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He couldn’t help but wonder when his feelings changed for you, especially when your body is pressed so sweetly into his. Your face is buried in the crook of his neck and he can feel the warmth of your breath on his exposed skin. His arms are around you and he can’t help but marvel at how well you fit him, like you were made just for his arms. He can’t remember the last time he felt so sentimental, if he ever felt it while he was a spawn. You made him feel affection—a sensation in his heart that he never thought he’d feel again.
Of course, admitting this was admitting that he had feelings for you. Which was not part of Astarion’s master plan. Admitting that he cared about you meant that he failed, that he did the one thing he told himself not to do, that he was the stupid one. Caring for you meant admitting defeat, and Astarion wasn’t one to admit defeat so easily.
But if defeat meant having you to hold in his arms, was it so bad after all?
Astarion exhaled a breath he didn’t realize he held in frustration. You stir against him and give a little whine in your sleep. It makes his heart skip a beat.
It’s just because he’s never had a consistent victim, he tells himself. When he was under Cazador’s imprisonment, he would find victims and bring them back to him within a single evening. He tried to pick out the beautiful ones, but that only lasted so long before everyone blurred together and became nothing but a job. Victims were never a repeat experience. One night of kissing, one night of fucking, and once Astarion brought them back to the castle, it was goodbye. Pleasure wasn’t the priority, it was completing the task. He never saw them again. He never cared to.
You were different. You weren’t someone who would be brought back to Cazador, therefore there was no getting rid of you so easily. He’d see your face the day after, the night after, rinse and repeat. You weren’t a victim, but you were a means to an end. You weren’t all that different, were you?
Astarion tapped his fingers against your bare shoulder. You fell back into a listless slumber and he was alone again with his musing. He studied your face from a close proximity and you had no idea he did it. When did he fall for you? When, exactly did his perfect plan blow up in his face?
His first mistake was sleeping with you more than once. Had the night of the tiefling party been a one and done deal, he could have resisted you. This, he was sure of. You had no idea what that night was like for him. Astarion put his plan into action that fateful night—it was the night he seduced you with his body, hooked you in, made you care for him. Everything that night was rehearsed in his head before he even touched you. This, after all, was strategy.
A tiger doesn’t change its stripes. A vampire spawn does what he does best; manipulate. All for the sake of survival.
He sees now that he was too arrogant. That you were someone he travels with, spends all of his waking time with. He relied on you in battle, and yes, he admired the way you so viciously tore apart those goblins. No, he’d never admit it to you, and he was certain that you never caught him gazing at you. Really, it wasn’t you who impressed him, it was just him admiring the glory of battle. Two-hundred years a slave and he hadn’t seen much action, he had to take his kicks where he could get them. You were the best of the worst among the others. That was all.
He propositioned you that night at the tiefling party. Astarion recalls the faint color of pink you turned when he said the word “sex”, as if you’d never heard it before. It was amusing, but he’d never admit it was cute. You had a way of being charming in all of your… naivety. No, he was just happy because you were going to be an easy victim to manipulate. Whether he found you attractive or not wasn’t the point… Astarion gave up on finding attraction in his victims a long, long time ago.
However, when he looks at you now on the bed, he marvels at how beautiful you really are. He does wonder to himself when he finally stopped fighting the inevitable and admitted to himself that you were attractive to him. He’s unsure. He just knows that he fought you for as long as he could and then he couldn’t fight you any longer.
Astarion didn’t expect that first night with you to feel so good. He told himself it was because you were the first fuck he’d had since escaping Cazador and there were a lot of pent up emotions. You were his feel-good-fuck, and given the situation, it just felt really good, better than anticipated. But a fuck was a fuck, it didn’t mean anything. This was just the spider setting the trap and you were the fly getting stuck in the web. Who said death had to be painful? Sometimes, it could be sinfully pleasurable.
