Fenris makes a quiet, slightly undignified sound as Astarion pulls out, leaving him empty and very aware of the come dripping from him. It's with heavy, lazy movements that he drags his pants back up, at least covering his ass before he sinks down onto the grass completely. He looks at Astarion as the other elf joins him.
Listen to me, isn't what he's expecting, and given that it's unexpected he focuses in sharply through the pleasant haze of his afterglow. It's the tone that catches him. Immediately his mind starts conjuring possibilities, none of them good, regarding what he might have to listen to.
But he stays silent, waiting for Astarion to continue. Fenris also stays still, flat on his stomach with his arms now folded beneath his head, gaze intent though his body yet seems relaxed. Better to keep his tension hidden, if he can.
He is not comforted by the rest. Fenris pushes himself up slowly until he's sitting, though for the moment his weight is resting more on his hip and thigh to spare himself the mild discomfort. It will fade, he knows that.
"What did he make you?" he asks, guarded but--not entirely closed off. Astarion is looking at a creature made by a master, after all. The marks forever burned into his skin. Fenris waits, quiet and fully pulled from the pleasant feeling of a few moments ago.
Shame, Astarion thinks in the midst of his own strained tension, he liked that view.
But they can’t go on like this— no, correction: he can’t go on like this, feeling his wicked heart beat again without knowing whether or not he’ll be chased off once the truth comes into full focus. Caring, without—
“I’m sure you’ve noticed it by now, given that you’re not blind,” he lifts a pale hand and— oh, no. That one has come on it, he realizes, chuckling only briefly as he wipes it along the edge of his shirt.
And then the smile fades.
This time he motions again, towards his face. His own pale visage. “My eyes. My fangs. Abnormal traits all, even amongst albinic creatures. The curse my master infected me with— alongside a nasty little caveat, too.”
His hand, the one that’d been scuffing along Fenris’ scalp, withdraws at last; he isn’t quite certain Fenris will want his touch with what comes next in play.
“The night he changed me, Cazador bound me to him, both body and soul, so that I could never flee his side. So that I’d become a monster, cursed to feed on blood alone, never aging. Never dying. Leashed to his every whim for two hundred years.” Endlessly. Always.
And then not.
“I escaped only because something here broke his puppeting control over me. I don’t know what, and I won’t ever stop to fret over why. But...”
But.
“Now, for the first time in all those years, I’ve finally found myself not wanting to leave someone else’s side.”
Fenris isn't blind. He's spent the better part of his life believing that most people can and will hurt him to one extent or another, and so he's accustomed to looking for threats everywhere. He'd noticed the sharper teeth (seen them, felt them), the strange color of Astarion's eyes. His acceptance of those strange traits came mostly with the begrudging trust that grew with being nursed back to health. Astarion has had plenty of opportunity to do him true harm and hasn't.
So what would eye color or strange teeth matter to him?
He listens, intent and still and quiet in a way some have found eerie. The stillness of one who has wanted to go unseen, unnoticed in plain sight. The name - Cazador - means nothing to him, but it doesn't need to. Hearing it aloud sends an unpleasant chill trickling down Fenris's spine, chasing away any lingering warmth. It's replaced by cold rage and memory of terror. The faint lyrium glow fades. This is not his story, and yet elements of it strike too close. Too familiar.
Bound. Trapped. A monster. Leashed to every whim. Fenris's own life has been very short by comparison, nor can he quite fathom what it is to live that long. He isn't sure he would want to, if those were the conditions of it.
Astarion finishes and Fenris knows he should speak. He considers how long - and how often - he's had open, bleeding wounds around Astarion. If he is truly fated to live on blood alone, that he hasn't taken advantage or lost any sort of control is all the more impressive. He has questions, but those are best reserved for later.
He takes a deeper breath and lets it go slowly. Remaining silent too long would be cruel, he knows that.
"And so you're telling me this because... you want to stay with me?"
Yes, that is the part he's honing in on. He's still letting the rest percolate.
“If you’re not inclined to chase me off, now that you know the truth.” He jokes, thready in the way that anything that isn’t really a joke sounds when bared to the naked air: paper thin, fragile— maybe a little scared.
But he wears it with a smile. An easy one, his own chin tipped low in something akin to animalistic deference.
Something that’d been absent when he’d been battling for control, or fucking Fenris ever so feverishly into the warm, dew-slicked earth. A clear difference in demeanor.
Fenris thinks of the people he's hurt, ones who took him in and protected him until everything fell apart. He will regret always his weakness then, following orders like a dog that doesn't know better. He hears the uncertainty in Astarion's voice, a fragility that hasn't been shown before. The pale elf is exposing his belly, as it were, vulnerable and tense should there be a violent reaction.
Fenris doesn't want Astarion to be afraid of him.
He moves closer, telegraphing his movements as much as he can to avoid seeming like a threat. He eases into the circle of Astarion's space, bodies touching again. A small, faltering smile appears.
"I've been told I'm not charming enough to refuse friends," he says as he meets Astarion's gaze. "I apparently need anyone who will have me. And I think I know something of what it's like to have your own body or nature as a reminder of... that."
Astarion will never, ever be able to forget what was done to him, fundamentally changed by what his master did. Danarius didn't keep Fenris for a hundred years, but his mark is permanent. Neither of them could possibly be the same creatures they were before some sadist got their hands on them. Fenris leans closer and gently bumps his brow against Astarion's.
