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Rewan's feet ached.
He could hardly remember a day that felt longer than this one, save for possibly the day he'd been brain-wormed by illithids and crash-landed their nautiloid ship out of the actual Hells. He'd stripped his shirt off minutes into the walk, driven nearly mad by the sensation of fabric dampening with sweat and clinging to his crusted-over scrapes and cuts. By the time he'd made his way to his and Astarion's usual spot, he felt about ready to collapse.
"Ah, there you are, my dear," the vampire cooed, twirling around in his typical flamboyant manner at the sound of his lover's approach. "I was beginning to worry."
He had already stripped down to his smallclothes, and shadows from the bright moonlight crested over his body in the silhouette of his soft waves and the branches of nearby trees, almost ethereal.
Rewan pressed himself into Astarion's chest so fast that the vampire nearly lost balance.
"I came as quickly as I could," he breathed, slipping his hand down to cup Astarion's ass. "I've been waiting for this all evening."
"Hmm, I'd say the same," Astarion lilted, amusement seeping into his tone, "but in fact I haven't been able to stop thinking about you since this morning."
"All day? Really?" Rewan peered up at him, eyes wide.
"Indeed." Astarion carded long fingers through the tiefling's raven hair. "I must admit, that little encounter you had with the priest of Loviatar piqued my interest quite a bit."
"Oh, that. Maybe not wise of me to engage in before such a battle. It was good fun, though."
"My dear, I mean no offense, but wisdom is the last thing anyone in our group has come to expect of you."
"No, I suppose not," Rewan laughed, "that's fair. You're not jealous, I hope."
"Mm, in a way, I suppose. Not that I feel any such claim over you, of course, but seeing you like that..." Astarion breathed in, trailing his hand over bruises left down Rewan's spine by the priest's mace and sending a shiver through the tiefling. His voice was heavy and honeyed with desire. "It stirred something in me."
"Bloodlust?" Rewan teased. He pulled away to look the vampire in the eye, the corner of his lip quirking into a lopsided grin.
"That as well, but I think you know what I mean." Astarion cupped Rewan's cheek to hold his gaze through white lashes, and traced his proud cheekbone with a thumb. "It was beautiful. You were beautiful. I want to be the one doing those things to you, and more, if you would have me."
The tiefling hummed, a finger tapping at his chin in a charade of ponderance. "I could be persuaded. Though, truth be told, I'm so exhausted I can hardly bear standing. I'm not sure how much work I'll be able to put in."
"Oh, darling, say no more — you've indulged me so already. I'll run the show, you just lie back and savor the experience." Astarion couldn't halt his tongue from darting out, flicking across his lower lip and tracing a fang. "Your pleasure is my pleasure, after all."
He gestured to the forest floor with a slight bow, the perfect gentleman, and offered a hand to Rewan, who took it and lowered himself to the ground with a grimace. Astarion wasted no time in straddling his knees, leaning forward to rest his hands on the gentle curves of the tiefling's ass where the softness of him was displaced to either side by solid earth.
"May I?" He quirked his head to indicate the lacing of Rewan's trousers.
"Gods, please."
The rogue's nimble fingers made quick work of the garment with such precision as to gently brush over Rewan's length as he did so - by complete coincidence, of course. It was already beginning to strain against the fabric trapping it.
High-waisted as the trousers had been, their removal showcased some of the more severe injuries Rewan had suffered during the battle: the dark, dusky bouquet of bruises blossoming across the pale grey skin of his side from Minthara's mace just barely skirting the lowest of his ribs; an angry and throbbing gash above his navel and to the right from where Rewan had twisted away just in time for a goblin spear to graze across his flesh rather than impaling him outright.
Astarion tutted with all the feigned concern of a fretting mother over a scraped knee, though unable to contain a soft inhale of delight at the sight.
"Oh, you poor, sweet thing," he crooned, laying a soft hand over that gorgeous bruise on Rewan's side. He pressed his thumb against it harder, just a touch, and the tiefling arched his back and parted those pretty lips in a little gasp.
At the sudden curve of his spine, the gash on Rewan's abdomen which had just begun to dry up pulled itself open again and glistened with the wet crimson of fresh blood. Want jolted through Astarion's body from fangs to cock.
"Would that this wound were deeper, darling," Astarion breathed. His middle and index finger traced over the surface of it before pressing into it. "Such a pretty hole, so warm and wet for me."
