Archive of Our Own

Four days ago, the world had made sense.

Perhaps that is a strange thing to think, considering that four days ago Wyll had been deep in the bowels of Avernus, hot on the heels of a devil who left naught but broken bodies in her wake.

But the horrors of the Hells are, at this point, familiar. Wyll has spent enough time on his missions for Mizora to no longer be so affected by the locale, nor the dirty work he does there. Good work—necessary work, even-but dirty all the same. He much prefers to be back on the Sword Coast with the sun on his skin and the fresh, unsulfured wind in his hair.

He has that much now, at least. Even when all else is failure and strife.

This is the first time that Wyll has returned from a trip into the Hells without first completing Mizora’s task. He wasn’t even sure the pact would let him return without the devil Karlach’s head—but evidently it made an exception for illithid kidnapping. Mizora was not best pleased by it, regardless. Wyll isn’t pleased with it either, having unleashed Karlach into a land full of innocents to slaughter.

But devil-hunting is having to wait its turn, as first he must pull himself from the wreckage of a dying ship, agree to help a number of refugees negotiate for sanctuary in a druid grove, put down a number of the goblins who assault the grove near-daily, promise to do what he can to halt further attacks and recover the missing Archdruid, and consider what he will do if the illithid parasite in his head begins to take him before the druid Halsin can be found.

Oddly, even while looking the near-certainty of death in the face, Wyll finds himself comforted that this is not the worst tenday of his life.

(Those first days out from Baldur’s Gate, alone, with only Mizora for company—Wyll doubts he will live to see their equal.)

He may have woken up in the rubble of the Nautiloid to a full roster of problems, but a problem is only ever as difficult as its solution. Through trial and error, Wyll’s found that the first step to finding a solution to any problem, no matter how dire, is to keep one’s head—no matter if that head now contains a most unwanted passenger.

Yes, his usual solutions are somewhat harder to rely upon now that he has lost much of his power to the hunger of the parasite—even his sword arm feels weak, slow, no longer reliable as it once was—but Wyll is not about to hang his head in despair. There are people who rely on him, and perhaps more importantly, people he can rely on.

For the first time in quite a while, Wyll does not fight alone.

Wyll hasn’t spent the past seven years entirely devoid of company, but he isn’t much used to sharing a campsite with anyone for more than a few scant days at a time, and his fellow victims of the Nautiloid show no signs of leaving. In many ways, their presence is more surreal than the intruder in his head or the weakness in his limbs. Every time he pokes his head out of his tent in the morning, he is surprised to find the others doing the same.

They make a motley crew. Over these past days scouring the hills for survivors, Wyll has found a withdrawn young cleric on some kind of secret pilgrimage, a Githyanki warrior in a cage, a wizard bespelled by some foul curse that makes him hunger for magic in a most literal sense, and a vampire spawn.

Wyll now shares his campsite with a vampire spawn.

The man is, all things considered, rather affable. He has an easy smile and an uneasy laugh, and he’s very quick on his feet. He introduces himself as a magistrate from Baldur’s Gate, and Wyll can see that no one entirely believes him—when people describe the Gate’s legal system as “cutthroat” they usually don’t mean it as literally as Astarion might have you believe—but Wyll’s also very certain that no one else knows what Astarion is. The signs of vampirism are not always subtle, but they can be easy to overlook, especially when you are distracted by daily terrors as they are.

Even Wyll doubts his own instincts at first. Astarion might have unsettlingly sharp canines, a penchant for close-lipped smiles, vivid blood-red eyes, and a set of jokes about red wine and rare meat, but he also has the ability to walk in sunlight without catching aflame. Wyll puzzles over this for the better part of an afternoon before he remembers the way Astarion had laughed when informed what the parasite would do to him if left unchecked. “I should have known it would turn me into a monster,” he said, as if it was… ironic, in some way.

The tadpole is shielding him from the sun, Wyll thinks. Unfortunate that it doesn’t shield him from the thirst for blood.

There are quite a lot of bloodless rabbits and exsanguinated squirrels left about in the underbrush on their first morning as they 
break camp, hidden under bushes like embarrassing secrets. Yesterday, Wyll found an entire boar, drained, with sloppy puncture wounds at the neck.

One of the ways in which the world has been made strange: Wyll finds this comforting. If Astarion is satiating his hungers on the beasts of the forest, it is that much less likely that he will turn to thinking prey.

That much less likely that Wyll will have to kill him.

Wyll is… very tired of killing.

He’ll do it, of course, if he has to. But—

No. No, it doesn’t matter. Dirty work or not, he’ll do it. If he has to.

In the spirit of making sure he doesn’t have to, he makes certain that Astarion knows he’s being watched. The man is very quick on the uptake—Wyll doesn’t have to resort to overt threats. A comment about the strange predator that’s been terrorizing the local wildlife; a question about Astarion’s unusually colored eyes; a short, private conversation about how the quality that divides men from monsters, in Wyll’s experience, is nothing more or less than self-control.

Astarion listens. Wyll can see that he does, in the narrowing of those eyes, the broadening of that thin-lipped smile. “I’ll be sure to be on my best behavior, then,” he says, warm as an early frost.

“See that you do,” Wyll says, with a friendly grip of his shoulder, “and I’m sure we’ll get along just fine.”

Astarion smiles with a flash of fang.

There’s one problem solved, Wyll thinks, heaving a sigh of relief as Astarion stalks away into the trees. Time to focus on… everything else.

The next problem does not come to such a bloodless solution. They are waylaid on the roads by a pack of gnolls. Wyll always forgets how much he hates gnolls every time he is confronted with them—though at least these are beasts he can slay with no regret.

Not even a tenday ago, putting down a pack of this size was something Wyll could’ve done alone, easily. Now, even with allies at his back, they only barely manage to put them down without being put down themselves.

By the time they get back to the campsite, he, Gale, Shadowheart, and Lae’zel are all dragging, covered in gore and various unspeakable fluids. Astarion, clever bastard that he is, had elected to stay back and watch the campsite today. Wyll would wonder if being a vampire spawn gives him some kind of second-sense for danger, but he’s fairly certain that’s a quality Astarion alone possesses.

He’s nowhere in sight now. Wyll should probably check to make sure all of their valuables are unmolested, but for the moment there are bigger concerns.

Shadowheart summons them water, Gale warms it, and the four of them have a brief, thorough wash together on the sun-baked ground. Perhaps Astarion isn’t so lucky, Wyll muses, watching Lae’zel rip a chunk of matted fur out of Shadowheart’s mangled braid without even a snarled istik at Shadowheart’s expense. This kind of shared misery is invaluable for building a rapport with your teammates; Astarion could certainly use some of that.

But then, at least Astarion doesn’t now smell of wet dog.

