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Oleander’s blood is restless. It has not slept properly since he was given the order to kill Isobel, boiling balefully with every peaceful moment that passes. He cannot succumb, will not, but the demon in him is taking his resistance very personally.
His only relief is the sheer abundance of things that need killing in the shadow-cursed lands. Violence is violence, and violence calms the body he inhabits. It settles into something quieter, something more manageable, with every shadow-beast he tears to pieces and every shambling husk he reduces to powder and bone.
But the undead are – well, they aren’t satisfying. Not the way living flesh is. The only living creatures he’s been around lately are ones he would desperately like to keep intact, though he thinks, wonders, dreams about sinking his teeth in and tasting, and consuming, and having. (His jaw aches to close around Astarion’s moon-pale skin. They could be one body, one flesh, meat for meat and blood for blood— he need not kill, only bite, only taste—
He cannot succumb. Will not.)
That particular urge, then, goes unsatisfied, until— well, until a meazel wrenches him into the depths of the shadow curse with a garrote around his throat, and his mind spins with the proximity of living, breathing meat.
He barely feels the slice of wire into his throat. Barely feels anything at all. He thinks he can hear the distant voice of one of his companions calling his name. The meazel is breathing hot, rancid air onto the back of his neck, and he so desperately wants to reach down that panting throat and rip its insides out through its mouth.
He’s tall enough that it has crawled off the ground and onto his back to get the garrote on him, and so it has no way to brace itself when he flings his full weight backwards to crush it between his body and the unforgiving rock. It squeals in surprise, its grip on the wire loosening enough for Oleander to tear it free, and its small body is easy to pin when Oleander twists around to get his hands on it.
The magic building in his hands dies at the feel of something warm, living, screaming under his palms. Why use magic when it would be so much more satisfying to rip? To tear? His claws dig in and drag, carving bloody lines down the meazel’s writhing chest, and the blood—the blood is intoxicating, filling his nose with copper-iron sweetness, and he has barely blinked before his jaw is locked around the meazel’s throat.
He feels it shriek, its vocal cords vibrating against his teeth. Its scream descends into wet gurgling as he sinks his fangs in, deep and deeper (to tear, to eat, to feast, blood on his tongue and down his throat and filling all his senses), and something snaps between his teeth, and it suddenly cannot scream at all. It isn’t quite dead yet, only voiceless, but it is not the desire to kill that has Oleander locking his jaw and tearing as much of its throat out as he can.
It is the desire to eat.
Its body spasms and goes still beneath his hands as he chews the mouthful of foul meat, body heaving, bile rising in his throat even as his mouth waters around the meazel’s flesh. He swallows, and he descends to rip another strip of flesh from the stringy meat of its throat. He is beyond control. He is shaking, swooning, sick.
“Oleander,” Astarion’s voice cuts through the red haze.
Oleander jerks his head up, the chunk of meazel dropping from his mouth as he stares up at Astarion. The urge shivers, hissing through his veins, but beneath Oleander’s focused attention and Astarion’s watchful gaze, it settles back into something controllable.
His gaze darts first across Astarion, then behind him – and there, several paces back, cursing and untangling themselves from wires but blessedly alive, are Shadowheart and Karlach. The ground is littered with meazel corpses, one of which receives a deliberate and angry kick from Karlach’s steel-toed boot.
Assured of his companions’ survival, Oleander lets his gaze return to Astarion, sweeping up and down to look for injury. Red lines oozing blood crisscross his throat, and he is favoring his left foot, but he seems otherwise unharmed. (Oleander cannot, will not, think about laving his tongue across those precious drops of blood.)
“Everyone is alright?” he asks.
Astarion is still studying him, thoughtful, inscrutable. “Not much worse for wear,” he says, offering a hand to help Oleander up. “You were the one we were concerned about, all told.”
Oleander takes the offered hand, letting Astarion haul him to his feet. He glances down at the meazel’s body.
“Yes, I know,” Astarion says, patting his shoulder. “Quite silly of us to worry about our little butcher, wasn’t it? But one can’t help but imagine the worst when you get spirited away into the darkness.”
