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illithidnapped) wrote2022-02-03 01:54 am
illithidnapped) wrote2022-02-03 01:54 am
INBOX II
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no subject
[He purrs it out as he squirms, trying to glance behind him more fully. Astarion is a sight worth savoring, after all. It doesn't matter how many times he's seen it, for each new glance delights him all the same. It doesn't even matter how many times they've rut, for though that unto itself is a form of appreciation, still: there's something to be said for taking a moment to simply admire him.
A lithe form. Pale skin that all but gleams in the soft light of their room. A tapering waistline that ends in a subtle swell of well-defined hips; strong thighs that straddle him with ease, and between them, the telltale bulge that Leto has long since grow addicted to mouthing at. Strong arms that end in long, tapering fingers; white curls that tumble softly around a face as familiar to him as his own. Scarlet eyes that can go puppyishly soft or sharply predatory depending on Astarion's mood; arched cheekbones and a narrow nose that Leto still can't help but think of as exotic, and that's to say nothing of those sweetly upturned ears . . .
Pretty, Leto thinks, and then amends to: beautiful.
And the truth is, it doesn't matter what Astarion looks like. He could have missing teeth or shave his head bald; he could be as ugly as a bootheel, his facial features all out of proportion and his body nowhere near what some might call ideal. Leto is not so dishonest as to say he would not notice such things; he cannot even say they would not affect him, not at first.
But he loves him. He loves him no matter what he looks like; he loves him as a vampire or an elf or a damned devil. And he does not love him for his looks nor his prowess in bed; those are pleasant bonuses, but they do not form the basis of his love.
He doesn't know how to articulate it. I would love you even if you didn't attract me is a clumsy statement, and it's not what he means anyway. I would love you no matter what you looked like, for it is you I love— and I would learn to love your looks, too, and that's closer, but it still isn't right. Someday, Leto thinks, he'll be able to say it. To assure Astarion that their love is not conditional; that he never needs to look a certain way to keep his Leto near.
And Astarion knows. Surely he knows. But it never hurts to repeat.
But not, Leto thinks drowsily, while they're high. And not when he's meant to be objectifying his lover. Who is very attractive, thank you very much, and deserves to know that too.]
You're beautiful.
[He says it directly, honest in the way he always is.]
I do not think I will ever tire of the sight of you, no matter what you wear . . . though I do admit a certain fondness to you sans shirt and nothing else. You cut a fine figure when you're still half-dressed.
[And then, as he settles back down:]
I ought to demand you dress up for me more.
[It's flirtatious, but he means it.]
For a party, perhaps, or simply bedsport . . . but if we're speaking of fairness, it seems only fair I get to savor the sight of you in stockings. Or a harem outfit. Or the other outfit, [they have a lot of harem outfits, he's realizing. Gods bless a sex shop with variety.]
iliad the Return part II
And so really, he expects raw coyness. Same as it ever is when they're like this.
Something involving more grins. More teady hands and bracing fingers and a joke here or there about petty things like payback. Possibly the addition of sly conversation, or jokes about what's to come, or even quips about the crassness of initials hacked into muscle rather than tree bark, like the childish things they are.
He doesn't expect that turn towards him.
He doesn't expect beautiful.
The rest is deflecting, resigned. Playful and sweet and entirely on point— charming through chatter over costumes— as if all of what was said before it was just as commonly conversational as simple fact: the sky is blue— you're beautiful; water is wet— I'll never tire of the sight of you. And while vanity undoubtedly has a home in Astarion, it's still an empty shelf inside him: picked over well before he laid eyes on Fenris, robbed again and again and again over two centuries. Worn woodgrain scraped away into featureless gouges.
All he can do is stare. And then recover— smiling. Scoffing. Doeishness cut off when he shuts his eyes and shakes his head with all the fondness of listening to some young, precocious thing tell him something he hadn't been expecting, this fearsome monster with sharp teeth made for eating. This spurred-on creature who loves wickedness for its ability to soothe, lifting a knife between its claws in lieu of a wedding band. And how many times have they kissed with copper on their tongues? How often has he torn into this bared back— this beautiful bared back beneath him— with talons or teeth for the sake of wild-eyed rutting?
Again. Again. Just one more time, then. Don't be distracted. Pressing the hilt more securely in the gap between his thumb and palm, using his spare hand to press Leto down into the mattress, pinning him at the junction between neck and shoulder. Firm, but only protectively so. He's practiced enough to know how to ride that razor thin line.]
Stay still enough for me to get any of this done and I'll wear anything you like, you ceaseless little menace.
[He remembers those scars. His only undeniable balm in the depths of paranoia, his namesake— the comfort of knowing that if he was nothing more than a lie, a dream, like everyone in Riftwatch swore— that they would at least outlive him. That if Leto ever forgot again, they'd be there. I made those the next introduction shared as strangers on a street in Orlais or Antiva, you have two notch marks on your spine, and I can tell you how they happened. And it wouldn't be so nightmarish that next time around, having to sit down and share a bottle and murmur his consolations over a mind that had forgotten where it was or who it was beside.
