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“Wake up.”
Perhaps it was only fair for Astarion to be snuck up on in his sleep after the stunt he pulled that nearly got him staked so many, many nights ago. That he was actually offered the strange camp leader’s willing neck during that incident instead of a gruesome death was a surprising delight, but right now…something was very, very wrong.
His eyes fluttered open to spy Tav straddling his hips. Moonlight streamed through the opening in his tent, making his pale scales shimmer in the dim light. His red eyes revealed an eerie coldness. One full of danger. Full of purpose. It was like he was a predator with his vulnerable prey beneath him.
“Hello, love.” Astarion tried to offset the nervousness that bubbled up in his chest. “Come for a little fun?”
“No.” He leaned over, clawed hands planting themselves beside his head. Astarion knew by now of the bloody things he was capable of. Knew what urges could come over him. Poor Alfira…He wasn’t going to be next, was he?
Tav pressed his toothy maw up against his throat. For him, it would be so easy to rip the damn thing out. Leave him choking on his blood until it killed him. “There’s a thief in our midst, vampire spawn. I don’t tolerate thieves in my own camp. I have a hunch on who it is, too, so I will only ask once. Did you steal my shirt?”
His shirt? He was about to be murdered over a missing shirt? That’s what this was about?
“I—“ His hands slipped under Astarion’s own clothes, claws resting on his skin. He was breathing a little harder, a little faster…until he realized something. Those claws pressed hard enough into him to indicate some sort of threat, but not enough to be painful. Within his gaze was also a hidden playfulness. One he’d never seen before in the dragonborn. He was trying to scare him on purpose, but whatever he was planning, it very thankfully didn’t involve having his ribs torn out from him. He was sure of it, and maybe a little curious. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Though, I don’t exactly mind seeing you without it right now.”
“Mm.” His mouth opened to lick a stripe from his collar to his chin. Astarion shivered. “Liar. Let it be known you had a chance to come clean.”
No, his ribs were safe. The skin covering them? Not so much. Those claws prodded in, spidering across his flesh in a way that, indeed, wasn’t painful, but sent him gasping and shrinking into his shoulders.
“What are you doing?” The words came out all too quickly. Fear and regret took over his expression.
“Interrogating you.”
Gods, he wished he was about to kill him instead. Better than being embarrassed. Better than his paramour trying to tickle a confession out of him. Where’d he even get the idea? Tav got rough, but the sensations inflicted on his torso never tipped the scales into pain. He was too careful. As laughter quickly threatened to spill out from his victim’s mouth, Astarion decided he would not give him the satisfaction. As if him gasping and squirming was any more dignified a response.
His hands flew up to shove on his chest, trying to push him off to know avail. Dragonborn are heavy. He learned this when the damn man passed out once on top of him. “Get off of me!”
“Did you take my shirt?”
He wasn’t getting the satisfaction of knowing his guilt, either. Astarion gave him a look of pure defiance…one that was slightly dampened by the pink taking over his pale face. “No! I didn’t take your disgusting, ripped up shirt! Why would I? You don’t trust me?”
“Trust with you was a very fickle topic for a long time.” His fingers drifted lower. Tav was exploring, now. Astarion knew he had all the advantages here, to his misfortune. He kicked, flailed, struggled, then Tav pinched the flesh under his ribcage and it forced a humiliating yelp from his lips. The poor vampire was horrified with himself.
Surely he’d been tickled before. As a child centuries ago. Unfortunately, it was quickly becoming obvious to himself that he had no resistance to the sensations as an adult. The way Tav positioned himself and his hands meant he couldn’t try to protect his poor body, either. That yelp opened the floodgates. Undignified snickers poured out from his mouth with the attack waged on sensitive sides. Tav’s fingers dug into him, clawed thumbs stretching out experimentally to scrape over his taut belly.
“Gods, you’re shrill,” he teased. The veneer of danger he tried to maintain was gone.
“You—You EVIL—!” Astarion couldn’t even speak without his voice cracking back to unwanted laughter. He desperately tried and failed to pry his hands away. Hands that quickly got bored and went even lower. Tav shifted to sit instead on thighs. With extra room to move, the tormented victim lurched upward to get into a sitting position. Anything to gain an advantage! It barely took any effort to shove him back down into the bedding.
“Maybe I should’ve tried here first.” Tav proved a little too eager to play with his waist and most especially his hips. Astarion enjoyed it so much in more intimate settings that it seemed like an obvious weak spot. They both knew it.