You were so receptive to him that night. It was the first time in over two-hundred years that he had sex without luring a victim back to Cazador. That’s why he put more effort into it. That’s what he told himself, anyway. Sure, he’d had eager lovers in the past, although they all blurred together by now. But these lovers were poor souls that he never got to know, never traveled with. He never fought by their side and relied on them in battle like he did you. Whether Astarion wanted to or not, he was forced to trust you. Which is why sex with you was trickier, is what he told himself.
He had to impress you in order for his plan to work. Astarion was more than capable of playing that part—after all, it was a part he played for two-hundred years.
It was good that you enjoyed the way he ravished you, that was more power to him. He had you like putty in his hands the way he played with your breasts, first with his hands, then his mouth. From that very first night you spent together, Astarion can perfectly recall your moan when he put your nipple in his mouth and swirled his tongue around. The way you writhed into him, pushing your breast further into his mouth, begging for more. Hell, by the time he was ready to actually put himself inside of you, you were already a mess. You fell apart at his fingers and tongue, so deliciously, and Astarion recalled how you looked on the forest floor that night—out of breath, face flushed, the pleasure of your orgasm that he brought you from his tongue still dazed in your eyes. You were completely at his mercy, you were exactly where he wanted you to be for his plan.
But you were perfect. You were delicious. You were everything he wanted.
Even now, as Astarion held you in his arms in the bed, as he looked at you with such desire in his eyes that you had no idea about—he thought about how wet you were when he entered you the first night. Amid how good it felt to finally be buried inside of you fully, amid the shriek of pleasure you gave him when he finally claimed you, Astarion did note how wonderfully wet you were for him.
How long had it been since he’d slept with someone who really wanted him? Not a victim, not a night he’d rather forget, but a lover who desired him. He couldn’t remember.
As good as the night was, it was after that everything fell apart. It was your fault, by the way, if you asked Astarion. It was you who would talk to him, make conversation. Which was to be expected, of course, this was the phase of the plan where you fell for him and naturally you’d want to give him more attention. Problem was, you didn’t ask simple surface level questions that were easy to answer. What was even more of a problem, one that he didn’t anticipate until it was too late, was how much you paid attention to him. Really, you were such a nosy creature. You were exhausting!
You just had to ask him questions that made him think, didn’t you? You had to ask him questions that made him feel like he was important, that he was more than Cazador’s slave. Astarion knew it was happening (who’s manipulating who?) and yet he couldn’t resist it. How could he? For the first time since his slavery, someone wanted to know more about him. Someone seemingly cared about him; what he thought, if he was alright or not. You did it because his part of the plan worked—you were falling for him. But to his horror, the only part of the plan that couldn’t happen was unfolding right in front of his eyes—he was falling for you back.
Astarion understood the full weight of his folly in the Underdark when you almost died. Those gnome bastards, he enjoyed slaughtering every last one of them just like the goblins. They hit you with a fire arrow that was intended for him, but you were such an idiot that you jumped in front of the projectile and it exploded on impact. Did you ever think about your actions? When were you ever going to stop being so bullheaded? You were so frustrating!
You were on the ground, bloodied and limp, your ears ringing and consciousness slipping from your grasp.
“Get up, damn you! Don’t die on me now!” Astarion screamed. Yes, he screamed it.
It was because there went his security. There went his assurance that no one would back stab him. There went the only one who actually cared about him.
You understood later that you made it to camp in time for Shadowheart to heal you, just from what the others told you when you regained consciousness later. What they never told you, however, was that Astarion carried you to camp himself and threatened to repeatedly stab anyone who got in his way. You never knew that Astarion stayed with you the entire time the cleric’s magic worked your wounds, how he was knelt beside you and hunched forward over your bed roll.
All you knew was that when you woke up from your fevered unconsciousness, he held your hand. There were dark circles and bruises that contrasted so starkly against his pale white skin.
“Astarion,” you manage to whisper. You should drink some water.