He knows logically that Astarion means that Oleander could have come to harm, but something about the phrasing makes him wince. Between Oleander and the meazel, only one of them was eating the other alive.
“And I do mean finding you dead in a ditch, to be clear,” Astarion says. “As far as taking a bite out of the wretched little thing, I’m hardly one to cast stones, darling.” He grins, showing off a deliberate flash of fang. “My only criticism would be your choice of food. Who knows where that thing has been?”
It startles a laugh out of Oleander, despite the way his chest still shudders uncomfortably at the loss of control. “You have suggestions?”
“My dear, all I’m saying is that if you so desperately wanted to take a bite of something, you only had to ask.”
All of Oleander’s thoughts stutter to a halt. Thankfully, Karlach and Shadowheart reach them before he has to think of a reply. Karlach whistles when she sees the body.
“Oh, no, Ollie,” Karlach says, sounding more impressed than horrified. “What’d you do to the poor thing?”
“Oleander,” Shadowheart says, significantly more despairing. Oleander tucks his tail self-consciously between his legs and wipes some of the blood off his mouth.
“Don’t get precious on us now,” Astarion teases as Shadowheart moves in to examine the garrote wounds on Oleander’s throat. “It’s as if you’ve never seen a man tear a throat out with his teeth before.”
“Usually it’s the vampire doing it, though,” Karlach says jovially.
“You’ve a rather fetching set of fangs yourself, dear,” Astarion tells her. “Perhaps it’s time to expand your repertoire of weapons.”
“All of you,” Shadowheart says, “will be the death of me.”
There’s a smile twitching at the corners of her lips, though, and Oleander relaxes by inches as she smooths healing magic over his throat with gentle palms. Pain that Oleander didn’t even realize he was feeling seeps away under her warm touch.
He always feels so much more human, surrounded by them like this. The companionable bump of Karlach’s shoulder against his as they start making their way back to the inn; the wheedling tone of Shadowheart’s voice as she coaxes Astarion into letting her heal his ankle, at least; Astarion’s wary alley cat posturing before he finally allows Shadowheart to take a look. This—this will always matter more than whatever momentary satisfaction fulfilling the demands of his blood gives him.
He should have known Astarion wouldn’t leave it alone. They’ve returned to their camp within the Last Light’s moon barrier for what counts as night in the shadow-cursed lands, and Oleander is settled by the fire with his sketchbook in his lap when Astarion settles beside him and opens the conversation with, “So am I right in assuming that some part of you wishes that meazel was me?”
The charcoal in Oleander’s hand skids a long line across his sketch of His Majesty when his shoulders jerk in surprise. “Astarion,” he says, heart dropping. Just because his urges want to bite, to tear, doesn’t mean he himself wants to lay Astarion open—
“Oh, not like that. Put those puppy dog eyes away,” Astarion says, waving a dismissive hand. “You’ve made it most saccharinely clear that you won’t stand to see me hurt. I don’t fear for my throat’s safety.”
He says it facetiously, airily, but there’s something vulnerable in the undertones of it. Like he still can’t believe someone cares this much to keep him safe.
“Good,” Oleander says. He sets his sketchbook aside, turning to face Astarion more fully. “I don’t… I don’t need anything like that from you. Whatever’s wrong with me, it’s not yours to deal with.”
“Not yours to deal with, he says. You’re going to hurt my feelings. We’re a team, aren’t we?” Astarion reaches down to scoop one of Oleander’s hands up from where it’s braced on the ground. He looks so small like this. His fingers are narrow, painterly things, engulfed entirely by Oleander’s when he closes his grip to hold Astarion’s hand.
He could break Astarion’s hand in an instant, snap his tendons like violin strings, shatter those delicate little bones. The urges in him even want to. But the rest of him just wants to hold Astarion, just like this, and so Oleander does, as gentle as if he were cradling a bird. The dark thoughts, as if sensing his disinterest, slink away to sulk in the back of his mind.
“Just look at how you hold me,” Astarion says softly, with something close to wonder. “I trust you. Every part of you.” He grins wryly. “I’d be something of a hypocrite if I scurried off at the first sign of sharp teeth, wouldn’t I?”
Oleander frowns. “That’s not the same.”
