Archive of Our Own ^beta

The heat scorched not like fire, but like ember and spark, like the slow smoking of the burgeoning flame. He could feel it burning up in him slowly, creeping upon him like a fever, slowly blistering until it would inevitably fester into infection. There was no avoiding it now, not without his sacred, eldritch savior.

Astarion would sooner let it kill him than face what he knew was to follow.

Heat wouldn’t scorch him like the sun, not so sudden as the breaking of daylight across his pale flesh in the aftermath of it all. It had not overtaken him with such biting force, had not commanded he run to the shadows and touch himself, had not crippled his crumbling form in the immediate wake. No, it had been slow to start, slow to burn, slow to consume.

In the days before his death, before vampirism took him over and Cazador took control over his body’s natural functions, he’d always felt it coming days before it started. It would take him slowly like a sickness, slowly dragging him into the confines of his bed, the door locked tightly in the earliest days of it. Despite his every snarking indication in his youth, he’d presented as an omega, to the grand disappointment of his father. No, such noble names as theirs could be sullied by his disgrace of a son.

In the earliest days of his affliction, his father had paid for fine perfumes and finer clothes, anything to distract from that sickly sweet scent of him. Once he’d grown into his own enough to hide it for himself, he’d followed suit, not daring disclose to the others in these upper echelons who he truly was. No, the shame it would bring upon his family, upon himself, to be exposed for this pathetic excuse, to be exiled to the streets for his unchosen indiscretion.

Still, in the moments when the heat began to spark in the pit of his belly, threatening to collect itself into flame, into blaze, into raging fucking wildfire, he found himself at the Sharess’ Caress. It was an ironically old family business, though he supposed that prostitution was truly the world’s oldest profession; he knew that better than most, having learned those ugly lessons firsthand throughout the centuries.

Sharess herself, the first and finest, had taken a liking to him, finding him uniquely pitiful when he came stumbling in past her door. Looking back, he couldn’t much blame her, the way he’d come staggering past the threshold, clutching to his side and struggling to hide his sweat-slicked face. He’d wandered from his locked chambers in a daze, finally deciding himself wealthy enough to not endure such biological tragedies alone.

She had smelled it on him, of course, and she’d denied the extra coin he would have been willing to offer up for her discretion. No, instead, she ushered him quietly toward the back, where a handsome alpha had laid himself out across the sheets.

And gods above, was he fucking handsome. He had been tall, bearing these wide shoulders that could have swallowed him whole. Dark hair hung loose around his shoulders, and darker eyes could have consumed him whole in the candlelit room. Human, and always so intrigued at their little differences, always so keen to trace lines along the outline of his ears, always so keen to listen about his traditions and his gods.

It became routine, until Astarion became his favorite regular, until he swiftly became all too well adjusted to the comfort of a touch to quell the fever. This alpha was gentler with him than he had ever thought himself worthy of, fingers and lips and knot all pressed against him with a tentative sort of grasp, as though handling fine porcelain. And Astarion, Astarion; he had only ever known violence, with every lashing tongue and gnashing word that had bit against his teeth, teeth tearing at his throat, in the spaces between his lungs. But somehow, in the flickering of candlelight, he embraced that soft and gentle man.

And for the first time in his short lived life, he allowed himself the solace of this place, of this alpha, of this man that stood before him.

For nine years after that, he returned to that same alpha again and again, his name whispered with every rising heat until it rang ragged in his throat. Despite every ringing in Astarion’s head to merely beg for his alpha, for knot, he had always insisted upon it. That alpha, that man, that beautiful man, had insisted that Astarion only ever call him by name, in the throes of pleasure and the sparse moments of clarity in the spaces in between. That name, that name like music, like poetry, like it had been chosen for him by the gods themselves.

It had been so long now, though, that Astarion couldn’t remember the way it sounded, the way it tasted in his mouth, how to form the letters. No, that name last left his lips the night Cazador had him executed as some sick and twisted punishment. And in those two long centuries, that name stayed buried between his screaming lungs, and would never cross his cursed lips again. Not if he could help it.

Of course, once Cazador took him in as a spawn, stripped him of his humanity, there was hardly time to consider it, let alone to cry it out in pleasure, to cry it out in agony. Not that Astarion would have given him the pleasure of seeing him so weak, so vulnerable, so fucking pitiful; though, he supposed, there was no hiding his pathetic fucking demeanor in as his lips quivered around a live rat. Still, it might have been easier to let it consume him whole, to lay himself six feet beneath the earth and let the worms feast upon his dead flesh.

But no. No, Cazador had far greater plans for him than that, greater ambitions than to simply let him rot. No, Cazador would never be that fucking merciful.

No, even in death, Astarion’s body was far more useful than that. His soul might have been rotten, sold to this devil that had taken it between his bared teeth, but his body? Male omegas, for all their taboo, were a rare commodity, to be lusted after, to be used, to be fucked. And Cazador was not a wasteful man.

Pheromones, reproductive cycles, his own fucking biology was under the heavy-handed control of a madman, all too easily surrendered to that man that drained him of his blood. In such easy amusement, he waved his hand and sent him into heat, let the fever blister over and consume him until he was sick and pleading for some form of release. Eternal heat, eternal hellfire, licking at his flesh like the fires of Avernus.

Of course, such sweet release would never come for him. Where was the fun in that?

No, it was easier to send him out, the scent of heat thick in his throat, to lure alphas to their early demises. Men, mostly, big and strong and almost always brutishly fucking stupid, always itching for something either to fight or to fuck. Astarion, with his lithe frame and enticing scent, lured them home with ease, his body always just as hungry, always just as desperate, always just as wanton.

Sometimes Cazador would let them fuck him for awhile before stepping in; only the biggest and roughest, of course. He would be allowed no gentle touch, no compassion, certainly nothing that could ever be mistaken for love. Only ever the ones that would throw him against the bed, the ones that shoved themselves inside without preamble, the ones that made him yelp and cry out and bleed? Those were the ones that Cazador liked to watch.

Still, the heat never simmered, the hunger never sated as he was sent out, night after night, luring in alphas that were willing to pay for a night of fun, only to lure them tragically to their deaths. And he hungered for it just as badly, just as desperately, to feel them press against his spine as he presented himself as something to be fucked, to be filled, to be bred.

Cazador would never let it get that far, though. No, a knot was a gift, a mercy, and he had never been a merciful man. He would let the cruelest ones come just to the brink before stealing him away into the night, sending him away to writhe and suffer in his agony, to endure the fever alone until the next night fell. And once the darkness fell over the streets, and all that was left were the speckled lanterns and stars in the skies, he’d be sent out to lure in the next one and relive the last night into eternity.

And then the Mindflayers. The Nautiloid, the tadpoles, the brain, all of it. The heat of the crash was hot enough to burn the fever straight from his bones, to make him nearly perfect again, nearly human, and hardly omega at all.

And in the fall, the wind whipped cold against his flesh, but the sun took the place of the fire in his belly, warm and gentle against the pale of his skin. And the fever broke, and the sand cushioned his fall, and for a singular, spectacular moment, he was free. Free of the fever, free of the hunger, free of the gnawing and lashing against his bones. For a singular, spectacular moment, Astarion was wholly and entirely himself.

Of course, they had all come stumbling together, and the tadpole made certain that they knew exactly who he was, exactly what he was in time. The vampirism was easier to hide, the memories of his starvation and bloodlust masked behind the memories of every other lusting, filthy thing he had ever done. But when the tingle started in the base of their skulls, this forced and fraying connection, there was no hiding what he was, what he had done, what he had spent centuries craving.

And of course, of course, it was easy to fall for him then. That stupid, hungry man with that starving orb in the center of his chest, he understood. Even when the images were hazy and the memories felt like another man’s life, Gale Dekarios understood it. Ambition and desperation mingled in the space where the body met the soul, until it became too ravenous to contain, until it became dangerous. Gale understood that all too intimately well.

It didn’t take him long to fall for his magic tricks and the way his soft brown eyes lit up in his presence. At first, his long-winded ramblings had nearly driven Astarion crazy, enough to consider draining him dry the night he’d been caught. But at the moment of surrender, when Gale offered himself up as a human sacrifice, he began to understand it. He could taste it in the blood spilled upon his tongue, like static and sweet fire, the way the life threatened to burn up inside of him and erupt… How could his words be anything less?