The tiefling's forehead was beaded with sweat now, delicate pearls shining under the moonlight. His face contorted with a grimace even despite the little sounds of pleasure he choked out with each crook of those pale fingers, and a little teardrop carved its path down the man's cheekbone.
The urge to taste bowled Astarion over like a gods-damned tsunami — blood, sweat, tears, cum, all of it, anything — his mouth ached from lacking, from desperation to be filled. He needed something on his tongue, urgently, and decided on lifting his hips to rest his ass against Rewan's hard cock so that he could lick a long stripe up that infernal chest and land at one nipple.
"A-ahh— 'starion, please..."
"Hush, pet, do you feel that?" One roguish finger curled inside the slit flesh whilst another ran along the edge of it. He grazed his teeth over Rewan's nipple and gave it a tender nibble, then sucked at it again. When Rewan's body tensed in pain and ecstasy, the wound clenched tighter around Astarion's fingers. "Almost like the real thing. Would you let me fuck you here, like this?"
"Yes," Rewan sighed as a man drowning would breathe his first lungful of fresh air, pure instinct. "Gods, yes, I want you to. Fuck, Astarion, please hurt me."
"My good boy," Astarion breathed, trailing down Rewan's ribs with his fangs and biting around one just hard enough to draw blood. He drove his fingers into the wound as deep as they would go — only down to the first knuckle — and worked them out and in like he would finger a lady, with finesse and force in equal measure, drawing cries and moans from Rewan's pretty lips. "Beautiful."
Astarion rotated his hips just so, grinding their erections together through their smallclothes, unable to contain a pleasured groan of his own. Rewan's underwear was already wet with anticipation, he noted with pride.
"Astarion," Rewan pleaded, breathy, and thrashed his head to the side to expose his neck, so black with tattoos that one could barely make out the myriad of bite scars across it without touching.
"You're very sweet to offer, lover, but you hardly have enough blood in you as it is, and my evening plans didn't include making love to a corpse."
"Please, I need it, please," the tiefling keened. He thrust his hips to slide their clothed cocks together again with a moan.
Astarion never claimed to be a strong man. Apparently, a beautiful man writhing beneath him and asking nicely was all it took for his eternal hunger to win out over his meager attempt at a conscience.
"Alright, alright, you've convinced me. A little taste couldn't hurt, I suppose." The vampire stretched up to his lover's neck and bit, sucking and laving with his tongue.
Rewan arched his back and cried out, the icy sting fading quickly into a pleasantly numbing thrum throughout his body. Of course all blood was appreciated, but tiefling blood was a strong contender for Astarion's favorite. It tasted of incense and night-blooming flowers and fine opium, of dark rituals undertaken only where none may bear witness. It was heady and rich, overwhelming.
He could taste Rewan's pulse, a seam of honeyed nectar through that fine sanguine wine, felt the aching void in his gut and his veins grow calm and sated, and then the hunger was replaced with sweet wanting. His smallclothes felt suddenly too constricting, and he reached down with shaking hands to thrust both of their underwear down and press their blissfully exposed cocks together in his bloodied grasp. He stroked them together frantically, blood mingling with their wetness and easing the slide of his hand.
"Astarion, please- please, stop, I can't—"
His lover's protest sent shocks of pleasure through Astarion's whole body, curling his toes and digging his nails into Rewan's sides for any way to release the energy, finally prying his teeth from the tiefling's throat to cry out curses and praises and nonsense as he came, Rewan spilling over the edge just after him.
When the stars cleared from Astarion's vision, he found himself still sliding his slick cock slowly back and forth against Rewan's, the poor man trembling with his eyes squeezed shut and his talons buried in Astarion's shoulder blades, still sputtering.
"Please, too much, it's— can't, can't..."
Astarion froze and sat up, suddenly aware of himself again.
"My dear, are you alright?"
Rewan peered through one eye, then sat up to meet his gaze with a grin devilish enough to match the rest of his infernal features. He threw his arms around the vampire's neck and pulled him to the ground with a kiss, open-mouthed and devouring, biting Astarion's lower lip and tracing the back of his fangs with his tongue. He wrapped his legs around Astarion's waist and yanked his hips down to grind their softening cocks against each other once more, drawing a gasp from each of them that parted their lips from one another.
"I thought that little act might do something for you."
"Incorrigible and insatiable," Astarion murmured against Rewan's lips. "A man after my own heart."
