[It is, as far as Fenris understands the concept, like coming home.
Familiar. Routine. Safe, and what an ironic word to describe a den in which the most dangerous people gather to hone their deadliest abilities. But it is safe, at least for him. No one cares about him here. No one looks at him twice, not just because such a thing might be a foolish mistake, but because he is the least interesting thing right now. What is one lyrium-enhanced bodyguard, after all, in a sea of magitech upgrades? Everyone who roams these halls are the sort always looking for an extra edge. Blades embedded beneath one's fingernails, ready to spring out with the right command; artificial eyes that will scan and catalogue every person in the room. They pass a woman Fenris knows by sight who grins at him in recognition, revealing teeth artificially sharpened to resemble a shark's toothy countenance.
And in the middle of it all, one lone little patriar, pretty and delicate and decidedly out of place.
It would be a lie to say Fenris doesn't relish it. He does, just a little. Just enough to satisfy some petty part of his soul that still lingers in the hall of that manor, hearing the echoing laughter of Astarion's friends. But ah, no more of that: a truce goes both ways, after all. Soon enough they're led into a private arena, and all the outside distractions disappear.
Fenris exhales slowly. Tension sloughs off him in waves— and it's a remarkable difference, for only now does one realize just how rigidly he otherwise holds himself. Back always straight, his shoulders always thrown back (and yet his head always dipped, a quiet deference when in face of his betters). There's no more paranoid glancing around, no wary looks towards the windows or lingering upon his ward . . . for right now, the outside world doesn't exist. Astarion's father does not exist; those vicious little vipers that he calls friends certainly don't. There's no Danarius, no debt, no grief, no pain— there's nothing right now save his own self and his weaponry.
(And Astarion, now. A quiet addition, but not, Fenris is pleased to find, an unwelcome one thusfar.)
Fenris hasn't bothered picking out his own weapon yet, but that rather works out, doesn't it? Coming over, he gently bats at those fiddling hands, encouraging him to set the gun down without outright demanding it.]
Your first lesson: treat every gun as if it is loaded. It isn't, for I have not yet paid for ammunition, but still: ignoring that rule is how one inevitably loses an eye.
[It's actually Astarion's father who pays for this, not that Astarion needs the reminder. The itemized bill all goes to some accountant somewhere, who presumably inspects it to make sure Fenris isn't secretly spending the money on whores or alcohol or some such nonsense.]
But yes, this is where I come to practice. They have a range of simulations available— I can practice my marksmanship with any number of weapons, and if I need to face an opponent for hand-to-hand, they have simulations for that too.
[He taps a screen along the wall; a few moments later, a target appears ten yards away. It's a laughably close thing, but that's rather the point.]
Now. You could watch me practice, and I would not mind that. But if you wish to learn yourself . . . start with this.
[Another few taps. The handgun Astarion had been fiddling with disappears, replaced with a far more compact pistol. It's painted a rather bland shade of refrigerator-teal, and there's far too many sights for Fenris' preference, but so it goes when you use the weaponry the range supplies for you.]
Go on. Do well, and I will allow you ones that do elemental damage. Simply line yourself up here, [his foot tapping gently at the small square set before the target,] loosen yourself, and try your best to aim. If this is to be a lesson, it would be best to know your range before I begin teaching you.
[He's too busy curling his lip to notice the change in his bodyguard's demeanor: the way he hunches forwards over the angle of his hips, spine loose and arms roughly flexed in the sort of posing usually reserved for murals depicting fearsome unseelie warriors or feral battlemages— a kind of flexion bend to fingers that curl like they have claws. Relaxed in ways that don't translate between hierarchies or cultures or—
The air leaves Astarion's nose in a rush.
Agitated and huffy, clutching that diminutive piece against his palm in a mirror to whatever movies or faff the boy and his friends take to watching when they aren't out actively hunting for wealthy game (projections bore him, truth be told, but there were a scarce few involving merchant princes with gilded belt clips or mercenary leaders that picked their teeth with ruby daggers that always kept him from wandering off), and it's that same image he's still picturing in his head when he pushes past his tutor to level his given gun at the target barely ten yards away. Thumb stiff, grip pushed snug between his palms—
Grip pushed snug against his palm.
(Revised for its small size, and the fact that it's no worldshattering thing.)]
Easy.
[He purrs over his cocked shoulder. His wiry frame twisted at an angle opposite his neck. His head. Cream-colored suit coat catching light across thin beadwork in that dim excuse for light, where the course and its target are the only thing that shines.
If Fenris won't show him first, then he'll show Fenris instead.
—bang—
A pop. A scream of zipping movement from the barrel of his gun as it whips back, barely kept from catching his own cheek.
There's a mark on the target's conjured screen. It takes a moment to come fully into view, but still, it's there. A single, isolated, narrow little bullet mark punched into the lowest left corner.
Any further out, and it'd have gone right into dead air.]
No, truly: it is, Fenris thinks, struggling to bite back his grin. For an amateur who's likely never held a gun before, never mind fired one, hitting the target at all is fairly good. And though his arms had flown wildly from recoil, Astarion hadn't actually managed to injure himself or anyone else, nor indeed fall flat on his ass. Another solid point in his favor.]
It is a little harder than simply pointing and shooting.
[His grin is nowhere to be found, but there's no mistaking the faint note of amusement woven into his words. Fenris comes forward, one hand lightly gripping Astarion's shoulder to stop him from turning indignantly— or worse still, storming off in an embarrassed huff.]
You were not braced for recoil— and such things matter if you are to shoot with any kind of purpose. Now try again: and this time . . .
[Hm. He gently kicks at Astarion's ankles, one hand pressing against his lower back, urging him into shifting his weight and holding his stance just so. Hips twisting just a little, and thus his balance a little more centered: a powerful position, if not one he suspects his patriar is unused to.]
To begin with: position yourself like this. Not like an action hero who shoots with one hand and holds himself to the side, for in that way you will lose accuracy. Nor, indeed, facing wholly forward as you were. Your goal is to be balanced on all sides, so that way you do not stumble, nor sway as you take aim.
Now: raise the gun and grip it tightly.
[He settles behind him. There's an inch of space between them, and that's deliberate. He can demand good behavior out of Astarion all he wants, but it means nothing if he crosses the lines himself. So: an inch, a gap that he is so very aware of, as his hands slide over Astarion's own. Grip it tightly, his fingers pressing encouragingly atop Astarion's own.]
Aim. Look not just at the target, but the front of the gun. Ignore those two sights for now— focus instead on the very front of the barrel, for that is where your bullet will come out, and that is what you need to aim.
[The inch between them still remains, and that's important. As he leans forward and hovers over his student's shoulder in an attempt to guide his aim, his breath hot against his ear and his voice a low rumble, oh, that inch matters so very much.]
Up, now. Up until it's focused . . . good. Hold it there.
Now. Cock the hammer and fire.
[And if the recoil still hits— it shouldn't, but if it does— Fenris' arms will be there to absorb the shock.]
[He's awash in pressure before he knows it. Exhaling doesn't help expel the heat lodged deep inside the back of his throat or the hollow chambers of his stomach over nothing but sheer proximity alone: that tipping point where an inch is somehow better than sitting flush against each other, mind rattling more hoarsely than his breath while it imagines how tailored clothes might make his instructor's cock feel pushed tight against him— if he could map out every inch, or maybe— maybe just that subtle stiffness. The occasional pulse of a heartbeat that knows just how to travel, overwriting every thought of the tutors he used to have (one was tall. One was thin. One had sparse eyelashes and was starved enough for compliments to the point she'd come to them, whimpering as she bit into her lip. One he— one quit, today. A better one took his place).
Hells, it's hard to focus.
No— scratch that, he can't focus like this.
Everything in him's fiercely funneled towards the waypoints where they're barely touching, and not the way it usually would. The hand pushed against the middle of his spine is one thing, but it's their heels that are driving him crazy for reasons he can't untangle. Their soles. That noticeable dig of contact between toe and obscured arch. Fenris has left one foot pushed against the corner of Astarion's from where he'd forcibly nudged his legs apart, and there's something about that unintended intimacy that spools him into senselessness against everything he thought he knew about his appetites. Knowing he can't close his legs as long as that foot stays there (and not wanting to, he thinks faintly through the backfed notion of indulgence): the pit of his belly jolting, his cock twitching as it stirs—
No.
No, come on, Astarion.
(Don't be the whelp. Don't be the neophytic pup he thinks you are. Wake up. Catch him in your claws; make him feel the restless outpour of desire he won't slake if he tries to keep his hands off you.) A truce might be struck between them, and he'll keep fast to their agreement when it comes to sabotage or hostility, never forgetting the cool press of a rag to swollen skin— but Fenris could (will) only respect Astarion on his knees, his hair matted and soaked through, his skin glistening with drying salt, chest heaving from exhaustion (tongue and lips painted a searing shade of pearl each time he tries to pant or lick to suck in air). Half-hard, all spent, and still the mastery of his keeper demands he give up more.
Then, he'll see his patriar differently. Then, he'll look at the little lordling beside him with the kind of loyalty and hunger his father warrants.
—and aside from that?
Well, it's just a pleasant thought.
So it's not intentional that he isn't fully looking at the target through discussion he half-hears, or that his head tilts closer towards the lips hovering near a reddened ear (they're always a darker shade of pink; stark against a sea of curls), but he's not against it, either. Warm fingers squeezed down over metal, imagining something just as hard. Breathe deep. Ignore his palm. And—
—bang—
—bang bang bang—
Time goes fast. His fingerpads are swollen by the end of it from the texture of that grip, and the enchanted target's littered with puncture marks (some good, some....well....) that outline the spikes and pitfalls of their lessons, all better than what his day had been slated for otherwise, even at their lowest.]
[And even though his wrist feels numb and his shoulder aches, he fights to hold onto that tangled grip between them once the timer's sung its last.]
