Like he didn't just pride himself for years now on toying with the lives of his servants, his tutors, his friends— if one could even call them that. Before tonight, he could practically see the puppet strings tied tight around each and every last one his fingers, prompting everyone and everything beneath him to dance. That was the joy of it. The only thing he had aside from pretty clothes. Expensive faff.
Now, they read as something else. So brittle he worries they could snap from even the slightest movement, and his fingertips twitch against a febrile scalp to that same end (feathersoft ribbons of hair knifing at his circulation, digging deeper into his skin), every part of him trying to keep still.
He does trust him. Against everything that screams, he does. But every scuff is incendiary. Subtle waves of coiling breath kiss the edges of his aching lips in ways he wishes their origination would. Centimeters feel like lifetimes. Hot air, hot need, hotter pinpricks of sensation threatening the outline of his vision every time he blinks. Wanting like a blaze. Needing like a yawning pit.
It'll be morning soon.
Not the stroke of midnight, but daylight erasing what this is, when— if he doesn't want to lose whatever they've found (and he doesn't, trust that he doesn't despite all his restless fidgeting)— they have to crawl back into the narrowness of their roles. A noble that doesn't know the smell of sandalwood or sword oil. A guard that keeps his distance with stiffened, cold indifference. For a while they'll go back to being nothing but museums of themselves. Shut doors letting nothing inside escape.
And for a while (no matter how awful that night is, their backs angled towards each other by the end. Frustrated in a way that isn't angry), it works.
For a while, anyway.
'What's his type?' Aurelia asks in that clear-cut way of hers. Two drinks in and already watching Fenris from the corner of her vision.
'As if Astarion would know.' Answers Leon before the high elf can open his mouth, ending with the most narrowed expression imaginable.
'Maybe he doesn't have one.'
Petras, of course. At last.
(At this rate, Astarion's never going to have a chance to actually answer the damned question— which is par for the course for nights like these, actually.) Drink in hand and the party around them mutedly stirring into a later rhythm than the one that came before sunset; respectable enough in theory that even dear Lord Ancunín, pleased to have peace for a scarce few weeks, didn't bother to object to.
'Of course he does. Everyone does.' Violet. Stubborn as ever, and trying to size up the topic of conversation from a distance, as is her usual wont.
'Not everyone.'
Dal.
Who brings a flicker of a smirk to Astarion's lips for that, if only because it's the first time in a good long while she's been wrong.
Fenris does have a type. And it's sitting, for all Astarion's bold, impulsive certainty, right at the heart of this discussion.]
He's going to hear you thirsting from a mile away, if you keep this up. And then none of you will know his type.
['Bullshit.' Snaps Petras around the edge of his drink— following it up with a long pull from a cigarette that (in theory) makes him look older than he is. If he didn't suck on it like a bottle, maybe it actually would.
The smoke from it trailing when he adds with one low cough, 'Bet he loves it when it's forwards.'
That Astarion kicks his chair after that is just coincidence.]
no subject
Funny, that.
Like he didn't just pride himself for years now on toying with the lives of his servants, his tutors, his friends— if one could even call them that. Before tonight, he could practically see the puppet strings tied tight around each and every last one his fingers, prompting everyone and everything beneath him to dance. That was the joy of it. The only thing he had aside from pretty clothes. Expensive faff.
Now, they read as something else. So brittle he worries they could snap from even the slightest movement, and his fingertips twitch against a febrile scalp to that same end (feathersoft ribbons of hair knifing at his circulation, digging deeper into his skin), every part of him trying to keep still.
He does trust him. Against everything that screams, he does. But every scuff is incendiary. Subtle waves of coiling breath kiss the edges of his aching lips in ways he wishes their origination would. Centimeters feel like lifetimes. Hot air, hot need, hotter pinpricks of sensation threatening the outline of his vision every time he blinks. Wanting like a blaze. Needing like a yawning pit.
It'll be morning soon.
Not the stroke of midnight, but daylight erasing what this is, when— if he doesn't want to lose whatever they've found (and he doesn't, trust that he doesn't despite all his restless fidgeting)— they have to crawl back into the narrowness of their roles. A noble that doesn't know the smell of sandalwood or sword oil. A guard that keeps his distance with stiffened, cold indifference. For a while they'll go back to being nothing but museums of themselves. Shut doors letting nothing inside escape.
And for a while (no matter how awful that night is, their backs angled towards each other by the end. Frustrated in a way that isn't angry), it works.
For a while, anyway.
'What's his type?' Aurelia asks in that clear-cut way of hers. Two drinks in and already watching Fenris from the corner of her vision.
'As if Astarion would know.' Answers Leon before the high elf can open his mouth, ending with the most narrowed expression imaginable.
'Maybe he doesn't have one.'
Petras, of course. At last.
(At this rate, Astarion's never going to have a chance to actually answer the damned question— which is par for the course for nights like these, actually.) Drink in hand and the party around them mutedly stirring into a later rhythm than the one that came before sunset; respectable enough in theory that even dear Lord Ancunín, pleased to have peace for a scarce few weeks, didn't bother to object to.
'Of course he does. Everyone does.' Violet. Stubborn as ever, and trying to size up the topic of conversation from a distance, as is her usual wont.
'Not everyone.'
Dal.
Who brings a flicker of a smirk to Astarion's lips for that, if only because it's the first time in a good long while she's been wrong.
Fenris does have a type. And it's sitting, for all Astarion's bold, impulsive certainty, right at the heart of this discussion.]
He's going to hear you thirsting from a mile away, if you keep this up. And then none of you will know his type.
['Bullshit.' Snaps Petras around the edge of his drink— following it up with a long pull from a cigarette that (in theory) makes him look older than he is. If he didn't suck on it like a bottle, maybe it actually would.
The smoke from it trailing when he adds with one low cough, 'Bet he loves it when it's forwards.'
That Astarion kicks his chair after that is just coincidence.]