Work Text:
When Tav returns to their camp outside Last Light Inn, tired and hungry from a foray with Wyll and Lae'zel out into the eastern reaches of the darkness, Karlach pulls her aside.
"Hey, um… Seen Fangs yet?"
Tav's smile goes stiff.
"No."
"Maybe you should? He seemed a bit… off, before." Karlach shifts from one foot to the other, clearly on edge about something.
"Was he injured?" Tav asks, concern overriding her better judgement.
"…Not exactly."
"Then what's wrong with him?"
Karlach gives a tight little laugh that doesn't suit her at all.
"You'd better ask him that yourself, soldier."
Tav sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose. All she wants is a meal and a bath. She's too tired for Astarion's bullshit.
"I'll have Halsin check on him. All right?"
Karlach hesitates.
"I really think it should be you. You know, since you two are…" She trails off, struggling with the choice of word, and settles for an awkward smile and a waggle of her eyebrows.
"We're not. Not anymore."
It has only been a few days since Astarion confessed his machinations. Only a few days since he broke her heart. Tav doesn't know what they are now. Certainly not lovers, not anymore. They never were, really; just manipulator and victim.
"Shit. Um." Karlach glances around and shifts her weight again. "Look, the prickly little shit would never admit it, but I think he's in trouble. Real trouble."
Tav frowns. "What do you mean?"
And Karlach explains. She tells Tav about the chest they found out in the ruined town outside Moonrise Towers. Astarion picked the lock and Astarion opened the lid, which meant Astarion got the faceful of strange dust that puffed out from the trap inside.
"He kept saying he was all right afterwards, but you know how he is," Karlach concludes her story. "He was acting strange all the way back here. All quiet, avoiding the rest of us. The second we got inside the bubble, he ran off."
"Ran where?"
"Not sure, but if I had to guess I'd say he's hiding out in one of those crapped-out houses at the edge of the bubble. He was so keen to get away."
Tav knows the ones Karlach means. They're all the way across the bubble, far from the camp and inn, but there's only a handful of of them.
"Fine, I'll have a look," Tav sighs. Gale needs to cook dinner before she can eat it, anyway.
The small clutch of derelict houses huddles just within the glowing perimeter of Last Light Inn's protective bubble. Stairs and roofs have collapsed, window panes are missing. It's no wonder no one has tried to make them fit for the refugees.
The first two hovels are empty, save for whatever skitters in the dark when Tav sticks her head inside and hollers. As she steps into the third, her foot catches on something. An archer's glove lies on the floor, just inside the door. Astarion's glove.
"Astarion? Are you in here?"
No answer. The gloom within is silent.
As Tav bends down to pick up his glove, a faint noise reaches her ears. A kind of squeaking, upstairs.
Quietly, she slips her backpack off her shoulders and sets it down by the door. She finds the second glove at the foot of the creaky stairs. His bow and quiver lie scattered on the landing upstairs. The first room Tav peers into is empty. The second still has a door, which is shut. The squeaky noises are coming from within.
"Astarion?"
The noises stop. He must be on the other side of that door. Ignoring her.
Tav is tired, and hungry, and so sick of his shit. She grabs the door handle and shoves the door open. The blood drains from her face.
"Oh shit," she blurts.
On a bed in the middle of the room sits Astarion, hunched over and very naked, hard cock in hand, glaring daggers at her.
"What in the Nine Hells are you doing here?" he hisses.
Her blood rushes right back up into her face.
"Karlach told me about the trap," she stammers, mouth working even though her brain has gone blank. "She was worried about you–"
"Get out!"
As he glowers at her, the tadpole twists behind her eye and the world warps, flips all the way around. Suddenly she sees herself, gawking in the doorway. Her – his – body is on fire, burning with searing, agonizing, fathomless lust. His cock is throbbing, so achingly hard it feels like it might burst. Every moment without relief is pain, but it's getting so difficult to reach it again, even though he tries and tries and tries. He stares at her pink little mouth, open in shock, mind thrumming with the ways he could use it, even as loathing shudders through him with each one.
And over it all hangs the smothering, nauseating terror: of what she must think of him, of what will happen to him if she leaves him again, abandons him here. Of what he might do if she stays.
