Somewhat Clear

Rating: NSFW
Fandom: baldur's gate
Relationship: astarion/cazador, astarion/klaus (OMC)
Tags: Astarion's Past Abuse (Baldur's Gate), Pre-Canon, Forced Prostitution, Blood and Gore. Vivisection, Implied/Referenced Mind Control, Consent Issues, Power Imbalance, Broken Bones, Torture, Medical Experimentation, Blood Drinking
Wordcount: 5.8k
Notes: klaus belongs to chai

Summary:
one of cazador's guests takes advantage of astarion's vampire healing factor to train his medical skills. cazador shows up to clean up the mess.

Excerpt:

The sudden noise of bones cracking shivered up Astarion's arm before he could register the shock of what happened.

{ read on AO3 | read here }

“I’m sorry,” Astarion purred, even as he struggled to keep his voice liquid and sensual. A horrible spike of pain was building up just behind his eyes—transgression. “Am I boring you?”

The young man lying next to him on the bed startled, visibly bringing himself back from wherever his mind had wandered off to. “Oh! No, no, I’m sorry,” he reassured Astarion with a quick smile—bright, polite, and so, so fake. “You’ve been perfectly lovely, I’m just a little—distracted.”

“Distracted?” Astarion pouted exaggeratedly, and made a show of relaxing back against the pillows, alluring and available. “I’m losing my touch then.”

“Oh, no; quite the contrary, actually.” The young man’s smile turned a little more sincere, if a little sharper. “I have been having thoughts about you since we danced earlier…”

Whatever had cast a shadow over his mood, it seemed gone, for now.

Astarion’s headache subsided somewhat. Keep your charge happy and safe, had been Cazador’s words of power for him that night, whispered right into his ear as he squeezed his shoulder in a painful grip. Safe had been clear enough; happy was turning out to be a migraine, in the most literal sense. By now Astarion was used to bending himself backwards and working around and with that sort of vague compulsion, but—

“Do tell,” he pried encouragingly, pitching his voice low and intimate. His smirk dripped innuendo, complicity. Or so he hoped. “What kind of thoughts?”

The young man shifted on the bed, sitting up straighter against the cushions, tucking his legs under himself. Comfortable, not coy. There was no heat in his gaze, only the fixated stare of a strange, watchful creature, coiled in the depth of colourless irises, buried under liquid black sclera.

Not for the first time that evening, Astarion struggled to read his intentions, and he did not like it.

He had thought it an easy job, when Cazador had first introduced them, earlier that evening. The young man had seemed very taken with Astarion, almost uncomfortably so—his eyes boring into him so intensely, so hungrily, Astarion had actually frozen under them, forgetting to take proper note of his name. Yet, when he had invited him to dance, he’d revealed himself to be a skilled partner, and a polite companion. Astarion had enjoyed himself, for a little while.

As the night went on, a strange coldness had started to creep in, and the young man seemed to close off a little, his mind and his hands wandering. His fingers kept finding Astarion’s wrists, his neck, his chest. Still, as detached as he’d looked, there had been a calculating quality to his distractedness, like he’d been planning something—and Astarion could easily guess that said plans probably involved him on his back or kneeling on the floor.

The man had not protested when Astarion had insisted they retire to one of the numerous bedrooms that Cazador made available to visitors, but whatever he had had in mind, he was taking his sweet time putting it into motion. He’d been content to just watch Astarion as he prattled on, but had yet to make a move.

Astarion was starting to feel nervous. Something was deeply, unsettlingly off.

He reached out to put his hand on the bed between them, making the implication clear, but not daring to touch his thigh. He wondered if he should have tried to remember the young man’s name, if he was to scream it later in the throes of simulated passion. There was some solace in the fact that, at the very least, this was an attractive one—high cheekbones, a slender, youthful figure, delicate hands and nails that looked clean and well cared-for…

“Don’t be shy,” Astarion made himself insist again. “Tell me what’s on your mind, darling.”

The young man’s smile widened.

Abruptly, Astarion was certain that he didn’t want to know.

“You’re vampire spawn. Correct?”

Shit. Shit.

Astarion’s smile froze across his face, his chest flooded cold. “Bravo.” There was no point in denying it. “How could you tell?”

