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INBOX II

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[One hand rises to cover Astarion's own, pinning his palm in place as Leto leans into that grip. In truth, there's few things more comforting than when his vampire holds him like this; it makes him feel safe and secure, kept and caught and held in the sweetest way. It speaks of the two of them as a united front, and he likes that— especially in moments like this.

And though his heart warms to hear that, still, some nagging sense of doubt lingers.]

It was still wrong to force it upon you.

[Stubborn pup, insisting upon that, but he will not let himself off the hook so easily.]

Choice or not . . . I should not have made it such an ultimatum. Not when it comes to the things you need to survive— and not when I know full well what it is to be kept lean and starved.

[But with that said . . . he frowns faintly.]

What do you mean, a vital one?

Force is such a strong word.

[Stubborn pup is right.

Astarion presses their foreheads together, profiles dragging, scuffing. The little sting of it's a comfort— pleasant friction kissing those thin places where the bridges of their noses bear in hard and heavy, intertwining scent and sweat— marking Leto with the claims of resonant affection, swearing that devotion binds them more fervently than what any missdoing might've done to tear them apart.

It intermingles with their fingertips. Their bound and boundless touches, and all the little things unsaid.

And said.]

If I'd wanted to shake myself free of your demands, believe me, I'd have well done it right from the start—

Or made more of an attempt to argue till it wore you down.

[Mild, that. Words like lodestones, but he doesn't lay them lightly.]

Because you're not wrong: you don't know what it's like to be a vampire.

No idea what they're— what we're truly like. How little worth life of any stripe merits in the focus of cold, deadened eyes. [Cattle, was the word so often used. The word that comes to mind after years gone unheard outside of dreams.] Nothing but another means to feed. To sate that endless, endless hunger, as if there'll ever be such a thing as a moment void of invidious desire.

And I— in my fear and overwhelming distress once I realized where we were— would've been all too glad to disregard my opportunity to choose a different path. Swear rote brutality in as just one more necessity amongst the rest and never thought on it again.

[His lashes don't lift. He isn't staring at Leto; close as they are, he doesn't need to.]

....if not for you.

[A vital choice, indeed.]

[The scuffing helps. That scenting claim that he suspects is as much about possessive, protective marker as it is affectionate doting, assuring him and settling him with each pass. I'm here and so are you, and this is not the worst sin in the world, and he'd known, of course. Even as he'd thought about it over the past few nights, his fingers fit in the space between Astarion's ribs and guilt churning in the pit of his stomach, he'd known the blame was not fully on him.

But it helps to reconnect. And so he returns each one eagerly, and takes those words to heart.

Though his eyes open once more as Astarion continues. And that . . . oh, he thinks, and in lieu of catching Astarion's gaze, he scuffs against him once more, for there's no such thing as too much affection when it comes to them.

And what can he say? You would have come to your morality eventually, but maybe he would have and maybe he wouldn't, for a person can justify almost anything in their terror. You are better than that, I know you are, and that Leto believes wholeheartedly— but that trait still needs coaxing after two hundred years. There's no shame in that.]

Perhaps, then, I showed you the path— albeit not in the best way.

[Another nuzzle. Another heavy push, as Fenris (and it is Fenris sometimes, especially when he is at his most mature and Theodosian) underscores his own forthcoming point:]

But it was you who walked it.

[There's a little smile in his voice as he adds:]

I will still take some credit, for I am not so selfless as all that. But it was you who abided by it, amatus.

[Agreement, not insistence— and a good reminder, should that guilt rise within him once more. Another nuzzle, but before Astarion can pull back, he adds softly:]

Were you worried? You looked so stricken when I began speaking . . .

Am I ever not worried? [He teases, warm in tone if not through touch— leech that he is of everything he isn't by design: when they're close like this, he can forget. When they're close like this, so much heat stays pooled between them that he can pretend he isn't borrowing it, paying it back by angling his lips near Leto's own.]

Mmph.

[It's a hum and a smile all at once. His head falls back by half an inch or so when pressed by that hard nuzzle, and the taste of it— the throbbing scuff that lingers right between his brows— holds his focus hostage in the middle of a far more serious conversation for just a few scant beats too long.

Someone with more sense might realize he's halfway to pulling the poor elf into his lap.]

Edited 2025-01-03 15:37 (UTC)

That is not—

[But whatever he was about to say is interrupted by that insistent pulling, and with a little huff, Leto acquiesces. Not such an easy task when they're positioned like this, mind you, but still: he arches his back and spread his thighs, letting Astarion guide him into holding him however he pleases— so long as he carries his weight.

It gives him room to slide his hands up his bare chest. His palms smooth against cold skin as his thumbs glide against the twin scars he'd gifted his vampire, stroking them again and again in gentle reminder. I gave you these, every pass whispers. I bestowed them upon you for the same reason you marked me, and his own have long since stopped hurting, but still sometimes he thinks he can feel them. Twin aches around his spine, reminding him that no matter what happens, some part of him will always have a way back to Astarion.]

