Chapter Text
Astarion snaked a hand up to Kyne’s. “If you don’t take a seat, darling, I’m afraid Shadowheart will be returning for you rather shortly.”
Kyne heaved a sigh. His weight wavered; Astarion guided him to the stool, where he slumped like a broken marionette. A creeping sense of deja-vu, twice over, crawled up the vampire’s spine. First, a sense memory of kneeling before Wyll moments ago; the second, a vague flash of kneeling for men who only wanted one thing.
The fresh blood in his stomach roiled. Then, just as suddenly as the revulsion came on, a wave of familiar apathy washed it all away. His hand moved of its own accord, tracing Kyne’s arm to come to rest on the half-drow’s knee.
Kyne scraped a hand over his ashen face, breathing a curse out over the sound of rasping stubble. “I’m sorry.”
A hundred, maybe a thousand, men had apologized to Astarion before. A flat-edged smile took hold of his face without his conscious say-so. “Whatever for?”
Mismatched eyes turned their full intensity on him. Kyne wasn’t much of a bard on first brush: his preferred instrument was a blade, and the only time Astarion heard him sing was in harmony over storm spells and blood spray on the battlefield. Even the bravado Kyne summoned for strangers, pointed and proud, struck any trained manipulator as the masquerade it was. For weeks they’d traded barbs and flirts, matching masks of comedy and tragedy, peeling away their clothes before ever daring to bare their souls. Teeth first, always.
But there was surely something supernatural in the way the bard commanded attention without trying. In quiet moments such as these, unguarded and ragged, his gaze still compelled. A sort of uncontrolled honesty that pulled and pulled.
Astarion’s stomach did another little flip — different this time — and he wondered at the mechanics of cutting through hundreds of years of not caring.
“For last night,” the half-drow said. “And the night before.”
“We’ve been over this—”
“—and for not noticing you were starving.” Those haunting eyes, one blue, one silver, still held him. Kyne was always so quick to apologize, and always meant it. Astarion found it just as disarming every time. Finally, he dropped his gaze. “I’ve been so wrapped up in my own bullshit…”
“Don’t. You’re not my keeper.” Borrowed heat rose in Astarion’s cheeks. “It’s not your job to look after my needs.”
Kyne smirked. “I’ve been rather reliably informed that when you care for someone, you at least pay attention to their needs.”
Ah. Well. If they were going to have this conversation now, so be it.
Astarion’s fingers glided idly down Kyne’s shin. “I’d assumed you were abstaining from offering your blood because it usually leads to… other things, which are currently off the table.”
“Wait, what?” His erstwhile lover recoiled as if struck. “You thought this was about sex for me? This isn’t— I wouldn’t— Our relationship isn’t a transaction, Astarion.” He hunched, grinding the heels of his palms into his eye sockets. “I thought I made that clear with that Oblodra creep. I don’t care about your body, or what you can offer me. I care about you.” His hands fell to his lap, clenched, then stilled. “I care about you so much, in fact, that the gods-damned Urge within me keeps trying to express my affection in the worst way possible.”
“When you say it like that, it’s almost cute,” Astarion quipped, but his heart wasn't in it. This was not where he expected the conversation to go. Not at all. “I care about you too. If I could take this away for you, I would.”
“I do know that.” Kyne’s expression went soft. “I’m told they’re planning a rotation. Would you believe my first reaction was jealousy?”
Astarion arched a brow. “Jealousy?”
He huffed a laugh. “Yes. I’m not like that drow, it’s not some long-held fantasy or anything. But it’s a moment that we share together. The thought of you with someone else is just… I’m not saying the reaction was rational. You can and should bite whoever you want. This isn’t me trying to—” he wrinkled his nose— “claim you, or something. And if you don’t want to bite me anymore because of this, or its association with other things between us, I get it—”
“—I never said that. I can certainly understand wanting me all to yourself, dear. I mean, who wouldn’t?” This prompted an eyeroll, which was what he’d hoped for. “I concede the intensity of the whole affair. But,” and he had to be careful here, not to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, “I must also concede that it’s been difficult to keep up without multiple sources of blood.” Or any, for that matter.
