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Assistant: Title: A Little Further
        Author: again_please again_please 
        Chapter: 1/3 
        Summary: “Well,” he croons, “The fun doesn’t have to be entirely one-sided. Our time could very well be limited. You help me with my condition…and I could help you with yours.”“My condition?” she asks, her eyebrows now arched to maximum height.Astarion tilts his head. “Darling, it’s bad enough that we might burst into tentacles any day now. I would hate to see you die a virgin.”-Neve already had her hands full, what with trying to keep her companions from killing each other and pushing forward in the face of an uncertain fate. Then the vampire had to go and decide she was sweet enough to want to sink his teeth into.Another take on how things unfold post-bite.
        Contents: Chapter 1: Pt. I: A Proposition
    

    


  

  
  
    
    It starts the next morning, after it all comes out in the light of a new day: a vampire in their midst. Neve’s companions make their jokes, their obligatory threats. They will take no issue with Astarion so long as she vouches for him. And for some reason, she does. Even as he laughs her off, calls her sweetheart more than a bit condescendingly, turns that performative come-hither gaze on her and dares to suggest another nibble so soon…she does. What really sticks in her mind, that mind so trained to find the patterns and logic in magic, is that the first thing he’d done upon seeing her awake was to ask, how do you feel? And there had been something guarded in his expression; a bit of real concern, perhaps, as to what the answer would be. Bravado always covers something deeper, and even without prying further into his thoughts again, something tells Neve that the hidden parts of Astarion cannot be all bad. The feeling of eyes lingering on her prickles the back of her neck as she suits up for the long haul of a new day, but to turn and look would betray self-consciousness, no matter whose eyes they are. She pulls the length of her hair over one shoulder, twisting the strands so they lie in a neat braid that just so happens to cover the twin marks at the side of her throat. Hopefully, that will be enough to ensure this morning’s exchange will be the end of any discussion on the matter of what happened last night. Then she finds the apple. “Finds” might be a bit of an overstatement—when she makes her way back to the fireside to finish the modest chunk of hard cheese and flame-toasted bread serving as her breakfast, it’s sitting right there next to her waterskin. Shiny, red, impossible to miss. Definitely not from her own pack, and definitely not something that had been here three minutes ago. This time, Neve does whip around. None of her companions are looking at her, busy readying themselves for the day. But it seems to her that out of all of them, the white-haired vampire spawn across the campsite is not looking at her the most intensely. He tends to his blade, staring down at it as though it requires all his attention despite the fact that it gleams in the sunlight, perfectly clean. That smug b@st@rd. She ought to pitch the fruit at his head. The last thing Neve needs is anyone thinking she’s delicate, not when she’s playing tug-of-war keeping some semblance of order in this ragtag band of ticking timebombs. Shadowheart and Lae'zel are already at each other’s throats half the time. But calling him out will only distract them all more from what they really need to be focusing on today: trekking through the wild, finding this bl@@dy druid, and probably cutting through a hell of a lot of goblins in order to do it. Neve stuffs the apple into her bag. She’ll address this impertinence with him later, if they live to see another nightfall. And, okay, she does hate to see food go to waste. ** But Astarion, it seems, isn’t content to wait for another private starlit chat. Really, she shouldn’t be surprised. Patience hasn’t exactly been one of his strong suits these past few days. Neve tries to keep her face in check as he falls into step beside her. Wyll and Shadowheart are a few paces behind; perhaps not close enough to hear every word exchanged between them, but certainly close enough to read expressions. And…this is perfectly normal. Astarion is still a member of this party with a perfectly legitimate need to speak with her at any given time. The fact that he had his fangs in her neck (for survival!) and his hand tightening on her waist (by accident?) just a few hours ago does not mean their every interaction from here on out has to be weird. But it sure seems like Astarion disagrees. “My pure-hearted generosity has offended you somehow, I see,” he comments. “Is that what you call it?” she replies, as calmly as physically possible. Which, for her, still comes out a bit strained. “You said you were feeling woozy.” “And you said it would pass.” “Yes, and that happens faster with adequate sustenance,” he tells her, with all the patience of someone speaking to a dimwitted child. It’s not too late to throw the apple at him. But then he adds, a bit lower, “All I want is you replenished and at your fighting best.” A pause. “As you have done for me.” D@mn him. It’s simply all the attention of the morning, she tells herself, that brings a flush of heat to the high points of her cheeks and the tips of her ears. And if he dares mention the movement of blood beneath her stupidly reactive skin, she’ll push him off the ridge they’re trudging up and tell the cleric not to revive him. But he doesn’t. Despite the fact that she knows he must sense it or—or smell it, or something equally creepy and unfair. “Well,” Neve says, “Just…don’t be so obvious about it next time.” She hears herself a second too late. “Next time?” Astarion croons, ascending to some level beyond delight, and she does shove him this time, but towards the undergrowth beside the path. Or…she tries to, anyway. But he’s a vampire fresh off a proper feeding, and she’s a caster who barely comes up to his chin, so it’s not exactly the show of strength she means it to be. Really, all she does is get a good