There's no moderation to the kiss Astarion eagerly returns, tongue catching warm lips, teasing past teeth and swept up by the craning of his own neck— oh, dangerous is the word for it, this comfort they've settled into. Dangerous and wonderful, everything Astarion doesn't rightly deserve, even setting aside his own monstrous curse.
But then again, bloodied hands being literally and figuratively what they are, Astarion isn't about to do anything other than cling with them to the only true kindness he's ever known. To the idea of reciprocation even, as he feels Fenris' lyrium-striped fingertips comb their way across his curls in turn— serene and sincere and without pretense in the slightest.
So.
Yes, in other words. He's more than happy to acquiesce and (as per Fenris' own exact words) move them to the bed. Meaning he slips back away from his own comfortable positioning, using that movement to lift Fenris high into his arms, and subsequently carrying him to the meager mattress tucked away in the corner of their (barely) one room flat. It isn't luxurious, no, but it's better than the wilderness for one, and on the other hand it's only a stepping stone while they plot out their forward course.
Plus, no one ever looks twice at a pair of elves in a place like this...for better or worse.
Once they're settled in, Astarion finds his way to curling in against Fenris' side, head half-resting on the closest pillow, half-resting along the other elf's arm.
"I told you about what I am. What I was, but I know so little about why you're being hounded— beyond the baseline attitude about sharp ears in this world of yours, I suppose." It's all musing chatter, still tangled up in skirting touch.
Fenris is not actually anticipating that Astarion will sweep him into his arms until he ends up there. He rolls his eyes, but he also doesn't make the effort any more difficult as he's carried to the sad-looking but clean mattress they have to share. Between them, they manage to settle. He moves over as Astarion joins him in bed and he finds himself between the other man and the wall. All at once he's tempted to put his back to the wall and to climb over Astarion to put himself between the pale elf and the rest of the room. Clearly his companion is capable of caring for himself... but that isn't the point.
Fenris settles, and soon enough the pale elf is cuddled up against him in a way that he is starting to get used to. And welcome.
The question isn't unexpected. He's actually surprised it has taken as long as it has to circle back to him. Fenris is grateful for that, content to never speak of some things again. But Astarion has shared things with him that deserve some kind of return.
While the pale elf looks at him, Fenris stares at the ceiling. The way gentle fingers brush against bare skin remind him of the care Astarion has taken with him; it also reminds him that the man next to him bears scars from someone he once called Master. Perhaps that is what makes it easier to speak.
"Yes," he says after a moment. "Or his legacy. He's been dead for three years, but hat doesn't seem to have stopped the drive to recover me. Perhaps more so now that I am responsible for his murder."
"So you fled his care completely— and then you killed him?" Astarion asks softly, head scuffing against Fenris' arm in subtle little bouts, each one displacing silver spools of unstrung curls.
"Or...was it the other way 'round."
He asks because he cares. Because he knows it does, in fact, make a difference in the eyes of those who inevitably give chase.
And, with his own bare back and all its miserable marks now left entirely exposed to cool night air, maybe he envies the notion that Fenris at least managed to put an end to the master that caused him so much clear pain (all those azure lines...).
"He abandoned me once." Fenris keeps his eyes on the ceiling. "I was badly wounded in a skirmish. When Tevinter retreated, I was left on the field. People from the island took care of me, but he returned some months later to retrieve me."
There is a hollowness in his voice as he recounts that. Astarion didn't ask about that, but somehow it feels important to say. He can feel the years-old shame twisting in his chest. How weak he'd been, how well-trained. A dog that tasted freedom but could do nothing but heel when told.
"He ordered me to kill them. The ones who'd been caring for me. They were on the other side of the war, and he ordered me to kill them. And I did."
Every. Single. One.
"Sometime between that and reaching the shore, I turned on him. I left him there. His recovery must have delayed any pursuit, I got far before the hunt began in earnest. I was too valuable to be left in the world. His pet experiment. His triumph."
