Work Text:
Another night setting up camp begins as usual, with Gale and Wyll offering to cook dinner while Lae’zel and Karlach dutifully prepare everyone’s tents. You are setting out bedrolls and watching Scratch and the Owlbear race around when you notice one of your companions not assisting in the evening routines.
Although it is not unusual to find Astarion less than helpful when preparing to lie down for the night, tonight, Astarion seems particularly focused on something that catches your attention. The pale elf is standing with his back to you, holding a small silver mirror in front of him. He seems very focused on finding something in the glass. No one else seems to have noticed, so you walk away from the bed rolls and campfire and over to your companion.
You stand a moment watching him. From over his shoulder, you can see the glassy surface of the mirror but do not see a reflection of the pale elf in front of you. You do, however, see a small outline of yourself just as Astarion appears to notice you and speaks.
“Looking at something?” Astarion asks, not looking away from the mirror.
“What are you doing?” You counter, not answering his question.
Astarion focuses on the mirror in front of him and huffs a bit, “I’m looking… but not seeing very much.”
You frown for Astarion, knowing you’ll never understand how it must feel never to know what you look like. You want to make some comment to make him feel better, but you’re not quite sure what to say.
Finally, you ask, “You have no idea what you look like?”
At this, Astarion finally turns to you, a bit miffed by your question: " Of course not, not since my eyes turned red and I grew fangs!” Astarion throws his arms out in exasperation and then looks to the ground, sadness in his eyes.
“Do you remember what you looked like before?” You ask, hoping to diffuse the anger rising off Astarion.
Astarion’s frown deepens as he looks back to you, “No… I- I can’t remember.” Astarion looks back to the ground, a mixture of disappointment and anger on his face. “Just another thing Cazador took from me; the old me is a shapeless blur in my past.”
Astarion stares at the ground, the mirror hanging limply from one hand, the other clenched in a fist of frustration. What must it feel like to have everything taken away from you? To have 200 years of your life turned into something you never wanted? Forced to do the bidding of an awful tormentor…
You have gotten to know Astarion fairly well, better than most of your companions, quite frankly. Maybe it is because he forced himself on you and took advantage of your willingness to accept his condition. Then there was his easy, sometimes overbearing charm that was hard to resist. A few nights together away from everyone else may have helped a little. But there was also a part of you that felt bad for him. You do feel bad for him and feel the sadness and frustrations that Astarion is feeling.
So you step forward, gently placing your fingertips under Astarion’s chin and lifting his gaze toward your own. Astarion seems slightly perplexed by this action and steps back at your intrusion in his personal space. You step closer still and set both hands gently on his face.
“I see you, Astarion,” you whisper, staring deeply into his ruby-red eyes.
Astarion’s nose wrinkles slightly at the overt display of affection. He tries to avert his gaze but stays put and lets out a little pout, “Well, what do you see?”
You smile softly and let your fingertips fall over the details of his face as you describe exactly what you see, “Well, I see a man with a face that was sculpted from the most perfect marble white stone.”
Astarion smirks at the comment but adjusts his posture so that he is no longer leaning away from you but staring down at you, more interested in what you’ll say next. “Go on,” Astarion purrs.
You resist the urge to roll your eyes but instead focus on the lines of his jaw and gently slide your fingers from his cheekbones to his chin. “A perfect jawline it could cut through glass.”
Astarion nods in approval but doesn’t say anything, waiting for what you have to say next. You take one hand away from his chin, set your first three fingers lightly on his top lip, and then let them fall down to the lower one and linger as you say, “Perfect, pale with a dusting of pink and soft.”
You feel Astarion let out a breath on your fingertips and feel him leaning closer to you. He likes this. But you aren’t going to give him what he wants—not yet, anyway. You take your hand away from his lips, and he inhales in frustration, his brows furrowing together for a moment. So you take both hands, press both index fingers to where his eyebrows want to meet, and gently press the frustration away.
“I know you are concentrating when you knit your brows together,” you smile and press your fingers along his brows to the end, then set your fingertips lightly beside the outer edges of his eyes. “You say a lot without saying anything from your facial expressions. But you say the most with your eyes. You don’t have to be saying anything to tell a whole story.”
Astarion cocks his head a little and inquires, “And what about my eyes?”
The two of you lock stares, and you can see yourself reflecting in his dark pupils and deep red irises. “Why, it’s probably the best part,” you start, and the pair of you seem to be gravitating closer and closer together. The space that was barely between you before doesn’t exist now. And you hadn’t noticed until now how Astarion’s body lines up perfectly with yours.
“They change,” you continue, “When you first came to me and fed from me, they were red, but there was nothing behind them; then you drank my blood, and the red exploded like fire and reflected elegantly in the moonlight. Your eyes darken in the shade and glint in the sun. The red becomes a dark red wine to a sparkling sapphire. And I can’t not look away.”
A silence surrounds you as you finish, your hands still resting on Astarion’s face. He looks unsure. It is the first time you’ve really seen him look this way. He always forces an air of overconfidence around himself, and it can become overwhelming at times. But you know he does not know how to be anyone but the false version of himself. He has built walls and defenses to keep himself safe and get what he wants. You know that. Astarion may even know that, too. But there is a feeling that Astarion wants just to trust you right now and put away the character he has built up after all this time away.
