boxofmisfits | It's Not a Software Glitch

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It's Not a Software Glitch

Sometimes the crew of the Chimaera figured that high command sent them on missions to the Unknown Region just so they didn't have to acknowledge the alien Grand Admiral for a while. Thrawn just took such assignments in stride. Scouts had reported the discovery of a backwater planet near the Unknown Region, and their reports sounded rather strange. A world host to many different native sapient races, able to do strange things that science couldn't explain, which hadn't become space-faring or even technologically caught up to most of the galaxy.

Thrawn was to send a camera crew down to film the planet, both as intel and as potential propaganda material. 'See what these people are going through and how nice would it be if the Empire helped them?' and all that. Thus the Chimaera had taken residence over a large city, later identified as Baldur's Gate, much to the citizens' horror and awe. Apparently their world was no stranger to invaders from another realm.

It was during one of these filming sessions that the crew ran into a rather odd glitch. They filmed a small group of seven people, but only six were showing up on the camera. They could see the man with their own eyes, he was right there, and yet no matter what, he just wasn't showing up on camera. Immediately the group had gone to the tavern where they were staying and reported this to Thrawn. The only explanation was that it was a software glitch, unlike anything they'd seen before. That explanation didn't satisfy Thrawn.

Curiosity immediately piqued, Thrawn asked for a description of the man and the location of where they'd captured the footage, and off he went. He had a pair of Death Troopers, in civilian clothes, nearby just in case, and Thrawn himself wore a hood and sunglasses, which did little to hide his alien features.

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"So this language is known as "Basic" to you. Interesting."

On Toril it was known as Commonspeech, Common Tongue, or just Common. He wondered what it said about the evolution of language that it was the same where Thrawn and Eli were from too. Of course common was a trade language and most races of Faerûn had their own languages too.

He took the datapad when it was held out to him, and pressed the little button on the side, turning it on.

And then he squinted at the text on the screen, "I can't read this."

He had been able to select images on the one Thrawn gave him, but this alphabet was as alien to him as Tir'su script.

Eli looked over at Astarion's datapad, seeing that it was in Basic. "Hold on a sec." He held out his hand for Astarion to hand the device back to him. "Knowing Thrawn, he probably anticipated this and had our programmers do a bit of overtime." Because Thrawn thought of everything.

Bringing up the language menu, he scanned through the list that included languages such as Meese Caulf, Rodian, Huttese, until he saw one that caught his eye. Faerûn Common. He tapped on it and the letters immediately changed. Between making a usable font for the datapad and including it in the conversion program, Eli hoped the persons responsible got paid extra.

"There we go," He held it back out to Astarion.

"Programmers?" He said, tone questioning, and his brows furrowing to match as he took the datapad from him again, peering curiously at the screen.

Another word he wasn't familiar with. But given that the alphabet was now one he could understand, whatever they were they apparently worked rather quickly.

"Are they sages? Or perhaps fey?"

Like that odd printing press in the basement of the Baldur's Mouth Gazette.

He tilted his head, "Scribes?"

"Programmers work with computer languages and develop software." Realizing that would all go over Astarion's head, he thought for a second to put it into terms that the elf would understand.

"I guess you could say they're like artificers. Or maybe a combination of scribe and artificer. Basically, they make it so that the datapads can do what they can. Not just datapads either, but the holonet, computers," He pointed to the computer on Astarion's desk. "And mechanical beings we call droids. Everything on your datapad was made by a programmer."

Reaching over, he pointed to an icon of a magnifying glass. "If you want to look something up, you tap that and then type in what you want to find."

"I see."

He understood, he thought. If nothing else he was familiar with artificers. As for the mechanical beings that Eli spoke of, he was sort of familiar with those too- not intimately, just enough to not be surprised that they existed. Between the automaton in the Underdark and the Steel Watch, he could sort of picture what these droids might look like.

"Quite the useful little contraption, isn't it?" He mused, tapping at the icon just to see what it looked like.

It was another thing to acquaint himself with, of course, which meant that there would likely be homework involved but he had come prepared for that.

Perhaps it'd turn out to be a refreshing change of pace.

Holding the datapad with one hand, he reached to brush his curls back a bit more, tucking white strands more securely behind a pointed ear, "And often used by most people, it seems. It feels more comfortable and lightweight to hold than a book."

Astarion could imagine that plenty of people on Toril would love to get their hands on something like this.

"Yes, it's quite common, and useful," His mouth suddenly felt dry as he watched Astarion fiddle with his hair. Those curls, tracing his long ear. Eli found himself wanting to run his hands through that snow white hair, see if those curls bounced at all. Instead, he kept his hands planted on his knees.