They're important.
They mattered.
They were what Leto chose to keep, and it isn't just the selfish need to exist somewhere beyond himself that has his own blade hovering above softly breathing contours: the elf beneath him comfortably resigned— silver hair tussled against thick pillows, lithe body laid out at smooth angles, musculature visible from the potency of age, not flexing. Not afraid.
It's a simple thing, to lift his dagger over them again. It's a simple thing, to bear down and feel that tissue give way without resistance— only the sudden well of blood bubbling bright around sharp silver; his blades are kept pristine, he spares nothing for their fineness, honed like wicked razors. His second set of teeth. His secondary set of claws. It's easy to cut. to draw two lines. To etch his name by way of that parallel pair of cuts, pushing deep through tissue towards bone— it's easy. It's so easy.
It's always been easy for him.
Everything is finally in place.]
2/2
Why is it that when he blinks, the paging processes of his mind stay exactly where they are, just like his wrist and fingers. His arm is still hovering uselessly over Leto's unmarred spine. His dagger's blade still clean, left exactly where it was without so much as twitching closer by a centimeter.
All this ceremony, all this necessity, all this violent inclination— ]
no subject
[In reality, only a few seconds have passed. Astarion's hand still lingers against the back of his neck, a familiar weight cool against overheated skin. The memory of that doeish stare and startled smile lingers in his mind's eye, but so does Astarion's teasing scold. Leto expects the bite of cold steel; he expects to hear a shuddering inhale behind him as the scent of blood fills the air—
But there's nothing.
And they have been together for too long for Leto not to understand.
After all: there's such a difference between a scrappish fight and deliberate slices. There's such a difference between fighting and flirting all in one breath, skidding about on a rooftop at dusk as you feel something like joy for the first time in forever— giving as good as you get, blood pumping and hearts racing, until at last there's a burst of pain that lasts only a moment . . . and this. Lying on a bed, waiting blindly for the first slow slice that parts skin and muscle. Barely daring to breathe, knowing that even the slightest movement will ruin things; that it will hurt, and it will hurt again and again, over and over for gods only know how long, for it takes a deep wound for scars to form . . .
And it's not the same. The associations are so different in Leto's mind, for one was an act of selfish cruelty and petty spite, and the other a show of adoration and love. And likely, Leto thinks, they're different in Astarion's mind too— but sometimes it's so hard not to see the similarities. Sometimes it's so hard to not think of the past, no matter that you want only to see the future.
He arches his back, rising up against that steadying hand so he can brace on his forearms and glance behind him. The urge is there to roll over entirely (to tug that knife out of Astarion's pale hands and set it next to his sword; to gather up his vampire in his arms and run his hands over his scarred back in soothing strokes), but he doesn't want to overreact.]
. . . we need not do this tonight.
[No. That's not right. Gentler, then:]
We need not do this at all.
no subject
In a space void of sound when the pups and their tormented sibling-to-be have slipped into a different section of their rented tavern room, there's only the rustling of fabric when his arms slacken. The dull shuffle from their sheets as broad shoulders drop.
It doesn't matter that Leto doesn't move to uproot their arrangement; Astarion does it for him when his fingers slip across corded leather, the rest of his body following in slumped pursuit of that mattress just like the knife in his palm.
And then: the dagger isn't really in his hand.
And then: he's curled around him— the only other figure in that room— meeting whatever angles he can no matter how messily just to wrap his arms around his mate. The hows and logistical aches of it less important than the desperation driving all his joints into awkwardly patterend lines. Lashes pinched shut. Brows pulled tight.]
I can't—
[And then, gritted, not angrily, but— ]
Why the in hells can't I? What's wrong with me—
[It's no different. Or it shouldn't be. Or— he doesn't know. None of it makes sense. Not to fingers like his, so comfortably stained through habit.]
no subject
He buries his face against the top of his head, nuzzling against silver curls. It's a slow action, every bump of his nose timed to the slow, steady way he runs his palms against Astarion's back. Knotted scars meet his fingertips, every twist and bump hinting at a story only two people in this world fully know. When did Astarion writhe? When did he scream? When did the sobs burst out of him despite his best efforts? He can almost picture it: candlelight burning low, casting shadows that creep up the walls of an ancient study . . . Astarion sprawled out on a table, shirtless and unbound, kept still only by sheer force of will and a nominal hand planted just along his spawn's neck (Leto's neck is still so cold, his skin remembering the span of slender fingers). Black hair swept back from his face, his expression still and yet his eyes so wide with excitement as he sliced the creature beneath him to ribbons, thrilling in every whimper and sob.]
There's nothing wrong with you.
[It comes out a little gruffer than he means it to. His hands keep up their slow work, rubbing soothing circles as he holds him close. His voice softer, then:]
It's different this time. We have never tried this so deliberately before . . . we have never played with knives in this world before. We have never tried to deliberately scar one another . . . it makes a difference, amatus.
