[No, he doesn't. And that's the worst part: he does understand Vakares' logic, and it's sound. If you take all the emotions out of it, Astarion's preferences and Fenris' past . . . they really are a good combination. Astarion is better at politics, it's true. He knows how to deftly weave his words to flatter or insult as he sees fit; he has learned all the alliances and old gossip from centuries at Vakares' side, and knows just who they might rely upon or need to distrust in these coming years.
But he craves approval. He wants love and adoration, and he will not get it from that soulless pack of nobles, immortals and mortals alike. They'll flatter him and coo at him and make him feel important— and though he might be savvy enough to see through some of it, he won't see through it all.
And Fenris . . . Fenris has no head for that, true. Fenris is not a leader, nor has he ever wanted to be. But Fenris knows better than anyone how hollow promises from nobles can be. He knows how fickle these creatures are; how desperately they crave power and acknowledgement, and how very deadly it makes them. He had spent his entire life at Danarius' side, watching the politics of the magisterium play out before them both, and he knows just how to see through blind flattery and fixate on what the other person wants.
One can't rule without the other. Fenris is no better than Astarion is no better than Fenris, an endless back and forth that only works when you put them together. If they can manage to work together, pooling their talents and expertise— gods, there's no question they'll maintain their position.
It makes sense. Objectively, it is a good choice.
And he can't say: what if he tries to make me his chosen whore anyway? And he can't say: what if it doesn't work, and it all falls to ruin? He certainly can't say I don't want to, because at the end of the day, that's the bargain. That's the deal he struck a century ago, his head swimming with blood loss and an impossible offer at his fingertips.
Become immortal. Become not just my spawn, but a full vampire. Be my other chosen consort, and in doing so, become part of the endlessly chaotic, eternally political court of vampires— and you'll live forever, free of fear from Danarius and his ilk.
He took the bargain. And now this is part of it: submitting to the machinations of his sire, knowing in his heart that it's only ever done out of logical conclusion and love both. It isn't marriage— and that distinction matters more than ever.
Fenris sighs, but it's a rueful thing, not aggrieved. Reaching out, he cups Vakares' cheek, stroking just once in affectionate acquiesce before he settles back down.]
Do not ask me to be pleased with it, but I do not disagree with your logic. And in time . . . in time, I think it may well work out— though you may wake with fewer allies than you started with.
[Really, the trick with Fenris will be to sheathe his scathing tongue; there are more than a few allies who have been nicked by it before.]
But I note you leave me with the disagreeable task of taming Astarion and forcing him into cooperation. He did not like me before, and this will not endear me to him.
[Such a simple assertion. Small compared to its overpowering strokes: tomorrow night and your life will change; tomorrow night you'll be bound to your most embittered rival— his enmity woven like an unalterable band round your finger, inexpressibly tight. Perspectivistically shackling.
The weight intended to both pull you down and prop you upright in a sea of fanged volatility.]
I'll make my announcement before the celebration is turned towards the both of you, instead. Your ascension and your union the last thing seen to while I take my leave. [A silent confession: the arrangements have already been made.
It is better this way, to leave them with a beginning, rather than a pervasive sense of loss or emptiness alone— and perhaps it goes without saying that there is one more reason for it playing out as a thing already settled— for as much as he loves them, he cannot trust them to carry out a command so arduously taxing as this without him there to witness its conclusion. One would flee. The other would snap.
Like the rest of his designs, he's thought this through (over and over again inside this very room with his quill left bleeding into parchment for minutes at a time. Hours, some nights. Perched over his desk sporting half-closed eyes and folded fingers— so far ahead in forethought that in retrospect it burns to feel his consort's touch brush low across his cheek, however brief. He'd worried for them, you know. Sought the best for them. Strove so hard and harsh for the necessary that he only sees it now, when finally that shadow at the desk is almost visible in the borders of his vision, sitting just as it had been: he'd been dwelling here all along, his past reflection. And in doing so, Vakares missed out on precious months that could have been spent with his own starlings).
But that's not for him to grieve.
This isn't farewell, after all, no matter how it feels to speak of plans that he cannot witness beyond their careful setup: he needs this alleviation. This long, long rest away from a world that would swallow him along with every last drop of his affection. His self-control. His ability to cherish most the splendor of small comforts in gentle hands. And when he wakes from it, it will be to something stronger than this— (the latter thought so unbearably fond:) or he will make it so.
That stroking caress returned with compound interest, rough fingertips discolored by centuries of spilled ink pinning themselves just beneath the cusp of Fenris' sharp ear. Hello, my dearest little one....]
Astarion is never endeared to what he needs. [Slight, the careful little bend pulling high along his mouth.]
But I can't help insisting that you underappraise your value to him.
[Oh, he loves that doting affection, he really does. And though Fenris is not wholly thrilled with the idea of his imminent joining, he goes for broke nonetheless: twisting forward so that he presses himself more fully against Vakares, tucking his head beneath his chin. Resigned or not, he will not give up one of the last chances he has to curl against his sire.
His mouth presses gently against his throat, his arm wrapping around Vakares' frame. There's no purpose behind his questing fingers; he just seeks to press close, suddenly hungry for affection.]
He threatened me not eight hours ago with being turned into little more than his personal whore. [His tone is dry. It's not snitching if your sire already knows about it— and he isn't angry. Just sardonic.] I am not putting down my own worth, but I suspect my value to him begins and ends with how well I can take his cock.
[No, it's more than that. He knows it is. There have been moments . . . not many, admittedly, but still. Soft beats of mutual appreciation, or the unexpected joy that comes from the two of them laughing at the same joke . . . there have even been stretches of it. Times when things were calmer, and it was easier to be together than to be at odds— no, he is worth more to Astarion than a set of spread legs.]
And even if it isn't . . . he has always regarded me as usurper. I think it will take time once you are asleep for him to regard me as more than that.
[He draws back just enough to catch Vakares' gaze.]
You think so too. Has he ever . . .?
[Said anything? Done anything? He isn't asking for flattery, but . . . sometimes it helps, hearing an outside opinion.]
[He does think so too. Observant creature; so little slips Fenris' watch (and yet he is quiet more often than not even when unearthing yet another find, sharing only what feels relevant to the subject at hand), that keen bloodhound nose pushed just into the slantlines of Vakares' throat— underneath the shadow of two old, exceptionally haggard scars. Companionable closeness what fits them together in positioning unnatural to them otherwise; a knee here, an elbow there. His hand absently settling atop the crown of Fenris' head, smoothing down residually tousled strands of hair still displaced by Astarion's grip.
A usurper. Ah.
The term isn't necessarily wrong.]
You never had the chance to know him before I found you. [Stating the obvious, and yet— sometimes it's the obvious needs stating.] Worse is not the right term, but he has always struggled with the concept of certainty, and it manifests....[Hm.] It is at its most volatile when there is another his fears can flock to.
He would attack the other members of our coven when he thought I would not see it. [And the topic is grave, but there is such a note of housed-in lightness within his tenor, recognizable to anyone that knows its muted outline.] And I do not mean his spiteful tantrums, or his habit of....latching. [Like an unruly denmate, how viciously he bites, his little firstsired.]
He sought their deaths, Fenris, and he felt the consequences were bearable.
The only thing that stayed that habit was the eventual understanding that they did not come close to matching his favor. That hierarchical power was his solace.
But you— oh, he could not overlook your arrival, nor could he misinterpret its significance. The fact that for once, there was an equal nestled at his side. In all that time, you have not returned to me so gravely wounded that I feared for your safety. [He lashes out. He seethes at times, none of which has slipped Vakares' notice— but he does not tear with locked-on jaws; the urge to mutilate isn't there.
That holds so much more weight than what it seems.]
[He doesn't understand at first. He thinks perhaps he's missed the point, or that Vakares is going to tell him that he feared something even greater from Astarion. And when nothing of the sort happens . . . he does not know how to take it.
Is he meant to believe Astarion has some form of affection for him? Even at his most sentimental, Fenris finds it hard to believe. There have been peaceful periods, yes, but nothing you might call adoring. No word nor deed jumps out to Fenris as any indicator that Astarion might hold him in any higher esteem than a good fuck. And it's not that he doesn't want to get along, but—
But it had stung, that first meeting. After nearly half a year of growing stronger beneath Vakares' care, hearing stories about all the wonders that might await him if he chose to submit to his damning bite . . . oh, what a rosy future Vakares had crafted for him. And be fair: it wasn't a lie. He's still glad he made the choice he had. But ah . . . all those tales about how Fenris would along with his elder counterpart, how alike they were not just in looks but habits and humor, all of it fed into a future that simply didn't exist. Astarion despised him on sight, and after a century, well. Why on earth should either of them change that habit?
But they must. They must.
Still. The only other explanation for Vakares' comment is that Astarion fears his sire's permanent wrath too much to enslave or murder Fenris, and it's that which Fenris truly takes to heart. He does not think he can rely on some unknown affection to stay his hand— but the knowledge that Vakares truly loves both his consorts might. And it's that which he takes to heart right now, truthfully, though he knows that isn't the one his sire intends.]
So easily threatened . . .
[It's quietly musing, and not necessarily judgemental. A few moments pass as Fenris loses himself in thought, and then:]
Why?
Was it from his life before? Or did his fears begin later, when you first changed another?
[He wouldn't ask normally, not because he isn't curious, but because Vakares makes it a point not to gossip about one with the other. But tonight is different. This isn't petty talk, the intent only to harm or humiliate; Fenris asks because he doesn't understand— and now, standing on the edge of a sheer cliff, he realizes he has to, and very quickly. The more he understands, the easier this might just be.]
I do not understand how he has spent centuries with you and yet still cannot alleviate his fears.
[Not like Fenris, who still catches himself flinching sometimes when he feels magic surge in the air.]
Well, I suppose you have always been the more adaptive one between you both. [That serene(ly amused) expression sticks within those bridging segues between one topic and the next. The lack of finely-honed awareness only endearing at its core. Sweet Fenris. Sweet pair that holds his lifeless heart within their fractious hands (he did not mean to love them both, but once he fell, there was no choice). Those initial miles of affection that felt like inches, and he knew by the time Fenris had been nursed to health that there would be no escaping it.
It would sting, that first meeting (and it had stung), and here they are still wading through its shadow.]
If I'm being asked to guess?
I imagine it must stem from his old life— but where the line of that is drawn, it's possible even Astarion is unaware why or where it started. After all, death— the loss it forced upon all our shoulders— you know it as well as I do: that is no small burden.
[Astarion has never enjoyed speaking of his past, not even to his sire.]
