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ghost-proofbaby · 5 days

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“I am not jealous,” she snaps, spinning around to face him. His hands fall away from her easily, his grip never having been very strong to begin with. “Oh, but you are.” “Fuck off, Astarion.”

summary: some tough conversations are had, some armor is discarded, and aruna gets jealous.

wc: 6.2k+

warnings: descriptions of pain due to a stab wound, miscommunication if we squint, description of blood (specifically staining clothing)

a/n: shout out to my beloved @hellfire--cult for helping me figure out some of the end dialogue. thank you for always listening to me ramble on and on about this fic even tho you're a gale girlie. i love you.

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Aruna’s determination proves to not be for naught. She makes it back to camp, although a bit slowly, only tripping twice.

By the time they’re strolling back into what has now become their temporary home, the sun has set and everyone is exhausted. Shadowheart no longer looks to be on the verge of passing out, but Aruna knows she needs time to recover just as much as the wound in her side still does. As she watches Wyll guide their cleric back to her tent, all that guilt returns, gnawing viciously at her insides.

She almost misses the pain of being stabbed with the branch – that was less painful than this culpability.

“Take a seat,” Gale insists when he catches the way she’s merely standing and staring, putting a soft hand on Aruna’s shoulder that earns a warning sneer from Astarion, “She’ll be back soon with the healing potion, and then you need to rest.”

The last thing she really wants to do is rest, even if she knows she needs to. The persistent need to rest only makes her feel as though she’s failed them somehow.

“We should make a fire,” she says stiffly, eyes still locked on Shadowheart’s tent that she’s disappeared into, Wyll slowly making his way back over.

Gale nods, immediately getting to work once he waves a hand towards the makeshift bench once more, signaling for Aruna to sit. This time she listens against her better judgment, still flooded with the need to do something useful.

She should be the one making the fire to warm and dry them off. She was the one who had fallen foolishly into the river, who had gotten them into this mess.

It’s no surprise when Astarion quickly takes a seat beside her.

All that guilt continues to bubble up, and it’s the only reason that Aruna finds herself speaking to him, the overflow of it finally spilling out of her, “I’m sorry for worrying you. I didn’t mean to initiate the connection again.”

He only hums in response as he pulls one of his daggers out, flipping it absent-mindedly between his palms.

“We had it handled,” she continues on when he doesn’t offer a proper response, voice only shaking a little bit. She could pass it off as the cold getting to her, if anyone were to ask, “In all fairness. I’m sure that the current would have subsided eventually, or-”

The movement of his blade ceases, “You would call getting stabbed through your chest having it handled?”

The guilt pours out now, gushing faster than her wound had even when they’d first pulled the branch out of it, “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again – I assure you I’ve learned my lesson when it comes to running water.”

Astarion tilts his head back, a sour bark of laughter leaving him, “Yes, I’m sure you have.”

She assumes that’s all he has to say, but he surprises her, continuing on as he glares at the trees in the distance before them.

“Would you like to know the most startling part?” He’s angry. Absolutely livid. And yet, he still has yet to spark any fear in her, “It’s not the fact that you nearly got yourself killed again. No, that I can expect from you now. It was days of silence suddenly cut off by your voice in my head, prattling on about saving me,” Aruna freezes entirely, and not due to the temperature. He had heard her; he had heard all her vulnerable thoughts regarding the letter. “But even that I can disregard. I can handle playing the seeming role of a damsel in distress if the timing is right. What I cannot handle is to suddenly feel your lungs filling with water as though they were my own. What I couldn’t fathom was to feel as though I was the one stabbed, yet knowing it was you, and knowing I could do absolutely nothing about it.”

She’s dizzy again, and not from blood loss.

“You have seemingly made it your mission to make me... Make me…” he trails off, his hand gripping the hilt of his dagger so tightly that his impossibly pale skin has turned nearly translucent, “Make me care for your safety. You’ve managed to inexplicably tie your survival to mine. Do you truly think that if you died, any of them would hesitate to stake me for the first moment I opened my mouth?'' She opens her own mouth to answer, but he isn’t done, “Especially if any of them found out what I truly was. They would feed me to the wolves. I don’t understand why you haven’t, I don’t understand why you insist on trying to help me in some sick, twisted way,” he finally looks at her, and his gaze pierces right through her. She recalls the memory returned from her latest almost-death – the view of him bathed in golden sunlight, the brewing fondness that had resided in her chest at the mere sight of him. She recalls all his teasing and all his hidden softness, even when he was wearing a disguise for an unaware audience, “It’s become abundantly clear that if you die, I die. I’ve spent the last several days ruminating if it might be smarter for me to simply make a run for it now, to take my chances out there on my own, considering the way you number your days so effortlessly.”