[He hesitates, and then:]
And it is hard, sometimes, to forget the past. Even if you wish to. Even if the situation is different . . . some part of you remembers.
no subject
I'm not being the words Astarion rushes to lean on before they give out underneath his heels in a silent, damning drop. Im not, I'm not, insisted on again like it'll somehow change something, that mantra. As if more of it might support the weight of what he's desperate to be true. But wishing— regardless of how fervently— never did anything for him, and Astarion can't wish his way out of buckling any more than he could vampirism.
In the end, he's still here. Still aching from the dig of sharp fangs against the inlines of his cheeks; from the bite of his claws against his skin.
Though true to his own nature, he doesn't go down without fighting.]
I know that I'm not him. [And which 'him' he means might well be anybody's guess, including his own.] I know—
There's a difference.
[Empty. Hollow. Not in tone, just in conviction. Its failure agitating his frustration with a sudden snap.]
Godsdamnit, I've mangled you a thousand times before, it shouldn't be so hard.
[And as his head drops into the ocean of his lover's kindness, it's the gruffness that resonates. The roughshod rumble in a throat that he's heard growl and snarl to be left alone on days when everything's gone brittle like old markings, incapable of tolerating touch. (Noise. Light. Closeness. Mercy.) And when even the gentlest of friction stirs up the worst of your own inevitable monstrosity and all attached, endless outrage, maybe that's the problem. There's no reclaiming something like that on its own, no tidying it up into something more beautiful, no matter how you swear you can. No matter how you want to, try to, ache to— and with an anger in his eyes Astarion shoves Leto back down atop the mattress, pushing him flat. Palm splayed across the dead center of his breastbone, dagger back in his hand and lividly catching in the light. Eyes redder than red. Redder than slag-hot coal.
Cold metal set just against the skin over Leto's heart.]
Help me, or don't.
[Help me, or I can't. Help me, or I won't do it.]
I won't mark you just to have my name haunting you like a ghost.
no subject
The memory lingers in his mind in bits and pieces, snapshot photographs inundated with sensation. His heart thundering and something like joy filling his body; his cheeks aching from how hard he was grinning and the grit of dust and pebbles digging into his bare feet as he'd stood on that rooftop. The scent of lyrium thick in the air; Astarion a merciless blur darting to and fro, his blades flashing in the setting sun. The giddying feeling of throwing his all into a scrap (cheater cried out with equal parts indignance and amusement), and then the sharp searing slice of pain reverberating as twin blades sank into his skin and emerged bloody—
It was a fight.
And Astarion hadn't realized he'd kept those scars until far later. Until Rialto. Until he'd felt them blindly, raised markings upon slick skin, and Leto had told him with total honesty: I wanted proof of you. Proof that Astarion had existed; proof that would linger past his own faulty memory, and any vengeful force that might try to separate them. It wasn't a mutual choice; it wasn't even shrouded in kindness, not really. Adoration, yes, and fierce love, but there was nothing particularly soft about Leto's decision. He will not call it selfish, but it was as much for him as it was Astarion. Not you're mine, brutal and mean carved into his lover's back; not even I'm yours, soft and submissive. Rather: you are important to me. You matter enough I will not risk forgetting you.
You've earned this.
One hand shoots up, gripping Astarion's bicep mercilessly tight. Their arms snap into parallel with one another, stiff and straight; he yanks them to the side (that blade scratching over his heart, skin red and raised in telltale little marks). At the same time he surges up, his other hand wrapping around the back of Astarion's neck, yanking him forward so that he can crush their lips together in a searing kiss. It's a messy thing, hard and hot and mean, teeth clicking as their mouths move, Leto's head ducking as he takes and takes, one pulse, two, three—
And then pulls back with a soft gasp. His lips ache from the pressure, his emerald eyes harsh.]
Then earn it.
[All at once he's throwing Astarion off him, bucking up and striking out; the bed creaks and jostles as he fights to pin him to the bed. But sheer strength isn't enough, not anymore, and for a moment Leto teeters—
But no. No, he will not (cannot) use his magic. No matter that he feels it surging within him, singing out for him to tap into power as instinctive as breathing; no matter that he can feel power thrumming in his palm, fire at his fingertips or a burst of mana at his beck and call, he won't, he can't—
Which means he needs to get that knife. One hand darts out, grabbing for it; the other struggles to keep Astarion pinned down, fingers gripping one narrow shoulder painfully tightly. And all the while he feels the magic build in his chest, rising up in his throat; why won't you use this, as bewildered as if he'd suddenly decided to only use his left hand to fight. Use it, use it, . . . and he has always approached every fight with the basic thought that there were no rules save survive. That you used any and every tool available to win, for it was never a game.
Fight (and he is no match for a vampire, not when it comes to strength alone). Fight (and he has used magic before, dark energy bursting out of him in a stunning show of warding, back, get back, his lyrium as defensive as it was aggressive). Fight (and the scent of magic is in the air, his sword not three feet away reverberating in sympathetic attunement).