“Isn’t it?” Astarion tilts his head with lidded eyes. “You want to touch me. You want to taste me. It’s a hunger in you, just as it’s a hunger in me.” His smile grows, fangs peeking out. “How could I ever begrudge a man his hunger?”
“It’s not—” Oleander fumbles for words. “It’s not about sex. I’d rip my own hands off before I touched you in a way you didn’t want.”
Some of the tension bleeds from Astarion’s face – tension that Oleander only recognizes in its absence, softening the lines of Astarion’s smile into something more genuine. “You say the sweetest things, but I quite prefer your hands where they are, darling.”
Oleander ducks his head. “I don’t need it,” he says. “I don’t need anything from you but this.” He gives their linked hands a little shake. “I just like being around you. Okay?”
“Needs and wants are two different things, my dear,” Astarion says. “And if you want something that I am happy to give, then there’s no reason you shouldn’t have it.”
How could it possibly be that simple? How could Astarion know that Oleander thinks about what his flesh would taste like torn and bloody in his mouth and still look at him so tenderly?
“Tell me,” Astarion encourages gently. “Out loud. Tell me what you want.”
Oleander shakes his head. To say the desire is to make it real. It’s one thing to rip apart a meazel in the pitched desperation of battle; it’s another to look his most cherished person in the eye and say that he’d like to do something similar to them.
“You don’t need to look at me,” Astarion says softly. “Here.”
He pulls Oleander down, tucking his face into the crook of his neck. Oleander loves it when Astarion holds him like this – like he’s something precious, worth treating delicately.
“Is that better?” Astarion continues, just as quiet. “You don’t need to look at me while you say it. Just tell me.”
Oleander closes his eyes. “Astarion…”
Astarion’s hand strokes a soothing rhythm down Oleander’s long hair. “Tell me, darling.”
“I want you in my mouth,” Oleander whispers against Astarion’s cool skin. “I want my teeth in you. I want to rip you apart and swallow.” He mouths toothlessly at Astarion’s neck. “I want you inside of me.”
“Well,” Astarion says, hand stilling in Oleander’s hair. “That’s not usually what people mean when they say that to me.”
Oleander manages a laugh. “It’s also not what people usually do to people they like.”
“My teeth are in you almost every night, darling,” Astarion reminds him, amused. “And I find that I like you quite a bit.”
“It’s—it’s not the same. I shouldn’t…” Oleander shakes his head, and Astarion stills him with a gentle grip on his hair before resuming his petting.
“Should and shouldn’t are such limiting words,” Astarion says. “Do you want to?”
Yes. Yes. Oleander wants to. He’d sooner set his teeth on himself and tear his body to strips before he hurt Astarion, but if Astarion wants it, if Astarion is asking for it—gods, Oleander wants more than anything to bite, to eat, to feel Astarion inside of him in all the darkest, most intimate ways. He wants Astarion to watch him with just as much hunger as Oleander feels. He wants Astarion to see his body as Oleander sees it – a thing that is not just beautiful, not just desirable, but the flesh that houses a man Oleander adores more than anything. If he could peel even a piece of that flesh away and swallow, he could keep Astarion with him forever.
“I want to,” he says, raw.
Astarion pushes him back, cupping his face with cool, smooth palms.
“Why don’t we try it, darling?” Astarion thumbs one of Oleander’s scars – the gouge right below his eye that meanders along his cheekbone. The pad of his thumb follows it all the way to his hairline and back again, a slow, soothing touch that has Oleander’s eyes drifting shut. “I’m sure we can spare a potion or two to ensure no permanent damage is done.”
“Yes,” Oleander whispers. When Astarion’s thumb comes to rest on his lips, Oleander presses a reverent kiss to it. “Yes, I—I want that.”
“Then,” Astarion murmurs, thumb tracing the open part of Oleander’s lips, “you shall have it.”
Oleander slips into Astarion’s tent later that evening, after everyone has gone to bed. He is greeted with a bewildered stare.
“Do you think,” Astarion says delicately, “that you have perhaps gone overboard?”
Oleander glances down at his overflowing armful of potions, then back up. “No?” he tries.
