After the racket, the pleasure, the sure and solid feel of Astarion so near and wanting to be there-- it's almost hard to keep up. Luckily, Fenris is a starkly stubborn man, and he hits climax not long after Astarion wakes the entire inn.
It leaves him chuckling, lightly. "We'll have to factor this into our cover; you've left us no secrets."
“One might argue that makes for a much better cover.”
Grin wearied by suffused numbness, so pleasant it makes even the finest wine seem like vinegar in concept. He plants a kiss to the beautifully high arch of Fenris’ cheek, chasing it with faint scuff of tame fangs, voice dangerously husky when he adds:
“Cheeky devil, did you think you were being clever trying to rile me.”
“I have you at my side already. I’m not exactly lacking in reasons to complain.”
Still, with that pleased criticism laid out, Astarion twists with care— finally making to disentangle himself from the results of their shared passion, wiping indelicately at the bedding beneath for good measure.
Someone else will clean that, no doubt. Or they won’t. It isn’t his problem to care about, after all.
“Still, you could tell me how much you enjoyed yourself, if you’d like to make it up to me.”
"I assume you are aware you're asking to be flattered."
A sigh. Fenris moves in close, heedless of where his markings touch skin, bedding, hair. If they irritate him, he shows no sign. He only turns his head to murmur into the pale column of Astarion's throat. "It was better than I could have dreamed."
Climax might’ve been seen to already, but he shivers all the same: one part flattery, one part closeness, turning his jaw into it, catching the subtle scent of Fenris’ hair, treasuring it for all its worth.
“Do you, I wonder.” Murmuring somewhere against his temple, far and away from scars and markings. Here, he makes himself a home.
He’d intended to ask for more. Not just flattery, no, but more 'luctatio', more passion, more stiffness come morning— the soreness of a night well spent. But...he’s a bit of a soft hand when it comes to Fenris these days, apparently.
He presses his lips one last time to Fenris’ temple, and then withdraws completely, snaking out from under the weight of him.
“Then go on. Climb into my own bed. This one’s thoroughly used.” No point in pretending otherwise, already reaching for his loose hung blouse and tugging it across his shoulders. Trousers next, much as he’d love to stay in repose.
"Hunt well," Fenris says, a wish made for Astarion's wellness, and soon he is alone.
His thoughts jumble, tying themselves in knots. Fenris dresses quickly, back even to his armored gauntlets, and finds that sets his mind at ease significantly. Still, the worry gnaws at him as it always does-- memories set uneasily in his mind before flitting away, and he always just nearly has them.
Fenris prowls their little room at the inn until he has his solution. He requisitions something from the innkeepers. When Astarion returns, he will find Fenris fully clothed and asleep in a corner atop a little trundle bed. It's only big enough for one person, barely big enough for Fenris, but in this, he is content.
It’s obvious enough, he imagines, why he’s leaving. But Fenris’ own bid for his success still draws a few degrees more out of an already fond smile.
The sight he finds on return, however...not so much.
Far be it from him to dictate how any former slave sequester themselves away from their own memories, but it looks as miserable as he imagines it must feel, and his lips are fitted more with concern rather than pity. He gives it only a sparing thought— and then undresses, tucking himself between the soft sheets of his own bed until morning’s light.
Again, Fenris wakes before Astarion, and again he makes his way quietly to retrieve breakfast. He'd considered catching a bird for Astarion, something small for breakfast, but ultimately considered it pointless; to do so would be an insult to Astarion's prowess as a hunter.
Instead, Astarion will wake to Fenris sitting quietly on the other bed, the trundle mattress piled atop it. He is eating two plates of food with the expert delicacy of someone accustomed to never taking their gauntlets off. The cold meat and cheese he cuts with metal fingers.
When he sees Astarion begin to stir, he asks, "you slept well?"
"Like the heavens themselves tucked me in." He sighs, still awash in morning light where he's embedded himself deeply amongst rumpled covers, one arm slumped lazily over the edge of his own mattress, the other fitting itself to his forehead.
He doesn't dream of him anymore. Cazador. It's as if Thedas, much like the glint of green in his palm— much like the man sitting opposite to him— still works to keep him safe. Few comforts could be better.
Still, he rolls over after a moment, sitting upright and scuffing a few fingers upwards along the back of his curls in thought.
"I noticed you didn't." A beat, before he adds with a nod towards that meager trundle.
Astarion is terribly, terribly beautiful, and contents himself with that when he summons up an answer. As always, the words form in clear, straight lines, no embellishments.