[Simple. Steady. And it surprises him, you know, that Astarion hasn't told Vakares anything so concrete. He'd assumed— well. He'd always assumed the two of them had long since grown so intimate as to have shared all the details of their respective pasts— or at least, in the case of Vakares, most of it. It was even a point of jealousy for a time, back before Fenris had settled more fully into his role— he knows more than I ever will, you love him more . . .
Foolish. Even more foolish than he'd realized, clearly.
But that's not the point here.
What kind of past does Astarion have? He has no idea. He'd assumed— well, he'd assumed so many things, most of them unkind, and only now does Fenris realize that's all they are: assumptions. He'd thought him little more than a privileged brat who'd never once known hardship, but that can't be fully true. And that's not even taking into account Vakares' words . . . for it is a burden. It's a grief unlike he's ever known to lose his own life: to watch as he ceased aging even as the world continued on, his reflection gone and his connection to the outside world suddenly strained . . . not severed, no, but always there is a gap. Always now he is on the outside looking in, watching the endless cycle of life and death pass him by . . .
It's worth it. It is. But it was a loss, too, and he cannot pretend he didn't mourn it.
The same must be true for Astarion.]
I did not want to offer him free ammunition, and I did not want . . . I knew, in those early years, that if he taunted me for being a slave, I would attempt to kill him.
[So there's that.]
And I never asked for his. It simply . . . we do not have intimate discussions, amatus. Not like that. At most, we convene to discuss you— or gossip about others in court. But it isn't . . .
[They don't talk about their pasts. They don't talk about their fears or their hopes, nothing so intimate. They can be amiable, but intimate? Oh, no.
But what is there to say? Either that will change in the coming decades or it won't, but either way, mourning it now won't help. Instead:]
And what of your past? [Does he expect a real answer? Not particularly— which is why he leans forward, nuzzling against his throat again.] You still have not told me of much of it . . . not beyond the vampiric portions, anyway. Will you ever?
If I tell you [he exhales tepidly (reflexive noise only obtuse when it hits the roof of his mouth; sighing because it is a matter of linguistuc conformity even after centuries of undeath, not because he is annoyed— not because Fenris' assumption somehow directly prompts it— instead like blinking, like drawing air into his lungs, it is better to maintain the habit than forget it at a crucial junction), his focus far away for a little while: steeping himself in the dull pressure rolled against his throat] it will only make you restless.
[Try to be better, try to forgive the past, try not to cling to the coattails of humanity lost (or in the case of his most precious companions: elfhood lost), tenets that rarely bring Vakares comfort when he palms at them like worry stones— their weathered surface tractionless from decades of overuse. But if he hadn't insisted on etching them into his own bones from the very start, the city would be wearing a very different skin these days.
Let it go, and trust he has—
His faintly filed claws nestling against the nape of Fenris' neck, toying with white strands at the junction between spine and skull. He can well imagine Fenris flashing teeth for years to come at anyone he assumes even partially to blame. His sire asleep and safe and unharmed, the past relegated to the same.
And it would change nothing in those once-green eyes.]
But you know I keep no secrets from you [a narrow pause takes flight, and then, with a lowered hum of adopted affection (he has always been somewhat clumsy with language, more so than even Astarion):] my amatus.
I was turned by a Duke in the midst of a power struggle that had grown out of control, many centuries ago. His aims were simple: unliving dominion over each of the noble houses, and to ensure his indiscretions, lavish indulgences, and grotesque bloodletting could continue unimpeded behind closed doors. [This, no doubt, comes as no surprise to Fenris.]
He did not remember humanity is capable of bloodlust fit to rival our own.
[Such an oversight, if something so critical could be called that.]
Like Avernus and its unmasked vampire monarch, there was irony in how his monstrous nature was only revealed by a servant delivering parcels during one raucous fête. [Even the mighty, as they say.] None of which he was aware of at the time.
He was too busy planning on turning me to solidify his insurrection. A majority of pawns prepared to first oust then slaughter the other Dukes in order to create a ruling council defaulting only to his desires.
Instead, they hunted him, killing him as he bled me.
His blood mingled with mine in the seconds before he turned to ash, and the wounds he left behind were already mended by the time they drew me to my feet, caked in what remained. [Mm.] I was so faint they assumed it was shock. And because they hunted his allies— who then slaughtered each other equally— once my transformation completed itself inside the walls of this estate some days or weeks later, very few were left that didn't mistake my brown eyes as always having been a deeper shade of red. Or isolation the excuse for my pallor.
[His deadened heart aches for all that his sire discloses.
Decadent horrors beyond imagination (and no wonder, Fenris thinks faintly, Vakares insists on such tempered morality within his halls). Betrayal (was he scared? hurt? How did his sire lure him in, and someday Fenris will ask him). The nauseating grief of death and the terror of being surrounded by a bloodthirsty population that wouldn't hesitate to rip you apart no matter that you were nothing like your sire. The loneliness that must have come from being a vampire all on your own, a lord in name only and yet so, so young . . .
Vakares wasn't wrong: it does make him restless. It makes his fangs ache in phantom longing, desperate to bite down on soft flesh and tear out an unworthy throat. In Vakares' sire, yes, but in all of them: the allies who schemed to ensure his ruin, and all the false friends who accepted him only because they thought him mortal. And there's nothing to be done about it, no bloody heart to offer up to his amatus, no comfort to be had . . .
It's over and done with. Long since past. And yet there is helpless rage in Fenris' eyes as he glares at nothing, his fingers curling and uncurling before he presses them so gently against Vakares' chest. There's nothing to be done, it's true, but . . . there is acknowledgement, at least. Belated grief hopefully appreciated for what it is: a mourning of a fate Vakares should never have suffered.]
It must have been lonely.
[He draws his head back, catching Vakares' gaze with a softened expression. A palm to his cheek drifting up to stroke gently through dark hair, over and over.]
How long before you had a companion . . .?
[A spawn. A coven, adopting him by proxy. Anything, but gods, he cannot imagine being a vampire alone.]
[Perhaps they form a loop like that: Fenris's young heart aching in its bed, Vakares' wearied heart fretting over him. They could spend hours working out the burrs from between their fingers— tempered talons brushing slowly over the run of a branded spine, slow and steady—
And fortunately for them, they have those hours.]
Long enough that at one point I had to pretend to be my own son to avoid arousing suspicion. [A wry slip of flashed fangs, subdued. Promising the bare minimum when he can still feel those prickling fingertips settled tersely across his chest: it wasn't all bad.
(And I wasn't always clever:)]
I took a smarter approach after that, thank Kelevmor for belated common sense [No matter how delayed.] and simply pretended to have acquired a cursebound relic that prevented me from aging.
[To explain further:] Human lifespans are incidental. By the time the elder remnants had passed on— devoid of intervention, I should add [He did not adopt the habits of his once-sire, if the question ever came to Fenris' mind.] I was accepted in my role as just one more avid collector whose fondness for rarity ensured a bizarre future. One in which I served Baldur's Gate as its more passive steward, only intervening as necessary.
[In other words:] It worked out.
But it took centuries before I dared to try and accept what I had become [And he does mean in all its imperious-yet-faceted forms: existing as a vampire and a mundane human equally; persisting without a coven in a city that held the same scars as Vakares, and a great deal more inflammable resentment.] and I had no one to tell me how to embrace it. To alleviate it when it hurt, or to navigate meeting any of our kin, or even a voice to prepare me for what came next. I had no sire to hate for his attempt on my life, or to love for what he might have offered. [And it would have been both, perhaps, but there's only numbness in the yawning little divot where torn scars nest across his throat.]
Forgive an old man for wanting better for you.
[It comes mildly, that final addition. Isolated fondness on his lips already having bent into a sobered excuse for a smile, and coupled with the scuffing of his knuckles between high shoulders. Not some wresting yank from a leash at a distance, asserting that his (un)life was universal in its rigid make and its lessons absolute, just—
Aware, maybe. Aware of how resolved Fenris is in all things, too content to try and swallow the world like a bitter pill rather than reach out for help (aware of Astarion and his fear, and how he nurses it first without soothing), and if it's true they do not trust their own covenmates with even the roughest map of their own pasts, then light knows it will be painful once he's gone. As resilient as fractured glass, and equally braced against impending pressure.
So forgive him for one more slight. One more ugly request from a master that won't take no as a response.
(For all his sleepless poring across parchment, he's never been able to divine if the ends will ever justify the means.)]
[Gods. What a noble man Vakares is, Fenris thinks. Noble in the very best of ways, committed to fairness and peace to an almost incomprehensible degree. Dedicated, always, to ensuring that he puts as much good into the world as he can— and gods know he's good at it. Fenris has seen it for himself now that a century has passed: laws intended to halt discrimination or corruption put into place decades ago slowly but surely taking effect. It isn't ever an instantaneous thing, no, and there are problems abound (how many nights has Fenris watched his sire pace in front of the fire, ranting to his two consorts about all the vexations that come from working with petulant, pleasure-seeking nobles), but still, he tries. Every day, he tries, and only now is Fenris getting an inkling of why that is.]
You are a better man than you ever give yourself credit for, you know.
[It isn't an idle compliment, for Fenris doesn't do those.]
Most would have long since fallen into despair or debauchery after enduring such grief. Most have, [he adds wryly.] But not you. Never you. I know you fear sometimes it is not enough, but . . . you a good man, amatus. Do not forget that as you rest.
[And though his heart still aches, he is heartened by the look in Vakares' eyes. It wasn't all bad, no, he imagines not. Perhaps it was not ideal, but what is? And there is little use in mourning the past. Instead: better to be grateful for what they all have now.
But it does help to better understand why Vakares is so intent on joining he and Astarion. It isn't just a sire weary of his two beloved favorites fighting; it's a quiet hope that they neither of them will ever have to be so lonely. And it's not that he couldn't handle loneliness, of course, but . . .
Perhaps he shouldn't have to.
And maybe that shows on his expression, for in the next moment Vakares adds that. Fenris' eyes flick up, his expression a mixture of startled and rueful.]
I will try. I can promise you that. I do not have many hopes for it succeeding, but . . . I will truly try with him. And someday, perhaps, I will tell him of my past.
[It isn't the end, of course. He spends an indulgent few hours with his secondsired, their conversation drifting from topic to topic. It's a bittersweet thing, but perhaps that's inevitable— and if so, at least it's more sweet than bitter. And when Fenris finally falls into a drowsy slumber, Vakares leaves him with a kiss to his forehead and a quiet promise: I will see you before it all begins.
Then, dressing in a simple shirt and trousers, he heads out to find his firstsired.
