Chapter Text
A sigh.
Deep. The moonlight seeping into the exoskeleton of their tower (their tower) shined deeper yet as Astarion opened the curtains and the window, basking in the cool night air, if just for a moment as to not aggravate Gale’s joints all too much. Promises of more snowfall hovered over the mountains, encroaching on the city little by little, readying to obscure the Griffon’s watchful gaze with, according to the Wazoo’s gnome forecast, about fifty-five centimetres of pure heavenly fluff. Oh yes, there was a promise of quietude on the horizon; school closures, snow boiled and distilled for delectable hot drinks of muddled herb and spices, much-needed breaks for the dock workers in conditions too dangerous for them to work in – enforced, very heavily, by the city’s labour codes.
A light breeze warned of the oncoming storm, all too calm to predict if it were to be a blizzard or slowly-accumulating silent night.
Unpredictability.
Story of their lives.
“So!” Stepping back, Astarion let gravity take him, the grand comforter on the bed breaking his fall and allowing him to snuggle in. “Long day.”
“Long day.” The reiteration came with a long sigh and a slumping of Gale’s shoulders as the mage hung his robe on a rack for cleaning.
What a day indeed. Blackstaff, Mordenkainen, Vajra (and her fist to Gale’s face), Wyll, Karlach, everything that had happened not an hour before... it had been a lot.
And now, a breather.
In, out, in, out, breaths unneeded from Astarion still soothing him all the same just from the tranquility of the pattern.
Upon turning, Gale was met with his favorite sort of sight; Astarion, on the bed half-naked and half-hard, a ruffly white velvet sleepshirt not even covering half of him. Gorgeous, as always, and the perfect sight to relax and allow the beating in his chest to slow to a resting heart rate instead of the fast pounding that he’d been operating under for the past little while. Face soft, he let his gaze wander over Astarion’s figure – swaths of pale skin, some of which was still marked with reminders of Gale’s teeth. Halos from the dancing lights illuminated and exaggerated his abdomen, his chest, the sharp features of his face. Oh, how he loved this ethereal being. In the chaos of their shared world, both at large and how it was coming together because, well, they were...
It was soothing. He was soothing.
"Come to me.”
Meandering over to the bed, naked save for his purple underpants, Gale smiled at Astarion with so much damn love. The vampire scooched closer, opening his arms for him to fall into, and was it oh so needed. Gale needed this. He needed to be held.
“So what exactly did Aylin want?”
Gale groaned at Astarion’s line of questioning, flopping his head down against the plush down comforter, his hair fanning out in a silver-threaded brown halo, bangs falling out of their usual place where he pushes them back. Astarion had been upstairs, after all, having a bit of a meltdown. He was due an explanation.
“You must know of the Gates of the Moon.”
Gale sidled up to him, resting his head in his palm.
“Would be hard not to.”
“Well, as Tymora’s luck should have it, we’ve been summoned. The mighty Selûne herself hath asked of our audience.” Dread coalesced in Gale’s gut. “I can’t help but wonder what Shadowheart would think.”
On one of the more tense nights during their stay in Rivington, Karlach had insisted that the group of them go down to the beach and teach her how to swim. Halsin had been most enthusiastic, shaping into his bear form and demonstrating how to paddle the way he did. He and Shadowheart had watched from the beach itself as Astarion and Isobel chatted, knee-deep in the water and bonding over existing as different flavors of undead.
So Gale and Shadowheart had talked. A lot. Committing to serving as a cleric of Selûne had set her vulnerabilities on a timer, ready to go off at a moment’s notice. That moment’s notice happened to be in Gale telling her that her obligations to healing needn’t be restricted to any god, and that she might be happier in taking an oath. Seladrine tears dripped down her face in the moonlight as she sobbed, cradled in his arms as he untangled her braid from its chains just to see her more comfortable.
How unfair that was. How unfair it was that the powers blessed for healing were sequestered away by the few powerful enough to lend. Mystra, born of Selûne and Shar, just like them. Just like them. Just like them.
How close he had come to reaching that status. How close he had been to being another ambivalent being shrouded by power, reaching into the mortal coil to mess with it as if it were a playground. How close he had been to Mystra not a few months ago, right in front of her grand power, thinking that he might be able to take it and use it for himself.
How lost he had been.
And now, another goddess had her eyes on him.
At one point, this would have caused a great pride to swell in his chest. To be called to a god, as Mystra had called him in the Tabernacle... what an accomplishment, to the eyes of the mortal many. Not now, though. Now the gaze was uncomfortable, suffocating.
Would he be lost once more?
The greatness he had once thought to be only attainable through sheer power was now so far from what he knew it to be... but this. This thing. This profound experience, with which he hardly had any words at all to describe how it really, truly felt, how everything felt okay when they were in each other’s arms.
Gale turned his head to look Astarion more directly, exhaling all his worries into the space between them. Ease in each other’s arms, safety built and safety held, though the twinkling in Astarion’s eye held something curious and fiesty.
Astarion had his own thoughts on gods, Gale knew this and had articulated as much when he’d told Astarion of how he truly lost his faith that day outside of the Tabernacle. It would be a lie to say he wasn’t at least somewhat titillated by what laid ahead of them. He’d never really let himself think of what it could be like to exist outside of the Palace. Look at him now – wantonly basking on soft sheets in a lover’s embrace in none other than the City of Splendours, far away from his past! That was in a league of its own. But the Gates of the Moon... to dream of such a thing while knowing that you would never be free, it would’ve just hurt him more. Faced with it now as he was, it was at least somewhat appealing. Just to see it would be quite the experience.