"I'm after something of yours alright," Rewan quipped, voice deepening in that way that made Astarion's stomach twist with need.
"Of course, my sweet, how do you want me?"
"On top of me, please, I need you around my cock, Astarion."
The plea roused Astarion's cock near to half-mast again already.
"Anything to hear my name cried from those perfect lips, darling. Just give me a moment."
He collected some of the mess of blood and come from Rewan's belly into his hand, coated two of his fingers thoroughly, and eased those fingers into himself. They'd had sex so recently he hardly even needed to prepare himself. He did it anyway, though, to savor the feeling.
While scissoring his fingers and pressing deeper to find that perfect spot, Astarion took Rewan's soft cock into his mouth. He ran his tongue flat up the seam of it, relishing the combined taste of blood and semen.
"Gods, you're good at that," Rewan choked out as Astarion twirled his tongue around the gleaming tip and then took him in entirely. The growing length of it tickled the back of his throat. Astarion's eyes fluttered shut at the calming, languorous weight against his tongue that brought a welcome quiet to his thoughts.
"Lots of time to practice, dear," he said, pulling off of Rewan with a pop and smirking as the tiefling recoiled from the sudden cold of the night air on his length. He stroked the base with his spare hand and licked a stripe across Rewan's balls all the way up to his tip. He took Rewan's cock — by now returned to full erection — to the back of his throat, all the way to the base of it, while the thumb of his spare hand worked over the man's perineum.
"Astarion," Rewan practically mewled. He was torn between grinding his ass down against the sweet pressure on his perineum and pushing up with his hips to fuck Astarion's face.
"Be a good boy, now, won't you," Astarion teased, lightly grazing the skin of Rewan's cock with one fang as he pulled off, and Rewan nearly buckled.
"Please, I need you, I— I don't know how much longer I can take this."
"Normally I wouldn't let this slide," Astarion tsked at him, feigning disappointment, "but I'd give anything to feel you inside me again right about now. I think I'm good to go if you are, dearest."
"Yes, please, please," Rewan begged, bucking his hips in desperation, and Astarion simply couldn't resist anymore. He pulled his fingers out of himself with a small hiss at the loss and held them to Rewan's lips. The tiefling licked them clean without hesitation, forked tongue darting out to coil around them in that way that made Astarion's cock twitch and leak when applied there.
He straddled the tiefling's hips and gripped his horns for balance, pushing his head firmly back onto the ground.
"Don't say I never did anything for you," he remarked, getting into position, and impaled himself on Rewan in one fell swoop. They cried out in unison — Rewan in pleasure, and Astarion in pleasure as well but also showmanship in equal measure.
Rewan pushed his hips up further, rubbing the tip of his cock against a certain spot inside Astarion that clouded his vision with stars. His head rolled back, and Astarion lifted himself slowly before bouncing back down with a deep sigh of enjoyment.
He leaned forward, the weight of his upper body resting entirely on those horns as he began to pick up his pace, rocking back and forth on Rewan's cock and grinding his own against Rewan's belly in the same motion. The tiefling's hands found his, and guided them from his horns to his throat.
"Please, Astarion," he breathed with his last exhale before pale hands closed around his throat, not just halting the blood flow but his breath entirely. Astarion's squeezing wrung droplets of blood from the bite on Rewan's neck, and the tip of Astarion's cock beaded with excitement as he pulled almost fully off of Rewan to run his tongue over the wound and lap up every last spilling drop.
Rewan's hips bucked as he tried to fuck deeper into Astarion's ass, but the vampire merely pulled off of him entirely.
"Ah, ah, ah, none of that, please, dear. Try to be good for me."
He allowed Rewan's cock to graze his hole once more, and took less than half of the tip into himself with a dramatic sigh.
"Oh, Rewan, my beloved, you're just so large," he moaned, coy. "I fear this is all I can bear to take of you."
The tiefling wheezed against Astarion's grasp on his throat, and he let the poor man go for a moment to regain himself before choking him again and grinding himself against the muscles of Rewan's stomach. He let the head slide in entirely with a gasp, perhaps overplayed, then pulled off again. He fucked only the head of Rewan's cock like that for minutes, each time allowing a fraction of an inch more to stretch and fill him, all the while panting and heaving compliments to his size, his body, his blood.
