[But that's different. That was him and this is their baby— and yes, he knows that Astarion won't start working properly for years. He knows that Satine is a clever thing, just as likely to be meteing out lessons for the sake of settling Astarion than because he's anywhere near ready. But one lesson leads to another, and the seasons seem to be going by faster and faster these days, and someday soon—
A warm hand brushes against his cheek, and Kanan's eyes flick up. And just like that, the anxious whine building in the back of his mind quiets, just a little.]
That was different.
[It isn't snappish as it might have been a second ago; instead, his tone is quietly plaintive. Zevlor knows already, and the only reason Kanan says it is because he won't be able to later. Astarion has his heart set on this, and has for years now, and they lost the right to protest when they'd agreed in the first place. But here, now, in the dark alone with his husband . . . oh, he can fret here. His brow pinched and his eyes dimming with trepidation as he wends his way closer (impossible, surely, and yet he manages it, limbs knocking and bare skin meeting bare skin) around his husband.]
Though . . . I suppose Astarion will have someone of nearly the same caliber to protect him. [A fond little look, and he even manages to return that half-smile.] Though not half as handsome, I'm afraid. And, with any luck, he'll knock some sense into him.
[He scoffs out a little laugh and adds:]
Unless one ends up biting the other to death, I suppose. Or kicking. Or simply misunderstanding each other over and over until it brings the roof down around all our heads.
The latter seems most likely. [Eyes like burning embers take in the glow of their counterparts from beneath half-lidded lashes, his tone dry as weathered parchment but the rest of it is warm and docile. Comfortable. He can't fathom an existence where this isn't what they share after the stage lights have gone dim. That there is any universe but the one where he was swayed by a handsome face into abandoning his sword arm, or taking in a wayward child off the streets.
It makes the rest bearable. Settled thoughts of what ifs or countless deadlines.]
But....no.
[Is it selfish to admit that? Does it devalue his child compared to the love of his life? No, repeats itself within his mind, a soft refrain. A touchstone borne with confidence.]
It was harder to see you fielding more than your fair share of Paris' undeserving night after night, although I was resigned to it for your sake.
[It sounds self pitying in hindsight, keeping vigil throughout those uncertain times when his heart stirred more deeply than his body would confess; brushing past it, then, comes quickly. He counters vulnerable sentiment with a soft grunt, and a diverging shift in topic.]
Whatever happens now, he'll have the best pair of advisors any performer— or bodyguard [because he adores his sons equally, and won't neglect one for the other in spite of current conversation] —could ever hope for standing just over his shoulder in the wings. And besides, the boy is smart: the Sparkling Diamond is a damnably prestigious title, able to spurn the common riffraff and pluck out their own preference from opportunity [perhaps he'll marry a prince or a duchess worth more than their own weight in gold] rather than finding himself tethered to the stage the way too many performers are. But the others are vicious when they've a mind to be, you know that better than anyone, my love. If he doesn't start with any real advantage in his training, they'd no doubt call it a form of nepotism if he ever inherited the title. [As is, Satine's tutelage can at least put that to rest.]
Still, perhaps you ought to speak to her, if you take umbridge with her aproach.
[He respects that shift in topic, knowing his husband's uneasiness with expressing his own desires and wants— but to Kanan's ears, it doesn't sound self-pitying. It never has. Zevlor strove to such agonizing lengths to keep his pain to himself, to the point that Kanan had once been fooled by the act, hurt by his lover's seeming indifference— oh, he's never once been selfish. Not his brave, noble guard, so steadfastly determined to prioritize everyone over himself.
He won't linger on it. But he would be remiss if he didn't acknowledge it on some level: a disagreeing hum rumbling low in the base of his throat as he strokes one palm against his thigh, soothing and comforting both. It wasn't selfish. I know. I remember. I remember how badly it hurt, I remember how jealous you were, when all the emotions had come to light and they were both trembling in pain . . .
A hurt long since mended, but even scars that are decades old still ache sometimes. And so he keeps up his steady stroke, his eyes locked up on his husband, and allows the topic to keep going. Zevlor isn't wrong (Zevlor is so rarely wrong, a fact that Kanan suspects their sons will only grow more aggravated with as they enter their teenage years). The Diamond is so very different than one of the regular courtesans, and anyway, it isn't as if Astarion doesn't know what the position entails. Gods, he's known for ages.