Astarion rolls his eyes, but he looks fond. “Just… set them down somewhere, darling. If you can find the room.”
Oleander, somewhat sheepishly, empties the clattering pile of glass into a corner of the tent. He doesn’t intend to do any kind of permanent damage, but intention is not a promise when it comes to his instincts. He’d rather overprepare than—
Well, he’s had enough nightmares about hurting Astarion to know what it might look like if he didn’t, is all.
When he turns around, Astarion has shucked his pants off, lounging against his many pillows in only his shirt and underthings. He runs a hand across the inside of his thigh, less sensual and more thoughtful.
“Here, do you think?” he asks, staring up at Oleander through his eyelashes.
Oleander’s chest seizes with excitement. He’d take anywhere – a wrist, a shoulder, a calf – but the sheer intimacy of sinking his teeth into the soft, tender inside of Astarion’s thigh is enough to make him shake.
Astarion studies his expression for a moment before laughing, openly amused. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
“Yes,” Oleander says anyway, mouth dry. “Yes.”
Astarion pats the blankets in front of him. “Well, then,” he says. “What are you waiting for?”
Oleander’s entire body hums in anticipation as he crawls towards the splay of Astarion’s legs, but he stops before he reaches him, tilting his head up to study Astarion’s face.
“You’re alright?” he asks, quiet, hesitant.
Astarion nudges his hip with a bare foot. “Yes, you great oaf,” he says, and he sounds exasperated – nothing close to polished, practiced seduction. “I still feed on you every night, don’t I? Think of this as no different.”
Oleander relaxes, pressing a kiss to Astarion’s knee before moving the rest of the way up his body and settling between his legs. He feels like a supplicant at an altar, on all fours before the languid sprawl of Astarion’s beautiful body. This close, the smell of him is nearly overwhelming.
“Go on, then,” Astarion whispers, nudging his thigh against Oleander’s cheek. “You’re hungry, aren’t you?” And that – that’s more than enough encouragement to squash his remaining hesitation.
Oleander’s teeth sink into the meat of Astarion’s thigh with none of the restraint of a lover. He bites like an animal feeding, fangs piercing through skin and fat and muscle, blood spilling into his mouth like a copper-iron kiss. Astarion tastes beyond Oleander’s words to describe – like meat and blood and bone, like death and undeath, like something Oleander loves and loves and loves until he’s sick with it, blind with it, too full of it to imagine a world outside of it. This is a love that ravages, a love that cuts and tears and howls, a love that rips apart everything it touches with a joyous violence. It is a love that loves to death.
Astarion’s meat parts for Oleander’s teeth like it’s made for biting. The moan that stutters out of Oleander’s throat is involuntary, helpless, muffled by the chunk of Astarion’s flesh bleeding onto his tongue. He locks his jaw and, with a jerk of his head, starts to tear.
This is what draws the first cry from Astarion’s lips – or at least the first one Oleander is present enough to hear. His eyes flicker up to Astarion’s face, to the grimace of pain twisting those pretty features, and he freezes. The blood from his prized mouthful drips from his jaw, wasted. He does not move, not even to swallow.
“Oh, darling,” Astarion murmurs. His eyes are tight with pain, but there’s something else in them too. Something dark. Something hungry – almost as hungry as the creature with its jaws locked onto his thigh. “You look beautiful like this.”
Oleander does not feel beautiful. He does not even feel like a person. He feels like an animal, ravenous and drooling – but he does not feel out of control.
“I have you, sweetheart,” Astarion says. His hand alights on Oleander’s hair and pets it gently. “Take what you need.”
No – that isn’t right. He feels out of control. But he does not feel uncontrollable.
His teeth plunge into the torn meat of Astarion’s thigh with renewed vigor, stripping flesh from body with bestial savagery. It’s not as warm as Oleander’s sense-memory recalls, but he enjoys it all the more for it – the cool, wet splatter of blood onto his face, the way the meat warms in his mouth as he savors its taste. Blind instinct drives his teeth, and blind trust keeps him from fearing it. The hand in his hair is the hand on his leash.