"If I haven't chased you off yet, I don't plan to start now. Unless there's some gods-forsaken annoying habit you've been hiding. I've made my peace with the rest."
“Annoying aside from drinking blood, you mean?” Asked both featherlight and wryly in equal measure, Astarion's profile nosing its way in against Fenris’ own, even as that slight smile of his ebbs. Touch for touch— impossibly relieved, even if he isn’t outwardly showing it.
His fingers curl along the edges of torn fabric, feeling out the little nicks and jagged marks left behind from their roughhousing.
“Still, for whatever it’s worth, I find you charming. All those sullen glances, melting away into half-hidden grins." Sharp teeth set themselves gently along Fenris' lower lip, teasing at him— and acclimating him once more to their feel, this time with renewed context.
"Admitting that only makes you question your taste," he mutters, though there is quiet amusement there. He stills as sharp teeth graze his lip. It's impossible not to notice them, especially since he's had Astarion's mouth all over him by now. But those teeth had never been a threat and so he'd looked past them. Wondered, but not enough to bring it up. He can't decide now if he's glad that he didn't, or if it would have given Astarion the opportunity to share all this sooner and thus relieve him of the burden he's been carrying.
"How have you been feeding yourself?" he asks, almost absently - a matter of curiosity (for now) rather than deep concern. Obviously Astarion is finding a way. "Animals?"
Fenris assumes Astarion hunts for the same reason he does, only the parts of an animal they need to survive are a bit different.
There's a reason why Fenris is so well fed. Why none of the hares or birds or even— on occasion— boar he's been brought in his recovery tasted excessively gamey despite the make of the beasts themselves. He might've guessed it already.
One last kiss for good measure and Astarion withdraws slightly into his own space, keeping Fenris' hand tucked light across his chest, held in place by arched fingers that sit light between the edges of those pale blue brands.
And there, he nods. Just once.
"My master forbid me from drinking the blood of anything cognizant. Self-aware. Thinking, as he put it: humans, elves, dwarves— that sort of thing." One more insult suffered as his slave, atop all the rest. "He made sure I only fed on dying rats. Dead flies. Always enough to keep me starved, and all of it as wretched as you'd imagine."
He says it offhandedly. Distantly, even. As if the more passively or happily he talks about old scars, the less real they inevitably become.
"And I still haven't fed on anyone since I broke free. Though I'd be lying if I didn't admit you looked absolutely delectable once or twice, all flush with satisfaction, right up to the tips of those pretty little ears of yours."
Or when he'd bled. Suffered. Ached. Then, too, Astarion was there at his side, battling his own hunger for the sake of seeing Fenris through. It hadn't always been selfless; he'd been certain he'd needed Fenris strong and whole to survive the wilds— let alone the world itself.
Fenris lets Astarion withdraw, but doesn't move himself, especially given that the pale elf is keeping his hand against his chest. He tries not to sneer in distaste - not at Astarion, but at his master's behavior - as he's told about the rats and whatever else Astarion could scrape by on. His thumb strokes over the other man's skin.
His gaze shifts and he meets the strange eyes looking at him, with the firm reassurance that he is in no danger. Fenris thinks he'd be in a worse state if Astarion decided to make a meal of him at any point. He had opportunity. There had been a time that Fenris was too weak to move, never mind fight or escape. But he is here and whole and cared for.
"Do you want to?" he asks, not quite offering but perhaps opening a door, at least, to that possibility. Against his better judgement, Fenris finds himself... curious.
The sidelong glances he casts, stare flickering away in unison with how his voice trails off, is so very telling a thing. Transparent in the most candid sense.
He blinks a little, the edge of his thumb digging slightly against Fenris’ bare palm— but when his attention roams back, something’s shifted in him. Settled, even. Like an unnatural resoluteness, his expression is stilled, his red eyes dark.
“Yes.”
Yes, he’s wanted to. Yes, he still does. How close he’d come to it in their rutting, teeth grazing only to be yanked back at the very last second.
“You’d be my first, you know. The only person I’ve ever bitten.”
A hypothetical scenario, and yet his voice is so deep. So low and humming in his throat, that it carries more gravity than supposition alone.
Fenris holds that red gaze, unflinching as Astarion confesses that he does want to. He recalls vividly the graze of sharp teeth, wonders how difficult it was for him to hold back while indulging in other things. For some reason, even after all the pale elf just said, Fenris is still surprised to hear he would be Astarion's first person. There's a strange excitement in that, one he wasn't expecting.
And somehow hearing that he is the first - only? - one Astarion has Wanted to bite fans that flame. Fenris huffs a laugh and looks away, feeling faint heat in his face.
"You have terrible taste," he mutters, but he does nothing to escape or pull away. His hand remains where it is, held lightly in place, and he does not put any distance between them. "But, if you want to, I... don't think I'm opposed to the idea."
He's curious. Normally far more cautious than this, he trusts Astarion not to kill him and he trusts his own resolute desire to live - if things go badly, he's confident he can end it. One way or another.
“Then come here.” He breathes, using his hold on that hand like a line: smooth when he pulls Fenris nearer, though it’s more fluidity and willing momentum than anything else more demanding— there’s no force behind it, no cruelty when he pushes himself to his knees and moves to lift Fenris up into his arms.