And when he's old enough (years from now, Kanan thinks, years and years and years), he'll have his pick and then some. And oh, he knows his vain little darling: he'll thrill in being doted upon by any number of rich clients, they all of them enamored by the pretty elf with silver eyes and a sharp tongue— and eager to shower him in all kinds of gifts.]
I wouldn't dare.
[He scoffs out a laugh aloud, but the way he burrows a little (nose knocking against one warm cheek, his hand catching Zevlor's so their fingers tangle together) gives him away.]
At best, she'd scold me until I retreated with my tail between my legs. At worst, she'd tell me to take over Astarion's instruction, and I've done more than my fair share as-is.
[Mm . . . but he can't help but think about Zevlor all those years ago, stoic and proud and nursing a broken heart. He can't help but think about Astarion tonight, whimpering in pain and aching from unintended betrayal.]
. . . you should talk to Fenris someday about that time in our lives. About what you went through.
[He tips his head.]
I know they're both still so young, and there's no guarantee they'll feel anything for one another . . . but I suspect there will be a time when Fenris is as jealous as you were— and expresses it about as well as you did.
[He's such a stoic boy, especially compared to Astarion. Especially when he's in pain.]
I don't want to watch them go through years of heartache for no reason, even if it ends with the two of them apart. They're already so fixated on each other . . . and they will be again, even if it takes some time.
[A great deal of it feels insurmountably abstract. He strains between strokes of his husband's claws to picture what— a mere handful of years prior were only frighteningly small, rambunctious children— now naive yet willful miniature reflections of adulthood will continue growing into. Oh, he knows it'll come. All too quick if past proves any sort of prologue, but it's one thing to know your child's destined to grow into another full-fledged human with wants and desires and a story of his own, and quite another thing completely to conceive of a future where things won't be as they are now.
Or as they have been.
Elven children ought to grow slower, he silently concludes to an audience of no one and nothing, in council with the unfathomable space shaped like his two children, only grown. Their preferences calcified, their fondness for barely noticeable minutiae flourished into countless traits. It is therefore an odd sensation he finds, staring down that known-unknown. That inevitability he's never once before experienced, yet knows it's coming fast. For if today's proven anything beyond the fact that Kanan's right, it's that those days of having strong little fingers clinging to their tails as they sleep throughout the night are well and truly over.
No wonder his heart-heavy husband's in a state of hidden choler. (Zevlor loves the boys unquestionably; he would die for them, if called to keep them safe— and there was a time when keeping one of the Magesterium's slaves under his roof and guard felt very close to that potential risk. But Zevlor swallows what the world gives him. He keeps a great deal of it at a distance, only brushing what his calluses can touch.) Kanan's always been composed and smarter than a whip, true enough, but at heart and in comparison: beneath the surface he's a wellspring. It must hurt to think of what he's losing, now that change is crawling closer like a tide.
Clawed fingers weave together. The rough catch of his knuckles a measure too large to sit comfortably between the slim recesses of Kanan's own, but his counterpart has never once complained about that; they pay for closeness with a few nudges of sweet discomfort. And tonight (or perhaps, more appropriately, this liminal prelude to one swift-encroaching morning), they chase it with the gentleness of laying cheek-to-faintly-jagged cheek.
A luxury, after so many years of interruption.]
Hmph. [Is such a throaty excuse for a chuckle while his eyes are closed. While he lies there sprawled against his love, his tail only mutely twitching now and then in listless comfort.] I haven't the best imagination, I'll confess, but I doubt anyone could ever really chase you off when it comes to those two.
[It isn't bias if it's well true.
....which, he then supposes, effectively brings the conversation back full circle. Towards the other end of things.]
I can try. I only worry he won't understand, Kanan. [His eyes slip open, and for a moment the old, unpainted ceiling seems so far away.] I'd spare them all the heartache in the world if I could. You know that I'd be the first willing to make it so. It's not a question of that.
[Ah.
But it splinters his weary heart to think back on the devotion in those bright green eyes. The way he'd fought to shoulder everything to protect Astarion, thinking it might somehow route strife before it started.]
They're just so young. I can't be sure they grasp how any of this works, let alone their heads from their tails. [Or whatever elven children have. Just asses, he supposes. A pair of ankles. Toes.]
Poor Fenris was convinced that this was his mistake to right, and worked himself into a fit trying to make sure this wouldn't ruin Astarion's plan of becoming a courtesan. No matter how many times I tried to explain why it wouldn't work— [well,] it didn't seem to work. I can't be sure he's not upstairs in his room plotting out contingencies as we speak.