“Wait!”
“Where is my shirt?” Talons hung curled just above his skin as a warning.
His eyes narrowed spitefully. “I don’t have it!”
“Wrong answer.” He descended. Those terrible claws, ones that could qualify all their own as weapons of mass destruction, happily went in for the metaphorical kill. Astarion’s lower body definitely proved to be more susceptible to his ‘interrogation’ techniques. He squealed this terrible squeal that he desperately hoped nobody else in camp was awake to hear. Tav’s eyes sparked with uncharacteristically mischievous joy as he kneaded and squeezed at the vampire spawn’s skin.
“You and I both know you have my missing garment. Are you really so petty that you won’t admit to it despite your circumstances? Because otherwise…” Amid Astarion’s wheezy protests, Tav briefly let up. He gasped for breath in short bursts. Only when his mouth finally twitched to begin some witty retort did the torment continue. Digits wiggled into the faint, v-shaped divots angling down his abdomen—the touch made his back arch. He took to trying to hide his now completely unrestrained laughter in the crook of his elbow. “…I’m going to start thinking that you’re enjoying this treatment.”
A ridiculous accusation! Mostly. Astarion certainly didn’t like having his lover turn on him, even if it was in a fairly benign way instead of through brutal, horrible violence, but…He did like having his attention and his touch. Of course, there were other ways he preferred those things.
“Do you recall when I told you about your laugh lines? I’m right. They’re quite obvious right now. You can’t cover them up, not all the way.”
“H-how dare—how dare—!” Nope, he wasn’t going to be able to finish that line of thought. Not with the way his voice was cracking like a squeaky adolescent, or with it muffled by his own arm, nor was it going to be taken seriously with how hard he was blushing. Obviously he couldn’t see how red his own face was, but it felt hot all the way to his ears. “Fine, fine, fine!”
He mustered a sudden enough bout of strength to break loose, twisting around to frantically unearth the missing shirt. Astarion flung it right at his head. At last, he was offered clemency. It took a moment for his giggling to taper off completely while Tav examined the fabric.
“Gods, you don’t wear the thing half the time, so I thought it would be easy to sneak it away for a damn wash! I mended the tears while I was at it! I suppose that’ll teach me to do something nice for you.” His skin still tingled.
Tav took the garment to examine, fingers brushing over the well-stitched rips. “Oh. You…fixed it.” The look on his face might be the worst part of this whole experience. He could rip apart monsters and people alike bare handed, or do something truly terrible like make his lover squirm in agony, but then his eyes would go all big and that head would tilt, making him look like a puppy. Astarion couldn’t stay upset! It was dreadful!
“What did you think I would’ve done with it?!”
“Well, it…was covered in blood. Mine, mostly.” For once.
“Oh, I see, you thought I was going to do something untoward with it, didn’t you?” He thought for a moment. “Actually, that wouldn’t have been a bad guess, but no. I’m just quite familiar with getting stains, especially red ones, out of white fabric.” Astarion gestured to his own shirt. “Did you not think for a moment to ask me politely about the so-called theft? You call me petty—Darling, you’re more impulsive than I am!”
“You’re right. You are. I apologize. Far from the worst impulse I’ve acted on, though, isn’t it?”
“Wrong! Because I was the victim!”
“Funny. You seem mad, but you don’t really sound mad. And why are you still smiling if that’s the case?”
“I am not! I am…” Oh, he was. He couldn’t seem to get that smile off his face, either. “…Get over here. I swear if even one of those claws grazes me wrong, I will go into a frenzy.” He couldn’t even muster up a pout to look dismayed.
Tav moved carefully up against him, snuggling in just the way Astarion liked it best, his spiny head pressed in between his shoulders. “Thank you for cleaning it. For mending it. You know, I had other ideas on how to interrogate you. Ones you may have liked more. I, unfortunately, worried that they may’ve worked against my goals.”
Astarion rubbed his cheeks. They were sore. Laugh lines…still such an insult! But, of course those ‘other ideas’ intrigued him. “Hm. Do tell. Perhaps I’ll find a way for you to make it up to me among them.”
“Of course. Anything for you. I suppose I owe you for ‘doing something nice for me’, as you put it. Something nice indeed. I will warn that I plan to use what I learned about you today at some point in the future. Use but never abuse. Does that sound like a fair deal?”
“You and I have different definitions of fair.”