Fight, Bladesinger—
As mana bursts forward from his palm, blazing brilliant bright, a sharp shock of it that shoves Astarion down against the mattress: not a spell but rather manifestation of intent, struggling to keep his mate pinned as he gropes for that dagger.]
no subject
And then the fight.
(The fight, the fight) The shove. The wildly electric surge of something more than just mortal willpower swallowing up dead air and bringing Astarion down with it, nearby lyrium faintly whining like a tuning fork somehow— oh, fight, bladesinger— their bodies stamped by the primitive urge to war and win, disturbing and displacing the whole room and its sense of maintained order.
Welcome. So bloody welcome. So damned perfect.
It takes everything to break that enhanced strength; they grab the knife together, and for a moment it's only momentum that drives it— one swinging slash pulled back into the space between them, messily aimed— more red, gouged deep into a line from Leto's inner shoulder down to that first mark, and if order by way of collars and shackling magic was the whole of their wretched pasts, let chaos be the ritual that breaks it in their name: another struggle catching Astarion through his shirt this time, another kiss taking its cost from Leto in fair trade through a bitten, bleeding lip, ambrosial on his tongue.]
They're going to throw us out—
[He manages to whisper(? Mutter? Pant? Mouth?) somewhere along the way when they're close enough to grazing teeth across each other's skin, grinning like a godsdamned fool.]
no subject
[He's half-laughing as he whispers it against Astarion's mouth, his eyes gleaming in conspiratorial glee. There's blood smeared on his lips and his heart is pounding like a drum in his ears, percussive and steady; their hips knock together, grinding roughly as they struggle for control. Astarion's fingers overlap his own along the knife's handle, their arms trembling as Leto fights to keep it extended, knowing that sooner or later they'll buckle—
And when it does, they twist again: the knife flashing between them (a deep scratch along Astarion's chest, a glancing slash that tears through skin along Leto's arm) and the two of them scrambling for position once more. Tumbling over the bed, writhing over the mattress— a loud thump denotes the moment they find the bed isn't big enough and end up toppling over right onto the floor, and it's painful and stupid and funny, and Leto laughs even as they fight.
And just for this moment, he forgets that his lover is a vampire. He forgets that they're anything but two lovers playing with one another, roughhousing for no other reason than it's fun. Forget scars. Forget the past. Forget all that awaits them in this world and the next, Cazador and Mephistopheles, magic and the other spawn— forget even the hounds lurking next door, Ataashi tiredly herding two endlessly curious pups away from the door.
Right now, this is only for them.
They kiss and fight and kiss again, magic flaring between them again and again in static bursts of blue light. They twist and writhe, neither of them winning, until at last they end up like this: with Astarion flat on his back once more, bands of mana wrapping around his wrists and pinning them to the floor. The magic is a flickering thing, there and gone (the magic is terrifying and thrilling all at once, a natural extension of his own desires and a manifestation of all his nightmares, and if he just doesn't think about it, it almost works). Leto straddles his darling, panting in exertion as he tries to maintain the spell and keep his focus all at once. Sweat beads on his forehead and his cheeks are flushed with excitement and effort both; it's been a long time since they've fought properly, but his body still remembers how much he adores it.]
Perhaps I should have told you to beg me for permission.
[Taunting. Teasing. The knife held loosely in his right hand while the other rakes through mussed-up curls, gripping them tightly as he tips Astarion's head back. Blood is smeared between them, little cuts half-clotted scattered along both their torsos. Droplets of blood still eke out of the bite wound on his lip, though in truth Leto doesn't notice.]
Give in. Say I won, little bat, and I'll let you mark me as consolatory prize.
[He leans down, murmuring against Astarion's lips as he adds:]
Or are you going to claim I'm cheating again?
no subject
This is how it goes.
He's breathing like he needs to.
This is how it's meant to go; an overarching sense of rightness asserted in their scuffle long before the fall when he lies flat across his back with his arms pinned, and— oh for just a second he sees stars. Nothing like split vision or ringing ears or besotted worship, but real stars. Fenrir. Equinor. Draconis. The ones cast overhead the first time he'd dropped to dusty stone thanks to a pair of taloned hands, impact rattling up to his ears. Wishful thinking, maybe. Coming home. Memory or longing or whatever one might call it— it doesn't change the fact that he's up to his neck in something more than just nostalgia for the second time in all his malformed years, watching rivulets of vivid red trail down the front of Leto's chest.
Astarion doesn’t realize he’s smiling in the gaps between breaths. All teeth. All lopsided flashes of jagged white.
He never forgot his lines.]
You've won, little pup.
We're even.
[That's how it goes.
Fingers flexing in small twitches of minuscule impatience, mostly wound up in the fine bones of his wrists as a telltale marker as he tests the limits of those arcane bonds, feeling out the thread of just how exhausted Leto might be by now. A flicker in his gaze catching brightly in the light, refractive. Thrilled in the shadow of the grip that holds him by his scalp first....and his claws second.
