Chapter Text
Astarion had spent the past tenday watching Lyric perform violence — sometimes strategically, sometimes surreptitiously, and once in a dream‑like fugue that had felt more like possession than absence.
The raid on the goblin camp was the first time she had orchestrated it. Or would have been, if the wizard hadn’t gotten into her head. He still didn’t know what Gale had said to her in those quiet, hurried minutes — her eyes soft and thoughtful, his lips a breath from her ear — only that whatever it was, it was enough to make her abandon the elegant little bloodbath she had planned.
One moment, she was setting the goblins and tieflings on a collision course; the next, she was fortifying the grove, planting explosives, and generally playing the hero.
It was a good look on her.
He hated it.
“What are you doing?” he had hissed at one point, pulling her out of the sunlight and into the shadows in a rare, unguarded moment. He heard the dissonance in his voice — disappointment tinged with betrayal — and he hated that, too.
It was about the blood, he told himself. It was about trading two centuries of starvation for fighting strength and the taste of blackberries on his tongue.
It was about a promise, too — one she had offered in a moment of pain-induced delirium. I mean it, Astarion. Cazador won’t have you. He shouldn’t hold her to it — he knew that — but somehow it had become a talisman against the fear that threatened to overwhelm him every time he closed his eyes and felt the world pressing in on him like a coffin.
It absolutely was not about a darkness that matched his, or a pair of storm-gray eyes that saw every stupid, selfish impulse — every moment of petty cruelty — and didn’t flinch, or a set of curling green vines etched in ink that warmed beneath his fingers.
It was about blood. It was about access. It was about protection.
Of course it was. What else could it be?
Lyric hadn’t heard the question beneath the question, and that more than anything else — more than the newfound softness that blossomed only for Gale, more than the sudden about-face on her happy little murder plans — made the truth impossible to ignore: he was losing her.
She had just shrugged, a casual slip of her shoulders that encompassed everything and nothing. “I’m told it’s called the ‘right thing to do’,” she’d said simply — as if it were already decided, already done.
He’d stepped back first, forcing himself to let her go, to turn away before he accidentally said something real — something he couldn’t take back or bury beneath a too-thin smile and bright, brittle laughter. And, because she asked, he did his part, too, scouting the secret tunnels beneath the grove and setting tripwires at every hidden and not-so-hidden entrance.
In the end, their eleventh-hour efforts hadn’t been enough to undo the damage she’d wrought, but they had mitigated the worst of it: the Absolute’s forces had been routed outside the gates without ever setting foot or claw in the Hollow City, much less in the grove itself, and more tieflings had survived the ambush than perished in it.
Now, hours later, they were singing her praises — literally — and it was all because the wizard had breathed something earnest and nauseating into her ear.
Under different circumstances, Astarion might have found the irony amusing. He certainly wasn’t opposed to a bit of opportunistic hero worship, provided he was its beneficiary. But Gale’s unwelcome influence cast a pall over the entire affair, reducing what should have been an inspired performance — blood and mayhem on a grand scale — into this tired bit of street-theater.
And — worse — once the fighting had ended, the chaos and noise the tieflings had brought to the druids’ sanctuary had spilled into his instead, infesting the once-idyllic camp with cheap wine, raucous laughter, and the same ridiculous, relentless optimism that had somehow survived Elturel — and, gods help them, Lyric.
At least she had killed Alfira and spared them all the indignity of her fumbling lute-strings.
He watched her glide through the party in full performance-mode, drifting from tent-to-tent like she always did, making her little rounds among their companions — collecting their concerns, coaxing out their small fears and petty desires, offering those artfully constructed glimpses of herself that made every exchange feel reciprocal when he knew it was anything but.
He caught a trace of her warm, wine-rich scent as she slipped by. She’d made herself scarce since the evening he had stumbled into camp, drunk on bear and feelings too real to name. He didn’t care— refused to care. But with distance came clarity. Clarity… and the sudden, sinking fear that the darkness she let slip for him wasn’t a shared truth at all, just another mask she’d learned to wear and sharpened against the edge of his hunger.
He frowned as she brushed past him — still avoiding him, apparently — and took her performance to the tieflings, of all people, folding them into her orbit as if they belonged there. As if they mattered. As if they weren’t already dead, whether by her hand when her mood inevitably shifted, or by the cult’s on the long, perilous road to Baldur’s Gate. As if she hadn’t left a trail of their dead behind her: the tiefling girl in the shed, Arabella, Alfira. Everyone who had fallen in battle — fewer than there might have been, before Gale intervened, yet still enough to sate the dark, hungry thing inside her, which she stubbornly refused to name.
And here she was: charming them instead of killing them. It was all so effortless. The interest she could summon for people she cared nothing about. The relief she performed for their survival. The warmth she scattered like crumbs. Even that vague “good feeling” she professed to have — whatever that meant — about what came next.
He told himself he was done. He’d seen the Lyric show too many times already.
So he sipped wine from a—ugh—cup.
He flipped through the pages of a book he’d pilfered from Gale’s growing collection — standing out in the open, as he always did, because the entire point of reading was to be seen reading.
He hurled daggers at the tentacled mannequin outside Lae’zel’s tent, giggling like a madman every time the githyanki jumped out of her skin until she stormed over in a fit of pique and threatened to break every one of his fingers. (Maybe she could procure a sense of humor in this crèche she was so adamant they find.)
And every time he looked up, Lyric was dazzling someone new. Clapping for Rolan’s sad little magic show. Twirling around the bonfire with that drunk tiefling girl, Bex-or-whatever. Trading tricks-of-the-trade with Mol — as if he hadn’t taught her everything she knew in that regard.
