illithidnapped | INBOX II

Insofar as Baldur's Gate goes? I remember all of them. [Fairly damning evidence against the Cazador as the sole catalyst, come to think of it.]

oh but see here now that doesn't make me your contract mule.

[Says the vampire who 1: actually does know enough to comfortably ensure any contract drafted is ironclad on their end and 2: happens to not want anyone else to do it.

But it's the principle of the thing. One can't make it easy. Or obvious for that matter: a songbird doesn't sing because it's told.

—it wants praise.

Lots and lots of praise.]

[After three years, oh, of course Leto knows what his beloved is after. He all but melts beneath praise, preening and strutting around with his chest puffed out, so starved for it that it's all he can do not to revel in it each and every time it's offered. And for Leto's part, he greatly enjoys giving it, for there's little he loves more than making his amatus happy.

So the praise will come, oh, yes. He'll listen to Astarion rattle off all the laws he knows and crow about all the ways in which he'll save them money when taxes come around (oh, that will be such a boon, and Leto will tell him over and over as many ways as he knows how). Even having him look the silly contract over now will be praiseworthy, for if nothing else, he can insure they aren't getting scammed; literacy is a long-conquered foe, but too much legalese leaves his eyes glazing over.

But he does so love to banter.]

oh yes it does

i share your bed, and that comes with consequences, up to and including your using your skills to aid me.

though if you'd prefer for me to take it elsewhere, one of the regulars at the bar offered to take a look at it. he's studying law.

[After three years, it is so easy to warm to their equilibrium in the language of a plant crawling eagerly towards sunlight: bickering and claws are about as fun as they are fine, but fasta vass, nothing ever quite hits in the tender little stitches of silence quite like the slow slithering of syncopatic rhythm. Push and pull. Give and take. Praise and price.

(But they do so love to banter.)]

hah!

when did you get so clever, anyway? I'm starting to feel as if the scrappy little fighter that I grew startlingly close to is somehow growing up far too fast.

[In other words:]

don't you dare take that backwater understudy's offer.

Edited 2024-05-18 02:53 (UTC)

i won't

not just because i wish to hear you explain contracts to me— but because he can barely remember his own name after two drinks. not exactly inspiring in confidence, unlike some

and i have always been this clever, patronizing thing. or is it my prowess in bed alone that's kept you mine and only mine these past three years?

[Oh he's preening already. Don't mind him.]

true. I always was capable of holding my liquor and my dignity all at the same time.

[There are tavernkeeps in Kirkwall that might remember differently, but they're not here.]

but you have always been uniquely smart, I'll give you that. Prowess and wits and all.

It's just that you don't tend to

m

hm

let me put it this way, your tongue is about as agile as your mind, but I can't quite remember you finding your way into manipulation quite so readily as this. And don't take that as a complaint. I like it very very much.

It just makes me think I'm rubbing off a little bit, perhaps.

That some part of me's become a part of you.

I would not mind that.

I would like it a great deal, actually. You have more than a few traits I would not mind learning or obtaining, whether deliberately or not. Whether it be your deftness with words or your ability to flirt, your cleverness or your manipulation . . .

They say couples become more like one another as they grow together. And if that's so, I am lucky indeed, to have you to emulate and learn from.

[And sometimes he likes to give Astarion something to not just preen about, but melt over.]

Flatterer.

I'll warn you, it won't make me abandon my search to find a healer worth their salt.

[The prickliest, most stubborn way to say 'I love you too much to let you suffer, no matter how much I want to be by your side.' That, and 'I love you.' 'I want more dearly than life itself to be there— not just tonight but always.' 'I've become more like you, despite my glaring flaws.'

And 'I'd be there in a heartbeat if not for this.']

Are you really wearing my silks?

well, never mind, then, I take it all back if you aren't going to take the compliment

[He's smiling as he writes it, for he can hear all those unspoken undertones. The whispers of longing and adoration, love not overpowered by devotion, but fueled by it. Everything they've whispered to one another deep in the dead of night, and it makes his heart ache to be reminded.

