Chapter Text
She can hardly believe they pulled it off. Any goblins within a ten mile radius are surely dead. If there are any they missed, surely Zevlor and the grove will handle it but for now the immediate threat is greatly diminished. Zira uses a tiny patch of the somewhat clean part of her sleeve to wipe off as much blood as she can off her face. A chorus of not quite laughing- not quite yelling ensues among her companions.
“ AHAH!”, Karlach exclaims into the sky, smiling as big as ever, “ Fuck yes, we did it!”, she looks over to Zira,
“ We just slaughtered more goblins than we can count on all our hands combined and all of us are still standing,’’ her tone full of genuine surprise and excitement.
Zira inhales deeply and releases a loud, uncontrollable laugh, expelling the heaviness of today.
“Easy for you to say,” Astarion mutters under his breath.
He leans against the column adjacent to the punch bowl they spiked mere hours ago. One of his legs is clearly injured the way he is holding it up.They are all so exhausted that everyone has decided to abandon whatever armor was weighing them down since it was covered in goblin blood. They’re all getting upgraded tomorrow anyway so currently they are only clad in their camp clothes at this moment.
Oh my god, the owlbear. She puts her celebratory mood on hold while she runs over to the obstacle course.She is filled with relief and sadness all at once when she spots him. The owlbear is frozen in fear in his cage, his shoulders hunched like a feral cat.
“ Hey buddy ,” she whispers, approaching cautiously. He eases his shoulders just slightly as she comes over and opens the cage.
“ Is it safe? Are they all gone”.
“Every last one of them,” she says in a soft voice, " I am so sorry for what happened to your mum, but you’re welcome to crash at my camp for a while. I can imagine you’ve had a rough couple of days”
It’s all he needs to hear to make him start prancing in place.
“Come with you!?”
Zira smiles sadly. Her heart swells at his ability to trust after all he’s been put through as a wee babe. She pats her thigh motioning for him to follow her as she makes her way back to her companions. he sees Karlach and Gale are taking a quick rummage through the pockets of the corpses lying about.Normally Astarion would be speed looting if it weren’t for his affliction. He goes to start trekking back to camp but instead gasps through his teeth in response to the attempt, once again taking advantage of the stone column next to him.
“ Are you gonna be able to walk back to camp?” Zira questions, looking him up and down trying to assess the damage.
He scoffs, “ Well, I don’t have much of a choice now do I?” He says with his typical dramatic flair, though it is clear he is trying to mask how much pain he is currently in. Any healing potions they arrived with were consumed like shots of liquor in between stabbings. They had to, to maintain their stamina for just how outnumbered they were moments ago.
She starts to reply in a teasing tone, “ Oh I don’t know … if you ask nicely I’m sure between me and Karlach we could-”
Before Astarion can change his mind he pushes himself off the column he’s leaning against with his left arm and lets his right fall around her shoulder, almost throwing himself at her. She plants her feet into the ground, not letting the weight of him knock her off balance. She tenses at his touch. This is his own personal hell. Showing weakness, accepting help from someone else in the form of touching. She can feel him shudder internally. Relying on someone else’s help to walk must be nauseating for him.Even without the use of their tadpoles or mind reading magic they’ve grown to be able to read each other quite well. She knows that he wouldn’t accept this type of special treatment had they not just spent the last few hours sending a fleet of goblins to the hells. He was simply too tired to refuse.
“ Aye soldier!” Karlach hollers in her direction, “ we’ll catch up in just a sec and we can take turns dragging his ass back. Sound good?”
Karlach also sees just how much he’d hate having an audience to witness him accepting such a vile act of kindness.
“ We are running short on supplies, you two take your time, we’ll get a head start.’’
For once Astarion has no comment.
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They’re halfway back to camp when she stops to catch her breath.
“ Hold on just a sec”
She slowly kneels to help Astarion sit so he doesn’t fall on the way down. Looking behind her she can see the tip of Karlach’s horns bob in the distance over the tall grass.
The’ve got catching up to do
“Thank you,” Astarion says, looking at the ground.
“Of course,” she says, trying to get him to look at her.
Other than the initial awkwardness of trying to find their footing, it has been a peaceful and quiet walk back which is very out of the norm for them. They usually banter back and forth all day but she supposes today has simply been too much for that.
“I’ll make it up to you, you know” he suggests, sitting up tall and smirking.
“For helping you out a little? Nonsense” she brushes him off, “ what was I supposed to do, let you crawl back?”
“ I wouldn’t have held it against you”
“ You know what you can hold against me?” she asks.
Shit. I hope that wasn’t too much.
She was just trying to break the ice.
“Ohhh?” he asks seductively, his eyebrows shooting up eagerly awaiting her response. It is clear to her he’s grateful to take the attention off his injury.
“I'm kidding !!” she says, rolling her head back and giggling, relieved that the idea didn’t disgust him.
“Hmm. A shame, really,” his tone still seductive
She blushes. It wasn’t unusual for them to flirt but his implications have become more direct recently. The way she sees it, his teasing will only ever be just that; teasing. A way for him to get a rise out of her for his own entertainment. Although she won’t hesitate to fantasize about him during her free time.
How does he look so good ALL the time? It is terribly distracting.
Fuck him and his beautiful hair. Curls and no mirror. Yet somehow always in place. Fuck him for that.
