Like a mantra, every word Fenris says prompts more of that same internal echo, and through the awfulness of its rat-king tangle, blurring the lines between outrage and newfound horror at something he knew existed in this city since he was at least the age of twelve (for there's always a difference between knowing and knowing), Astarion comes to the same conclusion as fists beaten against stone. The same conclusion Fenris— who might've beaten his hands against stone on more than one occasion, figurative or literal both, Astarion thinks while his eyes drop towards scarred knuckles— hands to him like a contract in the very same ensuing breath.
'I cannot dream of freedom.'
Astarion can.
Astarion does.
And worse still, he knows he'll someday have it— or an approximation of it anyway, with him roaming these halls in place of colder footsteps, silk hems trailing in his wake. White curls cut around his cheeks instead of straight lines, but the very same fortune clutched in hand. Something he loathes as much as he covets, depending on the night.
Maybe that'll be a cage, too. Maybe a Baroness has pictures or a Duke longs for his waif— but even then, Fenris is right: it's not the same.
This is worse.
So much worse.
It's unfair.]
But it's not enough.
[Shocked to hear the dry rasp of his throat chiming in without him, Astarion pauses. His eyes wet, his mouth dry. Hollow rattle lost inside the shallow chasm still cut between them.
Because everything. Everything Fenris can't bring himself to bask in or hope for, it dangles on a razor's edge. One mistake. One night where Lord Ancunín finds an empty bed or hears the bray of drunken laughter. Or worse.
He's never in his pointless life wanted to protect something more.]
Fuck it all, I'll buy your debt— [He expels with a burst of anxious air.] Another fifty years and I'll have the rights to our vaults, and I can just buy you from your contract. Make sure there's nothing for you to break.
[Not I'll set you free. Not I'll let you go.
He's young, Astarion Ancunín; he can't stray too far from his own desires yet— and Fenris is the first real thing he's ever found that he likes enough to keep.]
And it always comes down to that, doesn't it? Then again: isn't that meant to be every slave's hope? That some master will look on them kindly enough to buy them not as laborer, but kept pet, safe and secure. My precious thing, my beloved jewel, and it isn't freedom, but it's almost like it. Safe from work. Safe from harm. Safe from the illegal slave markets and the brutal cruelty of a master who might chain you to a bed or work you quite literally to death—
Fenris should be grateful.
He isn't.
He knows what the boy means. He knows that there is no lie in the fervency of his voice nor the bright shine to his gaze, for what would be the point? Some cruel joke, maybe, but such a thing is too tiresome to play out. This is real. This is what he thinks will help, and gods, but he isn't wrong. It would help. It would help immensely, right up until Astarion got tired of him. Or: Astarion found a better offer. Or: Astarion dies an untimely death, and all his prized possessions go to his brother, who looks at Fenris as though he's little more than a mildly interesting object (which he is in this household).]
And what then?
[It's soft. Not angry. Not yet, anyway.]
Assuming I do survive the next fifty years here, what then? You will buy me from my contract, and then I will be yours. I will still have a master I need to serve and keep happy. I will still owe a debt to someone— or do you plan on paying all of it yourself out of your own pocket and never ask me for a copper? It will not come cheap. And I doubt your father will be content with you spending it, heir or not.
[He does not realize how hunched his posture has become, his head bowed forward and his shoulders raised defensively.]
Besides. You assume your father will keep me for another fifty years. But I do not think he imagines I will last that long.
[Then why hire him? Why spend such a staggeringly enormous sum? He doesn't know, but he can think of more than a few possibilities, none of them good.
A few moments of silence, and, quieter:]
Do not mistake this as my wanting to wallow in enslavement— nor a lack of appreciation for your— for you.
[He glances over at him. There's such anguish in that expression— and so despite himself, Fenris reaches out, absently brushing a strand of hair away from his face.]
But trading one master for another is not freedom.
[Thumb pushed across the middle of its opposing palm, bearing down until it aches; subconscious grounding him the only way his mind knows how to keep itself level without reacting first and thinking later— when it's all so far over his head. (When that roaming touch does what countless chastisements never could.
It shuts him up.)
Yet all the while his own mind runs ragged in sluggish desperation, swearing Fenris is wrong. That the offer counts as freedom just because he'd never use it, twisting in the vice of all obvious logic to devour its own tail. Because there's no point in lofty optimism, after all anyway, is there? Slavery or not, neither beggars nor princes can be choosers, no matter what fables so often insist. Not even a patriar can make demands without paying his own fees, so at the end of every fetid, locked-in day, does anyone get true freedom?
Astarion won't.
No, he certainly damn well won't, not in fifty years or a hundred. He'll be here. The loyal son, as he was named; unruly and unhappy, but still here. And on the heels of the kindest day in decades, sitting beside someone who talks to him, looks at him— sees him—
He isn't strong enough to make a promise he doesn't want. One that ends with him alone again.
His arms pull back from where they sit across his knees, fit in close before he lifts his chin again. Uncertainty more pervasive than the darkness curled around them, and for the first time in a long, long while— without the distraction of drink or stupidity or pointless laughter— he feels it. He hates it. Sullen shame the only thing he wears when he sighs and looks away, that strand of hair sliding back into stubborn disarray for the sunken tilting of his head.]
You will last that long.
[The words leave his teeth in shallow rhythms.]
I'll protect you. Help you. Teach you everything I know about this hierarchical mess you've gotten yourself stuck in, so that even my family can't try to displace you. [The law's Astarion's forte; he has an eye for it, even when he despises it on stubborn principle alone.]
We can....figure out whatever comes after that once we get there. [Even if he can't admit it— can't bring himself to say I'll free you— something in his pendulous heart still swings the other way right through his grasping fingertips. Lurching though it hurts. Twisting a glance over his shoulder cut from slow sincerity, slung dark beneath pale eyes.]
....together.
[Is that enough the question scrawled in his expression.
(The phone beside them starts rattling again. It doesn't feel important anymore; it's only Fenris that he's watching.)]
It's just— it's all happening so quickly, and he doesn't know where to stand. A day ago he would have thought it the height of foolishness to ever believe so wholeheartedly in a noble, much less one who's resented him so much. He would have been wary of this being a trick, and he would have been right to. A day ago, he would have said with certainty that there was no way this wasn't a ploy, a spirited effort from his rebellious charge to get him in trouble. Crawl into my bed, I'll buy you free, don't fret, and the words are right, the voice is right, but what kind of fool would trust in such sweet promises? There are stories all across the coast of bedded women stuck with a child they never wanted because a noble had promised that he'd elevate them, and that would be after so much more than just today.
A single act of kindness . . . surely it can't change so much.
There has to be something else. The thought rises up almost violently within his mind, ripping through the nauseating mixture of bitter anger and aching longing and filling him with fear. There has to something else, something he's missing, some clause that he's overlooked— something, and he barely knows what he means. He barely knows how this could be a trick or trap, save that the last time a noble promised him something good, his collar only grew heavier around his throat.
(Quite the expensive pet, aren't you? And it was a joke. A teasing bit of mirth from his master, Danarius' voice amused as he'd tallied out the cost of all that lyrium. But it will be worth it, and what could he do but agree?)
And yet . . . Astarion's voice aches with honesty. His eyes still gleam in the darkness, and though Fenris does not understand all the emotions clear on his face (oh, foolish thing, and he doesn't realize just how lonely Astarion really is; he doesn't understand just how little affection he's ever gotten), there's nothing there that speaks of a lie.
But maybe it's not even that. Maybe it's just that there's nothing dignified about this conversation. It's not the coy seduction of before, with Astarion firmly slotted in the role of tempting ingenue; it's not even the boastful bragging of that party, spiteful dominance proven through base means.
He wouldn't look like this in front of his friends, Fenris thinks, and realizes in that same moment that it's true. He wouldn't dare. There could be no tears, no fretful anger or fierce protectiveness, for such stark genuineness isn't allowed in those circles. Even the offer for help would be suspect— but here Astarion is, baring his heart anyway.
Is it enough?]
Together.
[And it doesn't solve everything. It doesn't grant him freedom, or promise him some happy ending. But it's something. It's something tangible, something real: I will not let you be taken. I will not let them oust you. I will not let you be hurt.
Who has ever been so kind to him before? And yet the moment the thought slips past his mind, he crushes it, shoving it away with frantic desperation, for he can't. He can't take the way his heart lurches and aches so suddenly, his own eyes threatening to sting; he can't bear it, not tonight. Not when this is already confusing as it is. Not when he feels so filled with conflicting emotions that it's almost nauseating— oh, he can't.
But perhaps now he does understand— for this is more kindness than anyone has ever shown him, and he cannot help but crave more. And yet it would be strange for him to reach out again, no matter that his fingers suddenly ache to smooth through those unruly curls. So, instead:]
Start with your friends. Tell me of them.
[Soft. Not entreating, not exactly, but . . . gentle. A way to lead them out of this emotional minefield they've found themselves in, for in truth, Fenris does not know how to even begin to articulate what he's feeling.]
[The agreement's been made, but Astarion's throat still feels tight (tight enough to choke him if he leans wrong), dragging up the idea of leaning back across his elbows again— his thin outline sinking back into soft, overstuffed down alongside a promise that won't wane: together. Together. Together.
It seems more real with each passing second.
Thank the gods for small segues though, if nothing else. A sudden wave of warmth flickering as it passes through a quickly thawing expression: trading out fear for its most familiar balm— and a dry glance that fights to be seen around the tumid edges of his pillows.]
What's to tell? They're no threat to you.
[Because that's where his own mind leaps first, of course. Innate as sucking air, particularly with the discussion they'd just had still resting soft inside their half-tensed palms.]
But....[Astarion interjects through a meandering hum] in case you want to shut them up next time they start to bark: they're all patriar. Mostly my age or younger— with the exception of one. [Antwun Dufay. The singular soul that hadn't been there the night Fenris came trampling through carpeted shores just to be met with glinting eyes and cold mockery in the dark.
Picking over it now, Astarion's glad he wasn't.
Mostly for the fact that shame— weeks, if not closing in on a full month late for its would-be-decent arrival— is busy scribbling the tips of Astarion's ears (and the short gaps between inkdrop moles and constellatory freckles) a few shades darker with its retrospective presence; he can't stand the thought of hearing Fenris denigrated by his peers.
Least of all by someone twice his age.]
Leon's a working apprentice to the Jannath line. [His scoff is feathering; pushing away malleable night air with its disdain.] You can expect him to supplicate himself like one, too. [Slim fingers gesticulate towards white curls. An example.] Human, long hair. Won't say much, but absolutely thinks he's right whenever he does, even when he's being as dense as wet cement. Which, for the record? Happens a lot.
Violet, on the other hand, is vicious. Ignore her, if you can. I don't even need to describe her; you'll know which one she is. [Antithetical to the term all bark, but....] Thankfully for all of us, she loses interest faster than anything so long as you play figuratively dead.
Sometimes I think she can only sense movement.
