Chapter Text
A century and a half ago, Astarion had tried to drink the blood of a thinking creature. He was sick of bugs and rat corpses, and in an act of foolish rebellion, he bit into the wastrel clumsily grinding into him. Hot, sticky blood poured up out of the man’s neck as soon as Astarion sunk his fangs in, but he couldn’t even taste it before his body, loyal as ever to Cazador’s every command, began gagging and retching. Of course, the man pulled away after being bitten, but not before spraying blood over Astarion’s undershirt. The idiot bled out quickly afterward from his wounds and left Astarion to try and scrub as much blood as he could out of his clothes before he returned empty-handed to his Master.
When he returned home, Cazador gave him the usual punishment for failing to bring in a meal and let Astarion believe that he had gotten away with his little rebellion for the rest of the night through the following day. However, that next evening, Cazador called him to wait, kneeling in the kennel as his siblings watched.
“Are We not good to you, boy?” he had asked with a disgusted expression on his face. “We’ve given you so much, and you repay Us with insolence.”
“I…I’m not sure what you mean,” the vampire spawn responded with a nervous laugh.
“We know you are a fool, Astarion, but it seems you are a forgetful fool as well,” Cazador had replied, with his back turned to his frozen spawn, selecting the instrument of his punishment. He returned to Astarion with a hammer and three long nails. It immediately reminded him of his year in the tomb.
“Master, please I-,” Astarion had pleaded because he couldn’t call Cazador by his name. His mouth wouldn’t form the sounds, and the sick bastard wanted his spawn to call him Master in private and Lord Szarr in public.
“You will speak when We allow it!” The vampire lord had snapped, eyes flashing with rage. “Spoiled, selfish boy, you have forgotten Our first rule. We would have you recite it before you face your punishment.”
“Thou shalt not drink of the blood of thinking creatures,” the vampire spawn’s mouth moved without his input.
“Ah, so you do recall Our rules, and yet you still seek to disobey Us,” Cazador said, face returning to a mask of calm. “Since you cannot use your mouth for the purpose We graciously gave you, We shall see if you can recall it after time without. Keep your jaw shut.”
Astarion couldn’t move his jaw to scream as his Master drove the first nail through the bottom of his chin. He could open his lips to whimper and howl to Cazador’s amusement, but he could only thrash his head back until one of his siblings- he can’t recall which- was called upon to hold his head.
The next two nails entered the bottom of either side of his jaw with equal brutality, splitting bone and cracking teeth on their way to his sinuses. Over the next however long, his body tried to heal over the wounds, but without their removal, all it did was keep his pain fresh. His Master had still expected him to use his body, mouth silent, to draw in victims over that time. He had a handful of people willing to fuck him, but only one he was able to draw back to Castle Szarr. It had been the only time he had been fed anything but bugs small enough to crawl past his teeth. His Master watched with great amusement as Astarion tried to drink down the putrid rat through his nailed jaw.
Once his three years of torment were over, Cazador whipped him for hours to celebrate being able to properly hear Astarion scream again.
But that was all before the tadpoles. Now he was free (aside from the worm in his head). Free to walk in the sun. Free to have more filling meals than bugs or rats. Yet he still hadn’t tasted the blood of a thinking creature, but tonight, he had had a nightmare about his former Master. He needed to be certain he was truly free of all compulsion, so he turned to the thinking creatures nearest at hand.
Mizzen’s tent was only a few steps away, and Astarion could hear the tiefling’s slow pulse within, indicating that he was asleep. It is simple work, untying his tent flaps to gain access to the unconscious warlock where he lies, vulnerable and trusting. He looks so different in the dark of the night; his hair is braided loosely over his shoulder instead of being pulled back into the tight style he wore during the day, and the black that was usually drawn around his eyes and over his lips had been wiped off.
Astarion leans over the tiefling and hesitates. What if he still gagged before he could swallow a single drop? What if Mizzen woke up and killed him? What if he was about to bite the warlock all wrong?
“What the fuck are you doing?” Comes a groggy voice from directly below him. He looks down to see Mizzen’s glowing blue irises looking right at him.
Astarion swears as Mizzen flips them both over. The warlock brings fingers crackling with fey energy up to Astarion’s throat, face curled in a look of tired annoyance.
“I’ll give you ten seconds to give me an answer I like,” Mizzen hisses, tail twitching menacingly behind his head. Might as well tell the truth; maybe Mizzen would be a good sport about it.
“I…am a vampire, and I’m too weak to hunt. I just needed blood,” he says in a nervous rush. “I wasn’t going to take much! Just enough to get my strength up.”