____________________________________________________________
Zira actually rather despised him when they first met. It wasn’t even the immediate deception or knife to her throat that made her dislike him. He was-no, is a douchebag. He is flirtatious with everyone, relentlessly cocky, and acts like he’s going to vomit every time she wants to lend a hand to someone outside of their circle. Gods forbid she might actually want to be the change she wants to see in faerun. It didn’t take long for her to learn the reason behind it all. Once she got him to open up and thought about his story for just a second, it all made sense. Everytime she paused their mission to help a damsel in distress it was like a slap in the face to Astarion. It was a painful reminder that in 200 years, not a single soul was there to help him. Seeing Zira go around being the hero every day, made him obsessed with the question; why them and not him? He suffered for an eternity for what? Why? Because he didn’t deserve saving ? Because there were no Ziras where he was being kept. She could hardly blame him for his feelings toward her altruism. The concept of selflessness was simply and genuinely foreign to him. He probably can’t remember the last time some one stuck their neck out for him. Anyone who had gone through that would’ve turned out worse. She wasn’t there to save him then. But she's here now.
___________________________________________________________
He is spent and absolutely going to crash the moment we get back to camp.
I cannot keep carrying around his dead- or undead weight around
Do I offer blood? No. Not the right time…or perhaps the best time?
They’re alone. The suggestion of feeding him has come up before as a joke but he seemed like he didn’t want to push his luck too far. Plus it was never the right moment. Plus would he even be into it? Do vampires care who they feed off of? She hates seeing him so weighed down. Embarrassed, grouchy, exhausted. She needs her sassy vampire back to his normal self and to free her hands. Weighing her options she decides to speak before she changes her mind.
“Hey. Uhm,” she looks down at her lap. Looking into his eyes would absolutely make her retreat,
“ I’m honestly holding up really well considering today’s adventure. Must be the adrenaline, and you look like you could use a boost. We’re probably all gonna take it easy tomorrow anyway, so-”
For a second she considers using the parasite since she can’t just spit it out until she realizes he is already crawling over to her, making her blush even more. She leans back onto her forearms as his left elbow stabilizes himself above the ground, his right hand cradling her head and moving it to the side. He apparently knows her well enough to know this is what she meant. She’s all the way on her back when she slams her eyes shut and tenses. He notices and yields. Instead of fangs, she’s met with an open mouth kiss where her neck meets her shoulder.
He wants me to relax into it rather than brace myself.
She lets go of the breath she was holding and puts a palm on his chest in case she needs to push him off. He continues kissing her neck, just behind her ear and under her jaw. The feel and sound of his breath are so close. Her body melts into the grass beneath her.They may not be in an established relationship but they do have an unspoken closeness about them. Even so, he was absolutely testing their boundaries. And she wasn’t going to complain about it. Part of her wanted to tell him to just do it already. On the other hand he could kiss her neck for a tenday for all she cared.
Karlach and Gale are going to catch up any moment
His incisors are on her ear lobe when she whispers,
“ Just do it”.
That was all the permission he needed.
His fangs plunge into her and his fingers tighten around her scalp.
“Kssss” she inhales sharply but the pain dissipates quickly. She places her hand on his bicep.
He’s moaning at how good it all feels and he doesn't care to hide it either. It was like experiencing candy for the first time ever or fresh water after a run. He takes three harsh gulps before slowing down to savor a couple more slow sips. He retracts his fangs but continues sucking harshly on the surrounding area, not letting any go to waste.
It’s going to be so bruised by tomorrow.
“Gods,” He groans loudly the same way one would when throwing themselves onto their bed after a long day of work,
“ Darling thank you, I am feeling so much better.”
He continues to hover over her for a moment.He hadn’t planned on making it so sensual but gods he regrets nothing. He erases any evidence he can with his tongue and kisses her neck once more before rolling off of her.
She avoids making eye contact, waiting for the butterflies to settle down before she can look at him.
“ We should keep moving,” he says , standing now that he’s acquired enough sustenance, holding out a hand to help her up.
She looks at it and reaches up to accept. He pulls her up much faster than she anticipated and perhaps he underestimated his newfound strength.. He takes advantage of the closeness once more and squeezes her into a tight embrace with her face against his chest, his lips close to her ear. She is smiling into his chest like a lovestruck teenager.
When their eyes finally meet she realizes she’s finally meeting the softer side of him that she wasn’t convinced even existed. The part of him he wouldn’t dare let the others see. He looks at her with adoration in his eyes but laced with something else. Like a muted hunger or lust but with more patience.
He grasps her neck firmly and for a second she fears the worst.
I’ve trusted a vampire. A godsdamn Vampire. What else was I expecting??
With one hand on the side of her neck, the other full of her hair, he kisses her slowly but yet without hesitation.
She sinks into his embrace and returns the gesture, sliding her fingers into his hair.
I’ve been wanting to do that for so long.
She had never been kissed slowly before but it’s all she’s ever wanted. Before it was always with impatience and pressure to advance quickly.
But this was pure serenity. It was as if nothing else mattered like he had all the time in the world to just kiss her. She could happily kiss him like this for-
“AHEM”
For fucks sake
In unison they sigh at the all too familiar sound of a certain know-it-all wizard.
“Care to help lighten the load of a hard working wizard who is eager to
get back so he can start on dinner for an ungrateful vampire?”
Astarion drives his fingers through the front of his hair in annoyance.
“But Oh! That shan’t be necessary now will it , now that he’s found some poor tiefling that’s fallen to his charms ready to bleed out for him!”
“ GALE-” Zira starts,
“ Gale,” Karlach starts ready to diffuse,
“How about, you oh so powerful wizard conjure up an arcane gate so you can simply… oh wait, you’ll just get stuck in your own portal again, AHahahah”
Zira forces Astarion forward along the trail as Karlach does the same to Gale, interjecting,
“ HEY GUYS, remember I threw Crusher at his Wife?”
That was enough to earn a roar of laugh from everyone except Gale who tried to continue,
“I’ll have you know,”
“AND THEN YOU ACCIDENTALLY CAST MAGE TITS”