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The first thing you notice about Astarion is his neck.
(No, not the scars from the bite of his master, rigid and tender despite the centuries since they first made their mark. That comes later.)
No, first you notice how his head always tilts up towards the sun, neck elongated and chin jutting up so far his arteries stand out, and you wonder if he’s in pain the angle is so extreme. He’ll stand there for an hour, if you let him, eyes closed and hands still, at his side. He’d been embarrassed the first time you caught him soaking in the sun’s rays, but you’ve seen him many times since, as though it’s just another part of his daily routine, mundane.
You’re still getting used to the sun, yourself, your delicate Drow skin still pinking up if you’re not careful, your lips chapping and the tips of your ears sore. You tried to wear a hood for a while, but you couldn’t stand the feeling of the fabric against your skin or the way it flattened and tangled your hair if you engaged in combat. Your eyes are still not quite trained for the way colors assault them in the daylight, either, reds and yellows more vibrant, almost impossible to stare for long periods of time, a constant squint upon your face. Astarion comments on it only once, the second time you rendezvous in the woods, the twilight light the perfect tint for you to see how his skin glows in the moonlight and how deep the red pools of his eyes grow with arousal.
“My doe-eyed darling,” he begins to call you not long after you meet, single fingertip tracing a line down the side of your face as his leg wedges between yours, spreading you out upon the blankets he’s laid down in preparation. You’re too distracted by the cool touch of his hands and the press of his body upon yours to correct him, your heart beating out of your chest as he makes quick work of your camp clothes and you lay exposed beneath him, an experience you’d never have had if you’d not left the muted life in the Underdark, eye-opening in so many ways.
*
The second thing you notice about Astarion is his hands.
(No, not the way they grip everything too tightly, like it’ll be pulled from his grasp in an instant. You’ll notice that later.)
Your attention often focuses on his arms as he speaks, gesturing broadly as he regales his way through a story, or more likely, a complaint or rebuttal against something said. He’s a man who clearly cannot talk without his hands, every flick of the wrist an added emphasis or hidden message accompanying his flowery speech.
Early in your travels together a gnoll slips between the wall Shadowheart and Lae'zel make and manages to take a swipe, Astarion throwing his arm up in front of his face, just in time to catch a good scratch across his knuckles.
“You missed,” he shouts back, hip cocked and smirk on his face as he flips his knife around and slams it into the gnoll; he’s having fun and he’s not afraid to show it. You watch red seep down his fingertips, though, so you sneak your way over to him, knife gripped tightly your hands just in case.
His blood is well mixed with the gnoll’s once you arrive, so you cradle his hand gently and let your magic flow through your own fingertips. He winces slightly while you work; you struggle to hold your face neutral and not let him know you enjoy holding his slim digits in yours. You marvel at the way his palms fold around your small square hands, knowing he’s usually so careful with who he’ll let touch him and somehow you’ve made the list.
His hands are slim and strong, fingers that would dance across ivory keys with ease, music flowing from their fingertips; they look like the hands you might have wished for as a child, learning rhythm and tempo through percussion, all the while wishing to touch ivory keys. You don't remember but you can imagine stern drow parents scoffing at the notion of any musical instrument, unable to grasp the concept of a life centered around the arts instead of one preparing for the next battle.
You weave your healing magic through the places your hands join with his, knowing better than anyone how much needs them well. He resumes his grip on his knife with tentative ease once the spell is complete, humming appreciatively at your work., his eyes tracking a hyena as it approaches from the east.
With a grin and the briefest nod of gratitude (the first of which you’ve seen) he moves to meet it head on, and it makes you wonder - perhaps your hands were made for more than just banging on drums, after all.
*
The third thing you notice about Astarion is his back.
(No, not the horrible poem of scars his master forced upon him, the intricate engraving of an unmissable detail of his entire existence. He’ll allow you to notice that later.)
Instead you notice the way his posture changes when a fight approaches you, how his shoulders square up, the lean frame of his lithe body performing its best imitation of a fearless monster; the way in an instant he crouches into a dangerous creature unseen, dashing into corners. You’ve watched him stop mid-sentence when his hearing, far better than yours, picks up something unfamiliar, and he darts off to investigate leaving you shouting at the ghost of his back.
And still, you notice the way his strong presentation disappears when questions are directed at him, his shoulders slouching ever so slightly, his face smoothing out to a nondescript expression. The way his body shrinks when confronted with words until he finds his own, slowly reinflating, back straight as a rod as he weaves one tale or another until the mask is fully back in place, confidence across his posture.
