Chapter Text
“Why does your blood smell so strange?”
The question startled Gale, who looked up from where he sat cross-legged in front of his tent, organizing his scrolls in preparation for their upcoming “visit” to the goblin camp. He’d given Astarion a wide berth since the revelation of his vampiric condition a few days earlier, so he was surprised to see the pale elf looming over him now, a peculiar expression on his face.
“You know,” Gale offered with a smile, “in my extensive journeys across manifold realms, I do believe that is not a question that I’ve ever been asked before. I honestly can’t decide whether or not I should be offended.”
“Oh, don’t play the fool, darling, it really doesn’t suit you. The scent I’m speaking of is magical in origin. I have no doubt you know exactly what its source is, and I’d like for you to tell me.”
Gale did know exactly what it was that Astarion must be smelling within him – was reminded of it every time he felt the orb’s magic press against the walls of his chest in moments of high adrenaline, or when he glanced unwittingly into a looking glass and spotted the unnatural darkness of his veins – but that certainly did not mean he owed the vampire his life story, just because his olfactory senses happened to be a bit sharper than most.
“Magical, you say? Well, you may have been too busy skulking about during that last fight to notice the very subtle fireballs I was hurling at our enemies, but I must confess to you that I am, in fact, a wizard.”
“Ha, ha. Very droll.” Astarion’s voice was deadpan, his expression unamused. “I’ve smelled wizards before, obviously. This is… something else. But keep your secrets, if you must. I was only curious.”
His nonchalance had a performative air to it; Gale could tell he was more interested in the cause of his apparently atypical scent than he was letting on. But after one more long look at Gale, Astarion did turn around to head back towards his own tent, seeming content for the moment to let the topic lie.
Before he’d gotten more than two steps away, however, Gale was unable to suppress the pull of his own curiosity.
“What does it smell like?” He watched Astarion turn back in evident surprise at Gale’s blurted question, his red eyes widening slightly. “Is it… bad?”
He was not certain what exactly he expected the answer to be – whether he might already bear the necrotic smell of death, perhaps, or the cloying, metallic scent of a smokepowder bomb seconds away from explosion. Astarion seemed to consider the question carefully, crossing his arms and chewing thoughtfully at his lower lip. Gale found himself unexpectedly and momentarily fascinated by the sight of one of Astarion’s abnormally-sharp canines probing at the plump flesh.
“It’s, ah… it’s not bad, no.” Astarion closed his eyes and inhaled slowly before elaborating, and Gale realized with a start that the elf was scenting him. It felt more intrusive than he might’ve anticipated. “It smells… powerful. A bit like fire, but not in the same way Karlach’s blood does, which is rather more hot and unpleasant. More like… like the sudden, crackling blaze you might get in a place where lightning has just struck. It’s indubitably a magical scent, and it’s potent. When you’re within a certain distance of me, it completely drowns out every other smell. I’ve never encountered anything like it.”
Gale was quiet for a moment, taking in the description. It sounded not unlike the heady, arcane scent he associated with manipulating raw Weave, and this gave him some measure of relief. He could think of a great number of worse-smelling things one’s body could be associated with.
“Thank you for telling me,” he said with sincerity. “For now, suffice to say I know where it’s coming from, and it’s something I have under control.”
And he wasn’t lying, for the moment at least. The young, plucky Bard who’d become the de facto ringleader of their strange traveling group had been kind enough to begin supplying him with Weave-infused artifacts that were at least temporarily quieting the chaotic magic of the orb inside him – a useful benefit of her seemingly compulsive looting habit.
“Well, alright then,” said Astarion, a touch dubiously. “Just be careful how close you get to me whenever we find ourselves in a skirmish. I can’t afford to be distracted when my life is on the line, and that scent of yours really is… overpowering.”
Astarion turned back to his tent with more finality then, but not before taking one last quick sniff in Gale’s direction – almost as though he couldn’t help himself.
****
Their party’s journey through the goblin camp was, predictably, utterly chaotic: beginning with the Bard quite literally covering herself in warg shit to gain them entrance (Gale felt a hysterical giggle come on every time he pictured Astarion’s disgusted expression), and followed up by further feats and oddities including a rescued owlbear cub, a zealot with a whipping fetish, some surprisingly helpful spiders, and of course, dozens of dead cultist goblins.
Amidst all the madness, Gale was relieved that they’d managed to liberate the druid leader, who was now hopefully making his way safely back to the Emerald Grove while they combed through the carnage they’d wrought in the front yard of the goblin’s hideout. Gale was currently crouching near the crumbling temple wall, examining an enchanted greatsword he’d pulled off a goblin corpse and attempting to determine whether it might be worth selling or passing along to Lae’zel.
“You’re hurt.”
He dropped the sword with a loud clatter, nearly jumping out of his skin at the sudden voice and presence of Astarion directly behind him.
