[I will . . . and for a precious few seconds, Leto does nothing but beam up at him. Joy (and it is joy, so rarely felt and so all the brighter for it) suffuses through him, the strangest (and sweetest) tempered excitement thundering in time with his pounding heart— for of course he'd expected no other answer, but it's one thing to know and another to hear it articulated. I will, in this world and every other, and he doesn't have to urge himself to remember, for he knows he always will. Every word. Every cadence. The way Astarion's eyes look, softened crimson eyes framed by dark lashes; the way his hand feels cupping his cheek, cold and delicate and perfect.
You're mine and I'm yours, and they have denoted it a thousand different ways. Through tokens (oh, he misses that bloody cloth so much) and possessive monikers, vows of devotion and promises of adoration. They have sworn it through actions and words both, intimacy and adoration growing stronger by the day— stretching back even before Rialto, all the way to when Astarion had first fallen into Thedas, for their intimacy is marked by so much more than mere sex.
But there's something so satisfyingly inevitable about a ring. It's you. It's always been you, of course they were destined to be bound together in every way that they can, through blood and vows both. The weight of a ring on his finger was as inevitable as his chasing Astarion through the Fade: it could not have gone any other way.
And when he speaks, he can't help but still smile: his lips irrepressibly curled up in the most foolish grin, his gaze full of stars as he stares up at his vampire. His beloved. His everything, and soon all the world will know it.]
Good.
[Murmured as he tips his head up, butting their foreheads together in a fond nuzzle once more. Good, a laugh in his voice and so much adoration in his heart that it aches, his nuzzling fierce and insistent.
And somewhere in there, he murmurs:]
I have never had a last name before. But Leto Ancunín has a nice ring to it.
[And afterwards . . . oh, but one thing at a time, for he has not forgotten Astarion's own proposal.]
IT'S PERFECT
You're mine and I'm yours, and they have denoted it a thousand different ways. Through tokens (oh, he misses that bloody cloth so much) and possessive monikers, vows of devotion and promises of adoration. They have sworn it through actions and words both, intimacy and adoration growing stronger by the day— stretching back even before Rialto, all the way to when Astarion had first fallen into Thedas, for their intimacy is marked by so much more than mere sex.
But there's something so satisfyingly inevitable about a ring. It's you. It's always been you, of course they were destined to be bound together in every way that they can, through blood and vows both. The weight of a ring on his finger was as inevitable as his chasing Astarion through the Fade: it could not have gone any other way.
And when he speaks, he can't help but still smile: his lips irrepressibly curled up in the most foolish grin, his gaze full of stars as he stares up at his vampire. His beloved. His everything, and soon all the world will know it.]
Good.
[Murmured as he tips his head up, butting their foreheads together in a fond nuzzle once more. Good, a laugh in his voice and so much adoration in his heart that it aches, his nuzzling fierce and insistent.
And somewhere in there, he murmurs:]
I have never had a last name before. But Leto Ancunín has a nice ring to it.
[And afterwards . . . oh, but one thing at a time, for he has not forgotten Astarion's own proposal.]