Tʜᴇ Pᴀʟᴇ Eʟғ | Asᴛᴀʀɪᴏɴ Aɴᴄᴜɴíɴ (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
illithidnapped) wrote2022-02-03 01:54 am
illithidnapped) wrote2022-02-03 01:54 am
INBOX II
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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.]
no subject
[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.
no subject
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.]
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
[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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
But here and now, Astarion puts those to rest.
For Leto can hear the awe in his voice. He knows what Astarion sounds like at his most honest, and oh, every syllable aches with it. Sometimes I wonder if you're real, and Leto strains to memorize this moment, knowing he will need it later. There will be times when these fears rise again, prompted by some doting bit of patronization or his own stamina and strength lapsing before Astarion's does.]
You awe me just as much in return, you know.
[He reaches back blindly til he can smooth his palm over Astarion's thigh: a suitable substitute while he stays facing forward.]
I am not always good at articulating it . . . but never in my life did I think someone like you could exist. Someone who understood my past and my present both . . . who did not condemn me for my ways, nor scolded me for my fits of temper or my grief. Who fit me in ways I did not know I was aching for until they were fulfilled. Someone who knew of my past, and did not treat it tentatively or with clumsy enthusiasm, but rather . . . who understood it. Who knew what it was to survive the things I had, and understood all the ways in which I had learned to cope with them.
[A pause, and then:]
I know we are different now. I understand. I know that you are a different species than me, and there are things about your existence I am still learning. But . . . I am not who I was a few months ago, new to this world and this body both. And though I know it a mistake to ignore our differences . . . nor would I have us forget our similarities, nor let those differences outweigh them.
Allow me the joy of helping you as I once did. As you once did for me, and continue to this day. You will not hurt me— not to the point of no return. I promise you, Astarion. I could not survive it before, but now . . .
Now, I am ready.
no subject
Matching scars on their bodies in different places. Matching lives lived in separate worlds.
(I love you. I have always loved you. I was born and killed and born again to love you.
I will find you.
Always.)
Danarius thought he could bind a living creature to him through the flow of channeled lyrium. Years of torment. Erasure. Agony. Control. Astarion does it with a single kiss, planted just beneath grown-out silver hair along the transition between nape and shoulders, bowed forward through his spine.
(Alchemy defined it first: equivalent exchange.)]
I believe you.