Chapter Text
Astarion had only left to pick up a loaf of bread.
Tavali had said it wasn't necessary, that they could have the soup without it, but he'd insisted.
“Life is too short,” he'd said breezily, “to have soup without bread to dip in it.”
He'd gone too many centuries eating little better than dirt. He planned to enjoy every meal to the fullest now. Before, that had meant the blood of thinking creatures like his dearest and higher caliber animals than rodents. Now, it meant meat and vegetables and bread with glasses of wine that finally, finally, tasted good again.
Tavali indulged him. Tavali always indulged him.
She'd smiled and rolled her eyes but accepted his lips on her pink right cheek, more grin than kiss, as he moved toward the door.
“Back shortly, darling.”
It was late winter, only a few weeks until spring, but the sun had already set. The sky was glowing with residual ambient colors, and a chill wind cut across his skin. The snow had melted a few hours ago, leaving the streets wet and muddy. But still, he hadn’t rushed his walk.
He’d charmed the local baker, an old halfling woman with more grey in her hair than red. He thought her name was Bretta, and she liked to tease he and Tavali whenever they came by. She didn’t know who they were, just thought they were some lucky young couple that had escaped the destruction in the city. Neither Astarion nor Tavali had been inclined to inform their neighbors otherwise. Tavali wanted some anonymity to their dwelling, and Astarion wouldn’t ruin that for her.
Astarion had asked after the latest gossip, watching the older woman’s eyes twinkle, and after a few minutes of smooth talking she gave him a half loaf at a few coins off. The whole thing took no more than ten minutes.
Apparently ten minutes was all it took for his life to be nearly upended. Which, in hindsight, was a lesson he’d learned many times over, but it still took the air from his lungs to be reminded.
Astarion slowed as he reached the end of their street and saw the door to their house was partially open. He was confident that he’d closed it, would never have let the cold air press in on his love like that. And even if he had, Tavali would have closed it.
The certainty that something was wrong bloomed in his chest, heavy and foreboding. He slowed immediately even as his heart (still new, still feeling impossibly new) picked up speed.
Lingering outside their door as he assessed the threat, he heard his brother’s callous voice. He heard what Petras was threatening his love with, the vile things he thought to do.
If it were still possible, Astarion’s eyes would have blazed red.
He whipped his head around the doorframe, all his skill as a rogue coming into play as he took in the sight.
Tavali, held aloft by her wrists in Petras’s grasp, soundless even as her throat flexed and mouth flapped. His impudent brother standing with his left shoulder and back to the door, ridiculing her in a tone of voice that sounded so familiar and so very repugnant. A mocking tone that he’d thought was dead, that ought to have been dead, that Petras had decided to resurrect from Cazador’s ashes.
Astarion moved forward as silent as the grave, pulling out his dagger and raising it just as high as necessary.
For a moment he was elsewhere, in a desecrated temple beneath the city, green light illuminating the cavern as fire and screams surrounded him. Cazador had Tavali, his Tavali, in his grip, his right hand digging his nails into her throat and jaw as he cast blight with the other directly against her chest.
Astarion plunged the dagger down with prejudice, landing it just to the right of Petras’s spine in between his shoulder.
If the man hadn’t been holding Tavali so closely, if the priority hadn’t been getting her out of his hands, the elf would have tried to hack his head off right then.
It was barely a fight after that. Petras might have been a fully fed vampire, but he didn’t have Astarion’s training. He didn’t know how to use that strength yet. All he knew how to do was taunt and threaten, empty and brainless as always.
He certainly wasn’t expecting Astarion’s offhand blade to be coated in crawler mucus, but the elf hadn’t spent the last half a year of his life sitting idly by while others fought his battles. He’d studied, and he’d learned.
Then it was over.
Astarion lifted his right hand away from the dagger, fingers uncurling stiffly. He didn't unbend his knees, crouching low over Petras and watching to ensure he truly was not going to get up again. His right ear was ringing painfully, and he felt a string of blood fall down his jaw onto his neck.
Long seconds ticked past, the house silent but for the burbles popping from the pot on the stove and the heavy breathing of he and his lover.
Tavali was somewhere behind him now. Shaky, wet exhales that confirmed she was still ready to cry for the bastard or, more likely, for his own sorry self.
He closed his eyes, blocking out the sight of his scorched and gutted brother who he'd never really considered a brother at all, only a fellow slave.
We only ever said it as ordered. It never felt real. Not between the two of us. He inhaled deeply, rolling his eyes behind their lids.
