It’s a lovely look, that. The kind that sets a heart at ease— or maybe just lets it forget. He raises his hand, lifting those intertwined fingers to his mouth, pressing the edges of his teeth against Fenris’ knuckles before he kisses them, light amusement.
He sighs, releasing his hold on Fenris with a reluctant cast. If it were someone else, anyone else, this segue would’ve been a much more turbulent one.
“There’s an alternative, you know.” To the fighting and bloodshed and terrible, terrible risk. “We could take precautions. Keep on as we are. Hope for the best.”
It worked for the tadpoles, in a way, and his smile flexes for the memory of it, humorless.
Fenris is... unconvinced. It seems like wishful thinking. But he wants to believe in Astarion as passionately as Astarion, sometimes, seems to believe in him.
"You’ll need to know them regardless, I suppose. Stop me if you need to, I realize last night wasn’t...the most restful experience."
If Fenris needs to pause and sleep, Astarion won’t put up a fuss.
"Something to keep in mind, Cazador is a vampire lord, not just a simple vampire. He’s ancient, and he’s powerful, and you can expect anything that effects a normal vampire or a vampire spawn like myself to do much, much less. Even so, you still won’t find him strutting about in daylight. Not only is it lethal to an elder vampire— albeit slower working— he won’t be able to fully transform in it."
Astarion’s pride and joy might make a little more sense within that context.
"So for that little detail, he has an entire network of very real, very mortal resources, that have no idea the kind of terrible creature they’re so loyally working for. City guards, local magistrates, thieves and monster hunters and the like— they might as well be his eyes and ears, but only if he’s onto you."
A light scoff lives here; a considerate segue.
"And considering no one’s come knocking on our door, I’ll take that as a sign that he remains blissfully unaware of my existence here. Though I can’t promise anything if the nightmares keep up. Could be nothing. Could be like something tugging faintly on the weave of a spider’s web. Bound to attract attention eventually.
So if anyone, anyone at all stands rapping at our doorway in the dead of night, that brings me to my second point."
He lifts two fingers for emphasis, as though this is a vital lecture.
"A vampire can’t cross the threshold to a home without an invitation. Sounds easy, right? Spot a vampire, shut the door, instant safety— wrong. Vampires, as you’ve seen by my own meager spell work, are capable of using a glance to send any creature into a sweet, doting stupor: if they can see you, then you’re already damned. And the older they are, the more potent that magic is. You’ll love them, trust them— slit open your own neck for them.
You don’t open the door. You don’t look through the window. You ignore it. Always."
"Aside from that, running water always burns, in a pinch. Don’t expect it to stop them, but it’ll hurt all the same. And lastly..." His attention drifts for a beat, jaw working tight as he considers distant knowledge, whispered rumors. There’s no guarantee any of it is true, of course, he’s never known anyone to succeed at killing a vampire lord— and he’s certainly no monster hunter with ancient rites to keep safe. "A wooden stake or a quick stab to the heart is usually enough to kill your average vampire or spawn."
He makes a little ‘x’ across his own chest with smooth-drawn fingertips, an example.
"But I’ve heard it said that if you kill a vampire lord, they’ll simply retreat as mist back into their coffin. And if you can manage to drive a stake through their heart there, they’ll be paralyzed indefinitely by it. Meaning you can do whatever you need to finish the job permanently: water, sunlight, fire— so on." His index finger taps against his palm as he lists options, lulled briefly into softness by the imagined thought of ash where his master's resting body once stood. "I don’t know how true that is. I don’t know what might happen if it ever comes to that. But what I do know is that if you’re cornered, you now know what to do and where to aim."
His posture goes slack at last, his spine sinking back to rest against the wall, as though the change in subject is somehow a sign he can ease his own defenses.
"...and as for myself, We can hang curtains before we board up the windows, so no one suspects you're harboring a monster. Check the shard every evening. Lock the door every night." Fenris, diligent, and seated across from him, makes for a softer draw for his stare.
"It might be a terrible burden, hunting for the both of us. I won’t lie."
Fenris listens, attention rapt, to every detail. They are slotted quickly and efficiently into memory. A target, an opponent, a slaver, he knows the peculiarities mages and monsters can are prone to. This creature seems powerful, not yet impossible to kill.
"He would send his lessers," Fenris wagers, puzzling it out for himself, "to slay me and bring you back. On the defensive, he has the advantage."
“Make yourself into too much trouble for him, and you’ll be lucky if it’s death he wants from you.”