Even without any contact to his prostate, Astarion found himself getting off on the performance of it all; on each little twitch and shake of the tiefling beneath him, the soft slide of his own member across their bloody mess of spend, and every time he let go of Rewan's throat to hear desperate gasps for air and smell blood rushing back into his lover's cheeks. He relished in putting on a show, in relentless teasing and making himself more desired than anything Rewan had ever wanted for in his life, until at last he could deny himself no longer. He slammed himself onto Rewan in earnest, all control going out the window as it struck that delectable spot within him and he'd swear his vision went black.
And then suddenly the world was spinning, and Astarion found himself flipped over, face against the ground, with his ass in the air and Rewan spearing into him. Were he not trapped, impaled on Rewan's length already, Astarion would have fucked his cock against the cold earth, anything just to feel some friction.
"Astarion," Rewan breathed. "Open your mind."
"I— What?"
"You're incredible." Rewan rolled his hips, fucking Astarion's face into the ground. "I want to show you."
A pulse of psionic energy resonated between them, and he saw glimpses of what Rewan meant: pleasure, lust, debauched white hair gracing ear-tips, crimson red eyes gazing up half-lidded from the forest floor.
Astarion took a deep breath to center himself after being dethroned. It was tricky to concentrate enough on their psionic link while being pounded into the dirt, but once he managed it, he nearly bit a hole in his tongue to keep from coming right then and there.
He saw himself as Rewan did, his scarred back arched downwards and arms splayed out since Rewan had pushed him down so hard he wasn't able to hold himself up with a cock fully sheathed inside him. His ivory curls graced his cheekbones like so many little flowers in the moonlight; his broad shoulders into the drastic slope of his sides created an almost feminine silhouette.
When Rewan began to pull out, Astarion choked — he could feel his own tight ass as Rewan felt it, clenching and throbbing around that cock as if it were his own.
The tiefling snapped his hips forward, and recoiled at a sting of sharp pain on his face — the thrust had scraped Astarion's face across a rock embedded in the dirt.
Astarion watched his own gasp of pain rip from his lips still tinged with infernal blood, his eyes squeezed shut in pain and pleasure both. He pressed his hips back as far as they would go, bore down on the cock inside him, and relished in the fullness.
His lover moaned, and with a flash of white, Astarion saw in Rewan's mind a vision of himself from earlier that day.
Everyone's favorite words.
"Say it," Rewan commanded, whether psionically or verbally Astarion couldn't be sure. The tiefling rolled his hips slowly again, and a droplet of want formed at Astarion's tip as he watched his own asshole cling to Rewan's cock.
"I love you," he gasped, Rewan's thrust having stolen his breath away. Psionic waves of Rewan's pleasure coarsed through him at the words, and Astarion shivered, psychically feeling the clench of his hole around Rewan's cock.
"Perfect," Rewan moaned. Astarion saw through his eyes as he began to thrust again in earnest, saw blood splatter from Rewan's open wound onto Astarion's back. Rewan bent to lick him clean, his rhythm growing faster and harder, and Astarion tasted the blood on his own tongue as mortals taste it, salty and metallic and intoxicating all the same. "Look at you, how you take me so well, perfect, you're perfect. Say it again."
"I love you," Astarion lied, moaning the words in his chest voice this time, arching and fucking onto Rewan's cock to watch the curve of his own back and the plush of his own ass as his lover's hips pistoned, to see how his sex-tousled curls clung to his temples and darkened with sweat, to feel the waves of pleasure he sent through Rewan, both with his words and the fact of their falsehood.
"Hells, oh — fuck," Rewan panted. He shoved Astarion's face into the ground again and bit down hard on his shoulder. His hips quivered and spasmed once, twice, and then he was spilling deep inside Astarion.
The sensation of it all nearly made Astarion's legs give out — he felt the cock inside him flex against his walls and fill him with hot seed, and felt his hole tighten and spasm as if around his own cock, all while looking at himself through the gaze of the man shoving his face into the dirt and watching his pleasure contort him.
As Rewan's orgasm subsided, he pressed kiss after kiss to Astarion's love-bitten shoulder and reached around to stroke his cock, whispering sweet nothings all the while.
"Yes, ah, you look so beautiful on my cock, love. Gorgeous, fucking perfect, I love you, I love you."
Rewan traced his thumb under the ridge of Astarion's tip and then dragged his hand back to the base with just the right amount of force to send Astarion hurtling over the edge, spending himself over the dirt and grass below.