(A surprisingly gentle process, for there is so much vulnerability tangled up within it. So much sacrifice, and his own cold heart is leaping in his chest for it, awake in a way it hasn’t been in all the years he can remember.
A gift.
A precious, wondrous gift.
And he treats it with all due respect.)
Kisses the slope of Fenris’ neck, letting his lips trail along the softer beating of that pulse, feeling out where it sings strongest. Slow, and tender, the meandering path of his mouth. Doting from the base of his heart.
And then he strikes.
Long fangs quick as they slip through skin. Though muscle and tissue alike. Harsh as a shard of ice, cold and chilling to the bone— before it ebbs. Before numbness, blissful in its spreading mercy, settles in like a heavy blanket, stilling the gnawing response of Fenris’ nerves.
He tastes divine.
It’s like the finest wine dripped across the tongue of a beggar who’s only ever drank from street drains. Overwhelming in its potency. Incomparable in its make. Gods, it startles him, the live wire bite of it, stronger than any well-aged brandy, his mind swimming as it trickles smoothly down its throat, heady high thriving in his veins.
He’s never known anything like it. He’s never thought anything like it could exist at all—
And he wants so much more, one hand already slipping low between Fenris' thighs.
Fenris moves with easy grace into Astarion's arms, straddling the other man. His hands rest on strong shoulders, light but prepared to shove should he have need. He knows what it is to eat something fine after too long living off scraps and while he trusts this man, desperation makes dangerous creatures.
Still, he cannot help but tilt his head as Astarion's mouth trails down his neck. By virtue of his master's design, lyrium curves up the most vulnerable parts of his throat and it is sensitive. He ignores the sting, hoping it will fade. This has been so good til now, he doesn't want to retreat.
One hand strokes up the back of Astarion's neck and his fingers wind into pale hair. Fenris knows how thin the skin covering his pulse is, know how little it takes to do damage there. And even knowing Astarion must break through to get his prize, he still tenses as sharp, piercing pain sinks through him. His fingers go tight but he makes no attempt to drag Asatarion back. Fenris holds on.
He expects to endure the pain longer, but it fades as another feeling washes over him: pleasant and numb as he bleeds. His grip relaxes and Fenris sighs, draping his other arm over Astarion's shoulder. It feels like drifting, floating, and his mind wanders until he feels a hand pushing down between his thighs. The spark of arousal startles him, be Fenris doesn't resist it.
"Greedy thing," he murmurs, though it sounds far more like affection than condemnation.
Drunk and dizzyingly content, and reveling in the heretofore unknown ecstasy of feeding— truly feeding— he draws back not long after he starts, tongue bathing those puncture marks in soft, stolen heat, coaxing them into coagulating as his fingers slip down beneath tattered laces, pulling softly at the base of Fenris’ prick. Slow. All of it slow. Drawn out to the last detail, breath pooling hot against the backs of his own teeth.
He tastes spice and heat. Ozone and— he doesn’t know. Magic, maybe? Intoxicating down to the last detail, drowning his focus like a siren song.
“For you? Always...” He pants, tongue curling slightly as his head tips down. “Open your legs for me, my darling.”
Another nip, sharp and snaring across the front of Fenris’ throat.
“Let me do more than taste you.”
Though what chases that murmur is another, far hungrier bite.
Fenris sighs as a hand wraps around his cock, stroking slowly as Astarion licks the pinprick wounds left behind. The sound of his voice is heady and Fenris thinks nothing of it as he spreads his legs again, offering Astarion more access to whatever part of him he wants.
"Yes," he breathes, offering further permission should the pale elf want to hear him say it.
And then those fangs are biting into his throat again and Fenris makes a sharp, startled sound, fingers tight in the Astarion's hair as his back arches. The wave of tension that comes with the shock of pain passes again and Fenris rolls his hips, seeking that touch again with a quieter sound.
A few soft curses fall from his lips, Astarion's name on the tail end. Fenris tries to pay attention to his own body beyond the hands on him. His heart is beating harder, but that's as much due to arousal as the threat of sharp teeth at his neck. He isn't lightheaded just yet, not in a way that is truly concerning, though it is suddenly tempting to go limp in Astarion's hold.
It’s charming, how earnest Fenris is, even submerged beneath the throes of overwhelming sensation. Voice laced with ardor in that single exhale: yes. Yes, he says, as though Astarion might’ve wavered otherwise. As though he isn’t teetering on the edge of his own relentless hunger, a sanguine monster not meant to be trusted in the slightest.
And there’s such strange mercy in that. Such humanity spared for a thing like him.
If he hadn’t fallen for Fenris before this moment, he might’ve now.
His hold on the base of Fenris’ prick is fierce; his hold on his throat equally as demanding, and the two work in tangent to overwhelm. Deft fingers shuttling down, squeezing tight just before they drag upwards against the ridge line. A coaxing rhythm, warming him to the idea of relaxing into him completely.
When Astarion breaks away, lips still painted with dripping crimson, it’s only to kiss and suck with lazy attention at Fenris’ neck, mouthing praise down into vulnerable skin.
You’re delicious in so many ways, I could spend an eternity marking them all.
His movements stir faintly, that shuttling pace quickens.
How beautiful you look like this.
Because he is. He truly is, resting there entirely undone within Astarion's grasp.