And that last question makes him laugh (even if it is a rasping thing).]

but no. i am wearing your clothes, but it's the cotton shirt you wear when you're feeling lazy. i did sweat through the first one, though. and the sheets are less than ideal, unfortunately.

Edited 2024-05-20 02:32 (UTC)

No no no I took them

I just also happen to be looking out for your best interests for some yet unknown and likely dastardly reason only waiting to be revealed in the third act.

[Oh.

Oh but that thought is....

Don't mind him, he'll just be here daydreaming about his amatus sweating and wearing nothing but a blouse while he waits for this clinic to open.]

Can't you kick off the sheets at least?

i have

i keep getting complaints about it

the pups have settled atop me and its' helpful at times but less so when i grow hot

[Stop, he keeps hearing grunted. Ugh, petulant and yet not particularly upset each time he forcibly relocates one fat sausage or another.]

fevers fluctuate

cold and then hot and back again

so i kick them off only to want them back soon enough

it's why i kept pushing you away and then clinging

Hot and then cold?

That doesn't sound right at all.

If you're not hot, then why would you be sweating?

Then again if you weren't cold why would you be shaking

ugh

mortal bodies are so particular

are you sure you don't just want me to bite you and be done with it? Bring you into the eternal night to be young and beautiful and feast on blood forever?

im sweating because

[No, hang on, cold again. And sweaty. And cold. And now the pups are whining at him, and it just takes a while, okay.]

yes

come change me

we'll save on money and i wont have to deal with this

could you change me if you wished to?

[They both know he's joking. There's not a world in which he steals away the gift of life a second before it's doomed to drop anyway. The difference between theft and salvation thin as narrow seconds.

But still.]

I

don't know.

Maybe? Possibly? By all knowledge I have the powers of a full vampire, but I've not tested my prowess on the real thing, either. Without that, I could be

I don't know

some sort of misaligned spawn. Tapped into ability rather than raw power without restraint. World-hopping seems a complicated mess for physiology, after all.

But if it comes to that, I promise I'll make certain that it takes. Even if that means finding someone else to bite you.

perhaps

But it seems to have been thorough enough when it comes changing my own body— and yours, from Thedas to Toril and back again. I would not want to test it out like that, perhaps, but if I had to guess . . . yes, I would imagine you are more full vampire than misaligned spawn.

[A pause, and then:]

would it be strange for you to have someone else bite me?

[Not that he thinks Astarion would care, really, so long as Leto was safe and whole and still alive (for a certain sense of the word). But he's never thought about this before.]

I would want it to be you.

But you need not promise - I know you will see me through it. There is no one I trust more with my life or death.

[Oh.

Oh. Just...give him a moment to recover from that sudden pang of sentiment.]

gods no. I'd hate it with everything I am, were I to resort to that.

Doesn't mean I wouldn't go through with it, but

There's just more risk that way. Harder to force a vampire to willingly turn someone without them just keeping them enslaved to the last out of spite. And what's more

well

it wouldn't be me.

it wouldn't be you

[And yes, there would be risk, of course. There'd be so many more complications that way. But that's the reason Leto hates most right now, especially when he's sick and they're apart.]

Tell me

[He hesitates, but:]

Tell me how you would do it

If we were to. If you could have your choice in how it was done.

[His heart can't skip a beat. Can't startle; it's too slow. Too close to the seeming nothingness it exudes for a pulse to offer up even a paltry facsimile for the sake of going through the motions.

And yet what that truly means is that whatever it is Astarion is feeling isn't physical. It can't be. But it's there all the same: stark as daylight itself and twice as scalding— a jolting stillness that hooks itself hard under his ribs, crawling through him while the rest of him struggles to keep up.

Struggles and fails as it so happens.