Admittedly, he did not like the idea of Gale being yanked around on a leash that Astarion himself did not hold. He didn’t like the idea of acquiescing to a god at all. He’d said it to Gale on the night they first had sex – ‘I want this because I’m not going to just roll over for any god who commands it of me.’
And he’d meant it. Not as a slight to Gale, but as his own personal admission towards his grievances with godhood et al.
“You’ll need to take me to Miz Elysria’s to replace those stockings you tore off me at the church. If I’m to present myself to a god’s court, I’m going to do it properly. What do you think? Some casual drapery to attend to the needs of the goddess of the moon? I imagine that’s what’s all the rage. Or should I...” He kissed up Gale’s bicep, his clavicle, down to lick at a nipple. Groaning, Gale dug his hand into Astarion’s hair, gripping the sheets next to his head with his other. “Should I show up in the shortest skirt you’ve ever seen on me? That would be nice, I think. Watching you drool all over the place in front of Aylin’s mother, someone who’s known for her beauty. And yet, you wouldn’t be able to keep your eyes off of me.”
Another lick, soft, careful to avoid fangs but with a ghosting of teeth to remind Gale that Astarion could bite at any moment.
“You should not do that...”
“Oh, Gale Dekarios, slut shaming me, are you?”
“Let me finish,” he panted, arching up. “You should not do that just for my... Astarion, wait. Please. If you don’t mind.”
Astarion stopped, much to Gale’s relief. He looked up at the wizard, less concerned and more interested in what he had to say.
“It’s one thing, I believe, for you to use your exquisite skill in seduction – your sexual prowess, so to speak. However!” He raised his pointer finger to stop Astarion from speaking as the vampire opened his mouth. “I have a request. Please do not do anything performative for my sake. For your own pleasure, of course, I have no place in attempting to stop you. And! And, if you’re to work through any of your own traumas in regard to performance, then I would like you to be very, very vocal about it. I fear greatly for a day when you... slip away while we copulate. My point, love, is that performance could end up being a catalyst for such an event. And I don’t want that for you.”
Trailing a hand down Astarion’s cheek, Gale tried to impress upon the vampire with body language what he’d just said in verbiage.
Astarion tsk’d. He supposed Gale was right, in a way. Working through his own psyche was, well, work. And, when it came to if such work was easy or hard work, he was starting to understand that it varied.
Maybe it could just... be easy.
Gale was giving him the opportunity for it to just be easy.
“I make things exceptionally hard for myself, don’t I?”
Gale laughed at that, the feeling trickling through his chest.
“No more than I do for myself. I should take my own advice. Goodness knows where I’d be if my good intentions for others were internalized.”
“Oh, look at that! You strung an emotionally vulnerable sentence together without any struggle. We should celebrate. Come here .” Astarion pulled him closer, kissing the daylights out of the mage. With vim and vigor, Gale kissed back. Their tongues entwined for just a moment before Gale rolled Astarion onto his back, mouthing at his jaw and leaving a wet trail of their combined saliva down his throat, dancing over the bite scars. Down, down, down, he nipped at his collar bones and Astarion hummed. Rucking his hands up under the shirt, Gale separated from Astarion’s skin for the least amount of time he possibly could to shove it over white curls. Astarion’s hair ruffled from its perfect state, poofing up ever so slightly.
Gale’s mouth was back on him in an instant. Lower, lower still. The man laved over Astarion’s nipple, hot tongue tracing the areola in a quick one, two, three, before latching around the hardened nub and suckling.
And he licked up on the spot just beneath his armpit, giving Astarion a half-lidded gaze.
“Gods, you are insatiable!” Though accompanied with a grin, Astarion squirmed under Gale’s touch, too sensitive, not enough, too sensitive, not enough, not enough, too much—
“There is nothing in me that could keep me from stopping if you were to ask me to cease all of my ministrations on your body.”
There wasn’t a doubt between them that he really meant it.
But it wasn’t needed.
“Shut up and get back in there,” Astarion shoved Gale back down to his armpit. “Be a good boy and indulge in your kink, sweetheart. I’ve done weirder.”
Gale blushed. Hard. In a sense of things, Astarion had taken his material plane virginity. Sort of, at least. He liked thinking of it that way. A new start. A first start. And now, here he was, being encouraged to do all the things he never could while floating in abstract bliss. No matter how hard any mage tried, magic’s limitations circumvented the recreation or replication of what the raw act of sex could be with another person’s physical being.
Pressing a few kisses to Astarion’s serratus anterior, he made his way up to Astarion’s smooth, hairless pit. He loved every part of Astarion’s body for what it was, every aspect of his being that was the way it was just because it was. Oh, and his scent. The way he smelled – oil after a storm, dried herbs, the soaps he’s started to use since they got back... and rot. Death. Astarion’s sweat was crude oil and iron, and Gale loved it.
