your sharpest teeth

Tags

Original Male Character, Ending Spoilers, Dark Urge Spoilers, Established Relationship, Biting, Bitemarks, A touch of primal play, Wrestling/brawling as sex, A brief cameo by Mother Superior Shadowheart, Dark Urge-typical violent thoughts

Summary

The worms are gone. The Urges are gone. The need to bite is not.

Written for a kinktober 2024 prompt, ‘bruises or bitemarks’

Notes

click for visrefs of Rune! ALT: a screenshot of a half-elf character in Baldur's Gate 3, with hair shaved on the sides and tied back, pale eyes, fair skin, and dark eyemakeup. He has a scar over his left eye, and on his neck. He's facing the camera and looking slightly up, frowning slightly.
ALT: a screenshot of a half-elf character in Baldur's Gate 3, with hair shaved on the sides and tied back, pale eyes, fair skin, and dark eyemakeup. He has a scar over his left eye, and on his neck. He's in three-quareter view, showing red streaks in his ponytail
ALT: a screenshot of a half-elf character in Baldur's Gate 3, with hair shaved on the sides and tied back, pale eyes, fair skin, and dark eyemakeup. He has a scar over his left eye, and on his neck. He has black illithi veins covering the left side of his face.


The worms are gone. The Urges are gone. The need to bite is not.

It makes his teeth itch, but teeth can’t itch—or so Shadowheart tells him when he complains to her about it, because she’s the closest thing to a healer he actually trusts.

“Though perhaps if you cleaned them once in a while, and ate something other than meat all the time,” she says, wrinkling her nose at him over her desk, “you might feel a little less grim.”

Rune leaves the House of Grief in a huff, molars grinding like millstones. Two months ago he could wrench his skull in half to let loose the monster curled up inside, scratch away his discomfort with real teeth, bared and brutal. Now there’s only him left; fragile flesh and a single, scarred body. The black veins of his illithid indulgences crawl over his left side, an ugly, powerless reminder of the choices he made that brought him to this state: unchained, unsatisfied, and scratching his teeth.

The walk home takes him past a beggar (easy to strangle, left breathing), a pair of kids hawking copies of the Gazette (young spines have a particularly satisfying snap to them, which remains unheard), and a stray cat (skull small enough to crush in one hand, still intact). His nails dig grooves into his palms as he walks on. The thoughts aren’t Urges. He knows this because he can tell they’re thoughts, see around them, turn them over in his mind and decide not to make them real. He can even indulge in them, expand the imagining any way he likes and know that when he’s done it won’t have come true.

He might be drooling, or have a hard-on in the middle of the market, but he won’t be covered in blood or gnawing on a freshly cracked ribcage.

The place he shares with Astarion in Eastway is small, with neatly boarded-up windows and an interior more suited to an Upper City mansion than a narrow, two-floor townhouse. Most of the decor is stolen—from Cazador’s palace and Gortash’s office; from Moonrise Towers and the House of Hope and the myriad other places they looted over the course of stopping the Grand Design. Mismatched, in an elegant sort of way. Astarion bores easily during the day now he can’t venture outside, and whiles away the hours arranging things just so. Rune doesn’t pretend to understand it, but nods and makes approving noises when his vampire explains the latest adjustments to the furniture.

He’s sprawled on the couch when Rune returns, statue-still in the half reverie, half corpse-coma he sinks into if he takes a nap while the sun’s still up. Rune kicks off his boots because Astarion doesn’t like him tracking mud on their pilfered rugs, then hangs up his weapon belt because in here, in their private little gloom, he’s more comfortable without it. Well, he is when the door’s locked.

The click of his key rouses Astarion, who sits up, running a hand through his curls with a cat-like yawn that shows off his fangs. “How’s our favourite pen-pushing Mother Superior?”

“Busy.” Rune drops onto the couch in a manner that makes both it and Astarion let out an oof of protest. Scratches a canine. “Didn’t have answers.”

“I don’t know what you expected, darling, there’s nothing wrong with your teeth,” Astarion says. “Plenty wrong with you, but that’s another story.”

Rune growls. Astarion grins—he likes his game of riling the dog. Without the others around, Rune’s the only one he’s got to needle. Fortunately for him, Rune likes the game too. He growls again and lunges, pinning Astarion to the couch. Cold hands wrap bruise-tight around his wrists—a shift and a shove and they thud to the floor, Rune’s spine protesting as it smashes against the unforgiving floorboards. They wrestle much as they did the day they met; grappling and rolling, neither quite able to gain the upper hand and knocking over a good deal of Astarion’s carefully arranged trinkets in the process.

“You always make such a mess,” he complains, breathless despite not needing to breathe. Rune snarls at the reprimand and Astarion snarls back, which floods his chest with warmth. It’s a mix of affection and desire absent all lust which he doesn’t entirely understand. All he knows is it’s what he wants, and Astarion seems to want it too, or at least like it.

He surges up, forcing Astarion off of him and into the wall. A painting left of Astarion’s head wobbles with the impact. Their eyes flick to it; a seascape, moody and dramatic, a burgeoning storm rising behind a galleon with sails straining.

“Don’t destroy that one, please, it took a lot of effort to steal it from Minthara,” Astarion says. His voice is raspy, his eyes the thinnest ring of red around the wide, dark voids of his pupils. His shirt, not fastened properly to begin with, gapes open, half fallen off one shoulder, exposing his chest and a smooth, pale slice of shoulder. Rune’s teeth itch.

It’s not an Urge, it’s just a desire. Which means he doesn’t have to repress it.

“Ow!”

Astarion yelps as Rune sinks his teeth into the meat of his shoulder. He doesn’t try to break away though, instead hooking a foot around Rune’s ankle—not to pull him closer in some desperate lust, but in an attempt to knock him off balance. Rune lets it happen, keeping his teeth locked in place as he staggers backwards, dragging Astarion across the room. The couch complains loudly at the force of their landing; Astarion, pinned under him, makes another sound of pain. The good kind, throaty and tight.

Skin breaks. Blood spills into his mouth, not quite warm enough to be living, tasting of old metal and fresh meat. Rune growls, a deeper rumble than before. Shakes his head, breath huffing through his nose. Astarion takes hold of his hair, winding the long tail around his wrist, and tugs. Rune doesn’t let go. Another tug, firmer.

“Off,” Astarion says sharply, and Rune’s mouth opens before conscious thought gets anywhere near it. He sits up, wiping bloody drool from his chin. Pokes his teeth.

They don’t itch anymore.

Astarion squirms out from beneath him, as flushed as a vampire can get, grimacing at the bloody bitemark. “Wretched man.”

“Not sorry,” Rune says. His vampire smiles and slips a hand around the back of his head to pull him into a languid kiss.

“Not looking for an apology, my love. Just a chance to take my turn.” He shifts forwards, tugging Rune’s neck to his mouth. “Now come here.”


Notes

boyfriends who use each other as chew toys <3