Wyll stripped out of his leathers as they washed, but now his undershirt and trousers are soaked. They’ll dry quickly in the summer heat, but there is truly nothing Wyll wants more in this moment than a change of clothes that don’t reek of gnoll, so he bids the others a temporary farewell and hikes up the small hill to his tent. 

Actually, what Wyll wants right now is nothing more or less than to collapse face-first into his bedroll and sleep until dawn. But the sun hasn’t even begun to set, yet, and there is dinner to make and socks to darn and plans to make for the morrow, so he’ll have to settle for dragging out his second set of clothes, taking a short guilty nap sitting up on the floor of his tent, and trundling back down the hill for the last of the day’s responsibilities.

Wyll opens the flap of his tent and comes face-to-face with Astarion.

Astarion. The vampire spawn. Who is sprawled across Wyll’s bedroll, naked.

“So,” he says, a languid drawl, “how do you want me?”

Wyll stares.

Astarion smiles.

His smile is… eerily fixed, even for the several seconds it takes for Wyll’s mind to pick itself up, dust itself off, and adjust to this assault on his senses.

Say something, an internal voice prompts.

“I—” Wyll clears his throat. “I think you have the wrong tent.”

“Do I?” Astarion gives a lazy look over a shoulder. “Mm, no, I think this is exactly where I ought to be.”

His legs fall open a little further, which—

No, no, Wyll is not looking.

What in all Hells is happening.

Wyll scrambles, searching his brain for any possible explanation as Astarion leans forward, one arm fetchingly draped against his raised knee. Wyll is certain he once saw an artistic nude in Baldur’s Gate posed in that exact position—though the reality of a flesh-and-blood person before him is certainly more affecting than any painting could be, and—that’s not even slightly important right now.

Most important: what?

Second most important: why?

Is this some kind of… threat? Wyll hazards, staring at the way Astarion’s fangs poke through his leering smile. A… powerplay?

Wyll’s hand wants to go to his rapier, which is probably not the usual instinct when one finds a beautiful man unexpectedly naked in one’s bed, but gods. Gods, he is so tired.

He doesn’t even have a bed. Just some blankets on a thin pallet, and someone else is sitting on it.

“Won’t you come a little closer, dear?” Astarion affects a horrible, exaggerated pout that infects him down to the voice. “I promise not to bite.”

“Could you—” Wyll realizes that he’s staring, realizes that Astarion is still naked, realizes that the longer this goes on the less likely it is to be a stress-induced hallucination. He looks at the ceiling. “Could you get dressed, first? Please?”

“Now now,” Astarion croons. “Why would I do a silly thing like that?”

There’s a horrible sound—rustling cloth. Astarion pads closer to him on bare (naked) feet.

Wyll can smell his perfume.

“I’m sorry I deprived you of the fun of unwrapping your present.” Astarion’s voice is almost directly in Wyll’s ear—unexpectedly cold, gods, the man is a vampire spawn. “But I’m sure you can think of a way for me to make it up to you.”

Astarion’s breath—his presence—retreats. For a brief moment Wyll wonders if it’s safe to look again—and then he’s forced to look anyway because Astarion is kneeling at his feet, touching his thigh.

Wyll flinches back so hard he almost knees Astarion in the face—because Astarion’s face is down by his knees, now, apparently, this is a thing that’s happening. “What—Astarion. What are you doing?”

“Whatever you want me to do,” Astarion breathes. There’s an absolutely terrifying look on his face, like some kind of holy rapture has overtaken him, a wide, grinning, gaping smile with nothing behind the eyes. “There’s no need to be coy. I can smell it, you know, when you look at me—you want me so badly.”

Astarion’s hand is on his leg again, crawling up Wyll’s thigh and—oh, gods, Wyll might actually be too overwhelmed to move. He hasn’t frozen in fear in years, the Blade of Frontiers only ever uses fear as the motivation for greater acts of courage, but—mostly the Blade of Frontiers deals with life or death situations, and Wyll deals with everything else, and neither side of his psyche has any idea what to do with—

This.

“Does it make you feel dirty, wanting something that’s not even alive?” Astarion’s hand makes a petting motion that’s almost soothing, or would be, if it weren’t so high up Wyll’s thigh. “Oh, but don’t you see, that’s the beauty of it. You can do anything to me. Your wildest fantasies. Your darkest carnal desires. Things no mortal lover would agree to or endure. You can choke me, cut me—whatever you want, and I’ll still be fighting ready in the morning. But, ah,” Astarion lets out a high, mad laugh that nearly makes Wyll jump out of his skin. “No stakes, please.”

Abruptly, Astarion ducks his head towards—a place Wyll very much does not want his face to go, thank you, and there really isn’t anything to do but wrench him back by the hair and then take a step back.

Fabric at his back prevents him from retreating more than a step. Wyll wishes he had a bigger tent. He wishes he had a single fucking clue what’s happening. Wishes Astarion would stop crawling towards him oh gods—

“I think I’ve given you the wrong impression,” Wyll says, in a voice that sounds remarkably calm, and not like his own vocal chords are attempting to claw their way out of his throat and escape.

Astarion (still on the ground, still naked, mercifully no longer getting closer) tips his head to one side. “What’s the matter?” His voice turns suddenly simpering. “What, are you saving yourself for someone? Is there a Mrs. Frontiers back in Baldur’s Gate? It doesn’t matter, darling. I’m not really alive, so it’s not really cheating, now is it?”

“I—that’s not—” Wyll doesn’t know what to protest first—Astarion’s logic, his own lack of a partner, or… everything else about this situation, really. “Astarion. I barely know you.”

“We can fix that tonight.”

Astarion’s voice drops, somehow, to an even lower register. “You’ve had a long day, my brave, beautiful hunter. I’m sure you could use a little… stress relief.” He leans forward on his knees, his head dipped, his eyelashes artful sweeps against his cheeks. “I’ve been thinking about it all day, you know. Touching myself, working myself open, dreaming of what you’re going to do to me. What sweet depravity awaits me. What—”

“Astarion. I.” Wyll loses hold of his patience. “Can you please get dressed?”

Astarion’s expression does not falter.

It… flickers. Like a candle sputtering, almost going out before reasserting itself.

“I seem to have taken you by surprise,” Astarion says—a note in his voice that wasn’t there before. Something, almost, more like the sour-tempered man Wyll has spent the past few days camping with, and not… whatever the hells the rest of it was.

Wyll could get down on his knees in thanks for that brief glimpse of sanity. “You could say that, yes.”

One of Astarion’s eyes twitches. Is that—anger?

“You told me that you would see me tonight,” Astarion says, tightly.

“Not like—this!” Wyll says, flapping a hand in an undignified and very involuntary gesture towards this incredibly strange predicament.

“You should be more careful.” Astarion’s voice turns sharp, hissing out around his fangs. “Giving a leech like me ideas. Aren’t you afraid of what I’ll do if you don’t put me in my place?”