“I already knew. Cazador Szarr is not a subtle man,” the young man admitted. His eyes were much clearer now, glittering with unbridled excitement. “Besides—” he finally leaned into Astarion’s space and grabbed his arm, running a thumb up the inner side of his wrist. “You have no pulse.”

Astarion’s throat felt tight. He hated when they knew. “Aren’t you a smart little thing.”

The young man didn’t react to the compliment. He seemed once again distracted by Astarion’s hand—by his lack of pulse, more likely—and was muttering to himself. “What a wonderful chance—”

“Sorry, darling, but I cannot bite you,” Astarion warned him, bluntly. He let his fangs show a little as he gave him a thin smile, a peace-offering to soften the blow. “My—Lord Szarr explicitly put you into my care, and he would be very unhappy with me if I—”

“Biting!” The young man scoffed, rolling his eyes as if Astarion was being silly, as if he hadn’t had to turn down dozens of pleading guests. “There’s a plethora of much more interesting things we could do,” he murmured, eyes running down his body.

Ah, there you go.

Astarion relaxed, back in his element. “Whatever you want, beautiful,” he purred, looking at him from under his lashes.

Another uncomfortable silence stretched between them. It settled uneasily in the pit of Astarion’s stomach and at the edges of the throbbing in his head. The careful smile he had affixed on his lips made his face ache as he waited for the man to think about it.

“Give me your hands,” the young man finally prompted, offering his to Astarion, palm up. “I want to see how long it takes for your fingers to set, first.”

“My—?” Astarion asked, weakly. “What do you mean, darling?”

“Your hands,” the guest—his name, what was his name?—said, impatient. He ended up reaching out, and taking Astarion’s left in both of his. “Beautiful,” he noted absentmindedly, thumbs rubbing across his knuckles, dark skin against pale. “Very well proportioned. I’ve seen some diagrams in books with less ideally proportioned hands than yours.”

The sudden noise of bones cracking shivered up Astarion's arm before he could register the shock of what happened. He was too well-trained to withdraw from the man’s grasp, but control slipped on the way the rest of his body recoiled in surprise, elbows tucking themselves tight against his ribs, a knee pulling close to his chest. He sucked in a gasp, caught off-guard.

“Twenty-seven bones in elven hands,” the young man lectured, his fingers poking at Astarion’s mangled limb. “Same as humans and dwarves. Drow hands have several more, for some reason. There doesn't seem to be one, unless you like believing the superstitions of old…“

Astarion’s bones started healing while the man was still touching them. The crawling grinding of his phalanges trying to realign themselves under his skin made him grit his teeth. A throbbing ache spread down his hand, as warmth pooled in it and drained away from the rest of him. The rare treat of having been fed before the party, that Cazador had magnanimously conceded to Astarion and his siblings as he commanded them to entertain his guests, already gone to waste.

The young man —Caoimhin? Chlothar?—made an intrigued noise. He pressed harder at first, a small smile blooming on his thin lips as he felt the shifting of bones under his fingertips. Then he started pushing and pulling at the snapped metacarpals near Astarion’s pinky, slowly setting them into their original positions.

Every time his fingers closed around a fracture point, Astarion’s throat tightened, making him swallow convulsively. The man’s manipulation was helping with speeding up the healing, bringing the bones close enough to start fusing back together—and it made Astarion colder and colder, his blood thicker and thicker as it ran out.

“It’s as if they knew what shape they’re supposed to take… fascinating,” the man murmured. “Minimal swelling, minimal bruising. Is it because of the absence of a pulse?”

He just stared, while the rest of Astarion’s fingers kept attempting to fix themselves. Astarion didn’t know if the man could hear the sound of bone snapping and scraping against itself, of its smallest fragments sliding between muscle and nerves and skin to find their way home—but he could.

Then warmth turned into itch turned into tingling, and then it fizzled out. Cold.

The blood was gone. The cracks and the little shards of bone were still there, embedded in his flesh.

“Is that it?” the young man wondered, wrapping both hands around his half-healed one. “You’re colder than before. Like a corpse.”

Laughter strained out of Astarion’s throat. “You know what I am, darling.”

“And yet, you move. And breathe. And feel,” the other continued, giving his hand another squeeze.

This time Astarion couldn’t stifle a broken, bitten off groan at the sensation of crumbled glass grinding just inside his palm. He squirmed against the jolt of pain it sent up his arm, blinking forcefully to banish the moisture that had gathered at the corner of his eye against his will.