[He huffs out a rueful little laugh, for he can so easily imagine Fenris working himself up in such a fixated frenzy. Such a dutiful boy. Such a steadfast thing, and Kanan loves him for it, he really does, even if it makes him fret for how destructive it could become.]
Of course he won’t understand. Nor did Astarion when I told him of how working as a courtesan— even an elite one— wears on the heart and soul.
[He reaches with his other hand, tucking a stray strand of brown hair behind one pointed ear. It's so rare anyone ever gets to see the tiefling with his hair down (literally and figuratively, for their leader is such a business-focused thing). Kanan will never cease feeling petty satisfaction from being one of the only ones who ever does.]
I told him, too, of what sacrifices he would need to make— and yet, being a teenager, he listened to me and promptly ignored my advice. Thoughts of lovers or loneliness barely exist at that age, and all he can think of is how much he wants all the glory and glamor of being the best.
[His mouth thins into a worried line. He can see all too easily how badly it might go. He can almost see Astarion himself, grown into himself and standing on a stage, glittering and bright and so, so lonely it nearly kills him. So lonely that he'd all but carve his own heart out just to stop feeling. Year after year (oh, elves and tieflings both live so long), decade after decade, and how long until he becomes colder? How long until cruelty and icy disdain replace that darling fascination and desire for attention?
And knowing that all things have their end. That sooner or later, every Diamond has to train their replacement, and what then? Retirement isn't such a dire prospect if you have a stable foundation. But will he? Or will he have pushed everyone away in a desperate attempt to maintain a dream now accomplished and near ending?
They're decades away from that, of course. A hundred thousand decisions and pathways lie between them and that dire grief, and even then, there's ways and ways to come back from such a despair. But it terrifies Kanan in moments like these, when all he can think of is all the bitterness and grief he'd felt among his colleagues on darker nights.
He exhales slowly, trying to release some of that panic. Focus on the here and now, for the point is: they can avert that for both of them.]
And even if Fenris is so dutifully inclined . . . I suspect the future is just as dim for him, in its own way. [Such a direct thing, hyperfocusing only on one terrifying outcome— but of course he does. The little ghost who'd first come to their doorstep refused to let Astarion of his sight lest he somehow disappear; he can't blame him for always fixating on what disaster might yet befall them.]
But we'll tell them both again. And again, inevitably, over and over until they start to understand.
[For someday, they will. For better or for worse (and Kanan refuses to give up on better), they'll learn.]
Let him plot out contingencies, just as Astarion is, I have no doubt, already coming up with a way to somehow apologize to Fenris while expressing the least amount of vulnerability possible. [Oh, their boys. Their darling, darling boys.] And when things go wrong again, we'll be there. And we'll tell them again, and teach him . . . and sooner or later, it will stick, my love.
[He has to believe that. A few seconds pass, and he adds ruefully:]
They're still only barely teenagers.
[Only in their early teens, and how old and young that is, all at once. Not children, not anymore— but they still have some years left. Elven children ought to grow slower, it's absolutely true— but compared to humans, they grow fairly slowly. They have time.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
illithidnapped) wrote2025-05-31 06:45 pm
no subject
A warm hand brushes against his cheek, and Kanan's eyes flick up. And just like that, the anxious whine building in the back of his mind quiets, just a little.]
That was different.
[It isn't snappish as it might have been a second ago; instead, his tone is quietly plaintive. Zevlor knows already, and the only reason Kanan says it is because he won't be able to later. Astarion has his heart set on this, and has for years now, and they lost the right to protest when they'd agreed in the first place. But here, now, in the dark alone with his husband . . . oh, he can fret here. His brow pinched and his eyes dimming with trepidation as he wends his way closer (impossible, surely, and yet he manages it, limbs knocking and bare skin meeting bare skin) around his husband.]
Though . . . I suppose Astarion will have someone of nearly the same caliber to protect him. [A fond little look, and he even manages to return that half-smile.] Though not half as handsome, I'm afraid. And, with any luck, he'll knock some sense into him.
[He scoffs out a little laugh and adds:]
Unless one ends up biting the other to death, I suppose. Or kicking. Or simply misunderstanding each other over and over until it brings the roof down around all our heads.
[Another little nuzzle.]
. . . was it as hard for you then as it is now?
no subject
It makes the rest bearable. Settled thoughts of what ifs or countless deadlines.]
But....no.
[Is it selfish to admit that? Does it devalue his child compared to the love of his life? No, repeats itself within his mind, a soft refrain. A touchstone borne with confidence.]
