Chapter Text
The bouquet in Wyll’s hand felt far heavier than a three-copper bunch of posies. The flowers felt like they were cast out of lead, and crossing the threshold of his home Wyll felt a sudden deep regret that he had not passed them to someone else on the street. Perhaps one of the household staff would enjoy it, for he couldn’t bear to throw it away and to see it wither on his mantelpiece –
Wyll was surely being dramatic. His love was distractible. Eccentric. To ignore a good night message and then fail to arrive at their following date was not inevitable calamity. Perhaps he had forgotten. Perhaps there would be a message waiting for Wyll come morning.
But Wyll could not help worrying he had overstepped. Aster hadn’t asked for his judgement on his work, or his protection, and Wyll had opened his mouth anyway – and if they’d been seen together, he might have lost Aster a customer. Wyll couldn’t regret that, not after his client treated him so poorly, but Aster might be upset with him anyway. For all that Aster had been the one who’d sought Wyll out on that balcony, he couldn’t pretend he hadn’t hoped hiding himself away might cause the man to appear at his side. He didn’t even know which of the patriars Aster might have been attending alongside, so he couldn’t make discreet inquiries – and that was for the best, because it wasn’t Wyll’s business, and he shouldn’t meddle.
Wyll spotted Marta on the stairs and forced a smile on his face. She was the youngest of the staff and had an anxious disposition; it was easy to give her the misimpression of disapproval if Wyll didn’t mind his expression.
Marta didn’t look cheered to see him or the flowers. She hurried towards him and started speaking without even a hint of a curtsy – which Wyll did not mind at all, but was so out of character for Marta that he instantly worried someone had died. “Saer, there’s a package in your rooms,” Marta said.
Wyll resisted the urge to raise an eyebrow like his father would have at such an unhelpful opening statement. “That’s quite alright, Marta. When was it delivered?”
“But that’s the thing, Saer Ravengard! It wasn’t delivered!” Marta said. “It simply – showed up. Like magic.”
“Likely it was magic,” Wyll said. “I have several friends gifted in the arcane arts and poorly trained in pleasantries and etiquette. A surprise present from Gale might well materialize in my bedroom with nothing amiss. I’ll go up and check on it.”
The thought occurred to Wyll that he had another friend that might want to give Wyll a gift in consolation for missing their planned date. He suddenly was very anxious to go upstairs and see this mysterious package for himself.
Marta bit her lip. “What if it is something amiss, Saer? It’s a very large box.”
“Look, Marta, why don’t you run and fetch two guardsmen, just in case I need assistance?” Wyll remembered only after the woman was halfway down the hall that he’d intended to pass off the flowers to her. He’d had a whole line planned about how the poppies matched the red apron she was wearing…he’d ask her later. First, there was a mystery to uncover!
Wyll took the stairs two at a time up to his chambers. His new chambers – they’d lived in family housing at Wyrm’s Rock for most of his childhood, but the rooms that had been Wyll’s between his father’s ascension to Grand Duke and his banishment had held too many memories to return to. In any case, the new Ravengard Manor was more to his taste than the old Ducal Residence. He preferred the longer walk between his home and the High Hall to settle his head in the morning. There might be less pomp and gilding in his chambers, but it was still a fair sight grander than any roadside campsite. The wooden shipping crate looked quite entirely out of place.
The crate was maybe half Wyll’s height, and very well-made. Tongue-in-groove hardwood planks, not a chink or crack between them, sanded smooth and oiled to have a buttery luster. It hadn’t even ruffled the carpet in its arrival. Wyll hadn’t lost all his aptitude for magic with his pact – he spent as much time as he could at the Bard’s college, honing the connection between word and sword and the arcane – and he could taste the remnants of the teleportation in the back of his throat. Or maybe that was the spell coiled still within the crate, because there was a ribbon tied round the thing with an enormous bow at the front. Pull here to open, it practically screamed, and Wyll could feel that faint harmless opening spell on his fingers when he brushed against the silk. There was no writing on the outside of the crate at all.
Wyll laid the bouquet on one of the chairs and considered his options. He could wait for the guardsmen Marta was fetching to arrive. Upon being outnumbered, someone would insist they call in a Harper with arcane training to open the box at a distance and carefully observe for explosives, poisons, curses, etcetera. And that was lovely. It was lovely that everyone cared so much about his safety.