Fenris breathes harder where he's held against the other elf, cock aching with every delicious stroke and for a moment it feels as if Astarion is demanding everything of him. His arm stays tight around Astarion's shoulders as the bite on his neck ends. He feels the praise falling from the pale elf's bloody mouth as much as he hears it.
He sinks into the man holding him, hips moving weakly to meet the steady, insistent stroke of his hand. Faster, until Fenris isn't entirely sure if the lightheadedness is due to a loss of blood - surely it hadn't been that much? - or the aching surge of arousal. A wordless moan escapes him and he shudders as that feeling builds in him.
Fenris practically drapes himself over Astarion, trusting him for support as he shudders in his release as it's dragged from him. Faster than he would have thought, but Astarion's determination and his undivided attention are more than enough to work him to his end. He breathes in sharply, tries to muffle his moan against the other man's shoulder as he shivers apart.
He croons it out in breathless wonderment, his fingers slicked with feverishly warm come, his lips slicked with maddeningly intoxicating blood (magic— magic, he’s sure of it now, that’s what he tastes in the back of his throat) as he draws Fenris further into his arms. The elf’s pulse is rabbiting now, of course, but it’s only from the dizzied high of an orgasm spent: there’s no tinge of fear to it.
Throughout the entire affair, there never was.
Astarion, who so often watched his master bring howling ruin to trusting prey, doesn’t quite know what to make of it beyond the subtle heat already swimming brightly in his chest. He feels lost to it for a time, busying himself with nuzzling his companion. Lapping him clean, bit by steady bit—
Which…all right, has the unintended side effect of making him look like an overgrown cat, but ask him if he minds.
“…how do you feel?”
How was it for you, he means, without saying it aloud.
He mutters a curse at Astarion in response to being called pretty, but there's barely any venom behind it. He presses his face against Astarion's neck while the pale elf licks at his skin clean. Fenris can't help the way he shivers and shudders as that tongue sweeps over sensitive lyrium marks. He doesn't feel raw, for which he's grateful. He doesn't want to be driven to pull away now by pain.
He doesn't want to pull away at all.
His fingers stroke lightly, lazily, over whatever skin is immediately available to touch as Astarion finds his voice again.
"Fine," he murmurs, lazy more than anything else; two orgasms and a bit of blood loss will do that. Fenris supposes he can try to muster more of an answer than that, though. He finds himself wondering if Astarion is at all anxious about any of this.
"I don't know what I was expecting," he confesses, and as he speaks a smile creeps into his voice. "But ending up boneless in your arms wasn't actually it."
Fenris makes himself sit up so that he can meet Astarion's gaze. Very deliberately, he lifts his hands to hold the other man's face still so that he can kiss him. It isn't chaste, but neither is it overly heated.
"I wouldn't be opposed to doing that again, I think."
“Duly noted.” Astarion manages after the most mild of distracted pauses— a byproduct of that doting kiss (and how he fights the urge to nip even then, knowing full well pressing Fenris for too much will only lead to him being laid up once more...a prospect that won’t help either of them while they’re still entirely on the run), though some part of it must be strange for Fenris, given that it tastes of bitter iron still.
His head dips against the adoring press of Fenris’ roughened palm, reveling in its anchoring weight.
“But I think next time will have to wait, lest I leave you unable to move at all which— all right, I’ll admit has its appeal, delicious as you look right now in so many more ways than one.” Said ever so teasingly with a lone squeeze to that spent prick, knowing full well the overstimulation it’ll arouse.
From there, though, he’s tame. Well-behaved.
Careful when he tucks Fenris back into his trousers. More careful still when he gathers the man into his arms (the wound at his own side already healed from drinking thoroughly enriched blood), carting him back to that decrepit cabin and its shaded recesses.
“But we’ve earned our right to roam, now. I’d say it’s high time we exercised it.”
And they do, in fact, not long after.
Drawing nearer to the Minanter, eventually finding their way to a city flat that isn’t utterly in moldering decay. It isn’t easy to vanish, a pair like them: one albinic elf with fangs of all things, another marked with lyrium that glows in lightless places, but if nothing else the elves that dwell nearby don’t seem inclined to tattle.
At least not for the moment.
It’s with that in mind that Astarion comes stumbling in on the second night, clutching an armful of heavy bottles all coated with a thick layer of dust. Rich wine. Excellent wine.
….expensive wine, probably.
“Would you look at what I caught today, left out unattended in someone’s open cellar?”
Fenris has practice in going unseen in cities, but he's accustomed to doing so alone. There's strange relief to share that burden, of knowing he is not the only one watching his back at all times. He does depend on the silence of alienage elves. The communities are tight-knit and he never knows how far that trust can go - he suspects strangers will be the first given up should anything happen.
Like theft, perhaps.
Fenris lifts a brow as Astarion appears, carrying several bottles of wine that look like they were dug out of a cellar. His expression doesn't shift much, save for a subtle turn toward annoyance.
"Two fugitives and half a case of stolen wine?" It's not even the theft that bothers him - he's learned enough light-fingered sleight-of-hand to make off with bread when he needs it - but this isn't survival, this is luxury. "Are you sure you weren't followed?"
It wouldn't just their skins in trouble at that point. Fenris is fairly confident in their ability to escape. The alienage would take the brunt of the shems' anger.
“Mostly sure.” Astarion preens proudly, already working out the cork of an exceptionally beautiful bottle, finally getting it loose with a subtle, thrumming pop.