Someday, [he murmurs, and nudges their foreheads together again in buckish insistence,] a century or so from now, I will ask you that question again. And when I do— when Cazador is dead and rotting and his palace become something you and I have made our own . . .

[He draws back, though whether he can catch Astarion's eye isn't fully up to him.]

When you have whispered to me all the deeds you have ever done, and confessed what blood still lingers on your hands and hurts your heart . . . I hope you will be able to tell me that such worries occupy your mind only infrequently.

I love you. And there is no revelation from your past nor event in the future that will make me leave you. Not willingly. Not by choice.

[Rare, that Astarion finds himself caught speechless in this fashion. Nothing of practiced scriptwork loitering on the tip of his tongue, nothing already prepared for a moment like this, when pretty words are more akin to a hammer against glass regardless of how delicate they feel. It tempers the wildness that always loiters on the fringe of his demeanor, crude and rough-hewn and ready to supersede at opportunity's first chance; it grounds his brittle heart as much as those fingers do when they trace over a pair of better scars, far more beautiful than the ones left behind by Cazador's domineering expectations.

If he had blood left to give or a heart still beating, he'd be quite literally colored by what he feels now. Warmed by the comfort he still has to remind himself won't flee. Won't be taken from him.]

....Have I ever told you how much a nuisance you are? [He's overcome. He can almost hear his voice crack when he tries to play it off, holding fast through his fingers only to the press of Leto's hands across his scars.] Can't even let me reel in relative peace. Always saving me from myself.

[This time, he doesn't draw back. He lets Astarion keep what privacy he can, pretending he doesn't hear the waver in his voice nor feel the trembling in his slender frame. His calloused thumbs keep up their steady stroke, his palms flat against his chest as he lets Astarion soak up his warmth and his devotion both. It's all right— oh, my love, my heart, it's all right, the sentiment echoed in every slow push of his forehead against Astarion's own.]

You knew what I was when you agreed to marry me. You have only yourself to blame.

[Soft. Playing at amusement for dignity's sake, even as his lips brush against cold skin. Take my heat, my heart, my devotion— take everything, for it has always been yours.]

Ask me, when you feel that fear. Ask me and I will answer you, again and again.

[He's lived between worlds for too long. Between timelines and lives until the notion of who he is— or what he is— begins to run like submerged ink; it pours outwards, whatever facet of himself takes over whilst flooded by old instincts (Astarion the spy was so different from Astarion the vampire, Astarion the slave, Astarion— )

Whose fingerpads settle low across the supple divots spanning still-clothed ribs, rucking thin fabric as they go. Action without an endgoal, only meaning: like the scrape of their mouths meeting without staying latched, or the way he noses through it, still carving out warm friction that smells rich from their entanglement to the sort of senses that can trace it, what he wants is that permeating closeness. The one thing that always brings him back from a thousand different lifetimes.

—that's right. They are married now, aren't they? How quickly all the beautiful details of their entanglement are lost in grander horrors when they've been intertwined for years. Not forgotten, just....

His smile is a scoff, tipped close. (I will, is what he wants to say. Yet....)]

I don't know why it happens.

[No, that's not true: he does, just like any animal jerks towards baring teeth over scraps knows that it is hungry, it's fear that underscores the instinct. Drives him like it never left, and leaves him unwilling to face it. Leaves his eyes tipped down between the working of their mouths, lashes heavy where they lower.]

I've never doubted you.

[His thumb keeps up its steady stroke against Astarion's scar; his left hand drifts down: calloused fingertips sliding against soft skin until they find Astarion's hand and blindly lock around his ring finger. He needs to find them rings, Leto thinks distantly. There's been no ceremony (for what gods do they believe in?), no oaths of devotion (for they have long since sworn deeper and more meaningful ones than mere I do's). There were no friends invited, no family to bear witness or show good faith. And it is what it is, but some part of Leto still wants something traditional. Something to show that there was a transition in this relationship beyond simple agreement.

It doesn't matter, not really. It doesn't change anything between them, for their souls are intertwined, and always will be. And yet somehow, on some subatomic level deep in his heart, it does matter. There is a difference, though if asked Leto couldn't name it. And he will mark that difference with a ring, for perhaps the weight of it will bring them both some comfort.]

Now that, [he says, and nuzzles deliberately against Astarion as he says it,] I do not fully believe.

[He isn't trying to catch him out. This isn't a trick. Don't reel from me, as he brushes their lips together again.]

Perhaps they are fleeting, or only come when I am not near you . . . or when the silence of your coffin is too much to bear alone. But it is no sign of ill-faith to have fleeting doubts or fears, even for me. Even if all of you knows better.

[He hesitates, and then:]

And you would not be alone in that. Or did you assume my apology from earlier was wholeheartedly from simple reflection?