And slowly, Astarion began to warm up to his ramblings, until his voice began to sound like music, until he found solace in the nights spent curled up at his side. It became routine, to prick open those two wounds on the side of his neck and let the blood spill freely into his mouth, to lay tucked beneath one arm, to slowly take his fill until the dawn broke.

The sex came slower, regardless of his futile attempts at seduction, to lure him into something more. Gale shot him down every time, only offering quick kisses in the dead of night, never allowing it to venture any further than that for fear of that thing in his chest. And regardless of his natural-born hunger, the waxing starvation spurred by his own desire and nothing more, Astarion never once pressed.

That, of course, only lasted so long. And once the dam broke, their routine settled into the steady roar of a rushing river.

Their midnight escapades ventured into near absurdity, and Astarion allowed it joyously, following him into the abyss of space, into the space between the stars. And like the gods that taught him, Gale composed himself as a deity among men, offering him the grace of heaven in every delivered thrust, in every raptured touch. And above all, he was gentle. Always so fucking gentle.

In some ways, Gale reminded Astarion of him. That one from two hundred years before, that one whose name had died screaming with his body upon Astarion’s pleading tongue.

He tried not to think about that part too much.

Instead, against his every bucking thought, against his every screaming protest, Astarion found himself falling in love in the same way he had before. Before his death and its undoing, before losing all that he had ever dared to love, before he had known the agony of Cazador’s so-called mercy. And as they approached the gates of the city, as they grappled with the idea that they might survive this, Astarion surrendered himself to the feeling.

It felt like sweet surrender, to allow love, that beautiful and stupid thing, back into the center of his chest. And once it came spilling from between his ribs, from between his biting and beckoning teeth, it came almost as naturally as breathing.

It was not a selfish sort of love, not a possessive sort of love, not even a hungry sort of love. No, they both held enough hunger for themselves, there was no need to let their starvation consume the other. It was a peaceful sort of exchange, like the blooming of wildflowers or the first warm sunlight of spring, slow approaching and comfortable, like the rise and fall of breath between their open mouths.

And Halsin? Well, Halsin was slower to let in. Sex was one thing, especially when Gale had asked him to join in after their own slow bond had formed, forged in a mutual respect for the other’s control over the Weave. Astarion was pretty sure that it had started as a healthy, intellectual curiosity, leading down roads of other understandings. And when it was nothing but sex, that had been simple enough, the feelings stopping at the playful banter that they had developed between them.

And then Halsin told that story about the Drow that kept him hostage, that tied him to the bed and used his body in the way that Cazador had used his own.

Halsin carried no such parasite behind his eyes, harbored no such connection to his past, knew nothing beyond his quick quips and his poorly-masked hunger. He might have caught the scent of him, that undeniable sweetness beneath the blood and gore, but he never made any fuss of it, never spoke a word to him about it. He never pursued so vigorously, only making his interest known, leaving the door eternally ajar for him to step through.

And when Gale asked, Astarion obliged, taking his pleasure between the two of them before slipping away, back to the cover of his tent. Such vulnerability as sharing a bed, that was reserved for few men alone, only those trusted enough to bare the weight of all he was.

Despite his every effort, though, Halsin had always seen him for what he was, and held no rash judgment against him, held no fear in his towering form. Before that night, they had shared in moments of compassion, bringing Astarion his injured and his dying creatures to feast upon, to spare the spry and quell his starvation. There were rarely words exchanged in those moments, only the offering left at his tent and a nod of acknowledgement, a silent thanks from one to the other.

But that night, after their bodies had been spent and Gale had fallen fast asleep between them, Halsin’s mind had began to wander. Stories began to flow, and Astarion listened with an unusually rapt attention, as though hearing his own story through the mouth of another. To be taken and fucked and used, to lose control over their own bodies, their own minds, Halsin understood the horrors and relief, the shame and release, all of it.

That night, across their sleeping lover, they reached across the swimming sheets and shared a kiss between them; the first of its kind, though hardly the last. Across their sleeping lover, their own sort of love story was forged in the wreckage of their mutual travesty, and sealed between claimed lips.

It was chaste, and soft, without expectation of anything to follow suit. Before, their kisses had been heated, lost within the haze of sex for sex’s sake, biting and ravenous, with sharp teeth and sharper desires. But that night, there was nothing but gentle understanding shared between their open mouths, a softness that could only be considered something skin to love itself. And from that night onward, Astarion let it simmer in his chest, let it carry him forward, let it decide his fate.

And in the end, he supposed that it had been worth it, to free the ones he had sentenced to death, to let Cazador’s blood spill across the floor without demanding ascension.

It brought him here, to this, after all. And how could he ask for anything more?

They weren’t too far outside the gates of Waterdeep, having taken their band of strays along with them as Gale returned to his teaching. The others had scattered across the realms, but Halsin had collected himself a band of orphans and animals and created a community just outside the city, away from the wreckage of all that they had lost.

It was easy, this routine they had established, this rhythm that they’d fallen into. And how could Astarion trade any of that for the world? Ascension might have offered him the sun, but to bask in the crackling firelight, between the embrace of his lovers? Well, that was more than ascension could have ever offered him.

But the heat, the fever, that cyclical fucking biology that he harbored between his legs, in the pit of his belly? Well, only ascension might have spared him of that.

Though, of that he couldn’t even be certain. Could ascension spare him of his own wretched biology, rid him of that horrible thing in the pit of his belly? Would it have even been enough to erase that part of himself, the part that he had spent so many pointless years trying to hide? All that sneaking, all that lying, it had all proved itself as futile, only to be exploited in his undying, to be used as a weapon against him through the centuries of his unending afterlife. Could anything purge such experience from his very soul?

He supposed not, or that he might never know. Mostly, he preferred not to think about it. He preferred not to think of the time he spent cooped away from the others, not to think about the warm rays of sunlight that streamed in through the windows, close enough to see but never enough to touch. He preferred to shut it down, shut it out, close his eyes, and pretend.

Gale and Halsin did their bests to make it easier. They never left him alone too long, always so damn insistent upon including him, in making him feel wanted, making him feel like there was still life to be lived within the shadows. They offered him distraction in the form of conversation and cuddles, in the form of love in its purest capacities; they tried their damnedest, but the moments of silence that fell in the lulls of conversation left only space for him to think.

Sex proved to be the best distraction, caught between the heaving breath and desperate touches, between biting nails and itching teeth. It was hard to think about anything else, pinned beneath the weight of his lovers, to be taken and loved so recklessly, so liberally, without trepidation, without hesitation. Between the heat of Halsin’s breath at the base of his neck and the soft kisses offered up from Gale’s open mouth, how could his mind consider anything else?

No, it was easier to exist in such a state of ecstasy, ignoring the sun and its trickling stream through the tightly drawn curtains, ignoring the light that would scorch his flesh in favor of fleeting pleasure. It was easier not to think of how cruel life had been to allow him to feel the sunlight again, the warmth against his pale skin, to allow him to survive it all, only to confine him again to the shadows.

Only to allow the fever to return.

Confined to the darkness, Astarion was granted his respite for nearly a month before it began to spark and burn in the pit of his chest. It was just long enough to let him wonder if he might have been freed of it, if the tadpole had put an end to his suffering for good; just long enough for it to feel all the crueller. All that wanton and needy sex, all those innocent little moments that he had perverted, it had been his choice, all of his own stupid fucking volition.

But this was not his decision, not a desire sparked in lust or some need to forget. This was a burden thrust upon him from the moment his body had decided to present as omega, perhaps a designation forced upon him by the gods themselves. Perhaps it was always going to play out this way, a biological determination at the moment of conception, a mishap in his formation, a flaw in his development. Perhaps there was never any fleeing this.

It first began its slow blistering in the early morning, a slight discomfort in his lower abdomen, a discomforting tug between his thighs. The words didn’t dare cross his tongue, praying to every god above them that it might have just been a fluke, a misinterpretation, anything but the reality of what was happening to him. Instead, he just begged Halsin to pull the curtains tighter before he ventured out for morning, before pulling the covers up over his head and begging for the sweet relief of sleep.

Stagnation came instead, somewhere between waking and dreaming as the fever settled in his bones, as it began to lap at the base of his skull, until it threatened to take him whole.

