summary. “I would say good luck out there, but honestly? I hope you die screaming.”
Intimacy is not something you like to indulge in after your last lover nearly strangled you to death. Sometimes, you wonder if letting him ascend would mean he would still be here, by your side, rather than lurking the shadows of Baldur's Gate.
warnings. angst, comfort, slow burn, reader is a bard
pairing. Astarion x GN!Reader
parts. 1, TBA
a/n. very excited about this!!!! I have a lot of ideas on what to do w this plot!!! ALSO there is some material (pressuring??) in this specific chapter that may be a bit uncomfortable for some readers it's very brief, but it is there so please take care of yourself!
As dark spots blur your vision, you realize you can no longer breathe.
His hands–the slender pale fingers you’ve grown to love more than your own–wrap desperately around your throat, digging crescent-shaped indents into your skin. You’d always thought that if he were ever to realize you weren’t as precious to him as he believed you to be, your neck would be the one part of yourself he’d continued to cherish. The softness in which he brushed his fangs against the most vulnerable areas of your throat had led you to believe so.
But as you stare up at him with wide eyes meeting a murderous glare, you understand that you are wrong.
His crimson eyes gleam with an emotion you’ve seen plenty on his pretty face, but never toward a friend. Never to you. You’re going to die, you think. And it wouldn’t have seemed so bad to die at his hands if it were not for the hatred reaching his eyes.
You’re not sure who–maybe Karlach or Wyll–but someone tears him away from you. Your chest dares to tighten from the loss of contact, yet you desperately grasp at the air, hands flying to the tender flesh of your neck while Shadowheart rushes to your side in an instant with her eyes narrowed dangerously at the very man who’d made the dark blemishes.
They’re yelling. Everyone is. At you, out of panic, or at Astarion, you’re not sure, but you just stare at the vampire spawn who’s now unwillingly locked into a life cast into the shadows of the city. He doesn’t look at anyone else, either.
He says something and a few more muffled voices spit back before he throws the dagger you’d given him to the ground, turning to leave. Your hearing clears just in time to hear his parting words.
“I would say good luck out there, but honestly? I hope you die screaming.”
A pair of hands shake you awake, and you quickly remember the poor consequences to your back of falling asleep on the empty, narrow street beside the Elfsong tavern. You look up wearily, eyes in a daze as Shadowheart sighs irritably, brows furrowed in a way that tells you to ready yourself for a scolding. “Honestly, at this point, I’m just surprised you haven’t gotten robbed during the night yet.”
You force yourself onto your feet, leaning against the walls as you rub at the crust forming under your eyes. “I have nothing of value anyway. They’re better off stealing from some other poor bard who actually bothers to write songs.”
She raises a brow at this, scanning over your appearance. “Where is your lyre?”
“Sold it,” you shrug, dusting off the muck garnered at the sides of your pants. “Wasn’t much use to me anymore. Better off adding to the funds to rebuild the city, don’t you think?”
Shadowheart frowns, and it makes you look away shamefully. Thankfully, she quickly shakes her head and then paces past you. “Speaking of which, are you in any condition to help today? Gale’s promptly exhausted trying to cast mage hand at least a dozen times yesterday to rebuild the Blushing Mermaid. That foolish wizard nearly passed out by noon.”
“‘Course,” you offer a pathetic smile. “We’re nearly finished with the Baldur’s Mouth. I’ll catch up with you once I check on everyone there.”
“Very well,” she says. She purses her lips after a slight pause. “You should stop falling asleep on the street. Especially since there’s been quite a few murders recently around the city,” she checks to see if you haven’t dazed off, “I expect you to come home tonight–We’re making stew.”
“I will. Don’t think my back can stand much more of this anyway.”
Her shoulders relax the slightest bit, and she finally manages to catch your darting eyes. “Is it the nightmares again? They’re getting worse, aren’t they?”
