Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The spawn informs him that Cazador has not moved a muscle in the tenday since Astarion left. He lies slumped on his side on the gritty stone floor, his wrists wrenched behind his back by the chains. Dried blood cakes one hand, where the skin was torn and the bone had dislocated in an attempt to slip the cuff. The spawn's gaze lingers on the banquet of blood left next to Cazador's head as Astarion dismisses her.

Astarion kicks Cazador in the face just to hear the snap of his nose breaking. Physical injury hadn't phased the old vampire even before he fell in this state, and these days, it barely makes him feel better.

A gutted dead rat, its blood dried and brown on the cobblestones, decorates the ground in front of Cazador, well within reach. Along with it, there is a full goblet of half-elf blood, and Astarion's latest attempt, a plate with a smear of the baby's blood. None have had an effect.

Astarion crouches in front of Cazador and glares in his listless eyes.

"I crushed Velioth's skull today and burned some of your diaries. I thought it was about time to start cleaning the place."

Unresponsive.

"Did you know, I was in Reithwin just recently. The sunflowers are beautiful this time of year. And nobody knows how to grill lamb like their street vendors. It almost tempts me to bring you along."

Dust has gathered on Cazador's eyelids. Astarion snarls. He shifts to a kneel.

"At least tell me what game you are trying to play, master."

He waits a few seconds for the roar of rage in his ears to calm down. He stands, and he kicks at Cazador's ribs several more times, and he walks up the stairs and slams the door open.

He heads in the nursery. In the same place as he's left it, the infant lies, sobbing. Ever since Cazador fell apart, it has done nothing but cry incessantly. It has never been easier to raise. Astarion cradles it in his arms and heads back.

He hasn't closed the prison door. By now, Cazador should have heard the baby's wails, echoed along the stairwell. Astarion strains, and despite his ascendence-blessed senses, does not hear any shift of fabric, nor any inhale of breath.

He cannot believe he is letting Cazador win.

No, he rectifies. He is not letting Cazador have his way. He is simply just—following Halsin's advice, and putting aside old grudges for the health of his child. He is only doing what it takes to be a good, responsible parent.

He wants to strangle somebody. He heads back down the stairs.

Chapter Text

Astarion is combing his hair in the dormitory when compulsion tugs him by the chest and a tidal wave of dread overwhelms him. He has been awaiting it, suspecting it would happen. Cazador disappeared with Leon a while back and none of the spawn have seen him since.

Astarion checks that not a strand is out of place, and puts the comb down. He tugs at his shirt's collar so that it is straight and makes sure there's no dust or rat fur on him. What else can he do to please Cazador? Appease him, more like. It's not confirmed that it's his child. It's not confirmed yet that the theory hasn't been a bout of insanity shared by the six of them, and there is no child to speak of. But Astarion wouldn't be anyone's first or second thought for child-raising duties. There's really only one reason he's going to meet Cazador before the other six.

He knocks before he enters Cazador's office. Walks in and bows, sweetly, deep at the waist. Wonders if he should kneel and prostate and get the begging over with. But when he straightens, he finds that Cazador isn't even looking at him. He is turned towards the open window, and he has the gaze of somebody who is not looking at the lovely view of the Upper City in front of him.

Cazador has ways to see the goings-on of every room in the palace even when he is not physically present, Astarion knows. He's quite able to suspect where that attention is at, right now.

But then Cazador speaks.

"It isn't yours."

What? But then why is he, out of all people, at this time—

"You are not to ever lay claim to it."

Ah. It's more that he can't tell anybody.

"I understand, master."

"See that you do. You can go."

"But—" Astarion frowns. There isn't a diplomatic way to tackle the topic. "Will I, I mean, are you going to punish me for this?"

"Oh, Astarion." Cazador turns to him, then. "Be reassured that this is a gift. I have always wanted this."

It's scary, the tone Cazador takes at the end. There's a possessive quality to it that Astarion's never heard.

"All right," Astarion says. "And can I see it?"

"No."

Astarion doesn't know what emotion it is that flows through him. It's just curiosity, he tells himself. What it is that marks the baby as his.

"But master, surely, if it's mine—"

"Who do you belong to, Astarion?"

Fear blooms in his chest. He's pushed too far.

"You, master."

"Is there anything you own, then?"

"No, master. Sorry, master."

"You will not try to find the nursery. You are too dim to be trusted in her presence."

Her. A flutter courses through Astarion even as Cazador realizes his mistake.

"Leave," he snaps.