There is no hiding the brittle bitterness in the end. Astarion can see the results of that experiment etched into Fenris's skin. Part of him wants to stop there, but he's aware that he hasn't fully answered Astarion's inquiry. He's already been talking too much and he blames being worn out and sated for his sudden urge to be confessional.
"I got tired of running. When I heard he was in Kirkwall, I thought if I could kill him it would be over. I failed the first time. I didn't the next."
Not impossible for someone like Astarion, of course. Someone with gnarled scars etched across his shoulders and even uglier memories tucked inside his skull, but even so, care defines consideration (much as the vampire might not enjoy admitting it aloud, he feels it, keenly); he takes stock of everything in silence, and tucks it away with keen precision.
Not to be forgotten.
"And that's why you're chased now." He posits mildly, letting his hand fall somewhere around the edge of Fenris' collarbone, slender fingers tangling in pale tangles of salt-kissed hair, still damp at their edges from lingering sweat.
"Yes," he answers quietly. "I am... valuable to the magisters who wish to understand his work or use me for their own. And I am a slave who killed one of their own."
There are plenty of reasons for anyone in power to want to bring him back to heel.
"And I have no doubt he has heirs." Fenris can't remember if Danarius had children - did he? He must have. It would be unthinkable for a man of his standing not to have a direct line of inheritance. Even if he didn't, an heir would be found no matter how far down the family tree they need look. His seat would need to be filled. Regardless, whoever has inherited Danarius's title and holdings would surely know of the lyrium-etched elf that still roams free, a mockery to both the memory of a magister and Tevinter.
Fenris finally looks away from the ceiling, tipping his head to see Astarion.
"It was. But it was better that I be alone. Safer."
For others, if not for him. His nightmare would be somehow repeating the massacre on Seheron.
"You can't truly believe that." Astarion counters with the mildest tap of his own tongue against the backs of his fangs, lifting himself up to lean over Fenris instead— fingers still perched precisely where he'd left them— crimson stare focused fully on Fenris' own.
"Otherwise you wouldn't have let me come so close to begin with." Their paths would've diverged. Their focus split.
Or at least that's how Astarion imagines it, his silver brows creased into a narrowed pinch. Mouth pulled flat at its edges. It's not a disparaging look (it isn't even a judgmental one, in fact), only attentive in the way of someone searching for a hint of truer understanding. A glimpse of what's running circles in Fenris' mind beneath that relatively stolid stare.
Fenris stays still and stubborn as Astarion leverages himself up to lean over him. He doesn't flinch as he meets that sharp stare. The pale elf makes a very good argument, however. Why hasn't he left? Why didn't he, as soon as he was able? There's a challenge as he looks at Astarion, and a struggle, as he is made to think about things he has deliberately ignored or pushed aside.
Why is he still here?
The answer is not complicated. He wishes it was, really. Fenris believes that he and everyone else are better off if he remains alone, but Astarion is right, too. He is lonely.
"I had... a cohort, for a while. In Kirkwall." He didn't like or even trust all of them, but it was the first time in years that he'd allowed himself to get close to anyone. Now that he's cut himself off again, he misses the companionship more sharply.
Fenris lowers his gaze. Saying anything further feels like exposing his belly. But he's already done that, hasn't he?
"It was better before I met them," he says quietly. "I could ignore what I was missing."
His fingers pressed like constellation points over smooth skin, the shadowed glint of that garnet stare sinking to follow Fenris' own, unwilling to pull back.
"And what exactly were you missing?"
Past and present intertwined when he presses for more— not only about himself, but about that companion, too. More. It's just a hunger for more.
He wants to roll away, to disrupt the way Astarion looks at him. He doesn't. He has been a coward in many things, he will try not to be one now. Fenris lifts his gaze, fully meeting Astarion's again.
"Companionship," he answers, hesitant and quiet. "For years Danarius was my world. I could remember nothing else, no one else. Not my mother, not my sister. Not my name. Even now I use the one he gave me when he made me his dog. His pet experiment. I had no--"
It sounds ridiculous in his own mind, the word on the tip of his tongue. It sounds frivolous. He thought it was frivolous. He says it anyway.