Your throat goes dry, and you can feel your knees grasping at its remaining strength as you search your mind for a way to respond. You’re tempted to lie through your gritted teeth, knowing she’s fully aware regardless of what pathetic answer you offer her, but you opt to seal your mouth shut, shrugging.
The flash of disappointment in her eyes is enough to make you feel the knots tighten in your stomach. With a curt note, she turns to walk away, glancing back for one last time. “Don’t give him the privilege of occupying a part of your mind for so long. He doesn’t deserve even the dirty filth you have all over yourself.”
For the first time after he nearly killed you and you defeated the Elder Brain four months ago, you think she might be right about him.
_____________________
Intimacy is not something you like to indulge in after your last lover nearly strangled you to death. Though after the pitiful look your companions gave you when you arrived back at camp and the aching truth in Shadowheart’s words, you find yourself feeling bolder than the last time you dared to call Lae’zel’s cooking inedible (which it was, quite frankly).
He’s handsome. A reasonably tall elf with pale blue eyes glinting with attraction as he stares at you across the tavern. Sharp jawline, long eyelashes, and long hair brushed back and away from his face. You only notice everything else after the silvery shade of his hair–not entirely white, but fairly close, or as close as you could get to it while still being blond. You were sure he was approaching you for your title–the famed hero of Baldur’s Gate–rather than for pure physical attraction, but you weren’t in any position to nitpick at the moment.
You just wanted to feel skin other than the unsettling feeling of your own.
“Seems to have taken a liking to you,” Shadowheart sips at her drink.
Lae’zel glances at you. “He’s tolerable to the eye. Not quite attractive by githyanki standards, but tolerable.”
You stifle a smile at their attempts to urge you forward and put down your drink. “You sure you two won’t be lonely without me?...Or kill each other.”
“You can leave them to me,” Gale smiles, pacing toward your table with his drink. “I’m sure a Hold cast or two would settle them down.”
Lae’zel snatches the cup from his hand. “You act as if you aren’t fresh out of cast slots, wizard.”
Shadowheart shakes her head, nudging you forward. “Go. We’ll be fine.”
“I won’t be long. Certainly won’t be overnight,” you assure her. “I can’t miss the stew, anyway.”
She smiles, and Lae’zel scoffs in the other direction. “Hurry, he looks almost demented waiting for your graces.”
You snort and offer a clumsy glance to the elf across the tavern before striding out the door.
Behind the tavern, he’s quick to press a desperate kiss to your lips, lacking the usual tenderness you experienced with Astarion. Or had it been tender at all? Even now, you’re unsure what parts of him had been to manipulate you and what parts of him had been his raw feelings. At the time, you’d embraced either with open arms–you’d embraced him.
The elf bites at your lip, which snaps you back into the waking world. And while you curse yourself for comparing the moment to him, you find that it’s impossible as you observe that this elf is slightly shorter than he’d been. And instead of his hands wandering to your hip or waist, they graze your behind, pushing you into him in a way that feels nearly suffocating.
And most glaringly, his lips are warm. Not the cold, yet soft lips of an undead being.
You’re grateful that he keeps his eyes closed because you can simply stare at his pale hair, longing for something you vowed to forget.
It doesn’t feel right. Not at all, and you hate yourself for it.
You shove him away, face falling as you realize you want to wipe his touch away from your mouth like it’s filth, and you do. Understandably, he appears puzzled, brows furrowing as you push yourself away from the wall, shaking your head. “Sorry, I don’t think I can do this.”
But as you try to walk away, his fingers close around your wrist like a death grip, sending shivers up your spine as you find that you hate the feeling of his skin. You hate the feel of your own skin, too. Why, you’re not sure, but he leans close enough for you to feel his breath on your cheeks and yank you out of your daze. “What’s gotten into you? I didn’t do jack shit.”
“I just can’t do this,” you hiss, tugging at your hand. You could just knock him out, but the hero of Baldur’s Gate punching people as they pleased wouldn’t look too good on your end. “Let go.”
