illithidnapped | INBOX II

Mm. I enjoy a ruffian, now and then.

[ Did enjoy a ruffian, now and then, before everyone but Byerly lost their lustre.

Anyway— ]

Is that safe? Hightown.

[ Elves in Hightown. Bastien knows—he talks to people, he listens well—that Fenris lives there, so it’s no huge leap to imagine where in Hightown Astarion might be staying. And he knows Fenris must know Kirkwall better than any of them.

Still. ]

[A different sort of ruffian, then.

Thought in the beat before his voice shifts away from softness into wryness in its entirety:]

Ohh, you're not worried about us, are you?

I know you are very fast and very fierce.

[ His tone of voice—a touch of sing-song recitation, an equal touch of flatness—makes that complimentary allowance actually mean I am worried anyway. ]

[His own laugh in response is sincere, if nothing else. No false guard or lilting, performative tone. Proof enough that in his own way, he's actually touched by it, that concern.]

And shockingly handsome, too. Can't forget the most important detail.

Between my sharp eyes and his...oddly bare feet [what is it with native elves, huh] that are admittedly probably very good at running, we'll see gilded trouble coming from well far away, I'm sure.

And it's not as if you won't be looking out for us, too.

[And maybe it's unfair to circle back now that they're so far out, but Astarion's conversational tides travel as a habit: with all pressing topics pushed aside, the one detail that's stuck in his head since it was first mentioned is the only thing left clinging to the tip of his tongue.]

...you know, you mentioned your first love, before.

What ever happened to him?

[Not that they couldn't have drifted apart, but Thedas is a tumultuous place, and Astarion imagines it wasn't always easy, living in it as Bastien did.]

[ On his end of the crystal, Bastien’s concerned frown has begun to stretch into a smile, at the jokes and at the fact that Astarion thinks (correctly) Bastien would look out for them. And for Fenris, sure. Bastien hardly knows him, but for Riftwatch’s sake. For Astarion’s.

The question doesn’t make him stop smiling. It makes him smile wider. It’s reflex. Easier and often less suspicious to channel a grimace into a grin than to do nothing at all. ]

Oh.

[ He rubs the smile off his face with his hand. He shouldn’t be caught off guard by this. The circling-back. Bastien does it to people often enough, himself, and Astarion’s done it before. But still. ]

He died. He was hanged—two years ago now.

We hadn’t been close for years before that.

[ A footnote to avoid pity, to avoid claiming any portion of grief larger than rightfully belongs to him. Vincent had a wife. Vincent had three children. They were there when he died—the oldest, at least—and Bastien wasn’t. ]

The lesson to take from this, my young old vampire, [ is lighter, in a gallows humor kind of way, ] is never move on and never get [ mostly ] over anything, or someone will die.

[Strangely enough, Astarion doesn’t laugh.

Mostly because it’s difficult for him to imagine what it might be like, standing in Bastien’s softer soled shoes. Because he doesn’t like the idea of it, he realizes suddenly. Falling for someone the way he’s fallen for Fenris, watching him sink onto someone else’s arms—

Losing him, piece by piece, until it all means next to nothing in hindsight.

So maybe Bastien needs that humor; Astarion can’t be sure.

And he doesn’t ask.

Not about that, at least. His voice still lingering on the edge of lightness when he gives in to a different train of thought:]

Oddly specific, hanging.

[Was he a thief? A mercenary or swindler, perhaps— or just a man unlucky. Caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.]

Yes.

[ That's nearly all he says. The instinct to stonewall, to take advantage of other people's willingness to leave things alone. He thinks Astarion, who has in the past tolerated only so much investigation and inspection before his mood has twisted sharply to prickly darkness or sharp-toothed humor to force a subject closed, would understand.

But Astarion has been so awfully honest today.

So, still grimly good-humored: ] A little sedition goes a long way.

[ That is all he's going to say. There's a noise, quiet for him but perhaps loud for Astarion, as he taps his fingernail on the sending crystal twice, like a punctuation mark. ]

I am sorry about his memory loss. That must be...

[ Terrible. Of course. ]

Do you think there is any hope he will recover from it?

I don’t know. [And that’s honest, too. An equally accomodating shift from one brittle topic to the next, much like navigating broken glass while barefoot.

He trusts Bastien enough now to make the effort, even if it is an uncomfortable one.]

It’s possible. But he’s lost— [ah, no. That’s Fenris’ business. Leto’s business. And it isn’t his story to tell.] a great deal, overall.

And it’s not as if our story was any different before then, compared to now.

[His heart didn’t beat for Astarion when they fist met. It doesn’t beat for him now.] I suppose I should be grateful for that. Could’ve been worse.

[Ah. Glass. Just there.]

And if nothing else, he still remembers the Champion of Kirkwall, so I imagine he’s still quite useful to Riftwatch and all its diplomatic needs.

[ Bastien hums in agreeable acknowledgment. Since they're being awfully honest, he won't claim not to give a damn about Fenris' usefulness or connections. The stakes are the world, etc. etc. etc. But that part is not what is interesting at the moment. ]

Was she his type?

