illithidnapped | INBOX II

[It's really a show of maturity and self-control that he doesn't whine the way he wants to when he hears that.]

Gods. Sixty more years of this . . .

[Ah, and here, now, he remembers who he is— for any adolescent elf would surely view six decades as little more than the blink of an eye, not an entire lifetime.]

How does anyone stand it? It's only a handful of years for humans, and that alone is nightmare enough. [And it's stupid to compare, but he can't help it.] I do not know how elves manage to endure.

[And then, with an unseen twist of his mouth, he adds:]

I do not know how you will endure.

[He's joking, sort of. Kind of. It's not that he thinks Astarion is at risk of leaving, no, but . . . gods, he gets so impatient with himself some days, and he cannot imagine it's any easier on the other side.]

[His laugh is warm. Fond. It comes on easily, not a glimpse of an act in sight. Sound bottled with the brightness of play, rather than the extension of it.]

You say that like you're not one of us. [Trust he knows there is a difference, he'd felt the brunt of it in Thedas, but the truth of it is— ]

You make it so damned easy to bear.

Edited 2024-03-15 22:42 (UTC)

[Gods, and despite himself, his face softens into a smile. He would have been fine without assurance, for he knows their love is far stronger than a few prickly moods— but still, there's something lovely about getting it.

And in turn, it makes it easier for him to settle, some of those hackles lowering as his voice warms.]

Te amo.

[It's easier to say in Tevene than Common sometimes. But ah, on the subject of being one of them . . .]

Does it feel . . .

[Mm, no. What is he trying to say?]

What does sixty years feel like to you? I cannot . . . truthfully, I cannot even fathom such a span. I know I will continue to age, and that I will hit not just one, but two, three, four centuries, but in truth, it doesn't feel real. Sixty years . . . that seems a lifetime to me.

Does it . . . is it a long span for you?

Tsk.

[Te amo te amo, and it's only because his ears are red and ringing with a frankly adolescent amount of adoration of his own that he doesn't start grumbling about lifetimes and what it really means to be old. Hells' teeth. If he didn't already feel as if he were robbing the cradle thanks to all those rowdy cubs his lover likes to run with....

Though then again.]

Te amo, you impatient little sweetheart. [Sharper than the click of his tongue against the roof of his mouth, wryness is a present player in their chat.

(Ten years with Cazador was horror itself, to say nothing of the approximal two hundred more that followed, too many of them missing. It felt endless. Muddy. Crushing. Three years in freedom, though? A blink. A sip— and there's some part of him that fears if things go wrong, that'll be all he gets. Three years of perfect freedom traded for one more unending promise of enslavement.

He can't talk about this, not directly— his perceptions are as mangled as his thoroughly broken mind. He's not the right source.

But he's not the wrong one either.)]

Huffing about sixty years. A hundred years. You think adolescence for half a century is a nightmare? Some of us have been stuck this way for an eternity and counting, thank you very much, and you don't hear us complaining about it day in and day out.

Oh?

[Interested oh. Surprised oh. Somewhat amused oh, in truth, and Leto notes that emotion as it fills him for no other reason than it would be so damned easy to go the opposite way. To flinch back, remembering revelations about siblings and long-kept secrets— and it's not that his mind doesn't go there, understand. Just that he trusts in his amatus enough to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume this more a vague guess than a long-held secret.]

You have a guess when you were turned . . . is that based on something you remember, or general level of maturity?

[He's teasing.]

—ah, you brat!

[He's delighted to be conversationally cuffed about the ears.

It shows.]

You're one to talk about maturity, anyway, even if we are two peas in a pod on a good day.

But you could call it an educated guess, I suppose. A hunch I want to confirm when we get back to Baldur's Gate. Because ever since you told me my name— well, I wouldn't say the memories have come flooding back by any stretch, but there is....mm. I think I remember more about who I used to be.

I think I was a lot more like you than I realized.

[A beat, and then, with an abrupt little turn into all due henning fuss:]

And I saw myself in the mirror in Thedas, by the way, so this is not your invitation to go about commenting on how I may have happened to quite handsomely age in my decades of confined torment. I dare you to find any young elf that's been flayed alive that happens to look twice as good.

