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INBOX II

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[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.]

[It's like triggering a trap on Sundermount.

One wrong step, a click, and then that awful split-second where you have just enough time to realize how fucked you truly are before the flames begin. A singular misstep that might lead to disaster if it isn't handled correctly— and gods, but he does not want to misstep here. Not when this is such a vitally important conversation.]

What is it?

[His voice is low and unassuming, his body still as he forces himself not to leap after Astarion. For it reminds him, too, of those early days— gods, it was the first week they'd known each other, wasn't it? When their trust was still so tentative, and it was a daring thing to sleep on Astarion's floor instead of returning to that lonely mansion. Astarion had woken in a terror, so panicked and overwhelmed that any move Leto would have made would have set him off further—

And so he'd gone still. Quiet. No sudden movements, no abrupt cries or demanding questions . . . like how you'd treat a spooked animal, not wanting to make everything worse. He keeps his eyes locked up on his amatus— and unlike that nightmarish first night, he does not hide away his own emotions. Worry and surprise and concern above all, hungry to help and utterly unsure of what had gone wrong.]

What's wrong?

[It sounds so agonizingly stupid. So bloody trite. So—

Strewth, he doesn't damned well know what it sounds like, other than nothing Leto needs hounding him from the rabid maw of luxury itself, even if it did fall from grace nearly two centuries ago. Purgatory thereafter might've stripped away his skin, his bromidic sense of scepterdom, his sense, his hope, his very life— even the crude color of his eyes (which can't have been crimson; no high elves sport that shade)— but it didn't undo it, either.

And now what?

A kind gesture— the sweetness of conversation gifted to him by someone with the scent of sunlight still on his skin— yanked back to swim inside a handful of inches of empty air. Knees folded over, back hunched in a sullen arch. Leto's body language gone to stone, alerted to a catalyst he can't possibly know.]

You—

[Oh come on, Astarion. Come on. Think straight. Say something. Say anything. Don't leave him laying there like this.]

You should've been happy. If either of us deserved that before— everything, it was you.

[To mouth out something as absurd as 'I'm flinching because you tried to be kind to me' is about as reasonable or fair as spitting on closeness. On comfort. On love.

He doesn't want to be that.

Doesn't want to do that.]

[His eyes dart about Astarion's frame, drinking in the way he's curled in on himself.

And it really is just like that first night, isn't it?

Take your pick as to which he means, for two memories clamor for attention all at once. The first time (and he will always count it as the first time) they met. When he'd followed Astarion home and revealed the depths of his bitterness and his rage; when his kadan, in turn, had shared the details of his enslavement. I did better on my back than my heels; two hundred years, that's how long I was leashed to his side, and Leto can still remember the nauseating way his stomach had dropped to hear those facts. So much worse than anything he'd gone through, he'd thought but hadn't said, for comparison would only have been taken as pitying, not sympathetic.

And then again, Leto thinks of the first time in Rialto. Once the sweat had cooled and they were more interested in exploring other kinds of intimacy; when revelations about the web of scars adoring Astarion's back had come to light, and the topic had turned once again to their respective pasts. I always thought I knew just how bad it could get, Astarion had said hoarsely, and Leto had all but panicked in how vehemently his soul rejected such a notion. Two decades and a handful of memories were nothing compared to two centuries, he'd thought, and it had taken no small amount of soothing from Astarion to convince him that it was not a competition. That neither of them had it worse; that they were both such miserable, broken creatures, and that to compare would be foolish.

And it was.

And it is.

But perhaps, Leto thinks now, it's more difficult when you feel instinctively as though you did get the better deal. When you have woken your beloved from so many screaming nightmares; when you have heard him sob for the bitterness and grief of all the years stolen from him . . . oh, it feels the height of selfishness to insist I hurt, too.

Slowly, the tension eases out of Leto's frame. He makes no sudden movements, but nor does he keep that rigid posture of before. Instead: he uncurls. One leg drifting out, stretching along the bed until it rests beside Astarion. Not touching, not yet— but there all the same, and easy to lean into should Astarion want it.]

Well, yes.

