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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
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.]
no subject
[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.
no subject
[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.]
no subject
[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.
no subject
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....]
2/2
[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.]
1/3
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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So: start with anger.
He knows that anger. He knows how pervasive it can be, sneaking in to rear its head at the first opportunity, overwhelming him until it bursts free all at once— and only in the aftermath is he able to settle. To go back and offer and apology or clarify what he had snarled . . . yes, he knows what it is to have something overwhelm you.
And he thinks he can see the shape of it. Everything, Astarion says, and it takes Leto some thought— but gods, what is being an adolescent if not feeling everything so intensely all the time? Forget anger (though gods, he's a moody thing some days); Leto swears some days he's felt more joy and grief and excitement in the past few months than he has in his lifetime. And it's not that the experiences are so very new, no, nor do they triumph what he's gone through— but gods, he feels everything so intensely now.
So multiply that. Take it and expand it by ten, by a hundred, by a thousand percent: all his emotions filling him so fiercely that he can't possibly be expected to contain them. To feel anger or grief or joy or passion so fiercely that there is no ebb and flow, only an endless outpour. You could drown in it if you weren't careful, Leto thinks. You could lose yourself in that rage (oh, how easily Astarion could, and who could ever blame him for it?). You could lose yourself to your worst emotions, bitter anger or searing lust, and never once have to pull yourself away from it—
And suddenly the tales Astarion has told him of other vampires (not just Szarr, but the horror stories that creep out of the plains and slip into the ears of even the most housebound pets) make more sense. Orgies that last for days on end and violence so nauseatingly vicious that it would turn even the most jaded patriar's stomach . . . unless, perhaps, you had an anchor. A goal. All your energy and emotions devoted towards the slow but inevitable trickle of power . . .
Or a consort, Leto thinks, and brushes his fingers against the curve of Astarion's cheek. Someone whom you loved so dearly that you fought, every single day and night, to keep yourself in check. Your hunger. Your morals. Your emotions, felt so strongly that you couldn't help but let them burst free—
And he thinks of his own heart right now. How exhausting it is to feel so deeply; how overwhelmed he was not a moment ago, lost in his own memories.]
How often do you . . .
[No. What is he trying to say?]
Does it help? Biting at me like that?
I would not mind it if it happened more often.
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[Wink and also wink.]
Come up. Here. Careful now. [Disregard only temporary (Leto's already moved and reopened his injuries once, so what harm is there in twice—) when it's for the sake of sliding out from underneath him, pulling open the nightstand drawer. The very same (infamous) drawer where they keep salves, ointments, bandages, binds— and the clink of what scarce few phials of lilac oil remain from his once-abundant stores.
Lean lines. Strong muscle. Corded contours over an athletic, lithe young frame. That's what Leto is reduced to in his lap while sharp claws winnow through his hair.
Opposite hand taking deft turns pulling strips of gauze from the roll and tearing it between his teeth.]
It does help, in a way. [His performative amusement might be pristine, but the longer time ticks on repeating the subtle back and forth of shredding gauze in preparation, the more true it all becomes: overstimulation washing away bit by steady bit.] Probably why my kind favors action above all else. [Like those skirmishes of theirs. Like the fights they found in Kirkwall. Like scuffling instead of grieving. Like—
Ah, like drinking into numbness. Like rutting. Like bleeding till you can't see straight.]
When self-control shatters, anything is better than stillness.
[One exhale through his nose, resting the first salve-soaked bandage against a deep-gouged line.]
And anything is better than mangling you....
[Well.]
....more.
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But then again: it's one thing to compare similar scars and familiar battlewounds (did he ever starve you, how often did he call you to his bed, and they can turn old nightmares into a joke in an instant). It's another to talk about something that so starkly highlights their differences. And perhaps that's why Leto himself is a little put out at not facing Astarion: it's strange to be removed from him, and all the more so when they're speaking of something he cannot fully understand. My kind, his lover says. My kind, his laugh performative and not quite real. And though Leto knows what he means, knows that their bond is too strong to ever shatter, knows that Astarion means nothing by using such a term—
Gods. He still isn't used to there being such a divide between them. Mortal and vampire. Elf and undead. He tries never to think of them in such a way, but nor will he shy away from the truth when he has to face it. My kind, Astarion says, and he is not wrong.
But it's a small discomfort, a discordant note during an intimate symphony. This unease is not new, and it ebbs and falls from day to day. And so though some quiet part of Leto squirms in discomfort, it's equally easy to settle back and enjoy this for what it is: intimacy and caretaking all at once. He settles in his lover's lap, his spine relaxing as he submits to those gentle ministrations. Talons carding dotingly through his hair, and he waits patiently as he hears the gauze behind him rip.]
I know the feeling.
[Craving action instead of stillness . . . oh, yes. He tips his head forward, ignoring the urge to hiss as salve first stings and then soothes against his wounds.]
It is— frankly, it is not dissimilar to how I sometimes feel in this body. [Wry, that. But then:]
My first year in Kirkwall, I would go out near nightly in search of a fight. It mattered little who I found: so long as they gave me even half a reason to fight, I would happily set my blade upon them. And I was vicious . . . more than some of them deserved, I suspect.
[He speaks without guilt or self-pity; it happened, and he's long since moved on from it.]
It was a poor way to cope with my rage and terror. But I found that anything was better than simply staring at the walls for hours on end, stewing in paranoia and feeling that restless energy crawl beneath my skin. If I could find no victims, I would train— and if I could not stand doing something so ritualized, I ran. Up and down the city, over the rooftops . . .
[A pause, and then he exhales.]
Mangle me if that is what you need. Bite at me. Fight me if it all becomes too much, for I can defend myself against you, Astarion.
[He says it calmly and confidently: a fact, not a boast.]
I have learned this body, I know what it can do— and I would not see you constantly fight for self-control if you need relief instead.
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Because Astarion was mangled by his curse. (But then again— maybe he was mangled before it, and made all the worse for every nightmare that followed, crawling from the wreckage of his life into Cazador's waiting shadow.) He's always been a master of giving himself too much credit. Too little credit.
It'd be easy to take that offer. Three years ago he would have, rest assured: readily. Greedily. Hungrily. A place to bed his rampant savagery alongside pain. Both a thrill in their own right— feeling the split of tender skin under his teeth and the fevered tang of blood tearing free of its restrictive veins— claws and blades and blunt-force bruising.
Power.
By any name. Every name.
He sees it for what it is, and oh, still, he loves it. Power synonymous with control. With safety. Certainty. The inverse of fear, outlined and his, no one else's.
But much like Leto, he isn't starving anymore. And what lies beneath his fingers is— ]
Strewth.
[Throatiness swimming in his voice like nothing else belongs there: a tone shared solely between them.]
Sometimes I wonder if you're real.
[It's a compliment. A show of awe, laid down with every last placed strip of bandaging. For the hunger and hatred as much as the handsomeness in moonstone skin.]
Or if this is all just one more laugh at my expense, gifting me something like you.
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