The connection snaps. Tav gasps and grasps blindly for the doorframe. Her head spins so violently she fears she will end up on the floor.
"Wretched fucking worms!" Astarion snarls.
She should go. She should give him his privacy to deal with… whatever this is, but underneath his piss and vinegar there is something so lost, something so desperate about him. He doesn't know how to ask for help, even when he needs it. Tav has learned that much about him.
She wets her lips. "If… I can help–"
"No!"
He doesn't want her there. He doesn't want anyone there, least of all himself. Whatever is going on with him isn't normal. He wouldn't be there if he had the choice.
Those few nights ago, when Astarion tried to explain away his deceit, he exposed another sickening glimpse of his past in the process. Tav knows how his former master made him use his body, night after night, overriding his own will. She knows some of it, anyway. She doubts she will ever learn the full extent, much less truly comprehend it, but what she knows weighs in her chest like a stone. Her imagination supplies what he would not say.
But she tasted his fear, felt his pain. Her knees still quake with it. He is afraid and suffering, and she can't stand it.
"I want to help you. If I can."
Astarion doesn't answer. The bed squeaks. He's fucking his fist again, eyes screwed shut as if hoping it might shut out the world around him.
Tav steps inside and closes the door. She undoes the fastenings of her robe with unsteady fingers, shrugs it off her shoulders. When she pulls off her undershirt, she's suddenly shoved into the door. Astarion looms over her, a hand on her collarbones, just beneath her throat. He's so damned fast when he wants to be.
"I don't want you," he growls.
His words cut deep, deeper than she cares to admit.
He is an asshole. A selfish, conniving bastard. He revealed that, too, when he let slip that he had seduced her for protection, only to laugh about her being easy with his very next breath. If she stays, he will use her and sneer at her in the morning for it.
Gods, she really should have thought things through before making such a fool of herself, again. This was such a terrible, terrible idea.
"Yes, you have made that abundantly clear." Her voice is remarkably calm, all things considered. "I'll go."
Astarion keeps staring at her. The muscles in his arms and shoulders are coiled tight, trembling from the strain, yet he doesn't move. Tav huffs sharply.
"I can't leave until you let me go."
He doesn't. Only a sliver of red remains around the black of his eyes. He's closing in on her, inching closer. She can't help but stare at his soft lips, parted as he draws ragged lungfuls of air he doesn't need. His mouth is close enough to kiss. All she would have to do is lean in.
His lips were always cool, almost cold on her skin. It surprised her, that first time she felt his mouth on her neck. In retrospect, she really should have expected it.
Astarion still hasn't moved.
"Do you still want me to leave?" Tav asks, far more breathless than she would like to be.
His throat bobs. He wets his lips, over and over again, but he doesn't speak, nor does he move.
"I could go downstairs," she offers. "Make sure no one disturbs you."
"It's not–" Astarion swallows thickly. "It's not far enough. It's not safe–"
With a choked gasp, he goes stiff. His body has drifted close enough to brush against hers. Tav squirms, but instead of getting away, she only ends up rubbing the tip of his erection against her bare stomach. He sucks in a shaky breath, hips twitching against her as he struggles to keep them still.
His skin is warm to the touch, she realizes with alarm. He was burning up from the inside when their minds linked.
"I know you're in pain," Tav says softly. "You need relief. Let me help."
Astarion's hips jerk again, spreading more of the slick that's leaking from the tip across her lower belly. He makes a strangled noise in his throat, refuses to meet her eyes. She places a hand on his erection, presses it tighter against her. Astarion whimpers and bucks again.
"It's all right," Tav murmurs. "I've got you. It's okay."
She wraps an arm around his waist, wraps her fingers around his cock. It's so hot and swollen, so incredibly hard. Before she has a chance to begin stroking, he is already thrusting into her hand.
It doesn't have to mean anything, she tells herself. She's just helping an ally. Different as it is from a warding spell or a spare potion, the intent is the same. He needs help, and she is there to provide it.
It's a silly, clumsy attempt to rationalize, of course; not to mention futile. She relishes the weight of his body against hers, the heft of him as he glides through her fingers. Even now, her traitorous body responds with its arousal. The lust she felt blazing through his veins still lingers in her mind. It would be so easy to imagine it's for her.