It isn't so hard to track him down, truthfully. He checks the party first, thinking perhaps Astarion tried to alleviate his grief through tearing into others, but no. Nothing but revelry and partygoers (and of course a few flock to him, and it's an awkward few minutes before he can excuse himself and resume his search). From there into the west hall— and ah, it doesn't take long to pick up the trail his furious spawn left. More than a few paintings now sport vicious clawmarks (and yet even now his Astarion is mindful, for the only paintings he truly destroyed were ones Vakares has never liked). Antique chairs are overturned; a stained-glass lamp lies in pretty pieces on the floor. On and on, hallway after hallway, until at last he comes across a door ajar. Four scratches are scored deep into the oak . . . ah.
[What a jarring shift that must have been, going from contented musing to the wreckage of their shared unlife. Progenitor and resentful creation that still— in all its misery— doesn't dare to yank so hard that the figurative leash comes free, no matter how it thrashes: tantrumming like the child he must seem to a creature that outstrips him in both years and utter restraint. Knowledge that twists against his ribs, shame hot in stinging tangent around the corners of his vision, making Astarion as standoffish as he is avoidant, really— bristling along his spine without fur or feather (and yet it comes across so clearly anyway:) hunched over his own shadow, head sunken between his shoulders while his neck stretches long— glaring at his keeper's intrusion (the one Astarion left markers for; the one he invited with his trail of breadcrumbs, knowing— hoping— it'd end up like this) for only a handful of seconds before his lip twists and his stare is yanked away. The art of irascibility performatively volatile in his claws.
It buns in him. It seethes inside his gut, that anger.
(But it'd hurt worse if he never showed.)
His sire loves literature. Even in old, forgotten stretches of his estate, books still line the walls, waiting beneath blanketed dust to be used again. Made whole. So it's deliberate, the way Astarion's sagging grip lifts to drag one encyclopedic volume from its bed just to crack the ancient binding and plunge his talons into its puncturable heart— the sound of paper shredding loud in that small space.]
You smell like him.
[They both do, actually. His clothes still half-drawn loosely about his frame, wearing the memory of crude entanglement.
Maybe that's why he says it, then. Punctuation for how intensity is misaligned to lifeless senses: one of them smells a little more like stale air and weathered dust; the other frozen in time, by all accounts. As if he might've spent the last who-knows-how-long still nestled in that bed. That body.]
[If that destruction hurts (and it does a little, but not very), Vakares doesn't allow it to show. His expression is still as he watches his beloved tear into a book, and knows that this is the price he pays for a household filled not with fear but love. It's the price of not ordering them into it, forcing his consorts into being nothing more than helpless puppets bound to his every whim and will.
It's worth it.
But gods, it does hurt. Not the loss of the book, but the pain in Astarion's voice as he says that . . . oh, fierce thing. Wounded thing, and though he closes the door behind him, he takes only a few steps forward. Not knowing if Astarion wants to be held or left alone; half-certain that Astarion himself isn't sure either.]
We both do.
[There. Not so do you, alienating and argumentative, but rather a joining thing. His palms are open, his posture relaxed: I am not here to fight you, and he will communicate it every which way he can.
Silence for a precious few seconds. Then, gently:]
Tell me.
[All the thoughts running through Astarion's mind, the seething rage and all the grief and hurt beneath it . . . tell me, so that he might expel it from his system. So that Vakares in turn might weather those words, and ensure that they do not slip out at some inopportune moment far later down the line. And so that he might assure his beloved Astarion, soothing pride so easily stung, mending a wound that had never been intended.]
A reverberating little thump landing as its gutted carcass collapses over tattered parchment, scattering into dismal thwips from so much jostling before sinking into silence.
And Astarion isn't any different, when the dust settles.
(Vexing. Frustrating. He's so angry. So hurt. He can feel it under his skin, seething like blackened bile in his throat— so why won't anything come?) Standing there like a slack-jawed fool: Astarion, the beguiling— who could talk the jewels off a baron's knuckles. Astarion, charmer of men; as if the words tell me are the most indiscrutible ones ever known.
Still hunched into himself.
Still angled towards Vakares, despite everything.]
What's there to tell?
[There. That's it. Start somewhere. Spread your arms, flex your claws; posture like this isn't the end of everything you'd wanted (it's not. It's not, it's not— but he can't see that anymore, blind past the tip of his nose).]
Everything's already decided. What I say won't make a damned bit of difference now....
[Ensuing pause thick against the back of his teeth, facetious in tone, and sharp as pricking claws, but—
[Understand: there's no disappointment in the way Vakares answers, just swiftness. He doesn't seek to put down, but nor will he allow any scrap of hope to thrive. If Astarion thinks there's a crack in Vakares' defense, oh, he won't hesitate to grope for it, using every trick he has to try and chase after what he wants. It's an admirable trait sometimes; amusingly vexing in others. And gods know Vakares indulges it from time to time . . .
(That's enough work for now, and Astarion's eyes were so bright as he'd draped himself over Vakares' desk, knocking away ink and paper with ease. Still such a young thing in those first few centuries, caught between bouts of intense insecurity and giddy indulgence; such a doting thing, urging his sire into playful rule-breaking and drawing him away from duty. Come here, try this wine with me, and back then, Vakares had so desperately needed it. His life had been nothing but quiet days and long nights, and it wasn't that he regretted it, but . . . gods, he hadn't realized how reserved he had become until Astarion was in his life. Clever little minx. Coy little temptation, his sweetest consort who would take him by the hand and urge him into indulgence, what's the point of living forever if you never live at all? Taking him to the theater, to dances, to parties— let me show you, let me be with you, and always, always there was that moment of truth. When Astarion would ask and Vakares would answer, and if there was the slightest hint of hesitance—)
But that was then.
This is now.
Now he cannot indulge that flare of hope.
But he can soothe it.]
But you know better than anyone that what you say to me makes every difference in the world.
[It's gentle. He takes another step forward, ignoring all the signs that scream to keep away in favor of closing the distance between them. And maybe it was a good thing that Fenris brought up the past, for now his mind is attuned to it— and that helps. It helps to remember that he has never done this before; that he is acting only out of instinct and shrewd insight— and that even a creature centuries old makes mistakes sometimes.]
. . . I should have told you alone.
[So maybe it's better to start there. Not a plea for forgiveness, exactly, but a quiet, rueful acknowledgement: I should have done this differently.]
And I will not say I did not consider that you would not like it, but . . . I did not realize just how badly it would hurt you.
[And he is their sire. And it doesn't matter what your spawn or your consorts feel, for when you're lord of a coven, it's your will that matters above all else.
Oh, it's never an easy thing to chart a different course, is it . . .?]
You feel as though I am abandoning you.
[It's a guess.]
And that I am joining you with him in a vague attempt to alleviate that loneliness.
[Tell him he's right. Tell him he's wrong. Tell me, little gemstone so loved, oh, Astarion, Astarion, and Vakares' heart aches to see him there. So desperately wounded and trying so hard not to show it, and it takes everything not to gather him up and tug him close. I'll call it off, I'll make it right, and he won't, but gods, it's tempting.]
[Acceptance. Not even death can outrun the necessity of it— nor undeath for that matter: all the instances coming to mind of his sire (more powerful in will and form than any other creature Astarion has ever known, more breathtaking than night's embrace), uttering phrases like 'I cant' or 'I must'.
And the thing is, Astarion knows he means it. That it isn't a lie when it comes slipped between sips of wine or roaming fingertips. The fact that he resents it for existing in the first place doesn't— much to his own eternal frustration— change its underlying nature in any applicable respect (so many years at one another's side breeds questionless certainty like bedrock, settled at the root of their association, concrete and entirely unshakable: if his master insults or incenses him, it's never been malicious— just knowing).
Power has its limits. So does love. So does eternal life. (So does the slouch in Astarion's shoulders. The scathing ire in his stare, fading at its seams against the cut of stubbornness laid bare.)
No, Vakares says. But what comes after it isn't a lie, either. Even if it feels like petty platitude to wounded pride. Even if— ]
Aren't you?
[Tenterhooks, that's the word for it. Weight shifting to the balls of his feet, posture pulling forwards in its tilt while the venom drains (slowly) from his tone. Closer to that ruined sitting area than the wall and its prized tomes— closer to opening his mouth, judging by the slight cinch in his jaw. Honest questions. Honest response.
(There won't be any heartfelt breaths defining the subtle shape of forgiveness, but a peaceable truce? Acceptance?
[Said so gently to be sure it doesn't come out as a rebuke. And he wants so badly to reach out in that moment, you know. His palm to Astarion's cheek, a cherishing touch (and how he used to nuzzle so freely against it, all but purring in his contentment— but ah, don't fall into that nostalgic trap, not now, or you'll never go to your rest).]
He needs you.
[It's simple. More importantly, though, it isn't a lie.]
He is such a young thing, Astarion. He know nothing of politics, or how to maneuver through the ebbs and flows of nobility. He takes the bluntest approach possible, and it will not be long before that backfires on him. He does not know how to flatter without falsely promising things, or insult without being direct . . . and he does not know how to hide what he is.
[He never has.]
And if he fled these halls, it would not be a year before he was killed, either by some rival coven or a mob who decided they did not want a vampire in their midst.
[But that isn't the only thing he can offer. Vakares pauses for a few seconds, gathering his thoughts, before continuing:]
And I fret for your solitude. I will not deny that. I ache for what is to come for you, and I do not relish leaving you. Many times . . . [No, don't go down that path.] I would see you two bond, yes. I would be happy to wake and find you two companions instead of rivals, I will not deny that. You have far more in common than either of you realize.
But I do not do it in a paltry effort to combat the ache that will come when we are parted. I do not think that he will serve as substitute for me— and I do not expect you to give him anything save your guidance and your protection.
[He exhales slowly, allowing that to sit in the air for a long few seconds. Then, his voice a little more raw, he adds:]
You know I have no gift for poetry. I do not pretend to be as deft with words as you. And so I cannot tell you just how much I ache to think of leaving you— nor how badly I will miss you, and dream of you with each passing year.
[Gods, will he ever. So much it aches. So much that he has put this off over and over, just one more year, for even when all the world was exhausting and dark, Astarion shone like starlight, bright and beautiful and perfect.]
His eyes are wet. They burn— and isn't that ironic? A vampire, weeping. Everything tense. Flared again. Hurt again. The truth of it all being that this is as much about loss and replacement between them, maybe more so than Fenris— maybe not— it's too knotted, too possessed of cluttered thorns; every time Astarion might begin untangling it it bites down on his fingers, and he makes the smarter choice to leave it be.
(Leave him be.)
Another book in his hands— a fitful mess slamming against the walls of his chest, wracking him with the urge to vomit, to run, to wail and tantrum like a child unloved— and he doesn't tear it. Claws sunken in its cover, holding it so tight that he trembles, unable to do— ]
....Young thing. Loved thing. [His muttering hoarse with the hallmarks of defeat; no closer to biting than he is to ripping that book, instead of clutching at it like a lifeline.] Talking about how you don't want to go, but you'll leave me— and add to it the shame of ceremony.
