illithidnapped | INBOX II

[At about three in the afternoon:]

1) Do you care for cats more than dogs?

2) Would you want a cat?

2a) Would you want it to be one of those furless pretentious ones that look like raw chicken that nobles favor here?

[A pause, and then:]

I have a present for you when I come home (not a cat, that is unrelated).

dearest darling love treasure mine heart and sunlight eternal why~ am I getting the distinct feeling that

1: you are drunk
2: you've been contemplating this for a while
(2a: no preference: all felines are acceptable companionship with or without fur)
3: it is a cat actually

1. I am not drunk, I am tipsy, and there is a difference. I may never be drunk if this bar keeps serving watered down ale. I would LIKE to be drunk after this last job, but here we are.

2. yes

Does that mean you want one? Or simply that they're preferable over dogs if you had to pick?

It's NOT a cat. I do not know how to care for cats, but there's three in front of me and they will not stop staring at me

You're up late. Could you not get to sleep?

1: Last job? What last job?

2: They're clean, clever, sharp of claw and wit and undoubtedly apex hunters who prefer to choose the company they keep rather than drool on every creature in a ten mile radius. I would share room with one if given the chance. Or two, perhaps.

what do you mean there's three in front of you? where are you? three cats in a bar??

Also: no.

just a job. It was a stupid thing but the money was good and it was only for an afternoon.

and yes three cats in a bar. there's a wizard arguing they're his familiars. he's losing the battle, but he's adamant and business is slow.

they keep staring at me. it's not unlike montressor.

if we get a bigger apartment we can get a cat or two, if it would make you happy

Edited 2024-08-10 06:02 (UTC)

1: Yes that would be what 'just a job' implies. What did they have you doing? Killing, hunting, brawling, intimidating, stripping off your clothes and dusting yourself with gold

2: does the wizard have nice clothes or tatty?

3: You make me happy.

Besides, how can we be sure those mongrels won't try to devour the first cat we cart home?

[Just beneath that first point:]

i don't want to talk about it.

[And then, in a much more rapid and larger script:]

You make me happy too

and I enjoy making you ~~happyer~~ happier if I can. hence the present. and the cats.

(the clothes are fine. you would not consider them nice. Not a particularly successful wizard, I think.)

the pups attempt to gnaw on us all the time withotu even breaking skin. They can barely handle their food. they'd cower from a cat more likely.

[Ohoho, tipsy finds itself possibly bordering on drunk after all.]

Sweet thing.

If his clothes aren't gilt, then trust me: those aren't all his beasts. Honestly I'm not the one to care one way or another what happens to a flock of strays, but this might be a fine opportunity to flex that little incantation of yours and ask the creatures if they need a helping paw.

Anyone can put on a faux beard and an overly large hat, after all.

you took fortunato on a spa day last week. you care immensely what happens to animals. and strays. and me.

[But there is an obligatory pause (aha, a pawse, do you get it). He's still not particularly keen on magic, but it's easier when he's drunk. Still, it takes a little longer than it strictly ought to.]

apparently they follow him willingly

he drops cheese often, which seems accurate enough to look at him.

And now they will not quiet down about how I reek of hounds and how distasteful that is, so perhaps I shall steal you one. you have so much in common already.

Always you.

[Is penned with a saccharine flow whilst his dear moon elf is so apparently preoccupied. But when he returns (and after one swift round of conceptual appawse):]

Ha!

You could scarcely handle more than one of me already. Ergo if we're to take in another wayward cub, it should be one with the good sense not to turn up its nose at my favorite little treat.

But they do have you pegged, don't they? My adorable hounding thing, always scented like wolf fur and gamish iron underneath the rest.

[Oh . . . and tipsy-drunk as he is, that first part makes him beam so foolishly down at his notebook. It's nothing he didn't already know, nothing he wouldn't have sworn up and down to be true, but there's something to be said for being told anyway. Love-starved creatures that they both are, perhaps there's something to be said for being spoiled with it now.]

is that truly what I smell like here? it used to be lyrium and blood in thedas, was it not?

[A beat, and then:]

please. i have proven multiple times I can easily handle several of you all at once. fearsome predator, you are not half so difficult to manage as you try to pass off.

[And then, if Astarion doesn't instantly reply, his thoughts drift in another direction. Namely:]

if I ask you something filthy, are you going to be able to control yourself? I will not be home until late tonight, i suspect.