He started with a kiss. Astarion’s natural perspiration wasn’t all too much at any given time. How he wished to change that, how he wished to sink his nose and mouth into the junction when Astarion came back from one of his runs and live in it for as long as the elf would allow him to. This would do, for now. Gale opened his mouth, letting his tongue lap slightly at the saltiness that permeated his senses.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Astarion gasped at the feeling of it, watching the archwizard go to absolute town on the underside of his arm. He cupped the back of his head, urging him on like he might if Gale was sucking his cock or fucking his hole with his tongue. It wasn’t outright pleasurable, didn’t send zips down to his cock, but to watch his... his... to watch Gale ravenous for his own pleasure in taking part in the feast of Astarion’s body, especially parts of him that weren’t his genitalia? He could get very, very used to this.
Gale supped of him. He drank greedily, laving his tongue back and forth over the mound of Astarion’s armpit and luxuriating in the swath of musky skin. Slick sounds of his mouth permeated the air, and he allowed himself to give a soft moan.
“Good boy. Good boy. ” Astarion cast his affirmation, patting the back of Gale’s head steadily.
With a steadfast gentleness, the vampire pulled him away.
Gale took a deep breath in, shuddering as he released it. Then he was diving in, affixing himself to Astarion’s mouth, sucking the elf’s tongue into his own and biting at his lip. They met each other in their moans, the raw taste of Astarion mingling between them as he surged to meet the wizard, using his momentum to press him back down into the bed.
“Do you know how fucking sexy you were today?” Another kiss, then a traced line of them down Gale’s chin, his neck, up his collar bones. Astarion groaned into soft, tanned skin; “Not that you look good with a broken nose, but I’ve always thought you looked exquisite after a battle. Your cheeks so sweetly flushed, gaze bright, muscles glistening. Maybe it was just the near-death thrill talking – or not.”
Their lips met again, only briefly before Gale placed a resolute hand on the cavity of Astarion’s chest and pushed him away. Not for long, though. Not permanently.
“But it only made me want you more, ” Astarion dropped with a whisper.
And they stared at each other.
There was just something about the cursed shadowlands, wasn’t there? Desolation in plenty, abundance only a thought that could be given no credence. They’d all burst through their own shells, coming out the other side very, very different.
Gale had wanted him. He’d been in some amount of denial, had been grappling his hubris in a sparring match that was undoubtably weighted against him. With both hands on the arms of the horrors staring them down and challenging him to a fight to the death, Gale’s eyes had been on Astarion.
Their nights spent on the balcony of the Last Light were simple. Not a bad thing. Far from it. Simple was what they’d needed, and what they’d found.
Now could be simple, too.
“I... wait. Let’s... let’s slow down, maybe?”
Astarion pulled back, taking his own askance and making it truth. He trailed his fingers up Gale’s inner thighs, pulling them up to bend them at the knee and slotting himself ever so innocently between them, laying out on his stomach. Gale was spread out in front of him, a feast in the making. This was one he wanted to savour. It was one he deserved to savour. And Gale deserved the same.
Gale was starting to believe that he deserved it.
Why did it hurt to believe such a thing?
Astarion reached down between them, looking Gale in the eye as he tucked his thumb under the waistband of his underpants and pulled them beneath Gale’s balls. His thick hardness slapped against Astarion’s thigh.
“This night is ours. It’s yours and mine. It's ours, and nobody can take that from us.”
The hand wrapped around Gale’s length drew him into hitched breath. He held his breath there as Astarion started to stroke, bringing his foreskin over his head. Wet slickness eased the slide, precome dripping from his slit. Once, twice, again, Astarion’s skilled hand brought him only the greatest of mundane pleasures. If this night was theirs, he could have it, too. He could have this. He could just have this. He grabbed at the plush fabric beneath his head, arching his upper back so as not to thrust up without explicit permission to do so.
Astarion let a soft smile settle on his lips as he watched Gale sink under. Such great pleasure at giving, even though it was all Astarion had ever known was to give. In some ways, at least. He likes sex! He likes sex a lot – as he’d settled on quite some time ago, as was true now. What was missing, though? Something, something... ah, that’s right. Communication! Less dirty talk, more... honesty.
“I love that I get to be sincere with you. Completely. It’s... gods, it feels good. I get to tell you how good I feel and mean it. I get to mean it. Never did I think...”
The look on Astarion’s face became something more akin to studiousness, though still tinged with lust. His touch faltered, taking on a more feather-light quality than insistent. Gale’s own hands came up to catch Astarion’s. Their fingertips met as Gale took the touch ever so slightly away.
“Astarion, do you want this tonight?”
So easy for him to ask, so easy to receive. It took a moment for Astarion to survey what he felt, what he wanted – because oh, did he want.
“Yes. Yes, I do.” He barely held off on thanking him for asking. The few times he had done so in response to Gale’s questioning, the man had insisted that it was the bare minimum and insisted twice over not to thank him. “Very much. I want you, Gale. Not just... sex. Not just for you to be mine. I just want you.”
How sweet. So very, very sweet.
“I want... soft. Sweet. I want to pleasure you, puppy. To make you feel.”
Gale writhed under Astarion’s insistent hands, the scratch of pointed nails on his outer thighs.
“And I find the greatest pleasure in yours, Astarion.”
This could be a spiral. This could be a problem, could be an issue of Gale staunchly insisting that his own pleasure was not to be prioritized at any point from there on out.
“I know that, love.” Kissing Gale’s tip in a brief suckle, he took Gale’s hands in his and moved them to his own waistband, using the mage’s hands to guide him in taking off his briefs entirely. Even this, the sheer act of the removal of clothes, only bolstered this moment between them. Gale’s cock stood hard at attention, thick, leaking. “Don’t make me repeat myself. This is about you, tonight.”