He wasn’t sure if the man had been replying to his remark, or just following a thought, but when his colourless eyes met Astarion’s they weren’t looking at him. Not really. It was more like he was trying to see what was inside his head. What made him tick.

The man let his hand go and pushed him onto his back with surprising strength, making Astarion’s head bounce against the pillows. He rearranged his limbs just so—arms along his sides, thighs and calves and ankles pressed together in a composed, straight line. Then he sat back on his heels, rolled the sleeves of his well-tailored shirt up to his elbows, folding the expensive-looking cuffs up and away, and pulled a rolled up bundle of canvas from a pocket.

Astarion’s mouth went dry with dread as he watched him unfold it over his knees.

“What are you doing, sweetheart?” His voice sounded brittle to his own ears.

“I'm working,” the young man answered, short and clipped. He smiled then, apologetic. “I'm sorry. I don't like being interrupted. You can think of it as a game, if you’d like. A game where you stay quiet, and let me work.”

Astarion snapped his mouth shut, teeth clicking together and jaw tensing up. He could stay quiet. He could stay quiet. Maybe if he stayed quiet—

Silver instruments emerged from the unrolled pouch.

Astarion whimpered.

“I said quiet,“ the young man reprimanded, distractedly. He chose a pair of shears from his collection, and used them to cut down the front and along the sleeve-length of Astarion’s shirt, down the legs of his trousers. Astarion shivered against the icy kiss of the metal implement sliding harmlessly against his skin.

The young man folded the ruined fabric away with deceptively delicate hands, and began to grope and feel him up all over. Nothing sexual about the touch. It was inquisitive, distant, clinical.

“High elf,” he announced, clearly as one would to a transcriber. “Well, originally at least. Physical age—I’m going to guess maybe forty, at the time of death.”

Nausea clung to Astarion’s throat, his eyes staring at the ceiling without seeing it. Hearing someone state it so bluntly—

He was dead, he was dead, he was dead.

“At the time of current undeath—” The young man paused, like he was leaving room for his non-existent audience to chuckle at the joke. “—well, I wouldn’t know. How long ago were you turned, I wonder?”

Days and nights blurred, when they all looked the same, and when you were forced to go through them under someone’s orders. How long had it been? A century? Maybe longer? “I don’t remember,” Astarion whispered.

“Signs of malnourishment,” the young man kept going, speaking over his mumbling. His fingers ran over his collarbones, over his ribs, over the soft, taught skin of his stomach, across his jutting hipbones. “Pre-mortem? Maybe. No scars, no marks, except for…” He hummed, engrossed, digits digging in the meat of Astarion’s leg. “Faint, faded cut on the left thigh. An old injury, perhaps.”

A flash of memory swam just under the surface, and sank back into the fog. “It was a letter opener,” Astarion mumbled, surprising himself. When did that happen?

“I said, don’t interrupt.” The young man shifted on his knees, leaning over Astarion’s torso, and put a hand right across his throat.

Astarion stopped breathing, waiting for punishment—for the compulsion to react to the young man’s displeasure—but nothing happened. His chin was grabbed with misplaced gentleness, and his head turned one way and the other, as his neck got inspected. Fingertips dragged along the tendon, his thumb stopped to touch—

“Puncture wounds on the right side. Heavy and irregular scarring.”

He was so close, Astarion could feel his breath against his face as he was speaking, fascination dripping from his voice—but it wasn’t hard to just unfocus his eyes and refuse to look at him. He reflexively swallowed against the pressure near his trachea and waited for the man to look his fill.

As long as he was just looking, as humiliating as it was—

“Now, stay still.”

The man straightened up and Astarion followed the movement in the corner of his eye by instinct. He glanced over just in time to see him lift another shiny tool from the canvas — sharp, pointy, too familiar.

Astarion’s stomach dropped.

“Please,” he heard himself implore, the word rolling off his tongue too easily. Confused memories of lying on his back on a cold surface, agony locking his muscles, warmth leaving his body, a blade flashing in the dim light, Cazador—and begging, begging, begging crowded his mind. “Please, please, don't do this.”

“But you said I could do whatever I wanted,” the young man pointed out petulantly as he straddled Astarion’s legs.

He once again bent over him, soft white hair escaping from behind his shoulder, and frowned down at Astarion. Unhappy.