[Oh, what a dearth of information is packed into those sentences. I think I remember more about who I used to be, I think I was a lot more like you than I realized, and there are a thousand ways to interpret those facts. But though Leto's heart is leaping in his chest, his knuckles white for how tight he's suddenly gripped the notebook, he bites his lip until he knows he'll answer calmly.

For there's nothing worse for fragile memories than a rush of excitement. Demanding questions of who and where and why all crowd around, shattering whatever spiderweb-thin grip you have on that collection of sensations that might or might not be real . . . oh, yes, he knows.

So: keep it light. Keep up that teasing, toothless and vague, and let Astarion tell him as he will.]

I dare any elf to look half as good as you do, regardless of anything else.

[Lightly said, though sincerely meant.]

But you fuss too much about nonexistent wrinkles and flaws. You did age handsomely, my adolescent darling, but that only means you look an adult, not a teenager. And I vastly prefer to see one over the other in my bed.

[A breath, and then, gently:]

What do you mean, you were more like me?

[There's an age-old Waterdavian joke about what it takes to make a prostitute blush. Astarion can't remember the actual punchline anymore— picked up in the Flophouse over ale that reeked enough to turn his stomach— but all that pales in the face of the fact that he apparently is the punchline. Two— three hundred odd years or so old, and he can't help feeling his dead pulse stutter like machinery sputtering to start; phantom warmth pushing the tips of his ears down into a twitching pin behind his curls. None of it visible, some of it heard: sound in the back of Astarion's throat not unlike something being strangled. Or more accurately: strangling itself.

Hells' teeth. He's too bloody old to go about fluttering like a schoolboy in love.]

I—

Edited 2024-03-17 23:21 (UTC)

[But then the rest comes. And just like that the fluster's gone. Just like that, he's shifting on his end of the line (audibly by way of tread worn floorboards that groan beneath his weight in place of softer sighs), trading out one form of muteness with another.

He's fumbling. The words won't come. For someone with a heap of supposition attached to his own eroded name, suddenly it doesn't feel like enough. Like every confession he could utter's too concrete for its theoretical framework, all built up on half-recollections and a handful of weeks spent letting old nightmares wash back in with the tide, for once.

And then he pivots on instinct: comparison a language he can lean on.]

I don't believe Danarius made his tournament and then up and decided to ask you to join.

I think it was the other way round.

[There's a pause there, formed by held breath and the curl of his tongue against one fang. Subtle question lodged, and yet unspoken: (do you understand?)]

I suspect he saw a creature yet to rise to either age or potential, and knew it couldn't say no to an offer of salvation.

[Oh. Oh, oh, oh, and dazedly, beneath the rising rage and grief that roar in his ears and reverberate down to his aching fingers, he hears the question beneath those words. Fragile and unspoken, yes, I understand, yes, I know what you mean— yes, I understand why you say it the way you do.

Because the truth is such a fragile thing. Because words have power; you can endure a hundred thousand agonies and still shy away from having to ever articulate it. It makes it too real, makes it so that you can't take it back— and no matter that Leto wouldn't care if this hunch proved to be false, gods, it isn't about him. Not really. It's about Astarion. About having to face that awful truth; about having to realize and process and endure another horrific crime centuries after it was committed.

Volunteered, Leto had called it once. And it was not until Astarion had gently questioned the use of that word that Leto realized just how twisted the truth had become, even in his own mind. I think, I suspect, and it's so much easier to put it on someone else than to allow it to touch yourself . . .

But he cannot dive deeper into that thought just yet. Not when he's suddenly so angry he can barely see, breathe, function, never mind speak. I suspect he saw a creature yet to rise to either age or potential, and he has imagined that night a thousand times ever since Astarion first told him of it, but now the picture changes. Now it's not a noble in the prime of his adulthood, a magister drunk on power and foolish vanity; it's a boy. An adolescent. An elf no older than a century at most, flawed only in the way everyone else is flawed, his silver eyes bright and his fangs fledgling things, wandering innocuously home at night. Not knowing that his footsteps are stalked; not understanding that the catcalls and jeers from a block away are meant for him.