She swallows hard, unsure of how exactly to respond to all of that. His words fuel the flames of guilt, taking their time as they sink into her psyche, leaving their mark with the utmost significance. He’s being honest – dreadfully, painfully honest.

And he’s right.

She recalls the way Gale had refused to hear her request to keep Astarion alive should she have fallen victim to her injuries. The way Shadowheart was so quick to snark back at Astarion with such hidden hatred. Even Wyll, the singing hero of their group, didn’t seem to care much for the pale elf.

The only one in their camp who seemed to have any vested interest in Astarion was Aruna.

Was it still due to the letter? Was it still due to some silly, ominous mission to save him?

“You saved me,” she whispers out, locking eyes with him, “With Nettie. You saved me before I ever knew of your… condition.”

He tilts his head, as though he’s speaking to a child, “And just how well do you think it would have bode for me if I were to return to camp without you? Just how do you believe they would have reacted if I returned only to inform them that our fearless leader had been poisoned, and I had done nothing about it?”

“It was more than that,” she snaps, growing a bit desperate, “Shadowheart told me how you acted while I was incapacitated. Bringing me back was enough to keep away their anger, Astarion. But you still insisted on protecting me, even once I was back here safely. Why are you so Hell-bent on protecting me?”

“Why are you so Hell-bent on saving me?”

Eight- no, nine words, and they effectively shut Aruna up. Her mouth snaps close, her heart all but stops.

Is she willing to lay it all out on the line for him? Is she truly willing to part with that letter in her pack, the one she isn’t even sure has survived the river?

“It’s… complicated,” she croaks out, realizing the answer was already there.

No. She’s not willing to. Her shoulders still aren’t strong enough to carry all the consequences that would come with showing Astarion the letter. He could be angry, he could be overly curious, he could have a magical answer that makes it all make sense – his reaction is entirely unpredictable at the end of the day, but would be more for Aruna to bear regardless.

When his head tilts ever so slightly this time, he’s no longer being condescending, but rather curious. As if lost in his own mind as he studies her in the silence before whispering, “I’m sure it is.”

It’s not patronizing, it’s not crude – it’s something sincere. As though he understands her. As if he gets it.

All at once, she’s nearly taking back her gut reaction. She’s nearly pouring it all out, letting the truth spill over the edges of her cup as she floods him with all that has been happening with her since the moment she woke up on that beach. It’s not just the shared memories from when he fed on her; she wants him to know about the letter, to know about the daggers with their peculiar symbols and of the time in which his voice had commanded her how to wield them. She wants to show him the stone she hadn’t paid much attention to as of recently, and she wants to know if the ring in her pouch is recognizable to him in any way. It’s the briefest flash of spontaneity, and she almost does it, because she almost sees the version of him from all those visions.

But she can’t. She knows she can’t, even without the thrashing of the thing inside of her that has determined this must all stay her dirty little secret.

“I should clean up,” she finally says to try and weasel her way out of the awkwardness at hand. The last thing she wants to do is attempt to peel her armor from the wound, but it has to be done at some point. Better to do it in water, where it might be easier.

Better to do that than let a slip of tongue ruin it all.

But when she rises off the log slowly, Astarion is following. “Allow me to help you-”

“No,” she doesn’t mean for the decline to come out so biting, but it stabs the air between them regardless. She clears her throat before she tries to continue in a softer tone, “Sorry, I just- I’ll be fine. I’m just going down to the river at the edge of camp, washing away the blood from the armor and all. I’m sure I can make it on my own.”

His eyes trail over her, almost amused, “Can you even remove your own armor right now?”

“Of course I can.”

“Reach your arms over your head for me, then.”

Damn him.

He knows she won’t be able to – the stretch would cause her too much pain, and it would prove she couldn’t handle the twisting of removing the leather that weighs her down without his help.

“Look, my dear,” he drawls, finally seeming more and more himself. His vulnerable confession feels like a distant memory already, and her head spins from the whiplash, “If you won’t allow me to help, at least allow me to keep an eye on you. It’s a bit soon for us to be trusting you around running water alone.”