“I don’t like that answer, but at least it’s honest,” Mizzen sighs as he pulls away and climbs off of Astarion. “Have you bitten anyone else in camp?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Why didn’t you just ask me?” The tiefling says. He looks more exasperated now as if Astarion had woken him up to ask for a glass of warm milk.
“How would that have gone?” Astarion laughs coldly. “Would you trust me if you knew I was a vampire?”
“Fair point,” Mizzen sighs, “but we have to trust each other. We all have a better chance of not becoming fucking mind flyers together. Look, you can’t go sneaking into tents without permission, but you can drink my blood tonight.”
“That’s…generous of you,” Astarion says slowly as he waits for the other shoe to drop.
“...but we have to tell the others in the morning,” Mizzen finishes.
“Oh, I’m sure that will go swimmingly,” the vampire snorts back. “Shall I ask our resident monster hunter to stake me before or after breakfast? I would hate to ruin your appetite.”
“The others have a right to know. We’re in close enough quarters that they’ll figure it out eventually,” the warlock replies with his eyes locked on Astarion’s. “But if you tell them tomorrow, I won’t let them kill you or run you off.”
“And I’m just supposed to take your word?”
“Of course not; that’s what we’re doing here. Trading trust,” Mizzen explains. “Tonight, I have to trust you not to drain me dry, and tomorrow, you trust me not to run you out. It’s a better deal than I should give you after you woke me up in the middle of the night and tried to bite me.”
A deal fit for an Arch Fey’s warlock, to be sure. Likely not a deal Astarion would be able to unmake once it was struck, either. But what choice did he have?
“It’s a pact, then,” the vampire says. “So are you going to lay back down or…?”
Mizzen lays back down on his bedroll and tilts his head back to expose his neck. Astarion forces himself to bite down quickly before his hesitation gives Mizzen the chance to change his mind. He expects the warlock’s blood to taste like the otherworldly floral scent that floats around him or like a dark rum, but he tastes of everything. Mizzen’s blood is ambrosia and freedom. It’s as if the whole world is reduced to the place where Astarion’s lips meet Mizzen’s throat, and the hot gush of blood filling his mouth as he swallows desperately. Astarion feels the living heat of the tiefling slowly flood into his body, and he instinctively wraps his arms around Mizzen to draw him closer. With every mouthful of blood Astarion feels the gnawing ache in his belly that had been his constant companion for as long as he could remember decrease. The vampire is so focused on the pulse rushing through his ears that he almost doesn’t hear the soft call of his name. As he reluctantly pulls away, he instinctively licks the two puncture marks he left on the warlock’s neck, and he feels Mizzen shiver against him.
He sits back up and realizes everything is so much clearer. The sounds and smells of the night are no longer a cacophony but a symphony. Astarion feels happy. He eyes the warlock beneath him, Mizzen’s stormy grey skin looks a shade less warm, and Astarion can’t help but note what a handsome man he is, with his dazed eyes, parted lips, and the blood smeared against his neck.
“That was…amazing,” Astarion pants.
“I aim to please,” Mizzen replies slowly with a tired smirk. If Astarion were a better man, he would be worried that he took too much blood.
“Well, as enjoyable as this was,” he says quickly. “I need to find a more filling meal.”
Mizzen nods, and Astarion crawls out of the tent to stalk off into the treeline in search of a larger meal. As soon as he’s beyond the firelight of the camp, Astarion can’t stop himself from laughing in triumph. He is free of Cazador. More than that. With Mizzen’s blood coursing through his veins and settling in his belly, he feels happy for the first time in two centuries. The scent of the delectable warlock is still clinging to him, and that makes him laugh, too. This is the first time in 200 years another person’s smell permeating his clothing doesn’t fill him with revulsion or shame.
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It doesn’t take long for reality to set back in. Mizzen expected Astarion to tell the entire party his secret. Otherwise, there wasn’t anything to stop the warlock from showing his fresh scabs and setting the rest of the camp against the vampire. Hells, the only thing keeping him from turning on the vampire at this point was his word.
“So…I’m a vampire,” he says with a nervous laugh as the others eat breakfast. Mizzen, who had the courtesy to button his shirt high enough to cover the marks from last night’s encounter, shifts slightly closer to Astarion and tenses his body. A cute little show of protectiveness that could easily mean nothing if it actually came down to a fight.
“We’ve been traveling together for a tenday. Why tell us now?” The Blade of Frontiers asks, not bothering to put his oatmeal down.
“Can’t a man be honest about his nature without it being questioned?”
“He hasn’t hurt any of us,” Mizzen points out. “And I’m happy to finally be trusted on this matter.”
