illithidnapped | INBOX II

INBOX II

VOICE | ACTION | TEXT

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[It was a lifetime ago.

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.

[You have no idea how hard you make it, and his ears flick down as his eyes search Astarion's face, trying to understand. It's not that the concept is so difficult to grasp, at least in theory— but there's a gap of miles when it comes to theory and truly understanding, Leto knows. And this is important. Understand what it is to be a vampire is a never-ending lesson, and he will not pass up this chance to learn.

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.

Hah! Little moonstone. I imagine you wouldn't.

[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.

[He faces forward as they speak, though some part of him wants to glance back over his shoulder. It's not just so he doesn't disrupt Astarion's process (his vampire can and will scoldingly nip if Leto pushes too much with an injury), but because perhaps it's a little easier to speak of such a topic like this. It's not a matter of trust or intimacy, nor even about shying away from vulnerability, for they have been far more raw in front of one another before.

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 guilt. No self-pity. The words carry imagery of cold bodies in even colder streets, stilled viscera over stone standing as an all-too-familiar picture once it hits attentively priced ears. As known as either dawn or dusk. Past and present motives intertwined, if not for one whispered ultimatum: no innocents.

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.

[Tenderness, warm and bright, fills him as Astarion speaks. It's the complete antithesis of his discomfort: a soothing answer to all the ways his fears gnaw at him. Insecurities that have long since been addressed but never fully quashed; the difference in their species a point for Leto to make up for instead of simply a fact. I am not strong enough, fast enough, I am not who I was, and it doesn't quite add up to I am not good enough, but the pieces are there.

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.

[Breathless. Bewitched. Staring down the barrel of the beauty in his lap, Astarion doesn't shy away from roaming fingers (even if they do tax the very same wounds he's been trying stalwartly to patch). They meet his leg, and he sinks deeper. Into this— this nameless, formless equation stitched between their divided existences— narrowing the seam lines till it's nothing. Nothing at all.

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.

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INBOX II

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