"They can be used to take notes, look at star charts, store information, and all sorts of things." Stars, he sounded like a rambling schoolboy. How was it that this man made him feel like he was a virginal teenager again?

After two-hundred years, Astarion could more or less tell when people were looking at him without wanting to seem like they were looking at him. Having spent so long drawing people in with his appearance, noticing that sort of thing came as naturally to him as breathing came to the living.

He could also tell that the man was rambling. Nervous. Could hear the racing of his heart.

Still holding the datapad with one hand, he reached out to brush the tips of his fingers over where he could feel his pulse thudding away beneath his skin, up along his jawline and up to his ear so that he could tuck a few strands of dark hair back behind the man's ear.

His touch was light, though. Easy to pull away from. Casual even, somehow, "Breathe, darling. You can take your time explaining it to me. I'm not going anywhere."

Eli froze, allowing Astarion to touch him again. Those cool fingers seemed to leave icy trails along his skin, though the resulting gooseflesh wasn't just a result of said coolness. In the back of his mind, Eli told himself that there was no way Astarion didn't know what he was doing.

"I know..." Thrawn wasn't in a big hurry to introduce Astarion to the rest of the galaxy. Not until he got caught up on history and the way the Empire worked.

"You're so cold. Is that... a thing with elves?" He wasn't gifted with a Chiss's infrared vision, so he couldn't make a comparison.

"Well, it is a thing with this elf. You should ask Grand Admiral Thrawn if you want to know more."

Astarion was happy to flirt, but less happy to give a lesson on vampires and vampire spawn. Given that Eli hadn't commented on his fangs or his eyes even after Astarion had turned back into humanoid form, he could only assume it was another thing that Thrawn had neglected to inform him of. He supposed the coolness of his skin read as more unnatural than his teeth and the eyes.

He would have thought that Thrawn would hand over the book, at least.

Even if it did paint vampires in a bad light and would likely make Eli wary of him and not relatively at ease as he was now.

He pulled his hand back then, still looking quite relaxed and casual.

"It's somewhat of a long explanation and I fear I'd grow tired of hearing my own voice."

"Yeah... yeah, I suppose I might." Taking out a smaller datapad, Eli sent off a quick message to Thrawn: Tell me everything I need to know about Astarion. "Like I said, Thrawn isn't always the best at giving out all the facts."

Why Thrawn was so secretive about Astarion, he didn't know. Perhaps Astarion had asked him to not say anything. Or Thrawn was playing one of his games. The man was lucky that Eli liked him.

Thrawn had been looking at some rather dark artwork since they'd first left Faerûn, but Eli hadn't connected any dots. Thrawn knew what he'd been looking for and that was good enough for him at the time. But now he was starting to think he should have thought about it more.

His datapad chimed and Eli opened a text file that Thrawn had sent him, along with a message: I wondered when you were going to ask me about this. I apologize for keeping secrets from you. I wanted you to meet him without any preconceived opinions.

Dark eyes scanned the text file, his face scrunching up in confusion, before his eyes widened. So 'vampire' wasn't just the name of a bat species, like he'd assumed.

"You can't go out in daylight, can't enter homes without an invitation," He sounded intrigued, rather than scared. "You can only get sustenance from blood?" Still he didn't sound scared. Plenty of aliens had diets that sounded weird to him.

Thrawn had also included a book file, which he opened and skimmed. "I'm guessing vampires aren't very popular in Faerûn?"

Perhaps Thrawn was the type who liked playing games. Though he hadn't seemed that way when Astarion had been talking to him. Perhaps a bit socially awkward, but not so cruel that he would make his people jump through hoops or suffer the consequences. At the very least the two guards and the doctor had seemed perfectly at ease in his presence and not in the way that Astarion had made himself smile around Cazador for fear of being flayed should he display any unwanted emotion.

He did look curiously at the smaller datapad, though given that it was in that unknown script, he couldn't actually read what was on the screen.

"Oh, we're somewhere below mind flayers and Bhaalspawn. About on equal line with the drow in that parents scare their children with tales of vampires snatching them up out of the dark."

Astarion wasn't sure there actually was any ranking of who was feared the most- but he knew vampires were below Bhaalspawn at least.

"We are vicious bloodthirsty monsters, after all. Only good for clerics to test the sharpness of their stakes or the radiance of their spells."

He gave a vague gesture, "Of course I'm only a vampire spawn. Meaning I have few of their powers, but all of a vampire's hunger."

Astarion's tone was rather flippant and his expression bordered on playful, but there was an undercurrent of something else. Apprehension, perhaps. After all, even if Thrawn and that darling little doctor had been okay with him- fascinated with him even-, someone else might still get the idea to shove a stake through his heart.