feel for the solid upper arm beneath that stupidly puffed sleeve. “Keep your voice down,” Neve hisses at him. “That’s not—that’s not what I—"   “All right, you two?” Wyll asks, his voice pitched to carry the slight distance between them. “Oh, I’ve just said something horrible as usual,” Astarion calls back cheerfully. “Can you not save your combativeness for actual combat, for once?” Shadowheart scolds. He grins, baring all those sharp, lovely teeth. “Where would be the fun in that?” “I should have brought Lae’zel instead,” Neve growls, in an undertone meant just for the white-haired b@st@rd next to her. “Oh?” Astarion lilts at her, “And let your…contribution go to waste? How impractical of you.” “It had better turn out to be worth it,” Neve says, “Or I may change my mind about the pitchforks.” He looks at her for a moment, and then smiles, heeding her command to lower her voice at last. “Oh, darling,” he breathes, “Just keep your eyes on me. It’ll be quite a show.” He leans in close. “One that may even inspire you to become a regular patron of the arts.” ** True to his word, a vampire spawn at full strength turns out to be a sight to behold. Although, to be honest, his strategizing could use a little work. It’s not that Astarion wasn’t effective, ripping through enemies with such speed that the collar of Neve’s linen shirt had actually gone a bit pink from the fine spray of red he’d created. But oddly, he’d kept much more to the back lines than usual, hardly straying more than twenty feet from her at any given moment, leaving Wyll and Shadowheart utterly on their own to carve a path forward. They all return in good spirits, no one hurt so badly that a few healing words and a night’s rest won’t set them right, but Neve finds herself quieter than usual in the aftermath of victory. From Halsin’s parting words, she expects there might be some degree of proper celebration once they’ve rested up enough to return to the grove and spread the good news of the goblin defeat. Tonight, a hot meal by the fire and a few mouthfuls of salvaged wine to wash it down are reward enough. One by one, the others begin to return to their tents and bedrolls. Having played a less physical role in the day’s encounter, Neve cracks her spellbook open instead, not ready to surrender to sleep quite yet. They’d learned a few interesting things about the tadpoles in the last few days—troubling, but interesting—and now is the first quiet moment she’s gotten to sit down and write them out, puzzle through them, add her own thoughts in the margins. She’s filled nearly a whole page with her tiny, precise handwriting when a shadow falls across the parchment in the firelight. “Your calligraphy could use some work,” Astarion chides from behind her, and Neve lets her quill pause in its scratching. “Flourishes waste ink,” she replies simply. His boots barely make a sound in the dirt as he comes around to sit on the log beside her, and something about it raises goosebumps on the back of her neck. Logically, she supposes some part of her must recognize his predatory biology, reacting as if she’s being circled—but she really hopes the long shadows cast by flickering flames hide them from his keen sight. “Well?” he asks once he’s sunk down next to her. “I’m still waiting for a review of today’s performance. I didn’t leave you wanting, did I?” So he wants to have this out right now, then. Neve blows on the last line she’d scribbled onto the page where the ink is still wet, anticipating having to slam the thing shut sooner than she’d planned. “No, Astarion. You didn’t leave me wanting at all,” she says. The words prompt a grin to begin spreading on his face, cocksure and honey-slow, before she adds, “There is, however, the matter of you leaving Wyll and Shadowheart totally in the lurch with those worgs. And when Minthara’s lackeys called for backup. And when—”   
   
“They can handle themselves,” he sniffs. “They’re alive, aren’t they? Someone has to keep the hordes from falling on you the moment you start with the mystical hand movements.” “Right,” Neve says, “Not moving to intercept that goblin before he hurled a vial of acid at them was a calculated decision borne of pure strategy. You weren’t, say, busy showing off in hopes of securing your next meal.” “I wouldn’t put it quite like that—” Astarion begins haughtily…but then his eyes dip just south of her chin, going half-lidded for an instant before he regains control over his features, arranging them into a comely half smile, “—unless it worked?” Neve snaps her spellbook shut with one hand and smacks him on the nose with it. “Hells,” he curses, and she goes to stand up, to leave him here clutching his face so he can think about whether a nip of blood and his smart mouth are worth being left alone in the wilderness to turn into a squid-faced monstrosity—but then long, elegant fingers wrap around her wrist, stopping her. His grip isn’t tight, but there is something beseeching about it. “Wait. I’m…sorry.” It sounds as though the effort of getting that one little word out might actually kill him, but Neve’s eyebrows shoot nearly to her hairline all the same. The analytical part of her mind starts flitting through all the back-and-forth of the past week, cataloguing conversations, trying to remember if he’s ever actually uttered that word before in her presence unironically. She looks down her nose at Astarion suspiciously, trying to summon even a fraction of the haughtiness he’s always aiming at them. “For…?” He stares up at her for a moment in disbelief, and then lets out the biggest sigh Neve’s ever heard in her life. “For neglecting our companions. Apparently. I suppose I may have gotten carried away.” His fingers spring apart as an afterthought, releasing her wrist, and his voice drops, losing a few degrees of pompous drawl. “And…you’re not a meal. I told you, what you gave me is more than that.” That last bit catches her off guard for some reason. Neve sinks down and retakes her seat a bit awkwardly, looking ahead into the fire rather than meeting his eye. “Um,” she says, the picture of eloquence, “Thank you.” Another sigh. “This