It's foolish, she knows. He doesn't really want her; not then, not now. She shouldn't delude herself with anything else.
Astarion's hips lose their rhythm. His movements grow more and more frantic until wetness spurts in the gap between them and coats her skin. He stills with a groan. Tav slides her hand out from between them and around him. Astarion trembles as she holds him, still all tensed up.
"You can't be here." It comes out like a sob. "It's like he's in my head again. I can't– I can't control it."
He's still pressed up against her abdomen, still hard. Tav's heart sinks. It's not over.
"It's all right. I've got you, as long as you need."
"No, no, no, you don't understand. I could never resist, I was never strong enough–"
He hisses in a breath as Tav takes his cock in hand again.
"It's okay," she murmurs as she strokes. "Let me take care of you."
"Gods," he chokes out. "Gods, that feels so good."
His praise pools liquid heat in her groin. She shouldn't be enjoying this, she really shouldn't. She knows that, but even though it's all just another lie, brought on by a godsdamned trap set by some twisted bastard who's probably long dead and has no idea of the misery they caused – it feels so good to be something he wants.
Tav has never been the desirable sort. Oh, she has her talents, her uses. She can weave a spell faster than most. Gale is powerful, but she has the edge in a fight because she can read the ebb and flow of the battlefield, can counter attacks before he even notices them. In duels between wizards, none have bested her so far.
But none of that gets her admiration or desire, not of the kind someone like Astarion must receive in droves. Among wizards, power is the only currency. Among laymen, she's too lettered and bookish. People have bedded her for a number of reasons, but mind-blowing lust was never one of them.
But now, thanks to that trap he sprung, Astarion does want her, or his body does at any rate.
"Hells." His voice is tight, strained. "I can smell you."
A jolt shoots down between Tav's legs, giving him more to scent. Astarion's fingers, normally so deft and nimble, find the lacing of her trousers and tug with neither grace nor patience.
"I need to be inside you," he grits out. "Please."
Tav slips out from between him and the door and hurries over to the bed. She has barely dropped down upon it before he's pulling off her boots, her trousers. The moment she's bare, he pounces on her and, with a growl in his throat, he shoves himself in. She winces at the sudden intrusion. She isn't as ready for it as she should be. He feels bigger too, bigger than he has been before.
Astarion goes still.
"Should I–" He squeezes his eyes shut and groans, more from pain than pleasure. "Should I stop?"
Her body is already relaxing, already adjusting to his girth. She likes having him so close again. She still wants him. Gods have mercy on her foolish soul, but she still wants him.
"Keep going," she says, breathless but steady.
They fucked several times before Astarion's confession. They played rough once or twice, hard and fast and dirty, but he was always, to quote his own boast, a consummate lover.
This is different. Astarion pounds her with a single goal in mind, chasing the relief he desperately needs. He is focused on the end, and she is simply the means.
There's a refreshing honesty to it, Tav thinks. She was always a means to an end to him. The only difference now is that they both know it.
And even though she knows exactly what this is and what it isn't, he still feels so godsdamned good inside her. She can't stop the little mewling sounds that slip past her lips. She can't stop the hands that clutch at his arms, his shoulders, nor the way her hips tilt up to meet him.
When he comes, it is sudden and quiet. There's no warning, no husky murmur asking where she wants it; he just spills deep inside her with a soft grunt and slumps down onto his elbows.
Dust, Karlach had said. Spores would be Tav's guess, likely from the Underdark. All sorts of strange fungi grow down in the dark, with effects that range from the merely confusing to the downright horrifying. Many can be lethal, including a few of the known aphrodisiacs.
"Gods," Astarion mumbles. "This isn't how it was supposed to go."
"What do you mean?"
He pulls out of her and rolls onto his back.
"You should go," he says, staring up at the remains of the ceiling. "Now, while you can."
"Do you want me to go?"
Astarion closes his eyes and draws a shuddering breath.
Tav has never been remarkable. She's no match for the ethereal beauty of an elf maiden. She doesn't wield a dazzling wit or charm. Her mind is sharp and analytical, fit for scholarship and, as their adventures have revealed, for shrewd strategy and planning. She should have known it was too good to be true. Men like Astarion never looked twice at her.