But if this was a gift from Aster of a more…intimate nature, he would rather not have Jaheira there inspecting it. And if he were cursed, removing curses was no great trouble.
Wyll took the ends of the ribbon and pulled.
As he had expected, the ribbons had secured the crate together magically and the whole front of the delightful contraption swung open.
As he very much had not expected, a snarling, naked vampire lunged out of the crate and tried to kill him.
Wyll’s first thought, inanely, was that the vampire must have been packed in there very compactly, and that must be hell on the joints. It was a good thing that Wyll got the package open right quick.
His second thought was that the crate must have been magically soundproofed, because the spawn attempting to tear his throat out did not seem to have the patience or cunning to have waited in complete silence and only begin growling and snarling now.
His third, most stupid, thought was that it was just like those elaborate paperboard birthday cakes that people would have at parties, with the erotic dancer popping out as a surprise. Except that the surprise naked man was a vampire and people did not generally try to kill you at your birthday.
He hadn’t had a birthday yet as Grand Duke. There was still time. Maybe.
They hit the floor and rolled. Wyll tried to get his arm between the oncoming fangs and his throat. The vampire’s claws raked across his face. Wyll kneed the vampire in the groin. It yelped, recoiled for a moment. Wyll tried to get his feet back under him – his sword was by the door where he’d left it. There was blood sheeting down his face, but his heart was pumping and the world seemed so slow now that the battle was upon him. It was only eight steps to the door.
A hand grabbed him by the ankle. The floor careened up to meet him, and he landed, badly, on his left arm. The pain dazed him for a moment as the spawn climbed up onto his back, grabbed him by the horns and slammed his head against the ground. Something broke and blood flooded his mouth. Wyll had the thought that he should probably call for help. Vampire spawn don’t carry their strength in hulking muscles, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t kill you.
Someone yelled: “the Duke!” and someone screamed. Wyll couldn’t see very well through the blood, but presumably the rescue party had arrived, because the snarling creature on his back was torn away.
Wyll laid there, stunned and hurting, for a moment. Then he gathered his wits enough to yell, “Don’t kill it!”
“Saer?” someone shouted back, sounding deeply skeptical. There was an awful crash, and the sound of splintering wood. Wyll tried to mop the blood out of his eyes with his shirtsleeve and discovered the great radiating pain that was his nose. Fuck, that was definitely broken.
“We need to find out who sent it,” Wyll panted, “I need it alive!”
“Fucking hells, stay down,” the guard – Torm – said. Wyll thought at first he must be talking to Wyll – but no, that must have been directed at the vampire. Torm was a polite fellow and would have included a ‘saer’ if he’d been cussing at Wyll.
There was another snarl, and then a meaty sort of thump and silence finally fell on the room, punctuated by heavy breathing as every combatant tried to catch their breath. Squinting, Wyll could see Torm and another fellow perched atop the vampire. There was a broken chair leg sticking out of its back, and the other guard had apparently been swinging their cudgel to hammer it into the vampire. A good strategy. A stake to the heart would paralyze a vampire, but not kill them.
“Good work,” Wyll said. “Are either of you hurt?”
“Saer, we’re not the ones you should be worrying about! Please sit down,” Torm said, waving his arms frantically.
In the distance, Wyll could hear the booming voice of Ulder Ravengard approach. They would soon be overrun.
Wyll had faced down devils, monsters, the specter of death. A death god’s avatar, once. He’d never backed down from a fight, only chosen moments to make temporary tactical retreats. Facing the thought of explaining to his father that he’d chosen to open a magically delivered, obviously arcane, unlabeled and unexpected package alone in his room without a sword to hand, Wyll decided it would be a great idea to stand up very quickly in hopes that the blood loss would make him pass out.
Thank fuck for small mercies, because the world went dark right on cue.
“When you’re finished, boy.” Cazador’s fingers crooked, a master’s gesture to a loyal lapdog.
Astarion pressed his face against the carpet – rough wool, red and gold filigree – and panted for breath. The venom in his blood burned, and his muscles were knotted and aching, but the worst of the convulsions had passed. The sun splayed across the bed where Cazador sat, making the white of his shirt blinding and illuminating all the bits of dust against the black wool of his trousers. Cazador watched him, unburned by the sun, a smudge of blood at the corner of his mouth where he’d helped himself to the meager blood in Astarion’s neck. Not unaffected by his suffering.
Cazador’s trousers revealed how the sight of him writhing in pain affected his master.