Chapter Text

"What's stopping the master from just killing us all?"

Astarion knows that comment is why he has been summoned. He saw how it had struck Cazador, when he blurted it out, while they were all reeling from his announcement of the Black Mass. While Cazador was letting them discuss what it meant to them. Petras and Violet were overjoyed, of course. Some days it feels like they hardly mind being under the master's thumb, so long as there is someone lower on the totem pole to torment. Dalyria goes where Petras goes. Leon clearly meant to ask what the ritual meant for Victoria, once the other spawns leave. Yousen he didn't bother glancing at, and Aurelia was smiling, but Aurelia might have smiled even if the master plainly promised death.

The invisible leash drags his feet up the stairs, to one of the well-furnished reading rooms, where Cazador had, admittedly, never done anything awful to him. He still doesn't know why his remark is what upset Cazador, but if the master wanted to make reparations for all those years of torment, well. He could certainly try, in the short time he has left.

Astarion doesn't know what the ritual will do to him, but he does know Cazador hasn't thought past himself once in the years of slavery. He tries, so very occasionally, when some other vampire braggart reminds him that spawn are meant to express utter devotion towards their master. He takes Astarion aside, and he treats Astarion like something close to an equal for just long enough for Astarion to believe his sire has woken up and found out there is more that Astarion is good for, more than being an empty-headed whore and a pincushion.

But then Astarion displeases him, or Cazador exhausts his patience, and the farce ends. It always feels like his body and screams and unwilling servitude hold too much interest for his sire to care enough about the mind inside. His past experience has taught him clearly; if the ritual benefits him in any way, it would be incidental.

"Master," Astarion greets, at the door. He slouches against the frame and does not bow. Let Cazador tolerate this, if he wants Astarion's favour so badly.

"Come here, Astarion."

Astarion goes to the window. It is a clear night sky, and the Upper City sprawls below them. It is too dark to see much more than the black boxes of houses, and the silhouette of the taller spires that blot out the stars. He shivers a little from the outside chill, and Cazador wraps an arm around his shoulder and conjures a little floating flame that warms his back.

"Don't you see what we could have?" Cazador asks, gesturing at the window. "I would elevate us before them all."

"You would elevate yourself," Astarion corrects, cynical. "I can't see you sharing anything. You love to lord over us too much."

"I would have an entire city to lord over, once I ascend. What the rest of you are up to would no longer be my concern. Is that not what you have always wanted? To live eternal, and free of me?"

Does he want that more than he wants to see Cazador dead? It was possible he did. He thinks on it.

"Whether you free us or kill us, I won't know until the ritual happens. Either way, my body is yours to do as you wish. Isn't that what you always taught me? Why do you need me to believe you?"

The others could try to flee, maybe. He is usually the one to shut down their plans. He knows, even if it is only for the much shorter duration until the ritual happens, that he could not go back in that tomb. He knows he is helpless.

"I want you to believe me, Astarion, so that you will celebrate alongside me on the day."

It wasn't impossible, but surely, surely not even Cazador is so vain that this was his only concern?

"Then forget it," Astarion says, even if it confines him to be wrapped in chains in the kennels until the day of the ritual. "You hurt me too much for me to want to see you anywhere but under my feet, with a stake through your heart."

"How crass," Cazador says, without much reproach. "You do not think that I could care about you? That when I hurt you, it is to prepare you for something better? Something more than what you were made to be? Perhaps I need to confide in you, Astarion. That poem I had carved on you and your siblings' back is what links you to the ritual. It is what promises you to have a fraction of my ascended power."

It explains things, though Astarion wishes it didn't. Cazador had carved it nearly two centuries ago. Cazador's actions, unbeknown to him, have been preparations since. He did know what he was doing, when Astarion did not. Could something that hurt so much really be beneficial? Of course it could—they were vampires, and as much as he suffers in his unlife, it did give him something he always wanted. It did give him eternal, unblemished beauty.

"Am I meant to extrapolate that to all of the other torture, too?" he asks, but his voice is no longer so biting. There is a part of him that has begun to believe. "Were the flayings and the rats what you needed for the ritual?"

"The flayings kept your skin youthful," Cazador says. "The whippings kept you in line, because I needed you. If I did not care for you, I could have kept you in the tomb, that first time you showed you were willing to risk my ire and your own life by wandering away. I would have rewarded you with more than rats if you had ever impressed me."

Astarion swallows, the rage and fear at the mention of punishment battling within him. The rage of the sheer injustice; the terror, the realization that Cazador could always have treated him worse.

