illithidnapped

Astarion sees that shift. Watches shifting pain roll through an already tired frame. He doesn’t need to guess to understand how that struggle is silently playing out.

And when it’s done, he smiles.

Quiet. Lopsided.

“Mhm.” A breathy laugh, rather than an affirmation. Just as muted as it should be when he finds his way to sitting down across the edge of his bed, tugging off his gloves. His shirt, exposing the deeply knotted scarwork running across his back as he stoops down to fish up something lighter from a heap laid out just beside his heels.

“Still,” an absent start, his attention occupied with redressing, “you can come here whenever you like, until you find someone else to hold your hand.”

It’s not an offer he’d make, normally. One only given to three other people after half a year in Thedas.

“Just remember that if I don’t answer, I’m very, very busy.”

Not saying with what, but again. Math.

“So. Best get to work on that little ad of yours.”

Astarion always seems to surprise. Like the shifting of light, there are always newer sides to him, different subtleties. That soft laugh. The gentle humoring of Jim's, admittedly, incredibly stupid joke. He's not sure what he expected of that — of coming here, at all — but it wasn't this.

And it wasn't, either, the horror of scarring across Astarion's back. Entrusted to him so casually, so carelessly, that the only thing he can do is swallow very hard and clench his hands into fists in the pillow he holds, releasing a burst of fragrance. He knows that Astarion has suffered. He suspects he'll never really grasp the extent of it.

"Thank you," he says instead of anything else, not so softly as to not be heard. What a thing it is, to know pain, and to make a small bubble of safety. Not just for oneself, but for others too.

It's not long after this that they settle to attempt sleep. It's not so long after that, that sleep actually arrives. And when daylight starts to stream in through the windows, there's a knocking at the door.

It's a narrow exchange, given that it takes Astarion all of five-ish steps to reach the doorway from his bed. Iron doors subsequently cracked open, muted voices muttering for a few beats before Astarion pulls back inside, bolting the door (just as he always does, no chances taken) and pacing his own way back to the edge of his bed, one leg half-nosing in under heavy covers as he turns over a single letter in his hand.

Unfolded and untangled, thin parchment pulled from packaging, and the small little slip of paper is—

Oh.

Oh.

Something in his expression twisting. Blinking once, twice, and the note's so small that there can't be that much written on it to have him poring over it so many times, but it must. Or it seems to. Because Astarion does.

The length of time is enough for him to wake, going from bleary confusion (where is he, again?) to something resembling alertness. He sits up, first propped up an elbow and then sitting properly, blinking, as he takes in that long pause.

"What is it?"

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