“Thank you father,” Astarion murmured. He pushed himself to his knees, then to his feet. The sun spilled across his bare chest and ached like a hand pressing down against a bruise. But he did not burn, and he did not die.
Cazador had decided he would not.
The night before his siblings souls were torn away to the hells, Cazador had him fetch back a very particular request – an elf with pale skin, similar in stature to Astarion. Once the man was thralled and helpless, Astarion had been made to lie down on the soiled sheets beside him so Cazador could strip the skin from his back. Next went the thrall, paralyzed but not immune to the pain as he skin was cut away. Cazador had rubbed the man’s blood into the raw muscle of Astarion’s back with his hands before stitching up his canvas. Astarion was left on the sheets while the new spawn took his place in the ritual.
Astarion perched on Cazador’s lap, turned to the side so he could see the smooth, unblemished skin in the mirror at the foot of the bed. Cazador’s arm wrapped round his waist as he tipped his head forward for a kiss.
Astarion did as he was bid, licking the remnants of his own blood off Cazador’s face and then letting him kiss the taste back out of his mouth till there was nothing there but numb, acrid venom. Cazador rearranged him like a doll, knees splayed, bare skin against wool and silk. In the mirror he looked like a wraith, all bones and skin and wild eyes. He glowed in the sun, something otherworldly. The light pressed against the bruise that was his flesh and held him there.
Before Cazador’s ascension, Astarion had dreamed of seeing himself in mirrors, of walking in the sun, of drinking from blood from living creatures that hadn’t gone to rot. And now he had his every wish and also his master’s undivided attention.
The gods didn’t go around granting wishes unless they could twist them into nightmares.
“I think I’ll have you in red this evening,” Cazador said, reaching over to pluck a hinged mahogany jewelry case from the bedspread. Astarion dutifully took the teardrop rubies from the case, each in turn, and pierced his skin till he glimmered from ear to naval with imitation blood drops. There was nothing left in his own body to bleed. Then Astarion pressed his palms against his belly, where the stone he’d swallowed lay within his shriveled stomach, and called upon the stone’s magic. He summoned a pink flush to his skin and a scattering of freckles along his arms and legs. He replaced red eyes with emeralds, and silver hair with red curls. He softened the harsh lines of his cheekbones and chin, flesh over his ribs, but never too much. His ears he left long, to suit Cazador’s preference.
Cazador ran his fingers through Astarion’s hair. “An obedient boy I’ve made of you,” he said, “though you’ve still no eye for beauty.” Then, pushing aside Astarion’s hand to press against the stone and take over the spell, he dismissed the freckles across Astarion’s cheeks and lengthened his hair, sharpened the knobs of his collarbone and deepened the flush of his nipples while constricting his cock. Then the spell was set, and Astarion could feel the amulet pulsing inside of him, simulating a heartbeat as it warmed him from the inside out. The boy in the mirror looked young. Astarion felt older than ever.
“Get dressed, boy. We’re going out tonight.”
Wyll was very lucky to be alive, he had been told repeatedly, by the cleric and then by Jaheira and then by his father. He did not point out that, as Grand Duke, there was literal diamond dust set aside in case of his untimely demise – it was easier to fund resurrecting a duke than get the Council of Four to agree on the selection of a replacement. It would have spoiled their fun to cut short the lectures. And besides, he’d been impulsive and he did deserve it.
There’d been times when Wyll would have needed to nurse a concussion and some broken bones for a month, hard up between hunts and at the mercy of Mizora’s whims for healing. It was difficult to grow accustomed to climbing out of bed with nary an ache only a few hours of lecturing. Frankly, if they’d cut short the lecturing, Wyll could have been out of bed to check on his assassin earlier.
Jaheira, unamused by his insistence the vampire should be kept alive, had gone down to check on the arrangements made by his guards. She came back frowning and told him they wouldn’t be getting anything out of the spawn. “It has gone feral,” she said. “Nothing in its head but pain and anger. I do not like you taking risks like this, cub. The Harpers could hold it.”
“I think I’m allowed some personal stake in people who try to kill me,” Wyll said. “Speaking of, did you remove…”
“You are too soft. Yes, I healed the monster that tried to kill you. I will assist no more in this fool plan. You will let me know if you need anything,” she said, before leaving him to the mercy of his father.