He lunges forward, grabbing a handful of Wyll’s shirt hard enough that Wyll is bent almost double. “My teeth at your throat,” Astarion snarls, inches from Wyll’s face. “Is that what you want? I’ll hurt you, and then you can hurt me back. Make me pay for it. Hold me down and fuck me till I—”

Wyll breaks out of Astarion’s grip—it’s remarkably easy to do, with just the slightest pressure on his wrist—and then he walks out of the tent.

Remarkably, the world outside Wyll’s tent is exactly the same as he left it. Rocky hillsides. Scrubby trees. Birds singing cheerfully in their unknown, hidden corners. It is a peaceful, normal, comforting scene. Several yards down the hillside, Gale and Shadowheart are setting up dinner beside the fire, their voices barely carrying on the breeze.

The world makes sense.

It’s the world inside Wyll’s tent that’s lost its mind. 

He opens the tent flap.

Astarion is still sitting on the floor in the exact same position Wyll left him.

Wyll comes back inside, making sure the flap is shut firmly behind him before he speaks.

“I’m very sorry,” he says, in what he hopes is a firm but fair sort of voice, and not the voice of a man on his very last legs, “if I have… mislead you in some way. But I am not… interested. Alright? And… I realize this is none of my business, truly, but in the future it might be wise to… to be more careful when you engage in such… rough fantasies. You barely know me, Astarion. It would be unfortunately easy for someone of poor character to—”

Wyll stops, because Astarion has put his hands up over his head and retches.

It’s an astoundingly awful sound. So awful it sounds about ten times louder than it likely actually is, echoing impossibly even in a tent of thick canvas. 

It sounds so awful that Wyll is quite surprised that nothing comes out of Astarion’s mouth but a very small amount of bile.

Oddly, alarming as it is to watch someone be sick on the floor of his tent, some of Wyll’s panic leaves him. This is a much more familiar sort of problem. Many of the people rescued by the Blade of Frontiers are in a poor state—physically, mentally, spiritually, or some combination of the three. Wyll might not be a healer, but he’s quite familiar with shocks and scrapes and maladies both major and minor—with giving people hands to hold, making makeshift bandages, talking terror-blinded folk out of burning buildings.

Wyll crouches down beside Astarion.

“Have you been drinking?” he asks, without judgment—though perhaps a small amount of amusement. Frankly, he rather hopes that to be the case. This would all make somewhat more sense if Astarion was intoxicated.

Astarion retches again, an even harsher sound with even less to show for it.

“Gods,” he says, in a high, strained whine. “Go away.”

“Astarion, you’re in my tent,” Wyll says, fighting to keep a mad laugh out of his voice as Astarion makes a third attempt to empty his stomach. “And you’re unwell. I’m not going anywhere yet.”

Wyll reaches behind himself, stripping his bedroll of the topmost blanket, and jerks it close to pull over Astarion’s bare shoulders.

As soon as the warm fur touches him, Astarion shudders.

Well. He’s been shuddering, in truth. The blanket touches Astarion’s shoulders, and Astarion goes boneless.

“Whoa, steady there,” Wyll says, reaching out to keep Astarion from collapsing in his own sick.

He means it to be a purely practical sort of touch—friendly, even, as was the way he’d gripped Astarion’s shoulder that morning.

But he touches Astarion’s arm through the layer of fur, and Astarion keens.

“Please.” The word is so sharp, so mangled between breaths that Wyll almost doesn’t make out that it’s word at all. “Please, please, don’t do this, please I can’t do this—”

Wyll jerks back like he’s been bitten. Astarion curls up on the ground, his hands over his head, trembling.

“You don’t have to do anything,” Wyll says, stupidly. “Astarion, I—”

Astarion doesn’t look at him. His fists are dug so tightly into his hair Wyll is certain his knuckles would be white if they weren’t already bloodless. He looks like he’s bracing for a blow.

This… isn’t funny anymore.

Astarion isn’t intoxicated, Wyll realizes. He’s terrified.

Wyll wants to shake him by the shoulder, try to rouse him. He has just enough sense to keep his hands to himself.

“Astarion,” he tries. “Nothing is going to happen. I just want to help. Can you—can you look at me? Astarion?”

Nothing. Astarion’s ears don’t even flick in his direction, plastered so flat to the sides of his skull they’ve pushed back his well-coiffed curls.

Wyll puts himself away. The confusion, the concern—the fact that he still has no idea what’s going on, the worry that he won’t be able to fix it, the feeling, whatever it is, that’s causing a physical pain to spike through his heart—he packs them up and puts them into a corner of his mind, where he can find them later if he ever needs them.

The Blade of Frontiers settles over him.

Like a pair of gauntlets, a thick mask. Armor for the mind.

The Blade says, very calmly, “Astarion, I’m going to be right back. I will only be gone a moment.”

He leaves the tent.

“Shadowheart,” he says, partway down the hill, interrupting her conversation with Gale. “Could I have a word?”

Her irritation shifts into a mild concern at whatever she sees in his face when she approaches.

“Astarion is… feeling poorly,” Wyll says, keeping his voice low so only she might hear him. “It’s a personal matter. I’m not sure he’d appreciate anyone else getting involved.”

I doubt that he would even want me involved, were he in his right mind enough to say it, Wyll thinks. But he is involved, and there is nothing anyone can do about it now.

“If it seems he needs your medical expertise, later, I’d like to know he can count on you,” Wyll says.

Shadowheart is frowning, but… yes, he made the correct gamble. He can see her dislike of getting involved in other people’s private affairs winning out over her curiosity.

“Of course,” she says, with a small shrug. “Let me know what you need.”

“Thank you,” Wyll says, in all sincerity. “I’m sure Astarion will thank you himself for your discretion when he recovers. For the moment, could you and the others give us the evening to ourselves? He is staying with me in my tent, for now. And if someone could bring up some of that delectable-smelling concoction you’re preparing and leave it beside the doorway for us, I would give them my deepest gratitude.”

Shadowheart’s frown has not entirely disappeared. “Are you sure you want to handle this yourselves?” she asks. “If he needs medical attention—”

“I believe I’m capable of tending to him myself,” The Blade lies smoothly.

“Still. You look—” Shadowheart hesitates. “Well, you look like I feel, frankly. Don’t run yourself ragged for him.” She smiles, a brittle, sarcastic thing. “I’m sure he wouldn’t do the same for you.”

Wyll is offended by this comment. The Blade of Frontiers, on the other hand, can’t afford to let such petty feeling rule him. He knows Shadowheart only means it well, in her own way.

“No need to worry,” he says. “We will both be fine by the morning, I’m sure.”

Whether that is a lie or not remains to be seen.

Wyll returns to the tent, and to Astarion.