But she had thought she was dying, and that he was dying too. She had believed she was good enough for a last, desperate fling.
And now she's deluding herself that she's good enough for his mindless relief.
"If you tell me to go, I will," she says.
Astarion hesitates.
"I should. If I was any good–"
"Tell me to go, and I will." She doesn't want to hear his excuses. Doesn't want him to make it seem like something it isn't.
His hips jerk off the mattress. Astarion whimpers and turns his head away. His swollen cock is a stark, angry red against his pale stomach.
Tav runs a hand through his silver locks, damp and bedraggled.
"It's all right. I've got you."
She gets up and straddles him. They both moan when she lowers her hips and slides her slick folds along his hardness. She's ridiculously wet, from both him and her. She'll need all of it, she thinks, to take him again. Astarion gazes up at her. There's lust, of course – his eyes still smolder with it, impossibly dark – but that doesn't mean anything. Not when the rest of his expression is so conflicted that it's impossible to decipher.
Tav wraps a hand around his shaft. As she guides him to her entrance, he twitches in her grasp, desperate spore-fueled thrusts he tries to contain. The moment he's in place, he plunges up into her with a choked noise that sounds almost like a sob.
"It's okay," she manages between panting breaths. "Take what you need."
She bounces up and down, trying her best to meet his rhythm, but it's only a matter of time before his frenzied pace wears her out. She slumps down onto her hands, leaning over him as she gasps for air. Astarion's fingers dig into her plump hips as he clutches her, keeps her still as he drives into her from below. His jaw is clenched tight, his teeth bared. She can see his fangs, long and sharp; his true nature on careless display.
Some time after the tiefling party, he had begun to show a glimpse of fang when he smiled at her, like a little secret shared between the two of them. She had thought it meant something.
Tav closes her eyes. He's still ramming into her at the same breakneck speed. The pleasure is building, coiling tighter and tighter around the shunting cock in her cunt. She's close, so close, when he slams up and yanks her down at the same time with a hoarse cry.
Astarion goes limp, drags her down with him. His eyes are closed, something pained in the tightness around them. Her cunt twitches around the cock that is still inside her, thwarted at the last moment. This time, he has softened a little.
"Is it helping?" she asks softly.
The hands on her hips loosen, stroke where they gripped so tightly. Astarion meets her eyes briefly, then looks away and nods.
His hair has fallen into his face again. Tav strokes the wayward strands from his forehead, one willful curl at a time. When she moves down along his temple and cheek, he turns his head and nuzzles her palm. She goes still, caught off guard. Before she can process what he's doing, his limbs go rigid and with a pained grunt, he slips out of her touch. It lasts only moment before he slumps down again.
"Hells below, it's coming back," he whimpers.
"It's all right–"
"Stop saying that! Nothing about this is all right. I wanted to be better for you. Do better. Not ravish you in a filthy hovel like some wretched beast!"
Tav wants to believe he means it. It hurts, how much she wants to believe it.
"You're not yourself," she whispers.
"It shouldn't be like this. Never like this. I'm no better than them."
Astarion spits the word with such venom and loathing. His victims, Tav guesses. The people he seduced, like her. The ones he used. The ones who fell for it.
Seducing you was easy, frankly.
She gave him her heart and he drained it dry. It should be empty now. Funny how it still feels like it's bleeding.
"You're nothing like them." Still so calm, so steady. It's like someone else is speaking in her stead.
"You don't deserve this. Gods, you… You deserve so much more. Something real. I wanted us to–"
His face falls. His words fail him, and he sits up to cup her face and touches his lips to hers. He has kissed her before, many times, but there has always been an urgency to it. Prior to his confession, she would have called it desire. Now she knows he just wanted to get it over with.
This kiss is nothing like that. This one is soft and slow and gentle. Tav is tempted to call it chaste, absurd as that sounds when he's inside her, both of them sticky with seed and slick and sweat. She wraps her arms around him, lifts one of her hands to the nape of his neck. He hums as she toys with the curls there; a warm, approving sound that makes the ache in her chest swell to something unbearable.
Here it is at last: the closeness, the tenderness. Here is everything she craved. Tav should put an end to it then and there, but she just can't bring herself to it. She rocks gently in his lap, just enough to truly savor how deep he is inside her, as close as they can possibly be. With a soft noise in the back of his throat, he slides his arms up her back and cradles her to his chest. If Tav closes her eyes tightly enough and doesn't think, she can pretend the confession never happened, that she's still as cherished as she once believed.
Astarion begins to push up into her. There's that urgency again, creeping into the snap of his hips. He wraps an arm around her and holds her close as he lowers her onto her back. He's still kissing her, but the sweetness is already slipping away. The spores are in charge again. Tav's eyelids burn. She keeps her eyes screwed shut, keeps it all on the inside. None of it belongs out there in the open, in front of him.
His hips speed up. Soon he's slamming into her, lost in a frenzy again, his face hidden in her shoulder as he pants and grunts. His hair tickles the side of her face. It is oddly sweet compared to the way he moves.
"Let me taste you," Astarion whines. "Please, I can't– I need more."
Tav closes her eyes and bares her throat. There is nothing remarkable about her. She doesn't have the beauty, the wit or charm. That is certainly why the fingers of a single hand are more than enough to count her past lovers, him included. He has bedded thousands. The only thing that makes her special to him is what she now offers.
She has barely turned her head when he plunges his teeth into her with a fierce groan. She sucks in a startled breath and tenses under him, around him. It isn't the icy sting she knows and expects; his body is too feverish for that. His breath is warm against her skin, his tongue hot as he laps up the blood pulsing from her neck. He feels strange like this. Wrong.
But he needs her. Tav can't deny him the relief he needs.
Astarion grows thicker inside her as he feeds. He pushes up and sits back on his heels, one hand firmly on her hip to keep her still as he pistons into her. He licks his lips clean of the red. The look on his face has shifted to something new, something sharp and hungry. He grabs her arm and lifts it to his face, holds her gaze as he sinks his fangs into the soft flesh of her forearm. Tav grits her teeth, and he moans into her skin as she instinctively clamps down on his thickness inside her. The pain is fleeting, it always is, but before it vanishes it coils around the pleasure for a delicious moment, enriches it like nothing else can. Astarion's throat bobs as he swallows, quick little mouthfuls in time with his thrusting hips. His eyelids droop lower and lower, until he squeezes them shut and snaps his hips one final time. He growls against her skin as he comes, body arched back, muscles taut. He's so beautiful like this, Tav thinks hazily.
Astarion dislodges from her arm. He opens his eyes, pupils blown out with lust and hunger, and gazes at her as he drags his tongue over the pinpricks he has left one more time. Then he shuffles back on the bed and buries his head between her thighs. Tav cries out as his tongue swirls around her sensitive nub. He has pleasured her like this before and must have memorized what she likes, for he wastes no time fumbling around. She weaves her fingers through his curls, eggs him on with needy moans and curses. She has been teetering on the edge for so long that her release crashes into her with the force of a tidal wave. She's whisked away by the strength of it, powerless, weightless. Just when she's about to come up for air, a sharp pang sends her careening again.
No one else has ever brought her pleasure like he has. No one else ever will.
When she finally cracks her eyes open and looks down, Astarion is latched onto her inner thigh, suckling idly while he strokes a featherlight thumb up and down her slit.
"Hells." Tav's throat feels raw. "I don't think I can move anymore. You've worn me out."
"Don't worry, my dear. I'll handle the moving."
He purrs it like one of his insipid pickup lines. And gods above, he is still hard. Tav can feel it pressing into her leg. The pressure lifts as he gets onto all fours and crawls up over her. A perfect, empty smile rests on his lips. He plants a trail of kisses up their body as he goes, much like he did that first time in the moonlit clearing. The moon is shining down on him now too, admitted through the gaps in the crumbling roof.
No, not the moon, not in this eternal dark. The gleaming silver barrier that protects them.
He was so beautiful that night, so charming and tender. The memory makes Tav's heart ache. Nothing but a charade, all of it.