His eyes snap open and his gaze fixes on you and only you. You try not to shrivel into your pillow. “You idiot,” Astarion snaps. “You almost died! Next time there’s an arrow that’s on fire being thrown at you, don’t fucking get in its way!”
You were in no frame of mind to be yelled at. “If I hadn’t intercepted, it would have hit you,” you say. Your head spun. Just because you were conscious didn’t mean you were fully recovered. There was so much more you wanted to say to him. How he was already hurt during that fight and if the arrow had hit him instead of you, he would be the goner. How you were pretty sure that your odds of survival were high, but even if they weren’t, you didn’t have it in your heart to watch him get hurt.
How could you express all of this to him?
Astarion squeezed your hand tighter. “Promise me you won’t do that ever again. Promise me right now.” His voice was all bark and no bite. He tried to make himself sound so intimidating, but underneath you could hear a slight tremble. You didn’t need to be proficient in observation to know that he was upset.
You say nothing. You weren’t perfect, you never claimed to be, and your faults were as glaring as the rest even if it wasn’t as obvious. But what couldn’t be said about you, in all of your bullheaded stubbornness, was that you wouldn’t tell someone something that you didn’t mean just to entertain them. So when Astarion asked you to make a promise you had no intention of making, you said nothing.
Instead, you reach out with your other hand and cup his chin. His skin is cool in your palm. Astarion’s red eyes look up and meet yours before he leans into your hand, accepting your gesture. He knows this is the best he’ll get from you—for now. He turns his face into your palm and kisses your hand. Astarion is still squeezing your other hand when you fade back into slumber.
~*~*~*~
He knew it was a bad idea to thank you, but he also couldn’t fight it. At this point, this was admitting defeat, even if he refused to admit that he was admitting defeat. Astarion waited until everyone was in bed and asleep before approaching you.
“I wanted to, uh, thank you.”
He hated how weak he sounded when he said it. How vulnerable and exposed.
You have yet to pick up on what it is that’s happening. “For having such delectable blood?” you ask back playfully.
“For what you said when we met that vile drow,” Astarion corrects, and he doesn’t bother to hide the disgust in his tone when he utters it. “You made me see that I never stopped thinking like one of Cazador’s slaves, even in freedom.”
Now you understand how serious this is. “You make your own decisions,” you say.
Astarion shakes his head, almost in disbelief. “It’s a novel concept, I’ll admit. It was my job to seduce anything with a pulse! It would have been so easy to just do what you had told me to do… a moment of disgust, I force myself through it, and everything is back to normal.” He looks uncomfortable even now as he says it.
Your heart physically aches in your chest when you look at him. “That would have been wrong,” you assure him. Astarion can’t meet your eyes. It’s as if he believes you and doesn’t believe you at the same time. “I care for you!” you blurt out.
That did the trick. His eyes meet yours. “Really?”
You stand before him flustered and suddenly shy, of all things. You’re not the best with expressing your feelings, sure you’re better than others, but you’re afraid of saying the wrong thing. How could you ever fully express to this beautiful man before you that you cared so deeply for him?
You decide not to say anything. You close the gap between the two of you, arms out for a hug. Astarion stiffens when you get close and your heart receives another little jab—he’s like an untamed, wild animal. You persist and wrap your arms around him in a hug. You indulge yourself and press your face into his chest; your nose touches the exposed skin of his chest.
Astarion has done many things to you. He’s had you trembling on your hands and knees while he devoured you from behind, making sure that he made the loudest and most sinful noises as his tongue lapped between your swollen folds. He’s had your legs up in the air while he was balls deep inside of you, thrusting like a mad man, repeatedly hitting that one spot while one of his perfect, pale hands wraps around your throat in primal possession. He’s had one hand in your mouth to muffle your moans while his other hand buried itself in your heat, three fingers exploring and curling in just the right way, while his erection pressed hard into your back so you knew exactly how much he enjoyed it.