“Well, you have to give me at least an explanation,” he snaps, grip tightening. It hurts. “Don’t pretend you haven’t been sending me looks all night.”
His words seem to snap the remaining patience inside you because you elbow his stomach, shoving him backward onto his ass before pressing your dagger that seemed to appear from thin air into his neck. You haven’t had to use the knife in a while, considering how your biggest recent foe was the stinginess of patrons when it came time to pay their tabs at the tavern. Though it belongs to you, it feels foreign in your hands because, for a time, it had a different owner.
One who used this very blade against you. The same one who taught you how to elbow someone hard enough to make them reel.
“P-Please, I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to hurt you.” You’d forgotten he was there. “Just let me go, please; I won’t bother you again.”
You drop your head, sighing loudly as you sheathe your dagger once more. You think you must really be losing your mind—threatening to slice open a civilian’s throat despite the significant power imbalance between the two of you. You’re sure the greatest threat he’s faced in his life is from petty theft or something along those lines while you—well, you’re you. It’d be equivalent to a full grown owlbear attacking a goblin with a half broken club.
So, as much as you want to make him bleed just a bit, you opt to step away. “Do that again to anyone—not just me, and I won’t be so forgiving next time. Understand?”
The tremble in his irises tells you enough. You sigh again, turning to leave.
You curse your luck. Of course you would have to attract the foulest person in the tavern on a night where nothing seemed to be going correctly. Or rather, the past four months that haven’t been going as you anticipated.
Getting rid of the tadpole meant you should’ve been free from the chains of someone else—and it had, but at the cost of losing something else. And that ‘something else’ was one you weren’t sure you were ever ready to sacrifice. It should have made you happy to see the Elder Brain fall, and to rid of the squirming feeling in your skull, but all you could remember was the churning in your stomach as you realized the last string tying you to him had been snapped.
You’d gone to every tavern, every bar, playing a tune at each one until the skin at your fingers split open, because he knew you’d be there. He’d known what your lyre meant to you. Yet among the sea of faces, not once had you seen the one you wanted.
As you walk around the corner, you wrap your arms around yourself. Though Summer’s quickly approaching, there’s still a chill in the air this late at night. You pull out your dagger once more, lifting it to the sky to examine its hilt against the moonlight, which glistens with what was once your pride and love. Now, it just looks dull, and faint.
You back feels too light, now lacking the lyre. You suppose you’ll have less of a hassle moving around now, since you don’t have to worry about the strings snapping, but it doesn’t soothe you. Still, you’d sold it for good reason.
An instrument is nothing without a player who can use it, after all.
So you turn your attention back to your dagger, the last crumb he’s left for you to hold dearly to your heart, and then to the trash can perched beside a nearby wall.
You’ve tried a million times before, and you’re not sure what makes you think you’ll be successive this time, but you swallow hard in determination to rid of the thing entirely. But just as you’re about to take your first step toward it, you hear a loud, halting screech muffled instantly.
It’s from the direction you came from.
You’re breaking into a silent sprint, the weapon in your hand ready to be used. You stop before you turn the corner, readying yourself for the worst. A murder? There’ve been more than a few occurring around the city, but you’d thought the Flaming Fist were investigating that already…You can hear your blood rushing in your head, but a crunch of bone and the silence that follows afterward is all you can focus on as your grip on the hilt tightens desperately.
Cautiously, you peer at the moonlit alleyway, poised to attack.
You nearly drop the blade.
Draped in the moonlight with his face hidden by a hood, he nearly glows, though you’re not sure if it’s just your mind playing tricks on you. His fangs are buried viciously into the man’s neck, whose legs and arms lie limply at his side while the life in his eyes slips away as if it were never there. And while you don’t dare to breathe, you stare with wide eyes, drinking in his appearance as if it would be the last. A part of you thinks it may be.
But as quickly as your heart begins to race, it calms. A drop of your stomach tells you it’s not him. You’re not sure if you’re relieved or how you know, but you can just tell.