The first swallow of blood is a benediction, a blessing. He shivers in ecstasy as it slides down his throat and moans his pleasure into the ragged meat of Astarion’s leg. Working his jaw through the seams of skin still clinging to Astarion’s thigh, he rips his prize away from the body with his teeth.
Astarion hisses, hand momentarily clenching against Oleander’s scalp, but his fingers dance soothingly behind Oleander’s ear right after. “My darling,” he croons. “My pet. My sweet little beast. Savor me, will you?”
It is like a blessing from a god. Like the flesh between Oleander’s teeth is a sacrament. It certainly feels like something holy – meat tearing between his fangs, blood and fat and sinew all singing on his tongue as he chews. His eyes flutter shut. A low whine slips from his throat. It is overwhelming, it is all-encompassing. It is sacred.
“Look at you,” Astarion murmurs. “Oh, my sweet, just look at you.”
The bridge between their minds sparks to life, and there isn’t even a breath of thought before Oleander lets him in. In a dizzying twirl, he sees himself – sees what Astarion sees, sees the bloody face crouched over mangled flesh, sees the meat hanging from sharp teeth. Sees the way his own eyes roll back in his head as his jaw works. He looks feral, half-gone. A beast. A dog tearing into prey – Astarion’s dog, a loyal hound, a loving companion with teeth stained red.
It settles in Oleander’s stomach just as warmly as the communion of Astarion’s flesh does. Astarion looks down at the blood smeared across Oleander’s face, sees the desperate movement of his hungry jaw, and his affection is for the animal devouring him just as much as the man who loves him.
Is this what he feels when I feed from him? whispers Astarion’s mind, and Oleander’s thoughts howl back – Yes. Yes. You are beautiful with your teeth in my throat and my blood in your veins. I want you to eat me. I want to eat you. I want every part of you inside me. I want us to devour each other, I want one body, I want one flesh.
The link between their minds grows taut. A wave of emotion rises in Astarion’s mind, and the connection shivers and snaps just before it crashes over the both of them. It leaves Oleander alone and gasping in his body. He wants to call Astarion’s name, but he is beyond words, beyond voice, an unholy, heaving creature unable to let go of the feast in his jaws.
Another chunk of meat slides down his throat. He nuzzles against Astarion’s hip, leaving a dark streak of blood across the pale skin as he savors his remaining mouthful.
A hand cups his jaw, brushing a thumb across the hinge of muscle. “Enjoying yourself?” Astarion asks in a gentle voice.
Oleander nods, chewing and swallowing the last morsel on his tongue.
“More?” Astarion asks, leg shifting beneath Oleander’s cheek. He nudges Oleander towards the open wound on his inner thigh.
Oleander’s attention snaps to the sluggishly bleeding wound. His mouth is still hot with the aftertaste of his first meal, and the sight of the pulpy red bite ripped through Astarion’s flesh is enough to make him whine in desire.
“Desperate little thing,” Astarion whispers. “Do you have any idea what you do to me?”
He uses his grip on Oleander’s hair to yank him towards the bite, and any response Oleander might have had to Astarion’s question flees him immediately.
He sinks his teeth into the ravaged flesh and groans aloud at the sweet taste of fresh meat on his tongue. He only needs another mouthful – just another taste, not deep enough to pierce the artery. Just enough of Astarion to keep a part of him forever.
The urge is there – to lunge up, to flay open, to stuff heart and lungs and intestines into his mouth and howl at the sheer bloody joy of it. Oleander gnaws Astarion’s thigh quietly, closing his eyes against the bilious rush of hate. He distracts himself with images of the cold, undisturbed insides of Astarion’s body, snug inside their cavities. Unbeating heart nestled safely between his lungs. The winding rope of his long intestine folded neatly in his abdomen. Stomach, liver, kidneys – all his viscera where it belongs. Oleander has fought to keep it there. He will keep fighting, even against himself.
It settles him. The urge passes, the rush of bile in his brain softening from a scream to its usual baleful murmur.
“Are you with me, darling?” Astarion asks, plucking blood-sticky strands of hair from Oleander’s face. “Where did you go?”
Oleander grumbles and bites down harder. Astarion wheezes, half a laugh, half a gasp of pain.