Waiting like he'd never once stopped looking for an opening. Practically licking his chops even while he tips his own throat back by degrees, the gesture docile like nothing in him truly is at this moment: tensed beneath that scruffing grasp.
Mark me. Mark me first.
(This is how it goes.)
Make me yours.]
no subject
That was the first time, wasn't it? The very first time Astarion called him that. He'd protested back then, flustered and pleased but uncertain as to the other elf's intentions. Only later, when Astarion's tongue slipped so sweetly into Tevene, did he learn to accept it. Catulus, little pup, and now Leto knows how to read the adoration and love layered beneath each syllable.
But ah, ah— his opponent will take advantage any way he can get, and Leto is too comfortable right now to give up the lead so easily. Sweat drips down his temple, his magical stamina all but nonexistent, but he need only hold him a few moments longer.]
We are not near even.
[This is how it goes, his own heart singing in time with Astarion's own. This is how it's meant to be, and he didn't realize how much he missed this until now. The thrill of being in power; the fierce delight that comes of truly and honestly fighting. It's been months of retraining this body, building up muscle and stamina all over again, practicing endlessly for hours on end, honing his skills and testing his reflexes, and all of it has led to here and now.
He isn't the same elf who was nearly eaten by spawn all those months ago. He isn't tripping over his own feet as he tries to get used to boots nor staring in awe at the rights elves are granted here. He knows who he is. He knows this body; he knows it as well as he ever knew his old one.
You're mine.]
Hold still.
[I'm yours.
It's twice he stabs him: each wound no more than an inch across, each laid lovingly just beneath the long lines of Astarion's collarbone. The blade sinks in just deep enough to be felt, no more than an inch or two, sliding effortlessly through skin and blood and muscle, before he draws it back. Blood drips down the blade; blood wells up from those cuts, scarlet and hot as it soaks into Astarion's shirt.
(And he'll do it again if he has to. Over and over until it scars, and perhaps they'll be more methodical about it next time around— but right now it's about the symbol. The echo of his own long-gone scars and the mirror opposite of them all at once, both tangled endlessly with notions of love and adoration and possessiveness. Even if we forget each other, we have a connection. A way to prove it.
I won't lose you.]
no subject
The blade plunges in under his skin, and with it, every memory— every sweet (and achingly bittersweet) sensation that they've shared embeds itself in place of the blood welling up to leave more room for it to take. Frigid patters dripping over silver. Over skin— Leto's and his own. His body arches towards momentum when it leaves him (even vampires feel pain), nothing else mattering but the dizzy thrill that follows, coiling hot in its ascension, pinned against his breastbone. He doesn't take the knife so much as grab it. He doesn't think so much as collide with the elf above him in a kiss defined by frenzy, fine features laced with sweat.
This is how it goes. This is how it's meant to be. And if there's anything to be said for wrongness, it's that it has a way of coming to those who can't speak to it. Can't translate it. Enslaved husks that felt ill even when they could glut themselves on praise or affirmation, unable to remember a thing about what they deserved. What they really wanted. What it was to want— but still, it was there.
(The wings are only wax if you fall, and gods above, the only thing they fell into was this.)
And everything feels right at last.
The pommel of the blade as it scrapes against his palm when he takes it. The slow dance of their tongues and dagger-teeth as they kiss and bite and drink in more than love. The aching in his chest— for good things always hurt— letting him bleed and bleed when he pins one hand hard along the base of Leto's spine and snaps that dagger in through thickset tissue, dragging it down to form a gouging line like the bite of his substituted fangs once did in those years when he was closer to mortality. (What are they now?
Transcendent. Peripheral. Marginal. Unconfined. Undefined.
Free.)
And when Leto jerks against him for the first mark, he holds him in the second: making it quick. Kissing his cheek. His temple. Not a razor blade or crude bindings to be seen. Not an order of compulsion, but a choice. Their choice.
Their marks.
Theirs, all of it at last.]
2/2
[Exhale let out slow across the arch of Leto's closest cheek, quill-et-bloodied-dagger already pulled free and dropped off over soft bedsheets. Both hands now fully committed to applying pressure to those wounds: centerlines squared across the gashes, fingertips anchored like stitches, pushing on both sides— mortal things take longer to heal than vampires (and these days he's beginning to consider the merits of learning how to heal, just a little).
And in case you thought the answer to his question was 'a vampire and a world traversing god-killer-slash-conduit-for-magic-itself':]
A couple of absolute freaks.
[Who else would go around brandishing scars like wedding bands?]
no subject
They have their suspicions, I expect. And none of them close to reality.
[Oh, yes. A set of sex-crazed bounty-hunting elves madly in love and giddily enjoying a decade-long honeymoon . . . there are worse reputations to cultivate. For all that he had such a sulky attitude earlier this week when it came to being overheard, there's something quite nice about having such benign rumors floating around them. It's nice, Leto thinks, to be regarded as amusingly ordinary.