Even if Eli didn't seem the type for that level of brutality.

"I'll take your word for it." He'd seen references to Bhaal, god of murder, and could surmise that Bhaalspawn were his offspring. "Seems that Thrawn wanted me to keep an open mind when meeting you. Get to know you and then find out about the vampire thing."

Just another reminder that Thrawn often fumbled when it came to social cues and realizing what was and wasn't appropriate. The man had a kind heart and compassion, but sometimes he was also a manipulative bastard.

"Still, if Thrawn trusts you, then I trust you. I think if you really wanted to hurt me you would have done so by now."

"Oh that is definitely an only here thing. Try that on Toril and a vampire would still get a stake through the heart for attempted seduction."

It wasn't like Astarion didn't understand, of course. Vampires were power-hungry and bloodthirsty beasts. Vampire spawn were bound to their master's will and weren't given a choice. They obeyed or they suffered. Had Cazador still been alive then he wouldn't be here. Or maybe he would have been ordered to lure their visitors back to the palace.

He didn't really want to think about that.

"I've been taught that it's rude to bite without asking though. And can sate myself on animal blood if humanoid is not an option."

Animal blood certainly didn't taste as good. But he could sustain himself on it if need be.

"I'm not much one for hurting people either- well... No one who doesn't have it coming, anyway."

"Whatever Thrawn's reasons were to keep this from me, I'm sure it made sense to him. Normally he doesn't play games like that. Not with his allies, anyway." His enemies, on the other hand, Thrawn often played them like a harpsichord. Of course, how often had Thrawn done things that hadn't made sense at the time? Whether it was a battle or trying to get someone to do what he wanted them to.

"Just saying, you could have easily hurt me but you chose not to. Ergo, I think I can trust you."

He fiddled with his hands, setting the datapad aside, some of that nervousness returning. "And, I didn't exactly have a problem with you flirting with me."

"Good to know."

Astarion wasn't above manipulating enemies either, so he could relate. Unlike Thrawn though, Astarion also didn't mind manipulating allies- but only when he thought he could get away with it. Or that he needed to.

So far he hadn't needed to.

Thrawn had given him everything he could want so far after all. Even the quarters he'd been given were comfortable and quite safe for a vampire like him with no possibility of any sunshine getting to him.

"You do remember I was a bat for most of this first meeting of ours? It is fairly difficult to hurt someone when you're the size of a powder puff."

Some of that flirtatiousness returned then as he tilted his head, "Good to know. I intend to continue- though only when you expect it least."

Flirtation lost some of its charm when he actually said he was flirting ahead of actually doing so.

"I will do this though," He said, bringing his fingertips up beneath the other man's chin so he could tilt his head up- leaning in as though to kiss him but instead turning so that he could press a kiss to his neck, just beneath his earlobe. It was fairly light and didn't linger, but it was certainly meant to be seductive with the way his breath ghosted over Eli's skin just before pulling back.

"Just saying, you don't have to worry about any stakes, or anyone harming you for attempted seduction." Not when he was so beautiful.

As Astarion leaned in, he closed his eyes and prepared for a kiss. Instead, he let out a soft gasp at the feel of lips on his neck. His lips were cool too, but now that he knew why, it was less worrying. All sorts of thoughts ran through his mind. Thoughts of teeth sinking into his neck. Or just more kisses.

"You prefer humanoid blood... if you want, I could... I mean, when you need to."

Astarion wasn't sure his brand of seduction worked on everyone- nor that his looks did even if he was fully aware that even as elves went, he was quite beautiful. But it was still good to have it reconfirmed that people outside of Toril wouldn't respond with torches and pitchforks and sharpened stakes. Or drag him out into the sun to burn.

Nothing to ponder now though, as his lips curled into a smile.

"I might just take you up on that."

Thrawn had already more or less guaranteed him frequent meals, of course, but it was nice to have someone else also offer their neck.

And given that he could see that Eli had anticipated a kiss, he obliged, leaning in to capture his lips.

They would be working closely together. It would be nice if their relationship was decent.

Eli closed his eyes once more, leaning into the kiss, relief flowing through him at getting that small bit of satisfaction. Astarion kissed good. Eli was years out of practice, but he tried not to think about that, and just let himself enjoy this.

Thrawn could call on him at any time, but Eli couldn't bring himself to care at the moment.

Feeling daring, Eli did what he'd wanted to do before, and gently ran his fingers through Astarion's hair, tracing his curls.

Astarion brought his hands up- cupping the other man's face but also making him tilt into the kiss- gently guiding him as he deepened it, running his tongue over his bottom lip before teasing at the delicate skin there with a sharp fang.