Wyll might not have had much experience with vampires, but he knew enough. Spawn did not simply spring out of thin air, nor did they shove themselves in enchanted soundproof shipping containers and mail themselves to city leaders. Somewhere, there was a true vampire who wanted Wyll dead. Or else, there was a true vampire turning people and selling them as disposable assassins. Either way, there must be a way to track them down. Wyll would figure this out, and they would rout out the vampire and then…and then Wyll would figure out what to do with his spawn assassin.
The advantages of living in Wyrm’s Rock became apparent at times when there were assassins to keep contained. The guards had relocated the spawn to the wine cellar, which was infrequently visited, dark, and had a single defensible exit.
The Fist trained dogs to sniff out magic contraband and run down thieves; someone had run across town and brought back one a spare kennel while Wyll was unconscious. The guards explained that they’d managed to secure the vampire inside the cell prior to Jaheira removing the stake and healing it, so there’d never been any risk to the staff. Wyll thanked them for their quick thinking, and went down the stairs alone.
A rattling growl started the moment he opened the door and didn’t let up his whole walk down the stone steps. The kennel the guards had borrowed was intended for bloodhounds, and the vampire could have easily laid down without touching the sides. But the guards had taken no chances – there were manacles around each wrist, fastened to the bars at the front of the cage, forcing the vampire to kneel with hands in front of him. The vampire snarled and lunged at him as Wyll stepped closer, the manacle chains ringing against the bars. Wyll took a step back, hands raised.
He hadn’t gotten much of an impression of the spawn while they were trying to kill him except “pale” and “naked”. He was no less pale and naked than he’d been upstairs. The spawn had been an elf once, and his ears were pinned back, held tight against the mess of greasy grey hair. His eyes glowed ruby-red, gems sunken into his face. The knobs of his spine were like a jagged mountain range, the whorl of red skin marking where Jaheira had molded flesh back into place. There were no other marks on him, so Jaheira must have healed the rest as well. Or else the spawn was so bloodless that he couldn’t raise a bruise.
“Hey, hey,” Wyll said softly. He took a step closer. “I haven’t come to hurt you.”
The vampire flinched, tugging on the manacles as he tried to shimmy further back in the cage to get away. Wyll stopped. The vampire stopped. Wyll took a step back.
They stared at each other warily and Wyll decided his best option was to sit down. Jaheira had called the spawn feral, and she knew a great deal more of vampires than he did. Or, at least, she knew a great deal more about the killing of vampires. He wasn’t sure whether she had any other experience with them. But in the absence of better information he’d treat the spawn like the more bestial sort of monster he’d faced in the wilds and convey as much as possble through body language and tone.
He wasn’t angry at the vampire. They hadn’t packed themselves away in the shipping crate and planned his assassination, clearly. Wyll wanted answers. He wanted the person who’d sent the spawn to kill him.
…being that he wasn’t angry at the vampire, Wyll felt a certain amount of compassion for the condition his employees had left them in. The cellar was cold, and the vampire was naked. The cage bars must have been horribly uncomfortable to kneel on. And the spawn’s gaunt body had no padding to spare him from the bars or the cold. They could do better than this. Wyll would do better.
But first – he trusted Jaheira, but it was always best to see things through yourself. Wyll lifted the amulet of mind reading from beneath his shirt and said the invocation to trigger the spell. He reached out for the other presence in the room, tried to sniff out some intelligent thought beneath the haze of hunger and pain and terror. An order or compulsion, the sound of his master’s voice.
The spawn, sensing his intrusion, whined. Wyll reminded himself the threat a vampire lord could pose to the citizens of his city. He pushed deeper.
But there were no words under the pain. Only a horrible emptiness, and memories of darkness.
Astarion shimmied the white shirt off and inspected the stain, a lurid splash of red wine all down the front. There was a basin sink – these patriars loved modern conveniences, what sort of club would lack running water in the toilets – but the patchouli scented hand soap wouldn’t budge the stain an inch.
He was expected to make an effort, though, before he came back to the table where Cazador was dining on frippery little appetizers and talking politics with men who had no clue what he was. They knew what Astarion was, though, or they knew what Cazador wanted him to be tonight. They’d been fucking him with their eyes all evening.
There was a knock at the door. Astarion glared at the wood paneling.
“This room is occupied, you’ll need to wait your turn,” he sang out, but he stepped closer in case it was Cazador on the other side of the door.