It would only be a matter of time before it swallowed him whole, after all. It was only a matter of time before the first gush of slick would pulse from the hole between his legs, that secret place seldom touched by anyone. Even the two that he had entrusted with his body and soul, those who he had pledged himself to walk alongside for now or forevermore, had never touched him there.

Sure, he had let wandering mouths and fingers clasp around his cock, only a few inches of length above that open slit of twitching flesh, but never did they venture any lower. They had each asked only once, only in moments of swift confirmation and established boundaries, and had never pressed him further. Instead, he let them take their pleasure through the other holes he had to offer up, past the taut rim of twitching muscle, past his open and eager mouth. It somehow felt safer that way, somehow less exposed, somehow less vulnerable.

Perhaps it had only ever been a matter of time before such vulnerabilities came to light. Perhaps all of this had only ever been just a simple matter of time.

“Astarion?” Gale whispered as the day turned to dusk, voice tinged with worry as he pushed open the door. Could he smell it on him? Could he sense what was happening to his body, the force threatening to take his mind, in the air around his quivering shoulders? Were the covers he’d encased himself in not enough to hide these little horrors?

“I’m fine,” Astarion barked, head still shielded from the dying light behind the panes of glass.

“Halsin says you’ve not been out of bed all day,” he said softly, no hint of accusation in his words, seeking only a moment of understanding. “Are you sure you’re okay? This isn’t--”

“I said, I’m fine,” he hissed, pulling his knees closer to his chest, not daring to look up as the footsteps fell softly toward the bed, as the weight of his lover settled on the edge of the bed.

“Is it…” Gale paused, as though considering his next words carefully, as though not daring to overstep. Surely, he’d already figured it out, had already realized what was going to happen to him, had already understood the implications. A hand tentatively reached out, hovering for just a moment over the heap of covers and sheets, of flesh and bone and blood. “Is it your--”

The weight of his hand settled against Astarion’s hip, and for a moment, he the present wrestled itself away from his grasp. Memories of all that had happened since, of the tadpole and the crash and the fall, of the blood and death wrought at his own strong-willed hand, it fled his broken mind, and all that was left was before.

For a moment, he was trapped again beneath Cazador’s wretched control, the fever burning hotter beneath the iron of his fist. For a moment, he was back beneath those filthy sheets, beckoning strange men to seat themselves between his quivering thighs. For a moment, he was the instrument of his own undoing, luring hungry men to their own demise, a harbinger of death to anyone that dared to touch him. For a single, pitiful moment, he was nothing more than a piece of meat for Cazador’s next meal to fuck, to use, to try to breed.

Futile measures, surely. How could life bloom from the cold, dead space beneath his stomach? No, in his death and its undoing, such simple joys as mating and fatherhood had been stripped of him entirely. In his death and its undoing, he had become little more than pale imitation of the real thing.

”Don’t touch me,” he nearly screamed as he shot upright, his voice straining against the tears burning hot behind his eyes. “Don’t fucking touch me.”

Gale’s hands pulled away sharply, holding himself back beneath the sheer force of his own will, holding himself with a respect none had ever shown him before. He was an alpha too, just like the men before him, but he carried none of that stupid, relentless lust, the rut and desire that might threaten to disregard the terror in his voice. The look in his eyes was what broke through the fever, through the fear, through the haze of his own horrid memory. Worry, mostly, but beneath that?

Love. Nothing but love.

Astarion drew a deep breath between his blackened lungs to steady himself, focusing on the warmth in the air between them. They had taken up residence in an old family manor that Gale had inherited years ago, the property big enough to take in any number of kids and critters that Halsin decided to take under his care. Surely, it was Halsin that was tending to the fireplace just outside their bedroom door, in a parlor reserved for themselves alone, offering sweet sanctuary when it all became too much. Even from the next room, Astarion could feel the warmth of all the love around him.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Astarion sighed, reaching for those tight-tucked hands as an anchor to orient himself around. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I’m… I’m sorry, I don’t… It’s happening again, Gale. It’s happening, and I can’t make it stop.”

He sounded fucking delirious; he must have. Astarion could hear it on his own tongue, disconnected from the words as they tumbled from his lips, pleading for mercy, for understanding, for something, anything.

“It’s okay, Star,” Gale whispered, bringing his begging hands up to his lips, kissing softly along his knuckles. “Nothing is wrong with you, and you have nothing to be sorry for. You don’t have to make it stop. It’ll all be alright, I swear it to you.”

“I… I can’t… I don’t… I don’t want to do this,” Astarion begged, as though Gale could take it away from him, as though anything could ever make it stop. “Please don’t make me do this, please, just make it stop.”

Gale’s eyes cast down toward the floor in shame, not daring to meet those blood red eyes as he traced along the outline of Astarion’s fingers. “I don’t know how to make it stop, not from my own memory. I could search my library for something, but I’d have to return to the city, and even then, there’s no guarantee--”

”No,” Astarion begged, the word leaving his mouth before he could even stop to register why he’d said it. Would it not be better, to let him walk away to find some cure? Would his momentary suffering not be worth the relief of an end? Perhaps it was simply the fever speaking through him, the fever consuming his every rational thought. Perhaps it was the memory of every night he’d spent alone, the fever coursing through his feeble and undying body without a moment of reprieve for two fucking centuries. “Don’t go, please just… Please, stay.”

“Of course, love, of course. I’m right here, I’m not going anywhere,” he promised softly, clinging to his palm in tight reassurance. Gale’s eyes turned to meet his, brown mingling with red, met with nothing more than quiet understanding and a willingness to meet him where he was. Surrender in its purest form, to offer himself up so wholly in whatever ways were needed of him. “I’m here, in any way you need me. Body and soul.”

“I can’t… I can’t do it. I can’t do it. Two hundred fucking years of this, I don’t want to go back, I can’t fucking go back to this. I don’t want to do this, I don’t want to go through this alone again, I can’t go back to that fucking hole,” Astarion sobbed, his voice wracked and body trembling as he struggled to keep himself upright. He wanted to collapse into Gale’s open arms, let the world implode on him, crush him beneath its weight rather than let this heat take him under. “Please don’t make me do this alone. Not again.”

It felt almost pitiful, to ask him so desperately, so wantonly. It should have been a conversation, a consideration before it crept upon his weary bones again. Surely, Astarion had been foolish, thinking that any of this could have ever been avoided. Surely, he had been foolish to think that he might have been cured. Surely, they should have faced this ages ago.

But as Gale’s hands reached up to cup around Astarion’s face, to hold his frantic gaze and tether him to the earth, there was no judgment held within his gaze. With the death of the tadpole, their connection had been severed beyond what was offered up between words, but they had come to know each other well enough in that short time spent fighting for their lives. Gale had come to see everything that he had done, everything that he had been put through, every man he had ever been sold to before their inevitable deaths. He knew the fever that had burned up his bones for two long centuries, knew that he had never known relief of it in all that time. He knew. There was no need to speak it aloud.

“Never again,” Gale promised, a vow spoken in whispers between lovers. “There is so much love here for you. No one will ever touch you like that again, and no one will ever leave you alone to suffer like that, never again. With my dying breath, I swear this to you, Astarion.”

In some other life, he would have disregarded his words as petty flattering, some empty promise to lure him into bed, pretty lies spilled from a prettier tongue. But caught within the intensity of his gaze, cradled between his open palms, Astarion couldn’t help but believe his every word.

“How long ago did it start?”

Astarion startled back to reality, shaking the heat from behind his eyes. “What?”

“Your heat. When did you start feeling it? How long have you been suffering like this? Did it start today?” Gale asked, sincerity dripping in his tone, no implication or ulterior motive in his warm brown eyes. “I just need to know how long I’ll need to cancel my classes for, is all.”

“It… It hasn’t entirely set in yet. I don’t think. I… I don’t know, I haven’t had a heat start naturally in over two hundred years, but I still feel…” Astarion took a moment to compose himself, to consider the feelings that had been spurring in his bones without disdain, to cling to what was left of his clarity. “I still have my faculties about me, for the most part. I don’t know how much longer that will last, though. I don’t imagine I have much longer before…”

It was humiliating, to think of what was going to become of him. There was no dignity in heat, no poise to be held beneath the fire. It would overcome him until there were no faculties left for him to cling to, until there was no rationality in his fraying mind, until there was nothing more than the all-consuming hunger. And he would inevitably buckle beneath its weight, fall to his knees, spread his legs and present, with no thought other than knot, fuck, mate, breed, knot. What would they think of him then?