Not knowing for centuries that his fate had been sealed weeks before.

And it makes sense, you know. It's far, far more likely than Cazador happening to stumble upon a particularly pretty and clever elf that he happened to decide he wanted to turn. Such flights of fancy are for fools who glut themselves on indulgence and die too early; even Danarius wasn't so haphazard as that. Far better to arrange a scenario in which you become your victim's hero, even for a little while . . .

(Scarlet blood soaking into cobblestones, Astarion's voice broken as he begs for a savior who won't come; scarlet blood stark against the snow, a retching shivering creature crawling on all fours before his distant savior. If I do this, you set my family free? Stumbling through the streets, weeping for the pain and the shock of his lack of heartbeat, clinging to a figure that never quite returns the warmth and adoration you want so badly for him to display to you. My precious pet, show me just how grateful you are to your master— on your knees, boy. The ecstasy of being the master's favorite for weeks on end, not knowing you're being set up for a fall all over again. Training for weeks on end, his muscles screaming and sweat dripping down his face, his collar searing against his neck, all for the soft-spoken praise of good boy to leave him trembling in desperate adoration.

And then: the fall. The torment. The agony you never knew was possible (his throat bloody from screaming as he claws at his own lyrium), the horror you think you can't possibly endure (how long was he locked away, how long was he kept in one of those coffins, in the wall, moaning and weeping and screaming for forgiveness, knowing that you might never be let out). Adapting. Overcoming. Erasing your past not just because the pain wiped it all out, but because it hurts too much to remember what you were. What you lost. What you might have been, if only, if only, if only—)

[He's been quiet for too long.]

Yes.

[His voice is tight, grief and rage barely restrained. The book trembles before him, his hands shaking as he stares at nothing. Focus. Focus.]

I suspect . . .yes, I suspect you're correct. It would make more sense. He could find an elf he particularly enjoyed the look and sound of, [and all the while his mind screams and screams, killhimkillhimkillhim find him now hunt him down make him scream make him bleed make him suffer] and mold it to be his own.

[Deflection is Astarion's way, but blunt directness is Leto's— and he struggles for a moment, trying to find a way to be what his amatus needs instead of what he's instinctively inclined to do.]

I was eighteen, more or less.

[Gods. Gods.]

How old were you, do you suspect?

Edited 2024-03-18 20:15 (UTC)

[~~Vampires can't read minds.~~

What do you call it, then, when a knife slides hot between your ribs from half a day's distance away, panging in fractured resonance for something neither said nor seen? There for just a blink, then gone? I knew where to find you meeting I found you again echoed in the brackets of their chapters over and over again, and for a split-second he glances down over that book to find his thumb pressed deep (white as bone) against the midline of his palm, checking for a slice of sickly green arcana. Probing to see if it's still there.

Still linking them to one another.

To their home after all this time.]

[But all he feels is flesh. The knotted jut of bone just lurking underneath.

(Maybe they just know each other too well, that's all, and nothing more in the realm of possibility could be half as pleasant as that.)]

Older than that.

[And, no— he isn't thanking the Maker or Andraste for the less-than-hairline boon of Danarius not condemning his chosen pet to an eternity of eighteen. There's no gratitude there. No bliss. But all the same, the point stands true: knowing what he does of monstrosity, if he's glad of anything aside from broken bonds, it's that he met his lover with crease-marks on his brow and rough lines at the corners of his eyes before the rest played out.

Fenris could never be a normal elf. But for what, twenty years or so— including a little more or little less, depending— he got to live (focus on that, Astarion).

He drags his knuckles along his own jaw when he exhales, the sound whittling between sharp incisors.

It's not hesitation. Only the hissing catch of anger he can't place when its genesis is dead and long, long gone.]

But I might've had sixty or so more on my buckish dance card before he scratched his name into it. [Mild, despite its acidity. Light enough to border on playful joking if not for the gravity that holds it, keeping the corners of his mouth curled only by a scant few degrees.] I wasn't young for a magistrate in a human city, that much I know for certain. It made sense to serve, and gods, I don't doubt I must've wanted it—

Let alone took pride in it. [(Those flashes of memory that keep crawling in these last few months in dreams aren't laced with pleasant sentiment. And there's always the question of which came first in the figurative tale: the monster or the prince.)