They hadn’t discussed it, just how petty and vindictive Cazador tends to be at even his calmest— but then again, he imagines Fenris already has his suspicions. If anyone's familiar with the type, it's him.
“Of course if he knew what you meant to me, I don’t suppose that’d be any different, either.”
A sigh falls wearily from between bared teeth, the picture of a whinging child, utterly performative in the throes of its misery: he doesn't want to dwell on the dread of that thought, there are other, also terrible things he can moan about instead to a perfectly reasonable degree.
“I’d expected to be respected nobility again by now. On my way to having us live on a decent estate, drinking wine like water and wanting for nothing.” Instead, here they are. Planning as if to make war, or to stave it off. Still sunk in the same hole they'd nested in on arrival. “What an awful creature, reality.”
Fenris frowns, studying Astarion. He knows the man prefers fantasy to fact, but hesitation could be dangerous. "We are both in danger. I do not see the point in waiting. Lament if I fail."
He doesn't think he can get Astarion's head in the place it needs to be in, but maybe he doesn't have to.
Fear, violent and surging in its suddenness, tears down every ounce of poised pretense Astarion works tirelessly to weave: panic cuts through his expression as he rises, fingers outstretched to snare Fenris’ wrist before he moves an inch, a meter, a thought—
Wait. Wait.
“You haven’t rested. You’ll need supplies. You don’t even know how far away he is.”
Fenris laughs. Just one little bark of a laugh, and he leans into Astarion's touch. His forehead finds Astarion's shoulder, and he stays there, smiling into Astarion's collarbone.
"I can't leave now." His voice is very fond. "I don't know enough yet. Soon, yes, but not quite."
It’s so logical a truth that it practically slaps him in the face, breathless enough that he might sound like it, too. “Yes, of course.”
Stupid of him, letting dire apprehension override sense. His fingers forced to slacken, though he replaces it shortly thereafter by combing a few arched fingertips down along the sloping feathering of Fenris’ hair. Calming.
He still has time. They still have time.
“I’ll do what I can in the meanwhile. But you should rest.”
"As should you," Fenris says, but he doesn't fuss. Astarion will do what he pleases, as ever. Fenris is only lucky the man's interest has fallen in his direction for so long. "Do you need to feed?"
Yes, is the answer. He’d spent everything last night, more than usual, and with Fenris so close the steady feel of a pulse pressed against him is overwhelmingly tempting.
But he hasn’t an appetite. The thought alone makes him feel monstrous for a change— more so than usual. Closer to Cazador, and less to roaming pleasure.
“No, darling.” His hold on Fenris withdraws; he doesn’t push him away, but even in gentleness, it’s close. “For once, I’m really not in the mood.”
Now isn't the time to try and untangle Astarion's truths from his lies. Fenris has noticed the two are most intermingled when it comes to matters of blood and feeding, but that is... what it is, quite simply. Fenris cannot change the man, and does not, truly, wish to, unless it is Astarion's will to do so.
Fenris has already pushed for much, digging deeper and deeper for information Astarion does not wish to give. And the next day, he asks for yet more-- everything Astarion can remember about the layout of Cazador's lair, which groups to avoid, who is in Cazador's pocket. Anything that can be recalled is useful, and Fenris asks for it all, before committing it solidly to memory.
It takes two days for Fenris to outline a plan. He doesn't tell Astarion what it is. "For safety," Fenris says, the night before he intends to set out. "If you are... compromised."
It’s a constant, those questions, those ceaseless inquiries. Painfully drawn, more painfully given, and while he at times attempts to distract away from still more canvassing and made plans, ultimately he never once bites. Pun intended.
For safety, Fenris says, and though he’s right to take the precaution, Astarion can’t stifle the bitter, rueful laugh that slips out, transparent as glass.
“Darling if I’m compromised, I probably won’t need to know your plan anyway.” He catches Fenris’ face between his hands, thumbs framing high cheekbones as he draws himself unbearably close. It feels like the precipice of something terrible, and he wonders if Fenris feels the same sense of foreboding— or is it all determination in that pretty skull of his. So young and headstrong and ever steadfast, determined to make the world turn. “I know you.”
One hand lowers to snare Fenris’ own when he kisses him, feverish and wanting but made without the scrape of sharp teeth. More human, less feral. He could make all of this unnecessary if he had a mind to. He puts those armored claws over his own heart to that end, weighing the feel of it.
Isn’t it funny— and wretchedly pitiful— that he still fears oblivion more than servitude. He knows what it all means for him, how unbearable eternity will be, and nothingness should be a balm compared to that. Anyone sane would think so.
