albinomilksnake | RP: OPEN POST

It isn’t the end of it, of course. Where Astarion’s usually content to fit his pace and timing to whatever Fenris seems to need at any given moment, he certainly wasn’t lying about making this entanglement a swan song for his own satisfaction: every hour before sunrise is used, alternating between intensity and indolent touch, as often and as affectionately as can be managed— until daylight sinks through the cracks in shuttered windows, and Astarion lies contented in a gloriously unraveled tangle of limbs and rumpled bedding, smiling to himself despite everything.

“Well.” He starts, drumming a few slender fingers against the center of his chest. All that can be managed, at the moment.

“That was fun.”

As soon as he's finished, the intensity becomes unpleasant enough to warrant fixing. Fenris doesn't kick Astarion off him, but he does nudge him away with a strong, tattooed leg. He has the thing out, and then it sits on the bed, slowly moving by the power of its own vibration. It's utterly bizarre and Fenris still doesn't know how he feels about it.

He flops backward, head hitting the pillow, and heaves a sigh. "Give me a moment," Fenris says, voice a little hoarse. "A moment, and I'll... whatever you like."

It's for Astarion. It's all for Astarion, and Fenris won't forget him. He feels embarrassed enough for getting caught up in the moment, losing his control so utterly; his face is still just bright enough to see its redness.

It prompts a laugh, utterly self-satisfied, fingers knitting over themselves as he slumps back easily— offering a single word to end that rumbling stone where it rests at the edge of the mattress, his breathless attentions turned instead to the sight of Fenris so utterly spent. Every detail, every mark, every tangled strand of hair made mess by their efforts tonight.

Well, today.

His smile pinches just so at the corner, faintly amused; Fenris hasn’t yet figured out what time it is.

Astarion doesn’t have the heart to say it, or maybe the truthful dignity required— a better man certainly would. His eyes flick upwards to the ceiling, towards that narrow little sliver of gold sunlight crawling with the promise of dawn. His fingers fall to sit against the faint marks still on his chest, no less content. Only—

Thoughtful. Patient. Strangely appeased.

“Take your time, love.” He means that, for so many reasons, content to rest and watch and be at ease in the calm before all figurative storms. “I'm not going anywhere.”

No, Fenris has lost sense of time entirely. What he still has a sense of is Astarion's tone. It's not enough to set him on edge, make him worry, but he does look up from under his curtain of hair, expression suspicious.

He reaches out, fingers barely brushing Astarion's side. "Come here, ansercule."

Maybe he’s right to be suspicious. Astarion certainly wouldn’t blame him.

Instead, there’s only a docile scuff of a useless breath let out between sharp teeth, winding himself nearer to Fenris’ side— coiling against him as listlessly as any snake or cat or shadow-crafted creature might.

“Hm.” Amusement, soft-set, undefined. Chin resting just against the edge of Fenris’ shoulder where it slopes into collarbone.

“What does that word mean?”

Fenris' smile edges into a somewhat sharper grin. He kisses Astarion's shoulder before murmuring, "my little goose."

It's a silly nickname, but he'd always found it endearing, ever since- that may be a better story to tell aloud. Fenris rouses his voice. "It's from a poem. It was read to us-- I was standing guard at the time."

He doesn't have to explain what Fenris was guarding, who us is. Fenris enjoys not having to go into detail.

"It made sense within the structure of the poem. Yet I always found the term... endearing. I've wondered if-- don't laugh. If I'd have anyone to call that."

He has that, now.

His hand snakes lower, gently moving over Astarion's cock. He hasn't forgotten him.

Oh, he intends to laugh. Not cruelly, not some balking, haughty offense at being called a goose of all things— but it is such a fragile, delightful thing gifted in the most unexpected way. The story, the poem, the wistful wondering complete with that wolffish grin. So yes, his own smile widens sharply, flashing the edges of his fangs in what should be the start of a laugh—

and instead slips out as something of an overly breathy moan, his body twisting. Still warm, still feverishly warm.

“Oh— that’s unfair.” said with far too much contentment, mind. His spine arching, fingers curling as surely as his toes. “You can’t just tell me a story like that and expect me- to—“

To what, exactly? What was he going to say? Oh, forget it. He’s rutting into that hand now, thank you very much.

Fenris keeps talking, keeps moving his hand. He'd like to think, by now, he knows what Astarion likes, and that's surprises. A shame, Fenris needs so much preparation to accept new things. At least he can give surprise in turn.