Astarion turned from the fresh corpse, shoes squeaking jarringly on the wood floor as he twisted to face his mage and open his eyes.
Her face was wretched, tears hovering on the red rims of her eyes as she met his gaze.
Now, he could fully see and appreciate the hole in the left side of her apron, soaked with blood that was smeared into her left hand.
“Tavali.”
He shifted and let his knees hit the floor as she did the same in front of him, arms outstretched.
“Oh,” she wrapped her fingers around his biceps, trying to draw him closer. “Astarion. Astarion, gods-”
“Let me see. Tavali, let me see.” Astarion rushed to say, trying to shift her away, right palm sliding to her dress and tugging it upward. He’d seen her toss a fucking arrow to the side when he got her away from Petras, and he’d seen her cast more than one healing spell as they confronted the bastard. But she was still so new at those, struggling with those spells as she embraced more of her druidism.
“I’m fine, my love. Feel, I’m fine.” Tavali arrested his right hand with her left and put it against the wound. It was wet, slick with fresh blood, but the skin had healed over.
That was enough for him to stop fighting and drag her back into his embrace.
He gasped as Tavali whipped her hands above him and blue light flooded his vision. His right ear stopped throbbing, whatever damaged Petras had inflicted there wiped away, and his left arm similarly stopped stinging as the blue light fell again.
Then she wrapped herself around him, snaking her limbs under his and up his back. Her right hand found his hair and buried her fingers there.
“Why did you let him in?” He hissed, words as desperate as his arms coiling around her. He pressed them so tightly around her back that he hoped for several panicked moments that they would merge together and he wouldn't have to feel this fear again. His right hand mirrored hers and fastened itself to her scalp. “Tavali, he's a vampire. You had to invite him-”
“He was already here, Astarion.” Tavali said with the same frantic tone, hastily kissing his right cheek. “I couldn't give him the chance to hurt you. I knew you would be home soon, I couldn't leave him outside to ambush you-”
“So you gave him the chance to hurt you?” Astarion demanded, right fingers fisting in her hair.
She shuddered and kept pressing closer, lips in his right ear. “He couldn't take me by surprise, it wasn't such a risk. He could never have defeated me even with that arrow-”
“You do not-” He cut himself off, growling in hopeless frustration into her curls.
She wasn't wrong was the awful truth. She knew, they both knew, that he was still adjusting to mortality. He'd improved over the last few months, but his senses were duller than what he'd had as a vampire spawn. Without an inhuman sense of smell or hearing, he would never have noticed Petras coming if the blonde had been inclined to hide.
Meanwhile, Tavali had only been growing stronger in the time since the Netherbrain was destroyed. Training in her druid craft with Jaheira, letting Minsc improve her hand-to-hand combat, having Shadowheart help her with basic healing.
But as they had learned time and time again on their long journey together, Tavali was not a melee fighter. In close combat, the odds were heavily stacked against her.
“He came prepared for you, Tavali. He silenced you,” Astarion murmured. "Darling, you didn't even have your staff on hand.”
She inhaled shakily, and he felt her swallow against his shoulder. “I know,” she admitted softly. “But it was still safer this way. Would you rather I risk him killing you in the street? The arrow took me by surprise, but he still would have failed. I could draw on my power to cast silently.”
Astarion paused, hating that answer and her quick battle calculations that had so often saved them but never prioritized her own safety, always held her in equal regards to everyone else around her.
A born leader, Halsin liked to say, to hold herself level with those that follow her.
“You can't do this,” he answered savagely, dragging his left arm down her back to wrap around her waist and pull her clean into his lap. Her legs slipped over his left thigh and she pressed her nose along his right cheek. His eyes grew hot. “You can't keep deciding that your safety is less than mine. Or anyone’s! He wouldn’t have managed more than a paltry stab wound on me, I assure you.”
Untrue, his common sense rebutted. Once Petras had gotten over the shock, the man would have gone for the literal throat. Astarion was, by all accounts, alive because Tavali had lured in her prey.
But that did not make it okay.
He fastened his lips to her right temple for a few seconds. His fingers dug into her left hip. “Coming through the door to him hurting you. Do you know what that did to me? If he’d gotten any further-” He growled against her again, exhaling through his teeth in impotent rage as terrified tears burned behind his eyes. He wanted, absurdly, to bite down on her neck like he used to and feel her pulse against his tongue.
And why can't I? He thought madly before following through on the impulse. He let his blunted teeth sink into the cord of her neck, deep enough to bruise but not enough to draw out her precious blood. He laved over the old puncture wounds, his original claim on her heart, and felt her blood jump.
