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When did he fall asleep? The whisper of steps by the tent door wakes him up, a shadow outlined by the fire in the centre of the camp. He swats away the book he fell asleep with, and reaches for the dagger under his pillow.
"Astarion? Are you awake?"
He rubs his face and it takes him several tries, a couple of seconds, to swallow down the scream stuck halfway out. It's just Awbonee. It's not the Gur from the swam or any other mercenary, it's not one of his siblings or one of the thousand monsters that could form in their wake. It's just Awbonee. Astarion rubs his eyes.
"For you? Of course, darling," he mumbles after returning the dagger to its place. Awbonee lifts the tent flap and slinks inside, letting it fall behind her. "To what do I owe this pleasure?"
Awbonee turns towards him, kneeling at his feet, and whoever was in charge of the bonfire that night must have been burning half the forests of the Sword Coast, for the flames seem to have come inside the tent with her, a pulsating heart of orange light and embers that moves in waves. In this light Awbonee's skin looks golder and her scars seem almost gone. Astarion wonders where her dress has come from, just for a second, because it is not her style, not at all, that gauzy white that almost betrays each and every freckle, the cut so high it could be a shirt, lifting in a breeze that she must have brought inside with her, along with the fire.
"I couldn't sleep," Awbonee offers as an explanation. When she crawls towards him Astarion shivers and extends a hand towards her, and she's already come close enough to touch her face, and then her neck, and then down her shoulder to put aside that little bit of fabric holding it in place.
"So you thought you would come to keep us both awake?"
"If that is fine with you."
Not that there is any other option, Astarion reminds himself instantly, but also, maybe, maybe he is fine with it. Just because he had to do it it didn't mean he couldn't enjoy it, the old mantra. Maybe he can convince himself it is not an obligation now, or maybe he can actually convince it isn't, or maybe, maybe, maybe it isn't tonight. In the decidedly too strong light of the fire seeping through the canvas, and under his fingers, Awbonee is the centre of all warmth and, whether by obligation or not, she makes some parts of Astarion come back to life the closer she gets. So to speak.
Without waiting longer Awbonee throws his blanket to the side and undoes his trousers, and when she straddles him Astarion's hands snake up her thighs and the warmth spreads its fiery tendrils. Awbonee bucks her hips and looks inside his eyes.
Awbonee takes her dress off and is naked, her skin gold and orange and volatile. The burns on her face are nothing more than a soft cloud of blush, shape changing, the fire erasing them, like it is taking them back this time. Astarion feels he should say something about the dress about the heat about walking around camp almost naked looking for trouble, but all he can do is hold on to her hips and try to keep a sliver of control, his tongue tied.
Awbonee leans without stopping and stares into his eyes, and the black humours in her shattered eye float away, and she looks down at him with a gaze like sunrise.
"I love you. And you love me, don't you?"
"I adore you," he assures her, almost not choking on the words at all. And it used to be such an easy lie too, too easy, a second language, and unlike the other day during the party, this time Awbonee smiles and takes it, and takes him, and moans, but it leaves a bitter taste in Astarion's taste again and a lump in his throat that does not go away when he grabs her by the neck and kisses her, eyes closed, and he doesn't know if he's trying to assuage her or himself.
Her tongue tastes of smoke and ashes.
wrong
oh gods
"Damaged goods, but she will still do. Are you losing your touch, boy?"
And Cazador's voice cuts through the fire and the tent and there's no camp anymore, no warmth nor lies, no tadpole nor the chance of a new sunrise —Astarion's back in the boudoir, again. He's brought Awbonee with him. He's brought Awbonee to him.
"No," he croaks.
—and tries to grab her arms but her skin has turned cold, and when Astarion looks at her he knows she knows, she knows what is going to happen to her even before Cazador curls his hands round her neck. She knows whose fault it is.
The blood spurts over his face and Astarion screams.
He screams within the nightmare, but wakes up in silence, choking in a familiar flavour. He learned not to scream in his sleep back in the kennels, because screams always attracted monsters, and those monsters added up to the impressive catalogue of reasons to avoid trance, but sleep was not much better. Astarion has nightmares every night but never, ever screams.
When he throws the flap door to the side and the fire is almost extinguished, when he feels the tadpole nesting behind his left eye and the cold of the darkest time of night, when he sees Awbonee is not in her sleep roll, then, then he almost screams.
