“I don’t rightly expect so.” His exhale is slow, careful. He doesn’t even realize Fenris is suspicious, and so he doesn’t paint himself with false bravado or glory.
Maybe he’s just too tired to.
“Depends on how much damage you do beforehand. Devastate enough of the coven and...maybe. I could come crawling back. Play at being a puppet as long as the shard holds out. Bide my time for an opportunity to throw us both out into the sun.”
Fenris' suspicions continue to mount. Almost fondly, he says, "I won't sacrifice you for him."
He does not reach out with his hand, still bloodied from Astarion's earlier attempts. He leans forward instead, a quick and awkward kiss to Astarion's jaw. "Without you, this world holds no purpose."
“So I’m just to sacrifice you, then.” Thats what it’s about, really. He’d be committing suicide trying to get Fenris out of there, but at least then they’d be equal.
As it is, he’ll be fleeing like a gutless coward and leaving Fenris to the cruelties of whatever wind finds him.
“Because it’ll take a damned miracle for this to work which— yes, if anyone out there were capable of pulling it off, it’d be you. But it...” his fingertips are raised, tensed and poised to fend off something that isn’t here, and he doesn’t know what to do with himself otherwise. Which is why he reaches forward after that kiss to hook his fingers at the edges of Fenris’ breastplate, holding fast. “It isn’t fair.”
“I thought he’d taken everything from me already. I thought to myself I’d never give him anything else that could possibly hurt. Now I’m sending the only thing that matters right into his teeth, and I’m having to trust that it’ll be fine.”
He cranes his neck forwards in that narrow space, his kiss deliberate and far from glancing; his contact demanding, even when he breaks momentarily for one last confession, the words pooling against Fenris’ skin.
It only occurs to Fenris just now, what they're doing. "Ah- hmm." He looks away, embarrassed by his shortsightedness. He always gets so distracted by causes, anger and bitter revenge, he forgets... bodies and the feelings that come with them.
All the feelings except anger, anyway.
"What- hmm. What pleases you?" Entirely unerotic. Fenris tries again. "I know you have... fantasies."
“Really?” A glimpse of a spark behind those eyes, eagerness taking shape by the second as it eclipses pain; his moods, as always, are as shifting as sand in a sharp wind.
If this is to be farewell, then at least it’ll be a good one. That, he can live with, he thinks. Better than sullen thoughts and darker skies.
“On the bed, then. Armor off. I’ll just be a moment.”
And Fenris is pleased to see Astarion in better spirits, as much as such commands leave Fenris nervy and unsure. He likes sex best when it's spontaneous, unplanned, with minimal time to think or worry over it. Taking off his armor, Fenris sits on the bed, staring at his toes.
At least he isn't worrying about Baldur's Gate and Cazador and his lover dead and stranded. That's... something.
Fenris' mood has a tendency to shift as well, though perhaps not as obviously as some.
In a way, it is spontaneous. Rough-cut. That Astarion’s kept pocketed a checklist of things he wants to do to Fenris is more a matter of long-held desire rather than a rehearsed performance; he slithers like a snake to straddle Fenris when he returns, still sporting nothing but his trousers and a look of proud, wanton intent— vivid red silk clutched just in one hand.
Nervousness on Fenris’ part is fine. Fair, even. But he takes care to measure the look of it before he lowers himself in perching over him, just to be sure it isn’t fear. Satisfied, he presses Fenris to the mattress, marking the edge of his jaw with mild, doting kisses— speaking between every scuffing catch.
“Now, no matter what happens, I’m not going to hurt you. And I’m not going to bite.” Cazador and all his gifts aren’t welcome here tonight. This, the moment they’re going to share, the fantasy of it, is for them. Nothing more.
Well, mostly Astarion. But he’s a generous lover, even at his most selfish. So there’s that.
“If you want me to stop— need me to stop— all you have to do is ask.”
To that end, he takes that strip of crimson silk and lowers it— steadily— across the span of Fenris’ eyes.
Fenris is kissed and calmed until he sees the silk strip, and then his eyes cannot leave it. He doesn't move, doesn't goes rigid, just lies in waiting until-
Is it that he can't take it anymore, or that his worries are confirmed? It feels like both. The suspense breaks on a claustrophobic desire to see.