She’s not winning this argument. She’d already lost it the moment he’d stood up with her.

“I don’t need a babysitter,” she grumbles, but she doesn’t put up any further protest.

He bites his tongue, corners of his mouth twitching with a smile, “Of course you don’t. Consider me a guard, then, rather than a babysitter.”

A guard. A shadow.

“I’d put up more of a fight,” she murmurs, catching the way the light of the fire dances across his skin. It reminds her of the recent memory – the fire’s reflection almost mimics the way the golden hour had encapsulated him in the mountains, but it’s the wrong shade. Too many shadows, too much darkness. Not enough light for the likes of him, she softly realizes, “But I’m sure even if I still decline, you’ll be lurking in the shadows, won’t you?”

His grin says it all.

“Allow me to gather up supplies, then,” he says, tone smug as he turns towards his tent.

Aruna nods for a moment, a bit lost in her thoughts, before she suddenly processes what he’s just said.

“Wait, what?”

—

Astarion is a hoarder. It’s the only explanation.

Supplies, as it turns out, was referring to his secret stash of soaps he had managed to snag from the Grove. Aruna tries to convince herself that he paid for them all, but she knows better.

Even if he’d sold every single useless item their entire group had gathered up thus far and sold it to the poor trader, he never would have accumulated enough gold for his collection.

“What scent is this one?” Aruna asks as she plucks yet another bar of soap from the bag he’d been keeping them all in. She could see an herb laced throughout it, peeking out through the cloudy white of the soap’s base.

Astarion glances over from the bag he’d picked up from Shadowheart before joining her on the beach, rummaging through the bandage supplies and healing potion the cleric had provided, “How am I to know? You could – oh, I don’t know – simply smell it yourself.”

They’re teasing each other again. They’re almost whoever they are in her memories.

Almost, almost, almost. Always a near perfect replica, but something is always just off with it all. Something is always missing.

She makes a show of doing exactly what he’d sarcastically suggested, bringing the soap close enough to catch the swirling undertones of eucalyptus and peppermint. Makes sense, given the conglomeration of small and sharp leaves mingling with longer, softer green ones.

“Who did you even nab these off of?” she questions as she tosses the fresh soap back into the cloth bag, digging around until she finds another one to examine. The new one is freckled with purple specks, and the waft of lavender hits her before she even holds it up in front of her face, “Nettie?”

“No,” Astarion laughs, finally pushing himself up out of the sand they’d dropped into, “Well, some of them. Ethel also had quite the collection. That woman is positively demented, by the way.”

“You told her everything about our affliction, didn’t you?”

“Of course I did.”

Aruna can’t help but let out a small laugh at that. She’s settled on using the lavender soap, deciding that it’s better than the stench of blood and mud that she currently reeks of.

It’s nice, being this way with Astarion. The night is almost as calm as it is whenever they escape to her hidden sanctuary in the forest overlooking the camp, the notes of the water gently lapping at the pebbles mere feet away only adding to the atmosphere. And although she can’t see the camp as clearly as she does from her boulder, she can certainly hear it better. She can hear the crackling of the fire, hear the occasional chatter amongst the other companions, hear the frequent barks of laughter that must belong to Karlach.

It’s nice. To exist not far from that world, only a wall of stone and shrubbery away, but still be alone with Astarion.

“Did she offer any cure to these damned tadpoles?” Aruna asks, clearly putting off the inevitable.

She’s dreading taking off the armor. She’s convinced herself that it’ll hurt even more than the initial stab did.

Astarion sees right through her distractions, holding a hand out as an offering to help her up. She wonders if he would have offered the same manners to anyone else back in camp, “Perhaps. And if she did, I’ll be more than all too eager to tell you all about it – after you’re no longer soaked in your own blood.”

“What?” She takes his hand, wincing despite her best efforts as he hauls her up beside him, “I thought if anyone would enjoy the smell of my bloody perfume, the resident vampire would.”

She’s already discarded her own leather pack to the sand, her boots placed neatly mere feet from it. But her armor, her garments – that’s what she’s avoiding taking off. Not even out of shyness, but out of fear.

Apparently, she can face bloodthirsty hordes of goblins and sleep soundly with a vicious vampire in the camp, but draws the line at the quick pain awaiting her.