I— [His laugh is such a narrow thing, thready in surprise.] suppose it wouldn't have been, would it?

[There was an ocean's measure of lament laced through it all, to the point it comes to mind so clearly in hindsight. It lingers still, he realizes— guilt— tender and well-hidden, wrapped around his caught finger before his returns the effort. A little ouroboros. A simple, childish sort of promise, like the kind shared on rooftops between young things.

And it means the bloody world to him.]

But I waited for you for so long. I latched myself onto the hollow imprint of your footsteps in Kirkwall even when I doubted you'd ever come back— hells, I even killed for the unpalatable consolation it lent by the time I'd thought you'd been slain or moved on, finding neither hide nor hair of the Blue Wraith despite it all.

[And those words don't come from self pity, transparent as they run when they trail the corner of Leto's chin, pathed by the backs of nimble fingers; they're together, now. That's all that matters of it.]

You can't imagine a thing like what I sink my teeth into matters enough to change a thing in that respect.

Right now, with your voice in my ears and your arms around me? No.

[Of course not. Questions of blame aside, it's so easy to push that away and dismiss it as something ultimately irrelevant, barely worth remembering. Even later, when Astarion lies in an undead slumber and Leto nestles sleeplessly at his side, he will be able to recall this conversation and take solace from it.

But . . .]

But when I brood over all the mistakes I have made since coming to this world— all the ways in which I have put you in danger, or asked things of you that are not fair, or even simply misunderstood who and what you were . . .

I am not used to that, you know. [It's said a touch abruptly, his wandering thoughts consolidating into a singular point.] We have always been alike. I have always had a point of reference when it comes to the things you have suffered and lived through, even if the torment was not the same. From the moment I first met you— both times— I understood you.

And now . . . it is a little harder.

[Not impossible. But it takes more effort than it once did, and that frightens him.]

And I fear that there are times where that divide is too much. That I am too— too young, too foolish in this world, not understanding that I was starving you, unwittingly setting the very same limits upon you that Cazador once had, and all in the name of naivety. Speaking too loudly of stakes and sunlight and coffins, or lying poorly when my friends asked why you never came out during the day.

And sooner or later . . .

[He doesn't know. Something, a nebulous dead-drop that ends the way it always does for Leto: alone and bitter. Whether that means Astarion tires of having his life endangered by his youthful companion or something goes dreadfully wrong, still, somehow it will all end badly.

He draws back just enough to glance down at Astarion, though he does not force him to catch his eye. His hand cups his cheek, his thumb sweeping gently over the curve.]

When you were stolen by the Rifts, I ran for you. I had slaughtered and threatened my way through Kirkwall and down the trade routes, confirming you hadn't been kidnapped or killed, and when I did . . . I ran to the Crossroads, mourning you all the while, and made my way through.

And make no mistake, amatus: I was terrified. Every moment spirits flocked to my lyrium which felt as though it would tear my skin asunder, and it was agonizing. I heard their whispers and cries, offering me anything in the world if I would only submit . . . and there was such a slim chance of finding you. I was tempted. More than once, I was tempted, for to find not just the right door, but the right time . . . I thought it nigh-impossible. I feared that I might wander there forever, unable to find my way back or forward, until at last death or madness overtook me.

[A slow, steady exhale, and then he continues:]

But there was no other option. Not in my mind. It was not a question of if, for I would not be separated from you, not if there was even the slightest chance I could find you again.

[Gently:]

You cannot imagine, after all that, that I would leave you. Not for any slight, large or small. Not for any blood on your hands, nor sin that wears at your soul. There is nothing that could ever make me not love you . . .

And yet here we are.

Here we are indeed. [Is a stall for time.

Something low and pretty in his throat that listens just as well as he does in the silence, holding onto present conversation whilst he cant; one foot in the rivers of three years ago, when they really were more alike in essence: refugees and slaves that aside from Astarion's niche pecularities were both worn down in the same ways, thought the same things in confrontation— even fed the same, for the most part. It makes the words 'a little harder' sting with recollection like an echo. A broken-record of a pulse that aches along his ears again and again as his mind wanders back towards it, as if it were the softening of truth, rather than the truth itself.

That thought, that poisoned little thought.

All this for the man that always speaks his mind (and what solace said bluntness has ever been right from the start; he trusted Leto with his life before he knew what trust was, moreso than other outstretched, lying hands), which sparks a rueful twisting of his lips. Not spite— amusement, albeit brief.

Red eyes lift to meet their counterpart. To note what he can feel with more than just his hands, his skin, his senses or his frigid, listless heart. This is the creature that walked through the Hells themselves to reach him. The one living soul who bared the magic he reviled as a means to bring him home, and how wretched a tread that must've been for all the fears they'd spoken of. Bargains and regrets and nightmares, all visited there for what Astarion assumes was an eternity of waiting.]