Astarion screwed his eyes shut against the vise that threatened to split his head in half, against the needles pouring down his spine, against the acid licking at his nerves. Putting a smile on his mouth hurt like carving a strip of flesh out of his face.

“Of course, darling,” he rasped out.

“That's what I thought.“ The man's smile in his voice was thin and distracted, but it was like a mouthful of blood after a long hunt—rotten, yet welcome.

The relieved breath that wheezed out of Astarion was wet and trembling, as the stabbing pain ebbed away like the tide. The compulsion was temporarily appeased.

The scalpel sunk into Astarion’s shoulder, deep and cold—deeper than Cazador had ever cut him—and Astarion flinched. The wet, silky drag of its sharp edge was so smooth across his chest he almost didn’t feel it.

“You won’t be healing on me as I work, will you?”

The man pushed his thumb against the cut, making pain finally bloom across the incision. It tingled a little, but it didn’t close, and the man’s fingertip sank in his flesh with no resistance. He nodded, satisfied, paying no mind at the way Astarion stiffened under him, and started cutting on the other side.

The uncomfortable burn had Astarion clutch at the sheets. He’d almost forgotten about the half-broken bones in his left hand; their throbbing ache didn’t feel like a significant counterpoint to what was happening just over his sternum and in the narrowest folds of his awareness.

Stay still, the man had said—and Astarion was obeying after all, beyond any reason, beyond the compulsion that was threatening to melt his synapses away.

The first layer wasn’t actually that bad. Astarion found himself thinking about Cazador — thin strips of skin carefully held in his long, pale fingers, slowly separating from the layer of flesh underneath — and shivered. The ceiling was a wet blur above him. The deafening almost silence of well-sharpened metal pressed against his eardrums even as it whispered under his skin.

After a certain point, he caught himself making noise. He could hear himself pant a little, open-mouthed and embarrassing, horrible, pathetic whimpers whistling past his tightening throat. Cazador would have clicked his tongue at him, at the way he had never learned to do what he was told—

The second layer was bad only because Astarion had never known you could flay someone twice in the same spot. It opened new horrors of possibilities, new fears in his lucidity. Could Cazador have done that? Could he have stripped skin and tissue and flesh over and over again from the same place, until nothing remained of him?

His back ached with tension, a taut, shallow arc against the bed, as he struggled to keep himself still. Confused trains of thought dripped from his mind. What was he struggling against? At least the restraints he’d fought while he was tied down in the Kennels existed. What was he even fighting now…?

By the third layer, his handle on pain had started to slip. He heaved under the young man’s hands, as they meticulously cut and ripped and pulled strips of muscles off his ribcage. He was excruciatingly aware of every slide of the blade filleting his flesh, grazing against his breastbone with a sickening, delicate scratching sound. The scorched embers of his sanity curled and crumbled. Panic burned through his lungs.

It felt like another lifetime—two hundred years at least— before the man finally straightened, sitting back on his heels to look down at his work, bloodied blade in hand.

“Oh, what a pretty sight,” he breathed out, awed. “Look at you.”

Astarion looked.

He saw the bones first, surrounded by sheets of fleshy tissue, and they were oddly pretty indeed, like he was promised, starkly pale and scraped clean among the gore. He saw the messy swells of fleshy organs next, the moist glimmer of entrails, yellow and purple and red and wet. Shiny tools kept the layers of skin and fat and muscle open and folded away, like peculiar pages of a rare book.

He felt himself gasp, spongy lungs swelling against ribs—he saw himself gasp.

He saw himself.

A twinge of horror sent ripples down his spine in a full-bodied flinch—a twinge of ache down his bared nerves.

The man—Clive? Claude?—laughed, delighted. “You should not be able to do that by any stretch of the imagination,,” he pointed out with an amused grin, so wide it looked like his face had been sliced from ear to ear. “Whatever is keeping you together, it’s not of the body.” He touched a yellowish coil, pensively. “Among other things, your intestines would try to slither away with much more enthusiasm, rather than this lazy twitching.”

He drummed his knuckles against Astarion’s bare sternum, making his bones ring with more pain. Vertigo and nausea painted unwelcome blotches at the edge of his vision.

The man sighed. “A pity I don’t have my full kit with me…”

“Klaus,” Astarion gasped.