The man finally drops the now lifeless body onto the ground with a thud, wiping at his mouth with the back of his dark sleeve. He turns, and you finally see one of Astarion’s brothers–the one who’d been at the flophouse, confirming your suspicions. Regardless, your guard stays up. “I thought you guys left for the Underdark.”
He snaps his head toward your voice, eyes wide. He looks a lot better than you’d last truly seen his face after Astarion nearly burned him against the sunlight in the flophouse. What had been his name, you try to recall? Pallet? Peter? It doesn’t matter, much. “You were at the flophouse.”
He cringes at the memory but nods. “Petras. You’re the one who stopped Astarion from killing us all, aren’t you?”
Your throat goes dry at that. You’d never thought about it in such a–vulgar way, and it makes your stomach churn, but he doesn’t give you time to respond.
“Dalyria, Leon, and I have decided to stay for the sake of the spawn hiding in the city sewers,” he explains curtly. “My other siblings are in the Underdark with most of the spawn, as you expect them to be.”
You stare at the corpse on the ground, expression twitching as you meet his eyes. “Why’d you kill him?”
He licks his lips, stained with the man’s blood. “I didn’t. Someone did the work for me. I just didn’t let his precious blood go to waste.” He pauses. “I’d put a few rats on betting that it’s Astarion.”
Your eyes go wide, your armed hands dropping to your side. “Astarion? He was here?”
You’d been here mere moments ago. Had he seen you? Was he watching you?
“Maybe. Judging from how quickly he ran away from the scene when he saw me, I wouldn’t be surprised.”
Shoving your dagger into its rightful place on your back, you immediately turn to search for your former companion. He couldn’t have gone far. You’d been talking to the dead man mere minutes ago, and if the death occurred between now and then, he couldn’t have possibly gone more than a few buildings away–
“I never got to thank you.”
Petras looks at you anxiously, and as much as you’d like to cut the conversation short, the way he shifts nervously can’t help but keep you in place.
“There’s no need,” you reply, stopping to shake your head. You hadn’t done it for him or any of his siblings, for that matter, anyway. Not even for Astarion. Your choice to stop had been for yourself, to keep him by your side. Your brows furrow at the selfishness draping your thoughts—that you were willing to sacrifice 7000 innocent souls for the sake of protecting the one you loved. It was a lapse of judgement. Naivety. “It’s just how things turned out.”
He tilts his head but doesn’t push it any further. “Have you seen him recently? Astarion?”
“...No. He left after we—I killed Cazador.”
His eyes flicker with disappointment, and you wonder if he’s forgiven Astarion for what he tried to do in Cazador’s dungeon. “He’s always been good at hiding. Seems some things never change.”
You nod numbly. “I’ll let you know if I do see him.”
Though you doubt you ever will. Not after how things ended. But if there’s a slight chance, even the smallest of hopes, that you can bring closure to the sleepless nights you spend on the streets, staring up at a sky that no longer brightens the way it used to, you’re willing to wait until you’re shriveled up and old, while he remains beautiful.
“I don’t think he wants to see you right now.”
The painful clench in your heart doesn’t go ignored. “Have you spoken with him?”
“Once,” he says. “But it seems he doesn’t want to speak with us anymore either. You see, our conversation didn’t quite end in a happy family reunion. We did manage to ask him a few things—like asking if he was to be staying with you.”
“And?” You’re afraid to hear the answer, but your voice is far too hopeful.
Petras gives you a look of pity, and you understand.
You understand that no matter how long you wait or how long you search for him, Astarion will not be seen when he does not want to be.
“I don’t think he wants to see you right now.”
For the rest of the night, you weep. You weep in the comforts of nobody but your own arms and nobody to hear you but the moon above.
_____________________
Baldur’s Gate is by no means a city that sleeps. The past four months have been a restless cycle of rebuilding the city, and while you’ve done your part, no matter how much you do, it never seems enough.