“Ah!” She cried, feet scrambling for purchase on the floor and nails digging into his scalp and shirt. “Y-you would have done the same in my place. Don't deny it.” Tavali choked out when he withdrew and replaced his teeth with his lips. She started to rock them both gently. “I swear to you,” she whispered fiercely, shifting in his arms but only to stabilize herself, “he would never have taken me from you.” Tavali said it like she wasn't quietly crying against him. “We didn't vanquish an Elder Brain and the Dead Three for him to be what kills us.” It would have sounded like a joke if she wasn't being so sincere.
Astarion hissed but stopped forcing down his own tears, biting his lip. He didn't have anything else to say, didn't want to keep going back and forth even if it meant she got the last word.
The sacrifices one made in a real relationship.
He dropped his right arm to span across her shoulders and turned his head, seeking her lips and claiming them helplessly. Tavali copied him, sliding her left arm tightly across his middle back and fisting her fingers in his shirt over his waist. She pulled her right hand from his hair to cup his left cheek.
She was warm, so very warm, against him. He tilted his head slightly to the left and parted his lips around hers. When she let him, he licked into her mouth and moaned, mind drowning in the torrent of fear-soaked adrenaline. Tavali matched him, met every movement he made.
Astarion couldn't say how long they sat there on the hard wooden floor. Eventually their kisses drifted away from heat and became caresses, pecks against their closed eyes and the apples of their cheeks. They breathed against each other heavily, stroking fingers across skin and pulse points.
It was only when his heart stopped pounding that he felt the ache of the wood on his knees.
“Well,” he pulled his face away at last but left her tucked against his right shoulder, “I should probably take care of… him.” Astarion finished darkly.
“We should,” Tavali nodded in agreement against him, shakily pulling away and looking at the body over his shoulder. “Gods,” she groaned, running her left hand down her pallid and tear-streaked face. She put her left palm on the ground behind her and slid off his lap. He hated the rush of cool air that followed in her wake. “Astarion, I'm so sorry-”
“Don't,” Astarion cut her off, knowing without any tadpole where she was going with that. “He brought it on himself and I would do the same thing over if I had too.”
“That’s,” she started, shaking her head heavily. “I know, but he was still-”
“He was not,” Astarion interrupted angrily, “my brother. He was another fly in Cazador’s twisted web and he hung himself on it.”
Tavali stared at him, lips twisted in pity as she shoved down whatever sickeningly compassionate and forgiving response she had to that.
“What do we even do with him?” She sighed. “We can't just leave him outside. If we call the guards there will be so many questions.”
“We can just leave him outside,” Astarion retorted lowly. He stretched out his legs to stand and offered her his left hand once he was upright. She took it, letting him draw her up. Tavali looked at him with a confused frown. “Come sunrise, he'll turn to ash. The wind will blow him away. He doesn't,” Astarion said with finality, “deserve any better.”
She wanted to argue, he could tell. Probably wanted to insist on doing something more. But whatever look was on his face killed her arguments in her throat. Tavali looked down, crestfallen, but nodded. "He doesn't," she agreed quietly. Her face scrunched up briefly.
Astarion brought his hands to cup her shoulders. He squeezed her there once before turning back to Petras.
The man was still there on the ground, blood fanning out in a puddle around his torso like a cape. It had soaked into the old carpet, sticky and blackish red.
There wasn’t as much as there would have been had the blonde been a living man. A fringe benefit of his being undead and the blow stopping his heart.
Another mess left by Cazador that we have to clean up. Bloody Petras. Always making trouble, the prideful idiot-
Astarion shut down that train of thought. He was dead. It was over.
A long while later, they both walked back into their house and closed the door without their uninvited guest.
Petras’s body had been thrown unceremoniously onto a south facing rock not far past the residential areas. Come sunrise, his body wouldn’t be long for the world. In a rare turn of events, the destroyed and uninhabited portion of the city came in handy. They’d tucked him away deeply enough that, unless their bad luck came around again, no one would find him before it was too late to see more than ashes.
Astarion slid the deadbolt aggressively into place, and then turned to face the room.
Tavali stood in the small gap between the sitting room and kitchen, staring down at the lines of blood that had sunk into the wood. Her back was to him and he couldn’t see her expression.
“He was quite strong,” Tavali said quietly. Astarion walked around to stand on her right. Her gaze was unseeing. His sorcerer looked exhausted, drained in a way he hadn't seen her in quite some time. “He must have fed quite a bit before coming here.”