[They'll be a joke, his wedded whores. And that's aside from the fact that once Vakares sleeps, he'll be a joke, anyway— at least to all the vengeful wretches out there with wagging tongues and a tiredness for being kept in line.
And the air is thick.
And they're both so tired.
And this room....this old, forgotten relic looks nothing like it did centuries ago. Barely recognizable, rotting in the dark.]
It was supposed to be me.
[Red-rimmed eyes sliding higher, echoing the shade of his changed pupils. Red, like every vampire. Broken, like every vampire.
(Unlike Vakares, he's always been able to admit that about them.)]
At least then I could console myself with power, once you were off dreaming of the next wounded creature you'll turn after you've forgotten us both. [Unfair, Astarion. It's unfair, and he knows it— he never could stop himself from trying to share his pain.] Now what? Babysit him while the whole world laughs because 'he needs me.' [He needs you. What about me— ]
—I need you.
But you couldn't even give me the decency of my dignity as you walk out the door.
[He cannot hide the hurt that flashes over his expression at that seething statement. He knows what it is and it still hurts, for after so many centuries, Astarion is decidedly good at knowing just where to bite. Adn yet: good. Let him see that his blows have landed; he deserves that. He deserves the vicious satisfaction of having returned some of this pain, Vakares thinks, guilt twisting at his heart. He hadn't realized, he hadn't known—
But he had. And he did. And he'd assumed . . . oh, he'd assumed them smaller things. It was no act of deliberate cruelty to ignore them, and of course he'd been aware of the rivalry, but . . .
And the sentence trails, even in his own mind. But, and any excuse is a paltry one. But we had long since agreed to see others if we wished. But I thought you would grow used to him, once you realized your place in my heart could never be budged. But I did not realize how badly this would hurt you, and it's too late to take it back. Even if he could, he wouldn't. This is the right way forward, he knows it is.
I need you, and some part of Vakares' heart shatters quietly. Another year, it whispers, just as it always has. One more year, just for him— doesn't he deserve at least that? All this pain you have caused him, all this grief and hurt— wouldn't it be better to stave off your sleep for another few years and soothe him?
But he can't, and there's a thousand reasons for that. And he has to trust that Astarion will see them, even if it isn't right now. Even if he does not earn his darling first-sired's forgiveness before his rest.]
No, you don't.
[It's soft, achingly so— and before Astarion can misunderstand, there Vakares is, two hands gripping his spawn's arms with firm tenderness. Look at me, stay with me, his thumbs stroking gently as he tips his head forward.]
You want me. So fiercely and hungrily that it takes everything in me not to stay with you, even now— look at me, Astarion, [for there is nothing masked about his expression now. In place of his usual serenity is longing and grief, gnawing at him as it has for months now.]
But you haven't needed me for centuries. You are more than capable of leading your own coven; you are far more than capable of leading this one.
[A hesitation, and then:]
I used to fear that you would leave, you know. For centuries, I was certain you would. Sooner or later, you would chafe beneath my reign and leave me, and I prepared myself for that. I would not impede you, I thought. I would help you as much as I could, but I would hide my aching heart. And then, when that did not happen, I thought even then that such preparations could make me ready for this separation.
[He feels so clumsy with his words. He is a good orator when it comes to political matters, or even day-to-day things, but ah, emotions are far trickier. And yet there's no time to refine this, and so it all comes tumbling out, impulsive and as emotional as he ever is.]
It should have been you, yes— but Astarion, it is. I do not give this position to you on a whim, solely on the basis that you were my first. I give it to you because I know you are capable of leading it&dmash;
And I join him to you because he can help you.
Let them laugh. Let them sneer if they will. [Oh, he has endured it. Vakares the chaste, Vakares the pure, sneers pulling at pretty features as they'd joked both behind his back and to his face. What a field day they'd had when he'd made Astarion his consort, though he'd tried his best to shield him from it— and that's to say nothing of when he took a second one . . .
Vakares' gaze hardens.]
And then shut them up.
[Oh, how intensely he says it, his gaze hard and his words fierce.]
Prove to them that the two of you combined are far more powerful than those lazy, indulgent vampires and their sycophantic allies. Show them that you are nothing to be mocked, and show them why— for you two alone have every resource available to you. Lyrium and teeth, clever political maneuvers and minds so intelligent that they routinely surpass the vampire who sired them . . . prove to them that you are every bit as shrewd and powerful as I know you to be, and they will have no choice but to change their laughter into words of awe.
I did not do this to humiliate you, my Astarion. And I promise you that their whispers will turn to awe soon enough. It is no easy thing, to be the heir of a vampire who has never been typical . . . but I promise I did not set you up to fail.
There he is at long last, his sire. Possessed of conviction like none other, limitlessly devoted to the path of his own perserverance— and understand, though Astarion always thrills to feel the essence of command wash over him, this isn't strictly about power: there's so much more to it than that (reducing such a complex balance down to the shiver that occasionally runs up his spine when Vakares goes utterly adamantine would be like calling a garnet an apple just because it's red). In moments like these, he's lucent, his darling. Without daylight. Without moonlight. So steeped in his own indelibility that even a cold cynic like Astarion finds himself hanging on every word. And under the brightness of an ember stare undaunted, suddenly it's not a joke anymore—not a cruel insult spat out at Astarion's feet— but a challenge. one more task set before a firstsired capable enough to leave if he so desired it.
And isn't that the underlying message for a mind as infinitely fixated as Astarion's? You could leave, Fenris could never— ]
I could leave. [Astarion reiterates softly. Breath still in his throat, book already on the floor, entirely unharmed aside from those small, clinging little puncture marks pushed in against its cover— pouring himself deeper into Vakares' touch. Wending against his chest like a thing called home at dusk. Nuzzling at everything in reach.]
Probably should, in fact. Your empire always was a sinking ship.
[(No, he couldn't leave. He won't leave; written in the fault lines of this exchange from the trail of pettier destruction strewn about to the way he draws in close. Someone inclined to run would've just run.
Particularly now, at the end of all sheltered surety.)]
....but then I can't trust my younger counterpart to leave you anything to wake up to, can I?
[Those talons alight with gentleness when they move to catch his chin, wild and yet— not. The tensity of a creature only tame by its own volition, deigning to tolerate the mercy of close comfort.
[How his selfish heart aches to feel Astarion nuzzling against him. Slow relief washes over him, a tension he'd only half-realized he was holding ebbing from his frame as he wraps his arms around his beloved. Here you are, come here, and he knows all isn't suddenly forgiven, but nor does it have to be. It's enough that Astarion at least sees the shape of his plan; it's enough that he knows Vakares did not do this to him to humiliate or hurt, nor acted out of a thoughtless kind of cruelty. It's enough to hold him right now, on the eve of his departure.
There you are. He returns each fierce nuzzle with one of his own: kissing the top of Astarion's head again and again, nosing against silver curls as he soaks up every bit of him. Here you are, his darling. His beloved firstsired. His consort, his Astarion, so loved and so longed for, here you are.
And when clawed fingers catch his chin, he draws back, willingly going where Astarion leads: his concession. A concession, too: he does not correct that teasing little comment. Let Astarion have his biting remarks; Vakares has never demanded complete obedience from either of them.]
And with you leading the way . . . what will I wake to find my empire has become, I wonder.
[He really is quite curious. Every coven is different, just as every vampire is; whatever is to come, their coven will change. Astarion and Fenris will have their own preferences and ways of doing things— and Vakares is eager to see how they flourish when offered that kind of power.
More sincerely, then:]
You could leave, Astarion. You could have for centuries now.
But I am more glad than I can say that you won't.
[Oh, his darling. His precious consort, his little gemstone so very loved . . . gently, he leads Astarion towards one of those overstuffed armchairs. Come here, tugging him into his lap as he has a thousand times before. Come here, precious thing, and he can still remember the very first time he did it. All those years ago, back when it had just been the two of them . . . he does not rue the present, but he does miss the past sometimes.]
Now tell me, my little gem: shall I still step into the sun?
[It's not a rebuke. It really isn't. Rather: it's a gentle nudge, trying to gauge his consort's mood. Are you still angry, are you still upset, and it's all right if he is. It's all right if they work it out in one last rut (for they have done that before, Astarion viciously biting as he fucks him until his anger ebbs) or if Astarion wants to lay out his grievances one by one . . . but he does not want to let such things lie until he's certain they're through with it.]
On those roaming fingers— so mild that it doesn't even begin to break skin, let alone bruise it. Astarion's viperish hastisement so contextually gentle that it lacks teeth of its own beyond the pointed edges of harsh fangs; yes, he's fussy still. Oh yes, he's resentful of necessity, and bitter about what he'll lose in the process of attending it— but even so.]
Don't you dare.
[Wretched sire so cherished beyond measure, how dare he make him consider the possibility of something so unthinkable (never mind that it was Astarion who'd brought it up to begin with); how dare you, precious thing. Outline of my heart. Mooring cage I'll never flee. How dare he even bring that up now, when everything tangible is wading through the gaps of lax entanglement, nested softly under the press of clothed thighs and shifted ankles: chest-to-chest in ways both awkwardly undignified and artistically bewitching— unafraid of how they might look to the outside world. Lax like animals in repose are almost boneless, an arm draped here or a leg there, faces close enough together that false breath pools.]
I ought to bite your pretty tongue out for that glibness.
Keep it as a souvenir. [A kiss as sharp as spiced wine finding its way to the supple center of those lips. He's always been more inclined to physicality than soothing chatter when it comes to all sincerity; keeping hold of Vakares' jaw to press it upright in his grip, tilting only so far as it takes to work a warming little path of bitemarks and bruises down the frontside of that unattended throat. Incandescent seconds involving the satisfying give of vulnerable skin caught between parted lips (and fangs, and the roiling tip of his tongue) passing as if they were weighted minutes.
Oh, never doubt Astarion loves his sire. But despite the hierarchy instilled in their kind by default, he isn't slavishly servile in regards to his maker (there is such merit to being firstsired; the boldness rooted in intimacy that'd once been only theirs decades ago, understood by no one else): while the world bows its head in varied deference— and Astarion does the same— behind closed doors, he can reach with despotic fingertips to grip his master by the reins, knowing that's his right. His luxury.
One that truly can't be shared, given the nature of its origin.]
What did he say to you?
[Asked in a lowered rumble as he climbs to straddle his beloved. Agile spine stretched long (his shirt still open, his legs almost painfully splayed to push snugly against his master's hips across that aging settee), his hand still holding fast.]