[Ha and also ha— but seriously though.]
Yousen's the grim-eyed halfling, and by nature only follows the herd: his shrewd perception does wonders for milling gossip— but only if he thinks the others will approve.
[Call it an unsung implication in delivery that the lanky noble at Fenris' side looks proud for just a few clear beats, insisting don't worry, I won't let them.]
Aurelia the tiefling's aloof and haughty. If her chin raised any higher, she'd be strutting around with a broken neck. [Again, his body language's shifted. Again, he mimics the creature he describes: his arms curling while his throat's stretched out long.] Our resident holier-than-thou heiress. Who so happens to use that as a tragically unfortunate mask for just how middling her family's influence is. Calling them glorified merchants is like calling a dockwhore a peeress— they both have tits and like to spread their legs, but that's about where the similarities begin and end.
Petras is....
[His head shakes. His tongue clicks.
....eugh.]
A fellow magistrate and the son of a to-do lord. Goes by the title of pale, though only the gods know why. Expect him to boast and brag and cock about as if he owns everyone and everything in earshot, showing said pale ass all the while. [Less than a threat:] He's a gnat. If he ever tries to give you hell, swat him and watch how red he turns.
It's quite fun, actually.
[Mm.]
And last but not least: Dal. Dalyria, that is. A drow healer of all things, if you can believe those exist. [How she got so far as to rub elbows with sunlight and aristocracy both....Astarion's spent too long wondering whether it's wealth or talent she's kept locked inside her estate vaults.] Gets in as much trouble as the rest of us, but can't stand to see us snarl.
The others wouldn't be half as irritating if she'd just let us have our way. As you saw— they could do with being taken down a peg. [As if Astarion would ever be the one to cow the pack, when he was crowing before them just to see them smile.]
Is that enough information to sate your curiosity? Or would you like me to give you their rut count as well?
[Too late: he's already volunteering that all on his own, flashing the blunt corners of his own gossiping canines.]
[Relief comes swiftly in the seconds that pass. It doesn't quell his turbulent emotions, nor smothers them cruelly away— but it brings a sense of exhalation. Together, and he is grateful Astarion doesn't insist on dissecting the enormity of what just passed between them. It's enough, tonight, to know that something has changed between them. It's enough to know that Astarion means to keep him close, and that Fenris will have days, weeks— gods, years, even, if need be— to dissect all the turbulent emotions that have passed through him tonight.
And for tonight, it's nice to exhale.
He lays back down, laying his head gingerly on a pillow that sinks sweetly beneath the pressure. His limbs relax more quickly this time around, his aching body sighing softly in contentment now that he knows this isn't a trap of some kind. He can feel the warmth of Astarion from only a foot away, and the sound of his voice as it rises and falls mildly is oddly soothing. He hadn't realized before now just how tired he's been (but then again, he's always a bit tired, isn't he?). Gods, and in a bed this soft . . .
But ah, he does want to hear this. Slinging an arm beneath his head, Fenris glances over at Astarion, watching the line of his profile as he speaks. Dal and Petras and Leon and Violet, and he tries to match names to faces with middling results. Some of them are easier than others (Leon, then, was the one that cat-called him, and as for the drow and the tiefling, well, that's easy enough), but he's sure he'll have them down soon enough. Social dynamics, too, aren't so hard to guess: Petras exasperatedly tolerated, he and Astarion going at it like denning pups, all bark and no bite; Violet offered her due wariness, while Dal is doted upon, if not the earner of more than a few rolled eyes.
He wonders, vaguely, what they'll think when Astarion begins defending him instead of throwing him as an easy target. And then he wonders when he began to assume that Astarion would defend him, rather than simply go along with their goading. But he will. Fenris knows he will, prompted by that proud smile and underscored by a bone-deep certainty he won't question tonight.
And ah— that last addition earns an unexpected snort, undignified and amused. The first time he's laughed properly in Astarion's presence.]
And you take every chance to remind him, I wager.
[It's no bad thing. But gods, a pack of adolescents barely grown . . . with the exception of Leon, perhaps, but for the rest? My age or younger, and gods, how young that is for elves and tieflings and drow . . . no wonder they all keep track of how many the others fuck. What else is there to boast about?]
I would ask you where you rank on that list, little noble, but I suspect I would regret it.
[But there's a smile in his voice. He's teasing, of all things. Gently testing this newfound accord with a quiet joke. And then, his tone still light:]
Sate my curiosity once more: which is your favorite among them?
[For friendship. For rutting. For anything, really.]
[Astarion would regret it too, actually. That he brought it up was less about himself and more about having someone to tell about the others for once— and for a passingly fumbled second, the full breadth of it shows: his grin twisting slightly with muted hesitation, followed by a dismissive flick of silver eyes turned skyward just to get away from his tutor's possibly perceptive stare (the man punctured targets so cleanly in succession that it's hard to imagine him missing anything, even in conversation running well over his attractive, drowsy head).
To note: he doesn't actually care that Violet's better at it. Honestly one look at her proves why, irrespective of the sadistic quirks that flock her prowling presence (or on second thought, maybe they're what makes up the narrow difference to begin with).
It's that he doesn't want to admit it to Fenris.
And thankfully again (again— fate rolling consistently in his favor for one entirely backwards day— ) he finds just as fast he doesn't have to: his companion's only teasing. Only playing. And switching away from the thought (again) brings a different shade of brightness to peregrine features. Leaves them conspiratorial once more, brief silence punctuated by yet another scoff.]
I'd have to like them to have favorites.
[Ah, but his liar's tongue isn't so deft anymore; he's feeding Fenris the codex to his tells in piecemeal splices without realizing it. 'I'd have to like them' only a handful of shades more sincere than 'change my stripes'.
And far, far less than the way 'together' left his lips.]
Why, trying to figure out who you should be nice to? [When he leans forward, the bedding only steepens the angle of it for how it sinks under his palm (Dalyria. The answer's Dalyria: the only one with a nickname). His mouth so lopsided when it curls high to show the edges of his teeth that his nose crinkles. The same look as a shark that's scented blood.] The answer's none of them, darling.
[Again, he's made transparent. Again, he's telling the truth:]
[It's a strange look he gives Astarion. Not displeased, which might be surprising to the other elf. Not the gruff indifference or unimpressed dissuasion of before, but rather . . . puzzlement, bemused but quietly pleased. They're all beneath you, and he doesn't understand why Astarion would say such a thing— but right here, right now, Fenris is inclined to believe him.]
Oh?
[The mattress dips between them, Astarion suspended above Fenris as he bares his teeth in such a fierce little grin. His cheeks are faintly flushed, his hair mussed from the pillow— gods, he's so far from the poised little thing that Fenris had pulled from the party. Messy and imperfect, fierce savagery in his hungry smile— but in that moment, Fenris thinks, Astarion looks more attractive than he ever has before.
It's a quiet realization, one he doesn't quite articulate even to himself. Pretty, for he has never seen Astarion's face glow like this. Flush with sincerity and eagerness . . . together, and the word slips through his mind so sweetly. Together, as his fingers flex and he tries not to think about reaching out to touch him.]
[They're alone. The wing is empty. His father and his mother and his younger brother sleep, every servant shuttered in their quarters. The idea of being overheard? Ridiculous. Not even Talindra's up this late— and Astarion would know: he's made it his trade, skittering through the grounds unseen. A rat in the walls. A cat on high sills.
He could say anything right now.
It might as well be his estate they're laying in. His mansion. His throne room. His bed. An empire of nothing but vacant space, gone again come sunrise.
Why not make it count?]
The one where I actually enjoy having you around. [Oh, if a drop of honesty falls in a forest and only one other person is around....
(But this is in the spirit of cooperation, isn't it? The foundation of their truce.
Maybe he can do better than that.)]
As for them? Highborn or not, you saw it for yourself. Desperation becomes.
They're needy. Timid. Hungry. All starved for recognition. [Mutters the seductive pot about its kettle, smugly all the while.] They'd lick it off the carpets if they thought it'd be a net gain, for one.
—and you should see the photos they take of themselves.
Eugh.
[But if he could stop staring at those gold-green eyes, this'd all be so much easier. He has to pause to flash a grin or lick his lips more than once for losing his own train of thought, finding it in time:]
You, though....
You're interesting. Better to look at, too.
[Fenris doesn't need to think about reaching out: Astarion's already arched closer— angled in smooth slopes across the bracket of his forearm and braced palm. One shoulder high, the other low, slanting his arrangement almost as much as the loose shirt he's barely wearing. Pallid in his outline when he grins, but far, far, far from cold.
And it's lilac. And it's bergamot. Pressed palm oil and warm brandy. And it's dangerous.
But not a threat.]
I'm starting to think there's nothing I could tempt you with to steer you away from your path.
Forget the rest. Forget the sneering (and likely not inaccurate) insult to his peers; forget the coy compliment to his looks. Forget, even, that compliment of you're interesting, which Fenris knows even now to be a genuine one. They all of them register, but they're swiftly pushed aside in favor of that first statement.
Is this what it is to have a friend, then?
He doesn't know. He truly doesn't, and the question embarrasses him too much to articulate it aloud. But it must be, or something like it. Some form of companionship based upon mutual admiration and fascination, a sudden and swiftly growing desire to know and understand the other person in all their revealed complexities . . . a fondness, Fenris thinks, despite all common sense. He looks up at Astarion with his shirt all but off and his eyes gleaming— and though warm desire floods through him, it isn't separate from those longing feelings of friendship. Just . . . part of it, all at once.
I want you, some part of Fenris whispers. Not just as a friend. Not just as a bedmate, or an errant charge, or a kindly master. I want you, all of you, all of him suddenly and swiftly longing to put roughened hands on delicate hips. To drag Astarion in close and tumble over him, pinning him beneath Fenris' bulk, protective and possessive all at once. He wants to nuzzle at him, to kiss him, to whisper all kinds of secrets and facts and opinions. He wants to slip his fingers between pale thighs and watch as that expression twists, that steady voice melting into trembling statements and whimpering gasps, and all the while Fenris' name is on his lips—
His gaze has gone hooded, though he doesn't realize it. He's too used to stoicism to allow his expression to melt so easily, but he can't hide how intently he's looking at Astarion, longing suddenly fierce in his gaze.]
You mistake good sense for a lack of desire.
[Oh, how roughened his voice has become.]
You know what consequences I face. How dangerous such a thing would be for me.
[The words come from far away, as if he's reciting them from a script. And yet all the while he watches Astarion, not daring to glance away. Not wanting to. A sharp contrast from the way the other elf keeps grinning or nervously licking at his lips; all of Fenris' attention is focused so intently upon him.]
You hold a blade to my throat and ask me to trust that it will all work out.
[And he wants to. And he can't. And he's caught between the two, desire and fear tangling together, a longing so achingly fierce in his expression that it's all but tangible. His fingers flex in the sheets; he half-rises, more so he isn't just laying helplessly back than anything else.]