Astarion is still on the floor. He’s made himself into a smaller, tighter ball beneath his blanket, but the shivering is less frequent. Every so often a shudder will seize him and he will shake, violently, like an invisible creature has him in its jaws—but then it will stop, and he will be perfectly, deathly still once more.

Wyll kneels beside him. “Are you cold?” he asks.

It’s a balmy afternoon. Wyll himself feels sweat stuck to his collar, warmed by the sun. But he knows how well shock can drain the heat out of a person—and whatever this affliction is and whatever triggered it, it seems most like a kind of shock.

Astarion says nothing.

“I’ll get you another blanket,” Wyll says, and moves to do just that.

In the end, it takes both of Wyll’s remaining blankets before Astarion’s shivering ceases completely. Wyll is careful not to touch him, tugging the layers over him with the least amount of contact he can manage.

Wyll is trying, very hard, not to speculate. Not to make any kind of picture out of the pieces scattered at his feet. 

It’s none of his business. He—doesn’t have to understand, precisely, what afflicts Astarion, provided he has some idea how to treat it.

And he does. Have some idea how to treat it.

(He thinks of putting his hands up—shifting his weight low, making himself as small and friendly as possible as he coaxes a child out of a hiding spot in the sagging hayloft of a ruined barn. “It’s all right,” he’d lied, in plain defiance of the gore he could feel drying to his face, the stinging open wound in his side he would have to see to later, the memory of the broken bodies in the farmhouse, the woman screaming as she died—

“You’re safe now,” he’d said, like a promise, like a prayer. “You’ll be safe with me. You can come on out.”

The child believed him. Gods only know why.)

“Astarion,” Wyll says, and stops, because most of the things he can think of to say are the things he would say to a stranger or a child, and he knows just enough of Astarion to tell that he’s not the type who would respond well to anything that reminds him of pity.

Assuming Astarion is enough of himself at the moment to notice.

“How do you feel now?” he asks, at last. “Any better?”

Astarion doesn’t answer. Doesn’t even look at him.

“You’re safe, Astarion,” Wyll says, unable to help it, or the way his voice gentles. “There’s no danger here.”

It occurs to Wyll how very frighteningly corpselike Astarion is when he’s perfectly still. Wyll almost wants to check him for a pulse, even knowing how foolish it is to search for a heartbeat in a vampire. If it wasn’t for the faint, ragged sound of Astarion’s breaths, Wyll isn’t sure he’d have any way of telling if Astarion was still conscious. Or… alive. For lack of a better term.

(”I’m not really alive,” Astarion had said.)

“Here.” Wyll reaches for his pack. “I’ll get you some water.”

He’s not sure if Astarion can drink water. But at least he might be able to wash his mouth free of the taste of bile.

Wyll might say as much out loud. He might be babbling, just to fill the awful silence.

Slowly, with a deliberate show of his hands, he scoots his canteen into Astarion’s reach. Astarion, hands still covering most of his face, doesn’t seem to notice.

“It’s there if you want it,” Wyll tells him. He gets a rag out of his pack and does what he should’ve done earlier, cleaning up the small puddle of sick near Astarion’s head.

It has a strange, astringent scent. Wyll knows about detecting vampires and slaying them, but he’s never bothered to study aliments that might affect the undead, and has no idea if the scent is normal. He tosses the soiled rag out of the mouth of the tent when he’s done.

That finished, he sits back on his heels, opens his mouth, shuts it, and feels astoundingly, pathetically useless.

This is the time when, normally, Astarion’s current state would no longer be Wyll’s problem to solve.

The Blade of Frontiers is a dab hand at guiding unfortunate souls out of danger, or out of the wreckage when the danger has passed. He can hold hands, offer a reassuring smile, pour water on the embers of a burned house, hold a child for an hour or two until some relative to arrives to take them. He can stand, head bowed, over a makeshift grave and offer a word of comfort to the grieving, for all the good it does.

But always, there is a point where someone more qualified comes along, and Wyll relinquishes responsibility and retreats. Wyll’s job—the Blade’s duty—the problem he’s been solving, in one way or another, since he was seventeen—is to protect. With rapier and emerald fire on his fingertips, he eliminates threats to the innocent. When the threats are gone, he sticks around only long enough to keep the innocents alive.

Outside of battle, he is a tourniquet—a temporary measure. Eventually, the healer arrives and Wyll is no longer necessary. The parent takes the child from his arms. The townsfolk hold each other, weep and laugh and embrace and sigh and Wyll watches from the side, a half-smile on his face. He is proud of his work. He is sorry he can’t do more.

There is no one he can give Astarion to.

Wyll has no idea if Astarion has any kind of… family. If he does, they must be miles away—in Baldur’s Gate or beyond. There is no anxious spouse for Wyll to turn to, to say, “Take him home, give him rest, I’m sure he’ll be much better in the morning.” There are no healing spells for the mind. There are enchantments to suppress fear or rage but Wyll has no idea if they would work on Astarion’s current affliction, or if Shadowheart even knows such charms—Wyll certainly does not, did not even before the tadpole sapped his strength. Would Shadowheart even be willing to try?

Wyll could attempt to fetch her, as he’d promised. But if he did he’d have to explain to her why Astarion is naked which would mean explaining everything else and—

His mind keeps circling the empty spaces. The absence in his knowledge that would grant this absurd situation some manner of sense. 

He is trying very, very hard not to think about it, and he’s thinking anyway.

(”I’m not really alive,” Astarion said, like it was an easy, inarguable truth. And, ”You can do anything you want to me,” like it was a bit of play between lovers and not a proposition to a near-stranger. And, ”You said you would see me tonight,” like he was—angry. Or afraid?)

(”Please I can’t do this,” he said, but only after Wyll touched him.)

No. No, his first instincts were correct. It’s better not to get anyone else involved.

This newfound companionship is so fragile, still. The last thing Wyll wants is for Astarion to feel as if his privacy was violated in any way while he was—indisposed.

(”Go away,” Astarion had said, also. Perhaps Wyll ought to do that—respect his wishes, leave him in peace. But what if Wyll’s instincts are wrong? What if this affliction takes a turn for the worse after he leaves? What if Astarion rouses from his stupor in a state and hurts himself?

And—

And. If their positions were reversed—if Wyll were the one insensible and terrified on the ground—he doesn’t think he would want to be left alone.)

Wyll peers at the strip of light coming in through the tent flap, low in the afternoon sun. For all the excitement, it likely hasn’t been more than a quarter of an hour since Astarion ended up in this state.

If he hasn’t spoken again by sundown, I’ll fetch Shadowheart, Wyll decides. Perhaps Gale, too, to check for some manner of enchantment.

“I think I’ll do some reading,” Wyll announces to no one. “Do you mind if I read aloud, Astarion?”

Astarion pulls the blanket tighter around his shoulders. Wyll doesn’t know if that counts as an answer, but he goes ahead with his meager plan anyhow.