"Next time," Fenris says, voice lazy with contentment, "you'll have whatever you wish. I meant it when I said it. I want to give you anything. Everything. You deserve everything."

He hadn’t realized it until now, how much he truly enjoys hearing that voice. How much it winds through him, how it drives him to uselessness in deeper measures.

He wishes it’d also erase the needling uncertainty behind those promises. Next time, he says, and Astarion can only think with flickering dread as to what their next meeting might be— if there even will be one. Green eyes gone red, perhaps, or—

No. No, he won’t let that in.

He leans nearer, mouthing at the edge of Fenris’ shoulder, focusing only on the hum of that throaty voice, on the weight of his hand and the scent of him near, and that warmth. That beautiful warmth. “Don’t stop— oh, darling, don’t—”

He keeps himself from biting, but it’s all he has left in him for sanity when he tips over the edge of his own climax, thready and rapturous, blunted nails catching when he clings, his vision gone dizzy with it— with all of it— panting through his fangs.

Fenris is ready for him when he reaches that finish. He holds Astarion close, pets his hair, and tries to provide every comfort his body can. It isn't much, but it's all he has.

He's not sure how long he sleeps. He doesn't mean to. But as light filters in, Fenris' eyes flutter closed, and he looses himself to empty dreaming. His dreams are so much easier, duller, simpler, and harder to remember, cut off from the Fade like this. He can't complain.

Fenris does, however, manage to awaken before night falls again. He disentangles himself from Astarion as gently as he can, meaning to leave without a goodbye. He dresses and takes his things-- already packed-- in silence.

Fenris has been working with his letters for some time now, though he hasn't said as much to Astarion. It was meant to be a surprise, when they were mastered. Yet as much as Fenris is loathe to display a lack of skill, this is necessary.

The note reads:
LEEV. HIED
AMMO TEY

He’d had parting words he meant to give. He knows, of course, waking alone in the dark with only that note as consolation, those words were ones Fenris never likely wanted to hear.

And it's terrible solace, that note, so poorly penned it pulls a bitter, utterly affectionate laugh from him before he— overturns everything in sight, incapable of housing the storm of emotion (hateful and hurting and hopeful and terribly, terribly lonely) that cuts through all practiced composure. Everything he told himself he would be ready for, and wasn’t, naturally.

Then it’s all stillness. All forced calm. Numbed to emotion again from the fingers up, as ever.

He folds the note with care, tucks it into that meager pack. Pulling out that wolfish piece of antler and— using his teeth as a simple tool, cuts the leather cording from the pack, wrapping it easily around the neck of that snarling wolf to form a knotted loop, before fitting it around his own throat as a neckpiece. Good luck, maybe, or something like it. He’ll feel better with it slung closer to his heart.

He leaves his doublet tucked away (the gold wouldn’t do him any favors on his own), wearing the looseness of a lighter blouse, his blades hidden in his pack, along with everything else he’d stolen. No need to fret about suspicion when one’s well beyond Yartar’s limits.

And in stepping outside he— pauses. It’s the south that pulls, some nagging brush of an overly potent breeze. He thinks, as he’s done so many times before, of doggedly chasing after Fenris’ footsteps to do something, anything, but it’s all wanting without use or purpose.

So he turns north. Heel scuffing hard against cobblestone. He'll keep his word, for once, whatever the outcome, and murmurs instead what he'd meant to offer in parting to the wind itself:

"Heaven or hell, don’t you dare go where I can’t follow."

The travel is long and unpleasant. Along the way, Fenris strikes up conversation with a woman fighter, skin a natural shade of mottled green. She is traveling back to Baldur's Gate as well, and they agree to travel together. While he hadn't meant to meet Vracca Half-Orcish, he'd meant to solicit help at one point.

"There is a vampire in Baldur's Gate," Fenris says, truthful. "It killed... someone important to me."

He can lie, when he wishes. Vracca doesn't seem to doubt him, but the travel is slow and the weather bad. He has plenty of time to judge her character.

When they make it to Baldur's Gate, it's already been a month, and he is entirely sure he's made friends he can trust. They volunteer to help. He turns them away.

"I will need a place to hide, if things go awry. Can you provide that?"

He'd meant to have them help with the killing of the creature, but... in the end, he cannot bring himself to risk their lives. He works in Baldur's Gate, learning the shape of the city, planning and keeping his plans to himself. It takes another month to confirm what Astarion told him, as much as it can be confirmed. It isn't that he doesn't trust the man, but things have changed, and memory is facile. Who knows what changes have taken place?