Somewhere between chasing Siffy out of his pockets and pointedly not listening to Zevlor as he recounted the raid for the fourteenth time, Astarion realized Lyric had slipped away. Typical. Leave her alone for five minutes and she’d be gods knew where, sulking or scheming — or, the way things were headed, rescuing kittens from trees or whatever wholesome nonsense heroes got up to when they vanished from parties thrown in their honor.
He wasn’t annoyed. And he certainly wasn’t looking for her. Gods, no. He was simply… keeping an eye on things. Someone had to make sure she didn’t decide to liven up the festivities with a bit of recreational murder, and he was the only one with the faintest idea of what those small, twisted hands were capable of.
She should have been easy to find, even from a distance. She was simply too bright, too sharp, too much herself to disappear in a crowd. And yet everywhere he turned, she was nowhere to be found.
...Fine. He’d take a walk. Not to look for her. To stretch his legs, and maybe put some distance between himself and the still‑simmering Lae’zel. He liked his fingers exactly as they were, thank you very much. His nails, in particular, were exquisite.
He drifted through camp, moving with the same idle grace he had perfected over two centuries of charming fools possessed of more beauty than sense. It was as easy as breath. Easier, really — he often had to remind himself to breathe, these days.
He found her at the edge of the firelight, deep in conversation with Halsin and — of course — Gale. No wonder he hadn’t seen her; she was eclipsed by a tree with arms.
Halsin was saying something that was both predictable and predictably sanctimonious. Astarion couldn’t make out the druid's exact words over the din. The shrill, delighted shrieks from the gaggle of tiefling brats chasing each other around the fire, the low susurrus of wine-slurred voices raised in Common and Infernal, even the wind whistling between the tents like nature’s own last call — all conspired against him, overwhelming even his vampiric hearing.
But he could see them all too well. The way Lyric’s shoulder brushed Gale’s as they stood, not quite side-by-side, but close. The way he glanced towards her before replying to whatever it was Halsin had just said, his hand hovering just above the small of her back. The way her head tilted towards his, ever so slightly, her smile a touch too warm to be performance art. Everything about their posture said almost. Almost touching. Almost together. Almost something that would cost him the one thing he couldn’t afford to lose.
It wasn’t about Lyric, he told himself. He didn’t want her— refused to want her. Life was complicated enough without an entanglement to a compulsive spree-killer, even if the violence was delightful. Even if she occasionally looked at him like—
It was about what she gave him. Blood. Access. Protection. That was all.
He stepped forward.
Halsin noticed him first, and offered a tentative smile — one tinged with the kind of vague appreciation Astarion knew all too well. It was an effort to keep the sneer off his face. Lyric turned next, following the druid’s gaze, her gray eyes brightening to silver in the reflected moonlight.
The wizard looked last and spoke first, because of course he did. “Astarion. Are you enjoying the party?”
“The party? Oh, you mean the screaming children and vinegar they’re calling wine? A delight.”
Gale sputtered. Halsin chuckled. Lyric’s lips twitched — the beginnings of a wry smile. Her real one. The one he thought was her real one.
He lifted a brow in silent question.
“Walk with me?” she asked. “I could use some air.”
Something he didn't recognize tightened in his chest, prickling beneath his ribs like a warning.
He glanced from Lyric to the other two men. Gale’s expression had settled into polite disappointment. Halsin’s was neutral — not carefully neutral. Just neutral.
Astarion let one shoulder rise in a languid, dismissive half-roll — not a shrug so much as the suggestion of one. “If you wish.”
Uncertainty flickered across her face. “We don’t have to,” she started. “I just thought—”
“It’s fine.”
It was not fine. But because the wizard was watching — his brow furrowed; his perfect, chiseled jaw clenched against words he kept, for once, to himself — Astarion forced a smile as he offered her a hand. She took it with a hesitance that should have mollified him but instead scraped raw against his nerves. He made a soft, impatient noise and her fingers closed lightly around his as if she feared the wrong kind of pressure might break something fragile between them.
He whisked her away, drawing her back through camp and then out of it entirely, letting the clamor of the party recede behind them. His first few strides were long and brisk; she practically had to scurry to keep up. He forced himself to slow his steps, to match her pace. She flashed him a small, grateful smile and the twinge in his chest sharpened. Shame, he realized, sudden and stupid. He dropped her hand like it had been dipped in holy water.
“Astarion…”
He looked away, jaw tightening. “Can we not.”
His body picked a direction before his thoughts caught up, and he set off towards the southeast, following the oft-traveled path through the ruins. She followed wordlessly, falling into step behind him — a silent, ephemeral presence at his heels.
It was a short, familiar walk to their usual place. The night air cooled around them, carrying the faint scent of damp soil and brine. The merriment at camp faded away, swallowed by distance and the cascade of rushing water.
Neither of them spoke until they were safely ensconced within three and a half walls of crumbling stone, doused in moonlight and shadows.
“I’m sorry,” she breathed. “I just needed to—”
“You don’t need to manage me,” he snapped.
“—get away.”
Wait… what? He frowned down at her, feeling his brow crease.
She blinked up at him, confusion darkening her gaze. “I wasn’t trying to manage you,” she protested, at the same time he asked “Get away from what?”
Her smile flickered, wry around the corners. “Do you want to start over?”
He closed his eyes briefly. She was still staring when he re-opened them, her sharp edges softened by moonglow. “I do not want to ‘start over’,” he said, his voice more terse than he intended. “I want—” His thoughts sped up and slowed down at the same time. An idea started to form. Half-form. It was so, so reckless. He fell into it anyway. “All I want is to have a little fun,” he said, reaching for the familiar lie. “Is that so much to ask?”