“It won’t be pretty,” Astarion confessed. He’d always been so obsessed with appearances, now more that he could never behold his own reflection, seeing himself only through the eyes of others. There were nights were he strung himself up as more of a performer than participant, something to be beheld and worshipped as he moved between his lovers. He was whore, and a damned good one at that, always the natural-born entertainer, always that perfect and pretty center of attention. “It’s dirty, and it’s desperate, and it won’t look anything like me. I won’t be me, I’ll just be this bottomless pit of fucking hunger.”

“I know,” Gale assured, his voice holding the gravity of all his lover’s worries. It was not a simple acknowledgment of what heat looked like, not some petty way of alluding to his past endeavours. No, this was an understanding, an acknowledgment, an empathy in his starvation. Gale Dekarios knew such hunger pangs well.

“It’s ugly,” Astarion breathed, eyes cast down toward his hands, clasped tight and folded in his lap. “It’s so ugly.”

“Hush,” Gale chided softly. “Heat isn’t ugly, or pretty, or anything all that special. What heat is, is natural. This is what your body was built to do. It’s just biology. Not good, not bad, not ugly, not pretty. It’s just part of what it means to be alive, my love.”

Fingers met sweat-damp curls, gently pressing them back behind a pointed ear as the electricity ignited within his fingers; fucking pathetic, how the mere brush of fingertips went straight to Astarion’s cock. The fever was setting in faster than he hoped, slowly eating away at his rationality, but he refused to surrender to it entirely, not yet. He wanted to cling to himself, to this moment, to these quiet exchanges of adoration, to this sudden fleeing of all his fear. Gale would show him all the reverence of a deity, bowing down to the only god that he had ever cared to worship, and Astarion would show him the same.

“Besides,” Gale teased softly, drawing Astarion’s sweat-slicked forehead to his own, holding his gaze. “You’re always pretty.”

“Shut up,” Astarion brushed off, shoving up against him with a bare shoulder.

“I mean it,” he swore, his typical joviality infecting the heavy air between them. “Never have I been more enraptured, and dare I say turned on, than when you’re covered in the blood of our enemies.” A hand reached up to brush along the underside of his jaw, until it found its place at the corner of his mouth, a smile perking up at the edges of Gale’s lips. “The only thing sexier is when it’s my blood you’re covered in.”

He reached down and took Astarion’s hands in his own; warm hands, callused and damp with sweat, cradled gently around his own. Still so alive, so full of heat and blood and life and magic, the Weave ingrained in his very soul. Gently, as not to shatter what composure remained, Gale leaned in closer, as though prompting him to lay down, silently requesting his surrender. There was no insistence in his body, offering every opportunity to pull away, to say no, to change his mind. But there was no denial, no rejection as Gale’s lips pressed softly against Astarion’s, leading him down into the sheets where he’d built this makeshift nest.

That first kiss they’d shared beneath the stars, all those lifetimes ago now, had been so different than he had expected then. He had always imagined his kiss being bittersweet, like a smoky bourbon and dark chocolate, but there instead lay something sweeter than that. Astarion noted that his scent had started to change in response to his own, too, as his heat forced his lover to devolve into rut. He’d spent enough time in the company of ill-mannered alphas, their scents reeking of musk and sharpness, harsh against his lungs. But Gale was different, sweeter, warmer - of course he was. How could he be anything less?

Astarion bit down hard on his lip as that first pulse of slick gushed from his hole, dripping down his legs, soiling the sheets where he sat. Pleading eyes stared upon his lover, his savior, his Gale, as the prayers uttered to every deity above them. Prayers begging for a yes, prayers begging to the touch of a lover, prayers begging to be granted entrance into the sacred temple where he would fall to his knees and worship his gods.

“Do you want me to go get Halsin?” Gale whispered, not daring to press his weight down upon the writhing body beneath him, not daring to lose himself in the heat of it, not yet. “Or do you want to keep this between us?”

Astarion considered the question as best as he could manage through the growing fog. Halsin knew what it felt like, to be used upon the basis of his biology, to have his pleasure denied, his desires disregarded and violated.

“Go get him,” Astarion nodded, drawing the covers back up over his body. “Please?”

“Of course,” Gale breathed, parting only with a kiss as he pulled himself up from the bed, slipping from the bedroom and back behind the door from which he’d came. Astarion could almost hear the conversation, could picture it so damn clearly in his mind’s eye. Halsin knew parts of his story, but never in such entirety as Gale, holding no such key into his mind, no such tether between their skulls. No, their bond had been forged in the stories told and the trust built in the spaces in between, nothing more.

Gale would whisper it quietly, let him know what was happening without alerting the others, and Halsin would insist that they not keep him waiting. Gale would pull him back, warn him of the torture that Astarion had spent centuries enduring, warn him of the ugly desperation and the fear that resided in his chest. He would explain what Cazador had done, explain how long he had gone without a knot inside of his body, without any semblance of relief in over two hundred fucking years. And Halsin would understand, mute whatever little excitements had bubbled up in his chest, and step ever so softly into the bedroom with a soft, ”my heart.”

And so he did, with those soft brown eyes and a generous sort of smile twitching at his lips, meeting him with nothing but compassion. There was no unrestrained hunger, no desperation lingering in his voice, no lusting desire to drip from his gaze. Instead, there was only kindness, that sweet and gentle compassion, seeking some assurance that his heart was okay.

“Hi,” Astarion whispered, not daring to meet him with his usual flirtations or banter. Not today, not beneath this blistering fever.

Astarion half-expected him to ask, to question how he was feeling, but there was no need for the useless exchange of words when Halsin could undoubtedly smell it on him. Maybe he’d sensed it earlier, when Astarion had requested the curtains to be drawn in tighter, when he’d refused to come out to the parlor for their routine of a shared meal midday. Blood and honey, washed down with an oaky wine that his lover had brewed himself, always to accompany their little conversations.

“It’s been quite some time now, hasn’t it?” Halsin prodded gently as he settled at the edge of the bed, Gale following quietly behind, closing and locking the door behind him. “Since your last heat?”

“Not so long, really,” Astarion confessed bitterly. “Two hundred years of heat, a few months feels like nothing in comparison.”

Halsin’s eyes flashed with something almost akin to pity before glancing back toward Gale, met with a small nod of confirmation. He’d been told the basics, but not all those ugly details, not the way his body had been turned against him for centuries, only for it to happen again after all of this. Shame threatened to choke up in his throat, hands shaking as Astarion’s eyes turned away, not daring to meet the eyes of the alphas that had deemed him worthy of anything more than a good rut. Would they still see him the same, after all this?

“So much cruelty,” Halsin breathed, as though fully processing what had happened to him, how long he had known such agony. “You didn’t deserve any of that.”

“I know,” Astarion sighed, and for the first time, he might have meant it.

“It’s okay now, my heart, it’s all okay. You’re okay, Astarion,” Halsin assured softly, fingers pushing through white curls before laying his hand to rest on the side of his neck, just over his mating gland. He spoke it as an oath, as solemn as the vows he’d made to the earth beneath their feet. “You’re safe here.”

“I'm in heat,” Astarion murmured, speaking it like a death sentence.

It felt unfair, to live a life so marred by shame, so defiled by the abuses of others. Such traumas had left him scarred, equating heat with acts of torture, equating the natural inclinations of his biology to violation. He’d heard the way mated omegas talked, about those magical weeks spent alone with their alpha, consumed wholly by a desire rooted in mutual trust, in adoration, in love. So many years, Astarion had counted it all as bullshit. How could anyone ever love someone in such a state?

The closest he had ever gotten was a bond rooted in the money stuffed in his wallet, in some mutual need satisfied by the other. Nothing so sentimental as love.