There’s a small, battered book in his pack—one of his few possessions that survived his most recent trip to Avernus and the subsequent kidnapping. It’s an adventure tale, cheaply bound and poorly printed, and Wyll has read it at least six times in the past few months, partly for pleasure and mostly for lack of having anything else to read.

It would be easy to assume that one would be bored of adventure tales when one’s life already resembles such a story, but in truth Wyll finds his hunger for fictional heroism has only grown since his exile. There’s an undeniable comfort to be had in reading a story that reflects so much of his life but with the harsher edges sanded down. Plus, he finds the heroes inspiring.

Wyll flips back to the beginning and pauses, staring at the page.

His father used to read to him when he was small. Not often—Ulder Ravengard was too busy to make such time for his son every night, but once a week or so, or when Wyll was sick in bed—as he often was, when he was very small—his father would read to him. He’d been rubbish at doing different voices for the characters, but he’d tried. Wyll could tell, even then, how much his father tried.

In the early days of his banishment, Wyll got into the habit of reading aloud to himself. Talking to himself, too—telling himself tales, practicing the things he would say the next time he wandered into a village or a farmhouse that might be willing to offer a spot at the table to a vagabond boy with one eye. In more recent years he’d tried to train himself out of the habit because he knew how it unsettled anyone who stumbled across him, but it was hard, sometimes, not to indulge in the sound of his own voice, when it had been days without any contact with anyone at all.

(There were times Wyll was so desperate for company he welcomed even Mizora’s presence. Anything—even her nagging, biting, bruising, clawing—anything was better than the solitude of the road, after a while. She would hound him for days and then abandon him for twice as long. He was never sure which was meant to be the punishment.)

There is a book in his hands. Black words on yellowed pages. Wyll runs a hand down his thigh to steady himself, clears his throat, and reads.

It’s a dramatic story. There’s a shipwreck within the first few pages, followed by a swordfight on a beach in a gale and the promise of hidden treasure. Wyll’s only half paying attention, the words sliding off his tongue as he sneaks glances at the man across from him. It might be his imagination, but he thinks Astarion has shifted, slightly, his hold on himself loosening. Wyll himself feels calmer, his heart no longer pounding for purchase inside his chest.

Wyll has just started the third chapter when he’s interrupted mid-sentence.

“…what in the hells are you doing?”

Astarion’s voice is hoarse, heavy, and muffled.

Wyll looks up from the page. Astarion is still curled up on the ground, but he’s glaring at Wyll between his crossed arms and the blanket pulled partly over his head like a hood.

“Reading.” Wyll turns the book to show Astarion the cover. “I thought it might be a comfort to us both. Or at least a way to pass the time while… things ran their course.”

Astarion stares at him. The one eye Wyll can see from this angle shows no particular sign of acknowledgment.

“What did you do to me?” he asks, quietly.

Wyll swallows.

“I… I’m afraid I don’t know, exactly.” Wyll is not going to let himself look away—Astarion deserves eye contact, deserves all the respect and sincerity Wyll can show him. “I think I may have… upset you.” An understatement, but certainly not one Astarion needs him to spell out in specifics. “You were… in a kind of shock, I think. I stayed with you, so you wouldn’t have to come out of it alone.”

“No.” Astarion pushes himself up on his hands, grumbling. “What did you do to me—I don’t—” He sits up, blinking, one of his hands coming up to clutch the blankets before they can slip off his shoulder. “You didn’t,” he says, stops. Then: “You’re reading?”

Wyll shuts the book and sets it aside. “You seem confused,” he says.

“You’re confused,” Astarion snaps, squeezing the mound of blankets at his throat. “What—” He swallows hard, some inscrutable mix of expressions playing across his face—they seethe and settle into something not dissimilar to fury. “What are you going to do with me?”

Wyll elects to ignore the unsettling wording of the question.

“I could help you back to your tent, if you’d like,” he tries. “Or… you could spend the night here in my tent, if you’d rather not be alone. Shadowheart may be able to—”

“No.” The word is less of a word than it is a snarl. Astarion is bristling, hunched over like a feral cat and pushing himself—seemingly without conscious intent—further into the corner of the tent. “What are you going to do with me?”

“Astarion—”

“Stop it. Stop it! Tell me right now or I’ll—!”

Wyll’s eyes flick down.

“Astarion,” he says, slowly, “I would really appreciate it if you could put down the knife.”

He has no idea where Astarion even got a knife.

He didn’t see Astarion’s hands dart anywhere unexpected. The blade is most definitely not one of Wyll’s own, either—but there it is in Astarion’s off-hand, gripped point-down like a talon.

Astarion’s eyes narrow to slits above his sneer. “Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you—”

“Yes! I would!”

Shit. Wyll tries to wrangle himself back into calm. Calm, calm. The Blade of Frontiers must never lose his temper. “I don’t enjoy being threatened, Astarion,” he says, with all the patience he can muster. “Could you… put down the knife? Talk to me. Please.”

Astarion stares at him. Chalk white skin, jaw tight. No longer trembling, but coiled like a spring.

“You were supposed to fuck me,” he says, tightly.

With every fiber of his being, Wyll suppresses the urge to shudder.

“Why?” he says instead, so very calmly.

Astarion makes a loud sound—like a scoff punched straight from the diaphragm.

“So I could stay!” he explodes, losing his grip on the blankets to gesticulate at the empty air. “So I wouldn’t wake up with a stake in my chest! So—”

“Wait! Wait, wait, wait!” Wyll reels back almost to the other side of the tent. “What does that have to do with—” the very word feels foul in Wyll’s mouth, but there is no avoiding it— “with fucking you?”

Again, Astarion makes a sound that has about as much in relation to a laugh as hemlock does to rosemary.

“There aren’t a whole lot of reasons to keep a vampire spawn in your camp,” he says, brittle. “I thought you were going to fuck me. I thought we had an, an arrangement—”

“You thought if I had sex with you I wouldn’t kill you,” Wyll says, because—he can’t possibly be understanding this correctly. He can’t possibly be having this conversation.

Astarion stares at him like he’s being obtuse.

“You said you would see me tonight,” Astarion says, slowly, almost… amused? Gods, what about this could Astarion possibly find funny? “What was I supposed to think you meant?”

Wyll’s mouth drops open before he can gather together the breath to speak with. When it finally comes back to him, his voice is faint, half-strangled by his own throat. “That I would see you tonight?”

Astarion’s lip twists.

“You’ve been watching me. I know you’ve been—waiting for the excuse.” Abruptly, Astarion straightens his shoulders, readies himself as if to pounce. “If you’re not interested in using me, you should let me go. You really don’t want to fight me, I promise you that. I may be—what I am, but I know how to use a knife—”

“That has never been in any doubt,” Wyll says, unfathomably grateful for the first sensible thing to come out of Astarion’s mouth all evening. “Astarion, I… let’s get a few things straight, here. I am not going to kill you. I am not going to drive you out of the group. And I am not going to—to demand sexual favors from you.” Wyll can no longer stay still. He turns away from Astarion, desperate to compose himself. “Gods.”