"I find it difficult to rest in bed with another," he says, staring at the cheese and bread he's assembling, "I did not wish for you to come back and join me, only for my reaction to be... poor."
There’s a great deal that could be said. That had Fenris spoken up, he’d have gladly— well, all right, not gladly— taken the other bed, despite its less than sparkling state of affairs. Or, having been made a vampire spawn once more via transit through the Fade, albeit with a few remarkable caveats such as sunlight and garlic and stepping through open doorways, he could’ve simply not slept at all.
But what’s done is done, and what’s more it was done out of a place of good intent, which is...
Which is...
He’s trying not to be soft about this, mind you. Not to care, and not to make this into more than it needs to be, or turn Fenris’ own discomfort into an opportunity for warm, reassuring hand-holding or delicate promises that it’s all over.
Mostly because Astarion despises that when it’s done to him. He can’t imagine Fenris would be much different.
“The dresser next time— for sex, then. That way you can sleep as peacefully as you like without having to huddle up like a dog in the snow.”
Still, he pauses, his mind working over one last detail.
He thinks he’ll teach him new comforts. He doesn’t say it aloud right away, quietly tending to the underside of his nails where little rust colored flecks of blood remain from the night before.
“Seems like it’d be the opposite: all those sharp corners and hard edges— ” shoulders rising stiffly, arms going rigid as a momentary metaphor, sulking faintly in disagreement. “but fine. I won’t stop you.”
“...maybe just tempt you to forget it every now and then.”
"You need only ask, when we are alone," Fenris says, with an expression that holds no innocence for Astarion's sulking airs. "You have tempted me to another world. Is that not enough for your wiles?"
At that, his lips curl, the image of something sweet— gone devious somewhere in its faint undercurrent. Or maybe that’s just the red gleam in his eyes beneath dark lashes, making total innocuity a distant prospect.
“Why, my dearest love, I thought you’d noticed by now.”
That he draws the covers away is deliberate, that he leans closer towards the gap between beds just as much, only a narrow strip of sheet offering anything in the way of modesty— and only just.
He hates it when his advances don’t warrant an immediate, feverish response. Call it a pet peeve, if you will, and one that Fenris so often excels in, in ways that only make Astarion determined to try harder.
And that isn’t a euphemism.
But for now he’s routed again, confusion painted across his face in the shadow of his own pale curls. He makes a noise of acquiescence in the back of his throat, lips pulling into a line— before he turns to grab for his own fine clothing, long fingers feeling over the crimson lining of his doublet. This, at least, no one will notice, though it’s a shame to mangle it regardless: lifting it to his teeth and tearing silk into a long, lean strip.
“...are you injured?”
The boar, perhaps? Something this morning he’d overlooked? He can smell no blood in the air, but maybe it had already been cleaned.
He holds out the silk with little fanfare, hoping it’s seen as the sacrifice it truly is.
Fenris wordlessly, carefully ties the trinket around his right wrist, curving it into the metalwork of his gauntlet so it will stay primly in place. He studies it from differing angles, readjusts where needed, and goes back to eating.
"If we are as tied together as you imply, I would like it known I am yours."
And if Astarion has been flattering him for ego and easy sex-- that is fine. But now is an excellent time to say so.
He laughs because he can't believe it. Because it's so utterly sincere that for a moment his whole world seems to have been turned entirely on its head. Two hundred years of courting and cruelty and he'd almost forgotten anyone— anyone— could ever be this openly unfeigned.
...and then he realizes that might not've been the best instinctive response; that this truly isn't done in jest, and he feels more naked in his own expression than in sleep-wrought nudity, lips parting as he blinks, as if intending to say something that never makes it past his throat.
"Well I..."
An empty hand gesticulates somewhere just in front of his chest, just as useless as the rest of him, eyes set on the vivid swath of cloth as though transfixed. No, this is not some flight of fancy.
Not something shared in relief alone, or as pacifying comfort amidst displacement.
"I have nothing," Fenris says, rather frankly. He thought it was self evident. "Save you."
He can harbor the laughter-- there was no malice in it, he thinks. He can weather the empty flattery and jests Astarion trades in. That is who he is, and if Fenris cannot handle it, he has no right being where he is now, or where he was last night.
Someone must believe in Astarion, for he clearly only believes in himself out of dogged spite. Fenris is often that creature. It is good to have a companion, and this is just an indelible sign of it, a ward against doubt.