With a slick lick of the flat of his tongue to the underside of Gale’s cock, he smirked up at the archmage with a chuckle that vibrated through his length. Just one lick, and then he was moving away, up to brace himself at either side of Gale’s shoulders.
“Oh, I- hold on.”
Their legs tangled together as Astarion moved to the side, landing on Gale’s arm.
“Wait, just there—”
More tangling, awkward and silly but still skin on skin.
“Yeah, that’s...”
“Mmm... Astarion...”
“That feels good.” The tip of Astarion’s cock caught on the seam of the junction from Gale’s thigh to his hip. “This feels so good, Gale. Look at you.”
Hovering his lips over a nearly healed bite on his upper shoulder near his back, Astarion lolled his tongue out to lick at the mark ever so slightly. Gale leaned into it, an offering that they were starting to get used to proposing and receiving in equivalent exchange. Astarion would not ask, caught up in a fear that if he let himself go that he’d drain Gale dry – which had nearly happened, once, the only time Astarion had tried supping right from the mage’s jugular.
“You must be starved. Bite me wherever you wish, love.”
It was in the process of becoming a norm, though not there yet. Relief flooded Astarion at the permission given, opening his mouth to match the exact spot only to stop himself just before sinking his fangs. Eyes still closed, he shuddered. They were both becoming accustomed to this, yes, and that was a good thing. But it wasn’t the end goal. And he wanted, needed, to push his own boundaries – for the better of them both.
He pulled back, looking at his uneaten feast.
“I want nothing more than to mark you all over. To sink my teeth into your flesh here,” a pressed thumb to hip, “and here,” another to just below his naval, “and here...” hovering his mouth over the same spot on the opposite side, puffing warm air onto his skin. “Would that make you feel good, sweetheart?”
Enthusiasm moved Gale’s head in a nod before he could think twice of it.
He opened his mouth, pricked two little holes onto Gale’s skin. That oncoming storm washed over his tongue, though the crackling lightning that once shrieked through his veins was very much lesser – still there, but lesser. Ozone coated his tongue in a thin layer as he licked over the two punctures, moaning against Gale’s skin.
That first time, Gale had been so deep in the concentration of maintaining the ritual that the physical effects of being drank from had escaped to his periphery. Now? Now, and each time since, he luxuriated in the feeling of the numbness spreading through his body, tamping out his generalized anxiety as it existed in his nervous system. His eyes fluttered shut as the toxin seeped through his veins, allowing him to just... exist.
Until it was almost too much.
Two taps with two fingers to the vampire’s forearm. Astarion separated from the leaking spots with a slurping kiss.
“You taste so good. So fucking good, Gale. Such a good boy for me.” Gale whimpered, his head dropping against the pillow.
Another long suck, and Astarion pulled off entirely, watching the little droplets fall to the linen below. They were really going through quite a lot of laundry. Luckily one of the spells that Gale had taught Astarion was to clean fabric – helpful for both this and in what he needed in his day-to-day escapades in tailoring. He laved his tongue over the wound, staunching the blood.
“Good boy...”
“I... I am?”
Doubt had coiled in Gale’s self each time Astarion had said it before. It still did now. Accepting anything positive about himself when his reputation spoke for him through the mouths of people who he knew didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things was still... difficult. Difficult, maybe, didn’t even begin to describe it. Harrowing. A maze unlike even that which lies beyond Mystra’s boundaries of magic itself.
“Yes. Yes, you are. I’ll say it as many times as you need me to.” Astarion ran his hands up Gale’s sides as he sat up, moving between his thighs entirely. The crushed velvet of Astarion’s shirt moved against Gale’s skin pleasantly. Thoughts of ripping it open so that their skin could meet raged through his mind.
“Off. Take that... I need...”
Need spiked. It wracked Gale’s body in a shiver as Astarion ghosted a hand down his chest, his stomach. It stopped at the human’s side, right on his hip. Astarion’s breath stuttered, his gaze settling on his hand. With a smooth motion of his other arm, he pulled the shirt over his head, only raising his hand from Gale’s skin to take it off before throwing it somewhere to the other side of the room. He placed his other hand on the opposite side, stroking his thumbs over the jut of Gale’s hipbone.
“Can I...” he trailed off.
“What would you like?” Gale threw his hands up to grab a pillow for under his head.
“I... can I... can I squeeze you here?”
“My sides?” A furrow of his brow drew a questioning look in Gale’s wrinkles. Astarion rolled his eyes.
“Your love handles, darling. They are so, so lovely. Is that a yes?”
“Yes. Please. Touch me.”
Astarion touched him. Oh, did he touch him. His forefinger and thumb pressed together, squeezing the muscle and fat there together. Gale thrust up against nothing. If only there were something there to curb his craving for more, Astarion’s tongue or hands – but no, because that would mean that he would have to remove them from where they were already. To be hugged so intricately within Astarion’s hands, it was being treated like a tessellation of stars cradled in the heart of the planes. He was whole. He was loved. Admired. Perfect in Astarion’s scarlet eyes.
“You looked sickly when we first met. Not quite the same as me. Your ribs weren’t visible. But it was noticeable.”
He squeezed again, a larger handful that this time squished his flesh between each one of Astarion’s fingers. Gale gasped, looking down to watch the act of adoration.
“You’d mentioned that once, in the very beginning, that you hadn’t had much appetite while alone in your tower.”