Death or madness.... [Trails his claws light across the fringe edge of white hair at Leto's brow, grown longer now. Easily tucked behind an ear.] ....Death and madness, [he corrects with one more wry puff of stolen breath,] as one would have to be to come so far for the glory of a Lower City hovel filled with fur, dust, and the inimitable inevitability of my dedicated love for you.

And only you.

[There is a pinch of thumb and forefinger; as if teasing a rapt child, he squeezes the lobe of that twitching ear that he'd tucked pale hair behind. Fortitudo.]

You are nothing like Cazador Szarr.

[His eyes close when nimble claws play with his hair, quietly pleased by the familiar habit. Astarion has always had a minor fixation with playing with his bangs; he's never pointed it out, for fear that it would stop. It's a comfort to feel it now.]

I know.

[He does. That pinch to the ear, equal parts scolding and immensely fond, underlines Astarion's stark words and drives them home. You are nothing like him, and no matter what guilt might linger— swept away in the light only to seep back in on sleepless nights— those words will be a boon against them.

But he isn't the only one in need of comfort. His palms slide firmly down Astarion's sides, soothing and grounding both, as he regards him. My love for you. And only you, and he tries to echo that with touch, calloused hands that refuse to leave bare skin for a moment.]

Neither are you.

[Not at all. Not for a moment. Not even when his mouth is hot with stolen blood and his past is littered with all the corpses of those who hadn't deserved their fate, oh, Leto believes it wholeheartedly.]

And I am not leaving you, come what may. There is no revelation from your past that would drive me from your side, and there is no world in which I do not love you with all my heart. I am devoted to you, amatus. I wore your mark in Thedas and I would do it again here, for there is no one more important to me.

[But they've done this before, haven't they? I cannot be your consort, and though they'd worked it out, the memory— the misunderstanding— still stings sometimes. His hands rise, cupping both of Astarion's cheeks, his thumbs smoothing over the curve as he catches his eye.]

Tell me now, if you feel a distance. If you fear that I will leave. I—

[How does he say this? He thinks for a moment, then:]

It is harder, I said, to understand what you need and what I should and should not ask of you. But the fault is mine. The distance to make up for is mine. And I do not wish for you to lie if you are hurt, or feel rejected, simply to make sure I don't leave.

[Heaviness sinks into those hands, bone-deep.

Deeper still than that.

It closes ever-searching eyes. Cools the rampant frenzy of a self-protective mind that fears the world and dreads what's coming, and knows— albeit unmalignly— how to see enemies in friends. 'Family'. Strangers. As if there is no difference. As if everything is a mask to bring Cazador's cruelty closer, and there is no end to its venomous outreach, and there is no peace save for when he's broken under, and there is—

A tiredness to his smile once his gaze slips open once again.

There is a handsome elf before him, holding all his grievous sins between his palms, and swearing just to love it.]

I don't feel it tonight.

[One night at a time.

That's how you survive. That's how they've always done it, whether suffering through torment or tending to their fretful hearts. One more minute, one more hour, one more day, and in that way you build a life. Three years is nothing compared to two centuries, but give it another decade, perhaps, and some of that fear will have lessened through sheer repetition alone. I'm not leaving, and it doesn't matter how often they need to have the conversation, only that they have it. I won't ever leave you, my heart. I could not bear it. I have never known a love like yours; I have never known the kind of joy you bring me. I want to worship you, devote myself to you, serve you, adore you, keep you safe from all harm. I love you more than anything in this world, every world, and there is nothing that would make me stray from your side.

Every slow nuzzle whispers it; every brush of his lips and purring rumble deep in his throat swears it. I love you, I love you, I love you, and he stares into those tired eyes, thumbing at his cheeks in echoing supplication.]

Tonight is enough.

[He murmurs it and leans in, kissing his forehead with aching tenderness. A muted sort of relief and a quiet joy twist together to form a bittersweet sort of ache in his heart, amplified as he draws back to smile down at him.]

I love you.

[Just a little briskly: a fact, not a sweet lie, and punctuation to this conversation. His thumbs sweep over the curve of his cheeks again, one last bit of tenderness, before Leto tips his head.]

Now come to bed.

[Come to coffin, in fact. They part only so they can finish their preparations for the night (Astarion donning dark silk while Leto shimmies solely into a pair of sleeping pants, for even in winter the coffin is a surprisingly insulated thing). And when they settle in and Astarion closes the lid over them, they murmur in the darkness: the conversation drifting this way and that, nonsensical and a little silly, until at last, without quite meaning to, Leto falls asleep.

And wakes to the sound of growling.

Low and vicious, an endless snarl that only rises in volume as the seconds tick past. It's Ataashi, Leto realizes dimly, still struggling to wake. Ataashi as he has never heard her, coward that she is, and for one bewildered moment Leto wonders if perhaps she's spotted herself in the mirror or gotten bitten by Montressor—

Until he hears voices.