“You… really think you mean that,” Astarion says, in a tone of vague interest, like Wyll has just done some kind of party trick.

For whatever reason, that is the point at which it all becomes too much.

“I—” Shit. Shit, he can’t breathe. “I—I need a moment.”

Wyll stands up too quickly—hates himself, briefly and intensely, for the way Astarion flinches at the movement—and stumbles outside into the purpling flush of evening.

He manages to make it all the way to the back of his tent before he falls to his hands and knees.

For a moment, he’s very certain that it will be his turn to retch onto the ground, but nothing happens. He just sits there, breathing like he’s just run through every layer of the Hells, rubbing his chest where his heart is beating so loudly there is surely no way Astarion can’t hear it, even through the walls of his tent.

Laughter trickles into the silence.

Wyll tells himself that it’s only Shadowheart in the distance.

He tells himself so hard he almost makes himself believe it.

Good choice, pet. You really don’t want to know where that little vampling’s been.

Mizora. She creeps into him like a crack of cold air under a door. No matter what he does, he’s never found a way to block her out.

The Lower City’s sloppy seconds, that one. I don’t understand why you’re so upset—it’s practically a requirement for him to spread his legs for every pretty young thing he spies. It’s nothing personal.

There’s a weight on Wyll’s back. It feels, for all the world, like Mizora’s perched upon him, sitting on him like a chair. He can almost feel the press of her legs, one of her taloned fingers resting on the back of his neck.

Almost.

It's not real, he tells himself. She makes him see things—feel things, sometimes, but it doesn't mean—

"Good thing I've taught you better, hm?"

Oh, gods. That’s her voice—no longer inside him but upon him, her breath wet against his ear.

He feels her crawl on him. Her breasts press into his back. Her finger hooks under his throat.

“You know I'm not the jealous type,” she whispers. “But you can do better than him.”

He can’t bear it. “Mizora—”

He turns to look.

There’s nothing there.

Eventually, Wyll’s arms stop shaking. His heart no longer pounds like it’s trying to break free of his chest. He sits back on his heels, staring up at the moon making her first appearance over the scrubby pines. He straightens his clothes. Wipes his eyes.

Composed again, he steps back into the tent.

Astarion is still sitting on the ground, but at least he’s dressed. Wyll’s had quite a day, that the thought of Astarion being dressed is enough of a relief to make him weak in the knees.

Astarion sits cross-legged, toying with the end of his dagger.

“So,” he says, not looking up. “I believe we have some things to discuss.”

Briefly, Wyll wonders what Astarion would do if he just started screaming. If he threw himself on the ground like a child having a tantrum, maybe, finally, everyone would leave him alone long enough for him to get some sleep.

But that’s not really an option, is it.

He sits down across from Astarion, not liking the feeling of looming over him. “I suppose we do,” he says, the words settling as heavily as his limbs.

He is so tired.

Astarion frets with the dagger, balancing it on the ground and spinning it by the knife-point. If it weren’t for the flat, thin line of his mouth, Wyll isn’t sure he could read the discomfort from his fidgeting, but that expression—Astarion doesn’t want to be having this conversation any more than Wyll does.

Wyll wishes that thought felt less like a comfort.

At long last, Astarion breaks the silence.

“It’s probably for the best if we both forget this little… outburst,” he says, with a slow, light-fingered levity. “I had the wrong impression, clearly.”

“Forgetting it is my least concern, Astarion.” Wyll waits, but Astarion neither responds nor looks at him. “Are you all right?”

For some reason, this is what causes Astarion to look up. “Why wouldn’t I be?” he asks.

Wyll doesn’t know what his face does in response, but whatever it is makes Astarion’s ears fall, slightly, from their plastered-back position against his skull.

“…yes, I’m alright,” Astarion says, a bitter note in his voice. “It’s as you said. I had a…” His lip twists. “A shock.”

“You seem to have recovered well.”

Astarion sharpens. “Is that a problem?”

“No,” Wyll says, wanting to put out his hands in peace. “No, I only mean… if you need some more time, Astarion, to collect yourself before we speak, that is perfectly alright with me. Anything you wish to say can wait until tomorrow.”

“I would much rather get this out of the way, thank you.”

Despite these words, Astarion pauses, fidgeting, as if he’s waiting for Wyll to speak. Wyll is far too tired to try to guess what Astarion wants him to say.

“So. I’m… allowed to stay,” Astarion says, slowly, as if he’s testing the words for uncertain footing.

“Of course. It’s not up to me to decide if you leave.”

“But you know… what I am.”

Wyll hesitates, but if there’s a polite way to call someone a monster, he’s never learned it. “You’re a vampire spawn. Correct?”

“Guilty.” Astarion flashes his fangs, a rueful sort of smile, but his narrowed eyes sweep Wyll’s face. “And that doesn’t bother you?”

Wyll knows better than to lie under that sharp gaze.

“It does,” he admits, quietly. “But… you haven’t proved a danger to any of us yet. You seem to have your hunger under control. It would be…” he hesitates over the word hypocritical. “Wrong of me, to turn you away based only on… something that was done to you.”

“Done to me,” Astarion repeats with a sneer. His tongue clicks behind his fangs. “So it’s pity that stays your hand then, is it?”

“Sympathy, I would say.”

“Is there a difference?” Astarion says, baldly. Before Wyll can answer, Astarion presses on to his next order of business. “And you don’t want anything from me in return?”

“In return for what?” Wyll wrinkles his nose. “Being allowed to stay?”

“And keeping my secret. Yes.”

“Is it so incredible to imagine that I want nothing from you?” Wyll says, more sharply than he means to sound. The frustration is wearing his patience thin. 

Astarion makes a small scoff, low in his throat. “Frankly?”

He flicks his dagger. It makes a sudden, sharp arc through the air—a perfect circle, end over end like a flipped coin—before he catches it again.

Wyll follows the motion up Astarion’s arm. Meets his eyes.

Astarion looks away.

“I’ve heard better lies,” he mutters. At Wyll’s blank silence, he adds, “You didn’t have much sympathy for me this morning.”

At some point, Wyll will get himself under control and stop startling at everything that comes out of Astarion’s mouth.

“This… morning? What—did I do something—?”

“The threats, dear.” Astarion sounds more than a little impatient himself. “Really very tiresome, after the first, oh, half-dozen of them?”

“I wasn’t—” Wyll bites the sentence off between his teeth. No, he had been threatening Astarion, just… not in the way Astarion seems to think he meant it. “I wasn’t trying to—to blackmail you. Gods, I only wanted to… make sure you stayed on the straight and narrow.”’