Astarion nodded hollowly. “He thought he'd be fighting another well-fed vampire as well as a mage,” Astarion said humorlessly. “I imagine there were several bodies left in his wake. More, depending on how long ago he slipped out of the Underdark.”
Tavali’s lips spasmed, and Astarion realized he shouldn’t have agreed so easily.
“Tava-”
“He came here to,” she paused, shaking her head at the ground. Her eyes grew bright. “Just to hurt you. He came all this way,” she looked up and away from the blood, staring unseeing into the kitchen past Astarion’s shoulder, “just to hurt you and me.”
Astarion scowled halfheartedly at Petras’s bloodstain.
“Why did he-” Tavali broke off, and Astarion looked at her again. Her cheeks and nose were flushed, her eyes were red, and a tear crawled down her right cheek.
“Who knows?” Astarion reached out with his left hand to catch the tear and wipe it away with his forefinger. “I’d ask you to bottle that endless flow of compassion you keep inside you on this one, love. I don’t relish it, but he was rabid,” Astarion scoffed defeatedly, “and he wasn’t going to stop.”
“But you saved him,” Tavali responded, barely responding to his finger on her cheek, and Astarion let his hand fall. “How can he want to hurt you when you stopped Cazador? You’re the reason he had a life at all. And then he just-” she shook her head jerkily, “came back to the surface because he was jealous? Scouted out our house to find you?”
Astarion sighed, bitterness welling up in him. This wasn’t the first time Petras had disrupted his fragile life with Tavali. He remembered the aftermath of the Flop House, when Tavali had been so shaken and disturbed by the blonde man’s cheap imitation of Astarion’s techniques, when Tavali had been unexpectedly reminded that her rogue had started their relationship as nothing more than a ruse.
And now Astarion’s past had come back to throw them into disarray again, leaving her attacked in her own damn home like nowhere was safe from his demons.
This was his fault.
“I’m sorry-”
“No!” She shouted and whirled on him, fresh tears on her cheeks as she came at him. Her fists seized the front of his black vest and Astarion looked at her wide eyed and a little stunned. “No ‘sorrys’ from you, do you hear me?” His sorcerer looked livid and she tugged on his clothes in a weak attempt to shake him. “I don’t ever want to hear that again! People who hurt you are not your fault!” Her voice broke on the last words but she held his gaze even as she fought down what were clearly sobs building in her chest.
Astarion raised his hands slowly behind her back. His left flattened itself against her spine while his right came up to brush her left cheek and smear away the new tears.
He didn’t know what to do with this, never knew how to handle her outrage at the wrongs done to him throughout his life. His own rage he could manage, but hers?
For so long he’d wanted someone to care, for someone to fight for him. But actually having that person?
She’d done more than all that. She’d fought tooth and claw for him and then helped him rewrite his entire fucking fate. What was he supposed to do with that when he already loved her more than he could bear some days?
“Darling, please,” he started softly, hating the burn that built back up again behind his eyes at her upset. He moved his right hand to tentatively tuck a curl behind her left ear. “Don’t do this to yourself. It’s not worth it. He isn’t worth it.”
Tavali’s face crumpled before she buried her face against his collarbone and the low sobs broke free of whatever tether she had on them. Astarion’s right hand stayed up, resting against her head and pressing her tighter since that seemed to be what she wanted.
She gave another shuddering sob. “It’s not about him, Astarion. It’s about you.” She tilted her head and pressed her lips to the hinge of his jaw and neck, kissing his racing pulse. “I just want you to be safe and happy. I want the whole bloody world to leave you alone. I didn't even really want you to spare him," she admitted in a rush. Astarion blinked, grimacing at the far wall. "After the things he said, I wanted you to kill him. But it's, more than that I want-” She hiccupped and turned her mouth away from his neck, inhaling shakily. She continued miserably. “I want to make you soup and give you a home to come home to every day. And I’m so damn tired of people trying to take that from us. How dare they?" Her fingers flexed against his shirt.
Love bloomed inside of him, hopeless and irrepressible, and he still didn’t know what to do with it. He wanted to cry with her and laugh at her wild ferocity. Astarion’s chest jerked, torn between reflexes as he huffed and settled for pressing his nose into her hair and letting himself tremble in her arms.
