Work Text:
Mara knocked on Astarion’s door.
“Astarion? How do you feel?”
They tried not to fret. The poisoned arrow had only clipped him, a shallow cut in the meat above his left collarbone. He’d survive; they just had to wait for the poison to work its way through his system.
Mara wasn’t feeling very patient at the moment. They hadn’t been feeling patient since Karlach and Halsin half-carried Astarion back to the inn.
“I am perfectly fine, I assure you.”
Astarion’s words were belied by the sound of a body falling to the floor in his room.
“That’s it, I’m coming in.”
Mara opened the door, to find Astarion’s room as they had last seen it, and Astarion in the middle of the floor, trying to rise.
He looked up at Mara. His face had an ashen cast, lips and fingertips tinged with grey.
“I said,” he emphasised, “That I am fine.”
“You are also lying.” Mara knelt by Astarion and took him by the arm, helped him stand. He’d already changed into his bedclothes, shirt falling open where he hadn’t fastened the laces across his chest.
He was unsteady on his feet as Mara guided him towards the bed, and helped him into it.
Astarion half-collapsed against the pillows, and Mara pulled the sheets up to cover him.
“There,” he said weakly, “You can go.”
“So eager to get rid of me?”
“Please,” Astarion replied, trying to inject a purr into his voice and barely succeeding. “I’m afraid I haven’t the energy to share this bed, and if my hands are anything to tell by it, I’m far from my prettiest right now. Better for me to rest, and we can talk when I’m feeling more… active.”
Mara frowned. “This is about your looks?”
Astarion shrugged under the covers. “If I look as bad as I feel, then yes, it very much is. I’m aware of my own attractions – and which of my qualities are the most attractive. Right now, I suspect my looks are sorely lacking. It is entirely reasonable to offer you a polite way out until I’m more myself.”
“What we have isn’t just about your looks. I like you for more than that.” Mara caught genuine surprise on his face. “And unfortunately for you, being helped when you’re sick and getting tucked into bed is simply what happens when I take a lover.”
Astarion had already fed from them recently, so they did not offer their blood, even though part of them wanted to, since it might help him back to his full strength.
Mara gazed down at him – dark circles under his eyes even darker than usual, skin chalky where it wasn’t ashen-grey. He really did look terrible. He really did look beautiful.
“But,” Mara continued, “If you really want privacy right now… I’ll be in my room. Shout if you need anything, or if you start to feel worse.” His condition shouldn’t worsen, but if things suddenly went downhill, Mara would need to be there with him.
Mara leaned forward, brushed their lips against his in a gentle kiss, then swept his hair off his forehead and kissed that, too.
They pressed his hand where it rested on the covers. “I mean it. Don’t let pride hold you back from asking for help.”
Then they rose, and left him there.
*
Now that Mara was gone, Astarion lay on the bed, no longer suppressing the shivering. He could feel the poison working its way through him, but he had several hours yet before the effects were gone.
Of course, if he wanted company, he could always call Mara back…
Because that was Mara. Respectful enough to leave him alone when he asked for it. Caring enough to pick him up off the floor when he couldn’t stand. All that, while he certainly looked awful, and there hadn’t even been the prospect of sex as a reward for their efforts.
“What we have isn’t just about your looks. I like you for more than that.”
Some part of him had believed that his manipulation hadn’t been completely successful. That Mara saw him only as a casual fuck, an evening’s enjoyment, a sweetmeat tasted but never cherished.
But Mara cared.
It was good, of course. That had been the whole point of seducing them in the first place.
Then why did he feel so awful?
As he trembled in his bed, poison turning every sensation chilly, his thoughts ran back again and again to the warmth of Mara’s hands, Mara’s lips.
But what for? To call Mara back and lie in their warm embrace? He didn’t even have the energy to cuddle.
But Mara would come if he asked. Astarion knew that. Knew them well enough to know that if he called for them – or somehow managed to get out of bed and stagger over to their room – they would come, and they would hold him while he shivered, and apparently they wouldn’t care that he looked noticeably more dead than usual.
It seemed he’d somehow stumbled upon someone who actually, genuinely cared for him. As more than a thing, more than a pretty face.
He recalled the last time they’d been intimate together. Mara’s easy laughter. He’s assumed it was only a response to their own pleasure, but now… He believed it was more likely that they genuinely enjoyed his company.
His initial plan had been to wait until they got the tadpoles out of their heads, then go his own way, far away, where Cazador could not reach him. But that didn’t have to happen. There was nothing stopping him from travelling with Mara, once they were both free of the parasite.
This was not what he had seduced Mara for.
Alone in his room, Astarion ran a hand over his face and said, softly, “Shit.”