Unseen, his eyes flutter shut. His fingers curl absently against the curve of one shoulder, all of him so utterly content in this moment. Pain is a flickering thing, sharp bites of it smoothed out and soothed by the press of cold fingers around each of his wounds. Astarion is a steady weight beneath him, protective and adoring both. Sweat beads against Leto's bare skin, each droplet felt as it slowly evaporates; he turns his head just slightly and noses at the sharp line of one upturned ear, buried contentedly in Astarion's familiar scent.
Peaceful. Warm and content and together, and it matters little what unconventional rituals they enact, for the end result is just the same. I love you, you're mine, I'm yours, always, always, always, and their love language has always been rough around the edges, preferring blades and blood over flowers and chocolates.
And it works. For them, it works. And that's all that matters.]
It feels good to have them back.
[The phrasing deliberate. Not just I'm glad, for that's only a fraction of what he feels. But ah, perhaps better said:]
It feels . . . right in a way I did not expect. Not just a return to my old body, but . . . I don't know. As if something lost has been found again. I did not realize how much I missed them until now.
[His fingers stroke absently against his shoulder in lieu of touching Astarion's scars.]
Though I am glad you have a matching set. That, too, feels right.
no subject
Cut clean through with a set of daggers and one reckless bout of laughter— enough to make the whole world shift back into sunlight. (The wings are only wax if you fall, and gods above, the only thing they fell into was this.)
Three years, he mouths out loosely; a puff of cool, false breath sliding over Leto's cheek in place of the fingers that he can't— not for the moment, at least— remove from their triaging efforts in order to smooth across arch features the way he'd like.
He really should brush up on his cantrips. Another set of hands could have its uses.]
I don't think I've ever been thanked for stabbing someone before. [Mild, particularly when one oversharp pair of canines pull at tender lips, kissing like punctuation. Like gratitude. Like contentment, raw and unrefined.]
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[His voice is slow and drowsy with contentment, deep and rich in the way it gets only when he's particularly soothed. Safe, warm, happy, content, and it isn't that he's unaware of the future. It gnaws at him nightly, his mind constantly forming plans and practicing defenses; his days are spent learning all the spells that might work against a vampire, sunlight and fire and water all ready to be wielded with the flash of his blade. He knows what they will soon leave to face; he knows how high the stakes are.
But they have always overcome whatever challenges have been set before them. Riftwatch. Corypheus. Memory loss and mutilation; the separation of worlds and the terror of never seeing one another again. Monsters and starvation and fights; the shock of the loss of his lyrium and Astarion's newfound species, coupled with all the personality changes that wracked them both. Cazador . . . Cazador is so many things, and Leto will not ever make the mistake of underestimating him— but nor will he allow him to terrify him to the point of incompetence.
For Leto knows himself now as he didn't before. He can feel it within himself; he can feel it thrumming between them, their spirits vibrating in attunement as they hadn't before. They can do it. They will do it. Cazador might be a terror, but he can die just as easily as any god.
But right now, he isn't allowing himself to think of all that. There's just the here and now; there's just fingers pressed dotingly against his back and cool breath against his cheek, and the simple but unerring joy of knowing that he's loved. That he has changed today, growing in a way he hadn't realized he was aching for until it came upon him.
Three years . . . and three hundred more after it.]
Mph, well, it seems only fair.
[He mouths gently at the line of one ear, smiling as he does.]
You have witnessed countless firsts of mine. It is far past time I was allowed to see one of yours, kadan.
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[He asserts with no small amount of wryness, giving amusement free reign over one half-submerged expression, turning it into a light push of absent pressure over the slope of Leto's neck— his own ear twitching for attention he returns in kind (and with interest, no less, given the sharpness of overlong teeth.] In so many more ways than you realize, you have been all along.
And besides, I do like my new set of marks. [Pleasing for a great number of reasons, though they're a throbbing, screaming ache under his knitting skin right now, it still feels good. Still feels like everything he'd wanted (and everything he was scared of enacting when that dagger was wildly quaking in his trembling hands). And in light of that, he—
All right, yes, fine. He knows it can't possibly feel exactly the same on Leto's end of this for healing speeds, but stubbornly he wonders if it's similar in nature, the welling spring of heat smothered hard beneath his grasp.]
Though we might need to do a little housekeeping from time to time, just until they take. I'd commit to letting you use a stake for it but erm....I'll be honest, that's a little more unsettling to have just lying around than I'd prefer. [Oh, Leto he trusts. It's the rest of the populace having access to any amount of sharpened wood that gives him pause. And the last thing either of them really wants is a couple of nosy people asking questions as to why they have a thing like that lying around, if it comes to light by way of accidents or rummaging pups.]
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[It's a swift agreement, the question of trust nonexistent in Leto's mind. It wouldn't be the worst idea, perhaps, to procure one before facing Cazador, but not in the house. There's too many ways that could go wrong and too few benefits for them to even consider it. Perhaps if they lived in a larger space . . . but ah, it doesn't matter. No stakes, and he shakes his head minutely, affirming that.]
