A groan, fingers groping clumsily for the center of his chest to wrap around the jagged chasm that defines it, a seeping hollow where his breastbone splits with a sickening crack to give way to jagged barbs that shine with his own rotted rotted blood— pain secondary to mindless shock: his hands spasming from weakness he can't feel, only watch as it spells out the scope of his predicament. Legs punctured to the point of immobility; his shoulders somehow caught beneath the cuff; the hollow slant beneath his ribs pierced slick-straight through the headboard.
The depths to which he'd plummeted without warning.
How—
He wonders dully, and it doesn't matter.
How—
He tries to rasp out anyway, only to feel blood— cold and tasteless— seize up in his throat like a wall, welling around the struggling gulps of a creature drowning from the inside out. Coating his lips. His chin.
How—
Fenris was too weak. Too starved to use his lyrium even with that brazen bite, Astarion made certain of it. So where. Where could he have— how could he have—
—how. How. HOW— a mantra that loops itself into desperation. Anguish. Rage. Fear. The pretty thing above him more memory than sight (there and not there all at once; the same slick blur as oil streaking wetly over canvas), but no less beautiful as it measures his decline around a sharp nudge to his lips, prompting him to stillness. Alluring in a way that chills him to the bone before it stays there, anchoring itself just as deftly as those blades.
He's going to languish here. He's going to bleed until he can't move. Can't speak. He's going to be shut away until Vakares wakes, and even then—
(He'd lied. He'd broken the truce. He betrayed Vakares' only insistence on cooperation in the apex of its sanctuary; the mosaicwork behind him crushed to pulp and streaked with ink-black rivulets of blood. And the worst part is, he'd seen it all already.
'You need to control yourself, Astarion.')
Who's going to want him, after everything he's done?
No, they're going to leave him to this. Him and his useless fingers. His empty promises. His machinations. His—
—he almost splits his forehead open on the inside of his coffin for jolting when a hand bangs against its lid.
Hells' teeth.
Same nightmare. Different day. Only it isn't day, judging by the urgency in his spawn's trembling tone, something that shouldn't have woken him so early. A sputtering report on cancelling his summer fête owing to an intrusion at their southern gate jostling him in a way he hates for more than inconvenience.
It's been an age since Fenris slipped free of his binds and fled into the gutters of Baldur's Gate. And for all that lofty talk of freedom (for all that he had Astarion on his heels), swearing corrective wrath, he never managed to take Vakares' estate. Small skirmishes and little bursts of narrow ploys are effective enough at herding, true, but advancement? Progress? No. That requires more than just a handful of spawn.
And the worst part is, it seems as if somehow Fenris finally managed it.
Hence, the harried slave at his coffin's side, sputtering out little barks of 'it isn't safe, Lord Ancunín,' and 'we need to go, Lord Ancunín,' while his own sleepsore fingers fumble over the metal locks and countless latches that secure his coffin from the inside. Hence, the frenetic little reminder whispered his way once the lid comes loose that they've a coach already waiting. Hence, the carriage that grates on Astarion's last anguished nerve. The extended offer from Baroness Rhazjova to regroup along the far fringe of the upper city in her expansive summer estate while he waits for the rest of his promised resources to arrive. Something that'll no doubt teach Fenris just how deep his neck is in the well, if not the means to end this farce entirely. (Let him and his tatterdemalion forces have their triumph, however short-lived it might be.) What can't wealth, influence, and power overcome, after all?
And when he has him again.
When he owns him.
He'll make that night seem like a pleasant dream for just how thoroughly he breaks him. Bound to the point of immobility like furniture: a footstool for his throne. An impaled art piece for his guests. A shackled bitch for werewolves or a writhing exhibition gurgling around pearl as surely as Astarion had bled and gasped for air.
no subject
A groan, fingers groping clumsily for the center of his chest to wrap around the jagged chasm that defines it, a seeping hollow where his breastbone splits with a sickening crack to give way to jagged barbs that shine with his own rotted rotted blood— pain secondary to mindless shock: his hands spasming from weakness he can't feel, only watch as it spells out the scope of his predicament. Legs punctured to the point of immobility; his shoulders somehow caught beneath the cuff; the hollow slant beneath his ribs pierced slick-straight through the headboard.
The depths to which he'd plummeted without warning.
How—
He wonders dully, and it doesn't matter.
How—
He tries to rasp out anyway, only to feel blood— cold and tasteless— seize up in his throat like a wall, welling around the struggling gulps of a creature drowning from the inside out. Coating his lips. His chin.
How—
Fenris was too weak. Too starved to use his lyrium even with that brazen bite, Astarion made certain of it. So where. Where could he have— how could he have—
—how. How. HOW— a mantra that loops itself into desperation. Anguish. Rage. Fear. The pretty thing above him more memory than sight (there and not there all at once; the same slick blur as oil streaking wetly over canvas), but no less beautiful as it measures his decline around a sharp nudge to his lips, prompting him to stillness. Alluring in a way that chills him to the bone before it stays there, anchoring itself just as deftly as those blades.
He's going to languish here. He's going to bleed until he can't move. Can't speak. He's going to be shut away until Vakares wakes, and even then—
(He'd lied. He'd broken the truce. He betrayed Vakares' only insistence on cooperation in the apex of its sanctuary; the mosaicwork behind him crushed to pulp and streaked with ink-black rivulets of blood. And the worst part is, he'd seen it all already.
'You need to control yourself, Astarion.')
Who's going to want him, after everything he's done?
No, they're going to leave him to this. Him and his useless fingers. His empty promises. His machinations. His—
—he almost splits his forehead open on the inside of his coffin for jolting when a hand bangs against its lid.
Hells' teeth.
Same nightmare. Different day. Only it isn't day, judging by the urgency in his spawn's trembling tone, something that shouldn't have woken him so early. A sputtering report on cancelling his summer fête owing to an intrusion at their southern gate jostling him in a way he hates for more than inconvenience.
It's been an age since Fenris slipped free of his binds and fled into the gutters of Baldur's Gate. And for all that lofty talk of freedom (for all that he had Astarion on his heels), swearing corrective wrath, he never managed to take Vakares' estate. Small skirmishes and little bursts of narrow ploys are effective enough at herding, true, but advancement? Progress? No. That requires more than just a handful of spawn.
And the worst part is, it seems as if somehow Fenris finally managed it.
Hence, the harried slave at his coffin's side, sputtering out little barks of 'it isn't safe, Lord Ancunín,' and 'we need to go, Lord Ancunín,' while his own sleepsore fingers fumble over the metal locks and countless latches that secure his coffin from the inside. Hence, the frenetic little reminder whispered his way once the lid comes loose that they've a coach already waiting. Hence, the carriage that grates on Astarion's last anguished nerve. The extended offer from Baroness Rhazjova to regroup along the far fringe of the upper city in her expansive summer estate while he waits for the rest of his promised resources to arrive. Something that'll no doubt teach Fenris just how deep his neck is in the well, if not the means to end this farce entirely. (Let him and his tatterdemalion forces have their triumph, however short-lived it might be.) What can't wealth, influence, and power overcome, after all?
And when he has him again.
When he owns him.
He'll make that night seem like a pleasant dream for just how thoroughly he breaks him. Bound to the point of immobility like furniture: a footstool for his throne. An impaled art piece for his guests. A shackled bitch for werewolves or a writhing exhibition gurgling around pearl as surely as Astarion had bled and gasped for air.
One victory must seem like a milestone.
Astarion will make sure it is.]