Low murmurs and urgent whispers hissing at one another. 'Shut her up,' a woman snaps, her voice rising above the rest. 'Kill her before she wakes him—'

And suddenly the world narrows as adrenaline floods his system, sickly sweet and nauseating, panic turning into terror turning into that distant dissociation that marks entering a battle. The voices blur (but not fade), individual words nonsensical and yet each one marked for later examination. Time slows, each second passing like molasses as a thousand thoughts race through his mind— and then disappear, eclipsed by the burst of white-hot clarity that sears through this mind.

Attack—

With a bang the coffin lid flies open as Leto leaps out, his sword materializing in his hand. No time to stop, no time to think: he takes in the frozen snapshot scene (six foes with hollow eyes and glistening fangs stand before Ataashi, their presence foreign and strange and so achingly wrong amongst all their familiar trappings) even as he rushes forward. And as his heart thunders like a drum in his chest, as his blade whips through the air, he does not think so much as feel the words—

They will not take him.

It's a searing command carved into his very bones; he could no more disobey it than he could fly. Adrenaline screams as it floods his veins, but there's nothing but hissing silence as without warning he throws himself forward (don't waste your breath, focus on your attack). Like a wraith he darts among them, weaving his way between their ranks, and it isn't until steel meets flesh that his foes seem to realize what's happening. With a shout they turn on him with inhuman speed, claws outstretched and teeth bared, ready to rip him into shreds—

Only to be met with a blade that crackles with lightning and sings with lyrium. He moves so fast that it seems inhuman, his blade an endless whir that's impossible to track. Six on one isn't a fight, it's a massacre— but if that's true, no one told Leto, for he fights with a feral, fixated intensity. Seething rage and deadly focus have twinned to revive a creature who was once broken and reshaped to become the perfect killing machine (who still smells the surf somehow beneath everything else, who has slaughtered far more than just six at a time). Again and again his sword meets whatever flesh it can find, blood spraying from countless wounds to thighs and arms and torsos.

Two of them are downed almost immediately (two vanish with a flash of black light and a gesture, though only later will Leto realize what that means); the other four waver, hesitating, and that's their mistake, for Leto does not. One flick of his hand and a whirling tornado of shattered glass and knives suddenly appears right where the gnome stands. He shrieks in pain as he rushes forward, only to gut himself like a fish on Leto's waiting blade.

(Three).

Two of the women leap upon him, grabbing his arms (one wrenches his right arm back as , his bones creaking warningly, as another bites down deep into his left)— only to scream in terrible harmony as a burst of blinding light fills the room, the scent of seared flesh suddenly thick in the air. Lightning crackles through Leto, coating his sword and pulsing through him; with a bellow he follows after them, stabbing one after the other square in the chest. They cry out— they beg— they howl in pain and he does not care, stabbing and stabbing and stabbing until with a feeble burst they too vanish.

(Five—)

But even as they disappear, the male elf leaps with a snarl, his hands wrenching Leto's head to one side; it's only with the greatest of efforts that Leto twists, the bite sinking deep into his shoulder instead. The spawn tears away a chunk of flesh and spits it out with a gag, reeling as he wretches— and then screaming as Leto's blade stabs back and slices deep into his side. Leto twists, turning wildly, only to be met with claws that rake deep into his throat and chest, splitting flesh open wide; he staggers back, faltering, gasping for air that won't come, and the elf follows with a triumphant cry—

Only to shriek as the illusion vanishes and Leto leaps from the side, grabbing him by the throat and yanking him forward. Their foreheads smash together with a sickening thunk; the spawn reels, dazed but not downed, and so Leto does it again, ignoring the searing burst of pain that that blossoms behind his eye. And then his blade rises, swinging so sweetly through the air in a perfect arc to connect with the spawn's neck and slice right through—

And continues swinging as the elf abruptly vanishes.

And what then? And what then? And what then, and Leto turns, his eyes wide and wild, his teeth bared in a snarl as he searches frantically for another enemy, another foe, another vampire, they will not have him—]

[One night at a time, that's how it goes. Prepare and count your lucky cards for the day you'll need to play your hand, and hope that it's enough. Shut your eyes and talk yourself to sleep, reminding yourself of simple truths: the slow beat of a living heart, and the silence between whines or padding scuffles from small paws, and the assurances that'd come from voices not their own— that it won't be tonight. Tomorrow, maybe. The day after, perhaps, but that's not for now. So take it one night at a time.

But it's such an old nightmare.

It starts with the scent of Cazador's favorite wine. Dry, and arid, and tempered by the lingering musk from the velvet drapes that hide bricked-up panes. Whispers that he can't quite make out, yet he knows those voices; fears them, though he never used to. The growling in the dark, the—

Crash—

Coffin lid cracking when it slams back against its hinges, rattling the frame up to his teeth. His eyes are open, he's already on his feet with fangs and claws flexed far enough to ache— a bristling warning. A wild show of posturing like an animal dragged out of its den: nothing of him left under his skin, only raw panic mixed up with that tightened sense of seething ire. The intrinsic roar of enmity gone lethal, dripping venom on the floor.