Not against what Fenris is saying or what he feels— no, that much is undoubtedly true. But they're curled up together here as they have been for weeks going on months: close, and unguarded, and if the ease of isolation is what Fenris had been hunting for, he could've had it well before now. Easily.
So with that in mind, the rest of the picture Astarion's figuratively admiring makes itself that much clearer. Fenris had someone. And whoever they were, they're gone, now.
He doesn't move. Doesn't crowd into that space, either, just—
Fenris's jaw tightens and he does break eye contact then. His head lolls to the side, looking at the faintest moonlight light from the dingy window.
"They helped me. I thought he was helping me. For a moment, I thought--"
This would be easier with wine. With a lot more wine. The last time he was so confessional, he'd been drunk or very close to it. He'd told Hawke everything. He stops speaking long enough that it seems like he won't continue. Maybe Astarion deserves this explanation. He's the reason Fenris is still alive.
"Danarius used my sister to lure me out. He was there to reclaim me. Hawke... nearly gave me over."
He remembers vividly how quick Anders was to agree. They never got along, but somehow that still stung. It hurt worse from Hawke, though, even if they were using it as a ruse or just changed their mind mid-way through the conversation. For several moments too long, Fenris thought they would give him to Danarius.
"When you found me in the wilds, I was simply running again. Slavers, bounty hunters, rebels deciding I was in the wrong place. I don't know." But, as far as he knows, it had nothing to do with anyone he left in Kirkwall.
"So you fled. Not just the ones hunting you, but everyone."
Astarion can't imagine it (oh, if he only knew), trusting someone else that deeply, coming so close to true companionship after years of knowing nothing but cruelty and blood, only to hear them muse aloud to your former master— and your own kin alike— that you might actually be sent back. Astarion, in his place, would've run for certain. He'd have killed them, or tried to, being so much less forgiving than the elf shifting restlessly at his side.
But it's all supposition.
Until he's lived that (and looking down at Fenris' face where it's turned away from him towards cold slivers of light from outside, he doubts betrayal lives in the marked elf after everything else), he can't know for certain.
"I'm not going anywhere, Fenris."
A cold hand slips around the edge of Fenris' opposite cheek— the one farthest from him— and pulls him back, away from the window and towards his own stare instead. Slow, and patient, rather than bitingly insistent.
"And if I wanted to sell you off, I'd have done it long before now, when I could've spared myself the stinging trouble of fending off slavers in the woods." Voice humming in his throat when he says it for the second time around, in a sense; an assurance made all too often while the man had been mending, true, but it bears repeating now that Astarion finally knows so much more of why.
"I can't change what's been done, but I can promise you, for all my bitter flaws, that's one bridge I won't cross. Not when it comes to you."
The marked elf doesn't resist as Astarion's hand slides over his cheek to turn his head. He meets the other man's gaze, looking for--something. He doesn't want to dare to hope. Not again. But he doesn't want to give this up either, whatever it is.
"You're an idiot," he says quietly, and it sounds only like affectionate. And it's true, Astarion could have sold him, left him him to be found or left him for dead, or led others to him. He could have done a lot of things that didn't require the time and effort and care of mending someone and ensuring their survival.
The promise nestles deep in his chest. Fenris knows there will be no extricating it, no forgetting it. He isn't sure if he trusts the gods enough to pray to them - any of them - but he hopes that promise will not be tested. Or broken.
His hand slides up Astarion's arm to his neck to pull him down into a kiss. There's an edge to it, the quiet desperation of someone who has felt alone for a very long time. Of someone who truly wants companionship and a reason to keep going. There has to be more than survival.
"I thought it would be over when I killed him," he murmurs as the kiss breaks. "That was foolish on my part. You know what will come if you stay with me. There is no rest."
Even if Astarion has already made his decision, Fenris feels compelled to say it.