[He says it so mildly it might almost come across as a joke, save for the quiet but fierce sincerity in his expression.]

I will not argue. I did deserve to be happy. And while I will not say I have no joyful memories of my early childhood, I suspect you're right: they don't compare to the luxury of parties or dancing. And I deserved better than what I had.

[His head cocks. And then, gently:]

But two mere decades of being my master's adored favorite doesn't compare to two centuries of competing among six siblings just so you could survive another day. Having your skin flayed from your body over and over might well compare against having lyrium forcibly grafted into your marrow and muscle— but then again, I only went through that process once, and I cannot imagine how many times you were left to shiver in agony. Getting to don pretty clothes as you went out to seduce victims does not compare to an iron collar in Tevinter's heat— and having to rut each victim, enduring their hands and mouths and vulgar desires, is far, far worse than the days when my master would force me to run behind his carriage.

I could compare every horror we have ever suffered against one another, Astarion, and who knows who would win? Neither of us, I suspect. For we have never compared. We have never played the game of who had it worse, for the answer is that we both did in our own ways. And the horrors you suffered were no greater or lesser than my own, not when it comes to how much we have both suffered.

[He takes in a shallow breath, and then, softer still:]

We have never compared, amatus. Do not start now. Not especially when it comes to our joys.

I am happy that you were happy, not because I do not wish the same for my own life— but because it would bring me no joy to know that you were miserable. You deserve that happiness just as much as I did, and do. And just as you would not begrudge me what few happy memories I have with Varania or my mother . . . so too do I not begrudge you the simple joy of a mere party, kadan.

[Understand, and he does not know why he suddenly feels a hint of a lump in his throat. His eyes aren't wet, he isn't about to cry, but desperation thrums through him. Understand, please understand, because he cannot allow this memory to be lost under a crashing wave of self-loathing and snarling defeat.]

[There's a moment of hesitation. A moment where Astarion is deathly still at the center of Leto's focus, pinned less by the heat burning behind his ears and more by every waking word he struggles just to drink in— their perfect inflow all he wants to drown beneath, no matter that his chin is barely above darker water. The noxious wash of history he never conquered so much beat back and shut away without once imagining it'd catch him so off guard as this (how— how is it that he forgets so easily, when picking out the thorns always leads to splinters underneath their skin for days), when contentment's so far given them a chance at bliss beyond bliss provided that they stick to the routine: the cues were so predictable till now, the warning signs were there. If Leto has nightmares where he's shrieking, don't press in the next day; if Astarion's too restless to stand still, he needs to go— to kill— to hunt until the burning boil of his thoughts subsides; let your consort chase monsters, shut the door if need be on those nights when you still think that you should breathe; be patient, be trusting, have faith.

You've never steered each other wrong before, if not a few degrees off course when falling between worlds.

And so there's that moment of hesitation. There's Astarion deathly still, drinking in whatever he can take of those words and this scene and the way Leto looks so ridiculously beautiful trying to untangle the threading they're caught up in. And while not comparing the nightmares is— not necessarily easy, only easier in practice: soot to ash, blood to bone, it's too stark— too potent— compared to macarons and molding handfuls of passed-off millet. Processing that, coming to terms with it....

(It never bothered him before.)

Full years away from the first time he felt the divide stretch out like a chasm driving them apart, but the first time he's noticed it before twisting like a cat to set it straight: thumbs pushing over Leto's face as if pantomiming wiping away the tears that aren't there.

That don't come.

(They try to keep forging ahead. Keep opening doors within themselves. Is it any wonder that what stumbles out from the other side aches and maddens when it finds them?)]

Maker and Adraste damn it. [His thumbs press a few degrees too hard without him noticing as he strokes along sharp cheekbones, leaving faintly reddened track marks in their wake. His voice, on the other hand, is sober. Sane.

Mournful, maybe, even as the corner of his mouth pulls higher on one side.] Stop being so clever.

[Warm. Warm. Fond as the heat of sunlight that clings to moonstone skin, kissing the pads of all his fingers.] You make me look an utter fool.

[He huffs out a laugh that isn't a laugh at all, mingled grief and relief both flooding through im as he turns his head into one palm. The drag of his thumbs is a little too rough and Leto doesn't care, not when every fitful press serves as evidence that he was heard. His eyes soften, his expression just as mournfully warm as he stares up at his amatus; it's hard, I know it's hard, and it is. It will always be hard, and they will always hit snags, guilt (and, be honest, perhaps some quiet resentment) flaring in both of them for any moment in which the other suffered marginally less. But the clarification matters. The fact that they both of them deserved whatever happiness they could eke out before or after their masters is worth affirming. And they will do it again and again for as long as they need to, until perhaps centuries from now the message will finally sink in.

But oh . . . some of that mingled relief and grief, too, is for the deliberate oath that slips past Astarion's lips. Maker and Andraste, unexpected and yet relished all the more for it. Of all the things he's given up when coming to this world, his old religion is the least of them— but it's like a sudden breeze on a hot day to hear those words now. And it suits, doesn't it? As they think about their pasts and their futures . . . oh, it fits. Even if it's only ever in this room, even if it's only for now, he savors it.]

You can repay the favor when next we discuss my past, hm?

[For make no mistake: there will be a time when their positions reverse once more. It's always the way with them. He presses his hand over Astarion's own, fingers gently sliding over his wrist. Gently, then:]

Come tell me more.

Details you can recall, or other memories . . . but it is important, kadan. And on a more selfish note . . .

[He meets Astarion's eyes, trying to ensure that his vampire knows how sincerely he means this.]

I enjoy hearing about you being happy. At a party or anywhere else, but it brings me joy to know you were happy.

[A laugh that isn't a laugh at all, sweet and sliding from his tongue like the hollow chuffing of a big cat who's far too long forgotten how to purr (though Astarion can manage both, in all fairness, speaking purely from experience).]

I'll do better than that, you troublesome little sliver of starlight. [It feathers once it slithers past his lips in what passes for both a promise and nod of acceptance all at once, something like reflex taking him over in a way he doesn't have strength left to fight despite the easy smile prying at his knife-edged cheeks: yes, they'll talk again; yes, the scales will tip— for as is so often the way of conversations centered around any breed of sanity, Leto is right. Vetted equilibrium proves there's little more worth trusting in than a bottom line still coiled underneath their knuckles. Sealed there by a reckless pair of former slaves clutching hands so fiercely their skin went purple for days after staving off the Crossroads' worst accumulating magics. And just like it had before, the moment Fenris speaks with a voice well past his fragile years, rote madness quickly slithers back into its narrow excuse for a den, barely able to serve as a distraction. Hardly a detour.

They're on a new path, now.

One that leaves Astarion winding into Leto's outline, weaving back together what his rabbiting mind tore open. Knees under hips— thighs pushed overtop their heavy brace— straddling one leg as he keeps his contact fixed across those cheeks in circling passes of ivory-pale talons.

This isn't a placating game.]

Go.

Fetch the book of arcane spells Talindra gave you. [A kiss that turns into a bite, a nuzzle, a push—

He needs a second to recover from being overcome by something more stunning than rampant acerbity. (And more than that:) they've talked enough:]

It's time for something new.

Edited 2024-04-09 19:18 (UTC)

Oh, is it?

[His tone doesn't quite manage to hit playful the way he wants it to, but it's genuine all the same. There's a difference, Leto has learned in the past three years, between moving on from a topic naturally and shoving past it in a fit of fear. And while some part of him whines nervously, fretful of Astarion losing any minute detail of this memory, he ignores it. This isn't for him to dictate, nor is it his memory to covet. I was sixty, I danced, I was happy, and those details alone are enough.

So he gives himself over to that roughened affection: bucking up into every touch, nuzzling back with such intense adoration that they nearly end up knocking foreheads. Lips brushing against one another, Astarion's weight pleasantly heavy against his thigh, and it takes him a few extra seconds to find the willpower to tear away. One more kiss (his hands settling atop lithe hips, fingertips digging into firm muscle), and another (their teeth clicking as he nips roughly at his vampire's bottom lip once, twice), until with a little groan he pulls away.

At least he doesn't have to go far. The book is just on the edge of his nightstand; with a soft grunt and a little lunge he manages to reach for it without actually having to move. And give Talindra credit: when she gives gifts, she gives them well. The book is a beautifully bound thing, a red cover with gold thread gently stitching featherlight pages together. Each spell is carefully typed out, but it's the little handwritten notes that Leto loves most: Talindra's spidery scrawl appearing the margins of most spells, offering tips and notes for her reluctant student.]

If you wish for magic, Astarion, ask first.

[He says it as he goes and gets the book anyway, but, like, still. And yet he still runs one hand affectionately up the line of Astarion's thigh, so what is the truth, Leto.]

[Nothing folds easily— least of all them. Resilient framework their only saving grace, even when they buckle (slipping forwards into each other; into the games they play and the comforts they know with an almost ritualistic familiarity), it's never as simple a transaction as it appears on the surface: what someone else would see as two elves teasing— talking— nosing at each other with a few muted swipes here or there, is the footpath of a hundred little voiceless conversations.

The way they communicate runs deeper than blood, and gods above, there's such a balance to it.

Astarion grins to feel his lover's lean weight shift. Sharper still to what then follows.]

Mother may I?

[Oh he's a misbehaving thing, though there's something said for the fact that he would never refuse to ask in the first place.]

[Brat, and Leto scoffs out a laugh, amused and (falsely) indignant all at once. Impertinent little brat, and he eases into the familiar back-and-forth like he sinks into a hot bath, soothed by it and all that it represents. Yes, I know, coming out in the way their eyes meet and the firm press of Leto's fingers against Astarion's thigh. We're all right, this is all right, and while they'll inevitably circle back again later, it's no bad thing to sink into distraction.]

Mm, better.

[He leans back, flashing a sharp grin of his own to match the one Astarion sports. Opening the book, he idly thumbs through the pages (his own scrawl evident here or there, indignant notations and exasperated explanations).]

Though I still haven't heard please.

May I is better than please, in terms of politesse. [Astarion puffs back, sly as the fox he mimics through a grin that's all fangs and pale, bone white— one finger hooked along the book's seam to yank it free of Fenris' hold.

Provided the moon elf actually lets go.]

But if I must....

[The book's already in his palm (Leto's hand still a pleasantly crawling weight across his thigh, warm and wanton both); he's already thumbing through in search of something in the midst of all that scrawl, tactile claws leading the way.

A flash of crimson as reddened eyes lift under dark lashes, before:]

Pretty please.

And don't you sound so sweet saying it?

[A drawl as sincere as Astarion's own voice, Leto's mouth quirked up in an irrepressible grin. Bratty thing . . . and yet he cannot help but reward him for it. Both hands now freed, he devotes himself to touching his mate: both palms sliding slowly up the line of Astarion's thighs, thumb digging into lean muscle as he keeps up a steady pattern. It's an oddly soothing action, not unlike a cat kneading a favorite owner; he likes to touch him for the simple sake of touch alone.

Curiosity wins out over patience, however, and he leans up to peer over the edge of the book as he adds:]

What are you looking for, exactly? She organized it by spell name, not magic type.

[And he's nosy.]

Only the best for my favorite tormentor. [Chuckle a slow-rolling thing, washing through him while he course corrects with the new information he's been given (and tries desperately not to shudder underneath the well of that attention, perfect as it is— hells, he's not a child or a lapcat— he can control himself....

But it feels so bloody good.)

And then comes the peering shadow over that book, and Astarion can't help but laugh again, forgetting everything that came before it. Precious thing.]

Here. [Alphabetical: that makes it easier to snap back towards the near-middle of the tome in hand, dragging his claw towards— ]

Detect thoughts.

[Shallow, the tapping of his talon over bored-in ink.] That's what you'll need to use.

On me, if you please.

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me going to reread my tag from yesterday to check its flow and realizing it never sent and is gone

OH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO listen i am damned sure this rewrite is *even better*

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OH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO listen i am damned sure this rewrite is even better