“Even blood turns sour,” he says as he scrunches his nose up a bit for emphasis, “Besides, you reek of only Gods-know-what was in that river's depths.”

“Dead goblins,” she quickly replies, mind whirling with quick responses so that the conversation can continue rather than beginning the dreaded process, “It was definitely dead goblins.”

“Oh?” It’s not working. He can multitask, it seems. He lifts a finger and motions it for her to twirl in the air between them, “And did those ghastly things die by your fearsome sword?”

He’s teasing her mercilessly, and she’s grinning like a fool about it. She should be more upset with him after the days of radio silence, but it’s hard to do so when they’ve created this inexplicable bubble of safety.

She doesn’t turn, almost daring him as she snarks back, “My daring daggers, actually. You know me. An unstoppable force to be reckoned with.”

He realizes what she’s doing. His face is entirely unimpressed as he crosses his arms, not even offering her the ghost of a smile she’d been vying for.

“Aruna.”

“Astarion.”

“Turn around so we can get this damn armor off of you.”

“Have you always been so eager to see me nude? You know, maybe if you asked nicely-”

His cold hands come down on her shoulders with impeccable speed, a bit rough as he forces her to do as he had been asking the entire time, “Under any other circumstances, I might entertain you and your scandalous assumption.”

It should leave her uncomfortable, being put in such a vulnerable position. Her back is turned to him, her body following wherever his palms may guide her. She’s completely at his mercy, far too tired to fight back at this point, and she should be more worried to turn her back on a vampire.

She isn’t. It almost feels natural – there’s not a trace of fear as she feels his breath brush the back of her neck, his hands slowly lifting themselves away from her armored shoulders.

“You know,” she starts, swallowing the lump growing in her throat, a conglomeration of nerves and confusion. Her wound has gone to even throb preemptively for the pain she’s about to endure, “It feels an awful lot like our roles are reversed right now.”

“Are they?”

He sounds far away as his fingertips brush her back, toying with the lacing of her armor. A shiver runs up her spine, and it takes impeccable self-constraint to fight from letting it physically show to him.

“They are,” her voice is just as soft, nothing more than a whisper carried with the wind, “Usually you’re the one full of scandalous assumptions.”

“I’d hardly consider my assumptions scandalous,” his fingers have finally reached her lower back, where the lacing ends (or technically begins). He hesitates, halting all movements to the point of his fingers almost completely removing from her before he asks, “May I?”

She can’t answer him vocally. There’s no real, logical reason as to why she’s so fearful of facing this brief moment of pain. After all she’s gone through in their journeys, peeling armor off a wound is hardly something worth making her cower in indecision.

And maybe that’s exactly why she is.

For the first time in what must be a long time, Aruna is being presented with the illusion of a choice. She can choose to let him unlace her armor, to help her out of the layers clinging mercilessly to her wounded self, or she could choose to simply say no. And although she’s well aware if she gave a convincing absolutely not as her answer that Astarion would remove himself from her entirely, she’s also aware of just how inevitable it is.

The armor has to come off at some point. It’s going to hurt no matter what. But she’s tired, and she’s gone through so much pain already, and she’s brimming with childish petulance. She doesn’t want anymore pain. She doesn’t want any more confusion.

She doesn’t want any more adventure. Not with these tired bones, not with this sore skin.

“It’s going to hurt, isn’t it?” she finally whispers.

He doesn’t have to answer, they both know it’s rhetorical, but he does anyway, “Yes. But only for a moment, I’d assume.”

She lets out a dry scoff. He’d assume. “Moments add up, Astarion.”

Camp has gone quieter in the distance, and most of that teasing airiness from earlier has evaporated. Insects chirp in the distance as even the water begins to still. As though Nature herself had begun to listen in to their almost vulnerable moment.

It’s about more than the wound.

He finally sighs heavily, “Do you want me to be brutally honest, or would you rather be coddled?”

“If I wanted coddling, I would have requested Gale’s assistance.”

Now it’s him scoffing as his hands lift back to her shoulder, encouraging her to turn back around to face him, far more gentle than they had been when turning her away.

“It’s going to hurt regardless, Aruna. Whether you take off the armor now or in a tenday – it’s going to hurt. The little moments will still add up, regardless of if you give yourself the false hope of a break. It is simply unavoidable,” his earnest ruby eyes pour into hers as she stares into them, scanning for any trace of sincerity. Any trace of humanity, “If you leave it be for a few days, however, I guarantee the wound will end up infected. You could always take the healing potion from Shadowheart before you attempt this all, but the healing hurts just as badly, does it not?”