“Heaven’s bells, man! You can’t just sneak up on a person like that when you’re not planning on running a dagger through them. Or at least, I hope that’s not your intention. If so, you’ve probably revealed yourself juuust a bit too early.”
He knew he was babbling, but Astarion really had startled him. It was one thing to watch the elf’s impressive displays of stealth from afar, as he slipped through the shadows to slit an enemy’s throat before they even knew he was there; it was quite another to find himself the target of Astarion’s eerily silent approach.
“You’re bleeding,” said Astarion, in a voice that had a strange fervor to it. Gale stood up to face him and saw that his expression bore a similarly odd intensity. His mouth hung slightly open, making his pointed canines visible, and his eyes were dark and laser-focused in the direction of Gale’s left hip.
Gale brought a hand to the place where Astarion was staring, his hand coming away slightly sticky and damp from the shallow wound where one of the goblin archers’ arrows had grazed him. He’d noticed the injury, feeling an initial sting when he was hit followed by its current dull, throbbing ache, but it hadn’t been bad enough for him to pester Shadowheart from across the battlefield when he knew he was bound to come across a healing potion on one of the corpses he was searching. Really, his most pressing concern was that he’d have to find just the right lilac thread color to stitch up the new tear in his favorite robe.
Well, that had been his most pressing concern. Until, that was, he realized he was bleeding freely in front of a centuries-old, underfed vampire spawn who was staring at his cut with what could only be described as an expression of desperate, captivated hunger.
“Astarion?” he asked, in a voice infused with forced lightness. “You’re not about to suddenly get a bit… bitey on me, are you?”
“I… I don’t…” Astarion seemed to be unable to form a complete thought, his gaze still fixated on the slowly-clotting wound on Gale’s side. “I need to…”
It was strange; Gale was certain he’d seen Astarion around blood before – in fact, their group ended up in rather bloody circumstances with astonishing regularity – but he’d never seen him become quite so disoriented the way he seemed to be now.
“Are you alright?” he asked, with genuine concern.
“It’s, ah, your blood… It’s so… Can I…” Astarion brought his eyes up to meet Gale’s, and Gale was shocked to see just how wide his pupils had dilated, the ruby-red irises now just barely visible slivers. “Please.”
“Please what?”
Rather than respond to Gale’s question, Astarion reached out a trembling hand towards Gale’s hip – slowly, almost as though he was fighting against a compulsion of some kind.
Thinking back on the way Astarion had asked about his blood in camp earlier that week, Gale suddenly began to put some of the pieces together in his mind: there must be something about the orb’s magic inside him that led his blood specifically to have… whatever effect this was on the vampire. He couldn’t remember ever being wounded this close to Astarion before, which could explain why this was the first time he’d seen him in such a state.
He took a quick step back from Astarion, speculating that a bit of distance might help break whatever spell had come over him, but not before Astarion darted his hand out to close the gap and ran two fingers swiftly across the cut, Gale’s broken skin stinging slightly at the sudden pressure. Gale brought up a hand to cover the wound against further intrusion, and he watched curiously as Astarion stared dazedly down at his own hand, which was now wet with Gale’s blood.
“Shar’s Mercy, Gale, why didn’t you say something?” The both turned their heads suddenly at the sound of Shadowheart’s voice, watching as she jogged up to them with a concerned expression on her face. “Here, let me get that for you.”
Her hands glowed blue as she held them close to Gale’s side, and he felt the strange, familiar sensation of his skin stitching itself back together, the dull pain quieting to nothing. The wound closing seemed to snap Astarion back to himself in some way; Gale watched as he blinked rapidly and heaved out a deep exhale, as though he’d been holding his breath for a while.
“Thank you, Shadowheart,” said Gale, his eyes still on Astarion, who was now scrubbing his blood-free hand across his face as though trying to clear his head. Gale was definitely planning on having a talk with the elf later about what had just happened, once Astarion seemed more fully recovered and they were away from prying ears. “It wasn’t bad enough to pester you with right away.”
“It’s what I’m here for,” she said kindly. “But we’ve cleared everything out over on that end, so we were thinking now it might be time to head back to the Grove. Are you two ready?”
“Not yet,” said Astarion, the usual silky sharpness of his tone having returned. It was almost jarring to hear after the slurred desperation of his voice just moments before. “But why don’t you two go on ahead of me? I just need… a moment here, and then I’ll join you right outside the gates.”
“That’s fine,” said Shadowheart. “Gale, you ready?”
“Yes,” Gale responded, and moved to follow her. However, as they neared the goblin camp’s exit, Gale’s curiosity got the better of him, and he could not resist looking back to see what might have been delaying Astarion. And what he saw was a strange and evocative image that he was quite certain he would be unable to get out of his head for some time:
Astarion was standing just where they’d left him, staring intently down at his fingers that were still coated in Gale’s blood. Then, quickly enough that Gale almost couldn’t process what he was seeing, Astarion brought his blood-drenched middle and index fingers up to his face, inserted them abruptly and needily into his own mouth, then closed his eyes and shivered.