That was his name, that was his name, that was his name—

“I know that you can destroy a vampire spawn if you stake them through the heart, but I wonder—would you die if I lifted your heart clean out of your chest?”

The young— Klaus’ hands settled on the left side of Astarion’s ribcage, dark fingers spreading over white bones.

Astarion’s voice was a ruin, fear pulling it thin. “Please—”

“Enjoy tonight to the fullest, I like telling my guests,” spoke a different voice, interrupting Astarion’s pleading. “I see you took my invitation quite to the letter.”

Astarion froze. Klaus did not. He just calmly turned his head towards the tall man that had materialised seemingly from thin air next to the door, and blinked.

A thin veil of annoyance ghosted across his features, before they settled into a polite smile. “Lord Szarr”, Klaus addressed him, nodding courteously.

Cazador accepted the greeting with a dry, thin smile. “It wouldn’t be the first time I walk in on my spawn entertaining one of my esteemed guests while sprawled on their back, but…” he trailed off lightly, unhurriedly making his way towards the bed. When he was close enough, Astarion felt his clawed hand touch his hair, comb it back from his forehead with pointed fingers. “I must say this is new.”

Astarion swallowed a whimper. He forced himself not to shrink under his Master’s red gaze, as it ran up and down his dissected body. Astarion had spent the past century listening to Cazador’s voice, and he recognized tightly leashed anger when he heard it. Abruptly, he felt like he’d been caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to—even if he’d been following his orders, even if he’d been good, even if he’d been obedient, even if he’d done whatever he wanted—

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Klaus purred, oblivious, satisfaction palpable in his voice. “It can’t be easy, for someone who has been alive for such a long time, to feel surprise. If it pleases you, I might—”

“You’ve done quite enough, thank you.” Cazador’s sweet and syrupy tone cracked through with ice. His nails dug sharply into Astarion’s scalp.

“Naturally.” With a sigh, Klaus lifted his weight from Astarion’s thighs. “As my Lord wishes.”

Astarion held his breath, expecting the compulsion to pick up on the young man’s disappointment—but nothing happened. Maybe his acceptance of the dismissal was graceful enough for it not to count as unhappiness.

Klaus took his time to climb off the bed, to fix the creases in his shirt, and to put his coat back on. The frosty silence hanging on the room didn’t seem to bother him, as he calmly unhooked his instruments from Astarion’s flesh, and wiped them clean before putting them back in their case.

“Thank you for your hospitality,” he finally addressed Cazador one last time. “I look forward to the next ball.”

Cazador did not speak, and did not move. The door opened and closed behind the young man with a click.

“Out of sight, out of mind,” Cazador muttered, words dense with power.

The compulsion that had bound his will to Cazador’s guest lifted from Astarion’s bones. His ears popped, tension melted from his muscles—and his sliced tissues, reawakening the feeling into them. It was like being bathed in a river, a sudden sensation like warm acid surrounding his limbs.

“Awake, boy,” Cazador snapped. “Eyes on me.”

Astarion obeyed—too exhausted to even think about fighting the new order—and tried to breathe through the spasms. When he looked at Cazador’s face, he saw that he was staring at Astarion’s chest—at his naked bones, at his dead, exposed insides—but Astarion couldn’t say what was going through his mind.

“How come it’s always you, getting yourself in such ungainly messes?” his Master murmured, almost like he was talking to himself. Unexpectedly, he sat on the bed, his side brushing against Astarion’s flank, and started pulling his sleeve up, unbuttoning the cuff of the lacy shirt underneath before rolling it up his forearm.

Cazador had not ordered him to keep his eyes on his face, specifically, but Astarion chose to do so anyway, even if his sharp features were inscrutable to an unnerving degree. He did not want to watch as his Master’s hand plunged in his abdominal cavity, wrist emerging just below his bared sternum—

But he could still feel it.

He could still feel his lungs expand against Cazador’s slender knuckles as they brushed against his diaphragm, as they sunk deeper in his guts. He groaned and squirmed at the odd, scattered sensation—caressing and painful and strange and deep—and he shuddered, terrified and helpless, unable to wrap his mind around it.

In Astarion’s lucid nightmare, Cazador wrapped his talons around Astarion’s spine and broke it in half; he punched through his ribcage so he could wrap his fist around his heart and squash it into pulp; he ripped every one last organ from his body, and threw his emptied out shell to the dogs—

In reality, his Master only frowned a little as he touched him in places nobody should’ve been able to touch him. Then he seemed to shake himself from a far away place, and retracted his hand. He folded the layers of Astarion’s flesh back over his chest, over the messy coils of his intestines, and got onto his feet.