[All of Fenris easily read through the layers stacked down to his core in those unhabited seconds— it's his skin that's become glass. Or his chest, his lungs, his skull— Astarion now able to peer right through him with a sudden punch of resounding clarity, unexpected and surreal, like the sheet laid out across them both fell back far enough in shifting to reveal only his heart. And if it was a choice, it was a strange one in a world where no one can afford to slip. And if it wasn't—
Ask me for what you want.
No runaround. No games. Naked in unexpected parallel with every bit of clothing on, they've both gone as still as prey animals once their cover's been pulled up, neophytic and small in an arena they don't know. Where irony makes a fineboned heir as practiced as a half-starved wolf (oh yes, he knows his name), and somehow, Astarion gets the feeling that this time, it won't die at the stroke of midnight.
It'll start there, finding lungs and life until dawn comes. Paradoxically charged: neither really alive nor truly dead— unseen outside this room. Waiting for one of them to smother it or stamp it out. (And he wants to. And he can't. And he's caught between the two, desire and hesitation tangling together, a longing so achingly fierce in his expression that it's all but tangible.)
His heels slip against silk sheets when he sinks lower, scuffing atop the mattress.
It might as well be the edge of a cliff.]
So don't trust anything.
[Not a line, this time. Not a card played when his voice comes slithering in before his senses, hearing himself talk like it's someone else (and it's not) offering the breed of warmth he's never known (and it's not— it's not), scoffing with a sobered smile just to realize how far forwards he's leaned. He was hunting him, the first night he slunk into his space.
He's not hunting him now.
(His little finger moving first, linking itself to Fenris' in the gap that still remains, scant few inches that are left. Curling in to almost kiss him— only to kiss his forehead instead. Nose pushed briefly against those three little dots (gods help him, he doesn't know better yet), before he exhales once more in a huff.]
Let me earn it first.
[And no, he didn't promise to set him free. But he can protect him for now until he does. Give him a chance to learn that it's all right. At least inside this room. These halls. This quiet, empty wing.
Not the pain of contact— that's a red-hot spark slicing through his nerves, a momentary burst of pain that earns no reaction, for he's used to it by now. But the kiss itself, oh, that nearly tears him apart. It's slow. Soft. A gentle, adoring brush of lips against his forehead that ignites him from tip to toe, a rush of aching longing and shivering warmth, and he never realizes how starved he is for contact until he receives it. Fenris' eyes flutter closed in those moments, his throat bobbing as his head tips up— and gets that gentle bump of Astarion's nose as reward.
Let me earn it first, as a slender finger hooks around his own. Sweet-smelling breath wafts against his face. And it hurts. It hurts, it aches, it tears at him, his soul shrieking as his throat closes for just a moment, and he cannot say why, except no one has ever tried to earn his trust before.
No one has ever looked at him as enough of a person to even bother.
And it's too much. It's too much, so much so that for a moment it terrifies him. Like standing at the edge of a ship and peering over at the roaring sea, oh, he could drown in those dark waves. He knows how to be alone. He knows how to manage on his own, self-sufficient and so achingly lonely it's become a part of him, a dull ache he ignores as much as he does his lyrium. To let down his guard, to let someone even begin to try and reach him (never mind a noble, never mind his own charge) . . . oh, it could go so wrong so swiftly. It will go wrong, something quiet in him whispers, for how could it not? Nothing good ever stays. Such things (friendship, companionship, a lover) are not meant for the likes of him.
And yet: it isn't enough. It takes everything in him not to cry out as Astarion pulls away, please wait no not yet, so desperately starved for company and companionship that he can't give it up right away. Please, I need it, and just because he has learned to live with the ache of loneliness doesn't mean it cannot hurt.
And he doesn't know what to say. How to begin to acknowledge any of those emotions and impulses; how to begin to even parse them to himself. All Fenris knows in that moment is that when he looks up at Astarion, he sees . . .
A chance.
A fork in the road in a lifetime with one steady, straight line. A set of silver eyes that pierce the darkness and whisper: I see you. Curls lit up by moonlight, his expression so terribly careful, and in that moment Fenris realizes it isn't a choice. He could no more refuse this than he could stop breathing, not because Astarion is forcing his hand— but because he wants him so badly there is nothing he wouldn't do to get him.
(And yet: the power is placed in his hands. Let me earn your trust, and someday, maybe, he will tell Astarion just how much it meant to him).]
Yes.
[Breathless, and accompanied by a jerky nod. His finger lurches forward, hooking around Astarion's in confirmation: stay. Don't let go, not yet.]
In the coming weeks . . . yes. I . . .
[He sounds inane. He sounds like he's in shock, but gods help him, this is all so suddenly and bewilderingly new. ]
I have never met anyone quite like you, I think.
[And his hand lurches to the left, his fingers clumsy as they try to weave gently through Astarion's own. Please stay.]
[A lurch of movement still impressively rife with prowess has rough fingers latched tight around his own before he can take them back: their pressure tight, but far from biting; like the scales have tilted in its somehow endearing wake, he's that much prouder when he's framed by Fenris' wounded exposure. Chin a little higher. Half-lidded stare easy and slow-building, he tips his head just to let thoughts of anything else slip free under gravity's practiced hold.
Focusing on what's more important, for once.]
Here. [He nudges at his companion with a slanted flash of teeth, leaving their fingers intertwined just the way Fenris had arranged them— ] Roll over. [ —scuffling all of his silhouette into the empty space that formerly divided (and confined) them until his side's pushed flush against Fenris' arm. His hip. His leg. Pushing like a child at a sleepover just to den himself right in without a drop of shame or dignity, grinning all the while.
And the thing is, he doesn't stop. Not until Fenris has conceded and actually rolled onto his side, facing away so that Astarion can wrap around him with a pair of reedy arms and jabbing knees (and— last of all— two sets of ice-cold toes).
The door's shut. More importantly, it's locked. No one's walking in unless they want them to.
[It's so childish. It's so undignified, a sudden shift that sweeps away his sense of unmoored grief and replaces it with something more practical. Roll over, and suddenly he's being prodded along, urged and pressured with a playful grin until at last he gives in and settles on his side. It's more baffling than insulting, a bewildering change of pace that he doesn't understand— until all at once he does. Until all that movement settles and there's a soft presence pressing up from behind him. Warm breath puffs against the back of his neck, Astarion's arm slinging over his body and their fingers still tightly intertwined.
Quiet fills the room.
And it's comforting.
To be held. To realize, as the seconds tick past and the sounds of the city idly drift in with the breeze, that there is no other shoe waiting to be dropped. Astarion means to hold him like this, with no other expectation or overhead plan that's coyly waiting to be put in motion. No one is going to burst in on them, not when the door is locked. There's no master waiting to punish him, no gawkers ready to objectify him . . . there's just this. This soft moment that's perfect in all its imperfections, jabbing knees and cold toes, staggering in how gentle it all is.
He does not speak for a time, and there's something something a little wonderful about that, too. It lets him bask in the little details of this moment: the soft darkness and the pleasantly cool breeze that slips in through the window; the warm weight of the comforter above them, and the sensation that they're hidden away from the world.
Astarion's hand is smaller than his own. Softer, too. His fingers fit nimbly between Fenris' own, and without really thinking about it he strokes his thumb against him, steady and soothing.]
And you do?
[Ah: a belated retort to Astarion's sentence. But whereas Fenris' voice had been weighed down with his grief and shock before, it's lighter now. He's teasing, or at least trying to.]
The first time I give you a compliment, little noble, and you refute it. Perhaps I need to be more specific, then.
[He's glad they aren't facing one another. It's easier like this.]
You have a streak of kindness in you. One I do not often see among your rank.
[And the thing is, Fenris himself isn't being kind. He isn't offering up something trite because he feels so very grateful, no, that's not his way. And maybe that carries through in the way his voice is a low rumble, too quiet to be something meant to flatter.]
Gross. [Snorts the heir apparent at his back, resisting the urge for gentleness by virtue of being absolutely untenable (his slight fingers hooking around rougher ones all the while. Pressing into that gentle, rolling pressure, feeling the grit of what must've been years upon years' worth of trials).
The point is: maybe Astarion didn't miss that initial cue. Maybe he knew exactly what he was doing the first time Fenris tried to impress kindness round his throat, and doesn't want that sort of praise to find him in open air. At least not without a good-natured skirmish, first. (Catch him with it. Fight him with it. Wear him down, and maybe— just maybe— he'll let it stick.)
He lets this stick instead: curling further into the small gaps until their contours perfectly align, knees to knees and thighs to thighs and even knuckles to fine bones, smiling all the while. His cavalier defiance puffed along the back of Fenris' neck. The settled slope of his shoulder.]
Just because I'm doing you a favor doesn't mean I'm being kind.
You are stuck with me now, after all. [He says like that wasn't part and parcel already.] Doomed to a life of fancy parties and enviable soirées.
[He doesn't know the life of a slave; he doesn't realize what it looked like— not the way Fenris knew it.]
[Invisibly, Fenris allows himself the audacious insolence of a small eye-roll. He will not insist upon that compliment a third time, no, he knows better— but that won't stop him from thinking it. Nor, indeed, stubbornly insisting upon it even if it's only to himself, for it's true in his mind. Not that Astarion is some saint, but still. It was kind, and gods know Fenris has felt little enough of that in his life.
But ah: he huffs out a laugh for that prediction of the future. He might not in other circumstances, too embittered by the irony to find amusement in it, but tonight is different. The way Astarion shuffles in closer, til there's not a single gap between them, makes it different.]
I imagine I have seen more fancy parties and soirées than you, young thing that you are. They lose their shine after the third or fourth.
[Gods, they were endless. He never could decide which he hated more: the ones in which Danarius played host or acted as guest. Both had their pitfalls and miseries. There were nights in Castellum Tenebris where Fenris would be tasked with serving wine and acting as entertainment both (Danarius' fingers twitching as Fenris would fall to his knees, and it was a good night if his keening cries were of pain and not pleasure). And then again there were night in other estates, where he would linger along the sidelines and ignore the unsubtle stares and gossiping whispers (from other slaves, from the guests, from everyone) in favor of watching all the revelry with a wary eye. His belly empty as the wealthy drank too much champagne and ate delicate pastries . . .
And danced. Gliding and weaving among another, and fashions might change, but dancing doesn't, not as much as humans think it does. And it was amusing, really, to see how they evolving: minuets becoming waltzes becoming polkas, and oh, of course there's others. He is no fool, and just because Danarius had never ventured into clubs doesn't mean that Fenris is blind to the less, ah, restrained dances that take place in the city. But if they're talking about noble parties, well.]
In fact . . . I wager I am better than you at the dances there, too. Gods know I have seen them often enough.
[Amusement is woven sweetly in his voice, though he keeps facing forward.]
[They might as well be sparrows tightly cossetted together for how Astarion's finally settled down at last, grip tight and insistently vicelike— but the slackness of his body resting fully on his counterpart makes it a comfortable snugness: no one's arms and legs are at risk of going numb while the noble's feverwarm cheek (the same one Fenris tended to, in fact), beds down in a dead weight slump along his tutor's throat. Comfortable now.]
