[Thumb pushed across the middle of its opposing palm, bearing down until it aches; subconscious grounding him the only way his mind knows how to keep itself level without reacting first and thinking later— when it's all so far over his head. (When that roaming touch does what countless chastisements never could.
It shuts him up.)
Yet all the while his own mind runs ragged in sluggish desperation, swearing Fenris is wrong. That the offer counts as freedom just because he'd never use it, twisting in the vice of all obvious logic to devour its own tail. Because there's no point in lofty optimism, after all anyway, is there? Slavery or not, neither beggars nor princes can be choosers, no matter what fables so often insist. Not even a patriar can make demands without paying his own fees, so at the end of every fetid, locked-in day, does anyone get true freedom?
Astarion won't.
No, he certainly damn well won't, not in fifty years or a hundred. He'll be here. The loyal son, as he was named; unruly and unhappy, but still here. And on the heels of the kindest day in decades, sitting beside someone who talks to him, looks at him— sees him—
He isn't strong enough to make a promise he doesn't want. One that ends with him alone again.
His arms pull back from where they sit across his knees, fit in close before he lifts his chin again. Uncertainty more pervasive than the darkness curled around them, and for the first time in a long, long while— without the distraction of drink or stupidity or pointless laughter— he feels it. He hates it. Sullen shame the only thing he wears when he sighs and looks away, that strand of hair sliding back into stubborn disarray for the sunken tilting of his head.]
You will last that long.
[The words leave his teeth in shallow rhythms.]
I'll protect you. Help you. Teach you everything I know about this hierarchical mess you've gotten yourself stuck in, so that even my family can't try to displace you. [The law's Astarion's forte; he has an eye for it, even when he despises it on stubborn principle alone.]
We can....figure out whatever comes after that once we get there. [Even if he can't admit it— can't bring himself to say I'll free you— something in his pendulous heart still swings the other way right through his grasping fingertips. Lurching though it hurts. Twisting a glance over his shoulder cut from slow sincerity, slung dark beneath pale eyes.]
....together.
[Is that enough the question scrawled in his expression.
(The phone beside them starts rattling again. It doesn't feel important anymore; it's only Fenris that he's watching.)]
no subject
It shuts him up.)
Yet all the while his own mind runs ragged in sluggish desperation, swearing Fenris is wrong. That the offer counts as freedom just because he'd never use it, twisting in the vice of all obvious logic to devour its own tail. Because there's no point in lofty optimism, after all anyway, is there? Slavery or not, neither beggars nor princes can be choosers, no matter what fables so often insist. Not even a patriar can make demands without paying his own fees, so at the end of every fetid, locked-in day, does anyone get true freedom?
Astarion won't.
No, he certainly damn well won't, not in fifty years or a hundred. He'll be here. The loyal son, as he was named; unruly and unhappy, but still here. And on the heels of the kindest day in decades, sitting beside someone who talks to him, looks at him— sees him—
He isn't strong enough to make a promise he doesn't want. One that ends with him alone again.
His arms pull back from where they sit across his knees, fit in close before he lifts his chin again. Uncertainty more pervasive than the darkness curled around them, and for the first time in a long, long while— without the distraction of drink or stupidity or pointless laughter— he feels it. He hates it. Sullen shame the only thing he wears when he sighs and looks away, that strand of hair sliding back into stubborn disarray for the sunken tilting of his head.]
You will last that long.
[The words leave his teeth in shallow rhythms.]
I'll protect you. Help you. Teach you everything I know about this hierarchical mess you've gotten yourself stuck in, so that even my family can't try to displace you. [The law's Astarion's forte; he has an eye for it, even when he despises it on stubborn principle alone.]
We can....figure out whatever comes after that once we get there. [Even if he can't admit it— can't bring himself to say I'll free you— something in his pendulous heart still swings the other way right through his grasping fingertips. Lurching though it hurts. Twisting a glance over his shoulder cut from slow sincerity, slung dark beneath pale eyes.]
....together.
[Is that enough the question scrawled in his expression.
(The phone beside them starts rattling again. It doesn't feel important anymore; it's only Fenris that he's watching.)]