—wait.
[He grins, sweat strung faint along his temples. Head tipped back into the cushion of a taller shoulder, pushing his brow closer to that brightly tattooed neck, perfectly unaware of how long it's been since they both started.]
It's a roughened thing, collaring his overactive imagination and dragging it unwillingly back towards safer grounds. Once, twice, and it becomes a mantra as the minutes tick past, the word shuddering through him in time with the reverberating recoil from the gun. Don't, don't you dare——
Don't notice the way Astarion's legs stay spread at Fenris' insistence, his haughty little patriar obedient as anything one he has a disciplined hand at the back of his neck. Don't notice the way he smells (lilac and just a hint of sweat, the salt-sting of it a welcome addition to Fenris' mind). Don't linger on the way Astarion's lithe frame is so small between muscled arms, his hands so very soft beneath Fenris' own calloused palms. Don't think about how warm he is, nor the startled noise of excitement he makes each time his bullet hits the target.
(Don't think about how he sounded that night in the alley, his lips parted and his eyes dark as pitch, his hand rhythmically tugging at himself with obscene grace. Don't think about the firm press of his thigh caught between Fenris' own, hard pressure rubbing seductively against his cock and sending white-hot sparks roiling through his frame. Don't think about pale shoulders and delicate collarbones, long legs and lithe limbs in front of cold glass. Don't think about Astarion with his back snapped into a sharp arch and his thighs trembling wildly, biting at his own fingers to keep quiet as he stares up pleadingly at Fenris, more, I need more. And don't you dare think about the infuriating, intoxicating fantasy of being on his knees in the middle of a crowd, his lips wrapped around a thick, overheated cock as a cooing voice offers him praise. What a good boy you are, taking it so eagerly— this is what you wanted, isn't it? To be of use? Pretty little pet, turn around and show everyone here just how well you swallowed—)
Don't.
Focus on the lesson— and to be fair, he is. The fantasies might be flitting around the back of his mind, but that's only one part of it, for Fenris is enjoying this. Astarion is a decent student when he puts his mind to it, taking corrections well and eagerly fixing upon his past errors. He's no marksman and he won't be for a long while— but there is steady improvement. It's thrilling to see, and some part of Fenris swells with pride each time Astarion manages to absorb another lesson: loosen your arms, tighten your grip, like that, like that, his normally dour expression softening as the minutes pass.
It's too easy to grow comfortable that way.
He forgets the danger. As the minutes tick by and Astarion settles into his arms, he forgets that he is meant to be stiff and removed. Lonely heart that is, starved for companionship beneath all his fear, he enjoys this too much. He doesn't remember that his life rests upon a knife's edge; that to displease Lord Ancunín in any way means ruin. And he doesn't remember that the surest way to keep himself safe is to treat Astarion as coldly and as distantly as any of his other tutors.]
You have been at it for over an hour.
[His voice is too richly amused; the smile that tugs irresistibly at his lips might as well be a grin. And though he knows he ought to pull back, he doesn't just yet. Thirty seconds, nothing more; surely he can indulge in that.]
You are improving, though. Once this becomes more routine, then it will be a mere matter of muscle memory and speed.
[But oh . . . what is there to go home to? Sterility and a muted sense of dull boredom; standing at attention while servants tend to Astarion's every need. And it's only early afternoon . . .]
[There are other things worth being at for an hour.
Which is why it's funny, obviously. That's the literal joke— but Astarion's mind's as good as brinesoaked parchment right about now with exhaustion gnawing at his throat, and he's more focused on the thought that his tutor might've laughed for just a second. Or something like it, anyway.
Slack through his shoulders without thinking. Melting into Fenris' instead, it's not a ploy to say that the formalities are drawn aside along with dourness itself.]
With you?
[It's a drawl because he's weary, not because he's trying to be cute. That, at any rate, comes entirely on its own:]
I'd do a lot more than linger.
[Still, it makes the unsubtle glance he next casts Fenris' way feel more akin to wandering fingers against cloth— even though his own are holding that rough pistol (its oily grit under his fingerbeds; a hundred little cuts and grooves from communal use scraping whenever his grip shifts), shrugging down to hang loosely by their hips. Numbness crawls in afterwards. Uncomfortable and spiny and sharp where it stabs along the corners of his awareness.
He doesn't mind.
He also doesn't want to go home.]
We're all alone. Don't tell me you're not tempted.
[Is there something that tempts Fenris....? When he isn't drugged or worked up into a frenzy, that is. It's hard not to remember the sight of him huddled and resentful. Slickened from the inside out. Harder not to wonder if the reasoning for that was more acute than broad.
But Astarion isn't reaching. Isn't shifting. This isn't like the party, and it's no substitute for an apology (one he's never felt inclined to give, and might never, knowing him), but there's a kind of ancillary proof involved in proving where the boundaries lie.
That, or he just can't move his arms. Or his legs. Or his head.]
[And that's the trouble with letting down his guard.]
Would you, now . . .?
[It's a filler statement, murmured even as he silently scolds himself for his carelessness. Fasta vass— but what had he expected? The two of them tangled up so warmly, his body framing Astarion's own and his foot wedged so that he can't close his legs . . . of course the whelp was going to make another pass at him. Of course he was going to see what he might get, for pure seduction doesn't go against the terms of their agreement— and, Fenris thinks, the boy likely isn't thinking too far ahead. He does not imagine any consequences to this, not really. A slap on the wrist, and indeed, perhaps that's all Fenris would get—
But perhaps not.
But Astarion isn't moving. He isn't wiggling his hips or turning his head so he might slip that wicked tongue against a curling tendril of lyrium. He's asking, not demanding— and so while the danger is still ever-present, Fenris need not react like a virgin caught with his pants down.
No, he could say curtly. Or he could be more playful with it: yes, I'm tempted, and pretend he'd interpreted Astarion's statement as a question concerning more advanced weaponry. But the former is a lie and the latter feels stupid— and anyway, Fenris doesn't want to treat Astarion as his tutor did. Settle down, know your place, dismissive and patronizing in turn, no, that will not be his way.
Fenris draws back: not too far, but just enough that he can catch Astarion's eye.]
I will tell you that your attempts at flirtation are not going to work.
[But then, more honestly:]
Tell me truly: are you even attracted to me? Or do you merely see this as another potential conquest you can later brag about to your friends?
[Some people wear silver jewelry. Fenris wears iron resolve.
(And it looks just as nice on him, too— if not a little tight).]
Does it have to be one or the other?
[Asked in the gap between where Fenris was and where he is now: the irony being that the less Astarion can feel of him the more that he can see. Up close this time. In full. How he's not— old, so much as older: worn more by the darkened angles underneath his eyes or the paper-edge crows' feet adorning their angled outer span (or the way his frown pulls tight against his jawline, or the nicks scattered like constellatory waypoints over slightly roughened skin), than he is any real amount of age. The angles of his throat, for example, or the vivid shade of silver just above his ears, aren't the proof of handfuls of measured centuries like the tired Patriars with stiffened hands. And if his joints are stiff (Astarion doubts it) instead of limber, then the culprit's more likely to be from wear and tear by his best guess, not time.
So think of it as a layered answer when he shows his teeth and grins.
Pink across his nose and cheeks and lifted ears, which has the added effect of making his blunt teeth look even whiter. The edges of his salt-soaked curls, too, particularly where they've tangled in his lashes. A little out of hand, as far as exploratory tête-à-tête goes, salvaged barely by increasing distance (like they're not still more than in arm's reach. Like Astarion couldn't just turn his wrist, and catch something hard between soft thighs).]
Or do you actually think you don't warrant the kind of attraction I'd have to try not to brag about?
[They're close, yes. Close enough for Fenris to drink in the droplets of sweat that dampen Astarion's curls, leaving them to tumble in front of his face (pretty in the most unassuming way: not the polished poise of before, but something earnest, and thus all the more attractive to Fenris' mind). Close enough that he can take in the faint smear of kohl just beneath one eye (old makeup from the night before not properly wiped away); the glint of mischief in the curl of that grin, white teeth gleaming as his precocious student thrills in this new game.
Close enough that Fenris' hand is nigh invisible when he strikes: one swift sharp movement that ends with Astarion's jaw being loosely gripped between calloused thumb and pointer finger. Not fully scolding, nor even intending to be demeaning, but rather as a means of grabbing attention: aht, the way you might grip an errant pup who's so clearly thinking about tearing into a bag of treats. Don't you dare.
And it's a mistake to touch him. It's a mistake to be so familiar with him, but Fenris cannot be perfect within every moment. And there's something so satisfying about slowly tipping Astarion's chin up by fragile degrees, forcing him to look up at Fenris as he takes a half-step closer. Listen now, pup.]
I think the best tumbles are the ones you do not feel the need to brag about so that your peers might offer you fleeting clout.
[It's level. Even. Not upset, but there's a roughened edge in his tone if Astarion seeks it. For that's all it is, isn't it? That pack won't stay impressed for long, for they never do. It's all about who can top the last feat: who can throw the more spectacular party, who can bed the most exotic conquest . . . and it builds. People grow numb to splendor and decadence, til at last all that thrills them is the worst sorts of depravities . . .
Not that Astarion is there yet. Whelp of a thing, tamed by his father and by his position alike, he is not what Fenris has fled from. His grip loosens just a little.]
And I think I have too much respect for myself to reduce myself to mere notch on your bedpost. I am not going to fuck you, little noble— but if I was, it would not be so you could have the wicked thrill of seducing yet another tutor and proving your own worth.
[And yet the soft skin beneath banded fingertips feels so keenly warm. And yet he hasn't let him go, not yet. His head cocks, his eyes considering as he stares down at the other elf.]
He's lucky he's been caught by the jaw instead of anywhere else, when even a knuckle pushed against the soft stretch of muscle marking where his chin and the underside of his throat converge is too full of vascular leywork not to hammer with the evidence of what he's thinking about. Letting his backteeth salivate for.