What a wretched ache to carry all this time, all on his miserable own. Their mouths catching now like a promise of its annulment as Astarion's own fangs nip and dig and scuff across his lower lip— gentle, all of it, but the vampire can't help his jagged edges, even in his softest shows of warmth.
He talks, and nothing changes: every sentence given simply becomes punctuated by a kiss. A smoothing slide of his hand.
Little gestures. Massive in their significance.
"I've always been prone to falling prey when it comes to hopeless causes." He chuckles sweetly, ignoring a clattering rush of passing sound outside. This part of the city's far from quiet, after all.
"And you're the most beautiful yet."
It's an answer to both parts of Fenris' assertions.
"Besides, you can't imagine I'd fare any better by myself, can you?"
Neither of them can help their jagged edges, places where they have been broken that have not been made smooth with time. The gentleness does not go unnoticed, and Fenris seeks it out for the comfort it promises.
"That makes you an even bigger idiot," he murmurs, quiet in his affection. A soft laugh, another kiss with feeling behind it.
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albinomilksnake2021-11-06 01:03 am
no subject
But then again, bloodied hands being literally and figuratively what they are, Astarion isn't about to do anything other than cling with them to the only true kindness he's ever known. To the idea of reciprocation even, as he feels Fenris' lyrium-striped fingertips comb their way across his curls in turn— serene and sincere and without pretense in the slightest.
So.
Yes, in other words. He's more than happy to acquiesce and (as per Fenris' own exact words) move them to the bed. Meaning he slips back away from his own comfortable positioning, using that movement to lift Fenris high into his arms, and subsequently carrying him to the meager mattress tucked away in the corner of their (barely) one room flat. It isn't luxurious, no, but it's better than the wilderness for one, and on the other hand it's only a stepping stone while they plot out their forward course.
Plus, no one ever looks twice at a pair of elves in a place like this...for better or worse.
Once they're settled in, Astarion finds his way to curling in against Fenris' side, head half-resting on the closest pillow, half-resting along the other elf's arm.
"I told you about what I am. What I was, but I know so little about why you're being hounded— beyond the baseline attitude about sharp ears in this world of yours, I suppose." It's all musing chatter, still tangled up in skirting touch.
"Is it the master you left behind? Or...."
no subject
Fenris settles, and soon enough the pale elf is cuddled up against him in a way that he is starting to get used to. And welcome.
The question isn't unexpected. He's actually surprised it has taken as long as it has to circle back to him. Fenris is grateful for that, content to never speak of some things again. But Astarion has shared things with him that deserve some kind of return.
While the pale elf looks at him, Fenris stares at the ceiling. The way gentle fingers brush against bare skin remind him of the care Astarion has taken with him; it also reminds him that the man next to him bears scars from someone he once called Master. Perhaps that is what makes it easier to speak.
"Yes," he says after a moment. "Or his legacy. He's been dead for three years, but hat doesn't seem to have stopped the drive to recover me. Perhaps more so now that I am responsible for his murder."
no subject
"Or...was it the other way 'round."
He asks because he cares. Because he knows it does, in fact, make a difference in the eyes of those who inevitably give chase.
And, with his own bare back and all its miserable marks now left entirely exposed to cool night air, maybe he envies the notion that Fenris at least managed to put an end to the master that caused him so much clear pain (all those azure lines...).
no subject
There is a hollowness in his voice as he recounts that. Astarion didn't ask about that, but somehow it feels important to say. He can feel the years-old shame twisting in his chest. How weak he'd been, how well-trained. A dog that tasted freedom but could do nothing but heel when told.
"He ordered me to kill them. The ones who'd been caring for me. They were on the other side of the war, and he ordered me to kill them. And I did."
Every. Single. One.
"Sometime between that and reaching the shore, I turned on him. I left him there. His recovery must have delayed any pursuit, I got far before the hunt began in earnest. I was too valuable to be left in the world. His pet experiment. His triumph."
There is no hiding the brittle bitterness in the end. Astarion can see the results of that experiment etched into Fenris's skin. Part of him wants to stop there, but he's aware that he hasn't fully answered Astarion's inquiry. He's already been talking too much and he blames being worn out and sated for his sudden urge to be confessional.