“Our tower.”
Theirs.
“Well... yes. But before it was ours, it was yours. It was far too easy to imagine you wasting away in here, unable to pick up a bushel of rice to simmer over a fire or even spread jam on toast. But that first little bit when we were starting to get to know each other, watching you light up while slicing up a ham, dipping a spoon into a saucepan to taste the beurre blanc before you served it to us, whipping up an egg scramble... you were so... human. ”
Fascination burned into Astarion’s words as his hands moved from Gale’s sides to the cup of his belly. He stroked upwards on Gale’s happy trail with both thumbs, pressing down into the growing layer of pudge.
“And now you’re home. And you look... healthy. ”
He leaned in, closing their faces together until they were not but a few inches away.
“I envy you.”
The whisper surged through them like a crashing wave, carrying the burden of a confession that shattered an invisible boundary, a raw admission of jealousy that tore through previous versions of themselves that hadn’t allowed such intimacy of being truly known. It was a declaration of love in and of itself, sure, but Astarion breaking down the walls of things not yet to be touched while touching, touching, touching... Intimacy like this was blossoming between them. And it felt...
Right.
It felt right.
“I often wonder if I was as thin as I am now before being turned. And then there’s the additional issue of having not seen myself in a mirror for as long. I can’t...” he paused, laughing something between a little manic and pitying, “I can’t even tell if this new diet of blood has really done anything for me. Same ribs. Same physique. Same muscles. What I’d give to change just a little bit.”
That wasn’t anything that Gale could take lightly. No, not at all.
“You discredit yourself far too harshly. Where once your cheeks were sallow, you’re bright as a star.” Gale sat forward, cupping Astarion’s face in his hands, trying to impart the same feeling as he had been made to feel from such lovely hands seeking to soothe. “I understand entirely that you might not be able to see it for yourself. Perhaps another failing on my part for not whipping up a charmed mirror for you to be able to see yourself in at any time, any—”
“Not a failing.”
Gale put a finger over Astarion’s lips, shushing him.
“Let me finish. I have offered already to disguise myself as you back at Miz Elysria’s. That still stands. But to battle this dysmorphic image of yourself... I think you deserve to have that without my presence.”
“You already have so many things going- mph.” The wizard kissed him quiet, a quick press of lips against lips with not much more to be said about it. Simple. Sweet. He pulled away with a smirk.
“Anything for your continued happiness. I’m working tirelessly to give you back the sun, of course it’s my greatest test of my abilities, and I will best them. But this... this mental state relating to the body is nothing to be trifled with, Astarion. I know it all too well, believe me, even if it is from the other side of it. If the sun can wait a day or two more to give you more time with your self-imagery, I should like to give it to you. Please.”
Gale knew better, now, than to squirm under Astarion’s gaze – but knowing better did not equal a response that would make his body comply with what he wanted of it. Thus, he blushed and sank further into the sheets. Astarion followed him up, impressing upon him that same feeling as when he circled him like prey – though, not quite the same, anymore, with Gale. How this man just saw right through him, saw through the cracks, saw through each façade Gale’s life had thrown him into... it was just plain incredible.
He loved it.
“It’d be good for you to have a side project.” His hand slid up the cup of Gale’s ass, sliding between his cheeks and pressing at his hole. He incanted some lubrication into his hand, pressing at Gale’s perineum with his middle finger and swirling ever so slightly just to tease the mage. “Don’t get me wrong, the hyperfocus to help me is delightful. I wouldn’t change it for the world.”
“N-nh... stop... teasing me and...”
“Yes. Help me see myself again.”
Astarion’s fingers were inside easily, one, two, pressing and finding and searching. With how often they‘d been fucking, they’re both now somewhat at a default looseness, eager to take whatever was given. A rapt attention to detail was the only thing keeping Gale from tensing his whole body, wanting to take the aforementioned pleasure given so intensely. He relaxed, instead. Astarion found his spot, easing his other hand over his stomach and pressing his fingertips into his skin, his wiry hairs.
“That’s a good boy. Shhh, deep breaths. Ride this with me.” Another thrust in, and Gale nearly saw stars. Slick sounds of warming lube came from where their bodies met. “Is this doing anything for you, love?”
“Yes! Yes. Just... a bit to the right. Do you- ohfuck, right there!”
“Like that?”
Press, press, press, slow and rhythmic.
“Yes, yes, yes! Ah, ah, ah!”
“You’re so precious.” A drool of precum dripped from Gale’s cock onto the sheets below, and Astarion couldn’t resist the urge to trail the hand not occupying the mage’s hole down his thigh. A soft, feather-light touch to his cock was all it took for Gale to thrust back on Astarion’s fingers, setting a rhythm for himself. Moans muffled by the pillow he buried his face in, he panted, let it out, stifled but not. “None of that, sweetheart. I need to hear you. Up, up, there you are. That’s it. Mmm...”
Astarion dropped his gaze from where he massaged Gale to perfection down to the clear string drooping from the human’s cock. His mouth dropped open, letting out a self-satisfied moan that didn’t come from his own physical gratification. No, this was all mental. Pleasuring Gale in such a way was a downright delight. With the mage’s full attention on his own pleasure, he was free to take what he wanted for himself. And what he wanted...
With his middle two fingers, he swiped at Gale’s slick, bringing it to his mouth and sucking the salty delight down. Quietly. No performance needed. Taking for himself.