Fenris is faster.

Even to vampiric senses he's a blur (a Blue Wraith again, at long last)— but the blood that scents the air is ashen and fallow-bitter, laced only once or twice with something sweeter at a distance. All primal, all unchecked. (God killer. World surmounter. Fog Warrior, wolf, bladesinger, amatus.) It's beautiful. Divine. It pitches away fear and brings on the keen intent to latch his jaws on the first of his siblings within reach as they assail him— only to feel icy fingers clamp down rough across his throat from right behind.

They're pitifully desperate, those claws. They tremble as the drag and tear him backwards, surrogate for far more distant power, as if somehow success might still be had by the grip that they enact, no matter that they're the last of six remaining. No matter that Astarion holds more strength (and wrenches against the agonizing pinion of those talons with it), turning far enough to fist his own hand in a thinner stream of curls— Petras— before something in him snaps in boiling impatience, and a white-furred wolf throws itself deep into those arms with a howling flurry of fur and jagged teeth, knocking the spawn to the floor and seizing his slim throat. Clamping like a vice, squeezing like one in wait of feeling something burst—

Left instead with empty jaws. A acridly slicked tongue.

And Fenris. Fenris.

Leto.

Oh, he rushes to him in a flicker of movement and spent magic, smoke still rippling from his skin in waves, fingers reaching for arched cheeks and panicked.]

Loqui ad me. [Are you all right? Come here. Gods, show me your face. Your hands.] Let me see you— are you bitten?

[He can only hear his breathing at first. Heavy and hard, his lungs sucking in air as he dreamily drinks in the rest of the scene at a distance. A wolf, good, that's a good form, he thinks vaguely, knowing he doesn't really understand what's happening, not in detail. It's enough to register, with a nauseating sort of drop, that Astarion is safe; it's enough to know that the threat has been conquered (but what if it hasn't? How many times had that lesson been beaten into him, how many times did it take for him to learn that Danarius always wanted him on his guard, always check for another mage, always make sure you've slaughtered everyone, too many of my peers have died because they were careless, boy, and he won't lose Astarion, he won't be a fool, he won't—)

And then cool fingers grip his cheeks. The voice he loves more than anything in all the world speaks to him in such a panicked tone, and he has to pay mind to it. Loqui ad me, let me see you, and Astarion wouldn't be acting like this unless there were no more foes.

Leto exhales. His head tips forward, sagging into that gentle grip.]

Im purus, im purus— are you?

[For who cares about Leto? There's a gouged-out chunk missing from his shoulder, the wound deep and bloody; gouges from talons line his torso and hip, ranging from skittering scratches to something deeper. He'll take care of those, for this is how it always goes: he gets hurt and then he takes care of himself, and sooner or later he's all right again. But there are more important things to focus on right now.

His other hand cups Astarion's cheek, thumb brushing over the curve as he drinks him in. as his eyes finally focus. They dart around his face, his torso, seeking out wounds that might or might not be there.]

Tell me— did they touch you? Did they hurt you? Are there more that might come?

No. [To all of the above.

There's blood upon his throat, but Leto won't see that it's his; no self sacrifice required when he'll heal in but a span of minutes or hours depending on the depth of Petra's' clutching grasp, ergo there's no point letting it slip to the surface now, not when his darling half is hurt. Not when adrenaline runs thicker in green eyes than sense.

There is blood upon the fingers caressing at his cheek; he can smell the iron clearly, and it twists beneath his ribs into a knot of barbed wire rage. A twitch of all his muscle at the sight of Leto bloodied, calling him towards the streets. Towards the Upper City spires where he knows his master dwells, hungry for a death Astarion will damned well deliver after this—

But the moment that he starts to rise, he stops— sinks back those bare centimeters to his knees. Nothing more than a twitch.

He can't leave Leto like this.

(He can't leave him.)]

Arms up if you can move them. Hold fast to me. [It's not a question: Astarion lifts him into his arms without a second spared past warning, carrying him to the bed and its swath of expendable sheets— tourniquets or bandages yet untorn, albeit not for much longer now.

First: the familiar summoned from midair, whispered to before a flurry of flapped wings sees it off. Second, a cool hand at his shoulder, appraising wounds for depth. What he mutters in Tevene, he mutters to himself.]

Brave thing, you'll be the death of me— again.

[He's sicker from the adrenaline drain more than he is the blood loss: a nauseating pitch to his stomach that makes the room spin and leaves a sour taste in his mouth. It means he doesn't fight it when Astarion picks him up and carries him to the bed— though he doesn't lie down, not fully, not yet. Resting on one elbow, Leto stays half-up, dazedly determined even now to stay on his guard.

Though ah— maybe the blood loss is affecting him, for he swears he sees an enormous bird appear out of nowhere. Big and black and so utterly inexplicable that Leto stares dazedly at it for a long few seconds, so baffled he doesn't fight it when he's pushed back onto the bed. But then it's gone, and there's nothing left in the room but that murmur of Tevene, which— oh.