“I only came to offer my assistance. I saw there’d been a spill and I find prestidigitation takes wine out better than soap.” It was a man on the other side of the door, a stranger. Not someone Astarion had heard at Cazador’s private parties, nor one of Cazador’s seatmates for his adventures in fine dining. The man’s voice was warm with good humor, confident that whatever Astarion’s problems, they could take them in stride.
It was annoying, that was all. That was why Astarion opened the door with his shirt off, because throwing arrogant, unimportant men askance was one of the few pleasures he had these days.
And then he’d opened the door and the man was beautiful. Beautiful and not unimportant in any sense of the word. Astarion could add up the ridged horns with their gold caps, the red devil eye and distinguished scars. The man in the green suit now covering his eyes with a modest hand was the Grand Duke of Baldur’s Gate. Wyll Ravengard.
“I did not mean to intrude,” the Grand Duke said, still covering his eyes like a child.
Astarion laughed, only a little mean. “I’d rather not flash my tits to everyone in the corridor, so if you wouldn’t mind stepping inside?”
Miracle upon miracle, the man did. Astarion poked his head out the door to check for stragglers and snitches. The back corridor where the toilets were located was safely empty. He closed the door.
“I saw what Lord Szarr did,” the Grand Duke said, lowering his hand but still looking at the tile floor instead of Astarion. “I would have confronted the man if I thought my interruption would have been wanted.”
“It would not,” Astarion said, thanking his lucky stars this fool hadn’t attempted to embarrass Cazador in front of his pretentious fine dining rivals. The Grand Duke was perhaps the only man Cazador wouldn’t dare challenge or kill for the offense, so his fury would have come out of Astarion’s hide instead. There were a lot of empty cages in the depths beneath the manor, nice and small so you couldn’t move aside while his summons clawed at your eyes. Astarion forced a smile onto his lips and tried not to think about the fetid cages beneath the manor. “My clients amusements do me no harm, and they pay me handsomely for the privilege. For the same reason, I must decline the kind offer of magical assistance – the point of this game is that I should fail to rinse out the wine and return to my client with a shirt that is wet and thoroughly see-through. You’d ruin the fun.”
“I see,” the Grand Duke said skeptically. Astarion slid past him to deposit the shirt within the sink basin. The man’s pants were impeccably tailored, and hugged an ass so fine Astarion was shocked he hadn’t read odes to it in the newspaper. Really, the city was blessed to have such a terribly decorative civic leader. The man met his eyes, and Astarion felt something – nothing, he didn’t have an actual working heart – thrill in his chest. “And do you enjoy this ‘fun’?”
“Does the blacksmith enjoy hammering nails? Does the laundress enjoy stripping sheets? Do you enjoy listening to the tedious prattle of the Parliament of Peers? Very few careers offer solely pleasure,” Astarion let his voice rest on the word, savoring it. “But if you are so concerned with my enjoyment, Saer, you could offer me a taste of someone equally beautiful to myself.”
He didn’t really know what he was saying. He hadn’t wanted – full stop, he hadn’t wanted in years. But there was an opportunity before him that he might never see again. A man who he could find pleasure with, who Cazador couldn’t kill on a whim. One man in this whole sorry city he knew wasn’t aligned with Cazador or vulnerable to his schemes.
There was nothing so arousing as the thought of getting one over on the monster that thought he owned you.
“I see I needn’t introduce myself,” the Grand Duke said, touching one hand lightly to his horn. “I’m flattered. However, I’m afraid I have no need of hired company.”
“I don’t want you to hire me,” Astarion rolled his eyes. “If I were working for you, I would do whatever you wished, be whoever you wished. I wouldn’t talk back. I couldn’t be greedy. I have no shortage of rich men to work for, Wyll Ravengard. Sometimes I want to have fun. Do you ever get to have fun?”
Oh, what the fuck was he doing? No matter how hard Astarion pretended to be some – what? Upper-class escort? A hedonistic concubine? Even if he was such a thing, why would the Grand Duke of the city lower himself to such a thing? He could have whoever he wanted. There were probably young patriar scions throwing themselves at him right and left.
Wyll – it was easier to keep from apologizing in terror if Astarion thought of him as Wyll – looked past Astarion to the mirror behind them. He looked somberly into his reflection and said: “You’ll forgive me if I wonder about your motives. There’s many a reason to maneuver a man of my position into a compromising position. And if you intend to go to the newspapers and describe my cock to a sketch artist, I would prefer that you didn’t.”