He stumbles out of the tent and turns around, tripping with a foot still in the nightmare and the other in the camp, wet with dew. Every other tent is close and dark, he can't smell any other would, he can't hear anything beyond the ordinary, the only one missing is Awbonee. And Scratch.
Astarion swallows and tries to whistle the four note melody she has heard her use to summon the mutt. He's not sure he's managed until the berry bushes between Lae'zel and Karlach's tents shudder. Scratch breaks through them crawling on its belly and it is only when Astarion squats in front of it that he realises he has no way to communicate with it. He —more like Awbonee— is all out of potions.
"Awbonee?" Keeping things simple. Hearing the name, Scratch gets off its arse and does a little trot thing, its tail swatting away happily. Not a bad sign on itself but Astarion rubs his face and tries, for a few seconds, to think like a dog. Something that is half memory half knowledge comes to mind, hounds pointing at dens, and he has no clue what kind of mutt Scratch is beyond "relatively big" and "good at finding recent graves", but he tries anyway. "Where's Awbonee, Scratch? Where? Search? Find?"
"Are you OK?" Awbonee appears at his side, made of smoke, and twothings happen to Astarion: she makes him jump but he manages to disguise it as simply standing up, and the knot in his chest starts fading. She is not really made of smoke, not this time, but he's a bit wounded that it took her getting so close they could hug to realise she was near. Scratch turns around them a couple of times before settling close to Awbonee's hand, who instinctively moves to scratch its ears, but she doesn't look away from Astarion's face. "Astarion, are you OK?"
"Where in the seven hells were you? I came out looking for you and you were vanished, at this time of night, without telling a soul?" The words tumble out in a whisper several degrees more frantic and urgent than he would like, and he hates how it makes him sound because he didn't see it coming, and he puts his hands on his waist and tries to regain the advantage. "If you are going to be the first to become a tentacled thing in the middle of the night, we would all appreciate a bit of warning. Some screams, if it isn't too much of an inconvenience. I would hate to go to my roll as myself, and wake up with a split skull, you know."
"I couldn't sleep so I was checking on the traps. Tadpole is still a tadpole," she explains. Her hands are empty so she must be talking about the web of protective spells and lures and jangling thingamagigs she and Gale have weaved around camp.
It makes perfect sense, really, and the night is back to normal, and Awbonee's face is fucked again, and Astarion still feels sick while her ruined eye inspects his face.
"You don't look great."
"How fucking dare you, I have the best face in camp by far." Astarion grumbles but when he rubs his cheekbone the skin is cold (more than usual) and slightly sticky with sweat (definitely not the usual).
Awbonee smiles a little, tiny bit, even if the quip doesn't deserve it, to be nice - a pity smile that shows no teeth.
"Have you fed today?"
She hasn't offered and he hasn't bothered looking for an alternative because the night was cold and Karlach and Wyll were talking about seedy taverns in the Gate, names that he knew, and something close to nostalgia kept him there drinking wine and almost remembering songs that they hadn't had to force themselves to forget.
When he shakes his head Awbonee nods.
"Give me a second if you want, I need to stir the embers and brush Scratch, he has… Go back to your tent? You're almost blue."
Astarion obeys and she disappears between two tents again, followed by Scratch and its waggy tail, elated to have so much company that night.
The tent is as dark as always and all the shadows are real. The nightmare is already losing its aura of inevitability. When he sits down Astarion breathes deep, even if he doesn't need it, just to feel the gasp of air sweep the taste of ash on its way out.
Awbonee enters the tent just like in the dream, but now that he is awake he realises how stupid he was to be deceived by the vision, no matter how many freckles it had, no matter how much he wanted her to get close. It makes his terror even more embarassing. But all his nightmares are the same, why would this one be different? It's just a new character. He could have dreamed the same of anyone, he tells himself.
The real Awbonee crawls toward him and Astarion grinds his teeth because he's not sure about her intentions and he wants to tell her he doesn't want to do anything tonight but he will if she has to, and then it is entirely possible he will never touch her again without that shadow between them, as much as he might want it. Because he doesn't know yet, now, this night out of all nights, where the line between his desires and the desires of others lies.
But before he can choke on words that cannot make sense, Awbonee turns her back to him and sits down, and in pulling her hair to one side she turns the transaction into something simpler, only hunger and only nourishment. Astarion kneels next to her. Her neck is cold under her fingertips, good cold, night cold, not dead cold, and the faint memory of recent water. It is not the first time he notices, but it is the first time he wonders out loud.
"Did you go for a dip?"
"I was sweaty, I washed my neck," whispers Awbonee while she opens her shirt down to the shoulder.
"You do remember I eat rats."
"Rats are actually very clean animals," explains Awbonee with a smile and without turning, leaving her neck and the blood running under eat exposed. "They dedicate a lot of time to clean themselves, and… ah"
Astarion closes her arms around her and sinks his teeth deep, low down the artery, and closes his eyes to let the warm blood erase everything else for a second, that blessed moment where the hunger is sated. Awbonee tensed briefly when his teeth broke skin, her body betraying her willingness, but she breathes deep and becomes softer, and Astarion has to hold her tighter to feel her breathe, almost making her breathing his own, the ghost of his own heartbeat whispering in her blood. When Awbonee puts her hands on his arm the fingertips are cold.
"Astarion…" she whispers, and the whisper also echoes in her blood, and his name sounds foreign and sweet. Astarion mumbles an absent mmmmh? against her neck. "Astarion, you're choking me. Loose. Please.
It takes him a few seconds to understand what he needs to do, lost in the blood, but he relaxes his grip enough for Awbonee to exhale and nod, letting her weight fall against him. He cradles her, swaying slightly back and forth, and lets the nightmare be washed from his veins, and he can't say it is an easy thing to do but after several waves he has come to know the moment when she swallows and prepares herself to ask him to stop, and to make him stop if needed. So he stops before being told.
As soon as his mouth lifts Awbonee covers the wound with a rag that smells like medicine and buttons her shirt again, her movements made difficult by the fact that Astarion's arms are still around her.
"You can feed when you need it, you know. It's an open invitation, there is no need to go hungry" Awbonee whispers, still without turning back to look at him.
Astarion opens his palm against her heart and clears his throat, and he doesn't know what to say, so he says nothing. A jumble of Karlach's words run laps in his head and he knows he is taking too much, he is being too greedy, because Awbonee wants to be there and it is too easy. And it would be so easy to reward her in the only way he knows how and erase the debt he's acquiring, but she does not move, does not search him. And he is very much aware of her shape under the shirt and how the only working heart between the two of them skipped a bit when his lips landed, but he is also trying to go against two hundred years of the same script, what is expected of him, what he's grown used to expect from himself.
He is not expecting what Awbonee says next.
"You had a nightmare, didn't you? About Cazador."
His name in someone else's voice feels too much like a beacon. It makes him break apart from the embrace and realises too late he did not want to do that. And since he has already ruined the moment he may just as well go all the way in.
"I hope that you have not taken advantage of our little visitors to go rummaging in my head while I was distracted." He summons all the spite he can gather. "It would be a clumsy move, and a problem."
Of all the weirdos, of all the cultists with their wormy visions, of all the madmen in their little camp, Astarion knows Awbonee is far down the list of most likely to come within someone's head without knocking. She wouldn't do it to a goblin, would she really do it to him? Maybe he really is losing his touch.
Awbonee was not looking at him and now she turns her face to look at him even less. He can only see the curve of her jaw, burnt and rough and angry. For the first time Astarion realises she's constantly fidgeting with something in her right hand, too small to be a weapon or a potion.
"Yes. I had a nightmare," his tongue betrays him and half-confesses. "The usual, you know, torture, murder, slavery, two hundred years of untold horrors… just another night in Baldur's Gate"
I dreamed about you and at first it was good, except that I lied to you, like I lied to everyone else, and then I got you killed, like everyone else does not really fit the explanation, thank the gods, because Astarion did not want to explain to begin with, and yet there he is, sort of kind of explaining himself.
Awbonee turns around to hand him the thing in her hand: a round tin with a banged up cover, slightly bigger than a spoon. Astarion opens it and it's half full with a dark paste, whether brown or dark blue is impossible to tell in the dark. The smell is familiar but he cannot place it.
"It's mostly harrowseed," Awbonee starts explaining.
Astarion doesn't bother mentioning he has no clue what that is, but the smell tickles his brain, warm and comforting.