Astarion has done many things to you… but he’s never hugged you. You take him by surprise as you embrace him. After a moment, Astarion cautiously puts his hands around you in return. It’s as if he’s testing out the motions of a hug. His hands hold you closer and his arms constrict further around you. Finally, his head relaxes and he rests his chin on your shoulder, as a proper hug should be.
You allow yourself this moment of heaven. You didn’t know what would happen next between the two of you, but at least you had this moment with Astarion. This moment could forever live in your memory.
You pull back from the hug. There’s unspoken longing in his eyes when you do. It seemed he was beginning to enjoy it.
“You… you’re full of surprises, aren’t you?” Astarion asks. You can’t hide the smile of satisfaction on your face.
~*~*~*~
The weight of the next day weighs heavily on your party. Tomorrow is the day you really explore Moonrise Towers and follow through on your promise to Jaheira. You and your party did enter the towers, which was how you met the sanguine arts drow who tried to proposition Astarion. But you didn’t feel ready to really infiltrate them given how beaten you and your companions already were. Part of you wanted to press on and keep going, but after dealing with the House of Healing and all that bullshit, you decide the best move is to rest at the Last Light Inn before trekking out.
The party seems to be mostly in agreement. No one wants to take on a mission as important as this while drained and beaten. Everyone wants to be at their best. What better way to be at your best than a night at the inn where you can lie on a bed instead of your bedroll?
You’re welcomed in with no problem. You don’t want to talk to Jaheira, not when you haven’t made any sustainable progress yet. She’s a bottom line person. You take a bottle of wine, tell everyone goodnight, and head upstairs to a promised room.
Astarion follows behind you like a shadow.
“You seem on edge,” he notes.
Before you reply, you turn around to see if anyone else has followed you. It’s just the vampire. “That’s why I grabbed this,” you say, swishing the wine bottle. “Everyone has to be on their game. We don’t know what those cultists have up their sleeve and we’re already beaten to hell…” you trail off and take a gulp of wine. “Do you need to feed? You don’t have a lot of options out here given that everything dies to that fucking shadow curse.”
How could he argue with you? “I’ll never turn down an offer,” Astarion replies.
~*~*~*~
Finally, you open your eyes. He’s looking at you almost expectantly as if he waited for you to join him. You’re very aware that you’re securely wrapped in his arms, that nearly every inch of your skin is covered by his own. You recall how this situation happened in the first place… you invited him to your room to drink from you, his bite made you tired, and instead of leaving it seems that Astarion made himself comfortable in your bed.
This is the first time he’s stayed. Your heart takes a joyous beat in your chest. There’s a moment of tension between you two, an unspoken question of who will break the silence first.
“Hi,” you say.
Astarion’s mouth shifts ever so slightly into a smirk. “Darling.”
“Did I wake you?”
“What a silly question to ask. If anything, I woke you.” Astarion speaks low, his voice is practically purring. You can feel the rumble in his chest.
He moves unexpectedly and takes you by surprise when he rolls over onto his back and has you lay on top of him. You place your legs on either side of his body, scramble to support yourself on your arms. Astarion keeps his hands on the small of your back. You slept in an old nightgown because your other bed clothes got left at camp; it’s a simple sleeveless gown that has bunched up when he spun you, and you’re very aware that you’re giving him a sight to see. He laughs when your cheeks heat up and you blush your deep color of red.
“You act as if there’s any part of you left that I haven’t seen,” he says teasingly.
You blush deeper and he watches in enjoyment. “Shall one of us leave? Are you unable to sleep with me here?”
“Do you really think you’re making it worse for me? If anything, you’re making it all the better.” Astarion rubs small circles into the small of your back.
You think about everything he’s told you. You let your guard down, whether it’s because you’re still half-asleep, or perhaps he went searching for it. Your head pounds and pulses and Astarion reads your thoughts. He peers inside of your mind and feels the guilt that weighs on your heart so heavily. You don’t want to be another warm body who expects pleasure from him; you don’t want his affection and attention to come at a cost. Most of all, you don’t want to become another number on his list of past lovers.