You have seen this before when he complimented you and said he loved you. He had been having fun and teasing you up until that point. You knew it in how his voice faltered and the light in his eyes became subdued. He was telling the truth, and it hurt him. You both laughed, but you knew it was the truth.
And now, as you stand together with only a breath of space between you and likely the only description of himself Astarion has ever gotten of himself, he is unsure.
You move your hands up to his hair and gently weave your fingers through the curls; Astarion closes his eyes and lets out a soft hum of approval. You don’t know if you should ask a question because you're afraid Astarion will get defensive or offended. Instead, you weave your fingers toward the back of his head and pull him down into a kiss.
Astarion is taken aback by the gesture; a breath of surprise greets you as your lips connect. But he is just as quick as you and wraps his arms around your middle at once, the mirror that started all this quickly forgotten. He kisses you with a passion you have never felt from him before, as if when he stops, you will disappear. Almost like he feels that if he lets you go, the one person who cared enough to give him something he thought he lost forever will be lost, too. Astarion pulls you closer, pushing his tongue into your lips; you happily oblige, allowing him to taste all of you. The eagerness and passion of the connection make you forget to breathe, and you remember all too suddenly. Your desire to keep connected and kiss Astarion stops short as you pull back, gasping for air. You are a little relieved to see Astarion just as breathless as you.
Astarion gently rests his forehead on yours. You try to meet his gaze but see him forcing it downwards. You take your hands from behind his head, and using one hand, you gently tip his chin up so his eyes meet yours. You are shocked to see the tears welling in them.
You know you can’t say anything, or it will ruin everything, so you tip his chin further and place another gentle kiss on his lips. Astarion blinks, and tears spill from his eyes and down his cheeks. Annoyance threatens Astarion’s features. He takes a hand away from the embrace around you, reaches to his face, and quickly wipes at the tears on that side. He begins to reach his hand to the other side, and you beat him to it, gently wiping the tear streak away with your thumb.
Astarion sends an iced stare at you, and you back out of his embrace, ready to leave the situation before he gets annoyed with you. But he stops you, catching your hand in one of his own, and mutters something that’s hardly a whisper.
“What?” You ask carefully, taking a step forward.
Astarion lets his gaze linger on the ground a moment before whipping his head up, and with an off-kilter wave of his hand not holding your own, he produces a laugh.
You sigh and let Astarion’s hand fall out of your own, feeling the moment slip away.
“Well, that was quite the performance, darling,” Astarion leans forward setting his hands on his hips, “you really had me convinced.”
“Convinced?” You ask.
“Why yes,” Astarion flips a hand in your direction and averts his gaze elsewhere, “That you actually believed what you were saying.”
“What?!” You ask, frustration building.
“You know I’ve spent my life playing those mind games with people,” Astarion turns his gaze back towards you and smirks, “Not a bad performance.”
The urge to break his perfect nose compels you to step forward toward Astarion. He glances down at you, unimpressed.
“I wasn’t lying to you,” you say through gritted teeth, “I have never lied to you.”
Astarion chuckles and leans down towards you, “You’re cute when you’re upset.”
You close your eyes and take a breath. You had just shared the most intimate moment you think you’ll ever share with anyone with Astarion; of course, he was ruining it. Of course, he was. But was it all his fault? He wanted to believe you were lying to him. He wanted to believe that because everyone he likely told those things to before to wisk off to Cazador never got anything Astarion had promised them. He was worried you were going to do the same thing to him. Lure him in and then abandon him in darkness.
You open your eyes and look back at Astarion, who had kept the facade of nonchalance quite well. You sigh and set your hands on either side of Astarion’s face again. He startles a bit by the gesture but allows it to happen. You don’t speak this time, but you trace every inch of his face with your fingertips. You slide your fingers from his cheeks to his chin, run an index finger down and off the tip of his nose, trace the outline of his lips, follow the curve of his forehead, and then stop letting your hands fall to rest on his shoulders.
You can feel your tears welling in your eyes and a lump in your throat as you speak, “Astarion, it isn’t fair how beautiful you are, and you’ll never get to see it. You’ll never believe me. But I’m telling the truth. I wish you could see what I see when I look at you.”
You raise one hand and gently set it on Astarion’s cheek, and he shifts his weight into your palm. Astarion looks at you, and you can feel his gaze trying to express everything he doesn’t know how to say. You can feel the ache in how his brows knit together and the sorrow in his eyes.
The pair of you stand like this momentarily before you step back, letting your hands fall away. You glance back to the rest of the camp, seeing everyone else occupied with other business; Karlach lies on the ground staring at the sky, Lae’zel stands at her tent sharpening her sword, and Gale and Wyll chat by the fire. It appears no one noticed the two of you at all.
“Well, sorry I interrupted,” you say, looking back at Astarion and glancing at the mirror abandoned on the ground.
Astarion follows your gaze and looks at the mirror. Without a moment of hesitation, Astarion reaches down for the mirror, picks it up, and throws it deep into the woods behind his tent with all the force he can muster. A shatter can be heard a few moments later.
Astarion turns back to you and speaks softly, “I only want to know what you see… from now on.”
You suppress the desire to run forward and kiss Astarion right there. Instead, you smile and walk forward to take his hands in yours.
Astarion looks down at you with a sheepish grin, “I…”
You know he doesn’t know what to say, so you rise on the tips of your toes and kiss his cheek, “I see you, Astarion, and I always will.”