[Dizzy with the slow drag of intimate play, fingertips wound as loosely as his mind around the pipe he's snuffed out and the dagger he's kept close, there are things Astarion expects to come knocking in the minutes before he starts to slide his blade against tattooed skin— a process that isn't at all new for him, considering the snapshot flicker of a thousand gruesome memories kept tamped down in his skull, slowly replaced by the better acts of hunting slavers and venatori and all gruesome refuse therein: where peeled-up flesh becomes play rather than torture; blood becomes a byproduct of freedom rather than something he watches pool limply on an open floor, untouched. And with said freedom came Leto. Came the thrilling high of sporting violence and tenderness alike, capable of slipping through rib bones as surely as any blade. Theirs. All theirs.
And so really, he expects raw coyness. Same as it ever is when they're like this.
Something involving more grins. More teady hands and bracing fingers and a joke here or there about petty things like payback. Possibly the addition of sly conversation, or jokes about what's to come, or even quips about the crassness of initials hacked into muscle rather than tree bark, like the childish things they are.
He doesn't expect that turn towards him.
He doesn't expect beautiful.
The rest is deflecting, resigned. Playful and sweet and entirely on point— charming through chatter over costumes— as if all of what was said before it was just as commonly conversational as simple fact: the sky is blue— you're beautiful; water is wet— I'll never tire of the sight of you. And while vanity undoubtedly has a home in Astarion, it's still an empty shelf inside him: picked over well before he laid eyes on Fenris, robbed again and again and again over two centuries. Worn woodgrain scraped away into featureless gouges.
All he can do is stare. And then recover— smiling. Scoffing. Doeishness cut off when he shuts his eyes and shakes his head with all the fondness of listening to some young, precocious thing tell him something he hadn't been expecting, this fearsome monster with sharp teeth made for eating. This spurred-on creature who loves wickedness for its ability to soothe, lifting a knife between its claws in lieu of a wedding band. And how many times have they kissed with copper on their tongues? How often has he torn into this bared back— this beautiful bared back beneath him— with talons or teeth for the sake of wild-eyed rutting?
Again. Again. Just one more time, then. Don't be distracted. Pressing the hilt more securely in the gap between his thumb and palm, using his spare hand to press Leto down into the mattress, pinning him at the junction between neck and shoulder. Firm, but only protectively so. He's practiced enough to know how to ride that razor thin line.]
Stay still enough for me to get any of this done and I'll wear anything you like, you ceaseless little menace.
[He remembers those scars. His only undeniable balm in the depths of paranoia, his namesake— the comfort of knowing that if he was nothing more than a lie, a dream, like everyone in Riftwatch swore— that they would at least outlive him. That if Leto ever forgot again, they'd be there. I made those the next introduction shared as strangers on a street in Orlais or Antiva, you have two notch marks on your spine, and I can tell you how they happened. And it wouldn't be so nightmarish that next time around, having to sit down and share a bottle and murmur his consolations over a mind that had forgotten where it was or who it was beside.
They're important.
They mattered.
They were what Leto chose to keep, and it isn't just the selfish need to exist somewhere beyond himself that has his own blade hovering above softly breathing contours: the elf beneath him comfortably resigned— silver hair tussled against thick pillows, lithe body laid out at smooth angles, musculature visible from the potency of age, not flexing. Not afraid.
It's a simple thing, to lift his dagger over them again. It's a simple thing, to bear down and feel that tissue give way without resistance— only the sudden well of blood bubbling bright around sharp silver; his blades are kept pristine, he spares nothing for their fineness, honed like wicked razors. His second set of teeth. His secondary set of claws. It's easy to cut. to draw two lines. To etch his name by way of that parallel pair of cuts, pushing deep through tissue towards bone— it's easy. It's so easy.
iliad the Return part II
And so really, he expects raw coyness. Same as it ever is when they're like this.
Something involving more grins. More teady hands and bracing fingers and a joke here or there about petty things like payback. Possibly the addition of sly conversation, or jokes about what's to come, or even quips about the crassness of initials hacked into muscle rather than tree bark, like the childish things they are.
He doesn't expect that turn towards him.
He doesn't expect beautiful.
The rest is deflecting, resigned. Playful and sweet and entirely on point— charming through chatter over costumes— as if all of what was said before it was just as commonly conversational as simple fact: the sky is blue— you're beautiful; water is wet— I'll never tire of the sight of you. And while vanity undoubtedly has a home in Astarion, it's still an empty shelf inside him: picked over well before he laid eyes on Fenris, robbed again and again and again over two centuries. Worn woodgrain scraped away into featureless gouges.
All he can do is stare. And then recover— smiling. Scoffing. Doeishness cut off when he shuts his eyes and shakes his head with all the fondness of listening to some young, precocious thing tell him something he hadn't been expecting, this fearsome monster with sharp teeth made for eating. This spurred-on creature who loves wickedness for its ability to soothe, lifting a knife between its claws in lieu of a wedding band. And how many times have they kissed with copper on their tongues? How often has he torn into this bared back— this beautiful bared back beneath him— with talons or teeth for the sake of wild-eyed rutting?
Again. Again. Just one more time, then. Don't be distracted. Pressing the hilt more securely in the gap between his thumb and palm, using his spare hand to press Leto down into the mattress, pinning him at the junction between neck and shoulder. Firm, but only protectively so. He's practiced enough to know how to ride that razor thin line.]
Stay still enough for me to get any of this done and I'll wear anything you like, you ceaseless little menace.
[He remembers those scars. His only undeniable balm in the depths of paranoia, his namesake— the comfort of knowing that if he was nothing more than a lie, a dream, like everyone in Riftwatch swore— that they would at least outlive him. That if Leto ever forgot again, they'd be there. I made those the next introduction shared as strangers on a street in Orlais or Antiva, you have two notch marks on your spine, and I can tell you how they happened. And it wouldn't be so nightmarish that next time around, having to sit down and share a bottle and murmur his consolations over a mind that had forgotten where it was or who it was beside.
They're important.
They mattered.
They were what Leto chose to keep, and it isn't just the selfish need to exist somewhere beyond himself that has his own blade hovering above softly breathing contours: the elf beneath him comfortably resigned— silver hair tussled against thick pillows, lithe body laid out at smooth angles, musculature visible from the potency of age, not flexing. Not afraid.
It's a simple thing, to lift his dagger over them again. It's a simple thing, to bear down and feel that tissue give way without resistance— only the sudden well of blood bubbling bright around sharp silver; his blades are kept pristine, he spares nothing for their fineness, honed like wicked razors. His second set of teeth. His secondary set of claws. It's easy to cut. to draw two lines. To etch his name by way of that parallel pair of cuts, pushing deep through tissue towards bone— it's easy. It's so easy.
It's always been easy for him.
Everything is finally in place.]