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Astarion had never seen a twilight like this. In truth, he had never spent much time in the depths of a forest. There was just the right amount of moonlight coming through the dappled leaves, enough to entice but not reveal. The garish greens and browns had been transformed into soft, subtle grays. Even the dirt looked like velvet. He would’ve killed for a nice bed in a decent inn, but for this particular tryst it would have to do.
He had made his proposition to Tav as easily as he ever had, with a smile on his lips and a twinkle in his eye. And they had accepted it, like many had before. Of course they did.
Now it was just a matter of waiting.
Shirt on or off? It felt performative to take it off, like presenting meat at market, hawking his wares to passerby. A clumsy, inelegant gambit. But a good salesman knew when to show off his goods, and it wasn’t like Astarion had much else to sell besides the clothes on his back. His body would have to do.
He doffed his shirt and folded it neatly over a branch. Making love in the woods like two primitives. At least in the city there’s usually a wall you can lean on. Gods, the last thing I need is more dirt in my hair.
He wanted to pace, but forced his legs still. Pacing wasn’t attractive. No one wanted to make love to a nervous partner.
There was no reason for nerves. He had done this a thousand times before. It was routine, as boring as sin. He could’ve performed a seduction in his sleep and, in fact, had done so on several occasions. This was the same situation as all the rest of them: an unsuspecting target wandering into his arms like a fly into a spider’s web.
But… that’s not quite true, is it, he realized. This is the first time I’m not doing it for Cazador.
His looming specter had always been in the corner of Astarion’s mind, like a hand on the back of his neck. Every move he made, every word he said, was in service of an invisible audience. Even at his most alone, he was observed.
That’s why it felt so odd. He almost laughed at his own foolishness. It was a time to celebrate, not worry. He was a dog unleashed, a bird uncaged, an animal stretching his stiff limbs in the outside world. The world was his for the taking.
He marveled again at the feeling of freedom. Two hundred years of life, and it was only now he could finally breathe. He could go anywhere, do anything. He had forgotten what it was like to make a choice. How strange to live without chains.
Well, he would get used to it soon enough. He rolled his neck side to side and shook out his hands. This was his first performance as a free man, so he had better make it a good one. This time it would be him holding the puppet strings.
A rustle in the undergrowth. Astarion turned, a practiced smile already on his lips. His body remembered how to behave even if his mind hadn’t quite caught up.
“There you are,” he purred.
“Here I am,” Tav said. Their eyes flicked down his body with genuine interest, and Astarion was glad to have forgone the shirt. They gave him a coy smile.
Too easy. All he had to do was throw a few smiles their way, a few choice words, and they opened like a cheap lock. It was a little pathetic, really. They should have higher standards.
Still, that made his job all the easier. If their eagerness was any indication, they would be putty in his hands by tomorrow morning. A bedding completed, an ally acquired, easy as pie.
“I’ve been waiting for this for a long time,” Astarion said, a default line. It was all playacting, and he had his part memorized.
“Me too,” they said, stepping across the clearing, eyes bright in anticipation.
Tav seemed nice enough, and wasn’t bad-looking, but Astarion had moved past the need for kind and attractive partners long ago. You couldn’t afford to be picky when you had a quota to fill.
“Are we done with the preamble or do you want to bask in my beauty a bit longer?” he asked.
“Shut up,” they said with a grin. Tav leaned forward eagerly to press their lips against his, their hands already at his waist.
Astarion relaxed. He still had it. Good. One less person likely to stab him in the back. It was harder to kill a person you’d been so intimate with, Astarion had done it enough times to know.
A few kisses in the dark wasn’t enough though. That could be forgotten by next dawn.
“Come here, love,” he whispered. He took their hand and led them toward a patch of ground where the leaves mostly covered the dirt. It was as close to linen sheets as they were likely to get in this place.
He knelt down, but Tav was already pushing him onto his back, locking their lips together again, eager as a puppy. He let them pin him to the ground, legs between his legs, hips grazing each other.
“Someone’s energetic today,” he said, a light tease.
“It’s your fault,” they said, running a hand down his chest. “I can’t help it.”
Their body pressed into his, hot and hard against his pelvis. Astarion had the feeling this was where the night would go, and had made preparations. It didn’t much matter to him what position they ended up in: dominant or meek, active or supine, it all ended the same. It was another thing he couldn’t afford to be picky about, if he ever had a preference in the first place.