Taking that bet, thank you very much in advance for your donation.
[He feels his own voice when he talks. The sound of it, vibrating slow through the conduit of skin and bone. So distracted by it (or is it something else entirely?) that he loses the thread of what he was going to tease next. Stalled out in ways he isn't used to.
Being carelessly coltish should come easy; he's even already got one foot in the water, no matter how his tenor's stiff right through the middle of his throat when he sucks in another breath.
(The problem is he can't stop thinking. Can't stop wondering, even when he knows he shouldn't.)]
....I....don't think I ever realized slaves were taught how to dance.
[He chuckles silently. It's a rumble of amusement more felt than heard, and therefore intended for one person only. Astarion is such an insistent weight atop him, his cheek warm and his limbs all tangled up within Leto's own. Like a pup eager for love, he thinks. So needy for affection that the concept of personal space simply doesn't exist, and gods, but Leto is enjoying it. Far more than he thought he would, in fact, and he shifts, tipping his head up, turning a little: making room.
Come here. Come here, now, lie with me, for at this point, he sees no use in resisting. And there's something quite soothing about being able to curl up with someone like this.]
We aren't.
[Mm. He resists the urge to turn and nuzzle against the top of Astarion's head. Or, no, not just that: to turn utterly, lying on his back so that he might gather the other elf up in his arms. But that would be too dangerous tonight, and they have danced on the edge of impropriety as it is. One thing at a time, he tells himself, and tries not to feel the ache in his arms as he rues the loss.]
But decades of watching parties brings its own expertise. My former master did not enjoy frivolities as a rule— certainly you would never catch him dancing, not especially as he got on in years. But he would attend the parties nonetheless, competing in that grand Game you all enjoy so much. As did his father, and his father's father . . . and the styles do not change much. What's fashionable now becomes intriguing once again in a few decades— and there are only so many ways in which one can move their body.
I would stand to the side more often than not. Theoretically, my job was to watch for threats— but as most nights were dull affairs, I watched the dancers instead.
[He wonders if he'd ever seen Astarion at one of those parties. Not as he is now, an elf grown, but as a child: silver hair and gold braid stitching, far more interested in getting his hands on food than the dull going-ons of adults. If so, Fenris does not remember, and gods know Astarion likely doesn't, for who takes heed of slaves? But still. It's an oddly bittersweet thought, and he exhales sharply, trying to dismiss it.
And ah: there's a bit of a weary note in his voice as he adds:]
[Astarion wends in without a word like a cat slithering into the crack in a sill, making transference anything but a loss: boneless volume charting a course for the rest of him to follow— which isn't entirely unlike the conversation passed back and forth between them (his slight ears softly perked; his lashes lowered after a long day where his tired eyes sting with fainter dryness) as he listens, not at all inclined to sleep just yet. At least not while he's outlining all the passed-on details in real time as he compiles them: that Fenris' master wasn't young. He liked— or he was obligated to— the grandeur of his station more than the motions of it. But was it glory over pleasure, or was it simply the odd, contagious numbness that runs rampant amongst nobility? Did he like anything? Did he even notice Fenris at all?
And it's methodical and thoughtless in the background of all that musing, the way Astarion compares himself to it, ascertaining absently that there's a difference. (I'm young. I don't keep slaves. I don't hate fun— all the petty, pointless divides that promise— I'm not him.
Does Fenris know that he's not him?)]
Watching isn't the same thing as doing. [Asserts the young rake to the proverbial choir, not even registering what the layout of experience looks like between them anyway (Have you ever been properly fucked, little brat? Have you ever been driven out of your mind? I doubt it.)
Circling the past instead of diving for it, and shifting more onto his side just to tip his view towards the lower end of his guardian's face.]
If you've never actually gone through the motions, you won't do any better than I did shooting a gun.
—what, though? Afraid I'll drag you to every ball and dinner party this side of Faerûn? [Astarion asks, finally letting his mouth slant around his teeth at that final inquisition.]
Because if so: yes.
[Though it's with the sharper nudge of a settled elbow that he adds, mildly:]
But unlike your old master, I know how to have fun.
[He's surprised to hear the purr in his own voice, richly amused and with just a hint of teasing. It's far more playful than he's ever inclined to be— but gods, being tangled up like this inspires it in him. Having that hand in the dark extended to him, that nuzzling nurturing . . . it broke a wall between them, Fenris thinks. Gods only know what that means for the coming weeks, for they cannot act like this around one another outside of this room, but . . . right now, Fenris does not feel the looming tension and danger of the past few weeks. There's no harm in teasing his charge, not like this.
And maybe it helps, not lingering on the past. Maybe it's nice for once to speak about Danarius without either shuddering in terror or flinching in pain. He's never done it before, and every irreverent, sneering word that slips past his lips is an exercise in freedom. He cannot say the topic does not hurt, for it does, and he can feel the strain already (the urge to speak of him more and the urge to never speak of him tangling up nauseatingly within him, slow to rise but overwhelming in its intensity)— but still, it is a marvel.
Idly, his fingers trace against Astarion's bare skin, curves and whirls that mean nothing.]
But if you're going to threaten me, little noble, do it properly. Do you intend to drag me out on the dance floor at one of these parties? Or merely teach me in some back room and make sport of it?
[Not lingering doesn't mean forgetting. Laughing doesn't mean it doesn't ache. He's smiling, but it's disjointed: partially in the clockwork tick of half a minute ago, rolling the marbled concept of 'I would stand to the side more often than not' between tangled fingertips, imagining what it would've looked like— if Astarion had ever even seen him.
(Passing through a crowd with laughter in his throat, paying less than any heed to those ungilded accompaniments while his knuckles curl in silk. The same creature he huddles into now like sunlight rendered as invisible as music to silver eyes, and far less valued in that falsely conjured mind. Just a blot at the corner of his mirthful vision, and behind its blurred out shadow: sad eyes. Hollow cheeks. Laced with placidity and misery in equal doses, unable to even hope for more.)
Rough fingerprints begin to drawl along bare skin, and before he knows it, he's wide awake again.]
I'll teach you here first, daring wolf.
Spare you the public ridicule until you're actually worth the sport.
['I won't touch you', Astarion gritted little over half an hour ago when beckoning his companion into bed. He's breaking that rule in overdrive by jabbing his chin into the thickset muscle over Fenris' shoulder (amongst every other bit of intertwining between fingers and toes and feet), grinning hard enough to cut.]
[He doesn't move. A shard of ice ripples through his soul, cutting through his growing fondness and leaving his heart thundering in his chest, and he does not move, not an inch. It's not a conscious choice, but an instinctive one. Fight, flight, or freeze, that's what they always say, and gods know Fenris has been trained to fight— but any slave will tell you that the best instinct to cultivate is freeze.
Freeze, and perhaps whatever master is angry over won't be made worse. Freeze, and they cannot claim any of the rage and grief you always feel has made it to your expression. Freeze, and maybe, just maybe, you'll get out of this intact. Fenris' fingers have stilled, locked in place against Astarion's bare skin; his other hand has stilled, his fingers stiff despite being intertwined.
And he isn't stupid. He knows that Astarion likely meant nothing by the remark. Your reputation is mine now, I can't have you making a fool of us both with your ungainly steps, and it's just another way to continue their conversation, pushing the boundaries gently back and forth. But the word mine works its way under his skin like fiberglass, stinging so sharply that it aches.]
But things are different in this room, aren't they? Just for tonight, maybe. Just for this hour, this minute, this moment, when they're tangled together and more equal than they've ever been. When Astarion looks at him as companion instead of bodyguard, and Fenris—
Fenris needs to act as more than flinching slave.
It's quick, the way he moves: a lightning-fast burst of movement, shifting and twisting his body as he spins to face Astarion, his arms surging forward to wrap around the other elf and tug him in close. Their bodies suddenly aligned (oh, Astarion is so slight compared to him, his body such a fragile thing when grasped with roughened hands), one hand wrapping firm around his torso while the other threads through unruly curls. He doesn't grip so tight it hurts, for he isn't in this to punish— just to command attention, so suddenly and swiftly that Astarion will have no choice but to pay him mind.]
And what of yours is mine, little star?
[Focus, little one. Choose carefully, and it's impossible to read Fenris' expression. There's nothing but intent focus, emerald eyes glinting in the darkness.]
[His vision is filled with the sight of that cold glare.
An exhale— and his lips crack open without breath, silver eyes shivering as their pupils constrict into beaded little pinpricks, the byproduct of terror bred ages ago into his forebearers: alertness meant for unwalled places. Rigidity to counter prey drive, but it doesn't work as well when his own jeweled fingertips lay tight against tanned skin. Everything he provoked through carelessness (the kind he still can't track in hindsight) hunched over him in a corded array of knotwork muscle. His ribcage— that narrow network of threading marrow— made narrower by the steady lock of an arm that feels like steel around his body, keeping him from sucking in full gasps of deadened air.
And those fingerpads....]
I—
[His curls part under pressure. He thinks his legs might, too, though as his cock jerks hot against his thigh it's only his own toes that curl, scrubbing at silk sheets.
He could come from this.
He—
—click— or maybe it's a wetter sound when his tongue unhooks itself from the roof of his mouth, the act of swallowing too noisy to ignore. Tender throat bobbing only once.]
....whatever you want.
[It's not a line. The words have to crawl from his throat to leave his mouth in roughcut shambles, registered like dry silt to his ears. And with the implication of anything his left leg inches higher, nudging in a less-dazed invitation that's as reflexive as a buckled spine or lowered, motionless dedition. The subtle scuff of their trousers pinching round their knees leading into that slight shift in balance. Adding pressure to the notion of surrender through open thighs....and the ensuing rush that drives two pale hands up to fist however they can in white hair set to match. The same breed of boldness as sweat-lined palms locked tight around the grip of a borrowed gun.
He's a fawn. A yearling with velvet on his pallid antlers. A soft-bellied beast laid back— no one's master.
[Whatever you want. And that's true, Fenris thinks during the next handful of breathless seconds. He could take anything he wanted right now and Astarion would acquiesce. Push his fingers into that pliant mouth, fucking them in and out as Astarion trembled and drooled in pent-up need. Slot his thigh between those parted ones, guiding that offered leg into wrapping around one hip. Flip him over and yank those trousers down, spearing him with his prick and drinking in every overheated moan that leaves those lips, Fenris please Fenris, thighs trembling for a partner who finally takes what he wants instead of giving Astarion what he thinks he needs . . .
The room is cool tonight, though the space between them is warm. The muted sounds of the city drift in, but it only serves to highlight the breathless silence that's fallen, and all the little ways in which they puncture it. Ragged breath. Unsubtle swallows. Pale skin gleams in the moonlight, those silver eyes full of fear and longing all at once. A pretty prince caught by a prowling wolf, trembling in lust and anticipation as he waits for his fate to be pronounced. Astarion's body is so slight against his hand, his weight negligible, and Fenris swears he can feel his heartbeat thundering against the palm of his hand, a rapidfire rhythm so heavy that it pulses down his fingertips, echoing in counterpoint to his own.