The others have been set down already, and he offers the first of his stolen gains to Fenris, neck first, its sweetened aroma curling in the air between them.
“Kidding, darling.”
Added before he takes any seething psychic damage from one very diligent, dour elf.
“What do you think I am, an amateur? I’ve been roaming streets in search of prey for two centuries: I know how to get away with a little petty larceny.”
Fenris holds his deadpan stare, then rolls his eyes and accepts the bottle offered to him. It's already stolen, he doesn't see any sense in refusing it. The scent is sweet and tempting, and the offer of a little luxury given their current state of affairs is difficult to pass up.
But he certainly can't be seen giving over so quickly, so he makes sure that token resistance is clear before the bottle passes from Astarion's hand to his. He might not actually be displeased, but he can play the part for a little while. Fenris takes a drink and resists the urge to sign at the taste. More dry than scent would suggest, perfect in the way it feels in his mouth. Fenris holds onto the bottle. If Astarion wants it back, he's going to have to come closer.
"Given how much we stand out uncovered, we should still be discreet." Any eye would note one elf pale as the moons and another glowing like starlight. Even if Astarion is as good as all that, even if Fenris too has years of practice hiding in plain sight, they are memorable.
His gaze lingers on his companion and there his a smile hiding there and in the barest curve of his mouth. Whatever complaints he has... it's nice not to be alone.
"I'm not exactly known for my discretion." Astarion counters smoothly (sweetly), slipping in behind Fenris and winding his fingers just around the front of his chest. Serpentine movements, graceful in the way they're wholly without pressure, flitting light across the thin front of Fenris' shirt— fiddling with the clasps.
His lips finding their way to the slope of a brilliantly tattooed neck in the very next second, hips pressed close.
He smells of wine already.
"I did this for you, you know..." And for himself too, but that's less important. "Something to celebrate upgrading from a rotting shack in the woods to a rotting shack in the city."
His tongue lathes over dusky skin, dodging pale blue filigree with ease. A prelude to a bite that (miraculously) doesn't break skin.
His back straightens as Astarion presses in behind him, arms sliding around as lips brush over his neck. His eyes nearly close for the trailing kisses and Fenris shifts back to ensure their bodies are fully pressed together.
"Oh, just for me? How callous I've been." Surely Astarion can hear the roll of his eyes as much as the amusement in his voice. Another subtle shift, weight pressed back into the pale elf as lips are replaced by tongue and teeth. Even if sharp points don't break skin, the pressure calls to memory deeper bites.
"How would you like to celebrate, then? I've been so careless as to not plan anything."
Fenris takes another drink from the bottle, once again swept up in the luxurious taste of it. No hint of sour vinegar of old or just bad wine. This is the sort of thing he served at tables once upon a time.
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albinomilksnake2021-11-06 01:03 am
no subject
Listen to me, isn't what he's expecting, and given that it's unexpected he focuses in sharply through the pleasant haze of his afterglow. It's the tone that catches him. Immediately his mind starts conjuring possibilities, none of them good, regarding what he might have to listen to.
But he stays silent, waiting for Astarion to continue. Fenris also stays still, flat on his stomach with his arms now folded beneath his head, gaze intent though his body yet seems relaxed. Better to keep his tension hidden, if he can.
He is not comforted by the rest. Fenris pushes himself up slowly until he's sitting, though for the moment his weight is resting more on his hip and thigh to spare himself the mild discomfort. It will fade, he knows that.
"What did he make you?" he asks, guarded but--not entirely closed off. Astarion is looking at a creature made by a master, after all. The marks forever burned into his skin. Fenris waits, quiet and fully pulled from the pleasant feeling of a few moments ago.
no subject
But they can’t go on like this— no, correction: he can’t go on like this, feeling his wicked heart beat again without knowing whether or not he’ll be chased off once the truth comes into full focus. Caring, without—
“I’m sure you’ve noticed it by now, given that you’re not blind,” he lifts a pale hand and— oh, no. That one has come on it, he realizes, chuckling only briefly as he wipes it along the edge of his shirt.
And then the smile fades.
This time he motions again, towards his face. His own pale visage. “My eyes. My fangs. Abnormal traits all, even amongst albinic creatures. The curse my master infected me with— alongside a nasty little caveat, too.”
His hand, the one that’d been scuffing along Fenris’ scalp, withdraws at last; he isn’t quite certain Fenris will want his touch with what comes next in play.
“The night he changed me, Cazador bound me to him, both body and soul, so that I could never flee his side. So that I’d become a monster, cursed to feed on blood alone, never aging. Never dying. Leashed to his every whim for two hundred years.” Endlessly. Always.
And then not.
“I escaped only because something here broke his puppeting control over me. I don’t know what, and I won’t ever stop to fret over why. But...”
But.
“Now, for the first time in all those years, I’ve finally found myself not wanting to leave someone else’s side.”
no subject
So what would eye color or strange teeth matter to him?
He listens, intent and still and quiet in a way some have found eerie. The stillness of one who has wanted to go unseen, unnoticed in plain sight. The name - Cazador - means nothing to him, but it doesn't need to. Hearing it aloud sends an unpleasant chill trickling down Fenris's spine, chasing away any lingering warmth. It's replaced by cold rage and memory of terror. The faint lyrium glow fades. This is not his story, and yet elements of it strike too close. Too familiar.