“Oh, welcome, dear. Your friends have been a wonderful help for my house as of late,” the lady of the Highberry’s Home, Cora Highberry, ushers you into her house, still missing a roof and half the windows but appearing in better shape than most other structures in the city. She offers you a wine glass. “Do you have a preference?”
“Anything’s fine,” you smile, but just as you reach for the glass, it’s snatched away by a familiar wizard’s hand.
Gale extends Cora a gentle nod and that charming grin of his as he hands her back the wine. “While we greatly appreciate your hospitality, I’m afraid my friend here is in no condition to drink as of now.”
The playful roll of your eyes makes Cora laugh. “Ah, of course. But do know I’m so grateful for all your help. I didn’t imagine we would be building the home back for the orphans so quickly!”
“It’s the least we could do,” Gale beams. “Now then, my dear friend and I will continue working on the second floor, so just give us a holler if you need us.”
He whisks you away toward the stairs before you can wave goodbye to the woman. While you’d expect him to initiate conversation, he doesn’t say anything until you arrive upstairs, where you’re mostly alone beside the few other volunteers in the other room. You tilt your head when he finally paces past you toward one of the broken windows. “Gale Dekarios keeping his mouth shut for more than a few moments? The city truly must be falling apart.”
He cracks a smile at this, dusting off a few glass shards from the windowsill. “I’m glad to see you still have your sense of charm.”
“When have I ever lacked my charm?”
He doesn’t lift his head, pulling out his spellbook and flipping through a few pages while you survey the state of the room. “You didn’t return last night.”
You tense.
“It would be wise to be grateful Karlach’s still in Avernus with Wyll, because I’m certain she would’ve given you quite the scolding for daring to miss my world-famous Wizard’s Stew,” he says lightly, his tone morphing into something more serious when he shifts his gaze in your direction. “We’re worried about you, you know. Especially Shadowheart, even if that woman doesn’t know what gentle means in every possible level of hell.”
He’s silently asking you for an explanation, and your heart breaks at how gently he prods at your walls, giving you an opportunity to slip away again. But with how his eyes plead at you, you can’t imagine that would be possible anyway. Slowly, you perch yourself on the windowsill, looking down at the bustling crowd working together to rebuild the Highberry’s porch. They’re laughing—some face red with wine, while others scold them for it. You see a bard playing a tune you haven’t heard before, but it’s effective in lifting the mood regardless, and you finally glance at Gale.
“I met one of Astarion’s brothers yesterday.”
His face is grim. “I didn’t realize they were still in the city.”
“Me neither,” you sigh. “Some of them stayed. From what I could tell, they're mostly in the sewers, but they’re definitely here.”
“Did he seem…hostile?”
“No. He just asked me about Astarion.” You leave out the part about the dead body.
Gale’s brows furrow, but he doesn’t say anything, only silently urging you to continue. And you do.
“He doesn’t want to see me. Not ever, I think.”
There it is. The same gaze everyone seems to give you lately: pity.
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” you hop off the windowsill, pacing across to the other side of the room. “If he doesn’t want to see me, I won’t. If he doesn’t want to talk to me, I won’t. I’m tired of waiting for him, Gale. I’m tired of waiting for someone who won’t ever come.”
And despite the puffiness of your eyes last night, and despite the way your eyes gloss over even now, you offer him a crooked smile. “I want to focus on the city now, for better or worse.”
Gale appears the happiest he’s been since returning a few months ago with the news that Mystra has healed him of his orb. “You thought well, dear friend. You should know how glad we are to have you back. We could certainly use more hands in the kitchen, as well, considering—well, you know how the rest of our companions are with cooking.”
Just as you open your mouth, there’s an ear-shattering scream from downstairs. The two of you meet wide eyes briefly before hurrying downstairs.
Only a few feet from the patio of the Highberry home, there’s a crowd gathering with hushed whispers and the weeping of a woman. And when you manage to push through the mountain of people, you finally see the corpse.
Cora Highberry sobs over what remains of her bloody husband, who, without a doubt, has the markings of two fangs punctured through his throat.