But here he sat, the two men he had come to love sat at either side of him, waiting patiently for his say so, for his permission, for his consent to be taken care of, to be shown the inclinations of his biology in a more beautiful light. The act of surrendering to their own primal urges, coming together to create life between them, abandoning any and all social graces for the sake of coming together as one…

“You are,” Halsin said plainly, voice hanging just above a whisper, a hand reaching up to cradle around the base of his neck as Gale inched in closer, a hand settling across his spine. Caught between the lovers that had fought for their place at his side, Astarion melted into their touches until all resistance left his bones, following without objection as they gently guided him deeper into the bed, laying him down across satin sheets. “And you are safe. And you are loved. And you are never going to suffer through this alone, ever again.”

“Whatever you need, it’s yours,” Gale assured, a kiss pressed at the crook of his neck. “No one is ever going to hurt you like that ever again. You have my word.”

Astarion didn’t speak in return, didn’t dare open his mouth for fear of what might come spilling out. Instead, he simply nodded, eyes falling closed as he relaxed between the warmth of hands and lips and breath. It felt like falling, like flying, like soaring, like drowning, to be touched by man with all the reverence of the divine, to at least be considered as something sacred. In this little temple that they had built for themselves, Astarion would consider himself the holy sacrament, to be consumed with the reverence of the disciples, and he would consider himself as blessed.

It was a slow tumble of kisses and bare skin, Gale and Halsin stripping themselves bare to stand alongside him as equal, to hold no dignity over him. No, they stood as equals here. Wandering hands touched him like their fingertips were grazing the skin a god, with all reverence and worship. The ache inside of him grew more insistent as the cool air hit his slick-soaked legs, a sharp throb shooting through his cock. The fever prickled at his skin, threatening to consume all that was left of Astarion’s fickle mind.

Vulnerability was not something that Astarion had ever allowed himself to feel, and yet here he was. Sprawled on his back, laid out for his alphas to gaze down upon with hungry eyes, waiting to be fucked and filled and knotted and bred. The last time he had been laid out like this…

And for a moment, whatever makeshift peace he had constructed for himself was gone, and he was once again that weak and wretched thing, pitifully fucking himself on his fingers in the dark. The fear boiled over inside of his chest, terrified of what his body was forcing him through, terrified of the memories that it brought back.

His mind seized, clawing and fighting to crawl back down familiar pathways of dissociation to escape from the pain. His body was designed to go into heat, but his mind couldn’t handle it, not now, not anymore, not after everything. But it didn't matter. It didn’t matter what he wanted. It didn’t matter that there was a surge of panic coursing through him. His instinct was telling him to fuck, to mate, to make some futile attempt at breeding in this dead and decrepit body. And before long, his instinct was going to win.

“I… Please, I don’t… I can’t…” Astarion whimpered.

“Oh, my heart,” Halsin whispered, pressing a kiss against his sweat-slicked forehead, pulling him tight against his body. Behind him, Gale’s arms tightened around his waist, tugging his lover’s shoulders up into his lap, fingers splayed through white curls. For a moment, all that fear and agony fled his soul for the sake of something sweeter, for the sake of being adored. “You don’t have to do a thing. You’re safe here. We’ll take care of you.”

“You don’t have to be afraid anymore, Star,” Gale breathed, a vow as solemn as the vows he’d made to the magic that flowed around him. “We won’t let it hurt anymore, I swear that to you, my love.”

Tentatively, the alpha let his fingers drift down his chest, gently taking the hardened nub between his fingers and massaging lightly; it was obvious what Gale was doing, offering him some small pleasure with nothing offered up in return, pleasure for pleasure’s sake. The men who hurt him had never cared about his body or the way it reacted, only seeming to find satisfaction in the way his body tensed around their cocks when he was scared. Their motivations were selfish, hungry, vile, his pleasure disregarded altogether. He had been used as nothing more than a hole to fuck, nothing but a piece of meat for to feed the starving men Cazador wished to feed from.

Astarion let out a small whine, bucking up against his touch. He would have never thought that the very brush of his fingers across his bare chest would be enough to send spikes of want and longing through him, but there he was; whining and pleading these alphas, softer and gentler than anything than anything he had known in over two centuries. Red eyes falling closed, he let himself simply feel it, all the emotions that had come to consume him whole. He was safe, and he was loved, and he was terrified.

He had never been afraid of either of them, not once. He’d been crueller before, biting against their every little kindness, but he had never been given any reason to fear this love so freely offered. But now, thoughts intruding and slamming against his cranium, drowning and smothering him against the sea of satin… Fear gripped him tight, and he couldn't help but expect the sharp agony that had always come with heat, the dever that he had known for those long centuries.

He couldn't breathe. He couldn't breathe.

Did he need to breathe? He supposed he didn’t, having survived a year locked in a tomb beneath the earth, no air to move within his body. No, it simply reminded Astarion what it felt like to be alive, to feel the wind move in his rotted lungs, to forget his own death and its ugly undoing.

“Star,” Gale murmured, summoning him back from his own raging mind. He moved away from his nipple, rather opting to run fingers through his curls in some hope of soothing his tremors, stopping the pain, to force out all of those terrors that lingered in his bones. He was afraid of losing himself, afraid of being hurt again, afraid that all of the people who had hurt him would come back to take advantage of him again. But, as Gale leaned down to claim his lips, as Halsin peppered his skin with adoration, vows were made in silence. They would never let the bad men touch him again; not even within the realm of his overactive imagination.

And so Astarion melted into Gale’s warm and open-mouthed kiss. The taste of his lips, the flick of his tongue, the feeling of his breath moving between his lungs… It reminded him of who he was before, who he had been in another life. His heat wasn't paramount when their lips met, and he almost forgot about the hollow ache in his belly when Gale’s lips met his. He was gentle. Kind. Cazador had never allowed that.

“It's going to be alright,” Gale whispered, pressing his forehead against the omega’s. “We won't do anything that you don't want to. The situation is yours to control. Whatever you want, whatever you need, I’ll make sure you have it. I’d give you the world if you asked me.”

Astarion couldn't gather the freckled stars of his thoughts into constellations, couldn't speak in coherent sentences as his heat grew more insistent; it was growing demanding now, pulling him deeper and deeper beneath the waves as his own carnality dragged him under. It wouldn’t be much longer now, before he was a mere shell of himself, a pit of starvation that hadn’t been filled in two long centuries. His mind wouldn’t pull from it, refused to hold to anything else.

He needed to be knotted, even if it hurt him.

He had felt the same way beneath Cazador’s control. He had hated every second of it, left wanton and trembling beneath dirty sheets in the aftermath each time, the scars marred against the soul more than the flesh. But that hadn't shut up his pleading cries as he begged for a knot from strange men, needing it more than he could ever despise it.

“Knot,” Astarion breathed, voice shaking as his trembling hands reached up to trace along the scars across Halsin’s face. His eyes caught Gale’s, and found no judgment within them for his need, for his desperation, for his hunger. Still, he felt dirty for wanting it, felt weak for needing it. “I want a knot.”

He was normally more eloquent. But he felt his heat taking over as he began to lose any thought other than his need to fuck, his need to breed, need for a knot latched inside of him.

“And so you’ll have it,” Halsin whispered, a small smile crossing his lips as he leaned down to press a kiss against the side of his neck, trailing down over his collarbone, across his chest. “For as long as you need, you will not go without.”

“Between the two of us,” Gale teased, lips trailing down over Astarion’s ear, “it’ll be no trouble, making up for all that lost time.”

A small moan escaped his mouth, head rolling back into Gale’s lap, feeling the firm bulge that had formed between his legs. Halsin’s own body pressed against him, his own cock hardening against his hip, but he didn’t seem to pay it any mind. Instead, his fingers opted to trail all the way down his body, cupping around Astarion’s stiff and aching cock. Of course, it barely fucking counted as a cock, not in comparison to that of his lovers. Just a few measly inches of length above that gods-forsaken hole.

Slowly, Halsin’s fingers wandered lower, exploring how much Astarion would allow him to touch, knowing to pull away at the first sign of discomfort. Those warm brown eyes met his own burning red, seeking his approval, his consent. Unable to draw the words up to his lips, he simply offered him a nod, and it was enough.

“Let me take care of you, my heart,” Halsin breathed, spoken like a vow, like a promise, like an oath to the most sacred thing he had ever known.

“Let us,” Gale followed, not as a correction but as a reminder, as an affirmation, as an oath. And Gale, in all his drive and his ambition, was a faithful man at heart.