The tiefling shushed and coaxed and stroked him through his orgasm, kissing every inch of skin he could reach, and as soon as Astarion's cries ceased and his breathing returned to a somewhat normal pace, collapsed bodily on top of him with a groan.
"...I shouldn't have done that."
Astarion squirmed around until he was able to remove the softening cock from his ass and roll over, while Rewan made no effort to help or move in any way except for how he clung to the vampire's torso and nuzzled into his chest.
"Hmm, I tend to disagree."
What felt like hours — but was in all likelihood closer to half of one — passed, gazing together at the stars in their lazy drift across the sky, before Astarion broke the silence with a heavy sigh.
"We'd best get back to camp," he murmured. "Much as I hate to do any more walking today, we can't have you sleeping here in this state."
Rewan grumbled some incoherent noise of protest and nestled his head more firmly against Astarion's breast.
"Oh, come now, up I said."
Again, the tiefling gave no response save for vague sounds of displeasure.
"You're a sitting duck in these woods, darling. We've got to get you back to camp before some monstrosity comes along and gobbles you up."
Another mumble.
"My dear, you'll have to speak up."
"I said," Rewan bitched, finally lifting his head to fix Astarion with a half-hearted stink-eye, "I think you've got the gobbling taken care of."
"Mm, true," Astarion mused. "You'd make a rather dry meal at this point. Still, we'd do well to head back. I refuse to sleep on the forest floor without at least four layers of furs between myself and the dirt."
"And I refuse to walk, so it seems we're at an impasse."
Astarion sighed.
"Very well, then. I'll have you know I gave you every opportunity to avoid this." The vampire extracted himself from his lover's stubborn grasp with deft precision and gathered up their strewn-about clothing into a neat bundle before returning to the tiefling's side. "Hold this," he said, plopping the clothing onto Rewan's stomach, and with insultingly little effort, lifted him into his arms.
"And what exactly do you think you're doing?" Rewan groused, though he still brought his free arm around Astarion's neck to steady himself.
"If you have a problem with me carrying you, you'll have to start eating more. You are skin and bones, beloved. You may walk on your own, though, if you'd prefer."
"No, never mind, I take it all back. I'd rather die."
"At this rate, if I let you walk, you really might."
"Besides, 's very dashing of you."
"You're too kind," Astarion replied, preening internally however sarcastic he may have come across.
"And handsome."
"I'm not going to start carrying you around at your every whim just because you stroked my ego."
"...Prick."
"Stroke that a few more times and perhaps we can talk business."
The walk back to camp wasn't long, perhaps ten minutes instead of the usual seven or so with the added effort of carrying another man the entire way. Their camp was a downright symphony of drunken snoring, making it a trifle to sneak into his own tent. Astarion breathed his silent relief on finding that none of their guests had decided to lay claim to his bedroll.
He laid Rewan down atop a veritable mountain of furs and then closed the drapes of the tent. When he turned back around, the tiefling had propped himself up on an elbow and was eyeing him over with a smug smile.
"Like what you see?" Astarion gave a little spin to show off his assets.
"You never told me there was such a lovely view from your tent. I'd have come by sooner."
"You're too kind, dear. Unfortunately it's about to be obscured, at least in part, lest my bits freeze off in the night."
"A gods-damned shame that would be," Rewan agreed. "Just one more moment, though."
"Mm, far be it from me to refuse you a little show." Astarion bent down for his pack, putting far more sauciness into the motion than was strictly necessary just to acquire a change of pants. "Would you like to cover up a bit as well?"
"Fuck no, I'm already burning up as it is. Infernal blood, I suppose. I enjoy the cool."
Astarion looked the man in his bed over, soaking in the sight while it lasted. That gash from before was, unsurprisingly, throbbing red and angry. He longed to run his tongue over it, to lap up its juices like a ripe peach and feel it gush its stickiness over his lips, but Rewan was so pale already. Ah, well. There would always be more blood.
"At least allow me to bandage you up. I would really rather not clean blood out of even more of my possessions than I already must every day, and I'd wager we have that in common."
Rewan was quiet for a moment, brow quirked slightly down as if thinking, before he replied.
"Be my guest, I suppose."
Astarion laid Rewan back on the furs, and the tiefling propped his head up on his arms.
"There, now, hold still." He dug out a spare clean shirt and began to tear the fabric into strips.