Pulling away from it, he snorts.]

I imagine you were a much more tolerable youth.

I— yes, perhaps.

[It's a nothing-answer, a vague attempt at returning the joke withering in his throat. He can't tease right now. He can't banter back and forth about who was brattiest, not when his heart feels like ice and his mind roars with an inferno of hatred, seething simmering snarling for the murder of a creature miles and miles away.

Sixty, and it might as well be eighteen. No matter how the humans count it, Astarion wasn't grown, not really. Not as he should have been. There's a difference, and gods, doesn't Leto know it now. Sixty, and the word echoes in his mind in time with his thundering heart, a percussive beat that won't end.

In the distance, his friends call to him. He makes a vague noise, waving them off; then there's the sound of footsteps, short and sharp.]

I'm coming home.

[Of course he is. Of course he is, for they need to be together for this conversation. And yet Leto (or is it Fenris right now?) will not make Astarion wait in nauseating anticipation while he stalks there.]

What makes you certain you were sixty? I do not doubt you, [he adds hastily, feeling like a fool for how clumsily that came out. He can barely think right now, but gods, he needs to try.] But you seem certain of that age. Is it a full memory you can recall, or simply that certainty . . .?

Mmh. Just that I was young. ['Just that', Astarion says, as if that's not enough entirely on its own. And yet to his credit, he's not blind in his irreverence: only someone that didn't know Leto all that well would miss the meaning behind that fumbled banter. The surging promise that he's coming home.

And Astarion knows Leto very well.]

Impatient, I think. That's the sensation I feel most whenever I find myself blindsided by an odd pang of what must be half-formed memories trying their utter damndest to cram their way into the forefront of my mind post-sleep. Probably something to do with the apparent difference between what passes for a nice, respectable age for a proper magistrate in Baldur's Gate, and the 'lifetime'— as you so eloquently put it— that forestalls Elvish naming ceremonies.

[He squints at nothing for one beat longer, trying to make sense of something from the mess inside his skull, but it was never really there to begin with.

And then, sans any segue:]

You didn't just pass up all those friends of yours just now, did you?

Edited 2024-03-21 20:17 (UTC)

[Impatient, and what an apt word, for that's what he feels thrumming through him right now. Impatience at every obstacle that forces him to halt (the crowds thick, a particularly slow woman meandering ahead of him, a line of horses tied together and led one-by-one through the streets); impatience as all his soul screams that he isn't where he ought to be. Now I need to be near him now the clamoring cry of his heart, and it's almost as loud as the echoing shriek of his mind.

Sixty.

Sixty years old, and he cannot stop picturing it. Sixty, he hears the word with every swift step. Sixty, sixty, sixty, his face softer and less lined, his eyes bright and irreverent, sipping wine and giggling as he sat among his peers at a party . . . and it doesn't matter what he used to be like. Leto knows his lover well enough to guess that he was every bit the perfect noble, irreverent and selfish, thrilling in the power he held as a magistrate and caring little for those he sentenced, yes, he knows. But it doesn't matter, see? It doesn't matter if Astarion was someone Leto might have once loathed; it doesn't matter in the same way the color of his eyes or his inclination towards spice doesn't matter. They're important details because they make up who Astarion was, and he is owed them after so long— but whatever those details are, they don't change who he is now.

Perhaps Leto (and it is Leto) was the more tolerable youth. But perhaps not. Perhaps it matters and perhaps it doesn't, but they'll figure it out once he finally gets there.

But oh, that question. Leto blinks just once, dragged out of his intent focus on what came before.]

What? Yes. Of course I did. I will meet them tomorrow.

[The number of days he has left with them is growing ever-shorter, but they still have a few weeks left. And though his heart will be sore to leave them, though he mourns any lost time already, still. This is so much more important that it doesn't compare, not in the slightest. Besides: they're available so often. Rare is the day Leto doesn't end up running around with them regardless, stray pups with limited responsibilities and too much energy so eager to get into mischief as often as they can.]

