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[illithidnapped]

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[illithidnapped]

[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.]

[doggish]

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.]

[doggish]

[. . . that said.]

they think you're a gravedigger

among other things

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

A GRAVEDIGGER?!

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A BLOODY—

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—what?

What do you mean OTHER things?

[doggish]

[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.]

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[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—

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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—

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[g a s p]
















....is that why they dislike me.

[doggish]

[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.

[illithidnapped]

[Oh gods below.]

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[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.)]

[doggish]

[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?

[illithidnapped]

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.

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[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.]

[illithidnapped]

[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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Tell me the rest of whatever it was you told them about me. Because either they think I'm the most successful grave robber of all time with a cock as wide as the Chionthar, or....

[or, like the spoken version of hands pressed loosely on either hip]

....that you're the easiest bought whore in it.

4/4

[illithidnapped]

And only one of those assumptions ends in me not murdering the lot of them. 

[doggish]

[There's a little noise when Astarion first lists out that snarling little summation. It's a quiet noise, bitten back and easily missed; it's a noise that means he'd almost just said well, that is not wholly inaccurate, a wry little smirk on his face. But ah, ah, he knows better: such jokes will only infuriate Astarion further right now, and he's in enoguh trouble as it is.

But hang on, hang on—]

Trust I will tell you everything in a moment. But which are you angry about, exactly? That they think of you that way . . . or they might think of me in such a fashion?

[illithidnapped]

Look, I realize I'm not the most noble thing to ever walk the face of Faerûn, but particular as I am about my petty vanities, having a massive, massive prick and an equally massive amount of success isn't the sort of impression that warrants seeing red even in my impressively extensive book. Granted they might not like me for it, but that's not so terrible a reason to be hated— despite not being glamorous as far as cover stories go.

[illithidnapped]

Or what I'd choose for myself if you go making another gaggle of friends in the future, let's be clear.

[illithidnapped]

[And in case that wasn't clear, have a huffy little tsk before honestly completely takes him over: voice invoking the fussy replication of his own sharp ears pinning back.]

Urghh— you, all right? It's the one about you.

[All this time and he's still no good at this sort of thing, picking at his own claws for tenderness laid bare when other people are involved. The sort he can't just kill for overstepping, at least, knowing that in spite of threats and jokes, Leto likes this pack too much to let long fangs serve as any rectifying solution.]

Being looked down on like some naive idiot that makes himself the bridegroom of a sleazy, predatory thug. [He's been there, after all. Been the one swanning and swooning in the dingiest little dive bars over brutes that couldn't piss their own name in the dirt standing up for how empty the meat of their skulls was compared to the bulk of their hands. He remembers the stares it warranted. The peripheral comments that meant well but always— always wound up rooted in judgement.

Saying Leto doesn't deserve that is like saying water should be clean. That food shouldn't be ashen.

It isn't subjective; it's law.]

[illithidnapped]

You're my bridegroom.

The precious, adamantly adored bridegroom of a sleazy, predatory vampire who very much happens to like you despite having spent an entire half a year trying excessively hard not to back at the start.

[And he did try. Very, very, very much so.

And in light of his own failing on that front, because he's never been less enveloped in what overtook him from the first moment that they barely touched in comfort:]

There's a difference. You're better than that.

5/5

[illithidnapped]

[But before his own voice cracks for sinking back into his throat, quickly:]

I mean I'm better than that too but— well— one is more grating than the other, as it so happens.