A sharp twinge jolts her out of her thoughts. His mouth is on her breast, sucking hard, blood seeping from the corner of his mouth. This didn't happen that first night. He has no need to pretend anymore, Tav thinks. The thought doesn't hurt as much as she would expect. Nothing hurts as much as it should. She can barely feel her fingers.
Astarion doesn't pause for long. His body is no longer as feverish as it was at the beginning, but he's still too warm to the touch, still aching for relief.
Tav winces as he slides into her. There's no resistance anymore nor is he rough about it – if anything his movements have grown practiced, precise – but the night is taking its toll. Is it possible to bruise on the inside, she wonders distantly as he begins to pump into her again. It's difficult to hold onto the thought. A fog has settled on her mind. The blood loss must be taking its toll, too.
A jolt of pleasure makes her arch off the mattress. Between her thighs she spies a familiar mess of white curls. Tav blinks sluggishly, struggling to understand. He was just on top of her. When did he move back down?
Astarion must be as exhausted as she is; likely more, since he's been fighting these magically-inflated urges every step of the way. Yet he laps between her thighs like a man possessed, moans as he devours her with lips and tongue. It isn't for her benefit alone, not anymore. She can see the blood that trickles down from the wounds in her thigh and seeps into the mess between her legs. But Astarion drags her to the brink nonetheless until she cries out and tumbles over the edge once more, shuddering and twitching under his greedy mouth.
When Tav opens her eyes again, Astarion hovers above her, his silver hair lit up like a halo in the pale light. His eyes are black voids, his mouth and chin smeared red. A shiver runs down her spine. He stares her down like a predator pinning their prey.
Finally Tav understands his reluctance, the apprehension behind it. Now that the unnatural lust is ebbing from him, his other hunger is taking over, and he has nothing left in him to stop it. His self-control is long gone.
Astarion is on her, in her again, rutting like an animal in heat with his face buried in the crook of her neck. She gasps as his fangs pierce her flesh without warning. The slurping noises as he feasts are as obscene as the wet slaps of flesh against flesh.
"Astarion… It's… too much."
He keeps drinking. Her body jostles from the force of his thrusts, too worn out to rise up and meet them. Her limbs feel so heavy. So cold.
"Asta… rion…"
Tav's thoughts drift apart like clouds in a breeze. She sinks deeper and deeper, until nothing remains but darkness.
Tav drifts into consciousness as slowly as she left it. A patchy ceiling stretches out above her, full of holes where the silvery gleam of the protective bubble shines through. Her feet are cold. Her whole body is chilly, but her feet feel colder than the rest. The damned blanket must be too short.
When Tav glances down she recognizes her robe, draped over as much of her as it can reach. The movement, slight as it is, makes her head throb. She winces.
"Do you have any healing potions?"
She lolls her head in the direction of Astarion's voice. He is leaning against the wall, cloaked in shadow. He's dressed again, all geared up in his drow armor. His head is turned away from her.
"Are you hurt?" she rasps and immediately regrets it. The inside of her throat hurts too.
He laughs, harsh and cold.
"In my bag." Tav tries to push off the bed, but a pang shoots through her arm and makes her freeze with a hiss. The robe slips down and reveals two small but swollen wounds in the middle of an angry purple bruise on her shoulder. An identical mark mars her forearm.
Astarion scoffs. "Stay still, idiot."
Tav follows him with her eyes as he strides over to her belongings, neatly folded and stacked on a sagging dresser. Strange that he would ask. He could have rifled through her backpack at any time.
"Front pocket," she instructs, needlessly. He knows where she keeps her potions.
Astarion glances at her as he tosses the potion onto the filthy mattress, but he whips his head around again before it lands.
"Well, go on," he snaps, leaning on the dresser with his back to the bed. "We can't go back to camp with you looking like that. The others would rip me to shreds."
Tav grimaces through a whole choir of complaints from her aching body as as she reaches for the bottle. Her neck twinges with the slightest tilt of her head. She finds bite marks on both sides of it, swollen and tender under her fingertips. She frowns, confused.
"I don't remember…"
"You passed out." Astarion's voice is flat. "I stopped when I noticed. Dealt with the rest of it on my own."