He shifts where he’s perched, sunken under the gravity of those words. Those fingertips, still hovering, sinking to press themselves somewhere across his heart. Not a conscious effort, just—
Maybe if this hadn’t happened now, he’d react differently. He still doesn’t quite know how to carry it, granted, wondering if Fenris knows just who he’s tied himself to with a length of silk and a pretty promise, but—
Stop start, every thought. Until he swallows, and shuts his eyes, and breathes out pointless air on habit. They’ll be fine. This is fine.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
They haven’t discussed their plans yet, beyond wanting a warm bed instead of a patch of dirt beneath them. In fact they haven’t discussed hardly anything of Faerun, which has Astarion wondering if it’s a matter of lack of caring on Fenris’ part: that the setting doesn’t matter to him.
Or if he just wants to go wherever Astarion treads.
“We should move on today. Try to get a little further north. I remember enough of this area to get us up to Dessarin Valley, not far. And not unpleasant either. You’ll like it there, I’m sure.”
"If you are there," Fenris adds. He wants to make his position clear-- he is here for Astarion, and him only. At first it had been... different, Fenris had wondered what life could be made in this new world. Now it doesn't matter. Astarion needs his aid, and he needs Astarion.
And Astarion, in this moment, seems to need some reassurance that sharp metal fingers cannot give.
Fenris finishes eating. "What is our goal? Ultimately. Or do you prefer to act the nomad?"
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It leaves him chuckling, lightly. "We'll have to factor this into our cover; you've left us no secrets."
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Grin wearied by suffused numbness, so pleasant it makes even the finest wine seem like vinegar in concept. He plants a kiss to the beautifully high arch of Fenris’ cheek, chasing it with faint scuff of tame fangs, voice dangerously husky when he adds:
“Cheeky devil, did you think you were being clever trying to rile me.”
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"You like to complain. I was providing you the opportunity."
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Still, with that pleased criticism laid out, Astarion twists with care— finally making to disentangle himself from the results of their shared passion, wiping indelicately at the bedding beneath for good measure.
Someone else will clean that, no doubt. Or they won’t. It isn’t his problem to care about, after all.
“Still, you could tell me how much you enjoyed yourself, if you’d like to make it up to me.”
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A sigh. Fenris moves in close, heedless of where his markings touch skin, bedding, hair. If they irritate him, he shows no sign. He only turns his head to murmur into the pale column of Astarion's throat. "It was better than I could have dreamed."
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“Do you, I wonder.” Murmuring somewhere against his temple, far and away from scars and markings. Here, he makes himself a home.
“...dream about me.”
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"Tomorrow," he says, "we'll talk. I'm too tired to do anything but look at you."
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He presses his lips one last time to Fenris’ temple, and then withdraws completely, snaking out from under the weight of him.
“Then go on. Climb into my own bed. This one’s thoroughly used.” No point in pretending otherwise, already reaching for his loose hung blouse and tugging it across his shoulders. Trousers next, much as he’d love to stay in repose.
“I’ll be back in a bit.”
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His thoughts jumble, tying themselves in knots. Fenris dresses quickly, back even to his armored gauntlets, and finds that sets his mind at ease significantly. Still, the worry gnaws at him as it always does-- memories set uneasily in his mind before flitting away, and he always just nearly has them.
Fenris prowls their little room at the inn until he has his solution. He requisitions something from the innkeepers. When Astarion returns, he will find Fenris fully clothed and asleep in a corner atop a little trundle bed. It's only big enough for one person, barely big enough for Fenris, but in this, he is content.
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The sight he finds on return, however...not so much.
Far be it from him to dictate how any former slave sequester themselves away from their own memories, but it looks as miserable as he imagines it must feel, and his lips are fitted more with concern rather than pity. He gives it only a sparing thought— and then undresses, tucking himself between the soft sheets of his own bed until morning’s light.
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Instead, Astarion will wake to Fenris sitting quietly on the other bed, the trundle mattress piled atop it. He is eating two plates of food with the expert delicacy of someone accustomed to never taking their gauntlets off. The cold meat and cheese he cuts with metal fingers.
When he sees Astarion begin to stir, he asks, "you slept well?"
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He doesn't dream of him anymore. Cazador. It's as if Thedas, much like the glint of green in his palm— much like the man sitting opposite to him— still works to keep him safe. Few comforts could be better.
Still, he rolls over after a moment, sitting upright and scuffing a few fingers upwards along the back of his curls in thought.
"I noticed you didn't." A beat, before he adds with a nod towards that meager trundle.
"—well, not at first, I assume."
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"I find it difficult to rest in bed with another," he says, staring at the cheese and bread he's assembling, "I did not wish for you to come back and join me, only for my reaction to be... poor."