Gale twisted his body, turning to look over his shoulder as he pressed his hands against the mattress.
Perfect.
Caught.
Moaning brokenly, Gale angled his hips back to chase that pleasure, yes, more, more. Everything fuzzed together, a blend of pleasure and relief and release, release, release.
“I do love those sounds you make.” Astarion sighed as he said it, a wistful, breathy sound as he crooked his fingers slightly harder, just a little more, not too much. “I wish you’d make them more.”
So wished for, so given.
“Ha-ah... Astarion...”
“There you go, sweetie. Give me more of that.”
All coherent thoughts worthy of describing what Gale was really feeling dropped from his head at the prompting. Instead, what let loose was a sequence of desperate moans and groans, a hitch in his breath that made him cough, an interrupted gasp.
“Please don’t stop. Please, please, don’t stop. Please keep going. Oh, yes, Astarion! Ah-hah! Ah! Fuck, fuck right there, right there. Don’t stop, don’t s- please, don’t stop. Please. Oh, please let me cum. Please! Please, I’ll do an-ything. Anything for you. Everything for you, all of me for you! Please, please, please!”
Only relative silence came in reply.
“Astarion?”
He looked back to the vampire, meeting his gaze. What Gale was met with stole his breath away, as much as was left in him. A soft smile matched his crimson eyes.
“You... Relax, love. Breathe for me. I’m going to make you feel so good.”
It was a twist of his fingers in a counterclockwise fashion that gave him that breath back, back to life under Astarion’s insistence that he live through each beam of pleasure given. Toes curling, he let the wash and wave stimulate him, felt it, embodied it for himself because yes, this night was about him, and he was allowed to just... have.
Have he did.
“Nhh! F-uck. Fuck, Astarion, I...”
The ebb and flow caught him between impending orgasm and a dire need to stay in the ecstasy and desire pooling through his lower half. To push over the edge – tempting, but tempestuous. Its intensity would wreck him for eons, he was as sure of it now as he was each time Astarion brought him to this edge. But still, somehow the elf knew how to keep him just barely there, at the stage of not-quite-enough.
“Goooood.” A long drawl, positive and almost possessive, keeping him. That hand not occupied by thrusting inside of him lazily pressed into his pubis at the base of his cock. It sought to ruin him. “Keep going. Look at you dripping for me. So wet. You love this, don’t you?”
“I d-do. I do. I love it. Please.”
Panting, Gale gripped at the sheets.
“Oh, you’re going to cum, aren’t you? I can feel you squeezing around me, love. I can feel you. Do you want to cum for me, my sweet? Do you want it? Yeah?”
It was coming. He was going to cum, he was cumming, he was—
“Yes, love, come on—”
“AH-HNH!”
“Cum. Cum.”
“Yes! Ah! AH! ”
“Oh, fuck, yes. Gale. ”
It shot through him, a zapping lightning bolt that jolted into his fingers and made them clutch onto the pillow even harder, fingernails ripping into fabric.
Gale’s hole clenched around Astarion’s fingers, an asynchronistic rhythm that had the vampire sighing with pure adoration, a small smile playing on his lips.
“Do you want me to keep going, darling?”
All ability to communicate verbally seemed to sap from Gale’s body as he slumped. He tapped the bed twice, chest heaving. Tapping out. Astarion pulled his fingers out with a wet squelch, biting his lip and pressing against the pad of Gale’s hole with his pointer finger as it constricted back to size. Overstimulation wracked Gale’s nerves, not too terribly – enough to have him questioning if he wanted more. Very probably. The things that Astarion did to him...
Astarion rubbed his fingers on the sheets, sitting to his haunches and taking in Gale’s flushed orgasm-bitten cheeks, his heaving chest, the sweat dripping in little rivulets here and there. With all care usually given, he tucked his hands under his... mh, under Gale and shoved him to the side – failing miserably. Gale toppled onto his hands, taking the instruction to move onto his back. Dipping between Gale’s legs, he sucked the head of the wizard’s sensitive softening cock into his mouth, savouring the leftover seed.
“Ah-starion... mh...”
The vampire popped off, surveying Gale and oh, he felt so seen even now...
“Too much?”
“N-no. I...”
“You want more?”
Yes. Yes, he did.
“I want you inside of me. Your seed. Paint me with your love.” Love toiled inside of Gale, the desperate want to be filled was more than enough to spur him into pulling the vampire up, to the side, straddling Astarion as his hair fanned around his face. This. It was this. He wanted this, nothing above, nothing illusory. Real. Astarion had wanted real.
Gale would give him real.
“This is going to be quick for me. Fuck, look at you. Look what you’ve done to me.”
Astarion gestured to himself, grabbing at his cock and demonstrating his arousal prominently for Gale – for Gale. Shuffling back on the vampire’s thighs, he lined them both up, thrusting just a few times. Head lolling to the side, his view was affixed on his love below. Moans toppling, tripping out of their throats, Astarion swatted at Gale’s hand as he pulled him forward by the back of his thigh, trying to get him into position.
“This is supposed to be about y-ou! You little—”
“And I told you.”
Gale sank down, adjusting to the size easily.
“I want to make you feel good.”
“Hn-nh... Gale, Gale! Ohgodsfuckyes.”
His cock hardened under Astarion’s hand, coated in a new layer of just spit to ease the way for a supplemental handjob in addition to the slide of his cock inside. The mage gripped Astarion’s wrist with the hand not steading the elf’s length, steadying himself as he bottomed out.
