WIP Wednesday - Help me decide where to go with my Fic
Help me make a decision on the direction of my fic Yearning for a Taste
I'm going to post what I have so far under the cut. Consider it a teaser, or a chapter 1 with a cliffhanger. (This is a bit that might make it into my longifc, but I'm playing around with it as a oneshot with a generic femme Tav because I think its hot and can go in a few different directions and I'd like to explore those directions.)
Think of it as a choose-your-own-adventure fic and the final piece will be posted on Ao3
reblogging for sample size / commenting&tagging with suggestions is always encouraged :3
MINORS DNI
Summary:
After one night in the shadow-cursed lands, Halsin is in his tent minding his own business reading a book when he hears Tav allowing Astarion to feed on her but it becomes….more.
Halsin hears the whole thing and is trying to be Normal about it, but the poor elf has been pent up for so long and is trying to focus on lifting the curse...but alas, he has needs.
CW: Voyerism, dirty talk, Astarion feeding on Tav
Should I go with --
Halsin comes out of his tent and joins them
Halsin silently pleasures himself to the sounds of the two of them fucking
Astarion and tav go into Halsin's tent and ask him to join
Tav gets mad and storms off, Astarion hooks up with Halsin
secret other option (please comment, say in the tags, or anon message me)
Voting ended onJul 10, 2024
Halsin was lying in his tent, using a bedroll to prop himself up as he read one of the books Tav had managed to find during her travels. A book on mindflayer anatomy - a fascinating read, bringing him further insights into the threat they were facing. His attention was so focused he almost didn’t hear the sounds of two people meeting up near his tent. Unfortunately for him, his hearing was rather keen, and the secluded clearing he had settled in blocked out most of the noises from camp, but not the sounds of anyone in the clearing.
“Gods you're such a little freak,” he heard one voice purr. “You're so good to me, sitting in my lap, letting me feed on you.” The praise was followed by the sound of lips smacking against skin followed by a soft moan – he recognized those voices.
“Did you want more, darling?” Astarion’s voice was silken, lined with hazy lust. “Or did you just want to be my little snack for the evening?”
“You’re sure you saw Halsin go towards the north of camp?” She heard her whisper. That was most definitely Tav, her soft voice was very distinctive. There was nobody else that voice could belong to.
“Almost positive, my dear. There’s no light on in his tent either, he’s probably off meditating or whatever it is he gets up to.”
They were quiet for a moment. It was true, he had wandered to the north of camp earlier in the evening, but while everyone was enjoying a meal by the fire, he had returned to his tent, rather exhausted from trying desperately to commune with whatever living things he could find in the shadow-blighted village that surrounded them. There wasn’t much, and his efforts had expended quite a bit of his magic.
“NNnnf…Don't stop…” Her voice was barely a whisper, a near-silent plea.
Halsin squirmed uncomfortably in his tent. Of all the people to have a liaison behind his tent…it had to be these two. From the sounds of it, Astarion was drinking from her neck, his hands likely snaking beneath her clothes, pleasuring her…
Halsin was desperately trying not to listen in. He had been pent up for so long, and the two of them had tried a few times to bed him; it had taken everything in him not to give in. He was glad they sought company with each other, but did it need to be right outside of his tent? There was a pause in their sounds, and he breathed a sigh of relief. Hopefully they were through. Hopefully he would just bite her and be done with it.
His hopes were futile as he heard a soft gasp escape from Tav. “Astarion–gods that feels so good.”
“Breathe a bit deeper for me darling - that's it.” He heard Astarion coax. “Good girl, that's my good little treat. You're so nice and wet for me…”
Halsin turned on his side, his back towards their sounds as he tried desperately to focus on the words swimming around the page of his book, trying to ignore the sound of the two of them, but it proved…difficult. Her stifled moans were stirring emotions he had been trying to suppress for far too long. Both Tav and Astarion had long since held his attention - maybe it was just the kindred feeling of being around two other elves, or maybe it was more…He didn't want to think about it. He had to stay focused on his goals, the shadowcurse lurked right outside the edge of their camp. He couldn't entertain such frivolous thoughts of companionship —
A loud moan interrupted his thoughts.
“Bite me again, Astarion.”
“With pleasure.” He heard him murmur, followed by the sound of Tav hissing from the sting of being bit, followed by another soft moan.
“Gods you taste so sweet when you're on the edge…cum for me darling. Cum while I drain you dry.”
Halsin froze, recalling the sensation of Astarion’s fangs when he sunk into his flesh. He had allowed the spawn to feed on him once or twice when Tav was too exhausted. It was an intimate experience, to say the least. Silvanus forgive him, but it must feel amazing at the precipice of pleasure, to be on the edge of pure ecstasy and feel yourself shaking with the cold chill of life being drained—fuck. He turned his attention back to his book.
"Many curious scholars have noted the illithid's disdain for arcane magic, yet do not understand the reasons behind it. In traditional illithid circles--" Yes, quite interesting, to find that illithids were weak to magic. He had noted the tadpole he studied had reacted to arcane magic when used on it. He had read this same sentence at least 4 times now.