Bound. Trapped. A monster. Leashed to every whim. Fenris's own life has been very short by comparison, nor can he quite fathom what it is to live that long. He isn't sure he would want to, if those were the conditions of it.
Astarion finishes and Fenris knows he should speak. He considers how long - and how often - he's had open, bleeding wounds around Astarion. If he is truly fated to live on blood alone, that he hasn't taken advantage or lost any sort of control is all the more impressive. He has questions, but those are best reserved for later.
He takes a deeper breath and lets it go slowly. Remaining silent too long would be cruel, he knows that.
"And so you're telling me this because... you want to stay with me?"
Yes, that is the part he's honing in on. He's still letting the rest percolate.
no subject
But he wears it with a smile. An easy one, his own chin tipped low in something akin to animalistic deference.
Something that’d been absent when he’d been battling for control, or fucking Fenris ever so feverishly into the warm, dew-slicked earth. A clear difference in demeanor.
In expectation, too.
“...you won’t, will you?”
no subject
Fenris doesn't want Astarion to be afraid of him.
He moves closer, telegraphing his movements as much as he can to avoid seeming like a threat. He eases into the circle of Astarion's space, bodies touching again. A small, faltering smile appears.
"I've been told I'm not charming enough to refuse friends," he says as he meets Astarion's gaze. "I apparently need anyone who will have me. And I think I know something of what it's like to have your own body or nature as a reminder of... that."
Astarion will never, ever be able to forget what was done to him, fundamentally changed by what his master did. Danarius didn't keep Fenris for a hundred years, but his mark is permanent. Neither of them could possibly be the same creatures they were before some sadist got their hands on them. Fenris leans closer and gently bumps his brow against Astarion's.
"If I haven't chased you off yet, I don't plan to start now. Unless there's some gods-forsaken annoying habit you've been hiding. I've made my peace with the rest."
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His fingers curl along the edges of torn fabric, feeling out the little nicks and jagged marks left behind from their roughhousing.
“Still, for whatever it’s worth, I find you charming. All those sullen glances, melting away into half-hidden grins." Sharp teeth set themselves gently along Fenris' lower lip, teasing at him— and acclimating him once more to their feel, this time with renewed context.
"Very alluring."
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"How have you been feeding yourself?" he asks, almost absently - a matter of curiosity (for now) rather than deep concern. Obviously Astarion is finding a way. "Animals?"
Fenris assumes Astarion hunts for the same reason he does, only the parts of an animal they need to survive are a bit different.
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One last kiss for good measure and Astarion withdraws slightly into his own space, keeping Fenris' hand tucked light across his chest, held in place by arched fingers that sit light between the edges of those pale blue brands.
And there, he nods. Just once.
"My master forbid me from drinking the blood of anything cognizant. Self-aware. Thinking, as he put it: humans, elves, dwarves— that sort of thing." One more insult suffered as his slave, atop all the rest. "He made sure I only fed on dying rats. Dead flies. Always enough to keep me starved, and all of it as wretched as you'd imagine."
He says it offhandedly. Distantly, even. As if the more passively or happily he talks about old scars, the less real they inevitably become.
"And I still haven't fed on anyone since I broke free. Though I'd be lying if I didn't admit you looked absolutely delectable once or twice, all flush with satisfaction, right up to the tips of those pretty little ears of yours."
Or when he'd bled. Suffered. Ached. Then, too, Astarion was there at his side, battling his own hunger for the sake of seeing Fenris through. It hadn't always been selfless; he'd been certain he'd needed Fenris strong and whole to survive the wilds— let alone the world itself.
It is now, though.
"...but I didn't. I wouldn't."
Or, more accurately:
"Not unless you asked."
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His gaze shifts and he meets the strange eyes looking at him, with the firm reassurance that he is in no danger. Fenris thinks he'd be in a worse state if Astarion decided to make a meal of him at any point. He had opportunity. There had been a time that Fenris was too weak to move, never mind fight or escape. But he is here and whole and cared for.
"Do you want to?" he asks, not quite offering but perhaps opening a door, at least, to that possibility. Against his better judgement, Fenris finds himself... curious.
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The sidelong glances he casts, stare flickering away in unison with how his voice trails off, is so very telling a thing. Transparent in the most candid sense.
He blinks a little, the edge of his thumb digging slightly against Fenris’ bare palm— but when his attention roams back, something’s shifted in him. Settled, even. Like an unnatural resoluteness, his expression is stilled, his red eyes dark.
“Yes.”
Yes, he’s wanted to. Yes, he still does. How close he’d come to it in their rutting, teeth grazing only to be yanked back at the very last second.
“You’d be my first, you know. The only person I’ve ever bitten.”
A hypothetical scenario, and yet his voice is so deep. So low and humming in his throat, that it carries more gravity than supposition alone.
Compounded when he adds, just a moment later:
“The only one I want to.”
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And somehow hearing that he is the first - only? - one Astarion has Wanted to bite fans that flame. Fenris huffs a laugh and looks away, feeling faint heat in his face.
"You have terrible taste," he mutters, but he does nothing to escape or pull away. His hand remains where it is, held lightly in place, and he does not put any distance between them. "But, if you want to, I... don't think I'm opposed to the idea."
He's curious. Normally far more cautious than this, he trusts Astarion not to kill him and he trusts his own resolute desire to live - if things go badly, he's confident he can end it. One way or another.