They let out unsteady breaths each as Gale pitched forward, gripping at the chest under him. He bit his lip, rocking back on delight. Aching for more, aching from one already and another on the way.
“Fuck. N-nh... Gale... I really... I’m not going to last long, darling. So tight. Warm.” He bucked up, kicking Gale into a rhythm of riding. Firm thrusts down, soft and salacious drags up. They meet eyes and do not look away. They could never. Not when this is theirs. The night was theirs. Nobody could take this from them.
The hand on Gale’s cock sped up, pulling his foreskin over his head. Astarion dipped the pad of his thumb over his slit, motioning in a clockwise circle thrice over until Gale was whining from the too-much-barely-enough sensation that ran through his nerves, overtaking what was stimulating him inside.
“Fuck me, Astarion.”
His name dropped from his lips in a prayer. A command, almost, but more a beg for penance. For this angel under him to give him each celestial decision to pleasure him so. It was not about the sex so much, this plea. No, it was his name, given but not so used in the dalliances before. Given, stolen, used. It was safe on Gale’s tongue. Safety, now that... that was an aphrodisiac.
“I’ve got you,” came the answer, broken in half as Astarion braced his feet on the bed and rocked upwards, his thighs at the back of Gale’s cheeks. Motion threw them into each other. Gale’s hands slid down Astarion’s abdomen to his pecs, and the temptation to squeeze and thumb over his nipples was too great not to take the opportunity. Astarion squirmed under the pressure on his chest, mouth falling open and exposing his fangs as he moaned loud, a gritty groan shaking from him. His hand worked faster on Gale’s hardness, the impending bliss drawing closer still.
Astarion looked a vision, just as beautiful as he always had been and always would be while they made love.
Made love.
They made it, they created it, they created this thing together and Gale loved it, loved him.
He loved him.
It still hit him in all the strangest places. In depths he didn’t know existed. In shallows amidst silt unearthed of destruction long-past. Surface-facing, too, in the way he reacted.
And who was that about?
Both.
“Yes. Yes, oh, Gale!”
Soft. Round. Eyes wide-open, showing Gale the whirling, wracking storm inside of him that raged each time he said it.
“Astarion!”
Creased brow dropping, the deep valley where a scowl had made its home so often opening and soothing into two small divots just beside the inner parts of his brows. Brown eyes watering, a gale within Gale.
Two storms clashing of body and mind, working against all those thoughts and dark feelings saying that they could not have this.
Not after everything they’d done.
Even if it wasn’t their fault.
“Fuck, Astarion, I... I lost it. Damnation. Damn. I was so ah-hnh! Hnh, fuck, please.”
Concentration furrowed in Gale’s brow as he chased his own storm, waxing and waning like the cycle of a moon played over months and years. Too much, not enough, too much, not enough.
“You can do it, Gale. Come here, take my hands. Good boy. What is it you need from me, darling?”
“More. Hm-mph, more, please, fuck me.”
He ground up into the tight heat that Gale so willingly gave to him and the wizard keened, gripping at his hands like if he let go, he would be lost at sea, lost, lost, lost.
“More?”
Found.
“More! Oh fuck, that’s good. There. There! Oh yes, oh I’m going to cum.”
His thighs shaked, quaked, gripped to Astarion’s sides as the vampire dragged his cock against Gale’s prostate. It was here, he was here, so perfectly alive and right in Astarion’s arms, so perfect, so perfect, he was going to—
“A-STAR-ION!”
Black creeped in from the sides of his vision at how hard he came, head dizzy.
Vaguely, he felt Astarion releasing inside of him, heard a whimper as he gripped at his thighs, but he was too busy with trying to slump forward instead of to the side. He rocked forward, landing right on Astarion’s chest in his own cum.
And then they were coming down.
Down...
Down...
Down...
Breathing.
The two of them.
Together, in sync.
Feeling.
Being.
Existing in each other’s arms.
They panted into each mouths, hot breath against hot breath, murmuring love and other such curiosities left to be sated by sappy givings. Little growths existed freely.
Something in Gale’s cracks shifted, room made for… something…
Else.
Someone else.
“Feeling better, now?”
Yes, he was, in fact! He was feeling much, much better. Better than ever.
“Thank you. You have... you have no idea how much I needed that. You.”
“Does the amount happen to be ‘a lot,’ ‘many times over,’ or ‘like nobody I’ve ever needed before?’”
Gale paused at that, staring up at Astarion as he pulled out of the mage, soft cock dropping from his hole. Spend leaked from him and onto the sheets, quickly taken care of by a flick of Astarion’s fingers and a whisper for a prestidigitation. When the two of them had realized it would be pertinent for him to learn the cantrip for the sake of quick cleanup such as this, they’d spent a few hours until the man’s expertise in sleight of hand was translated to the magical medium.
It was clear as day that the vampire wanted something out of Gale from this answer. Not just the matter of needing him on any given day, not as a matter of needing him stuffed inside of his ass, buried deep and throbbing against his prostate, not to beg the man for a modicum of the attention he sought from Mystra.
He wanted commitment.
“I will, any given day of any tenday, commit myself to you. Any day. Just ask me of it, and it will be done. I would speak my desires of your personage in my life to any guard, magistrate, or otherwise inquisitive authority. Your success as a person, not only in recovering, but healing, is paramount to any other in my life.”