But housekeeping would be . . . pleasing, I think, in its intimacy. I have missed sparring like this with you.
[Foreplay and fighting all at once: it satisfies an urge Leto had almost forgotten he enjoyed indulging. It's been too long since he's gotten to go all out; longer still that they have been able to fight without Astarion simply letting him win.
But oh: he hadn't missed what Astarion had murmured at first. That quiet bit of sentiment that left Leto's heart pattering in startled joy, unexpected and yet all the more pleasing for it. Again he turns his head, nuzzling and nosing against Astarion in quiet response.]
Tell me.
[Softer than before, his voice gentle as he rumbles against his ear.]
I believe I know what you mean when you say that I am your first, but . . . I would hear it from you. All the ways in which I realize— and all the ways in which I don't.
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Even if Astarion's never been any good at sincerity laid bare.)
Outside, there's the clattering of shuttered windows. Baying dogs. Rising voices— muffled by thin walls and heavy drapes— all loud to vampiric ears, making it difficult to find the quiet beat of one nearby, submerged pulse. So (just as always, no less), Astarion does what he can with the deck he's been given: slim fingers readjusting over the injuries they hold until pressure reveals the steady thud thud thudding that he needs to quiet all his thoughts into something resembling sanity. Cohesion.
Chin still pushed against one shoulder, eyes still thinly lidded.
And then, with the smallest intake of false breath:]
The first person I laid eyes on entirely of my own volition. [It comes with a twisting of his lips, that murmur.] I still can't think of my first few moments of freedom without smelling that odd magic of yours. [And more than that:] The first person to ever extend their hand, let alone rescue me throughout two centuries of silent pleading.
[(Real. All of it real. And for a single, overwhelming moment, Astarion thinks he can feel his heart stop once more: the drop of it as it plummets to a standstill, so very much like the night he died in Cazador's arms.)]
The first to listen. The first to understand. The first I trusted, willingly. No lies, no safeguards.
The first creature I grew protective of. Beautiful boy that you were. Shining thing. Little light— I thought— for so long I was afraid you'd leave if you knew the truth of what I was. Not just a bloodsucking monster when blood magic had been your terror, but the anchor shard. Demonic accusations. [But you never did goes unspoken.]
The first to....
[To—
Like a snag in pristine threadwork, his confession finally hitches. A certain catching of his voice that brings it lower across tanned skin. Makes it stumble as it stalls....albeit briefly.]
I bedded others before you. Even amongst Riftwatch, it was a habit. Like the informants I kept.
But after Rialto, I turned them all away. I know it broke their hearts, but what I gave them wasn't real. I made that clear before I took them.
With you....there was never a question.
[Another first. Not the grandest or most damning, just....]
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[With a buried noise of overwound restraint brought to its damning limit, Astarion's feigned control gives way— fangs set against skin through a flexing of his jaw; sharpness gripping at its prey, rather than puncturing it, though the drive that led him here sees his instincts attempting to bite once— twice— and again, for good measure, leaving behind a host of superficial scuffs in the places where he isn't actively anchoring his mouth at the moment.
An exhale.
A line of crinkled agitation spanning the bridge of his nose, still grimacing in a silent snarl laid across nothing but the junction of Leto's throat into his shoulder, turning into roughened nuzzle after yet another beat.
....and then a groan.
Bloody vampiric emotions.
Bloody aggression, stirred up by affection he can't control.]
Bloody sentiment.
[It is so hard to be a vampire in love.]
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How young Leto must have seemed to Astarion's eyes during those first few minutes (and hours, and days, and weeks). How unbelievably, earnestly unreal after two centuries of pleading in the darkness, hoping against hope over and over that the world was not as cruel as it seemed. That this was not all there was to life, endless misery and torment and grief. I begged, you know. For two hundred years, I begged for salvation, and three years later, Leto has not forgotten a moment of that conversation after the crossroads. As they'd held hands and spoken about the eternal wariness that this might be some trick of Cazador's, gods, no, he hasn't forgotten a single word. No one— not even the ones who watched me suffer— lifted a hand to save me.
Two centuries of learning that nothing was real. That emotions were things to be played with, not believed in; that the way of the world was hard and cruel and wicked, and only fools believed in things like fairy tales and happy endings. Two centuries of silently begging (this’ll be the one to see it. the one that'll glimpse, finally, between the lines), and nothing ever changed. No one ever tried. No one cared, no one bothered—
Until Leto.
Until Thedas, and oh, what a miracle it must have seemed. And what was Thedas in all her flaws compared to freedom? What were the catcalls and knife-ear compared to bloody fingers clawing at the walls and a soul long shattered and broken? Beautiful boy that you were. Shining thing. Little light, and here and now, Leto doesn't squirm beneath those petnames. He understands they aren't offered in subtle patronization, but awed wonder. Little miracle, beautiful darling, and his heart hurts to imagine it. The fear that he might have lost him (and brutally honest as he is, Leto thinks privately that it was not an unfounded fear, not entirely). The terror of not knowing how long this would last, and oh, what a leap of faith it must have been—
You're the first, you know. The roar of the sea and the distant boom of fireworks, and giddy off of love as he'd been, Leto hadn't fully realized the implication of those words then. We are in love for the first time, and he hadn't understood. He'd seen the surface, but not the depths.