"Yes- No. Not- no, not that." He pulls the cloth from his eyes. "No. I won't."
In truth, he’d had his suspicions, and if nothing else it’s good to know Fenris is an honest partner— prone to speak up when he needs to.
So when the silk’s tossed away, he simply smiles. Keeps his hands perched just across Fenris’ shoulders, easing him back into comfort, however long it takes.
“A compromise, then.” Spoken easily, profile set to nosing at the rise of Fenris’ cheek. The scent of lilac and leather oil clinging to the air from that closeness.
He can do that. That's simple. He's more or less done it before, though never on command. It's the command that sticks out to him. He ignores it; it troubles, but not enough to fully throw him. He knows himself that well.
Still, when Fenris closes his eyes, they are scrunched, his face caught in the shape of someone awaiting a blow.
Astarion doesn’t judge. Fenris, after all, has spent days seeing him flinch, seeing him cower at nothing, fretting and sinking deeper into the apprehensive certainty of despair. They wear their scars differently, true, but he knows what it is he spots lurking in that tightened grimace.
He won’t force it away.
“They say when you can’t see, all your other senses heighten to compensate.” He reaches out for Fenris’ hands, his own soft, uncalloused, pressing them slowly across the span of his own chest— his ribs, the vulnerability of guarding bone beneath corded muscle.
“I want you to feel me.”
Slow press, easy contact. The rise and fall of his chest as he breaths, the hum of when he speaks.
“I want you to commit it all to memory. Tell me everything you sense.”
"I'm-" Fenris' eyes blink open, studying Astarion's face, trying to find something there that doesn't exist. Perfect clarity would be a difficult thing to force into his scrambled mind; he still wants it. "You may be very... disappointed by my efforts. I already have you memorized."
“You’re cheating.” He counters smoothly, wearing the edge of a smile as he peers down at that studious gaze.
It might be easier to work through this if Fenris were drunk, or at the very least pleasantly buzzed, but Astarion wants this to be uninhibited. Clear.
Something for Fenris to remember on the long nights ahead— or something to keep him alight if he’s turned, and the both of them are forced to lovingly carve the skin from one another’s bones for the rest of eternity.
“Try again.” He moves Fenris’ hands lower, down to the narrow span of his waist. That long-cast throat suffused with kisses around silvery leylines, curls brushing at his skin, weight resting easily across his hips as he rolls them faintly, clothing a mild barrier between bare skin and wanting— the scent of perfumed oil clinging. “You’ve seen me well enough. I want to hear about the rest.”
His smile twists a little more acutely, charmed.
“And if you know everything already, well, that ought to make this quite easy.”
If it's a challenge, that is something Fenris can contend with far more easily. He closes his eyes again, but this time with more determination than wariness. His hands lose their gauntlets easily, and bare hands begin to trace Astarion's features.
"A mole," he says, thumb drifting over Astarion's side. The other hand roams up Astarion's arm. "A little scratch here, long-healed. Something hit you in Thedas."
“Myself, actually,” correcting that claim with a throaty chuckle— his fingertips coasting across Fenris’ where they’re settled. “Completely hammered wagering a bet in Lowtown, first time I’d felt alcohol in my blood in ages. Went to stand up at such an odd angle that I reeled right back into some nobody and their poorly sheathed dagger. Utterly embarrassing.”
Fenris leans forward, his face pressed into Astarion's chest. A rich, deep peal of laughter falls from him, fond and tired. "Endearing," he corrects. "Utterly unique."
Hands wrapped around Astarion, Fenris knows from pure muscle memory how to avoid the scarring on his back.
There, a laugh. A real spark of it, and not some half-formed breath tumbling from Fenris’ teeth, rare as a caught star. He matches it with his own, more subdued for its adoration, arms folding around the steady slope of Fenris’ neck, keeping him near.
“Well. I’m glad my folly has you so charmed.”
He reaches beside them then, into the assembly of bedding and brought trinkets, and uncorks something that smells overly sweet. Fragrant. Alluring, even. To Astarion’s cursed tongue when he drinks, it tastes only of bitter ash, cloyingly disagreeable—
The back of his hand tilts Fenris’ face higher, jaw that lone point of contact for a single, heady beat.