His eyes slide slowly down, making no secret of the way he drinks in his companion. Lingering on the swell of his lips, the faint shine of spit— and then down further, to the slender line of his neck. The curve of his chest and jut of his ribs (and his hand draws him in a little closer, mine, mine). Then back up again, relishing taking the time to make Astarion squirm.
What will I do with you, little boy . . .
When he moves, it's a deliberate thing.
Calloused fingertips press against pliant skin, urging Astarion to draw even closer. Until there's not a fingerspan of space between them, their bodies pressed up against one another in roughshod intimacy. Astarion's panted breath is hot against Fenris' lips, and he can count every errant freckle across the bridge of his nose.
His other hand slides down, first cupping his cheek, then gently gripping his chin. His thumb presses against Astarion's bottom lip, teasing against the pliant give in one slow, indulgent swipe. And then, before he has time to react—
Fenris kisses him.
Softly. Gently. Their mouths meet with such aching tenderness, and Fenris lingers there, relishing this perfect moment. The feeling of lips against his own, heated and pliant; the dichotomy of their mouths, Fenris' bitten and chapped, Astarion's soft and swollen. The warmth of that lithe body pressed against his own, and the way he's surrounded by Astarion, scent and sensation subsuming him in the sweetest way. An eternity passes, or only a few seconds, and then—
Their mouths part with a soft noise. Fenris stares hazily down at his Astarion, his cheeks flushed and his eyes full of an indescribable longing.]
No.
[Soft. Throaty.]
You do not understand the weight of what you offer me.
[So young, how could he? So rich, how could he? But no one knows the gravity of a word like anything better than a slave. No one knows better what it is to give yourself, all of yourself, to another. Darling little star who offers himself again and again— to get what he wants, to use as base comfort, to even out the score between all the bastards in Fenris' life who have ever taken from him . . .
And it's not about sex (and it is, a little bit). It's about ownership, and possessiveness, and the desperate desire to not become one on a string of dozens, swiftly consumed and spat out when he is no longer a novelty. It's about loneliness and wanting so badly it hurts— and yet knowing that to take now would be to seal himself from it forever.]
I will have all of you, or none of you.
[Throaty. Intent, as his eyes dip down to focus on the curve of those lips just once.]
Tell me again. When you know what it is you offer me . . . tell me again, and I will come running.
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albinomilksnake2023-07-11 12:43 am
no subject
It's unfair. It's unfair. It's unfair.
Like a mantra, every word Fenris says prompts more of that same internal echo, and through the awfulness of its rat-king tangle, blurring the lines between outrage and newfound horror at something he knew existed in this city since he was at least the age of twelve (for there's always a difference between knowing and knowing), Astarion comes to the same conclusion as fists beaten against stone. The same conclusion Fenris— who might've beaten his hands against stone on more than one occasion, figurative or literal both, Astarion thinks while his eyes drop towards scarred knuckles— hands to him like a contract in the very same ensuing breath.
'I cannot dream of freedom.'
Astarion can.
Astarion does.
And worse still, he knows he'll someday have it— or an approximation of it anyway, with him roaming these halls in place of colder footsteps, silk hems trailing in his wake. White curls cut around his cheeks instead of straight lines, but the very same fortune clutched in hand. Something he loathes as much as he covets, depending on the night.
Maybe that'll be a cage, too. Maybe a Baroness has pictures or a Duke longs for his waif— but even then, Fenris is right: it's not the same.
This is worse.
So much worse.
It's unfair.]
But it's not enough.
[Shocked to hear the dry rasp of his throat chiming in without him, Astarion pauses. His eyes wet, his mouth dry. Hollow rattle lost inside the shallow chasm still cut between them.
Because everything. Everything Fenris can't bring himself to bask in or hope for, it dangles on a razor's edge. One mistake. One night where Lord Ancunín finds an empty bed or hears the bray of drunken laughter. Or worse.
He's never in his pointless life wanted to protect something more.]
Fuck it all, I'll buy your debt— [He expels with a burst of anxious air.] Another fifty years and I'll have the rights to our vaults, and I can just buy you from your contract. Make sure there's nothing for you to break.
[Not I'll set you free. Not I'll let you go.
He's young, Astarion Ancunín; he can't stray too far from his own desires yet— and Fenris is the first real thing he's ever found that he likes enough to keep.]
no subject
And it always comes down to that, doesn't it? Then again: isn't that meant to be every slave's hope? That some master will look on them kindly enough to buy them not as laborer, but kept pet, safe and secure. My precious thing, my beloved jewel, and it isn't freedom, but it's almost like it. Safe from work. Safe from harm. Safe from the illegal slave markets and the brutal cruelty of a master who might chain you to a bed or work you quite literally to death—
Fenris should be grateful.
He isn't.
He knows what the boy means. He knows that there is no lie in the fervency of his voice nor the bright shine to his gaze, for what would be the point? Some cruel joke, maybe, but such a thing is too tiresome to play out. This is real. This is what he thinks will help, and gods, but he isn't wrong. It would help. It would help immensely, right up until Astarion got tired of him. Or: Astarion found a better offer. Or: Astarion dies an untimely death, and all his prized possessions go to his brother, who looks at Fenris as though he's little more than a mildly interesting object (which he is in this household).]
And what then?
[It's soft. Not angry. Not yet, anyway.]
Assuming I do survive the next fifty years here, what then? You will buy me from my contract, and then I will be yours. I will still have a master I need to serve and keep happy. I will still owe a debt to someone— or do you plan on paying all of it yourself out of your own pocket and never ask me for a copper? It will not come cheap. And I doubt your father will be content with you spending it, heir or not.
[He does not realize how hunched his posture has become, his head bowed forward and his shoulders raised defensively.]
Besides. You assume your father will keep me for another fifty years. But I do not think he imagines I will last that long.
[Then why hire him? Why spend such a staggeringly enormous sum? He doesn't know, but he can think of more than a few possibilities, none of them good.
A few moments of silence, and, quieter:]
Do not mistake this as my wanting to wallow in enslavement— nor a lack of appreciation for your— for you.
[He glances over at him. There's such anguish in that expression— and so despite himself, Fenris reaches out, absently brushing a strand of hair away from his face.]
But trading one master for another is not freedom.
no subject
It shuts him up.)
Yet all the while his own mind runs ragged in sluggish desperation, swearing Fenris is wrong. That the offer counts as freedom just because he'd never use it, twisting in the vice of all obvious logic to devour its own tail. Because there's no point in lofty optimism, after all anyway, is there? Slavery or not, neither beggars nor princes can be choosers, no matter what fables so often insist. Not even a patriar can make demands without paying his own fees, so at the end of every fetid, locked-in day, does anyone get true freedom?
Astarion won't.
No, he certainly damn well won't, not in fifty years or a hundred. He'll be here. The loyal son, as he was named; unruly and unhappy, but still here. And on the heels of the kindest day in decades, sitting beside someone who talks to him, looks at him— sees him—
He isn't strong enough to make a promise he doesn't want. One that ends with him alone again.
His arms pull back from where they sit across his knees, fit in close before he lifts his chin again. Uncertainty more pervasive than the darkness curled around them, and for the first time in a long, long while— without the distraction of drink or stupidity or pointless laughter— he feels it. He hates it. Sullen shame the only thing he wears when he sighs and looks away, that strand of hair sliding back into stubborn disarray for the sunken tilting of his head.]
You will last that long.
[The words leave his teeth in shallow rhythms.]
I'll protect you. Help you. Teach you everything I know about this hierarchical mess you've gotten yourself stuck in, so that even my family can't try to displace you. [The law's Astarion's forte; he has an eye for it, even when he despises it on stubborn principle alone.]
We can....figure out whatever comes after that once we get there. [Even if he can't admit it— can't bring himself to say I'll free you— something in his pendulous heart still swings the other way right through his grasping fingertips. Lurching though it hurts. Twisting a glance over his shoulder cut from slow sincerity, slung dark beneath pale eyes.]
....together.
[Is that enough the question scrawled in his expression.
(The phone beside them starts rattling again. It doesn't feel important anymore; it's only Fenris that he's watching.)]
no subject
The trouble is, Fenris doesn't know.
It's just— it's all happening so quickly, and he doesn't know where to stand. A day ago he would have thought it the height of foolishness to ever believe so wholeheartedly in a noble, much less one who's resented him so much. He would have been wary of this being a trick, and he would have been right to. A day ago, he would have said with certainty that there was no way this wasn't a ploy, a spirited effort from his rebellious charge to get him in trouble. Crawl into my bed, I'll buy you free, don't fret, and the words are right, the voice is right, but what kind of fool would trust in such sweet promises? There are stories all across the coast of bedded women stuck with a child they never wanted because a noble had promised that he'd elevate them, and that would be after so much more than just today.
A single act of kindness . . . surely it can't change so much.
There has to be something else. The thought rises up almost violently within his mind, ripping through the nauseating mixture of bitter anger and aching longing and filling him with fear. There has to something else, something he's missing, some clause that he's overlooked— something, and he barely knows what he means. He barely knows how this could be a trick or trap, save that the last time a noble promised him something good, his collar only grew heavier around his throat.
(Quite the expensive pet, aren't you? And it was a joke. A teasing bit of mirth from his master, Danarius' voice amused as he'd tallied out the cost of all that lyrium. But it will be worth it, and what could he do but agree?)
And yet . . . Astarion's voice aches with honesty. His eyes still gleam in the darkness, and though Fenris does not understand all the emotions clear on his face (oh, foolish thing, and he doesn't realize just how lonely Astarion really is; he doesn't understand just how little affection he's ever gotten), there's nothing there that speaks of a lie.
But maybe it's not even that. Maybe it's just that there's nothing dignified about this conversation. It's not the coy seduction of before, with Astarion firmly slotted in the role of tempting ingenue; it's not even the boastful bragging of that party, spiteful dominance proven through base means.
He wouldn't look like this in front of his friends, Fenris thinks, and realizes in that same moment that it's true. He wouldn't dare. There could be no tears, no fretful anger or fierce protectiveness, for such stark genuineness isn't allowed in those circles. Even the offer for help would be suspect— but here Astarion is, baring his heart anyway.
Is it enough?]
Together.
[And it doesn't solve everything. It doesn't grant him freedom, or promise him some happy ending. But it's something. It's something tangible, something real: I will not let you be taken. I will not let them oust you. I will not let you be hurt.
Who has ever been so kind to him before? And yet the moment the thought slips past his mind, he crushes it, shoving it away with frantic desperation, for he can't. He can't take the way his heart lurches and aches so suddenly, his own eyes threatening to sting; he can't bear it, not tonight. Not when this is already confusing as it is. Not when he feels so filled with conflicting emotions that it's almost nauseating— oh, he can't.