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(A surprisingly gentle process, for there is so much vulnerability tangled up within it. So much sacrifice, and his own cold heart is leaping in his chest for it, awake in a way it hasn’t been in all the years he can remember.
A gift.
A precious, wondrous gift.
And he treats it with all due respect.)
Kisses the slope of Fenris’ neck, letting his lips trail along the softer beating of that pulse, feeling out where it sings strongest. Slow, and tender, the meandering path of his mouth. Doting from the base of his heart.
And then he strikes.
Long fangs quick as they slip through skin. Though muscle and tissue alike. Harsh as a shard of ice, cold and chilling to the bone— before it ebbs. Before numbness, blissful in its spreading mercy, settles in like a heavy blanket, stilling the gnawing response of Fenris’ nerves.
He tastes divine.
It’s like the finest wine dripped across the tongue of a beggar who’s only ever drank from street drains. Overwhelming in its potency. Incomparable in its make. Gods, it startles him, the live wire bite of it, stronger than any well-aged brandy, his mind swimming as it trickles smoothly down its throat, heady high thriving in his veins.
He’s never known anything like it. He’s never thought anything like it could exist at all—
And he wants so much more, one hand already slipping low between Fenris' thighs.
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Still, he cannot help but tilt his head as Astarion's mouth trails down his neck. By virtue of his master's design, lyrium curves up the most vulnerable parts of his throat and it is sensitive. He ignores the sting, hoping it will fade. This has been so good til now, he doesn't want to retreat.
One hand strokes up the back of Astarion's neck and his fingers wind into pale hair. Fenris knows how thin the skin covering his pulse is, know how little it takes to do damage there. And even knowing Astarion must break through to get his prize, he still tenses as sharp, piercing pain sinks through him. His fingers go tight but he makes no attempt to drag Asatarion back. Fenris holds on.
He expects to endure the pain longer, but it fades as another feeling washes over him: pleasant and numb as he bleeds. His grip relaxes and Fenris sighs, draping his other arm over Astarion's shoulder. It feels like drifting, floating, and his mind wanders until he feels a hand pushing down between his thighs. The spark of arousal startles him, be Fenris doesn't resist it.
"Greedy thing," he murmurs, though it sounds far more like affection than condemnation.
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Drunk and dizzyingly content, and reveling in the heretofore unknown ecstasy of feeding— truly feeding— he draws back not long after he starts, tongue bathing those puncture marks in soft, stolen heat, coaxing them into coagulating as his fingers slip down beneath tattered laces, pulling softly at the base of Fenris’ prick. Slow. All of it slow. Drawn out to the last detail, breath pooling hot against the backs of his own teeth.
He tastes spice and heat. Ozone and— he doesn’t know. Magic, maybe? Intoxicating down to the last detail, drowning his focus like a siren song.
“For you? Always...” He pants, tongue curling slightly as his head tips down. “Open your legs for me, my darling.”
Another nip, sharp and snaring across the front of Fenris’ throat.
“Let me do more than taste you.”
Though what chases that murmur is another, far hungrier bite.
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"Yes," he breathes, offering further permission should the pale elf want to hear him say it.
And then those fangs are biting into his throat again and Fenris makes a sharp, startled sound, fingers tight in the Astarion's hair as his back arches. The wave of tension that comes with the shock of pain passes again and Fenris rolls his hips, seeking that touch again with a quieter sound.
A few soft curses fall from his lips, Astarion's name on the tail end. Fenris tries to pay attention to his own body beyond the hands on him. His heart is beating harder, but that's as much due to arousal as the threat of sharp teeth at his neck. He isn't lightheaded just yet, not in a way that is truly concerning, though it is suddenly tempting to go limp in Astarion's hold.
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And there’s such strange mercy in that. Such humanity spared for a thing like him.
If he hadn’t fallen for Fenris before this moment, he might’ve now.
His hold on the base of Fenris’ prick is fierce; his hold on his throat equally as demanding, and the two work in tangent to overwhelm. Deft fingers shuttling down, squeezing tight just before they drag upwards against the ridge line. A coaxing rhythm, warming him to the idea of relaxing into him completely.
When Astarion breaks away, lips still painted with dripping crimson, it’s only to kiss and suck with lazy attention at Fenris’ neck, mouthing praise down into vulnerable skin.
You’re delicious in so many ways, I could spend an eternity marking them all.
His movements stir faintly, that shuttling pace quickens.
How beautiful you look like this.
Because he is. He truly is, resting there entirely undone within Astarion's grasp.
How much I’d steal from you if I could—
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He sinks into the man holding him, hips moving weakly to meet the steady, insistent stroke of his hand. Faster, until Fenris isn't entirely sure if the lightheadedness is due to a loss of blood - surely it hadn't been that much? - or the aching surge of arousal. A wordless moan escapes him and he shudders as that feeling builds in him.
Fenris practically drapes himself over Astarion, trusting him for support as he shudders in his release as it's dragged from him. Faster than he would have thought, but Astarion's determination and his undivided attention are more than enough to work him to his end. He breathes in sharply, tries to muffle his moan against the other man's shoulder as he shivers apart.
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He croons it out in breathless wonderment, his fingers slicked with feverishly warm come, his lips slicked with maddeningly intoxicating blood (magic— magic, he’s sure of it now, that’s what he tastes in the back of his throat) as he draws Fenris further into his arms. The elf’s pulse is rabbiting now, of course, but it’s only from the dizzied high of an orgasm spent: there’s no tinge of fear to it.