When I noticed. Tav's woozy mind latches onto the phrasing with morbid curiosity. What did it take, she wonders. Her going quiet? Limp? The sound of her struggling, failing heartbeat?
She isn't going to ask.
Tav swallows the potion and closes her eyes while it does its work. Its tingling warmth blooms through her chest and races down into her limbs, closing puncture wounds and erasing bruises in its wake. It won't take away the dizziness, though.
"You really are a special kind of fool, you know that?" Astarion sounds even testier than before. "You should have run the moment you saw me in that room."
"Oh, shut up. I've had worse."
"Gods," he spits. "If that is true, then your taste in lovers is even more abysmal than I thought."
That finally pierces the haze of indifference enough to sting. Tav's lips twist into a bitter smile.
"I guess that's why I was the lucky mark."
"And apparently you learn absolutely nothing from your mistakes," he growls. "Hells below, I should just leave you here."
"Then go already," she snaps. "Or would you rather insult me some more?"
She expects Astarion to leave in a huff, maybe slam the door for good measure. Instead he remains where he stands by the dresser, glaring at her.
"Anyone with a lick of sense in their head would hate me by now."
Tav falls back into the mattress and covers her eyes with a hand.
"Insults it is."
She doesn't have the energy for this. Even with her eyes closed, she can feel the world spin around her. Her body feels so heavy, like it might sink through the mattress and into the floor at any moment. Tav can feel every lump digging into her tender muscles, all the stiff and crusty patches that she really doesn't want think about in any detail. Why did the bastard have to find some abandoned shack with the most revolting bed Tav has ever had the misfortune to touch? What was wrong with a nice, cozy, clean room over at the inn?
"I could have killed you."
Astarion's voice has gone quiet. A few potential responses drift into Tav's mind, ranging from the heartfelt to the spiteful. She really is too tired for this, so she settles for glib.
"I'd forgive you. As long as you'd have a nice enough bottle of wine on hand when you resurrect me."
"I wouldn't."
"I'm not worth a single bottle of wine?" Tav rasps out a laugh. "Fuck you."
"That's not what I meant."
Tav chokes on her laughter.
"…You wouldn't even bring me back?"
"Gods! Are you being this dense on purpose?"
He's bristling with anger again, but a streak of desperation shines through. Perhaps it was there all along.
Tav may not remember how the night ended, but she remembers more than she would like. The way he kissed her and held her close as she sat in his lap. All those sweet things he said, about wanting to do better. She didn't want to believe any of it, didn't dare believe it; but the spores wore off long ago and he's still there.
"Astarion… You don't have to stay."
"You expect me to leave you here on your own? Surely you've noticed that you barely have a drop of blood left in you."
"I've fought ogres and beholders and goblin hordes. I can handle a leisurely walk back to camp."
His scowl deepens as she talks. He opens his mouth to offer another protest, but Tav holds up a listless hand.
"Please, just go. I'm too tired to argue."
Astarion's mouth thins to a line. The dresser groans when he shoves himself off and stalks out. Tav listens until she hears the front door open and close, then hides her face in her hands. She draws a shuddering breath, then another, each one shallower than the last. When the breaths threaten to turn into gasps, she bites the inside of her cheek until she tastes copper.
A waste of perfectly good blood. The thought sounds like Astarion in her head, and she needs another moment to calm down again.
He's gone. He left her, even after she refused to leave him. All of his sweet nothings were just that. Empty words.
She stares up at the broken ceiling and wonders if it had been better if she hadn't woken up at all.
But as much as Tav would like to never move again, this mattress makes her skin crawl. With every ounce of strength she can muster, she shoves her robe aside and pushes herself up to sit. That's as far as she gets before the world starts spinning again.
There's no blood on her, she realizes as she stares down at herself. No sign of other fluids either, except for what leaks out of her when she moves. She spots a bucket by the bed, half-full of water. The rag that hangs over the rim is stained pink.
Her waterskin sits on a rickety chair that has been pulled up to the bed. The moment she sees it, she realizes how dry her mouth feels. About a third remains; she gulps it all down.
By the dresser, she pauses to stare at her neatly stacked clothes. She never bothers to fold them. She doesn't understand why he did. For every piece she unfolds, she pictures his pale, slim hands on them: folding, tucking, smoothing. Where the fabric settles on her skin, she imagines his touch instead.