I just wanted to take you to the grove without being afraid you’d eat an unattended child, Wyll thinks, more sourly than he should allow himself to be in Astarion’s presence. Astarion does not deserve his ire. Not about this, at least.

Astarion scoffs again. His shoulders are tight, braced inward. “A bit late for that, I should think.”

All at once, the dregs of Wyll’s frustration leave him. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t my intention to—” Wyll forces himself to stop, again. He can’t say anything in defense of his conduct. “No. I wasn’t thinking, and I should’ve been. I’m… truly sorry, Astarion.”

“Well.” Astarion shifts. He doesn’t quite uncurl, but at least he doesn’t hold himself any tighter. “I think I can find it in my heart to forgive you, provided that you continue to be so good at keeping my little secret.”

“I will.” Wyll crosses a hand over his heart. “If you wish to tell the others, it should be on your own terms. When you are ready to do so.”

Vampire spawn! a corner of his mind shouts. He can’t make that kind of promise about a vampire spawn. The others have a right to know what they’re baring their necks around.

Which… is probably true. This is the kind of secret that could prove dangerous, should it be allowed to fester too long.

But then, so could Gale’s arcane hunger, and probably Shadowheart’s incurable wound, and certainly their shared parasites make them a danger to everyone they come across, even if not to each other.

None of them know about Mizora.

There is… certainly a similar argument to be made about the dangers of warlocks and their patrons.

Wyll should probably feel more guilty about keeping that particular secret. He might, if it were a secret he’d ever had the freedom to keep or share as he chose. As it is, he’s only grateful that he has the chance to enjoy some company, before something comes up to rip him away again.

He realizes that Astarion is looking at him closely, head cocked. Wyll gives him a tired smile.

“I’m sorry,” Astarion says, with an odd hesitation, as if the words are unfamiliar in his mouth. Considering his usual sharp tongue, Wyll wouldn’t be surprised if they are. “If I… came on a little strong. I’m not used to…”

He makes a vague gesture that clarifies nothing.

Wyll wants to say something encouraging—tell him that there is nothing to apologize for, that all is well, that there is no need for him to say anything further on the subject if he doesn’t wish to. As it is, Wyll can barely keep up the smile.

Astarion sits up a little straighter. “You wouldn’t be the first person to want something from me,” he says, with a little less of that hesitance, but something else in it’s place. A kind of silver-tongued steel. “I… fell back on a habit. I suppose.”

“Hell of a habit,” Wyll says without thinking. His throat feels strangely raw.

Astarion bares his teeth without humor. “Hell is precisely the word for it, my dear.”

He drives his dagger, point down, into one of the rugs on the floor of the tent. The tip neatly bisects a single knot of thread.

“Everyone loves a vampire, don’t they,” Astarion croons, sneering, as he drags the knife through another knot, another. “And no one more than the monster hunters. Self-righteous freaks.”

Wyll breathes in, and out, and tries not to picture anything. His mind is blank, he does not need to put anything inside it.

Abruptly, Astarion stops mutilating Wyll’s carpet. He leaves the dagger stuck in, point down, as he runs a hand through his curls with a sigh.

“It’s all your fault, you know.” He spears Wyll with an accusative glance. “It would’ve been fine if you’d just fucked me.”

So casual. Matter-of-fact. It is Wyll who has transgressed, in Astarion's eyes, by refusing this... transaction. By deviating from a script Wyll hadn't asked for or realized he'd been given.

“…would you have been?” Wyll asks, unable to keep the question from bubbling up out of him. "Fine?"

Astarion pauses.

He seems to think about it for a long moment—a moment so long the silence itself becomes an answer. His fingers dance up the hilt of his still-trapped knife.

Then, he shrugs.

“Habit,” he says.

As if that one singular word is all the explanation Wyll needs. As if Wyll understands, intuitively, what sits inside and behind and around the word—the myriad of things sketched in suggestion, shadows caught halfway into light. As if one word is enough to contain it.

(And it is.)

(It is.)

“I…” Wyll starts and stops.

Air in his lungs. Words in his chest. His bare palm pressed into the rough carpet.

Things he can say. Things he’s not allowed to share. Things pushed down where he doesn’t have to see them. Bruises hidden where he is not tempted to press them. Claw marks. Scars left by clumsy stitches. He’s learned better now. His hands no longer shake.

On his back. In the dirt. Smoke rising from the mouths of corpses.

Her voice. Her claws.

Her skin.

("Go,” his father said.)

Astarion is looking at him, eyebrow raised.

“I… know what it’s like,” Wyll says, not entirely certain what moves his mouth, what breath animates the words. “To have." His mouth is dry. He swallows nothing. "Habits."

He doesn’t shudder. Doesn’t feel anything.

Across from him, and very far away, Astarion’s face changes.

His eyes get very wide. His mouth opens, halfway. There’s a word for that expression. Wyll is not naming it.

“…oh,” Astarion says, in a very small voice. “I'm… I didn't know.”

Wyll doesn't know. He doesn't know a godsdamned thing.

"I am so sorry," Astarion murmurs.

Those words—and all the clumsy delicacy in them—snap Wyll back into himself.

He scrubs at his face. Hard, with both hands, until he can feel it.

Not now, he snarls at himself. Not now, not in front of Astarion, this isn't—now isn't the time for this.

(It's never the time for this.)

“You should rest,” Wyll says into his palm, once he regains some shred of his composure. “You must be exhausted.”

“Oh, right. I’ll just—ah, get out of your way, then.”

There’s a smooth motion of limbs in Wyll’s periphery as Astarion slips to his feet. Wyll forces himself to lower his hand in time to watch Astarion rip the knife free of the carpeting.

“You’re alright now?” Wyll forces himself to ask, because that’s what’s most important, here. That’s what the Blade of Frontiers must do: make sure that everyone is alright. “Truly?”

Astarion looks down the point of his nose at him. “Oh please," he scoffs, loudly. "I’m not that fragile.”

Good. It’s good that Astarion feels well enough to be obnoxious again. Clearly, he must be returning to his old self.

“Wyll?”

“Hm?” Wyll rubs at the back of his neck.

He realizes, after a moment, that Astarion hasn’t said anything else. Has been standing there, half out of the mouth of Wyll’s tent, silent, for a very long time.

Wyll forces a smile back onto his face. “What is it, Astarion?”

Astarion shifts on his feet.

“I’ll… see you in the morning,” he says, finally, with a look on his face that Wyll is far too tired to decipher.

“Goodnight, Astarion,” Wyll says, but the man has already slipped outside into the dark.

At last—long, long last—Wyll is alone.

There are no more responsibilities to tend to. No one left to see him, as he finally gets to put himself away.

(He is already face-down in his bedroll when he remembers that he never did get his change of clothes, or a taste of that stew.

