illithidnapped | INBOX II

[There is a pause. It's a familiar pause, if only because it's the same five seconds Leto takes anytime he has to quell his teenage temper.]

i have witnessed you drain five corpses in a row and still not be sated. these muscles do not happen on their own. be grateful it's not more than one icebox per week, for I assuredly could. especially in this body.

[MORE IMPORTANTLY:]

~~she's my~~

why would sex affect my spellcasting

does it????

why would you ask her ~~of all people~~

[On the other hand, who else would he ask? Gale?]

[How did you know exactly how this would go :o]

well because who else WOULD I ask darling? Gale?? Would you rather I ask Gale a question for a friend of a friend of a friend who also happens to use magic and with whom I just happen to have sex with?

Because I can.

But no, apparently. Not unless we use certain potions or 'arcane enhanced lubricants'. So there is that.

-And I am a vampire for the record. Five corpses is a modest, perfectly equitable amount.

[~M A G I C~]

please. gale lives with his cat, astarion. his talking cat. he would have no better answer about sex than I.

[Don't be so rude, Leto.]

she knows too much about our sex life already. she need not know more.

[Which is to say she knows anything at all about it, ever, at all, ever. Like, of course she knows, she's seen Leto stagger in with clothes mussed and bitemarks lining his neck, she's not blind and she's not subtle, but still.

. . . though:]

what kind of potions

what happens if we use them

[Because, well, as long as Astarion asked already, they might as well find out.]

[The snort of laughter heard round the world.

(This is not helping him stay discreet in that corner, by the way.)]

Nothing so interesting as puppy ears, my little love.

Rashes, burning sensations, unpredictable connections to the Weave, those were what she warned about before hanging up rather abruptly. No idea why.

[She is 300 or 400 years old and she does not need this.]

i suspect it's because her average student is a child, and she normally need not deal with this.

do you like her? it's unusual for you to want to speak to someone so often.

I like her less now that I know she answers when you call her.

Besides, again, who else am I to ask? The others here are still strangers to me. Although

Although that is changing, I suppose, but even then the distance kept between us is quite nice. What I say here echoes, in a way, and a question spoken in the morning is still buzzing round the fireside by dinnertime.

[Not in the least because even the pups like to echo everything they hear.

The old tiefling at least isn't so bad, on the other hand, but Astarion knows him even less than the rowdier members of this newfound pack. Privacy like that is an illusion.]

Do you like her?

[It is changing, isn't it? He hadn't wanted to say anything lest he disturb it, but he's noticed more than a few overtures recently. Idle words exchanged or discussions had . . . but in such ways are companions forged.]

Yes. A great deal, though I suspect you may be [hmm.] closer to her in ways I am not.

[Neither greater nor lesser, but different. To Leto, she'll always be something maternal. Not a mother, not by any means, but something like it.]

Distance aside . . . do you find your thoughts changing on those around us, or do your initial impressions still hold?

Changing, yes. As are we both, in case you haven't noticed.

[The Leto he's talking to now, covering his head with a hat and trudging home in a hurry owing to his own magical mishaps isn't the same Leto that wandered into Toril well over a year ago now.]

So go on then. If you want to know which ones I like the most and which ones I can't stand, now's your one and only chance to ask. Otherwise I'm going to tell you that they're all still fucking annoying most of the time and leave it at that.

I'll trade you, person for person, if you'd prefer that. Though I suspect I know at least one of the ones you cannot stand already. Has Minsc stopped offering you fish?

But I do want to know: which you like the most and which you despise.

He has not.

[100/10 flawless guess there, Leto. Absolutely 360 no scoped it right out of the gate.]

I do not care for the rotting old husk, either. Nor the brat from the sorceries shop, if I'm being entirely honest.

[There's only room for ~~one~~ two whinging, catty, utterly demanding brats in the same space.]

[See, now, there's a reason that Leto finds Rolan amusing in small doses. Other things he finds amusing: whenever Astarion forgets to use contractions. He does it himself, he knows— the word beast has entered into his vocabulary far more often than it ever used to— but it's sweet to see it reflected.]

You'd prefer the demoness over the husk? Though I suppose both stay in their respective corners.

Rolan surprises me, though. I thought you two would thrill in being catty at the rest— though his ego is enormous, so perhaps I should not be so shocked. [Leto likes him, but, like, again, in small doses.]

What about Shadowheart?

[Don't rush him??]

Say what you will, but at least the demoness is good to look at.

[Withers and Mizora might dress about the same when it comes to landmark measurements, but— I mean come on. Come on. There's no explanation needed here.]

What about Shadowheart?

[Oh, fine.]

Hard to know what to believe when it comes to followers of Shar— former or otherwise. For a long while, you might recall her capability for deception standing as a rather sturdy wall between us.

But I daresay it would be rather difficult to keep one's toddering old parents close at hand and still manage to come off as any sort of fearsome threat. Not that I would know of course, lacking any kin to speak of. But still. Even I can't deny the sincerity they wear in their senility. The fragility of it all.

She couldn't bare her teeth at our necks whilst showing us the most vulnerable fragments of her world.

Or if she is, then she's a much better disciple than I gave her credit for. Hats off, really.

[It's praise. He likes her.]

[Of course she’s good to look at, he’ll grumble later into the safety of Astarion’s neck, nipping pale skin with protective insistence. All the more reason to stay away from her. As if Astarion isn’t smart enough to do that on his own. But Leto is eternally a knight at heart, fiercely determined to defend that which matters most. Just as Astarion douses him in his scent, so too does Leto leave his own mark: insistent little bites that say mine, mine, mine . . .]