It was harder to see you fielding more than your fair share of Paris' undeserving night after night, although I was resigned to it for your sake.
[It sounds self pitying in hindsight, keeping vigil throughout those uncertain times when his heart stirred more deeply than his body would confess; brushing past it, then, comes quickly. He counters vulnerable sentiment with a soft grunt, and a diverging shift in topic.]
Whatever happens now, he'll have the best pair of advisors any performer— or bodyguard [because he adores his sons equally, and won't neglect one for the other in spite of current conversation] —could ever hope for standing just over his shoulder in the wings. And besides, the boy is smart: the Sparkling Diamond is a damnably prestigious title, able to spurn the common riffraff and pluck out their own preference from opportunity [perhaps he'll marry a prince or a duchess worth more than their own weight in gold] rather than finding himself tethered to the stage the way too many performers are. But the others are vicious when they've a mind to be, you know that better than anyone, my love. If he doesn't start with any real advantage in his training, they'd no doubt call it a form of nepotism if he ever inherited the title. [As is, Satine's tutelage can at least put that to rest.]
Still, perhaps you ought to speak to her, if you take umbridge with her aproach.
no subject
He won't linger on it. But he would be remiss if he didn't acknowledge it on some level: a disagreeing hum rumbling low in the base of his throat as he strokes one palm against his thigh, soothing and comforting both. It wasn't selfish. I know. I remember. I remember how badly it hurt, I remember how jealous you were, when all the emotions had come to light and they were both trembling in pain . . .
A hurt long since mended, but even scars that are decades old still ache sometimes. And so he keeps up his steady stroke, his eyes locked up on his husband, and allows the topic to keep going. Zevlor isn't wrong (Zevlor is so rarely wrong, a fact that Kanan suspects their sons will only grow more aggravated with as they enter their teenage years). The Diamond is so very different than one of the regular courtesans, and anyway, it isn't as if Astarion doesn't know what the position entails. Gods, he's known for ages.
And when he's old enough (years from now, Kanan thinks, years and years and years), he'll have his pick and then some. And oh, he knows his vain little darling: he'll thrill in being doted upon by any number of rich clients, they all of them enamored by the pretty elf with silver eyes and a sharp tongue— and eager to shower him in all kinds of gifts.]
I wouldn't dare.
[He scoffs out a laugh aloud, but the way he burrows a little (nose knocking against one warm cheek, his hand catching Zevlor's so their fingers tangle together) gives him away.]
At best, she'd scold me until I retreated with my tail between my legs. At worst, she'd tell me to take over Astarion's instruction, and I've done more than my fair share as-is.
[Mm . . . but he can't help but think about Zevlor all those years ago, stoic and proud and nursing a broken heart. He can't help but think about Astarion tonight, whimpering in pain and aching from unintended betrayal.]
. . . you should talk to Fenris someday about that time in our lives. About what you went through.
[He tips his head.]
I know they're both still so young, and there's no guarantee they'll feel anything for one another . . . but I suspect there will be a time when Fenris is as jealous as you were— and expresses it about as well as you did.
[He's such a stoic boy, especially compared to Astarion. Especially when he's in pain.]
I don't want to watch them go through years of heartache for no reason, even if it ends with the two of them apart. They're already so fixated on each other . . . and they will be again, even if it takes some time.
no subject
Or as they have been.
Elven children ought to grow slower, he silently concludes to an audience of no one and nothing, in council with the unfathomable space shaped like his two children, only grown. Their preferences calcified, their fondness for barely noticeable minutiae flourished into countless traits. It is therefore an odd sensation he finds, staring down that known-unknown. That inevitability he's never once before experienced, yet knows it's coming fast. For if today's proven anything beyond the fact that Kanan's right, it's that those days of having strong little fingers clinging to their tails as they sleep throughout the night are well and truly over.
No wonder his heart-heavy husband's in a state of hidden choler. (Zevlor loves the boys unquestionably; he would die for them, if called to keep them safe— and there was a time when keeping one of the Magesterium's slaves under his roof and guard felt very close to that potential risk. But Zevlor swallows what the world gives him. He keeps a great deal of it at a distance, only brushing what his calluses can touch.) Kanan's always been composed and smarter than a whip, true enough, but at heart and in comparison: beneath the surface he's a wellspring. It must hurt to think of what he's losing, now that change is crawling closer like a tide.