“Alright, alright,” he says indulgently, giving Oleander’s hair a little yank. “I think I’ve had enough, my sweet.”
It should be agony to pry himself from Astarion’s flesh, but Oleander is too warm and sated to feel anything but content as he slips his teeth from the wound. He gives Astarion’s pulpy thigh one last affectionate lick before withdrawing completely.
“There,” Astarion breathes. “See? You fancy yourself a savage wolf, but all I see is a sweet, obedient pup.”
Oleander wants that. He wants it so badly. He wants to be sweet. To be obedient. To be tame.
And beneath Astarion’s affectionate hands, he thinks he could be. Astarion makes him want to be so many things he is not. Gentle. Kind. Protective. Oh, he would strip the world down to its marrow for Astarion, would pluck the eyes from any skull that harbored ill thoughts of him, would rip the tongue from any mouth that spoke cruelly of him. And afterward, afterward, he would take this wreck of a body, this husk unlearning violence, and crawl into bed beside Astarion. Oleander would hold him, and hold him, as long as he wished to be held and not a moment longer.
“There, now,” Astarion murmurs. His thumbs brush tenderly over Oleander’s eyelids – Oleander hadn’t even realized his eyes had drifted shut. “Better?”
Better. Oleander is grounded, settled, mind blessedly quiet. Astarion’s cool thumb slides through the blood smeared on Oleander’s face in a soothing, meandering touch, before it settles on his lower lip. Obedient and easy, Oleander lets him slip his thumb past his lips. As it presses down on his tongue, he laps at the bloodstained skin, moaning at the tiny pinch of Astarion’s nail against the soft flesh inside.
“Good boy,” Astarion purrs, and it is a greater benediction than Oleander can ever imagine receiving from a god.
With that, Astarion withdraws his thumb, giving Oleander’s cheek an affectionate pat. “Now, where did you leave those potions?” he asks, still soft but a little more playful. “I’ve certainly had worse, but it’s such a shame to let my blood go to waste.”
Oleander blinks back to himself, a little dizzy, and reaches blindly for the stockpile of potions he’d shoved into the corner of the tent. He grabs the first one his hand wraps around, uncorks it with his teeth, and tips it, slowly and carefully, over Astarion’s torn flesh.
It starts to knit the pulpy flesh back together as if the wound had never been there. Some part of Oleander mourns the loss.
“Mm… that’s enough,” Astarion says, tilting the bottle upright with a delicate press of his fingers when the wound is just about done healing. The imprint of Oleander’s teeth remains, faintly red – no longer painful, but still undeniably present.
“Oh,” Oleander whispers, chest hot and tight.
“Oh?” Astarion hooks a finger under his chin, tilting his face up. His smile is mischievous, playful, and devastatingly beautiful. “Now you know how I feel when you parade about with my marks on your throat, darling. Consider it payback.”
Oleander swallows. Astarion may not have found the words for what they are to each other, but allowing a reminder of Oleander’s teeth in him to linger, even temporarily, is a declaration all its own.
Astarion shifts, pulling his spread legs back to sit cross-legged. Oleader shifts forward to plop his head down on the cross of his ankles.
“Oh, no. No, no, darling, we are not going to bed like this.” Astarion tugs one of his horns. “We’re absolutely filthy. At least let me change.”
“No,” Oleander mumbles into Astarion’s lap, though he doesn’t actually resist the increasingly insistent yanks on his horns. He kind of likes it when Astarion wrenches him around like a bull he’s trying to steer. He lets Astarion manhandle him upright, and when their faces are level, he sneaks a kiss onto Astarion’s adorable nose.
An adorable nose that immediately wrinkles at the saccharine display of affection. “You just had my literal meat in your filthy mouth, and you kiss my nose?”
“I didn’t know if you wanted your meat in your mouth, too,” Oleander says with a shrug. He hasn’t kissed Astarion’s lips without permission since Astarion confided in him, but he doesn’t think Astarion will take it the right way if Oleander mentions it.
Astarion sniffs. “So crass. Kiss me properly, or I will see to it that you never taste my meat again.”