Some days you still do. The transplanted blade helps restore a little whiff of lyrium here and there, but the Weave's moonstone cling is a lovely note in and of itself; I've grown quite fond if I do say so myself.

[2: he's not fool enough to go starting that war of doppelgängers thank you very much.

3:]

no

promises

on your head be it. coming home to you loose-limbed with sweat on your brow and come on your belly will be a welcome sight. you're eager on the best of days, but that's far different than you needy— and after today, i deserve both.

if you had to pick one— and you do, now— do you have a particular favorite time we've fucked? be it kink or location or emotion . . . or perhaps all three.

[....hm.]

Fun answer, or the honest one?

Both. But begin with fun.

Such a choice you foist upon my shoulders. [Serves as both tease and penned confession; letters curling like the adopted richness that'd no doubt drip from his own tongue were speech a present participant in their conversation.

Truth is easy for Astarion, only one answer stands to ever possibly be given, but when it comes to fun— ]

Tutelage is eternally desirous rush that I'll never find it in me to say no to, owing to the memory of inkstains and murmured bouts of the words good boy gladly usurping so many restless days when I've been left alone. Ah but the woods. And those hands. And your breasts that fit all too perfectly between my teeth. The supple details of your lingerie, your moans, your sighs and tender little flushpoints, all peaked. And piqued. A hard champion to oust in terms of its supremacy, and yet

I think quite often of that fight of ours in Kirkwall, on such a miserable night as the one we trounced together through avid bitemarks. Wicked bruises. Rutting on the floor across our knees, gasping desperately for breath.

I might not be able to sit in running water anymore, but I still hold crisp memories of the bath we took together afterwards as well.

That's playing unfairly.

[As if he minds. As if he isn't preening over each and every word, smirking down at his notebook as heat flares in the pit of his stomach. Each incident flits through his mind in a hazy amalgam of keen sensation and disjointed memory: Astarion sprawled out beneath him, pale and perfect, trembling in overstimulated desire and mewling out Leto's name between pleas for mercy, his eyes rolling back each time he was teased and edged and forced to be good. Or: Astarion with his arms folded behind his head, a reckless grin stretched over his face and his eyes gleaming white in the darkness, watching as those hands fucked every inch of Fenris. Fingers in her mouth, her ass, thrusting and diving and stretching as all the while, she was impaled upon his cock— bounced and rut and claimed, come dripping down her face and staining her thighs, her voice hoarse and muffled as he forced her to take more and more, a brutal gangbang all his own—]

Bad dog.

[And that's to say nothing of their fight. The inglorious humiliation of Astarion coming on his face; the vengeful glee of watching him rut and rock against Fenris' shin, only to be forced into his lap and onto the floor . . . oh, he lingers on that memory for far too long. Long enough that ink soaks into the parchment; long enough that when his mind flits to the bath, warm skin and slick fingers and endless intimacy tucked into soft words, he's long since had to cross one leg over the other for the sake of his own dignity.]

I said one, little cheater. Now what am I meant to do with you?

[Oh, gods, he wants to be home so badly. He deserves to be home; they both deserve to be able to pounce on each other after this. And yet he is not so comfortable with his own magic that he'll risk even an unguarded flame, never mind teleportation— so the long way it is. He'll start walking home just as soon as he can get himself under control.]

But if you're going to be so clever, my vampire, then continue to put it to good use. Tell me the real one now.

Edited 2024-08-15 03:52 (UTC)

[Ah see this is where play and reality collide— and divide. No waffling or wistful rumination takes over once crimson eyes fall across the bottom of that page and its punctuating inquiry. As with all things Astarion it's only the performative that comes on with a grand amount of hemming and hawing and sleight-of-hand adjacent noise. The mask. The masquerade— like eyespots feathering a tiger's ears.

The truth, on the other hand, has no such herald.]

Rialto.

[Of course it's Rialto. What else would it be? Leto's answer is the very same, without pause for thought or reflection. And that's not to say there haven't been other nights that were special— of course there were. Not just fun or thrilling, but intimate in a way that Leto hadn't known you could have, full of whispered words of devotion and touches that soothed his very soul. Nights where it felt like their souls tangled together as much as their bodies, endlessly intimate and achingly adoring.

And yet Rialto still stands out: a shining beacon of a night whose mere mention has Leto smiling warmly, endeared and in love.]

I have few treasured memories, but that is one of them. It will always be one of them. The way you looked as you stood in the sea, fireworks around us . . . the way you sounded the first time you told me you loved me.