When she realizes what she's doing, she needs another moment.
Once dressed, Tav straps the waterskin back onto the side of her backpack. Why the hells didn't she stop at camp first to drop it off? The damned thing has never felt heavier. After a few tries, she decides to leave it where it is. It can wait there a few hours. The cursed dark would devour any would-be thieves long before they reached the Last Light Inn.
Tav descends the stairs one step at a time, knuckles white as she clings to the railing. The old wood groans under her weight, but she makes it to the ground floor in one piece. The front door is just up ahead; she reaches it in a few strides.
She moved too fast. The dizziness takes over and the world keels sideways. Tav closes her eyes and braces for impact.
It is softer than she expects, nothing more than a dull judder through her weary limbs. Only when a pair of arms grips her tightly does she realize it wasn't the floor that broke her fall. Tav opens her eyes to meet a blood-red stare. Astarion's eyes truly are beautiful, even when they burn with disapproval.
She shouldn't think such things. Not anymore.
"You're still here," she says.
Astarion scoffs and pulls her upright.
"Observant as always, darling."
Tav expects him to let her go. Instead he draws her in closer, presses his cheek against hers.
"You should have left."
Astarion's voice is soft, only audible because his lips are so close that they brush against the shell of her ear. Tav shivers. He can probably feel it, close as he is. She knows the bloody vampire can hear the way her heart speeds up, too.
"I was trying to just now."
"Gods below. You know what I mean."
His hand slides up and cradles the back of her neck. His fingers are cool against her skin again. Tav closes her eyes, tries to swallow down the lump in her throat. How dare he? How dare he do this to her now?
"You're squeezing me."
"If I let go, you'll fall."
Tav doesn't want to think about how true that is.
"Don't toy with me," she whispers. "Not today. I can't–"
Astarion's hold on her tightens.
"Never. Never again."
Tav feels like she's standing at the edge of an abyss. She can't tell whether he's keeping her from falling or about to push her in.
"Astarion, please. Some of us need to breathe."
He finally loosens his grasp and takes a step back. Only a single step, Tav notes. He keeps his hands on her elbows. His face is serious as he gazes at her with those beautiful eyes.
It's no easier to breathe like this.
"You should have left," he chides again. "But if you had… Gods, I don't know how I would've made it through the night without you. I am grateful. I just have no idea how I can ever make this right."
"You were poisoned. I chose to stay. Neither is your fault."
"You didn't want me."
"You didn't want me."
"That's not–" Astarion's jaw keeps working as he stares at the floor, even though his mouth stays shut. "I didn't want anyone. Not like that. Or… at all, I suppose. But you're the only one who could have given me those precious, impossible moments of comfort through it all."
Something warm and wet rolls down Tav's cheeks. Astarion's lovely eyes dart down and grow wide in alarm. Before she can swipe the tears away, he has scooped her up again.
"I'm sorry, my sweet," he says, voice breaking. "Gods, I'm so sorry."
Tav clutches at him, sobbing in his arms. He holds her tight, chanting his broken apologies as if they were an incantation. If only they were; a simple string of spells that would take away the hurt and make everything all right again.
"Why did you have to lie?" Tav wails. "Why did you make me think you cared?"
"I do care. That's the godsdamned problem." He huffs, his breath cool as it ruffles her hair. "Do you really think I would've said anything if I didn't? Everything was going to plan–"
"I don't want to hear about your bloody plan!"
He falls silent, and stays silent. He strokes her hair as she weeps, again and again until her tears run dry.
"I'll take you back to camp," he murmurs as her breathing calms. "Fetch one of the healers to look you over. And if you decide that you never want to speak to me again, then I… I'll understand."
It would be the prudent thing to do. The sensible thing. She has always been the prudent, sensible sort.
"When we get to camp, will you bring me that bottle of wine?" she asks instead.
Astarion releases a soft sigh.
"If Last Light only has plonk in its cellars, I'll raid Jaheira's personal stash. Hells, I'll sneak into Moonrise if I have to."
Tav lets go of his shoulders and slides her arms around his waist.
"I'll hold you to that."