Scolding on playgrounds leads to escalation, after all. A teething cosset inclined to snarl will only lunge into a bite if that initial attempt to scruff isn't tight enough to cow him first. Anger and excitement are the same thing for some— like prey drive— and it's the fact he can't sit still that sees him clipped around his red-tipped ears so often that his cheek still shines with his last censure.
He doesn’t pull away from this one, though.
(I am not going to fuck you, little noble—
—oh, but he wishes that he would.)]
....Twenty four.
[Astarion exhales in the next beat, voice struck through with acclimating tension. There's more that could be said, and yet the lanky little instigator lets that number hang in dead air while they're both standing there stock-still. His fingers twitching around the grip of that old gun, painting this like the stand off it conceptually is.
Because he's stopped blinking, now. Slowed his breathing.
If there's any kind of reaction to that answer to pluck from Fenris' expression, he wants to see it firsthand. Particularly when he adds:]
Could have a nice, even number with you. Maybe even leave it there— change my stripes.
Like molasses. Like those heavy moments that last an eternity in memory's eye, the kind where a thousand thoughts have time to race across the mind before a single breath is exhaled. Twenty-four, and Fenris expects himself to scoff. To say something casually cruel about sluttishness, perhaps, or roll his eyes in a derisive way. Or maybe he'd be nicer about it: a little grimace that suggests he isn't impressed, but that Astarion's business is his own.
He doesn't expect the anger.
He doesn't expect the sudden, nigh-overwhelming urge to snarl.
It's so sudden that there's a lurching moment of uncertainty, fury flaring in his gaze before his eyes dart to the side as Fenris struggles to smother it. Visions of past trysts flicker past his mind's eye (Astarion sprawled atop a desk, his legs spread as roughened hands grip his thighs too tightly; Astarion with his fingers tucked up beneath a woman's skirt, his breath hot against her throat as he murmurs all kinds of filthy promises. Astarion staring up dutifully as a too-thin tutor fucks his mouth with irregular rhythm, all in the service of proving to his father that yet another keeper could be corrupted)—
And his hand doesn't tighten its grip on Astarion's jaw. His frame is wracked with tension, but none of it is directed towards the boy in his hand— for it isn't Astarion he's angry at, he realizes.]
And how many of them were worth anything?
[It's low. Roughened, as his eyes finally dart back at Astarion. He wants— he doesn't know what he wants. He wants to drag Astarion in close, his arms wrapping fiercely around him; he wants to set out into the darkness and hunt down every idiotic tutor and selfish caretaker that had ever fallen for sweet charms and a pouting mouth. He wants to nuzzle fiercely against this young thing, and then again he wants to scruff him like an errant pup, nipping at him until he learns better.
He settles for stroking his thumb against the line of Astarion's jaw, and it's far more soothing than he means it to be.]
How many of them—
[And the dots connect only belatedly. Too belatedly, maybe, and he's being too protective (why? but that fierce anger isn't subsiding, that snarling seething growl that glares out at the world), but that can't be helped right now.]
Your last tutor, too. The one I replaced.
[The bastard was inept, and oh, what an idiot he'd been to buy that story, but Fenris isn't used to a master lying to him like that.]
The one who was inept. Who made you write lines of drivel so he could drink.
Not this. Not anything remotely close to the way Fenris' expression suddenly twists.
And maybe it's why Astarion misreads the situation by a mile, sore senses grasping loosely at whatever fraying threads of (learned) predictable logic he can find to explain the sharpness in green eyes. The odd glimpse of anger just behind it.
This is....new. Strange. So real he can't unlock the track of where it's headed. The fingers on his jaw have tensed. Is it jealousy?
No. That seems wrong. But— what else is there, really?]
They didn't hold a candle to you.
[It's a line....in the sense that it's vestigial estimation of what he should do: flatter and endear. Find ways to stoke the ego of his counterpart. But the thing is, in this case he actually means it. Despite the angry back and forth, the animosity they've shared, he'd been the first out of twenty five to treat him like a person— the first since Talindra, in fact. A babysitter with a spine, he'd called him on the night that they first met, not expecting it to be true.
It is true.
Even the fledgling patriar Astarion runs with spend more time on smoke and bragging rights than any actual amount of conversation. (Gods he fucking hates Petras. They can't be in the same room together for more than five minutes without bickering.
And he talks to him the most out of everyone.)]
Him too. [He turns his fingers over, letting a half-numb arm carry his touch across armored wrists. Confused by handsome features, studying them up close. Too serious.
So, to fix that:]
How else do you think I got him deposed?
[Hes grinning. Searching for an echo of predictable acceptance. See? Nothing to be angry about: I won. I beat him.
[They didn't hold a candle to you, and he hears that line for what it is. Tentative confusion and an attempt at peacekeeping— a sailor struggling to navigate by an unfamiliar star, but the problem is, that only makes it worse. The fact that no one in his life has ever objected to this—
Or perhaps he is being too bold. Perhaps it isn't as broad as that.
Perhaps no one has ever cared.
What does his lord father worry about, after all? His image. How it looks to have his eldest son fucking his way through every hired hand, and, perhaps, how much money it will cost to cover up such a minor scandal. How such a thing affects Astarion's future prospects and their good name, and the risk that comes of not breaking his son of such a habit before he comes of age.
But not that his son so easily seduces all that cross his path. Not that his son, still so young even at seventy-five, has found that two dozen different tutors and bodyguards are so easily swayed from their duties by the lure of pale thighs and a sharp grin. And Fenris can't articulate why, exactly, the thought offends him so, save that it isn't real. Save that such people should have known better, no matter that their charge might have sulked or panted or seduced with all his might.]
You should have told me.
[It's a strained thing, his mouth a thin line as he finally looks back at Astarion. The grip on his jaw eases and then drops, though some part of Fenris mourns the loss of contact. But he doesn't pull away from those slender fingers caressing his wrist, and that's something.]
I'm here for your protection. That includes tutors who do not know better than to keep their hands to themselves. And you deserve better than to have to resort to such things in order to be rid of someone so inept.
So cavernously empty that he can feel thin muscle sinking at the corners of his mouth, and all for what, exactly? Retrospect's a shovel: it only digs, it doesn't categorize; it doesn't wash the cluttered muck from what it finds. If he looks beneath the formerly ballooning expansion of something akin to yearning that pops at the retreat of that hand—
It has to be the retreat of that hand. The closeness. The weight. Those fingers and how comforting they felt, as if they'd always belonged there. He misses them already, what small drops of hydration they'd been in such a drought. So it's that, and only that, the reason why he startles. And aches.]
I—
[It's not that.
The figurative needle's spinning, but even Astarion can puzzle out that if it was, he'd have an answer. Or he'd be able to laugh. Say thank you like it doesn't matter. Acknowledge whatever this new promise is.
He tries to bristle, for a moment. His frown tightens, then pitches, then slants. A useless band of worn responses like the scrabbling of wet palms, and just the same: none of them stick.]
I don't—
[I don't need your protection? I dont need your help? I don't deserve better. I don't care. I don't mind. I can handle it. I've always—
The fingers wrapped around that wrist turn. They tighten. Daft thing, he thinks, and it's so fond he doesn't know if he really means it at all the way he used to.
He can't focus on himself right now; his tongue won't let him, what with how it keeps on locking. But he can focus on old facts. Obvious, patented, never-changing facts. The same ones he'd have talked about a week ago— or weeks ago, the roughstuck night they both first met, if he'd been asked back then.]
[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.]
He thinks it's a cruel trick. A game. A lie. (He knows it isn't.)
But it's the too-bright quality of it all that doesn't make sense to the language he's spent his whole life learning (like the cold offering of a rat— a wrist— between starving creatures in the dark) when it is, undoubtedly, the simple doctrine of every last man for himself that endlessly defines the world that surrounds them no matter what it is they want. A man can pay to hang a family. A business built on trust will burn for hired thugs. Palms only weigh scales in favor of the faces that they like, and everything else is struck, and there's no outrunning that reality— not in a paradise built on fallow rot from its center out. Astarion is smart. Astarion's perceptive. That's the curse that caught him early. So he asks himself why as many times as the question comes to him in different shapes (why show a patriar something this exploitable, doesn't he know better; is that the angle— a long con, a better gambit; is he stupid? Reckless? In lust?) Coming up short every time while his eyes and throat turn to sandpaper: rough and itching whenever he blinks. Swallows.
He's lost his voice.
His nerve.
He's lost everything— and he hates the way it breaks against his frame, threatening to wash him away and leave nothing behind. Not even footprints. Around a soft tongue the won't work and the backdraft of agonies he can't even voice (let alone name), what's left to him that isn't brittle glass already shattered underfoot?
Forty five years old, and he's been ruins as far back as he remembers.
And ruins aren't warm.
They're not nice places.
They don't say pretty things, they don't make you want to stay. So when he pulls his hand away and steps back twice ( —left foot, right foot— ) there's anger on his face. Redness in the pool of silver eyes. He'd wanted a hero for ages in his dreams, but the sight of it churns in his stomach; too rich for his mouth after handfuls of salt water.
He can't remember what he says.
Maybe nothing.
Maybe it was just that look and the click of a pistol being cleared as he set it back down on the table. Maybe— like the night they'd met (Astarion having pushed too hard against a fighter's frame)— they walk back home in silence and neither of them says a word.
His cheek is healed by the time he returns to his own mirror to check. Dinner's uneventful (and if that doesn't warrant praise from Lord Ancunín, Astarion would be shocked to hear it), to the point that everyone eats in that same, pervasive silence and departs with hardly a word. And Fenris goes to wash. And Astarion goes to bed. And he can't sleep in that cold room— hating the noise from his phone and the nothingness from the corner where the one person he wants to talk to— ]
It's an instinctive thing, swift and silent. As if they've been doing this for years on end; as if he has known his charge for years, not weeks. Fenris rises to his feet and crosses the room, pausing for only a few seconds before he carefully settles into the plush bed. It's far softer than his little cot in the corner of the room; his body sinks gratefully into soft padding and flexible foam, and though he curls one arm beneath his head as he lies on his side, there's at least a dozen pillows for him to choose from.