Oleander smiles, following Astarion’s grip on his horns to press their lips together. It’s as bloody of a kiss as any they’ve shared after Astarion has fed on Oleander – perhaps bloodier, with the mess Oleander has made of himself. He swipes his tongue deliberately across the points of Astarion’s fangs, delighting in the pinpricks of pain.
“You won’t be the only one enjoying a meal tonight if you keep that up, darling,” Astarion murmurs against his mouth.
“Mm…” Oleander’s eyes flutter at the thought of it – it’s only right, isn’t it, that his body bleeds for Astarion just as Astarion’s has bled for him? That they sustain each other, flesh and blood? Instinctively, easily, his head tips to the side in silent offering.
Astarion laughs. “That’s what you want, though, isn’t it?” His voice is affectionate and amused, but it carries the same hungry, dark undercurrent it did when he watched Oleander feast. “For us to devour each other.”
“Please,” Oleander breathes. “Please.”
Astarion clambers into his lap, his lithe legs struggling to accommodate the width of Oleander’s thighs. Oleander goes to steady him with hands on his hips – but Astarion tenses, and it’s barely a thought before he moves them to Astarion’s shoulders instead. He guides Astarion down towards the vulnerable line of his throat.
One hand drifts up to pet Astarion’s hair as those beloved fangs brush against his fluttering pulse. “I want you to,” he pleads, and that’s all it takes for Astarion to sink his teeth in.
The intimacy is almost too much to bear, the sting of fangs a kiss, the pull of blood from vein an embrace. It undoes Oleander as always, slices him open skin and sinew from the place Astarion has sunk his teeth into him, lays him out raw for Astarion to hold and take and eat. He pets a clumsy hand down the length of Astarion’s spine. He imagines his own blood beneath his palm – imagines he can feel the warmth of it as it fills the cold veins beneath Astarion’s skin.
“As much as you want,” he gasps as Astarion starts to twitch backwards. His hand grips Astarion’s hair, not to restrain, just to hold. A silent plea. “I want to—I want to—”
His mind is soft around its edges, buzzing from the flesh in his stomach and spinning from the blood spilling from his throat. There are no words for what he wants. It is a clumsy and desperate hand he reaches between their minds, a rush of emotion that forms a bridge, and Astarion audibly inhales as their thoughts crash into one another.
I want you to eat. Eat me. (Eat. Eat.) Take me, take what you need from me. Need me. Need you. I will devour everyone who ever hurt you, (devour, devour—) you will devour me in turn – from their flesh, from their bones, we will both be sustained.
You will never starve again.
The connection splinters. Astarion released his grip on Oleander’s throat sometime during the exchange of thoughts, and he is panting against the trickles of blood, body quivering beneath Oleander’s hands.
“Oleander,” he says brokenly.
Oleander pulls Astarion against him, arm around his back, fingers tangled in his hair. Even now, Astarion shies from the depths of Oleander’s affection.
But he lets Oleander hold him.
He lets Oleander hold him, and he slips his arms around Oleander to hold him back. He’s not quite crying, but his breath hitches in uneven gasps.
“All of that…” Astarion starts in a quiet, uneven voice. “You really…” The thought trails into silence. Oleander isn’t sure exactly what he’s asking, and he’s not sure Astarion knows either.
But he knows enough to know the answer. “I do,” he says, hooking his chin over Astarion’s head and bundling him in even closer. “I… you know I sometimes… can’t say what’s in my head.”
Astarion huffs out a little laugh, a cold puff of air against Oleander’s throat. “Much of what’s in your head should remain unspoken anyway, darling,” he says. “Though you know I’m always delighted to hear it.”
It amuses Oleander, but he doesn’t let Astarion deflect. “You’re everything. All of you are—everything.” He swallows, tucking his nose into Astarion’s hair and inhaling the scent of him. Rosemary, bergamot, a little hint of brandy. “But you… You’re—I just—I didn’t know I could—” He makes a soft noise of frustration and squeezes his eyes shut. Why is it so hard to put words to what’s in his heart when it’s the only damn thing that matters to him? Why do the words come so easily for everything but this?
“You didn’t know you were capable of it,” Astarion finishes softly. “You didn’t think you could care this much.”
It pierces through the dark fog of feeling clouding Oleander’s thoughts, and he nods. “I don’t know what I was before,” he says, choked. “But what I am now— it wants to keep you safe. I want to keep you safe.”
I love you, he wants to say – the one set of words that comes more easily than anything when he looks at Astarion. But Astarion is still so fragile. Oleander remembers the way his voice wavered and threatened to break – the expectation of rejection, the trembling really? when it didn’t come.
It doesn’t need to be said aloud. Not yet. Astarion must have felt it anyway, churning throughout the turbulent waves of Oleander’s thoughts, bleeding into every corner of his broken psyche. Love cannot make Oleander whole, but it can make him into something better than he was. It already has.
Astarion pulls back, just enough to meet Oleander’s eyes. There’s blood smudged in his hair from where Oleander pressed his face to it – smeared around his mouth, too, from his interrupted meal. He is so ethereal wearing red that Oleander never fears dirtying him with his bloody hands.
Astarion’s hands, bloody too, lift to cup Oleander’s cheeks. “I want to keep you safe just as badly,” he whispers. “Gods, Oleander. I didn’t know it could feel like this, either. It’s terrifying.”
It’s terrifying, but it’s beautiful. In his short time haunting this body, Oleander has learned to cherish beautiful things. He leans in to brush their noses together, tilting his head in question.
“You sweet, foolish man,” Astarion says with exasperation before he closes the gap between their lips.
It’s a much more languid kiss than the one they shared before. It still tastes of blood, fresh and coppery on Oleander’s tongue, but the movement of their lips is unhurried. Affectionate. Astarion guides Oleander’s hands to his waist, and Oleander happily takes the invitation, bundling his arms around that narrow little waist and pulling Astarion impossibly closer. He could kiss Astarion like this forever. Could spend hours cataloging every sigh and moan, spend days learning and relearning the language of his lips, spend weeks and months and years holding him just like this.
But for tonight, at least, forever stops after just a few leisurely minutes. “I may not need as much rest as you do,” Astarion murmurs, close enough that every word is spoken almost directly into Oleander’s mouth, “but we do need to get to bed eventually, darling. Shall we clean up?”
Oleander feels warm and weightless, not entirely ready to stay upright long enough to bathe, but he murmurs his assent and lets Astarion guide him.
Bathing is a perfunctory task. Though Astarion enjoys pampering himself most nights, he seems just as eager as Oleander to clean up quickly and return to the tent. In a gesture of trust so raw that it makes Oleander’s heart wrench, Astarion does not put a shirt on when he gets dressed for bed – he slips on his sleep pants and crawls into the bedroll, eyeing Oleander with an expression that seems almost shy.
“Well?” Astarion says, a little bit testy, when Oleander cannot tear his eyes away. “Are you going to come to bed, darling?”
Oleander meets Astarion where he is – pants, no shirt – and slides into the bedroll behind him. The wiry lines of Astarion’s body are tense as Oleander wraps his arms around him.
But Oleander doesn’t move – not much, anyway. He keeps his hands on the bony planes of Astarion’s torso and does not let them wander or touch more than they’re welcome to. It’s more than enough, just like this, just with Astarion safe in his arms, and slowly, by inches, Astarion relaxes.
“Gods, you’re warm,” Astarion murmurs. He leans back into it when Oleander nudges his nose against the topmost knob of his spine. “A man could get used to this, you know. I’ll get spoiled.”
“Good,” Oleander says. He closes his eyes and breathes Astarion in. Soap, some lingering bergamot, the faintest hint of undeath.
Oleander is stiff in his pants, but it barely registers. He’s perfectly content to curl up around Astarion, skin against skin, the weight of Astarion’s meat in Oleander’s belly, the warmth of Oleander’s blood running through Astarion’s veins – one body, one flesh.
Astarion is incredible. He is a wonder. He has looked at the ugly, howling beast Oleander’s blood makes of him, and he has offered his flesh to its fangs with nothing but his trust to defend him. Oleander is not an animal made for tenderness, but he wants to try. So badly, he wants to try.
His blood is restless. It will not sleep forever. But it sleeps tonight, and he sleeps with it.