“I solemnly swear not to kiss and tell. I want to get my mouth on you for purely un-untoward reasons. And are they really writing about the shape of your cock in the newspapers? Those nasty perverts,” Astarion said, but he couldn’t help being a bit impressed at the gall. “You know you could have them executed, right?”
“I’ve been a bit busy. No time to suppress the freedom of the press,” Wyll said. That was his second rhyming sentence in under a minute and Astarion was beginning to fear the man might have a horrible sense of humor. This feeling was very much confirmed when Wyll Ravengard, Grand Duke of Baldur’s Gate, reached into his vest pocket and offered Astarion a gold ring.
“Um.” Astarion stared at the thing like it was a snake. “I just wanted a shag, political wife really isn’t one of my ambitions.”
“The ring is enchanted, people who are wearing it can’t tell lies. I have it for screening potential bodyguard hires.” After the very well publicized assassination attempts, he meant. “Would you wear this and tell me you have no ulterior motives for wanting to fuck me?”
“Suck you,” Astarion corrected, plucking the ring from Wyll’s palm and slipping it on his ring finger just to be contrary. He could feel the truth magic settle over him, but for once there was nothing to weasel past saying. “I have no plans or schemes beyond this bathroom door. I’d like to suck you, because you’re beautiful and Cazador Szarr has pissed me off.”
“Will you keep whatever we do here a secret?”
“If anyone knew, it would ruin my life,” Astarion said. Which, fuck, a little too honest. He tried to hide it with a smile. “I prefer to not be the center of attention.”
“Fuck.” Wyll turned around and walked to the door. He really did have a wonderful ass, whoever had picked the short jacket had been doing the city a wonderful favor. Wyll spun on his heels and walked back, chin up. He held out his hand for the ring. “I’ve never done something like this. I’d always wanted to wait for true love, but true love didn’t work out. And there’s really no one in this city who doesn’t want something out of me and I have been – ” he rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, you don’t need my sob story. I’m lucky. I just wish people wouldn’t look at me like a flock of peacocks about to tear into a succulent sausage.”
“I know the feeling,” Astarion said. He slipped the ring off and Wyll took it back, tucked it away. “Sorry that love didn’t work out, darling. But a man like you? I’m sure you can find someone better. And in the meantime…I’m sorry, did you have to say the phrase ‘succulent sausage’? Are you aware of how sexual tension works? Do you talk like some sort of clown on purpose?”
Wyll grinned. “Your ears twitch when you’re offended,” he said.
“They do not,” Astarion lied.
Wyll stepped into his space, and slid one hand through Astarion’s curls to cradle the back of his head. They met in a soft, heart-fluttering kiss that made Astarion want to bite Wyll out of sheet sexual frustration. Wyll’s other hand brushed against Astarion’s ear, and he could feel the damn thing twitching against his palm. “Yes they do,” Wyll murmured triumphantly into the kiss.
“Shut up and kiss me properly,” Astarion ordered him, slipping his hands into Wyll’s back pockets. And alright, the second time was better. Astarion did appreciate a man who could take instruction.
Astarion slipped down to his knees like a dancer, trailing his hands over Wyll’s clothes as he went – oh, what a lovely silk vest, what a nice twill fabric for the coat, what a promising bulge beneath those fall-front trousers. The floor wasn’t even sticky; there was something to be said for bastards rich enough to have a wizard clean their floors. Astarion ought to do the whole eyelash fluttering thing, but he was really short on time here. There was only so long he could fool around before Cazador started wondering where he’d gone. He went for the buttons of Wyll’s fly.
Wyll’s cock was lovely. A bit more normal than he’d expected given the talk of secret newspaper exposes, but that was fine. It had a lovely purple-red flush with some cartilage ridges along the shaft. Astarion didn’t waste any time.
“Fuck – You didn’t tell me your name,” Wyll said, his hands hovering up in the air above Astarion’s head. “You have to tell me your name, please – ”
Astarion pulled back, feeling incredibly smug. “It’s Astar – ” wait. No. He should definitely not tell the Grand Duke his actual name, what the fuck was he thinking? “Aster,” he repeated, hoping it didn’t sound too awkward. “Like the flowers.”
“Aster,” Wyll said reverently. Thank the gods for oblivious horny people. “So good for me Aster.”