Taking a quiet eternity to study (and check again) after that clinic's closed front door before he finally gives in long enough to put his pen nib to paper.] Such a question.

[Ask someone what sort of wedding they'd like when caught completely unawares for a rough estimation of the Pale Elf's face at this exact moment.]

Well.

It'd depend.

[He isn't stalling. It would.]

Something premature like having your vitals severed by one of those owlbears you and those friends of yours keep chasing would be a great deal more bromidic than what I have planned otherwise. I imagine a record outpouring of cursing and scolding and possibly a few more juvenile deaths before I set in to take your wrist gently between my teeth, making certain that you know I'm there as comfort before I drain you dry.

It is peaceful, you should know. More soothing than you'd think.

Nothing to fear of it provided you've a sire worth his fangs— which, of course, you always will.

It was just the one owlbear. We chase far more fascinating prey nowadays.

[Which is really just something to fill the pause as Leto, absurdly and stupidly, smiles at nothing.

It's such a strange topic. Such a loaded one, too, for he knows too well how much his lover misses life. And it's not that Leto is so eager to be a vampire, and indeed, he'll be happy if that day doesn't come for centuries (for he has no intention of ever dying, you see; he has no intention of ever losing his Astarion, not to old age or death or a stake).

But there's something uniquely wonderful about thinking about this. The pressure of docile fangs at his wrist; the utter devotion in his lover's eyes as he drank and drank and drank, offering his lover the peaceful transition he never had.]

I can think of few more peaceful deaths than to be at your side . . . at your hands and your teeth. Owlbear or no . . . you would make it something worth dying for. And I would not mind waking as your spawn. I would not fear such a thing, knowing you as I do. Knowing that if you delayed my evolution, it would only ever be so I could get my bearings first.

[A moment, and then:]

You have something planned?

Tell me that, too.

From the moment I came to care for you.

[Calling it an offer would be a lie. Selfishness pervades in theory, when he can't divorce himself from the thought of his sole mate (or perhaps soulmate)'s life slipping away— what difference is it really from using a healing spell or a scroll? (A great deal's worth of difference, oh, denial can't overlook that in full no matter how he glosses over it right now.) If it came down to it— he tells himself— if it comes down to it, he'll find a way to undo it, should Leto grow resentful of the changes. Or—

Well.

First things first. And first above all else: ensuring the only thing that's ever mattered survives.

Everything.]

But

it is no evolution, amatus. You won't

[Ah. No. A dull pause threads him back into the present train of thought; no crossing the lines.]

You will be yourself, still. That much I swear, it won't be some grand shedding of your mien or memories— but once your life has spent itself down to the last flickering grain, regardless of what we are by then, though I will always desire it unchanged, I will be there.

And we will watch the sun sink into the horizon at one another's sides. And we will talk of all the plans you've yet to make, and the places you wish to see while your limbs grow heavy, and your vision tires like it never has before.

You'll want sleep, my darling. And I will, of course, grant you that. But only for a little while.

When you wake, it'll be in a bed— not a coffin. To the sound of music, or the rustling of paper, or the slow sound of whatever myriad animals you've collected by then padding around in idle laxness. You'll feel strong again. Bright. Beautiful. Whole. [He'll cough up no dirt with his own blood. He'll claw through nothing. Scream and wail, perhaps, yes, but it'll be short lived:] I'll be there beside you.

Waiting to greet you in that first new night when your senses race and your mind runs wilder than Montressor in her fiercest little frenzy.

You won't leave this world or any other on any terms but your own, if you ever leave at all.

[Oh . . . and for what feels a very long while, he doesn't know what to write.

He has to say something, he knows, for Astarion is likely waiting on tenterhooks after such an intimate confession. And yet all that he can think to say sounds clumsy and childish in the wake of such a beautiful gift— and anyway, it's so hard to understand what he's even feeling, so full is his heart. Emotions nearly overwhelm him, staggering him, and it's joy and grief and adoration and an aching sort of bittersweetness whose origin he doesn't understand— but perhaps what it all boils down to is love.

Love, so fierce and so overwhelming that he can barely articulate it. Love for a vampire who has planned out his lover's death in such doting, meticulous detail, and it does not escape Leto's notice that such a fantasy only comes at the end of a long life. That his Astarion wants him to experience all the centuries as he himself has never had the chance to, his heart thundering in his chest and air in his lungs, soaking up the sun until the last possible moment.

And we will watch the sun sink into the horizon at one another's sides. And we will talk of all the plans you've yet to make, and the places you wish to see while your limbs grow heavy, and your vision tires like it never has before . . . He actually has to look away for a few moments. It's because he's sick that his vision blurs, he tells himself, and knows it to be a lie.

And what can he say? The seconds tick past, and all of it too much to jot down into words.]

come home to me

[And he doesn't take it back, though he knows Astarion won't obey just yet.]

I would like that more than I can say, amatus. To die in your arms after centuries together would be bliss . . . and to be granted the chance of centuries more with you, thanks to you, sounds more wonderful than anything.

[A pause, and then:]

I have never feared death. I once even welcomed the thought of it, but never since I met you. And yet now it sounds the sweetest thing, whenever it may come. And though I do not wish it to be anytime soon . . . I am eager for that to happen. For you, and only you, to change me.

[And then:]

I have always despised my body being altered. You know this. But what I have loathed is how it has never once been with my consent nor my permission. And I am no fool, I know that it will be different than the life I am used to now . . . but this time, I welcome the change. I welcome being at your side, undead that we will both be. So long as we are together . . . I do not just grant my consent, but give it to you wholeheartedly.

Change me, when the time comes. And we will live out all our years together.

[There's no answer.

And unlike Leto's own pause, it truly is a matching gap of fuller minutes. Some sprawling span where the silence in the wake of those tender written words implies— ah, but it could be anything, could it not? Perhaps the clinic opened after all, and Astarion, rapt with a swell of care and concern for his bedsick mate after a full night of drawn out bickering (and love, and both are one and the same when the line between snapping and sweetness is— the thinnest band of threadbound intensity beyond intensity itself)— fled inside before the poor healer could so much as hang her weathered sign; perhaps it's simply still more proof they're both fumbling things for longing, unable to string together words while drowning deep beneath the tide of sensation overblown.

Perhaps it's rougher round the edges.

Perhaps he's overwhelmed, and wasn't ready. Bleeding as the scars that they both bear.

Either way, it's silence.

Before every last damn pup and wolf within those walls startles out of sleep and leaps up, barking, yapping, struggling in a fit to pull free of the covers.

Their front door opens, and Astarion— breathless as death itself— stands with his hand wound tight over its frame. Disheveled curls and mussed-up coat a promise of just how far he'd traveled in less than a handful of minutes.]

[It takes less than a breath for him to cross the room and kiss his consort with more devotion than all the Chantry ever knew— savage fanaticisms and sacrifice included, all.]

[They kiss—

And it's a kiss Leto will remember for the rest of his life.

(For the rest of every life, living and undead both).

He forgets how to breathe. He forgets that he's sick. He forgets everything right now, all his worried thoughts knocked to pieces and sweetly washed away by the wave of love that overtakes him. I love you, and he echoes it silently in the way his trembling fingers knot in Astarion's wrinkled coat, desperate for him to stay close; in the way he surges up, returning that kiss with every ounce of devotion and adoration he can pour into it. Yes, yes, I love you, yes, a thousand words whispered between them with every push and pull of their lips. It's you, it's you, it's always been you, there is no world in which I would not follow you, there is no state of existence I would not share with you, let me only be at your side, let me only be near you, my love, my friend, my heart—]

Marry me.

[Rasped out against Astarion's lips the moment they part for air, for if he doesn't say it now he never will. And it's the worst time to propose (his skin is clammy and he reeks of sweat and sickness; Ataashi and the pups won't shut up, barking wildly in their glee at seeing their father). And it's the best time to propose, when his heart feels so full that it might well burst from his chest, singing out so happily that it's a wonder the whole world doesn't hear it. And only later will Leto chuckle at his own joy— for it says something about them (about Astarion, and how much he has grown to trust him, seven-year mark or no) that there is no doubt in his mind. There is no whispering shadow in his heart, hissing that he needs to be careful, no.

He'd known it in Rialto. And here, now, a world and a lifetime away, he affirms it to himself once more.

It's you. It's always been you.

Kadan.

Amatus.]

[Kadan.

Amatus.

Beating heart.

His everything.

In Thedas, there's a joke somewhere in this moment. Some Orlesian penning something trite about an off-screen pair of elves mostly existing as comedy relief between acts of his loftier work criticizing the empire's central war. Two ex-slaves offering marriage to one another in a boarded room with nothing at all to wear along their fingers. The joke being: it isn't even real marriage, given what they are. The punchline being: they wrap some old scraps of cleaning cloth around their wrists like a gritty little promise of devotion before cutting back to the actual romantic leads.

In Toril, there's another joke somewhere in this moment. A vampire and his mortal mate, some pretty young thing that doesn't know better than to whisper sweet nothings like marry me or change me, for he desires his own pointless demise and everyone knows fanged things are hearts of wicked stone: they don't beat, they don't love, they hunt and feed and sick themselves on blood and play the sweetheart just for a monstrous bout of fun— and when the poor thing bleeds to death with a smile in the third act, well— cautionary tales never lack their endless charms in the eyes of a broader populace.

Here, though, it's only them.

Them, and the sort of low-mouthed sweetness like a stake set through his heart, slid right between the ribs.

He's not complaining. There are worse ways to go— every other way to go, in fact: worse. Wan. Sour. Stale. If he had to die to anything, it'd be to this. Gladly. Breathless against his lover's aching (and chapped) lips, a thin patina of sweat salt and herbal salve clinging in the gaps between their profile, stark and stinging at inhuman senses (and sweet, sweet, sweet).

How he loves him, this strange, wondrous little creature in his arms. The only thing he's found that he— cynical, hateful, wounded and wicked to a fault in his bleak, brittle mind— would die for. Live for.

It's you. It's always been you.]

That isn't the fever talking, is it?

[Astarion puffs out in response against one sniffling, sick-as-a-dog profile with a smile wrapped around his teeth and soft heat behind his eyes. A nuzzle. A push. His arms wound tight around slight shoulders, pulling everything of his mate close.]

Because if you're joking or delirious, you'd better tell me now before I get my hopes up.

[The response (not answer, not yet, and the difference matters) startles a laugh out of him, breathless and fond. In the next moment he tips his head up, returning that warm nuzzle with a little push, their noses bumping together as their foreheads butt in familiar greeting. He can hear the warmth layered beneath that toothless tease, the adoration and love and wonderment— and he can hear, too, the fear. The tiny tendril of awe and shock that indicate no disbelief nor disagreement— but gods, what a thing for them. For either of them, but perhaps especially Astarion.

His fingers slide gently against the line of his jaw, a faint smile playing on Leto's lips as his gaze softens further.]

If I was delirious, Astarion, I would be in no fit state to tell you.

Now come here.

[Leto moves where he's bidden, gladly offering himself up for Astarion to pick up and rearrange as his vampire sees fit— so long as he follows Leto's quiet urging to climb into bed with him. Stay close to me, and he settles in his lap or tucked beneath his arm, it barely matters, just so long as they're close.

And when they're together— truly and properly, limbs tangled and breath warm against one another's lips— Leto cups his cheek more fully, turning his vampire to face him. His thumb smooths down over cold skin, and he says more sincerely:]

Will you marry me?

[He wants to hear it.]

Edited (ah html) 2024-05-28 05:00 (UTC)

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