“Oh gods, fuck, Astarion!” He heard Tav cry. They weren't even trying to be quiet anymore.
He couldn’t avoid it any longer. The familiar sensation of arousal gripped at his senses as he felt his heartbeat quicken and his trousers grow tighter. If they kept this up for much longer he’d have to find a way to relieve the tension himself.
“Shhh… my love you'll wake up the whole camp at this rate,” he said, a twinge of teasing laced with lust spilled from his voice.
Halsin had always wondered what sounds Tav would make…he'd heard her laugh, cry…her sneeze even. He savored the sound of her moving, of humming to herself. Her battlecry, her happiness…they were all so beautiful. But the sounds of her ecstasy…he didn't realize they could sound so sweet.
“Don't make me gag you darling.” He heard her moans become muffled, as though a hand had come to cover her mouth…likely exactly what was happening.
Halsin gritted his teeth, picturing the image of Tav tied up his vines, a thin cloth gagging her. And then the thought of her entwined in the pale elf, one hand over her mouth while the other was plunging himself into her sopping wet cunt while a trickle of blood from his fangs runs down her neck… He couldn't help himself. A groan escaped from him. He stifled himself, a worried hand covering his mouth, trying not to let the longing into the sound that dared escape his throat.
The sounds stopped. Utter silence. The silent eeriness from the shadowlands was not helping.
“Shit–Astarion you said he wandered off to the north of camp, is Halsin IN HIS TENT?” He heard Tav whisper angrily. They had heard him. Hopefully…this would pass, and it would never be brought up again.
“I–ugh, I don't know, Tav, I thought I saw him leave his tent. What's it matter anyway?…I'm sure he’s enjoying the show. If he was so inclined he could join if he wants. Though, perhaps he’s deep in a trance.”
He was glad this version of Halsin was the one he had the honor of claiming. The one from centuries past who had never known the Shadowfell’s touch had his charms, to be sure, but he had clashed with a younger version of Astarion like oil and water. He wouldn’t have fit as well with this version of Astarion, either. They came together seamlessly after years of pain had worn down their edges to matching silhouettes. It made the treacherous path behind seem less like a senseless tragedy to see the sunrise waiting at its end.
Chapter 6 of Desire flowers wherever it finds purchase out on AO3 now!
Summary:
Astarion sets out to find ingredients to brew a healing potion for Halsin, who has a dire fever back at camp. Risking life and limb, and even worse, his pride.
Draft:
“I can’t say it was an easy find, but Gale wouldn’t stop yapping about ‘great healing capacity’, so I didn't have much of a choice now, did I?” It was close enough to the truth, and far enough to save his pride.
Halsin gives him a look that makes Astarion want to melt into a puddle or bolt up and run, the intensity and warmth of it taking him wholly by surprise. It passes in a second, as Halsin tilts the flask up to drain its contents. He makes quick work of the bitter solution and exhales deeply as he pulls it away, but there’s still a bit left when he hands the flask back to Astarion.
okay so i have been writing this for a little while, my first ever actual fanfic. annnnnd i have the beginning "done" and i was wondering if y'all would be so kind as to give it a little read and feedback, let me know if i am heading anywhere interesting?
ETA: i left half the fic out for like three minutes lololol sorry
astarion/halsin, pg at this juncture, definitely won't be at one point. very first draft, inspired by hozier's "first time"
summary: Canon-led look at a relationship between Astarion and Halsin, exploring further, following the arcs in the Hozier song, “First Time.”
Astarion learns about life, death, love, and freedom in his relationship with Halsin.
“Little star,” slipped from scarred lips that first time, sounding easy as a summer’s breeze.
The words instead dunked Astarion into a frigid river, startling awake parts of him long since laid to rest. Terrifying, encompassing, heart stopping. It settled into a little shiver and something else. Oddly…refreshing? It made his skin feel like it fit funnily, worming its way underneath every dead layer and making a home within him, not unlike the tadpole, changing him irrevocably.
He, of course, was aware of the different possible meanings of his name. An old mark once waxed poetic about it to him, assuming the vampire had chosen it himself as most elves his age did. Being as it was one of the few remnants from his past, Astarion was a bit protective of his name. It was one of the only vulnerable spots he knew himself to still have. Someone, somewhere gave him that name. Someone looked at the baby he once was and deemed him sweet enough for his name and its meaning.
Maybe at one point he was someone’s little star, something bright and twinkling in the darkness. He was out of the habit of imagining who gave him the title, though this wasn’t an unexplored dream. There was a time when he imagined the soft arms, soft eyes, soft words of his nomenclator whispering to him in a language he barely remembered, cradling him in the darkest depths of Cazador’s cruelty. He was once held with the kind of reverence reserved for a long hoped-for child, and that thought had sustained him for nearly half a century at one point, pulling his mind from the experience of his body and taking him into that parental embrace.
Spoken so boldly, so nonchalantly in the open air of the camp left him emotionally naked where he stood. Astarion imagined the last time he heard it might’ve also been the last time he stood in the sun as he did now. Fitting, he supposed, as his current life experience felt as foreign and unreal as the memories he made up in his dissociations. It didn’t escape him that the gentle way the druid Halsin spoke his name was as close to the way it was always supposed to sound as anything he could imagine.