Good gods. Good gods, yes. Good... everything, really. Good mortal realms as well. Good anything. An exclamation of any unbelievable thing cloaked in a veil of goodness against an evil.
“Astarion.” A pause. Searching. “I love you. It’s true. Perhaps it’s all blurred, what we’ve been through together. The harsh nights, the heights of what we anticipated over the next mountain ridge, the horrid battles filled with nothing but death... those haunt me, you know. But knowing that you were there at my side, saw that I was still capable of... of what I can give to you. What I do give to you. I want nothing more than to give to you what you give to me and, one day, if we’re lucky, break down what it means that we feel what we do. Even if it’s not soon.”
A pause. Weighted. Heavy.
“We have been through a lot, together. Haven’t we?”
Gale nodded, seeking Astarion's lukewarm fingers as he slumped to the side, back landing on the bed. The elf followed, turning to his side to look Gale in the eye.
“Yes. Indeed. More than a lot, to be quite frank.” His body language shifted, a straightening of his back signaling a change from words not carefully said to something decidedly more structured. Consideration from the pit of Astarion's self was still a dredge, netted and tangled. Honesty took time. “I never... Gale Dekarios, you really are something else.”
A hand down his chest, a look so honest and earnest on his face it was almost slack, lips parted ever so slightly.
“Authenticity embodied. What I could have never imagined in as little a human contained in one vessel. That’s you. That’s Gale.”
He took a deep breath, letting it expand his lungs though oxygen made no home in his bloodstream. It was steadying, a platform for him to return to in the midst of what he knew what was about to come from his heart by way of his mouth rather than action. Another. And another. Gale looked on, mouth slightly parted, every bit of patience he had at use in this very moment. Finally, after the overthinking expired in a swirling spiral, Astarion found it in him to speak.
“You are... everything. To me. And it scares me beyond what I ever could have thought the possibilities of me being afraid could ever extend to. I don’t know if it’s right, first off, to believe that you could be my entire world. You could be. You could be my sunrise, my sunset. Fuck everything else. I could luxuriate in Gale Dekarios for years only to find out something new and interesting, something new to explore. You exist in a space in my head that has never been occupied. I’m a romantic, darling. A hopeless, ridiculous romantic! I’ve wanted nothing less than what you have to offer for hundreds of years, and then... suddenly, you’re here. I’m not sure how to handle that. My dreams coming true. You are, that’s what I mean, I mean that... Just... Gale... I love you. I love you, I...”
There was a moment, again of something completely unsubstantiated.
“... I love you.”
And he knew.
He knew what he’d known. At least, a part of it.
Love was a part of his world. It had always been a part of his world.
What he’d had to offer, it wasn’t nothing. It wasn’t a part of some horrific ploy against the mage to get him to do something or the other. Though that was wholly in character, it just wasn’t what was happening. Hells, it was what he had been afraid of! This idea. This horrid idea that he was doing something to Gale, that something about his curse was attracting him in any way outside of just being a part of who he was.
He’d been a fetish before.
He’d been recognized as a vampire.
He’d been recognized by red eyes, sharp teeth.
It was a part of the allure.
A part of who he was, put on a stage for everyone else to pick up on.
A part of the act.
And if they did pick up on it?
Well, good on them.
Another trophy for the case.
Astarion swallowed the hard truth in place of another easier, kinder one finding his tongue.
“We’re not too different. What’s happened to us already, it’s... we... you’re the one who compared Mystra to Cazador all the way back when. We haven’t revisited that. Not you and I, at least. Have you?”
Gale sighed, plopping his head down next to Astarion’s and threading his fingers through his hair. He did so love to do this, to spring his curls between his fingers.
“It feels wrong to equate my hardship to yours.”
“Good. Because it is. Stop doing that.”
“I apologize.”
“No, you silly man,” Astarion started, leaning into Gale’s hand. “Not because you’ve hurt me by saying it. That particular comparison is just utterly, completely useless. She hurt you. That’s not something to be taken lightly. Not with who she is. Not with who you are.”
Gale turned his gaze to the ceiling, past the dancing lights above them.
He knew.
He knows.
It was known to others, still is. Anyone who knew basic arithmetic could piece it together, most likely.
“Accepting it is... difficult.”
“I know.”
“I’m not quite there yet.”
“I know.”
They looked at each other silently, though the conversation did not end. It was a marker of something deeper, of acceptance coming to fruition, of a burgeoning culmination of understanding between two people starting its bloom. But just starting.
Astarion leaned forward to kiss Gale from the side, a meeting of lips on lips meant to seal this new knowledge permanently and for the rest of their days together.
“Go to sleep, little mage. I’ll be here when you wake.”
And Gale fell into a sleep so deep, so restful, so...
So...
Astarion watched. Tracing his gaze over the contours of Gale’s face, he sank back into the plush bed. Such comforts were still so new – not so much the bed, but the time. Time needed. Needed, used, expended. Not fleeting, not even close to running out of it. Just Astarion and the seconds ticking away, the moonlight basking through the window at the front of the home. He ran his hands through Gale’s hair, let the rhythm of the human’s breath take him away, away, away, eyes glazed over just to exist in his presence.
Away from it all.
Away to the Gates of the Moon.
To Sehanine Moonbow. Sort of.
To answers.
Where the moon’s light once felt a tonic on his skin in the place of shadows, now he felt subjugated, ever the subject of its ridiculing toothy beam.