“Say it plainly,” she demands, still feeling a resistant trace of youth she can’t remember earning tugging at her heart, “Just call me a fool. Tell me to be a big girl and rip off the bandage.”

It’s about far more than the wound.

He hesitates at the worst possible moment. Humanity flashes in his eyes with the most terrible of timing, his facial expression softening with every passing second. For a moment, she almost thinks he won’t do it.

He comes through, though, just as she needs him to.

“Stop being a fool,” he says the words, almost mechanically, “Rip the bandage off.”

This time, she turns her back to him of her own volition.

His hands don’t hesitate to find the lacing once more, catching on quickly to her unspoken permission. He makes quick work of it, beginning with the bottom knot and working his way up the corset of the armor, loosening it up along her spine. Each stretch from his hands makes the leather cling to her body less intensely, allowing her more room to breathe, until she feels the armor begin to unstick from the wound.

It does hurt. Badly enough that her breath catches, but not nearly as badly as the initial stab had. Momentarily.

Once he’s removed the armor, tossing it carelessly into the sand near the rest of her belongings, she assumes his touch will leave her entirely. But it doesn’t. Through her thin undershirt, she feels his hand suddenly find the tight ends up her poorly done braids she’d been donning for a few days now – a feeble attempt to keep her hair out of the way during battles and traveling alike.

“What are you-” she begins to question, but she’s cut off by his shushing.

He gives a gentle tug to the left braid, clearly examining the twine she’d use to tie off the style. She can’t see his face, but she can picture the judgemental glance he gives as a tsk whistles from between his teeth just before his fingers also make quick work of that knot.

“Who has been braiding your hair?” he asks, his voice having returned to its normal pitch of cadence, high and mighty as he slowly begins to undo the braid. His knuckles brush her bare neck, and this time, she can’t hide any shivers that wreck her, “Actually, I’m not even sure if we can consider these braids, they’re so poorly done.”

She’s smiling, softly and timidly, as she responds, “Me.”

His unraveling pauses, “Excuse me?”

“I’m the one who braided my hair. Who else would it have been?”

She finally dares to twist and take a look at his face, only to find it contorted with an odd bemusement, “Dear Gods. Are you truly telling me you’re not only inadequate with your daggers, but also your hands when it comes to your own hair?”

She should probably be offended, and try to defend herself with the honest truth; she’s unfamiliar with this hair, with this body, to the point in which something as mundane as braiding her own hair has proven to be its own challenge. She’s still adjusting to the thickness of it, to figuring out the best way to keep the soft strands entrapped between her fingers as she had attempted to blindly navigate the weaving of three simple sections. It had honestly frustrated her for hours. The reminder of just how hopeless she still feels as she navigates the world feeling like a newborn babe, fragmented memories still not quite enough to let her make a home out of her own skin, her own hair.

And yet, she doesn’t. She only gives a joking shrug, that hurts only a little, as she grins, “It is a lot of hair, in all fairness.”

“It’s a simple braid, Aruna.”

He’s finished unraveling the first braid, her scalp singing with relief as the heavy locks of her hair fall against her back. She isn’t surprised when he repeats the process with the second braid as well, careful fingers separating three uneven strands until all tension of the make-shift hairdo has been discarded. The thick curtain of hair does little to protect her against the chill of the breeze rolling off the water beside them, but she’s not even focused on that.

All Aruna can think about is cold fingers meeting her skin in skittish motions, the waft of his breath across her ear as he would mindlessly lean in closer throughout the entirely innocent act.

If he were still living, breathing, radiating warmth, she has no doubt she’d feel it against her back. But his chill that runs off his body in waves only mingles with the night air, the smell of rosemary hardly breaking through the smell of her own dried blood.

“And just where exactly did you become an expert in braiding hair?” she finds herself blurting out, just barely noticing the way her eyes had fluttered shut at the feeling of his fingers in her hair. Her own curiosity begins to chew through her bones, and she can’t help but add on, “A lover, perhaps?”

Astarion snorts at that, his breath hitting the shell of her ear once more, “Are you asking me if I have a lover awaiting me back in Baldur’s Gate?”

“I-” she cuts off, voice choking up in her throat as Astarion catches her off guard – his fingers don’t leave her hair. Instead, now that the braids are undone, he’s meticulously raking them through the strands, gently detangling as he goes. Her entire body nearly shivers in response, “I suppose I am.”

“And if I say yes?” he drawls, fingers lifting back up to the roots of her hair, repeating the motion of brushing through, “Who’s to say I don’t have some poor soul weeping over my disappearance back in the city? Haunting all our old taverns, wailing about their long lost love?”

Aruna isn’t sure why, but the image he paints sparks something nasty in her gut. Something rabid and burning, viciously green and snarling as she attempts to tamper it down.

Is she jealous? She couldn’t possibly be jealous. Absolutely not.

But she can picture it so quickly – Astarion, backlit with a lively city, curled up in a dark corner of a tavern. A private booth, somewhere himself and his lover would call their own. She can picture it so perfectly. A graceful and poised hand falling on his shoulder, dangerous red lips brushing his jaw, someone’s stubble raking against his exposed throat and shivers causing his spine to shake just as hers has this entire interaction. A beautiful woman, a handsome man – it doesn’t matter which image is flickering in the space beside Astarion, it causes more of the hideous feeling to bubble up more ferociously.

Someone making Astarion smile that mischievous grin that puts the stars to shame. Someone making Astarion laugh with the melody that makes every possible song to ever be heard after fall flat. Someone, anyone, having Astarion that way. Knowing him that way.

Knowing him in the way she almost swears she might have known him, in all those dusty and unclear visions she’s been so unfortunately gifted with.

It’s not funny anymore.

“Then I’d say congratulations are in order,” Aruna finally replies flatly.

Astarion can sense her shift in mood, and his fingers leave her hair, “By all means, don’t hold back your enthusiasm, dear.”

She’s not jealous. She cannot possibly be jealous.

She isn’t yearning to see that charismatic smile now. She isn’t trying to formulate a punch line to elicit one of those reckless cackles from him. She isn’t.

But without his fingers in her hair, she’s suddenly picturing them in someone else’s, and it nearly crumples her. All she can see is green. Terrible, sickening green.

“Who says I’m not being enthusiastic?” she scowls, ready to pull out of his reach.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he’s speaking in nearly-slurring words, almost taunting her, and when she does move to take a step forward, his hands delicately fall onto her shoulders. Careful, calculated, gentle. “Perhaps it’s that pitiful tone, or perhaps it’s these very tense shoulders that have come out of nowhere,” He uses his hands on her as leverage, pulling her back microscopically as he steps forward. In an instant, her back is pressed to his chest, his lips brushing the lobe of her ear as he whispers, “Dare I say it seems that our dearest sorcerer is jealous?”

He’s said it outloud. She hates him, because he’s said it outloud.

“I am not jealous,” she snaps, spinning around to face him. His hands fall away from her easily, his grip never having been very strong to begin with.

“Oh, but you are.”

“Fuck off, Astarion.”

It’s clearly nothing more than a game to him. She can see it in his eyes, in the way the red glows to life as though she’s presenting him with the challenge of a lifetime.

“There’s nothing to be ashamed of, my dear,” he says in a lilting tone, head curiously tilting, “It’s a natural reaction to the possibility that someone as charming as myself may no longer be on the market.”

Aruna nearly grinds her teeth to dust, jaw tense as she narrows her eyes, “I’m not ashamed, because I’m not jealous.”

Oh, but she is, isn’t she? She’s terribly, terribly jealous, and it’s beginning to settle into her bones as she stops fighting down the feeling. Amethyst eyes have turned green, and her stomach bile is climbing up her throat at the insinuation Astarion has laid out before her.

Someone else feeling his fingers run through their hair, someone else feeling those cold lips graze their ears so precisely.

“Admit it,” he says firmly, eyes still alight with playfulness as he takes a step closer, dipping his face down closer to hers, “Just admit that it pains you to even think of the lovers I may have waiting for me back in the city.”

Those words stoke burning fires in her stomach, each one making her insides churn. Someone who isn’t her, curling up against his body. Someone who isn’t her, resting their head upon his shoulder.

“I can feel it, you know? Through those precious little brain fiends of ours,” he pauses, tapping a finger to his temple, a salacious grin spreading slowly across his features, “All those ugly emotions aren’t easily hidden.”