"I got tired of running. When I heard he was in Kirkwall, I thought if I could kill him it would be over. I failed the first time. I didn't the next."
no subject
Not impossible for someone like Astarion, of course. Someone with gnarled scars etched across his shoulders and even uglier memories tucked inside his skull, but even so, care defines consideration (much as the vampire might not enjoy admitting it aloud, he feels it, keenly); he takes stock of everything in silence, and tucks it away with keen precision.
Not to be forgotten.
"And that's why you're chased now." He posits mildly, letting his hand fall somewhere around the edge of Fenris' collarbone, slender fingers tangling in pale tangles of salt-kissed hair, still damp at their edges from lingering sweat.
"Not by him, but because of him."
Insult not forgotten or assets still desired.
"I imagine it must've been lonely."
no subject
There are plenty of reasons for anyone in power to want to bring him back to heel.
"And I have no doubt he has heirs." Fenris can't remember if Danarius had children - did he? He must have. It would be unthinkable for a man of his standing not to have a direct line of inheritance. Even if he didn't, an heir would be found no matter how far down the family tree they need look. His seat would need to be filled. Regardless, whoever has inherited Danarius's title and holdings would surely know of the lyrium-etched elf that still roams free, a mockery to both the memory of a magister and Tevinter.
Fenris finally looks away from the ceiling, tipping his head to see Astarion.
"It was. But it was better that I be alone. Safer."
For others, if not for him. His nightmare would be somehow repeating the massacre on Seheron.
no subject
"Otherwise you wouldn't have let me come so close to begin with." Their paths would've diverged. Their focus split.
Or at least that's how Astarion imagines it, his silver brows creased into a narrowed pinch. Mouth pulled flat at its edges. It's not a disparaging look (it isn't even a judgmental one, in fact), only attentive in the way of someone searching for a hint of truer understanding. A glimpse of what's running circles in Fenris' mind beneath that relatively stolid stare.
"You would've left by now."
...wouldn't he?
no subject
Fenris stays still and stubborn as Astarion leverages himself up to lean over him. He doesn't flinch as he meets that sharp stare. The pale elf makes a very good argument, however. Why hasn't he left? Why didn't he, as soon as he was able? There's a challenge as he looks at Astarion, and a struggle, as he is made to think about things he has deliberately ignored or pushed aside.
Why is he still here?
The answer is not complicated. He wishes it was, really. Fenris believes that he and everyone else are better off if he remains alone, but Astarion is right, too. He is lonely.
"I had... a cohort, for a while. In Kirkwall." He didn't like or even trust all of them, but it was the first time in years that he'd allowed himself to get close to anyone. Now that he's cut himself off again, he misses the companionship more sharply.
Fenris lowers his gaze. Saying anything further feels like exposing his belly. But he's already done that, hasn't he?
"It was better before I met them," he says quietly. "I could ignore what I was missing."
no subject
"And what exactly were you missing?"
Past and present intertwined when he presses for more— not only about himself, but about that companion, too. More. It's just a hunger for more.
He's always been insatiable.
no subject
"Companionship," he answers, hesitant and quiet. "For years Danarius was my world. I could remember nothing else, no one else. Not my mother, not my sister. Not my name. Even now I use the one he gave me when he made me his dog. His pet experiment. I had no--"
It sounds ridiculous in his own mind, the word on the tip of his tongue. It sounds frivolous. He thought it was frivolous. He says it anyway.
"Friend."
no subject
Not against what Fenris is saying or what he feels— no, that much is undoubtedly true. But they're curled up together here as they have been for weeks going on months: close, and unguarded, and if the ease of isolation is what Fenris had been hunting for, he could've had it well before now. Easily.
So with that in mind, the rest of the picture Astarion's figuratively admiring makes itself that much clearer. Fenris had someone. And whoever they were, they're gone, now.
He doesn't move. Doesn't crowd into that space, either, just—
"...what happened to them?"
Something must have.