One day, Fenris wakes with the assured knowledge that today is the day. He doesn't know how. Call it intuition, inspiration, call it whatever you like. Everything just snaps into place in Fenris' mind.

It is morning, almost exactly two months and two weeks since Fenris left Astarion, that Fenris enters the hidden catacombs Cazador claims. He does not have a map. He has his sword, and his memory, and the thing that has gotten him farthest in life: the absolute refusal to fail.

To his credit, he waited. Not that it really matters. He didn’t know what to hope for, or how to communicate it, or what the point even was: sending map markers and trinkets from the towns he haunted along his own way, postmarked to that loft in Yartar, whittling away the nothingness while he could tolerate less and less. No more sunlight, no more trespass, no more restful sleep— every shadow is a sign of Cazador to his fretful mind, every silhouette a hunter searching for the obvious. They aren’t, of course. But it wears on the fringes of his sanity. His patience.

And to his credit, still, he waited.

Until that shard was nothing more than a reddened little mark on his palm where magic used to live. Or still does? He isn’t yet beholden, he finds, waking from what he was certain would be the beginning of the end.

And for that, something in him— fed up with all of it— snaps.

Because he’s tired of it. The unknown, the dread, the thought of perpetually dwelling in isolation in the frigid, awful north. And by the time he sets foot in Baldur’s Gate, awash in a mixture of nostalgia and homesickness and overwhelming unease, he’s lost track of how long it’s been to begin with.

The catacombs smell stale. More than he remembers. Better to slither in unnoticed on this route than trying to get a peek inside the old Szarr estate at ground. No one bothers patrolling here, and there’s almost a strange sense of familiarity to avoiding old bones as he steps along; his mind consumed by planning ahead— what he’ll do once he’s nearer. If Fenris is alive, he’ll be near death, most likely. Food or amusement or— something else entirely. If he’s turned, that complicates things. Astarion will need to anticipate whatever orders he’s already been given, the ones he can’t defy, and try to render him useless before he makes his first move. And what of the lyrium? What if it makes Fenris more powerful than Astarion as a vampire spawn? What if—

He turns a corner, and a faint flash of white hair in the dark has his daggers out quick as claws, his red eyes fierce as they fix, his overlong teeth viciously bared in a spitting snarl before—

“—Fenris?”

Blue light blooms in the darkness, illuminating a familiar figure whose expression is one only of rage. Sword hefted, ready to fight, he sees who he is fighting, and-

The rage stays in place.

Fenris lowers his sword. The lyrium light swirls into nothingness. They are left in the dark, yet Fenris' eyes still flash. "Go. Now."

He does not think that Astarion has been captured, does not consider it. In that moment, he is only furious at caution wasted.

Go? Go?

“How long did you think I had? How long did you— it’s over. Whatever time I tried to give you is spent. Done.” He thinks to show his palm, but the gesture turns into one embittered little flash of bare skin rather than something tame or endearing. If nothing else, it still gets the point across.

“And I’d have been damned anyways, so I thought—“

What did he think? It was such a powerful determination, but it was cast in hope. Or despair. Or those incessant nightmares, clawing at him every time he shut his eyes.

No. No, it was his choice to come back. He knows it was.

“I thought I’d do what I could to save you. And now I find you still very much alive.” That bared palm rises and falls in a motion that flicks itself towards Fenris. Hale and thankfully whole.

“So no, my darling, we do this together now. There’s no alternative.”

Fenris sucks in a breath. His only regret, upon leaving Astarion, was his lack of control in their last night together. He won't compound that failure. He takes a deep breath, and swallows that anger. It will be better served elsewhere.

"I should have told you," he says, whisper-light in darkness, "how long this would take. Tonight is the first..." he sighs, shakes his head. "Perhaps it is fate."

There is no going back now.

“...perhaps it is.”

Strange to be soothed here of all places. More so than he’s felt in months. His expression softer set, his posture gone easy at the edges, rounded out as only fondness can manage.

This feels right. Everything feels in its place.

“He’ll be asleep by now, no doubt. But the rest of the coven might not be.” It’s as easy as blinking, falling in at Fenris’ side in a show of readiness: only a half-step behind in the way they’ve always been at their best— positioning that suits their strengths. Old practices.

“You should know you picked the right approach, for whatever it’s worth.”