And he shouldn't do that. He wouldn't, not ordinarily. But something has changed between them today, and though Fenris cannot say what, he still knows it to be true. This is no ordinary attempt at seduction. This is no clumsy ploy, a patriar's feeble attempt to get his minder to lower his guard.
This is something more raw. A cry in the dark (tell me this isn't a trick, throaty and raw, a ghostly statement that slips through his mind and disappears), no matter that it's snapped out.
Astarion looks so small in the darkness. Stripped of his day clothes and scrubbed clean of his makeup, he looks so much younger than the man he tries to present himself as. His angles are softened in the blow glow from Fenris' tattoos, though his mouth still curls in an angry line.]
Someday I will introduce you to the concept of a request.
[It's low. Not a tease, but a gentle way of breaking the silence.]
[At what though, he couldn't say. And the why still doesn't make sense to him either, so scrap that too: no point in pretending there's a card left in his hand that he can actually read in the figurative dark— not when even darkvision's no remedy for it.
Until his phone rattles and his temper flares, rolling him over (it's not a choice, how fast he turns) just to glower at a handful of messages all stacked up in a line under the hour on the glassy surface of that screen. A list of names outlined.
Violet. Petras. Leon. Dal.
—Fuck them.
Fuck them for having fun while he's stuck here. The nerve of being happy and not even asking why he isn't there, while he's licking wounds they didn't cause and gnawing on frustration's acrid taste. It isn't blame, but it sure as Hells tastes like it.
[He doesn't comment when when Astarion spins to grab his phone, but he does watch him: the way his expression twists and his shoulders hunch, whatever messages he receives only further fuel for the fire smoldering below.
And honestly? Fenris would expect no better.
He has only met that group the once, and admittedly, they were not at their best— but to Fenris' jaded eyes, they seemed like every other brainless, pleasure-focused group of nobles. Hungry to humiliate others and prove themselves dominant, their tiny minds focused only on the social wars waged between households . . . no, whatever message any of them sent is surely only a jab. We're having fun and you aren't.
(And it's funny, for he doesn't include Astarion in that category, not anymore. He doesn't know what category to slot him in, but it isn't that. There's more to his charge than that, though if pressed Fenris couldn't say what or when or how he began to think that way).]
Is there?
[He says it mildly. There's a great deal that's strange about him. There's a great deal that's wrong with him, Fenris knows, whether by trauma or sheer lack of experience (for oh, he is such a fledgling thing in some ways, wildly unsure and covering for it with a thick layer of stoicism). But he suspects Astarion means something a little less outlandish. Something that those friends of his would call a weakness; something that those tutors and bodyguards of before hadn't ever exhibited.
What a thing it is, Fenris thinks, to care for someone else. Not blindingly. Not ignoring their faults (oh, Astarion has so very many, vexing Fenris to no end). But he has grown to care for the little brat. It isn't love. It isn't even friendship, not really. But it's . . . it's something. A fierce protectiveness that Fenris had not known existed until today combining with the familiarity of spending the majority of their days together . . .
Perhaps it's that.
Or perhaps it's the fact it's easy to see the pulsing pattern of his lyrium right thought thin bedsheets, Fenris thinks dryly, and voices neither opinion. Let Astarion tell him what's on his mind. Gods know that will be easier than trying to guess.]
Shall I guess, or do you intend to tell me?
[He doesn't mean to be flippant, and indeed, his tone is a little too soft for that. But how else is he meant to respond?]
A paradoxic anchor, considering it's only a handful of inches where the covers have sunken down between their bodies (both laid out on their backs now in the wake of all that shuffling, with neither one facing directly towards the other). Arms folded, arms lax. It's a yawning chasm, it's close— it's both— the comfort of not-touching and the safety of not being alone. The rattling of his phone slows against the bedside table, and in the gap (chasm; closeness; all of the above) he can hear his own breath pooling. Why he likes it, why it slowly soothes him to the bone in those mutedly loose-held seconds, possibly even better than the rushing of blood in his ears and the wild blare of music, he— in the repeat of every puzzling development so far— has absolutely no fucking clue.
His mouth quirks on its own when their eyes both flick down towards those radiant tattoos.
It isn't a smile.]
You don't....want anything.
[Ugh. No, that's not it. Try again, Astarion. Fingers curling lamely in midair while he whines (or groans, or something....s in the back of his throat) just to pick apart the words. Lines, at least, are easy.
How do you look at a stranger offering the softest heat you've (n)ever known and come up with anything that isn't lame enough to mercy kill on the spot?]
You have no ambition. You're not here to do anything but your job— and you don't even do that well. [And you can't argue that you're not, Fenris. Not when you're laying in his bed. Not when you iced his cheek. Spoke to him like a person. Took him out. Let him breathe. Let him hope.] Keep going like that and someone's going to trip you up or try to toss you out, and it won't matter that it's not going to be me.
[It isn't where he expected the conversation to go, but it suits him. Lying here in the darkness, maybe it's easier to be honest. Not raw, not baring their souls, no, they do not know one another well enough for that (he knows no one well enough for that)— but the words come a little easier now than they do in daylight. The thick, choking knot of responsibility does not sit quite so heavily on his breastbone, equal parts terrifying and dread-inducing.
Fenris stares up at the dark ceiling. His head sinks a little further into the plush pillow, and he wonders what it is he thinks he's doing. You don't even do that well, and he cannot deny it, not when he lies here. And yet it only feels like the wrong move when he thinks about leaving: pulling those sheets back and retreating to his corner, leaving Astarion alone in his misery.]
Simply because you are not privy to those desires does not mean they do not exist. I want many things, Astarion.
[Spoken after a period of silence, his voice pitched low. And maybe this conversation is destined to be full of pauses, for it initially seems as if he might not elaborate. But then:]
I have never . . .
[No. How much does he want to reveal? Offering up too much feels like a mistake, even now— but it's so hard to explain it all without delving into his past. Fenris sighs softly and starts again.]
You were not wrong, that first day. Your father did buy me. He bought my debt.
[He murmurs the price, the number long since branded into his mind. It's a considerable sum even for nobility: more than a new car or an indulgent toy to throw away weeks later when it no longer amuses. It's the kind of money that ruins companies or silences people for a lifetime; the kind of debt that men drown in if they try to overcome it— legally, anyway.]
Before then, I was property. And just as you would not expect your beloved phone to have dreams or desires . . . so too I was not encouraged to try and form my own.
You ask me what I desire? But perhaps it would be easier to say that I have fears, and they are what guide me. Each day I wake up and face a job so laughably easier than my last that I fear what it means. I fear that I have failed, or that this is a test— or worse still, a joke at my expense. I fear that your father will tire of me, or find me not worth my price.
[I fear that he has more use for me than he has yet revealed, but he doesn't dare say that. Moment of camaraderie or not, Astarion is his father's son, and surely he will not appreciate as-yet-unfounded slander against him. Fenris sighs again.]
I fear that the worst is yet to come. That, indeed, someone will try to throw me out. That this existence, which is the most peaceful I have ever known, will come to an end.
. . . and I suppose, in wake of all that . . . what I desire most is stability.
[And it's too much. It's too much information that slipped past lips too eager to share, for he has never been asked this question before. It's embarrassing; it's dangerous, and he grimaces in the dark.]
[Debt. And for a split-second, Astarion assumes he's found it: vice, at long last. His bodyguard's a gambler. A debtor. All his well-masked weakness bottled up and reserved solely for watching caged things tear themselves apart before a crowd (why else would he seek out places full of violence like that range they'd visited?) Oh yes, no wonder he's so stiff inside these walls. More at home around the scent of split-knuckled punches let loose or hooves beating or—
I was property.
Likened to a fucking phone. A piece of plastic and magic-infused tech, the comparison brutally offhanded. And Astarion's too stunned through the twist of his own neck as it jerks towards his conversational partner to remember that he'd started off association by teasing loosely about things like orphanages or enslavement; time's dilated so much under the press of cold shock that weeks might've been entire lifetimes ago, and at least in this second he's not the same person now that he was back then.
His eyes are opened, even if his brain hasn't caught up yet.
No part of him's caught up yet, in fact. Sitting upright in his bed without realizing it; hearing that posed prompt already come and gone, and one he tramples when he snaps out in response:]
Who gives a damn what I want— what do you mean you were property? [His father paid— gods. Gods, that's an astronomical amount. Even for their seemingly bottomless expenses, his father could have bought a legion devoted to his every last word. Instead he chose—
This.
One elf. One glow-in-the-dark, metaphoric name possessing, eye-contact averse elf in unsuspecting armor. Hells' teeth— why? Was it assumptive loyalty? That if he paid more than anyone ever should, the man would feel inescapably bound? Or....]
[Gods, Fenris doesn't expect that response. So much so that he rises up in shocked echo, resting on his elbows as he stares up uncomprehendingly at Astarion. It isn't that he thought he would be cruel about it, no, but—
He'd thought . . . indifferent sympathy, perhaps. A twisting grimace or a performative sigh on such a wretched business, for isn't that how it always goes? Derision or pity, but either way, nobles always remove themselves from such distasteful issues. Slaves and servants are there to serve, not to have personal lives or conflicts, and if their very existence is a miserable one, well. It's not worth thinking about. That's how it had been with Danarius and his ilk— and gods know Lord Ancunín was nothing but serene when he had handed over a check to buy Fenris. The lad will be useful, that was the only real comment he'd had, and Fenris had thought—
It's just . . . he hadn't expected horror.
He hadn't expected shock.