Halsin’s voice sounded like the smell of campfire as it went out, like the ground shaking from thunder far away, like the way rough bark feels on a smooth palm. Practically everything he said sounded beautiful, and Astarion’s name was no different. Halsin’s lips didn’t just form the words, but cradled them, placing them lovingly into the world as if they were worthy of care.
The sound of his name had never sounded so sweet, not after centuries of morphing into a curse. More than spoken with care, his name was treated as a command, as a tug on a leash or a noose. Cazador’s voice poisoned Astarion’s name with his venom, whether delivered within a puncture or a masked sweetness. He began regarding it as a scourge, the sound of it acting as a warning for what awful things followed. A necessary distance from his name formed, leaving it behind with his suffering body most days. At camp, he tentatively allowed ‘Astarion’ to settle back into him as his companions spoke it without malice, without inflicting pain. It was with more indifference, informality than anything else, but maybe that was the casual way most people regarded their own name when they had anything else besides it.
Halsin turned his curse of a name back into a prayer, but his kindness was such a practiced part of him that Astarion wondered if it was even intentional. Maybe it was a druid thing or just a Halsin thing, but the natural respect and care he gave to all living creatures was difficult for the younger elf to understand. He could understand if it was a rouse, hiding an ulterior motive, sure, but he wasn’t sure Halsin even had the capacity to lie let alone manipulate him.
A hand reached for him as the words did, Halsin’s big paw tentative as it came toward Astarion like he was some injured small creature or something. It was clear that the older man was trying to find the best way to get him to feel comfortable, and the thought stirred something in his belly. Annoyance, trepidation, butterflies? The hand came with a request, not just to offer Astarion the sweet version of his name.
"Little star,” he’d called, as if his request was simple, as if it didn’t shake Astarion to his core.
Blinking himself out of the momentary reverie, Astarion turned on his heel to take in the scene. Halsin was seated at one corner of his little camp, on the bare ground, large legs folded beneath him. It was only then that Astarion noticed the curls of wood scattered around him, the knife in his hand, the mangled bit of twig resting on his thigh. Was he whittling? How...quaint. Feigning casual, Astarion cocked a hip and an eyebrow, drawling.
“What was that, dear druid?”
“I was wondering if you would do a lazy bear a favor and hand me that bit of basswood just out of reach,” Halsin answered, a chuckle below the surface of the sound. “If it’s not too much trouble, of course.”
There was a glint to his eye that made Astarion feel like he’d been caught doing something more nefarious than simply walking past. The request was innocent, if not a possible ploy to just get his attention, and yet the vampire felt like he must tread carefully. Those hazel eyes saw more than most, Astarion knew. Beyond the wizened age of the former First Druid, Halsin had the unique ability to see what many others overlooked, and Astarion’s carefully crafted masks did nothing to deter him. He often wondered if in that sweet nature hid a schemer who kept tabs as weapons; after all, that would be what he’d do, what he did do.
With careful, graceful movements that did little to hide the truth of the disarmament he just experienced, Astarion plucked the wood from the ground and offered it to Halsin with a flick of his wrist.
“Is this what you’re after?”
“Ah, yes,” Halsin beamed when he got the frightened animal to eat from his palm. “Many thanks, my friend.”
Friend? Astarion barely grasped the concept let alone considered this lumbering teddybear of a man one of his. He could scarcely bring himself to trust Halsin, so warm affection was definitely not on the table yet.
Still, being in Halsin’s good graces could be nothing more than an asset.
On went the charm, an enticing smile tugging at Astarion’s lips as he peered down his nose curiously at the older man’s project.
“And what, pray tell, are you doing? Not carving stakes, I hope?”
At that, the laugh that burst from Halsin both startled Astarion and warmed something in his bones, his smile slipping into something less practiced without his knowledge or permission.
“Gods, no,” the bear replied, holding up the wood to show how easily it would fit in his palm. “Not unless we’re going to chase down your kin in bat form.” It was Astarion’s turn to laugh, the image of the large Halsin chasing after his master as a tiny vampire bat with his hand-carved toothpick delighting him. Gesturing to the space beside him with his carving knife, Halsin invited, “come, join me if you are not busy. I’d be happy to keep your company a while longer.”
Astarion couldn’t say why he sat down beside him, or even what they wound up talking about until Halsin left to join the rest of the omnivores in camp for supper. The sun had shifted across the sky without his noticing for the first time since he’d been able to see it again, the passage of time seeming to rush by. This, too, was a new experience. For nearly two centuries, Astarion had felt time trickle past him like molasses. His existence was pain, isolation, and forced servitude, and anything beyond that had been a rouse. Time passing quickly would have been a blessing any moment of his life except for today. Today, when he allowed himself for a moment to believe in the sweetness of another, the world moved faster around him than it ever had before. Typical.
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There’s a knife at his throat and a slender arm pinning him to the ground, a smaller body straddling him with a grace that might have made Halsin’s blood run hot had the entire thing not reeked of thinly veiled desperation.
Halsin follows Astarion into the woods at night. They talk.