His lightless eyes slid to Astarions’ face.

“Get up.”

The weight in Cazador’s words was already hooking into his backbone, but Astarion couldn’t help himself. “I can’t,” he babbled, fear making him stupid.

He couldn’t get up, he couldn’t, his viscera would spill—-

“Get up, boy,” Cazador repeated, even more pull behind his hissed order.

Astarion gingerly touched where his skin was split down his front. The feeling of the open wound against his palm turned his stomach. Would he feel it actually move with his disgust, were he to dip his fingers just inside? The thought made him shudder.

He pressed his palm more firmly just above his bellybutton, hoping it was enough to keep his intestines inside, slid the other hand up over his chest, just below his collarbones, to keep the edges of the gash from flapping down his ribs, and then he sat up.

The shift of his guts inside his abdomen was immediate, unsettling and painful. Swinging his legs off the bed to put his feet on the floor only made things worse, the flare of burning ache spreading around his hips and up his back pushing a sob out of his throat as he forced himself to stand up.

“How pathetic,” Cazador commented, full of disdain. “Follow.”

Astarion followed, dizzier with every step.

He couldn’t tell if he was being led through an actually unfamiliar wing of the mansion, or if he was too out of it to recognize where they were going, but he did not care anymore. Only his Master’s back gave him a sense of direction, among the vague recollection of hallways and carpets and corners and covered up windows around them.

His hands were soaked in blood, somehow—he didn’t think he had anymore to spill. He didn’t think he had anymore to heal him. Maybe it was not blood. Maybe Astarion was seeing things. He wondered if he was leaving a trail behind them. He wondered if Cazador would have let him clean it up with his tongue—

Suddenly, he did smell blood. His own blood—old, clotted, rancid. He blinked, eyelids sticking, dry tongue failing to wet his lips, and looked around. The carpet, the cabinet in the corridor, the wooden arched door scratched at the itch in his dazed mind until—oh.

“Get inside.” Cazador gestured to the open door to the Kennels. “Stay.”

Like a dog. Astarion obeyed, feeling numb. Even pain felt strangely distant.

He had never realised how badly that room stank of himself.It made sense, he supposed, with how much of his fluids had been spilled in it. How many long nights had he spent in there, getting his skin stripped off his bones under Cazador’s hand? How many days had he spent on the thin pallet on the floor, waiting for the same skin to grow back, so that his Master could rip it off again?

“Turn around.”

His Master’s voice tugged at him like a leash.

For a moment he couldn't make out the picture in front of him, with the blurriness of his eyesight and the wariness of his awareness—and then the dark shapes resolved into the looming figure of his master standing in front of him with a bowl in his hand, a scent of blood around him.

There were two dead rats in the bowl. Fresh.

Hunger was always a familiar simmer in the depth of his soul, but in that moment it surged ugly and feral at the back of his throat. What Astarion knew would emerge as a guttural scream, he managed to stifle down to a desperate whimper.

He wasn’t going to be above begging. He wasn’t above dropping to his knees, at Cazador’s feet. He wasn’t going to need to be compelled into it either—no need to waste arcane powers, in the face of absolute desperation. He was willing to let his guts spill on the stone to free his hands, for the privilege of being allowed to feed.

But at what cost?

Cazador—hand now gloved—picked up one of the rats, and stepped closer, raising the dead rat level to Astarion’s mouth. “The things I do for you,” he muttered, contempt and disgust oozing from his tone. “Open up.”

At what cost? It was an order, but not a command. It was a chance, but not a choice. All the answers were wrong, when the spawn always stood at the sharp end of the stick. Dread soured Astarion’s hunger even more. He licked his lips, uncertain.

Cazador sighed. “Open your mouth, stupid child,” he pressed, a hint of obligation cutting into his exasperated words.

Despite everything, it was with no relief that Astarion let his jaw drop.

