I've been chewing on this Astarion/Player Character relationship dynamic that exists in my head a li

[tozette]

Note: I named my player character 'Uggie' at character creation and we all just have to live with that.

---

Uggie relented eventually, as Astarion had known she must.

She was the kind of person who could be easily persuaded as to the advantages of sitting perfectly still under a tree and focusing on '''inner balance''' for seven hours without even a break to piss, but who could not be tempted out to a party for love or money.

While Astarion liked to think of himself as a manipulator of the highest order, he also knew that he had exactly one, totally foolproof, silver-bullet fallback tactic, and he used it now to convince his dear... darling... much beloved... something-or-other to come out with him.

He took his clothes off and just kind of assumed that all Uggie's grey matter would leak out her ears and he'd be able to persuade her to do anything he wanted while he was getting dressed again.

Like he said. Foolproof.

"Of course you don't have to come, darling," he said, pulling his shirt off like it was a prerequisite for digging through his wardrobe in his windowless bedroom. "Although you're welcome. I just need to borrow your eyes while I get ready."

"I don't have your aesthetic taste," she said, watching him throw his extremely expensive clothing around and then strip, fast and businesslike about it. She was standing, touching nothing, in his bedroom, arms crossed, leaning all her weight upon one hip. Her face was cynical. "You might not like what I think looks good."

Uggie's eyes were one of her best features, if you asked Astarion (nobody had). Their burning orange was striking, although it could attract unwelcome attention from... erm, really anyone who'd ever met a Lolth-sworn drow before.

Right now, those eyes were hot on his bare skin. All according to plan, then.

"Unless you've developed a mystical technique to make me visible in the mirror within the last five minutes, your aesthetic sensibilities — defective or otherwise — will have to do. Sit, I won't be a moment."

"What is this... event, again?" she wondered, perching on the edge of his bed. It was huge and dramatic, made up all in black with costly gold embroidery. There were wispy black curtains that veiled its edges. Even when they were drawn, they hid little.

He and Uggie were both mostly nocturnal creatures, and certainly occasional bedmates, but the unmitigated luxury of an enormous featherbed all for himself had been too great a temptation for Astarion to resist. Besides, the sprawling house they shared in the upper town was four storeys high and big enough that they could have slept in a different room every night for a year without repeating one.

Astarion had entered the housing fight on the side of hedonism, and he'd fought dirty, as he always did. Uggie wouldn't have even had a house, if the paperwork had proven too hard. And it would have, to her. She'd have given up when faced with the need to hire a conveyancer and gone to live naked in the woods or something.

Instead, they had the house. And he spent the spoils of their many dangerous and filthy adventures on dramatic clothes and sumptuous furnishings and fine wine that he could barely even stomach. Uggie never complained. In material terms, she was a simple thing: she wanted a warm spot to curl up in like a cat, and good food to give her friends when they each fetched up from their disparate corners of Feyrun. Everything else, he could manage with whatever degree of extravagance suited him.

"It's a soiree," he pronounced it with a sharp and mocking edge, quoting, "to celebrate the end of the Lady Rosamond's third marriage." The invitation said it was for her friends to enjoy the talents of a local acrobatic troupe — an intimate little party of, oh, forty or so. She was already on the hunt for spouse number four, it seemed. Or else perhaps a fling for the season. Who could say.

"Charming," murmured Uggie. She sounded cynical but she was watching him wiggle into his new trousers very intently.

The leather trousers were so tight that if Astarion's body composition had changed by a kilogram, he'd have had to take them back to the tailor. He'd be the first to admit that vampirism did come with a few tiny little advantages. Not many. But some.

"Do you need help with that?" Uggie wondered. "...Cornflour, perhaps?"

"No, thank you," he assured her primly. But she bit her lip, and he watched it from the corner of his eye. How gratifying. "Do you think the red shirt, or the white?"

"I'm partial to the white. You're dressing to impress, I see," she mused.

Of course she was partial to the white one.

The white shirt was the wrong choice, objectively. His entire body was the white of sun-bleached bones, and the pale shirt would only make him look more pallid than ever. But he well knew how exotic that still seemed to her — a fully grown elf, pale like an etoliated plant struggling in the Underdark.

She liked it when he looked... vulnerable.

Astarion threw the red shirt back in the closet and went with the wrong choice. He wasn't above indulging her. And he didn't look bad in white. He had it on really excellent authority that he didn't look bad in anything.

"I always dress to impress. I can't help it — I'm impressive."

Once the shirt was on, he touched his hair, gently, trying to discern how it was falling without the help of a reflection. He had plenty of practice, but it never seemed to get much easier. Once upon a time, "artfully dishevelled" had been a choice.