“Have you quite finished?” you’ll ask him when he stops speaking to take an unneeded breath, a natural pause in whatever story he’s grandstanding with, his gaze fixed on you daring you to point out his flaws; instead you won’t be able to suppress the grin that slips onto your face, the tease in your tone only serving to spur him on, in the end.
“Darling, I’m just getting started,” he’ll reply, squaring his shoulders and drawing his posture back to center, thinking his rambling tale has distracted you from all his quirks and tells. You’ve noticed, though, and you’ll continue noticing more things about him as your time together continues.
*
The fourth thing you notice about Astarion is his eyes.
(No, not the piercing ruby of his cursed vampirism and how they darken with hunger when it’s been a few days since last he tasted the life in your veins. You’ll learn to recognize that later.)
Your initial impression of him is that he’s dangerous, the color red always the implication of dangerous, violence, blood. After all, he first comes at you with his knife and even though you both hastily decide to put the incident behind you, the impression that danger lurks behind his eyes never leaves your mind. His eyes soften when you laugh at his jokes, though, and once you get to know him a little you notice the way the skin crinkles around them when he too laughs at a joke of his own telling, the way he squints when someone tells a lie, the way they water when someone unintentionally insults him.
Well after you’ve begun your relationship together, such as it is, the two of you huddled close together in his tent with candle light flickering across your faces, he begins, “You asked me once if I remember what color my eyes were before I was Turned.”
“I did,” you reply, meeting his now-familiar ruby eyes, scrutinizing them as you wonder where his serious tone of voice will lead you.
“I think they might have been green,” he whispers, like the admission pains him, a long forgotten memory of a person who no longer exists.
Gently, you take his hand, drawing his attention to the sensation of your palms against his, holding him in the present. “You just have a feeling or did you remember something?”
His fingers wrap around yours and he bows his head, those red eyes focused on your hands. “Just a feeling. Or maybe…maybe a memory from a dream. I think the true memory is long since decimated, somewhere between the first lash and the first thousand…”, his eyes fall shut as they often do when he’s being honest about his enslavement, and you don’t want him to get lost in the memories, so you scoot closer and press a soft kiss to each eyelid.
You wait for him to open them again, wanting to meet his gaze so he can see the honesty and adoration in your own red eyes when you tell him that you like them as they are now.
*
The fifth thing you notice about Astarion is his smile.
(No, not his teeth, that comes later, after they’ve pierced your neck and brought you to tears, after you’ve felt them against your own and licked inside his mouth and lost yourself in the steady rhythm of his unnecessary breathing.)
His soft lopsided smile, that’s the thing you notice that sticks out about him, the real smile behind the mask, one side quirking up just slightly more than the other.
You’re used to seeing the predatory one he flashes towards you when he’s ready for a fight, or when you’re both standing in the shadows waiting on a cue from your teammates to strike, or when you’re both breathless and bloody with bodies at your feet, the last of which seems to happen more and more often, the two of you always a pair.
He’ll stand there and his chest will heave and the sound of your teammates panicking around you or sorting out to do next will enter the bubble the two of you have built, and the smile will change, ever so briefly, to the soft one, the one that knows, the one that tells you he’s had fun killing with you, but now he knows you need to step back into the role of leader.
“Oh, go on,” it says, a glint of a fang sparkling before he tucks his teeth in and pulls the corners of his lips back to their resting position, just the smallest of quirk at the edge the reminder that he also likes to watch you slip back into control of the situation.
*
The last thing you notice about Astarion is also his smile.
(Not the way his whole lights up when he says he loves you, lips curving like he’s telling you a secret. No, you’ll never forget that smile, first noticed long ago with the confession on his lips as you knelt beside his gravestone.)
You’ve lived a very long life with him by your side, more adventures and excitement than either of you ever expected to experience in your lives, but your time together is reaching its end. Your mortal body has finally reached its limit, now swathed in blankets, and your head is propped and angled so you don’t have to use any of your remaining strength to look at him.
“Little love,” he still calls you, kneeling beside you once again, hands gripped tightly around your, his skin barely cooler than yours after all this time. There’s sadness in his eyes and you hate that you’re the one putting it there. You’ve talked about this for days and months on end, and you’d thought both of you were at peace with all the choices you’d made leading to this point, but now you’re not sure, your eyes straining for just one more look at him, your heart beating with one more pint of blood for him.
“Little star,” you rasp back, the call and response you’ve used for each other over hundreds of years the only comfort left you can give him, pulling on the last of your strength. The curve of his lip tilts up ever so slightly in recognition, this smile a long far stretch from the predatory fake one from that day he’s long since left behind. Slight wrinkles form at the corners as they’ve done so since the day you met him, and with that sight as your last, you know he’ll be okay.
*