illithidnapped | INBOX II

take a walk with me tomorrow night and find out

she did say she has always been fond of a man with tattoos, though

[She's going to murder him if she finds out how much he's been lying about her, or at the very least give him a stern look, which is almost worse.

[He's gotten too good at this. It's going to drive Astarion absolutely batty (in the non-literal sense— don't you dare), that he can't figure out whether or not his beloved, cherished, prized, adored, nuisance of a consort is playing him like a Waterdavian fiddle, or if Talindra really is that mercenary in her tactics.

Either could be accurate enough— which is a terrifying realization.]

Fine.

[See, Astarion? That wasn't so hard, was it?]

Far be it from me to overlook another creature prowling around my territory and stepping on my glorious toes.

But if you're just using this as an excuse to lure me out into the open so that I mingle with the living world, you're going to be devoured by two creatures tomorrow.

Talindra and myself.

don't threaten me with a good time

[Teasing, and he does his limited best to imitate Astarion's handwriting in lieu of teasingly taking on his accent.]

if i wanted to lure you out to mingle with the living world, i would invite you to a party one of my friends is throwing. they wanted us both to come, you know.

[And yet Fenris isn't going either, which suggests that, you know, maybe the elven version of teenage houseparties are not totally his jam.]

but i think it would be too inane. too tame or too [what's the word?] ~~childish~~ silly

[Leto might not be able to hear the little bark that lead-in drags out of the base of Astarion's throat, but it exists all the same.

Cheeky thing.

~~How proud he is of him, in his own way.~~]

Oh yes, because you're so sophisticated these days.

there is a difference between not minding cheap wine and spending all night merrily swigging ale in the hopes that it might get us so drunk we throw up. it's a question of maturity, not sophistication.

oh

oh I see.

So is the wine tasting you're attending this evening before or after you fight an owl bear with your bare hands?

and bare feet.

that was an initiation

[OBVIOUSLY. And he knows he's fighting a losing battle, and that it is all rather silly, but still.]

do you want to go? they have heard more than enough about you and still endlessly have questions; they would enjoy meeting you.

even folwin.

[The one that Astarion constantly suggests leaving behind to endure the consequences . . . and the one that, admittedly, Leto is least attached to, given he's an annoying little thing, so it's not such a bad suggestion all around.]

[Little little little, all teasing, all play. It's a losing battle in part for things here being exactly what they undeniably are, yes, but also because all Astarion sees is the paradox of an adolescent thing and the very same heart that led him out of the darkness when he was only a fledgling creature in freedom, barely able to stand on his own fretful legs.

Young, he'll always say with a grin where Leto's skin runs thinnest. (Young, he'll always mean when he thinks of himself lost inside that long-limbed shadow— awestruck by its beauty and boldness alike.)

But the days are getting shorter. The nights longer. Astarion's the one outside more and more with winter setting in, and while spells to speak with animals and jokes about keepers and parties are all business as usual, well—

Succeed or fail, these days won't come again.

Or as Folwin would say— stupid, stupid, Folwin— you only live once.]

Initiations are for children. [And they won't talk about the fact that every highbrow sommeliers club in Baldur's Gate has them. Shh.]

But those children adore you, you know. We should pay our respects. Give them a taste of decent wine for a change.

Maybe convince them not to destroy what's left of their livers before sunrise.

[He's not being nice, for the record. that isn't what this is.]

we can try, anyway, though i suspect we will fail, and enjoy ourselves in the process

[And honestly? He is sort of looking forward to it. Kind of. It's going to be exceedingly stupid and enormously rowdy, but perhaps he's missed that. And perhaps his thoughts wander in the same direction Astarion's do: that they have been through too much grief, with too much more to come, not to enjoy these silly little moments when they come.]

[. . . that said.]

they think you're a gravedigger

among other things

[Forget writing, from the spine of the book where that crystal is set:]

A GRAVEDIGGER?!

A BLOODY—

—what?

What do you mean OTHER things?

[Oh, they're doing this now . . . and yet Leto can't say he regrets it, not when it means he can hear Astarion's voice. Even if it is angry with him.]

I was vague on the specifics. I meant more to imply you were a bounty hunter, but . . . er.

[Ah.]

In retrospect, I may have accidentally given more of the impression of a grave-robber.

[He works at night. He works with his hands. It's contract work. Assassin, gentleman thief, vagabond, gravedigger— the lattermost seemed the most innocuous, and thus when Folwin had suggested it, Leto had leapt upon it with gratitude. That one, yes, the one least likely to draw any kind of attention, and also incidentally make enough money that their frequent purchases from the sex shop won't raise an eyebrow.]

[He stutters for a good five seconds, tripping in great, silent gusts over his own bewildered rage.

Also yes hi hello darling love you and also to hear your perfect voice too but ALSO— ]

NOT EVEN—

THAT IS THE WORST POSSIBLE KIND!!

THE SORT THAT DIG UP GRANDMOTHERS!! THAT PAWN YOUR PRICELESS FAMILY HEIRLOOMS— oh come to think of it that's actually quite true on that front— BUT THE REST OF IT—

They're going to think I'm some disreputable ingrate with cadaver dirt under my nails and liquor on my breath— [uhf!!!] What I mean is— nevermind that I am, there is a GLAMOR to being a vampire compared to a vulgar, grotesquely shambling reprobate—

[g a s p]

....is that why they dislike me.

[Oh, that's so much yelling. That's so much yelling, and Leto dutifully listens to it word by word, his ears flicking down as he waits for it to ebb. Astarion's angry, but he's not Angry, and Leto can endure until it ebbs out. Besides: it's not entirely undeserved, not really. There are worse professions he could have stated, but not many.

But then there's that little pause, and—

. . . oh.]

Er.

It may be.

[. . .]

They— I do not think they dislike you. But they have never met you, and know only that you are centuries older than I am and have a propensity for fucking me for hours and hours at a time. I think they sometimes imagine something far . . .

[Unseen, he waves a hand in the air, trying to gesture at his own thoughts.]

— baser than what we are.

[Oh gods below.]

[And just when you might've thought he was done quietly muttering curses and shocked colloquialisms to himself in the eight plus languages he now knows—

Nope. Still doing that.

(—and probably also pacing, if the sound of footsteps pattering back and forth alongside puppy paws means anything.)]

[Ah.

It's not as if they never annoy one another. Most certainly they do, little habits and larger ones, and they've had more than a few little spats. But it's one thing to squabble over habits or who was meant to take the pups out before they wet themselves; it's another to hear Astarion so genuinely annoyed by something that Leto could have easily prevented.

He's not guilty. Not yet, anyway. But there's a tendril of something like it curling low in the pit of his stomach; unseen, his ears flick down.]

Are you truly angry about this?

About the fact that a pack of sweaty, hormone-ridden, brainless little ingrates think I rail you in an open grave over nana's rotting bones with your ankles in the air from dusk till dawn about as often as I can get my hands on you?

I might be, yes.

[But then Astarion knows how hard it is to be free and, well— how hard it is to navigate the waters of everything you never had, let alone how much old apprehension ticks hard when the waters rise, and you suddenly find yourself up to the neck.

In over your head.]

[There is a sigh. It is neither the largest nor the smallest sigh to ever exist, but it's a depressurizing puff all the same.]

Just....

[He's trying, he's trying, he's trying.]

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