And so maybe Astarion showed off a little bit. His gag reflex had died sometime around the time grass grew in over the sad dirt on his grave, so deep-throating hardly even counted. He did it anyway. He didn’t have fangs in this form, which was basically cheating. Everything was so much easier when you didn’t have to worry about nicking an artery while sucking a guy off.
Wyll was quiet, thank gods, Astarion had been a bit worried from that begging at the start. But once he actually got into it, his noises dissolved into breathy little gasps. Maybe if you had loud orgasms in the woods monsters would eat you? Astarion didn’t have a fucking clue how the woods worked. Astarion had to reach up there and position Wyll’s hands on the back of his head before the man would touch him. Astarion also didn’t have a fucking clue how Baldur’s Gate had managed to elect an actual gentleman to Grand Duke. Seemed wrong. The people in charge of this city were supposed to be scumbags.
Wyll apparently wasn’t, and made a valiant attempt to warn Astarion so he could pull off. Which Astarion didn’t, because he didn’t feel like it. He wouldn’t confess this to anyone except under force of compulsion, but non-blood bodily fluids still tasted alarmingly good as a vampire. He pretended they didn’t, because you were supposed to. But it was all blood in the end, apparently, or something. He’d wondered sometimes if during the years Cazador had fed him a fetid rat once a month he’d actually only been walking around off the come he’d digested from his marks. He tried not to think about it too hard.
“Wow,” Wyll said. “That was – that was fast. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to – ”
Astarion pulled himself back to his feet and sauntered to the sink to wash his mouth out for kissing purposes. “Darling, if I didn’t want to make it fast, I could have kept you there all night. Unfortunately, I really do have to suck and run. I can only pretend to not wash a shirt for so long.” He dumped the shirt back into the sink.
“Aster, that’s cheating,” Wyll said, hugging him from behind and kissing the back of his neck. “I didn’t agree to let you give me all the pleasure and take none for yourself. Can I have a taste of you? Please?”
“If I am late, my client is going to wonder what I’ve been doing. Skiving off work to seduce handsome young men is not good for my career, Wyll,” Astarion said.
“We can multitask,” Wyll said, breathlessly.
“Multitask,” Astarion repeated, skeptically.
Wyll kissed him, then slipped past Astarion to stand between him and the sink. With a ridiculous little shimmy like he was some sort of tropical bird, Wyll went down on his knees, the back of his head pressed up against the sink. He smiled at Astarion. “Multitasking,” he said, crooking his fingers at Astarion to lure him closer. “You can wash your laundry while I get a taste of you.”
“You are absurd.”
“Indubitably,” Wyll agreed.
Astarion hesitated. Cazador didn’t forbid him from letting men suck his dick, was the thing. It wasn’t specifically forbidden. No, Cazador took out his petty masculinity crisis out on Astarion in other ways. Mostly by making sure every time he took on a new shape, whether for hunting or as Cazador’s lapdog, Astarion’s cock was just small enough that everyone would feel need to comment on it. Not tiny, no, not unusable. Just small enough that everyone felt the need to fucking say something about it. It was so petty and stupid and Astarion wished Cazador would just go ahead and give him a cunt instead if he felt so threatened by Astarion’s completely average sized cock and balls. But Wyll was a gentleman. The worst thing he’d be likely to say was something about it being cute. Astarion could survive being called cute.
“You did ask nicely,” Astarion admitted and sat down on the bench – fancy bathrooms always had a bench – to unlace his shoes so he could get his pants off. Wyll Ravengard, Grand Duke of Baldur’s Gate, grinned and pumped his fist in victory as Astarion finally slipped out of trousers and underwear. He didn’t want his clothes mussed when he had to leave this room.
Astarion cast a baleful glance downwards. At least his body could get properly hard like this. When he wasn’t reshaped, his cock hardly ever got fully hard. Not enough blood in him, probably. Sizing things down helped with that. Which was one less humiliation. Or a substitute humiliation? What he wouldn’t give, sometimes, to at least suffer in dignity.
Wyll didn’t look disappointed though. He looked greedy, like there was nothing he wanted more than to get his mouth on Astarion’s annoyingly small dick and win a gold medal in tongue agility. “I’ve never done this before with someone who only had one cock,” Wyll admitted, running his hands along Astarion’s hips when Astarion finally stepped closer. “My last lover was a dragonborn. If I’m doing something horribly wrong, just tell me?”