But perhaps now he does understand— for this is more kindness than anyone has ever shown him, and he cannot help but crave more. And yet it would be strange for him to reach out again, no matter that his fingers suddenly ache to smooth through those unruly curls. So, instead:]
Start with your friends. Tell me of them.
[Soft. Not entreating, not exactly, but . . . gentle. A way to lead them out of this emotional minefield they've found themselves in, for in truth, Fenris does not know how to even begin to articulate what he's feeling.]
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It seems more real with each passing second.
Thank the gods for small segues though, if nothing else. A sudden wave of warmth flickering as it passes through a quickly thawing expression: trading out fear for its most familiar balm— and a dry glance that fights to be seen around the tumid edges of his pillows.]
What's to tell? They're no threat to you.
[Because that's where his own mind leaps first, of course. Innate as sucking air, particularly with the discussion they'd just had still resting soft inside their half-tensed palms.]
But....[Astarion interjects through a meandering hum] in case you want to shut them up next time they start to bark: they're all patriar. Mostly my age or younger— with the exception of one. [Antwun Dufay. The singular soul that hadn't been there the night Fenris came trampling through carpeted shores just to be met with glinting eyes and cold mockery in the dark.
Picking over it now, Astarion's glad he wasn't.
Mostly for the fact that shame— weeks, if not closing in on a full month late for its would-be-decent arrival— is busy scribbling the tips of Astarion's ears (and the short gaps between inkdrop moles and constellatory freckles) a few shades darker with its retrospective presence; he can't stand the thought of hearing Fenris denigrated by his peers.
Least of all by someone twice his age.]
Leon's a working apprentice to the Jannath line. [His scoff is feathering; pushing away malleable night air with its disdain.] You can expect him to supplicate himself like one, too. [Slim fingers gesticulate towards white curls. An example.] Human, long hair. Won't say much, but absolutely thinks he's right whenever he does, even when he's being as dense as wet cement. Which, for the record? Happens a lot.
Violet, on the other hand, is vicious. Ignore her, if you can. I don't even need to describe her; you'll know which one she is. [Antithetical to the term all bark, but....] Thankfully for all of us, she loses interest faster than anything so long as you play figuratively dead.
Sometimes I think she can only sense movement.
[Ha and also ha— but seriously though.]
Yousen's the grim-eyed halfling, and by nature only follows the herd: his shrewd perception does wonders for milling gossip— but only if he thinks the others will approve.
[Call it an unsung implication in delivery that the lanky noble at Fenris' side looks proud for just a few clear beats, insisting don't worry, I won't let them.]
Aurelia the tiefling's aloof and haughty. If her chin raised any higher, she'd be strutting around with a broken neck. [Again, his body language's shifted. Again, he mimics the creature he describes: his arms curling while his throat's stretched out long.] Our resident holier-than-thou heiress. Who so happens to use that as a tragically unfortunate mask for just how middling her family's influence is. Calling them glorified merchants is like calling a dockwhore a peeress— they both have tits and like to spread their legs, but that's about where the similarities begin and end.
Petras is....
[His head shakes. His tongue clicks.
....eugh.]
A fellow magistrate and the son of a to-do lord. Goes by the title of pale, though only the gods know why. Expect him to boast and brag and cock about as if he owns everyone and everything in earshot, showing said pale ass all the while. [Less than a threat:] He's a gnat. If he ever tries to give you hell, swat him and watch how red he turns.
It's quite fun, actually.
[Mm.]
And last but not least: Dal. Dalyria, that is. A drow healer of all things, if you can believe those exist. [How she got so far as to rub elbows with sunlight and aristocracy both....Astarion's spent too long wondering whether it's wealth or talent she's kept locked inside her estate vaults.] Gets in as much trouble as the rest of us, but can't stand to see us snarl.
The others wouldn't be half as irritating if she'd just let us have our way. As you saw— they could do with being taken down a peg. [As if Astarion would ever be the one to cow the pack, when he was crowing before them just to see them smile.]
Is that enough information to sate your curiosity? Or would you like me to give you their rut count as well?
[Too late: he's already volunteering that all on his own, flashing the blunt corners of his own gossiping canines.]
Aurelia's last— but Petras is a pitiable second.
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And for tonight, it's nice to exhale.
He lays back down, laying his head gingerly on a pillow that sinks sweetly beneath the pressure. His limbs relax more quickly this time around, his aching body sighing softly in contentment now that he knows this isn't a trap of some kind. He can feel the warmth of Astarion from only a foot away, and the sound of his voice as it rises and falls mildly is oddly soothing. He hadn't realized before now just how tired he's been (but then again, he's always a bit tired, isn't he?). Gods, and in a bed this soft . . .
But ah, he does want to hear this. Slinging an arm beneath his head, Fenris glances over at Astarion, watching the line of his profile as he speaks. Dal and Petras and Leon and Violet, and he tries to match names to faces with middling results. Some of them are easier than others (Leon, then, was the one that cat-called him, and as for the drow and the tiefling, well, that's easy enough), but he's sure he'll have them down soon enough. Social dynamics, too, aren't so hard to guess: Petras exasperatedly tolerated, he and Astarion going at it like denning pups, all bark and no bite; Violet offered her due wariness, while Dal is doted upon, if not the earner of more than a few rolled eyes.
He wonders, vaguely, what they'll think when Astarion begins defending him instead of throwing him as an easy target. And then he wonders when he began to assume that Astarion would defend him, rather than simply go along with their goading. But he will. Fenris knows he will, prompted by that proud smile and underscored by a bone-deep certainty he won't question tonight.
And ah— that last addition earns an unexpected snort, undignified and amused. The first time he's laughed properly in Astarion's presence.]
And you take every chance to remind him, I wager.
[It's no bad thing. But gods, a pack of adolescents barely grown . . . with the exception of Leon, perhaps, but for the rest? My age or younger, and gods, how young that is for elves and tieflings and drow . . . no wonder they all keep track of how many the others fuck. What else is there to boast about?]
I would ask you where you rank on that list, little noble, but I suspect I would regret it.
[But there's a smile in his voice. He's teasing, of all things. Gently testing this newfound accord with a quiet joke. And then, his tone still light:]
Sate my curiosity once more: which is your favorite among them?
[For friendship. For rutting. For anything, really.]
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To note: he doesn't actually care that Violet's better at it. Honestly one look at her proves why, irrespective of the sadistic quirks that flock her prowling presence (or on second thought, maybe they're what makes up the narrow difference to begin with).
It's that he doesn't want to admit it to Fenris.
And thankfully again (again— fate rolling consistently in his favor for one entirely backwards day— ) he finds just as fast he doesn't have to: his companion's only teasing. Only playing. And switching away from the thought (again) brings a different shade of brightness to peregrine features. Leaves them conspiratorial once more, brief silence punctuated by yet another scoff.]
I'd have to like them to have favorites.
[Ah, but his liar's tongue isn't so deft anymore; he's feeding Fenris the codex to his tells in piecemeal splices without realizing it. 'I'd have to like them' only a handful of shades more sincere than 'change my stripes'.
And far, far less than the way 'together' left his lips.]
Why, trying to figure out who you should be nice to? [When he leans forward, the bedding only steepens the angle of it for how it sinks under his palm (Dalyria. The answer's Dalyria: the only one with a nickname). His mouth so lopsided when it curls high to show the edges of his teeth that his nose crinkles. The same look as a shark that's scented blood.] The answer's none of them, darling.
[Again, he's made transparent. Again, he's telling the truth:]
They're all beneath you.
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Oh?
[The mattress dips between them, Astarion suspended above Fenris as he bares his teeth in such a fierce little grin. His cheeks are faintly flushed, his hair mussed from the pillow— gods, he's so far from the poised little thing that Fenris had pulled from the party. Messy and imperfect, fierce savagery in his hungry smile— but in that moment, Fenris thinks, Astarion looks more attractive than he ever has before.
It's a quiet realization, one he doesn't quite articulate even to himself. Pretty, for he has never seen Astarion's face glow like this. Flush with sincerity and eagerness . . . together, and the word slips through his mind so sweetly. Together, as his fingers flex and he tries not to think about reaching out to touch him.]
And by what criteria are you measuring?
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He could say anything right now.
It might as well be his estate they're laying in. His mansion. His throne room. His bed. An empire of nothing but vacant space, gone again come sunrise.
Why not make it count?]
The one where I actually enjoy having you around. [Oh, if a drop of honesty falls in a forest and only one other person is around....
(But this is in the spirit of cooperation, isn't it? The foundation of their truce.
Maybe he can do better than that.)]
As for them? Highborn or not, you saw it for yourself. Desperation becomes.
They're needy. Timid. Hungry. All starved for recognition. [Mutters the seductive pot about its kettle, smugly all the while.] They'd lick it off the carpets if they thought it'd be a net gain, for one.
—and you should see the photos they take of themselves.
Eugh.
[But if he could stop staring at those gold-green eyes, this'd all be so much easier. He has to pause to flash a grin or lick his lips more than once for losing his own train of thought, finding it in time:]
You, though....
You're interesting. Better to look at, too.
[Fenris doesn't need to think about reaching out: Astarion's already arched closer— angled in smooth slopes across the bracket of his forearm and braced palm. One shoulder high, the other low, slanting his arrangement almost as much as the loose shirt he's barely wearing. Pallid in his outline when he grins, but far, far, far from cold.
And it's lilac. And it's bergamot. Pressed palm oil and warm brandy. And it's dangerous.
But not a threat.]
I'm starting to think there's nothing I could tempt you with to steer you away from your path.
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Forget the rest. Forget the sneering (and likely not inaccurate) insult to his peers; forget the coy compliment to his looks. Forget, even, that compliment of you're interesting, which Fenris knows even now to be a genuine one. They all of them register, but they're swiftly pushed aside in favor of that first statement.
Is this what it is to have a friend, then?
He doesn't know. He truly doesn't, and the question embarrasses him too much to articulate it aloud. But it must be, or something like it. Some form of companionship based upon mutual admiration and fascination, a sudden and swiftly growing desire to know and understand the other person in all their revealed complexities . . . a fondness, Fenris thinks, despite all common sense. He looks up at Astarion with his shirt all but off and his eyes gleaming— and though warm desire floods through him, it isn't separate from those longing feelings of friendship. Just . . . part of it, all at once.
I want you, some part of Fenris whispers. Not just as a friend. Not just as a bedmate, or an errant charge, or a kindly master. I want you, all of you, all of him suddenly and swiftly longing to put roughened hands on delicate hips. To drag Astarion in close and tumble over him, pinning him beneath Fenris' bulk, protective and possessive all at once. He wants to nuzzle at him, to kiss him, to whisper all kinds of secrets and facts and opinions. He wants to slip his fingers between pale thighs and watch as that expression twists, that steady voice melting into trembling statements and whimpering gasps, and all the while Fenris' name is on his lips—
His gaze has gone hooded, though he doesn't realize it. He's too used to stoicism to allow his expression to melt so easily, but he can't hide how intently he's looking at Astarion, longing suddenly fierce in his gaze.]