Slowly, gingerly, Halsin slipped two fingers between his legs, probing gently at the twitching flesh until Astarion let out a quiet moan, a plead for more. He pushed, feeling the tight ring of muscle give way beneath his touch, the fluid coating his fingers as he buried himself inside. He was tight after all of this time, but the slick was more than enough to make the breach painless. He was dripping wet, coating all the way his thighs, drenching against Halsin’s palm, a dark patch stained in the sheets beneath him. Halsin hardly minded though, fingers pumping in and out of him slowly, scissoring him open, grazing over that sweet spot just inside with each movement, drawing soft moans up from his lips.

“Such a good omega,” Halsin breathed, trailing kisses down his body. “My love, my heart, the fire in my veins. Astarion.”

Astarion let out a small whine, rocking on his fingers as his grasp reached blindly for the hands above him, steadying himself against Gale’s warm embrace. His attackers had never bothered with gentleness, with foreplay, with anything more than the deed itself. They were always rough with him, slamming into him with no preparation, leaving him in a mess of slick and blood afterward, as Cazador dragged them away from his writhing form.. But Halsin was gentle, preparing him for their consummation, treating him as a king to be adorned, a god to be worshiped. Astarion braced himself against Gale’s lap, rocking against his lover. And for the first time in two centuries, it felt good. Gods, it felt good.

“Hal-- Halsin,” Astarion pleaded upon a quivering tongue. ”Alpha, please.”

Gale offered a reassuring squeeze of his hand before returning to comb through his curls as Halsin pressed a third finger inside, spreading him wide, opening him enough to fit his length, to accommodate his knot. Astarion’s moans became constant, voice trembling with his pleasure as he rocked down on his fingers, meeting the pressure with a hunger for more. The fear was forgotten, smothered beneath the pleasure offered.

The fear that had risen up in Astarion was calmed by the pumping of his fingers, the rhythmic glide of slick-soaked digits brushing up against that sweet, sweet spot inside him. His heat began to wear at the sharp edges of his mind, dulling the parts that cut to something softer. He could feel their eyes on him, watching as he melted into the sheets below, moaning as he rocked in time with the thrusting of Halsin’s fingers, hole hungry to devour whatever was being offered.

Still, this could only last for so long.

Squirming beneath his touch, Astarion could feel his body growing far too impatient for this sort of preparation. His body was made for this, made to be claimed by an alpha, made to take the knot swelling between his lovers’ thighs. He was built to be fucked and knotted and bred, and for the first time in two hundred years, he could understand it in his core, feel it in his bones. This was what he was built for; living endlessly through heat and rut, to be knotted and bred, to carry life within his lifeless body, to create something more than themselves…

This was what he was made to do. This was what he was made for. He didn’t need so much preparation; no, he needed a knot buried inside of him.

Halsin’s fingers slipped from between his open legs, rather opting to graze over his thighs, smearing the slick down his pale flesh. Trembling thighs, shaking with the loss of contact, the cold air brushing against his exposed hole, he must have looked absolutely pitiful. The hunger burned up within him, starving and unpleasant and hollow, aching to be filled by something more than fingers.

Astarion glanced between them, watching as Halsin reached down and wrapped a hand around his swollen cock, erection thick and heavy between his legs. Astarion let out a shuddered gasp, beholding him in his entirety in the dim firelight. He’d had Halsin inside of him before, but as the edges of his mind began to fray, he counted himself as blessed, and in equal parts trembling. He could feel the shakes starting again, even as the hollow ache intensified in his belly as he stared.

Halsin slowly rose to his knees before leaning over top of his omega, glancing down between them as he took his cock in one hand, giving himself a few cursory pumps, foreskin sliding over the glistening head of his cock. Astarion watched with rapt attention, allowing the fear and fever to overcome him as his eyes followed his every movement. He was mesmerized by the movement of his hands, the glide of his foreskin, the glow of his skin as the firelight caught in his beaded sweat. In equal parts, Astarion found himself seizing up again, the familiar tightening in his chest threatening to strangle him.

As Halsin lined himself up with the omega’s leaking hole, feeling the slick pulse against his cockhead in response to the graze of his touch, Astarion wondered if it was nothing more than biological instinct. It wasn’t him, it wasn’t his own desire or need driving him to it. It was desperation, instinct, clawing up between his ribs, down between his shaking thighs, that all-consuming hunger.

Astarion let out a whimper, the pang of fear spreading through his body like infection. He hadn’t felt this sensation since Cazador’s death, since he’d let some stranger pin him down and fuck him, to take his final act of pleasure before he was stolen away to his death. The feeling of a slick, wet cockhead pressing against his weeping rim took him back to that room, always back to that gods-forsaken room. The stained gray stone of the castle constructed around him, the cold and constant drip of water from the ceilings, the sheets still reeking of dead old men, red stains bleeding through the sheets and staining through the mattress…

No.

He forced his eyes upward. He could feel the tears stinging in them as he forced his eyes past Gale, past Halsin, up toward the ceiling as his fingers grasped at the sheets beneath him. These sheets were made of fine satin, with not a single tear or hole from the force of his fingers grasping for purchase within them. The graze of Halsin’s fingers didn’t send jolts of pain coursing through his very bones. The touch would not be replaced by the cruelty of the cold. He was safe. He was loved.

“My heart,” Halsin breathed, sensing the fear to overtake his body. The haze of his heat wasn’t enough to block out the trauma, wasn’t enough to stop the memories, wasn’t enough to save him from the torture behind his eyes. “We can stop.”

“No, please,” Astarion begged, voice escaping as wrecked and ragged against the raw flesh of his throat. “Please, don’t stop. I don’t want you to stop, I don’t… I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, please, don’t stop.”

”Shhhh,” Gale hushed, fingers combing gently through his curls in some effort to comfort him, to distract him from the anguish that flashed behind his open eyes. “It’s okay, it’s okay. Just watch me, okay? Just watch my hands.”

Raising slowly from his mess of white curls, Gale reached above his eyes to cradle the universe within the palms of his hands. Light like the stars he’d conjured up around them on that first night together danced in the space between his fingers, the Weave swirling in shades of purple and blue. That night that they’d spent trying to count the infinite, exploring all the ways that one could show love to another, it had been magical in ways that even such a master of wizardry could not quite explain.

“Did I ever tell you the story of the first time I ever went into rut?” Gale asked, a teasing sort of tone hanging in his voice as the lights played before blood red eyes.

Astarion shook his head. Of all his stories, he seldom spoke of such undignified, mortal curses as rut. His head was always somewhere in the Weave, had always been looking for something akin to godhood, that his stories rarely ventured to the realm of things so human as biology.

“I was a student myself, at the time. I’d hardly considered sex, or anything outside of my books, really, never found myself with the time or the interest,” he chuckled, a star of light shooting through the galaxy forged between his fingers. “Then, one day, in class, this pretty omega boy sat down right in front of me. I can still remember the way he smelled, like lavender and honey. He must have still been a few days away from his heat, couldn’t afford to miss the classes. But it was enough to spark feelings like I’d never felt before.”

“Did you ever take him to bed?” Astarion asked, half-absentmindedly as Halsin’s fingers dipped back between his thighs, a small moan escaping from his parted lips.

“Gods, no, I don’t think he even noticed what he was doing to me,” Gale laughed. He didn’t need to hold his gaze, his eyes distracted by the light between his open palms, but Astarion noticed as those brown eyes flicked back toward Halsin, offering him a small nod. “I excused myself to the lavatory and hid for the rest of class, praying to Mystra that she might make it stop, years before she ever noticed me.”

“Did she answer your prayer?”

“Depends on how you see it,” Gale answered as Halsin lined himself up against his weeping hole, the head of his cock pressing against the twitching flesh as another bout of slick gushed from Astarion’s body. He inhaled sharply, and as though on cue, another burst of light and color erupted from between Gale’s hands, as though to call his attention back toward himself. “Once my knot popped in my hand, she gave me just enough time and clarity to make it home. I like to think that, perhaps, she spared me the humiliation of walking home like that, with only half a mind.”

“Did you spend your ruts with her, after?” Astarion asked softly, a small moan escaping his throat as Halsin pushed in deeper. “Mystra, I mean.”

“Gods, no,” Gale laughed as Halsin’s cock bottomed out inside of him, settling down to the hilt. “No, she never wanted to see me like that. She thought it was ugly, too.”