“Yeah. And I should’ve thought of that before. No, a rotation makes sense, even if you’ll still drink from me. At least for now.” Kyne’s eye twitched. “You can just drink from me, you know. No expectations or… associations. I’ll work through everything else.”
Astarion arched a brow, flashed a tentative smile. “I swear, I think of you every time I sink my teeth into another. Nothing compares to your delectable bouquet.” That was the truth, too: whether it was the familiarity, or something specific about the sorcerous power that lived in Kyne’s veins, no thinking creature had matched his allure.
“With pretty words like that…” Kyne’s returning grin took a mean twist. “You can gorge yourself at Moonrise.”
“Oh, I intend to.”
As usual, Halsin was right. The Urge worsened come nightfall.
If Kyne had been in his right mind, he might’ve wondered at how that worked in a place of eternal darkness: if his body’s rhythm of destruction was so ingrained as to keep its own time, or if the dam of his resistance yielded to exhaustion at the same predictable point each day.
At the moment, it was all he could do to bite his tongue bloody.
If that was it, he probably could’ve managed. But entertaining any of these thoughts, even for a moment, risked handing the reins over to the beast completely. And waking from a blackout? He lacked the language to adequately describe the horror.
So, he spent his nights in this fugue state, stubbornly railing against what was - perhaps - the real him.
Astarion reclined across the tent. He thumbed through a mouldering book rescued from Reithwin. The picture of leisure, save for the pinched look on his face. Kyne’s wretched heart swelled with gratitude that he stayed; rage that he didn’t recognize the monster laying beside him.
“Your bravery won’t save you, elf,” his mouth spat before he could stop it. “You might act high and mighty but you’re nothing more than a cheap wh—” Kyne wrenched control back just to slam his own face into the bedroll, with enough force to bounce off the boards below.
“Easy now,” the vampire tutted. “Let’s keep all those lovely teeth in your mouth, hm?”
Cool hands grasped the back of his neck and shoulder to turn him over, sweet relief on Kyne’s sweltering skin. Relief he didn’t deserve; relief he shouldn’t seek. The Urge roared, his body bucking out of Astarion’s hold. The very teeth Astarion was so intent on protecting gnashed at him, the pale elf wisely drawing back to a safer distance.
He chewed into his own lips, shredded his tongue against his grinding molars.
Astarion looked down at him, concern naked and unguarded in the privacy of their tent. “I know you’re still in there, darling. If you can hear me…” and here doubt edged in, quickly smothered by steely frustration: “Please try to rest. We’ve got you.”
“Oh, how saccharine, how sweet!” the worst voice Kyne knew piped up. Sceleritas emerged from behind Astarion, hands clasped in mock adoration. “But of course, you commanded this devotion and more at the height of your power, Master.” The awful creature pranced in tight circles, humming a tune Kyne could almost place.
“Shut up,” Kyne growled.
That careful neutrality fell over Astarion’s face as he reached for the book again. “You are a nasty one, aren’t you?”
“No!” and it must have sounded enough like Kyne to keep Astarion’s attention, even though it was him and Urge both that begged. Their eyes met, giving Kyne the strength to choke: “Not you, it’s the— that thing is here, he’s—” he gagged on the words, only managing to cough up a gob of bloody phlegm before shoring himself up against another onslaught of murder.
“My poor Master,” the ‘Butler’ crooned. Kyne tried very hard to focus on the way Astarion had rested a hand on his hip. Sceleritas continued, “Reduced to groveling for the affection of one lowly vampire’s whore. You’ve commanded legions, Master. They served you, and they will serve again should you only ask.” He resumed his humming, and something in Kyne’s bones corrected the off-notes automatically.
“Leave me alone,” Kyne droned, breaking into a sob. “Please. Leave me.”
Astarion stroked his hip, the only place Kyne wouldn’t be able to reach easily with his teeth. “Easy, darling.”
And a memory surfaced, dredged up by the Butler’s song: of Kyne himself, his own voice but not, instructing someone that “There are easier ways to get what you want.”
And he hadn’t realized he’d started humming along ‘til he felt the spell settle into place, a tether between the two lovers.
And Kyne cried, “Astarion!” But he couldn’t find his own mouth.
And the Urge said, “Astarion. Untie me, please.”