He wants a third choice. Another way. None has shown itself. No one and nothing coming gallantly to their rescue to make this easy.
It makes him wish he’d known where the others had gone, those tadpole-cursed creatures. Not friends, but— resources, maybe. Allies, yes. Of course it’s been ages now, they’re probably all dead.
Or changed.
He doesn’t notice he’s pressed hard enough on those talons to draw blood. Frozen in place with his fingers locked tight.
Fenris watches Astarion lose himself in dark thoughts. Fenris cannot part those clouds, except by extinguishing the sky itself, it seems. If that is the challenge, so be it.
He moves to speak, to offer assurances where comfort doesn't live, when he notices- "Astarion," Fenris' voice is firm. "What does bleeding do to a vampire?"
He doesn't move his hand; he'll only hurt Astarion worse.
He notices the shift in focus. Notices the sting, and— his grip relaxes. He doesn’t know if he wants it to, but he wouldn’t force Fenris to do anything either. Wouldn’t be fair.
“Weakens us, same as lack of feeding. But you’d need to draw a lot of it to make an elder vampire sluggish, and...he’ll heal naturally on his own, quick as a burned wick.”
If only Astarion had something similar, he might be more useful right now.
“A thousand cuts? Maybe. But who has that kind of time?”
Fenris considers clarifying his plan; he doesn't intend to kill the creature with his own sword, as satisfying as that would be. But, no, he can't. He can't tell Astarion anything. Not even if it would bring him comfort.
Fenris isn't, actually, sure he can bring Astarion any comfort.
"I leave at daybreak tomorrow," Fenris says instead, but his eyes are on that hand, the blood welling up. "You should leave as well. Go farther from Baldur's Gate."
This time Astarion withdraws completely, almost as if reeling from something. A bite, an unwelcome sentiment— an instruction he doesn’t like.
The marks remain, faint little crimson lines across pale skin, harmless.
“And go where, exactly? How will I find you? How will you find me? What if you don’t come back at all?”
If this were anyone else, Astarion would be convinced this is a ruse. A lie to— abandon him, or all responsibility. A pretty little tale about a knight going off to fight a dragon and never coming home, except of course that knight’s slung up his armor, and he’s taking his drink one town over. But that reflexive thought dies the second it slithers up in his mind: he knows Fenris. The man would kill himself a thousand times over if it meant keeping his word. Astarion trusts in that.
But this? This is a tall ask. Taller than everything else so far.
“If I leave, neither of us will know the other is safe.”
“I don’t rightly expect so.” His exhale is slow, careful. He doesn’t even realize Fenris is suspicious, and so he doesn’t paint himself with false bravado or glory.
Maybe he’s just too tired to.
“Depends on how much damage you do beforehand. Devastate enough of the coven and...maybe. I could come crawling back. Play at being a puppet as long as the shard holds out. Bide my time for an opportunity to throw us both out into the sun.”
Fenris' suspicions continue to mount. Almost fondly, he says, "I won't sacrifice you for him."
He does not reach out with his hand, still bloodied from Astarion's earlier attempts. He leans forward instead, a quick and awkward kiss to Astarion's jaw. "Without you, this world holds no purpose."
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It’s a lovely look, that. The kind that sets a heart at ease— or maybe just lets it forget. He raises his hand, lifting those intertwined fingers to his mouth, pressing the edges of his teeth against Fenris’ knuckles before he kisses them, light amusement.
He likes this better than despair.
“You’ve certainly picked the right time for it.”
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He sighs, releasing his hold on Fenris with a reluctant cast. If it were someone else, anyone else, this segue would’ve been a much more turbulent one.
“There’s an alternative, you know.” To the fighting and bloodshed and terrible, terrible risk. “We could take precautions. Keep on as we are. Hope for the best.”
It worked for the tadpoles, in a way, and his smile flexes for the memory of it, humorless.
“Maybe it won’t get any worse.”
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"What are these precautions?"
onyxia takes a deep breath
If Fenris needs to pause and sleep, Astarion won’t put up a fuss.
"Something to keep in mind, Cazador is a vampire lord, not just a simple vampire. He’s ancient, and he’s powerful, and you can expect anything that effects a normal vampire or a vampire spawn like myself to do much, much less. Even so, you still won’t find him strutting about in daylight. Not only is it lethal to an elder vampire— albeit slower working— he won’t be able to fully transform in it."
Astarion’s pride and joy might make a little more sense within that context.