The lights flickered and died between his open palms before reaching down to cup Astarion’s face, drawing him in for a kiss as a hand splayed along the expanse of his chest, reaching down to stroke his cock between his legs. The damp heat of his body tightened around the shock of pleasure as it coursed through his body, drawing a shuddered gasp up from Halsin’s lips, as though taxing against his composure.

Astarion wondered if it took everything in him not to slam straight into the omega, to take him fast and rough, chase his impending orgasm. He wondered if the rut was settling in behind his eyes, if he would be overcome with that same biological imperative, if he would be consumed by his instinct too.

Gale’s hand worked around his cock as he slowly stroking him as Halsin’s cock pressed deeper inside, rubbing up against that sweet spot, against his cervix, just below his womb. Astarion let out a small, high pitched whine as Gale’s fingers picked up pace. He wondered if Halsin could feel his body opening up to him as he began to relax, adjusting to the feeling of his cock settled deep inside of him.

“Does this feel okay, my beloved?” Halsin murmured, fingers reaching up to run through those white curls as he rubbed himself up against his lover’s cervix, sending shockwaves of pleasure coursing through him. “I’m not hurting you, am I?”

Astarion shook his head hard, letting out a gasping moan in reply. There was no pain laden in his voice; no, beneath the mercy of his lover’s cock, there was only ecstasy. In all his centuries damned to walk the earth as the living dead, he had never been offered such sweet salvation, such gentle reprieve of his suffering.

He could feel the thickness of his swelling knot stretching and pulling at his rim, the small sting at the edges, but it was all so fucking good. His cock nudged directly against that sweet spot inside of him, pleasure pulsing through him as he clung to his alphas, writhing between the warm bodies pressed against him. He struggled to rock against him, needing more, needing him to move, to slam into his needy and desperate form, to deliver thrust after brutal thrust into him.

“So good, Halsin. Oh, you're so big,” Astarion whimpered, fingernails digging into the backs of Gale’s hands to steady himself against the force. In all these centuries, in all this life and its inverse, never had he been cradled so lovingly in the hands of his lovers. ”Gods, so good.”

Slowly, as Gale’s hand drifted back along his torso, tracing patterns across the pale flesh. Kisses peppered along the side of his neck, over the scars where he had been drained of his blood all those years before. Gentle, oh so gentle, Astarion couldn’t help but melt into his touch, into the space between their open mouths.

“The funny thing is,” Gale breathed against his ear, coaxing him back into that blurry space between his clarity and his desire, “Mystra couldn’t have been more wrong. Because this…” He paused, offering him a moment to open his eyes and behold the masterpiece laid out before him, the work of art that he had become. Splayed out like marble and stone, he was living artwork, as captivating as the sculptures carved at the hands of the sculptor and his muse. Above him, the two most beautiful alphas he’d ever laid eyes upon tended to him so gently, so softly, ensuring that his pleasure was paramount above all else. “This is beautiful, Astarion.”

As Astarion’s eyes cast up to meet the swirling shades of brown, between the wizard and the druid, he believed his words wholeheartedly. This was not some hideous, ugly thing from which he would be damned to avert his eyes. This was a beautiful, beautiful thing shared between them.

Closing his eyes, the omega pressed his head back against Gale’s lap, adjusting to the feeling of fullness. Slowly, Halsin unsheathed himself from the tight, enveloping warmth of his body, only to push back in with enough force to rock his body against the bedframe. And yet, it wasn’t nearly enough to satisfy, to satiate that starvation roiling in his body. He needed more, needed his alpha’s knot, needed him to fill the hollow ache that had burned a hole through him for centuries now.

Halsin pushed in again slowly, so fucking slowly, Astarion’s twitching hole fluttering around his length. A small sound escaped his throat before Gale leaned down to swallow it up, though it was no longer the terrified whimper of a man who had seen too much, felt too much, been put through too much. Rather, it was a small squeak of pleasure the alpha’s cock brushed up against his cervix.

It was more than need, now. No, he was enjoying this.

Halsin sunk into the hilt as the omega let out a sigh, his hands reaching up to squeeze tight against Gale’s. Tracing circles over the knuckles, Astarion felt consumed by it all; not by the fever or the hunger in his bones, but by the adoration that surrounded him. Small gestures of love, of affection, making certain that their little star knew that he was adored.

“Feels so good,” Astarion sighed, eyes rolling back, head pressed against Gale’s thigh, chest heaving as he adjusted to the pace. “Gods, please don’t stop.”

Gale let out a soft chuckle, leaning down to press a soft kiss against his temple. Head turned to face him, Astarion could see the outline of his lover’s cock pressed against his belly, ruddy and straining and weeping at the tip. In his frazzled state, he moved to assume the same position he’d taken with them plenty of nights before this one, the position he’d assumed on the nights when Cazador insisted that he lure in two instead of one. His mouth fell open, expecting to take it between his parted lips, to bring him pleasure where he sat behind him.

“Not tonight,” he whispered. Gale’s hands, those soft and gentle hands, cupped around his jaw, coaxing his mouth to close, bringing his eyes to meet his own. They met him with that sweet and gentle compassion, softly denying his offer as he pressed kisses against his forehead. “Tonight is all about you.”

Halsin’s thrusts slowly began to pick up speed, until Astarion’s breath hitched with every brush against his cervix, until he was making such delightful little noises with every movement. Gale’s lips trailed along his face, along his body, fingers slipping back down between his legs to cup around his cock.

“And when Halsin has had his fun, I’ll have mine,” Gale whispered.

It was fucking intoxicating, better than any booze to ever burn its way down his throat. The feeling buzzed around his skull, vision blurring as he settled up against his cervix, savoring each twinge of his body. All that fear, all that pain, all that agony that had lurched against his body, it was all merely a distant memory now. It could not consume him, it could not swallow him whole, it could not even touch him here.

“You’re so perfect, my love. Magnificent, crafted by the gods themselves. Like you were made for this,” Halsin whispered. “Made for us.”

Astarion sighed softly. He felt a warm feeling wash over him as he squeezed tight around him, shifting as he accustomed himself to the length and girth. He was big, cock heavy and fat inside of him, thicker than most of the men that he had taken in his time over the years. His shifting earned him a soft groan from his alpha, the squeezing and contracting around his cock leaving him breathless. His face contorted into one of pleasure, eyes squeezed shut as Astarion settled down on his cock. A masterpiece to behold, crafted by the gods themselves.

It took him a moment to settle on a position, into the rhythm that his alphas had set for him, to allow himself to be taken entirely by the fever in his bones. Astarion let out a ragged moan as the alpha’s cock brushed against his cervix again, savoring the steady pulse of his cock moving inside of him.

Astarion’s breath hitched sharply as Halsin stalled above him, with the tip of his cock being all that remained sheathed inside of him. Behind those brown eyes, Astarion could sense the frenzied haze of rut settling in, that frantic hunger and desperation, but he worked against his very nature. Each brush up against that sweet spot inside him was calculated, cock aimed and pointed as hands and hips began to work at a complimentary pace, all for the sake of his omega’s pleasure.

It had to have been against his nature to be so gentle. Alpha instinct dictated something rougher, something desperate, something ravenous and devouring. It would dictate that he rut into him at a fervent pace, with intentions of knotting and breeding his omega. It would dictate that he knot quickly, and often, over and over, ensuring insemination and conception within his lover’s womb. It demanded animalistic fucking, barely recognizable as human.

And surely, Halsin had engaged in plenty of that before. His conquests and triumphs, all manner of creation that he had lured back into his bed, surely he had surrendered to that animalistic nature of his plenty of times before. Surely, he’d made love in forms unhuman, succumbing to every wanton whim and desire.

But he had always been a man of great self-control, and that was what he would maintain. He setting an easy pace, allowing the omega to adjust to the sensation as he cradled him tight against his chest, held so gently between strong arms. Years upon years of such crude force against his own biology had left him needing time to relearn the way his body was meant to function. His body was readjusting to the sensation of heat and the presence of a cock between his legs, learning to live with all the trauma that such experiences had incurred. And Halsin, Gale, they would be patient with him.