He stares at you with an unreadable expression. He seems surprised and for once, Astarion doesn’t have a smart quip ready in his back pocket to pull out.
“I’m sorry,” you whisper. That’s all it takes. Tears roll down your cheeks freely and you drop your eyes.
“My darling…” Astarion whispers. His hands are off your back and he cups both sides of your face, gently bringing you down to meet him. His lips are a breath away from yours and from this close proximity, you can see the burning crimson color of his eyes. “In all of my years, both as a man and as a spawn…” Astarion whispered. “I’ve never felt such affection that someone has for me like you do. I don’t even need the tadpoles to know that. No one has ever cared about me the way you have and I have no idea what I did to deserve it.”
“You didn’t do anything, Astarion. Don’t you see? You were just, well, yourself!”
He smirks and pushes his hips up into you. With the way you’re straddling him, it’s easy to feel how rock hard he is beneath you. “It’s your fault, you know,” Astarion mutters. It seems like he’s talking more to himself than you.
“My fault for wh—”
You don’t finish that question. His lips are on yours and he’s claiming you with a demanding kiss. You are conflicted as he devours you. You really don’t know if this is right, if this is what he wants, yet at the same time you are so weak to his advances and you know you cannot resist him. “Astar—”
He bites your lip and his name dies with a squeak. Astarion busies himself with getting his trousers down enough to spring free. The next thing you’re aware of, his hardened cock is poking at your ass, with only the thin material of your nightgown to keep you safe. You both know that if Astarion so wished, he could have your pathetic excuse of modesty ripped off your body in one tug.
“Don’t you dare,” you warn when his hand grabs your nightgown. Violence was obviously his intention. He smirks beneath you, his eyes glowering in a warning: take it off or he rips it off. You blow a strand of hair out of your face and lean up.
“You’re such a sight to behold, straddled on top of me and so flushed,” Astarion comments. “Take the damned thing off, pet. Let me see all of you when I fuck you senseless.”
You flush deeper at that, yet you listen to instructions and take off the nightgown. You don’t look him in the eyes, although you’re hyper aware that he is taking all of you in.
“I will never get tired of telling you that you’re beautiful, even if you get tired of hearing it,” Astarion says with a smirk.
He grabs you by your hips and lifts you so he can get his cock in its ready position. Instead of entering you, however, you rub your wet folds up and down his cock. You move slow and make sure that every inch of your heat goes up and down his length. Both of you watch the lips of your pussy wing out around his cock, which gleams with the shine of your arousal.
Astarion can only take so much. He shifts beneath you, pauses a moment to give you time to brace, and buries himself deep inside of you. You take his full length all at once and from your position straddled above him, you can feel everything. You bite back a moan and tip your head towards the ceiling. This can’t be happening, you can’t already be close with the first thrust. The pressure is so strong, you’ve never been hungrier for release.
Your tadpole betrays you once again. You feel the pulse in your head and you don’t have to look down to know that he winces when his head pulse. It’s quick and fleeting but it does the damage. Astarion wears a shit-eating grin when the pulse leaves your head. “Oh, you’re such a good girl,” he croons. “You want me so bad, don’t you, kitten?”
Damn the tadpole. There was no point in denying it. You succumb to the vampire who’s balls deep inside of you. Anything to get him to start moving and release your pressure.
“Yes,” you whisper, although it sounds like a whimper.
Astarion gives you a rewarding thrust. One powerful snap of his hips has you climbing closer to your peak. But you need more. If Astarion wanted to, he could follow through on his promise and fuck you senseless. He was more than capable of it. He knew it, too, the bastard.
“Tell me how much you want me,” Astarion whispers. Perhaps it was meant to be a command, but unless your ears betrayed you, it almost sounds like a plea. You peer down at him through the wild strands of your unkempt hair and you see that Astarion is in the same boat as you, he just hides it better. He’s teetering on the edge of ecstasy—but he needs a little more from you. You understand that he needs to hear this from you.