“You were wise enough not to try to feed from me without my permission,” Lae’zel says while leveling him with a hard look. “I will take no issue with your nature.”
“Just so you know, Astarion,” interjects their resident wizard. “I taste terrible.”
“Lucky for you,” the vampire replies sharply, flicking his eyes to Mizzen. “That I have much more enticing options.”
“Those options must be far away from our camp,” the tiefling responds, lips curling into a smile. “Since creeping into tents would’ve gotten you a stake to the heart.”
The bastard was fucking with him. Astarion had endured worse at the hands of Cazador. Been paraded around for his own discomfort. He wasn’t about to stand for this shit at the hands of some godsdamn tiefling. The vampire digs his heel into Mizzen’s toes as a warning.
The warlock jolts and moves his foot back. Then, quick as a flash, he makes the sign for “mistake” in thieves cant, the closest thing to “sorry” in the language, in Astarion’s periphery. A little secret about Mizzen for the vampire to keep.
“If you’re a vampire,” Karlach asks without looking up from her breakfast. “How come you’re ok in the sun?”
“I suspect it has something to do with our little friend,” Astarion replies, pointing to his temple.
“I’d much rather have a cunning vampire traveling with us,” Mizzens says finally with a confident smile, relaxing his body again. “You’re welcome to keep traveling with us, Astarion. As long as you pull your weight.”
Astarion bristles at the remark, but the rest of breakfast passes with more of the usual banter. Wyll politely complimenting Gale’s cooking, Karlach expressing how much she missed fruit in Avernus, and Lae’zel and Shadowheart sniping at each other.
Afterward, Mizzen approaches Astarion while he packs his tent. The warlock walks confidently over with a friendly smile on his face, but Astarion knows better than to trust a kind smile.
“I assume you’ve come over to say ‘you’re welcome,’” the vampire says.
“Or perhaps ‘deal complete,” Astarion continues with his best attempt at Mizzen’s accent.
“Well darling,” the warlock replies in a poor mockery of Astarion’s own voice. “I wanted to talk about how we are going to keep you fed.”
“Yes, yes,” Astarion responds. “Last night was a one-time sort of affair. I’ll find my own meals from now on. I trust you wouldn’t be opposed to me drinking from our enemies?”
“It would be a waste of blood not to at this point,” Mizzen agrees immediately.
“That’s exactly what I was thinking, you clever thing! If they’re going to die anyway, I may as well make a meal of them.”
“It would still be a problem if we left them bloodless on the road,” Mizzen points out with his tail swishing playfully behind him.
“That’s hardly my fault! The boar was heavy, and our wriggly little friends sapped away all of my vampiric strength!” He huffs back.
“Did it just wander into the middle of the road?” The tiefling laughs, “Can we be sure you didn’t actually eat a druid the other night?”
“Oh yes,” Astarion snorts. “The boar came right up to me on the road and offered me all of its blood. It must have been a druid.”
“Now I do have to ask,” the warlock continues. “What fun vampire tricks can you do?”
“Not many. I’m not even a full vampire, just a spawn,” Astarion responds and nearly bites his own tongue. He had hopped to avoid bringing up the existence of his Master until after he had his hooks in someone.
“Until the nautiloid captured me, I was less than a slave,” he continues. Perhaps if lust didn’t motivate the warlock, pity would. “I was the plaything of a vampire lord named Cazador. I couldn’t resist doing anything he compelled me to do. He wouldn’t allow me to eat anything but the bugs and rats he provided.”
The face Mizzen makes is not one of pity. His lips curl up to flash his teeth, and his tail taps down onto the ground.
“If he does come after you, I suppose we’ll have to kill him,” he says flatly. Astarion laughs humorlessly.
“How? You can’t possibly think our little group is a match for a vampire lord! You don’t know what he’s capable of! He’d snap each of your bones just to hear you scream.”
Mizzen clenches his jaw but doesn’t press the matter further. Astarion isn’t sure if the tiefling’s reaction is better or worse than pity. Perhaps the warlock was just interested in killing a vampire lord for the glory, and it had nothing to do with Astarion at all. There is a quiet moment between them as Astarion continues to pack up his things, and Mizzen continues to watch him.
“Last night doesn’t have to be a one-time affair,” he says finally. “Next time you’re hungry, you can just ask me.”
“And what can I give you in trade this time?” Astarion purrs as he leans in and puts a hand on Mizzen’s hip. Perhaps this could be easier than he thought.
“Don’t tease me,” the tiefling laughs as he lightly pushes Astarion away. “Just ask.”