Patience allowed them to savor the feeling. Perhaps such performances could drive the gods above them to tears, watching as the fear and distrust faded away into bliss, devolving into a more natural state of being. This bond that they had forged for themselves, created in choice and mutual understanding, a love laden with respect shared between them. It was more than sex for the sake of sex, more than touch for the sake of touch. It was the gentleness he’d craved for all these centuries, it was the love that he had ached for since childhood. It was all he’d ever desired and more.

“My love, my heart,” Halsin murmured, leaning over the omega and claiming his mouth, one hand reaching to tangle his fingers through Gale’s, the three conjoined in perfect harmony.

Astarion melted into his kiss, smiling against the alpha’s lips. The fear that had taken him was gone now, like nothing had ever happened, like he’d never known the agony of his suffering, like he’d never known the hollow ache between his thighs. As if no one had ever touched him, as if no one had ever violated him, as if no one had ever taken away that last shred of innocence.

Of course, he didn’t dare fool himself into thinking that a good fuck would take away the nightmares, but it was a good first step.

The years had stripped the romanticism from his bones, that hopeless dreamer that he had been in his youth, before the courts stripped him of his passions and Cazador drained him of his life. He’d never thought himself worthy of such care and generosity, hardly deemed himself as worthy of anything more than a hard fuck. But beneath the warm embrace of his lovers, he found himself worthy of more than he could have ever hoped for. It might have not been some classic fairytale ending, but perhaps he’d found something better than that.

As Astarion leaned deeper into Gale’s embrace, he felt the hollow ache begin to deepen in the pit of his belly, and he was no longer so afraid of it, no longer held such disdain. Instead, it felt natural, like this was what he was built to do, like this was what his body was made for. His body was made to go into heat, to live from heat to heat and rut to rut, to make love to his alphas over and over, to be knotted again and again, to be bred until the seed took in his undying body. This was what he was made for. This was what he was supposed to do.

Bucking up to meet his touch, Astarion rolled his hips, encouraging him to go faster, to give him more. As their minds frayed at the edges, they both needed more than this. The omega reached up, curling his fingers around the side of Halsin’s neck and stealing another kiss as he wrapped his legs tight around his waist. He wanted this. He needed this.

“Knot me. Breed me,” Astarion begged against all futility, voice coming out as wanton and pathetic, pleading from the open mouths of whores. “Please, alpha.”

And with such brazen requests, something carnal overtook him, something utterly primal overpowering the alpha as his hips picked up speed, slamming deep into Astarion’s body. The omega’s moans rang out from beneath him, begging for more, begging to be filled and bred like a proper fucking omega.

Such humiliations would have brought shame upon his family, to have a male heir turn up barefoot and pregnant. It would have gotten him cast out, disgraced and disowned, disinherited of all that he stood to gain; good lot that had done him in the end. But beneath it all, beneath his cold veneer and his sharply bared teeth, beneath that biting sanguine hunger, he had wanted nothing more. To be claimed and adored, to be owned in all the ways that granted him freedom.

And at last, he had some semblance of a chance, some resemblance of the life he could have lived. All that life, all those days he could have lived out, all those centuries that he could have been free, it had been stripped of him then. But now…

Now, Gale’s stories and magic wrapped around him like the warmth of the sunlight upon his pale flesh. Now, Halsin’s arms anchored him to the earth, keeping him safe from the sweeping tidal waves of his fear and loathing. Now, this home that they had built for themselves was filled with firelight and laughter, with good sex and good wine. Now, he was loved, and loved well.

And his lovers would always treat him with all the reverence of a god, bowing down to worship him whenever he asked. He was anything but a common breeding bitch, begging to be fucked and filled at any given opportunity, never to be granted the grace of a knot sheathed inside of him. No, here, in the embrace of the alphas that had vowed to adore him, he was made holy.

“As you wish, my love,” Halsin huffed, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth to bare those sharpened teeth, not too unlike his own. “Going to fill you with my seed. Going to make your belly swell with my pups. Blossom with my litter.” He paused, then shot a wry smirk up toward Gale. “Or his. But at the end of this, everyone will know who you belong to.”

Oh, what pointless, infatuating, futile, wonderful ideas, filling his head with such pretty fantasies. The entire world seeing the proof of the love they held for him, the proof of their consummation, the life created within Astarion’s body. He wanted the tangible reminder of these nights. He wanted to create something beautiful within him, something beautiful between them. Oh, gods, he wanted it.

In another life, he would have never confessed to such deep desire, not even to himself. But gods above, Astarion wanted it. He wanted to be bred, wanted to know how it felt to grow life inside of him, wanted to what it felt like to be claimed in such a way that could not be so easily confined to the shadows. Everyone would know, everyone would see it growing in his belly, in the very way that he would walk, and he wanted it.

Stealing another kiss, Gale snaked a hand between them, cupping his fingers around Astarion's cock, stroking him quickly toward completion. Knotting could be the most painful part, especially having not taken one in centuries now, the stretch and burn of taking a swollen knot uncomfortable at best. But the bliss of orgasm, the contraction of his muscles around his lover’s cock. Gale wanted his omega to orgasm through his knotting, to come while being bred, to take away his pain. He wanted to take his pain and bring him into ecstasy, driving him to the point of pleasured agony.

Astarion bucked up against his alphas’ touch, the slamming against his cervix in combination with the stroke of Gale’s hand leaving him panting, damn near screaming. Each movement forced his voice louder, until he was crying out loud enough to wake the kids outside, enough to wake the whole of fucking Waterdeep.

“I'm going to knot you, Astarion,” Halsin said, spoken as a declaration rather than a question as he pressed his lips against the omega’s ear. “It's going to hurt. But if you want me to breed you, you’re going to need to let me do it. I’m going to fill you with my brood, and I’m going to make certain that it takes, make certain that you don’t have to suffer this again for quite some time. Is that what you want?”

With all genuine enthusiasm, Astarion clenched his eyes shut and nodded hard. He wanted it. Oh, he wanted it. He wanted to be filled with his lovers’ children, wanted his belly to swell with a litter, wanted to feel life within his bones for the first time since Cazador had laid such brutal claim over him. He wanted to make his lovers proud for carrying his children, wanted to feel them kicking inside of him, wanted to be a good omega for his alphas. He wanted to feel life, to feel alive, in all of its capacity and all of its glory.

Astarion let out a needy whine, bucking up into Gale’s open hand. He felt the tug beginning to sting at his rim as Halsin’s knot, thickened and hard, breached his twitching body. Astarion’s voice shook and his entire body trembled as the druid burrowed himself inside, the sudden shift in girth offering that pleasant ache that he craved so deeply in his soul. It hurt, but what was pain in comparison to all this? No, it was a symphony of pleasure and pain, and Astarion could hardly breathe.

“Breed me, alpha, please, knot me, gonna come, need your knot,” Astarion babbled as the thickest part of Halsin’s knot pressed into him, until his hands grasped sharp against Gale’s, until he was nearly screaming.

“It’s okay, Star,” Gale assured softly, fingers dancing before his eyes with that same familiar light, the stars and galaxies bending to his will. Such small kindnesses, such little gestures as to offer him the whole universe. “You can let go. You can let it all go now.”

Astarion threw his head back in pleasure as his orgasm finally overtook him, his body contracting tight as Halsin’s knot popped past his rim, the flood of his seed following suit. The warmth of his body, that flood of life through his body, was the closest he’d felt to alive since his death and its undoing. Shuddering as another pulse of slick gushed between his thighs, Astarion could have cried with the flood of relief, the fever fed, the hunger quelled. He was knotted, sated, bred like a proper omega…

Gods, he had never felt quite so at ease.

Astarion felt a quiet purr rise up from his chest as Halsin’s arms curled tighter around him, lips pressed just beneath his earlobe. Gale’s fingers returned to his hair, legs still sheltering around his shoulders, his own hunger sat aside until it better served him. And for a moment, Astarion was content, any of the fear that had plagued him gone now as he pressed closer to his alphas. All that fear, all that terror, it was replaced by a warmth that he hadn’t felt since his death, since Cazador had corrupted and defiled his body. And for the first time in two long centuries, instead of disgust, he found peace within it.

Perhaps he was not healed. Perhaps he was not whole. Perhaps the nightmares would forever plague him, until his dying days. But there were steps made, leaps and bounds toward recovery. But perhaps he could find peace in it. Perhaps he could fall in love with this beautiful little mess of theirs.