But I can well imagine that impatience, especially among humans. Especially if they matched your age.

[Tell me more, and he doesn't know why it's so important, save that he fears if they stop speaking of it, they never will again.]

I—

[But no. No, he should save this. Fasta vass, and the curse is audible beneath his breath, his irritation with himself rising. I remember more about who I used to be, and he will not let them move on from it.]

Edited 2024-03-22 02:35 (UTC)

[And the thing is, he's probably right.

(How often have they picked at the worst of their own knotted scar tissue, pricking it open to ease off fenowed rot that never really wanes— only builds into a swollen sense of passive pressure, struggling for its chance at freedom? How often has it lasted, that same dedication to excising their wounds once they've exhaled and set back in along the lines of utter comfort or sheer, blissfully upending sex? They're good at diving in. Good at grasping. Gripping. Holding—

And most of all: forgetting. Never lingering too long, lest it starts to really sting.)

So even catching the winded quality of Leto's voice over the clopping of hooves in busy streets, he's struck headlong by the mercy of care that catches him off guard. By the fact that he wants him home, too, making it a mutual affair.

And there are times and places where astarion surrenders his guard, sinking into fragile marrow. Softened shapes. Knee pulled to his chest along the edge of their bed, knuckles pushed across his lips— back to front, ridge-first. Resigned.

This is one of them.]

Tsk— you might not be wrong.

[Like a laugh, but wan. Amused and moved, and aimless in the eye of that waiting consideration that asks and truly cares to hear him speak without leashing their attention on that pause (and more miracle that it runs both ways, for:)] I do believe I remember one or two fêtes, if I'm honest. Long nights. Possibly as rowdy as the one you and those friends of yours share.

[—Ah. On second thought.]

Mm. Maybe not.

At least not unless you end your scuffles swimming naked in champagne, in which case— I'd be quite jealous. [He wouldn't.

One foot propped on the edge of the mattress, Ataashi underneath his other heel like an ottoman. Her and the pups dozing in a circle round him as he works to keep his young kadan at ease through conversation until—

Is that the sound of naked footfalls that he hears?]

[Half as many footfalls as there ought to be, for Leto takes the stairs two at a time, skipping up them and opening their door so hastily he ends up stumbling in. There's a faint flush to his cheeks and a hint of sweat along his hairline, visible as he kicks off the hated chanclas (the closest he can come to wandering around barefooted). He'd run here just as quick as he could. And you could argue it was silly to do so when they were talking to one another the whole time, for what difference does a few minutes make— but the moment that Leto sees how his kadan is positioned, oh, he only wishes he'd gotten here sooner.

For it makes every difference. Not just because the topic might be lost, but because such things matter. Because after two centuries of torment, his vampire deserves to be taken care of, and shown that his pain and his memories matter more than anything.

He closes the door firmly behind him and crosses the room, picking his way carefully across slumbering pups and a sedate wolf until he can climb in on Astarion's other side. From there he settles his back against the headboard, one arm extending out in silent offer: curl up into me if you wish, easily given and easily ignored if it isn't wanted.

And all the while, Leto keeps his eyes on his mate, refusing to let this pause be broken by anything save what really matters.]

Tell me what fêtes you remember.

[Perhaps Astarion wants to start another way. To talk about the memory of gnawing impatience and arrogant superiority; to linger on the horror and grief of he saw a creature yet to rise in age or potential, and all the nauseating implications that carries. But sometimes, Leto knows, it's easier to start with irreverence. To start with there was a party instead of I remember the first time I was thrown to the wolves.]

[What Astarion wants is his mate. And it's a miracle all its own that the transition between arrival and the sprawl across their bed doesn't do anything to disturb the muzziness of their pack's sleep (though in all fairness, routine— the one they've settled into in Evereska— dictates that Leto would never be returning at this hour in the first place: whatever those tiny ears must pick up in the full depths of their treat-filled slumber, surely it isn't real). Quiet movement heralding the slow fall into his counterpart's side, cheek tucked under chin, contentment a slow, spreading sense of warmth to wash away the dark.