Sometimes it was harder to take the dominant role, to pretend like he had any power at all, to grab someone’s wrists and demand they submit, when he was the one with the collar around his neck. There was a certain honesty in being held down and defiled; at least it reflected his reality.
But Tav was touching him lovingly and gently, so he should respond in kind. He let out a soft breath as they traced their fingers down his stomach, unlacing the last of his clothes. He moaned as they kissed him, pulling them back for more, undoing their clothes in feigned desperation. Tonight he was playing the role of the eager young lover, and he played it well.
Their body was well-formed and perfectly serviceable, but Astarion acted as if it was the very living body of a god, and he was its only acolyte. Their hot flesh, lifeblood pumping just underneath the surface, was almost pleasant in the crisp evening air. That was a hunger he didn’t have to fake.
Tav returned his touches eagerly, as he expected. They kissed his lips, his earlobe, the corner of his jaw, and then leaned down to place their lips on the crook of his neck, and that’s when it all went to shit.
In an instant, the scene changed. This wasn’t a tender moonlit rendezvous between two new lovers, this was back at the palace, and Cazador had his mouth on Astarion’s neck.
He could feel the cold stone at his back, the dusty, damp smell in his nostrils, Cazador’s cool, dry hands tipping his jaw to the side, just so.
It wasn’t any particular memory. Astarion couldn’t count the number of times Cazador had held him like that, placed his lips lovingly over the scar tissue in the mockery of a kiss. The echo of it was carved as deeply into his psyche as the scars carved into his back.
The moment stretched like a corridor of mirrors. Astarion saw himself reflected in them, pinned over and over and over, Cazador’s endless hands over every inch of his body, the bite, deep, red, and ever-bleeding. An inescapable, horrific tableau.
He’s not here, he’s not here, he’s not here! Astarion’s fingers grasped at the leaves of the clearing, heedless of the dirt under his fingernails. He needed something, anything to bring him out of that place.
The forest came back slowly, and came back worse. The air was not refreshing, but cold. The dappled moonlight was grotesque. And Tav was still placing kisses along his neck, heedless of the scars beneath.
It was like moving through molasses, but he managed to lift a hand push lightly against their shoulder. They broke away from his neck and looked at him quizzically.
“Not there,” he said finally, forcing the words between his teeth, “Old wounds.”
“Oh, sorry,” Tav said. “…Are you alright?”
It might have been something in the moonlight, or in their position above him, but for the first time he noticed how much they resembled Cazador. Not physically by any means, but something in the way they held themselves: the confidence, the authority. It was the aura of someone who was born to lead. Born to be followed.
And that was a quality that Astarion never seemed to possess. He felt small under that gaze, trapped as easily as a pinned butterfly.
“Of course,” he said, with a smile as charming as he could manage. “When am I not?”
“Do you want to stop?”
His heart sank: this was a trap. Cazador offered many such choices: Do you want to dine with me? Do you want to stay the night? Do you want me to stop? It was never a real question, only an opportunity to show you knew the right answer.
“Never,” he said, the lie dripping from his mouth like oil, “The only thing I want is you. Now.”
Tav leaned forward to kiss his mouth again and Astarion let it happen. This was right, this is what was supposed to be happening. He had a stumble, but the show must go on.
But somewhere along the way he seemed to have lost the script to this encounter. He couldn’t figure out where his hands were supposed to rest, what noises he should be making, whether his eyes should be open or closed. The shape of their bodies was all wrong.
He had been mistaken at the beginning. This was not the scene between seducer and victim, as he thought it was. No, this was the other performance: the intimate act between master and spawn.
Tav trailed a hand up his thigh, touching him as lightly as a feather. They grazed his chest, his hips, as if afraid they would break him. As if he was an animal, stuck in a hunter’s trap. Why were they pretending to be gentle? Cazador was gentle too, sometimes. It didn’t make it easier.
“I’m not made of glass, darling,” he said, suppressing the edge of irritation in his voice. It was insulting to be touched so softly. That wasn’t what his body was here for.
