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[illithidnapped]

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[illithidnapped]

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?

[arkitect]

[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.

[illithidnapped]

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.]

[arkitect]

...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.]