illithidnapped | INBOX II

Then let me counter that argument.

[It's not that he's resentful; the glittering cast to blood red eyes isn't filled to the brim with overwhelming anger or the urge to sink his teeth into whatever part of Hades lies within reach.

Without the crystal barring expression or intonation from being read, Astarion's also infinitely more transparent.

He's being wary.]

I don't like being left in the dark.

[A byproduct of his past, if the Ascian's feeling particularly insightful; the stiffness in his posture is too telling, the depth of his tone and the rigidity it offers up are just too easily placed.

It's the same tone he always uses when Cazador is involved.]

I know.

["He's not gonna know shit about how to handle it," he'd been warned, just before. "He might even be an asshole about it, because he'll be worried he's going to lose you."

Hades glances back up to him, taking him in once more, observing the wary cast to his expression and the stiffness in his bearing, and quietly thinks that-- well, at least they are both out of place in this.]

It is not exactly you, nor exactly the news. More than anything-- [He huffs a short breath of a laugh, though it isn't very funny.] More than anything it is what you said after. I am wasted on myself, I should be more open with others, I ought not restrain my impulses-- you do not even know what they are, do you?

You insist I cannot fool you, but you've yet to realize that I have left myself open. With you.

[In a way, it actually does come as a surprise; not the idea that Hades had been open with him— honest and trusting, and perhaps warm as well, if the black blades perched ever at Astarion's hips mean anything— but the depth of it, he supposes. Old as the Ascian is, his stubbornness and stiffness have perpetually perplexed his younger companion whenever it came crawling to the forefront of their conversations: easy to relegate the physical portion of their exchanges to curiosity. Openness. A willingness to let himself be somewhat mortal again, while the rest of his mind clutched itself close.

Now, he isn't so sure.

And it shows, pinching his brows together. Thinning out the line of his mouth.]

I don't understand.

[Short. Clipped. He exhales once, and turns his attention towards the window.]

You've obviously let yourself be open with me: I was the one that took you in when you were cast off for being a villain-accused. I saw your past— heard everything of it. No unfeeling corpse goes sleeping with a paramour by night, and pours his own blood into bottled wine by day.

But you said you knew where this leads.

[Specific. Too specific.]

You can't have meant sooner than before we met, if that's the case. And it's only showing its teeth now.

[He doubts it needs to be asked out loud, but still:]

What am I missing?

Edited 2022-07-01 08:21 (UTC)

No unfeeling corpse does such things, no, but neither do most individuals. Surely you realize there is no other here for whom I would go to such lengths.

[When Astarion lays it out like that, he thinks it seems all too obvious-- enough so that he wonders how it was missed. Whether his companion simply deemed it impossible and thought no more of it, or just... overlooked the signs, just as surely as this news caught Hades off-guard when he half feels he ought to have noticed something of it before.

Maybe, in this way, they're both a little bit in the dark, despite being creatures of it.

His fingers run restlessly through his hair once again.]

I have often been honest with you. The truth is not always a well-timed thing, however.

[In this case, he certainly doesn't think so. This is why he meant to say nothing of it, to just leave it be.]

Nor is love.

[....ah.

He goes still. Attention already drawn back from the sill and its pretty plant, not needing to measure the Ascian's face to recognize the obvious traces of veracity lingering in his tone, and yet chasing it down all the same.]

No, I suppose it isn't.

[Reality defying Astarion's suspicion that Hades had been displeased with his decision to go slipping willfully into the arms of an elf that had— albeit not intentionally— effectively abandoned him for a time (or if not that, just a flicker of passing jealousy). Small and not worth mentioning, only for the fact that—] We talked about this.

I talked to you about this. Before I ever so much as—

[His sigh is exhausted. Narrow shoulders sinking as if deflating, because whatever blow he'd been braced for, he doesn't need to hold onto now. As Astarion's own time with Fenris proved ever-so-quickly, there's no controlling who sinks their claws into your heart. Maybe before now he'd have been closed off when confronted with something like this, he doesn't know. As it stands, though, tiredly running a hand along his neck....

He gets it.]

I'm....

[Tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, stare unblinking, gone glassy with sincerity.]

Sorry.

Edited 2022-07-01 09:39 (UTC)

... I know. I know you did.

[In a way, that sincerity is harder to deal with than the alternatives. Than being pushed away, snapped at. There's a sting to the ease with which Hades believes it, at the way there's really just- well. Nothing to be done about it, for either of them.

Maybe he'd have preferred it if Ellie was right about him being an asshole about it.

It doesn’t matter how fond you are, or how much you want it, Astarion had said to him, once. The universe, as I’m sure you already know, has its ways.]

I am not blind to the reality of the situation, either, I know you do not...

[Hades shakes his head, there, exhales a slow breath.]

I could tell. I never intended to make mention of it.

[Why, when he already knew what would come of it at best, and didn't know what could come of it at worst? But better this than leaving it at that earlier sharpness in his tone, letting him assume worse for a certainty.