Tav dug their fingers into his waist obediently, but it was still wrong. Dishonest. They were holding back, when it was so obvious that they wanted to hurt him. When it was so obvious he wanted to be hurt.
He hooked his leg around Tav’s hips and pulled them on top of him. He dug his nails into their back and yanked them into the right position.
“What are you waiting for?” he asked.
“Oh, I should–” they started to say, fumbling in between his legs, pressing their fingers inwards to prepare him.
Astarion almost growled in frustration. Here he was, exposing his stomach like a submissive dog, and they weren’t bold enough to take him. If this was to be an exchange of sex for protection, then let it be that. There was no need to fuss around like a couple of virgins.
At least Cazador could get me off. The thought ran quick and poisonous through his mind, as malignant as the tadpole within. He tensed, rejecting it instinctively. No! Not him!
And yet, the bitter taste lingered.
It was easy to talk about Cazador’s cruelties. Everyone understood a beating, everyone understood hunger. Astarion could expound upon the countless horrors casually, and people would coo and tut and lay a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. Pity was grating, but at least it was useful.
It was so much harder to talk about the times Cazador wasn’t cruel. When he was sensitive, soft, kind. When, after a long, hard day, all Astarion wanted to do was lay his head on Cazador’s lap and get called a good dog. When he asked for the comforting touch of his master. When he begged for it. People usually lost their understanding looks after that.
That was the brilliance of Cazador’s sadism. A master who was purely cruel was easy to hate, easy to scheme against, easy to kill. A master who doled out kindness between the barbarism was another matter entirely. Every day was a struggle not to escape the infinite darkness, but to find the softness within it. Who could blame him for seeking small pleasure where he could find it? A bit of sweetness could make you swallow a very bitter pill.
They had two hundred years to become familiar with each other. There was no one who knew him better, both in pleasure and in pain. That was the tragedy of it all. That was the reason he was so irredeemably broken.
He could not escape his master’s leash.
He grit his teeth. Fuck it. If this what he had to do to get through this, fine. Astarion knew the script of the compliant spawn better than any other.
“Please,” he said, breathy and desperate, just as he was trained. Astarion never had to beg with his victims. They followed him eagerly, whether he wanted it or not. But his master loved to see him humbled.
“Please,” he said again. He ground his hips upwards, offering the first real stimulation of the evening. “I need you inside me.”
Tav let out a soft gasp, pressing themselves closer almost involuntarily. Their grip on him tightened, to the point of pain. Finally. Show your true colors.
“Come on,” he said, half whining and half goading, “Fuck me like you mean it.”
Tav made a noise deep in their throat and yanked Astarion’s hips so they could push themselves into him. Astarion moaned, and this time it was almost real. Tav inched inside painfully slowly, seeming to relish Astarion’s change of expression more than the act itself.
They want a show. He moaned and pulled Tav closer, looking through his lashes like the most expensive whore in Baldur’s Gate. Like Cazador taught him to.
“Please,” he begged, “I need all of you.”
Tav’s hips snapped against Astarion’s suddenly, forcing a moan from them both. Tav’s hot breath blew against his chest and face, leaving a faint dampness in the cool evening air.
“Harder,” he said. He needed to feel it in his bones. He needed it to hurt. That meant he was doing it right. That meant his master would be pleased.
Tav, diligent as ever, grabbed the back of Astarion’s thigh and hooked his leg over their shoulder, thrusting themself even deeper.
Astarion reached between his legs and stroked himself wantonly. Even this was a display, a seduction, a ritual. A role to get lost in.
Astarion closed his eyes. It was easier that way. He could ignore the setting, ignore the dramatis personae, and just focus on the feeling of another body against his. This was always the best part of his nights with Cazador, when the delicate performance of submission stopped and, for a brief moment, all he had to worry about was experiencing pleasure.
With his eyes closed, it might as well have been Cazador above him. It could have been his nails digging into soft flesh, his hips forcing Astarion’s legs open, his moans disrupting the quiet of the evening. There was a sick sort of comfort in that, a familiarity he could grasp onto. Being with Cazador was still a performance, but it was one he knew by heart.
There were leaves in his hair, sticks cutting up his back. They caught on the edges of his scar tissue, the pinpricks of pain forming an improvised harmony with the other aches of his body. This was right, this was how it was supposed to go. This is what he deserved.