"So what kind of visions are we talking about here, from 'Elephants dancing the quadrille' to 'The moon wants to gouge my eyes out'?"
"It is not that kind of harrowseed."
"So there is one that does give me visions and you brought this one instead of the one with elephants? I should get you banished from camp. I am sure the druid has some of the really fun ones."
And finally, Awbonee smiles. She hadn't in all that time and Astarion was dangerously close to feeling guilty, and he really does not want to feel guilty about anything else tonight. He's tapped out.
"It is for your nightmares, to avoid them or to calm yourself afterwards. It lets you sleep without dreams. So… the opposite of the elephants. It makes you feel safe.
"I thought I recognised the smell."
"Harrowseed doesn't have a smell, it works on contact. The smell is just some juniper and verveine." Astarion could have sworn the smell was already working, but maybe it is just the tide of blood that he can still feel in his tongue. "You rub it on your forehead or your temples until it melts."
"You are going to have to do it for me," and when Awbonee laughs he shakes his head. "I am not joking, darling. Your fingers may be cold but, I can promise, mine are colder."
She finally turns toward him when he hands her the tin.
"Lie down then. Make yourself comfortable."
Astarion hesitates for a second, searching those six words for a hidden meaning, because of course he has heard them before, probably even in the same combination, but they never meant only what they were supposed to mean. He turns away from her and stirs for a while, and when he finally settles down in a very much not seductive foetal position, he feels more than hears Awbonee lying down behind him.
The ointment is surprisingly cold and quite sticky. Awbonee draws small circles from his temples to the end of his eyebrows, and Astarion closes his eyes. He has his doubts about the effectiveness of that kind of thing on spawn, but would not say no to the massage. From time to time Awbonee raises her hand in the air, and Astarion realises he cannot be comfortable, her hand floating around him without touching beyond her fingertips. He grabs her elbow and brings her to his back without opening his eyes. And also without thinking, because the first contact against his scars always makes him grit his teeth, even through fabric, but the familiar nausea fades almost immediately and then there's only Awbonee's warm extending across his shoulder blades while her arm finds a perch around his neck.
"Do go on," he commands, and on commanding realises he is falling asleep, his tongue halfway there, heavy with drowse. And he is falling asleep and his belly is full and he is falling asleep but not asleep like sunrise when he had to hide in the kennels and sleep is a bramble around his eyes, not asleep like forcing himself down to avoid trance and sleep is a stone around his neck. This must be what a ship adrift must be like, he imagines, or like that beach and that first sunrise after the fall, like the tide coming and going and coming and going but closer every time until the rocks have been swallowed. Yes, it is like that, and he must be the rocks, gone away from a world that was, for a moment, a little bit softer.
Awbonee's fingers have ran out of ointment and just draw the curls in his head, and he thinks she is humming something always humming something some strange melody and he wants to tell her to sing louder but the tide is winning and he falls in a dreamless sleep, anchored to the bottom of the sea.
He wakes up and it is daylight and Awbonee is not there, only the smell of juniper and something else she said, and the little ointment tin, and some kind of wolf? ocelot? pelt she has laid on top of him that still smells of musk. The camp is simmering with activity but he lies down again and plays with the tin between his fingers. There's some condensation on the canvas, shiny beads of breath that isn't his, and he wonders how long did Awbonee stay.
He is definitely not losing his touch, and he can't avoid mentally patting himself on the back. He opens the tin and smells it again, and regardless of what Awbonee says there is something to that smell, even if it is subtler that whatever root snuffed his dreams for the night. He breathes deep and smiles, rested, well fed, the sun still on his side, and wonders if it would be too much to kiss Awbonee good morning, just as a thank you, or maybe a kiss and a bit of contact, his face on her clean neck, or her hair, which smells of herbs in the mornings.
Halfway down his knuckles the tin stumbles and drops to his chest and yes, he did know that smell. He has smelled it before, in her, of course. He has smelled it before near her bedroll and in passing during breakfast, and it made him smile a moment ago but now he's not smiling. He is -slowly, but faster than he'd like- realising he had already memorised it, the soft, trivial smell no one cares about, and somehow he has cared about it and stored it somewhere inside him, tied to something warm and safe, tied to her and to himself.
And he did it without thinking or planning or even fucking wanting to.
He just went
and
did it.
"Oh," he groans to the canvas full of dew. "Oh no."