Their sleep schedules are going to be so fucked.]

It's—

[Hm.]

Do you remember that night you and I got utterly stupid drunk in Lowtown?

[The blur of nonsense they enacted on each other as much as anyone else in that place. Little whirring flashes of memory more imaginary than real without the rest to go along with it. Spilled drinks. Stolen coin.

Oh so many bruises.]

[Their sleep schedules are going to be fucked and Leto doesn't care, not when everything suddenly feels so right. A sharp contrast to his harried haste a moment before, every cultivated instinct whispering that he wasn't where he ought to be now swiftly silenced. Astarion curls up into his arms, small and contained and protected, yes, this is where they both belong.

It's been so long since he's gotten to do this, but that only means he tends to his duty more vigilantly, determined to offer Astarion a comforting space and steady ground to stand upon both. His chin lifts, making room for his mate to curl into, his fingers combing slowly through loose curls as his other arm settles heavily against his form, keeping him close. I will keep you safe, I will help you as best I can, all of him so intimately aware of how hard it is to recall bits and pieces of one's past.

And soon enough, there is an answer to his question. Puffs of tepid air against his neck as Astarion speaks in a tone that's reserved only for them, intimate and vulnerable.]

Oh, yes.

[Snapshots of sensation more than a clear start-to-finish: the sour scent of ale and unwashed bodies filling his nose as he'd peered over the edge of his tankard, grinning as Astarion showed off how easily he could pick a pocket. Gold glimmering between his fingers before being safely stowed away; it's a kind of magic, see? drawled out in Fenris' ear, and the teasing swat Astarion had received for such a joke was received with a barking laugh. Liquor so potent it stung his tongue as they'd egged one another on with bets over— oh, who could even remember? Sexual favors and teasing kinks drawled out as potential rewards, and by the end they'd gotten so worked up they'd left the bar just so they could rut in the alley nearby— only to encounter a few members of the Undercuts who wanted to lighten their purses. And so they'd fought (clumsily, drunkenly, and yet still far outclassing their foolish attackers), and fucked, and drank some more . . .

It's all blurred. He can remember snatches of the night, sentences picked out without context, smears of color and sound woven with a general feeling of happiness. Joy. Love, warm and content and delighted by how well the night was going.

And here and now, Leto suspects he knows where Astarion is going with this, and so adds:]

Bits of it, anyway.

[Diligent little heart, beating with more years than he looks from the outside in. Moments like this, they'd have to seem absurd to any uninformed observers (scarcely any wonder the buckish herd his amatus runs with can't seem to figure it out in any sense): watching a lanky moon elf barely grown into his ears and limbs comforting a full-fledged vampire with a worldly show of care— the streaks of silver in that hair companion to the laugh lines dappling his cheeks. Track marks for exhaustion beyond exhaustion.

(Laugh lines. Gods. What an ironic name, considering how Astarion earned his doing anything but that.)

But it wasn't long ago that the tables were reversed in their arrangement, and it was Leto who stood unshackled and prodigious in his ultimacy against a tapestry of horror that would swear it was a front. A lie. A game. No one could be that kind. No one would be that gentle, that fierce, that knowing, not without another motive— and yet he was: Astarion could barely keep up in his shadow, and Hells if he didn't know whether he wanted to be like him back then in those first few strides of buckling freedom, or with him.

Laid out like this, purring like an overgrown cat for all the attention that he's getting against soft skin and softer curls, he still isn't quite sure the answer isn't both.]

Oh—

Well that's more than I expected, at the very least. [Playful, the canting of his voice. The tipping of his chin, his lips— angling to kiss (to nip) the underside of Leto's jaw.] You could barely stand by the end of the night....

Though that gorgeous cock of yours certainly didn't have the same problem in my hands. [Hand, accurately: after a certain point all Astarion remembers is pinning Leto to a wall with his wrist aching for the angle of his buried strokes beneath rucked trousers. Breathing hot across pale markings that tasted like glass to his tongue, and almost seemed to buzz each time he tasted them.