Cazador’s hair brushed his shoulder. It was terrifying in the outside world. Better to be here, safe, in the hands of his master. He didn’t have to think, didn’t have to act, didn’t have to do anything for himself. All he had to do was obey and submit, and he would be safe. Well, as safe as he had any right to expect.
His master thrust themself even more viciously into him, a crescendo of lust. Finally, with one last thrust and a moan deep in their throat, they shuddered to a stop. They collapsed onto his body, an oppressive blanket of sweat and heat, not bothering to pull out of him.
Astarion whined in dissatisfaction, bordering on petulant, although there was a part of him that was relieved it was over. He could now retreat, and go back to being unobserved. He could disentangle this horrible situation from his brain.
Tav nuzzled into him lazily and reached down between their bodies to grasp his length.
Astarion flinched at the touch and made a small, unintelligible sound of protest. The touch was unwelcome, foreign. It was something he desperately needed. His body yearned for release even as his mind dreaded it.
“Shh, just let me,” Tav whispered, and Astarion obeyed without a second thought. He yielded to their touch like a trained animal, even when the wet, horrible feeling of their lips drifted across his skin.
He needed a distraction. He buried his face into their neck and bared his teeth against their skin, not enough to pierce, just to imagine doing so. How many times had he fantasized about biting though Cazador’s flesh, feeling the hot rush of true vampirism on his tongue? Salvation was always a hairsbreadth away, and as unreachable as the moon. A dog could never bite the hand that feeds him.
He lay his mouth against their flesh, suckling on their neck. Sometimes it was enough to feel the blood under his tongue, even covered in skin. A small pleasure in a world that had so few.
“Go ahead,” Tav said, their voice idle and satisfied, a king granting an indulgence to a serf, “It’s alright. Bite me.”
His eyes snapped open. Was this another test? His unthinking obedience towards his master fought briefly with his compliance towards the cardinal rules, but hunger quickly won. He bit through their skin like a fresh peach, the beautiful flow of lifeblood even sweeter than any mortal fruit.
He came then, his moan muffled in their flesh, unwilling to let go for a single instant. He wasn’t sure which part of him felt more pleasure. Tav stroked him through his orgasm, and he sucked at their neck with an enthusiasm that was far past desperation.
They stayed like that for a while. Astarion couldn’t bring himself to detach his teeth, even as Tav’s ministrations moved from pleasant to overstimulating to painful.
“Enough,” Tav said softly. Astarion’s mouth opened involuntarily.
Tav collapsed gently to one side with a grateful sigh, leaving an arm draped over his body. Their breath, still sweltering in the cool evening air, slowed into a more regular pattern. They sighed happily and nestled themself into Astarion’s side.
“That was lovely,” they said.
Tav’s arm was like a lead weight across his chest. Astarion stared upwards, towards the unchanging sky, unable to do anything else. The last dregs of lust-fueled delirium were draining from his body, replaced by a mounting sense of utter despair.
His heart, unlike Tav’s, had not slowed down at all. He could feel it pumping in his chest, spreading his master’s blood to the rest of his body. Saturating him with their ownership.
I can’t escape. The misery quickly followed the blood in his veins, permeating every part of him. It was like the first time he realized that he would never see the sun again. This is all I know how to do, bend over for the strongest person in the room and hope they have mercy on me. Why did I think I could ever break free? I threw myself at the first new master to come along. I didn’t even try to do anything else.
It’s like I want to be leashed.
“You’re being unusually quiet,” Tav said, stroking one finger down his cheek.
It was only lethargy that stopped him from shuddering. This glade was not beautiful, it was as horrible as any dungeon in Cazador’s palace. It was yet another cage.
He closed his eyes, took a breath, and turned to look at Tav. Their face was the very picture of innocence, just a lover in moonlight. But there, just under the surface, he spotted it: hunger. It’s what he had missed before, when he saw them as just another victim. This was a predator too, and they had him in their jaws.
This was his fate, he realized. He wasn’t strong enough to survive on his own. This was simply an exchange of one collar for another. He could accept that, live with that. He would have to. He didn’t have another choice.
“Sorry darling, I was lost in thought,” Astarion said lightly. He leaned closer to them, and bent back his lips into something like a smile. “You were lovely. And I would love to do this again.”