“Now, back to our game. Tell me what you taste.” All smooth seduction, the promise of prowling delectation, between the smell that clings and the look in his eyes it all suggests lurid satisfaction.
Instead, when he kisses Fenris, tongue slipping easily between teeth— it’s overwhelmingly acidic. Bitter. Like pure lime juice, or something else equally laden with citrus, tart enough to shock even the most well-guarded of senses.
Fenris doesn't balk when he is kissed, when that strong citrus invades his senses. He does look a bit displeased when he pulls back, brows creased over eyes still closed. "Your taste in wine has depreciated, or you are trying to drug me."
Scoffing, he drops his head in faint defeat, though he is laughing mildly for his trouble.
“Neither.” Though all things considered, he supposes he could’ve bought himself a little more time with Fenris if he were wicked enough to be venomous here. Maybe it’s a shame he’s lost all his former, dastardly bite and replaced it with softer, more vulnerable shapes. “I was hoping to have you reeling. A little joke, of sorts.”
He moves a few fingers higher, smoothing out the front of Fenris’ bangs.
“Apparently you’re much too resilient for me to toy with.”
Fenris looks up, finally opening his eyes to squint. It's not true anger-- that familiar sight can be easily discerned-- but definitely annoyance. It certainly changes his mood, a fickle thing to begin with, for the night.
"You wear the blindfold." Fenris pushes Astarion back, roughness just on the edge of playful.
What remains of his laughter is smooth-cut, sweet-voiced, even as he’s overruled without much of an opportunity for protest— already well sunken into the bedding when he finally counters:
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Rescue. The word sounds stupid even to his mind as he says it.
But he would, he thinks, if it came to that.
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He wonders, with no small amount of worry, how much information Astarion has dramatized.
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Maybe he’s just too tired to.
“Depends on how much damage you do beforehand. Devastate enough of the coven and...maybe. I could come crawling back. Play at being a puppet as long as the shard holds out. Bide my time for an opportunity to throw us both out into the sun.”
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He does not reach out with his hand, still bloodied from Astarion's earlier attempts. He leans forward instead, a quick and awkward kiss to Astarion's jaw. "Without you, this world holds no purpose."
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As it is, he’ll be fleeing like a gutless coward and leaving Fenris to the cruelties of whatever wind finds him.
“Because it’ll take a damned miracle for this to work which— yes, if anyone out there were capable of pulling it off, it’d be you. But it...” his fingertips are raised, tensed and poised to fend off something that isn’t here, and he doesn’t know what to do with himself otherwise. Which is why he reaches forward after that kiss to hook his fingers at the edges of Fenris’ breastplate, holding fast. “It isn’t fair.”
“I thought he’d taken everything from me already. I thought to myself I’d never give him anything else that could possibly hurt. Now I’m sending the only thing that matters right into his teeth, and I’m having to trust that it’ll be fine.”
He cranes his neck forwards in that narrow space, his kiss deliberate and far from glancing; his contact demanding, even when he breaks momentarily for one last confession, the words pooling against Fenris’ skin.
“And I’ve never been any good at that.”
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With careful hands, Fenris moves to unhook himself from Astarion's grip. "Leaving will buy me more time. And perhaps distract you from fretting."
He can hope.
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Be weak for once, Fenris.
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All the feelings except anger, anyway.
"What- hmm. What pleases you?" Entirely unerotic. Fenris tries again. "I know you have... fantasies."
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If this is to be farewell, then at least it’ll be a good one. That, he can live with, he thinks. Better than sullen thoughts and darker skies.
“On the bed, then. Armor off. I’ll just be a moment.”
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At least he isn't worrying about Baldur's Gate and Cazador and his lover dead and stranded. That's... something.
Fenris' mood has a tendency to shift as well, though perhaps not as obviously as some.
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Nervousness on Fenris’ part is fine. Fair, even. But he takes care to measure the look of it before he lowers himself in perching over him, just to be sure it isn’t fear. Satisfied, he presses Fenris to the mattress, marking the edge of his jaw with mild, doting kisses— speaking between every scuffing catch.