"Come here," Uggie commanded.

He came to stand before her at the foot of the bed, barefoot and half dressed between her thighs, close enough that there was barely an inch between them.

An awareness of hunger hung in the air between them, like smoke in a drawing room.

Uggie held his gaze and imperiously pointed down to the ground. Obediently, he sank to his knees on the thick rug.

She teased apart the tumbling waves of his pale hair with fingers so deft he almost couldn't feel it. Almost. He'd seen her stare a man in the face and slowly bend his arm until the elbow snapped with those same fingers, but her tugging on his scalp was shockingly gentle. She was warm, too. This close, with his breath on the hem of her linen undershirt, he could feel the living warmth radiating out from her skin.

"I'm sure the crowds of Lady Rosamond's admirers will appreciate all the effort you're putting forward," she offered neutrally. "There. Your hair looks — as it usually does."

"Flawless, then." He rocked back to his feet, sending her pale hair fluttering around her ears in the disturbed air.

"Yes," she agreed placidly. Her deft fingers traced the laces of his trousers. "Always."

She said it like it wasn't flattery, or even a concession to the fickle demand of his ego. Placid, matter of fact.

Yes. Flawless. Always.

Ugh. He hadn't even meant it seriously, flippant even as it rolled off his tongue. But she did. Her sincerity was mortifying.

"I'm sure I'll have my own share of the admirers," he went on, licking his lips as he looked down upon her. For a moment, he thought, Why go out when I could stay in and feed from her? But then he remembered that the whole point of this ploy was that he should get to do both. Perhaps at the same time, even.

"Of course," she agreed.

He smoothed out her collar and trailed his fingers over her neck — over the powerful pulse of her heart — and manfully refrained from lunging in for a taste when she didn't even flinch. He touched her jaw instead, her cheek, her brow bone when she obligingly closed her eyes for him, her nose...

"You know you'd be welcome to come with me," he said, then, touching her mouth and feeling the gently draught of her breath over her soft, dry lips. "I'd like it if you did."

"Why?" she said, unmoving. This was a far cry from her usual response, which was, Thank you for extending the invitation. No. The question meant he'd already won.

"I want you to watch," he admitted.

He could feel her smile as well as see it. The tension in her mouth communicated itself right through his fingertips.

"You want me to watch what? Is there some kind of show?"

"Yes, actually," he said distantly. "Acrobats."

"Mm-hm," she said, and waited.

And waited.

He struggled with it for a moment. Almost gagging on the mortification of admitting it, he went tightly on to say: "Sometimes I want you to watch other people watching me."

Her eyes opened again, just a crack. Their orange burned like an unholy fire.

"You want me to see everyone else admire you," she said slowly, thinking it through. "You want to show off — you want me to show you off, so I can watch you swanning around in front of everyone else. You want to remind me that other people think you're beautiful, too?" Her eyebrows quirked. "Or do you just want to include me in your hobbies?"

She knew him awfully well, didn't she?

He was defensive about it, suddenly. His neck prickled with heat and humiliation, and it turned him savage.

"You don't have to put it light that," he hissed, ruffled like a cat nursing a stepped-on tail. "All I want is to go out to a nice little party and render everyone mentally ill with lust or envy. I don't care which. Is that so much to ask?"

He pulled his hand away from her face.

She caught it, lightning-fast.

Monks, he thought sourly. A rogue always thought he was the deftest man in the room. And then: monks.

She laid a kiss on his knuckles, her mouth midnight-dark against the stark pallor of his hand.

"Alright. I'll come out with you. Watch the show." Her lip caught ever so gently on his skin. "And," she added, glancing up to meet his eyes, "the acrobats, too."

If he'd had enough blood to really blush, his face would have been flaming.

I planned this, he reminded himself. He'd invited her in to watch him undress and dress again, knowing it would make her persuadable. This is a victory.

He just... wasn't used to this route of persuasion, exactly. Usually, when Astarion took his clothes off as a persuasive technique, what followed was not so... fraught and complex.

"Well," he said, watching Uggie cradle his hand. She pressed her thumbs into his palm and drew them up towards his fingers. It was a pleasant pressure. "Well, good."

Astarion felt mollified, but perhaps not victorious, exactly. He couldn't help the nagging sensation that he'd given up more than he'd intended in this exchange, that he'd revealed more than was wise about his motives.

He had this feeling a lot. Every time he opened his mouth, some days.

...But if Astarion had really given something indefinable and vital up to her today, well, he'd given a lot of himself up to a lot of people. At least he knew Uggie'd take good care of it.