"So for that little detail, he has an entire network of very real, very mortal resources, that have no idea the kind of terrible creature they’re so loyally working for. City guards, local magistrates, thieves and monster hunters and the like— they might as well be his eyes and ears, but only if he’s onto you."
A light scoff lives here; a considerate segue.
"And considering no one’s come knocking on our door, I’ll take that as a sign that he remains blissfully unaware of my existence here. Though I can’t promise anything if the nightmares keep up. Could be nothing. Could be like something tugging faintly on the weave of a spider’s web. Bound to attract attention eventually.
So if anyone, anyone at all stands rapping at our doorway in the dead of night, that brings me to my second point."
He lifts two fingers for emphasis, as though this is a vital lecture.
"A vampire can’t cross the threshold to a home without an invitation. Sounds easy, right? Spot a vampire, shut the door, instant safety— wrong. Vampires, as you’ve seen by my own meager spell work, are capable of using a glance to send any creature into a sweet, doting stupor: if they can see you, then you’re already damned. And the older they are, the more potent that magic is. You’ll love them, trust them— slit open your own neck for them.
You don’t open the door. You don’t look through the window. You ignore it. Always."
"Aside from that, running water always burns, in a pinch. Don’t expect it to stop them, but it’ll hurt all the same. And lastly..." His attention drifts for a beat, jaw working tight as he considers distant knowledge, whispered rumors. There’s no guarantee any of it is true, of course, he’s never known anyone to succeed at killing a vampire lord— and he’s certainly no monster hunter with ancient rites to keep safe. "A wooden stake or a quick stab to the heart is usually enough to kill your average vampire or spawn."
He makes a little ‘x’ across his own chest with smooth-drawn fingertips, an example.
"But I’ve heard it said that if you kill a vampire lord, they’ll simply retreat as mist back into their coffin. And if you can manage to drive a stake through their heart there, they’ll be paralyzed indefinitely by it. Meaning you can do whatever you need to finish the job permanently: water, sunlight, fire— so on." His index finger taps against his palm as he lists options, lulled briefly into softness by the imagined thought of ash where his master's resting body once stood. "I don’t know how true that is. I don’t know what might happen if it ever comes to that. But what I do know is that if you’re cornered, you now know what to do and where to aim."
His posture goes slack at last, his spine sinking back to rest against the wall, as though the change in subject is somehow a sign he can ease his own defenses.
"...and as for myself, We can hang curtains before we board up the windows, so no one suspects you're harboring a monster. Check the shard every evening. Lock the door every night." Fenris, diligent, and seated across from him, makes for a softer draw for his stare.
"It might be a terrible burden, hunting for the both of us. I won’t lie."
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"He would send his lessers," Fenris wagers, puzzling it out for himself, "to slay me and bring you back. On the defensive, he has the advantage."
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They hadn’t discussed it, just how petty and vindictive Cazador tends to be at even his calmest— but then again, he imagines Fenris already has his suspicions. If anyone's familiar with the type, it's him.
“Of course if he knew what you meant to me, I don’t suppose that’d be any different, either.”
A sigh falls wearily from between bared teeth, the picture of a whinging child, utterly performative in the throes of its misery: he doesn't want to dwell on the dread of that thought, there are other, also terrible things he can moan about instead to a perfectly reasonable degree.
“I’d expected to be respected nobility again by now. On my way to having us live on a decent estate, drinking wine like water and wanting for nothing.” Instead, here they are. Planning as if to make war, or to stave it off. Still sunk in the same hole they'd nested in on arrival. “What an awful creature, reality.”
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He doesn't think he can get Astarion's head in the place it needs to be in, but maybe he doesn't have to.
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Fear, violent and surging in its suddenness, tears down every ounce of poised pretense Astarion works tirelessly to weave: panic cuts through his expression as he rises, fingers outstretched to snare Fenris’ wrist before he moves an inch, a meter, a thought—
Wait. Wait.
“You haven’t rested. You’ll need supplies. You don’t even know how far away he is.”
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"I can't leave now." His voice is very fond. "I don't know enough yet. Soon, yes, but not quite."
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It’s so logical a truth that it practically slaps him in the face, breathless enough that he might sound like it, too. “Yes, of course.”
Stupid of him, letting dire apprehension override sense. His fingers forced to slacken, though he replaces it shortly thereafter by combing a few arched fingertips down along the sloping feathering of Fenris’ hair. Calming.
He still has time. They still have time.
“I’ll do what I can in the meanwhile. But you should rest.”
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But he hasn’t an appetite. The thought alone makes him feel monstrous for a change— more so than usual. Closer to Cazador, and less to roaming pleasure.
“No, darling.” His hold on Fenris withdraws; he doesn’t push him away, but even in gentleness, it’s close. “For once, I’m really not in the mood.”
“Go back to bed. Make yourself comfortable.”
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Fenris has already pushed for much, digging deeper and deeper for information Astarion does not wish to give. And the next day, he asks for yet more-- everything Astarion can remember about the layout of Cazador's lair, which groups to avoid, who is in Cazador's pocket. Anything that can be recalled is useful, and Fenris asks for it all, before committing it solidly to memory.
It takes two days for Fenris to outline a plan. He doesn't tell Astarion what it is. "For safety," Fenris says, the night before he intends to set out. "If you are... compromised."
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For safety, Fenris says, and though he’s right to take the precaution, Astarion can’t stifle the bitter, rueful laugh that slips out, transparent as glass.
“Darling if I’m compromised, I probably won’t need to know your plan anyway.” He catches Fenris’ face between his hands, thumbs framing high cheekbones as he draws himself unbearably close. It feels like the precipice of something terrible, and he wonders if Fenris feels the same sense of foreboding— or is it all determination in that pretty skull of his. So young and headstrong and ever steadfast, determined to make the world turn. “I know you.”
One hand lowers to snare Fenris’ own when he kisses him, feverish and wanting but made without the scrape of sharp teeth. More human, less feral. He could make all of this unnecessary if he had a mind to. He puts those armored claws over his own heart to that end, weighing the feel of it.
Isn’t it funny— and wretchedly pitiful— that he still fears oblivion more than servitude. He knows what it all means for him, how unbearable eternity will be, and nothingness should be a balm compared to that. Anyone sane would think so.
He wants a third choice. Another way. None has shown itself. No one and nothing coming gallantly to their rescue to make this easy.
It makes him wish he’d known where the others had gone, those tadpole-cursed creatures. Not friends, but— resources, maybe. Allies, yes. Of course it’s been ages now, they’re probably all dead.
Or changed.
He doesn’t notice he’s pressed hard enough on those talons to draw blood. Frozen in place with his fingers locked tight.
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He moves to speak, to offer assurances where comfort doesn't live, when he notices- "Astarion," Fenris' voice is firm. "What does bleeding do to a vampire?"
He doesn't move his hand; he'll only hurt Astarion worse.
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“Weakens us, same as lack of feeding. But you’d need to draw a lot of it to make an elder vampire sluggish, and...he’ll heal naturally on his own, quick as a burned wick.”
If only Astarion had something similar, he might be more useful right now.
“A thousand cuts? Maybe. But who has that kind of time?”
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Fenris isn't, actually, sure he can bring Astarion any comfort.
"I leave at daybreak tomorrow," Fenris says instead, but his eyes are on that hand, the blood welling up. "You should leave as well. Go farther from Baldur's Gate."
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The marks remain, faint little crimson lines across pale skin, harmless.
“And go where, exactly? How will I find you? How will you find me? What if you don’t come back at all?”
If this were anyone else, Astarion would be convinced this is a ruse. A lie to— abandon him, or all responsibility. A pretty little tale about a knight going off to fight a dragon and never coming home, except of course that knight’s slung up his armor, and he’s taking his drink one town over. But that reflexive thought dies the second it slithers up in his mind: he knows Fenris. The man would kill himself a thousand times over if it meant keeping his word. Astarion trusts in that.
But this? This is a tall ask. Taller than everything else so far.
“If I leave, neither of us will know the other is safe.”
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Fenris frowns, brings his hands up to gesture... something. The immensity of it. Somehow, he can make white-knuckled fists without stabbing himself.
"Every day of travel you are from him is another day of... chance. Possibility."
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Rescue. The word sounds stupid even to his mind as he says it.
But he would, he thinks, if it came to that.
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He wonders, with no small amount of worry, how much information Astarion has dramatized.
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Maybe he’s just too tired to.
“Depends on how much damage you do beforehand. Devastate enough of the coven and...maybe. I could come crawling back. Play at being a puppet as long as the shard holds out. Bide my time for an opportunity to throw us both out into the sun.”
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He does not reach out with his hand, still bloodied from Astarion's earlier attempts. He leans forward instead, a quick and awkward kiss to Astarion's jaw. "Without you, this world holds no purpose."
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here's my also tired secret: I didn't even notice lmao
lmao good jOB us
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puts on my dm hat and wizard robe
avali oh my god.
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1/2
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ur perfect this is perfect sh shh
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