And maybe this is Fenris' own fault. Maybe he expects too much of an elf not yet a century old, who plays so well at being worldly and mature that he can fool almost everyone. But there's such a difference between knowing how to play among your friends (boasting about exploits, fucking and sucking your way through the upper echelons just so they'll admire you) and knowing what really happens in the world . . .]
A wizard near the edge of the Upper City. A minor noble.
[He isn't playing coy with Danarius' name— at least, not intentionally. It's just that he doesn't quite know what to make of all this shock.]
And I mean I was property. His . . . his. He arranged it in courts long ago, though I do not know the specifics.
[It had been so many years ago, after all, and he was such an ignorant thing. The legalese had flown over his head, and Danarius had prompted him to sign things with the jagged X that had served as signature. And his mother had been there, nodding tearfully; Varania had been there, small and wide-eyed. For them, Danarius murmured. Just sign here and they will never worry again . . .]
He controlled everything. He . . . why are you upset?
[And he doesn't hear the echo. He doesn't realize his expression is the same that Astarion wore hours ago (a lifetime ago).]
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albinomilksnake2023-07-11 12:43 am
no subject
Familiar. Routine. Safe, and what an ironic word to describe a den in which the most dangerous people gather to hone their deadliest abilities. But it is safe, at least for him. No one cares about him here. No one looks at him twice, not just because such a thing might be a foolish mistake, but because he is the least interesting thing right now. What is one lyrium-enhanced bodyguard, after all, in a sea of magitech upgrades? Everyone who roams these halls are the sort always looking for an extra edge. Blades embedded beneath one's fingernails, ready to spring out with the right command; artificial eyes that will scan and catalogue every person in the room. They pass a woman Fenris knows by sight who grins at him in recognition, revealing teeth artificially sharpened to resemble a shark's toothy countenance.
And in the middle of it all, one lone little patriar, pretty and delicate and decidedly out of place.
It would be a lie to say Fenris doesn't relish it. He does, just a little. Just enough to satisfy some petty part of his soul that still lingers in the hall of that manor, hearing the echoing laughter of Astarion's friends. But ah, no more of that: a truce goes both ways, after all. Soon enough they're led into a private arena, and all the outside distractions disappear.
Fenris exhales slowly. Tension sloughs off him in waves— and it's a remarkable difference, for only now does one realize just how rigidly he otherwise holds himself. Back always straight, his shoulders always thrown back (and yet his head always dipped, a quiet deference when in face of his betters). There's no more paranoid glancing around, no wary looks towards the windows or lingering upon his ward . . . for right now, the outside world doesn't exist. Astarion's father does not exist; those vicious little vipers that he calls friends certainly don't. There's no Danarius, no debt, no grief, no pain— there's nothing right now save his own self and his weaponry.
(And Astarion, now. A quiet addition, but not, Fenris is pleased to find, an unwelcome one thusfar.)
Fenris hasn't bothered picking out his own weapon yet, but that rather works out, doesn't it? Coming over, he gently bats at those fiddling hands, encouraging him to set the gun down without outright demanding it.]
Your first lesson: treat every gun as if it is loaded. It isn't, for I have not yet paid for ammunition, but still: ignoring that rule is how one inevitably loses an eye.
[It's actually Astarion's father who pays for this, not that Astarion needs the reminder. The itemized bill all goes to some accountant somewhere, who presumably inspects it to make sure Fenris isn't secretly spending the money on whores or alcohol or some such nonsense.]
But yes, this is where I come to practice. They have a range of simulations available— I can practice my marksmanship with any number of weapons, and if I need to face an opponent for hand-to-hand, they have simulations for that too.
[He taps a screen along the wall; a few moments later, a target appears ten yards away. It's a laughably close thing, but that's rather the point.]
Now. You could watch me practice, and I would not mind that. But if you wish to learn yourself . . . start with this.
[Another few taps. The handgun Astarion had been fiddling with disappears, replaced with a far more compact pistol. It's painted a rather bland shade of refrigerator-teal, and there's far too many sights for Fenris' preference, but so it goes when you use the weaponry the range supplies for you.]
Go on. Do well, and I will allow you ones that do elemental damage. Simply line yourself up here, [his foot tapping gently at the small square set before the target,] loosen yourself, and try your best to aim. If this is to be a lesson, it would be best to know your range before I begin teaching you.
no subject
The air leaves Astarion's nose in a rush.
Agitated and huffy, clutching that diminutive piece against his palm in a mirror to whatever movies or faff the boy and his friends take to watching when they aren't out actively hunting for wealthy game (projections bore him, truth be told, but there were a scarce few involving merchant princes with gilded belt clips or mercenary leaders that picked their teeth with ruby daggers that always kept him from wandering off), and it's that same image he's still picturing in his head when he pushes past his tutor to level his given gun at the target barely ten yards away. Thumb stiff, grip pushed snug between his palms—
Grip pushed snug against his palm.
(Revised for its small size, and the fact that it's no worldshattering thing.)]
Easy.
[He purrs over his cocked shoulder. His wiry frame twisted at an angle opposite his neck. His head. Cream-colored suit coat catching light across thin beadwork in that dim excuse for light, where the course and its target are the only thing that shines.
If Fenris won't show him first, then he'll show Fenris instead.
—bang—
A pop. A scream of zipping movement from the barrel of his gun as it whips back, barely kept from catching his own cheek.
There's a mark on the target's conjured screen. It takes a moment to come fully into view, but still, it's there. A single, isolated, narrow little bullet mark punched into the lowest left corner.
Any further out, and it'd have gone right into dead air.]
no subject
That's . . . something.
No, truly: it is, Fenris thinks, struggling to bite back his grin. For an amateur who's likely never held a gun before, never mind fired one, hitting the target at all is fairly good. And though his arms had flown wildly from recoil, Astarion hadn't actually managed to injure himself or anyone else, nor indeed fall flat on his ass. Another solid point in his favor.]
It is a little harder than simply pointing and shooting.
[His grin is nowhere to be found, but there's no mistaking the faint note of amusement woven into his words. Fenris comes forward, one hand lightly gripping Astarion's shoulder to stop him from turning indignantly— or worse still, storming off in an embarrassed huff.]
You were not braced for recoil— and such things matter if you are to shoot with any kind of purpose. Now try again: and this time . . .
[Hm. He gently kicks at Astarion's ankles, one hand pressing against his lower back, urging him into shifting his weight and holding his stance just so. Hips twisting just a little, and thus his balance a little more centered: a powerful position, if not one he suspects his patriar is unused to.]
To begin with: position yourself like this. Not like an action hero who shoots with one hand and holds himself to the side, for in that way you will lose accuracy. Nor, indeed, facing wholly forward as you were. Your goal is to be balanced on all sides, so that way you do not stumble, nor sway as you take aim.
Now: raise the gun and grip it tightly.
[He settles behind him. There's an inch of space between them, and that's deliberate. He can demand good behavior out of Astarion all he wants, but it means nothing if he crosses the lines himself. So: an inch, a gap that he is so very aware of, as his hands slide over Astarion's own. Grip it tightly, his fingers pressing encouragingly atop Astarion's own.]
Aim. Look not just at the target, but the front of the gun. Ignore those two sights for now— focus instead on the very front of the barrel, for that is where your bullet will come out, and that is what you need to aim.
[The inch between them still remains, and that's important. As he leans forward and hovers over his student's shoulder in an attempt to guide his aim, his breath hot against his ear and his voice a low rumble, oh, that inch matters so very much.]
Up, now. Up until it's focused . . . good. Hold it there.
Now. Cock the hammer and fire.
[And if the recoil still hits— it shouldn't, but if it does— Fenris' arms will be there to absorb the shock.]
no subject
Hells, it's hard to focus.
No— scratch that, he can't focus like this.
Everything in him's fiercely funneled towards the waypoints where they're barely touching, and not the way it usually would. The hand pushed against the middle of his spine is one thing, but it's their heels that are driving him crazy for reasons he can't untangle. Their soles. That noticeable dig of contact between toe and obscured arch. Fenris has left one foot pushed against the corner of Astarion's from where he'd forcibly nudged his legs apart, and there's something about that unintended intimacy that spools him into senselessness against everything he thought he knew about his appetites. Knowing he can't close his legs as long as that foot stays there (and not wanting to, he thinks faintly through the backfed notion of indulgence): the pit of his belly jolting, his cock twitching as it stirs—
No.
No, come on, Astarion.
(Don't be the whelp. Don't be the neophytic pup he thinks you are. Wake up. Catch him in your claws; make him feel the restless outpour of desire he won't slake if he tries to keep his hands off you.) A truce might be struck between them, and he'll keep fast to their agreement when it comes to sabotage or hostility, never forgetting the cool press of a rag to swollen skin— but Fenris could (will) only respect Astarion on his knees, his hair matted and soaked through, his skin glistening with drying salt, chest heaving from exhaustion (tongue and lips painted a searing shade of pearl each time he tries to pant or lick to suck in air). Half-hard, all spent, and still the mastery of his keeper demands he give up more.
Then, he'll see his patriar differently. Then, he'll look at the little lordling beside him with the kind of loyalty and hunger his father warrants.
—and aside from that?
Well, it's just a pleasant thought.
So it's not intentional that he isn't fully looking at the target through discussion he half-hears, or that his head tilts closer towards the lips hovering near a reddened ear (they're always a darker shade of pink; stark against a sea of curls), but he's not against it, either. Warm fingers squeezed down over metal, imagining something just as hard. Breathe deep. Ignore his palm. And—
—bang—
—bang bang bang—
Time goes fast. His fingerpads are swollen by the end of it from the texture of that grip, and the enchanted target's littered with puncture marks (some good, some....well....) that outline the spikes and pitfalls of their lessons, all better than what his day had been slated for otherwise, even at their lowest.]
2/2
—wait.