He breathed out through his nose at the touch to his hair- a pleased little noise to indicate that it was fine for Eli to bury his fingers in them if he wanted to.

A lot of people seemed to be fascinated by his curls and Eli was no exception, apparently.

Eli was a little out of practice with kissing- a lot like Thrawn, really- but Astarion was very good at it. And happy to remind him how it was done.

Eli moaned into the kiss, parting his lips and allowing Astarion entry, fingers tightening in his hair. His tongue met Astarion's, tentatively touching and stroking it. Even if he was out of practice, he was a quick learner.

Images of Astarion tearing his clothes off and ravaging him filled his thoughts. He chalked it up to Astarion's beauty and the fact that it had been a while since he'd gotten laid.

He only broke the kiss when he needed air, and even then he kept close. Close enough that his lips brushed Astarion's as he spoke. "Stars, but you are gorgeous."

A shiver ran down his spine as fingers tightened in his curls. Much like Thrawn had been, it felt like Eli was somewhat touch-starved too, judging by his reaction to the kiss. A consequence of their chosen professions, perhaps. And the way their society seemed to be quite rigid and proper compared to what he was used to. On Toril, Astarion was certain that people found ways to fool around even when on duty.

Didn't seem to be the case as much here. Time would tell.

As Eli broke the kiss to breathe, Astarion wasn't entirely unaffected himself- a dusting of a rather charming pink over the tips of those pointed ears- but he certainly had kept his cool more than the human had. His lips curled into a pleased smirk at the compliment- because he really was gorgeous and more people should say that- leaning in for a quick peck so as to not stop the other man from catching his breath, "You should see yourself right now. Utterly charming."

He tilted his head, "And thinking dirty thoughts, I think, judging by how your heart is racing."

Fraternizing was generally frowned upon within the Empire, even if some officers and ensigns found a way to get off anyway. Between his Wild Space roots and connections to Thrawn, he hadn't exactly been very popular and nobody was lining up to sleep with him. Even if Thrawn was a Grand Admiral now, Eli found that a lot of the men on the ship weren't up to his standards.

But Astarion, something about him just made Eli stir. Like he was worth getting in trouble over.

He smiled at the kiss, and leaned in to peck his lips right back. "That obvious huh? I uh... it's been a while."

"I'm sure it'd be less obvious to someone without my advantages," Astarion said, looking entirely amused. He could hear the rush of blood and the beating of his heart, after all. One of the the few benefits to being a vampire- depending on who you asked, of course.

It was distracting sometimes. Depending on how hungry he was at the time.

At the moment though, it was amusing.

The corners of his lips quirked up into a smile as he leaned in to press another kiss to his lip, then to his jaw, then to his neck- tilting his head just so to tease at his skin with those sharp fangs just above where he could feel his pulse.

"Here, then?"

That voice of his oozed seduction, and he lifted his head just slightly to look up at the other man with half-lidded eyes, "Or shall we break in the bed and mess up the sheets you only just got done putting on?"

His smile turned somewhat more playful, "Of course I'm open to suggestions too."

On the floor, against the wall. He wasn't picky. Well, he was but not about this.

Eli smiled stupidly at the feel of Astarion's lips on him, then shuddered slightly as those fangs touched his skin. There was a bit of fear at the thought, just because of the initial pain that would occur. The file said that vampire bites only hurt a little at first, and then numbed, at least.

The urge to pull Astarion close, press his face to his neck, came over him. The rational side of him knew that he was being seduced, and he was falling for it. But stars, it had been so long...

Even through his lusty haze, he heard Astarion's suggestions. "Hm... the bed, I think."

Tempting as it was to suggest something more adventurous, the bed sounded ideal at the moment. Lucky for them, the laundry crew was tight-lipped and Thrawn made sure they got the good detergent, so they wouldn't have to worry about suspicious stains.

"The bed it is," Astarion hummed, pulling away from him to stand up only to reach down and grab Eli by the thighs to pick him up- encouraging him to wrap his legs around his waist so that he could carry him over to the bed- setting him down on it and pushing him back so that he could crawl over him and slip between his legs, firmly pushing them apart with a knee.

While he kept himself braced with one hand, the other moved to tug at Eli's clothes to work the collar of his uniform open at least while his mouth found its way back to his neck- kissing and nipping at the skin and seeking out where he was most sensitive.

Maybe he should actually check that they had lubrication on hand for later, but for now he was quite content with continuing as he was.

He had a vial of it in his bag if nothing else and it wouldn't be the first time if he had to pad naked across a room to fetch lubrication mid-foreplay if it came to that.

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