isn’t going at all how I intended.” He pinches the bridge of his nose and then winces, apparently still finding it a bit sore. Neve feels dull heat flood her face. Hitting him with a book felt a bit less satisfying than she thought it would, especially considering she didn’t get to storm off afterward. “What were you intending?” she asks. “I—” he begins, straightening up as if to launch back into his earlier bravado—but then his shoulders drop. “Look. In the interest of continued openness and honesty…I was going to ask you for more blood.” He steals a glance at Neve’s face and then looks away quickly again, as though he’d seen something indecent. “That blush is not helping things.” And that, of course, only makes her cheeks burn brighter. The two of them alone by the fire, whispering urgently while the rest of their companions are asleep; that’s what isn’t helping things for her, personally. “Maybe this is more of a morning conversation. We’re both tired—” “Hear me out. Please,” Astarion interrupts, and the naked strain in his voice freezes her to the spot. He’d fed on her just last night, barely twenty-four hours ago. Before that, he’d survived on animal blood—not just since they’d crashed on the beach, but for all the long years of his enslavement to a vampire lord named Cazador, too. She’d confirmed the memory for herself, thanks to the unwelcome guest currently residing in her skull. What had changed, that he was already back throwing himself on her mercy for more? “You need it that badly?” Neve asks in a hushed tone, finding it difficult to choose words that won’t come off as crude innuendo. “Please don’t think I’m sitting here quivering with the effort of not draining you dry,” Astarion says, apparently meaning these words as comfort. “I am not. Truly. My proposition involves far less than even what you allowed me last night. And that turned out fine, did it not?” Proposition? “You had better just get to the point.” She’d extended him a little credit for at least not starting this conversation by hovering over her sleeping body this time, but her constitution for this topic is wearing thin. “You saw what I was able to do today,” he presses, red eyes alight, “I meant what I said. You didn’t slake a simple hunger for me—you’re an enhancement. I’ve been held back from my full power for two hundred years…and I can already feel it fading again.” He breaks off, looking truly bereft for a moment. “I’d considered that I could simply take the odd sip from a foe here and there, but I’m looking for…consistency. I don’t want to go back to how I felt before. Especially not while our days might be limited.” “What would be consistent enough for you?” Her ankle brushes against something amidst her nervous shifting—the half-drunk bottle of wine from supper. Astarion notices it at the same time she does, snatching it up at once. He swigs directly from the bottle, wiping his mouth with the back of his pale hand, and then extends it to her, as if to say trust me, it’ll help. She accepts it gingerly, and off his expectant look, takes a reluctant swig of her own. He watches until she’s lowered the bottle to press her fingers to her mouth, blinking a bit dizzily, and then finally answers: “Nightly, if you would allow it.” She tilts the bottle back to her lips to drain it again, and suddenly he’s scrambling to explain. “As I said, not even as much as the first time! Nothing that would endanger you. I would still sustain myself with hunting animals. A sip. Barely. A taste.” At that, Neve’s eyes lock on him. “You only wanted a taste last night, too.” “That was different. I was desperate. I have my wits about me now.” She raises her eyebrows. “Do you?” “Yes,” Astarion says, “Which is why I wouldn’t expect you to agree to such an arrangement unless you were getting something out of it, too.” He’s regained some of that regal, assured purr to his voice, and Neve has the distinct impression that he’s relieved to have redirected the conversation back onto a track he’s apparently given some thought. It occurs to her that perhaps she should be offended he’s attempting to put a price on her blood, but really, she’d already proven last night that she was willing to part with it for little more than a sob story and pretty eyes glittering at her in the dark. That he’s actually thought to offer her something in return is…well, not exactly sweet in an objective sense. But for Astarion? It’s downright thoughtful. That alone is weird enough to make her want to hear him out. His infuriatingly handsome face watching her so closely has absolutely nothing to do with it. “Such as?” Neve asks, trying for some stability in her voice. She steadies herself to takes another, more dignified sip from the wine, hoping beyond hope it’ll restore her ability to give more than just two-word answers. Something about the slow lift to one corner of his mouth makes her sure she’ll regret asking that particular question. “Well,” he croons, “The fun doesn’t have to be entirely one-sided. Our time could very well be limited. You help me with my condition…and I could help you with yours.” The way he’s looking at her makes her stomach swoop dangerously, the way it had when she’d almost slipped off that ladder in the dungeons, but he can’t be saying what she thinks he’s saying. No. Definitely not. It’s Astarion—flirting is just how he speaks. She’s fairly sure she saw him make one of the goblins blush shortly before putting an arrow through him. “My condition?” she asks, her eyebrows now arched to maximum height—and d@mn it, that was still just two words. Astarion tilts his head. “Darling, it’s bad enough that we might burst into tentacles any day now. I would hate to see you die a virgin.” This time her response is way shorter than two words. In fact, it’s little more than an indignant gasp as she jumps to her feet, followed by some angry sputtering that can’t rightly be counted as speech. Because, well. He’s not wrong. “You—how—you don’t—that’s not even—” Astarion has the gall to throw a panicked glance in the general direction of their sleeping companions. “Do you want the whole camp to hear?”