“My darling,” he whispered as she cried, and let a few tears slide down his nose into her curls. Tears came more easily and felt different now these last few months, when shed in the certainty of love and safety and understanding instead of hopeless agony and cruelty. Like draining poison from his heart and lungs until he could breath easier again. “My brave, foolish love.” He shifted his arms around her just to feel the friction of her there, real and whole against him, and held her for a long quiet moment. “You do make me happy. You always have.” He nudged her head with his chin until she leaned back and he could fasten his lips against her forehead. “You and me against the great wide world.”
She exhaled shakily against his neck. “It shouldn’t be against. But I’ll fight if that is what it comes to,” she said lowly around a tight throat, and Astarion tipped his head into her curls with a forlorn smile. “Anything that comes for you, I’ll fight with you. You know that?”
“As I’ll do that same for you.” Astarion answered and dug his cheek into the top of her head. “Always, my darling. My partner.”
She huffed then, and it sounded less despondent than before, so he counted it as a win. Her hands left his front to sweep along his back and press against his shoulder blades.
They stood like that for some time, comforting each other with small kisses and presses of hands until their tears dried and they both felt steady enough to pull away.
“I don’t know about you, my dear,” Astarion started tiredly, keeping his finger tips light on her shoulders, “I’m afraid I don’t have much of an appetite after all this excitement. A tragedy of this mortal stomach.” She scoffed and grinned weakly, nodding a little in agreement and jostling another tear loose. “But I seem to recall you made us soup. And I,” he sighed heavily, looking over toward the door where he’d thrown his parcel of bread after stabbing his murderous brother, “got us bread. So I suggest,” he slid his fingers down her arm until he had her fingers in his and drew her over to the kitchen, “that we have a bowl, however small, and then call it a night.’ Astarion brought her limp fingers to his lips to kiss her knuckles. “Sound fair?”
She agreed that it did.
Only an hour or so later, they crawled into bed together as they had so many other nights since meeting. It wasn’t particularly late, but the day had felt longer than most in quite some time.
Tavali wore her thick sleep clothes, a loose red sweater and pants that were designed for comfort and safety. It made Astarion smile sadly to see them; not because she didn’t look comely, but because he knew they meant she felt vulnerable and wanted the illusory extra protection that full coverage promised. How could he blame her after his brother's despicable threats?
He chose similarly, wearing a full dark shirt and pants to ward of the cold and any unwelcome sensations that might creep over his skin.
As she moved to get onto the bed, Astarion shifted to ensure she had the side against the wall. She frowned, clearly having intended to do the same for him, but acquiesced at his gentle prodding.
As if she wasn’t the one attacked, Astarion thought dolefully and exasperatedly. As if she wasn’t the one so cruelly threatened.
But Astarion wanted the wall at her back and he at her front to face any nightmares she might have because of this latest assault. And he wanted the freedom to flee the bed and console himself away from her if similar thoughts plagued his sleep.
He would not be the cause of further disturbances to her. Not tonight.
They settled under the thick blue blanket, heads on separate pillows, and stared at each other in the moonlight through their window. It faced the south, always shining with every drop of sunlight the day could bless Toril with and waking them easily with the dawn.
Another thing he’d begged for without needing to, and another thing she’d happily indulged him in.
“Astarion?” Tavali whispered, settled on her right side with her left hand curled innocently by her chin. Her eyes looked bright again, and Astarion lamented how often she’d had to cry for him, because of him.
“Hmm?” The elf hummed, mirroring her pose and reaching up with his right hand to graze her loose curls with his fingertips over her left ear.
“I am sorry,” she said, hushed and mournful, “for your loss.”
Astarion closed his eyes.
He wanted to rebuke her, wanted to hiss that it was no real loss, that Petras had never really been his brother, that they’d hated each other most of the time, bound only by slavery and the wickedest of monsters as a master-
But it had still been a bond, unwanted and miserable as it was. And any chance they might have had to know each other outside Cazador’s influence, for Petras to make something of himself in freedom, had died with him.
Astarion would hardly mourn the man, not after what he’d done tonight. He’d say the imbecile had had it coming for daring to attack what he loved, what was under his protection.
But maybe, just a little, he could mourn for Petras’s lost opportunity to be more. A fate that so easily could have been Astarion’s, and that he’d avoided through sheer, unadulterated good luck and good friends.
Astarion exhaled heavily.
“Thank you, my love,” he opened his eyes to look at her again, grateful that his eyes remained dry. “I am, too.”
“And,” she whispered again, more tentatively. Her throat flexed and she brought her left hand to his right over her cheek. “Thank you for coming when you did, before he could do more.”
He stiffened at the thought, letting his fingers curl in to catch on her skin.