You mistake good sense for a lack of desire.
[Oh, how roughened his voice has become.]
You know what consequences I face. How dangerous such a thing would be for me.
[The words come from far away, as if he's reciting them from a script. And yet all the while he watches Astarion, not daring to glance away. Not wanting to. A sharp contrast from the way the other elf keeps grinning or nervously licking at his lips; all of Fenris' attention is focused so intently upon him.]
You hold a blade to my throat and ask me to trust that it will all work out.
[And he wants to. And he can't. And he's caught between the two, desire and fear tangling together, a longing so achingly fierce in his expression that it's all but tangible. His fingers flex in the sheets; he half-rises, more so he isn't just laying helplessly back than anything else.]
Do not tempt me.
Ask me for what you want.
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Ask me for what you want.
No runaround. No games. Naked in unexpected parallel with every bit of clothing on, they've both gone as still as prey animals once their cover's been pulled up, neophytic and small in an arena they don't know. Where irony makes a fineboned heir as practiced as a half-starved wolf (oh yes, he knows his name), and somehow, Astarion gets the feeling that this time, it won't die at the stroke of midnight.
It'll start there, finding lungs and life until dawn comes. Paradoxically charged: neither really alive nor truly dead— unseen outside this room. Waiting for one of them to smother it or stamp it out. (And he wants to. And he can't. And he's caught between the two, desire and hesitation tangling together, a longing so achingly fierce in his expression that it's all but tangible.)
His heels slip against silk sheets when he sinks lower, scuffing atop the mattress.
It might as well be the edge of a cliff.]
So don't trust anything.
[Not a line, this time. Not a card played when his voice comes slithering in before his senses, hearing himself talk like it's someone else (and it's not) offering the breed of warmth he's never known (and it's not— it's not), scoffing with a sobered smile just to realize how far forwards he's leaned. He was hunting him, the first night he slunk into his space.
He's not hunting him now.
(His little finger moving first, linking itself to Fenris' in the gap that still remains, scant few inches that are left. Curling in to almost kiss him— only to kiss his forehead instead. Nose pushed briefly against those three little dots (gods help him, he doesn't know better yet), before he exhales once more in a huff.]
Let me earn it first.
[And no, he didn't promise to set him free. But he can protect him for now until he does. Give him a chance to learn that it's all right. At least inside this room. These halls. This quiet, empty wing.
That's what I want.]
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Not the pain of contact— that's a red-hot spark slicing through his nerves, a momentary burst of pain that earns no reaction, for he's used to it by now. But the kiss itself, oh, that nearly tears him apart. It's slow. Soft. A gentle, adoring brush of lips against his forehead that ignites him from tip to toe, a rush of aching longing and shivering warmth, and he never realizes how starved he is for contact until he receives it. Fenris' eyes flutter closed in those moments, his throat bobbing as his head tips up— and gets that gentle bump of Astarion's nose as reward.
Let me earn it first, as a slender finger hooks around his own. Sweet-smelling breath wafts against his face. And it hurts. It hurts, it aches, it tears at him, his soul shrieking as his throat closes for just a moment, and he cannot say why, except no one has ever tried to earn his trust before.
No one has ever looked at him as enough of a person to even bother.
And it's too much. It's too much, so much so that for a moment it terrifies him. Like standing at the edge of a ship and peering over at the roaring sea, oh, he could drown in those dark waves. He knows how to be alone. He knows how to manage on his own, self-sufficient and so achingly lonely it's become a part of him, a dull ache he ignores as much as he does his lyrium. To let down his guard, to let someone even begin to try and reach him (never mind a noble, never mind his own charge) . . . oh, it could go so wrong so swiftly. It will go wrong, something quiet in him whispers, for how could it not? Nothing good ever stays. Such things (friendship, companionship, a lover) are not meant for the likes of him.
And yet: it isn't enough. It takes everything in him not to cry out as Astarion pulls away, please wait no not yet, so desperately starved for company and companionship that he can't give it up right away. Please, I need it, and just because he has learned to live with the ache of loneliness doesn't mean it cannot hurt.
And he doesn't know what to say. How to begin to acknowledge any of those emotions and impulses; how to begin to even parse them to himself. All Fenris knows in that moment is that when he looks up at Astarion, he sees . . .
A chance.
A fork in the road in a lifetime with one steady, straight line. A set of silver eyes that pierce the darkness and whisper: I see you. Curls lit up by moonlight, his expression so terribly careful, and in that moment Fenris realizes it isn't a choice. He could no more refuse this than he could stop breathing, not because Astarion is forcing his hand— but because he wants him so badly there is nothing he wouldn't do to get him.
(And yet: the power is placed in his hands. Let me earn your trust, and someday, maybe, he will tell Astarion just how much it meant to him).]
Yes.
[Breathless, and accompanied by a jerky nod. His finger lurches forward, hooking around Astarion's in confirmation: stay. Don't let go, not yet.]
In the coming weeks . . . yes. I . . .
[He sounds inane. He sounds like he's in shock, but gods help him, this is all so suddenly and bewilderingly new. ]
I have never met anyone quite like you, I think.
[And his hand lurches to the left, his fingers clumsy as they try to weave gently through Astarion's own. Please stay.]
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[A lurch of movement still impressively rife with prowess has rough fingers latched tight around his own before he can take them back: their pressure tight, but far from biting; like the scales have tilted in its somehow endearing wake, he's that much prouder when he's framed by Fenris' wounded exposure. Chin a little higher. Half-lidded stare easy and slow-building, he tips his head just to let thoughts of anything else slip free under gravity's practiced hold.
Focusing on what's more important, for once.]
Here. [He nudges at his companion with a slanted flash of teeth, leaving their fingers intertwined just the way Fenris had arranged them— ] Roll over. [ —scuffling all of his silhouette into the empty space that formerly divided (and confined) them until his side's pushed flush against Fenris' arm. His hip. His leg. Pushing like a child at a sleepover just to den himself right in without a drop of shame or dignity, grinning all the while.
And the thing is, he doesn't stop. Not until Fenris has conceded and actually rolled onto his side, facing away so that Astarion can wrap around him with a pair of reedy arms and jabbing knees (and— last of all— two sets of ice-cold toes).
The door's shut. More importantly, it's locked. No one's walking in unless they want them to.
Call that true safety by any given name.]
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[It's so childish. It's so undignified, a sudden shift that sweeps away his sense of unmoored grief and replaces it with something more practical. Roll over, and suddenly he's being prodded along, urged and pressured with a playful grin until at last he gives in and settles on his side. It's more baffling than insulting, a bewildering change of pace that he doesn't understand— until all at once he does. Until all that movement settles and there's a soft presence pressing up from behind him. Warm breath puffs against the back of his neck, Astarion's arm slinging over his body and their fingers still tightly intertwined.
Quiet fills the room.
And it's comforting.
To be held. To realize, as the seconds tick past and the sounds of the city idly drift in with the breeze, that there is no other shoe waiting to be dropped. Astarion means to hold him like this, with no other expectation or overhead plan that's coyly waiting to be put in motion. No one is going to burst in on them, not when the door is locked. There's no master waiting to punish him, no gawkers ready to objectify him . . . there's just this. This soft moment that's perfect in all its imperfections, jabbing knees and cold toes, staggering in how gentle it all is.
He does not speak for a time, and there's something something a little wonderful about that, too. It lets him bask in the little details of this moment: the soft darkness and the pleasantly cool breeze that slips in through the window; the warm weight of the comforter above them, and the sensation that they're hidden away from the world.
Astarion's hand is smaller than his own. Softer, too. His fingers fit nimbly between Fenris' own, and without really thinking about it he strokes his thumb against him, steady and soothing.]
And you do?
[Ah: a belated retort to Astarion's sentence. But whereas Fenris' voice had been weighed down with his grief and shock before, it's lighter now. He's teasing, or at least trying to.]
The first time I give you a compliment, little noble, and you refute it. Perhaps I need to be more specific, then.
[He's glad they aren't facing one another. It's easier like this.]
You have a streak of kindness in you. One I do not often see among your rank.
[And the thing is, Fenris himself isn't being kind. He isn't offering up something trite because he feels so very grateful, no, that's not his way. And maybe that carries through in the way his voice is a low rumble, too quiet to be something meant to flatter.]
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The point is: maybe Astarion didn't miss that initial cue. Maybe he knew exactly what he was doing the first time Fenris tried to impress kindness round his throat, and doesn't want that sort of praise to find him in open air. At least not without a good-natured skirmish, first. (Catch him with it. Fight him with it. Wear him down, and maybe— just maybe— he'll let it stick.)
He lets this stick instead: curling further into the small gaps until their contours perfectly align, knees to knees and thighs to thighs and even knuckles to fine bones, smiling all the while. His cavalier defiance puffed along the back of Fenris' neck. The settled slope of his shoulder.]
Just because I'm doing you a favor doesn't mean I'm being kind.
You are stuck with me now, after all. [He says like that wasn't part and parcel already.] Doomed to a life of fancy parties and enviable soirées.
[He doesn't know the life of a slave; he doesn't realize what it looked like— not the way Fenris knew it.]
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But ah: he huffs out a laugh for that prediction of the future. He might not in other circumstances, too embittered by the irony to find amusement in it, but tonight is different. The way Astarion shuffles in closer, til there's not a single gap between them, makes it different.]
I imagine I have seen more fancy parties and soirées than you, young thing that you are. They lose their shine after the third or fourth.
[Gods, they were endless. He never could decide which he hated more: the ones in which Danarius played host or acted as guest. Both had their pitfalls and miseries. There were nights in Castellum Tenebris where Fenris would be tasked with serving wine and acting as entertainment both (Danarius' fingers twitching as Fenris would fall to his knees, and it was a good night if his keening cries were of pain and not pleasure). And then again there were night in other estates, where he would linger along the sidelines and ignore the unsubtle stares and gossiping whispers (from other slaves, from the guests, from everyone) in favor of watching all the revelry with a wary eye. His belly empty as the wealthy drank too much champagne and ate delicate pastries . . .
And danced. Gliding and weaving among another, and fashions might change, but dancing doesn't, not as much as humans think it does. And it was amusing, really, to see how they evolving: minuets becoming waltzes becoming polkas, and oh, of course there's others. He is no fool, and just because Danarius had never ventured into clubs doesn't mean that Fenris is blind to the less, ah, restrained dances that take place in the city. But if they're talking about noble parties, well.]
In fact . . . I wager I am better than you at the dances there, too. Gods know I have seen them often enough.
[Amusement is woven sweetly in his voice, though he keeps facing forward.]
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Taking that bet, thank you very much in advance for your donation.
[He feels his own voice when he talks. The sound of it, vibrating slow through the conduit of skin and bone. So distracted by it (or is it something else entirely?) that he loses the thread of what he was going to tease next. Stalled out in ways he isn't used to.
