[Astarion's fingers are so warm as they stay clasped around him. His thumb presses gently into the small of his wrist, wedging between the fine bones to linger against his pulse. And it's an inane observation, especially in face of this conversation, but Fenris is so aware of them both in this moment. All the little places they're connected; all the little emotions that flicker over Astarion's face. The sudden strange energy that thrums between them, more honest and stark than any conversation they've had before.]
Your father may have had something else in mind, but that is what my job is. To keep you safe, and to keep you from trouble.
[And what his father meant was: trouble like going to filthy orgies and fucking every hired whore there, yes. Trouble like seducing an older lord who wants little more than a young, excitable thing between his sheets and doesn't care for what it would do to his conquest's reputation. Trouble like going to parties and ending the night swimming around in fountains filled with champagne, not caring for the cell phones that might film him or the gossip it will produce. Trouble like any young patriar might get into, yes—
But trouble, too, that might happen to him. And that, Fenris knows, his father didn't mean, for what wealthy person ever thinks such things will happen to them? But they do. Spiteful men in dark alleys, or a sudden mob that decides anyone might be free game . . . it happens. Fenris knows it does. Money's elusive protection only goes so far when the rest of the world realizes you're as mortal as anyone else. And if he was asked at knifepoint, surely Lord Ancunín would say that yes, Fenris is meant to protect Astarion from that, too.
But what he assuredly didn't mean— what no one surely meant, and yet which counts all the same in Fenris' mind— is trouble within. Trouble like tutors who don't know better than to put their errant students in their place. Trouble like twenty-four different hired hands who were either too stupid or too cruel to understand just how young seventy-five really is for an elf. Who saw a bright young thing too foolish to know just what he was doing as he spread his legs— and who decided that they wanted their own selfish indulgence more than exhibiting any kind of decency.
How many of them bragged about it? How many of them did it just to brag? I fucked a patriar, I fucked Lord Ancunín's son, his firstborn, and the joke will inevitably come: who hasn't? And maybe that will haunt him in years to come and maybe it won't, but such far-flung things aren't for Fenris to fret about.
The point is . . . the point, Fenris thinks, and stares down at soft eyes narrowed in confusion, is that he should not be the first person in Astarion's life to say this. But given he is . . .
He will not be negligent in his duties again.
And how to say all that? He doesn't know. He has no gift for words, not really, and any attempts would surely only result in scoffing anger or laughing insult. And so what he offers up in the end isn't an explanation.]
I will not let it happen again.
[And unlike the weeks prior, that isn't a threat. It isn't a line in the sand firmly drawn so that Astarion will sit down and be a good boy.
It's a promise. Soft and a little throaty, and yet so achingly sincere that it hurts.]
no subject
[Astarion's fingers are so warm as they stay clasped around him. His thumb presses gently into the small of his wrist, wedging between the fine bones to linger against his pulse. And it's an inane observation, especially in face of this conversation, but Fenris is so aware of them both in this moment. All the little places they're connected; all the little emotions that flicker over Astarion's face. The sudden strange energy that thrums between them, more honest and stark than any conversation they've had before.]
Your father may have had something else in mind, but that is what my job is. To keep you safe, and to keep you from trouble.
[And what his father meant was: trouble like going to filthy orgies and fucking every hired whore there, yes. Trouble like seducing an older lord who wants little more than a young, excitable thing between his sheets and doesn't care for what it would do to his conquest's reputation. Trouble like going to parties and ending the night swimming around in fountains filled with champagne, not caring for the cell phones that might film him or the gossip it will produce. Trouble like any young patriar might get into, yes—
But trouble, too, that might happen to him. And that, Fenris knows, his father didn't mean, for what wealthy person ever thinks such things will happen to them? But they do. Spiteful men in dark alleys, or a sudden mob that decides anyone might be free game . . . it happens. Fenris knows it does. Money's elusive protection only goes so far when the rest of the world realizes you're as mortal as anyone else. And if he was asked at knifepoint, surely Lord Ancunín would say that yes, Fenris is meant to protect Astarion from that, too.
But what he assuredly didn't mean— what no one surely meant, and yet which counts all the same in Fenris' mind— is trouble within. Trouble like tutors who don't know better than to put their errant students in their place. Trouble like twenty-four different hired hands who were either too stupid or too cruel to understand just how young seventy-five really is for an elf. Who saw a bright young thing too foolish to know just what he was doing as he spread his legs— and who decided that they wanted their own selfish indulgence more than exhibiting any kind of decency.
How many of them bragged about it? How many of them did it just to brag? I fucked a patriar, I fucked Lord Ancunín's son, his firstborn, and the joke will inevitably come: who hasn't? And maybe that will haunt him in years to come and maybe it won't, but such far-flung things aren't for Fenris to fret about.
The point is . . . the point, Fenris thinks, and stares down at soft eyes narrowed in confusion, is that he should not be the first person in Astarion's life to say this. But given he is . . .
He will not be negligent in his duties again.
And how to say all that? He doesn't know. He has no gift for words, not really, and any attempts would surely only result in scoffing anger or laughing insult. And so what he offers up in the end isn't an explanation.]
I will not let it happen again.
[And unlike the weeks prior, that isn't a threat. It isn't a line in the sand firmly drawn so that Astarion will sit down and be a good boy.
It's a promise. Soft and a little throaty, and yet so achingly sincere that it hurts.]