illithidnapped | INBOX II

—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.]

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.

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

[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?

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.

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

[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.]

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.

[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.

[Oh. Oh, and suddenly, everything turns on its axis. The steady sound of footsteps these past few minutes suddenly ceases, Leto gone silent for a few minutes as he absorbs all that.

Then, quietly and yet firmly:]

You are not sleazy. And you have never been predatory— not to me.

[Because they're not talking about his eating habits. And it matters to Leto very much that Astarion does not think of himself that way. He knows who he is. He knows what he is, too, and he will not deny those aspects. But nor will he stand for this slander of self.

(And now, ironically enough, he does understand Astarion's fuss).]

I think . . . truly, Astarion, I think they do not know what to make of either of us. I tell them stories of my past, and they do believe me, but they cannot make sense of how I have accomplished so much so quickly. I boast of you, telling them of adventures from Thedas, and I do not know how they reconcile the two. Perhaps they don't. Or perhaps they simply accept it.

[Rowdy as they all are, eternally focused more on the future than the past, he doubts they do anything save accept it and move on.

But this isn't really about them. And it takes Leto a few moments, but then:]

I did not know you were . . . that my reputation concerned you so much.

[No, that's not it, and he makes a noise, waving that away.]

I have never . . . no one has ever thought about it overmuch, myself included. I have always assumed people will think of me what they will, and if it is negative, so be it. And I did not realize . . .

[Mph.]

. . . sometimes this place, these people . . . it doesn't feel real. As if it is all pretend, and some of it is. And I forget that I am not myself. I forget that these things linger.

[It isn't that he set out to paint himself as some cheap whore of a gravedigging thug; it's just that none of it feels real, and he does not think about the implications when he is with his friends. But that's hard to say, and harder still to know if it comes across how he means.]

. . . it means a great deal to me that you are concerned with it.

And I understand now why you are . . . for I do not like the thought of you thinking of yourself so disparagingly.

[It's a lot to consider, particularly when he's already keyed up from his own admission. A lot to take in— that care— that distinctly spoken specificity that comes from someone else insisting you're not so low as the slant of your perceived station, whatever you might think, ribs and heart as brittle as glass thorns just to hear it said (and it wasn't that he'd been angling for reciprocity— he wasn't, gods above, he swears— it's just)—

Everything washes over him.

Everything's considered, to the point that it isn't even a conscious choice how fresh context changes the shape of what they've already been over.

And then, because he might've gone a little mad and lost what little sense he had left for being so well loved:]

Have you....

[gods, what is he even saying right now]

....ever considered telling them the truth?

Err, the entire truth, I mean. Stories and accomplishments are one thing, and it's not as if I like the idea of other people knowing that I'm— you know, what I am, but still. Might be there's something to be salvaged if they see me and have two and two put together.

Stranger things have happened in this world, after all.

[which]

I mean, did I ever teach you about the time an entire city just fell out of this very plane right into the Hells? Or that quite literally anyone could theoretically become a god just by having enough garnered fealty from the living?

It's downright stupid when you think about it.

Compared to all that, my being a vampire and you yourself being a world-transcending god-killer is—

Edited 2024-01-09 06:24 (UTC)

Ah.

Erm....

....a lot still, actually. Right.

[A world-transcending god-killer, and you know, it's true, but it's still strange to hear. Stranger still to apply it to himself— or perhaps strange to apply it to himself while he lives in this world, where gods and their ilk are so much more common than in Thedas. It makes it more awe-inspiring, strangely enough. Corypheus . . . Corypheus was not unlike a god, and indeed in many ways was a god, but to Leto, it always felt like . . . well. A job. An exceedingly difficult job, admittedly, and a job he'd done as a favor to his friend, but still: a job, and one he would either succeed at or fail and die.

Or maybe it's not about Corypheus at all. Maybe it's that Leto's gotten so used to Astarion being the more remarkable one that he forgets the more unbelievable aspects of his own life.]

. . . . I thought about it.

[Yes, he had. Over and over, when it was late and the conversations grew more intimate . . . yes, he had wanted to. But . . .]

. . . I think they would understand, or at least try to. They are a loyal group, for all that they are immature, and I think ultimately that loyalty would win out no matter what. But . . .

I will not risk you. I have learned again and again that I am not familiar with all the intricacies and social norms of this world, and I will not risk my having missed some vital clue that might lead to disaster in any form. And . . .

[Mmph. Emotional honesty is difficult, even between them. Perhaps especially between them.]

I suppose . . . I have found it easier to enjoy their company when it is not me they know, either. I am not dishonest as a rule, but . . . as far as they know, I am merely a particularly well-traveled elf who can handle a blade and enjoys strange tattoos. I am not an ex-slave, or a god-killer, or friends with the Champion of Kirkwall. And I . . .

I suppose a part of me did not want to tell them, for fear it would make the inevitable loss of them all the harder.

[He can't do it again. He can't give himself away to a group of friends just to watch them disappear; it hurt too badly the last time. No matter that it would be vastly different now, still. Some part of Leto will always bear those scars, recoiling at the thought of true friendship for fear of how he will inevitably lose it.]

I know it would be different than— than Kirkwall. That they are not Anders, and the stakes are far different. Even the emotions are, for those bonds took nearly a decade to cultivate, and even if I had been honest with this group, it still wouldn't be the same. But I still . . .

[He can't bear it.]

I did not want to risk you. But I suppose, selfishly, I did not want to risk myself, either.

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