Fenris nods. He'd gathered as much from what Astarion had said, but it's good to have that confirmation. It is hard, at times, to trust his own memory, however much he tests it constantly for frailty.

"Are you-?" He frowns. "Do you still have your will?"

He can't bring himself to say it any other way, and the thought only pits more worry in his mind. "I suppose if you didn't, you could hardly say."

He almost laughs. A dry, breathy little sound. “You think I’m not myself?”

“Considering I’m not currently upstairs busying myself with licking Cazador’s boots, or eating flies and rats off the catacomb floor, I think it’s quite safe to say I’m perfectly in control.” He feels no pull against the grain, no sense of pitching absence— he knows where he stands, and who he’s standing beside.

“He’s a petty, vindictive bastard. I doubt he’d be so patient if he knew I was roaming around under his sway.”

So Cazador is not the tactician Fenris had assumed him to be? Perhaps a deathless life makes one casual, rather than the paranoid mortality Danarius wore. It opens new pathways in the plan Fenris has, one he still keeps to himself.

For now, perhaps selfishly, there is only one way to prove what needs proving. Fenris pulls Astarion close, metal hand at the back of his head. The kiss is neither rough nor gentle, just searching.

Astarion has been missed.

All things considered, this isn’t really the time or the place. They’re at the heart of the storm, so to speak, surrounded by risk and ruin. The faint rise of that thought is a sliver of something. A splinter too small to be seen, stinging only under pressure.

And it's only then, with startling clarity under abrupt scrutiny, that Astarion reaches a single, horrifying realization; memories that felt concrete go cold and fragile, like the sudden cracking of breaking ice. His world under binding rule was only ever a reflection of what he’d been told.

It was in dreams that he confessed everything. In dreams where stern words turned to stumbling southern-set footsteps. He wanted this because he was told to want this. He was certain it’d be fine because— why would he ever feel at ease here. Here, where the stench of suffering and decay runs so thick as to be cloying. It’s like a sprung trap, he only feels the bite of it once it’s far too late.

Cazador’s gotten smarter.

Or crueler.

He wants to open his mouth, to warn Fenris with outstretched fingers. To stop him. He knows. But he only smiles under the weight of that kiss, keeping his footing easy and his fingertips feather light as they roam high, coursing across the angles of Fenris’ armor, fitting themselves to his jawline, his cheeks, the fringe of his hair. His lips roam lower, sinking by degrees nearer to Fenris' throat.

The carved bit of antler slung around his neck biting into his skin for how deeply he leans into it.

“Well. I’ve certainly missed you, too.”

Fenris allows it for longer than he should, but all things must end. He pushes Astarion out of reach with a strong, stern hand still resting at his shoulder. There will be time for that later, or there won't. At the moment, there is nothing to do but press on.

"I must go," he says, voice hushed. "You understand why."

“I don’t.”

He curls his fingertips around that gauntlet, clinging in sweet insistence. A serpent’s coils winding ever tighter.

“You can’t do this alone.” Crimson eyes fixed in the dark as they meet Fenris’ own, beguiling magic threaded through that hold— through the air itself— as natural and fluid as the unsheathing of claws. “You don’t want to do this alone.”

An expression which had slackened for a few blessed moments reforms. Rage meets his eye. Now that he knows Astarion can cast spells, he has a half-second's warning, and no true way to save himself. Except-

He pushes Astarion backward with the full strength of his arm, bright blue light flaring. His voice is loud and wounded. "Enough!"

He will not last for much longer under the barrage of want. Trust him. Do as he says.

Subsumed. Consumed. Cruelty glitters behind eyes that aren’t his.

Fenris resists; it is Astarion that’s long since been lost.

But with all gentle preludes undeniably ended, there’s only so much a vampire spawn can manage on his own. Even one so utterly beloved. A crypt littered with bones is one full of potentially restless undead— why burn resources when you’ve more than enough to spare?

“Pity.” Astarion spits the word disdainfully between overlong teeth, skeletal remains clattering in corridor corners as they rise in pieces to make themselves whole once more. “I was endeavoring to make this a little more entertaining.”

His fingers are at his hips easily, shrugging so quickly that it’s no more than a flash before daggers are well in hand— the lunge that chases it no less swift, fluid and serpentine as he rushes to attempt a puncturing strike somewhere near Fenris' ribs. Something wounding, if not deep. A distraction. A means to gain access to Fenris' back as the catacombs fill with risen dead.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject