Work Text:
.
cut the lights
and make me your
oblivion
.
You're making your way through a clearing, Astarion following two steps behind, when it happens. One moment the land is still as death, and in the next moment slobbering mastiffs are materializing out of the smoky darkness.
The most annoying part is simply that you let it happen. You've already received the moon-cleric's blessing (kill her kill her kill her kill—), so you foolishly thought you would be safe out here. (Be honest. You were distracted by your eagerness to be alone with him after too many days being watched by too many eyes.) You're not even wearing any gods-damned armor. (You thought it would get in the way! Shameful of you not to protect yourself more seriously. You know you're not allowed to die yet.) But neither of you so much as sleeps without a dagger somewhere on your person, and between the two of you there's a handful of spells at your disposal. You instinctively move to stand back-to-back. At this point your fighting stances have become second nature. (Well, first nature for you.) You're aware of the threat, but not particularly worried by it. You'll take the mastiffs down and go back to the night you're supposed to be having. (You deserve it.)
Three hounds circle you. One lunges for Astarion; the other two are yours. (Excellent. Two more for the ledger.) You hold your own against them, but at some point one closes in and the other backs away. You lose track of it. A quick glance around the clearing doesn't reveal it, but a quick glance is all you can spare.
Behind you, the beast squaring off against Astarion gives one final yelp as he delivers the killing blow. (You feel it like a god receiving a prayer. Is that what you are?) Its body hasn't even hit the ground yet when the third beast comes leaping back out of the shadows.
It happens fast. You hear Astarion's shout of surprise, the grunt that's pushed out of him when the beast slams into his chest, and the heavy thud of his body hitting the ground, all before you can even react. You hear him cry out again — in pain this time — (your favorite sound) — and then something you recognize instinctively even though you can't remember how you know it: the choking gurgle of someone whose throat is filling with blood. (You can smell it in the air.)
You take a breath and force yourself to focus on the beast that's still attacking you. You can't risk both of you going down out here. (There's still so much for you to accomplish first.)
By the time the second mastiff hits the ground, you realize you haven't heard anything else since that last choked (spine-shivering) cry. You turn to find the third beast is also dead, its body slumped limp over Astarion. He must have driven his dagger into its shoulder and dragged downward, splitting it open neatly. (Your eyes linger a moment longer than necessary on the putrid blood pooling underneath it.) It looks like the dagger finally caught on a rib; the blade is still buried in the beast's side where Astarion left it.
You swallow a knot of dread. You can see his legs shift — he's alive — but he's too quiet. (You want to hear it again.)
You haul the dead hound off of him, working carefully because you don't know what kind of damage he's taken (but you can imagine) (you are imagining) and you don't want to make anything worse (that's debatable). When you kneel beside him he's trying to grasp at his throat, but you take his hands in yours and pull them aside, wrapping your fingers firmly around his so he can't slip away. You don't want him to make anything worse either. (To your credit, this one feels at least mostly true.)
You can see that his eyes have gone a little glassy. He takes a moment to track his gaze onto you and has to blink a few times to bring you into focus — but the fact that he can focus at all seems like a good sign, considering the mess that's been made out of him. (It's glorious.) Even with your precise (intimate) knowledge of anatomy, it takes a few moments to parse what you're looking at. There's just so much blood in the way. It's not the most you've ever seen at once (not by a long shot) but certainly the most you've ever seen of his. (Yours.) (You gave it to him. He's yours.) It's spilled all the way down his front and splattered under his chin, up and down the length of his arms. (How big of a container could you fill if you wring his shirt out?) You're surprised by how rich it looks, with earthy undertones and a nearly golden sheen where it catches the dim light. It's mesmerizing. Even the urges have gone quiet, humming contentedly with the simple joy of looking. And the longer you look, the more you understand what you're actually seeing.
His throat has been ripped out.
You glance sideways to the fallen shadow-hound and know exactly (imagine vividly) how it must have happened. The beast sunk its jaws into him and tried to shake him like a rabbit, and in the process it tore out chunks of flesh (yes) and muscle (yes) and little tangled-up bundles of nerves (yes). You can't tell precisely where (though you could map it out if you wanted to), but it's clear that the damage includes at least a few major arteries. His (your) blood, however much he has left in him (what happens when he runs out?), is no longer flowing so much as it is seeping, saturating everything, pooling in every exposed crevice. (What does it taste like?)
He squeezes his hands where they're still held in yours. You somehow drag your gaze away from his throat (no, wait—), up to his face. He's trying to tell you something. His jaw is moving, you can see the effort it's taking him to push air out of his lungs, but the only sound that comes out is a wet, wordless rasp. (Your knees go a little weak.)
You understand now why he's been silent this whole time. His larynx must be crumpled like paper. (Yes.) You're certain his vampirism is the only reason he survived it. A living creature would already have succumbed to blood loss (tried and true) or asphyxiation (and this would have been such an interesting twist on an old classic). He's still here with you, un-dead but only just, suspended like a portrait in the final gasping moment before death. (You want to frame it.) (You want a wall to hang it on.) (You want to kneel before it and drink it in and breathe it in and wrap yourself in it until your body rots. The simple joy of looking.)
For the first time tonight, you feel the urges start to creep into the foreground of your mind. You've been doing your best to let them pass through you, to observe but not entertain, to say Shush, not now every time they tug at you and beg, Can we please?
But this one refuses to be ignored. This one slithers out from one of the holes in your ruined brain and hooks its claws on the rim of your orbital socket. It drags itself forward, slow, barbed. It curls up right in the curve of your cheekbone.
The urges speak to you all at once, a thousand wicked little voices coalescing into one: Don't just look, they tell you. It's not enough.
You can almost feel the rippling in your muscles as the urges skitter through you, brushing against your skin from the inside, spreading out along the map of your veins in search of places to settle. They're not pushing you down somewhere you can't see out of — not like before. This time they're slotting into the gaps between your joints, molding into all the little pits and cracks where your bones never healed right. They coil themselves tight around all the parts of you that are trying to say No, I don't want this.
Liar, they say. Why refuse this gift? When will we get another chance?
No. Please. Not now. Not to him.
Yes, they say. Him. Yes, now. Together this time.
You feel your self splintering, sputtering like ball lightning as you hover over the threshold of a forking path. There's the you who's able to resist: you find a potion, you haul Astarion to his feet and take him under the shoulder, you let him lean on you as you guide him back to camp, and you never look back on this night as anything more than a cautionary tale about the dangers of straying too far from your watchful companions.
The you who's left behind finds all of that to be a little dramatic. You and Astarion will make your way back to camp eventually. What's the rush? And besides, look at him. (Gods, just look at him.) Will a potion even heal him from such catastrophic damage? You might have to take your time scraping the tattered bits of him out of that hound's mouth first. And then what? (Yes, then what? Don't stop now.) Will you have to puzzle him back together yourself? (You certainly do love puzzles.) Will you have to stitch him whole with a needle and thread? (Imagine! He'll feel the needle pierce through him each and every time.)
You — the you here now — want to try. All of it. You want to dip your hands into him (the slick mess of him) and fish out all the scraps of cartilage that failed to protect his voicebox. (What else could you build out of them?)
You're suddenly aware of his psychic presence creeping into yours, a knife-point slipping between plates of armor. His voice, carefully controlled, frantic underneath: Focus, darling.
But you can't. The urges are a chorus of giddy anticipation and you can't untangle their chittering from your own thoughts.
Your hands feel drawn to his blood like nails to a magnet.
(Your blood. You gave it to him. Now you can take it back.)
There's a you somewhere out there who was able to resist. It's unfortunate for Astarion that it isn't the you here with him now.
(He doesn't understand yet.)
Once again you feel him try to breach your mind, but he's clawing at a brick wall. You block him out just as easily as you had pulled his hands aside.
(But he will.)
You release one of his hands — your right side, his left — and reach for him with no more hesitation. That first brush of your fingertips at his throat feels electric. His whole body contracts around it and you feel the tension thrumming in yourself. You pull back and he reaches for you, but he's sluggish now. You swing a leg over his torso and pin his arm under your knee. His other hand stays gripped in yours — your left side, his right — with your fingers locked tight enough to keep him held in place. His fingers twitch in your grip, then go still.
(Now you can focus.)
You press the tip of your middle finger back into the wound, and you add pressure this time. Just enough to feel the way the muscle gives under your touch, the way it springs back when you retreat. You've become so intimately acquainted with his body over these past tendays that you're not surprised to learn the inside of him, much like the outside, is cool to the touch, about the same as the ambient temperature of the air around you. What you find a bit more surprising is that vampire blood is more tacky than wet, but still, there's enough lubrication that you can press your fingertips down and simply let the contours of his muscles guide you. With almost no resistance, the tip of your middle finger glides down (where you belong) into the valley of his throat and sinks into folds of wet meat, straight to a graveyard of shattered cartilage.
Astarion jerks underneath you. He gasps out another (wretched) (intoxicating) sound, and you're delighted to realize you can feel it, the vibrations rattling weakly through what's left of his larynx and up, up, through you. (All the way through you.) You close your eyes briefly —
A flash of red flares behind your eyelids.
— and try to visualize what you're feeling. You realize you need a reference. Something to help orient you. You'll need to adjust him, so you let go of the hand you've been gripping and reach for his hair instead. As soon as he's free he grabs your wrist, but he doesn't try to pull or push you away. You know that in his current state (your beautiful portrait) (your rightful gift) he couldn't fight you off if he tried — but, curiously, he isn't trying. You lock gazes for a long moment. He seems to be searching for something in your eyes. (Good. Don't hide. Let him see.) Whatever he's looking for — whether or not he finds it — he slowly uncurls his fingers from your wrist and moves them up your left arm. They settle near your elbow, where they fist in your shirtsleeve to mirror your hand fisted in his hair.
He holds on to you, and you let him. You guide his head back, and he lets you.
(See? He knows he's yours.)
He lets you tilt his chin up until his throat is fully bared (open) (waiting), the line of his neck lengthened gorgeously. He even gives you a little whimper along with it, almost too quiet for you to catch (but of course you catch it). It is a shiver (a tithe) (a jewel) that dances along your vertebra and settles at the bottom of your spine. (Did you feel that? Did your toes just curl?)
You start again. You press your finger to the point of his chin this time and drag it downward (a little trail of fingerpaint) until you dip past broken skin and back into exposed meat. You press further and know you're close when fraying sheets of muscle give way to snapped tendons. (Yes, there —) You find the wishbone-shaped hyoid seated behind his jaw. (A diadem of bone to crown the regal column of his throat.) It's broken clean in two.
Carefully, you rotate your arm to turn your hand palm-up, and you nudge your fingertips past the curtain of ligaments. You find a gap where the membrane has torn off the bone, allowing you to slip behind it as you explore. You realize with a thrill that your fingertips have made their way into the very top of his voicebox.
Astarion twitches and pushes against you, just briefly.
You hear them again, the urges speaking as one, and this time you know their voice is your own: It's not enough.
Now that you've located a good starting point, you rotate your wrist again and begin navigating downwards, back through the cartilage. You feel around, imagining the shape it held before it broke apart, and think you must be sweeping through the debris of his thyroid cartilage. Below that is the thyroid proper, easy enough for you to nudge behind so you can reach the ragged sleeve of his trachea. You're prepared to trace the whole length of it down to his lungs if you need to (determination is your most flattering trait, don't you think?), but it only takes a few moments to find what you're looking for: another tear in the membrane. (A way in.)
You start slow, probing gently to feel what your eyes can't see, comparing it to the diagrams in your mind's eye. You've nudged your way into a slick tunnel caged by rounded, flexible bars — and just above that, what should be a solid ring of cartilage before the tunnel opens up into a wider chamber. You can immediately tell that the ring of cricoid cartilage capping the bottom of his larynx has been shattered. (Good. You wouldn't be able to fit otherwise.)
You pull back enough to rotate again, palm-up once more, and push back into the tunnel with two fingers this time, your middle and ring fingers pressed tight together. Even without the cricoid cartilage to restrict you, it's a tight fit. You worry that the delicate membrane of his trachea won't be able to take much more damage (it's not time for that yet), so you advance carefully, crooking upward so you can feel every millimeter of texture against your fingertips. You quickly find his vocal cords, which feel intact but unstable now that the cartilage they're attached to is no longer anchored in place. (Go ahead, do it.) You give them a small, experimental pluck.
Astarion strains against you, but you hold him down fast. Is his throat clenching reflexively, or is he doing it on purpose? Is he trying to force you out? (Let him try.)
You could acquiesce. You could stop here. But it's not enough.
You push deeper — deeper still — until you've nudged through the archway of his vocal cords, bullied your way past the trap door of his epiglottis. It doesn't matter if he wants you out. You're not done.
The tension in the air collapses into a singular point in your chest. You close your eyes, overwhelmed by the weight of it —
The landscape shifts. The world around you roars into silence. You are alone. The sky above you is bright and open, and when you look up, you see it there — this thing inside of you — pulsing into shape like shuddering heat. A dark desire metastasizing on the horizon.
— until the sound of his wheezing pulls you back. You're in the shadows. The sky is hidden behind smoky clouds. And you're not alone at all.
Astarion's hand is still on your arm where he placed it, but the rest of his body is fighting the intrusion into his voicebox. His heels are digging into the dirt. His arm trapped under your knee strains so hard you have to adjust your weight to keep him pinned.
You keep going. It's not enough.
You withdraw and then push back in, effortlessly following the path you mapped earlier, from his trachea up through his larynx. (There's still room.) You keep going, further, and then further than that. (Again.) In and out, and deeper this time. You're chasing something you know but can't describe.
(Yes you can. Don't be shy.)
His right hand is clenched brutally tight around your sleeve. His left arm is flexing under your knee. Your awareness of the night starts to dim at the edges. Your existence narrows down to Astarion, his (your) blood thick like sap, the ruinous chasm that's been carved out of him, and you, this you, your body looming over his, your fingers sunk knuckle-deep inside of him. You pull out of him (noisy) (slippery) and push back in again, deeper this time. (Again.) Deeper, until you're wedged so far up his throat he begins to choke. His muscles clench around your fingers, and something inside of you pulses in response. Your eyelids flutter —
It's all you can see. This weight, this thing that lives and rots and pulses in you. It climbs higher over the horizon. It begins to overlap the sun. The sky is streaked with red that drips down into the earth.
— and snap open. You blink to clear a rogue wave of vertigo, to remind yourself where you are. What you're doing.
Astarion, beneath you.
He's trembling as he gags on your fingertips.
His whole body is taut (a pulled thread, about to snap), nearly vibrating with tension. (Your immaculate gift.) (Your perfect, pretty corpse.) You force your fingers half a centimeter deeper and all he can do is gurgle around it. (Utterly helpless.) Every muscle in his body clenches, the hand fisted in your shirt inadvertently dragging you closer. The gag reflex sends his shoulders rolling up off the dirt, but your hand in his hair keeps him pinned down low. Red spittle bubbles up out of his mouth. The thin membrane of his trachea is splitting around the base of your fingers. Tear-tracks streak from the corners of his eyes and mix with the cold sweat dampening his temples.
It's not enough.
You shift lower until you're draped over him, your hips pressing down over his thighs (those are yours too). The arm that was pinned under your leg is free, and all he does with it is grasp at your shoulder, fingers clenching in the fabric of your shirt on both sides now. You duck your head and lick a broad stripe up the length of his exposed muscles. The taste of his (your) blood bursts onto your tongue: metallic, almost acidic, with a deceptive hint of sweetness that reminds you of rotting fruit. (You knew it would be good.) (It's exquisite.) You follow the taste down (where you belong), pushing past muscles, tracing your steps blindly until your tongue meets your fingers. You both jolt as one, like static just arced between you.
It's not enough.
You try to squirm your tongue in alongside your fingers, but there's no way it will fit. You slide your fingers out to make room, and you move them to his mouth instead. You slip those same two fingers past his lips and he damn near bites them off (which you can forgive; it would be unfair of you to blame him for lashing out like a cornered animal when that's exactly what you've turned him into), so you shove all four inside to make it harder for him to bite down. (After all, forgiveness isn't the same as permission.) His fangs scrape past your knuckles and you push further.
The fabric of your shirt is ripping and warping in the vice of his fingers. You feel threads snapping in the seams. His hands are trembling, but he keeps them held in place. (See? He didn't mean it just now. He's being so good for you.)
It's not enough.
So many sensations are battling for your attention, but you concentrate on tracing with your tongue the same path your fingers traveled into his trachea. You can't go as deep like this, but you try anyway. You nuzzle into him (an animal with a fresh kill) until you're nose-deep, until his (your) blood drips down your chin when you finally come back up for air (remember, you're not allowed to die yet). You want the inside of him to be the only thing you can smell, the only thing you can taste. You want it to fill your field of vision like the red sky you see whenever you close your eyes.
The urges say, Don't you know? That's home.
The urges say, The way home is through him. All of him.
The urges say, Bite. The urges say, Chew. The urges say, Swallow, and something constricted and heartbroken inside of you snaps to attention.
No. That's too much. We need him whole.
The urges say, Don't worry. We can still use the pieces of him.
This small, quiet you knows best of all that you can't stop them. But you can redirect. Take a piece then. Just one. Leave the rest. And because you know the urges are nothing if not curious: How would we do it?
The urges all twitter in delight. How would you do it? How much would you have to carve (and carve and carve) out of him before vampiric regeneration and magical healing stopped working? How much would you have to eat out of him before he could never regain it?
Your mind's eye flashes to his back (look! proof that it's possible) and a violent shudder rolls through his body underneath you. A splutter like a sob catches on your fingers in his throat.
Did he feel it? Can he sense you thinking about his scars? You push the thoughts aside, just in case, and for once the urges fervently agree. You don't want him thinking about his past, about Cazador, about anything that happened to him before tonight. You want him thinking only of you — only this you. (The you crawling around inside of him.)
You push your fingers deeper into his mouth. (Make his throat spasm again. Yes, like that.) The hand at your shoulder releases and moves to fasten around your wrist — still not pushing or pulling, but clutching tight enough that his nails dig into your skin. (He can have that. He's been so good.) You push deeper. He chokes out one last ragged gurgle, then goes completely silent. There's no room left in his throat for any air to pass through.
(His throat? It's yours now.)
The only sounds in the clearing are the slippery noises of you moving in him, the wet clicks of his (your) throat clenching and unclenching around the span of your knuckles, the rustle of his heels scrabbling in the dirt.
It's not enough.
You know your tongue can't push as deep as you want. Even with all of the protective cartilage broken, there's just too much in the way. You pull back — breathe in a heaving lungful of air — adjust your weight so you're hunched up on your knees. You tilt your head to the side and return to his (your) throat, approaching from a different angle this time, aiming for the torn membrane you found earlier. You find his hyoid and run the tip of your tongue down the length of it, mapping out each horn and ridge until you find the tear. Your tongue pokes into it, then through. The tissue stretches and gives, the gash widening around the width of your tongue as you push further in.
Blood has been running down your arm from his nails digging into you, from his fangs dragging through the veins in your wrist. It's finally made its way down along the curves of your palm — down the length of your fingers — into his (your) throat and onto your tongue. You can taste the difference. You can feel the warmth of it. (Is it healing him, even now? Can he feel his muscles stitching back together and then ripping apart all over again?)
You flex your fingers, and his jaw clicks like it's being ratcheted open. You reach down deeper.
Your teeth catch on his hyoid. Your lungs burn for air. (Just a bit longer. You're almost there.) You push in further.
When your tongue meets your fingertips, it feels like a circuit being completed — like an electrical current looping through your body, gaining momentum even as it catches on every corner. Sparks gather and fizzle in your joints, in your veins, in your lungs. You drop your hips down to feel him — (this is yours too) — your eyes roll back as the wave of your desire swells to its apex —
You're somewhere else. A different time. The sun is fully eclipsed: a black hole drowning in a bloody sky. You look around and see nothing. No one. Salted earth stretches out to the horizon.
No companions.
No tadpole.
No urges. There's nothing left for them to point to.
Only echoing silence. Final, solitary bliss.
— and breaks.
.
.
.
The world slides into focus like you're jolting upright from a dream. You're in the shadow-cursed lands. You're hunched over Astarion, holding yourself up with one hand in the dirt. Your other hand is cradling your lolling head, which is slowly being released from the grip of a nauseating headache.
Beneath you, Astarion stirs and croaks out a broken sound. His eyes are completely unfocused. (He has never looked more ethereal.) The smell of blood is overwhelming.
Your stomach lurches from moving too quickly, but somehow you keep yourself together. You find the one pack you had the foresight to bring along. You fumble inside until your hand closes around the shape of a healing potion. Earlier you wondered with dark excitement if a potion would work, and now you hope like hell that it will. (You can't drag him back to camp like this. Your companions would take one look at you and they'd know. What would they do then?)
You tip the bottle into his mouth, gentle, mindful of your shaky grip. He still chokes on it at first. Between the initial damage from the hound and everything you did after that, you doubt he can swallow, but you're certain that even just letting the potion seep into him should do... something.
The worry gnaws at you. You breathe. You try to be patient. You reach for his hand, twining your fingers through his just to feel a connection to him, and are genuinely grateful when he doesn't flinch away. (Or maybe he's just too weak.) You hold onto him and don't think about the way you gripped him earlier, when your other hand was forcing a bloody path through him, when you wouldn't let him pull away.
Once the healing starts, it happens fast. You hear the pop-pop-pop as he flexes his jaw back into place. You can see structure returning to the shapeless, ground-down mess of his throat. Your anxiety eases just enough to allow for curiosity (will he heal from the outside in, or can you watch his muscles stitch themselves back together?), but you only have a few moments to watch before he pitches onto his side, blocking your view. His shoulders shake as he heaves and finally coughs up a blood clot. The urges all start chirping with intrigue, but you successfully shush them. Now's not the time.
The potion worked, but it's not enough. Blood is still oozing from the lacerations on your wrist; when you offer it, he barely has the strength to hold it to his mouth. He drinks until he can sit up on his own (you can't resist sneaking a glance at the fresh skin over his throat, still flushed pink where the damage was worst). Then you offer your neck.
He takes as much as you can stand to lose (it's okay, he's only borrowing it), and when he's done he lays you down on the moss and licks his (your) blood from your neck and hands. Your roles have reversed now: he moves with dexterous confidence, healed and ready to seize control; you tremble and sway, lightheaded from blood loss and fatigue. Your brain goes quiet. Together the two of you undo latches and push layers aside, just enough to make room for him to slide into you. A different kind of bliss.
.
Afterwards, you lie side by side on the damp earth. There's blood flaking at the corner of his mouth — you're not sure whose — (yours either way) — and you can feel sticky traces of it in the creases of your skin. You can still taste it when you swipe your tongue along your molars. (You can't stop doing it.) (You’ll be smelling it for days.)
Here in the dark, his irises glow like the sky that haunts your dreams.
The air hangs silent between you. What can you possibly say? Instead, you invite him into your mind. You let him sense the doubt, the fear, feelings you can't explain in words. He receives it all in silence, then eases back out. When you re-focus on his physical presence, you see him watching you with warmth in his expression, but there's something unreadable lying somewhere beneath that.
"There's no need to fret, my love." He says it with enough of his usual charm that you know for certain there's something he's not revealing, but he carries on. "That wasn't exactly how I would have chosen to spend our evening... but I've endured worse, and with far less given in return. Only..." He reaches for your hand. You meet him halfway and entwine your fingers with his. "Please don't shut me out again. I almost thought I'd lost you."
What you don't want to say: But you did lose me. I was gone, somewhere else, somewhere I'm afraid I might rend the world to find again.
What you hid from his mind: I blacked out and when I returned to my body, I remembered everything it had done to you in perfect, beautiful detail, like a long-cherished memory.
What you can't admit: I don't know which one is the real me.
And the urges whisper, Yes, you do.
.
As the two of you make your way back to camp, you notice something foreign in your mouth. Curious, you roll your tongue around to isolate it so you can pluck it out with your fingers.
You open your hand to reveal a splinter of cartilage, shiny-slick and sucked clean.
You pause long enough that Astarion stops to glance back at you. (He can't have it back.) (It's yours now.) (It was always yours.) You close your fist again and feel sharp corners prick into your skin. "It's nothing," you tell him. "Just a bit dizzy still."
You pocket the splinter and follow him home.