[He grins, sweat strung faint along his temples. Head tipped back into the cushion of a taller shoulder, pushing his brow closer to that brightly tattooed neck, perfectly unaware of how long it's been since they both started.]
Wait, I can keep going.
no subject
It's a roughened thing, collaring his overactive imagination and dragging it unwillingly back towards safer grounds. Once, twice, and it becomes a mantra as the minutes tick past, the word shuddering through him in time with the reverberating recoil from the gun. Don't, don't you dare——
Don't notice the way Astarion's legs stay spread at Fenris' insistence, his haughty little patriar obedient as anything one he has a disciplined hand at the back of his neck. Don't notice the way he smells (lilac and just a hint of sweat, the salt-sting of it a welcome addition to Fenris' mind). Don't linger on the way Astarion's lithe frame is so small between muscled arms, his hands so very soft beneath Fenris' own calloused palms. Don't think about how warm he is, nor the startled noise of excitement he makes each time his bullet hits the target.
(Don't think about how he sounded that night in the alley, his lips parted and his eyes dark as pitch, his hand rhythmically tugging at himself with obscene grace. Don't think about the firm press of his thigh caught between Fenris' own, hard pressure rubbing seductively against his cock and sending white-hot sparks roiling through his frame. Don't think about pale shoulders and delicate collarbones, long legs and lithe limbs in front of cold glass. Don't think about Astarion with his back snapped into a sharp arch and his thighs trembling wildly, biting at his own fingers to keep quiet as he stares up pleadingly at Fenris, more, I need more. And don't you dare think about the infuriating, intoxicating fantasy of being on his knees in the middle of a crowd, his lips wrapped around a thick, overheated cock as a cooing voice offers him praise. What a good boy you are, taking it so eagerly— this is what you wanted, isn't it? To be of use? Pretty little pet, turn around and show everyone here just how well you swallowed—)
Don't.
Focus on the lesson— and to be fair, he is. The fantasies might be flitting around the back of his mind, but that's only one part of it, for Fenris is enjoying this. Astarion is a decent student when he puts his mind to it, taking corrections well and eagerly fixing upon his past errors. He's no marksman and he won't be for a long while— but there is steady improvement. It's thrilling to see, and some part of Fenris swells with pride each time Astarion manages to absorb another lesson: loosen your arms, tighten your grip, like that, like that, his normally dour expression softening as the minutes pass.
It's too easy to grow comfortable that way.
He forgets the danger. As the minutes tick by and Astarion settles into his arms, he forgets that he is meant to be stiff and removed. Lonely heart that is, starved for companionship beneath all his fear, he enjoys this too much. He doesn't remember that his life rests upon a knife's edge; that to displease Lord Ancunín in any way means ruin. And he doesn't remember that the surest way to keep himself safe is to treat Astarion as coldly and as distantly as any of his other tutors.]
You have been at it for over an hour.
[His voice is too richly amused; the smile that tugs irresistibly at his lips might as well be a grin. And though he knows he ought to pull back, he doesn't just yet. Thirty seconds, nothing more; surely he can indulge in that.]
You are improving, though. Once this becomes more routine, then it will be a mere matter of muscle memory and speed.
[But oh . . . what is there to go home to? Sterility and a muted sense of dull boredom; standing at attention while servants tend to Astarion's every need. And it's only early afternoon . . .]
Do you truly wish to linger?
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Which is why it's funny, obviously. That's the literal joke— but Astarion's mind's as good as brinesoaked parchment right about now with exhaustion gnawing at his throat, and he's more focused on the thought that his tutor might've laughed for just a second. Or something like it, anyway.
Slack through his shoulders without thinking. Melting into Fenris' instead, it's not a ploy to say that the formalities are drawn aside along with dourness itself.]
With you?
[It's a drawl because he's weary, not because he's trying to be cute. That, at any rate, comes entirely on its own:]
I'd do a lot more than linger.
[Still, it makes the unsubtle glance he next casts Fenris' way feel more akin to wandering fingers against cloth— even though his own are holding that rough pistol (its oily grit under his fingerbeds; a hundred little cuts and grooves from communal use scraping whenever his grip shifts), shrugging down to hang loosely by their hips. Numbness crawls in afterwards. Uncomfortable and spiny and sharp where it stabs along the corners of his awareness.
He doesn't mind.
He also doesn't want to go home.]
We're all alone. Don't tell me you're not tempted.
[Is there something that tempts Fenris....? When he isn't drugged or worked up into a frenzy, that is. It's hard not to remember the sight of him huddled and resentful. Slickened from the inside out. Harder not to wonder if the reasoning for that was more acute than broad.
But Astarion isn't reaching. Isn't shifting. This isn't like the party, and it's no substitute for an apology (one he's never felt inclined to give, and might never, knowing him), but there's a kind of ancillary proof involved in proving where the boundaries lie.
That, or he just can't move his arms. Or his legs. Or his head.]
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Would you, now . . .?
[It's a filler statement, murmured even as he silently scolds himself for his carelessness. Fasta vass— but what had he expected? The two of them tangled up so warmly, his body framing Astarion's own and his foot wedged so that he can't close his legs . . . of course the whelp was going to make another pass at him. Of course he was going to see what he might get, for pure seduction doesn't go against the terms of their agreement— and, Fenris thinks, the boy likely isn't thinking too far ahead. He does not imagine any consequences to this, not really. A slap on the wrist, and indeed, perhaps that's all Fenris would get—
But perhaps not.
But Astarion isn't moving. He isn't wiggling his hips or turning his head so he might slip that wicked tongue against a curling tendril of lyrium. He's asking, not demanding— and so while the danger is still ever-present, Fenris need not react like a virgin caught with his pants down.
No, he could say curtly. Or he could be more playful with it: yes, I'm tempted, and pretend he'd interpreted Astarion's statement as a question concerning more advanced weaponry. But the former is a lie and the latter feels stupid— and anyway, Fenris doesn't want to treat Astarion as his tutor did. Settle down, know your place, dismissive and patronizing in turn, no, that will not be his way.
Fenris draws back: not too far, but just enough that he can catch Astarion's eye.]
I will tell you that your attempts at flirtation are not going to work.
[But then, more honestly:]
Tell me truly: are you even attracted to me? Or do you merely see this as another potential conquest you can later brag about to your friends?
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(And it looks just as nice on him, too— if not a little tight).]
Does it have to be one or the other?
[Asked in the gap between where Fenris was and where he is now: the irony being that the less Astarion can feel of him the more that he can see. Up close this time. In full. How he's not— old, so much as older: worn more by the darkened angles underneath his eyes or the paper-edge crows' feet adorning their angled outer span (or the way his frown pulls tight against his jawline, or the nicks scattered like constellatory waypoints over slightly roughened skin), than he is any real amount of age. The angles of his throat, for example, or the vivid shade of silver just above his ears, aren't the proof of handfuls of measured centuries like the tired Patriars with stiffened hands. And if his joints are stiff (Astarion doubts it) instead of limber, then the culprit's more likely to be from wear and tear by his best guess, not time.
So think of it as a layered answer when he shows his teeth and grins.
Pink across his nose and cheeks and lifted ears, which has the added effect of making his blunt teeth look even whiter. The edges of his salt-soaked curls, too, particularly where they've tangled in his lashes. A little out of hand, as far as exploratory tête-à-tête goes, salvaged barely by increasing distance (like they're not still more than in arm's reach. Like Astarion couldn't just turn his wrist, and catch something hard between soft thighs).]
Or do you actually think you don't warrant the kind of attraction I'd have to try not to brag about?
[Teacher, please.]
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Close enough that Fenris' hand is nigh invisible when he strikes: one swift sharp movement that ends with Astarion's jaw being loosely gripped between calloused thumb and pointer finger. Not fully scolding, nor even intending to be demeaning, but rather as a means of grabbing attention: aht, the way you might grip an errant pup who's so clearly thinking about tearing into a bag of treats. Don't you dare.
And it's a mistake to touch him. It's a mistake to be so familiar with him, but Fenris cannot be perfect within every moment. And there's something so satisfying about slowly tipping Astarion's chin up by fragile degrees, forcing him to look up at Fenris as he takes a half-step closer. Listen now, pup.]
I think the best tumbles are the ones you do not feel the need to brag about so that your peers might offer you fleeting clout.
[It's level. Even. Not upset, but there's a roughened edge in his tone if Astarion seeks it. For that's all it is, isn't it? That pack won't stay impressed for long, for they never do. It's all about who can top the last feat: who can throw the more spectacular party, who can bed the most exotic conquest . . . and it builds. People grow numb to splendor and decadence, til at last all that thrills them is the worst sorts of depravities . . .
Not that Astarion is there yet. Whelp of a thing, tamed by his father and by his position alike, he is not what Fenris has fled from. His grip loosens just a little.]
And I think I have too much respect for myself to reduce myself to mere notch on your bedpost. I am not going to fuck you, little noble— but if I was, it would not be so you could have the wicked thrill of seducing yet another tutor and proving your own worth.
[And yet the soft skin beneath banded fingertips feels so keenly warm. And yet he hasn't let him go, not yet. His head cocks, his eyes considering as he stares down at the other elf.]
How many have there been before me?
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He's lucky he's been caught by the jaw instead of anywhere else, when even a knuckle pushed against the soft stretch of muscle marking where his chin and the underside of his throat converge is too full of vascular leywork not to hammer with the evidence of what he's thinking about. Letting his backteeth salivate for.
Scolding on playgrounds leads to escalation, after all. A teething cosset inclined to snarl will only lunge into a bite if that initial attempt to scruff isn't tight enough to cow him first. Anger and excitement are the same thing for some— like prey drive— and it's the fact he can't sit still that sees him clipped around his red-tipped ears so often that his cheek still shines with his last censure.
He doesn’t pull away from this one, though.
(I am not going to fuck you, little noble—
—oh, but he wishes that he would.)]
....Twenty four.
[Astarion exhales in the next beat, voice struck through with acclimating tension. There's more that could be said, and yet the lanky little instigator lets that number hang in dead air while they're both standing there stock-still. His fingers twitching around the grip of that old gun, painting this like the stand off it conceptually is.
Because he's stopped blinking, now. Slowed his breathing.
If there's any kind of reaction to that answer to pluck from Fenris' expression, he wants to see it firsthand. Particularly when he adds:]
Could have a nice, even number with you. Maybe even leave it there— change my stripes.
[Another mark, but not reduced.]
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Like molasses. Like those heavy moments that last an eternity in memory's eye, the kind where a thousand thoughts have time to race across the mind before a single breath is exhaled. Twenty-four, and Fenris expects himself to scoff. To say something casually cruel about sluttishness, perhaps, or roll his eyes in a derisive way. Or maybe he'd be nicer about it: a little grimace that suggests he isn't impressed, but that Astarion's business is his own.
He doesn't expect the anger.
He doesn't expect the sudden, nigh-overwhelming urge to snarl.
It's so sudden that there's a lurching moment of uncertainty, fury flaring in his gaze before his eyes dart to the side as Fenris struggles to smother it. Visions of past trysts flicker past his mind's eye (Astarion sprawled atop a desk, his legs spread as roughened hands grip his thighs too tightly; Astarion with his fingers tucked up beneath a woman's skirt, his breath hot against her throat as he murmurs all kinds of filthy promises. Astarion staring up dutifully as a too-thin tutor fucks his mouth with irregular rhythm, all in the service of proving to his father that yet another keeper could be corrupted)—
And his hand doesn't tighten its grip on Astarion's jaw. His frame is wracked with tension, but none of it is directed towards the boy in his hand— for it isn't Astarion he's angry at, he realizes.]
And how many of them were worth anything?
[It's low. Roughened, as his eyes finally dart back at Astarion. He wants— he doesn't know what he wants. He wants to drag Astarion in close, his arms wrapping fiercely around him; he wants to set out into the darkness and hunt down every idiotic tutor and selfish caretaker that had ever fallen for sweet charms and a pouting mouth. He wants to nuzzle fiercely against this young thing, and then again he wants to scruff him like an errant pup, nipping at him until he learns better.
He settles for stroking his thumb against the line of Astarion's jaw, and it's far more soothing than he means it to be.]
How many of them—
[And the dots connect only belatedly. Too belatedly, maybe, and he's being too protective (why? but that fierce anger isn't subsiding, that snarling seething growl that glares out at the world), but that can't be helped right now.]
Your last tutor, too. The one I replaced.
[The bastard was inept, and oh, what an idiot he'd been to buy that story, but Fenris isn't used to a master lying to him like that.]
The one who was inept. Who made you write lines of drivel so he could drink.
Him, too?
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What does he expect?
Not this. Not anything remotely close to the way Fenris' expression suddenly twists.
And maybe it's why Astarion misreads the situation by a mile, sore senses grasping loosely at whatever fraying threads of (learned) predictable logic he can find to explain the sharpness in green eyes. The odd glimpse of anger just behind it.
This is....new. Strange. So real he can't unlock the track of where it's headed. The fingers on his jaw have tensed. Is it jealousy?
No. That seems wrong. But— what else is there, really?]
They didn't hold a candle to you.
[It's a line....in the sense that it's vestigial estimation of what he should do: flatter and endear. Find ways to stoke the ego of his counterpart. But the thing is, in this case he actually means it. Despite the angry back and forth, the animosity they've shared, he'd been the first out of twenty five to treat him like a person— the first since Talindra, in fact. A babysitter with a spine, he'd called him on the night that they first met, not expecting it to be true.
It is true.
Even the fledgling patriar Astarion runs with spend more time on smoke and bragging rights than any actual amount of conversation. (Gods he fucking hates Petras. They can't be in the same room together for more than five minutes without bickering.
And he talks to him the most out of everyone.)]
Him too. [He turns his fingers over, letting a half-numb arm carry his touch across armored wrists. Confused by handsome features, studying them up close. Too serious.
So, to fix that:]
How else do you think I got him deposed?
[Hes grinning. Searching for an echo of predictable acceptance. See? Nothing to be angry about: I won. I beat him.
He's gone. You're here.
Be happy. Laugh with me.]
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Or perhaps he is being too bold. Perhaps it isn't as broad as that.
Perhaps no one has ever cared.
What does his lord father worry about, after all? His image. How it looks to have his eldest son fucking his way through every hired hand, and, perhaps, how much money it will cost to cover up such a minor scandal. How such a thing affects Astarion's future prospects and their good name, and the risk that comes of not breaking his son of such a habit before he comes of age.
But not that his son so easily seduces all that cross his path. Not that his son, still so young even at seventy-five, has found that two dozen different tutors and bodyguards are so easily swayed from their duties by the lure of pale thighs and a sharp grin. And Fenris can't articulate why, exactly, the thought offends him so, save that it isn't real. Save that such people should have known better, no matter that their charge might have sulked or panted or seduced with all his might.]
You should have told me.
[It's a strained thing, his mouth a thin line as he finally looks back at Astarion. The grip on his jaw eases and then drops, though some part of Fenris mourns the loss of contact. But he doesn't pull away from those slender fingers caressing his wrist, and that's something.]
I'm here for your protection. That includes tutors who do not know better than to keep their hands to themselves. And you deserve better than to have to resort to such things in order to be rid of someone so inept.
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....oh.
He suddenly feels— empty.
So cavernously empty that he can feel thin muscle sinking at the corners of his mouth, and all for what, exactly? Retrospect's a shovel: it only digs, it doesn't categorize; it doesn't wash the cluttered muck from what it finds. If he looks beneath the formerly ballooning expansion of something akin to yearning that pops at the retreat of that hand—
It has to be the retreat of that hand. The closeness. The weight. Those fingers and how comforting they felt, as if they'd always belonged there. He misses them already, what small drops of hydration they'd been in such a drought. So it's that, and only that, the reason why he startles. And aches.]
I—
[It's not that.
The figurative needle's spinning, but even Astarion can puzzle out that if it was, he'd have an answer. Or he'd be able to laugh. Say thank you like it doesn't matter. Acknowledge whatever this new promise is.
He tries to bristle, for a moment. His frown tightens, then pitches, then slants. A useless band of worn responses like the scrabbling of wet palms, and just the same: none of them stick.]
I don't—
[I don't need your protection? I dont need your help? I don't deserve better. I don't care. I don't mind. I can handle it. I've always—
The fingers wrapped around that wrist turn. They tighten. Daft thing, he thinks, and it's so fond he doesn't know if he really means it at all the way he used to.
He can't focus on himself right now; his tongue won't let him, what with how it keeps on locking. But he can focus on old facts. Obvious, patented, never-changing facts. The same ones he'd have talked about a week ago— or weeks ago, the roughstuck night they both first met, if he'd been asked back then.]
That's not what you were hired for.
[Put it all together, Fenris.]
You know that, right?
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[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.]
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He thinks it's a cruel trick. A game. A lie. (He knows it isn't.)
But it's the too-bright quality of it all that doesn't make sense to the language he's spent his whole life learning (like the cold offering of a rat— a wrist— between starving creatures in the dark) when it is, undoubtedly, the simple doctrine of every last man for himself that endlessly defines the world that surrounds them no matter what it is they want. A man can pay to hang a family. A business built on trust will burn for hired thugs. Palms only weigh scales in favor of the faces that they like, and everything else is struck, and there's no outrunning that reality— not in a paradise built on fallow rot from its center out. Astarion is smart. Astarion's perceptive. That's the curse that caught him early. So he asks himself why as many times as the question comes to him in different shapes (why show a patriar something this exploitable, doesn't he know better; is that the angle— a long con, a better gambit; is he stupid? Reckless? In lust?) Coming up short every time while his eyes and throat turn to sandpaper: rough and itching whenever he blinks. Swallows.
He's lost his voice.
His nerve.
He's lost everything— and he hates the way it breaks against his frame, threatening to wash him away and leave nothing behind. Not even footprints. Around a soft tongue the won't work and the backdraft of agonies he can't even voice (let alone name), what's left to him that isn't brittle glass already shattered underfoot?
Forty five years old, and he's been ruins as far back as he remembers.
And ruins aren't warm.
They're not nice places.
They don't say pretty things, they don't make you want to stay. So when he pulls his hand away and steps back twice ( —left foot, right foot— ) there's anger on his face. Redness in the pool of silver eyes. He'd wanted a hero for ages in his dreams, but the sight of it churns in his stomach; too rich for his mouth after handfuls of salt water.
He can't remember what he says.
Maybe nothing.
Maybe it was just that look and the click of a pistol being cleared as he set it back down on the table. Maybe— like the night they'd met (Astarion having pushed too hard against a fighter's frame)— they walk back home in silence and neither of them says a word.
His cheek is healed by the time he returns to his own mirror to check. Dinner's uneventful (and if that doesn't warrant praise from Lord Ancunín, Astarion would be shocked to hear it), to the point that everyone eats in that same, pervasive silence and departs with hardly a word. And Fenris goes to wash. And Astarion goes to bed. And he can't sleep in that cold room— hating the noise from his phone and the nothingness from the corner where the one person he wants to talk to— ]
2/2
Pallid knuckles pulling thin sheets up beside him, offering a swath of empty space.]
Get in, [he says. And adds— albeit after a considerable beat.]
I won't touch you.
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It's an instinctive thing, swift and silent. As if they've been doing this for years on end; as if he has known his charge for years, not weeks. Fenris rises to his feet and crosses the room, pausing for only a few seconds before he carefully settles into the plush bed. It's far softer than his little cot in the corner of the room; his body sinks gratefully into soft padding and flexible foam, and though he curls one arm beneath his head as he lies on his side, there's at least a dozen pillows for him to choose from.
And he shouldn't do that. He wouldn't, not ordinarily. But something has changed between them today, and though Fenris cannot say what, he still knows it to be true. This is no ordinary attempt at seduction. This is no clumsy ploy, a patriar's feeble attempt to get his minder to lower his guard.
This is something more raw. A cry in the dark (tell me this isn't a trick, throaty and raw, a ghostly statement that slips through his mind and disappears), no matter that it's snapped out.
Astarion looks so small in the darkness. Stripped of his day clothes and scrubbed clean of his makeup, he looks so much younger than the man he tries to present himself as. His angles are softened in the blow glow from Fenris' tattoos, though his mouth still curls in an angry line.]
Someday I will introduce you to the concept of a request.
[It's low. Not a tease, but a gentle way of breaking the silence.]
You're angry.
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[Immediately amended with a sharpened scoff to— ]
Probably.
[At what though, he couldn't say. And the why still doesn't make sense to him either, so scrap that too: no point in pretending there's a card left in his hand that he can actually read in the figurative dark— not when even darkvision's no remedy for it.
Until his phone rattles and his temper flares, rolling him over (it's not a choice, how fast he turns) just to glower at a handful of messages all stacked up in a line under the hour on the glassy surface of that screen. A list of names outlined.
Violet. Petras. Leon. Dal.
—Fuck them.
Fuck them for having fun while he's stuck here. The nerve of being happy and not even asking why he isn't there, while he's licking wounds they didn't cause and gnawing on frustration's acrid taste. It isn't blame, but it sure as Hells tastes like it.
He sighs when he drops onto his back.]
There's something wrong with you, you know.
[What kind of a segue is that, Astarion.]
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And honestly? Fenris would expect no better.
He has only met that group the once, and admittedly, they were not at their best— but to Fenris' jaded eyes, they seemed like every other brainless, pleasure-focused group of nobles. Hungry to humiliate others and prove themselves dominant, their tiny minds focused only on the social wars waged between households . . . no, whatever message any of them sent is surely only a jab. We're having fun and you aren't.
(And it's funny, for he doesn't include Astarion in that category, not anymore. He doesn't know what category to slot him in, but it isn't that. There's more to his charge than that, though if pressed Fenris couldn't say what or when or how he began to think that way).]
Is there?
[He says it mildly. There's a great deal that's strange about him. There's a great deal that's wrong with him, Fenris knows, whether by trauma or sheer lack of experience (for oh, he is such a fledgling thing in some ways, wildly unsure and covering for it with a thick layer of stoicism). But he suspects Astarion means something a little less outlandish. Something that those friends of his would call a weakness; something that those tutors and bodyguards of before hadn't ever exhibited.
What a thing it is, Fenris thinks, to care for someone else. Not blindingly. Not ignoring their faults (oh, Astarion has so very many, vexing Fenris to no end). But he has grown to care for the little brat. It isn't love. It isn't even friendship, not really. But it's . . . it's something. A fierce protectiveness that Fenris had not known existed until today combining with the familiarity of spending the majority of their days together . . .
Perhaps it's that.
Or perhaps it's the fact it's easy to see the pulsing pattern of his lyrium right thought thin bedsheets, Fenris thinks dryly, and voices neither opinion. Let Astarion tell him what's on his mind. Gods know that will be easier than trying to guess.]
Shall I guess, or do you intend to tell me?
[He doesn't mean to be flippant, and indeed, his tone is a little too soft for that. But how else is he meant to respond?]
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A paradoxic anchor, considering it's only a handful of inches where the covers have sunken down between their bodies (both laid out on their backs now in the wake of all that shuffling, with neither one facing directly towards the other). Arms folded, arms lax. It's a yawning chasm, it's close— it's both— the comfort of not-touching and the safety of not being alone. The rattling of his phone slows against the bedside table, and in the gap (chasm; closeness; all of the above) he can hear his own breath pooling. Why he likes it, why it slowly soothes him to the bone in those mutedly loose-held seconds, possibly even better than the rushing of blood in his ears and the wild blare of music, he— in the repeat of every puzzling development so far— has absolutely no fucking clue.
His mouth quirks on its own when their eyes both flick down towards those radiant tattoos.
It isn't a smile.]
You don't....want anything.
[Ugh. No, that's not it. Try again, Astarion. Fingers curling lamely in midair while he whines (or groans, or something....s in the back of his throat) just to pick apart the words. Lines, at least, are easy.
How do you look at a stranger offering the softest heat you've (n)ever known and come up with anything that isn't lame enough to mercy kill on the spot?]
You have no ambition. You're not here to do anything but your job— and you don't even do that well. [And you can't argue that you're not, Fenris. Not when you're laying in his bed. Not when you iced his cheek. Spoke to him like a person. Took him out. Let him breathe. Let him hope.] Keep going like that and someone's going to trip you up or try to toss you out, and it won't matter that it's not going to be me.
[Ugh. Eugh.]
Don't you want anything for yourself?
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Fenris stares up at the dark ceiling. His head sinks a little further into the plush pillow, and he wonders what it is he thinks he's doing. You don't even do that well, and he cannot deny it, not when he lies here. And yet it only feels like the wrong move when he thinks about leaving: pulling those sheets back and retreating to his corner, leaving Astarion alone in his misery.]
Simply because you are not privy to those desires does not mean they do not exist. I want many things, Astarion.
[Spoken after a period of silence, his voice pitched low. And maybe this conversation is destined to be full of pauses, for it initially seems as if he might not elaborate. But then:]
I have never . . .
[No. How much does he want to reveal? Offering up too much feels like a mistake, even now— but it's so hard to explain it all without delving into his past. Fenris sighs softly and starts again.]
You were not wrong, that first day. Your father did buy me. He bought my debt.
[He murmurs the price, the number long since branded into his mind. It's a considerable sum even for nobility: more than a new car or an indulgent toy to throw away weeks later when it no longer amuses. It's the kind of money that ruins companies or silences people for a lifetime; the kind of debt that men drown in if they try to overcome it— legally, anyway.]
Before then, I was property. And just as you would not expect your beloved phone to have dreams or desires . . . so too I was not encouraged to try and form my own.
You ask me what I desire? But perhaps it would be easier to say that I have fears, and they are what guide me. Each day I wake up and face a job so laughably easier than my last that I fear what it means. I fear that I have failed, or that this is a test— or worse still, a joke at my expense. I fear that your father will tire of me, or find me not worth my price.
[I fear that he has more use for me than he has yet revealed, but he doesn't dare say that. Moment of camaraderie or not, Astarion is his father's son, and surely he will not appreciate as-yet-unfounded slander against him. Fenris sighs again.]
I fear that the worst is yet to come. That, indeed, someone will try to throw me out. That this existence, which is the most peaceful I have ever known, will come to an end.
. . . and I suppose, in wake of all that . . . what I desire most is stability.
[And it's too much. It's too much information that slipped past lips too eager to share, for he has never been asked this question before. It's embarrassing; it's dangerous, and he grimaces in the dark.]
What do you want?
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I was property.
Likened to a fucking phone. A piece of plastic and magic-infused tech, the comparison brutally offhanded. And Astarion's too stunned through the twist of his own neck as it jerks towards his conversational partner to remember that he'd started off association by teasing loosely about things like orphanages or enslavement; time's dilated so much under the press of cold shock that weeks might've been entire lifetimes ago, and at least in this second he's not the same person now that he was back then.
His eyes are opened, even if his brain hasn't caught up yet.
No part of him's caught up yet, in fact. Sitting upright in his bed without realizing it; hearing that posed prompt already come and gone, and one he tramples when he
snaps out in response:]
Who gives a damn what I want— what do you mean you were property? [His father paid— gods. Gods, that's an astronomical amount. Even for their seemingly bottomless expenses, his father could have bought a legion devoted to his every last word. Instead he chose—
This.
One elf. One glow-in-the-dark, metaphoric name possessing, eye-contact averse elf in unsuspecting armor. Hells' teeth— why? Was it assumptive loyalty? That if he paid more than anyone ever should, the man would feel inescapably bound? Or....]
Who owned you?
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He'd thought . . . indifferent sympathy, perhaps. A twisting grimace or a performative sigh on such a wretched business, for isn't that how it always goes? Derision or pity, but either way, nobles always remove themselves from such distasteful issues. Slaves and servants are there to serve, not to have personal lives or conflicts, and if their very existence is a miserable one, well. It's not worth thinking about. That's how it had been with Danarius and his ilk— and gods know Lord Ancunín was nothing but serene when he had handed over a check to buy Fenris. The lad will be useful, that was the only real comment he'd had, and Fenris had thought—
It's just . . . he hadn't expected horror.
He hadn't expected shock.
And maybe this is Fenris' own fault. Maybe he expects too much of an elf not yet a century old, who plays so well at being worldly and mature that he can fool almost everyone. But there's such a difference between knowing how to play among your friends (boasting about exploits, fucking and sucking your way through the upper echelons just so they'll admire you) and knowing what really happens in the world . . .]
A wizard near the edge of the Upper City. A minor noble.
[He isn't playing coy with Danarius' name— at least, not intentionally. It's just that he doesn't quite know what to make of all this shock.]
And I mean I was property. His . . . his. He arranged it in courts long ago, though I do not know the specifics.
[It had been so many years ago, after all, and he was such an ignorant thing. The legalese had flown over his head, and Danarius had prompted him to sign things with the jagged X that had served as signature. And his mother had been there, nodding tearfully; Varania had been there, small and wide-eyed. For them, Danarius murmured. Just sign here and they will never worry again . . .]
He controlled everything. He . . . why are you upset?
[And he doesn't hear the echo. He doesn't realize his expression is the same that Astarion wore hours ago (a lifetime ago).]
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god that icon tho i am DYING about all these new ones
good because more are on the way for YOU >:]
AA BOO THANK YOU once again you spoil me :>
POINTS. AT. YOU.
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