She doesn’t like this game. He may be enjoying himself, but every word is a weapon against her. It’s becoming something more than the image of him with someone else – it’s becoming a trigger to fantasizing about herself in those scenarios with Astarion.

His fingers running up her spine. His lips grazing along her neck and collar bones. The weight of his body against her through the night, both in images of him hovering over her as his hips meet hers in waves as well as the mundane – the innocent thought of sharing a bed with him, and nothing more. Sharing dark corners of taverns. Sharing snide remarks. Sharing the early mornings and the late afternoons with him.

She’s past jealousy. She’s yearning.

The realization slaps her in the face, sends her reeling a few steps backwards. Astarion watches in real time as the devastation crosses her features, all the surprise impossible to mask.

What does she do with that? Where did these thoughts even come from?

If the jealous feelings had been enough to fan the flames across the connection, the pathetic desires are enough to extinguish it all. Between her physical reaction and surely the way he felt that terrible need twisting inside her chest, Astarion’s playful expression melts away to something more serious.

When she flinches as he raises his hands back up, with mere intentions of laying them on her shoulders and nothing else, she swears she sees a flash of sorrow.

“Well,” he starts, appearing more awkward now than he has ever before with a curt clearing of his throat as his hands drop back to his sides, “I suppose my work here is done.”

The removal of her armor had hurt in a terrible sort of way, but nothing compares to the sting that had echoed in her chest at all the thoughts she’d just had of Astarion. Images of him with other strangers, images of him with her – they pierce her all the same and make the tear of leather from skin nothing more than a hollow ache she’s all but forgotten.

She hadn’t even noticed that some of the scabbing had broken away, and fresh blood was pooling to the surface of her skin.

He looks away from her quickly, eyes darting across her belongings laid out on the ground rather than her eyes. Anywhere but her. When she glances down, she can see the deep crimson that’s ruined the shirt entirely, bleeding out far past that just the circumference of the wound.

“There is no lover,” he finally says after spending so many moments silent that she had begun to wonder if he was even still there, right in front of her, just out of her vision as she focuses on the stain of the shirt.

“Excuse me?”

“I have no lover awaiting me in the city,” he clarifies as he finally stops diverting his glances from her, looking painfully earnest when she dares to glance back up, “I learned various hairstyles on- well, let’s simply say I’m not an only child, shall we?”

Aruna’s mouth falls agape, face softening at what he was insinuating.

Astarion, with a sister. Or any siblings. The image of him learning how to plait braids while sitting criss-cross behind a mirror image to himself. A softness he must only reserve to so few souls across Faerun, and most certainly family.

She’s been so caught up in learning of his vampiric past, of all the evil that is Cazador, that she’d never considered he had a life beyond those atrocities. Beyond cruel meals of rats and luring unsuspecting victims back to Cazador.

She hadn’t even considered the topic of a lover might be a sore one, given the entire situation with Cazador.

“You have siblings?” is all she can formulate in response, seemingly peering right into his soul for just a moment.

His forced smile is almost painful. More grimace than grin, “It’s complicated.”

Complicated? No, complicated was the inability to even remember a childhood, to even remember if one had siblings. Whatever Astarion was alluding to, he clearly remembers.

“What does that even mean-”

“Do you need any further assistance?” he motions to that ruined shirt still clinging to her body, changing the topic with a curtness that made Aruna only want to argue further. She wants to fight, she wants to pry her way into his mind if only for a moment. “Or shall I leave you to it?”

There’s so much she doesn’t know about him. Things the visions won’t reveal to her, nor will the man standing in front of her. He’s somehow toeing the line between tangibility and impalpability, and while it’s impressive, it feels like it’s killing her. She wants to know – she wants to see it all. Every single thing he’s hiding from her, every single thing that the torn shred of her within herself swears it knows.

She can’t say any of that, though. Instead, she can only pathetically whisper, “Will you stay with me?”

His nod does very little to lift the weight off her chest, to lessen the need, but it’s certainly a start.

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#ghost's stories #astarion ancunin #astarion #astarion x tav #astarion x oc #astarion fanfic #bg3 #bg3 fanfiction #the moon will sing #baldur's gate 3 #yes they give me whiplash from how they go from serious conversations to lighthearted banter. that is the point #and yes astarion is lowkey being ooc for helping her. that's ALSO THE POINT I SWEAR #sort of edited for once <3

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