I like her.

[It’s not about him, but he says it more as agreement than to voice his own opinion.]

Far more than Lutece, if we're speaking of your acquaintances. But I suspect you’re right— it would take a great deal of unnecessary effort for her to maintain that lie. And she seems suited to you. Her humor runs macabre, which suits, and she has seen her share of the horrors of the world; she has not patronized either of us, and that is worth a lot.

Besides: she healed me. I suspect anyone who does that is worth a great deal in your eyes.

[A deliberate few seconds pass, and then:]

Is Wyll not unlike what you imagined me to be when we first met?

[He's teasing gently, sort of, and then again he's not.]

[Therein lies the real reason why Astarion truly favors Jenevelle or Shadowheart— whatever she goes by now— and has been for a while (all the injuries she'd mended; the care she took ensuring Leto not only survived the worst of his wounds, but without lingering scars to speak of—) yet his siblings were already upon them once. He won't make the mistake of baring his sole weakness to anyone that might take advantage of it.

Not even when speaking to said weakness directly.

(His smile is overt. He's living for the teasing—

And for the way he's being bitten.)]

Wyll doesn't blind me.

[A stop-start series of ink blots are the only bits of evidence for the war his mind is currently waging with his cock. Until finally:]

Allow me the pleasure of settling between your thighs tonight and I will show you just how deftly I’ve learned how to blind you, whether it be through tongue, prick, or blade itself.

But you will not distract me. We have half the inn left to go, and I wish to know your thoughts before I lose the chance. Gale, Karlach . . . Zevlor. I like him a great deal— more than most here. He is clever and experienced— a valuable ally, and one far more versed in tactics than I thought we might find. We have already come up with more than a few plans on ways to enter the palace.

Promise, little pup?

[Oh he hopes that tail is wagging.]

That he is clever. As is young Wyll, of course, but the boy has such a shine in his eyes still. [Something the world has not yet taken from him.] You always struck me more as Drizzt Do'urden, or Zevlor; withdrawn and nobly brooding, bearing the whole world's weight upon your shoulders.

As for Gale, he's....

[A pause.]

He's fine.

[It's Leto's turn to snort now, loud enough that the genasi walking in front of him looks mildly offended.]

Oh? Just fine?

[Be mean, Astarion. Be petty. Vindicate all his teenage rage and seething resentment.]

[ . . . but then he goes back, rereading that message, and adds:]

Will you fluster if I tell you I find it sweet you compare me to your Drizzt?

Not just sweet. Flattering. A compliment whose value I did not know the first time it was offered.

[That is, somehow, the absolute worst part of all of this: in growing fonder, he can't immediately summon up vitriol from the depths of his mistrusting soul. They're kinder creatures, even the worst of them— not you, Mizora— and they care enough to endure his snappish biting more than his siblings ever did across the span of two hundred endlessly long years.

His pen taps paper— then withdraws, then— ]

Oh I don't know, darling. He doesn't make me want to claw my eyes out anymore unless he lifts one of his stupid blunt-edged fingers and coughs out one of those signature 'ah ah ah's or 'ahem's.

And the same could be said of Karlach too, who is— in spite of the depths of her incessant pestering— quite adorable in her own way. Earnest, I suppose.

They're both too much most days, and if you tell any of them this I'll cut holes in your armor, but

well

they're not so terrible to exist near anymore.

—no

[Y e s.

In fact he's flustering right now. Twitching through his ears at the words your Drizzt within this context.

(Leto really is his own version of that shining, wondrous star some part of him had fawned over long, long ago ~~and definitely not anymore, that was a childhood fancy, thank you very much, and he is mature and grown and worldly now. So worldly.~~ And he is struck by the wonder of that realization every time it flickers to the forefront of his mind.)]

And you still don't understand its value, either. The fourth novel in Do'urden's Night of the Drow: A Heroic Tale series is still collecting dust on our tavern shelf, I ought to mention.

Edited 2025-11-22 03:20 (UTC)

[They're not so terrible to exist near anymore, and Leto smiles to himself as he reads it. It makes him glad, it truly does. Astarion need not repeat the same steps Leto himself had all those years ago, for he has no doubt his husband would continue to grow and heal regardless of companions or lack thereof— but there's something a little wonderful about being among people you love and trust. Or, if not that, at least might learn to someday.

Even if they annoy you to no end some days.

But he won't say so. Pointing it out will only make Astarion snap, and anyway, anything Leto can think to say only sounds patronizing. I'm glad you're accepting them in your life or you deserve to be loved both feel too heavy-handed, and so he simply thinks them.]

Is that the smutty one or the one where there's a lot of pirates?

Is the cat girl in it?

[First of all, Catti-brie isn't a fucking tabaxi.

Honestly, he does like Drizzt stories. The trouble is, he likes them a lot better when it's Astarion describing them and Leto can curl up against him and sort of doze as he listens. Actually sitting down and reading them . . . well, it's not nearly the same, and anyway, they're so goddamn long.]

Anyway, I am in the midst of reading it. Simply because you had two hundred years of literacy does not mean it comes so easy to all of us.

[HE WAS AN ILLITERATE SLAVE ASTARION it's like you don't even respect his trauma.......]

Edited 2025-11-22 03:49 (UTC)

I dare you to say that in front of Gale.

Or his cat.

[The first cat he's ever met he does not care for. Why is she so strait laced and prone to tattling?? If Astarion wanted a mother about peering over his shoulder, then he wouldn't have gotten murdered.]

Gods. It's the one with the romantic subplot and sweeping sense of—

I'm sorry did you just

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