Somewhat Clear

“You know, most vampire spawn need to relearn how to talk after they’re turned, because breathing doesn’t come naturally anymore to them after death,” Cazador drawled, pacing back and forth with his hands clasped behind his back. “You can’t speak, if you don’t remember how to breathe. But that never stopped you, did it?”

Astarion didn’t answer. He couldn’t. His Master had compelled him to absolute silence after the last time he spoke out of turn, and he had yet to lift the ban. It hadn’t been that long, but it had been feeling longer and longer with every word that came out of Cazador’s mouth.

“Myself, I had the vampire who turned me stick a hollow cane down my windpipe and blow air in it, to be reminded how my lungs worked—but you’re clearly so enamored with the sound of your own stupidity it didn’t even occur to you that something was wrong. What does it feel like to be so dim-witted, you don’t realize you’re dead?“

He knew a punishment was coming, but he couldn’t move. It was not a compulsion—just fear. Just the traitor animal instinct of survival, buried deep somewhere under the exhaustion and the apathy, that refused to let him fucking die, letting his dignity and self-respect writhe in agony instead.

Cazador stopped pacing and turned to look at Astarion. He regarded him thoughtfully, walking closer. He loomed over him for a moment, his pale, sharp features unreadable in the candle lit room; then he straightened up and buried a clawed hand in the curls at the nape of Astarion’s neck, forcing his head back. Astarion would’ve been biting back a whimper, if he’d been able to make a sound. An ember of resentment sputtered in the cold depth of his terror. Instinctively, he shut his eyes against whatever it was going to come.

“Look at me,” Cazador prompted. His voice was calm, casual, but the compulsion from the order ran through Astarion’s nerves like a spark of lightning: he opened his eyes, just on time to see Cazador’s lips press together in a thin, aggravated line. Astarion knew he could feel his trembling. “Open your mouth.”

He had no choice. His jaw dropped, exposing the vulnerable cavity to Cazador’s inspection; like always, his fingers were frigid (and why did he always feel so cold, when the blood of thinking creatures spilled under his fangs every night?), deceptively smooth, as they touched the surface of his tongue.

A spasm seized Astarion’s throat. His vision blurred, wetness gathering at the corners of his eyes. Cazador tutted. “You don’t need to breathe, Astarion. You are dead. What use do you have for a gag reflex? Relax.”

Tension bled out of Astarion’s muscles against his will, making him slump slightly on the chair he was sitting on and lean further back against Cazador’s hand that was supporting him. He still gagged around his master's fingers; his muscles fluttered around the clawtips tickling the back of his throat, brushing against his soft palate, exploring the flat and the sides of his tongue at the very root. Spit was starting to gather at his lips, spilling and dripping down his chin.

Cazador’s face betrayed no emotion, no thought, through Astarion’s obfuscated eyesight. He couldn’t tell if he was bored, or disappointed. He just knew that his red eyes were fixed on his mouth, calculating, scheming. Cazador pulled his fingers out of his mouth, unceremoniously wiped the drool off on Astarion’s shirt. Then he slid the same hand in the inner pocket of his velvet dressing gown, and pulled out a blade.

It was shiny and black and sharp, like a needle, slender and elegant in Cazador’s hand. Astarion’s back knew that blade in intimate and unforgettable ways. A whimper pushed out of Astarion’s throat, his panic stronger than the compulsion—a transgression that sent a pulse of agony spreading down his nerves so sharp he almost didn't perceive Cazador’s claws clamping around his still exposed tongue. He did feel for a moment the blade slipping between his lips, the flat of the blackened metal freezing cold against his tongue—and then his face split open.

His flesh tore, clean and quick and deafening in his bones, a sound wet and loud like boots biting on frozen cobblestones, crawling up his spine. Blood filled his mouth—he drowned, he choked, he cried. An incoherent scream thrashed brokenly in the back of his throat, agony threading through his body as he breached the compulsion, like a lash across his nerves. He didn’t really feel the edges of the blade nicking the corners of his mouth, tapping uncomfortably against his fangs on its way out: everything in his mouth tasted like pain, even where nothing could be tasted anymore.

He looked up at Cazador standing over him, dagger shining with blood in one hand, his whole sleeve soaked with it, and a twisted, bloody thing held gently in the other. He tried to refuse to look at it, at the way Cazador’s thumb stroked absentmindedly the dead flesh. He tried and failed to swallow the dense fluid pooling behind his teeth; it dripped down his chin, down his neck, on his knees and clenched hands.

Cazador nodded to himself, cleaned the dagger on Astarion’s shirt with the same indifference he'd wiped his fingers earlier, and grabbed him by the hair again, bringing his face closer to Astarion’s. “This ought to last for a while,” he mumbled, wondering. “You can close your mouth now.”

Astarion snapped his jaws shut so quickly his teeth clicked together, sending a fresh wave of pain across his face, down his chest. The trembling was back, or maybe it never left—it was just so much more noticeable when it caused him to pull against Cazador’s grip on his hair.

“Ungrateful child,” Cazador murmured. “You can't even imagine what real punishment looks like.” He sounded almost gentle, lost in thought, like he was talking to himself. “Say thank you, Astarion.”

The room immediately filled with the sound of Astarion’s weeping, sobs breaking through now that the compulsion to silence had been lifted with the new order. The words that attempted to come out of his mouth were mangled because of his crying as much as the lack of— (oh, gods below) .

His throat kept trying to form words around the clots of blood filling his mouth, and Astarion shook. Please, he thought, incoherently. He turned his head and pressed one, two, three bloody kisses against Cazador’s forearm. Please.

His Master's grip tightened around his hair, then relaxed. “That's enough,” Cazador rasped, and let him go. “We're done for today. Come back when I tell you.”

Astarion almost doesn't remember leaving Cazador’s rooms and fleeing to the Kennels—too ashamed to seek refuge in his own bed. The last thing he saw in his mind before falling to restless trance on the thin pallet, was a memory of his severed tongue resting in Cazador’s bloody palm.