“I really,” she swallowed, not quite looking at him but toward the line where his face met the pillow. “Really did not want him to- All those threats he made, I knew I’d be able to fight him off before the worst happened. But I’m glad he didn’t get to try my blood.” Her entire body shuddered, shaking from head to toe so thoroughly he felt it across the bed.
Astarion dropped his hand to her left shoulder and tugged, bringing her against him and tucking her head under his chin.
“It’s so foolish,” she exhaled shakily against his chest. “But I didn’t want him to have my blood.” She inhaled against his neck, fingers crawling up to fist loosely in his nightshirt over his chest.
“It’s not,” he breathed into her. “It’s not foolish at all.”
Who could understand the intimacy of blood better than a former vampire? A person’s very lifeforce, carrying the essence of them all the days of their lives. They shared it in lineage or spilled it in battle or had theirs spilled, given willingly or painfully till their last breath.
And once, on a warm summer evening alongside the river, Tavali had given hers to him. And she had invited him back again and again, nearly every night thereafter, to share her blood. Until he was strong, until he was happy, until it became the surest, easiest way for her to tell him she loved him. Until his heart could pump his own again.
She’d let him in close and counted on him not to hurt her, not to take too much. Slept through his feeding with all the trust she’d been ridiculous enough to give him from the day they’d met. But she’d never offered it to anyone else, not his siblings or even the young Gur children. That was her choice, her line in the sand that he fell behind and the rest of the world did not.
Her voice was tremulous and nearly shy, but she pulled away a few inches to meet his eyes in the dark. “My blood isn’t for him. It’s-” She tilted, forehead and nose nudging his. “That was for us. Between us. I didn’t want any part of me to be... inside him.” She gave another full body shudder.
Astarion’s throat seized, stalling any response he could make to that nauseating idea. His heart thudded painfully in empathy. He understood too perfectly the horror, the sense of violation that came with that fear.
“My blood, my body. It’s not for anyone else.” She mumbled in a rush, so close he felt her breath against his lips. “I’m not for anyone else. Just you.” Tavali’s left hand came around to cup his neck over his old scars, a favored spot in all the days since easy touches became a part of their relationship. “I’m only for you.”
Astarion gasped a little, once again torn between tears and laughter but more heavily toward the former this time. “Only mine,” he agreed, stroking his right palm up and down the expanse of her back, following the bumps of her spine. “As I’m only yours.” He couldn’t imagine anyone else now. Not their hands on his body or their teeth in his veins. The very thought was repellant enough to send him shuddering against her. The elf pressed his lips lightly to hers, fleeting but heartfelt, and left his face resting over hers. “My darling,” he breathed against her cheek.
How similar they were sometimes. The trail of their thoughts so often traversed the same paths, with and after the tadpole. Some days he was tempted to wonder whether they had come together in more ways than body and blood. Perhaps they’d lived in each other’s minds too long, used the mental connection too willingly and frequently, and left an indelible stain on each other’s psyches. If he were to observe the collective pools of their minds, did their unique colors swirl together in soft eddies? Forever combined, inseparable glowing streams that once bound could not be pulled asunder?
Deep thoughts better suited to their long-departed wizard, and not somber bedroom confessions.
“Sorry,” she murmured into his ear. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to-, I’m so out of sorts-”
“Hush,” he bid her, running his hands over her again. “How many times have you comforted me? Can’t I offer the same to you?”
His little love only huffed sadly against him at that.
“Good, don’t argue. Just let me,” he cupped her head and nestled them down further into the pillows and blankets. Astarion bussed a kiss against her left cheek, then another over her eye so she closed the lid. Even in the dim moonlight, he could see how exhausted she was.
Eventually, after a few more tears and shuddering breaths and long minutes of silent embraces, Tavali became loose in his arms. She pressed a kiss to his cheek, murmuring something softly that he couldn’t quite make out. His half-elf fell asleep in his arms, head tilted into the pillow with his right arm still cradling her close.
He slipped into trance and dreams himself, black and nebulous but thankfully without nightmares this time. He woke to the dawn sliding over both of them, Tavali still in repose as she breathed against his shoulder.
It would only be a few hours at most before Petras was lost to Lathander’s light.
Another night and day we’ve survived, he thought hazily as he recalled the turmoil of the evening before. Not that we can’t handle a lot, but could you go easy on us for today?
Astarion didn’t pray to any god in particular for that request, only shifted and settled deeper into the bed with Tavali. If there was any justice in the world, the peace could hold for another few hours until they were both ready to face the day again.