Knowing him, Fenris wasn't exactly clamoring for sex after news like that.
[Ergo: they must've talked, those two. The scent is too strong not to have been a recent exchange, though it doesn't reek of rutting. And you know, in Astarion's hawkish estimations, they did always seem the type for quiescent conversation. Gentle reassurance in the face of adversity, and all that.]
[Understand: he does not play favorites, not between his consorts. With them, yes; there is such a delight to elevating the two of them above all others in this coven, pointedly putting them first. But everything that Astarion gets, Fenris does too, and vice-versa, for he will not cheat one to sate the other, no matter how they might beg for it.
But that doesn't mean he treats them uniformly. That would be foolish; the relationship he has with both of them is unique, and so he cannot spoil them both with the same hand, as though there is no difference between them. And within those relationships, there are variances. Privileges afforded to each in turn based on their sired-order, and things that Vakares cannot deny. Fenris is the younger, and so he gets treated with a softer hand, and as for Astarion . . .
Astarion gets this kind of intimacy. This pointed dominance, this reversal of roles . . . oh, yes, this is his right. This is what centuries of intimacy has earned him, and after all this time, Vakares relishes it: the relief that comes from allowing someone else to take control. The joy of letting his eyes flutter closed as the air slowly expels from his lungs, his lips parting as Astarion bites at his throat. Impudent thing, he thinks, and slides his hands around lithe hips, both palms gripping full cheeks and tugging them forward.]
Nosy.
[As gentle as those bites. He'll let Astarion have his way, oh, yes, for that is the least of what he owes him, but he needn't be passive about it. His fingers grope at supple curves, blunted talons digging in as he pulls the other vampire forward, rut, guiding him along a grinding lapdance.]
We spoke of the past. Of my turning, and of yours— though when it came to you, I advised him only to ask of your past.
[No secrets revealed, no details offered. He is not callous.]
He wanted to understand why I made the decision I did— and why I had not simply made you heir instead.
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[No, he doesn't. And that's the worst part: he does understand Vakares' logic, and it's sound. If you take all the emotions out of it, Astarion's preferences and Fenris' past . . . they really are a good combination. Astarion is better at politics, it's true. He knows how to deftly weave his words to flatter or insult as he sees fit; he has learned all the alliances and old gossip from centuries at Vakares' side, and knows just who they might rely upon or need to distrust in these coming years.
But he craves approval. He wants love and adoration, and he will not get it from that soulless pack of nobles, immortals and mortals alike. They'll flatter him and coo at him and make him feel important— and though he might be savvy enough to see through some of it, he won't see through it all.
And Fenris . . . Fenris has no head for that, true. Fenris is not a leader, nor has he ever wanted to be. But Fenris knows better than anyone how hollow promises from nobles can be. He knows how fickle these creatures are; how desperately they crave power and acknowledgement, and how very deadly it makes them. He had spent his entire life at Danarius' side, watching the politics of the magisterium play out before them both, and he knows just how to see through blind flattery and fixate on what the other person wants.
One can't rule without the other. Fenris is no better than Astarion is no better than Fenris, an endless back and forth that only works when you put them together. If they can manage to work together, pooling their talents and expertise— gods, there's no question they'll maintain their position.
It makes sense. Objectively, it is a good choice.
And he can't say: what if he tries to make me his chosen whore anyway? And he can't say: what if it doesn't work, and it all falls to ruin? He certainly can't say I don't want to, because at the end of the day, that's the bargain. That's the deal he struck a century ago, his head swimming with blood loss and an impossible offer at his fingertips.
Become immortal. Become not just my spawn, but a full vampire. Be my other chosen consort, and in doing so, become part of the endlessly chaotic, eternally political court of vampires— and you'll live forever, free of fear from Danarius and his ilk.
He took the bargain. And now this is part of it: submitting to the machinations of his sire, knowing in his heart that it's only ever done out of logical conclusion and love both. It isn't marriage— and that distinction matters more than ever.
Fenris sighs, but it's a rueful thing, not aggrieved. Reaching out, he cups Vakares' cheek, stroking just once in affectionate acquiesce before he settles back down.]
Do not ask me to be pleased with it, but I do not disagree with your logic. And in time . . . in time, I think it may well work out— though you may wake with fewer allies than you started with.
[Really, the trick with Fenris will be to sheathe his scathing tongue; there are more than a few allies who have been nicked by it before.]
But I note you leave me with the disagreeable task of taming Astarion and forcing him into cooperation. He did not like me before, and this will not endear me to him.
[But he can handle it. He knows he can.]
Do you mean to have the ceremony tonight?
no subject
[Such a simple assertion. Small compared to its overpowering strokes: tomorrow night and your life will change; tomorrow night you'll be bound to your most embittered rival— his enmity woven like an unalterable band round your finger, inexpressibly tight. Perspectivistically shackling.
The weight intended to both pull you down and prop you upright in a sea of fanged volatility.]
I'll make my announcement before the celebration is turned towards the both of you, instead. Your ascension and your union the last thing seen to while I take my leave. [A silent confession: the arrangements have already been made.
It is better this way, to leave them with a beginning, rather than a pervasive sense of loss or emptiness alone— and perhaps it goes without saying that there is one more reason for it playing out as a thing already settled— for as much as he loves them, he cannot trust them to carry out a command so arduously taxing as this without him there to witness its conclusion. One would flee. The other would snap.
Like the rest of his designs, he's thought this through (over and over again inside this very room with his quill left bleeding into parchment for minutes at a time. Hours, some nights. Perched over his desk sporting half-closed eyes and folded fingers— so far ahead in forethought that in retrospect it burns to feel his consort's touch brush low across his cheek, however brief. He'd worried for them, you know. Sought the best for them. Strove so hard and harsh for the necessary that he only sees it now, when finally that shadow at the desk is almost visible in the borders of his vision, sitting just as it had been: he'd been dwelling here all along, his past reflection. And in doing so, Vakares missed out on precious months that could have been spent with his own starlings).
But that's not for him to grieve.
This isn't farewell, after all, no matter how it feels to speak of plans that he cannot witness beyond their careful setup: he needs this alleviation. This long, long rest away from a world that would swallow him along with every last drop of his affection. His self-control. His ability to cherish most the splendor of small comforts in gentle hands. And when he wakes from it, it will be to something stronger than this— (the latter thought so unbearably fond:) or he will make it so.
That stroking caress returned with compound interest, rough fingertips discolored by centuries of spilled ink pinning themselves just beneath the cusp of Fenris' sharp ear. Hello, my dearest little one....]
Astarion is never endeared to what he needs. [Slight, the careful little bend pulling high along his mouth.]
But I can't help insisting that you underappraise your value to him.
no subject
[Oh, he loves that doting affection, he really does. And though Fenris is not wholly thrilled with the idea of his imminent joining, he goes for broke nonetheless: twisting forward so that he presses himself more fully against Vakares, tucking his head beneath his chin. Resigned or not, he will not give up one of the last chances he has to curl against his sire.
His mouth presses gently against his throat, his arm wrapping around Vakares' frame. There's no purpose behind his questing fingers; he just seeks to press close, suddenly hungry for affection.]
He threatened me not eight hours ago with being turned into little more than his personal whore. [His tone is dry. It's not snitching if your sire already knows about it— and he isn't angry. Just sardonic.] I am not putting down my own worth, but I suspect my value to him begins and ends with how well I can take his cock.
[No, it's more than that. He knows it is. There have been moments . . . not many, admittedly, but still. Soft beats of mutual appreciation, or the unexpected joy that comes from the two of them laughing at the same joke . . . there have even been stretches of it. Times when things were calmer, and it was easier to be together than to be at odds— no, he is worth more to Astarion than a set of spread legs.]
And even if it isn't . . . he has always regarded me as usurper. I think it will take time once you are asleep for him to regard me as more than that.
[He draws back just enough to catch Vakares' gaze.]
You think so too. Has he ever . . .?
[Said anything? Done anything? He isn't asking for flattery, but . . . sometimes it helps, hearing an outside opinion.]
no subject
A usurper. Ah.
The term isn't necessarily wrong.]
You never had the chance to know him before I found you. [Stating the obvious, and yet— sometimes it's the obvious needs stating.] Worse is not the right term, but he has always struggled with the concept of certainty, and it manifests....[Hm.] It is at its most volatile when there is another his fears can flock to.
He would attack the other members of our coven when he thought I would not see it. [And the topic is grave, but there is such a note of housed-in lightness within his tenor, recognizable to anyone that knows its muted outline.] And I do not mean his spiteful tantrums, or his habit of....latching. [Like an unruly denmate, how viciously he bites, his little firstsired.]
He sought their deaths, Fenris, and he felt the consequences were bearable.
The only thing that stayed that habit was the eventual understanding that they did not come close to matching his favor. That hierarchical power was his solace.
But you— oh, he could not overlook your arrival, nor could he misinterpret its significance. The fact that for once, there was an equal nestled at his side. In all that time, you have not returned to me so gravely wounded that I feared for your safety. [He lashes out. He seethes at times, none of which has slipped Vakares' notice— but he does not tear with locked-on jaws; the urge to mutilate isn't there.
That holds so much more weight than what it seems.]
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Is he meant to believe Astarion has some form of affection for him? Even at his most sentimental, Fenris finds it hard to believe. There have been peaceful periods, yes, but nothing you might call adoring. No word nor deed jumps out to Fenris as any indicator that Astarion might hold him in any higher esteem than a good fuck. And it's not that he doesn't want to get along, but—
But it had stung, that first meeting. After nearly half a year of growing stronger beneath Vakares' care, hearing stories about all the wonders that might await him if he chose to submit to his damning bite . . . oh, what a rosy future Vakares had crafted for him. And be fair: it wasn't a lie. He's still glad he made the choice he had. But ah . . . all those tales about how Fenris would along with his elder counterpart, how alike they were not just in looks but habits and humor, all of it fed into a future that simply didn't exist. Astarion despised him on sight, and after a century, well. Why on earth should either of them change that habit?
But they must. They must.
Still. The only other explanation for Vakares' comment is that Astarion fears his sire's permanent wrath too much to enslave or murder Fenris, and it's that which Fenris truly takes to heart. He does not think he can rely on some unknown affection to stay his hand— but the knowledge that Vakares truly loves both his consorts might. And it's that which he takes to heart right now, truthfully, though he knows that isn't the one his sire intends.]
So easily threatened . . .
[It's quietly musing, and not necessarily judgemental. A few moments pass as Fenris loses himself in thought, and then:]
Why?
Was it from his life before? Or did his fears begin later, when you first changed another?