"Here," Cazador says.

There was a goblet of blood set on a bookshelf, one that smelled so good Astarion had long given up on knowing what the taste would be. Cazador hands the entire cup to him, now, still close to full.

It's easy to call his sire heartless. It's easy to remember all of the indignity that has been inflicted on him, for years upon years, and to want him dead, so very badly. It is harder to claim Cazador did not care for him at all, when his sire's arm is draped around him, and he is kept warm, and he nurses a cup that tastes so utterly divine that his whole body shudders when he swallows in large, starved gulps, and the glorious liquid flows inside him.

"I am sorry," Cazador says, and Astarion almost drops the cup he is holding, his tongue working to lick along the metal. "I have not treated you well. I should explain to you why, if you wish to know. It does have to do extensively with my own family."

"Okay," Astarion says, shakily, as he is led to sit on a couch besides Cazador. "I'll listen."

And when Cazador begins, Astarion finds he is no longer so convinced of his disbelief.

"I truly do see you as my family, you know."

Chapter Text

Blindfolded, and naked, he sits on one of his masters' lap, a knee lightly nudging between his legs whenever he makes to close them. A breath down his neck, the tickle of curls against his ear. Astarion. It has to be Astarion he leans against, if there is breathing.

"Who's hand is on your cock, pet?" Astarion whispers, near his ear. "Surely you can distinguish between your betters, right?"

Cazador bites his tongue to hold back a moan. It's a good touch, that's what it is. It has him barely able to think, stimulated by the experienced hand pumping him. He's damned himself with all the training he's put the boy through, if this is indeed Astarion's hand. It could be. With difficulty, he tries to feel at the fingers. There's an arm that wraps around his torso to keep him upright, and that ends in the slender hand he used to command to touch his body. Are the fingers on his cock the same, or thicker? Surely the angle of the wrist wasn't one Astarion could easily reach, but he might be hallucinating that. It is too much of a rush of pleasure that courses through him, after how long the masters have neglected him.

"Well?" Vellioth asks, the voice coming from somewhere in front of him. That decides it.

"Yours, ah, yours, Master Vellioth."

He hears the whistling, has the time for half a flinch between the whip strikes his thighs, blinding pain that wrenches a cry out of him. His cock has been left alone, and he has to refrain from whining or buckling. He wasn't wrong, he's certain of it. He had the right answer. They had just planned to do this regardless.

~

They bring in a large rabbit, its white fluff so voluminous that it is hard to tell how plump it is, how much blood is hidden under the fur. Astarion cracks its neck, and the movement tears a nick behind its ears. The rabbit is hung upside down at eye level to Cazador, from his place kneeling on the floor, and a dog bowl is placed under it. Astarion works his nail in the small wound until it just begins to trickle, one slow drop of blood at a time. Down the head, down the red eyes, like the pure creature is crying blood, and dripping into the bowl. Cazador hates how his mouth waters at the sight of it. They wouldn't be using that bowl if they did not intend him to drink from it, so enamoured the two are with treating him like their abused mutt.

"We've made a bet, Vellioth and I," Astarion begins.

He stares at Cazador from high above, his skin glowing with life, graced by his Ascendance. Next to him, Vellioth looks exactly like how he used to. It's a pit of bottomless dread in Cazador’s stomach at the sight of him. He knows there is no avenue he can escape to where he emerges unharmed every time he sees that face.

"Between the two of us," Vellioth says, "who can make you scream first?"

He knows how useless it is to plead for anything, any way he could reduce the torture he will be put through. He knows how useless it is, and yet he stares in Vellioth’s eyes with naked terror and the urge to beg nearly overtakes him.

"As an incentive to last," Astarion adds, "you can have what has spilled out of the rabbit up until a pretty sound makes it out of that mouth of yours. Now, Vellioth, I believe you wanted the first turn?"

"It would be my pleasure," Vellioth replies, bowing his head at Astarion.

Cazador cannot help but shake as Vellioth comes closer. The rattle of the chains binding his ankles to the ground betray—amplify—his break in composure. Vellioth rests his claws at the back of Cazador's neck.

"Oh, and Cazador?" Vellioth murmurs near his ear.

"Yes—yes, master?"

"Don't you dare end the game too quickly," he says, and sinks his fangs in Cazador’s yielding flesh.

It is at most a rabbit's worth of blood to be earned, but he clamps his jaws shut and wills himself to do nothing at all as he stares helplessly in the lifeless prey's eye, as the blood mats and stains its fur.