“Now, no matter what happens, I’m not going to hurt you. And I’m not going to bite.” Cazador and all his gifts aren’t welcome here tonight. This, the moment they’re going to share, the fantasy of it, is for them. Nothing more.
Well, mostly Astarion. But he’s a generous lover, even at his most selfish. So there’s that.
“If you want me to stop— need me to stop— all you have to do is ask.”
To that end, he takes that strip of crimson silk and lowers it— steadily— across the span of Fenris’ eyes.
“Do you trust me, darling?”
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Is it that he can't take it anymore, or that his worries are confirmed? It feels like both. The suspense breaks on a claustrophobic desire to see.
"Yes- No. Not- no, not that." He pulls the cloth from his eyes. "No. I won't."
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So when the silk’s tossed away, he simply smiles. Keeps his hands perched just across Fenris’ shoulders, easing him back into comfort, however long it takes.
“A compromise, then.” Spoken easily, profile set to nosing at the rise of Fenris’ cheek. The scent of lilac and leather oil clinging to the air from that closeness.
“Shut your eyes. Keep them closed.”
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Still, when Fenris closes his eyes, they are scrunched, his face caught in the shape of someone awaiting a blow.
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He won’t force it away.
“They say when you can’t see, all your other senses heighten to compensate.” He reaches out for Fenris’ hands, his own soft, uncalloused, pressing them slowly across the span of his own chest— his ribs, the vulnerability of guarding bone beneath corded muscle.
“I want you to feel me.”
Slow press, easy contact. The rise and fall of his chest as he breaths, the hum of when he speaks.
“I want you to commit it all to memory. Tell me everything you sense.”
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It might be easier to work through this if Fenris were drunk, or at the very least pleasantly buzzed, but Astarion wants this to be uninhibited. Clear.
Something for Fenris to remember on the long nights ahead— or something to keep him alight if he’s turned, and the both of them are forced to lovingly carve the skin from one another’s bones for the rest of eternity.
“Try again.” He moves Fenris’ hands lower, down to the narrow span of his waist. That long-cast throat suffused with kisses around silvery leylines, curls brushing at his skin, weight resting easily across his hips as he rolls them faintly, clothing a mild barrier between bare skin and wanting— the scent of perfumed oil clinging. “You’ve seen me well enough. I want to hear about the rest.”
His smile twists a little more acutely, charmed.
“And if you know everything already, well, that ought to make this quite easy.”
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"A mole," he says, thumb drifting over Astarion's side. The other hand roams up Astarion's arm. "A little scratch here, long-healed. Something hit you in Thedas."
If he's off, it's by quarter inches.
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Hands wrapped around Astarion, Fenris knows from pure muscle memory how to avoid the scarring on his back.
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“Well. I’m glad my folly has you so charmed.”
He reaches beside them then, into the assembly of bedding and brought trinkets, and uncorks something that smells overly sweet. Fragrant. Alluring, even. To Astarion’s cursed tongue when he drinks, it tastes only of bitter ash, cloyingly disagreeable—
The back of his hand tilts Fenris’ face higher, jaw that lone point of contact for a single, heady beat.
“Now, back to our game. Tell me what you taste.” All smooth seduction, the promise of prowling delectation, between the smell that clings and the look in his eyes it all suggests lurid satisfaction.
Instead, when he kisses Fenris, tongue slipping easily between teeth— it’s overwhelmingly acidic. Bitter. Like pure lime juice, or something else equally laden with citrus, tart enough to shock even the most well-guarded of senses.
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“Neither.” Though all things considered, he supposes he could’ve bought himself a little more time with Fenris if he were wicked enough to be venomous here. Maybe it’s a shame he’s lost all his former, dastardly bite and replaced it with softer, more vulnerable shapes. “I was hoping to have you reeling. A little joke, of sorts.”
He moves a few fingers higher, smoothing out the front of Fenris’ bangs.
“Apparently you’re much too resilient for me to toy with.”
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"You wear the blindfold." Fenris pushes Astarion back, roughness just on the edge of playful.
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“I haven’t finished yet—“
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here's my also tired secret: I didn't even notice lmao
lmao good jOB us
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puts on my dm hat and wizard robe
avali oh my god.
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1/2
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ur perfect this is perfect sh shh
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