Oh.]

I will always be there to protect you.

[He says it simply, his eyes focused utterly on his mate.]

And I will never let them come close to taking you, nor killing me, no matter how many waves he sends.

[There's more to be thought about (they'll have to move tomorrow, he thinks vaguely, and with that thought comes the shadow of another— that such a move will have to precipitate an attack, that they'll need to strike soon, that Cazador knows where they are, but one thing at a time). But not right now. Just for now, they can afford to be breathless and soft in this dizzying aftermath.]

Astarion . . .

[He catches his wrist, pausing his ministrations just for a moment.]

Look at me.

[For tending his wounds can wait. More important is his chosen mate, who cannot be as unaffected as he's pretending.]

We are both still here, and not going anywhere. I promise you. I will heal from this, but . . .

[He squeezes his wrist.]

Are you all right?

[And what a different question that is from are you hurt.]

[If there's an answer to be given that could satisfy any of this, Astarion doesn't know it. He'd need awareness for that, or more accurately: the ability to slip outside perspective into objectivity of any stripe— self-preservation or analytical, anything but the ringing in his ears he has to strain around. A scalding fury roiling in his bones that still won't abate no matter how the storm has passed. Instead he seethes that much more without numbness in the way, and it's trapped there where it boils. Bottles lividly, ready to tear its way out of him if need be just to keep his bondmate safe—

Too late, of course.

The soaked sheets he presses to tanned skin more than readily attests as much, watering his mouth and aching beyond that. Astarion spares a hand to close around the one that's caught him, though he's strong enough that he could ignore it if he wanted to.]

We are, and you rescued me just as effortlessly as you always do. [A mild squeeze compresses round those fingers, the sincere, fretful sense of love more than just a guise for the mending pressure of his palm.

He can't think on it now. If he does, he'll shatter; he can feel it. Go to pieces like a barren figure in every tragic stageplay, undecided whether he should gnash his teeth and tear the world apart for its audacity, or curl up on the floor. Come here, his deadened heart insists, stooping down to drag their profiles together— intermingling their scents again and again and again. The grounding line that keeps him here. The sole light in the dark.] But dare lift another finger and I'll finish what they started. [Comes with a nip that can't connect— doesn't dare connect—

There's too much blood to risk it. Too much instinct.

Too much love in an unbeating heart that saw its own reflection in those anguished eyes and ruddy fangs.]

[That isn't an answer, but what had he expected? Of course Astarion isn't all right. He must be feeling a thousand things, each more overwhelming than the last, and none of it easy to parse, never mind articulate. Leto knows better than to ask that, but now, years later, he can finally appreciate why Hawke had once asked him that very same question. It doesn't mean are you okay, but rather: come here, come fall apart on me.

A better answer: the way their profiles touch. Leto leans up into that butting affection, his eyes closing as he returns every nuzzle with as much love as he can muster. Come here, come here, and he isn't quite aware of what it does for their scents (how his own becomes smothered gently by Astarion's once more, claiming and protective in equal measure), but there's something to be said for the comfort of touch.

It ends too quickly, and Leto's eyes follow Astarion as he draws back.]

You wouldn't dare.

[It's offered mildly, the retort more about breaking the silence than any real banter. He wishes he knew what to say, and knows even as he thinks it that there isn't anything to say. Tell Astarion to leave and he'll gnaw on himself in bitter, miserable rage; beg him to come down on the bed and he'll grow frantic over Leto's injuries, overwhelmed by the scent of blood and the sight of gore. Beg him to share how he feels and he'll snarl and snap, but ignoring it doesn't feel right either.

And so Leto waits. Patiently, his eyes soft, and shifts accordingly each time his mate needs him to. Cold fingers brush feather-light against the gouges on his stomach, measuring their span before he presses another sheet to his torso. At one point, Ataashi leaps up onto the bed, her massive paws so careful as she makes sure not to jostle either of them. Her bulk is a comfort, even if she shivers in belated fear as she beds down next to them. She even manages to quiet down the pup's crying: craning down off the bed and grasping them carefully in her mouth so she can bring them up one by one, nuzzling at them each time they get it in their tiny heads to try and wander towards Leto.

It's quiet for so long. Long enough that his shoulder begins to clot; long enough that Astarion can begin to wrap a bandage around it rather than just stem the gushing flow. And when he does, finally, Leto breaks the silence to murmur:]

Will you lie with me soon?

[He wants to hold him. He wants to kiss his forehead and nuzzle against the top of his head, holding him close as he shakes himself into terrified, enraged pieces; he wants to hear that those were Astarion's enslaved siblings, each an unwilling enemy. But not yet. Not until his mate is ready.]

[I would, if it meant saving you, Astarion stubbornly reiterates throughout one bridging whisper, impressed soft against a salt-rough cheek. Languages and sentiments. Shaky-legged rituals as a stand in for self-soothing while the sun's still far from risen, and the hairs along the back of his own neck won't settle, more certain by the second that there's more to come (adrenaline draining through the tips of his fingers, leaving a disorienting sense of pins-and-needles numbness in its wake; emptier than he's felt in ages), bleeding out in the streets a second time.

But gods, he won't lose the life he's built to this.

Not the wolf hushing her packmates. Not the warm hands straining to find him in the dark, all too beautiful to the broken vampire that'd beat his hands bloody over iron, begging for a scrap of mercy. Another voice beside him. Anything to defy the cruelty Cazador made law.

Anything.

He nods to that request. Hikes one leg up into the softness of the mattress and what remains of its torn bedding just to (carefully) rearrange Leto's alignment, wrapping himself (arms, legs, ankles and clawed fingers— even his profile he buries) against his wounded hero. Still dashing as ever, as it so happens.] Until the others arrive and patch your wounds properly, compared to my own shoddy handwork.

[A nosing nudge. A bit of care to avoid the damage to that shoulder whilst they wend into each other, and then:]

Are you in pain....?

[Does it hurt?

Questions he'd never asked anyone before, save.... ]

[There, now. There he is, and Leto nestles himself within that protective hold: wrapping his arms around Astarion as his chin tips up to make room for that burrowing. Come here, whispered as his vampire settles atop him protectively. Come here, come be with me, me fortes amatus, his lips brushing against his forehead as he draws Astarion in close. Their legs intertwine, their arms lock around one another— and though the danger has never been closer to their doorstep, still, here and now, Leto feels some part of him quietly exhale.

It's always been them against the world. Thedas or Toril, Riftwatch or Cazador . . . so long as they're together, there's nothing they cannot handle.

At his side, Ataashi has taken to licking both the pups, settling herself and them both with uncharacteristically affectionate grooming. So, too, does Leto settle in with Astarion: his fingers coming up to card through his hair, stroking through silver curls patiently, nuzzling and nosing at his forehead all the while. I'm here, I'm here, I'm here, as much a comfort as the steady beat of his heart or the slow rise and fall of his chest.

And then there's that question.

Spoken with such devastating, tender tentativeness— so much so that his heart aches to hear it. On sudden impulse he turns his head, kissing Astarion's forehead with as much devotion as he can muster as his arms wrap even tighter around him. For a moment he thinks of lying— but ah, what good would that do either of them?]

Not as much as before.

[It's true: the bleeding has stopped. Pain thunders through him, but it's hot, dull pain, easily accepted and ignored.

He's quiet for a little bit. And then, softly:]

Tell me what you're thinking.

[His voice is pitched low enough that Astarion can ignore him if he wants. His fingers keep up their steady rhythm, carding through his hair as Leto stares up at the ceiling. This late at night, the only light comes from the dappled patterns of the lanterns on the street, flicking so faintly you might mistake them for stars.

Beloved, oh, beloved, and his heart aches for how distant Astarion's voice sounds. Not cold, but dissonant. Part of him isn't here, Leto knows, but in a palace in the Upper City, where the air smells of iron and no light nor joy ever reaches.]

[He is always there, in truth. The years pass as they wont, and he smiles more, and feels the warmth of his husband's skin as a proxy for the sunlight that even Kirkwall graced from time to time, made more alive by the day despite his own afflictions.

But at night, in the dark, in the cold or wet or most fenced-in— sometimes even in the mildest of conversations— something slips in his own footing, and he realizes why he's so off balance: that it's impossible to stay upright when his other ankle's still shackled to those endless hallways and their slack-jawed nightmares. The sense of emptiness they imposed upon his shoulders still clutching from across the distance, for like their own dear master, the estate was always hungry.

And to the tune of clotted copper, he knows he's never once left.]

I don't know.

[Comes with a feathering sound at its end. Air let out through his nose like a fragile facsimile of a laugh, bittersweet and well-resigned and swearing that he doesn't want to leave this bed (the coffin is a mess beside them; he'll force himself to take stock later, and force his mind to swallow down the notion that the damage isn't disastrously prophetic).]

A thousand things at once— [although that's nothing new] how much I should've done to prevent this. How I should be on my feet already locking the door and carting you elsewhere, [but be can't do that now that he's sent for help— it'd only prolong Leto's suffering, and they'd be more exposed out in the open searching for a new rathole than shut in here with allies close at hand. Maybe Cazador's even banking on that; Astarion did always love to run, as he so eloquently put it.] and if not that, how I should be giving chase. Seizing what might well be my only opportunity to turn the blade when he would least expect it, tearing out his throat for what he almost cost me tonight.

[There's an unintended growl cast over those last words, rippling in his throat unnoticed, fangs only briefly bared— and then, in his own voice:]

....That wasn't how I'd hoped you'd meet my siblings.

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