Being carelessly coltish should come easy; he's even already got one foot in the water, no matter how his tenor's stiff right through the middle of his throat when he sucks in another breath.
(The problem is he can't stop thinking. Can't stop wondering, even when he knows he shouldn't.)]
....I....don't think I ever realized slaves were taught how to dance.
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Come here. Come here, now, lie with me, for at this point, he sees no use in resisting. And there's something quite soothing about being able to curl up with someone like this.]
We aren't.
[Mm. He resists the urge to turn and nuzzle against the top of Astarion's head. Or, no, not just that: to turn utterly, lying on his back so that he might gather the other elf up in his arms. But that would be too dangerous tonight, and they have danced on the edge of impropriety as it is. One thing at a time, he tells himself, and tries not to feel the ache in his arms as he rues the loss.]
But decades of watching parties brings its own expertise. My former master did not enjoy frivolities as a rule— certainly you would never catch him dancing, not especially as he got on in years. But he would attend the parties nonetheless, competing in that grand Game you all enjoy so much. As did his father, and his father's father . . . and the styles do not change much. What's fashionable now becomes intriguing once again in a few decades— and there are only so many ways in which one can move their body.
I would stand to the side more often than not. Theoretically, my job was to watch for threats— but as most nights were dull affairs, I watched the dancers instead.
[He wonders if he'd ever seen Astarion at one of those parties. Not as he is now, an elf grown, but as a child: silver hair and gold braid stitching, far more interested in getting his hands on food than the dull going-ons of adults. If so, Fenris does not remember, and gods know Astarion likely doesn't, for who takes heed of slaves? But still. It's an oddly bittersweet thought, and he exhales sharply, trying to dismiss it.
And ah: there's a bit of a weary note in his voice as he adds:]
Tell me you do not attend many.
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And it's methodical and thoughtless in the background of all that musing, the way Astarion compares himself to it, ascertaining absently that there's a difference. (I'm young. I don't keep slaves. I don't hate fun— all the petty, pointless divides that promise— I'm not him.
Does Fenris know that he's not him?)]
Watching isn't the same thing as doing. [Asserts the young rake to the proverbial choir, not even registering what the layout of experience looks like between them anyway (Have you ever been properly fucked, little brat? Have you ever been driven out of your mind? I doubt it.)
Circling the past instead of diving for it, and shifting more onto his side just to tip his view towards the lower end of his guardian's face.]
If you've never actually gone through the motions, you won't do any better than I did shooting a gun.
—what, though? Afraid I'll drag you to every ball and dinner party this side of Faerûn? [Astarion asks, finally letting his mouth slant around his teeth at that final inquisition.]
Because if so: yes.
[Though it's with the sharper nudge of a settled elbow that he adds, mildly:]
But unlike your old master, I know how to have fun.
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[He's surprised to hear the purr in his own voice, richly amused and with just a hint of teasing. It's far more playful than he's ever inclined to be— but gods, being tangled up like this inspires it in him. Having that hand in the dark extended to him, that nuzzling nurturing . . . it broke a wall between them, Fenris thinks. Gods only know what that means for the coming weeks, for they cannot act like this around one another outside of this room, but . . . right now, Fenris does not feel the looming tension and danger of the past few weeks. There's no harm in teasing his charge, not like this.
And maybe it helps, not lingering on the past. Maybe it's nice for once to speak about Danarius without either shuddering in terror or flinching in pain. He's never done it before, and every irreverent, sneering word that slips past his lips is an exercise in freedom. He cannot say the topic does not hurt, for it does, and he can feel the strain already (the urge to speak of him more and the urge to never speak of him tangling up nauseatingly within him, slow to rise but overwhelming in its intensity)— but still, it is a marvel.
Idly, his fingers trace against Astarion's bare skin, curves and whirls that mean nothing.]
But if you're going to threaten me, little noble, do it properly. Do you intend to drag me out on the dance floor at one of these parties? Or merely teach me in some back room and make sport of it?
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(Passing through a crowd with laughter in his throat, paying less than any heed to those ungilded accompaniments while his knuckles curl in silk. The same creature he huddles into now like sunlight rendered as invisible as music to silver eyes, and far less valued in that falsely conjured mind. Just a blot at the corner of his mirthful vision, and behind its blurred out shadow: sad eyes. Hollow cheeks. Laced with placidity and misery in equal doses, unable to even hope for more.)
Rough fingerprints begin to drawl along bare skin, and before he knows it, he's wide awake again.]
I'll teach you here first, daring wolf.
Spare you the public ridicule until you're actually worth the sport.
['I won't touch you', Astarion gritted little over half an hour ago when beckoning his companion into bed. He's breaking that rule in overdrive by jabbing his chin into the thickset muscle over Fenris' shoulder (amongst every other bit of intertwining between fingers and toes and feet), grinning hard enough to cut.]
Your reputation's mine now, too, you know.
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[He doesn't move. A shard of ice ripples through his soul, cutting through his growing fondness and leaving his heart thundering in his chest, and he does not move, not an inch. It's not a conscious choice, but an instinctive one. Fight, flight, or freeze, that's what they always say, and gods know Fenris has been trained to fight— but any slave will tell you that the best instinct to cultivate is freeze.
Freeze, and perhaps whatever master is angry over won't be made worse. Freeze, and they cannot claim any of the rage and grief you always feel has made it to your expression. Freeze, and maybe, just maybe, you'll get out of this intact. Fenris' fingers have stilled, locked in place against Astarion's bare skin; his other hand has stilled, his fingers stiff despite being intertwined.
And he isn't stupid. He knows that Astarion likely meant nothing by the remark. Your reputation is mine now, I can't have you making a fool of us both with your ungainly steps, and it's just another way to continue their conversation, pushing the boundaries gently back and forth. But the word mine works its way under his skin like fiberglass, stinging so sharply that it aches.]
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Fenris needs to act as more than flinching slave.
It's quick, the way he moves: a lightning-fast burst of movement, shifting and twisting his body as he spins to face Astarion, his arms surging forward to wrap around the other elf and tug him in close. Their bodies suddenly aligned (oh, Astarion is so slight compared to him, his body such a fragile thing when grasped with roughened hands), one hand wrapping firm around his torso while the other threads through unruly curls. He doesn't grip so tight it hurts, for he isn't in this to punish— just to command attention, so suddenly and swiftly that Astarion will have no choice but to pay him mind.]
And what of yours is mine, little star?
[Focus, little one. Choose carefully, and it's impossible to read Fenris' expression. There's nothing but intent focus, emerald eyes glinting in the darkness.]
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An exhale— and his lips crack open without breath, silver eyes shivering as their pupils constrict into beaded little pinpricks, the byproduct of terror bred ages ago into his forebearers: alertness meant for unwalled places. Rigidity to counter prey drive, but it doesn't work as well when his own jeweled fingertips lay tight against tanned skin. Everything he provoked through carelessness (the kind he still can't track in hindsight) hunched over him in a corded array of knotwork muscle. His ribcage— that narrow network of threading marrow— made narrower by the steady lock of an arm that feels like steel around his body, keeping him from sucking in full gasps of deadened air.
And those fingerpads....]
I—
[His curls part under pressure. He thinks his legs might, too, though as his cock jerks hot against his thigh it's only his own toes that curl, scrubbing at silk sheets.
He could come from this.
He—
—click— or maybe it's a wetter sound when his tongue unhooks itself from the roof of his mouth, the act of swallowing too noisy to ignore. Tender throat bobbing only once.]
....whatever you want.
[It's not a line. The words have to crawl from his throat to leave his mouth in roughcut shambles, registered like dry silt to his ears. And with the implication of anything his left leg inches higher, nudging in a less-dazed invitation that's as reflexive as a buckled spine or lowered, motionless dedition. The subtle scuff of their trousers pinching round their knees leading into that slight shift in balance. Adding pressure to the notion of surrender through open thighs....and the ensuing rush that drives two pale hands up to fist however they can in white hair set to match. The same breed of boldness as sweat-lined palms locked tight around the grip of a borrowed gun.
He's a fawn. A yearling with velvet on his pallid antlers. A soft-bellied beast laid back— no one's master.
And Fenris is no slave.]
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The room is cool tonight, though the space between them is warm. The muted sounds of the city drift in, but it only serves to highlight the breathless silence that's fallen, and all the little ways in which they puncture it. Ragged breath. Unsubtle swallows. Pale skin gleams in the moonlight, those silver eyes full of fear and longing all at once. A pretty prince caught by a prowling wolf, trembling in lust and anticipation as he waits for his fate to be pronounced. Astarion's body is so slight against his hand, his weight negligible, and Fenris swears he can feel his heartbeat thundering against the palm of his hand, a rapidfire rhythm so heavy that it pulses down his fingertips, echoing in counterpoint to his own.
His eyes slide slowly down, making no secret of the way he drinks in his companion. Lingering on the swell of his lips, the faint shine of spit— and then down further, to the slender line of his neck. The curve of his chest and jut of his ribs (and his hand draws him in a little closer, mine, mine). Then back up again, relishing taking the time to make Astarion squirm.
What will I do with you, little boy . . .
When he moves, it's a deliberate thing.
Calloused fingertips press against pliant skin, urging Astarion to draw even closer. Until there's not a fingerspan of space between them, their bodies pressed up against one another in roughshod intimacy. Astarion's panted breath is hot against Fenris' lips, and he can count every errant freckle across the bridge of his nose.
His other hand slides down, first cupping his cheek, then gently gripping his chin. His thumb presses against Astarion's bottom lip, teasing against the pliant give in one slow, indulgent swipe. And then, before he has time to react—
Fenris kisses him.
Softly. Gently. Their mouths meet with such aching tenderness, and Fenris lingers there, relishing this perfect moment. The feeling of lips against his own, heated and pliant; the dichotomy of their mouths, Fenris' bitten and chapped, Astarion's soft and swollen. The warmth of that lithe body pressed against his own, and the way he's surrounded by Astarion, scent and sensation subsuming him in the sweetest way. An eternity passes, or only a few seconds, and then—
Their mouths part with a soft noise. Fenris stares hazily down at his Astarion, his cheeks flushed and his eyes full of an indescribable longing.]
No.
[Soft. Throaty.]
You do not understand the weight of what you offer me.
[So young, how could he? So rich, how could he? But no one knows the gravity of a word like anything better than a slave. No one knows better what it is to give yourself, all of yourself, to another. Darling little star who offers himself again and again— to get what he wants, to use as base comfort, to even out the score between all the bastards in Fenris' life who have ever taken from him . . .
And it's not about sex (and it is, a little bit). It's about ownership, and possessiveness, and the desperate desire to not become one on a string of dozens, swiftly consumed and spat out when he is no longer a novelty. It's about loneliness and wanting so badly it hurts— and yet knowing that to take now would be to seal himself from it forever.]
I will have all of you, or none of you.
[Throaty. Intent, as his eyes dip down to focus on the curve of those lips just once.]
Tell me again. When you know what it is you offer me . . . tell me again, and I will come running.
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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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