"When I found you in the wilds, was it...."
no subject
"They helped me. I thought he was helping me. For a moment, I thought--"
This would be easier with wine. With a lot more wine. The last time he was so confessional, he'd been drunk or very close to it. He'd told Hawke everything. He stops speaking long enough that it seems like he won't continue. Maybe Astarion deserves this explanation. He's the reason Fenris is still alive.
"Danarius used my sister to lure me out. He was there to reclaim me. Hawke... nearly gave me over."
He remembers vividly how quick Anders was to agree. They never got along, but somehow that still stung. It hurt worse from Hawke, though, even if they were using it as a ruse or just changed their mind mid-way through the conversation. For several moments too long, Fenris thought they would give him to Danarius.
"When you found me in the wilds, I was simply running again. Slavers, bounty hunters, rebels deciding I was in the wrong place. I don't know." But, as far as he knows, it had nothing to do with anyone he left in Kirkwall.
no subject
"So you fled. Not just the ones hunting you, but everyone."
Astarion can't imagine it (oh, if he only knew), trusting someone else that deeply, coming so close to true companionship after years of knowing nothing but cruelty and blood, only to hear them muse aloud to your former master— and your own kin alike— that you might actually be sent back. Astarion, in his place, would've run for certain. He'd have killed them, or tried to, being so much less forgiving than the elf shifting restlessly at his side.
But it's all supposition.
Until he's lived that (and looking down at Fenris' face where it's turned away from him towards cold slivers of light from outside, he doubts betrayal lives in the marked elf after everything else), he can't know for certain.
"I'm not going anywhere, Fenris."
A cold hand slips around the edge of Fenris' opposite cheek— the one farthest from him— and pulls him back, away from the window and towards his own stare instead. Slow, and patient, rather than bitingly insistent.
"And if I wanted to sell you off, I'd have done it long before now, when I could've spared myself the stinging trouble of fending off slavers in the woods." Voice humming in his throat when he says it for the second time around, in a sense; an assurance made all too often while the man had been mending, true, but it bears repeating now that Astarion finally knows so much more of why.
"I can't change what's been done, but I can promise you, for all my bitter flaws, that's one bridge I won't cross. Not when it comes to you."
no subject
"You're an idiot," he says quietly, and it sounds only like affectionate. And it's true, Astarion could have sold him, left him him to be found or left him for dead, or led others to him. He could have done a lot of things that didn't require the time and effort and care of mending someone and ensuring their survival.
The promise nestles deep in his chest. Fenris knows there will be no extricating it, no forgetting it. He isn't sure if he trusts the gods enough to pray to them - any of them - but he hopes that promise will not be tested. Or broken.
His hand slides up Astarion's arm to his neck to pull him down into a kiss. There's an edge to it, the quiet desperation of someone who has felt alone for a very long time. Of someone who truly wants companionship and a reason to keep going. There has to be more than survival.
"I thought it would be over when I killed him," he murmurs as the kiss breaks. "That was foolish on my part. You know what will come if you stay with me. There is no rest."
Even if Astarion has already made his decision, Fenris feels compelled to say it.
no subject
What a wretched ache to carry all this time, all on his miserable own. Their mouths catching now like a promise of its annulment as Astarion's own fangs nip and dig and scuff across his lower lip— gentle, all of it, but the vampire can't help his jagged edges, even in his softest shows of warmth.
He talks, and nothing changes: every sentence given simply becomes punctuated by a kiss. A smoothing slide of his hand.
Little gestures. Massive in their significance.
"I've always been prone to falling prey when it comes to hopeless causes." He chuckles sweetly, ignoring a clattering rush of passing sound outside. This part of the city's far from quiet, after all.
"And you're the most beautiful yet."
It's an answer to both parts of Fenris' assertions.
"Besides, you can't imagine I'd fare any better by myself, can you?"
no subject
"That makes you an even bigger idiot," he murmurs, quiet in his affection. A soft laugh, another kiss with feeling behind it.
"No, probably not."
Neither of them are alone now.