Astarion swallowed his pride in the service of sex that sucked (ha) less. “Just be gentle, alright?”
“Of course,” Wyll agreed, and then proceeded to kiss his way down the side of Astarion’s dick. “Don’t forget your laundry, Aster.”
Astarion’s life was one absurdity on top of another. He had had plenty of weird sex. Mostly indulging other people’s fetishes, but there’d been some strange circumstances thrown in there. He had not ever had someone suck his cock while Astarion tried to wash a shirt before. Or pretended to try to wash a shirt. He’d gotten the thing wet and his hands were rubbing the fabric while Wyll reached up with one hand and rubbed at Astarion’s nipples. His other arm was wrapped securely around Astarion’s backside, and it was –
It was that his dick was half the size it was supposed to be, so all the nerve endings were closer together, and he was more sensitive. That was his excuse. Wyll looked insufferably smug when he pulled away, his face damp with sweat.
Astarion let the tap run, collected some water in his hands and held them to Wyll’s lips. Wyll let his lips fall open. Such plush lips. So kissable. Astarion felt like some sort of cleric, pouring an offering upon an altar. He didn’t usually get religious feelings about sex. Wyll just looked so perfect, like something out of an old fresco, fading away on the plasterwork of an ancient temple.
“You didn’t have to swallow,” Astarion chided him.
“I wanted to see if elves taste different than dragonborn.”
“They do,” Astarion said.
“They do!” Wyll agreed, grinning. When words came out of his mouth it was easier to forget that he looked like a carving made flesh, some perfect statue of a demigod kneeling at his feet. “And now I know.”
Astarion offered Wyll a hand up and gave up on the shirt. It was wet, that was the point. Good enough. He wrung the thing out and slipped it back over his head, fully translucent and making his skin crawl with the wetness. Ugh. “This was lovely, Wyll. Thank you for indulging me,” he said magnanimously, without pants on.
Wyll got up and brushed the wrinkles out of his dress pants with prestidigitation. “It was my pleasure,” he said.
“We should probably not arrive back at the dining room together,” Astarion said, slipping his smallclothes back on with all the dignity in a man wearing a sopping wet shirt. He sat down on the bench to wrestle with the pants. Cazador insisted on only the most form-fitting of leather trousers.
“Could I see you again?” Wyll asked. He had dimples when he smiled. “I know this was just for fun, and maybe spite. But you’re delightful, and I’d love to see you again. But if this is just a one-time thing, no regrets.”
“I’m hard to reach,” Astarion floundered. “I, um, I’m shielded from scrying. And sending spells. Most of the time. Because of, um, well. You turn a guy down as a client, he starts trying to get a peek of you with your pants around your ankles via divination. But – ” He was so stupid, there was no way this could end well. Maybe he could get away with this once. If he made a habit of it, Cazador would definitely catch him.
But what did it matter? Cazador would have to be suicidal to try and kill the Grand Duke. If he found out about this, he’d torture Astarion. Maybe he’d kill him. He’d probably do that anyway. It didn’t matter how hard Astarion tried to please him, Cazador wanted him to fail. He wanted an excuse to punish him. So there would always be an excuse.
“I understand,” Wyll said soberly. “I’m shielded against divination as well. If you change your mind, you certainly know where I live. I do read my mail, eventually, but generally someone else has looked at it first because they worry about assassins and powdered poisons – ”
“Wait.” Cazador had gotten quite spoiled since his ascension. He wanted fresh blood thrice a tenday, the same days each tenday. And since he’d sacrificed all his other spawn to a devil, the one fetching him dinner was always Astarion. “You can reach me after the stop-work bells on Twosday. I’ll be listening for you then. If you send me a sending, I’ll hear it.”
“Really?” Wyll asked, as if surprised by his good fortune that Astarion was interested in being taken for a tumble by the Grand Duke. A man who could procure the company of all the whores in the city for an orgy that hardly fit within the Ducal residence. He could hardly be unaware of his many assets. It seemed absurd to think him lacking confidence.
“Perhaps we can get a room with a bed sometime,” Astarion said. “I can do wonderful things with a bed. Now, off you go, Wyll. I’ll be waiting for your call.”
“It’s a date,” the Grand Duke said, pausing to cast prestidigitation on Astarion’s slightly mussed trousers before slipping out the door.
Astarion stared after him at the closed door like it had been some sort of dream. He shivered, the wet shirt beginning to drag the warmth out of his skin.