"I never thought you the type for aftercare," Rewan mused.
"I don't like owing debts to anyone," Astarion said, gritting his teeth at the half-truth. "You saved my life three times over in that battle today."
"As if you didn't sprint across the field to feed me a potion with your own hands when I fell," Rewan scoffed, propping himself up on an elbow once again to look Astarion in the eye. "You owe me nothing."
"Did I not tell you to hold still," Astarion chided, looking pointedly away.
"You're not my mother."
"As luck would have it. Should that come to light, I'd rather miss the sex."
Rewan snorted and laid himself back down.
"Besides, if you were to keel over from some horrid infection, I'd have to find someone else to fuck me within an inch of my undeath, and I'd quite prefer to spare myself the effort."
Astarion found disappointingly few options for liquor in his tent, and had to settle for the unopened bottle of absinthe he'd pilfered from one of the houses in that abandoned village. An unfortunate use for one of the very few fine things he'd managed to find for himself, but now would hardly be the time to rifle through Shadowheart or Halsin's pack for a more appropriate disinfectant. He doused a clean cloth in the stuff and returned to the tiefling's side.
"Pragmatic," Rewan hissed through clenched teeth as the cold rag dabbed at his lacerations.
"Just so. Almost done here..."
Astarion trailed off, his brow furrowed in focus as he positioned the makeshift wound dressings and adhered them.
"There. I'm no healer by any stretch of the imagination, but that should do you 'til morning."
"Your left fang pokes out while you're focusing."
"I— what?"
"Just a tiny bit. You do it when you're lockpicking, too. Or disarming traps."
Astarion was silent for a moment.
"I must congratulate you on your newfound skill of observation, sweet. Hopefully this means your days of stumbling headlong into traps are over, then."
"Thank you, Astarion."
"I was being sarcastic, you daft-"
"I mean it. For the... all of it, really. Thank you."
Astarion found himself mentally thanking fate for the fact that his undead blood didn't run hot enough to color his cheeks and ears pink.
"I... it was nothing. Truly." He twisted one of his rings idly, trying to conjure some idea of how to proceed from here. "Are you certain you don't want another potion? I have some in my pack, I think."
"No, better not to waste them. I've had worse, I'll recover on my own."
"Well," Astarion started, "alright, then."
Quiet settled over them for a long moment, Rewan peering at him through half-lidded eyes and Astarion putting up his best confident front to hold that gaze, until finally they both decided on the same moment to break the silence.
"You ought to—" Astarion started.
"I think it's about time that—"
Astarion couldn't help the soft, awkward breath of laughter that escaped him, though at least Rewan reacted the same.
"Ah, you first, dearest."
"I should probably make my way over to my own bedroll for the night," Rewan yawned, "before I fall asleep in yours."
"I was just about to say," Astarion ran a hand down Rewan's shoulder to his elbow, "perhaps you should stay. Since you're so averse to putting on clothing tonight, and you insist on sleeping out in the open where everyone can see instead of putting up your own damned tent."
"I don't mind if anyone sees—"
"Perhaps you don't, but imagine for a second that I mind. If you add any more kindling to that bonfire Lae'zel's stoked up for you, I may have to insist against traveling with her in the future."
"Fair enough," Rewan grimaced. "If you're sure, then."
"I don't offer if I'm not sure, love."
With that assurance, Rewan made room on the furs and patted at the spot next to him in invitation. Astarion wormed his way into the tiefling's arms, the warmth of him settling over Astarion like a blanket of pure contented lethargy.
"I hope that wasn't a subtle invitation for round three," said Rewan, clearly forcing back another yawn. "I doubt I can keep my eyes open for another minute."
"Hardly, dear. I just wanted you in arm's reach for the morning," Astarion teased, but no response came. He listened for a moment, and the steady rise and fall of Rewan's chest with each soft breath he took confirmed that the man had already fallen asleep.
Astarion sighed, allowing himself in this sort of half-solitude to bask in the other man's hellish warmth like some sort of reptile upon a hot stone. His sleeping lover pulled him closer so that he was fully enveloped, puffing gentle breaths of warmth onto his forehead. Astarion pressed his ear to Rewan's chest to listen for his lifeblood, the home of that beautiful lie, and as he drifted off to blissful, dreamless sleep, Astarion allowed himself — for just a moment, just tonight — to believe it.