You brace yourself (this isn’t in your wheel house) and you throw your head back and moan as you clench your muscles around his cock. At first, you think about the books you’ve read in the past and try to replicate them, but the bravado leaves you when you clench yourself around his cock and the pressure inside of you doubles. It catches you off guard and you really moan, you’re not sure you’ve ever heard yourself moan so loud. “Astarion,” you whimper. “Please, A-ah-starion, I need you…”
The vampire spawn shows you mercy. Or, perhaps he reached his limit as well.
He makes an inhumane noise before he moves, a growl deeper than anything you’ve ever heard before. You expect him to thrust inside of you and let you ride him in the bed. You shriek in surprise when there’s movement—the wind rushes through your hair, Astarion’s hands lift you up, your legs are thrown around his waist—and it’s not until your back hits the wall do you realize that you’re out of the bed. Your mind swims for just a moment as you process that Astarion carried you all the way across the room, but you know better. He practically flew you across the room and now he had you pinned to the wall.
Then, he follows through on his promise. He begins to fuck you. The thrusts are precise, deep, and quick. He wants this as badly as you do. You try to catch up, you feel as if you were on a merry-go-round and you’re still spinning while he is centered. All you know is that Astarion has you in every sense of the word, holding you up and against the wall. With your legs around his bare waist, he has all the freedom to fuck you.
Your mouth opens for another moan and Astarion uses the opportunity to swallow it for himself. His mouth possesses yours. Tongue and teeth, like he’s trying to taste every cavity of your mouth.
This is what it’s like to be suffocated. To be held down and fucked and have your mouth consumed. Every breath was his. Every moan was his to swallow. You love every moment of it. You lose yourself in him and surrender yourself to the carnal pleasure of it all. He breaks his mouth away from yours—a sinful line of spit connecting from his lips to yours—and he takes a good look at you with his hazed over eyes.
You realize that Astarion is admiring you.
“I’m so close,” you whimper. “Please, Astarion.”
You watch as his pupils dilate in reaction to your plea. His upper lip curls and he shows fang before he growls again. Astarion has never fucked you so hard before; even the way he grabs you with his hands will leave delicious bruises all over your body. The pressure builds, he’s hitting you in exactly the right spot. Your body sings, and in the moment before you lose it all and surrender yourself to the ecstasy, you give him a little smile.
Then, you’re pushed over the edge. Your orgasm comes on stronger than it ever has before, making your toes curl like in all those cliché books you’ve read. Astarion swallows your scream and claims your mouth with his. The next thing you know, he’s spilling himself into you, filling you up as he rides his own pleasure. He grunts into your mouth, and you run your tongue along his bottom lip before giving it a gentle bite.
You two stay there against the wall; two breathless, exhausted souls.
“You’re perfect,” Astarion whispers in praise. He kisses whatever expanse of your face that he can; your chin, your cheeks, your nose, and finally, your forehead.
“What did you mean, by the way?” you ask.
“When I said what, darling?”
“Earlier, when you said it was my fault.”
Astarion grins. He knows exactly what you’re talking about. “It’s a discussion for another time, pet.”
“Oh come on. You can’t tell me a little bit?”
Astarion rolls his eyes and lifts you up and away from the wall. He carries you back to the bed. You are grateful that it’s a bed this time, not a stupid bed roll or a squeaky cot. It’s a bed that perfectly accommodates you and Astarion as he pulls you into him and wraps his arms around you. “The short version,” he begins, “is that I had a plan. A simple plan. And you ruined it. That’s all you’re getting tonight.”
Normally you’d argue for more information, but exhaustion was strong and your limbs felt like noodles. “Well,” you say as you curl yourself up and make yourself comfortable against him. “Sounds to me like your plan sucked.”