[He wouldn't ask normally, not because he isn't curious, but because Vakares makes it a point not to gossip about one with the other. But tonight is different. This isn't petty talk, the intent only to harm or humiliate; Fenris asks because he doesn't understand— and now, standing on the edge of a sheer cliff, he realizes he has to, and very quickly. The more he understands, the easier this might just be.]
I do not understand how he has spent centuries with you and yet still cannot alleviate his fears.
[Not like Fenris, who still catches himself flinching sometimes when he feels magic surge in the air.]
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Well, I suppose you have always been the more adaptive one between you both. [That serene(ly amused) expression sticks within those bridging segues between one topic and the next. The lack of finely-honed awareness only endearing at its core. Sweet Fenris. Sweet pair that holds his lifeless heart within their fractious hands (he did not mean to love them both, but once he fell, there was no choice). Those initial miles of affection that felt like inches, and he knew by the time Fenris had been nursed to health that there would be no escaping it.
It would sting, that first meeting (and it had stung), and here they are still wading through its shadow.]
If I'm being asked to guess?
I imagine it must stem from his old life— but where the line of that is drawn, it's possible even Astarion is unaware why or where it started. After all, death— the loss it forced upon all our shoulders— you know it as well as I do: that is no small burden.
[Astarion has never enjoyed speaking of his past, not even to his sire.]
Have you never discussed your former lives?
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[Simple. Steady. And it surprises him, you know, that Astarion hasn't told Vakares anything so concrete. He'd assumed— well. He'd always assumed the two of them had long since grown so intimate as to have shared all the details of their respective pasts— or at least, in the case of Vakares, most of it. It was even a point of jealousy for a time, back before Fenris had settled more fully into his role— he knows more than I ever will, you love him more . . .
Foolish. Even more foolish than he'd realized, clearly.
But that's not the point here.
What kind of past does Astarion have? He has no idea. He'd assumed— well, he'd assumed so many things, most of them unkind, and only now does Fenris realize that's all they are: assumptions. He'd thought him little more than a privileged brat who'd never once known hardship, but that can't be fully true. And that's not even taking into account Vakares' words . . . for it is a burden. It's a grief unlike he's ever known to lose his own life: to watch as he ceased aging even as the world continued on, his reflection gone and his connection to the outside world suddenly strained . . . not severed, no, but always there is a gap. Always now he is on the outside looking in, watching the endless cycle of life and death pass him by . . .
It's worth it. It is. But it was a loss, too, and he cannot pretend he didn't mourn it.
The same must be true for Astarion.]
I did not want to offer him free ammunition, and I did not want . . . I knew, in those early years, that if he taunted me for being a slave, I would attempt to kill him.
[So there's that.]
And I never asked for his. It simply . . . we do not have intimate discussions, amatus. Not like that. At most, we convene to discuss you— or gossip about others in court. But it isn't . . .
[They don't talk about their pasts. They don't talk about their fears or their hopes, nothing so intimate. They can be amiable, but intimate? Oh, no.
But what is there to say? Either that will change in the coming decades or it won't, but either way, mourning it now won't help. Instead:]
And what of your past? [Does he expect a real answer? Not particularly— which is why he leans forward, nuzzling against his throat again.] You still have not told me of much of it . . . not beyond the vampiric portions, anyway. Will you ever?
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[Try to be better, try to forgive the past, try not to cling to the coattails of humanity lost (or in the case of his most precious companions: elfhood lost), tenets that rarely bring Vakares comfort when he palms at them like worry stones— their weathered surface tractionless from decades of overuse. But if he hadn't insisted on etching them into his own bones from the very start, the city would be wearing a very different skin these days.
Let it go, and trust he has—
His faintly filed claws nestling against the nape of Fenris' neck, toying with white strands at the junction between spine and skull. He can well imagine Fenris flashing teeth for years to come at anyone he assumes even partially to blame. His sire asleep and safe and unharmed, the past relegated to the same.
And it would change nothing in those once-green eyes.]
But you know I keep no secrets from you [a narrow pause takes flight, and then, with a lowered hum of adopted affection (he has always been somewhat clumsy with language, more so than even Astarion):] my amatus.
I was turned by a Duke in the midst of a power struggle that had grown out of control, many centuries ago. His aims were simple: unliving dominion over each of the noble houses, and to ensure his indiscretions, lavish indulgences, and grotesque bloodletting could continue unimpeded behind closed doors. [This, no doubt, comes as no surprise to Fenris.]
He did not remember humanity is capable of bloodlust fit to rival our own.
[Such an oversight, if something so critical could be called that.]
Like Avernus and its unmasked vampire monarch, there was irony in how his monstrous nature was only revealed by a servant delivering parcels during one raucous fête. [Even the mighty, as they say.] None of which he was aware of at the time.
He was too busy planning on turning me to solidify his insurrection. A majority of pawns prepared to first oust then slaughter the other Dukes in order to create a ruling council defaulting only to his desires.
Instead, they hunted him, killing him as he bled me.
His blood mingled with mine in the seconds before he turned to ash, and the wounds he left behind were already mended by the time they drew me to my feet, caked in what remained. [Mm.] I was so faint they assumed it was shock. And because they hunted his allies— who then slaughtered each other equally— once my transformation completed itself inside the walls of this estate some days or weeks later, very few were left that didn't mistake my brown eyes as always having been a deeper shade of red. Or isolation the excuse for my pallor.
[It was not mercy. It was not love.
It was misfortune.]
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Decadent horrors beyond imagination (and no wonder, Fenris thinks faintly, Vakares insists on such tempered morality within his halls). Betrayal (was he scared? hurt? How did his sire lure him in, and someday Fenris will ask him). The nauseating grief of death and the terror of being surrounded by a bloodthirsty population that wouldn't hesitate to rip you apart no matter that you were nothing like your sire. The loneliness that must have come from being a vampire all on your own, a lord in name only and yet so, so young . . .
Vakares wasn't wrong: it does make him restless. It makes his fangs ache in phantom longing, desperate to bite down on soft flesh and tear out an unworthy throat. In Vakares' sire, yes, but in all of them: the allies who schemed to ensure his ruin, and all the false friends who accepted him only because they thought him mortal. And there's nothing to be done about it, no bloody heart to offer up to his amatus, no comfort to be had . . .
It's over and done with. Long since past. And yet there is helpless rage in Fenris' eyes as he glares at nothing, his fingers curling and uncurling before he presses them so gently against Vakares' chest. There's nothing to be done, it's true, but . . . there is acknowledgement, at least. Belated grief hopefully appreciated for what it is: a mourning of a fate Vakares should never have suffered.]
It must have been lonely.
[He draws his head back, catching Vakares' gaze with a softened expression. A palm to his cheek drifting up to stroke gently through dark hair, over and over.]
How long before you had a companion . . .?
[A spawn. A coven, adopting him by proxy. Anything, but gods, he cannot imagine being a vampire alone.]
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And fortunately for them, they have those hours.]
Long enough that at one point I had to pretend to be my own son to avoid arousing suspicion. [A wry slip of flashed fangs, subdued. Promising the bare minimum when he can still feel those prickling fingertips settled tersely across his chest: it wasn't all bad.
(And I wasn't always clever:)]
I took a smarter approach after that, thank Kelevmor for belated common sense [No matter how delayed.] and simply pretended to have acquired a cursebound relic that prevented me from aging.
[To explain further:] Human lifespans are incidental. By the time the elder remnants had passed on— devoid of intervention, I should add [He did not adopt the habits of his once-sire, if the question ever came to Fenris' mind.] I was accepted in my role as just one more avid collector whose fondness for rarity ensured a bizarre future. One in which I served Baldur's Gate as its more passive steward, only intervening as necessary.
[In other words:] It worked out.
But it took centuries before I dared to try and accept what I had become [And he does mean in all its imperious-yet-faceted forms: existing as a vampire and a mundane human equally; persisting without a coven in a city that held the same scars as Vakares, and a great deal more inflammable resentment.] and I had no one to tell me how to embrace it. To alleviate it when it hurt, or to navigate meeting any of our kin, or even a voice to prepare me for what came next. I had no sire to hate for his attempt on my life, or to love for what he might have offered. [And it would have been both, perhaps, but there's only numbness in the yawning little divot where torn scars nest across his throat.]
Forgive an old man for wanting better for you.
[It comes mildly, that final addition. Isolated fondness on his lips already having bent into a sobered excuse for a smile, and coupled with the scuffing of his knuckles between high shoulders. Not some wresting yank from a leash at a distance, asserting that his (un)life was universal in its rigid make and its lessons absolute, just—
Aware, maybe. Aware of how resolved Fenris is in all things, too content to try and swallow the world like a bitter pill rather than reach out for help (aware of Astarion and his fear, and how he nurses it first without soothing), and if it's true they do not trust their own covenmates with even the roughest map of their own pasts, then light knows it will be painful once he's gone. As resilient as fractured glass, and equally braced against impending pressure.
So forgive him for one more slight. One more ugly request from a master that won't take no as a response.
(For all his sleepless poring across parchment, he's never been able to divine if the ends will ever justify the means.)]
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You are a better man than you ever give yourself credit for, you know.
[It isn't an idle compliment, for Fenris doesn't do those.]
Most would have long since fallen into despair or debauchery after enduring such grief. Most have, [he adds wryly.] But not you. Never you. I know you fear sometimes it is not enough, but . . . you a good man, amatus. Do not forget that as you rest.
[And though his heart still aches, he is heartened by the look in Vakares' eyes. It wasn't all bad, no, he imagines not. Perhaps it was not ideal, but what is? And there is little use in mourning the past. Instead: better to be grateful for what they all have now.
But it does help to better understand why Vakares is so intent on joining he and Astarion. It isn't just a sire weary of his two beloved favorites fighting; it's a quiet hope that they neither of them will ever have to be so lonely. And it's not that he couldn't handle loneliness, of course, but . . .
Perhaps he shouldn't have to.
And maybe that shows on his expression, for in the next moment Vakares adds that. Fenris' eyes flick up, his expression a mixture of startled and rueful.]
I will try. I can promise you that. I do not have many hopes for it succeeding, but . . . I will truly try with him. And someday, perhaps, I will tell him of my past.
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[It isn't the end, of course. He spends an indulgent few hours with his secondsired, their conversation drifting from topic to topic. It's a bittersweet thing, but perhaps that's inevitable— and if so, at least it's more sweet than bitter. And when Fenris finally falls into a drowsy slumber, Vakares leaves him with a kiss to his forehead and a quiet promise: I will see you before it all begins.
Then, dressing in a simple shirt and trousers, he heads out to find his firstsired.
It isn't so hard to track him down, truthfully. He checks the party first, thinking perhaps Astarion tried to alleviate his grief through tearing into others, but no. Nothing but revelry and partygoers (and of course a few flock to him, and it's an awkward few minutes before he can excuse himself and resume his search). From there into the west hall— and ah, it doesn't take long to pick up the trail his furious spawn left. More than a few paintings now sport vicious clawmarks (and yet even now his Astarion is mindful, for the only paintings he truly destroyed were ones Vakares has never liked). Antique chairs are overturned; a stained-glass lamp lies in pretty pieces on the floor. On and on, hallway after hallway, until at last he comes across a door ajar. Four scratches are scored deep into the oak . . . ah.
Gently, he pushes the door open.]
Astarion . . .?
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It buns in him. It seethes inside his gut, that anger.
(But it'd hurt worse if he never showed.)
His sire loves literature. Even in old, forgotten stretches of his estate, books still line the walls, waiting beneath blanketed dust to be used again. Made whole. So it's deliberate, the way Astarion's sagging grip lifts to drag one encyclopedic volume from its bed just to crack the ancient binding and plunge his talons into its puncturable heart— the sound of paper shredding loud in that small space.]
You smell like him.
[They both do, actually. His clothes still half-drawn loosely about his frame, wearing the memory of crude entanglement.
Maybe that's why he says it, then. Punctuation for how intensity is misaligned to lifeless senses: one of them smells a little more like stale air and weathered dust; the other frozen in time, by all accounts. As if he might've spent the last who-knows-how-long still nestled in that bed. That body.]
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It's worth it.
But gods, it does hurt. Not the loss of the book, but the pain in Astarion's voice as he says that . . . oh, fierce thing. Wounded thing, and though he closes the door behind him, he takes only a few steps forward. Not knowing if Astarion wants to be held or left alone; half-certain that Astarion himself isn't sure either.]
We both do.
[There. Not so do you, alienating and argumentative, but rather a joining thing. His palms are open, his posture relaxed: I am not here to fight you, and he will communicate it every which way he can.
Silence for a precious few seconds. Then, gently:]
Tell me.
[All the thoughts running through Astarion's mind, the seething rage and all the grief and hurt beneath it . . . tell me, so that he might expel it from his system. So that Vakares in turn might weather those words, and ensure that they do not slip out at some inopportune moment far later down the line. And so that he might assure his beloved Astarion, soothing pride so easily stung, mending a wound that had never been intended.]
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A reverberating little thump landing as its gutted carcass collapses over tattered parchment, scattering into dismal thwips from so much jostling before sinking into silence.
And Astarion isn't any different, when the dust settles.
(Vexing. Frustrating. He's so angry. So hurt. He can feel it under his skin, seething like blackened bile in his throat— so why won't anything come?) Standing there like a slack-jawed fool: Astarion, the beguiling— who could talk the jewels off a baron's knuckles. Astarion, charmer of men; as if the words tell me are the most indiscrutible ones ever known.
Still hunched into himself.
Still angled towards Vakares, despite everything.]
What's there to tell?
[There. That's it. Start somewhere. Spread your arms, flex your claws; posture like this isn't the end of everything you'd wanted (it's not. It's not, it's not— but he can't see that anymore, blind past the tip of his nose).]
Everything's already decided. What I say won't make a damned bit of difference now....
[Ensuing pause thick against the back of his teeth, facetious in tone, and sharp as pricking claws, but—
Maybe he wants to hear it, to be sure.]
....will it?
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[Understand: there's no disappointment in the way Vakares answers, just swiftness. He doesn't seek to put down, but nor will he allow any scrap of hope to thrive. If Astarion thinks there's a crack in Vakares' defense, oh, he won't hesitate to grope for it, using every trick he has to try and chase after what he wants. It's an admirable trait sometimes; amusingly vexing in others. And gods know Vakares indulges it from time to time . . .
(That's enough work for now, and Astarion's eyes were so bright as he'd draped himself over Vakares' desk, knocking away ink and paper with ease. Still such a young thing in those first few centuries, caught between bouts of intense insecurity and giddy indulgence; such a doting thing, urging his sire into playful rule-breaking and drawing him away from duty. Come here, try this wine with me, and back then, Vakares had so desperately needed it. His life had been nothing but quiet days and long nights, and it wasn't that he regretted it, but . . . gods, he hadn't realized how reserved he had become until Astarion was in his life. Clever little minx. Coy little temptation, his sweetest consort who would take him by the hand and urge him into indulgence, what's the point of living forever if you never live at all? Taking him to the theater, to dances, to parties— let me show you, let me be with you, and always, always there was that moment of truth. When Astarion would ask and Vakares would answer, and if there was the slightest hint of hesitance—)
But that was then.
This is now.
Now he cannot indulge that flare of hope.
But he can soothe it.]
But you know better than anyone that what you say to me makes every difference in the world.
[It's gentle. He takes another step forward, ignoring all the signs that scream to keep away in favor of closing the distance between them. And maybe it was a good thing that Fenris brought up the past, for now his mind is attuned to it— and that helps. It helps to remember that he has never done this before; that he is acting only out of instinct and shrewd insight— and that even a creature centuries old makes mistakes sometimes.]
. . . I should have told you alone.
[So maybe it's better to start there. Not a plea for forgiveness, exactly, but a quiet, rueful acknowledgement: I should have done this differently.]
And I will not say I did not consider that you would not like it, but . . . I did not realize just how badly it would hurt you.
[And he is their sire. And it doesn't matter what your spawn or your consorts feel, for when you're lord of a coven, it's your will that matters above all else.
Oh, it's never an easy thing to chart a different course, is it . . .?]
You feel as though I am abandoning you.
[It's a guess.]
And that I am joining you with him in a vague attempt to alleviate that loneliness.
[Tell him he's right. Tell him he's wrong. Tell me, little gemstone so loved, oh, Astarion, Astarion, and Vakares' heart aches to see him there. So desperately wounded and trying so hard not to show it, and it takes everything not to gather him up and tug him close. I'll call it off, I'll make it right, and he won't, but gods, it's tempting.]
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And the thing is, Astarion knows he means it. That it isn't a lie when it comes slipped between sips of wine or roaming fingertips. The fact that he resents it for existing in the first place doesn't— much to his own eternal frustration— change its underlying nature in any applicable respect (so many years at one another's side breeds questionless certainty like bedrock, settled at the root of their association, concrete and entirely unshakable: if his master insults or incenses him, it's never been malicious— just knowing).
Power has its limits. So does love. So does eternal life. (So does the slouch in Astarion's shoulders. The scathing ire in his stare, fading at its seams against the cut of stubbornness laid bare.)
No, Vakares says. But what comes after it isn't a lie, either. Even if it feels like petty platitude to wounded pride. Even if— ]
Aren't you?
[Tenterhooks, that's the word for it. Weight shifting to the balls of his feet, posture pulling forwards in its tilt while the venom drains (slowly) from his tone. Closer to that ruined sitting area than the wall and its prized tomes— closer to opening his mouth, judging by the slight cinch in his jaw. Honest questions. Honest response.
(There won't be any heartfelt breaths defining the subtle shape of forgiveness, but a peaceable truce? Acceptance?
Ah, maybe that.)]
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[Said so gently to be sure it doesn't come out as a rebuke. And he wants so badly to reach out in that moment, you know. His palm to Astarion's cheek, a cherishing touch (and how he used to nuzzle so freely against it, all but purring in his contentment— but ah, don't fall into that nostalgic trap, not now, or you'll never go to your rest).]
He needs you.
[It's simple. More importantly, though, it isn't a lie.]
He is such a young thing, Astarion. He know nothing of politics, or how to maneuver through the ebbs and flows of nobility. He takes the bluntest approach possible, and it will not be long before that backfires on him. He does not know how to flatter without falsely promising things, or insult without being direct . . . and he does not know how to hide what he is.
[He never has.]
And if he fled these halls, it would not be a year before he was killed, either by some rival coven or a mob who decided they did not want a vampire in their midst.
[But that isn't the only thing he can offer. Vakares pauses for a few seconds, gathering his thoughts, before continuing:]
And I fret for your solitude. I will not deny that. I ache for what is to come for you, and I do not relish leaving you. Many times . . . [No, don't go down that path.] I would see you two bond, yes. I would be happy to wake and find you two companions instead of rivals, I will not deny that. You have far more in common than either of you realize.
But I do not do it in a paltry effort to combat the ache that will come when we are parted. I do not think that he will serve as substitute for me— and I do not expect you to give him anything save your guidance and your protection.
[He exhales slowly, allowing that to sit in the air for a long few seconds. Then, his voice a little more raw, he adds:]
You know I have no gift for poetry. I do not pretend to be as deft with words as you. And so I cannot tell you just how much I ache to think of leaving you— nor how badly I will miss you, and dream of you with each passing year.
[Gods, will he ever. So much it aches. So much that he has put this off over and over, just one more year, for even when all the world was exhausting and dark, Astarion shone like starlight, bright and beautiful and perfect.]
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[He cuts in roughly, the word strangling him.
His eyes are wet. They burn— and isn't that ironic? A vampire, weeping. Everything tense. Flared again. Hurt again. The truth of it all being that this is as much about loss and replacement between them, maybe more so than Fenris— maybe not— it's too knotted, too possessed of cluttered thorns; every time Astarion might begin untangling it it bites down on his fingers, and he makes the smarter choice to leave it be.
(Leave him be.)
Another book in his hands— a fitful mess slamming against the walls of his chest, wracking him with the urge to vomit, to run, to wail and tantrum like a child unloved— and he doesn't tear it. Claws sunken in its cover, holding it so tight that he trembles, unable to do— ]
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Anything at all.]
....Young thing. Loved thing. [His muttering hoarse with the hallmarks of defeat; no closer to biting than he is to ripping that book, instead of clutching at it like a lifeline.] Talking about how you don't want to go, but you'll leave me— and add to it the shame of ceremony.
[They'll be a joke, his wedded whores. And that's aside from the fact that once Vakares sleeps, he'll be a joke, anyway— at least to all the vengeful wretches out there with wagging tongues and a tiredness for being kept in line.
And the air is thick.
And they're both so tired.
And this room....this old, forgotten relic looks nothing like it did centuries ago. Barely recognizable, rotting in the dark.]
It was supposed to be me.
[Red-rimmed eyes sliding higher, echoing the shade of his changed pupils. Red, like every vampire. Broken, like every vampire.
(Unlike Vakares, he's always been able to admit that about them.)]
At least then I could console myself with power, once you were off dreaming of the next wounded creature you'll turn after you've forgotten us both. [Unfair, Astarion. It's unfair, and he knows it— he never could stop himself from trying to share his pain.] Now what? Babysit him while the whole world laughs because 'he needs me.' [He needs you. What about me— ]
—I need you.
But you couldn't even give me the decency of my dignity as you walk out the door.
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But he had. And he did. And he'd assumed . . . oh, he'd assumed them smaller things. It was no act of deliberate cruelty to ignore them, and of course he'd been aware of the rivalry, but . . .
And the sentence trails, even in his own mind. But, and any excuse is a paltry one. But we had long since agreed to see others if we wished. But I thought you would grow used to him, once you realized your place in my heart could never be budged. But I did not realize how badly this would hurt you, and it's too late to take it back. Even if he could, he wouldn't. This is the right way forward, he knows it is.
I need you, and some part of Vakares' heart shatters quietly. Another year, it whispers, just as it always has. One more year, just for him— doesn't he deserve at least that? All this pain you have caused him, all this grief and hurt— wouldn't it be better to stave off your sleep for another few years and soothe him?
But he can't, and there's a thousand reasons for that. And he has to trust that Astarion will see them, even if it isn't right now. Even if he does not earn his darling first-sired's forgiveness before his rest.]
No, you don't.
[It's soft, achingly so— and before Astarion can misunderstand, there Vakares is, two hands gripping his spawn's arms with firm tenderness. Look at me, stay with me, his thumbs stroking gently as he tips his head forward.]
You want me. So fiercely and hungrily that it takes everything in me not to stay with you, even now— look at me, Astarion, [for there is nothing masked about his expression now. In place of his usual serenity is longing and grief, gnawing at him as it has for months now.]
But you haven't needed me for centuries. You are more than capable of leading your own coven; you are far more than capable of leading this one.
[A hesitation, and then:]
I used to fear that you would leave, you know. For centuries, I was certain you would. Sooner or later, you would chafe beneath my reign and leave me, and I prepared myself for that. I would not impede you, I thought. I would help you as much as I could, but I would hide my aching heart. And then, when that did not happen, I thought even then that such preparations could make me ready for this separation.
[He feels so clumsy with his words. He is a good orator when it comes to political matters, or even day-to-day things, but ah, emotions are far trickier. And yet there's no time to refine this, and so it all comes tumbling out, impulsive and as emotional as he ever is.]
It should have been you, yes— but Astarion, it is. I do not give this position to you on a whim, solely on the basis that you were my first. I give it to you because I know you are capable of leading it&dmash;
And I join him to you because he can help you.
Let them laugh. Let them sneer if they will. [Oh, he has endured it. Vakares the chaste, Vakares the pure, sneers pulling at pretty features as they'd joked both behind his back and to his face. What a field day they'd had when he'd made Astarion his consort, though he'd tried his best to shield him from it— and that's to say nothing of when he took a second one . . .
Vakares' gaze hardens.]
And then shut them up.
[Oh, how intensely he says it, his gaze hard and his words fierce.]
Prove to them that the two of you combined are far more powerful than those lazy, indulgent vampires and their sycophantic allies. Show them that you are nothing to be mocked, and show them why— for you two alone have every resource available to you. Lyrium and teeth, clever political maneuvers and minds so intelligent that they routinely surpass the vampire who sired them . . . prove to them that you are every bit as shrewd and powerful as I know you to be, and they will have no choice but to change their laughter into words of awe.
I did not do this to humiliate you, my Astarion. And I promise you that their whispers will turn to awe soon enough. It is no easy thing, to be the heir of a vampire who has never been typical . . . but I promise I did not set you up to fail.
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Oh, there he is.
There he is at long last, his sire. Possessed of conviction like none other, limitlessly devoted to the path of his own perserverance— and understand, though Astarion always thrills to feel the essence of command wash over him, this isn't strictly about power: there's so much more to it than that (reducing such a complex balance down to the shiver that occasionally runs up his spine when Vakares goes utterly adamantine would be like calling a garnet an apple just because it's red). In moments like these, he's lucent, his darling. Without daylight. Without moonlight. So steeped in his own indelibility that even a cold cynic like Astarion finds himself hanging on every word. And under the brightness of an ember stare undaunted, suddenly it's not a joke anymore—not a cruel insult spat out at Astarion's feet— but a challenge. one more task set before a firstsired capable enough to leave if he so desired it.
And isn't that the underlying message for a mind as infinitely fixated as Astarion's? You could leave, Fenris could never— ]
I could leave. [Astarion reiterates softly. Breath still in his throat, book already on the floor, entirely unharmed aside from those small, clinging little puncture marks pushed in against its cover— pouring himself deeper into Vakares' touch. Wending against his chest like a thing called home at dusk. Nuzzling at everything in reach.]
Probably should, in fact. Your empire always was a sinking ship.
[(No, he couldn't leave. He won't leave; written in the fault lines of this exchange from the trail of pettier destruction strewn about to the way he draws in close. Someone inclined to run would've just run.
Particularly now, at the end of all sheltered surety.)]
....but then I can't trust my younger counterpart to leave you anything to wake up to, can I?
[Those talons alight with gentleness when they move to catch his chin, wild and yet— not. The tensity of a creature only tame by its own volition, deigning to tolerate the mercy of close comfort.
I want you, yes.]
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There you are. He returns each fierce nuzzle with one of his own: kissing the top of Astarion's head again and again, nosing against silver curls as he soaks up every bit of him. Here you are, his darling. His beloved firstsired. His consort, his Astarion, so loved and so longed for, here you are.
And when clawed fingers catch his chin, he draws back, willingly going where Astarion leads: his concession. A concession, too: he does not correct that teasing little comment. Let Astarion have his biting remarks; Vakares has never demanded complete obedience from either of them.]
And with you leading the way . . . what will I wake to find my empire has become, I wonder.
[He really is quite curious. Every coven is different, just as every vampire is; whatever is to come, their coven will change. Astarion and Fenris will have their own preferences and ways of doing things— and Vakares is eager to see how they flourish when offered that kind of power.
More sincerely, then:]
You could leave, Astarion. You could have for centuries now.
But I am more glad than I can say that you won't.
[Oh, his darling. His precious consort, his little gemstone so very loved . . . gently, he leads Astarion towards one of those overstuffed armchairs. Come here, tugging him into his lap as he has a thousand times before. Come here, precious thing, and he can still remember the very first time he did it. All those years ago, back when it had just been the two of them . . . he does not rue the present, but he does miss the past sometimes.]
Now tell me, my little gem: shall I still step into the sun?
[It's not a rebuke. It really isn't. Rather: it's a gentle nudge, trying to gauge his consort's mood. Are you still angry, are you still upset, and it's all right if he is. It's all right if they work it out in one last rut (for they have done that before, Astarion viciously biting as he fucks him until his anger ebbs) or if Astarion wants to lay out his grievances one by one . . . but he does not want to let such things lie until he's certain they're through with it.]
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On those roaming fingers— so mild that it doesn't even begin to break skin, let alone bruise it. Astarion's viperish hastisement so contextually gentle that it lacks teeth of its own beyond the pointed edges of harsh fangs; yes, he's fussy still. Oh yes, he's resentful of necessity, and bitter about what he'll lose in the process of attending it— but even so.]
Don't you dare.
[Wretched sire so cherished beyond measure, how dare he make him consider the possibility of something so unthinkable (never mind that it was Astarion who'd brought it up to begin with); how dare you, precious thing. Outline of my heart. Mooring cage I'll never flee. How dare he even bring that up now, when everything tangible is wading through the gaps of lax entanglement, nested softly under the press of clothed thighs and shifted ankles: chest-to-chest in ways both awkwardly undignified and artistically bewitching— unafraid of how they might look to the outside world. Lax like animals in repose are almost boneless, an arm draped here or a leg there, faces close enough together that false breath pools.]
I ought to bite your pretty tongue out for that glibness.
Keep it as a souvenir. [A kiss as sharp as spiced wine finding its way to the supple center of those lips. He's always been more inclined to physicality than soothing chatter when it comes to all sincerity; keeping hold of Vakares' jaw to press it upright in his grip, tilting only so far as it takes to work a warming little path of bitemarks and bruises down the frontside of that unattended throat. Incandescent seconds involving the satisfying give of vulnerable skin caught between parted lips (and fangs, and the roiling tip of his tongue) passing as if they were weighted minutes.
Oh, never doubt Astarion loves his sire. But despite the hierarchy instilled in their kind by default, he isn't slavishly servile in regards to his maker (there is such merit to being firstsired; the boldness rooted in intimacy that'd once been only theirs decades ago, understood by no one else): while the world bows its head in varied deference— and Astarion does the same— behind closed doors, he can reach with despotic fingertips to grip his master by the reins, knowing that's his right. His luxury.
One that truly can't be shared, given the nature of its origin.]
What did he say to you?
[Asked in a lowered rumble as he climbs to straddle his beloved. Agile spine stretched long (his shirt still open, his legs almost painfully splayed to push snugly against his master's hips across that aging settee), his hand still holding fast.]
Knowing him, Fenris wasn't exactly clamoring for sex after news like that.
[Ergo: they must've talked, those two. The scent is too strong not to have been a recent exchange, though it doesn't reek of rutting. And you know, in Astarion's hawkish estimations, they did always seem the type for quiescent conversation. Gentle reassurance in the face of adversity, and all that.]
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But that doesn't mean he treats them uniformly. That would be foolish; the relationship he has with both of them is unique, and so he cannot spoil them both with the same hand, as though there is no difference between them. And within those relationships, there are variances. Privileges afforded to each in turn based on their sired-order, and things that Vakares cannot deny. Fenris is the younger, and so he gets treated with a softer hand, and as for Astarion . . .
Astarion gets this kind of intimacy. This pointed dominance, this reversal of roles . . . oh, yes, this is his right. This is what centuries of intimacy has earned him, and after all this time, Vakares relishes it: the relief that comes from allowing someone else to take control. The joy of letting his eyes flutter closed as the air slowly expels from his lungs, his lips parting as Astarion bites at his throat. Impudent thing, he thinks, and slides his hands around lithe hips, both palms gripping full cheeks and tugging them forward.]
Nosy.
[As gentle as those bites. He'll let Astarion have his way, oh, yes, for that is the least of what he owes him, but he needn't be passive about it. His fingers grope at supple curves, blunted talons digging in as he pulls the other vampire forward, rut, guiding him along a grinding lapdance.]
We spoke of the past. Of my turning, and of yours— though when it came to you, I advised him only to ask of your past.
[No secrets revealed, no details offered. He is not callous.]
He wanted to understand why I made the decision I did— and why I had not simply made you heir instead.
So curious about him, after all this . . .?
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iliad XXX: the return to iliadening
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iliad 34534676 forever and ever
ILIAD III: RETURN OF THE KING
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