He can’t be too disappointed. This isn't the first time he's gone to sleep on an empty stomach, nor will it be the last. Besides. No matter what discomforts one endures, there is always tomorrow.)

(Always, always tomorrow.)

"So," Astarion claps his hands together, "I'm a vampire. Ha!"

The reactions across the campfire are mixed. Subdued. Although perhaps that is to be expected, considering that the sun has barely finished cresting the trees.

"You—" Gale opens his mouth, and then pauses, lifting a finger. "You know, I feel like this should be more of a surprise than it is."

"Speak for yourself. I'm plenty surprised." Shadowheart peers over her steaming mug with wide, serious eyes. "Astarion?"

He startles as if he wasn't expecting to be addressed by name. "Ah, yes?"

"Exactly how long were you planning to wait until telling us?"

"Until just now," Astarion says, witheringly. "Obviously."

"Chk. We should kill you where you stand," Lae'zel mutters, making Astarion jump again. "We will not survive if we keep such secrets."

"Hey, no one is killing anyone," Wyll says, easing into a seat on the log next to Shadowheart. He balances a plate of last night's stew in one hand, a mug of strong black tea in the other.

"Not before breakfast, at least," Gale agrees. "Are you... quite sure you're a vampire, Astarion? Only, I rather assumed most of your kind to be a bit... diurnally challenged."

"Are you asking why I'm not a pile of ashes?" Astarion twists his wrist, watching a pale beam of sunlight streaked across the back of his hand. "I'll be honest: I have no idea. I assume our little tadpole friend has something to do with it."

"Oh, fascinating. And—"

"How many people have you killed?" Lae'zel interrupts.

Astarion’s mouth snaps shut.  "W-well. That's a very personal question—"

"Astarion," Shadowheart says, with just a note of warning.

For some reason, Astarion glances in Wyll's direction before he answers.

Wyll doesn't school himself into any particular expression, but he seems to push Astarion to continue, regardless.

"I've never drained anyone dry, if that's what you want to know." Astarion's head is still high, but his ears hang back, just slightly, putting Wyll in mind of a scolded puppy. "As for my total bodycount—well, I think all of us here know what it is to kill, don't we?"

Lae'zel nods, seemingly satisfied—or as satisfied as one can be, when it is still so early in the day.

Lae'zel, Wyll has gathered, is not a morning person.

"I can't say I much like defining myself as a killer," Gale says, with a nervous laugh. "But... I suppose I can't say it's an inaccurate description, either."

"The road is a hard place to walk," Wyll says, testing his still scalding-tea with a finger. "It demands a stout heart to survive, and occasionally more of our morals than we'd like to admit. I am sure we've all done things we're not proud of."

"Thank you for the platitude, Wyll," Shadowheart says, dryly. "But why are you telling us now, Astarion? You aren't planning on biting any of us, are you?"

"N-no!" Astarion says, with just enough hesitation to make the lie obvious. Wyll lifts his mug in front of his face. "Of course not, dear. It's just as our good githyanki said. Better we should all get to know each other a little, hm?" He raises an eyebrow. "Best to share what we can."

For no reason Wyll can identify, the faintest pink tinge comes to Shadowheart’s pale cheeks, though she doesn't look away.

"If I may," Gale says, with the air of a man who's been waiting his turn to speak. "I'd really like to know what you've been eating? I assume the tadpole hasn't affected your, ah, appetite?"

"The skewels," Lae'zel says.

Heads turn in her direction.

"Tsk'va! The minuscule rodents with the ridiculous tails! He's been leaving their corpses in the bushes."

"Well, that's one mystery solved," Shadowheart mutters, at the same time Astarion says, "I think you mean squirrels, darling."

"Chk."

"Well, that's a relief," Gale says. "I'd just like to say that while I appreciate your honesty, Astarion—"

"Oh, goody," Astarion drawls.

"I do have a few more questions," Gale finishes, apologetically. "I don't suppose you'd mind if I asked...?"

And just like that, the little camp-wide conference is over. Lae'zel returns to her silent contemplation of the campfire, Gale wheedles a few more answers on vampirism out of an Astarion who seems to be rapidly running out of patience, and the world turns steadily toward morning.

Wyll relaxes a tension he scarcely realized he was holding, in his shoulders and his jaw. He'll pay for that later. He should probably get up and do some stretches when he finishes his meal.

"So," Shadowheart says at his shoulder, quiet but clinically brisk. "A personal matter, was it?"

It takes Wyll a moment to realize what she's referring to.

"Ah—" he says, and nothing more. It's still a bit early in the day to come up with something convincing to say.

Shadowheart doesn’t look at him, her fingers laced around her mug. He feels the pressure of her full attention regardless. "I wondered what kept you. You never did come out for your dinner." She glances at him sidelong. "He didn't try to bite you, did he?"

"Not in the least," Wyll says, with all sincerity.

"Hm." Her eyes don't move from his as she turns the rest of her body to face him. "Well, you look terrible."

"Thank you, Shadowheart," Wyll says, with a good deal less sincerity. "But you can hardly blame Astarion for the faults of my face."

"You know that's not what I meant. You're exhausted." She says it like an accusation. "Are you coming down with something?"

"No. And you can't blame Astarion for it, either."

Shadowheart lifts an eyebrow. Can't I? it seems to say.

"I slept poorly," he says. It's not a lie, though it feels almost as if it should be. Nightmares are still a kind of dream, after all, and lying awake with your eyes closed is still a kind of rest.

And part of him feels like he's sleeping, still. Like his body left his mind behind when he climbed out of his bedroll. This campsite, with it's company and calm placidity feels more like something from a dream than Avernus ever did. Not the least because Astarion, for no obvious reason at all, just revealed a secret that, yesterday, he was willing to do unspeakable things in the name of protecting.

(Astarion is a vampire spawn. He is a monster, and now everybody knows. And still, nobody here has told him to go.)

...the sun is very bright, this morning. Everything looks surreal, under a light so brilliant.

"And this bout of insomnia had nothing to do with discovering that there is a vampire in our camp." Shadowheart's voice is heavy with doubt.

"No." Wyll massages his neck. "We... didn't actually talk much about that."

"Oh?" There's a half-hidden curiosity, there, under her veneer of disinterest, that Wyll might find endearing at a different time. "Then what did you talk about? I can't imagine you have that much in common."

Wyll glances at Astarion.

Astarion's back is to him, engaged in some conversation with Lae'zel. The sunlight turns his white hair to a painful radiance, snow-blinding. Wyll thinks he could find him with his eyes closed.

As if alerted by some supernatural sense—perhaps literally, considering the tadpole that connects them—Astarion glances back. Subtly, out of the corner of his eye.

The contact only lasts an instant. Astarion returns his attention to Lae'zel. Wyll's eyes wander up into the sky.

"It seems," Wyll says, taking a sip of his tea, "we have some things in common after all."