   
“No. I. Bl@@dy. Well. Do. Not,” Neve hisses at him, snatching up her spellbook again, a swat to his shoulder punctuating each word. The idea of any of them getting wind of this mortifies her nearly to paralysis, but she thinks she might just have to walk into the sea if Gale or Wyll wake up to hear Astarion proclaiming her a twenty-five-year-old virgin he’s willing to ply for blood with pity s@x. “How did you even—" she begins, and then she breaks off with realization, fury renewed. “Been poking in my head, have you?” “Oh, darling, I know you’re not going to try that line on me,” Astarion sneers, getting to his feet as well now that she’s stopped raining blows on him. “Let’s remember who penetrated who first. Like you weren’t poking in my head only last night.” “I had just caught you looming over my unconscious body, if you recall!” “And you found that I’d told you nothing but the truth,” he defends, his chin rising, red eyes narrowing haughtily. “In addition to invading some extremely personal memories. I thought it was only fair to even the score.” He pauses, apparently weighing the wisdom of continuing, before adding, “And if you must know, I thought a peek at your mind might help me stop if I…well, if my control started to slip.” Astarion had read her thoughts while drinking her blood. Neve stares at him, starting to feel a strange kind of buzzing in her mind—it feels almost on the verge of whiting out completely with sheer embarrassment. Astarion had read her thoughts while his mouth was attached to her neck. While his hand had slipped from her shoulder to her waist, keeping her in place against him. And all she had been able to think at the time had been: is this what it feels like? Even a little? There’d been some pain at first, yes—but she’d heard that about the other thing, too. He had gasped in her ear a little, held her close, squeezed her with an eager hand. And he’d been listening to her think about the heat pooling in her belly as he’d done it. “Fine,” she whispers. So maybe he’s right about the idiocy of being upset that he’d peered into her mind, just the same as she’d done to him. She’s still too thoroughly humiliated to keep this back-and-forth going for any longer. “You’re right. We’re even. But that—that—is none of your business, or anyone else’s. Do you understand me? I don’t want a charity f@ck just because human blood gives you a gods-damned buzz.” Neve’s chest is actually heaving when she finishes—whether it’s more from anger or from the effort of spitting all that at him while keeping her voice hushed, she isn’t sure. Astarion stares at her with the strangest look on his face, as though she’d just spouted all of that in Celestial, rendered speechless for the absolute first time since she met him. Well. Good, she supposes. She picks up the wine bottle in addition to her book—it’s only a quarter full now, but it’s better than nothing—and turns her back on him, stepping in the direction of her bedroll. “Charity f@ck?” Astarion says at last. He sounds oddly, truly befuddled. Don’t turn around, idiot, you’re storming off, Neve tells herself. But she does stop, against her better judgement. And then he starts to chuckle, and she has to look. He’s looking at her with a tilt to his head again, the expression on his face almost fond. “Look, darling. I don’t know exactly how a sweet thing like you kept the fingerprints off your glass all this time, but I can assure you, I don’t do charity.” He’s sweet talking you for blood, idiot. Do not react. Only…he seems so truly amused by the conclusion she’d reached. “If you were to say yes…” he continues, “Well. The acts I had in mind would hardly be considered selfless.” Neve eyes him warily, color high in her cheeks, unsure what she can even say that wouldn’t be rising to this obvious bait. Eventually, she lands on the only reasonable option. “Good night, Astarion.”  She stalks off, wine and spellbook clutched to her chest—but even so, he manages to get in the final word. “It certainly could have been, my dear. Sleep tight.”'
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