He doesn't mind others thinking it of him. He would mind it of Astarion.]

I never meant to—

[He'd said it so many times it became almost second nature. To Thranduil, to Dante, to Sylvie and Hades and every other soul he drew in close enough to touch. Don't get attached. Know exactly what this is. Midnight to dawn, and nothing more. As if that changes anything. As if words could be a bulwark against feeling. Gods, he was a stupid thing back then.

Two centuries of life lived in handfuls of unshackled days at a time between months (or decades), and it might as well have been nothing at all. Not compared to this single year.]

I love him.

[Astarion, don't. Shut up. You're not helping. A chastising echo cut from his own voice.

But it's true. And if they're baring stinging realities, this one has to come first. Dealing in obscurities only ends in a tangled mess of half-excised feelings, still sticking stubbornly to bone.]

I always have.

He knows me in ways I barely even know myself. I've never felt so at ease as I do when he's near. The sound of his footsteps padding around at all hours turning into the strangest balm for my own restless senses.

When he leaves, I can almost swear I'm drowning. Stupidly unable to take a breath to save my own damned life.

[He knows it hurts to hear. He knows. He is sorry.]

I was jealous, you know. Selfishly, back when that spirit took the form of your companion. The one you couldn't save.

I used to think there wasn't any point to it, chasing after something you've lost. Bleeding yourself dry for it. Wanting it until everything else tastes of bitter ash.

[But.]

I understand it, now.

[And the sobriety swept up in his voice doesn't fade when he adds softly (because it is Astarion, and humor is all he knows at times as bleak as these):]

....You're not going to try to end the world over this, are you?

[It does hurt to hear, in ways he often wouldn't care to admit -- his eyes squeeze shut for several moments, head bowed, posture not exactly stiff but still unmoving. Gloved fingers lace together where his arms are propped on his knees; it's been some time, probably, since Astarion last saw him wear them around him, but he can almost certainly identify them as what they are. A small sort of protection, just to feel that much less exposed in all this, given that it's been more or less what he anticipated.]

Do not flatter yourself overmuch, [he says in response to that last comment, his tone dry. But before he says more, there's another pause.]

It has been the same for me. You, more than any other, have understood what I have given you of myself, even if you did not yet understand reaching for what was lost. I told you once that I had no interest in anyone else, and whether I knew it yet or not, I meant more than simply the physical.

... But I could not tell, until very recently, whether I had lost yours or whether it was simply a consequence of being trapped here.

It's all I know.

[Self-flattery, that is.

Of course, it doesn't last. His sense of humor pales at the sight of Hades gone wholly sharp at the seams, eyes dropped, posture sunken down into the folding of his hands.]

Hells, darling. [A painful mutter, that one. The sort of half-breathed curse that comes with a heavy dosage of remorse. Strewth, he'd been so blind.]

I thought you'd meant that because you didn't know anyone else.

[Aloof and removed, at odds with the world itself at times. Having an appetite for someone familiar— it made sense, you know. If one's options are limited, anything begins to look enticing. Especially if it's as intentionally prurient as Astarion himself.

Now, though....

Well, hindsight is so often flawless, for better or worse. Laid out in terms like understanding, and whether I had lost yours. But like a blindfold lifted, sight doesn't instantly reward the unmoored soul with knowledge of where they are— or where they ought to navigate to next. His tongue is dry. His lips drawn thin.]

I wasn't— [He tries once more with the worlds you didn't—, but it falls flat, too, long before it has a chance to spread its own figurative wings. Yes, Hades lost it, as much as he didn't actually lose anything, either. Complex and tangled and frustratingly messy.] It wasn't intentional neglect.

I wasn't yanking my offer to rut or keep company from your hands, I just....didn't realize that's what you wanted.

[Something more. So then, in that respect, it becomes Schrodinger's arrangement: Hades lost nothing because Astarion wasn't giving him what he hoped for, and Hades lost everything he'd hoped for because Astarion hadn't granted it in the first place.]

And nothing else has changed, you know. I won't shun you just because my heart is his.

[Astarion still struggles with it, calling friendship by name. Even so, he feels it just as keenly.]

...of course it was what I wanted. But I am all too aware of your-- disdain, for the place, and there was nowhere else I could go at night-- I could not ask you to keep coming simply for my own sake.

You always had more interest in such things, either way. But you ceased to ask.

[A slight shrug tugs at one shoulder, there, lets it fall just as easily to sag back into place. He's a perceptive person; he'd noticed the days stretch out between propositions, until they eventually stopped.]

I suppose in that sense, I ought to have seen it coming... but you never spoke much of him either, despite his apparent hold upon your heart.

[He glances up, there, though his head doesn't quite lift, dulled yellow eyes a sliver of color against his lashes. A question he doesn't quite bring himself to ask, of how close they actually have been.]

INBOX II

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