He couldn't have written a note. He can't read.
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There’s a great deal that could be said. That had Fenris spoken up, he’d have gladly— well, all right, not gladly— taken the other bed, despite its less than sparkling state of affairs. Or, having been made a vampire spawn once more via transit through the Fade, albeit with a few remarkable caveats such as sunlight and garlic and stepping through open doorways, he could’ve simply not slept at all.
But what’s done is done, and what’s more it was done out of a place of good intent, which is...
Which is...
He’s trying not to be soft about this, mind you. Not to care, and not to make this into more than it needs to be, or turn Fenris’ own discomfort into an opportunity for warm, reassuring hand-holding or delicate promises that it’s all over.
Mostly because Astarion despises that when it’s done to him. He can’t imagine Fenris would be much different.
“The dresser next time— for sex, then. That way you can sleep as peacefully as you like without having to huddle up like a dog in the snow.”
Still, he pauses, his mind working over one last detail.
“The armor, is that part of it too?”
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"I woke with no memory," he says, "and this was all I was bid to wear for years. It is a... comfort, now."
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“Seems like it’d be the opposite: all those sharp corners and hard edges— ” shoulders rising stiffly, arms going rigid as a momentary metaphor, sulking faintly in disagreement. “but fine. I won’t stop you.”
“...maybe just tempt you to forget it every now and then.”
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“Why, my dearest love, I thought you’d noticed by now.”
That he draws the covers away is deliberate, that he leans closer towards the gap between beds just as much, only a narrow strip of sheet offering anything in the way of modesty— and only just.
“Nothing is ever enough.”
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"Do you have any spare fabric? Something small of yours?"
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He hates it when his advances don’t warrant an immediate, feverish response. Call it a pet peeve, if you will, and one that Fenris so often excels in, in ways that only make Astarion determined to try harder.
And that isn’t a euphemism.
But for now he’s routed again, confusion painted across his face in the shadow of his own pale curls. He makes a noise of acquiescence in the back of his throat, lips pulling into a line— before he turns to grab for his own fine clothing, long fingers feeling over the crimson lining of his doublet. This, at least, no one will notice, though it’s a shame to mangle it regardless: lifting it to his teeth and tearing silk into a long, lean strip.
“...are you injured?”
The boar, perhaps? Something this morning he’d overlooked? He can smell no blood in the air, but maybe it had already been cleaned.
He holds out the silk with little fanfare, hoping it’s seen as the sacrifice it truly is.
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"If we are as tied together as you imply, I would like it known I am yours."
And if Astarion has been flattering him for ego and easy sex-- that is fine. But now is an excellent time to say so.
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...and then he realizes that might not've been the best instinctive response; that this truly isn't done in jest, and he feels more naked in his own expression than in sleep-wrought nudity, lips parting as he blinks, as if intending to say something that never makes it past his throat.
"Well I..."
An empty hand gesticulates somewhere just in front of his chest, just as useless as the rest of him, eyes set on the vivid swath of cloth as though transfixed. No, this is not some flight of fancy.
Not something shared in relief alone, or as pacifying comfort amidst displacement.
"I don't have anything of yours."
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He can harbor the laughter-- there was no malice in it, he thinks. He can weather the empty flattery and jests Astarion trades in. That is who he is, and if Fenris cannot handle it, he has no right being where he is now, or where he was last night.
Someone must believe in Astarion, for he clearly only believes in himself out of dogged spite. Fenris is often that creature. It is good to have a companion, and this is just an indelible sign of it, a ward against doubt.
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Maybe if this hadn’t happened now, he’d react differently. He still doesn’t quite know how to carry it, granted, wondering if Fenris knows just who he’s tied himself to with a length of silk and a pretty promise, but—
Stop start, every thought. Until he swallows, and shuts his eyes, and breathes out pointless air on habit. They’ll be fine. This is fine.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
They haven’t discussed their plans yet, beyond wanting a warm bed instead of a patch of dirt beneath them. In fact they haven’t discussed hardly anything of Faerun, which has Astarion wondering if it’s a matter of lack of caring on Fenris’ part: that the setting doesn’t matter to him.
Or if he just wants to go wherever Astarion treads.
“We should move on today. Try to get a little further north. I remember enough of this area to get us up to Dessarin Valley, not far. And not unpleasant either. You’ll like it there, I’m sure.”
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And Astarion, in this moment, seems to need some reassurance that sharp metal fingers cannot give.
Fenris finishes eating. "What is our goal? Ultimately. Or do you prefer to act the nomad?"
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