He does now.
First in love. First in affection. First in honesty and joy and desire, wanting Astarion because of who he is, not in spite of it. First to reach a hand out and say I will keep you safe as best I can without any thought of reward, lecherous or otherwise. The first person in his entire life (and two centuries seems so long to Leto right now) to look at him, really look at him, and see him for who he is. It does not surprise Leto to hear that whatever he gave to those members of Riftwatch wasn't real, because how could it be? They never understood him. They never wanted to try. They dug and grasped and took and took and took, and sometimes that can pass for companionship under dim lighting, but it is nothing compared to what they have. Even then, when their love was still new, it outshone them by miles.
There was never a question, and it does not shock Leto, for he knew— but he didn't know, all at once.
And he's grateful for that disruption when it happens. That scuffing and scraping that Leto instinctively bucks up against, the two of them working against one another like the pups on an agitating day, for it gives him time to gather himself. To blink away the welling wetness in his eyes (silly, soppy, unnecessary, and yet his arms wrap tight around Astarion's frame, awkward and protective all at once). A break so they can reset— and so Leto can figure out how he wants to respond.
Bloody sentiment, and perhaps it suits that he exhales a laugh in reply, for sincerity can be so hard. And yet all the more worthwhile, for in this moment Leto feels as though their souls are aligned utterly once more, their hearts beating as one.]
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[Three years won't do that, but leaping from world to world, body to body certainly will.]
You act differently here. I act differently here, I know . . . but you have flourished here. You carry yourself more proudly, and seem more your age than you did in Thedas. And I . . . I did not forget. I will never forget, [his head turning, nuzzling fiercely against the side of Astarion's head again and again.] But I forget how short a time three years has been . . . and how terrifying it must have been to give me those firsts.
[His nuzzling slows, gentle pushes with his nose as he speaks.]
I have never felt the way I feel with you.
[Soft. A little hesitant, truthfully, for he doesn't want to make this about him— but perhaps it will help to hear the comparison.]
I was teasing when I said firsts before, thinking only of sex— and I will not deny you have been my first for most of that, too, [he adds with a rumbling chuckle. But then, more seriously:] But I have never trusted the way I trust you. I have had friends, companions, that I trusted with my life— but never fully blindly. Never without thinking of all the ways in which that trust might be betrayed, or circumstances that might occur where they'd sell me out.
I never think of those things with you.
I have never given my heart to someone the way I have given it to you: wholly and without restraint. Trusting you even when I cannot trust myself; knowing that there is no set of circumstances that would lead you to betray me. [Never say never— but Astarion is no idiotic hero, and would not pull a pointless break-his-heart-to-save-him gambit. They have too much respect for one another for that.]
I am sorry it took me so long to find you.
[Sorry in the sense that his heart grieves for it, not in the sense of taking blame. And now, finally, he rises up just far enough to catch Astarion's gaze, his eyes blazing fiercely with protective adoration.]
But I am glad I did, even if I was two centuries late. And more glad than I know how to say that I could be those firsts for you.
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What was that? The biting . . .
[Not that he minds. He can guess, but sometimes it's nice to have an easy way out of a heartfelt conversation— or not. To linger in sentiment or move on to lighter things, but either way, Leto isn't going anywhere. And now that he's guaranteed he's trapped a bit longer (drops of blood welling fresh now that he's jostled those wounds, clotting still mostly intact), he might as well ask.]
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A thousand lifetimes. Every minute, every second— every reset in the dark, every time their memories went cold and brittle. Broke. Growing in again like splintered bone each time the past would circle back to find them, monster and mercy unrefined. Every time their bodies changed. Their worlds shifted.
A thousand lifetimes.
A thousand firsts.
And Astarion laughs a little round the borders of his anchored heart, albeit low, not fully having left the groaning exasperation from before when there's such a thing as shame left in him.]
You've no idea how hard you make it. [The smell of copper in the air, nauseatingly sweet and overwhelming. The flicker of a pulse and its gushing floes. The feeling of tacky, dampened fingers— and the knowledge that soon he'll untangle to bandage those wounds properly. Take his mate to a healer that'll know just what sort of gauze to use and where to lay it down, unlike Dalyria's embittered once-apprentice, who only ever listened enough to staunch the worst of all their bleeding.
Just....not yet.]
Vampires—
[No. No, that won't explain it.]
Think of your anger. [His stunning, radiant anger (Astarion left breathless from its beauty so many times, watching the internal become external on some quiet Lowtown street).] How it overwhelms.
Now imagine if everything you felt was like that at a minimum. All the time.
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