[How many times has he felt Astarion go rigid in his arms?
His body shaking for how stiff he's gone as they huddle beneath the sheets and he grips Leto's hand like a lifeline, white-knuckled and desperate, his voice haunted as he recounts tortures the likes of which Leto can scarcely imagine. His skin soaked in sweat as he wakes up screaming from a nightmare that he refuses to recount; his muscles coiled tight with terror and paranoia even as Leto works to soothe him, settle him, fingers in his hair and a strong arm wrapped around his frame, it's all right, he isn't here, I have you, I have you, it's all right (and the mantra is so important, even though it never once works). Late-night confessions whispered between kisses or idle facts offered up with seeming glibness, but always, always, there is that stiffness.
Leto feels it now.
The cold little form nestled against his chest becomes a dead weight, so silent and still that even Leto's enhanced hearing can't discern him. It's only the most minute of shivers that let him know that his mate is still with him, and even then, they're all but imperceptible. Astarion is terrified— and it does not take a genius to understand why.
So these are his siblings.
Master, Master, and Leto forgets all he's ever known about Cazador's indomitable power. Every time that title slips past their lips is another damning mark against them, deference both a pathetic show of loyalty and a blazing warning sign: they will not hesitate to turn him in. Cazador hunts his mate still, and it's nothing they didn't know, but it's so different to think it in the abstract and to have dizzying confirmation. They will take him, and it's a shrill warning, a piercing shriek as his heart thunders, they will steal him away, they will hurt him, they will torture him—
And then rising out of the abyss, a voice made of steel hisses: they will not touch him.
It isn't a declaration of intent but fact: he will not let it happen. He will not let anything come close to touching Astarion.
He's shifted without realizing it: his stance now alert and low, his ears pinned back against his skull and his teeth bared in silent, seething snarl. He knows better than to growl— to snarl— to bark and bite and tear, ripping into soft flesh and ravaging this threat until it's no more, scaring it off or killing it with one powerful bite— he knows better, he knows better—
But it's so hard to fight instinct.
For a long, sickly moment Leto teeters between his rational mind and his animalistic one, staring up at the two figures before him. But attacking won't help— and so though his every instinct screams to leap forward, Leto jerks one paw back, then another. And another, his movements jerky, his eyes locked on those figures. He's silent as the grave as he retreats, stepping so carefully to avoid jewelry clinking, and it's not that he makes a sound. It's not that he is trying to be seen. There's nothing that gives him away, nothing that should alert either of those figures—
But at the last possible second, the drow turns her head, her blazing eyes coolly intelligent as she stares at him. And though she does not make a sound to alert her companion, she sees him, he has no doubt. A beast that doesn't belong adorned in jewelry and with a heavy parcel slung around his neck, but there's nothing that might give Astarion away. There's nothing.
And just as her mouth opens (to say what? but what could she possibly say; doctor dalyria doesn't believe in such fanciful notions as like calling to like, and yet—) Leto turns tail and runs.
Dashing down alleyways and darting beneath passing carts, uncaring for being seen, uncaring for his own comfort or safety, running til his paws ache and his barrel chest heaves for air— for the more distance between them, the better.]
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His body shaking for how stiff he's gone as they huddle beneath the sheets and he grips Leto's hand like a lifeline, white-knuckled and desperate, his voice haunted as he recounts tortures the likes of which Leto can scarcely imagine. His skin soaked in sweat as he wakes up screaming from a nightmare that he refuses to recount; his muscles coiled tight with terror and paranoia even as Leto works to soothe him, settle him, fingers in his hair and a strong arm wrapped around his frame, it's all right, he isn't here, I have you, I have you, it's all right (and the mantra is so important, even though it never once works). Late-night confessions whispered between kisses or idle facts offered up with seeming glibness, but always, always, there is that stiffness.
Leto feels it now.
The cold little form nestled against his chest becomes a dead weight, so silent and still that even Leto's enhanced hearing can't discern him. It's only the most minute of shivers that let him know that his mate is still with him, and even then, they're all but imperceptible. Astarion is terrified— and it does not take a genius to understand why.
So these are his siblings.
Master, Master, and Leto forgets all he's ever known about Cazador's indomitable power. Every time that title slips past their lips is another damning mark against them, deference both a pathetic show of loyalty and a blazing warning sign: they will not hesitate to turn him in. Cazador hunts his mate still, and it's nothing they didn't know, but it's so different to think it in the abstract and to have dizzying confirmation. They will take him, and it's a shrill warning, a piercing shriek as his heart thunders, they will steal him away, they will hurt him, they will torture him—
And then rising out of the abyss, a voice made of steel hisses: they will not touch him.
It isn't a declaration of intent but fact: he will not let it happen. He will not let anything come close to touching Astarion.
He's shifted without realizing it: his stance now alert and low, his ears pinned back against his skull and his teeth bared in silent, seething snarl. He knows better than to growl— to snarl— to bark and bite and tear, ripping into soft flesh and ravaging this threat until it's no more, scaring it off or killing it with one powerful bite— he knows better, he knows better—
But it's so hard to fight instinct.
For a long, sickly moment Leto teeters between his rational mind and his animalistic one, staring up at the two figures before him. But attacking won't help— and so though his every instinct screams to leap forward, Leto jerks one paw back, then another. And another, his movements jerky, his eyes locked on those figures. He's silent as the grave as he retreats, stepping so carefully to avoid jewelry clinking, and it's not that he makes a sound. It's not that he is trying to be seen. There's nothing that gives him away, nothing that should alert either of those figures—
But at the last possible second, the drow turns her head, her blazing eyes coolly intelligent as she stares at him. And though she does not make a sound to alert her companion, she sees him, he has no doubt. A beast that doesn't belong adorned in jewelry and with a heavy parcel slung around his neck, but there's nothing that might give Astarion away. There's nothing.
And just as her mouth opens (to say what? but what could she possibly say; doctor dalyria doesn't believe in such fanciful notions as like calling to like, and yet—) Leto turns tail and runs.
Dashing down alleyways and darting beneath passing carts, uncaring for being seen, uncaring for his own comfort or safety, running til his paws ache and his barrel chest heaves for air— for the more distance between them, the better.]