Throughout the entire affair, there never was.
Astarion, who so often watched his master bring howling ruin to trusting prey, doesn’t quite know what to make of it beyond the subtle heat already swimming brightly in his chest. He feels lost to it for a time, busying himself with nuzzling his companion. Lapping him clean, bit by steady bit—
Which…all right, has the unintended side effect of making him look like an overgrown cat, but ask him if he minds.
“…how do you feel?”
How was it for you, he means, without saying it aloud.
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He doesn't want to pull away at all.
His fingers stroke lightly, lazily, over whatever skin is immediately available to touch as Astarion finds his voice again.
"Fine," he murmurs, lazy more than anything else; two orgasms and a bit of blood loss will do that. Fenris supposes he can try to muster more of an answer than that, though. He finds himself wondering if Astarion is at all anxious about any of this.
"I don't know what I was expecting," he confesses, and as he speaks a smile creeps into his voice. "But ending up boneless in your arms wasn't actually it."
Fenris makes himself sit up so that he can meet Astarion's gaze. Very deliberately, he lifts his hands to hold the other man's face still so that he can kiss him. It isn't chaste, but neither is it overly heated.
"I wouldn't be opposed to doing that again, I think."
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His head dips against the adoring press of Fenris’ roughened palm, reveling in its anchoring weight.
“But I think next time will have to wait, lest I leave you unable to move at all which— all right, I’ll admit has its appeal, delicious as you look right now in so many more ways than one.” Said ever so teasingly with a lone squeeze to that spent prick, knowing full well the overstimulation it’ll arouse.
From there, though, he’s tame. Well-behaved.
Careful when he tucks Fenris back into his trousers. More careful still when he gathers the man into his arms (the wound at his own side already healed from drinking thoroughly enriched blood), carting him back to that decrepit cabin and its shaded recesses.
“But we’ve earned our right to roam, now. I’d say it’s high time we exercised it.”
And they do, in fact, not long after.
Drawing nearer to the Minanter, eventually finding their way to a city flat that isn’t utterly in moldering decay. It isn’t easy to vanish, a pair like them: one albinic elf with fangs of all things, another marked with lyrium that glows in lightless places, but if nothing else the elves that dwell nearby don’t seem inclined to tattle.
At least not for the moment.
It’s with that in mind that Astarion comes stumbling in on the second night, clutching an armful of heavy bottles all coated with a thick layer of dust. Rich wine. Excellent wine.
….expensive wine, probably.
“Would you look at what I caught today, left out unattended in someone’s open cellar?”
Stole. He means he stole them.
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Like theft, perhaps.
Fenris lifts a brow as Astarion appears, carrying several bottles of wine that look like they were dug out of a cellar. His expression doesn't shift much, save for a subtle turn toward annoyance.
"Two fugitives and half a case of stolen wine?" It's not even the theft that bothers him - he's learned enough light-fingered sleight-of-hand to make off with bread when he needs it - but this isn't survival, this is luxury. "Are you sure you weren't followed?"
It wouldn't just their skins in trouble at that point. Fenris is fairly confident in their ability to escape. The alienage would take the brunt of the shems' anger.
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The others have been set down already, and he offers the first of his stolen gains to Fenris, neck first, its sweetened aroma curling in the air between them.
“Kidding, darling.”
Added before he takes any seething psychic damage from one very diligent, dour elf.
“What do you think I am, an amateur? I’ve been roaming streets in search of prey for two centuries: I know how to get away with a little petty larceny.”
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But he certainly can't be seen giving over so quickly, so he makes sure that token resistance is clear before the bottle passes from Astarion's hand to his. He might not actually be displeased, but he can play the part for a little while. Fenris takes a drink and resists the urge to sign at the taste. More dry than scent would suggest, perfect in the way it feels in his mouth. Fenris holds onto the bottle. If Astarion wants it back, he's going to have to come closer.
"Given how much we stand out uncovered, we should still be discreet." Any eye would note one elf pale as the moons and another glowing like starlight. Even if Astarion is as good as all that, even if Fenris too has years of practice hiding in plain sight, they are memorable.
His gaze lingers on his companion and there his a smile hiding there and in the barest curve of his mouth. Whatever complaints he has... it's nice not to be alone.
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His lips finding their way to the slope of a brilliantly tattooed neck in the very next second, hips pressed close.
He smells of wine already.
"I did this for you, you know..." And for himself too, but that's less important. "Something to celebrate upgrading from a rotting shack in the woods to a rotting shack in the city."
His tongue lathes over dusky skin, dodging pale blue filigree with ease. A prelude to a bite that (miraculously) doesn't break skin.
Yet.
"You should be happy for me."
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"Oh, just for me? How callous I've been." Surely Astarion can hear the roll of his eyes as much as the amusement in his voice. Another subtle shift, weight pressed back into the pale elf as lips are replaced by tongue and teeth. Even if sharp points don't break skin, the pressure calls to memory deeper bites.
"How would you like to celebrate, then? I've been so careless as to not plan anything."
Fenris takes another drink from the bottle, once again swept up in the luxurious taste of it. No hint of sour vinegar of old or just bad wine. This is the sort of thing he served at tables once upon a time.
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