[How I have loved you for so long, menace that you are, and the words seared themselves onto his soul, as permanent as any scar.]

And I think often, too, of the night that followed. All of it, from the things you showed me to the ways in which we talked . . . there is not a detail that does not remain clear in my mind. That was the first time

[Well, for a lot of things, actually. There's a pause, and then he scribbles beneath that unfinished sentence:]

I should not have asked you such a question when I am still so far away. You have me longing for you despite the fact I may die in these endless backalleys and dead-ends.

I suppose your vampiric repertoire doesn't include a way to shorten the distance between the Upper City and home, hm?

[Strewth— ]

Spoken as if we aren't in a constant state of pining, my little love.

[Hells and Maker both have mercy, he wracks his brain to scour in search of anything— anything at all— that might prove useful in capacity enough to ferry either himself to Leto, or Leto to him in reverse with the sort of urgency reserved for dire circumstance alone. It isn't that he can't regulate his own overspooled intensity (or, at the very least, this particular instance of it), but that eyes on the outside looking in could never understand what it feels like to be so thoroughly inflamed over memory alone. And it hardly matters whether he'd meant the vulgarity of entanglement in a Rialtan brothel's sheets or the way shore water (terryfing at first blush for a creature prone to hadal dread) reflected its bright touch over a set of handsome, sharp-edged features— bisected by gleaming stripes of silvered lyrium— because both are entangled past the point of borders holding weight. All he wants is to be close. To brook conversation in person rather than across the penned-in distance until nightfall overtakes.

Wolves? No— there's only one in Baldur's Gate aside from himself. Bats? He could better avoid sunlight in smaller guise, but that hardly minimizes said journey. And as for magic? Teleportation is out, thieving byways are more likely to invoke trouble rather than ward it, and as for the sewers?

Gods, no.

Still, he tries. Again and again, for far longer than he should, and the stretch where nothing else lies written is sole witness to it.]

Alas.

Scant little comes to mind at present, but sit tight, sober your pretty little self up— or better yet, don't— and I'll continue seeing what I can do.

Yet in the meanwhile, as I think fondly on how you looked with the blood of a would-be assassin still flecked across your throat and shoulders, panting at the thought of sinking underneath my jaws and oil slickened prick at both ends....

You still have a story to tell regarding what your earlier job entailed.

[Do you hear that, Astarion? A groan loud enough that perhaps it manages to cross miles, rumbled petulantly with no thought nor care for the amused stares it nets him. Leto grumbles loudly at his notebook and redoubles his pace, which doesn't really mean a whole lot when he keeps getting turned around.

But he can do this. Even while drunk, he can probably do this. And if he can't, the sun is closer to setting than rising, so either way, he'll be home soon enough.]

we shall what you can manage before I make my way home on foot. I am not sitting tight after you write about filling me at both ends. you owe me for telling you this, and I aim to collect when i see you next.

[And honestly? He does consider dodging the question again, if only because he'd much rather continue down this filthy line of thought. But this is the second time Astarion's asked, and he'll get concerned if Leto keeps avoiding it.

So, with a heavy (and unheard) sigh, his hand a little sloppier thanks to walking faster and writing all at once:]

if you need to know: i was hired as a temporary bodyguard for the week for a half-elf merchant princess who wished to attend varying events. what I was not told was that today was for her own pleasure. I have functioned as glorified bag holder for the past six hours as we went from varying boutiques and stores, buying outfits and jewels and perfumes and makeup and anything else you can think of. my opinions were consulted and promptly ignored, which is for the best, as I began to agree with anything she said just to shut her up.

Be told: apparently earthen tones are passé, and "cutout chic" is fashionable now. i don't know what that means, but she apparently did. now you know.

[She wasn't, honestly, a terrible person. Spoiled, but sweetly so; it's just that Leto isn't a damn servant.]

and i still have four days before i'm done. [Whiny little pup, but he's drunk, leave him be.] at least she means to attend a party later this week, so i can actually do my damned job.

[Oh if he doesn't laugh at first, in part because it's needed when he's so kept on the ropes of his own willpower at present, still pacing with intent to leave— and in part because it's utterly darling, that keen distress. Drunken and sincere and pampered and (rightly) expecting so-much-more for hired trouble.

But then:]

Cutout chic?????? Fashionable????

Is she a child? Is she delusional? [Wait— ] Just how much is she paying you for this?

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