[ Was that the emphasis of respect or the emphasis of jealous resentment? ]

[Being Astarion, the latter is the safest bet... and also the correct one, technically.]

Maybe. [He never asked, ghosts being what they are. The way culture in Thedas tends to deify and villify however it pleases, and how discussing it seemed to hurt. Like nooses and old flames, sometimes the hint of a story is enough.]

One of her allies was for certain— not that I actually blame him, given what I’ve heard of her.

[Well.]

Not that I blame him at all, regardless.

I might enjoy every flavor there is to catalogue, but it’s not as if people get to choose which ones actually melt across their tongues.

[Even so:]

...doesn’t mean I’m thrilled to find myself the odd man out, though. Irony of ironies, and all that.

Go two hundred years seducing people and without feeling a thing, and—

Well.

As you Orlesians say: c’est la whatever.

[ A single huff's worth of laughter. ]

Oui. And the whatever goes on. All that has happened to you, everyone you have met since you arrived—in five years you will have seen five times as much.

[ When he was deep in the muck of unrequited love, he would have loathed anyone who told him there was something better waiting. Doubly if they did it from the perch of a dizzyingly happy relationship. So he's not going to say it. He's only going to imply it. That's much better.

What he would have liked someone to offer him, down in that muck—or on his perch, too, honestly— ]

Tell me about him. Nothing private, I mean, but... What is it that has you so aflutter? The eyes?

[ An invitation to gush. ]

[Five years.

A dream he doesn't let himself hope for, and yet wants all the same.]

His eyes, yes. Pretty as they are. [And there's the temptation to leave it at that level precisely. Stick to the figurative shallows of it all: talk about how he's breathtaking to look at, captivating in a fight. The strength of his bridge line or the narrowness of his hips. How his voice thrums when he speaks, so characteristically his own, and unmistakably unique. The little downturned slant to his ears, a little doggish— and entirely precious, compared to the knifing sharpness (ignoring the local terminology) of the ears Astarion possesses and is used to from his life in Toril (not home, anymore).

At first, yes, back when this world was all fresh tracks in untouched snow to his mind, he was drawn to each of those superficial facets with ease, but now...]

I wasn't alone, you know. In enslavement, I mean. Enthrallment. Whatever you want to call it.

My master had countless other spawn at his beck and call, and when he sent me out to hunt for him— as I've mentioned to you before— I was at least able to drown myself for a time in the company of the living. [And soon to be dead.] I knew people. I thought I knew them all, much in the same way I imagine a bard does, too: set your sights on someone, watch them for a time, and their world might as well make itself into an open book.

Usually an ugly one.

And it never bothered me so much that I was a monster when everyone else around me was one too, albeit just a different sort of breed: the rich, the greedy, the callous, the lustful, the utterly, selfishly spoiled— who always will be exactly what they are from the moment they're born till the day they die.

[There are times when he's proud of his fangs. His eyes. His ability to be terrible and terrifying in perfectly equal floes. There are times when he can't stand to look in the mirror, if only because he still sees everything he's lost for good.]

He's different.

And I don't mean because he understands what it is to be so trapped, and I don't mean because he suffered. I've met plenty of others that have in all its varying degrees, and there certainly isn't a shortage here.

When he's beside me, I find myself capable of so much more than I ever thought possible.

[Not better. Not kinder. Not gentler, the way some people insist it's meant to go, where betterment is the only goal of being near someone else, just— ]

I'm finally at ease.

[ Is it better or worse, to do this over the sending crystals, where Astarion can't see the way his answer makes Bastien smile? On one hand it might embarrass him, shut him up prematurely; on the other, it would be answer enough on its own, if he saw it. No need to say anything. ]

Good.

[ Since he has to say something. ]

I think that is more than a lot of people ever have.

[ Even if it isn't everything he wants. ]

[It's better, honestly. Not because he can't see the look on Bastien's face, but because of what's said if only to fill otherwise dead air— and how off guard the truth of it catches him.]

...I...

[Hm.]

I suppose you might be right.

[A pause, then, as though determined to switch tack:]

But maybe not more than what you have, I think.

No.

[ All quiet sincerity, for that word. A glimpse of raw beating heart. But then— ]

But I am the luckiest man in all of Thedas. An outlier. Anyone who holds their lives to the standard mine sets will wind up bitter and miserable. You must not do it.

[He doesn't want to laugh at that, you know. It's far, far too easy a joke, and more than that, too rewarding: if he lets Bastien in on just how little it takes to make Astarion snort in earnest, he'll never—

Oh. No. Wait.

He already knows that.

(And besides, Astarion actually is laughing already, so.)]

Right, that's it. I've had all the talk of love and happiness I can stomach. Go on. Shoo.

Get out of here, and go back to winding yourself around the man tighter than his own belt.

[It's warm, for the record, his tone. And don't you dare bring it up.]

INBOX II

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