Clawed fingers weave together. The rough catch of his knuckles a measure too large to sit comfortably between the slim recesses of Kanan's own, but his counterpart has never once complained about that; they pay for closeness with a few nudges of sweet discomfort. And tonight (or perhaps, more appropriately, this liminal prelude to one swift-encroaching morning), they chase it with the gentleness of laying cheek-to-faintly-jagged cheek.
A luxury, after so many years of interruption.]
Hmph. [Is such a throaty excuse for a chuckle while his eyes are closed. While he lies there sprawled against his love, his tail only mutely twitching now and then in listless comfort.] I haven't the best imagination, I'll confess, but I doubt anyone could ever really chase you off when it comes to those two.
[It isn't bias if it's well true.
....which, he then supposes, effectively brings the conversation back full circle. Towards the other end of things.]
I can try. I only worry he won't understand, Kanan. [His eyes slip open, and for a moment the old, unpainted ceiling seems so far away.] I'd spare them all the heartache in the world if I could. You know that I'd be the first willing to make it so. It's not a question of that.
[Ah.
But it splinters his weary heart to think back on the devotion in those bright green eyes. The way he'd fought to shoulder everything to protect Astarion, thinking it might somehow route strife before it started.]
They're just so young. I can't be sure they grasp how any of this works, let alone their heads from their tails. [Or whatever elven children have. Just asses, he supposes. A pair of ankles. Toes.]
Poor Fenris was convinced that this was his mistake to right, and worked himself into a fit trying to make sure this wouldn't ruin Astarion's plan of becoming a courtesan. No matter how many times I tried to explain why it wouldn't work— [well,] it didn't seem to work. I can't be sure he's not upstairs in his room plotting out contingencies as we speak.
no subject
Of course he won’t understand. Nor did Astarion when I told him of how working as a courtesan— even an elite one— wears on the heart and soul.
[He reaches with his other hand, tucking a stray strand of brown hair behind one pointed ear. It's so rare anyone ever gets to see the tiefling with his hair down (literally and figuratively, for their leader is such a business-focused thing). Kanan will never cease feeling petty satisfaction from being one of the only ones who ever does.]
I told him, too, of what sacrifices he would need to make— and yet, being a teenager, he listened to me and promptly ignored my advice. Thoughts of lovers or loneliness barely exist at that age, and all he can think of is how much he wants all the glory and glamor of being the best.
[His mouth thins into a worried line. He can see all too easily how badly it might go. He can almost see Astarion himself, grown into himself and standing on a stage, glittering and bright and so, so lonely it nearly kills him. So lonely that he'd all but carve his own heart out just to stop feeling. Year after year (oh, elves and tieflings both live so long), decade after decade, and how long until he becomes colder? How long until cruelty and icy disdain replace that darling fascination and desire for attention?
And knowing that all things have their end. That sooner or later, every Diamond has to train their replacement, and what then? Retirement isn't such a dire prospect if you have a stable foundation. But will he? Or will he have pushed everyone away in a desperate attempt to maintain a dream now accomplished and near ending?
They're decades away from that, of course. A hundred thousand decisions and pathways lie between them and that dire grief, and even then, there's ways and ways to come back from such a despair. But it terrifies Kanan in moments like these, when all he can think of is all the bitterness and grief he'd felt among his colleagues on darker nights.
He exhales slowly, trying to release some of that panic. Focus on the here and now, for the point is: they can avert that for both of them.]
And even if Fenris is so dutifully inclined . . . I suspect the future is just as dim for him, in its own way. [Such a direct thing, hyperfocusing only on one terrifying outcome— but of course he does. The little ghost who'd first come to their doorstep refused to let Astarion of his sight lest he somehow disappear; he can't blame him for always fixating on what disaster might yet befall them.]
But we'll tell them both again. And again, inevitably, over and over until they start to understand.
[For someday, they will. For better or for worse (and Kanan refuses to give up on better), they'll learn.]
Let him plot out contingencies, just as Astarion is, I have no doubt, already coming up with a way to somehow apologize to Fenris while expressing the least amount of vulnerability possible. [Oh, their boys. Their darling, darling boys.] And when things go wrong again, we'll be there. And we'll tell them again, and teach him . . . and sooner or later, it will stick, my love.
[He has to believe that. A few seconds pass, and he adds ruefully:]
They're still only barely teenagers.
[Only in their early teens, and how old and young that is, all at once. Not children, not anymore— but they still have some years left. Elven children ought to grow slower, it's absolutely true— but compared to humans, they grow fairly slowly. They have time.]