The sweet, living scent of blood filled his nose. Astarion's head shot forward, fangs aching as he snapped his jaws around the rat. He couldn't quite fit his teeth around the mangled corpse properly, what with the awkward way Cazador was holding it against his mouth, but the viscous fluid was bliss, bliss, bliss…

He almost missed the first wave of ache rippling through his core, distracted as he was, and then the cramping started. Tears and displacements began to fix themselves, somewhere in the depth of his body cavity, where he didn't even know sensations could be felt, and his knees buckled.

Deep muscles wrapped around his slithering intestines, glued back onto the bones of his chest. The breaks in his hand, out of his mind for so long, made themselves known again, as the last bits of crushed bone sailed through his flesh to settle themselves in their rightful positions, before fusing together with an uncomfortable sting.

He was shaking with exertion by the time the blood he’d just been fed was consumed by the healing process. A quiet sizzling rushed in his ears.

He was healed enough that his guts weren't pushing against his hands to escape anymore, but the gashes in his skin were still there, wanting to fall open. It was just his skin now—it was odd how comforting it was. It was just skin, it was just skin…

“Take the other, as well.”

Cazador’s voice made him jolt. Astarion’s neck snapped up to look at his expression.

His Master’s red eyes were unreadable as always, as he held out the bowl — one drained rat and one still plump in it.

Another rat. Another choice. Another trap.

“I don’t—” Astarion rasped, stopping to clear his voice, shaking while he mustered up the strength to refuse. He told himself that it was better to suffer now, rather than to starve later, but—

Gods, he wanted that stupid dead rat so fucking bad.

“I don’t need it, Master.”

Cazador’s hand closed around his neck with no warning.

Astarion found himself dangling from his grip, his toes scrabbling for the floor. He didn't need to breathe—how many times Cazador had loved to repeat that to him—but the panic that was hardwired in his mind had him claw uselessly at Cazador’s wrist.

“I’ll repeat it for your feeble mind,” Cazador enunciated, calm and gelid. Dangerous. “Thou shalt know that thou art mine.”

The echo of power reverberated in Astarion's soul, making him grit his teeth. Dirt, death and fear stained his tongue for a moment, and then it was gone.

“Your pathetic carcass belongs to me. I get to decide what to do with it. I get decide what it needs.” He shook him like he was made of rags, and then let him go. “Eat the godsdamned rat before I make you.”

This time Astarion did not hesitate. The flaps of skin on his chest fell open (don’t look, don’t look) as he reached out to take the dead animal. He brought it to his mouth with both hands and bit down.

It tasted so good, and he could not even enjoy it—the ache of healing immediately spreading all over his chest. The blood was gone from under his gums too soon.

Cazador lifted a gloved hand, the usual mask of contempt firmly in place on his face. His fingers dipped under Astarion’s skin, idly poking at the layers of fat and tissue as they started to glue together with a feeling like pins and needles.

Like Klaus had done earlier — how long had it been? — Cazador traced the cut at the top of the Y-shaped incision, pushing his finger in the wound at the middle of his chest, tracing it up to his shoulder, watching the skin close around his fingertip. It made Astarion squirm and swallow dry, but he didn’t make a sound.

“That wasn't so hard, was it?” Cazador snapped, finally taking his hand away. “Say thank you.”

“Thank you, Master,” Astarion said, and then scowled at the truth of it.

He was hungry again — then again, when was he not? — and shaky and exhausted from the long evening, and he ached everywhere, but at least there was no injury left. He was grateful, and he meant it. It made him want to rip himself open again.

“Don’t make yourself too comfortable,” his Master said lightly, pulling his gloves off and discarding them in the bowl. “You'll stand there and think about what you've learned, until…” He tilted his head. “Maybe I'm asking for too much. Until?”

Astarion bowed his head, cowed. “Until—Master gets to decide.”

“And why is that?” he prompted again, stepping closer.

“Because I—” Astarion gritted his teeth, gums pressing painfully together. His throat was dry again. His tongue felt swollen. He looked away. ”I belong to you.”

Cazador’s hand was almost gentle as he raked his claws through his curls. Astarion imagined he could sink his heels in the stone floor, so he wasn’t tempted to push his body into the touch, into the fleeting, deceptive comfort of it.

“Maybe there's hope for you yet.”

His Master didn’t look back at Astarion, as he left the room, locking the heavy door behind himself. The lantern hanging off the wall burned for what felt like a long time — another two hundred years, at least — before it sputtered and died in a puff of smoke.

Astarion was left in the grey dimness, with his suffering, his hunger, and his despair.