He has to change the subject to keep from losing himself to homesickness, a sudden dead drop in his gut.]

Best parts of our adventures aside, it was....well, no. It wasn't like that, but— [His eyes dart upwards towards the ceiling, exhaling once. Twice. (Each puff of air cold as the corners of their sheets.)] My recollection is.

The patriar I danced with were young. In dreams, their faces blur, and I have no idea whether it's masks they don or my own failing recollection, but I know that I was happy. Thrilled. Eager to prove myself, and everything smelled like it did in Thedas, still: no copper tang polluting everything around me, no pricking myself when I laughed.

There was still ambition in me, whatever that was worth.

[Another pull of air, and then:]

After Cazador....not so much.

[He can imagine it so easily.

Astarion young and proud and bright: lips wet with droplets of champagne that glimmer gold in the enchanted candlelight, his eyes gleaming as he'd danced with some strapping younger son or pretty elven girl. Hands meeting hands as gossip is exchanged behind veiled pleasantries; flirtations gliding off slick tongues for no other reason than fun. Or perhaps it had been more daring: Astarion's face half-hidden behind a mask, the only thing visible a wicked smirk as he'd slipped his fingers beneath a hem or palmed pointedly up one thigh. Perfume brushed through his hair and his clothes so perfectly tailored, nothing on his mind save having fun and showing himself off to the world all at once.

It's familiar. Not just because Leto is used to such parties (albeit from a vastly different viewpoint, though Rialto gave him a taste), but because he knows the flaws in those recollections so well. Blurred faces and snatches of emotion disconnected from any larger backdrop . . . and how strange it is to recall. To have a snapshot portrait of who you were and how you acted, what you thought and felt and were, and yet to have no greater context to which to apply it . . . oh, it's disorienting. Nauseating. Overwhelming, and yet not so much so that you wish to never have remembered at all— gods, no. No, he held on (Astarion will hold on) to those memories with white knuckles, going over every detail again and again until he has gleaned every bit of information possible from them.

Leto knows the feeling. Gods, does he ever.]

No, I imagine not.

[He murmurs it gently, sympathetic acknowledgement without lingering for too long on it. For it would be so easy to get lost in bitterness of all that came afterwards (he knows), but that isn't the point right now. His hands keep up their steady motions, his heart warming as he feels more than hears the contented purr rumbling low in his lover's throat.]

Ambition to succeed as a magistrate? Or ambition to prove yourself regardless?

[A few seconds pass, and then Leto adds softly:]

I'm glad you were happy.

[Gods, he is. More than he can properly say.]

And perhaps some of those details will sharpen in time. Perhaps not who you danced with, but . . . I have found some come and go. What color you wore, maybe, or what you drank that night . . . such things have a strange way of cropping up.

[Leto's voice rings with it, understanding.

It strips Astarion to the marrow in an instant, unintentionally on either end of their array. Has him tight-lipped around the flexion catch of his softly clenched jaw, dry heat bubbling in his nose, swimming angrily around the backs of his eyes. He wasn't ready for it. For the heavy lay of sentiment like that, one foot wedged in past and present.

He feels like a bloody fumarole.

Ashamed even in absolute privacy— with the only person he'd ever trust with secrets this fragile to begin with— and the sheer absurdity of that comprehension somehow makes it worse. The words I'm glad you were happy having already hooked hard under fractured ribs, leaving him unguarded for a promise so sweet it scalds his tongue. His throat. His fingers. He doesn't know why.

(He should be warm. He should be kindled, burning from the inside out with that feeling of appeasement always shared to know his only lover understands. Not this. This wet, sick knot of rote taxation, upset at the promise that Leto heard some half-muttered story about a spoiled magistrate while his family and their hollow stomachs waited in the wings to play their written part, and offered, still— )]

Don't—

[Astarion cuts hotly.]

Don't. Say that.

[The words leave him wrong; that isn't what he meant. He's sat up somewhere along the way, though he can't remember when.

Something loitering on the tip of his tongue when he looks back.

It doesn't come unstuck.]

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I just keep losing it about that Tinawhine lmao

HAHA GOOD

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