lurched some movement into his limbs when he held still, and his chest rose and fell with insistence.
When Astarion crept through the forest back to the outskirts of their camp, his body clumsier, thicker, heavier, his balance jostled by the heavy horns that erupted from his forehead, he paid more attention to where his feet fell. He held his breath when he could, he tiptoed through the brush, and as he reached the border he strained his muted human hearing to listen to Karlach as she spoke to Wyll.
“You seem stable enough now,” Karlach said, her golden eyes glinting with worry. She was wiping a rag across his face, cleaning dried blood from his skin. “I don’t want to keep you all tied up if we don’t have to.”
Wyll bit his lip. Astarion winced as Wyll’s — his — unpracticed fang sunk into the flesh and the monster hunter jolted back in surprise, blood welling to the surface. He was well-fed enough to bleed. “No — please, Karlach, I don’t want to hurt anyone else,” he begged, desperate. “You didn’t see what happened, Astarion, he was so…”
Karlach reached out to put a hand on Wyll’s shoulder, but stopped herself before she could burn him. Her tail lashed behind her in frustration, thumping on the ground.
“He was so scared — I was a monster. I could have killed him. I could have killed him, Karlach.”
“But you didn’t,” she pressed. “It’ll be alright — maybe he can even show you how to, y’know… control it. Until we can fix this whole thing.”
Wyll looked up at Karlach with pleading eyes. “He won’t want to talk to me, Karlach. I could have killed him. I almost did.”
Astarion chose this moment to walk out of the forest — he was a stickler for a bit of drama, after all. If nothing else, he could appreciate the strained, mortified expression that stretched across Wyll’s face as he waltzed into view of the campfire.
“Astarion,” Wyll breathed. As he gazed upon his own face, some deep horror seemed to dawn in his eyes. “I am so sorry, please, if you never want to associate with me again, I swear —”
Astarion ignored his apologies and kept walking.
Astarion had lied, when Gale asked if he remembered how the swap happened.
The exact moment of the switch was fuzzy, some jostling memory tainted by surprise, but the minutes that led up to Wyll sinking his newly-gotten fangs into the meat of Astarion’s mortal neck were clear in his mind.
Astarion was certain those minutes were stark in Wyll’s as well.